Elisabeth Fairchild (14 page)

Was he awake? His eyes remained closed, his breath deep and even.

She held her breath, said nothing, staring at the fullness of his lower lip, wondering if he talked in his sleep.

The dog yawned, stretched and ambled toward the door. She heard the thump of his passage as he bounded down the stairs, met by the sound of her father’s voice.

Her gaze never left Cupid’s face. He would go away. She had seen it in his eyes when she told him Felicity was Val’s.

He would go away, and with him her last chance for kisses.

She eased up from the chair where she sat, leaning in over him, studying more closely the smooth sheen of his lips, the scattering of pale freckles on his cheeks, the rise and fall of his chest.

Her father would come up soon, to see how their guest did.

For the moment she was glad to have him to herself, to wonder what it might be like to have such a man to husband. She had resigned herself to the impossibility of such a future, and yet Lady Anne had married twice. Why not she? With this great wonderful warrior lying prostrate in the guest bed, she allowed herself to imagine it, to fully comprehend what it was she had given up. For Eve. For Felicity. For her mother’s sake.

As she leaned in closer to gaze as him, at the darkening stubble upon jaw gone slack with sleep, at the faintly bluish tinge to his eyelids, at the pink spot on his cheek that bore impression of wrinkled pillow cover, she mourned the passing of dreams, of a future with children of her own.

He opened his eyes. A flicker of lashes, a flash of emerald and with a sudden intake of breath, he half rose from the bed, expression alarmed, as if she posed threat. He had her arms pinned to her sides before she knew what he was about, a wild darkness in his eyes.

“Mr. Shelbourne,” she gasped.

He blinked, alarm fading, light blooming in his eyes. He gave his head a shake, and let go his hold on her. “Miss Foster!” He took a deep breath. “Forgive me.”

A lovely green, his eyes. Had she read fear in them?

Not of her, but of what he might have done to her?

“Back on the battlefield?” she asked.

He nodded, gaze sliding away, regret pulling down the corners of his mouth.

He was, in that moment, a stranger again. She caught glimpse of all that lay hidden from her. Her former assumptions of what sort of man he was were dwarfed by reality.

His gaze trailed about the room, assessing.

“I brought you home,” she said. “Oscar was not booked at the inn you mentioned.”

“You have tried the others?” he asked, voice ragged.

She blinked, perplexed. “You wish to go?” She allowed no hint of regret to color the words.

A trace of emotion flickered greenly. Was it longing in his eyes?

“Oscar will wonder what’s become of me.”

His mouth seemed strangely vulnerable, this mouth she might have kissed one last time, had she been braver and bolder.

“I shall send for the carriage at once,” she said.

Chapter
Sixteen

Alexander tossed the letter upon the unmade bed and leaning into his cane, hobbled to the closet for his bag. Jamming an armload of gear into his kit, he wished--Oh Lord, what could a man wish under such circumstances? That the world made sense, and his purpose in it? That the good and just might be blessed while evil and deceit were vanquished. That children need not suffer.

His thoughts pained him as much as his ankle. He sat on the bed with a sigh.

Oscar looked up from the tiny bundle of silk floss and feathers he was tying by the meager light of the rain-spattered window. “Post coach, is it, then?” He snapped a thread with his teeth. 

“Must, much as I shall hate it. Faster than horseback with this blasted leg.”

“Do you take the gray?”

“No. “ Alexander regarded three odd stockings in frustration and wondered where their mates had gone. “Will you send him? Better yet, bring him. Meet my family. I should like them to know you.”

Oscar snipped at his feathery bundle with a tiny pair of sewing scissors. Behind him, rain tapped at the window.

“I will not be in the way?”

“Never!” Alexander said in all earnestness. “We’ve no salmon. But eels, perch and pike aplenty.”

Oscar compared his feathered fly to those clustered on the hat brim on which he displayed more than a dozen. “I just might take you up on that. Little enough reason to keep me here.” He looked up. “Any word for . . .”

Alexander hastily shoved a stray neck cloth into the bag and buckled it closed. “Val? No. Though, if he should ask . . . ”

Oscar’s brows arched.

Alexander stared at the painting on the wall, a hunting dog, felled dove dangling from its jaws. “He is welcome to come with you and the gray if he should care to mend things.”

“You are far too charitable with the fellow, Cupid.” Oscar’s gaze shifted from fly to window. “Hallo!”

“Is it the coach already?” Alexander stuffed shirts into his second bag with reckless abandon.

“No.” Oscar winked mischievously. “A young lady approaches. She who so recently rescued you from your own clumsiness.” His merry expression faded. “But, what have you done to ruffle her feathers, my friend? Miss Foster looks a wee bit miffed.

Alexander frowned, and hobbled to the window.

She did look miffed. Livid, in fact, skin flushed, her posture rigid with anger as she strode toward them, bonneted head bowed against the rain. No question where she was headed. She looked up now and again to scowl at the inn.

“Haven’t the foggiest,” Alexander admitted.

Bags packed, the two of them proceeded to the common rooms with as much speed as he could master, Oscar in the lead, bearing his kit.

The clerk caught sight of them and beckoned.

Amethyst eyes flashing, she turned, rain flung from her cloak, from the brim of her bonnet. “You!” she said, her tone so strident the clerk blinked, and a maid heading up the back stairs paused and ducked her head to watch.

Beside him, Oscar sucked in a breath with a surprised, “What’ve you done now?”

“I trusted you!” she called out in tones that bespoke him anything but trustworthy.

The inn master’s wife poked her head out of a backroom. “Tis Penny Foster,” she whispered to someone over her shoulder.

Behind him a door opened with a muffled, “What’s all this, then?”

“I trust you’ll settle this while I see to buying your passage?” Oscar murmured, plucking at his mustache.

Alexander nodded, gave Oscar’s shoulder a squeeze and leaning heavily into his cane, hobbled toward her, that he might ask quietly, “Is something wrong, Miss Foster?”

“As if you did not know!” Her cheeks flushed a deeper hue. The flash of anger in her eyes confused him.

The desk clerk tried to look busy and disinterested. The inn master’s wife vacated the doorway, her husband peeping out in her stead.

“I am at a loss.” Alexander shifted his cane, and held up his free hand, trying not to wince.

Doubt moved like a shadow across her features. “You told him,” she said, low-voiced. “I did not think you could be so cruel.”

The desk clerk glanced his way. He caught sight of the movement out of the corner of his eyes, his attention focused on Penny Foster, on the distrust in her amethyst eyes.

“I’ve no idea . . .” he began.

His words fired her anger afresh. “Surely you knew he would take her! She is everything to me, and he . . .” Her voice broke.

“Val?”

She nodded, tears welling, bright as the raindrops dewing her bonnet. “He has taken Felicity.”

“Come. Walk with me,” he said as he guided her out of the common room, out of the inn entirely, into the wet and miserable coach yard, one hand firm at her elbow,  the other clutching his cane--as if togeher they had somewhere to go.

Angry with him, pained beyond measure, she flung his hand away. “You dare to pretend we are still friends?”

“Are we not?”

“How can you possibly think we would be when it is you who told him, you who succeeded in separating me from the one person in the world I love most.”

“You assume I told him.”

“Yes!”

“I did not.” he claimed, leaning into his cane.

“Liar,” she blurted, turning heads all along the gallery that encircled the coach yard, emotions undone, the accusation too hasty. She wished it unsaid as soon as the word left her mouth.

His jaw stiffened. On he hobbled in silence, until she stood ready to blurt out fresh impertinence and he opened his mouth as if addressing an ill-mannered child, “I am greatly offended you would blame me above all others, that you would assume I betray you in so vile a manner. Val and I have not spoken since the morning you and I . . .” He tapped his bound foot. “Since this happened.”

She did not know whether to believe him.

“He said . . . ”

She remembered exactly what had been said. The moment had played and replayed itself in her mind. It was the dog who heard him coming, the dog who rose with a growl, hackles raised. The hair at the back of her neck had prickled as she stepped through the door to the tune of thumping hoof beats on the road.

“She’s mine, isn’t she?” he had shouted as the bay clattered into the courtyard.

The dog met him stiff-legged, teeth bared. The big bay had side-stepped, wall-eyed. Val wrenched on the reins with an oath.

She bade Artemis sit with a gesture and silently called on Lady Anne to guide her.

Val had been drinking, enough that she could smell it on his breath, not enough that it impaired his movements, gaze, or speech. She wiped flour from her hands, on her apron. She and Felicity had been helping cook with bread making.

“She’s mine, and you keep her.” He spoke in a more conversational tone, his gaze straying past, to the child,  who stood wordlessly in the doorway.

He eyed her keenly as he stepped down from the horse, a hawk after a rabbit.

Felicity backed away a step. Penny said nothing, admitted nothing. He knew the answer already.

“You cannot deny her me.” His voice rang with authority, as his gaze fixed briefly on Artemis, who loosed another throaty rumbling, every muscle tensed for attack.

Felicity ran to her, tucking herself behind the wall of Penny’s skirt, fingers clutching Penny’s hand.

“I am your papa, child,” Val squatted, smiling, hand out. “You must come with me.”

For a moment, fair hair gleaming in a brief burst of sun, he looked like the Val of her past, a handsome, coaxing, self-confident Val.

“My papa is dead,” Felicity objected, her words souring his expression. When he rose, scowling, Felicity clung tighter to Penny’s hand, her free hand worrying with the locket she always wore.

Val stepped closer, overshadowing them both. “That necklace, child,” he asked brusquely, reaching for it. “Where did you get it?”

Felicity backed away, big-eyed, grasping the heart-shaped bit of gold as if he meant to take it. “My mama wore it the day she died,” she said, voice rising.  “It contains a lock of my father’s hair.”

“And does itot match this?” He grabbed at his own fair locks, tugging the golden strands with a grim sort of desperation.

Felicity frowned. Curls of matching gold bobbed as she turned to face Penny, trust in her eyes. “It cannot be  the same. Can it, Penny? You said he was dead.”

 Voicing the lie again did not make it so. In the child’s earnestness, in Val’s baleful glance,  Penny found her own shame. When she did not immediately respond, Felicity repeated defiantly, voice quavering, “You said.”

Penny knelt, admitting softly, “I . . . I was wrong.”

Trust died in the child’s eyes in an unmistakable progression of shock and pain. She stepped back, bewildered. Penny wanted to weep.

“And mama?” Felicity’s voice had gone high and thin.

Oh God! Lady Anne. What have I done?

Val took advantage of her silence. He swept Felicity into his arms. “There, there now, child. Don’t fret. Papa is here.” He walked with her toward his horse.

She did not fight him.

Artemis growled. For the veriest instant, Penny considered siccing the dog on him, for in that instant, heart sinking,  she knew the child was lost to her--lost to the lie with which she had always tried to bind Felicity to her tightest. She bade the dog stay with shaking voice and followed Val, begging, shamelessly, “Leave her, Val. Please. Do not take her away.” Her voice broke, the sound of her despair dreadful to her own ears.

Tearful and wide-eyed, Felicity’s gaze flit from Val’s face to hers, and back again as he mounted the horse, cradling her to his chest. 

“Penny?” she cried uncertainly, little hands reaching, little arms stretched wide. “I don’t want to go.”

“Please, Val, I beg you.”
Lady Anne help me!

Jaw rigid, without another word Val gigged the bay, Felicity weeping, her cries of “Penny!” Penny!” tossed on the wind, lost in the drum of hoof beats.

The sound of wheels on cobblestone, and Oscar’s muffled shout of “Post coach is come!” roused Penny from her verbal reverie.

Her gaze rose from Mr. Shelbourne’s cane to meet the very real concern in green eyes grown familiar as he took her gloved hands in his. “I wish I could help,” he said.