Elisabeth Fairchild (9 page)

Was she forbidden fruit to be tasted? Or was it pity she read in his eyes? She considered refusing him. Uncertainty hung uneasy in his lips, his gaze. His eyes spoke of his preparation for refusal--rejection. She saw herself in that look, and took pity.

“Yes,” she said. “I am fond of dancing. But it must be later, if you do not mind. I would greet the host and hostess of tonight’s affair.”

He went back to his friends, young lads dressed to the nines. They clustered in a corner, and whispered word of her answer with hearty claps upon Griffith’s back, and shoulder.

He smiled,  and said nothing. Not one to gloat, not in front of her. She was glad of that.

Let them dream, she thought. Let them imagine her worse than she was, ready to debauch young lads, prepared to sate their wildest desires, the second snake seduced Eve of Appleby. None of it was true. She was myth to them, rumor and innuendo. It did not matter. She had promised herself she would dance before the evening was out, and enjoy herself doing so. Small matter that the dancer was not to be the one she had imagined.

She and her father stepped out of the warmth and noise, into the night, chill and dark. They crossed the tidy farmyard to the house, every window aglow with light, the chimney spouting a plume of warmth.

Fiona opened the door wide for them, with a squeal of unoiled hinges, releasing the tantalizing odor of baked ham, fresh bread and apple tarts, laced with the heady perfume and underlying conversational buzz of dozens of guests. She looked like a full blown apple blossom in a pretty white and pink gown.

“Penny! Mr. Foster! Do come in,” she crd, catching at Penny’s hand as she stepped over the threshold. “You must make a point not to leave early, my friend. A very important announcement is to be made this evening.”

“I will not leave until everyone knows of your impending nuptials,” Penny promised.

Fiona stared, wide-eyed. “But how do you know? I have not told a soul outside of the family.”

“Fiona. Everyone knows Theodore is completely smitten, and must eventually propose. I took the liberty of assuming nothing else could make you quite so happy.”

“Oh!” Fiona laughed and gleefully gave Penny’s hand a squeeze. “I am deliriously happy. I would wish such happiness on every woman.”

 Penny thought of Cupid.

I want everyone I know and love to share the moment,” Fiona gushed.

“Even me?” Penny said, in mock surprise. “There will be those who condemn you for inviting me into polite society.”

“Let them,” Fiona’s smile faded, but only for a moment. Such happiness was not to be overcome, indeed she laughed and said, “There are those who tormented me as a child, calling me fat Fiona, and little dumpling, and never you among them. They have all been invited. It never occurred to me to exclude you.”

Penny tucked her arm into Fiona’s. “You are good to me. Does Theodore know what a lucky man he is?”

A frown touched Fiona’s ample lips. “Will it be awkward, Penny, that I have invited Val? But perhaps a country hop is beneath him now that he has seen the world, and moves in fine company.”

“Fine company?” Penny laughed. Who in the village would you call fine company?”

“Why, his friend, Cupid. Son of a Viscount, Teddy tells me. Stands to inherit a fortune. And look! Here come our battle worn heroes, now!”

Into the courtyard pulled the Wharton family coach, windows flashing with faces grown familiar: Valentine formal in buckish pomp, his companions splendid in brushed and polished uniforms.

Cupid, son of a Viscount, no mistaking that shock of dark hair. His eyes met hers through the window as the horses drew to a halt. He looked glad to see her.

Penny excused herself as the door swung wide, and withdrew, unwilling to meet in that moment either Valentine Wharton or his
fine
company.

They disembarked swiftly, greeting the plump, beaming Fiona at the door. Alexander kept looking over her shoulder. He kept his how-do-you-dos brief.

From the coach window he had seen Penny Foster, in a blue velvet dress, the purple cloak about her shoulders. He could see her now, just beyond the door, removing that cloak, fair hair pulled high on her head, blue velvet ribbon wound through the curls, fair tendrils clustered at the graceful nape of her neck. Beautiful. Desirable. As much of a mystery as the day they had met.

It bothered him that she walked away, for as much as he enjoyed observing the enticing sway of her backside, he was sure she had seen him, and he did not like to think himself deliberately avoided.

The farmhouse was a crush, guests shoulder to shoulder, and hip to hip. Everyone in Cumbria had come. Cheap cologne, and cloying toilet water proved at times eye-wateringly overpowering. Not so overwhelming, however, as observing the ripples in Miss Foster’s wake.

This was the second time Alexander had watched her progress in public. As on Valentine’s day in the square, she created a stir.

Women hunched their backs and turned away whispering, only to transfm themselves at his approach, smiling enthusiastically, turning like flowers to the sun. He found it odd, even obscene, for what was he to these females but a stranger just returned from battle, where he had done unspeakable things?

The gentlemen present followed Miss Foster’s movements with sly sideways glances, or openly lascivious gaze.

It heated his skin to observe unmasked desire in their eyes. It made him wonder if his own regard for her was in any way ungentlemanly. It pained him to observe the rigid set of neck and jaw as she walked this dreadful gauntlet head high, manner infinitely polite-- smile courageous.

He longed to cloak her from such callous welcome, and yet, it occurred to him that his every interaction with her would be closely observed, and most likely subject to misinterpretation. Their every word and gesture would be open to speculation, to gossip’s assumptions. His name and reputation were unknown here, hers cast in stone.

How many years had she suffered such welcome? A wonder she had not become completely embittered, encased in a hard impenetrable shell. Her former wariness at last made some sense to him.

He resolved to meet her with all deference once he had circulated among the other guests. He would treat her with respect and admiration, as she deserved.  But not at once, not first among the many. Her Cupid he might be, and yet he must not seem too eager. That would do her more damage than good.

No. He must open the world’s eyes slowly. Not a frontal charge he reconnoitered, but a surprise assault.

Chapter Ten

She felt herself safe, unnoticed. Perhaps forgotten. The war heroes, whose attentions were in high demand, passed her by, headed for the music and dancing. She was sure they would not surface again for some time. The house, after all, was hot, stuffy and stuffed with the elder set. It was to the dancing barn youth and vigor were drawn.

Cupid surprised her, surprised everyone in the drawing room , in making appearance again, an eye catching muscular specimen towering over a sea of gray hair, and balding pates, his deep voice stilling the helpful buzz of well meant, bride-to-be-advice in which Fiona sat swamped.

“Does my hostess care to dance?” he asked.

Such courtesy did not go unnoticed. It won him approval in many an aging female eye, and Fiona responded very prettily with a blush, saying that she would indeed love to dance.

They left the room, arm in arm, a rapier sword beside an apple dumpling, and Penny thought herself again gone unnoticed until his return a quarter of an hour later, when having fetched a flushed and breathless Fiona a cup of punch, he turned, as if it had been his intention all along, and sought Penny out in her corner by the window, and asked her with a formal bow, “Miss Foster, do you care to dance?”

Penny wondered if he knew how much attention his request won them. She wondered when some well meaning soul would see fit to warn him away.

“Charmed,” she said simply, as Lady Anne might have done, and took his arm, knowing they were watched, knowing that there would be speculation of a growing friendship between them, perhaps even more. As she gripped the muscled strength of his arm, she considered what it might be like, to fulfill their wildest assumptions with this marksman, her Cupid.

All eyes surreptitiously followed their exit from the room, as he parted the sea of them, and plucked up her cloak without so much as having to be told which one. He swung its warmth about her shoulders, the weight of his hands, the embrace of the cloak intoxicating, and yet his hands did not linger. He offered no further reason for gossip, no further fodder for daydreams.

Then they were outside, the night’s chill fingering heated cheeks and throat. She lifted her face to the stars, breathing a veil of mist on the near full moon peeping through moving cloud cover, and a screen of swaying treetops. Ah, Lady Anne, she thought, what am I to do with these feelings? with this gentleman so far beyond my touch?

“Velvet suits you,” he said.

A compliment, and so long had it been since she received one she did not know what to do with it. “So soft.” She ran her hand along the cloak’s sleeve.

“Begs touching,” he agreed.

A suggestive remark, an unmistakably teasing glint in his eyes, and yet he made no move to put words to action, as others would have. Did he lack desire? Or an awareness of her reputation? Or did the fogged faces at the window keep his hands to himself?

She took strange comfort in the woolen warmth and solidity of his arm’s support, in his deference of manner, and yet she did not trust him.

“I have heard, sir, that you are not Mr. Shelbourne at all, but Lord Shelbourne,” she said mildly.

He laughed. She liked his laugh.

“Gossip,” he said. “Rarely gets the story straight, you know.”

“Indeed, I do.”

“I thought you might.” He drew her hand a little deeper into the crook of his arm. In so doing his hand passed over her sleeve, a quick caress of velvet. It might have been an accident, and yet she knew it was not.

He slowed his steps, in no hurry.

“You mistake me for my brother. He is Lord Shelbourne. Anything else you have heard of me, that I may set straight?”

His eyes glinted starlight, challenging her, admiring her, and somewhere deep within fearing what she might say next. Fearing? What had he to fear, this cockaded marksman?

“It is assumed you stand to inherit a fortune,” she said.

Again he laughed, his breath ghostlike in the moonlight. “Regrettably not, unless a plague of some kind should level the field. I am third in line, you see.”

“Ah. And thus obliged to make a living on your own.”

“Precisely. The military once seemed sound direction in building a career.”

 “No longer?”

His gaze strayed, but the answer came swiftly. “No.”

“And yet, you were successful?”

“Too much so,” he said softly, voice thin as a knife blade.

“What would you do now instead?” she asked.

“Dance,” he said simply.

It had been too long since he had danced, carefree, arms, legs and heart engaged in a pace that had nothing to do with marching, stealth, or a race for one’s life. He enjoyed dancing with her, a Ninepins Reel, the steps too fast and breathless for much conversation. Their eyes spoke to one another. He could not stop looking at her. She, eyes glowing, cheeks flushed, looked back with steadfast interest, her lips turned slightly upward, not quite smiling, laughter in her eyes. He could not tell what sent his pulse beating faster, the speed of their movements, or the heated promise of amethyst  eyes.

She liked him. He could see it was s. It gladdened him. He had begun to think himself beyond liking--on occasion--when the worst of what he had done played itself over and over again in his mind.

And yet, he did not linger at her side when the dance was finished. It would not do to seem too interested, too attentive. He bowed before her, and said, “A pleasure.” Then he turned reluctantly away from her brightness, her beauty, and asked another young lady to dance. He must remember his purpose.

He led a freckled young woman onto the floor, and watched with satisfaction as a blushing young fellow took Penny Foster’s arm. He allowed his gaze to meet hers only when appropriate to the ensuing movements of the Cumberland Square.

Such eye contact made his blood race more than the energetic movements of the dance, but he kept it fleeting, sweeter for its very brevity.

He made a point, when the dance ended, of approaching the group of men in which Mr. Foster stood. Investing himself in a half hour of tedious conversation full of indecipherable local references, he managed at last to make slight mention of the child, Felicity.

“What a kindness that you take her in,” he said.

A sudden attentiveness marked the group of gathered Cumbrians, as Mr. Foster, a man of few words and steady gaze, said, “It is no trouble.”

“A pity for one so young to go fatherless.”

The old man nodded. “And motherless but for my daughter’s care.”

Nearby conversations stilled.

“My aunt took in an orphaned girl.” Alexander said. “A huge responsibility such an undertaking, for a single, young woman, no children of her own. No husband to help her.”