First Season / Bride to Be (28 page)

Turning to follow his gaze, Richard saw a shaft of sunshine streaming through one of the windows and pooling on the yellow carpet.

“Like butter. Butter spangled as an opera dancer's tights.”

A bit surprised, Richard nodded. The motes of dust floating in the light did make it look rather like that.

“It'll be gone in half an hour and I won't have touched a brush to canvas.”

“I'm sorry.” He actually was, Richard realized. The man's deprivation was so real, his face so forlorn. Moved by a sudden impulse, Richard said, “When did you know you wanted to paint?”

Alasdair didn't look the least bit surprised by the question. “I was four years old. I was playing with some building blocks in the nursery when my sister's governess began a lesson in watercolors.” His dark eyes bored into Richard's. “Her brush swept across the paper like a bluebird's wing, and suddenly I couldn't see anything else. She let me try, and…” He made a gesture signifying that everything had flowed from there.

“So it was a gift, a talent. You didn't have to struggle and wonder what your purpose might be.”

Alasdair Crane shook his head, his attention fully on Richard for perhaps the first time in their short acquaintance. “You don't want to paint?”

Richard smiled slightly. The man's obsession was almost endearing. “No, I've never wanted that. But I do want…something like that,” Richard blurted out. Part of him couldn't believe he was confiding in a stranger, but another pushed him to get any guidance he could. “A task or a pursuit that compels me.”

Alasdair nodded as if this were the most reasonable statement in the world.

Richard felt a curious relief, along with satisfaction. He had known Alasdair Crane would understand this desire.

“What do you love?”

Richard frowned, at a loss.

“Think about it. Find what you love, and follow it, and that will be enough for you.”

“But…” This seemed both too simple, and immensely complicated. “How will that tell me what to
do
?”

“The doing's not the problem.” Crane waved a hand. “Or, it is. But not the main one. When you have the passion, wrestling with the details of the work is a splendid fight.”

Richard puzzled over his words. They sounded good, but he was no further along in finding a next step.

Giving the shaft of sunlight a longing look, Crane said. “So you want to marry Emily?”

Richard gathered his wits. There was no suitable reply to the question. It would not be honest to agree, and to disagree would create considerable havoc. He could understand the duchess's decision not to tell the Cranes the circumstances behind the engagement. Emily's father would probably try to call him out. Or just shoot him.

“Olivia reminded me what it was like to have one's wishes opposed.” Crane sat a bit straighter on the sofa. “I would have killed anyone who tried to keep her from me. I still would.” He gave a sharp nod.

“You are to be envied, sir.”

“I know it.” He grimaced. “It was damned unsettling, finding myself in Shelbury's shoes, acting just like him.”

“I'm sure you could never be like the marquess.”

“You would have thought so, but now that it's a daughter of my own…” He scowled. “Hostages to fortune, that's what the bard called them. And with only the one child…” He sighed. “The important thing is to see her happy. That's what Olivia says, and I agree. So if it's you she wants…” He examined Richard and seemed to find him wanting. “You're mighty cool about this.”

Richard groped for words.

“In your place, I'd've made it clear by this time that I didn't give a rap what her parents thought—or anyone else.” He peered at Richard. “I'd've consigned them all to perdition.”

“Perhaps we are of different temperaments.” Oddly, Crane's accusations stung.

“You're not afraid of me. I can see that.”

“No.”

“You don't much care what I think.” He frowned.

“I hope for your good opinion, of course.”

Alasdair snorted. “Fustian.”

“Not at all. You have shaped your life to your own design. I admire that.”

“Trying to turn me up sweet?”

Richard shrugged, letting him take or leave his remarks. He had meant them, though.

“I don't understand you.” Crane leaned forward as if decreasing the distance between them would help. “You've said nothing about Emily in all this.”

They were back to the sticky part. To tell the truth would be to go back on his word. It occurred to Richard that this was the first time in his life that he had seriously inconvenienced himself for another person. He had a sudden sense of vertigo.

Crane sat back, resting his hands on his knees. “Well?”

“Not everyone can…express himself as fully as you do.”

This brought no break in the hard scrutiny.

“I'm not an artist. It is not so easy to say how I feel.” That was certainly true.

The older man continued to watch him, though his gaze seemed slightly less hostile.

“You will be wondering about my prospects,” said Richard, attempting a diversion. “I have to admit they are not good. My estates in Somerset are heavily encumbered, and one in Wales left me by my stepfather is mainly rock. My income is…limited.”

Crane shook his head as if bewildered.

“The cottage at Morne is Elizabethan. There are some beautiful vistas. Very paintable.” Paintable? he thought incredulously. This eccentric man was reducing him to idiocy.

“I don't know how to do this,” replied Crane. He sounded pathetically bewildered. “I'm not some sort of old Roman paterfamilias.” He blinked at Richard, then rose. “I need Olivia. Where is Olivia?” He made his way to the door, leaving Richard alone in the small parlor.

It was a relief. He felt as if he'd been interrogated, though he hadn't really. It would have been enormously satisfying to declare a great love, to fling his passion in the face of all opposition, to dare anyone to thwart him. He longed to have such feelings, such certainty…

There was very little sound here at the back of the house. The silence enveloped Richard. He wondered if Crane meant to return, or if he should go? Sitting back on the sofa, he waited.

* * *

In her bedchamber upstairs, Emily had been enduring a similar trial. Her mother had come to her about the time Richard arrived and settled in for a cozy chat. “It seems so long since we had a chance to talk,” she began.

They didn't talk very often at home, Emily thought, and braced herself for difficulties.

“I didn't expect that you would become engaged so soon. I thought you would have a season at least.” She made a deprecating gesture. “Of course one cannot control these things. When you fall desperately in love…”

She paused, giving Emily the opportunity to profess her passion. Emily swallowed. Should she tell her the truth?

Looking a little concerned, her mother went on. “I remember the first time I spoke to your father. It was a rout party. His mother had made him go, and he was so magnificently angry.” She smiled. “He tried to be quite savage with me, reviling my dress and the petty emptiness of society.” Her blue eyes twinkled. “And I told him it was all a kind of art. I had heard about him, you see, and made it my business to meet him. It wasn't two weeks before we…” She broke off with a self-conscious laugh. “Well, never mind that ancient history. We were talking of you.”

Emily had to tell her something. When I met Richard Sheldon, two men were trying to kill him, she thought wildly.

“I suppose you found Mr. Sheldon—Lord Warrington, that is—ah, interesting when he was at our house?” Olivia prompted finally.

“Yes.”

“And then you met again in London.”

“At a ball. We danced.” That had been quite unpleasant, she remembered. “And walked in the park, and…” In a sudden panic, she wondered whether her aunt had confided the whole story to her mother. She hadn't told Papa, of course. No one would do such a silly thing as that.

“And you fell in love,” said her mother. “He is a handsome man.”

The concerned look that accompanied this spurred Emily to action. She nodded vigorously. “He…he was shipwrecked in the jungle and had to fight his way out. It took months and months. There were huge snakes and, er, panthers.”

“Really?” Her mother was looking a bit puzzled.

“I think that is admirable,” Emily blundered on. “It shows true courage and, er, initiative, don't you think?”

“Umm.”

“He is quite at home in society, too. He knows everyone.”

“Does he?”

And someone is plotting to kill him, and I want to find out who, so I agreed to an engagement when my aunt found me sleeping in his arms. No, it didn't sound good. Emily stole a look at her mother. She wasn't afraid she would be scandalized. Quite the opposite, actually. She would undoubtedly feel that nothing warranted a forced marriage, and the whole thing should be called off as soon as possible. Despite everything, Emily didn't want that.

“But, my dear…”

“So he is just everything I want in a man.”

“You make it sound like a recipe,” objected her mother.

“I'm not like you. I don't get swept away by great gusts of feeling.” It was true, Emily thought, with a brush of melancholy.

Her mother frowned. “You have always been such a practical, self-possessed girl,” was the worried response.

Emily almost smiled. “Some parents would find that reassuring.”

“We love you very much, Emily. And we want to see you happy—as happy as we have been.”

“Perhaps that isn't possible,” she muttered.

“What?”

“I'm sure I'll be very happy,” she declared.

“But the way you speak of…” They were interrupted by her father's voice, bellowing Olivia's name. “Oh dear.”

Her expression alarmed Emily. “What has Papa been doing?”

“Talking to Lord Warrington. At least, I hope that is all he has been doing.”

Emily rose in consternation. But before she could make another move, her father burst into the room looking plaintive. “I can't make him out,” he complained. “He don't seem to give a farthing for…”

“What did you do to him?”

The intensity in her voice seemed to gratify both of Emily's parents. They exchanged a glance.

“I didn't do anything. You should see him, Olivia. You're much better at ferreting out…”

“I will see him.” Emily started for the door. “You stay here.”

In a flurry of skirts, she was gone.

“Well,
that's
more like it,” said Alasdair.

* * *

Emily peered into four empty rooms before she found Richard in the small back parlor. He was standing by a window looking undecided when she burst in and came to a sudden halt just inside the door. “Oh, there you are.” Having achieved her object, Emily could think of nothing else to say.

“Here I am,” he agreed.

He always looked so at ease. It was admirable, and rather irritating. “I hope my father did not…” Did not what? Of course he had ranted and accused and done all the other things that had made any young man she encountered think they were all mad.

“He is a very interesting man,” replied Richard. “I envy him his passion for his work.”

“You do?”

He nodded. “It is a gift—to know so clearly what you wish to do, and to concentrate every faculty upon it.”

This sort of reaction was unprecedented in Emily's experience. She couldn't quite believe it. “He didn't shout at you?”

Richard shrugged. “Oh, yes, a bit. More last night, you know.”

She certainly did. “And you… Didn't you mind?”

“It seems to be just part of what he is,” was the astonishing response.

Her mouth was a little open, Emily realized. She closed it.

“Perhaps it comes of being an artist.”

Maybe being in London, in her aunt's house, had muted her father's usual outrageous behavior. Then she remembered the smashed easel. That wasn't it.

“I'm glad you came down. I wanted to speak to you,” Richard added.

For some reason, Emily's pulse accelerated.

“About what you said last night—these rumors you mentioned. I suppose I shall have to look into them.” He grimaced. “Ridiculous as the idea still seems.”

“You were attacked—”

“I've conceded the point. If you will just tell me where to find these friends of yours.” She started to speak, and he waved her to silence. “And don't tell me again that you cannot say.”

“I can't.” Daniel would be furious. “I'll find out if they've learned anything else and tell you at once.”

“Unacceptable.”

“I won't betray them to you.”

“Betray? What am I, the Inquisition?” He frowned at her. “Just who are these people? They are beginning to sound rather unsavory.”

Emily gave a small shrug.

“What would your father say if he knew you were associating with dubious characters?”

She couldn't restrain a laugh.

Richard raised one dark brow. “Ah. I suppose they are friends of his.” He surveyed her. “Perhaps I should ask him about them, then?”

Her hand went out in an involuntary gesture. “No!”

“Ah?”

“You mustn't tell him about…any of this.”

“Because he would prevent you from seeing these ‘friends'?” He watched her. “No, I can see that isn't it.”

“If he knows about the attacks, he might find out about other things as well.”

“What other…?” Richard appeared to understand suddenly. “About the true nature of our engagement, perhaps?”

She avoided his eyes. Silence lengthened. Finally, when she could stand it no longer, she looked up. He was gazing at her as if she fascinated him.