Jo Beverley (10 page)

Some of the ladies applauded, and all were smiling.

She responded to Sir Rolo’s grin by walking closer and singing to him.

Laughing, Sir Rolo backed away in pretended horror. She turned and saw Fitzroger coming downstairs, restored to careless elegance. She strolled toward him, enjoying the acoustics of the hall.

People began to join in, and she turned to encourage them.

Fitzroger reached the bottom of the stairs and said to all, “Are jewels not enough for you ladies?”

“No!” some chorused.

Damaris turned back to him, laughing with the rest.

In danger of faltering because of her own daring, she put her hand on his sleeve.

She stepped back and curtsied deep to him, then turned and curtsied to the applauding hall.

“By gad, Miss Myddleton,” Sir Rolo declared, “you could make a second fortune on the stage!”

“That’s always comforting to know,” she replied, smiling but shivering with awareness of the possessive hand Fitzroger had placed on her shoulder.

“You would kneel?” he asked softly.

She turned to him, slipping free of his touch. “Before a hero, yes.”

“Don’t you think a true hero should avoid exposing a lady to fire and steel?”

“No, I want adventure.”

The challenge shivered in the air between them.

“I shall have to arrange it then. Anything,” he said with a bow, “to be my lady’s hero.”

Damaris felt as if the floor were melting beneath her feet, but he took her hand and led her in to dinner.

The long table was set for the fifty or so guests, and gold and silver platters gleamed in the candlelight. Rothgar’s personal musicians began to play out in the hall, sweet music drifting in to enhance another magical afternoon and evening.

As always, music was balm to Damaris. It soothed her nervous excitement and helped her pay attention to the plan. However, clearly everything was going well.

It certainly wasn’t difficult to demonstrate that she had no interest in Lord Ashart and found Fitzroger attractive. She knew it must show in every smile and gesture.

As it was, people no longer watched her. At first talk was of fencing and heroes, and then some began to play the rhyming game. Damaris happily took part, for she found it easy.

She truly did come to feel she belonged, but all the same, she was relieved when Lady Arradale rose and led the ladies away to the drawing room for tea and conversation. Once there, Damaris went to the harpsichord and played. Music provided respite.

“You play so well, dear!”

Damaris looked up, still playing, to smile at Lady Thalia Trayce, extraordinarily dressed in a white gown shot with silver and trimmed with pink lace. Her fluffy white hair was crowned with a confection of lace and feathers.

She was somewhat crazed, but Damaris had heard it was because her betrothed had died in battle when she was young and she’d never recovered. She was harmless—quite sweet, in fact.

“Thank you, Lady Thalia.”

“And your song earlier. So witty. I do agree about heroes, dear. And we are to be traveling companions! I’m sure that will be so delightful, even at Cheynings.” She pulled a smiling face and shuddered. “The dowager has let it go sadly, I hear. But Fitzroger! Now there’s a hero for you.” She looked around. “Whist!” she declared, and headed for a table.

Her sister, Lady Calliope—an enormous lady in a wheeled chair—and an older couple joined her.

Damaris stared after her, wondering if the words
a hero for you
had been meant as they’d sounded.
Of course not.

Damaris would like to learn whist, for she gathered it was the most popular game in society, but cards had been forbidden in Birch House. Her only experience had been playing cribbage with a bedridden old woman. She should have taken lessons while at Thornfield Hall, but she’d not thought of it. She would take lessons in London. She’d watched some games here and thought she understood the basic principles.

As usual at Rothgar Abbey, the gentlemen did not linger long over their port, and they soon joined the ladies. When dancing was announced, Fitzroger invited her to go to the ballroom with him, and Damaris was delighted to accept. As the evening unfolded, she never lacked a partner. She had to dance with Osborne, who put on a tragic air and called her cruel, but even that couldn’t dampen her spirits.

When she eventually returned to her room, definitely ready for her bed, she rejoiced that Fitzroger had been right to make her return. She wrote herself a note as reminder:
Reward Fitzroger
. Smiling idiotically to be writing his name, she tucked the note into her trinket box. In doing so, however, she saw her mother’s wedding ring.

On her deathbed, Abigail Myddleton had asked Damaris to take the ring off her finger, saying, “They call it a symbol of eternity, daughter, but remember, that can be an eternity of sorrow, an eternity of pain. I’ll not go into eternity wearing that man’s shackle.”

She wouldn’t be dissuaded, so Damaris had obeyed, then asked, “What shall I do with it?”

“Keep it. And remember, never trust a man.”

Inside the ring, Damaris had found words engraved, presumably at her father’s request:
YOURS UNTIL DEATH
.

And then he’d abandoned his wife.

She rolled up her note to herself and put the paper through the ring as another kind of reminder.

Never trust a man.

T
he next day, Damaris took breakfast in her room and supervised the packing. At ten o’clock, she went down the hall, cloaked and muffed. They could have made an earlier start, but the Dowager Lady Ashart had refused. And now, at the appointed time, she was not there.

Ashart and Miss Smith were talking to Lady Arradale. Lady Thalia, in a mantle of flowery velvet, sat between Lord Rothgar and Fitzroger. Damaris wanted to join him, but she would not give in to temptation. Instead she wandered the hall, savoring memories of pleasant times here. Especially of the the sword fighting.

A tingle of heat started and she slid a look at Fitzroger. She caught him looking at her and looked hastily away. Where was the dowager?

How selfish and irritating she was. She seemed to think she was the queen. Given command of this journey, Damaris would leave without her.

“What about that prickly garland causes such a ferocious scowl?”

Damaris started and realized that she had been scowling at a holly branch adorning the mantelpiece. “I was thinking of a prickly old woman,” she said to Fitzroger, praying she wasn’t blushing.

“What an excellent thing that she didn’t become your grandmother-in-law, my sweet. The war would have been endless.”

“I wish you wouldn’t call me that.”

“My sweet? I’m hinting you in a more honeyed direction.”

“What am I now? Vinegar?”

“At times.”

“Vinegar is a very useful liquid, sir. For cleaning, pickling, dressing wounds…”

“But not welcome if it’s supposed to be wine.”

Damaris fought a smile. She delighted in these verbal jousts. “It’s hardly strange if I’m sour. We’re going to Cheynings in winter, and I’m doomed to the constant company of a blinding beauty.”

“You can hold your own.”

“Tell me I, too, am a beauty, sir, and I’ll know you for a lying scoundrel.”

Despite her words she waited for flattering reassurance, primed to fire at him again.

Instead, he looked her over. “Plain as a pikestaff.”

“What?”

He pretended surprise. “You don’t want to be a sharp and dangerous weapon? Very well, Genova is a faceted diamond that catches every eye with obvious flame. You, my honey, are a blood-red cabochon ruby, a smooth surface beneath which seethes fire and mystery. Don’t gape.”

He gently closed her mouth, then dropped a light kiss on her lips. “I might try to convince you of your charms, but it would be much too dangerous.”

“Why?” she breathed.

“It would be like training a loaded cannon on all the men of England.”

“Lud, sir, I can’t follow you. Pikes, rubies, cannons? And besides,” she said with a grimace, “the men will line up to be shot with my moneybags. They won’t care about me.”

“They will, Damaris. I promise you, they will.”

He sounded far too serious, so she turned her back. “Flattery again? I do wish you wouldn’t.”

“I care about you.” She felt him step close behind her. “And it has nothing to do with your moneybags, as I have no hope of marrying them.”

“So you say.”

“Don’t doubt my word.”

She spun around. “Or?”

Something crackled in the air between them, and she realized that she’d love a fight as fierce as the sword fights yesterday.

But he stepped back, adjusting the simple frill at his cuff. “Unfair, my sweet. If any other woman implied I was a liar I’d remove myself from her presence for all time, but I’m sworn to dance attendance on you.”

“I release you, then. I want no unwilling servant.”

“I’m not your servant.”

“Attendant, then. I have no need of you.”

“Have you not? You need someone to prevent you from throwing yourself away on the wrong man.”

She brushed it off with a laugh. “I promise you, I will marry no lower than a viscount. Does that suffice?”

“Title has little to do with it. I’ll make sure you choose wisely.”

“Whether I want you to or not?”

“Yes.”

She inhaled a truly irritated breath. “You have no authority over me, sir, and I’ll marry whomever I choose!”

“Even me?”

Damaris snapped, “Yes!” before seeing the trap. “But not until you’re a viscount.” She escaped to Lady Arradale’s side, knowing she’d lost that skirmish.

Perish the man.

All the same, she had a hard time not smiling. She’d had no idea that arguing with a man could be so exciting. She sizzled from that exchange and hugged his blatant flattery to herself.

A smooth surface beneath which seethes fire and mystery.
Oh, if only it were true. Her priceless ruby necklace, which she’d not yet worn in public, had at its center an enormous cabochon ruby. When might she have an opportunity to wear it where Fitzroger would see it? It was suitable for only the grandest occasion. Perhaps in London…

A flurry on the stairs announced the dowager, finally deigning to join them.

“Don’t worry,” Fitzroger said, re-joining her. “Rothgar would never permit it.”

“What? Shooting the dowager?”

He grinned. “Marriage to me.”

“Oh, that,” she said, deliberately dismissive. “At least we can be on our way.”

“About time, too. Normally we’d cover the forty miles to Cheynings in daylight, but though the snow is melting here, there’s no knowing what the roads are like elsewhere.”

“You worry too much,” she teased, but he did seem concerned.

Damaris went outside with him to find that four coaches were lined up in front of the abbey, each with six strong horses in the shafts. The first and fourth were plain vehicles already loaded with servants and luggage. The second was a huge, gilded vehicle with a crest on the door and a coronet on each corner of the roof. The third was a plainer but still grand traveling carriage painted green and brown.

Paths had been swept to two of the carriages’ doors, and Ashart and Miss Smith were already waiting beside the green-and-brown one, which Damaris would share with her rival. As she went down the steps to join them she waited for the familiar resentment to bite.

It didn’t.

Genova Smith was welcome to the wasteful, rakish marquess, especially as marriage to him meant close association with his bleak home and his bitter grandmother. She only wished she’d realized that earlier.

The pristine snow made the landscape beautiful, but the air was bitterly cold, so Damaris entered the coach immediately. A servant deposited her carriage bag at her feet, then closed the door. The couple remained outside, talking as if each were the other’s food and they in danger of starving.

Damaris rolled her eyes, slipped her hands out of her muff, and took off her gloves. She realized the coach was pleasantly warm, so she unfastened her cloak and set it back.

Genova Smith’s cloak was quite like her own in color, but of cloth, not velvet. And lined with rabbit rather than rare chinchilla. It was horribly petty to be pleased about that, but Damaris wasn’t yet above such thoughts. To help avoid them, she looked away from the couple to inspect the carriage. It was as warm and comfortable as a cozy parlor in the finest home.

She found the explanation of the warmth beneath the carpet on the floor—a layer of hot bricks.

The thickly upholstered seats were covered in red damask, and curtains of the same material were tied back at the windows. Candles sat ready in gilded sconces shielded behind glass. No, she certainly didn’t understand the style in which the impoverished Marquess of Ashart lived.

She found shallow cupboards set into the walls of the coach containing a selection of drinks and amusements—cards; counters; boards and pieces for chess, drafts, and backgammon; a cribbage board; and a copy of Mr. Hoyle’s rules for card games.

Every eventuality provided for, including ignorance.

She decided she might as well study whist on the journey and took out the book. She’d read only part of the introduction, however, before the door opened and Genova Smith climbed in. She gave Damaris a quick smile, but then turned back to the marquess, who stood outside, keeping the door open. Damaris was about to complain when he closed it and went to mount his horse.

Miss Smith remained entranced, watching him settle into the saddle and his groom adjust his heavy riding cloak over the horse’s back end. Good thing he had a servant to do it for him, for his wits were clearly still on Miss Smith. Damaris hoped his horse knew its way home.

Vinegar and honey,
she reminded herself and turned to look out of her own window, which faced the house. Lord Rothgar and Lady Arradale stood there, cloaked, gloved, their breath misting, waiting to see their guests on their way. Fitzroger sat a horse nearby, definitely not gazing in rapture at her.

As if he would.

And better that he have more sense.

This traveling party certainly need not fear highwaymen. In addition to Ashart and Fitzroger, four outriders were mounted and ready, and the men on the driving boxes would be armed, too. Perhaps she needn’t have left her valuable jewelry here, but she wouldn’t need rubies and emeralds at Cheynings, and when Lord Rothgar traveled to London, he would be equally well guarded.

The coachman cracked his whip, and Damaris waved good-bye to her new guardian. To think that yesterday she’d been fleeing this place, certain that her life was blighted.

House and owners passed out of sight, but Fitzroger kept pace just ahead of her window, as magnificent on horseback as with a sword. What a dashing hero he would make.

He glanced sideways, caught her eye, and smiled. She knew she shouldn’t but she smiled back.

“How delightfully warm it is in here.”

Damaris turned to see that Genova Smith had also put aside her muff, taken off her gloves, and put back her cloak.

“Quite luxurious,” Damaris agreed.

“I traveled to Rothgar Abbey in the other coach, and I assure you it casts this one into the shade.” Miss Smith’s beautiful blue eyes twinkled. “Risqué nymphs painted on the ceiling, gilded carvings everywhere, and padding on the seats as comfortable as pillows.”

“I’m surprised Lord Ashart can afford it.” Damaris winced, wishing she could take the comment back.

“His father commissioned it. Ashart never uses it. He prefers to ride. I prefer simple living, too.”

Damaris managed not to say something sarcastic about Lord Ashart’s version of simple living. “You could hardly prefer to be poor.”

“Would you think me foolish if I admitted that I’d rather Ashart were a simple man?”

Damaris hesitated, but then spoke the truth. “Yes, for how could he be? I mean, you love him because of what and who he is. If he were a simple man he would be someone else.”

“Goodness, I suppose that’s true.” Miss Smith seemed astonished. That Damaris Myddleton might have said something insightful? “In fact, I know it is. My mother warned me to never marry a man in hopes of changing him. Marry a man you like and admire on the day you say your vows, she would say.”

“Whereas my mother was more cynical. Her advice was never to believe a word a man said when he was trying to get me to the altar. Or into his bed.”

“She must have been a wise woman,” Miss Smith said.

“Hardly. She married my father.”

“He was cruel to her?”

Damaris didn’t want to talk about this, but she couldn’t think how to avoid answering. “Only by being absent.”

“Ah. I understand he spent a great deal of time in the East, making his fortune. How sad that your mother couldn’t travel with him.”

Damaris wasn’t sure that choice had ever been offered, but she said, “She was attached to Worksop.”

Miss Smith didn’t say anything, but Damaris could hear what a dismal epitaph that made.
Attached to Worksop
. She had to say more.

“My father founded his fortune on my mother’s modest dowry. In return, she expected him to return to her once he was rich. Instead, he made only the briefest visits. It broke her heart.”

“That must have been a difficult situation for you.”

Understanding caught Damaris on the raw. “Good training for being jilted.”

“Ashart did not jilt you.”

“He coldheartedly planned to marry me for my money.”

“As you coldheartedly planned to marry him for his title.”

Damaris inhaled a sharp breath.

But it was true. “Very well,” she said, then let out a sigh. “I was as calculating as he, and we are both best out of it.” She might as well get it all over with. “I owe you an apology, Miss Smith. I behaved badly at times over the past days.”

Genova Smith blinked, then grasped one of Damaris’s hands. “Oh, no, you were shamefully misled! I’m so sorry for it.”

Damaris was unused to such warm contact with women, and unsure how to react. “Perhaps we can agree to a truce then.”

Miss Smith squeezed her hand. “Please, in that spirit, will you call me Genova?”