Raven's Ransom (21 page)

“Very good, then, for we shall
share
his wrath! Hop on behind and I shall have you home in no time.”

“With my reputation in tatters! No, I thank you!”

“This from a lady perfectly willing to chop off her hair. Base ingratitude!” Armand smiled, but acknowledged she had a point. Inwardly, he cursed. A fine fix he was in when carrying Lily home would mean her ruination. Compromising his future sister-in-law seemed singularly maladroit under the circumstances. He searched about wildly for an answer then shaded his eyes narrowly as a dust cloud appeared on the horizon.

The thundering of hooves confirmed to his quick senses that this was no idle ostler from the inn, or stray postboy out for a quiet canter on the downs. He pushed Lily from the tree and grabbed the reins of his Arabian. He had no wish to frighten the powerful beast.

“You devil! I shall split you alive if you have touched so much as a hair on her head!”

Barrymore’s golden head bobbed from his borrowed mare. In less than a second he was on solid English soil, fists clenched.

“Lily! You are ...”

But his words were drowned by a flood of tears and laughter that relieved him so greatly that he had little time to spare for the bemused Valmont. Instead, he whisked his beloved off her feet—thus exposing a very pretty pair of ankles—and kissed her soundly. Then he pressed her to him again before eyeing the Honorable Henry, Mortimer, James Armand Garcia, eighth Viscount Valmont in some inquiring surprise.

“You are not Sir Rory Aldershot.”

“I am relieved you can distinguish the difference, sir. I do not approve either of Sir Rory’s tailor or of his unfortunate habit of wearing puce in company. In short, I fear, Sir Rory is a fribble.”

“And you are not.” Barrymore’s eyes crinkled in sudden amusement. It was easy to be amused, he found, when he was cradling his wife.

“Certainly not! I, I fear, am a veritable pink of the Ton! You have only to note my impeccable tailoring . . .”

“Scott, if I mistake it not.”

“Indeed.” Armand bowed.

“I prefer Weston. And why, sir, were you making free with my wife?”

“Your wife?” Armand startled.

Lily giggled. “I hope you are right, my lord, when you say one becomes accustomed. I have been a viscountess these several hours and am not accustomed yet!”

Armand’s brow cleared. Saints alive, the lovely Lily was wedded! He was not going to be compromising her this day, after all!

“My felicitations. Barrymore—yes, I met you once at Burtons—I must most earnestly desire you to take over from here. I am due to enact my own elopement at sunset and fear I shall be unforgivably late!”

“Then by all means go!”

“You will let me pass unspit? I touched
several
strands of your lovely wife’s head, this day.”

Barrymore caught the mirthful glance his impish scamp of a wife shot Valmont and scowled. “Then let the reckoning be later! Right now, I have business with my wife.”

“Very good, my lord. Sensible, too. And now, adieu.”

He had no sooner mounted than Lily extricated herself from Denver, Lord Barrymore’s fond embrace, and emitted a sudden, rather unregal whoop of surprise. “Primmy! That was Primmy’s hair if ever I saw it!”

Barrymore looked resigned. “Miss Chartley?”

“Yes, in that chaise. It is tumbling out of our horrid charades hat. I saw it distinctly.”

“Many people have hair of that color. Can you not have mistaken it?”

Lily looked scornful. “Gentlemen know
nothing
of fashion. I tell you, Primmy’s copper color is unique!”

“But that is not Lord Raven’s chaise. It has a golden crest upon it.”

Lily shaded her eyes and squinted toward the inn, outside which the chaise had drawn to a very neat stop.

“I can’t precisely see, but certainly it is not Grandfather’s. His livery is different.
Look!
There is a man in there! ”

Barrymore shot Valmont a resigned glance. It was filled with such unspoken apology that even Armand, anxious as he was to set his
own
affairs in order, was forced to grin.

Lily looked alarmed. “Gracious heavens, do you think she is
also
being abducted?”

The gentlemen peered into the distance. Both seemed inclined to think not, for now another gentleman was emerging in a very orderly manner. He was deplorably attired, of course . . .

Lily gave a shriek. “It is Primmy! Oh, I do declare it is Primmy in our play clothes! Oh, come at once! This is beyond belief amazing!” With never a thought for the two handsome—if somewhat bewildered young men paying her court—she once more took up her skirts and headed directly for the inviting portals of the White Dragon Inn.

It did not take long for the story to unfold, but by this time, Lord Valmont had missed his sunset deadline and was staring with dismay out the twilight window. Lord Rochester had procured, upon the instant, the best private parlor the inn had to offer, but the question of Primrose’s reputation was now being hotly disputed. There was no telling
who
may have seen Miss Chartley in the marquis’s closed chaise. If she had been remarked at all, returning past nightfall in an unwedded state would be fatal.

Lily seemed to think Primrose’s copper-colored hair was fatal and my Lord Rochester, upon deep and earnest consideration—which caused Primrose’s color to heighten to a remarkable degree—was forced to concur.

Presently there came upon the door a rather timid knock and as Rochester sought to cover Primrose as best he could, the handle turned.

“What in tarnation? This is a private parlor!” As Rochester protested, Barrymore stepped forward in surprise.

“Your reverence! I thought you had departed long since! Come in, come in!” This the archbishop did, with a very sorry tale. He had wandered through the gardens, lost track, a little of the time, and discovered, to his horror, that “some elegant sprig in a confoundedly close-fitting morning coat”—had stolen his prize
mare.
Since it comprised half of his carriage’s team, he could not move an inch until the rapscallion returned.

At which, the Honorable Viscount Barrymore looked distinctly uncomfortable, Lily stared at her husband hard and the Viscount Valmont, no slow top, burst into an outright chuckle.

“Sprigged the nag, did you?”

“Well, what would
you
do?” Barrymore sounded indignant. “The rest of the mares were sorry little beasts without an ounce of speed between them.”

When apprised of the tale, the archbishop’s brow cleared and he murmured that abduction was a shocking thing and doubtless the Lord worked in strange ways. If it was
his
beast that had been the saving of her ladyship, then he must needs be satisfied.

Whereupon Lord Barrymore apologized most contritely—though his merry blue eyes lost none of their twinkle—and promised that even now the mare was being watered and fed. The archbishop harrumphed a little at this, but seemed mollified enough to take the seat that was offered him and he even nodded a little at the prospect of a fine cup of Bohea tea. Then Armand, eyes wickedly gleaming, suggested that the clergyman might once again—and maybe yet again, before the evening was done—prove his worth. The party stared at him, puzzled. That was for a fraction of a moment only, however, for Rochester’s eyes widened in quick comprehension.

“The very thing! Primrose, my dear, if you could dispense with pomp and circumstance, we might save your reputation yet!”

“What of the marchioness?”

“Fiddlesticks! She will be so relieved to see me leg-shackled to the
right
Miss Chartley she will not grumble at the shimble-shamble manner of the service.”

“But have you a special license?”

“No ... but....” Gareth, Lord Rochester, looked pleadingly in the archbishop’s direction. As he had hoped, the matter of the special license was waved away by his reverence, who, despite shuddering a little at Primrose’s unorthodox attire, nevertheless deemed the couple worthy of his matrimonial blessings. Consequently, he signed all necessary parchments with a flourish of ink and the only obstacle to wedded bliss was thus summarily overcome. And so, clad only in knee breeches and a sadly flopping hat, the very sensible Miss Chartley became, like her sister before her, a peeress of the realm.

Daisy had long since finished her tammying. Growing alarmed at Primrose’s absence, she broached the subject with Grandfather Raven, who merely pinched her cheek affectionately and bade her “mind her own business.” This said with a wink and a guffaw she found mystifying, but which her good nature did not allow to question.

Instead, she tiptoed up to reach Lord Raven’s wizened cheek and there placed a timid kiss upon the leathery skin. Lord Raven was so taken aback he could only say “Ha!” and “Humph!” but Daisy smiled to herself, knowing he was pleased. She guiltily hoped he would feel the same way on the morrow, when she told him she was wed. Doubtless he would work himself into a fit of rage, but since that had never harmed him before, Daisy took leave to hope her disobedience would soon be forgiven. After all, if she were not now being wooed so steadily by a myriad of fortune hunters all after the Raven’s Ransom, there would have been no need to rush into the thing.

But now.... any moment Grandfather might betrothe her to some unsuitable upstart who cared more about the treasure trove than her. Armand, she trusted, with a small, secret sigh of contentment, was different. He may need the ransom, but he also needed her. His eyes would not glow like hot coals when they gazed upon her if this were not so. She quietly closed the oak door behind her and crossed the gallery. Sadly, she was accosted by an under butler, who took leave to tell her that a handful of callers had just arrived. Further, Mrs. Bartlett was out of cream puffs and sweetmeats.

Daisy had just time to straighten her gown, whisper that slivers of bread with soured cream and some of the game salmon would just have to suffice, when she was accosted by one particularly bold suitor. He had strolled out of the receiving room and into the long gallery with the hope, he declared, of “catching a glimpse of a starry-eyed maid with pools of blue.” Daisy nearly snapped back that he was mixing his metaphors besides wasting his time, but faultless good manners intervened. She therefore nodded at the under butler and gently led the rake—she suspected he was such, for he cast her an appraising glance filled with a deplorably languishing look—back to the receiving room.

The afternoon seemed singularly tedious without the support of her sisters, whose absence was remarked upon repeatedly until her head ached. She was just coming to the end of a long string of polite excuses when the time chimed on the great-grandfather clock in the hall. Heavens! It must be close to sunset!

Abruptly, she put aside one of the posies that had been pressed into her elegantly gloved hand and moved toward the balcony. It was true that the sky was pinkening, and the sun dipping down beyond the far fir trees.

“Oh,
do
excuse me!” She turned around and nearly fell into the arms of Sir Richard Bridgewater, who had recently been betrothed to a speckle-haired heiress. Sadly, she had eloped with a footman, leaving poor Sir Richard in dun territory and urgently in need of a wife. Well, an heiress to be more precise about the matter.

“My dear Miss Chartley! Allow me to steady you!” Sir Richard placed his ringed fingers upon her scalloped sleeves. They were warm and slightly given to fat, though the moment was so fleeting Daisy may have been doing him an injustice.

“Sir! I am fine, I thank you.”

“Nonsense, Miss Chartley You look faint. Come, we shall take a stroll on this balcony whilst the others fight over your fair charms. The air shall do you good.” Sir Richard seemed to feel it was
more
than the air that would do her good, for he took the liberty of slipping his arm about her waist. Daisy was indignant.

“Sir!”

Sir Richard removed his arm huffily. “How quaint, Miss Chartley! You should go out a little more. I believe
most
young society misses are not so coy.”

“Then court them, instead, Sir Richard. I believe I make poor company. My head aches.” Daisy amazed herself at her waspishness. Fortunately—or unfortunately, as the case happened to be—the good Sir Richard did not, apparently, feel its sting.

“All the more reason to stay out on this balcony. It is very close within.”

“And close without.” Daisy grew bold. Surely he could
not
ignore this pointed rudeness?

But he did. The sky was darkening to purple before Mrs. Bartlett marched in and ordered—yes, ordered—the visitors out. One look at Daisy’s pained expression was enough to set the housekeeper on her mettle. With a few sharp words that were interspersed with “chaperone” and “unsuitable” and “not wishing to offend” and the like, the rabble—including, even, the reluctant Sir Richard Bridgewater—had called up their horses and chaises and hackney coaches. Some half hour later, they were all gone.

“You are a godsend, Mrs. Bartlett!”

“Now don’t go talking fustian, Miss Daisy! It is off to bed with you, with a hot posset. You look peaky”

Daisy eyed herself in the cheval glass. It was true that she was pale, and her glorious guinea gold locks seemed to make her features appear whiter, even, than they truly were. She sighed. If Armand came . . .

If? What was this if? She did not doubt that he would come, and that right quickly, if the first star was anything to go by. Suddenly, her blue eyes regained their sparkle and a little color crept into her cheeks, though Mrs. Bartlett still eyed her frowningly.

“You are a dear, Barty! I won’t be needing a hot posset, for I feel better already! Now please,
please
help me to select something wonderful to wear!”

“Your shift and a nightgown, young lady!”

Daisy giggled.

“And what is so funny, might I ask?”

But Daisy could not very well tell Mrs. Bartlett—who had known her since leading strings—that Armand had rather lasciviously suggested the very same. Doubtless, though, he had not had Mrs. Bartlett’s severe starched linens in mind.

So she shook her head meekly and promised “to be a good girl and run along.” Which she did, astonishing her maid by pulling out half her wardrobe and rifling through a dozen kid gloves, muffs, bonnets, and shawls until the poor girl thought her demented.

When Daisy finally mumbled that she was “to meet a gentleman—but hush,” little Annie’s curiosity was more than satisfied. Indeed, she set herself to expertly selecting out a satin court gown—never worn—with a band of azure silk across the bust line. The color exactly matched Daisy’s favorite draped undertunic, which was held in place, as usual, by crisscrossed ribbon bands. The open overdress that flowed into a deep sapphire silk was pinned closed across the hip by Grandfather Raven’s fifteenth birthday gift to her—a jewelled brooch encrusted, modestly, with pearls. Hem and cuffs were of embroidered azure satin and sparkled as she moved. Daisy—dream Daisy—had never looked better. Annie wished to set her hair high up in a chignon, but Daisy, on a sudden, intuitive whim, shook her head. Thus it was that her glorious bright hair was allowed to tumble, unpinned, across her shoulders and down a dainty, perfectly straight back. It did not escape entirely, however, for it was subjected to a hundred strokes at least of a very demanding brush, so that when Daisy was done, it gleamed like sunshine, or like the purest of spun gold. The room had long since been lighted by wax tapers, and only the moon now shone through the drawn curtains.

Daisy startled. It was late, then! Past sunset, certainly. She could not remember when she had last heard the hall clock chime. She dismissed Annie with a pleasant “thank you,” then waited for the door to click before diving behind the damask drapes and opening her long French window. It creaked as she peered out into the darkness. There was no sign of a rider or even a horse. She sighed, wondering if she was truly even more foolish than Lily. Fancy being so puffed up in her own consequence that she could think that a man like Armand . . .

But wait! There was a commotion below stairs, she could swear it. She strained her ears to listen but could hear no more than a whisper of deep voices. Sir Richard Bridgewater again? Perhaps he had left his silver-headed walking stick, or else his ridiculous beaver topper and fur-lined gloves. She would not risk going down and encountering him again. If she strained her ears, she could hear footsteps up to the gallery level. And more, beyond. Surely he would not be so presumptuous as to enter into the residential wing? But then, the Raven’s Ransom addled
everyone’s
wits.

Sir Rory Aldershot was a prime example. Daisy wondered whether she should lock her chamber. Perhaps she was being missish but with her sisters away . . . She heard a door slam. Grandfather
Raven’s
door, unless it was one of the sundry linen cupboards that lined that wing. Dared she peek? She wondered. For a moment, she was entirely at a loss, for she longed to know what was happening, yet was terrified to leave the window, lest she miss Armand’s clandestine arrival. In the event, her curiosity got the better of her, for far from locking her door, she opened it a crack. A flicker of light warned her that Grandfather Raven’s door was in truth ajar. She waited, a little, at sixes and sevens, not knowing whether to follow her instincts and investigate, or wait, as she had planned, for her handsome, oh-so
breathtakingly
wonderful cutpurse. No, she could never think of Armand as that . . .

She smiled and moved closer to the window, her decision unconsciously made. In the candlelight her ears flashed with the diamond drops she had fastened on, and her hair was a wave of pure, luxurious gold. She was aware of none of these things as she gazed with longing at the blackness outside.
More
than Venus and the first evening stars were out, now. There was an abundance of flickering points of light and the sky had changed, again, from purple to a velvety black. The moon was a gibbous—half crescent, half full. She shivered, wondering how far below there—if at all—stood a rider and his mare. She did not know how long she stood at the window, for her heart was filled with a deep yearning. Strange, tumbling emotions seized at her and held her entirely in their thrall. Some were deliciously pleasant, others more deeply poignant whilst others yet, seized at her very being and whispered of matters she had yet to learn the sense of. Her mouth parted, slightly, and she felt the azure ribbons tighten against her soft, untried breasts. Strange how her heart was beating! As if she could feel his presence in this very room . . . she whirled around and startled at the shadow cast upon her door frame. It was more ajar, now, than it had been. That was her last thought before being embraced, quite scandalously, in her own bedchamber.

It was Armand who cast her from him, gently, with a teasing smile on his wide, sensuous lips and an unconscionable grin that caused her to pout prodigiously and announce that he would be well served if she called out an alarm.

At which he only laughed, his teeth gleaming white in the half light.

“Did you doubt I would come?”

“No!”

“Not even a little?”

Daisy dropped her eyes.

“Oh! A little, then, you fickle maid!”

“It is past sunset!” There was a tiny reproach in her tone.

“If you have been decked out in all this finery since
then,
my little dove, I can understand your annoyance. By the by, you look . . .” He gazed at her assessingly.

“Bridal?”

He grinned. “There is that, but no. You look . . . you are going to think me
appallingly
unimaginative but the only adjective that rises to my tongue-tied palate is ... beautiful.”

Daisy laughed. “I can live with that.”

“Can you? How about breathtaking?”

“That, too.”

“Good, for I would hate to be tedious. And now, my love, I am going to disappoint you vastly, I fear.”

Since his words rang with a lazy confidence that set Daisy to shivering quite deliciously, she did not pay too much attention to the content of his words.

“Vastly?”

“Vastly” He nodded with decision then whisked her off her feet, so she must needs throw her arms about his neck to steady herself. She giggled, then put a guilty hand to her mouth. She must be quiet, lest Grandfather Raven or any of the house staff hear her.

“I cannot elope with you this night.”

Daisy’s eyes fluttered open. They had closed the minute his lips had brushed across her brow.

“No?”

“No.”

She swallowed. “Then put me down, sir, for you have taken a great liberty with my person.”

Lord Valmont felt her back straighten against his palm. He laughed. “Oh, ye, of little faith! You doubt me still! We cannot elope, my dear, for Lord Raven greatly desires to be of the wedding party. Insists, in fact.”

Daisy looked wondering.

“You are pleased to tease!”

“Indeed, I always am! But this time, my dearest Daisy, dream Daisy, I speak only the truth. If you step down the corridor, you will find his chamber bursting with people.”

“You speak in riddles.”

Lord Valmont laughed. “Then let me be plain, Daisy dearest. In order of precedence, the Marquis and Marchioness of Rochester, the Earl of Raven, the Viscount and Viscountess of Barrymore, and the most reverend Archbishop of Westenbury, all await your pleasure.”

Daisy frowned. “Now you are
certainly
making no sense! ”

“Then come with me and allow light to dawn!”

And Daisy, being a sweet and timid young thing, took Lord Valmont’s gloved hand in her own, satin-clad one, and finally—finally—obeyed.

 

 

“Ha!” Lord Raven was in his element. “What took you so long?”

He glared at Daisy, but the gleam of amusement was unmistakable.

“Fie, sir, that you should ask such a question!” Three lords protested in unison whilst two sisters—even proper Primrose—chuckled merrily.

Daisy blushed a deep crimson and looked likely to answer, but Lord Valmont stopped her with an imperious sweep of his lordly hand.