Red Jack's Daughter (6 page)

“Inelegantly put,” Lady Grantham declared, making a displeased face at her nephew, “but true, we were desperate.
Don’t sneer, Alex, it puts years on you. I suppose you could have come up with a better scheme?”

“I do. And I have,” Lord Leith said, rising to his feet. “Now you must go abovestairs and have a nap or a fainting spell, or whatever it is you have to when you wish to escape company, and send the young woman to me. I think I know just the thing to put things right. At least temporarily. You hesitate. Don’t you trust me alone in a room with your tempting little visitor?”

“I shouldn’t trust you alone with a young female anywhere on the face of this earth,” Lady Grantham declared fervently. “But in this case I should feel no qualms at leaving her alone with you in your bath. It’s not your seducing her I fear, it’s the likelihood of your slaying her. You do have the family temper and she is enough to try the patience of a saint.”

“Which I am,” her nephew replied, easing the tension in her aspect and causing his aunt to laugh merrily as she rose to pat his cheek.

“Do you remember that, Saint Alex,” she cautioned as she swept from the room, her spirits much restored.

Lord Leith wandered about the salon as he waited. He gazed out the window, picked up a figurine, and idly flipped through pages of a volume of poetry that lay upon the table. After several moments he heard the door open. The new arrival entered and stood staring at him as though he carried a writ for her immediate arrest in his hands. He bowed and then smiled at her to put her at ease.

She was, he thought as he took the time to study her in the clear light of day, a very small parcel to have caused such a large hubbub. Not diminutive, he amended, for she was of average height, but there was that about her which suggested vulnerability. Her face, he noted with surprise, was not at all bad. She was, of course, nothing in the style of the females that were the highest style of the day. Those fortunate ladies were imposing creatures, bold, deep-bosomed females with long straight noses, full lips, and great slumberous eyes. This nose was
an
insignific
a
nt member, nothing to take seriously at all. The mouth was not voluptuous, only dusky-rose and well-shaped, and the complexion at least milky-white. It was the eyes, beneath the winged uptilted brows, that were the finest feature. For they were large, well-spaced, and of a rich brown that held a hint of fox color in their depths. On the whole, it was a light-boned delicate countenance.

Of the form and hair, Lord Leith was forced to suspend judgment. For the one was concealed very effectively beneath a shapeless lavender garment and the other was pulled back and hidden under some large hideous lace concoction. He thought he detected an echoing fox pelt gleam beneath the cap, but before he could refine longer upon her hair, or rather
the
curious absence of it, the face he had been surveying took on a mutinous expression and the mouth opened to speak.

“Lord Leith,” she said in a foggy but sure voice, “Lady Grantham told me you wished conversation with me, but before you say a word, I beg you accept my apologies. I did not mean to seem discourteous last night and can only plead the lateness of the hour and my own lack of tact. It was not my intention to snub you, please believe that to be the truth.”

It was a valorous little speech, the gentleman thought, just what one would expect of any well-brought-up young man. Since its execution dovetailed so neatly with what he had been thinking, Lord Leith smiled again and put up his hand to forestall any further comment.

“Miss Eastwood, please say no more,” he said with such sincerity that any close acquaintance of his would have looked at him sharply, “for it is I who should be apologizing to you. I never have understood,” he said smoothly, “why it is that Society places the burden of being eternally obliging upon females alone. For if a fellow doesn’t wish to dance, he has merely to refrain from asking anyone to stand up with him and he is safe. Whereas a lady has to think of a dozen plausible excuses if she does not care to. Then, if a gentleman is refused, he thinks himself ill-used, unless the poor lady has a splint upon her leg, yet if she is not asked to dance, it is felt that in some curious way she has failed. So you see, I do understand and you must allow me to beg your pardon for being churlish enough to leave immediately upon your refusal.”

Miss Eastwood looked up at him with a look of deep, albeit
start
led, gratification.

He went on lightly, “In my case, it was the heat and a fit of ill-temper which had nothing to do at all with your response. Accept my apologies, then, for I fear I gave you and my aunt the wrong impression.”

Miss Eastwood hesitated, for it had not been her aim to
a
ccept his apology; rather, she had come to make amends to him. But since he stood there patiently awaiting her reply, she smiled up at him and then put out her hand. “Done,” she
sa
id
simply. After a moment’s surprised pause, the gentleman took her hand in his large clasp and they shook hands solemnly.

Lord Leith averted his head for a moment, as though looking for a place to sit, and when he turned back to her, there was not a vestige of a smile remaining on his lips. He asked her straightly enough if she cared to sit and chat awhile, and Miss Eastwood graciously settled herself in a chair opposite him.

They spoke for a while about London and then idly pursued the list of places the gentleman considered vital for a visitor to London to inspect. It was only when he touched upon the subject of the duration of her stay that she interrupted the easy, inconsequential flow of chatter.

“I don’t know,” she said with a worried frown beginning to mar her white forehead, “for I’ve only come to see my father’s solicitor and collect the legacy he wrote to me about. But now the fellow says that he has to make further inquiries and pursue several leads in his investigation. It begins to appear, he says, that my father left that which he wished to leave to me with friends somewhere upon the continent. Well,” she said defensively, although Lord Leith had not uttered a word of censure, “it does stand to reason, since he spent so much of his life in foreign parts, that whatever it was that he put aside for me would not be here in London. But the worrisome thing is that he doesn’t know how long it will take to locate this friend, or friends. The whole of Europe is in such upheaval, you know, since Boney’s been shackled on Elba. It makes no sense for me to go haring back to Yorkshire when I might get a note asking me to return at
any moment. And I cannot say that my presence here is mak
ing
anyone comfortable.

“You needn’t deny it,” she said quickly as he began to speak. “I’m not like London misses, you see. I’m a sad disappointment to old Ollie—that is, Sir Selby—and I know I’m driving your aunt to distraction,” she added.

“I won’t attempt to deny it,” Lord Leith replied as her eyes flew wide. “You are.
”
“But,” he said, rising and pacing as he spoke, as though he were speaking to himself, “it would be a bad idea to fly off home, as you said. It would cause Ollie to feel he had failed you if you took up residence in a hotel, as I hear you had planned to do. For both Ollie and my dear aunt are conventional souls, and it is decidedly not conventional for a young female to stay in lodgings when she has either family or friends in town. It is their conventionality that is the clue,” he mused aloud.

“I cannot pretend to be what their conventional souls expect of me,” Miss Eastwood cried in agitation. “Indeed, I can’t understand it either. Perhaps I can in your aunt, but Ollie’s known me since I was in leading strings and he never disapproved of me before.”

“
Yorkshire is
n
ot London,” Lord Leith said softly, “and you were never grown up before. You are all of nineteen years now, aren’t you?”

“Next month,” Miss Eastwood said glumly.

“Ah, well, and I expect that Ollie’s grown very staid now that he’s a titled
gentleman,” Lord Leith commented.

“Indeed not,” she defended quickly. “He’s still the best of fellows and I am sorry to trouble him so.”

“As I am,” Lord Leith said, standing over her and looking down solemnly, “Because he’s a dear friend of mine as well. And when he’s upset, so is my aunt. So I’m going to poke my nose in where you may feel I should not. But I’d like to offer some advice.”

“Please do,” Miss Eastwood said, looking up at him anxiously.

The tall gentleman hesitated, then seemed to come to a decision. He pulled a chair up beside the young woman and spoke to her in confidential tones.

“I think the best course for you would be to capitulate.
No, don’t grow angry. I don’t mean that you must change yourself or your ideals. But much of what they object to is only surface anyway. For neither of them has spoken ill of your manners, or your speech, or even your future plans, have
t
hey? I thought not. But they are two old dears, and have grown, as I said, very conventional. All you have to do is seem to comply with their wishes. There is nothing deceitful in that, either to them or to yourself.”

He gazed into her eyes and went on, “While you await word of your legacy it can do no harm to put on a few of the rocks my aunt thinks suitable, can it? And how can it harm you to attend a few parties, stand up with a few gentlemen,
a
nd seem to enjoy the diversions that they urge you to? It would be only sound tactics. I’m sure your father told you what good fighters the Red Indians were. It was their prac
t
ice to blend in with their surroundings, to appear to be one with the forest they sprang from. Our poor chaps stood out a mile in their scarlet and were thus easy targets. All you need do, Miss Eastwood, is to put off your scarlet coat, so to speak, and blend in with this London you find yourself in. It
can
not change you and it can only please two people who care very much for your welfare.
”

Lord Leith finished speaking and watched Miss Eastwood carefully. She seemed much struck by his words, and when she looked up at him again, she was pink-cheeked and contrite.

“How very foolish of me not to have thought of it. You are right, my Lord. And I have been quite blind. It is an excellent suggestion. For it wouldn’t be for long and it wouldn’t he actually deceptive, as you say. Father often said that the best-cut uniform does not make the best sort of fighting, man. And while gowns won’t make me what they truly wish me to be, at least it will set their minds at ease. Thank you, my Lord, for some really excellent advice.”

“If you like, I’ll give you even more,” he said, rising as she did. “I’ll accompany you to the dressmakers and donate my opinions as to the suitability of the garments. Aunt is rather antique in her opinions on the matter of many things, and we want you to do her proud.”

“It would be very good of you,” she said as he took her hand.

“And very good for you as well,” he declared, sensing her
unease and shaking her hand once again, instead of raising it to his lips as he had planned. “Agreed, Miss Eastwood?” he asked.

“Agreed, my Lord,” she answered, almost gaily, withdrawing her hand quickly and thinking him the first really helpful fellow she had encountered since she had arrived in London. “And as we are on such good terms, you should really call me Jess, as all my friends do.”

“Jess?” he said thoughtfully. “Yes, much better than Miss Eastwood, but I think for our purpose I shall call you Jessica. That will ring much sweeter to conventional ears.”

“Yes, my Lord,” she answered promptly.

“Yes, Alex.” He smiled.

She looked up at the tall straight figure before her and noticed the broad shoulders, the well-shaped head with its aristocratic features softened by careless curling brown hair. An excellent fellow, she thought, who would have made a fine soldier—officer material, in fact.

Gazing down at her piquant face, he thought whimsically that she would have been far better suited if he had offered to buy her a set of colors, rather than a ball
gown. Resisting an impulse to clap her on the shoulder as he would any agreeable young man he had just come to terms with, he instead rang for a footman to roust up his aunt so that they could be off to the dressmakers. It would be, he thought momentarily, an amusing expedition, a vastly amusing diversion, this getting an officer and a gentleman into proper petticoats.

4

L
a
dy Grantham, a lady noted for her voluble speech, never
theless
sat quietly as a clam as the coach drove through l.ondon. Instead of voicing her firm opinions on all that transpired before her, as was her usual wont, she instead listened
to
her two companion’s animated conversation and kept just
as
still and unobtrusive as did her lady’s maid. For her nephew was a wonder, she thought gleefully, noting how he had her difficult guest entranced by his words. The boy must have
learned
a thing or two from the snake cha
r
mers he had told her he encountered while he was in India, she thought contentedly.

For here they sat, on the way to a fashionable modiste, the very place where she had urged the chit to go for these past weeks; and here the girl sat, complacent and biddable, as
t
hough mesmerized by his speech. True, Lady Grantham thought fairly, the girl was doing a great deal of talking as well in response to him, but there was never a refusal, not even one little peep of protest, even though every inch brought them closer to the very place she had formerly refused to even contemplate entering.

Their conversation had to do with naught but politics and horses—which was highly irregular, of course—but for the moment, the girl was agreeable and that was enough.