The Indian Maiden (14 page)

But now her hostess appeared to be just as distressed as she herself was. “You, and the earl, outside?” she asked weakly, one hand going to her heart so rapidly that the pen she still clutched in it left black tracks upon the breast of her pristine white morning dress.

“Oh damnation,” Faith wailed, “you didn’t know.”

The two overwrought young ladies stared at each other.

“You and the earl?” Lady Mary asked again, shocked.

“Me and my rash tongue,” Faith muttered miserably.

Then the two, in silence, eyed each other’s reactions. Then they began tremulously to smile at each other, and then to laugh, and then they fell upon each other’s necks laughing in outright, if somewhat overwrought, fashion.

“I didn’t want his advances,” Faith said at length, drawing back, and looking at Lady Mary with evident sincerity, “and I didn’t mean to make a fool of myself with the other gentlemen either. I do know better, good breeding and good manners are the same, I think, on both sides of the ocean. It was only that, ah, I don’t really know,” she lied unintentionally to herself and to her new friend, blinding herself to how her reaction to her host had influenced her every action that night, “but it was badly done of me, and I’ll never do it again, and not just to save my reputation, but because I don’t like being fuddled with wine any more than I enjoy making a spectacle of myself, I promise you.”

“I’m quite sure that the earl will do the right thing,” Lady Mary said staunchly.

When Faith looked at her curiously, she went on quietly, “He’ll doubtless offer for you if he compromised you, he is a gentleman.”

“Oh I hope not,” Faith gasped, “no, not that he’s not a gentleman,” she laughed nervously, “but that he doesn’t think he has to offer, for he doesn’t. Nobody knows, nobody saw, it was only a kiss.” As her companion took in a quick breath, Faith added hurriedly, “And I didn’t like it in the least, and I’m sure he didn’t either. He’ll put it down to the punch and the moonlight, and if he doesn’t, be sure I shall.”

“But he’s very witty, and so very well read, and handsome in an unusual way. You could do far worse,” Lady Mary said, but she turned her head as she said it, so, Faith thought, her guest should not see her lack of enthusiasm for what she felt she ought to say.

“I’m sure he’s all those things,” Faith insisted, “but nonetheless, he’s not for me.”

“But your grandfather, I’m sure, would welcome just such a match,” Lady Mary persisted before Faith cut her off by saying forcefully, and at once, “But Mary, Grandfather would not be marrying him, now would he? And so much as I love him, Grandfather that is,—see how even the subject of wedlock with the earl scatters my wits so that I can’t even express myself?—but so much as I love Grandfather, as I said, I cannot sacrifice my life to him, nor would he, I think, expect me to do so. He is my relative, and not some demanding pagan god,” she said with a nervous little laugh.

“After all, Mary,” she continued reasonably, “no matter what a catch Grandfather thinks him to be, when the minister departs and the wedding guests have drunk their fill and staggered off to their own comfortable beds, and all the envious relatives have exited, sighing, it would only be myself who would have that night and all the other nights of my life left to live with the lucky fellow I wed. Only me, alone. And so I think it’s only myself who has the right to choose the fellow, don’t you?”

This was so contrary to everything that Lady Mary had ever been taught about love and marriage that she could not frame an immediate reply. For all it came from the innocent lips of her young friend, it was almost, she thought dazedly, like die devil himself quoting scripture, and just as seductive and tempting an insidious notion as that scaly fellow could be expected to broach as well.

“At any rate,” Faith sighed, “I’m grateful that you’re giving this party for my birthday. And not just because I need cheering up now that I’m about to achieve the great age of one and twenty, still unwed. But because at least this way I’ll have a chance to right my wrongs. Just because I don’t fancy a fancy gentleman for my wedded husband,” she explained on a grin, as much to herself as to Lady Mary, “it doesn’t follow that I ought disgrace myself and my entire country does it? So let’s plan your red, white, and blue party for me, your Yankee Doodle lady, and I’ll promise you I’ll be such a proper young miss at it that I’ll make everyone think we’re the most boring nation on earth.”

“Oh no,” Lady Mary sighed, her eyes wide with admiration for her spirited, fiery friend. “Whatever else they might think, Faith, I promise you, it will never be that.”

“Now that would please Will if he heard it,” Faith laughed happily, and as Lady Mary ducked her head at that, Faith smiled to herself before she sat and began to debate the order of refreshments. Yes, she thought, on a grin that had nothing to do with lobster patties, that would please Will very much indeed.

As it turned out, Faith had even more good reason to be glad for the forthcoming party. Since it was to be given a week to the night after her personal disaster at the festivities at Lord Deal’s house, and as it was to be a party with an American theme, she insisted on helping Lady Mary with every detail and there was no way she could be denied, since, as she claimed, she was clearly the resident expert. Thus, she had very little time to spare for any of the other company at Marchbanks that week.

She saw the earl at dinnertimes, of course, there was no eluding that. She could, and did, plead weariness each night after that meal in order to make an early retreat to her rooms. But had she announced any infirmity that might keep her from communal dining, not only would she have been dosed by her solicitous hosts, she’d be forced to give up her part in planning the forthcoming party. Faith weighed the disadvantages of her present situation against the possible drawbacks which might arise if she avoided the company entirely, and found herself willing to swallow some of her pride along with her dinner opposite the earl each night. There was, after all, only so much that could politely be spoken at a crowded dining room table, and whatever that might be, it would surely never be an offer.

Thus, while Faith thought that the earl looked each night as though he dined on canaries rather than mutton, he only whispered jests and gossip into her apprehensive ears. She was relieved that he was clearly vastly amused, rather than insulted, by her sudden shyness and reticence in his presence. She supposed he’d taken her rejection in the proper spirit, but then he was known to be a sophisticated gentleman, and, she imagined, found an insignificant foreign miss’s distaste for his passionate embraces about as important as he’d discovered those same embraces to have been. Which was to say, she decided, if his reactions had been anything like her own, that he’d found the incident to be almost as pleasant as finding half a worm in one’s
half eaten
apple. She was only grateful that it seemed not to have affected his pleasure in her company as a dinner partner, at least.

She managed to avoid the other gentlemen even more completely, but since she was making her presence a rare sight to the ladies as well, they none of them could take her absence at their entertainments each evening as a personal affront. Instead, they were all heard to say at various times, and with various underlying meanings, that they could scarcely wait until Saturday night, for it was clear that this birthday party of Miss Hamilton’s promised to be the capstone of their stay at Marchbanks.

No one scolded Faith for her total involvement in the coming party except for Lady Mary, who complained now and again that her friend ought not to work so hard for her own celebration. It was, she said with concern, not fitting that the recipient of honors should have to slave so hard for them. Still, her mama was pleased that the unpredictable chit was no longer under foot, and even Will, while displeased that he could not so frequently see Lady Mary, was more than happy with things as they stood, though he would rather have died ablaze at a stake than admit to being so much of a mind with the duchess. But then, in all honesty, he was more concerned with matters having to do with the unpredictable chit’s open mouth than he was with anything to do with feet.

So Faith involved herself with gardener and housekeeper and butler, coordinating and planning as well as ruling on all matters American, although she had never given such a party before and by the end of the week had decided never to do so again. For no, she’d told the musicians, reels and squares were well enough, but Americans also waltzed, and yes, she’d informed the housekeeper for the fourth time, Americans did use cutlery as well as knives when they sat down to eat, and napery as well, and, she explained to cook with great patience, their food was comprised of more than pumpkins.

With all her tribulations, she also realized glumly that all of them, from lowest maid to highest guest, itinerant musician to resident staff, believed her to be laboring, like an ancient pharaoh, only for her own greater glory. Not one of them suspected that it was only that she’d have gladly flung herself headfirst into any project in order to avoid, as well as to avoid thinking about, all those she’d so soundly embarrassed herself among: her hosts, the company, and the earl. And most particularly, of course, Lord Deal. Although now, from the safe vantage point of a week’s time passed, she could begin to vaguely understand that in his case it was not so much that she’d embarrassed herself before him as it was that his mere presence had the uncanny power to embarrass her.

Thus it was with extremely mixed feelings that she went to meet him when she was told he’d come to call upon her the afternoon of her party. Doubtless the duchess would have come running to the small salon as well, not so much to play chaperone as to ensure that not a word passed between them escaped her. But that lady was off on a visit this afternoon assuring herself as to the perfection of the ensemble she planned to wear for the gala tonight by passing judgment on her old friend Lady Moore’s outfit for the evening. Lady Mary hung back with the housekeeper and waved Faith on, telling her she’d continue to see to the floral arrangements. And so Faith had to face the gentleman alone.

That wasn’t why she hesitated before entering the room where he awaited her. It wasn’t any proprieties that she feared she’d overset by meeting with him alone. Even as she turned the knob in her suddenly cold fingers, she became aware that it was her own equanimity she didn’t wish to upset. But nevertheless, she didn’t hesitate to enter, because though in some strange fashion he always alarmed her, he never failed to be the person she found herself enjoying conversation with the most since she’d arrived in his country. There had been, despite her trepidations, many innocent chats shared when she’d been at his house, even after that disastrous ball. All of them always, of course, in a room filled with people, always, of course, on innocuous subjects, but just the same always fascinating and enlivening as well.

And too, though she hadn’t laid eyes on him for a week, it seemed she often thought of him in the night. Then she discovered herself, all unbidden and unplanned, suddenly envisioning him, both face and form, where he didn’t belong. For she often saw him right along with the omnipresent pictures of floral arrangements and table plans that seemed to have branded themselves on her brain so that they came to her as patterns printed on the underside of her lids when she closed them to sleep, as such things tend to do after so much long and concentrated study of them.

It was curious how it was the small things she most often recalled in those unguarded flashes of recognition, minute details of his vivid face she scarcely remembered noting were those that most frequently sprang to her mind. It was not so much his white-toothed smile she envisioned, for example, as it was the three arced parallel lines that etched themselves in his lean bronzed cheek just to the left side of his mouth whenever he smiled at her. Nor was it so much any picture of his tall athletic person she often found herself imagining, but rather the long, strong shapely hands that mutely spoke so eloquently of the rest of his graceful form. Then always, she would force herself to other thoughts, even to longing for home, since those reveries, although far more painful, were somehow less disturbing than those odd, unsought images of him were.

Now, as she entered the room, she noticed the differences between the real and imagined man very much as an artist might, seeing that the shaggy, sun-burnished locks had been trimmed back a bit, and the tanned vital visage was just perhaps a shade more golden, as was the hand that took her own. She fought back the strange joy she felt at his action by forcing herself to note, prosaically, that it was only natural that this should be so, for he passed so much time out of doors and it was high summer now.

He gave her no reminder of her past folly. There was no censure in his admiring glance, no undercurrent of malice in his voice, as he said, with a smile to grace his graceful bow, “I’ve come to bid you the happiest of birthdays, Miss Hamilton, and to present you with a little token of my esteem for the occasion, because since I’m not a guest at Marchbanks, I couldn’t give it to you this morning when you awoke, and didn’t wish to hand it to you in all the confusion tonight.”

Faith accepted the slim parcel he handed her, along with a sudden realization of a quandary, for she was wondering whether she ought to tell him that so far no one had given her so much as a bit of rat cheese for her birthday, even as she just as suddenly recalled she hadn’t expected to receive any presents either.

Since she said nothing in that moment, but only held the parcel limply and looked back at him, amazed, he went on pleasantly, “Perhaps you think it’s odd in me to rush my fences, but there’s nothing so belittling to a fellow’s taste as to have his gift admired in the midst of evidence of everyone else’s better taste and better-thought-out tributes, and I suspect, nothing more difficult for a lady than to have to feign
ecstasy
at each and every one she dutifully unwraps. For both our sakes, I’ve brought mine to you now, so that you can open it in private. It is rather private in here, isn’t it?” he observed, looking about the otherwise empty room.