The Indian Maiden (16 page)

“But no,” he said, shaking his head, “surely you don’t believe she was ever that? She loved the fellow, though perhaps she shouldn’t have, for a number of excellent reasons. He’d never have been able to court her honestly, nor ever had the slightest chance of winning her legally, and he’d wed another because he’d known it, besides. She may well have been weak. But ‘unseemly passions,’ Faith? What is a ‘seemly’ passion?”

“Why, I don’t believe there are any.” She laughed, and was puzzled when he did not laugh along with her.

“Well,” she said nervously, rising and shaking out her skirts, “now may I see what present you’ve brought me? Although you’ve eased my mind so much about that other wretched one, I think that alone is present enough for me.

But he did not rise to her remark, instead he raised himself from where he’d been leaning, watching her, and came to stand in front of her. He seemed very tall now, she thought anxiously, for he looked down at her from what appeared to be a great distance and for once there was no laughter in the clear eyes, and his face was unnaturally somber.

“Faith,” he breathed so softly that she thought she’d never heard her name spoken so much like a sigh, “do you think passion itself unseemly? It isn’t, you know.”

And then very gently, very carefully, and with great tenderness, he bent his head and kissed her lightly on the lips. She stood absolutely still, and when he’d lifted his mouth from hers, she opened her eyes to find him looking at her strangely. He seemed more perturbed than impassioned as he said softly, curiously, “You lock your lips against me when I touch them, does that mean you withhold yourself from me as well? It’s only a little thing, a kiss. Are your lips so cold because you disapprove of me, or of my actions?”

There was nothing of the ardor she dreaded in his voice, and he didn’t seem as if he were about to touch her again either. Still, she was taken aback. Never before had any man asked her about her reaction to his kiss, not even after she’d bolted and run away from them. If anything, they’d always signified they disliked the lack of kisses from her, rather than finding a lack within her kiss. But she’d never discussed such things with any man, not even with Will. All they had done together was to laugh when the embrace ended. Now all she could say in her great astonishment at his question was, “No, I like you very well. Really.” “Ah well then,” he said with a smile, “we’ll put it down to surprise. And try again.”

But this time he didn’t so much as brush his mouth against her lips as she stood frozen in surprise, for when he came close enough to do so, he drew back and said chidingly, “Faith, now what sort of new American craze is this? Kissing with the lips closed? I can’t think that it will become the rage here.”

She drew breath to argue his mistaken impudence, and as she opened her lips to tell him of it, he chuckled and then even as he breathed, “Yes, just so,” he kissed her again. His mouth was warm and extraordinarily sweet against her own, and she discovered herself leaning in toward him, relaxing in his arms as they held her with gentle comfort. Yet even as she felt herself stirring, she felt the familiar thrill of blind terror arising along with the excitement he began to make her experience. But thankfully, before it could overwhelm her, he drew back and looked at her again with something more than desire and less than passion in his searching gaze.

“Ah yes,” he said, and she thought his voice was a bit uneven, although his face had become unreadable. But in the next second there was no trace of anything but amusement as he said, “You’re right, it’s bad enough they send you feathers, but if I continue and someone spies us, they’ll be sending you little caps with Viking’s horns sewn on to tease you with. I only closed the door,” he said as he left her and went to open it wide again, “so that not even a servant could get a glimpse of that vile jest they presented you with. I meant it to go into the fire unremarked by human eye as well as tongue. And if you were good enough not to accuse me of closeting us together so that I might begin a seduction, the least I can do is to honor that trust, so much as I’m loathe to.

“But,” he said brightly, taking the large package and placing the slimmer one he’d originally given her atop it, “I think I shall be an Indian giver, after all,” and he paused to smile before he explained, “I find there’s quite a different gift I want you to have tonight. So I must go and see to it. I’ll study this barnyard joke before I consign it to flames, but I doubt I’ll discover more than how badly it’s been put together. Don’t trouble yourself about it. Whoever sent it won’t confess, and there’s little point of suspecting everyone. Let’s think of it as its author or authors doubtless will, as a bad joke spoiled further. I’ll see you this evening—nothing short of violent death will prevent me. Good afternoon, Miss Hamilton,” he then said as went into the hall. He bowed for the oncoming butler’s benefit, before he smiled for hers, and then he left her.

There’s nothing like a party with a theme to bring out the child in all the invited guests. Let a group of people already bored to bits by each other’s company discover themselves asked to the same masquerade and they will inevitably be in uproarious spirits and perfect charity with each other within the first hour of their arrival. This is because all the same old faces and places will have been transformed by masks and costumes and decorations to the point where the guests can deceive themselves into thinking every bit of it new and exciting. It’s the same principle used in the theater, where a length of rippling blue fabric can invoke an ocean, and a few bright spangles and a dash of kohl can create a Cleopatra from the stage manager’s maiden auntie. For there is scarcely a human who does not react to a bit of applied fantasy. And so the guests at Marchbanks entered the ballroom to discover themselves enchanted.

The flowers announced themselves even before the eye could take them all in. Lady Mary and the gardener had worked prodigies. Great vases, huge urns, even enormous cooking vessels had been pressed into service and filled to overflowing with blooms. Where Marchbanks had failed them, the village had met the challenge. A great many bees in the locale might find the next few weeks’ work netted meager pickings, but tonight the ballroom at Marchbanks was transformed into a bower of red, white, and blue blossoms.

The duchess’s wooden trellis, which was dutifully trotted out every season to decorate her every party, had not been neglected either. But this time, it had been swathed in streamers of red, white, and blue fabric and similarly colored blooms had been affixed to its well-worn railings. The punch bowl had been enlivened with cherry and strawberry syrups, a pale lemon ice melted into the center of it, while a few blue blossoms floated on its surface. It might not, as one gentleman sadly noted, have tasted like much, but it was at least a stirring sight.

All the ladies wore frocks that were in keeping with the theme, save for the chaperones and several mamas who never participated in anything but the gossip and eating at such affairs. Lady Mary wore white, with ribbons of red and blue affixed to her hems and sleeves. The perennially Incomparable Miss Merriman was dashing as ever in a flowing blue frock with a vivid scarlet overskirt. The Washburn twins plunged into the spirit of the evening in bold fashion by donning different outfits for once, one of them daring to wear a blue frock and the other, white. But this was unfortunate, since it left an opening for some wags to recall that old scurrilous story, and wonder aloud in whispers and snickers as to whatever had happened to the poor Wash
burn
chit in the red dress.

And Miss Hamilton, the guest of honor, stood in the center of the ballroom to receive her guests in a low-cut blue gown with a narrow panel of white which began just below her high breasts, and then gradually drew further open to disclose more white fabric as it widened to the hem. Lines of small red bows beginning modestly with only two bows in the first row, a few more in the one beneath that, then increased in number as the rows descended in orderly fashion, stretching across the gathered white material as the panel grew wider, clinging to the front of the frock like butterflies alighting. Her long sleeves were slashed open to show more glimpses of white satin held together by tiny red bows. The local dressmaker had earned herself more than commendations for her efforts.

Although Faith might be gratified at how the house had been transformed in her honor, it soon became apparent to her that not all the guests knew precisely why this should be so. Gilbert North congratulated her roundly on her birthday and then told her that he thought it was devilish good and neighborly of her to get herself up in the colors of the Union Jack for the occasion. But when the Earl of Methley unbent from his great height to reassure her by mentioning that the lad could have as easily been insulted by the fact that she and the room were gotten up in the French tricolor, she laughed and agreed that it didn’t matter in the least. The room was lovely, her gown much admired, and try as she might, she could detect no malice in any voice that congratulated her, nor see anything but smiles upon all of the surrounding faces.

Thus it was very natural, she told herself later, that when Lord Deal was announced she should feel her stomach contract with anxiety. And when she watched his graceful figure making its way to her through the crowd, it was only to be expected that she should feel her fingertips grow cold and her heart pick up its errant beat. For, as she convinced herself when she found herself so unexpectedly frightened by his appearance, it was only that the sight of him brought back the nightmare incident of the afternoon. Perhaps it was the artificial glamour of the night that accounted for it, but if it hadn’t been for his presence she wondered if she would have believed the shameful thing to have happened at all. So when he bowed over her hand and looked up into her eyes, Lord Deal found no welcome in those grave gray depths, but only doubt and confusion.

There was to be dancing, there was to be a late dinner given, but all of that, everyone decided, should wait upon Miss Hamilton’s receiving and opening her presents. It was not that anyone expected to see anything very extravagant or unduly impressive given. This was not only because Miss Hamilton was a virtual stranger to most of them. After all, here in the countryside the guests had been cut off from all their favorite shops, and a party given on a mere week’s notice was considered to be impromptu in any event. But there was, as always in such cases, a great deal of curiosity about how creative or foolhardy one’s fellow guests had been, since half the fun of giving gifts at such affairs was in seeing what the other fellow had brought.

But evidently such was not the custom in the Americas, since Miss Hamilton seemed unwilling to open any of her gifts. It wasn’t until Lord Deal suggested making a merry ceremony of it, he reading out the cards, Mr. Rossiter passing the parcels to her, and she then opening them, that she agreed to the plan. And so in due course, the party was enlivened by the appearance of several combs, quantities of ribbons, two pairs of gloves—one short, one long—a few fans, a gilt brooch, a pair of paste buckles, a small scent bottle, three ink wells (for foreign correspondence, the assorted don
o
rs explained), several packages of french soaps (for domestic baths, a wag volunteered), and seven different handkerchiefs, each successive one greeted with a louder groan. There were some more substantial tributes from her closer friends, who’d evidently ranged farther afield in their efforts to please her: a pretty brocade fabric
-
covered lady’s notebook from the earl, a fringed Chinese sunshade with a silver knob from Will Rossiter, a handsome little beetle with golden wings and ruby eyes from the duke and duchess, and an enameled sewing case, all over miniature roses, from Lady Mary.

At the end of the spontaneous gift ceremony, Lord Deal suggested that the musicians strike up. As several of the gentlemen began immediately to edge or elbow their way to the ladies of their choice so that they could have first call on the first dance, one of the guests noted that there were still three unopened gifts on the table that had held them all.

“Here,” Lord Greyville called, snatching one of the large ones up. “What’s the matter with this lot?”

There was a certain grieved note in his demand, since the young gentleman himself had given what he deemed a perfectly nice handkerchief and was still smarting over the way everyone had greeted it with catcalls.

Lord Deal coolly divested him of the package and placing it back upon the table gently said, “Why, these two arrived with no signatures on them, and so not knowing what to announce,
I
simply didn’t announce them. Then too, as it turns out, since everyone’s present is accounted for,
I
didn’t think it necessary.”

While quicker wits groaned at his statement and Lord Deal bowed at their unwilling acclaim, Lord Greyville continued to eye the parcels suspiciously.

“Didn’t see yours anywhere neither,” he muttered.

This was undeniably badly done of Lord Greyville, since it was the height of rudeness to point up another fellow’s omission. But several eyes opened wider at this declaration and a general mumbling followed it, none of it so much in condemnation of the rash statement so much as it was in acknowledgment of the truth of it. Faith, of course, had realized it long before Lord Greyville’s unkind comment, since she’d been looking for the parcel she’d almost opened earlier in the day, and not seeing it, had found herself unable to stop wondering about what it had been replaced with, even as she’d been unmasking all the fans and handkerchiefs.

“
I
had hoped to present this more privately,” Lord Deal sighed as he picked one small box from the table, and several ears almost visibly picked up at the intimate nature of his admission, “if only so that my exquisite taste wouldn’t embarrass everyone else.” As charmed ladies sighed along with Lord Deal, and the wiser gentlemen smiled at the deft way he handled abuse, and still smaller
-
spirited ones grudgingly thought it was only because he’d had to learn to do so, the gentleman presented the box to Miss Hamilton.

He did not read the card aloud this time, but she saw it and read it to herself and didn’t know whether to laugh or weep at it. But he’d said “trust” this afternoon, he’d specifically recommended it, so she slipped the card saying “For our Indian Maiden” into her skirts and, taking one deep breath, brought out his present into the candlelight.

At first, she only saw feathers, and it seemed that her heart and her breath stopped together. But then as she heard the other ladies coo and comment with delight, she saw it was far more than that. It was a stiffened blue silk headband, set at intervals with small light trembling aquamarine, rose, and crystal pendants. And there were indeed three feathers on it, three soft, silky curling plumes, set in ascending height from front to back. The first was dyed in graduated shades of red, and that plume swept back into the second which was purest white, which in turn drifted into the last, of clearest blue. If the band were affixed correctly, the plumes would sit above a lady’s right ear, and seem to grow back into her hairdo in the latest, most fashionable manner.