The Indian Maiden (19 page)

Nor did he seem to have found it either an uncomfortable or stressful afternoon, since he stayed in conversation with the duchess for two long hours, which was longer, in fact, than most gentlemen of her acquaintance could have borne without some visible signs of distress. Yet when the interview was over, and she gave him her hand to bow over, her guest wore almost the identical small pleased smile that his hostess did. For he had promised her he would return the following day, and she had promised him far more.

ELEVEN

It
was the odd
quirked smile that the earl wore that Faith noted first when they were left alone in the room. They’d been at tea, she and Mary settled opposite the earl and the duchess, the two pairs at either side of a small table in the salon, exactly as they’d seated themselves each day this week at teatime when the earl had joined them, which had been every day this week at teatime. But this time, the duchess’s cup had slipped in the middle of a macaroon and the midst of a high point in one of the earl’s bright bits of tattle. She’d immediately risen and sailed off to her rooms to change her stained skirts, with Mary in tow to supervise the procedure.

Faith waited politely for the earl to go on with his story, but he seemed disinclined to continue it once his hostess had left. Which was, Faith supposed, only polite and only proper, but lord, she was weary to death with both polite and proper after this interminable week of behaving in so strict and circumspect a fashion. The duchess had taken charge of her socialization completely since that morning she’d toured the city with Lord Deal and Will. There had been teas and tours and seats at the theater, but always with the earl, and often with the duke, and save for Lady Mary, of course, no one else and no one more youthful.

There were a few good things about her present circumstances, and Faith had consoled herself by reciting them in her head each night as she lay abed, sleepless to the point of pain due to lack of exercise of mind and body. One was that the condition was sure to be transient, since surely, she thought, her hosts would want their daughter to see other gentlemen, even during this thin season in Town. And the other was that due to the present circumstances there was, of course, no way for her to cover herself with
igno
mi
ny
again, since it was almost as impossible to scandalize oneself amid the decrepi
t
dowagers and soundly married middle-aged gentlemen friends of the duke that she consorted with each evening, as it was to ruin her reputation when she was entirely alone in her bath. For at least, as she reasoned glumly, although untoward thoughts and longings might well eventually take one down the road to perdition, one only had to pay the toll if the journey was taken in actuality rather than imagination.

Her imagination had been the most active part of her for all this week, she sighed each night. Lady Mary, oddly enough, did not seem to mind the way they occupied themselves these days, but Faith found that she missed Will enormously, and had to admit that despite all the confusion it caused her, she’d longed for a glimpse of Lord Deal as well. But all she saw of either of them was their calling cards on the butler’s tray each day when she’d returned from yet another lifeless junket.

Lord Deal had asked her why she feared him, and she thought she knew, but the question that kept her startlingly awake each midnight was her own. And that was why, if she feared him or her reactions to him, which she had to admit she did, did she then still wish to see him? It wasn’t only his lively conversation or humor she missed, most peculiarly, she discovered herself missing the threat of him.

As she lay in her darkened bed, unwillingly conjuring up images of his face and form, her skin even tingling at the unsought memory of his touch, for the first time in her life, she began to wonder at whether those few moments of unadulterated pleasure she’d found in his lips weren’t well worth the subsequent feelings of panic she experienced. Perhaps, she’d allow herself to think at last in those irrational dark and private hours when her better judgment slept as she did not, perhaps paying the piper would be worth the dance he’d lead her. These terrifying yet exciting thoughts would, strangely enough, buy her a night’s slumber. Then morning would come, and sane reason would awaken with it. Unfortunately, boredom must have shared the same bed, for it arose with the dawn as well.

Perhaps she was becoming like a child who goes on nightly crusades and battles midnight pirates to enliven a lackluster life, she’d think upon arising each dull dawn. By the clear morning she could see that these new night fantasies were only pillow-bred things, grown between safe, snug coverlets, since they evaporated at first light. Still, during the past week, she sometimes wondered on an interior giggle if it might not be long until she retired at noon, just to have time for all those strange fantasies she dared at last to dream with her eyes wide open. But she was grateful for them; they were rapidly becoming some of the most interesting things in her waking or sleeping life.

The Earl of Methley was one of society’s best known raconteurs, yet Faith never found herself looking forward to their daily meetings as Lady Mary did, though she agreed that they provided the only real patches of enjoyment in their present lives. The lanky earl had been with her each day, and yet never in her thoughts any night. He was charming and clever and very amusing company. Yet even though he’d once embraced her, she felt no danger emanating from him, just as she sensed no warmth either. In fact, she found it difficult to understand why he’d been so constant a visitor of late. If she didn’t know better, she’d think it might be Lady Mary he’d fixed his attentions on, since he was equally as pleasant and attentive a companion to both young women.

Still, she’d been sure to see she’d never found herself alone with him again. It was never his person she feared, it was his words. For though his advances at Stonecrop Hall had been midnight ones, likely spurred on more by bottled spirits than lustful ones, she recalled that he’d begun that first sober afternoon to say things that were a few hundred percent too serious to suit her.

Now at last circumstances had left them alone together again, and as though he read her thoughts, he said, with that same odd smile on his lips, “An unlikely cupid, our duchess, but a competent one. I’ve wanted some time alone with you, Faith, and although I’m not best pleased to have a tea table and plates of cakes as witnesses to my declaration, I’ll not quibble at my good fortune. In short
—
for I don’t believe you wish me to go down upon one knee, do you? I’m far too tall to do the thing with any panache, and don’t want to lose you to a fit of mirth, before I win you—I’d like to tell you that I propose to go to the duke with an offer for you. I assume he’s acting
in loco parentis
? If not, then please give me your grandfather’s direction, for I’m in earnest about this, Faith, I very much wish to marry you.”

“You can’t mean it,” she gasped, coming to her feet as though he’d spilled hot tea instead of cool words over her.

“Is it so sudden?” he asked. “Hardly,” he said, rising as well and stepping around the small table to capture her hand as though he knew she’d flee if he didn’t anchor her in some physical way. “You didn’t imagine I’d conceived of a yearning for the good duchess, did you? You may not have enjoyed our first embrace, but I assure you I don’t cultivate unnatural passions. I certainly wouldn’t have subjected myself to such company for all this while unless I’d been serious about getting to know you better. I did, and I cannot help but feel we will deal very well together.”

It would have been undignified, if not impossible, to drag herself away from the earl, so Faith only said, in what she hoped were casual accents, “But my lord, I’ve told you I don’t wish to wed, though naturally I’m very flattered and appreciative of the honor you do me.”

But he laughed at that and only said, “Oh yes, indeed. Very appreciative, which is why you’ve snapped me up so fast, I suppose. I suppose then too, from your hesitancy, that you’re about to insist that you intend to stay on only a little while longer before you return to New York to begin your career as a merchant?”

He awaited her reply with an ironic grin upon his long face and she knew then, from the mocking way he’d put it, that he’d never understand that that was precisely what she wished to do.

“Look here, Faith,” he said, turning her bodily so that she faced him, and then lifting her chin in his hand so that cool gray eyes met an angry gray gaze directly, “we haven’t much time, I’ll put it bluntly. We could lea
rn
to get on very well together. So far as material matters stand, I’ve no funds at all, as you must know—none. Still, don’t denigrate what I do have to offer you, which are several impressive holdings, including the most precious ones of all—an old respected title and a firm place in society. Although on the face of it, you have far more—youth, beauty, wit, and riches—still, it’s time you faced the truth of it. You’ll not do better, I assure you. Have you, for example, seen this?” he asked, releasing her chin and reaching into his jacket to draw forth some folded papers.

When he began to spread them out, she began to say, angrily, “Oh, no, I’ve seen that—” before she caught her breath as she caught sight of the first one he opened.

The picture showed a Red Indian girl clad in little but weird patterns of paint, with scalps dangling at her waist, labeled variously, “L-rd D-l,” “The E-l of M-thl-y,” “L-rd Gr-yv-le,” and others she did not bother to try to read when her gaze fell upon the second caricature. This one depicted several gentlemen drowning in a pool, and an Indian girl in the act of rescuing them by tossing pound notes and coins to them as lifelines, while two terrified and terrifying plump maidens, obviously the Washburn twins, tried to cower in ludicrously unsuccessful fashion behind a single slim tree. Which explained, Faith thought dazedly, why even those two kind-hearted girls had never attempted to contact her again. And the last showed a foolishly long-limbed, obviously passionate gentleman embracing an unclad Indian girl, and before she dropped her gaze, unable to further study the obscene details that were rife in the illustration, she read the title: “The Earl Attempts (to Tame) a Wild Indian.”

“I understand there were yet others,” the earl said, as he folded the papers again, “but someone was quicker than I, and had already bought them up by the time I got to the shop. I relieved the sellers of all these that were left and made sure that they got my logs to burning brightly this morning before I came here. But my point is that they have been printed, and will continue to be printed, with worse to keep them company, until the situation is altered for good. If you go home, it’s possible they’ll be discontinued,” he said, watching her closely, “but then, I shouldn’t count on the dear duchess not informing your family of their existence anyway. For all her civility, she’s a marplot and a dreadful gossip. While I, of course,” he said, showing his white teeth in a wide smile, “am far superior, for I am a wonderful gossip.”

Faith said nothing as he tucked the papers back in his jacket. Noting that she’d not smiled at his sally, and seeing clearly how feverishly she was thinking, he went on, “Marriage to a respectable gentleman would erase these slurs more quickly and certainly more quietly than any lawsuit would do. But I fear that their very existence has already warned off any respectable gentlemen. And as for Deal,” he said, aware of how she froze at the mention of that name, “he’s been the featured subject of such endeavors often enough in the past, I believe, to paper over the whole of the ballroom at Stonecrop Hall with only the poorer examples. I doubt he’d be delighted at acquiring more, even if he were inclined to be in the least serious about an American female, or indeed, even if he were to seriously entertain the notion of wedlock again. Not that he’s prejudiced—about Americans, that is to say—but I think he’d welcome some serenity in his life. Indeed, I think he deserves some now,” the earl said comfortably, “don’t you?”

“And you?” Faith asked angrily, wanting to lash out at someone for all the distress she felt. “I suppose you don’t mind being the target of such gossip. How kind of you.”

“Not in the least,” he said with evident amusement. “I mind quite a bit, to be sure. But I can weather this, as can you, if we are married.”

“If,” Faith said, holding her head high and giving him a look of blazing contempt, “you have my money to build you a shelter from those inclement weathers, you mean to say.”

As he didn’t answer, but only gazed at her contemplatively, and since as always, she immediately regretted her outburst of temper, she sought words to heal whatever hurt she’d dealt him, and in so doing, tried for honesty. “Ah, it’s not that,” she admitted on a sigh. “And I don’t blame you if it is. I do come from merchant stock, and I do understand the value of money. But my lord, you don’t love me, never pretend I’m your heart’s desire. So it would be foolishness itself to wed me, for I’ll bet there are heaps of girls here in England with more money than I who’d find your title more desirable than I do, since they were bred and raised to instant respect of it.”

“Love?” the earl asked, his thin eyebrows going up. “But I don’t expect to find that in marriage, my dear, and no one of my class does. I wouldn’t insult you by suggesting it. And no one I know,” he said, with the first real hint of emotion he’d shown, though she could not make out just what it was before it was gone again, “gets to wed their heart’s desire. ‘Heart’s desires’ fade, my dear; they change with every beat of those fickle organs. But mutual respect can remain forever. I didn’t know you looked for love in marriage, but I believe we’d do well together, anyway. You might not ‘love’ me precisely right now, but I think,” he said on a smile that grew to something more, something that got her to back up as he came nearer to her, “you oughtn’t to worry. I do believe we can amuse each other very well, and who knows what that can grow to become? And since, as you’ve seen, I’ve already been characterized as your ardent lover, I think it only fair that you let me demonstrate how pleasant that can be for us as well.”

“But that’s just it,” Faith blurted, driven to the wall in actuality as well as imagery now as he advanced upon her. “I don’t like to do such things. I don’t, I never have. Ah,” she hesitated, in her extremity finding the truth and bringing it forth at last, but trimming it to fit the occasion and her need, “you remember what happened when you kissed me the once? Well, it wasn’t you, it’s always been that way for me. I just don’t like lovemaking.”

He became still. He didn’t wish to insult her, and so he could scarcely tell her that he’d never expect a true lady to care for the idea of lovemaking, for she wasn’t a true lady, after all. But she’d mentioned her inability to respond to other gentlemen in the past, and mentioned it with considerable regret. He realized, with a jolt of surprise, that Americans must have very different morals than were expected from well-brought-up females of his own land. Small wonder then that she’d not responded to his cool, tentative, patient courtship. But win her he must, and whatever her morals. He felt he was very close to his goal, whatever her protests, and the duchess had assured him that he was not far wrong. It was only that he now must tread very carefully.

He was neither a stupid nor an uneducated man, and so after a moment, he thought he’d hit upon the answer.

“Of course,” he said smiling as soothing and placating as a draper assuring a valued customer of the excellence of her choice, “but it’s never your fault, either. It’s different in your country than it is for us. It was the puritans who founded the place, wasn’t it? They’d jail a man for complimenting a woman on the sabbath, and drape their females in armor if they could to keep appreciative eyes from her. We’re far more liberal about such natural things as relations between the sexes here.”

“Liberal?” Faith hooted, her amazement conquering her fear, especially since it now seemed that the tall gentleman had no intention of sweeping her up in his arms. “All I’ve heard is ‘proper’ and ‘meet’ and ‘fit’ and ‘acceptable’ and ‘unexceptional’ since I’ve come here! Liberal, indeed,” she scoffed.

“You’ve only seen the duchess’s England,” the earl said smugly, “and that is like seeing the Pope’s Rome. Impressive, but hardly typical. Don’t worry, now that I see the difficulty, I’ll be sure to enlighten you as to the truth of the freedom of our society.”