The Indian Maiden (20 page)

Then, hearing voices in the hall, he grimaced. “So, can we say then, Faith, that we’ve at least reached a tentative understanding?” he asked.

“Oh no,” she gasped, “for I never said yes.”

“But,” he bent to whisper as the duchess entered in a new, dry gown, “you never said no either.” And then, grinning, he greeted the duchess, the Lady Mary, and resumed his merry tale.

“I don’t like it,” Will said, putting down his fork with the slice of beefsteak still impaled on its tines, untasted. “If it’s not by chance, it’s by choice, and I know it’s not chance. We’ve called every day, and they’re never there. And we never run into them at night neither.”

“The duchess travels in circles we circumvent,” Barnabas Stratton said after swallowing a mouthful of wine, and when he realized his young friend was too disgruntled to see humor in his neatly turned phrase, he explained, “We’ve been at the music halls when they go to the Opera, when we frequent the Opera, it’s not a night you’ll find paragons like the Duchess of Marchbanks in attendance. I didn’t think you pined at not being invited to the sort of socials the duchess finds thrilling, but no power on earth would move me to wheedle an invitation to one of the teas or socials she delights in. Well,” he amended, smiling gently at the association that one word instantly brought to his mind, “very few powers on earth, that is to say. But I promise, if we don’t encounter them in a few more days, we’ll beard them in one of their dens of propriety, even if it means I have to grovel and scrape more than a man of my advanced years ought be expected to.”

“Methley’s there, and every day too,” Will grumbled, biting into his beefsteak as though it were the earl and not just his name, who was being grinded up so savagely.

“Methely,” Barnabas said, contemplating a bit of potato, “hasn’t a prayer. She’s amused by him, but only that.”

“Only that?” Will cried, abandoning his beefsteak again. “But he’s got a title and blood as blue as ink, and the duchess lets him run tame in the house.”

“Do you seriously think that any of that will influence Faith in the least?” his host asked casually, smiling more broadly as he saw his guest’s face grow ruddy.

“Not Faith,” Will admitted then, as contrite as a young boy might be, “but I wasn’t thinking of Faith at all. You knew that, didn’t you? I suppose,” he said, a rueful smile replacing the embarrassment on his face, “you think I’m a pretty paltry fellow, forgetting all about Faith and her problems. It doesn’t matter if you deny it,” he sighed, pushing his plate away, “because I accept it’s true. I was charged with looking after her, and all I can do is think of Mary. Of course, Faith won’t care a rap about titles and coats of arms and what all. She’s got a head on her shoulders, and no family pushing her to marry nobility, and she’s older too,” Will said defensively.

“Three long years the Lady Mary’s senior, an ancient in fact, you’re quite right,” Barnabas agreed, and attended to a pickled onion before he asked, ruminatively, “But Will, my lad, if you believe the lady is light-headed enough to be swayed by such things as blood and titles and her mama’s importuning, why have you laid your heart at her feet? It’s no secret, and I think we’re friends enough so that I can admit that I’m surprised to see you so smitten with a lady who possesses a face more attractive than her mind.”

“You don’t know her!” Will shouted, and brought both hands down upon the tabletop until the relishes did a jig on their silver tray. Lord Deal remained still, only his eyes widened. But this was as good as a sharp rebuke, for Will calmed himself with a visible effort and then appealed to his host’s reason by saying, “I’m sorry, it’s very bad of me to shout at you. You were kind enough to put me up here, and have been my friend in all ways—you deserve far better. But she’s sweet, and bright and gentle, aye, and clever too. It’s clear you can’t know her if you say such things.”

“And you know her so well?” Barnabas asked quietly, but Will scarcely attended to him as he went on to explain earnestly, “I never thought to actually meet someone like her, I always thought such a lady would remain a dream. But
Barn
aby, when I was very young, I came to London to try my hand at work here before I eventually shipped out to America to make my fortune. For a little while, I delivered packages. One day, one freezing winter’s day, I brought some frock, or shawl or some such, I scarce remember now, to an address not so far from here. My hands were blue with cold, as blue as Methley’s blood I’d say, that is, where the
chilblains
hadn’t cracked open to show my own common red blood.

“I’d come in through the servants’ entrance and the housekeeper allowed me to warm my hands by the fire while the mistress of the house inspected the parcel and its contents. As it happened, there was something amiss with it, something not included, and the lady was so agitated she came down to the kitchens to quiz me about the delivery.

“I was very young,
Barn
aby, but I’ll never forget her, I believe she changed my life. I’d never seen such a beautiful female before. She was all gold and pink and she looked—ah how can I say it? She looked as though she’d been cared for and watched over tenderly for all her life. I could hardly answer her questions, the perfumed scent of her made me drunk, I think. I remained mute, so eventually she gave up and tried to give me some coins for my troubles.

“I drew back, I was horrified, and I put my hands behind my back. She insisted on giving me a gratuity, and when I insisted on refusing, her cook, a great fearsome female,” he laughed now, in reminiscence, “threatened
me with a carving knife if I wouldn’t take the coins and be done with it. I think I almost wept then,
Barn
aby, I was very young indeed. But I did finally manage to explain it was that my hands were bleeding now that they’d warmed up, and I didn’t want to get the nice lady’s hands dirtied with my blood.

“She wept,
Barn
aby,” Will said, shaking his head in an amazement that had lasted for more than a decade. “Then she bade the housekeeper bandage my hands, and insisted the cook give me some cakes and a warm nog, and then she sent me home with a scarf she’d had her maid take from her own husband’s wardrobe. She became my ideal of a lady,
Barn
aby, don’t you see? And I vowed that I’d work, I’d spare no effort, and someday if fate was kind, I’d have such a wife, and I’d raise such daughters.

“Only twice in my life have I been silenced by a woman’s beauty. That time, and the moment when I first laid eyes upon Mary. She’s the exact picture of the lady I thought of, and longed for, and worked to deserve, for all those years. I can take care of her, and I can bring her to want me too, if only I’m given time and opportunity. I’ve already got the energy and ability, and always believed you can achieve anything you work hard enough for. It’s how I’ve gotten this far. But you think I’m a sentimental fool, don’t you?” he asked his host, his sincerity as well as his longing clear in his open, honest face and guileless, steady dark brown eyes.

“No, Will, there’s nothing wrong with sentiment or hard work,” Barnabas answered at length. “A man’s the worse without a balance of each. But I only wonder if you’re being quite fair to Lady Mary. I wonder if she knows who she’s supposed to be for you?”

“Only herself,” Will replied fervently.

“Ah yes,” Barnabas Stratton sighed, and then he shrugged. “Then I think you ought to finish that lot of food up before my cook comes after you with a carving knife. He’s sensitive as a mayflower on the subject of his dinners. And then, we’ll take ourselves off to confront the duchess and her charges. It’s time, high time we did more than leave our cards with them.”

“We’ll call on them again?” Will asked, laying his fork down again in his excitement.

“My dear fellow,” Lord Deal exclaimed, laughing, “you’ll make that bit of roast dizzy if you keep waving it about. No, we won’t. We shall happen upon them quite by accident at the Cumberland Gardens this evening, where they’re going to hear a concert. Yes,” he laughed, “of course, I know, and have known everywhere they’ve been for all this past week. Not everyone in London puts their hands behind their backs when coins are offered to them,” he explained, as his guest, grinning broadly, dutifully put the bit of roast away and out of sight forever.

The night air was warm and sweet, made far warmer by all the torches blazing light down upon the press of people they illuminated, and made more pungent by all the perfumes that had been liberally splashed on by both the ladies and the gentlemen promenading in the Vauxhall Gardens this night. Faith said nothing as she walked along the narrow paths that hopscotched from stretches of dim night to patches of leaping light, but as she’d explained briefly when the earl quizzed her about her continuing silence, “nothing can come out, when so much is going in.”

Their coach had gone first to Vauxhall, rather than to Cumberland Gardens as the duchess had announced at tea
-
time, because the earl had said reasonably enough when they’d set out that Faith should see an assortment of such gardens and have the opportunity to judge for herself which one would be her favorite among them. Some, of course, she could not see at all, since their
clientele
was deemed too low to brush shoulders with, but Vauxhall and Cumberland, at least, had patrons from elevated as well as lower classes. Those of the loftier set who were pent in the City this summer due to family dramas or other cruel circumstances, might often be found passing sweet evenings at such places, and so, as the duchess ruled, their party was unexceptional.

There was a feeling of playfulness and vacation in the very air. The gardens were informal enough so that the gentlemen could be dressed comfortably, and yet festive enough so that the ladies could put on summer finery. Faith wore a light blue gown that drifted deliciously about her body each time a small night breeze whispered by its gauzy skirts. She could understand why the duchess had said the gardens were so popular with all the citizens of Town, even those of the
ton.

There was the open air to be taken, there was music and dancing and fireworks and light refreshments to be indulged in. The duchess didn’t mention that there was also sport for naughty gentlemen and errant ladies to be flushed from the shadows in such places, sport that couldn’t be discussed with innocent young misses. But then, in all fairness, though it was doubtful she didn’t know of it, it was very possible that like most society matrons, she didn’t choose to know of it, which amounted to the same thing.

Lady Mary remained close-mouthed as they explored the gardens as well. But since the paths were too narrow for them all to stroll abreast and since she had to walk with her mama (her papa had begged off from the engagement), her quietude was understandable. She’d been unusually morose at dinner as well, but protested when Faith got her alone before they came down to join the earl that it was only the merest headache which was unsettling her. She was such a fragile creature, or at least, she behaved with such delicacy that Faith imagined it might only be something so simple as the time of the month that had cast her friend into the sullens tonight.

The music played and in the distant pavilion, people danced to it. T
h
e far-off tunes mingled with the sighing of the trees, their rustling leaves adding winds, and the crickets, counterpoint, to the melodies. The entertainment took on the enchantment that a soft summer’s night adds to all diversions. The stars shone brighter than the trinkets upon the breasts and wrists of the ladies who stood in the pools of rippling gas and torchlight. And when suddenly the cold blue stars exploded into flying comets and expanding flowers and pennants and snakes and flung themselves across the night sky, dribbling fire down to the treetops, Faith was as thrilled as a child and breathed “oh” and “ah” at each burst of the fireworks display along with everyone else in the crowd.

“The lights obscure the best,” the earl said, and so he urged Faith on and she went with him, oblivious to him, stumbling blindly, until she felt grass beneath her slippers, for all the while her head was thrown back so as not to miss a second of the spectacle. He chuckled as he steered her past obstacles, and moved her out of the path of collisions with other gaping spectators. But he’d been right, and when she came to a halt, the sky was clearer, purer, untainted by man’s homemade and off-colored lights. Now she could even make out how the fireworks climbed upward, seeing the racing dark shapes that remained a secret against the darker sky until they attained their ripest moment, and then blossomed forth to decorate the night. Now that she knew their secret they lost some of their magic, but nothing could lessen their effect.

When the explosions of color stopped, and nothing was left of them but a pale gunmetal blue wind and the smell of sulphur drifting across the stars, Faith sighed. “That was wonderful,” she said contentedly.

She looked around to see the duchess’s and Mary’s reactions, suddenly wondering if she’d been too enthused for their idea of propriety. Yet surely, she thought, there could be nothing gauche about gaping at such wonders, surely they remained breathtaking no matter how often they were seen. But now that she looked earthward again, she saw that she stood upon a grassy lawn, not far from the pavements and crowds, but it was only herself and the earl who stood there. The duchess and Mary were nowhere to be seen.

Before she could ask him where they were, he spoke. He towered above her, and she had to hold her head back almost as far as she’d done when she watched the display of incendiary devices as she tried to read his expression. But that she couldn’t do, for his pale face was indistinct, outlined against the black sky. Only the white of his neckcloth and shirt and cuffs shone out blue-white from the mass of the dim shape before her, as did the gleam from the surround of his eyes.

“They’ve gone on,” he said, the white of his teeth now showing as well as he smiled down at her. “They’ve left us to the night. Don’t worry, we’ve the duchess’s approval; even she realizes a courting couple must have a bit of privacy. And it’s easy enough to explain that we became separated in the crowds. As long as we make relatively fast work of it, we can escape censure.”

“And Mary?” was all that Faith could think to say, while she thought furiously of the possible merits of running from him. She was wondering about the advisability of attempting to get back to the townhouse alone, when he replied, “Ah, but Mary is a perfect lady. Thus, Mary does what Mama wants, didn’t you know that? But don’t fret, I’m not a barbarian, my dear, and this is Britain, not the wilderness, and I want you for my bride, not my captive. I’m not kidnapping you.

“Oh no,” he said, smiling again, “it’s not to be ravishment, unfortunately. It’s only that it’s time for a little surgery. A small operation, and a painless one. I’m just going to remove the scales from your eyes. Come along, my dear,” he said, taking her hand fast in his. “You’re famous for your intrepid spirit. You should be pleased. It’s time for a little adventure.”