The Rambunctious Lady Royston (15 page)

The single tear dried, and no new moisture appeared on Samantha's cheeks. From the numbness of shock she had plodded to the land of disbelief and denial, traveled onward to initial despair, pushed doggedly ahead through a mire of self-pity, and at last reached the crossroads that awaited her. At first jolt it seemed there were two possibilities left to her: one, gracious acceptance of a thing she could not change; the other, making the most of the crumbs she was offered.

But Samantha was not one to take the road to a dinner of humble pie. Oh, no!

How dare he trifle with my affections! she thought, as her temper flared. Just who does he think he is anyway?

Samantha regained control of her emotions again, and examined her storm-tossed person. She then checked on the two mice (who seemed none the worse for wear) and the gingerbread boy (now missing one gilded leg, but much to her chagrin still stuck firmly between her teeth) before gritting out a garbled: "They took Daisy's Bristol diamonds!"

A young man standing nearby overheard the outburst but dismissed the stolen bauble as being no great loss. He suggested a check of the gentleman's purse might be more to the point. Predictably enough the purse—and with it all of Samantha's money—was gone.

"I had thought as much," said the extremely neat but rather shabbily dressed man, who introduced himself simply as Robert. "It is an old trick, I fear, but a profitable one. At an agreed-upon signal, two gangs of thieves rush through the crowd at great speed, relieving their victims of any valuables as they stampede past. It's a good job they didn't fancy your waistcoat, for I've seen them all but strip a person when they put their minds to it."

Samantha, fighting a maidenly blush, introduced herself as Samuel Smythe-Wright—a name she had begun to fancy—and the two talked together for a few minutes, pondering the dilemma of how Samantha could return to Portman Square when she had no money to engage another hackney.

"I would be pleased to loan you the money," Robert told her sorrowfully, "but I am not in such plump currant myself just now."

That had already been made plain to Samantha by his dress, but it did not mean she wasn't favorably impressed by the young man. His manner was extremely pleasant, almost as pleasing as his dark good looks—except for a certain thinness of face and pallorous complexion, which hinted he had recently been ill—and it did not occur to her that she was being too familiar with a complete stranger.

After some discussion, during which Samantha's personal pain somewhat inhibited her normally quick-thinking brain, it was decided that Samantha would hire a hackney anyway and have Carstairs pay the driver after she reached Portman Square. She took her new friend up as far as Conduit Street, and arrived home just as dusk was falling to astound the Royston butler with her bizarre appearance and the gift of the cage of mice (by now christened Sheba and Daniel).

In exchange for Carstairs's silence, she agreed he could dispose of Sheba and Daniel any way he desired—short of serving them up to the kitchen cat—but if a single hint of her late arrival, peculiar dress, or probable misconduct (considering she was now a Countess) reached St. John's ears she would make it a point to personally guarantee that the care and feeding of the mice (or their replacements) would be made solely the butler's own responsibility. Carstairs bristled, saying he was sure he knew his place, and no threats—however ridiculous—were necessary to secure his silence. If the Countess did not wish his lordship to be aware of her, er, attachment to masculine attire, far be it from he, a loyal servant, to countermand her wishes.

"Piffle!" said Samantha, and she loped off, taking the stairs two at a time.

It was a nasty trick to play on Carstairs, leaving him standing in the hall with his white-gloved hand holding the wicker cage aloft as if it contained the Crown jewels, Samantha confided to Daisy as she shed her breeches. But it was an unavoidable effect of her afternoon's activities.

"He should just be thankful I didn't bring home that monkey I fancied," she declared, thereby vindicating herself somewhat—for she had suffered much this day herself.

She turned her mind (reluctantly if the truth be known) to the evening ahead and the knowledge that she would soon be forced into her husband's company. She had as yet no clear-cut picture of the method her revenge would take. Never allowing her resolve to falter for a second—for anger sustained is tears denied—she decided to wait out the events of the evening and then, as her father was apt to say, play her cards as they lay.

He was etched in black from his sleek ebony locks to his shiny patent evening pumps, throwing his white-on-white satin waistcoat, perfectly matched shirt-points, and snowy cravat (always in the first stare, but tonight—ah—
la triomphe!
) into stark relief. Sapphires twinkled at his cuffs and on his fingers; one even winked out from among the folds of his cravat. As he raised his quizzing glass from where it dangled negligently at the bottom of the black riband tied around his neck, he looked every inch an Earl (and every inch a devilishly handsome disciple of his namesake, fair fit to lure unsuspecting maidens to everlasting damnation—or so thought Samantha as she descended the broad staircase).

In contrast to St. John's funereal black (which even Samantha could not in clear conscience find the least depressing—unless one could count the unmistakable involuntary leaping of her heart at the sight of him as a reaction to be mourned), his wife was a vision in angelic palest ivory. Her gown was fashioned in an off-the-shoulder style, with a falling tucker of lace extending to a length of six inches over the upper arms, low bodice, and low-scooped back. Her tiny waist was molded, rather than tightly fitted or allowed to hang loose in the French manner, and the slightly belled skirt widened as it neared the back to end in a demure demi-train. Seemingly random scatterings of lace on the skirt, repeating the pattern of the tucker, were dusted with sequin-backed seed pearls, so that her every movement was accompanied by sparkles of reflected light. Elbow-length French kid gloves, diamond-studded clips on her white satin shoes and—in a surprising but quite flattering diversion from the fashion of piling oneself with all the precious jewels one can possibly wear and still be able to stand erect—she had for her only ornaments a huge gold ring with an onyx center surrounded by diamonds, which she wore over her gloves, and a black velvet ribbon wound snugly around her neck and tied in a delicate bow at her nape.

Her hair, always a glorious burst of color, seemed to have been piled almost negligently on the top of her head. Errant but fetching curls were allowed to tumble about her slender neck, with one artlessly casual-looking ringlet falling front over her shoulder to rest on her creamy expanse of exposed skin. This tousled look had taken Daisy over an hour (and frequent recourse to sips of her secret store of medicinal spirits) to achieve, but the result was well worth the effort.

Samantha looked ravishing. Royston, suitably impressed, was about to cross the wide foyer to tell her just how truly beautiful she was, when from behind a fold in her gown Samantha produced a most ridiculous, impractical, incongruous, and totally extraordinary contraption, which in any other instance he would have been quick to recognize as some demented form of sunshade. The long stem, intricately carved handle, and spines of the creation were of finest ivory, and satin streamers hung fetchingly from an eyelet-hole about a quarter of the way up the center shaft. The shade itself (for by now Samantha had opened the thing and perched it perkily on her shoulder) was an eight-gored circle half the size of an ordinary sunshade (meaning one built for the practical purpose of shielding the owner from the sun's harmful rays), and it was decorated in the same manner as Samantha's gown: lace, pearls, sequins, and all.

"What in bloody blazes is that?' St. John got out at last, stunned into inelegance.

"Do you like it?" Samantha asked coyly. "It's a parasol, of course, and it is to be—for the moment, at least—my trademark. I have ordered parasols for every costume, every event—indeed, for every hour of the day or night." she ended triumphantly, twirling the parasol between her fingers.

Royston, once more under control, allowed but one eyebrow to arch and strictly schooled his willful features, which longed to break into a grin. "Am I to deduce that one of these, er, parasols is to become our bed companion? I fear, my dear, I must object. While I have no opposition to you creating a, shall we call it, personal signature for yourself in fashionable circles, I am obliged to dig in my heels and deny any such contraption between my sheets. But think: I could toss in my sleep and be impaled, or—worse yet—I could, in a drowsy haze, mistake its stem for the figure of my wife and the heir to Royston Manor would be a half-breed—part man, part umbrella—and with a carved ivory handle for a nose. Good god, girl, consider the consequences!"

While two footmen choked on their rising hilarity, and Carstairs stood looking very smug and all too sure of his superiority, Samantha fought to bring down her rising temper by counting to ten and ten again. When at last the Earl had done with his juvenile jokes she looked him square in his laughing black eyes, smiled sweetly, and asked, "Are you amused, my lord?"

St. John threw back his head and roared, causing the footmen (who had together served ten years in Portman Square without hearing his lordship laugh in just such an unrestrained manner) to gape open-mouthed at each other, while Carstairs had the decency to grimace (he had never been known to actually smile) indulgently in her ladyship's direction.

As Daisy descended the stairs to lay a high-collared white velvet cape lined in black satin over her mistress's bare shoulders, St. John raised Samantha's gloved hand and bestowed a brief kiss on the bare flesh just below the pearl button that held the glove at the underside of her slim wrist. She tolerated the salute with equanimity, and moved regally across the hall toward the open front door.

The normally short drive to Park Lane was made interminable by the line of carriages waiting to disgorge their passengers, and the curved marble staircase leading to their hosts' reception line and ballroom was a positive crush of bodies. As they slowly worked their way up the stairs—Samantha clinging doggedly to her unfurled parasol, and gaining for herself not a few sidelong glances—the Earl regaled her with tales of the more memorable squeezes of past Seasons, where it was not that rare for a delicate female to be extracted from the crush almost entirely in
naturabilis
, forced to cower in a dark alcove until a petticoat or other covering could be found. Indeed, he told her, at Carlton House, scene of many an overpopulated affair, the servants were known to gather up shoes and other articles of clothing in huge hogsheads the next morning.

Samantha was diverted, as she was intended to be, but she did not allow her resolve to weaken by so much as a hair. After all, how dare he go on as if everything were just peachy-dandy when he had spent the afternoon in the company of that odious female!

Zachary felt the tension in his young bride and dismissed it as an attack of nerves over her first public appearance as Lady Royston. He had no personal qualms, he soothed himself rationally, for after all, this business of keeping a woman happy was really quite simple. All one had to do was delight them in bed. That, plus a goodly supply of pin money and some tame amusements, were more than ample occupations for any female. If he was not entirely convinced this particular logic quite described Samantha's own recipe for happiness, he eased his mind with the thought of that shadowy Royston heir waiting just now in the wings—a sure seal on his wife's tendency towards the outrageous.

Oh, yes, he commended himself, you have done well in your choice of bride. She is beautiful, intelligent, witty, refreshingly honest, unexpectedly loyal, well-behaved when she chooses to be, and in time she will make an admirable mother. That he had fallen more than a little in love with the child was just an unexpected bonus. But it would be unwise, he reminded himself, to let his emotions get the upper hand. To allow himself to become mawkishly romantic at his age, and over such a slip of a girl, could prove embarrassing.

Not that I couldn't bring her to heel any time I chose, he pointed out to himself silently. But Samantha was an unpredictable creature, and the love he had seen burning in her emerald eyes not four-and-twenty hours ago had been remarkable by its absence this evening.

It wouldn't do to build fantasies in the sky. Samantha was just a child—a precocious, unpredictable, rambunctious child—and he, the older and wiser of the pair, would have to be the one depended upon to keep a clear head. Even if she did smell like spring sunshine. Even if she was the most beautiful woman in all England. Even if she did possess the charm of a dozen sea sirens, the body of a Greek goddess, the courage of a warrior, and the heart of an angel. Even if—oh, what was the use? He hadn't thought of it, hadn't planned for it, hadn't even wanted it. But there it was: he loved the girl.

So deeply was St. John embroiled in conversation with himself that he had twice to be brought to attention by his host who was trying in vain to welcome him.

The amenities over, Samantha's intrigued hostess—who had not once taken her eyes off the shimmering miniature parasol—could no longer contain her curiosity and asked the purpose behind carrying a sunshade after dark.

"It is quite sad, really, ma'am," Samantha responded earnestly, with a twinkling glance towards Zachary that told him to keep his mouth shut and enjoy the fun. "Approximately two centuries into the past one of my ancestors ran afoul of a gypsy curse—a curse that has survived to this day." A crowd began to gather at the head of the stairs, and all was quiet while Samantha recounted in suitably eerie tones, "It was a dark, moonless night when the old gypsy first placed the terrible Ardsley Curse: "'Forevermore shall the name of Ardsley be shadowed by the bane of light from the sky. Each generation shall one of your family be cursed to keep his head forever hidden from the rays of the moon when it is full—or suffer the consequences.'