With This Ring (4 page)

Elektra’s tea was growing cold, as was the room, thanks to a fresh spit of rain.
Elektra crossed the chamber to close the window, but not before a gust tossed the last news-sheet onto the coals.
It fluttered as it fell and opened to a page she’d not bothered to read.
Announcements.

“Returning triumphantly from a decade-long wealth-building sojourn in the West Indies, young Lord Aaron Arbogast, soon to be the Earl of Arbodean, has come home to find himself a proper English countess!”

Arbogast.

Bending quickly, she deftly rescued the smoldering page and efficiently smacked the scorched folds on the hearthstone.
It wasn’t the first time in her life she’d had to reach into a fire to retrieve something of value.
Five brothers, after all.

The account was just as she remembered it.

Young Lord Aaron Arbogast.

The man in the next room was (1) wealthy, (2) young, (3) eligible—and (4) heir to an earl!

Elektra’s excitement increased as she read the page over and over.
Arbodean—wasn’t that up north somewhere?
It certainly wasn’t in Shropshire, or the Worthingtons would be more familiar with it.
Elektra had the vague notion that she’d heard of it and that it was vast.
An estate like that would go a long way toward undoing the Worthington repute of quirky destitution further stained by the rigorous application of outrageous conduct.

An entire decade out of England?

A decade away from the increasingly mad antics of her mad family making the rounds of London gossip?
Even better.

And looking for a proper English countess?

Elektra had spent her last decade becoming precisely that!

Now all she needed was the opportunity for a little quiet time with Lord Aaron …

Lysander entered the room.
“No Bliss.”

Rather than believing that brief utterance to be a description of Zander’s emotional state, Elektra took it to mean that their cousin, the Just Wonderful Miss Bliss Worthington, had not arrived on the morning coach as they’d hoped.
There was another due in the evening, the innkeeper had informed them.

Elektra waved a hand carelessly.
“Bliss may take the rest of the week to arrive if she wishes.”
There was work to be done here!

Lysander wandered to the window.
“The corpse is leaving.”

Elektra’s head snapped up.
“What?
He’s leaving?
Are you sure?”
She joined him quickly, for if having five brothers taught one anything, it was to confirm all rumor and implication.

Zander, however, was usually inclined to brief, unvarnished truth.
Elektra’s fingers tightened on the windowsill.
“That’s the same carriage.
I’d know it anywhere.”
She couldn’t allow this.
Lord Aaron Arbogast was perfect.

There was only one thing to be done.
It wasn’t so much a plan as a moment of superbly imaginative panic.
She turned decisively to Zander.
“We cannot allow him to get away!”

Chapter Three

Zander Worthington, bless him, didn’t even blink.
He simply turned and left the room.
Elektra knew that her brother would have his horse ready in moments.
She dashed toward her own room to don something a bit more appropriate for her half-formed plan.
Then, on impulse, she diverted to Zander’s quarters instead.

She threw on a pair of Zander’s trousers and cinched them tight.
He was still so thin that they almost fit anyway, despite his height.
She added one of his shirts, left untucked to hide the revealed curves of her hips and bottom.
Her bosom she concealed with one of her brother’s weskits, buttoned up and tightened snugly in the back.
Her own sturdy traveling boots with her own stockings would have to do.

Done!
Having taken a bare seven minutes to dress herself—possibly a lifetime record—Elektra opened Zander’s door and flung herself into a run before she’d even fully entered the hallway.

And ran directly into one of the maids walking down the hall with a covered tray.

Elektra bounced back into the wall.
The smaller girl was flung right off her feet.
Her salver tumbled through the air, scattering its contents over both of them.

Elektra was at the girl’s side before she’d managed to right herself.
“Let’s see there.”
She ran a quick sisterly inspection, just as she would for Attie after a tumble.
No cuts, no head wound, stand her up, brush her off.
“Now, see?
Right as rain.”

When she looked into the girl’s face, she realized that the petite, dark-haired maid who stared back at her was at least her own age.
Elektra dropped her hands.
“So sorry.
That was pure habit.
I have this younger sister who is always falling out of trees and such.”

Thinking about time and escaping almost-earls and Zander waiting downstairs, Elektra dropped to her knees to quickly gather the fallen items back onto the tray.

“Oh, no, miss!
You mustn’t!”

Elektra snorted.
“Well, I knocked it down, didn’t I?”
It was all quickly sorted.
The clunky pottery water jug had a new chip or two, but the lidded pot of something smelly remained solid and the clean rags were soon folded and placed neatly next to jug and pot.
Elektra stood and handed the tray back to the maid.
“Good enough?”

The girl gave an astonished gasp.
“Good enough?
Miss, most ladies would slap me for spotting their … er … gown.”

Her gaze passed over Elektra’s ensemble.
“But if I may be so bold … you don’t look very much like a boy.
If you wish to pass inspection, you might want to…” The girl mimed putting up her hair.
“I’ll be right back, miss!”

Elektra opened her mouth to object, but the dark, elfin girl was gone in a flash.
She was right about the hair, however.
With a twist and a quick repinning, Elektra had her softly waved chignon pulled into a tight, sleek bun.

Then, just as Elektra was beginning to fidget in earnest, the little maid was back, breathlessly waving a brown woolen cap in triumph.

“The boys in this valley wouldn’t step out the door wi’out one of these on their heads.”

“It’s perfect!”
Elektra snatched it and plunked it over her hair.
The cap said,
Pay no mind to me, I’m just a poor common lad.
Elektra smiled, her real smile.
“Thank you!”

The girl blinked.
“’Tis nothing, miss.
I’d best be on my way now.”

Elektra looked at her closely.
“Aren’t you curious why I’m trying to pass as a boy?”

The girl blinked again.
“No, miss.
I know why.
It’s a better life, bein’ a boy, isn’t it?
Safer’n all?”

Elektra sobered slightly.
Here she was, a protected woman, surrounded by men like her father and her brothers, who would die to save her.
What must life be like for this defenseless little creature?
She wasn’t big enough to fight off a hedgehog, much less a man with evil on his mind.

On impulse, Elektra dug into Zander’s weskit pocket and pressed her last coins into the girl’s palm.

“Oh, no, miss!
I can’t take all this!”

“All this” would buy Elektra no more than a few ribbons and a tin of sweets for Attie.
“Take it,” she urged the girl.
“What is your name?”

“I be Edith, miss.”

“Edith, take this.
Just save it for … for Someday.”
Elektra didn’t know a woman in the world who didn’t dream about Someday.

Edith looked down at the coins in her palm.
“Aye,” she said slowly.
“For Someday.”

“Now I truly must be on my way.
Farewell, Edith!”

Elektra took off down the hall at a full run, for the future of her family was fast getting away!

*   *   *

Edith watched the strange beauty depart until the woman was nothing but an echo of booted feet on the stairs.

To think, a lady like that, getting on her knees to clean up a tray!

Edith had waited on many a toff at the Green Donkey, for it was the only reputable inn on this long stretch of road.
Never in her years of service had a lady spoken to her in any fashion other than to command.

And then there was his lordship …

Lord Aaron Arbogast was a handsome fellow, sure enough.
A big strapping, dark-haired man with the bright blue eyes of a chancer.

That was what Edith’s mum called a man like that one.
A chancer was a fellow who gambled as easily as he breathed.
He gambled with his money, he gambled with his woman, he gambled with his life.

Edith had never met one of the nobility before this week.
She wondered if all lords were chancers.
Perhaps they were, for they had little to lose by it.

That had nothing to do with her.
Edith had always imagined herself taking up with some stolid farm boy, with whom she might have some farm boy sons, and perhaps a clever daughter to pass on the Knowledge.
Unfortunately, she had never encountered that farm boy—at least, she had never encountered one she thought she might like to keep.

His lordship, on the other hand, was in sore need of a firm feminine hand.
Edith had only ever really met two ladies, those bright golden-haired creatures who had convened here at the Green Donkey Inn before they had rolled off together onward down the road.

If all ladies were like the two of them, vibrant and indomitable, Edith could just about imagine a lady of that sort taking his lordship in hand.

On the other hand, if ladies were like the ones in stories, all fainting pale in peril, why, his lordship didn’t stand a chance of reforming his gambling nature!
That would be a pity.
Edith saw glimmers of a fine man beneath the gambler.
A man, perhaps, who sought the warmth of home fires and the welcoming bed of a wife.

It could be that a chancer was just a man who hadn’t found his home yet.

The other maids at the inn had swarmed the man, hoping for his notice, to what end Edith couldn’t imagine.
A man like that could only want one thing from a common serving girl.
She knew that one or two of the other girls didn’t mind tumbling the occasional guest and receiving a trinket for their troubles, but Edith couldn’t bear the thought.

She might be only a chambermaid, but she had her pride.
Indeed, she had little else!
But she was hardworking, she could read and write a bit, and she had her mother’s wise-woman skills.
Her mother had been respected in their village.
People had come knocking, begging her healer’s skills, offering money or their last pullet.
Her mother would take a coin to pay the butcher, then hand back the rest.
Healing was her calling, a sacred ability, and not to be sold at high price to the desperate.

But when her mother had passed, lost to a wasting disease that had been far beyond Edith’s skills, she couldn’t bear to stay in that village.
Impulsively she’d set out to journey to London, where she had a cousin or three, according to family legend.

Unfortunately, there hadn’t been much coin left to travel on and Edith’s adventure had come to a halt at the Green Donkey, where she might be able to put away enough to finish her journey.

So she cleaned up after the guests and kept her head high, for she was an honest and virtuous girl.
She didn’t advertise her healing skills, for this was a superstitious region, the sort her mother had warned her about.
“Them that don’t understand our ways like to blame us when crops fail and livestock dies.
Be careful.
Stay small and quiet, keep the Knowledge to yourself until you’re sure it’s needed.”
So Edith’s skills were a fact she kept to herself because she’d prefer not to be hunted for a witch next time there was a grain blight, thank you very much.

However, now, here at the Green Donkey, his lordship needed her.
The rest of them thought he would soon recover from his chill but Edith knew the signs.
She could hear the faint whistle in his lungs, see the fever in his eyes, the tremble in his hands.
Pneumonia awaited his lordship, ready to enfold him like a deadly lover.

Edith meant to prevent this.
She leveled her tray on one palm and straightened the small pot of her special unguent.
Then she took a deep breath and tapped on the door of his lordship’s chamber.

*   *   *

Lord Aaron Arbogast had seen a bad morning after or two in his wayward youth.
A decade of scrupulously clean living had not dimmed the memory of a dry mouth, a pounding head, and eyelids of sand.
He held very still and waited for the swirling nausea that was surely on the heels of such a hangover.
He had drunk—

Nothing.
Not a damned thing.
Not a drop of brandy, not a whiff of whiskey.

Furthermore, he was not in a bed, nor even in the hayloft of the inn.
No, he was sitting in a chair, entirely unable to move.
Without opening his eyes or making a sound, he carefully flexed the muscles in his arms and legs against his prison.
Ropes?

Keeping his breathing calm even in his alarm, he inhaled slowly, trying to sift clues from the scents about him.
Fire smoke, real fire made from wood, not coal.
Candle wax.
A draft crossed his face—no, it smelled of fresh, damp nature.
A breeze?
Yet he didn’t have the sense that he was out of doors.
He smelled moldy furniture … and damp plaster … and jasmine.

Jasmine?
No, that wasn’t possible.
He was no longer on the plantation on the isle of Andros.
He was in England, damp, fusty, smoky England.
He was home.

“Oh, for pity’s sake, open your eyes!”

The melodious feminine tone startled him into doing just that.
A single flame seared his vision.
He blinked away the blur and focused on the dim form several feet in front of him.

A vision.
A creature of shimmering perfection.
A golden, nubile beauty.

A goddess.

He blinked.
A goddess holding a pistol.
Correction,
pointing
a pistol.
At him.

Did goddesses carry pistols?

The heavenly—er, heavily armed female who perched daintily on a crate across from him rolled her eyes.
“Finally.
Really, watching you sitting there sniffing like a hound was fair to bringing on a sneeze.”
She raised her brows.
“So, how close was your guess?”

Aaron reluctantly tore his gaze away from her perfect face—she was a real stunner!—and cast his glance around his surroundings.