And yet—
Hardcastle was not blind, nor was he stupid. He had heard about and even debated, in the House, the poor laws and the mill workers’ strikes. He might be a rake and a gambler, but he also did his duty by his parliamentary position. Some compromise was always there, somewhere, if it could just be found and negotiated. The lack of such compromise in matters in the House had often frustrated him.
And too— “the quality of mercy is not strain’d”—
But still, it was the beliefs and values of a lifetime, and of hard learning, that she was asking him to go against. He could not do it. Not even for her.
“I find myself without words, my lord,” Phaedra said, her face still turned away. “I do not think there is a resolution here that will satisfy us both. And so you may hold on to your honor, and I hope it makes you happy. I shall feel it my duty to keep you abreast of what poor haven Lady Fossey and Anna Listerton have found, and how sadly their family is split up.”
“That is below you, Phaedra. You have been quarreling by man’s rules, and doing a damned fine job, and yet now you try to wound with a woman’s ways.”
Phaedra turned tragic eyes on him. “Unlike you I have no harsh code of honor that I must live up to. If I cannot successfully entreat you to act like a human with compassion by ‘men’s rules,’ then I will resort to women’s rules, the rules of compassion and caring and love. And guilt, if there is that feeble emotion in your breast. I will resort to tears if I must. But I do not think that would move you, my lord. One needs a heart to be moved by tears.”
Hardcastle saw the water build up in her eyes, the droplets spilling over and trickling down. “Ah, my dear,” he said softly, desperately trying to ignore the slice of pain in his heart at the anguish he sensed in her. “Do you not know that every hardened rake has seen his share of tears, has been wheedled and implored with them for a new diamond necklace or an emerald bracelet?”
“If you cannot tell the difference between tears that flow for human need and those that flow from avarice and greed, then I pity you.” Phaedra stood and leveled a long, hard look at him. “It is time for me to prepare luncheon, my lord, and I think you should go back indoors, as it has clouded over and threatens to rain.”
Chapter Fourteen
The long morning in the garden had exhausted him and he had retreated to his temporary chamber to rest his weary bones and muscles. He hated idleness, and yet he was forced into it by the abominable weakness he still felt.
Awake now, though, rested and well-fed after a superb luncheon of pigeon pie, he stretched out on the bed and stared at the all-too-familiar ceiling. Phaedra—what a mystery she was, what a riddle. She was so young, if not in years then in ideals. And she despised him. It disturbed him more than he cared to admit, more than he even would admit to himself. He had never met a woman like her. He was used to people, men and ladies, giving way in the face of his title, his intelligence, his reputation, a million and one advantages he knew he had and made use of every day.
But she would not capitulate, not one whit. She had beauty and sweetness, but also intelligence and a kind of rigorous morality he had only met with in one person before, his friend, Mercy Dandridge. Phaedra, like Mercy, lived the golden rule every day.
She was her father’s daughter, and yet to the intelligence and moral rectitude of the father she added a compassion that truly connected with people. He did not have the feeling that she did things for people because it was a road to heaven, or because she needed to feel superior, but because she honestly cared.
Restlessly, Hardcastle struggled out of bed and limped around the room. He had to push himself on to recovery. He must become physically the man he had always been. Phaedra was, no doubt, wishing him long gone, and his pride would not let him stay in a place where he was not wanted. He hobbled over to the window and stared out blankly, not seeing the verdant hills, deep green with the rain sheeting down over them, nor the road winding into the distance, past Ainstoun and beyond, to other villages and estates.
There was so much in this household that he did not understand. For instance, it was clear that Mr. Gillian had heard, somehow, about his reputation as a rake, and yet he let him stay on even as he recovered, with a virginal daughter under his roof. Did he trust the gentleman’s code Hardcastle lived by? As a man of honor, he would never force a lady, nor even cajole her against her morals. A woman must come to him freely or he would not bed her. How deeply he longed for Phaedra to come to him in that way he would never divulge to another living soul. But Mr. Gillian’s apparent faith in him—it touched Hardcastle deeply to have the trust of such a man—would not be misplaced.
And yet, if she should come to him willingly, for her own reasons, would he not love her?
He folded his arms on the narrow sill of the window and stared out, watching the raindrops bouncing merrily off the wood. His friend, the finch, landed on the sill and shook himself, droplets of water flying off in all directions. He stared at Hardcastle for a moment, and then left again, to fly off to parts unknown.
The earl was deeply confused and could not find his way through the mess of emotion and logic and misplaced passion he was tangled within. Somehow his desire for her had become entangled with respect for her intelligence, and regard for her sterling qualities. She was forcing him to spend as much time thinking about her conversation as about her personal attractions, and that was a rare thing indeed where a lady was concerned. He had never before considered a woman’s brains as important as her breasts.
He tried to contemplate with calmness Phaedra’s arguments; they had some merit. What kind of code of ethics could state that a gambling debt, money acquired on the turn of a card, required payment that would ruin lives and destroy innocent people? But on the other hand, what was the use of gambling if it was not strictly required that bets, once made, were collected regardless of the hazard to lives? If one took the honorable resolution of debt away from gambling, it left merely card playing, with all the excitement taken out and no penalty for losing.
No. He stood by his reasoning. When both parties understood the penalty for losing—and in the case of himself and young Fossey they both had, for Hardcastle never ever gambled with someone who was drunk or whose mental capacity was not what it could be—then both parties must stand by the results. It was just. It was honorable. It was the only way to conduct society with any measure of dignity and grace.
Phaedra bustled in, a towel in her hands, and gathered up the dishes from his luncheon, which he had taken alone. He limped over to the bed and dropped down with a groan of pain.
“Phaedra, sit down beside me for a moment.” A horrible new thought occurred to him as she obeyed. Was it possible—could it be that she was betrothed or pledged to this young man, this Baron Fossey? She would never use that as leverage if that was true, but it would certainly explain why she was so concerned for him. But no, he knew her by now. If she was pledged to another man she would never have kissed him the way she did. Her heart was untouched, he would swear it.
“What do you want, my lord?” she said coolly.
“Have we not progressed beyond ‘my lord’? Why do you not call me Hardcastle as my friends do?”
“Why do I not shorten it and just call you Hard?” Her voice was velvety soft but there was anger lingering under the tone.
“Do you think me hard and unfeeling, my dear?” He took her hand and felt it tremble, small and helpless like a pretty white dove in his hands. He turned it over. The palm had callused spots, and her fingers were puckered from hot wash water. What he wouldn’t give to take her away from her toil, away to London, where the best modistes could dress her elegant, slender limbs in costly silks, and the perfumier could mix a concoction of sandalwood and ambergris to perfume her perfect breasts and arms. He ached to touch her, and where their limbs met, where his leg touched hers on the edge of the bed, he felt afire. What a strange interlude this was that he should be so enchanted by a tuneless country sparrow
when he had birds-of-paradise in London awaiting his every pleasure!
“I do not think you completely without feeling,” she said after a moment. She glanced up and her eyes locked with his. “I just do not understand how, with the human emotion every man is given, you can still feel no pity for Anna and her mother. And for Charles.”
“This Charles, do you know him well?” The flare of unaccustomed jealousy was unwelcome, and the words he had just uttered had not come from the thinking, reasoning part of him.
“I told you, I hardly know him. But Anna is of an age with me, and we used to attend the same assemblies when we were girls.”
That was good. Her voice was cool and unaffected when she spoke of Fossey. “Do you like to dance?” Hardcastle wound his fingers through hers, entranced by a vision of her floating around an elegant ballroom on satin slippers. How she would sparkle!
“I did when I was a girl. The local assemblies were not large, but a violin and a piano are sufficient when young people gather and are determined on gaiety. But we are far afield, my lord. What did you wish to say to me?” She pulled her hand away from his.
All right. He would have to tell her baldly. He put his hands on his knees and stared at the wall. “I have thought and thought on what we spoke of earlier, my dear, but I just cannot let it go. Charles Fossey lost a bet made in good faith, with full knowledge of the consequences. I cannot nor will I let him off.”
Phaedra stood. “Then I guess that is all there is to say. I had hoped for a better outcome, my lord. I will not pretend I am not disappointed.”
“I will send a note to my household staff in London by the next mail coach and have my valet come down to help me back to London. I’m sure you have long wished me hither.”
“How strange you are,” she said with a thoughtful frown. She cocked her head to one side. “Do you think that my hospitality is at an end because we disagree? I told you that you are welcome here. My father has told you that you are welcome here. And so you still are.” She headed toward the door but turned back before exiting. “Constable Hodgins has a wish to speak with you this afternoon, along with Squire Daintry. They will be here within a half an hour. After that, perhaps we may play chess.”
• • •
Phaedra felt a calmness overtake her in the face of his definite answer. Argument was futile, she felt sure. Hardcastle was a man who, once he made up his mind, it was done. And yet she still felt there were two warring sides to Hardcastle, she thought, as she mixed eggs into a flour mixture for the pudding she was making. One side of him was good and selfless and one was hard and severe. How did he choose what side would react to a problem or a person?
It was Sally’s half day off, and she was gadding about the town in a dress Phaedra had altered for her, adding a few dressy ribbons and a furbelow to add length more suited to Sally’s height. And so Phaedra was startled when a knock came at the back kitchen door. If that was Joe Mudge, the butcher’s lad, she would give him a piece of her mind. He was entirely too forward, and too often distracted Sally from her duties. She wiped her floury hands on the cloth looped over her apron and headed for the door.
Unnecessarily, as it turned out. The door opened, and Deborah Daintry stumbled in, raindrops showering from her sodden bonnet. “Phaedra, I hoped you would be here,” she sobbed.
Phaedra caught the girl just before she tumbled and saw the reason for her unwonted clumsiness; there were tears blinding her. “What is it, Deborah? What’s wrong? Is it your mother? Is she sick?”
“No, she is fine. It is m-me!” The last word was an incoherent wail and she collapsed on a chair in front of the worktable and laid her head down in her arms, surrendering to a fit of weeping.
Crouching by her, Phaedra patted her back and whispered soothing words, then sprang up and got a cool, damp cloth to blot the girl’s red eyes. Gradually Deborah calmed, and Phaedra pulled a chair up close to her, kept the girl’s hands in her own and said, “Now, tell me calmly, what is the matter?”
Sniffing, and blowing her nose delicately, Deborah choked back one last sob and said, “I s-saw him, I saw Charlie. He was riding through town, and I yelled for him; my mother would have a spasm if she heard me, but I did it and I don’t care if it was unladylike. I yelled ‘Charles,’ and he stopped and turned around. He saw me, I know he did, but he turned his horse and set him to gallop. Away from me. He has found someone new, I just know it. He found someone he likes better in London and he just cannot face me to tell me.”
“No, Deborah, I do not believe that for a second.” In an instant, Phaedra understood the scene. Charles Fossey and Deborah Daintry had a long-standing love, a childhood love that had matured as they grew up. Squire Daintry had demanded that no formal engagement take place and had bargained with his daughter for two seasons, two London Seasons. If at the end of those two Seasons she had found no one else she preferred—meaning in Squire Daintry’s mind no one richer and better titled—then she and Charles would be allowed to announce their engagement. This being her second London Season, Deborah had been looking forward to a summer wedding, even though Charles had never formally proposed.
But now, knowing that he was destitute, knowing he would have the responsibility of providing for his widowed mother and sister, Charles did not know how to face his sweetheart. And so he had left London, and avoided her when she came back to Ainstoun.
More lives ruined by Hardcastle’s wretched inflexibility. Or by Charles’s stupid wagering! What had possessed the young baron? Was it his first Season in London as the Baron Fossey? It was quite possible that the elevation to his title, the missing influence of his father, and the heady flattery of new London friends had all conspired to lead to his downfall, the ruinous wager.
“Then why else would he treat me this way?” Deborah asked. “What have I done? Did someone bear him false tales? I have been faithful; oh, I have danced and flirted with others, but that is accepted, that is London! He wouldn’t think—oh, Lord, I am so wretched!” She collapsed again in another fit of weeping.
Anger swept through Phaedra, as she accepted that even presenting Hardcastle with this terrible outcome would not move him. If a homeless widow would not touch his heart, then a pair of young lovers split asunder certainly would not. The future stretched out bleak and unhappy for four sad people. Deborah’s heart would be broken. She had shown an astonishing fidelity toward her childhood friend and had never appeared to waver for an instant, even tempted by her success in London and a couple of proposals from young men much richer than Charles Fossey.
The dowager baroness would be forced, in her aging years, to live on the charity of some relative, as would Anna Listerton. Hardcastle was right; someone would take them in, and Phaedra very much feared it would be Anna’s uncle, Sir Albert Vance. Anna had a terror of the man, and though she had never said so out loud, Phaedra suspected that the uncle had made advances to her, inappropriate suggestions; she could only pray it was nothing more. What a fate for her, to have to live on the charity of a man with such intentions toward her!
And Charles; what could a young man of three and twenty do when he had lost his livelihood? If he was very lucky he would become someone’s land steward, for he knew farming and little else. But it would be a life of strictest economy, and he could not expect to marry until many years had passed, if he could ever afford it. And Phaedra very much feared Squire Daintry would absolutely put his foot down in this matter; Deborah would be beyond his touch forever.
As she thought, she had been mechanically patting Deborah’s shoulder and murmuring soothing words. But coming back to the present, with new resolution in her heart, she said, “Deborah, dry your eyes, my dear. I do not believe Charles has been faithless. There may be some misunderstanding between you, but you must be patient. Do nothing for a couple of days, and I will see what I can find out.” Hopefully that would stall the girl. Phaedra needed a little time to enact a plan she had just concocted, a plan that had at least half a chance of regaining
everything for the young couple, as well as for the baroness and Anna Listerton.
“Will you? Oh, Phaedra, I knew you would understand and help! I just knew it. That is why I stopped here on my way home from Ainstoun.” Deborah threw her arms around Phaedra’s neck and hugged her.
“Go home. I will send you a note in a couple of days if I find anything out. I—I can’t promise anything, you know. I just feel that Charles has not been unfaithful. He loves you too much.”
• • •
Squire Daintry and Mr. Hodgins had come and gone, and Hardcastle had gone to sleep soon after. The luncheon dishes were done and put away, and most of dinner was prepared. Phaedra tiptoed into her father’s library and waited for him to notice her. She had an enormous decision to make. There was one path open to her, and she had almost determined to take it, but quailed at the thought of the risk she was taking.
“Papa,” she finally said, gazing with affection at the gray head bent over the books on the desk.
“What? Oh, it’s you, my dear. Is it dinnertime already?” He took his glasses off and laid them down.
“No, Papa. I just wanted to talk to you.” She circled the desk and knelt by it, putting her arms around his neck and laying her head on his shoulder. As usual he smelt of books. It was odd, but there was a certain smell associated with books and paper, and that is how he had always smelled to her. He did not smoke, and he was an abstemious man; his books were his passion.
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