by Edith Layton
He’d gone away to school, for she’d insisted, but it had been a long while until he could look at his mother again. It had taken him years to understand that her degradation had been his punishment as well. She vowed she’d not gone back to the house again, after, and for all he knew, it was so. John Dahl was not a fool, and even the earl would go only so far. It was the nineteenth century now, after all, and all the serfs had gone. Some of them, Arden realized, had even gone to school.
Oh, not the top-flight one, where the earl’s legitimate children had gone and the youngest still went, but a good enough one so that his sons would know that there was a bastard doing as well as, perhaps better than they had. That was their punishment.
He’d thrown it all over when she’d died, of course. He’d been sixteen, and he refused to take anything from his father once she’d gone. But a year in the dregs of London’s stews had shown him what education could do, and when he’d lost Meggie, he’d realized that losing everything that the only two females he’d loved had so badly wanted for him in no way hurt the earl, and he’d returned to learn all he could.
The earl offered to buy him colors when he left university, and though he’d been interested in pursuing a study of law, quite naturally then, he’d enlisted himself. And within a few years gotten higher than the commission his father could have bought him. Until he gave it all up, realizing that the bloody business wasn’t for him, and so much as he thought he was foiling the old devil, he was actually going his way, only taking the harder way to do it.
Then he’d given up everything and gone to London to live in the cesspit again, until he’d become so successful at it that he knew he’d only been dancing to the earl’s tune once more.
And now he stood by his father’s bedside and wondered if the old man’s death would finally free him, or if it would take his own to do so.
“You, Arden, my Lion,” the earl sighed, never taking his eyes from him, for although Francesca stood next to him all the while, it was as though the dying man never registered her presence, he was so busily drinking in the sight of his huge son, “you,” he said lovingly, “my chance-got giant son of a common fishwife, my beauty conceived of a sweaty child at the base of a tree, you, Arden, look at me!
“You,” the earl said, as both Francesca and Julian understood at last that evil can wear a thousand faces, “you are my best son. How bizarre! With all that I sired. And how you hate to hear that!” the old man crowed. “Even more than my other sons do. Because you’re the only one, got in or out of wedlock, with wit and a heart as big as yourself and the courage to despise me fully with both. Of course you hate me. But hear me well, boy: she went with me of her own will, every time. Every time, do you hear? We all of us have our dark places, even you, eh? But why tell you? You’ve made good coin knowing it. Oh, I know of your sins, Arden, as well as your triumphs. I paid good money to keep hearing word of you all these years. Bow Street could have applied to me, my boy, I knew your every move. Clever, clever. My son,” he laughed, and then stopped, gasping.
“Here,” he said, laboring for breath, taking something from his night table and thrusting it at Arden, “take it, take it! Yes, it’s all I can leave you, of course. The legitimate eldest gets the house and title, he’ll drink away the one and forget the other, the others get the cold side of his tongue, and it will shrivel them, and so in a generation there’ll be nothing left except perhaps the name. Because it’s yours too now. You can’t fight God. I’ve made my confession and finally entered my name on that blank bit of the paper. Oh, yes, you’re a bastard still, but one with a name. I claim you. It’s Arden Lyons Graham now, twist and turn as you may. With all my sowing I’ve reaped nothing worth the living after me. Except you. The ring’s my seal, my coat of arms. It’s yours too, like the name, like it or not.”
The earl lay back panting, and smiled at him.
“It’s not necessary to love me,” he said then, in a thready undertone, “but at least now you can never deny me.”
“I deny you,” Arden whispered, but because he was who he was, however sincerely he meant it, still he said it only when he knew it was too late for his father to ever hear it.
“Arden?” Francesca said, tears in her eyes, calling him away from what was over, at last, “I’m so sorry.”
“Ah, yes, so I thought you’d be,” he said then, returning to her, patting her hand that he’d never relinquished as he led her from the room. “I understand. And so now you see, of course,” he said, loosing her when they’d got to the hallway.
“And now you don’t, of course,” she sighed, taking his hand firmly in hers again, as Julian, coming up behind them, saw her action and smiled, and in that moment, loved her almost as much as Arden did.
16
“This,” Francesca said wonderingly, as best she could as soon as she’d swallowed, “is amazingly good chicken.”
“Well, I should think so. Imagine trying to choke down the victuals they usually hand you here,” the red-headed woman said with a sniff, and then to Francesca’s curious look she said in a satisfied whisper, “I brought in three platters of it this afternoon. I got cracking soon as I could once I heard you was to be stopping here after the last rites. “It’s true,” the woman confided, “that there wasn’t enough room for everyone at the cottage, and no one in their right mind would want to go up to the manor, so we put our heads together, we women, and that’s why the food at the Ark today is nothing like the rubbish they usually serve.”
“It was very kind of you,” Francesca replied.
“Stuff!” the woman said. “There’s nothing we wouldn’t do for him,” she added lovingly, gesturing with her glass toward where Arden stood near the cold fireplace, towering above a group of people, all seemingly wanting to tell him things at the same time.
Francesca couldn’t remember the proud cook’s name. She’d been introduced, but then she’d met so many of Arden’s sisters, both legitimate and not, that she could scarcely recall any one of their given names, much less surnames, and this one had also been wed. But since the woman in question had not found any complaint with the liquid refreshment served at the inn, she scarcely seemed to mind that her half-brother’s elegant lady-friend never called her by name. She herself called everyone “dear” anyway, Francesca noted as the woman drifted away into the crowd of people massed in the great common room of the old inn, looking for further compliments on her excellent chicken.
“Arden’s family have done him proud with the funeral meats,” Julian said as he came up to Francesca and noted the direction of her gaze.
“Meats and chickens and jellies and cakes,” she answered. “I’m having a marvelous time, but is it quite right to have so much pleasure after a funeral?” she asked worriedly, wondering at how jolly the assembled persons were rapidly becoming.
“Nothing became the old man in life more than his leaving it, I gather,” Julian said on a smile, around the glass of ale he was downing, “and I think they’re here more to see Arden than to plant their dear departed earl anyway. Earl and father—lord, the fellow left behind more replicas of himself than Charles II did. Sorry,” he said quickly, seeing the sudden pain in her eyes. “Does that bother you?”
“Only because it bothers him,” she said fiercely, raising her chin and looking toward Arden. “Myself, I’m grateful to the old lecher. I am, Julian, don’t laugh. For if he’d been a decent man, there’d be no Arden, would there?”
“And that would pain you,” Julian said, smiling at her so warmly that Roxanne, who’d been having some sport dazzling a few local lads, cut herself off in mid-sentence to look narrowly at the light gentleman and the dark-haired lady chatting by the windows.
“And that would pain me very much,” she agreed solemnly.
“I’m very glad,” he replied, just as seriously.
“Come, come, my friends,” Arden said, coming across the room toward them, “everyone is wondering why my beautiful guests are so somber.”
; ‘We’re unaccustomed to funerals,” Julian reported. “Tell me, is the dancing to be before or after dinner?”
“In London,” Arden said imperturbably, though he did look to Francesca keenly as he spoke, “after a funeral everyone goes off, very sadly and restrainedly, to lift a few thimbles of spirit to take off the graveyard chill, and then they nibble a few cress sandwiches before they get down to the good gossip, catching up on all the peccadilloes of the various family members and friends they haven’t seen in years. Here, it’s simpler. Moreover, the old earl died full of years and spite and malice. There wasn’t a wet eye in the chapel, you know, save for my two legitimate brothers, and they only because they dread eviction. No, knowing the sort of man he was, or rather, not really knowing, thank God, I’d imagine he’d be astonished if anyone grieved for him. Although,” he said ruminatively, “perhaps there may be not a few females present with some well-concealed regrets at his passing. He was, for all his sins, eminently pleasing at his chiefest one, I’d guess. For it had to be more than his money that accounts for all my siblings.”
“Oh, yes, now tell us of your legacy, and how it runs in the family.” Julian grinned.
“Not you!” Arden answered, much offended. “What sort of a fellow do you take me for? Now, Francesca, is there someplace dark and secluded where I can tell you about it?” he asked anxiously.
They all laughed, for it was meant for humor, but Francesca wondered what he would have done if she’d agreed. She wondered what she would have done too.
Then, as a pair of brothers accosted Arden on one side, and their wives tried to take his attention on the other, and she saw him bend down to greet a collection of half-nieces and nephews he’d not known of, she watched him closely. These were, as he’d said, simple people. But she’d never seen so much simple affection given to anyone before. He’d sent some of them funds, it seemed, he’d solved some of their problems in the past, it transpired, but it went beyond his money and his opinions. They knew he’d grown beyond them, it was in everything they said of and to him, it was in the way they looked at him and up to him. They trusted him, and were proud of him, and they every one of them respected him, this half-brother of theirs who so easily carried so many of their confidences and burdens, even as he’d carried his own, uncomplaining, for so many years.
The more she grew to know of him, the more she valued him. And yet, each door he opened, he warned her against. But each time, looking within, she saw none of the dreadful apparitions he’d promised, but only more of the difficult past of an amazing man whose heart was as big as he was, and who had transcended each of the real difficulties life had dealt him. And still, and yet, he believed himself unworthy. The Earl of Oxwith, she thought with futile anger, had more than his lechery to answer for in whatever court he would be hailed into now.
There was a stir at the door to the inn, as yet more guests attempted to wedge themselves into the overcrowded room. But this couple was given room immediately. The tall, simply but elegantly dressed plain-faced woman was another sister, but this one was bowed and curtsied to by all her half-brothers and sisters as well as the other townfolk, even if they’d all just seen her at the cemetery, for she was the late earl’s only legitimate daughter, the Lady Millicent. Her husband, a tall, round-faced, pleasant-looking older gentleman, greeted Arden effusively. As though they’d been asked, the others in the room crowded back, some flowing into the other room of the inn, so as to give the newly arrived pair room in which to confer with their brother.
So many people wanted his ear, Francesca thought, that she’d scarcely seen him by herself since the old man died. Each night he’d met with various relatives, riding out to their farms or cottages, or having them to the inn, and even when she’d gone with him, she’d passed the time with Julian and Roxanne. With Julian, she corrected herself. For Roxanne was bored, and her boredom made her testy, and so she was no good company for anyone, least of all herself. The countryside vexed her, she said, and surely death and all its attendant formalities did too, and it might also have been that what she perceived as Julian’s growing and obvious disinterest bothered her as well. Because here in the countryside, ringed around with conventions and the trappings of a funeral, she could do none of the things she excelled at, in public or private. Julian had decreed it.
For there were things a gentleman did not do. And while he might sleep with ten females clad only in beauty while in the midst of London, he’d explained to his fretful mistress, he might not embarrass a friend in the smallest village in England by so much as kissing his unmarried companion beneath the stairs. Julian didn’t even share his room with Roxie now, at this inn, he didn’t dare, he told her, not when he was under such close scrutiny by all of Arden’s relatives and friends, which were, he jested, all of Cornwall.
Because he was sure, he’d teased Roxie, for her ear only, that if the strain got to be too much and he was forced to steal away with her and take her out on a rowboat to have his way with her, a fish would leap up and cry, “My word! So that’s why the boat was rocking. Come see what Arden’s fancy friend is doing, lads!”
But Roxanne didn’t so much as snicker at that; she only flounced away, mumbling about what she’d given up to follow him, and see what such foolishness had earned her. Francesca didn’t know what her following Arden had earned her either, except for an even more profound longing for his good opinion, company, and personal attentions. She gazed at him now, and saw him loom even larger than ever in her life. She could not now imagine life without him, but then, she couldn’t imagine it with him either, for he seemed not to have changed his opinion of her opinion of him, whatever had happened.
Julian knew, and Julian sympathized, and while that was comforting, it was every bit as embarrassing as it was welcome. Because the blond viscount’s friendship earned her only Roxie’s distrust, and whatever his intentions, it was lowering to have anyone know where your heart lay, as though you’d not a secret to your name. She was, in fact, thinking longingly of how lovely it would be if Arden mistook her friendship with Julian, or fancied she loved any other, envisioning herself as a languid lady with dark eyes full of humid secrets, when Arden’s voice, as though in answer to her innermost fantasies, said in her ear, “What delightfully evil things are you thinking, my dear Francesca? You looked like the most wonderfully corrupt Madonna just then.”
“You,” she said, and then, horrified, stammered, “you…you startled me.”
The smile he bent upon her was so amused and understanding that she wanted to both fling herself into his arms and tread on his toes, and conflicted as she was, it was just as well that he brought her to the attention of Lady Millicent again just then.
“My sister would like a word with you,” he said easily. “She really wants us to visit with her in Aberdeen, but so much as I love her, and I do, I will not trail up to Scotland now, even with all the haggis and bagpipers and blood pudding and other delights she’s tempting me with. See if you can get her to follow on to London, Fancy, there’s a good lass, and stay on your toes, for she’s desperate and Scotland’s lonely, so she may have you trussed up and in her coach in a trice if she decides she likes you. Take care.”
As he walked off into the crowd of relatives once more, this time with his brother-in-law and Julian in tow, and was swallowed up by the company again, Lady Millicent laughed.
“Aye,” she said, “anywhere is lonely without Arden. For all my contentment—and I’ve five sons who haven’t yet reached their majority, my dear, and so even in the highlands find I absolutely pine for loneliness sometimes—I miss him, I confess I do. I cannot get a straight word out of him,” she said suddenly. “Are you two affianced, my dear?”
“Oh, no!” Francesca said. “But I’m not…” She hesitated, wondering what the lady would think if she knew they were not, but knowing she knew they traveled together, and so not knowing what to say at all to this tall, prim straitlaced-looking lady, for fear of disgracing herself or Arden. And yet sh
e didn’t know how to state the actual truth, which she herself wasn’t sure of anymore, now that events were moving so fast. “That is to say…” She fought for the right words.
“…that I oughtn’t to pry, as Arden said,” Lady Millicent put in nervously, taking off her glove only to smooth it on again, “but he also said you were the daughter of a baron who was a friend of his and that you were a good girl he’d not take advantage of, but when I saw you, I so hoped he would. Oh, dear,” she said, putting her half-gloved hand to her mouth in alarm, “I’ve made it worse,” she said uneasily before she hurried on, “I’m not so much plain-spoken as poorly spoken, forgive me. But I’ve so little time because we leave for home so soon. And you’re so very beautiful,” Lady Millicent blurted, “the way he looks at you—and I can see you’re a lady of some quality, and I adore Arden so—it was not easy being my father’s daughter, my dear,” she said nervously, “nor my brothers’ sister, neither. If it weren’t for Arden, and knowing him, and seeking his counsel as all the rest did, for all I’m five years his senior, I don’t think I’d have those five sons now, do you see? I don’t think I’d have dared trust any gentleman to so much as touch my hand. I’d have gone from Papa’s funeral to tending my garden, and never have had to hurry back to my noisy, lovely home in Scotland,” she said dreamily.