The Game of Love (The Love Trilogy, #2)

by Edith Layton

“I know,” Arden answered softly, “too well. I was in the Peninsula, I was at Waterloo too—only in the night, after it was done. I’d sold out by then, but when we heard of the battle, we came, my friend Julian and I—too late to do anything but help in the field, sorting the maimed from the dead, beating off the scavengers, human and less so. I do know,” he said sadly, “and it was too bad, my friend, for most men can go through life and never be tested and so never know if they would have turned or gone forward or not. I’m sorry.”

  It was the gentleness that did it. For there was one last thing Harry Devlin had to say, because they were leaving, and leaving it with them would relieve him. “Fancy,” he said, “that day, I saw your brother fall. That’s true. But…he fell as he was riding after me, to call me back. That’s true. That’s all. I’m sorry,” he said.

  Arden took Francesca from the room then. But as they reached the stairs, Julian cursed beneath his breath. “He could have spared her that,” he said furiously.

  “It took another sort of bravery,” Warwick answered. “It may be there’s hope for him yet.”

  “I’m surprised he let him go,” Julian muttered to Warwick, still fulminating as Arden walked a silent Francesca down the stairs.

  “I imagine,” Warwick said thoughtfully, “that he couldn’t think of a worse punishment. Very clever, our Lion, as always. That’s why he asked for his life, instead of taking Devlin’s, though he had his hand on a pistol in his pocket as he did. He gave the poor creature something to take away with him, rather than taking his life as he could easily have done, in front of his lady. Well done of our Lion, as usual.”

  There were two recumbent forms in the hallway, and Francesca paused as they approached them.

  “Step over them, or on them if you wish,” Arden advised, “they won’t wake for a while, but no, they’ve not got anything broken.” As she gasped, recognizing the two youths that had threatened her, he added, “I know they did no more than shock and frighten you, and that they’re no more, poor idiots, than gutter-bred, desperate children, but I thought I ought to remind them of the manners I expect them to use with those weaker than themselves.”

  She tiptoed around them, and as they got to the sidewalk and the welcome sight of the duke’s coach, an old black beggar on his wheeled platform rolled up beside them.

  “Pity the sorrow of a poor old man whose trembling limbs have brought him to your side… Oh, Lion,” he said, dropping his plaintive whine and speaking up in chipper accents. “Did you get the bad lads in time?”

  “That I did indeed, Bob,” Arden said, bending to drop several coins in his cup. “Thank you, and drink hearty.”

  “To your health, as always, Lion.” The old man grinned. “And to the lucky lady,” he added, bowing his head, before he scooped up the coins and knuckled his cart into motion and down the street once more.

  “I’ll ride with Julian. I believe I can use the fresh air,” Warwick said thoughtfully after Francesca had entered the coach and Arden waited for him by its door.

  “Oh, yes,” Arden agreed, “very salutary tonight, especially here. Your subtlety never ceases to thrill me, your grace. It would be even more impressive if you’d remove that leer.”

  “But it becomes me,” the duke complained before he added lightly as he sprang to the high hard driver’s bench with Julian, “I promise not to peek, too.”

  Arden smiled, then frowned, then shook his head, but his color was still high as he entered the coach.

  He said nothing as the coach started up. Francesca felt the silence crowd around her. She’d deceived him, true, but it had been for the right reasons, and she knew he couldn’t be angry with her still, at least not for that. Harry had said a dreadful thing about her brother’s death, and she automatically shied from it; that would be another thought, for another time, and she doubted Arden hesitated to speak because of that. But he wasn’t speaking at all, and as she sought a reason why, she remembered what he’d heard her tell Harry, and held her breath. When moments passed and he still hadn’t spoken, she let it out in a sigh. Declaring oneself publicly was bad enough; having that declaration ignored was perhaps the politest way to deal with an unwelcome affection, but also the most embarrassing. She began to speak at once then, on any trivialities, just to fill the silence and show she didn’t care, inventing a bright voice as she rambled.

  “I didn’t really believe you were in the army, Arden, no mustaches, you know, and other army gents are so proud of theirs. Why, Captain Shipp…” Her voice dwindled as she spoke of something she belatedly realized she ought not to have.

  “Mine always grows in red,” he said easily. “Believe it or don’t. Too vivid by half, you see, or rather that’s why you don’t see it. Clashed with the uniform,” he mused. “Harry didn’t have one either,” he reminded her.

  “He took his off because I didn’t like it, or so he claimed,” she answered, low.

  “That’s a relief,” he said, looking at her cameo profile, her ivory skin glowing in the dim coach. Then he sighed and looked out the window. “I was king here once. You’ve seen it now,” he commented, “just as said.”

  “You took care of them,” she answered quickly.

  “And myself.”

  “You protected the innocent,” she insisted.

  “And the guilty.… Fancy, my dear love,” he said seriously then, leaning forward and speaking intently, “give it time. Give yourself a chance to see reason. You were looking for a safe harbor, you can’t mean to stay with me—”

  “If I’d wanted a safe harbor,” she cried, angry and amazed at his stubborn refusal to understand, for if he didn’t want her, she’d understand, but if he didn’t know she wanted him, she couldn’t, “there are missions and convents and friendly dukes and doting sisters in Scotland for that, aren’t there?”

  He grew very still. She didn’t dare look at him, but studied the darkening streets with interest instead, as though she could see them.

  “I’ve led a strange and varied life, but I want nothing more than to settle down to my gardening now,” he said.

  And when she wheeled about to look at him, astonished, he went on sadly, “I’ve a lovely home in the Lake District, with acres of hilly land and a complex systems of water gardens, and my yellow flags and Chinese peonies flourish there. I’ve an orangery where I experiment with pollination, and a dozen bedrooms to do more of that sort of thing in, or,” he said hurriedly, “to decorate for fellow horticulturists when they come to call, and a drawing room as fine as Warwick’s, I’ll warrant, and a music room to make Julian’s ancestress tear her phantom hair with envy, and a grand ballroom and, of course, a grand kitchen the like of which hasn’t often been seen on this blessed isle. That, I can offer without apologies.”

  She didn’t dare ask whom he was offering it to, but only said, in a high, artificial squeal that threatened to humiliate her, “Arden, with all your tales, so many that turn out to be true, and so many that must be false, I vow I don’t know what to believe of you. What is real, what is true?”

  “A problem,” he agreed seriously. “I think it’s best solved by your coming along with me for the next five decades or so, to keep a close watch on me. And then I think you’ll see for yourself. Will you?” he asked, all soberness now. “For I’ve some difficulty in believing my ears too. Was all that you said in there, my poor foolish, deluded Fancy—was all that you said you felt for me true? I’m too famous for my lies to dare tell you how much I love and need and want you. But God knows, if you don’t, my love, that I do. Will you marry me, and soon, before you change your mind?”

  “Oh, yes, please,” she said, “yes.”

  He gathered her up in his arms and kissed her lightly, and then, beginning to believe he actually held her and she was really opening her wonderfully soft lips against his and pressing close to him, as though she were afraid he’d get away, he kissed her so thoroughly she still lay back on his arm, eyes closed, breath rapid, when he drew back from her.

>   “To little, but too much for such a short carriage ride,” he murmured, stroking her smooth hair to keep from stroking her smooth skin again, “and besides, I know Warwick’s peeking. I’d like to be able to leave here with some little dignity,” he explained as she opened her eyes to look at the tender, bemused look upon his face, “but I don’t really want to stop. Talk to me,” he pleaded, “we’re almost there, and I refuse to give the duke so much satisfaction.”

  “I love you so much,” she said.

  “Wrong topic,” he sighed when he drew back from her again. “Oh, love,” he said then, smiling so joyously her eyes filled, “what a marriage it will be. We two—the big bad villain and the wicked little gamester’s beautiful brave daughter—why, we’ll breed wonderfully sinister infants who have style and guile and grace. And if we can’t, we’ll be just as happy with our peonies, and what fun we’ll have, such a union, the like of which never has been seen, I promise you. Oh, my foolish Fancy,” he said tenderly, forgetting where they were and all his resolve to deny Warwick the pleasure of opening the coach door to see him entirely lost in her arms, “thank you. I’ll aspire to see you never regret me. And, Fancy,” he asked several moments later when the coach was still and he finally admitted it had stopped moving, and so reluctantly released her, “when we’re wed, will you…could you possibly bring yourself to reveal something…ah, intimate for me?”

  “What, Arden?” she asked nervously, sitting up, patting her hair back into place, suddenly aware of an amused oval of a long face at the window, studiously not looking within.

  “Well, actually, only after you’ve gotten to know me and trust me, of course,” he said softly, “because it’s not an easy thing for any well-bred woman to do, I’d imagine. Still, I’d hoped…”

  “For what?” she asked, a little alarmed now, forgetting the fair-haired gentleman also pointedly not looking in at them, for she began to wonder just what personal thing it might be that he’d want of her. For all she loved him, she’d heard of certain proclivities—and was nervously wondering if her love could surmount such unimaginably esoteric desires, when he said eagerly, “Your cards, Fancy, I really would like a look at the king of diamonds! If Shipp was right, it’s something I’ve always wondered about and—”

  Few newly engaged couples were revealed, when their coach door was finally opened, to have the gentleman roaring with laughter as he raised his hands to defend himself against a furious lady batting him with her reticule, but then, Warwick commented wisely to Julian, when he’d a better look at their faces, this would doubtless be a marriage such as few people had seen before anyway.

  21

  It was a wedding the like of which had seldom been seen, even in London town. It was two weddings, actually. The one in the grand cathedral, and the one outside of it. The groom must be a popular public benefactor, a passerby thought, to judge from the number of celebrant poor who overflowed the sidewalks and capered on the cobbles, dancing to the music of the savoyards with their hurdy-gurdies and the fiddlers and ballad singers, all in full voice and great heart. There were even more varied professionals in the throng. The cutpurses and pickpockets had declared it a holiday, so reticules, watches, and fobs were safe, but reputations weren’t. Some of the finest gentlemen mounting the steps to the cathedral with their wives in tow had to avert their eyes from some of the gaudier females who cavorted in the streets. Not for reasons of propriety, as the Duke of Peterstow confided to his own lovely bride as they entered the great church, but for prudence, since half the demimondes in London that the gentlemen regularly patronized were there. Although, he whispered into her delightful ear, he doubted they’d recognize each other in the sunlight.

  There was a great deal of sunlight that bright early summer’s morning, but it was cool and quiet within the cathedral, as befitted a ceremony attended by so many notables. The groom must be a very fashionable fellow, the passerby commented to his friend as they watched the string of titled persons entering to witness the wedding. There were three famous dukes: witty Peterstow, sly Torquay, and enigmatic Austell were there; a smattering of earls, among them, it was whispered, the groom’s own half-brother, the new Earl of Oxwith; a plenitude of marquesses, including the mysterious Marquess Bessacarr and his lovely wife; barons galore, numerous lords, and as for viscounts, there was among them the groom’s new neighbor, the Viscount North, whose masculine blond beauty rivaled that of his best man, the Viscount Hazelton.

  Of course, the honorable Miss Merriman’s spiteful mother commented, to console her as-yet-unwed daughter, they were most of them notorious in their youth and not a few bore shocking reputations still, no matter how reformed they chose to represent themselves to be. There was even a certain something whispered about the bride’s father, in for the happy day from his estate in Cologne, he claimed. Or rather, there might have been something whispered if there weren’t far more interesting persons to gossip about than a mere rackety baron.

  That the proud bridegroom had been an army officer was evident not only from the way he held his head and marched down the aisle. For what seemed to be an entire unit of army officers and men were there as well, so many that a guest was overheard to say he’d never felt so safe in all his days.

  Not all the guests made each other feel as comfortable, for some were decidedly oddly dressed and behaved. There were some gentlemen, such as the one who declared himself a “Mr. Portwine,” and others such as Mr. Sam Towers, for example, whose garb was so unusual, as was that of their ladies, that if it hadn’t been for that charming young Mr. Begood explaining softly to all and sundry that they were nabobs from the colonies, they might even have frightened some of the more timorous guests.

  After the ceremony it was remarked that the groom certainly must be a public-spirited gentleman, for all he was unknown to so many ladies in society, for no less a notable than Sir Conant, chief magistrate of Bow Street himself, came up along the receiving line to congratulate him.

  “So that’s where you’d got to,” Sir Conant said, taking the bridegroom’s huge hand firmly in his. “I’m glad to see this happy resolution to your career, Lion. Though in a way,” he whispered, leaning close, “I’m sorry to see your retirement from the lists, for I do love a challenge. Still, you’ve made my declining years so much the easier, and so I thank you, as well as congratulate you, lucky fellow,” he sighed when he saw the glowing bride.

  He wasn’t the only one. Few present had seen such a radiant bride, they declared, and this time, they may even have been right. Certainly her new husband thought so. He seldom took his eyes from her, it was almost as if he didn’t quite believe in her presence, so that he had to keep looking back to assure himself she was real. But then, few brides had such creamy ivory skin to complement a creamy silk gown, and fewer still had such luxuriant midnight-black hair, the most admired color of the season, to set off fine features, and fewer still such grace, the ladies admitted, or such an admirable form, as the gentlemen noted and didn’t dare mention within hearing of the groom.

  For although Arden Lyons was beyond impressive in his immaculate, well-fitted, beautifully made clothes, and his tawny hair had been brushed and his every ornament was as fashionable and elegant as may be, he was still the largest gentleman anyone had seen in a great while, and not the sort, it was generally feared, to be told of his new wife’s desirability by other fellows, whom he might take it into his head to resent.

  But resentment was the last emotion his face expressed all through the ceremony and afterward, and by the time the happy couple had slipped away from the merrymakers at the wedding breakfast, a long way past noon, it could be said that it was also the last emotion from his mind. Relief was largest on his face as their carriage pulled away, unnoticed, save but the Duke and Duchess of Peterstow and the Viscount Hazelton and his invited guest, Mrs. Cobb. For they’d arranged his great escape.

  “Army men,” Warwick explained to his still-smiling wife as she waved her damp handkerchief at the disappear
ing coach as it headed northward, “have unique methods of celebrating their friends’ wedding nights. Arden is a brave man, but he wasn’t prepared to face all that, or have Francesca forced to do so, at any rate.”

  “Tell me about it!” Roxanne Cobb laughed gaily. “Banging pans and thumping on the ceiling if they find the inn you’re at, and bawdy songs and suggestions! Lord,” she sighed, not with disapproval, but with fond remembrance, “how they carry on! Someone always volunteers to take the groom’s place if he finds it hard going”—she laughed merrily, as, faintly, imperceptibly, the lovely fair-haired young duchess stiffened in dismay—“and another, creeping up to their chamber door, gets everyone to stamping their feet in rhythm when he hears—”

  “Good heaven,” Julian said at once, “Roxie, look at the time! You did say you wanted to have a word with the baron before he left again, didn’t you?”

  As she agreed, eager now to be back in the great dining hall that had been engaged for the party that no one wanted to miss, the party that had for his bride’s sake firmly established Arden in the society he’d likely never wish to set toe in again, Julian looked one significant, helpless look to his friends Warwick and Susannah, and then more properly took his leave of them both, with a promise to see them soon again.