Lord Haven's Deception

by Donna Lea Simpson

  Chapter Fourteen

  Haven flew out the cottage door, tripping over the bucket in his haste. How much had she heard? How long had she been gone? Why did she run?

  Where was she?

  Spring evenings still closed in fairly early and the dark was gathering, creeping up over the moor and stealing into all of the hollows. Moonlight peeped and winked down at him, but with an experienced eye he could see the clouds form in the west, ready to steal across the sky. Any time now the moon would be obscured and perhaps there would even be rain. Mary came to the door behind him. “Where has she gone, Gerry?”

  “I don’t know,” he said tersely, scanning the valley in which Mary’s stone cottage nestled. “And I don’t know how long she has been gone, nor what she overheard. Is that why she ran? Does she despise me as Viscount Haven that much?” There was an ache of pain in his voice. “I have to look for her.” He turned back to his old friend and saw the worry and fear in her eyes.

  “Gerry, she doesna know the moors, how cold it gets at night this time of year. Lord help her, it can even snow on the high fells.” She pulled the shawl close around her shoulders and shivered. “If she is Miss Dresden, as you say, she is from Bath. This is no Bath.”

  Grimly, Gerry nodded. He stared out into the dark. “I’ll find her. If it is any comfort, Mary, we walked these hills together and I pointed out the way to Lesleydale to her. Maybe she has headed for town.”

  “I hope so.” Molly started to cry, a thin wail that changed to a lusty bawling. Mary looked back into the cottage.

  “Go back to your babe, Mary.” He clutched her shoulders, gave them a squeeze and pushed her back into the cottage. “I will look for Jenny.”

  Tearful, Mary turned and gazed at her old friend. She wrung her hands together in her apron. “Please find her, Gerry.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  But his best wasn’t good enough. With only weak moonlight streaking through the trees to guide him, he had to crawl at an invalid’s pace. She had only a few minutes’, at most, lead; where could she have gone so quickly? Was she running? She was fleet of foot when she wanted to be, he knew that from experience. He took advantage of a brief glitter of moonlight and stood atop a moor, gazing around him, turning in a circle and trying to imagine in which direction she would go. Most of the hillsides were barren, but here and there the sightlines were obscured by gorse and brushy hummocks. Would she have headed toward Lesleydale? Surely that was the way she would go!

  He strode down the moor, but the clouds were closing in and he lost the moonlit path he had had. He had to slow and go by memory. Damn but he was an idiot not to bring a lantern! But to go back for one now would be to lose valuable time. As he walked, he muttered a prayer. God help him find her. It was cold and windy and . . . and yes, it was beginning to rain.

  Damn the night! And damn his own mouth. What had he said? How much had she heard? That constant refrain raced through his brain, torturing his thoughts. He damned the chance that Jenny should overhear them. If only he could have explained! If only he had told her the truth the day before, when they were alone and walking on the moors and by the Lesley. Would she then have told him who she was? Would she have confessed so they could both have a good laugh? It was now too late for laughing confessions.

  She would despise him for his masquerade, and he couldn’t blame her. What was she to think? She must have thought, when she heard who he was, that he was toying with her, seducing her. With his new knowledge of her true identity he looked back on their conversations and recognized the powerful, deep-grained streak of skepticism toward the nobility that underlay much of her statements. Knowing he had concealed his identity and made such advances to her, thinking her a serving girl, she must have assumed that his intentions were dishonorable.

  And how could he blame her? He had been to London, had had his Seasons and had found the same distasteful level of artifice and pretension, snobbery and condescension as she evidently had. Men pledged their lives to the ladies they took as wives, and took a mistress in secret, or contented themselves with raiding the servants’ hall for sexual conquests. He must have seemed such a cad, just what she would have expected of Lord Haven, who could not even be bothered coming to London to court a wife but had to have one delivered like the mail, by carriage. If he could just find her and explain—

  He moved on through the night, pulling his shabby jacket up over his ears against the cold wind and pelting rain. But the moors were vast, and though he hoped she was moving toward Lesleydale, he had only that general direction to go on. There were a thousand ways to get there, and that was assuming she was headed in that direction and that she had not gotten lost in the dark! As it got later the gloom closed in until it was almost impenetrable. He searched and called out her name, but there was no answering hail. She was alone in the moors. His Jenny, alone and cold and wet.

  He stood at the top of a long sweep of lonely moor. It was so very dark the hills were just vast, sooty humps looming at the edge of vision. He felt her out there, somewhere, alone and fearful. He felt her desperation in his bones, in his very marrow. Perhaps he was being overly dramatic, but he felt as if he had let her down. Even though she, too, had been playing a part, was his role not more despicable for being so unnecessary?

  She, at least, was running from something. Him, to his shame and horror; she was running from him. He was just play-acting. Play-acting; like he had with Mary. Childish of him, and unworthy. He’d never do that again.

  As the moon found a break in the clouds for one brief, shimmering moment, casting the valley below him into silvery light and charcoal shadows, he found the path toward Lesleydale. He knew that for him nothing had changed since finding out she was really Miss Jane Dresden, and not Jenny, servant girl. He was in love with her, needed her. There would be time to worry about that later, though. Right now, fear gnawing at the pit of his belly, he must only figure out how he was going to find her. It certainly would not be by standing on the top of a moor and contemplating.

  With renewed determination he set out down the long slope toward the Lesley. The clouds closed in again and the rain started, this time more than just a spit. The wind blew it sideways until it felt like needles in his face. He fought a growing panic. Where was she? The temperature was plummeting and the wind rising. If she was unsheltered she would quickly be freezing cold. He bent his body into the wind and strode on, calling her name, hoping against hope to find some indication that he was on the right path.

  Hours later he still had not found her and he had to admit, weary and heartsick as he was, that he was not going to find her in the dark. He trudged homeward through the steady rain after stopping briefly at Mary’s cottage to report his lack of progress. His friend had tried to calm his worries, but he could see on her face the dread. She was as worried as he and knew, as he did, what a night on the moors with no shelter would be like. Even in August it would be cold and lonely, but it was only April, and in Yorkshire April was a cruel month, full of rapid changes and hard, cold winds.

  Haven Court finally came into view. At that moment he despised the old priory, hated the ancient stone and square lines. It made him who he was, and who he was was not who Jenny—Jane, Jenny, what would he call her now?—wanted. In the morning he would take his horse and ride every acre. He would enlist every one of his men and get more from the village. Wherever she was, he would find her. And when he did he would make sure she knew that he would make it his mission in life to make hers happy, whatever that took. Likely his absence, he thought gloomily.

  Wearily, he trudged up the steps and into the Court. The great hall echoed back the slosh and squish of every footstep. He was almost to the staircase—it was late, and though Bartlett had attended him, he had waved off further help—when his grandmother popped out of her suite, still fully dressed. He groaned inwardly. She was like a cuckoo bird that popped out of a clock he had seen once when someone had brought it back from a European tour. She never seemed t
o sleep.

  “Haven,” she said, imperiously. “Come!” She disappeared back into her suite and so Haven was left with no alternative but to follow.

  She was making him a cup of her infamous dark tea. She handed him the cup, balancing precariously on her cane; as he took a sip he coughed at the fiery flavor. She had seen his state and had spiked it with a generous dollop of fine brandy. He eased back into a chair and closed his eyes, taking another long draught.

  “Have you made any progress?” she asked. Her maid creaked around in the background, but with a wave of Grand’s cane the woman stopped what she was doing and left the room. “I know you have been out all evening; have you anything to report?”

  Haven sat up, put his empty cup aside and clenched his hands together, leaning forward on his knees. “Actually, Grand, there has been a most . . . startling development.”

  She sat down opposite him, her brilliant blue eyes gleaming with interest. “Go on.”

  He paused, but his brief concern that the news might be too much for her heart was rapidly calmed. She was made of sterner stuff than that. “Simply put, my Jenny is also Miss Jane Dresden. They are one and the same. Miss Dresden has never been missing but has been, all this time, at Mary’s cottage.”

  If he expected an open mouth or expression of astonishment, he was to be disappointed.

  “So you have finally figured that out, have you?” There was a tone of exasperated affection in her voice.

  Haven took a moment, but finally said, “How could you possibly know?”

  “Never took you for a slowtop, grandson, but how could you not have figured it out for yourself? And I thought you were the brilliant one in the family. There is a girl missing. A girl, coincidentally of the same general description, arrives at Mary’s cottage at the exact same time. It did not take a mathematician to ponder the long odds on that coincidence. How could you not even consider it?”

  “Because Mary assured me she was her cousin! Mary does have a cousin named Jenny, and . . . Grand, why would I suspect anything different?”

  “I have suspected it for a couple of days now. So, you great looby, have you settled things between you? Am I to meet your future wife? Why is she not here?”

  He groaned and held his aching head in his hands. His clothes were soaked through, and he felt the beginning of a fever in his cheeks. But what made him feel even worse was knowing that his Jenny was out there in this wretched, abominable weather. “Lord, Grand, if you knew, why did you not tell me? It would have saved a lot of trouble.”

  “It was rather entertaining watching you all go through such circus contortions trying to figure it out. And I could not be sure, you know. I had only the use of my own brain where other people are able to get about and ask questions.” The last was said with asperity. “So, where is the girl? Where is my future granddaughter-in-law? I wish to meet her.”

  “You will have to wait,” Haven said, irritated. “You will have to wait until I find her!”

  “What do you mean?”

  He stood, agitated, and paced the carpet. “Damn it, Grand, she has disappeared again. She overheard Mary and I talking, as we both figured out what the other was concealing, and she disappeared. It seems her repugnance for the Viscount Haven is so great she cannot even stand to be near me.”

  His grandmother went rigid, her face suddenly gray, and she said, “She has disappeared, and on a night such as this? Haven . . . if I . . . oh, Lord, if I had only told you it was her. Where did she go? Where could she go?”

  Mastering his anger, Haven slumped back into a chair, lowered his head and stared at his feet. “Grand, do not blame yourself. You could not be sure, after all. It is my doing. If I had not concealed my identity in the first place . . .”

  Her brows drawn down and her arthritic hands picking at her shawl, the old woman said slowly, “Are you sure she overheard you? Are you certain that is what happened?”

  He explained about the bucket of water in front of the door, and how it was ajar, and his own surmise that she had opened the door a little so she could bring in the bucket and had overheard him and Mary talking.

  “I still do not understand,” Grand said, “why Mary Cooper saw fit to conceal Miss Dresden’s identity!”

  “Mary didn’t know about Miss Dresden,” Haven said, quick to defend his friend. “I don’t talk about my life here at the Court with her much. It’s where I go to get away from such things. So she knew nothing about my supposed betrothal and Miss Dresden’s disappearance. I intended to ask her if she had seen a girl, but I was caught up in that idiotic play-acting in front of Jenny and I did not want to say anything that would reveal my true identity. And then Pammy said she had asked them if they had seen or heard anything about the missing young woman. I suppose she asked Jenny . . . uh, Miss Dresden, but—” He shook his head. “Scott was ne’er so right. ‘O what a tangled web we weave . . .’”

  Grand was not satisfied. She stubbornly demanded, “But why did Mary claim Miss Dresden as her cousin? Did she not tell you?”

  Haven shrugged, weary of the subject and sick at heart. If he didn’t care why Mary had done it, why should his grandmother? But there was nothing for it but to tell the old woman what he could. “Mary said that the girl was in her barn, shivering and cold and clearly upset. She was wet, her dress was torn, she was lost. Mary was shielding her from too much questioning. At first she thought the girl had been attacked, perhaps even . . . even raped.”

  The dowager nodded. “I see.” She pondered for a moment, her wrinkled face set in a frown. “I suppose I can understand that. Miss Dresden must have been the girl who was attacked by those idiot drunkards outside of the Tippling Swan; it would have been a truly alarming experience for a gently bred girl. But Mary should have trusted you, Haven. There is no man in the world more fit to comfort a frightened woman than you.”

  He gave her a confused look.

  She smiled. “So little self-knowledge,” she murmured. “Haven, you are the gentlest man I have ever known, and one of the strongest. Your sex is not generally known for its finer feelings, but you are a tender soul.”

  “Tell the folk in the village that!” he snorted, embarrassed by his grandmother’s unusual commendation.

  “You hide it well, grandson, under a dour exterior, for fear of being hurt, I think.”

  “Make me sound like a woman,” he complained.

  “And what is wrong with that?” she said fiercely, eyes blazing. “The female of every species has more innate strength than the male.”

  He sighed deeply. “What am I going to do? How am I going to find her?”

  The old woman’s lined face took on a thoughtful expression. “I hate to think of the poor girl out on the moors at night. However, she is presumably not a dolt. She will shelter and in the morning you will find her, Haven. I know you will.”

  Haven stood and stretched. He was weary beyond the limits of his endurance, almost, but he did not think he would sleep. How could he, knowing Jenny was out on the moors somewhere, alone, cold, frightened? First light would see him mounted and away.

  • • •

  Jane huddled on a straw pallet in the corner of a tiny shack she had been lucky enough to stumble across. She had wandered for far too long, until she did not recognize any landmarks. She was cold and wet, shivering with misery, and could do nothing more until daylight. It had occurred to her at some point that she had been moving downstream along the Lesley, when the village of Lesleydale was upstream. Come morning she would have to figure out what to do, but for now it was enough to pull her shawl around her and huddle against a wall and think.

  The night had taken on a nightmare quality, a waking dream of cold and fear and confusion. Time had no meaning anymore. The moon had disappeared into the clouds and the rain had dissuaded her from looking to the sky for guidance. Perhaps she should not have run.

  Well of course she shouldn’t have run! It seemed that from the moment she set foot on the carriage to leave Bat
h, she had been taking one misstep after another. It was past time she started acting like an adult and not a silly chit with more hair than wit. But she had been afraid that Gerry, knowing who she was, would feel compelled to take her to Haven Court and she didn’t know if she was ready for that yet. Especially now, when it would be known how foolish she had been. For she had been beyond foolish, she had been cowardly and weak.

  She was a grown woman. No person alive could force her into a marriage she did not want. And just because she found it hard to withstand excessive bullying under the guise of persuasion did not mean she could not learn to say no. She sat up straighter. She was intelligent. She was not without courage, though one would not know it by the actions she had taken in the past week. But the first shock of finding out her mother had married that weasel Mr. Jessup, and realizing she had no home to go back to . . . that must be the excuse for her ludicrous actions.

  And in the end it had led to a new knowledge of herself. She could stand on her own. Perhaps she had not proved it yet, but she began to be certain she could.

  She had lost Gerry with her foolish lies, but then she had never really had him. He had cared for Jenny, a servant girl. Miss Jane Dresden would be a different matter. She had to accept that and plan her own life now. But first she must, in the morning, straighten out the mess she had made. She was still unashamed that she had upset her aunt, but if the woman was truly worried it would be a novel experience. Perhaps Lady Mortimer would begin to see that she could not force her own ideas upon others and expect them to fall in joyfully with her plans.

  The wall was cold and Jane felt the frigidity settling into her bones. She longed to curl up and sleep but the pallet of straw was, she felt certain, alive with vermin; she was not so tired that she could stand the thought of what might crawl through her hair in the night. As it was she could hear scuttling in the corners and once had felt something move next to her booted foot.