Sophie said, "Do show the earl in, Willicombe."
Nicholas Vail paused a moment in the doorway. His eyes went to her immediately, as if no one else were in the room.
Ryder, who was standing by the fireplace, pushed off the mantel and walked to the young man, forcing his attention away from Rosalind. "My lord, do come in and meet my ward, and my son, Grayson."
Nicholas was a hunter, but he wasn't stupid. He bowed over Mrs. Sherbrooke's hand, then Rosalind's hand, but he didn't linger. He realized Grayson Sherbrooke was studying him intently, and said to him, "You write mysterious novels, Mr. Sherbrooke."
Grayson laughed. "Yes, I do, but there are primarily mysterious ghosts and otherworldly beings in my books, my lord, who enjoy meddling in the lives of men. And women."
Nicholas said, "I read The Phantom of Drury Lane. I enjoyed it immensely. It fair to curdled my innards."
Rosalind laughed, charmed to her toes, as, she knew, were Uncle Ryder and Aunt Sophie since they were Grayson's proud parents. Grayson beamed. "Yes, it curdled a lot of readers' innards, my lord, mine as well. I am pleased you liked it."
Sophie thought, what was a mother to do in the face of such a lovely compliment toward her beloved son? A mother would obviously unbend, and so Sophie unbent. "You are obviously a gentleman of excellent literary taste, my lord. You are possibly even worthy of one of Cook's excellent nutty buns. I begged her to bake more and she decided to please me. Willicombe, do bring in tea and any nutty buns that haven't already been filched off the plate."
Willicombe eyed the imposing young man who'd had the brain to compliment Master Grayson, and unbent himself. "Yes, madam," he said, and bowed low so the earl could enjoy the shine.
When Willicombe was gone, Nicholas said to Sophie, "His head—it near to blinded me."
Ryder said, "He was lucky to have that slash of sunlight hit it exactly right when he bowed. You see, my lord, Willicombe prides himself on a high shine. He is not bald, he shaves his head twice a week. He informed me this morning he applied a new recipe."
Nicholas laughed, still paying no particular attention to Rosalind. But he was aware of her, oh, yes, particularly of her rich deep red hair piled so artlessly atop her head this morning, lazy curls reaching down to brush her shoulders. Rosalind was an exotic name, he was pleased with it, but yet, somehow, her name didn't seem right. He would be patient; he would learn everything about her soon enough.
Because he was polite he took only one bite of a nutty bun. After he'd chewed that one bite he wished desperately he could stuff the entire bun into his mouth.
Ryder Sherbrooke said, "Where have you been for the past fourteen years, my lord?"
He said, without hesitation, "Many places, sir. For the past five years, though, I have lived in Macau."
Grayson sat forward on his chair. "The Chinese own it but the Portuguese administer it, do they not?"
Nicholas nodded. "The Portuguese landed in the early six-teenth century, claimed the peninsula even though it borders China. It was a major hub of Portuguese naval, commercial, and religious activities in East Asia for several hundred years." He shrugged. "But a country's fortunes change as al-liances and trade markets shift. Macau is merely an outpost low, of little importance in the big scheme of things."
"What did you do there, my lord?"
At last, Nicholas thought, and turned to face her. "I am in trade, Miss—" He stalled, on purpose, hoping she would give him her last name.
She did. "I am Rosalind de La Fontaine."
A dark brow shot straight up. "By any chance are you a fabulist?"
She beamed at him. "So you have read the fables by Jean de La Fontaine, sir?"
"My grandfather read many of them to me when I was a very young boy."
"Do you have a favorite?"
"Yes, 'The Hare and the Tortoise.'"
"Ah, a patient man."
He smiled at her. "And your favorite is?"
" 'The Cicada and the Ant.'"
A black brow shot up. "Which one are you?"
"I am the ant, sir. Winter always comes. It's hast to be prepared because one never knows when a storm might strike when least expected."
"That made no sense at all," Grayson said.
"I fear that it did," Ryder said, and Sophie nodded, and there were shadows in her eyes. "I had no idea, dearest, that you—"
They saw so much, Rosalind thought, too much, not, of course, that she hadn't just dished her biggest fear up to them on a platter. She laughed. "It's only a fable, Aunt Sophie. I truly would like to be more like the cicada, but there appears to be too much Puritan blood in my veins."
Nicholas said matter-of-factly, "Rosalind's virtue is prudence and mine is patience. What is yours, Grayson?"
"I hate flattery," Grayson said, "thus I suppose that I like 'The Crow and the Fox.'"
"Ah," Rosalind said, and poked Grayson's arm. "The fox flatters the crow, and the crow drops the food in his mouth to preen."
"Exactly."
Rosalind stuck out her small plate for a nutty bun.
Nicholas looked at that nutty bun, sighed, and slipped one of the remaining two off the plate onto hers.
"It is always so" Sophie said, grinning at him with only a dollop of sympathy, since she wanted the other bun. "Nutty buns are at a great premium in this household. The recipe comes from Cook at Northcliffe Hall. Because my husband prostrated himself at her feet, swore he would sing her arias beneath her window, she deigned to pass the recipe along to our cook."
"If you should show me to the kitchen, ma'am, I will prostrate myself as well. However, I don't know any arias."
"Neither does my husband. He is so charming, however, that it doesn't seem to matter."
Laughter. It felt good, Nicholas thought, surprised. He couldn't remember very much laughter in his life.
"It is a lovely morning," he said. "As I recall from my boyhood, this is a precious spectacle that shouldn't be squandered. May I ask Miss La Fontaine to walk with me in the park?"
"Which park?" Ryder asked.
"Hyde Park, sir. I have a carriage outside. I hired it, since the ones remaining at Wyverly Chase are from the previous century."
Grayson leaned forward. "Wyverly Chase? What a phenomenal name. I should like to hear the history behind it. It is your family seat?"
Nicholas nodded.
Rosalind knew Grayson's brain was already spinning a tale about Wyverly Chase, so she said, "I understand there is a small artists' fair this morning. Perhaps his lordship and I could see what is happening with that."
Grayson nodded and rose. "I shall accompany you."
Rosalind wanted to smack Grayson, but since he had to be a hatter choice for chaperone than either Aunt Sophie or Uncle Ryder, she nodded. She rose as well, and smiled. "I should enjoy that very much."
Ryder Sherbrooke, seeing no hope for it, slowly nodded.
It was the rare sort of English spring day—a blue sky so bright , a breeze so light and scented sweet with the blooming spring flowers, that it brought a tear to the jaded English eye. They discovered that the small artists' fair meant to take place in one corner of Hyde Park had turned into an event.
Hundreds of people milled through Hyde Park to stop at he food and drink vendors and the artists' stalls, or sit on the trampled grass to watch the jugglers and mimes come to share in the fun and profit. There was a good deal of laugher, some good-natured fisticuffs, perhaps a bit too much ale, and pickpockets who smiled happily as they adroitly worked through the crowds.
"There is more food here today than artists," Nicholas said. Both he and Grayson held Rosalind by an arm, not about to let her get pulled away in the boisterous crowd.
"And drink," Grayson said. Suddenly Grayson stopped still, stared off into the distance.
"Oh, I see," Rosalind said and poked him in the arm. 'Bookstalls, a whole line of them."
Grayson was eyeing those bookstalls like a starved mongrel. Rosalind, seeing freedom
within her grasp, stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. "Off you go. I'll be perfectly safe with Lord Mountjoy. Go, Grayson. We will be just fine."
Nicholas's grin turned into his most responsible nod. "I swear to keep her safe." After but a moment of indecision, Grayson was off like a comet.
"He can move very quickly when properly motivated," Rosalind said.
Nicholas looked down at her upturned face. "What makes you think you'll be safe with me?"
She smiled up at his dark face, those black eyes of his. "Truth be told, I'd be perfectly safe by myself, as are you, I imagine." She eyed him up and down. "Were you to dare take liberties with my capable self, I should make you very sorry. I'm very strong, you know. And wily."
"And if you take liberties with me, then what am I to do?"
"Perhaps you could ask me to sing and that would distract me from those liberties."
He couldn't help it, he burst out laughing. Several people turned his way, smiling with him. One, Nicholas suspected, was a pickpocket, one a housemaid with lovely thick black hair, and the third a matron with the look of a baker's wife, what with the streak of flour down the bodice of her gown, three children clinging to her skirts.
"It is his passion," Rosalind said, watching Grayson gracefully weave his way through a group of military men singing ditties at the top of their lungs, their voices well oiled with ale. "Grayson is immensely talented. He began telling ghost stories when he was a little boy. He never stopped."
Nicholas said. "Why did you kiss him?"
That brought her to a halt. She cocked her head to one side, looking up at him. "He is my cousin. He is like my brother. I love him. I have known him forever."
"You are no blood relation to him," Nicholas said, voice hard, dangerous.
An eyebrow shot up, but she said nothing, merely eyed him. Did she want to shoot him, or kiss him? She wasn't
sure what to make of him. Was this an example of a man's possessiveness?
Rein in, rein in. Nicholas said, "I mean to say I heard Ry-der Sherbrooke call you his ward."
"That too. It's all rather complicated and really none of your business, my lord."
"No, I suppose not. At least not yet."
Now, what do you mean by that? she wondered. You thrive m mysteries and secrets, don't you ?
She ducked past a small boy running full speed toward a pasty vendor. "I am very glad my aunt and uncle didn't real-ize the beautiful weather would unleash the population of London into the park. This has turned into quite an affair. Oh, look, there are boys performing acrobatics. Let's go watch."
She grabbed his hand and pulled him to the edge of a cir-cle to watch the three boys. "Oh, one of them is really a little girl. Would you look at how she leaps onto that boy's shoulders—so smooth and graceful, and she stands so tall on lis shoulders—it looks easy, doesn't it?"
After he dutifully tossed several pennies into a large top hat, Nicholas bought her lemonade that tasted remarkably our, and a hot half pie. They walked away from the crowd to the far side of Hyde Park and sat on a small stone bench in front of a narrow, still pond.
"No ducks," Rosalind said.
"They're probably alarmed by all the bustle, hiding under hose bushes over there."
"You're probably right. 'But I'll tell you, these ducks are great performers. They quack and leap about, knowing they'll get bread and biscuits. Hmm, I hope they're not in any of the vendors' pies."
"I wager they're also fast."
Rosalind bit into her beef pie, chewed, took another quick bite. "Here, have a bite. A small bite."
She fed him a bit of her pie. Nicholas looked at her while he chewed. Her hair was mussed, her color high; she was smiling and looked utterly pleased with herself and her world. Suddenly four young men, all dressed in red, came bursting through the trees to form a half circle around them. Nicholas was an instant away from having his derringer in his hand when they began to sing. Sing! And in lovely harmony. He settled back to listen. He realized soon enough they were singing to Rosalind. They knew her and she them. Now, this was interesting. He didn't like it, but—when they finished a lilting Scottish ballad about a bonny girl who loved a one-armed highwayman called Rabbie McPherson, Rosalind clapped and said, "That was lovely, gentlemen, do give Lord Mountjoy another."
Another song filled the sweet air, this one sounding like a tragic song from an Italian opera. So she knew them, did she? He didn't know if that was odd or not. It probably was.
When they had finished, each of them bowed low, and a short, plump young man with lovely blue eyes said, "Rosalind, we have sung for you. We have sung for your compan ion. It is your turn now. Come, we will blend our voices with yours."
Her turn?
She laughed, handed Nicholas the rest of her beef pie— telling him to hold it carefully and not eat it—then went to stand with them. She cleared her throat, looked straight at him, and began to sing. The men's voices came in under hers, harmonizing beautifully, never overpowering.
See the flight of the moon Through the dark stretch of night Bathing the earth in its radiant light. All those in love who look to the sky Fear not the death of the night's final sigh.
When she sang the final haunting word, she dropped her head a moment, then raised her eyes to his face. It was the voice that made you weep deep inside where you didn't even know tears resided. It wasn't the child's voice, but it was still
the same voice. The men applauded her even as he sat there stunned, mute, unable to move. Even though he'd known, still he trembled at the knowledge of what she was. And what he was to her.
She asked after a moment, "Ah, did you like it?" He nodded, still without words.
He watched the young men move away and he still sat there on the bench, the rest of the beef pie clutched in his hand. He said slowly, looking up at her, "You spoke of Grayson's talent. Your voice, it is something one can scarce imagine. It sinks deep." He simply hadn't realized how deep.
6
"What a lovely thing to say." Rosalind laughed, suddenly uncertain. "But I am nothing compared to Grayson."
"You are different from Grayson, more powerful."
"Oh, well—" She laughed as she reached into her small reticule and scooped out some pennies. He watched her race after the young men. He heard laughter, then the first line of another familiar song, this one faintly Germanic.
When she came skipping back to him, he handed her the rest of her beef pie.
She ate it. "Gerard thanks you for the money."
"They were your pennies."
She shrugged. "Yes, but it is always the gentleman who must pay. It's some sort of ritual, so I suppose you must pay me back."
"You are temporarily short of funds?"
"Actually, those four pennies were the last of my fortune until my allowance next Wednesday. It is difficult, but I must give up a pound of my allowance for the collection plate." She sighed. "It is the right thing, of course, but when one is in London and visits the Pantheon—" She sighed, looking at him beneath her lashes.
He said nothing, his eyes still brooding, resting on the bushes behind her.
"What is wrong, my lord? You look fair to gut-shot. Are you temporarily penniless as well?"
That brought him back. This smiling girl was not a haunting vision of another time with a siren's voice to bring a man to his death—no, at least in this moment, she was a young lady who'd spent all her allowance. "Fair to gut-shot? I don't believe I have ever before heard a young lady say that."
"On the other hand you have been gone from England for many years. What do young ladies in Macau say?"
"The young ladies in Macau are mostly Portuguese, and there isn't an equivalent in Portuguese for 'gut-shot.' But in Patua—that is a local language developed by the Portuguese settlers who came in the sixteenth century—" He paused, leaned down, picked up a skinny branch, and tossed it. Who cared about a language spoken by very few people in a settlement on the other side of the world?
"One must."
"Say something in Patua to me." "Well, there is a Patua poem a friend of mine turned into a song I've always believed very pretty—"
Nhonha na jinela Co fula mogarim Sua mae tancarera Seu pai canarim.
He shook his head at her. "No, I will not attempt to sing it. You would run away, your hands clapped over your ears."
"Not I. I have great fortitude. Now, I don't have the least idea what you said, but the sounds are nice, like soft music."
"I'll translate it for you:
Young lady in the window
with a jasmine flower
Her mother is a Chinese fisherwoman
Her father is a Portuguese Indian.
"Imagine, you left England when you were only a boy and you went to this place where there are Chinese fisher-women and Portugese Indians—a place so very different from England. Were you treated well there—a foreigner?"
No one had ever asked him that. Slowly, he nodded. "I was fortunate enough to do a good deed for a rich Portuguese merchant in Lisbon. He gave me a flattering introduction to the governor of Macau, who happened to be his brother-in-law. I was treated well because of him, even though I was English."
"What was your good deed?"
He laughed. "I saved his only daughter from a rather oily young man who was plying her with champagne on a balcony under a vastly romantic Lisbon moon. She was foolish, but her father didn't realize it then. She was very angry at me for that rescue, as I recall."
"How did you communicate with everyone in Macau?"
He shrugged. "I suppose you could say that I have a gift for languages. I already spoke Portuguese and I learned Mandarin Chinese and Patua very quickly."
"I speak Italian," she announced, and puffed up.
He smiled at her. "You've got me there," he said, even though he was perfectly fluent in Italian.
"Have you missed England, my lord?"
"Perhaps. At odd times, like on a day like today, but, on the other hand, it's hard to remember days like today." He raised his head and sniffed the jasmine that grew not two feet away from them.
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