With a smile, Tony took Claudia lightly into his arms and said softly, “Oh, Imogen! My queen, my life, my wife! Have you not known my intentions, dear heart?”
“I— But— we are— just very good friends!” she blurted out, wishing this very heady dream would end itself quickly before she was completely betrayed.
“Of course we are! We shall always be very good friends!” he said calmly.
“And you are only wanting some entertainment while you are in London, and worried over Varian and Claire, and wishing me not to feel too— ”
“Claudia, darling,” Merrill interrupted, firmly, “I am very much in love with you, and if you don’t say yes immediately, I shall take advantage of your very awkward maiden state and ravish the most innocent female of my acquaintance!”
“Oh!” she said, blinking in surprise. “Yes! Of course! Of course I shall marry you, if you are certain that you wish it!”
“I am very certain,” he said, smiling down at her. He sensed that perhaps she had not been prepared for this, and that he had been a little hasty in spite of what he considered to be a rather large capacity for patience.
Well; he would court her and tempt her and teach her pleasure with all the patience that he possessed, if she was still so shy with him. He bent and kissed her lightly on the lips, and allowed his arm to encircle her waist in the most unthreatening manner, and then drew away immediately, and smiled at her without the least betrayal of his own feelings, which, at the moment, matched very well his size, and released her. “I shan’t make you uncomfortable, Claudia,” he said, in that calm way of his, and gave over her hat and gloves and reticule. “Dressmakers at two; you shan’t mind if I stay, shall you?”
“At the dressmakers?”
“Yes, of course! I shall take the greatest pleasure in making you buy something you think is a bit too daring!” he said, and put up the Shakespeare. “And I shall give you this for your wedding gift, for I have never delighted in anything more than hearing you convince me of its authenticity! Have I told you how very much I like your eyebrows?”
“Tony?”
“They are quite fascinating when you are deep in consideration!” He smiled down at her as he took her arm and led her out into the hall and grinned calmly at his butler, who smiled faintly at him as they passed through the front doorway and went outside to his curricle.
chapter seven
The Letters
News from Iberia, none of it good, drifted across the Channel to England that next week. Napoleon had ordered one of his marshals, General Dupont, to press on through Andalusia with support from Junot’s army in the north and to seize Cádiz and align his troops from Madrid southwards to the coast, effectively occupying Spain, and it looked very much like Portugal was to be next. Then came a shocking revelation: last year Napoleon had made a secret treaty in which Portugal was to be partitioned off between Junot, one of Napoleon’s generals, and Godoy, the hated minister of Charles IV of Spain.
Upon hearing the news, Lady Claire Banning, in a fit of righteous indignation, ordered her carriage and drove straight to Lord Canning’s office in Westminster.
Her interview with the Foreign Secretary was particularly unhappy. She spoke of it that evening at dinner in the most heartfelt accents, of how very distressed she was that the English should even consider allowing Portugal as well as Spain to fall to Napoleon. Canning had told her, a little unwillingly, that Junot had been gathering an army at Bayonne along the northern coast just this side of Spain since late last summer, and that in fact the English had known for some time of the secret treaty to partition off Portugal after it fell. Over the fowl that evening, she repeated her comments to Lord Canning and her very strong feelings on the subject.
The thought of Lord Canning standing against the wrath of his wife brought the hint of a smile to one corner of her husband’s very handsome mouth, and he wished for the thousandth time this week that this entire mess between them had been resolved.
Drew had not seen the ring on her hand, even though she had accepted it from him that morning at breakfast; he rather thought it had a great deal to do with Lady Morgan. At least he had managed to stay clear of the woman in private lately, although he had been forced to dance at least twice with her at every function they attended. Every evening after they arrived home, over cognac with Tony, he endured the fiercest recriminations over the hurt he was causing his wife and the distress he was causing himself, and it was only by Tony’s calm assurances that indeed he was doing the very thing he had to do, did he continue on with it. The fact that Claire had shown not the least intention of softening in her regard of him in almost three weeks was taking its toll on him as well, and truthfully, had he been made of iron he very likely could not have prevented what happened the next morning.
Somewhere in the corner of the garden by the small gate that led to the stables, rather hidden behind the gazebo and the oak trees, a flash of blue muslin caught his eye. Varian halted in the doorway to the terrace to see Claire on her knees in the shade of the oak trees, her hair tied back with nothing more than a ribbon. On impulse, he stripped off his coat and went outside as silently as Balaghat, with that curious lithe grace that he had learned in India, and that was emphasized rather than lessened with the slight remnant of a limp.
“Claire?”
“Oh!” She jumped, startled, and raised her head and twisted around, her hand— a rather grubby gloved hand, in fact— thrown in fright over her breast. “Oh, Varian! How you surprised me!”
“I’m sorry; I didn’t meant to frighten you. What are you doing?”
Claire smiled. “Just weeding, of course; mustn’t let it get too far, you know, for the little devils will creep up on you if you’re not conscientious.”
“Can’t Thomas-gardener do that?”
“Of course! Only I like to work in my garden!” she said easily.
Claire noticed for the thousandth time this week how very handsome he was as he stood there with the morning light behind his golden head, with that wonderfully golden skin so firm over his square jaw against the white of his cravat and his shoulders so broad and— so heathenish— beneath his perfectly tailored shirt, with those magical eyes like sapphires. It was his eyes that had bothered her so much lately; there was no longer any lighting up there at her entrance, or laughter when she said something funny, and, most of all, there was no longer any desire for her there.
Claire had known for weeks that she had lost him. At times, the cold reality of that seemed a hundred times worse than the secret locked upstairs in her bedchamber. Now, in the cool shade of the garden, alone with him for the first time in a fortnight, loving him seemed very much more important than that small, puny emotion she had tried to fight it with. She turned away slightly, as though she expected her simple explanation to have answered his question, and that he would stroll back up to the terrace and go about his morning and forget that she was here.
“Claire, haven’t you got rid of that dress yet?”
Her eyes opened wide in consideration of a particularly stubbornly-rooted weed that she had most likely missed last week. “But it is very good for gardening, Varian; I have kept it just for that reason alone, so I wouldn’t ruin one of my good ones,” she said, and tugged at the weed again, and then took up her trowel and pounded away at it for a moment or two.
“Here, let me do that,” he said, and was instantly beside her on his knees, his hand extended for the trowel.
She glanced up at him; with an imperceptible drawing away, she said, “You shall ruin your breeches, Varian,” and when he did not reply, she silently handed him the trowel.
He had the weed out in a trice; he held it up and gazed at it in astonishment. “Good god, it’s a damn tree,” Drew exclaimed in a surprised voice. Never having had any reason before now to pull one up, he hadn’t the least idea what weeds looked like, and his reaction, such a startled look in those blue eyes, made her laugh. “You haven’t been working these out of the gr
ound alone, have you?”
“No, of course not! And that is what I meant by having to be conscientious about this, for if one is good and weeds every day, you shan’t find many of that size in my garden!” Claire said, still amused, and sniffed and wiped the tip of her nose with the back of her very dirty glove. “Here, give me back my trowel and dust off your breeches. I shan’t have you ruining your elegant clothes for nothing.”
“Shall I go and put on my work clothes and come and help you?” Varian offered, certain that Tony wouldn’t have approved at all.
“No, of course not! I am certain you’ve other plans, and I shan’t allow you to ruin your morning!” she said pleasantly. He saw her eyes fall to the trowel in her hand as if it had taken very much more effort to say that than she allowed in her voice, and it awakened such a monster of desire in him that only by holding himself very still for a moment did he manage to control it.
“You know, you are such an excellent teacher, I believe I shall have a lesson in gardening instead, this morning,” he said, promising Tony in absentio that he would stay for just a little while, and that he would not allow things to get out of hand. “What’s this pretty blue thing here, standing against the wall?”
Claire glanced up at him in a second of surprised pleasure. “It is a hydrangea.”
“Rather matches that dress of yours. Claire, that isn’t the gown you were wearing all those years ago to steal Tony’s tulips in Essex?” he asked in a conspiratorial low voice with a touch of teasing.
Claire thought her husband had the most wonderful voice in the world. “I cannot imagine that you would wish to remember it!”
“Susie, wasn’t it?”
“Varian!”
“Oh, very well! That small rose-like flower, there, in the corner; the pink and white?”
“It is called balsam.”
“That profusion of bell-looking flowers there?”
“It’s campanula. You are quite astute; it is known as bellflower.”
“And all that purple stuff?”
“Lavender.”
“Ah! Yes, I recognize the scent now. The small white thing next to it?”
“Along the ground? That is sweet alyssum.”
“Sweet alyssum!” he repeated, musingly, with a smile on his face. “Shall we name a daughter that, do you suppose?”
Her smile disappeared instantly; he saw her very square chin tremble in that rosy face for the briefest second as she stared down at her trowel, and then she swallowed and said, “Yes, of course,” and the smile was repositioned as she glanced up at him again.
In that moment, Varian Drew could no more have looked away than he could have wished himself in India again. There was velvet within reach of his hand, and roses there in her cheeks, and some sweet nectar that he hardly dared recall on her lips. “And the dark red with the dark leaves, here, by your glove?”
Claire glanced down at her hand and stared at the plant for a moment, and then said in a low voice, “It is called impatiens.”
“Impatience,” Drew repeated slowly, staring at the graceful curve of her jaw behind her ear where she had tied up her hair. God help him! She smelled of lavender and balsam, of clean skin and some light, sweet perfume that made him want to hold her tightly in his arms and kiss her until she fainted. Kneeling next to him was the most beautiful woman in the world, and all he could think of was—
“Here, give me that thing,” he said suddenly, gritting his teeth, swearing silently to himself, and tearing off his cravat as he reached for the trowel. “I see another enormity there by the walk. I’ll get it.”
He took the trowel from her unresisting hand and did not look down at her again, but moved away and knelt in the grass at the edge of the flowerbed and began to dig, rather ferociously, around the weed; he had just pulled it out of the ground when he heard her call, “Sully! No, no, you naughty cat! Bring that back here this instant!”
He turned his head just in time to see a streak of white, his cravat dragging behind it through the grass, dart across the lawn. In a second, the thieving kitten was crouched playfully on a branch of the spacious oak tree, the cravat held tightly in his small mouth. “Sully!” Varian called out in astonishment, half-angry, half-amused. “You mugger-rat! And after all that sirloin!”
“Sully, come down now or I shall positively make you sleep in the kitchen, do you hear!” she called, and threw off her gloves and stood and came over to the tree, her hands on her hips, her head back as she stared up into the branches. “Give me that cravat! You naughty puss; I should have known better than to have allowed you outside with him anywhere in the house!”
And as if in response, Sully stared mutely at his mistress and then darted up another two or three branches and draped the cravat over the end of a small limb, mewed softly, rather penitently, and then disappeared amongst the leaves. In a moment there was a rustle across the gazebo roof just before the kitten came tearing down the trunk of the other oak and scampered playfully away toward the house, leaving his mistress laughing and shaking her head.
“Don’t worry over it, Claire! It doesn’t matter!”
“Of course it matters!” Claire called back to him. “I see that I am doomed to embarrass myself when I try to deal with you and my cat at the same time! Oh, very well! I shan’t mind!”
And without further ado, she reached out and took the large low-hanging branch in both hands, swung one slender leg— seen to be wearing very pretty stockings in a tiny, tantalizing moment— expertly over it, and before he had half-risen, she was sitting very comfortably astride the lowest branch of the oak tree, her head tilted up in consideration of the branches above her, her full skirts tucked around her ankles. “Claire! Good god, Claire, come down!” he called out instantly, and dropped the trowel and hastily dusted off his hands and went towards the tree. “You shall fall and break both legs and arms, and all for a worthless cravat!”
“Of course I shan’t fall!” she said disparagingly, with hardly a glance at him. She pulled herself up and went rather skillfully upwards toward the cravat peeping out from the leaves of a high branch. “I have been climbing trees since I was three; don’t laugh! I am very good at it!”
For Drew was laughing; surely she was the most fascinating creature in the world, this enticing blend of woman and child that spouted politics at the supper table and taught English to her servants and weeded her own garden— when she wasn’t climbing the trees in it— and hid behind her elegant turn of a politeness the most devastating ability to turn his insides to quicksand. Hands on his hips, Varian leaned back his head and watched her progress as she went like a monkey toward the strip of linen, with a rustle of petticoats and blue muslin, and an occasional glimpse of a very pretty ankle.
“Watch that branch!” Drew called out. “It is much too small to support you!”
“Yes, I see it!”
“Not that one either!”
“Varian,” came an exasperated voice, “it has to be one or the other; there are only two!”
“Oh, damnation! Just be careful!”
“It’s quite strong!”
“It is creaking, Claire!”
“There, now, I’m past it! You see!”
“Just hold tight, Claire, do you hear!”
“I think I’ve got it!” she called out, hanging carefully onto a stout branch as she balanced both feet on another, and reaching slowly for the cravat. It suddenly appeared out of nowhere and hit him squarely in the face.
“Hallo! Claire, you’ve done it!” he called out, chuckling. “Now come down before my heart seizes!”
She laughed from the upper reaches of the tree. “But Varian, I am very much at home up here; in fact, I have been wishing for an excuse to climb this tree, if you want the whole truth!”
“I thought as much! You are as hugger-mugger as that beast of yours!” he teased.
“Beast of mine!” she exclaimed. Her face appeared for a second, staring down at him with laughter in her blue eyes
. “You are the one who brought him home!”
“Yes, I recall the occasion; it should have given me fair warning! Do come down, Claire! The neighbors shall next be inquiring if we’ve visitors from the orphanage or somesuch!”
“Varian!” she laughed.
Holding firmly to the tree trunk, she climbed down in a curious mixture of womanly grace and childish unconcern, branch by branch. He breathed a sigh of relief; she was not so very far from the ground now, and she seemed to be making her way down without too much trouble.
Perhaps it was that same confidence that caused Claire to forget her dress. Just as she put out her foot on the lowest branch, directly over him— and perhaps, after all, it was those unsettling blue eyes laughing up at her from below— well, she was never certain precisely what caused it, but she caught her toe on the hem of the ancient blue muslin dress at the very spot she had meant to ask Consuela to mend last week.
With a surprised, “Oh, dear! Varian!” Claire tumbled straight out of the tree and into Varian Drew’s instant and careful embrace.
Unfortunately he was as surprised as she. He caught her and prevented her falling to the ground, but it was at the expense of his own balance. As his arms closed around her he stumbled backwards slightly, swearing, and they both landed squarely beneath the oak tree behind the gazebo.
It was not quite graceful and very much unplanned, but somehow he retained his hold around her, and in doing so, managed to thwack his head firmly on the ground, eliciting a painful, “Damn!” and a sudden second of starry blackness.
“Varian! Oh, no! Varian, darling, are you all right?” Drew heard, slightly dazed, and in the same instant, felt her lean over him to peer into his face. A soft hand smoothed back the hair from his forehead, and he realized with a jolt that that very pleasant weight against his chest was her.
He opened his eyes and blinked; the world focused, finally, after a blur of green from the oak leaves overhead. And there just above him were those familiar blue eyes, frowning slightly in worry, staring at him from beneath those dark, straight, thick brows. She had lost her ribbon, and her dark hair curled over her shoulders, along her slender neck, around her perfect face. There, not an inch from his mouth were those delectable lips, moving on his name: “Varian?”
Claire Page 14