by Edith Layton
“Oh,” Faith said very coolly, “yes, lively indeed. Won’t you sit down, my lord?”
He took a chair opposite her and, though his expression didn’t change, if she’d dared to look into his eyes she would have seen grave doubt there, though his voice was smooth enough as he said pleasantly, “He’s agreed to stay with me, you know, until his business is done with here. With both him and Will in residence, it’s a good job for me that the recent unpleasantness between our nations is over. I’ve friends, you see, in the foreign office, and I’d hate to think that whenever I paid a call on them in future they’d feel compelled to keep a sharp eye on me, or casually cast a blotter over what they’d just been writing when I walked in. I agree,” he went on casually, crossing his long legs and brushing away an invisible thread on his boot top, “that it’s not the stuff of immortal humor, but you might try a little smile for courtesy’s sake, my dear. Nothing so elevated as a grin, mind, but a little smile wouldn’t go amiss.”
“I don’t feel very humorous today,” she said softly, and then she raised her head so that he could see her eyes so suspiciously sparkling that he frowned in concern as she said, “Barnabas, everything has changed. I can’t jest, nor can I pretend it hasn’t. I was so thrilled to see him, I was so glad, that I think I spent an hour just hugging him and weeping for the sheer joy of finding him here. He was so far away, that in a way it seemed like he had ceased to really exist, and then I was told I had a visitor, and came downstairs all unaware, like a child to a surprise party. When I saw him, I couldn’t believe it, though I couldn’t have been happier, there was so much I had to tell him.
“But he had a great deal to tell me too,” she said sadly, “as you must know.”
“And it displeased you?” her visitor asked in admirably even accents.
“No, no, he deserves such happiness and certainly Molly does too. I should’ve thought of pairing them, my two favorite people, long ago. But,” she hesitated, and then blurted, “yes, of course, it displeases me too. I never knew I could hold two such opposite emotions at one and the same time, Barnabas,” she said, her eyes wide and wondering. “I think I’ll burst from the strain of it, because for all I’m glad for them, I feel just awful too.”
And then the proper afternoon call became a great deal less so, since the young lady found herself in the gentleman’s arms, protesting, as she attempted to wipe away her tears, that she was ruining his lovely jacket, while he protested that he’d had it made just for that purpose.
When she drew away, she stood and folded her hands quietly about the handkerchief he’d given her, and she lowered her eyes and her voice as she said what she felt she must.
“Oh Barnabas, you’re so easy for me to talk with. And because of that, I think you know more terrible things about me than anyone should. What a mean-spirited little cat you must think I am. You’re well rid of me.” But then she found she could say little more, and only dabbed at her eyes and bit at her lip, and hoped she’d soon have enough countenance back to say more.
“I don’t think you’re any more or less than human, thank heavens, since I don’t aspire to an immortal wife,” he said lightly, determined to ignore at least a part of her speech. “You’re more honest than most, I’ll agree, but that’s all to the good for me. I’d not like to think of your deceiving me, and honesty for honesty, after my disagreeable experience with a lady’s duplicity, it may be that I care so very much for you in part because I know that you could not, and would not be so treacherous.
“It’s as well then that you can’t dissemble very well, for I certainly wouldn’t believe any normal, sane young woman who told me she was tickled that her adored grandfather was marrying her best friend and having a baby that would supplant her in their affections. But the thing of it is, my dear, you’re going to have to force yourself out of that dependent role, and expect and ask for a different sort of love from them from now on.”
“Oh yes,” she agreed at once, “I know that. And I’d never be the babe’s rival, I’ve promised myself I’ll be his best friend in the world, and devote myself to taking care of him. They’ll find me a great help and comfort, I assure you.”
“Indeed,” Lord Deal said with great interest. “And what will I find you?”
When she did not answer at once, he asked, coolly, as an answer for himself, “Gone?”
“My lord,” she said very clearly then, great distress banishing easy tears, “I’m leaving. Going home, yes. Because nothing is the same now. It’s not only that he’s going to marry her,” she said solemnly, and as her listener hung on every word, he couldn’t help but note, with sorrow, that she hadn’t called the gentleman Grandfather since she’d gotten his news. “It’s also that I’ve thought ahead, and it’s plain my condition’s changed with this change in life. It’s a lucky thing,” she said on a dreadful little grimace, “that I didn’t take Methley up on his offer. Because you see, I’m not an heiress anymore. I’m just an American girl with too little breeding and too many caricatures to her credit.
“Well, you see, my own father is not very wealthy,” she explained, “and what he has he’ll doubtless drink away before he leaves this earth. And Mama spends every penny she gets on her own clothes and entertainment. And think, now that he has a new family beginning, there’ll be little left to give me, won’t there? I doubt I’ll even be as welcome in the business now that he may anticipate sons to pass the whole lot down to. Though I won’t be penniless, I’ll certainly be no prize package any longer. I’ve been devalued, I suppose.” She grinned, humorlessly. But looking up, she was startled to see no answering smile, nor even that softened expression he so often wore when he saw her grin. Instead, the gentleman was clearly enraged.
“Money?” he demanded, so loudly that she stepped back in surprise. “You think I care about whether or not you can bring me money?”
His tanned face was even darker with anger, his eyes flashed. He was a large gentleman in a towering rage, and a formidable sight. He looked down his long nose at her, and said, with no trace of humor or affection to temper his icy fury, “Beyond admitting my penchant for investments, I have never mentioned money to you, my dear, neither mine nor yours. But comfort yourself that I have enough for two. And had I been interested in earning more in the marriage bed, I would’ve done so long before now, since a gentleman’s stamina there, I’ve heard, is far superior in his extreme youth, and I’ve never been a fellow to give short worth for good money.”
He noted her wince, and it seemed to calm him, for he eyed her as she stood quite still and watched him fearfully, and then he said, more thoughtfully, “But do you know, Faith? I don’t believe a word of it. No. On reflection, I find I don’t believe you at all, and that’s singular, because you’re such a bad liar, and for a moment there, I did. It’s now clear to see how you fooled me,” he said coldly, “because it’s equally clear that you lied to yourself. Think on, Faith. Would I care about your fortune?”
“Perhaps not,” she said bravely, “but I do.”
“Oh, there’s truth,” he said, “but it’s also likely very true that beyond the disappointment—and there’s no doubt a lady with no conceit might like to feel she’s brought more than herself to a marriage—there’s a lack of trust in me as well as in yourself. You think that if you haven’t a fortune to wave over my head, I’ll abuse you, underrate you, devalue you? Perhaps, but I think rather it’s that you want to avoid the whole truth—which is that you haven’t enough trust in me to marry me. And that you fear you’ll never conquer your fear of me, or men, or marriage, and fear to even try.
“Poor Faith,” he said, and smiled sadly at her as he took up one of her hands, “with so much fear, and so much mistrust, there’s no room for love at all. Whatever reasons you fling up against the match I’ll put down, but there’s a limit to my patience, and none, I fear, to your invention. So, much as I love you, I cannot pass the rest of my life arguing my cause. If you were willing to let yourself love me, I wouldn�
�t have to.
“My dear,” he said with great sorrow, “I wish you well, I wish you everything you might wish, but I must let you go.”
He placed cool lips briefly upon her hand, and bowed. Then he looked deeply into her confused eyes, and smiled sweetly and turned toward the door. But he’d gone hardly a pace when he heard her voice, as angry as his had been moments before.
“You can’t go,” she cried. “No, you cannot. For it’s none of it true. Or maybe it was,” she said, pausing to think as he bit back a smile and turned around to face her again. “But it don’t signify,” she argued, staring at him, clearly outraged. “You can’t explain all this to me, and make me see that I was scared for a minute and just trying to cheat myself again—just because Grandfather’s let me down doesn’t mean you would as well. I wasn’t thinking clearly because I’ve had so many things happening all together, and you can’t run away from me now when I most need you, I love you most of all, and—Barnabas, you’re laughing at me!”
“At us, love,” he corrected her as he caught her up in his arms, “because I don’t know what I would have done if you’d let me go. It would’ve looked wonderful if after all that drama, I’d turned around when I reached the door and said, ‘Oh, but on second thought ...’ wouldn’t it have? Yet that’s precisely what I should have to have done. Did you seriously think I’d let you run off to America now to find some other fellow to wed, after I’d invested all that time getting you to be comfortable about the idea of marriage? After I’d done all that work? I may not talk about money overmuch,” he whispered into her ear, “but understand, though I’m no Yankee trader, I expect value for my investments.”
“Well then,” she said in a small voice, daring to raise her hand to touch that tempting, shining hair her cheek rested against, “remember I’m still an American, an alien.”
“So was my mother,” he said happily, running his lips lightly along her cheek. “She was Scots, and the word she called my father, lovingly, but nonetheless, frequently, was ‘outlander.’ The most important difference between us is the most obvious and interesting one, Faith, and it isn’t our nationalities. And it is, to the eternal benefit of our race, found in every marriage. And you have five freckles this side, but they’re fading, poor things. I think I’ll burn all your sun bonnets on our honeymoon, I’m that greedy for more of them.”
“There’s all those caricatures of me,” she said more weakly.
“I do hope there’s enough to paper all the privies at Stonecrop Hall, don’t you?” he breathed, momentarily closing one of her bright eyes with a soft kiss before he smiled down into it again and balanced her by promptly attending to the other one.
But for all that he held her, and for all that he gave her so many tender salutes, he never presumed to draw her into deeper embrace, and he avoided her mouth entirely, just as his hands stayed carefully and conventionally upon the neutral surface of her back. This was so difficult for him, he discovered he had to keep his hands still and flat upon her back to ensure that they neither strayed nor trembled with the effort of not straying. Thus, he felt her take in a deep breath, and braced himself for yet another one of her protests, because for all he’d declared he’d grown impatient with them, he knew that as he’d raised them all in her mind, he’d have to answer to each of them. Still, he was totally unprepared for the one she offered next.
“Barnabas,” she asked in a tiny voice, “don’t you Englishmen kiss a girl’s lips at all?”
“My dear,” he said very seriously, “I don’t dare presume. It may be too soon. I don’t want to frighten you. I gave my word on that, you know.”
“But...” she began, and then she closed her eyes without his kissing them shut, because since the thoughts she wanted to express had come to her in the darkest night, she had to approximate the conditions of their birth to remember them precisely. She, too, didn’t want to waste all the time she’d recently invested, especially since it had been time she’d have preferred to have passed sleeping, as all the rest of the world had been doing all through the past nights.
“I’ve thought about that, too,” she said, “and it occurs to me that I wasn’t the only child to have seen what I saw. Well, no one had separate rooms in olden days, and there were families with dozens of children and still there are lots of us around today, aren’t there? Because, you were right, not everyone who sees what they oughtn’t curls up in a corner and withers away. And I don’t want to either, not anymore. And do you know, too, that once we’d talked about it together, it seemed to become less important.
“But the truly important thing, Barnabas,” she said, taking such a great deal of time with the three syllables of his name that she opened her eyes at last to his complete and fascinated attention, “is that, how shall I know what to be frightened of, if you don’t show me? We could wait forever, and how should I know? Be sure I’ll tell you,” she breathed as his smiling lips at last approached hers, “if I take alarm.”
But she told him nothing in words for several moments, although by then he knew very well that whatever else he was doing to her, it was never terrorizing her.
When she spoke again, as he closed his own eyes in profound gratitude and relief as he rested his cheek against her warm hair, she said in a wondering voice, “Just think! I didn’t want you to stop, Barnabas, though I was frightened, a little, I think. But not of you, oh never of you. Only because I’d never felt such things before. It’s quite wonderful, but I didn’t fail you, did I?” she asked anxiously.
“You could never fail me in that,” he murmured, “for my lovemaking will never test you.”
“But Barnabas,” she persisted, “I mean, is it only me, or is it supposed to be just a little frightening for everybody, the way that one loses oneself so completely?”
“Yes,” he said thankfully, “just a little, at first, for everybody. But love, that’s half the fun of it. You’ll see. Because you’ll never guess what you will find if you do succeed in losing yourself. Oh, there’s so much I long to show you, Faith, and so much I think you’ll teach me, whether you believe that or not,” he said on a shaky laugh. “But not, I think, in the duchess’s small salon. Nor until we’re safely wed. And never until you’re ready. Now then,” he said, sighing, but nonetheless putting her an arm’s length away, “why is it that your hosts left you alone with me for so long? I can’t approve such ramshackle chaperonage.”
“Oh,” she said, drifting back close to him, “Grandfather’s with the duke, and the duchess was brangling all night with Mary, and I haven’t seen either of them all day, so I think they’ve got more important fish to fry. I seem to have inspired Mary to rebellion, and I’m glad of it. I only hope it benefits Will in the long run, though now I’m not too sure I did him a service, though I know I helped her.
“But you know, Barnabas,” she went on, hiding her eyes beneath downcast lashes, with something in the way she drawled his name as she traced one finger slowly along his sleeve causing his eyebrows to lift, “since I have so very much to learn, I really wonder if this match is fair to you, who after all, have probably had most to do with more learned ladies in the past. After all, I shall need a very great deal of instruction and gentle handling, and careful, patient teaching...” But at that she couldn’t bear his expression a moment longer, and began giggling even as he took her back into his arms.
“The careful handling part sounds lovely,” he said, holding her securely, “but I think I’ve created a monster. It’s very fortunate that I adore monsters,” he explained happily as he proceeded with the first of his courses of instruction that she’d so clearly indicated she desired.
She was such a rapid study, he later admitted, that it was just as well that the door to the salon was soon thrown wide and the Duchess of Marchbanks tottered in, gasping in distress. She was so disordered that she didn’t seem to note the sort of communications she’d interrupted, but after Lord Deal regained enough presence of mind to assist her to a chair and ring for th
e butler to procure her salts, sal volatile, and water, she managed to cry out plaintively, “Gone! Gone, she’s gone. Do you know where she is, girl?”
“Who?” Faith asked, and received a glowing smile for her idiocy from her gentleman, who seemed to take it as proof of his proficiency and applause for his abilities.
“Mary, my Mary has gone!” the duchess wailed, almost pitiable in her bereavement, until she sat up a bit straighter and growled at Faith, “Eloped! She’s run off with him. And it’s all your fault.”
“I hardly think so,” Lord Deal said smoothly before Faith, who’d been surreptitiously attempting to straighten her gown and her hair as well as her wits, could answer, “since Faith hasn’t spoken with Lady Mary all day.”
“But she spoke with her before,” the duchess howled, “and she filled her head with seditious things, treasonous things, disobedient, outrageous and unacceptable, rebellious thoughts.”
“Oh, well of course she did,” Lord Deal said with a great show of boredom, as he left the duchess and came to stand by Faith’s side and put his arm around her. “She’s an American.”
SIXTEEN
The night was cool and still, but neither Lord nor Lady Deal was sleeping. The lady lay propped against her pillows, and her husband propped one hand beneath his shaggy head as he leaned on his elbow and looked down at her.
“... And another reason,” he continued to say, as he toyed with a strand of her hair, “is that as an American you’re delighted to share this chamber with me, which pleases me no end, where an English lady might think it déclassé, and I do get so lonely in the midst of the night, not to mention how hideously cold my feet can become during our wretched English winters, that’s no small factor contributing to marital happiness, and another reason is—”