by Edith Layton
“Barnabas,” she giggled, “that’s twenty-seven reasons you’ve given me thus far tonight.”
“Of course,” he said sadly, “but if you persist in saying silly things about how you worry about what people will think of our wedding, you’ll never get to sleep tonight, for all the wrong reasons,” he added even more sadly, “for as it happens, I’m not in the least tired, and should very much like to be, if you take my ulterior meaning.”
“I do, Barnabas,” she said at once, and he nodded and said, “Just so, and there’s number twenty-eight, for you always do, and that’s even more delightful. And what generally follows is number twenty-nine through fifty, it’s that marvelous.”
“Only fifty?” she said with mock despair before she held him off and said, “But truly, Barnabas, I sometimes wonder. I’ve no claim to title, and that’s so important here.”
“Where?” he asked, looking around their bedchamber suspiciously as she laughed, for he always made her laugh, even here, in their bed, when he wasn’t making her sigh with happiness. The wonderment was that once he’d freed her from the ice which had held her fast, she was discovering to their mutual delight that it had only been a surface covering and it seemed she had a molten core. But they’d been married for a week, and now she was at last beginning to wonder about how life would be when the novelty of marriage had worn off.
“See here,” he said sternly, as though he’d heard her thoughts, “once and for all, if I’d wanted a title, I would have lent some money to Prinny and picked out a few more for myself. I didn’t have to marry one. I married the only female I wanted, and would have done even if you’d come from another planet, not to mention another country. All right?”
“All right.” She smiled as she began to believe that it might be that the novelty of this union would never wear off.
“Barnabas?” she said in a moment, causing him to lift his head instantly, for he still was always alert to her every change of mood, “just think, Grandfather is almost home by now.”
He repressed a sigh and drew back from her and lay back on the pillow beside her, too wise to press his suit when she clearly was distracted by something else, too experienced to take it personally, and far too respectful of her intelligence to think it was of no moment.
“Do you miss him, Faith?” he asked softly, watching her profile in the light of the single candle they’d left to light them to pleasure. “I can’t help that, I can only try to make this so much your home that you long for no other except for sentiment’s sake.”
“It’s not that,” she said at once, turning her head to look at him, “it’s only that I thought of Will, and Lady Mary, and Methley, and of how my coming to England changed so many lives. And I wondered if I did the right thing for Mary, though I don’t know how I could have done anything else. I told her what I believed in, not to convert her but to let her know why I was disappointed in her. And look what I caused.”
“You caused her to be happy, or at least to choose her own path, and to take charge of her own future. That’s no small achievement,” he said, “no matter what the duchess thinks. And be sure, by the time Mary comes back into society, the duchess will be pleased to show everyone how thrilled she is at her new son-in-law, and no one will ever guess how hard a pill he was for her to swallow. She lives on gossip and knows how to turn it to her own uses. At that, I think they’ll be very good for each other; he’ll keep her anger from her daughter, for she’ll never blame Mary so much as she does him, and she’ll, no doubt, amuse him.”
“Poor Will,” Faith sighed.
“Isn’t there a bird in your country that says that?” he asked curiously, as she smiled, “but there’s nothing poor about him, my love. His was the very best fate of all, and doubtless he’ll tell you so often enough when he thanks you over and over again in all the years to come.”
“Oh Barnabas,” she sighed, for he’d said everything she’d wished him to, and better yet, had made it all sound as though he meant every word of it. “Oh Barnabas—do you know,” she said with a sudden frown, “I don’t care for that name in the least. No, Barnaby is even worse,” she forestalled him by saying.
“Oh, but you’ve called me by some other names recently, far better names.” He laughed, and bent low to whisper them to her, and was pleased to see her faint blush clear and remarkably extensive even in the scant light of the flickering candle.
“I’ll grant you’re not likely to use them in company, although I promise you,” he said wickedly, “nothing would please me more. But if I have to put up with Faith, you’ll just have to learn to abide Barnabas. Viking, you’ll allow, is too cumbersome.”
But hearing that old name with all its painful implications caused her to instantly reach out to him, and their spoken conversation ceased. The candle guttered out and the room was lit by the glow of a late summer’s moon, when Lady Deal murmured breathlessly, with a certain amount of suppressed laughter, “Barnabas, the children.”
“Really, my love,” he complained, “I’m doing the best I can. We’ve only been married a week, though. I don’t know what else you expect of me.”
“Oh no,” she said on a wide grin, which caused a delay before she could speak again. “But really—” she tweaked at a lock of his hair to make him pay attention—“I had the most dreadful thought. A Viking and a Wild Indian. Oh Barnabas, whatever shall our children be?”
He thought a moment. Then, just when he decided yes, that was precisely where he wished to kiss her next, he whispered before he did so, “Why, formidable, my darling, absolutely formidable.”
And although he’d said it just to make her laugh, in light of present circumstances, he was just as pleased, no, even more pleased, when her only answer was to catch up her breath, and then to let it out slowly in a long, shivering, very contented sigh.
The moon shone down on the sleeping town of Edinburgh as well. And the Lady Mary lay back in her bed as well. But her husband stood at the window in his dressing gown and looked down at the old, dreaming city.
“I think,” the Lady Mary said decisively, “that we can return to town any time now. I doubt,” she said smugly, “that Mama will seek annulment now. A week, after all, is time enough to have started anything.”
Her husband turned his attention from the window, and when she saw him gazing at her, she said, “Oh no, I have no evidence. But I have hopes, don’t you?”
“Of course, my dear,” he said.
“It will be odd,” Lady Mary said pensively, “to meet up with Faith and Lord Deal again, but I think they intend to spend most of their time at Stonecrop Hall and travel in entirely different circles, and we, of course, will stay in Town, won’t we? I don’t see that as a problem. I know you’ve been friends, but Faith and I had harsh words before I left. Though I thank her and shall always, for giving me the courage to break from Mama, I cannot think she loves me well.”
The gentleman stirred, and an unreadable expression crossed his face as briefly as a cloud shadowing over the face of the moon. He turned to gaze out the window again, though there was something faintly like regret in his voice as he said, “And her love, does that matter so much then?”
“No, of course not,” she said. “Not now that I have you. But it’s curious, her words made such a difference in my life. I wanted you. I had from the beginning, but I would have bent to Mama and gone elsewhere if it hadn’t been for Faith. She gave me the courage to send for you, and to leave with you. Were you shocked at my proposal?” She laughed. “But really, her words went to my head. I dared. Since that day, I’ve been a different person. Although you,” she said passionately, “are the only one accountable for making that person feel like a woman, you know.”
The invitation in her words, the command implicit in her outstretched hand, were impossible to ignore. Her husband went to her. And as the Earl of Methley slipped off his dressing gown and came to his countess as he’d been bade, he said, with more of his old irony than passion in his voice,
“If Faith freed you, my dear, and I made you a woman, why is it that you remind me so of your dear mama so often lately?”
“I’ve grown up,” she said, and smiled at him as he came close, for she took it as a compliment. And the Earl of Methley, who had gotten everything he’d once thought he wanted, looked into his future and sighed when he admitted to himself, before he submitted to his wife’s desire, that doubtless he’d gotten everything he deserved as well.
There was only one more day of sailing, and then the ship would dock safely in New York. Will Rossiter explained this patiently to the two young women who stood at the rail looking out at the sea that as yet had no horizon. The moon might be rising high in the land they’d lately left, but here the afternoon sun blazed a path to the New World he was telling his rapt audience about.
Franklin Godfrey had stayed in the cabin to get some paperwork done, but Will had been restless, and so had come out to the deck to pace and think about all that he had lost, and gained, and given up and left behind him.
He hadn’t known the fair-haired lady he’d left at the Duke and Duchess of Marchbanks’ townhouse. For surely, the Lady Mary he’d offered his heart and his name to would never have let him speak his entire heart and mind, sitting like a stone until he was done and then she never would have said, “Oh no, Mr. Rossiter. It’s out of the question. You have funds, but so do I. My husband must be able to offer me something I do not have.”
“Like love?” he’d asked, confused.
“Oh no,” she’d smiled, looking ethereal even as she’d said it, “like a higher title, silly.”
He’d been badly wounded, of course, perhaps he’d even bled a bit internally when he’d heard she’d run off with Methley. But what had Barnabas said at his wedding the day before he’d left? It had definitely staunched the flow.
The bridegroom had poured him some champagne, and then commented, in the half-serious way he said the most important things, “Will, she never was your sweet fair London lady, the one who bandaged your hands and won your heart. And it wasn’t fair to expect it of her. But if you’d like, you can always search for that particular lady before you leave. I’d expect, though I don’t claim to be a wizard with figures, that the female of your dreams would be about a generation older by now. And if she is, there’s a chance she might be a widow, and if you don’t mind wedding a grandparent (there’s a great deal of that sort of thing going ’round, you know), why I’m sure you’d have a blissful union.”
Will smiled at the thought now, and was pleased to discover it became easier to do so with each league the ship leaped forward. The two young women looked at him curiously, to discover his jest. One was an English lady, this one all correct, a vision in dark tresses and pink cheeks, and the other, her maid, a creature of russet curls and the whitest, most contagious smile he’d ever seen. Oh yes, Will thought, this one would do very nicely in the New World. Her mistress would be shocked, and the little maid, delighted, but they’d soon find title meant nothing in the land they approached, unless it was on a deed to property.
He felt enormously cheered at the thought, especially since he stood before them right now because he’d decided in his disappointment and chagrin to give up his dream of living in England again, and was returning to his life and home in New York.
“But ooo, sir, how can you be sure that there are no Indians to torment us?” the maid with russet curls simpered, flirting outrageously while her mistress tightened her lips in disapproval at her servant’s audacity. Oh yes, Will thought merrily, some surprises in store here, before he said carelessly, “Why, because I just left the last one in England.”
The girl tittered and then said, “Oh fie, sir. You’re only having fun with us. For how should you know? You’re as British as I am, and that’s as much as old John Bull, it is.”
“But there’s where you’re out,” Will said seriously, and then he paused, because the more he thought about it, the more he knew it to be true.
“I’m an American,” he finally said.
And as he heard the words, he knew he spoke the truth.
Then he grinned widely as he felt a great swell of relief, and a great weight lifted from his heart as he added, “And I’m going home now. Yes, I’m on my way home at last.”
About the Author
Edith Layton has been writing since she was ten years old. She has worked as a freelance writer for newspapers and magazines, but has always been fascinated by English history, most particularly by the Regency period. She lives on Long Island with her physician husband and those of her three children who are not involved with intimidating institutions of higher learning. She collects antiques and large dogs.