Marquesses at the Masquerade
Page 35
If she even kept it. She was under no obligation to appear. What would be the point? She did still have his cloak—a beautiful article of clothing—and should return it to him. She didn’t anticipate another kiss from a stranger with any joy, though, and she ought not to be haring about after dark on her own.
“You thought of me from time to time?” Giles replied. “I will content myself with that admission, because I know you were raised in a proper household. I also know that you’ve strayed, Lucy.”
Lucy set aside her ice, which was too sour by half. “I beg your pardon?”
“Come now,” Giles said, holding a spoonful of ice before Lucy’s mouth, as if she required feeding like an infant. “We have a past, you and I. An intimate past. Surely that means something to a woman who in all these years has never married.”
Lucy gently pushed his wrist aside. “It means we were very foolish, very long ago, also very lucky that our foolishness didn’t have unfortunate repercussions. Giles, are you thinking to offer me a post as governess to your children?”
The lemon ice slipped from his spoon onto his thigh. “What? As governess?”
“Of course, as governess. I am a governess and a very good one. I’m particularly skilled with children who’ve lost a parent, and yours fit that sad description.”
He tossed the remains of his ice to the grass beside the bench. “Lucy, you cannot think that I’d travel the ocean, call on you personally, and regale you with the details of my situation simply to offer you employment?”
“Of course not. You travel back to England to see your family, not to see me, but why else would you bother to call on me after sending me exactly one letter since the day you left for Spain?”
He regarded her with a pained expression, as if she’d made a weak jest. “I am attempting to embark on a proper courtship of you, Lucy. I know you regard yourself as in possession of experience no blushing bride ought to have, but of all men, I am the last to judge you for that. You’ll like Portugal, and I know you love children, else you’d never have consigned yourself to a career caring for them.”
Lucy had the sense she’d been thrust into some other woman’s life, a poor creature expected to flatter and fawn over any male buffoon who made calf’s eyes at her.
“Giles, at the regimental ball, you encouraged me to drink from your glass of punch, and you kept that glass refilled. I had never before, and have never since, been tipsy. I hold myself entirely responsible for my actions, but you are very fortunate that my brothers didn’t get wind of your behavior. I can assure you, no gentleman has since doubted my good name.”
He stared at the empty walkway. “Has any other gentleman paid you his addresses?”
This conversation had all the earmarks of one of Sylvie’s grand dramas involving Her Grace of Dumpwhistle and Lady Higginbottom.
“I have attracted the respectful attention of the occasional gentleman. More than that is no concern of yours. I consider you a friend from my girlhood, Giles, one who became a passing fancy on his way to war. I am unwilling to leave my present post to join you in Portugal on any terms.”
Lucy refused to give him the comfort of the you-do-me-great-honor speech, because he hadn’t done her any honor whatsoever. The nerve of him, showing up after years of silence, and all but proposing…
Giles used a handkerchief to dab at the damp spot on his breeches. “I will try to change your mind, Lucy. You must allow me that. I’ve been hasty, leaping to conclusions, making assumptions. We were fast friends when we were young, passionate lovers for too brief a time. I have four motherless children, including twins, and you love children.”
As if twins were some sort of parental prize? As if he’d been the one to carry those twins or bring them forth into the world? “Giles, you must put this notion aside. I am content with my present post.”
“But you are very nearly in service,” he retorted, balling up his handkerchief after he’d succeeded only in spreading the stain. “Don’t you long to have a household of your own? Children of your own? You once assured me you yearned to see foreign lands, sail the sea, and sample exotic cultures. You told me you longed to follow the drum because you were so infernally bored with England. Don’t you long for those things still?”
Well, no. Once upon a time, what Giles offered would have been all Lucy had ever dreamed of. Once upon a time was for fairy tales.
“Giles, I have sufficient funds of my own. My parents saw to that, and my brothers have managed that money very competently. If I want to travel, I needn’t marry to do so.”
“You have money? And still you spend your days wiping the noses of other people’s brats?”
Lucy got to her feet lest she start laughing at his version of a governess’s responsibilities. “I love children. Surely that concept isn’t unheard of?”
“No,” he said, rising. “Not at all unheard of. I see I have been precipitous and that your situation is not what I thought it to be. I refuse to give up, though, Lucy. What you need, what you deserve, is the proper wooing you should have had years ago. If I should call on you again, you will receive me, won’t you? For the sake of old friendship?”
She ought not. She ought to send him packing with a flea in his presumptuous ear, but widowers could be a desperate lot, and their dignity should never be avoidably slighted.
“Lord Tyne told you himself that I’m welcome to see old friends, but you mustn’t entertain false hopes, Giles.”
“No false hopes,” he said, bowing. “But perhaps a few new hopes.”
Lucy left the square with a new hope of her own: that Giles would sail back to Portugal with some other blushing bride at his side, and make that journey soon. His four children doubtless missed him desperately, though in recent years, Lucy had stopped missing him at all.
* * *
“We want to talk to you,” Sylvie said.
Her expression was solemn, making her look much like her mother. Josephine had had an inherent gravity that Tyne hoped would not entirely overtake her daughters, not so soon.
“Do I mistake the matter,” he asked, “or are we not in conversation already? Whose turn is it to select my cravat pin?”
“You are grown up,” Sylvie said, advancing three more steps into Tyne’s bedroom, all but dragging Amanda by the hand. “You can choose your own cravat pin, like I choose what dress to wear every day.”
Miss Fletcher’s handiwork at its subtle finest. Give the young ladies choices, she’d said, and they’ll learn to exercise independent judgment.
“I haven’t much sense of fashion,” Tyne replied, “but you’re correct. I am capable of making an adequate selection.”
“The sapphire.” Amanda dropped Sylvie’s hand. “It brings out the blue in your eyes.”
Tyne would have chosen something more subdued. “The sapphire it is, a gift from your dear mama, like the two of you.”
“Mama would want you to be happy,” Sylvie announced with such conviction that Tyne suspected it was a rehearsed conclusion, or one supplied by Amanda.
“I am happy.” That approached telling his daughters a falsehood, though one kindly meant. Tyne was grateful for his life, he was abundantly blessed by good fortune, he was hopeful… But happiness had eluded him for a long time.
“Happy like when Mama was alive,” Amanda said. “We think you should marry Miss Fletcher.”
Pain stung Tyne’s chest as he stabbed himself with his sapphire pin. “Blasted, dashed, deuced,”—Sylvie’s eyes grew round—“perishing, dratted, infernal,”—Amanda was grinning—“accursed, wretched, damn.”
“Papa said a bad word.” Sylvie was ecstatic.
“He was overset,” Amanda crowed, quietly. Tyne’s daughters were ladies.
He assessed himself in the mirror. No blood, which was fortunate for his valet’s nerves. “I am not in the least overset. I am ambushed by a pair of…”
They’d gone serious at his severe tone, watching him with the same wariness he used to feel tow
ard his own children, before Lucy Fletcher had joined the household and made a family of them.
He knelt and opened his arms. “I’ve been waylaid by a pair of insightful young ladies who take my welfare very much to heart.”
Sylvie barreled at him full tilt, while Amanda graciously permitted herself to be hugged. Tyne reveled in their embrace, and to hell with wrinkled linen, being late for dinner, and admitting his aspirations to his children.
When he turned loose of his daughters, Sylvie went skipping around the room. “You have to woo Miss Fletcher, Papa. Bring her flowers and steal kisses.”
“And give her chocolates,” Amanda added with an earnest nod. “She liked the French chocolates.”
At Amanda’s urging, Tyne had given Miss Fletcher chocolates at Christmas, months ago. “Excellent suggestion. What else?”
“You should read to her,” Sylvie said, tripping on the carpet fringe, then skipping in the opposite direction. “She always reads to me, and she loooooves books.”
“Do you think she’d enjoy my rendition of Norse fables?”
“I think she’d enjoy your version of anything,” Amanda said. “You’re handsome, kind, and intelligent. Do you know how to kiss, Papa? The uncles might have some ideas how to go about it.”
“Your mother took care of that aspect of my education.” Bless her for all eternity.
“Then,” Sylvie said, climbing the steps and bouncing onto Tyne’s bed, “when you’ve brought Miss Fletcher chocolates, and read to her, and vowed your every lasting devotion, you ask her to marry you!”
Amanda sent her papa a grown-up smile: everlasting.
“Such a campaign will take time,” he said. “You must not say anything to Miss Fletcher or to the staff. This will be a family undertaking. Are we clear?”
“Because,” Sylvie said, leaping from the bed, “it’s personal.”
Tyne set the sapphire cravat pin back in his jewelry box. “Exactly. Very personal, and there’s no guarantee I’ll be successful.”
“But you won’t muck it up, will you, Papa?”
He chose another cravat pin, this one more subdued, also unlike any he’d seen in London ballrooms or house parties in the shires.
“If my objective is to ensure Miss Fletcher’s happiness, then success is assured. My regard for her is such that I truly do want her happiness above all things, though my hope is that marriage to me will fulfill that aim.”
“What’s that?” Sylvie said, peering at his cravat pin.
“My lucky cravat pin,” Tyne said. “This stone is very rare, coming from only one area of Derbyshire. It’s called Blue John and found nowhere else in the world.” The color was halfway between lavender and periwinkle, the stone a cross between marble and quartz, subtle rather than sparkly, and unique.
“Why is it lucky?” Sylvie asked, crowding in beside him at the vanity.
“Because Miss Fletcher gave it to me for Christmas.” A highly personal gift, from the lady’s home shire. She’d blushed when he’d thanked her, another precious rarity. He rose and beheld himself in the cheval mirror. “Will I do?”
“You’re merely dining at Aunt Eleanor’s,” Sylvie said. “You don’t have to be fancy for that.”
“You look splendid, Papa.”
Tyne did not feel splendid, but he felt alive. Ready to take on challenges and woo at least one lovely damsel, if she was willing to be wooed. If she wasn’t, he’d make a gentlemanly effort to change her mind. Mr. Captain-Come-Lately from Portugal would have to find some other English rose to plant in his Portuguese vineyard.
Or some such rot.
“I’m away to dinner,” he said, kissing each daughter on the forehead. “Don’t give Miss Fletcher any trouble, and remember: not a word of my marital aspirations. I must conduct this campaign as I see fit, with no helpful interference from the infantry.”
“Come, Sylvie,” Amanda said, marching to the door. “We must talk.”
That sounded ominous, though Sylvie skipped from the room happily enough. Tyne did not skip from the room, but headed down the steps five minutes later, prepared to endure a long evening making up the numbers at his sister’s dinner party.
He was plagued by the vision of his Valkyrie waiting alone on the path for a suitor who never arrived, though the image of himself being left in the chilly darkness wasn’t any more appealing. Perhaps he’d go to Vauxhall—that was the gentlemanly thing to do—and perhaps he’d leave fairy-tale kisses in the shadows where they belonged.
Chapter Seven
* * *
Giles had been assigned to intelligence work in the army, though army intelligence had often struck him as a contradiction in terms. His tasks were usually no more dangerous than sitting outside a rural inn and counting the number of wheeled conveyances going past in an afternoon, watching to see which farmer was riding too fine a horse for the condition of his acres, or listening at tavern keyholes and interviewing soiled doves.
He’d learned how to follow someone without being obvious, though, and thus he was inconspicuous as he followed Lucy Fletcher from her garden gate late Tuesday evening.
The only explanation for her dismissal of his proposal was that she had another fish on the line, another gentleman panting after her. Why shouldn’t she? She was pretty enough—considering her age—she liked children, and she was trapped in the household of a priggish lord. Even a vicar’s cottage, where she could be mistress of her own humble world, would appeal by comparison. She’d be a fool to give up such a prospect if the gentleman had nearly come up to scratch.
She’d been so confident in her rejection that Giles concluded his rival must also figure in the lady’s immediate schedule.
Clearly, Giles had been correct, for Lucy wore a long, elegant cloak with the hood pulled up. A sleek town coach stopped in the mews for her—no crests showing—and she quickly ascended.
Naughty, naughty lady. But then, Giles knew she had an adventurous streak. He kept up easily with the coach—nobody went galloping through London at night—and hopped onto the boot of a passing carriage to follow the lady across the river.
To Vauxhall. Where else did lovers meet on cool and cozy nights?
Lucy was intent on a specific destination, for she directed her steps straight to the Lovers’ Walk, no safe place for a lady. She was, of course, on her way to an assignation. Otherwise, she’d never have gone even a short distance beyond the bright illumination elsewhere in the gardens.
She stopped under a stately oak, one casting deep shadows. The occasional couple, trio, or quartet strolled past, but they seemed to notice neither Lucy nor Giles loitering farther down the walk.
Giles’s plan dropped into his head all of a piece, as his best inspirations often did: Lucy was intent on meeting a lover here in the dark, and Giles would oblige her. When she realized that all caps truly were gray in the dark, and one swain could make her as happy as another, he’d have advanced his cause considerably, if not won the day.
* * *
Lucy had long ago deduced that the Lovers’ Walk was not as dangerous a venue as most chaperones wanted their young charges to believe.
In the first place, torches were placed at intervals, albeit wide, shadowy intervals. In the second, the path was frequented by those intent on discretion. Nobody was peering too closely at anybody else, by mutual, tacit agreement. In the third, the path was far from deserted. While not thronged by foot traffic, a lady crying out in distress would be heard and assistance forthcoming.
Of course, that lady’s reputation might emerge from the incident irreparably scarred, but her physical safety was at little risk.
Lucy’s confidence was further bolstered by the cloak she wore, a loan from Thor and marvelously warm. She’d drawn the hood up before leaving Marianne’s coach and had put Mr. DeCoursy’s Norse tales in her reticule in case she needed to defend herself from untoward advances.
Not that Thor would make any of those. He was a gentleman, of that Lucy had no doubt.
Footsteps along the walkway on the far side of Lucy’s oak gave her pause. A man’s tread, though soft, even stealthy.
“My dear?” He spoke barely above a whisper. “Is that you?”
If Lucy peered around the tree, she’d give her location away, and yet, she could not be certain that was Thor’s voice.
“Madam, I beg you, don’t keep me in suspense. This is the appointed time and place, and I’m here, as agreed.”
Lucy stepped out from behind the oak. “Punctuality is likely one of your many fine attributes.”
She’d recalled Thor as somewhat taller, but perhaps her recollection wasn’t accurate. In the darkness, all she could tell for certain was that a man in a top hat and greatcoat stood a few feet away.
“You came,” he said, stepping closer.
Without his hammer, he seemed less a god and more a man embarking on a clandestine flirtation.
“As did you, though you must know that my purpose for keeping this appointment was simply to acknow—”
He took her in his arms somewhat roughly. “I’ve missed you so.”
What? and This is not Thor occupied Lucy’s mind simultaneously. The scent of this man was wrong, the shape of him wrong.
Giles? “Turn loose of me,” Lucy hissed. “Get your paws off me this instant.”
“I’ve thought of nothing but you,” he replied. “Of what we both long for.”
Good God. The cloak hampered Lucy from using her knee, so she tried to stomp on her assailant’s foot, but he was nimble, and she was being bent back off her balance.
One moment Giles—this had to be Giles—was planting wet kisses on her chin, the next he expelled a solid, “Ooof!” against her cheek.
“Get away from her,” said a cold voice. “Get your filthy presuming hands off of her, or next time, I’ll use this sledgehammer to do something more than poke you in the ribs.”