Entangled (A Private Collection)

by Fresina, Jayne

  But he looked remarkably well. Too well. “You will not interfere in my life. I’m going out.”

  “Then don’t expect me to be here when you get back.”

  “As you wish. See if I care.” Oh, but she did care. Already. It was pleasant today, having him beside her, helping around the hotel, sometimes teasing her, making her smile. He didn’t intrude too much, but was there with a ready hand when she needed it. He had a ribald sense of humor she would never have expected from his letters, and it came as a relief to have the company of someone she needn’t always struggle to impress, someone who didn’t correct her speech, someone who would share the occasional saucy joke and not admonish her for it.

  “I’d like to see you manage this scheme without me,” he said.

  “I’ll succeed somehow. Don’t you worry. This isn’t the first setback I’ve dealt with. I’ll find another man—”

  “Not like me you won’t. You’ve no idea how lucky you are that I’m the one who came along to save you.”

  “Save me!” she exclaimed.

  “That’s right. Someone has to stop you making a mistake with Westerfield.”

  “You know nothing about him.”

  “I know all I need know. One look told me everything. It’s me or him. Make your choice tonight, woman.”

  Good Lord. They were fighting like an old married couple already.

  He looked as surprised by his ultimatum as she was. Suddenly Daisy laughed, too amused by the entire situation to be angry. After an uncertain moment, he too laughed, apparently caught up in it. They were still laughing when Guy Westerfield walked into the conservatory looking for her.

  Chapter Five

  “Daisy? What’s going on here? Didn’t you hear me ringing the bell?” Although he addressed her, his eyes were on Lawrence, his expression changing rapidly from mild impatience to outright anger.

  She tried her best to remain calm, introducing the two men as if they were at a vicarage tea party on a Sunday afternoon. The air was suddenly frigid. Lawrence remained seated on the chaise, but swung his feet down to the carpet as if at any moment he might lurch to his full height. His forearms rested on his thighs, his pose deliberate and irreverent.

  “I’m afraid Lawrence isn’t feeling well,” she said. “I should fetch Doctor Winters.”

  Guy stared at the man on the chaise. “Send a messenger for the doctor. There’s no occasion to go yourself.” And then he stepped forward, bristling indignantly. “He doesn’t look ill. Why are you hovering over him?”

  He might as well have said, Haven’t you other work to do, Daisy? Well, get on with it then and stop dawdling. She felt as if she was back in service at his father’s manor house, caught taking a moment’s rest on the back stairs when she should have been making the beds or scrubbing the front doorstep.

  Inwardly she groaned. There was nothing she hated more than when Guy put on this superior Westerfield manner. It was the result of feeling threatened, of course. She understood that, but when he was in one of these moods he had a tendency to speak to her as if she was still a servant, not his lover and an independent businesswoman.

  Finally he looked at her, but he didn’t see her. His eyes were distracted, his churning thoughts evidently stumbling over the unwelcome surprise of finding Lawrence Bailey very different to the invalid she’d described. “Wait in the carriage while I have a word with him.” When she still delayed, he crisply repeated, “Wait outside.”

  The big man on the chaise slowly stood. “Don’t speak to my wife in that manner.”

  Daisy opened her mouth to speak, but Guy interrupted her. “Your wife? I think there’s been some misunderstanding here, Bailey.”

  “Not at all. I understand everything perfectly.”

  “She belongs to me. Perhaps she hasn’t explained our arrangement.”

  Lawrence raised a hand to his chin, assuming a thoughtful pose. “Why don’t you explain it to me, boy.”

  “Boy? You had better mind how you speak to me, Bailey. I can have you chased out of this town in an hour. Perhaps you aren’t aware of my family’s consequence in this county.”

  “Oh, for Heaven’s sake!” she cried, dashing forward. “You can stop all this chest-thumping. Both of you. Lawrence, I’m not your wife until tomorrow and even then it’s for appearances only, as you well know and already agreed. Guy, there is no need for you to be rude and obnoxious. I don’t belong to you. I don’t belong to anyone.”

  “Obnoxious?”

  “Well you are. Sometimes.” She touched her forehead, feeling a bad sore head— oops, headache— coming on. Guy was looking at her as if she’d spat in his face. “Just being honest,” she muttered.

  He walked up to Lawrence and, finding himself a few inches shorter, quickly moved back rather than strain his neck looking up. “I agreed to this scheme of hers because she wanted to keep this hotel and she promised me you were infirm. It was expedient for me to have her here in Middleton, available for me as required. A single woman is less convenient than a married one, for reasons I’m sure I need not explain to you. I did not, however, agree to let her live in company with a man who dares question our relationship. She’s under my protection, and I’m sure she knows I can do more for her than you can.”

  “I think you’ve forgotten the lady herself is present, Westerfield.”

  Silence fell, thick and heavy over the conservatory.

  No one else had ever referred to her before as a lady. Lawrence had done it twice now. Once when confronting Jonas Carbury and here, coolly reminding her lover.

  Daisy was too shocked to look up from the carpet for a few moments, but her heart warmed, swelling a little inside her ribs.

  “Are you coming to dinner?” Guy snapped at her, ignoring Lawrence’s last comment. Perhaps, she thought sadly, he hadn’t even heard it.

  Without looking at Lawrence, she took Guy’s arm and let him lead her out of the conservatory.

  * * * *

  It was seven years since she first let him kiss her behind a dressing screen in his mother’s bedchamber. It was five years since he took her virginity. In the beginning, she’d never questioned him, never had cause to think herself anything other than fortunate to win his notice. She was flattered by his attention and it brightened the daily drudgery of her life as a servant. But she’d grown up since then and tonight she was restless and fidgety. New questions raised their ugly head. She knew if she didn’t let them out, they would fester inside and make her sick.

  As they rode in the carriage, she felt the first question bubbling up and she exhaled the words in a rush. “When you said it was more convenient for me to be married, what did you mean?”

  “Don’t be obtuse, Daisy, you know very well.”

  Yes. She thought she knew, but she wanted to hear him say it. Perhaps it was old age and her new measure of independence, she mused, but suddenly other things became just as important to her as his approving smile and the occasional compliment. For the past five years she’d never ventured questions about the possible consequences of their affair. She was always too afraid he might think her common or crude to mention such matters. Tonight she wanted to know. “In case I become pregnant?”

  He nodded impatiently.

  “But it would be your child.”

  A scornful frown passed briefly over his face. “If you’re married, no one would know it’s mine, would they?”

  She considered for a moment, staring out at the deep purple sky and the bright pinpricks of stars scattered across it. “You wouldn’t mind your child being raised as another man’s son or daughter?”

  “I’ll provide money, of course. You needn’t worry.”

  Shooting him a sly glance, she saw he was preoccupied with lint on his sleeve. “Money?” she asked softly.

  “Isn’t that what you were thinking about?”

  She said nothing but bit her lip and pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders. Lawrence was right, it was a chilly evening and she should have w
orn a gown with shoulders and sleeves. But she’d worn what Guy wanted her to wear.

  Suddenly, quite out of the blue, she thought of Randolph Blackwood who once said to her, “A woman’s clothes are meant to bind her, keep her trapped and servile. Never trust a man who concerns himself with what you wear.” How odd that she should think of him now after all these years.

  Of course, Randolph, an artist with a very mischievous and wicked sense of humor, had only been interested in her without clothes. She wondered what he was doing now. And what happened to the painting she’d posed for in his buttercup strewn meadow when she was just nineteen. If she remembered correctly, it took sixteen of her afternoons off to complete that painting.

  “That arrogant bastard Bailey had better not get above himself,” Guy was saying, still brushing his sleeves and occasionally fussing with his coat collar and his hair.

  Guy Westerfield, for whom appearances were paramount, would be horrified if he ever knew about that scandalous painting, but Randolph had promised her it was for his private collection only and no one else would ever lay eyes on it.

  She’d met Randolph one day in Middleton market place and somehow he’d charmed her into being his muse. Perhaps it was a moment of youthful weakness mixed with curiosity and vanity, too, since he told her she was beautiful. What young girl doesn’t like to hear that? Back then she was still discovering her own desires. She’d not yet succumbed fully to Guy Westerfield’s fumbling attempts at seduction. She was frustrated and wanted to express her sensuality in some way without giving up that precious control. Thus, posing in the nude for Randolph Blackwood, she’d learned to be brave, not to run away from herself. It was very freeing, just as he’d told her it would be.

  Clothes were binding. He was right about that too. Could that be why she was so on edge tonight? It couldn’t be because of the wedding tomorrow, surely.

  Watching Guy fretting over his garments, she remarked quietly, “Don’t you wish we didn’t have to bother?”

  “With what?” he muttered, barely listening.

  She smiled at her reflection in the carriage window. “Clothes.”

  “Don’t be a fool, Daisy. Clothes are what separate us from the animals.”

  “I thought that was empathy and conversation.”

  He looked at her as if he didn’t understand either word and then resumed the tidying of his spotless apparel.

  It was a good thing she’d never become pregnant in the five years of their affair, she thought, if money was his answer to raising a child. In Guy’s world, money solved everything. In her world it caused all the problems. On that evening, the differences between them suddenly seemed more starkly obvious than ever.

  * * * *

  Since he wasn’t in the mood for sleep, he took over for the night receptionist and sent her home, slipping her a guinea for her trouble. The girl was so shocked by the generosity from a virtual stranger that she could barely get a “thank you” out and left her hat behind on the counter. Luke was just putting it out of sight on the shelf beneath when he heard a shout of surprise.

  “Luke? What are you doing here?”

  He stood quickly, almost banging his head on the counter. His elder brother Harry strode across the foyer carrying a parcel very similar to the one sitting atop the wardrobe in Luke’s room. Young Albie struggled after him, dragging a trunk and a suitcase.

  Hastily, Luke placed a finger to his lips, but Harry, with his usual bull-headedness, paid no heed. “I thought you’d be back in Cambridge by now, surrounded by your comforting cobwebs, mothballs, and all that old rubbish you dig up—”

  “By chance are you referring to the priceless antiquities in my collection?”

  “If that’s what you insist on calling it. I know you prefer the company of objects to people. What the blazes are you doing here, brother?”

  At that last word, Albie looked up, dropping the suitcase with a bang to the tiles. “He’s your brother?”

  “Of course he’s my brother.” Harry laughed. “Can’t you see the family resemblance?”

  There was, in fact, no mistaking it. The Blackwood eyes, height, nose, and jaw were very distinctive.

  Luke scowled at the boy. “If you want to keep that salty tongue in your mouth, you’ll keep silent on the matter. Miss Wellfleet doesn’t need to know.”

  “I’ll keep quiet, mister. For a price.” The boy grinned broadly and surprisingly fearless, considering the number of detailed tortures Luke had already threatened.

  He reached into his waistcoat pocket and flipped a shilling across the counter. “Now get lost.”

  Albie caught the spinning coin, tipped his cap at both men, and skipped out.

  “Miss Wellfleet?” Harry leaned one arm on the counter, his expression bemused.

  Luke had the sudden fear that his brother might try to pursue Daisy too, if he saw her. There was a strong competitive streak in the Blackwood family. “What are you here for? Not staying long are you?”

  “Just tonight. Catching the mail coach to London in the morning.”

  “Good.”

  “Good?”

  “Just— stay out of the way while you’re here.”

  Harry leaned closer over the counter and repeated carefully, “Miss Wellfleet?”

  “I’m helping her out. She owns the place.”

  “Helping her out?”

  Luke lifted his arms and shrugged. “As you see.”

  It wasn’t like Luke to put himself out for a female and they both knew it. Harry’s black eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Miss Wellfleet?”

  With a deep sigh, Luke checked the guest ledger and found a room for his brother in the far end of the hotel. It was one of the smaller rooms with peeling plaster and the view of a brick wall. Harry wouldn’t be tempted to stay longer than one night.

  “Anywhere to get a drink?”

  Reluctantly, he took his brother through to the small tavern and poured him a brandy.

  “Not drinking, Luke?”

  “No. I’m on duty, aren’t I?”

  “For Miss Wellfleet.”

  “For Miss Wellfleet.”

  This, too, was very unlike Luke, but tonight he had too much on his mind and plans for later. Nothing he could tell his brother about. He nodded his head at the calico package Harry had laid across the bar. “So what’s the plan for London? Any idea where to look for her? It’s a big place you know.” Of all three brothers, poor Harry had the hardest task ahead of him. Finding a needle in a haystack would be easier than finding a specific woman in London, even a remarkably beautiful one like the blonde in the portrait.

  “Oh, I’ll find her,” Harry replied with his usual confident air. “She won’t get away from me.” No woman ever escaped Harry Blackwood’s determined pursuit.

  How odd it was, Luke mused, that their father, who had always warned them against attachments to women, left those three nudes in his ‘private collection’ and charged his sons with returning them, in person, to the women who had once posed for him. It was almost as if the old man knew what would happen when he chose those women to paint. As if he knew how his sons would divide the paintings, knew what would appeal to each of them. For Harry, there was the sad-eyed, slightly aloof blonde; for young Adam there was the elegant, reserved brunette he’d pined over for the past five years; and for Luke there was Daisy, the vibrant red-head whose merry, unguarded laughter could almost be felt through the canvas as he held her picture in his hands for the first time and saw her smile.

  “I’m beginning to think old Randolph knew the three of us better than we know ourselves,” Luke said, leaning on the bar. “He painted those women for us, you know, so we’d find them when he was gone.” He’d given it a lot of thought over the last few hours. When he watched Daisy walk out of the hotel on the arm of that wastrel Westerfield, it all came together in his head. In that moment, he realized he’d been sent there to find her for some purpose far beyond returning her portrait. It seemed incredible that he’d only kno
wn Daisy in person for a few hours. She raised his blood heat to such a ravenous desire that he barely knew what to do with himself in her presence. He was certain that somehow his father had known this would happen.

  Harry, however, was skeptical. He had trouble believing their father did anything without gaining some advantage from it himself. “Don’t you remember, Luke, how he used to talk about three witches coming to get him?”

  Their father was a firm believer in the supernatural and liked to think he was from another world, to which he would one day be returned when these three, mysterious ‘witches’ found him, captured him, and took him back where he belonged. While most young children were entertained with catechisms and bible stories in their formative years, the Blackwood boys spent many evenings in their father’s library, huddled around the eerie glow of his ever-smoldering fire while he tickled their imaginations with lurid, nightmare-inducing stories of ghosts and hobgoblins.

  “I think he believed these three women were his witches,” Harry continued. “He used these paintings to keep them trapped somehow in the canvas, unable to get at him.”

  It was an interesting theory. Luke had to admit, Miss Daisy Wellfleet had certain bewitching qualities. But if she was a witch, she was a good witch. She was certainly a wonderful salve for his bad-temper, and all his aches and pains had magically disappeared since she first raised her hand to touch his forehead. He wasn’t even tired anymore.