by Tarah Scott
Elizbeth smiled before she could stop herself. Robert had written? Her soon-to-be betrothed cared more for her than for propriety, and more than he feared her father’s wrath. Not that Father had ever indicated displeasure in their courtship…assuming he’d noticed.
Margarette popped to her feet. The pile of letters for their father toppled in her wake and spilled across the settee toward Davina. “In fact, such a letter as this is so scandalous, could do such harm to a lady’s reputation, that I say we must burn it.” Margarette whirled toward the tall fireplace at the far end of the room.
“Margarette,” Elizbeth cried before she could help herself.
Her sister turned back with a victorious grin. She thrust the letter behind her back and took two steps backward toward the hearth. Elizbeth didn’t know if she should laugh or shriek. She felt caught between the girl she was at twelve, tormented by her little sister, and the woman she’d become at twenty-two.
“For Heaven’s sake.” Aunt Davina laughed, her chocolate-colored curls a jumble as she shook her head. “Give me that letter and take yourself off to your lessons, Miss. I believe ‘tis Italian today.”
“French,” Margarette said, then clamped her lips closed with a grimace. She crossed to their aunt and proffered the envelope, which Davina accepted with a smile.
Although she still didn’t have her letter, Elizbeth couldn’t contain a smirk. Margarette hated French.
“Well, off you go to the library.” Aunt Davina made a shooing gesture. “I will quiz you later.”
“Yes, Aunt Davina.” Margarette made a great show of becoming somber before she smiled and skipped from the room.
Aunt Davina gathered the scattered letters, placed Elizbeth’s on top, and held out the stack. “Will you take these to your father? He likely wishes to have his mail.”
Elizbeth set aside her needlepoint and stood. Eyes on the top envelope, she took the pile and hurried from the parlor. She reached her father’s office to find the door closed. The thick wood panel shutting him away meant he didn’t wish to be disturbed, so Elizbeth deposited his mail on the small table outside his office door. She couldn’t help but recall a time when their golden-haired mother had been alive and his door was always open. Elizbeth sighed. Mother was not alive, and their father’s office door was nearly always closed.
She turned from the door to find Mary hurrying toward her. The maid took in the closed office and proffered a card. “There is a Frenchman here to see your father, Miss. Claims he’s a lord of some sort, or I wouldn’t have let him in.”
Elizbeth took the card. Etched on the surface was simply Seigneur Faucon.
Lord Hawk, she thought, her French considerably better than Margarette’s.
She looked at the maid. “Do you think he truly is a French lord?” A lord would be worth disturbing her father.
“Well, Miss, he seems quite fancy, to be sure, and very French.” This last, Mary delivered with a wrinkle of her nose.
“Show him to my office,” came her father’s clipped voice behind the closed door.
Elizbeth winced. She’d forgotten about her father’s keen hearing. She offered the card back to Mary. “Bring him to Father.”
“Yes, Miss.” Mary took the card and scuttled away.
Elizbeth stood for a moment, gaze on the door. Should she ask her father if he needed anything? He had a bell pull, and servants to fetch for him, but since their mother’s death, he’d taken to skipping breakfast. Now, they rarely saw him outside the dinner table, if then. She shook her head. He knew she was there. If he wanted to see her, he would ask her in. Besides, she had Robert’s letter to read.
Elizbeth turned on her heels. Though guilt assailed her, she went to the little room that had been her mother’s office. She withdrew the key from her bodice—a key none knew she possessed—opened the door, and slipped inside.
Stuffy heat warmed her arms. Her mother had kept the window open nearly year-round. Elizbeth preferred the fresh air, as well. Today, however, she dared open the curtains and beveled panes just enough for a sliver of light and a flicker of breeze. She couldn’t risk being caught. Her father, who thought he had the only key, would be livid.
Elizbeth understood his feelings. He wished this room, where Mother was once so often found, to remain undisturbed, in some fruitless hope to preserve a glimmer of her spirit. But it didn’t. When mother was alive, light poured in through the open window. Her household notes and correspondences lay scattered about the desk and the second table, which overcrowded the little room. Father had pressed her to take one of the parlors for her office, but Mother liked her cramped little space with its lavender walls and flowery upholsteries.
Now, desk and table were bare, their papers long since sorted by Aunt Davina. After Mother’s death, Aunt Davina arrived with their wayward, unpredictable Uncle Graham, and she’d taken over running the household. While Elizbeth appreciated Aunt Davina and was daily grateful for her competence, she had no real notion why Uncle Graham was there. All he did was soak up Father’s whisky—when he could pry himself away from his harlots long enough to come home.
Shrugging off her now-grim mood, Elizbeth settled into the armchair by the window. She ran a finger along Robert’s concise handwriting then, carefully, she opened the envelope. This was her first letter from Robert and she wished to cherish every word.
Elizbeth:
As promised, I am writing. I comply only because I abhor breaking a promise. However, I must remind you how inappropriate it was for you to ask me to write. Your father would be displeased not only that you asked me, but that I allowed you to extract my promise to write. Be warned, in the future, I will not give in to your pleading.
Elizbeth rolled her eyes. If there was one little flaw in Robert, it was that he was too serious, but that was also what she cherished about him. His seriousness drew her in. To call forth his laughter made her heart sing, and she knew, when Robert spoke, he meant each word. Still, he could stand to be a touch less severe.
Her eyes went to the final line.
With the very greatest affection, yours always, Robert.
Elizbeth pressed the letter to her chest. Those words made the rest of the letter worthwhile. Her gaze caught on the quill sitting on the desk. The quill had been her mother’s favorite. Tears unexpectedly pricked. It was terribly unfair that she had died without seeing Elizbeth fall in love. Elizbeth recalled the delight in her father’s eyes whenever her mother walked into the room. Elizbeth wanted a love like that. She’d found a love like that.
“You would have loved him as much as I do, Mother,” she whispered.
Elizbeth held the page back in the line of sunlight to reread the short missive.
“This request to speak in the garden is ridiculous,” her father’s voice, speaking French, emanated from somewhere outside, near the window.
Elizbeth snapped her head up.
“Not ridiculous, but necessary,” a man replied in the same tongue. “The manor has ears.”
“I assure you, none of my staff speak your language,” her father snapped back. “Half of them barely speak English.”
Movements slow, least the chair creak, Elizbeth grasped the window and drew it back toward the sill. Father would not appreciate being made a liar of.
“Humor me, Seigneur, for my news is life shaking,” the Frenchman said. “Any who hear it will face mortal danger.”
The window clicked quietly closed, muting her father’s reply into unintelligibility.
Face mortal danger? Elizbeth would have laughed had Seigneur Faucon’s tone not been deadly serious. What news could possibly be of such importance? Her fingers tightened on the latch. She hesitated a heartbeat, then drew her hand back.
Eavesdropping was unacceptable. Doubly so when the two men were going to great lengths not to be overheard, and especially if the information they shared was truly somehow dangerous. If the Frenchman’s words were for Father’s ears alone, Father alone should hear them.
A thought struck. The library windows also opened onto the garden. Margarette!
Elizbeth surged to her feet. She folded and tucked Robert’s letter into her skirt pocket as she crossed the room. She poked her head into the corridor—empty, as hoped. She slipped from the room and hurried down the hall.
Halfway to the library, she came up short. Lord, she’d forgotten to lock the door. Elizbeth hurried back and secured her mother’s office, then again headed toward the library. She pushed the door open, stepped in, and nearly collided with Margarette. Elizbeth stumbled back.
Her sister recoiled. “Elizbeth,” she cried. “You cannot believe what I heard.”
Elizbeth contained a sigh. She leveled a frown on her sister. “You listened in on Father’s private conversation.”
Margarette gaped. “How do you know?”
“I heard them talking and came to stop you.” Elizbeth grasped her sister’s arm and pulled her into the center of the large room, away from windows or door, then realized the Frenchman’s words had truly rattled her. “It is wrong to eavesdrop.”
Margarette yanked free. “I do not care. ‘Tis a good thing I heard. I don’t want to go.” Margarette’s voice broke off in anguished tears.
Elizbeth stared. “Go where?”
“To France,” Margarette cried.
“Why would you be going to France?” Elizbeth asked, unable to follow Margarette’s tearful declarations.
“The Frenchman said we must.” Margarette rubbed at her eyes. “He said we are to marry Frenchmen so Father can have an army.”
“What under Heaven are you talking about?” Elizbeth demanded. “What do you mean, ‘we’?”
“You, me and Aunt Davina,” Margarette said. “Father is going to send us to France so they will send back an army to help him become king of Scotland.”
“Margarette,” Elizbeth hissed. “Do not say such things. That is treason. Stop making up stories.”
Margarette lifted her chin. “It is not a story. The Frenchman said Father is the secret descendent of the Jacobite kings, and so we are princesses—which would be great fun—except that France sent him with a ship to take us away.”
Elizbeth planted her hands on her hips. “Did you fall asleep over your lessons?”
Margarette grimaced. “Aye, because French is so boring, but that is not the point.”
“It is exactly the point,” Elizbeth corrected. “That is what you get for eavesdropping—and for not studying properly. Your French is terrible, which is why you so badly misunderstood their conversation.”
Despite her admonition, a thread of unease wound through Elizbeth. Margarette might not speak French well, but Elizbeth did, and she hadn’t misunderstood the Frenchman’s warning about mortal danger.
Margarette’s gaze sharpened. “You heard something, too.”
Elizbeth groaned inwardly. Margarette eschewed books, but she was too intelligent for her own good.
“If I am wrong, why were they talking in the garden rather than Father’s office?” Margarette demanded.
“There could be many reasons,” Elizbeth said, but doubt persisted. While Margarette’s story was obviously a mad mixture of dream and miscomprehension, the meeting was odd. Why was a French lord speaking with their father to begin with?
“My French may be atrocious, but I comprehend much more than I speak,” Margarette said. “I know what I heard. We cannot let Father send us away to France. Especially you. What about Robert?”
“Mister McFarlan,” Elizbeth corrected absently as she sought to make sense of Margarette’s story.
“We must warn Aunt Davina,” her sister urged. “The Frenchman said they want her, too.” Elizbeth shook her head and started to tell Margarette to return to her French lesson, but Margarette grasped her hand. “Please, we must tell Aunt Davina.”
The fear in Margarette’s eyes stopped the refusal that leapt to Elizbeth’s lips. Margarette feared nothing.
Elizbeth gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “You must try to see that you dreamed up this silly story.”
Margarette stubbornly shook her head. “Aunt Davina can decide.”
Elizbeth bit her lip. Their aunt was forgiving, but eavesdropping on Father’s private conversation was a graver transgression than running down a hallway.
Margarette’s hand clutched harder. “Elizbeth, I am afraid.”
“We may have to tell Aunt Davina,” Elizbeth allowed. “Or we may be able to keep your misbehavior between us. Tell me everything you think you heard, as near the original as you can, in French, and I will decide.”
Margarette hesitated, then nodded and launched into her tale.
Chapter Two
Davina closed Debrett's The New Peerage. She weighed the etiquette book in her hands. Debrett’s, and all of Britain, agreed that a proper chaperone must be wedded or widowed.
Due to Bhradain’s betrayal, Davina was neither.
Mister Haywood, she corrected. He never should have been Bhradain to her. After nine years, some other woman must have the honor of addressing Mister Haywood by his Christian name.
She rubbed eyes tired of reading Debrett’s dry, restrictive words. Across the room, the mantle clock ticked off slow minutes. The dinner hour approached, and Elizbeth hadn’t returned. Margarette wouldn’t. She would hide from a French exam for as long as possible. If the girl devoted as much effort to learning the language as she did to avoiding her lessons, she would be fluent.
Elizbeth, though, should have returned to her sewing. The envelope from Mister McFarlan had been thin. How many words could the page contain, and how many times could Elizbeth possibly read them? Davina considered fetching her niece.
A smile flittered across her lips. Elizbeth, as conscientious a young woman as Davina had ever met, thought no one knew where she hid when she wished to be alone. Sweet Elizbeth had no idea Davina—who had never been very well behaved—routinely followed, snooped, and spied on her nieces. In their best interests, of course.
She drummed her fingers on the book in her lap. Nae, Debrett would never condone her as a chaperone. But she was all her nieces had, and she was determined to safeguard their wellbeing.
Which brought her to Mister McFarlan. A kind man. Intelligent. An attorney. Not a true gentleman, though from a genteel family. Born the same year as Davina, so not too old for Elizbeth, nor so young as to be foolish. In truth, she felt him a good match for her niece. There would be no trouble there, except that Davina had no idea how her eldest brother felt about the notion of his daughter wedding one of his attorneys.
One might assume, as James permitted the courtship to continue, he was pleased. That would be, if one didn’t know James. Or rather, the man he’d become since Maryanne’s death. With his wife’s passing, James had lost all attachment to the world. Like as not, he hadn’t noticed the glaringly obvious affection between his daughter and the attorney.
Hurried footfalls, growing in volume, sounded in the hall without. Davina stilled her fingers. The footsteps were too heavy to be Elizbeth or Margarette. Her brother James burst into the parlor. His gaze darted about the small room, minnow-like. A strange pallor had leached all color from his face and his normally neat brown hair was wind tossed, as if he’d been outdoors. Of late, James never went outdoors.
“Whatever is the matter?” She set the book aside and rose. “James?”
“Where are my daughters?” he barked.
“Not here, as you can see. Is something amiss?” In view of his distress, she tried to keep a check on her temper, a thing more easily accomplished were it not the case that James was continually brusque these days. “James?” she repeated.
“What? Nae. Nothing is amiss.” He raked long fingers through his dark hair.
At forty, James was still a handsome man. Only a hint of gray touched his temples and his broad shoulders and arms were well muscled. Unlike many other men his age, he had no paunch. She saw the way women looked at him, even young women. He could find happiness again. I
f only he would try.
He looked about the room again. “Where did you say they are?”
“Margarette is most likely in the library.” She would not betray Elizbeth’s secret. He would be furious should he learn his daughter possessed a key to her mother’s office. “I have no notion where Elizbeth is.”
James’s mouth thinned. “Is not your one purpose in this household to know where my daughters are?”
She tamped down harder on her anger. “Indeed. Shall I launch a search, or would you rather wait an hour and see if they join us for dinner?”
His frown deepened into a scowl. “A husband would have curbed your tongue years ago. But I suppose it’s better this way.” He turned on his heel and stomped from the room.
Davina stared at the empty doorway. “That was rude even for James,” she murmured.
Should she go after him? Was something truly amiss, aside from his self-absorbed sorrow over Maryanne? Before she could decide, new footsteps filled the corridor. Recognizing both sets, Davina retook her place on the settee. Perhaps the answers were on their way to her.
“Aunt Davina.” Much as her father had, Margarette hurtled into the room.
Behind her, Elizbeth entered, her lovely face marred by worry and her steps considerably more graceful. Instead of sitting, they stopped before Davina. She looked up at them, expectant.
“Aunt Davina, Margarette has overheard something that concerns us,” Elizbeth’s voice was grave.
“Overheard?” Davina cocked a brow. “How did you manage that, dear?” Davina understood all too well how one overheard things.
Margarette had the grace to blush. “I did not do it on purpose. I was in the library, studying French. I truly was.”
Davina nodded.
“The window was open, and Father and that Frenchman started talking in the garden.”
“Frenchman?” Davina asked.
“Yes,” Elizbeth said. “He arrived shortly after we left you, and asked to speak with Father. He gave the name Seigneur Faucon.”