The Lady in Gray

by Patricia Oliver

  “Now, what deep cogitation has stilled our artist’s pencil?”

  The deep voice, coming from directly behind her, caused Lady Sylvia to jerk around, nearly toppling her chair. Had a strong hand not steadied her, she would have fallen to the ground.

  “Oh, Captain,” she gasped, looking up into startled blue eyes, ‘‘what a fright you gave me.”

  “I do beg your pardon, my lady,” the captain said, his rugged face contrite. “You made such a charming picture sitting here at your easel that we could not resist the temptation of discovering the object of your attention.”

  At his words Sylvia noticed that the captain was not alone. She felt herself blush as her eyes met those of the gentleman who had occupied her thoughts most of the afternoon. The earl’s expression was bleak, and Sylvia wished she could cover the sketch on her canvas, which was, she realized, far too revealing of her own suspicions regarding the countess’s death. But it was too late for that; the earl stepped forward to stand beside her, and Sylvia could feel him stiffen as his eyes took in the shadowy figure at the open door of the hut.

  After an uncomfortable pause, the earl asked the question Sylvia had been dreading:

  “Who is that man?”

  There was something about the cold, stilted tone that made Sylvia cringe. The question seemed rhetorical to her heightened sensibilities. She had the distinct impression that the earl had a very good idea of the dark stranger’s identity. Or had he recognized himself? She wished she might ask, but that was clearly impossible.

  “A figment of my imagination, my lord,” Sylvia replied, which was nothing less than the truth, she reminded herself. The identity of that sinister figure on the cliff was unknown to her, although the vague feeling that she had seen him somewhere before nagged at the periphery of her mind.

  “You have a very active imagination, my lady,” the earl said dryly, his voice still cold. “Are you sure you did not have a specific gentleman in mind as a model?”

  Sylvia stared at him. She found the question vaguely offensive. Had she not said the figure in the painting came from her imagination? On impulse she decided to counter the earl’s question with one of her own.

  “Do you, perchance, have a specific gentleman in mind, my lord, that you wish to accuse me of including without his knowledge?”

  This daring rejoinder was followed by a heavy silence, during which Sylvia met the earl’s thunderous gaze unflinchingly.

  After several uncomfortable moments, the captain intervened. “At this distance, I admit the gentleman resembles any number of our acquaintances, Nicholas. But Lady Sylvia has established that he is imaginary. What more can we ask? I myself would hazard a guess that the man is a bit of a rogue. Why else would he be skulking about in the dusk?”

  The earl said nothing, his eyes fixed on the half-finished sketch.

  “You are quite correct, Captain,” Sylvia said with a relieved smile. “He is indeed a rogue, and his mysterious air is only natural under the circumstances. After all, I am attempting to suggest a secret romantical encounter, and the gentleman cannot wish to be discovered.”

  “A romantical encounter?” the earl sneered. “Are we to assume that it is also adulterous?”

  Startled by the bitterness in his voice, Sylvia glanced at the earl, and her heart contracted. He still loves her, she thought, pain slicing through her. In spite of everything she had heard about the countess’s indiscretions, this man still loved his dead wife. Inexplicably, Sylvia experienced a deep sense of loss.

  As quickly as it had come, the sharp pain left her, and the absurdity of her own emotions made her suddenly angry. Why should she care whether the earl was still infatuated with a woman long since in the grave?

  “You may assume what you choose, of course, my lord,” she answered coolly. “It is, after all, only an artist’s representation of reality. An imaginary scene, an imaginary gentleman.”

  “And I presume you intend to convince me that the figure in the doorway is an imaginary lady?” His voice was strangely harsh, and Sylvia could only guess that the earl had convinced himself he was looking at his errant wife.

  Lady Sylvia looked at her sketch. Was it some trick of light, she wondered, or had that female shape she had instinctively added to the scene gained an identity of its own? The blurred features stared out at her from behind the door, and Sylvia wondered if she had, all unwittingly, recreated a likeness of the unfortunate countess.

  Sylvia searched her mind frantically for a suitable answer that would satisfy the earl she had not deliberately set out to stir up the past. She was thankful when the gentleman’s attention was distracted by a sudden eruption of barking. Sylvia turned to see an excited Rufus bounding towards the trees where little Timmy Collins stood hesitantly watching her.

  With a start, Sylvia realized that she had forgotten that Timmy had promised to bring her the mysterious letter found by his brother.

  ‘Timmy,” she called, noting that her dog’s fierce reception of the boy was pure bluff. “Did you wish to see me?”

  Timmy looked at her as though she had said something particularly stupid. Then he nodded.

  “Aye, milady,” he volunteered reluctantly. “I brung what ye asked fer.” He pushed one hand into a voluminous pocket and produced a creased piece of paper. “Got it right ’ere.”

  Since he made no further motion, Sylvia walked up the slope to the trees, scarcely able to control her excitement. “Thank you, Timmy,” she said, reaching for the paper.

  The boy grinned slyly and instantly hid it behind his back. Without a word he held out his other hand.

  Sylvia plucked a shilling from her pocket and placed it in the grubby pdm. Still without a word, Timmy thrust the letter at her and disappeared into the trees at a dead run.

  The world suddenly stood still, holding its breath. Lady Sylvia’s feet seemed rooted to the leaf-covered ground, as if they had decided to take up residence there. The late afternoon breeze rustled the leaves of the aspen and scrubby pine trees, and her eye caught the flash of a squirrel under a thicket of brambles.

  Sylvia looked down at the frayed paper in her trembling fingers. It was folded in four, the creases grubby with little boys’ hands.

  She unfolded the letter and stared at the bold, heavily slanted handwriting. A handwriting that was as well-known to her as her own.

  My darling Angel.

  The familiar salutation sprang from the page and froze her heart in mid-beat.

  “No,” she gasped. “Oh, no, this cannot be.”

  But it was. Her heart knew it long before her mind could bring itself to accept this indisputable evidence of a man’s perfidy.

  My darling Angel. An endearment she had heard so often from those same smiling lips. One she had imagined, in her misguided and love-struck innocence, hers alone.

  The memories came surging up from the past to engulf her, and Sylvia felt herself losing control of her senses. Had she not known the telltale missive to come from Longueville a year before she had discovered the delights of love and passion in the arms of this same gentleman, Sylvia could have believed it to be one of the amorous billet-doux she had received at Weston Abbey. One of those tender, passionate notes that had induced her to ruin herself for the love of a gentleman who had, a few short months earlier, penned a similar love note—or perhaps many of them—to another woman—another Angel.

  Sylvia was overcome by sudden dizziness. Reaching out blindly, she felt the smooth bark of an aspen under her fingers. She leaned her cheek against the cool, solid surface of the trunk and felt her strength ebbing away.

  She was going to swoon, she thought fuzzily—she who had never swooned in her life. Not even when her father had burst into that poky little room in Dover minutes after that rogue had disappeared into the night, leaving his darling Angel to face a father’s wrath alone.

  No, it had taken those three incriminating words from the past— My darling Angel—addressed to another woman, another love, to make her h
eart acknowledge what her mind had known for years: she had been tricked and betrayed by a master scoundrel.

  Hearing the rumble of male voices behind her, Sylvia tried to shake off the alarming weakness that was forcing her to lean more heavily against the tree. Her legs seemed unable to support her, and she felt herself slipping until she was kneeling on the cushion of leaves.

  Before she collapsed any further, she felt two strong hands on her waist, lifting her back to her feet, which refused to support her.

  Then she found her face against the rough cloth of a gentleman’s hunting jacket, two arms bracing her against a solid chest.

  She sighed and relaxed. The male voices were speaking again, but she could not make out what they said. All she heard was the rumble of sound from the chest of the man who held her. That and the uneven beat of his heart. The rhythm of it was comforting, as was the warmth of the arms that held her.

  It had been a long, long time since Sylvia had been held in a gentleman’s arms, she thought irrelevantly, far too long. She missed the safety and protection a man’s arms provided—or had seemed to provide, in her case. It had all been an illusion, she remembered, a cruel illusion that had broken her heart. Perhaps this, too, was an illusion.

  Her eyes felt heavy, too heavy to open. Or was she reluctant to identify the gentleman who held her? Sylvia wondered, fighting the waves of dizziness that threatened to engulf her. Part of her wanted nothing so much as to surrender to the warmth of those arms, to slip into unconsciousness secure in the knowledge that she would be safe there. Another part insisted that there was something she needed to do before she could rest. Something that would affect her and the man who held her in ways she dared not examine.

  The letter! That was it, Sylvia remembered, suddenly aware that she still clutched that revealing missive in her cold fingers. She needed to prevent the earl from reading it, and more important, she wanted to avoid revealing any connection between herself and the man who had called her Angel.

  If the perfidious writer of that note was known to the earl, as seemed all too likely. Or if he had been a guest at the Castle that summer, a distinct probability. Then her own sordid story would become common knowledge.

  Sylvia shuddered convulsively and slipped into warm darkness.

  Nicholas looked down at the unconscious woman in his arms. He had gathered her up instinctively when she collapsed against him, cradling her unresisting body against his chest as he would a child. The sweet scent of lavender rose from her hair as she nestled against his shoulder. He was overcome by a sharp desire to protect this helpless creature from whatever demons seemed to have distressed her.

  It occurred to him that he had not felt protective towards any female for a long time, and as Nicholas gazed at Lady Sylvia’s pale, still face, he began to understand the vague sense of dissatisfaction that had plagued him since his return from India. He had no woman to share his life, no one to protect, no one to ... He allowed the thought to drift off, unwilling to put it into concrete terms.

  Not since Angelica had he felt a sense of emotional completeness with a female, that comforting harmony that comes from sharing small secrets, that fierce protectiveness he had never suspected in himself.

  And now it was all coming back to him, he realized with a tremor of alarm. As he gazed at this woman’s calm face and felt the soft weight of her in his arms, Nicholas recognized the surge of longing he had felt all those years ago. The empty place in his heart suddenly felt like a cavern, full of darkness and vague memories of dreams unfulfilled.

  Nicholas raised his eyes and saw Jason looking at him strangely. How much of his thoughts had been reflected in his face? he wondered. Suddenly he felt very vulnerable and tried to compensate with a burst of activity.

  “Can you find a rug in the dog cart?” he said, carrying his burden down to where the easel still stood with its enigmatic scene of the secret assignation. “I think we should try to revive her ladyship if we can. If not, we should get her back to Whitecliffs. I have no experience with swooning females.”

  Minutes later, as he deposited the lady on a rug the captain produced from the trap, Nicholas was relieved to see Lady Sylvia’s eyes flutter open. She smiled up at him with such sweetness that his heart flipped over.

  “W-what happened?” she murmured in a voice that faltered. “I cannot b-believe I swooned, my lord. I n-never swoon.” She struggled to sit up, but Nicholas pressed her down again, stripping off his coat to fashion a pillow, which he placed carefully under her head. Some of her hair pins had come loose, and her auburn curls lay in a tangle against the blue silk lining of his coat.

  Nicholas thought she looked quite enchanting.

  “I believe you received some distressing news,” he said, twitching the folded note from her lax fingers. “A billet-doux perhaps?” he added lightly. “I can imagine no other missive that might cause a lady to swoon, do you, Jason? Although from the look of it, I would say this note is an old one.” He examined the letter curiously. “Who is the scoundrel who caused you unhappiness, my dear? I shall knock his teeth down his throat for him.”

  “You cannot mean to read a lady’s love letter, old man,” Jason said incredulously. “Not done, you know. Very improper and all that.”

  Nicholas had not intended to open the letter, but at his friend’s words he felt a burning desire to know who had dared to write a love letter—if indeed it was one—to the lady he wanted for himself.

  “Please do not read it, my lord,” Lady Sylvia pleaded in an agitated voice, which only reinforced his determination to do just that. “It was not meant for your eyes. How dare you even think of reading it?” She held out her hand, but Nicholas was struck by a disturbing thought.

  “Perhaps you can explain to me, my dear, how young Timmy came to be in possession of this letter? I will not believe the lad is playing pander for someone in the village. Not that insipid fellow Connan, I trust.”

  “Oh, no,” Lady Sylvia protested weakly. “That is not the case at all, my lord.”

  “Then tell us how the boy came by this grubby piece of paper whose contents caused you to swoon.”

  “Stop interrogating the poor girl, Sylvia,” the captain exclaimed angrily. “It is none of our concern who sent that dashed letter.”

  Nicholas glared at his friend. “Oh, but it is, my friend. Very much my concern if it is addressed not to Lady Sylvia, as I suspect from the condition of the note, but to another lady whose actions affect me directly.”

  Jason looked grim. “Are you implying that Lady Sylvia is lying?”

  Nicholas looked into his friend’s angry blue eyes and knew he was behaving in an obnoxious manner quite unworthy of him. Dared he say that yes, he thought the lady was mistaken about the letter. It could not have been addressed to her. Its dilapidated condition suggested it had been exposed to the elements and to rough handling, perhaps read over many times, but not by Lady Sylvia. Her violent reaction to its contents confirmed to Nicholas that she had not seen it before.

  Who, then, had been the recipient of the mysterious letter?

  “I am merely suggesting that Lady Sylvia is mistaken, and that the letter was penned years ago and intended for quite another lady.” He spoke deliberately, hoping Jason would understand his meaning.

  If he were not mistaken, Nicholas thought, the love letter was meant for his wife, written by one of the many admirers who had flocked around her that summer. The most likely candidate, of course, was his Cousin Matt, who had admitted—although boasted might better describe the young man’s attitude during that final bitter interview they are shared in the library after the funeral—to a liaison with Angelica.

  Only if Lady Sylvia had known his worthless cousin, perhaps had a tendre for him, would Matt have written her a love note. He had undoubtedly written such notes to dozens of females in his time, but to discover the truth, Nicholas would have to read this particular letter.

  He was strangely loath to do so. Perhaps he did not wish to know th
e identity of Lady Sylvia’s admirer. Perhaps he could not bear the thought of her lavishing her attention on another man. Perhaps he could not stomach positive proof of Angelica’s betrayal. Perhaps .. . Nicholas paused as another alternative occurred to him.

  “Are you acquainted with my Cousin Matt, my lady?” he asked softly, conscious of Jason’s grunt of surprise.

  Lady Sylvia looked perplexed. “I do not believe so, my lord. What is the gentleman’s name?”

  Nicholas could not explain the relief he felt. She did not know the man he suspected of seducing his wife, the man who had been banished from the Castle ten years ago and told never to set foot there again. The man who would, unless Nicholas remarried and produced an heir, inherit everything he had.

  “Farnaby,” he said, “Matthew Farnaby.”

  There was a moment of complete silence, during which Nicholas saw Lady Sylvia’s face drain of all color.

  “Sir Matthew Farnaby is your cousin, my lord?” she whispered almost inaudibly, one hand clutching her throat as though she could no longer breathe.

  “Yes,” he answered, watching her gray eyes fill with dismay.

  “Oh, no!” Her eyes fluttered shut as Lady Sylvia swooned for the second time that afternoon.

  Nicholas stared at her, uneasy thoughts jostling in his mind. The most plausible explanation for the lady’s distress was one he did not want to face. It was Jason, kneeling beside the stricken woman, rubbing her cold fingers, who voiced the earl’s suspicions.

  “I wager that bloody cousin of yours is the brute who ruined her,” he growled.

  Chapter Seventeen

  In Flagrante Delicto

  Longueville Castle, Cornwall September 1804