A Notorious Ruin

by Carolyn Jewel

  Captain Niall’s look in her direction turned her blood cold. She stumbled, but Emily caught her elbow.

  “Who was it?” Harry asked. “Another of the fighters?”

  Lucy’s heart pounded so hard she had to concentrate on breathing calmly.

  “Goodness.” Emily slowed. “This hill shall be the death of me!”

  “Mrs. Wilcott,” Clara said, “why did you not bring that dog of yours? I should think he would have enjoyed the walk.”

  “To Little Merton and back is too far for him.” Harry’s question to Lord Thrale was forgotten.

  Clara continued in bright tones. “Your Roger has made me wish for a hound like him.”

  Captain Niall belted out a laugh. “That mongrel? Miss Glynn, why?”

  “I have observed that Roger is loyal and even-tempered. He adores Mrs. Wilcott. I should like a dog with those qualities.”

  “I’ll take a good birding dog over any other.”

  Emily skipped ahead and cried out, “Was there ever a grander day than this? Clara, race me to the top. Lucy, come! Come! We must take the hill before the gentlemen.”

  Clara darted after Emily. Lucy stayed where she was, remembering a time when she’d have not have hesitated to race away like that. Emily pulled her bonnet from her head and ran bareheaded, and she did not care, Emily didn’t care at all. None of the gentlemen appeared to mind or otherwise be shocked.

  The hill was too steep for the two young women to keep the pace they’d set, and before long they slowed. Emily, hair bright in the sun, turned and waved. “Lucy! Have you abandoned us?”

  She wanted to run. She wanted to forget the need for dignity. She wanted to fly to them. She saw herself racing up the hill, laughing, calling out the danger.

  “Lucy, do come!” Clara cried out, half bent over, hands on her knees. “Do not desert us in our hour of need.”

  Thrale said, “Gentlemen, two such girls as that cannot defend the hill against us. Not when we have a military mind among us.”

  And then she simply did. She might never again have such a moment of pure happiness. She picked up her skirts and ran. The wind caught her bonnet, and the loose bow came undone. She let the hat soar to the heavens, if that’s where the breeze would take it. She sped toward Emily and Clara, calling out to them as she had when they were girls, her words flying away, “To arms, ladies. They plot against us!”

  When she reached Emily and Clara, she grabbed their hands and together they ran, walked, and lurched, gasping, to the very top of the hill. They turned as one and stared at the men forty yards distant.

  “Gentlemen.” Lucy cupped her hands on either side of her mouth. “My lord. We have the high ground. Abandon hope, for we shall not yield.”

  “We stand fast.” Emily put her hands on her hips. “Always.”

  The men went different directions. Harry and Captain Niall to the left and right respectively, Thrale a circuitous route away from other two.

  “Ladies.” Lucy raised her voice. “I claim this land as ours and christen it Butterfly Hill.” She gave Emily and Clara her most serious gaze. “Let no one take what belongs to us. We do not, my comrades-in-arms, bestow friendship upon those who think they shall defeat us.”

  Clara giggled and then saluted. “Unity!”

  “Sororité!” Emily saluted, too.

  Captain Niall and Harry were halfway up the hill. Thrale was yet some distance from them. If he did not wish to join the fun, then, let him not. She had a hill to defend.

  Clara pointed to a spot five yards from them. “If you value your lives, do not cross that line.”

  Lucy wrapped an arm around Clara’s waist. Emily moved closer, and Lucy put her other arm around her sister’s waist. “At your great peril, sirs.”

  Harry stopped. He, too, pointed. “This line? Are you certain it’s this one?”

  “Yes, Harry. That one.”

  He stroked his chin. “Have you terms for your surrender?”

  “Our surrender? Are you mad?” Emily scoffed. “What of yours?”

  “None,” Lucy said.

  Captain Niall approached. His eyes sparkled with laughter, and there was surely never a man more joyful than he. “Never mind the line, Mr. Glynn. The line means nothing. We shall obliterate it. “

  “Miss Sinclair?” Harry set his hands to his hips. “You’re a reasonable young lady. What say you to a peaceful surrender?”

  “Trust nothing my brother says. Look at his eyes. I always know when he’s not truthful.”

  “Yes, Clara,” Lucy said, “I have seen that look myself.”

  “Mr. Glynn.” Captain Niall sent a fiery look at Harry. “You can’t mean to treat with these usurpers of The Battery Fortress.”

  Emily gave a dramatic sneer. “Butterfly Hill.”

  “I say we lay siege.” The captain’s gaze flicked to Lucy. She lifted her chin. Silently, she told them, think what they would of her, she would never surrender to anyone’s contempt.

  “Caution,” Harry said. “You don’t know what my sister and Miss Sinclair are capable of.”

  Captain Niall stood tall. “Defensively, they hold a superior position. I will allow that. But we gentlemen have determination and courage.”

  Clara ran the toe of her slipper in a line before her. “Sacred ground here, Captain. Concede defeat now, for we, too, are determined to hold our position.”

  Harry examined the terrain and his three opponents. “Perhaps this is not the battle we wish to fight, Captain, sir.”

  “Three women? We can take them.”

  “My sister is pitiless,” Harry said. “There might be consequences in not making peace.”

  Clara pointed at him. “I’ll tell Nan not to serve you tea.”

  “No tea.” Emily punched a fist in the air. “Solidarity!”

  “Courage, my brother,” Captain Niall said.

  Harry put a hand to his stomach. “You never in your life had a better tea, Captain Niall. You won’t want your life if we find ourselves denied.”

  “Hunger means nothing to me. Why, I’ve had a two days march with nothing to eat or drink but a dried biscuit and a mouthful of brackish water.”

  “Food such as you have never tasted.” Harry patted his flat belly.

  Captain Niall walked perilously near the line of demarcation and studied it.

  “Think of it, Harry,” Clara said. “No apple tarts. No Geneva wafers.”

  “My sister Nan would take their side in a single beat of her black heart.”

  “There is always a cost to war,” said Captain Niall.

  Harry pretended to stagger. “Have you had Geneva wafers?” He kissed his fingertips. “Bliss that melts in your mouth.”

  Lucy tightened her arms around Emily and Clara. “I believe you were speaking of terms?”

  “Gentlemen.” Lord Thrale appeared in the gap between Harry and Captain Niall. Hands clasped behind him, he took several steps forward and propped one booted foot on an outcropping of rock.

  Emily pointed. “Cross that line, my lord, and it shall be your Rubicon.”

  Still with a hand behind his back, Thrale braced his forearm across his thigh. “Terms, you say?”

  “My lord.” Emily straightened.

  “Brave lass,” Lucy said. “Brave lass. The very best of sisters. My lord, Captain Niall and Mr. Glynn were about to capitulate. Are you wise enough to join them?”

  A smile spread across his face, and then he brought his hand from behind his back.

  Clara gasped.

  “Infamous,” Emily said.

  He tapped one of the silk flowers on Lucy’s hat. “I confess, ladies, I do not know much of fashion, but this seems a striking bit of headgear. Am I right, gentlemen? Did this not, when it sat upon Mrs. Wilcott’s head, seem the finest sort of bonnet a lady could wear?”

  Harry nodded. “That it did, my lord.”

  “Can’t disagree there,” Captain Niall said.

  “Shame if she were never to wear it again.” />
  Lucy looked to Clara and then to Emily. She drew herself up. “Stand fast, gentle ladies. If I sacrifice the most cunning hat there ever was, I shall do so.”

  Emily giggled.

  Clara looked directly at her brother. “You will never taste another Geneva wafer. I promise you.”

  “Suppose,” Lord Thrale said, running a finger along the brim of Lucy’s hat, and without looking up, “I bought Miss Glynn and Miss Sinclair two such hats. Would that not be an inducement to peace on our terms?”

  “Two hats?” Emily tightened her arm around Lucy’s waist. “We scoff at your two hats.”

  Thrale looked at the other men. “What say you?”

  Harry folded his arms over his chest. “The recipe for Geneva wafers must be made safe. I say if they’re to have new bonnets it must be in return for peace and Geneva wafers for all posterity.”

  Lucy tapped her foot on the ground. “Don’t be greedy, Mr. Glynn. We cannot promise what is not ours to give.”

  “Ah,” said Captain Niall. “What delights are in your power to grant?”

  “What is a hat to possession of the hill?” Emily said.

  Thrale pretended fascination with Lucy’s bonnet. “You have misunderstood. Two hats for each of you, of course.”

  “And for Lucy,” Clara said. “Two hats for Lucy as well.”

  “But of course.” He made a half bow.

  “At the milliner of your choosing,” Harry added.

  “I hear nothing but empty words.” Clara shook her head. “By what date shall you be bound to comply with our treaty terms?”

  A smile twitched at Lord Thrale’s mouth. “We cannot, I am sure you can imagine, guarantee the date of delivery. That will not be in our control. But we three” —he gestured to Harry and Captain Niall “will escort you to the shop no later than Friday next. Agreed, gentlemen?”

  “Agreed.” Captain Niall gave a curt nod.

  “That is acceptable.” Harry did the same.

  Emily swung her arms free. “Six hats? Why, I daresay, we’ve profited more than any of us dreamed when we took Butterfly Hill for our own.”

  “Battery Fortress,” Captain Niall said.

  “Butterfly Hill.” Lucy bent to pat the ground. “Or there will be no recipe for Geneva wafers put into the hands of your cooks, sirs.”

  “Mrs. Wilcott.” Harry put a hand over his heart. “Have mercy.”

  Lord Thrale smoothed one of the ribbons of her bonnet. “Sir. She has none.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Thrale leaned against his chair, a plate of Geneva wafers in hand. He had but three left of the original five he’d been served, and he was eyeing the larger plate on which the remainder had been arranged. He did not mean to be greedy, but they were a devilishly good concoction. A buttery wafer cone filled with jam and fresh cream that melted in one’s mouth. Harry Glynn had been right to insist that the recipe be shared.

  The ladies were seated near Glynn’s elder sister, Mrs. Briggs. Her husband sat beside her, one arm around his wife’s shoulder while she leaned against him, head toward his shoulder. Her son was fast asleep and limp against her body, his head resting on her shoulder.

  He had never been one to think much about the domestic state except in the most abstract terms. He must one day marry, yes. He must one day have children; also the case. So why, when previous encounters with other people’s offspring never made his chest tighten, was he now enrapt and enthralled by the Briggs’s infant?

  The child was so thoroughly helpless and dependent, and he wanted all at the same time to brush a finger across the child’s cheek, be nowhere him, and to hold the infant himself. He envied Mrs. Briggs and her husband to the point where his own unmarried and childless state seemed intolerable.

  “A handsome boy,” Thrale said.

  “Isn’t he just?” Mrs. Briggs beamed at the child and kissed his soft forehead. “So much like his father, yet such an easy, good-natured boy.”

  “There’s a bit of the devil in him.” Mr. Briggs patted his wife’s shoulder. “Is that not so?”

  “Didn’t I say, Mr. Briggs,” said Mrs. Briggs in all fondness, “that he is like his father?”

  “That you did, my love. That you did.” Mrs. Briggs met Thrale’s gaze then stood and crossed the three steps to his chair. “Would you like to hold him? It’s easy when they’re sleeping.”

  Before he could object, she settled the boy in his arms, and he, somehow, had moved his hands to accept the burden. The boy was transferred to his care as if he weren’t a delicate, helpless, creature who ought to be protected from brutes like him. Mrs. Briggs pushed one of his arms underneath the baby’s bum. He put the other across the boy’s back, and the child hardly stirred. The blind trust of everyone involved shattered him, from the baby, to Mrs. Briggs and her husband, and everyone else who didn’t think he’d drop the poor thing.

  “One day, you’ll have one of your own.” Mrs. Briggs stayed close. Thank goodness for that. “Just think, when it’s yours you’ll say to yourself, 'I’ve held a baby before!’ and I shall tell everyone that a marquess held our boy.”

  Young Mr. Briggs slumbered on, unmindful of his present danger or of a future where he would be proud—heaven make it so—to have been cradled by Lord Thrale himself.

  “Well now,” he said. “I’ll have to make something of myself, won’t I?”

  Briggs laughed. “There, sir, you had better, for that’s my boy you’ve got in your arms.”

  At that moment, Thrale wanted to be married. He wanted a wife who thought he set the sun in the sky and whom he could fondly tease. A woman with whom he could share words and looks only the two of them understood. A woman he could tease like that, and who could tease back with words that carried a meaning known only between them. Children. A boy as soft and sweet as this one. His own children, to be loved fiercely and joyfully. Sons and daughters he could hold fast and say isn’t she just with the same joyful pride and awe as Mrs. Briggs.

  His father might have been a hard and neglectful parent, but that did not mean that he would be the same, if the day came that he was a parent. When that day came. That choice was his, to be a different sort of father. To be a different sort of husband, too.

  The nursemaid leaned in. “Let me take him. He’ll mess your coat, milord.”

  He cupped a hand over the back of the boy’s head. “He’s fast asleep, can’t you see?”

  Captain Niall shuddered. “What unspeakable domesticity.”

  Thrale stood, the boy snugly in his arms. Mrs. Briggs misunderstood the reason he’d left his seat and came take her son into her arms once more. “We can’t have that, can we?” she said.

  “You promised I could hold him.” Mrs. Wilcott held out her arms.

  “So I did.” The infant was passed, still sleeping, to Mrs. Wilcott, who did not seem the least terrified by the responsibility. Then again, had he expected she would dash up a hill, fast as a rabbit, too, and take the lead in defending captured territory? He felt he’d been given a private glimpse into the sort of woman who would unhesitatingly sacrifice her future to save her family. And had. She had. She’d kept her family together.

  Captain Niall tilted back his chair and beamed at his plate of wafers. He was also, naturally, gazing in the general direction of Mrs. Wilcott. Whatever else one thought of her, she was, at this moment, quite the Madonna-like beauty. “Now, the scene is perfection itself.”

  Eyes on the baby, Mrs. Wilcott smiled. “Why would it not be, with so perfect a child?”

  “The best child in the world, I daresay.” Glynn ate his last wafer. “The best nephew there ever was in the world.”

  “Thank you, Harry.” Mrs. Briggs pushed the plate of Geneva wafers toward her brother. He took half a dozen.

  “I’ll buy him a pony.” He ate one of the treats. “I saw a nice one t’other day when I was at the stockyard in Bartley Green.”

  Mrs. Briggs laughed. “He’s not yet crawling.”

  “I think his fath
er can buy him a pony.” Briggs put several Geneva wafers on his plate, too. “When it’s time.”

  “How else am I to spoil the best nephew a man ever had if not with a pony?”

  “Visit him,” said Mrs. Briggs. “Come see us and dandle him on your knee.”

  Glynn extended his arms. Thrale wondered whether there hadn’t been something to Mrs. Glynn’s worry, not on account of Mrs. Wilcott, but on account of Harry Glynn.

  “Lah, Harry, not when he’s fast asleep.”

  “You allowed Lord Thrale to hold him.”

  “I knew Lord Thrale would not wake him.”

  “I’m not giving him up yet,” Mrs. Wilcott said. “He’s too sweet.”

  “Why should you have all the delight of holding him?” Glynn wriggled his fingers at Mrs. Wilcott. “Think what you can tell him, Nan, when he’s old enough to understand his uncle held him in his arms.”

  “Don’t listen to a word he says,” Miss Glynn said.

  “Another time for you, sir,” said Mrs. Wilcott. “I am too selfish to give him up, as everyone knows.”

  There was the briefest silence, full of discomfort because, as he realized now, that was very much her reputation. Everyone here knew that.

  In the silence, her cheeks went pink. “You will see him more often than I, Harry. Who knows when I shall have the chance to hold him again?”

  “That’s the truth,” Mrs. Briggs said too brightly. He applauded her for her unfeigned warmth. “You Sinclairs do not come here often enough.”

  Thrale wondered then whether Mrs. Wilcott was sorry she’d not had children. Perhaps she had, though. That was a melancholy thought, that she might have borne and lost a child. She and Wilcott had been married long enough to have expected children, with her so young.

  “Does he sleep well, Mrs. Briggs?” Mrs. Wilcott asked.

  “Oh, yes. He’s very regular, isn’t he?” Mrs. Briggs consulted the nursemaid.

  “Yes, ma’am, he is. He’s an easy baby.”

  Thrale went to the parlor window. As promised, the view was breathtaking. This was disconcerting, that from nowhere this desire for a wife and children sprang up. He’d always had in mind that it would serve his father right if he never did. Now, he could think of nothing he wanted more.