Earl's Invention

by Diana Campbell

  She stopped, and Bonnie surmised that she, too, was seeking just the right word. But when she went on, it was in an entirely different vein.

  “At any rate, I reiterated my assurance that I should lend your project my full cooperation. Naturally, since you created the impression that your father is still alive, we cannot tell Judith and Robert of Tom’s death.”

  Bonnie had not considered this complication, and she shook her head in protest. “No, that would be most unfair. I can’t ask you to behave as though nothing were amiss.”

  “You are speaking of outward behavior, dear, which is altogether unimportant. I have mourned Tom in my heart every day since he died, and I daresay I shall continue to do so for as long as I Live. But he would not have wanted me in black gloves.”

  Bonnie glanced from Cornelia’s face to her attire and noted that her old-fashioned morning dress was a brilliant azure blue.

  “No,” Cornelia said, “it will not overset me in the least to pretend that Tom is still alive. I did not come back to England to find a second husband. Someday, after I return to Barbados, I shall write to Judith and advise her very sorrowfully that Tom has expired.”

  ··Return?” Bonnie repeated sharply. “I had presumed you intended to remain here.”

  “Good God, no! I was wild to see David, and I hope we can exchange visits in future. But my life is in the Indies.”

  “Do you have children?” Bonnie asked. “I neglected to inquire last night.”

  “No, that was the one great sorrow of our marriage. But I’ve a host of friends in Barbados, and their children and grandchildren are nearly like my own. So I shall stay a few months—through the summer. I think—and then sail happily back to my sunshine and my palm trees.”

  “A few months!” Bonnie's fork slid through her fingers and clattered onto her plate. “Then perhaps ...” She swallowed her burgeoning excitement. “David must have explained that we planned for me to return to Barbados at the end of the Season. To disappear, that is. So maybe, now you're here, we could . . . could coordinate our departures."

  “You would be willing to extend your impersonation till the end of the summer?” Cornelia raised her brows. “I should have assumed you’d be eager to escape David’s clutches.”

  “Not exactly eager,” Bonnie mumbled. She snatched her knife from the tablecloth and began dissecting her scone.

  “No? How very peculiar. One might almost infer that despite your many differences, you’ve grown rather fond of my brother.”

  Fond. Bonnie sifted the word through her mind. She had judged herself to be fond of Francis, but she was not troubled by the prospect that they would soon part and never meet again. There was none of the deep, raw pain she felt when she contemplated her permanent separation from the earl. But perhaps, she decided, language was simply inadequate to distinguish among the various degrees of “fondness.-’

  “I suppose I have,” she rejoined aloud. “Though I cannot

  imagine why. He is the most difficult person I have ever met—the very sou! of kindness one instant and an irrational tyrant the next. I am sure he does not treat his male friends so cavalierly, or he would have no male friends. But he seeems to hold women in utter contempt. It is excessively puzzling.”

  “It is not at all puzzling in view of his background,” Cornelia said. “Recollect that I was nine when David was bom, and Mama was nearing forty. She and Papa had despaired of ever having a son, and they regarded David’s arrival as a miracle. They coddled and pampered him from the day of his birth—they, the servants, even Judith and I. It is scarcely surprising he developed the notion that he was vastly superior to his sisters. His sisters and, by extension, every other female in the world.”

  “But all men have that notion,” Bonnie said dryly. “That they are superior to women, I mean. It does not prevent them from wedding.”

  “True." Cornelia nodded. “Keep in mind, however, that David was fearfully spoiled. Raised to believe that his needs and desires transcended those of anyone else. In short, to put it candidly, he was simply too selfish to marry.” She hesitated for a long moment. “Until now,” she added at last.

  “Until now?” Bonnie frowned. “You think he has changed?’ ’

  “I think he has been forced to change. Or shortly will be."

  Cornelia looked expectantly across the table, but Bonnie could make no sense of her statement. Her frown deepened, and Cornelia burst into laughter.

  “My dear child! Can you possibly be so obtuse? Have you not perceived that David is hopelessly in love with you?”

  “In ... in ...” Bonnie's knife crashed to her plate beside her fork.

  “Did it not occur to you to wonder why he is so distressed by the prospect that you might wed someone else?" Cornelia’s voice seemed to come from very far away. “So prodigious overset that he bitterly resents any man who pays you the slightest attention? I started to say earlier that he is obviously suffering an advanced case of jealousy."

  She peered once more across the table, as if to elicit Bonnie’s concurrence, but Bonnie was literally frozen with shock.

  “I did not say it earlier,” Cornelia went on, "because I wished first to ascertain your position. I shouldn’t have wanted to ... to embarrass David if you did not care for him in turn. But it is clear that you love him as well."

  How could it not have been clear to her? Bonnie marveled distantly. Of course she loved him. She had loved him from the very beginning, from the instant she’d gazed into his face and thought him to be an angel. Her lips thawed, and she parted them, but no words came. She could only gape at Cornelia—her jaw sagging and her eyes wide with astonishment.

  "You must not suppose me a Gypsy soothsayer.” Cornelia had evidently misinterpreted her expression. "I daresay I should soon have divined the truth for myself, but in the event, I had a good deal of assistance from Nell."

  "Nell," Bonnie croaked. She had finally found her tongue.

  "Yes. I dissembled a bit about the conversation we conducted before I left for the assembly. After she warned me that a young woman was posing as my daughter, she pronounced her opinion that ‘Mr. David' and ‘Miss Bonnie’ had fallen over head and ears in love. An opinion based on her observation that neither of you was eating as much as you should."

  She glanced at Bonnie’s plate and chuckled. "Dear Nell. Appetite had always been her sole measure of the human condition." She stopped chuckling and regarded Bonnie with concern. "Are you all right?”

  "Yes," Bonnie whispered. "Yes, I am all right. But what am I to do now?"

  “You need do nothing," Cornelia replied. “You need only be patient and wait for David to own to his feelings. He will not permit you to leave London; I promise you that. And I suspect he will come to his senses long before the time for your departure. He is fairly ill with jealousy of Francis—”

  "Francis!” Bonnie had quite forgotten him, and her mouth fell open again. "David doesn’t know . . She poured out the story of Francis’ offer, her failure to decline it, the announcement Lady Hellier planned to make at the ball.

  "I was on my way to Orchard Street to speak with him,” she concluded, “but I judged it too early to call."

  "Well, it is not too early now,” Cornelia said, "and I urge you to go without delay. It wouldn’t do at all for David to leam that you deceived him.”

  "No, it would not," Bonnie grimly agreed.

  She leapt up. flung her napkin on the table, and raced toward the vestibule, another of Cornelia’s chuckles floating in her wake.

  The doorbell pealed, began to echo, and Bonnie shifted nervously from foot to foot, envisioning all manner of terrible scenarios. What if the Helliers were still abed, and Briscoe was once more "indisposed,” and no one answered the door? That would not be so terrible after all, she decided: she could remain on the porch, continuing to ring the bell, till someone within the house responded. But what if—against all odds— Francis had risen, dressed. Finished his breakfast, and already set out in Si
r Robert’s infamous phaeton? Well, that presented no great problem either; she could simply wait until he returned.

  But what if he did not intend to return for many hours? What if he planned to come back just prior to the assembly, just in time to don his smallclothes and silk stockings and the rest of his evening attire? Bonnie would be compelled to deliver her rejection of his offer to Lady Hellier, and that would be terrible in the extreme. Or what if Francis was home, but his mother insisted on participating in their discussion? Bonnie would have to announce her refusal to them both, which would be more dreadful yet—

  The door swung inward, and Bonnie was so startled that she nearly tumbled across the threshold.

  “Good morning. Miss Carlisle,” Briscoe said pleasandy. She blinked up at him and started again, for he looked tantalizingly familiar. Well, he was familiar, she reminded herself: she had met him on the occasion of her first visit to Orchard Street. But she could not quell an odd notion that she had encountered him somewhere else as well, and—odder still—the notion triggered a little shiver of apprehension.

  “I regret to advise you that Lady Hellier is from home,” the butler went on.

  This was cheering news indeed, but Bonnie’s relief was tempered by her obsessive fascination with his appearance. Briscoe did not have a common sort of face; she had previously remarked his unusual handsomeness—

  “In fact,” he added, “I daresay you passed her en route. She departed on foot only a few minutes since.”

  Bonnie inferred from this commentary that her ladyship had gone to Oxford Street to purchase some final accessory for her ball gown. An errand which could not take long, and every second she stared at Briscoe was a precious second wasted.

  “I did not come to see Lady Hellier," she said, tearing her eyes from his. “I was in hopes of speaking with Francis. Mr. Hellier, that is. Is he awake?”

  “Awake but not quite dressed. However, I shall hurry up and tell him you are here. May I suggest you await him in the library? The staff are rearranging the furniture in the saloon. For the assembly this evening.”

  As if she might have forgotten the assembly, Bonnie thought wryly. Briscoe gestured her into the foyer, closed the front door, escorted her to the library entry, bowed, and sped toward the staircase. He wasn’t foxed today, she reflected, gazing after him. Which was no great tribute to his character, for it was only a few minutes after nine. But perhaps his sobriety enhanced his vague resemblance to David. Yes, that

  must be why she fancied she had seen him in some other place and some other role.

  Bonnie stepped on into the library and across the ragged carpet to the sofa, but she was too restless to sit. So very restless that she wondered how she was ever to maintain the patience Cornelia had counseled. How could she pretend, for weeks to come, that she regarded David as nothing more than her fictional uncle? Weeks or months, she amended, her stomach fluttering with dismay. If the earl was not ready to confess his feelings—and apparently he was not—he would probably seize upon Cornelia’s visit to continue their charade till the end of the summer. In fact, there was nothing to prevent him from extending the project even beyond Cornelia’s departure. He could manufacture one excuse upon another and keep his “niece” alive for years . . .

  But she was wasting time again, Bonnie chided herself. Pondering the distant future instead of rehearsing her imminent conversation with Francis. She stopped her fitful pacing— she had not realized she was pacing—and furrowed her brow in concentration. She had just composed a brilliant opening (“Francis, there is something I must tell you”) when she heard the tap of footfalls on the stairs.

  “Bonnie!”

  Francis strode through the doorway and hurried across the room, but he did not seem to know exactly what to do when he reached her side. It initially appeared, from the ungainly forward thrust of his neck, that he intended to kiss her on the cheek, but he soon drew back and began to grope for her hand. Before he could find and wring it, however, he changed his mind again and clumsily patted the satin puff at one shoulder of her spencer.

  “Bonnie.” He sorrowfully shook his head. “I expected you to call this morning.”

  “You . . . you did?”

  “Indeed I did, and I can well surmise what you plan to say.”

  “You . . . you can?”

  "Of course I can, and I quite comprehend your distress. I can only beg you to believe that Mama’s remarks shocked me as much as you. I had explained very clearly that you were still considering my offer, and I didn’t dream she would publicly mention an announcement of our engagement. I pray her. . her optimism did not cause you undue embarrassment.”

  His miscalculation of her motives had rendered Bonnie’s task infinitely more difficult, and she abandoned the opening she’d devised and cast about for a subtler way to introduce the true purpose of her call. But there was no subtle way, she decided; she could only forge ahead as gently as possible.

  "I did come to speak with you about the announcement of our engagement.” Her voice was so clogged as to be almost incomprehensible, and she cleared her throat. "And I should like to begin by saying that I am ... am extremely fond of you. Had we not chanced to be cousins, I feel sure we should nevertheless have become friends. However ...”

  But she could not tell him what she had so recently learned— the vast difference between fondness and love. "However, my affection is insufficient to permit me to wed you,” she blundered on. "You must not interpret my refusal as a personal affront—”

  "Refusal?” he interposed. "You are declining my offer?”

  “I am sorry, Francis. My very last desire was to wound you— ”

  "Wound me?” He threw back his head and roared with laughter. "To the contrary, I daresay you’ve made me the happiest man in England.”

  Bonnie had suspected—indeed, hoped—he would be relieved by her rejection of his proposal. But his actual emotion seemed to border on ecstasy, and she instinctively bristled.

  “Forgive me.” He sobered and awkwardly patted her other shoulder. "I didn’t wish to wound you either. I'm prodigious fond of you too, Bonnie: you’re handsome and clever and a thoroughly delightful companion. But I should never have contemplated marriage after such a brief acquaintance. Not without. . .’’He stopped and peered down at his hessians.

  “Not without Aunt Judith's encouragement,” Bonnie supplied dryly. “She perceived a union between us as a splendid financial arrangement, did she not? One designed to secure your inheritance and the Carlisle fortune as well.”

  “Precisely.” He raised his eyes and sketched a sheepish grin. “I told Mama you would puzzle it out.”

  Bonnie saw no reason to advise him that David had been the one to puzzle it out. “What I do not understand,” she said instead, “is why you consented to her scheme. Aunt Judith is very”—she searched for a relatively innocuous word— “very forceful. But I can scarcely conceive that you would allow her to propel you into a match you so obviously had no desire to make.”

  He gnawed his lip a moment, then went to the door, closed it, and came back across the room. “I feared for your safety if I did not consent to wed you.” His voice was so low she could barely hear him. “When I discovered that Mama had engineered your accident.”

  “Aunt Judith!” Bonnie gasped “Of course! She came to Grosvenor Street immediately after I was injured—”

  “Shh!" He glanced nervously at the door. “I own, in retrospect, that I should have questioned her visit; she had never called on Uncle David before. But I did not, and she returned with the news of your great wealth and suggested I begin to court you. And I judged it best to pretend to agree. I daresay you think me an abysmal coward"—he flashed another sheepish smile—“but Mama can be monstrous difficult when she is crossed.”

  “So it appears,” Bonnie said grimly.

  “My plan was to call on you once a day,” Francis went on, “and I honestly perceived no harm in such a course. You would assume I was merely perform
ing my cousinly duty, I calculated, while Mama would collect that I was, in fact, conducting a courtship. On the second day, however—Sunday morning—you told me of your suspicion that you’d been pushed in front of the coach.”

  “But you didn’t believe me,” Boanie reminded him.

  “Not until you described the man you fancied had attacked you. I realized at once that it must have been Briscoe's younger brother.”

  “Briscoe’s . . . brother.” She wondered how the resemblance could have eluded her. They were the same height and the same build, had the same handsome features and deep blue eyes and thick hair. Perhaps she’d been deceived by the circumstance that the butler’s hair was gray while his brother’s was still dark.

  “A thoroughgoing scoundrel.” Francis pursed his lips with distaste. “Mrs. Radway, the cook, insists he was once in Newgate, and if he was not, I daresay he should have been. He has no steady employment, and he invariably comes the day Briscoe receives his wages to beg a few shillings. At any rate, I confronted Mama with my surmise, and she confessed that she had. indeed, engaged Briscoe’s brother to arrange a mishap. Her notion was that if you were injured and could not participate in the festivities of the Season, you would sail back to the Indies.”

  “But that was before she devised her plan to wed us,” Bonnie said. “Before Uncle David told her of my fortune. She would not have harmed me again so long as she believed you were courting me. You could have continued your pretense—’ ’

  “No, I could not. Mama learned at church that Mrs. Maitland’s assembly had been canceled, and she was determined to hold a ball in its stead. A ball for the specific purpose of announcing our engagement. She made it clear that if I didn’t offer for you, she would present the offer herself. Consequently, as I indicated, I felt I had no recourse but to pursue my courtship in earnest."