Dair Devil

by Lucinda Brant

  Her grandfather gave her the answer, and his explanation left her more forlorn than she thought possible. Had the Major looked upon her with disgust, that was at least a show of some emotion, and she could then have dismissed him as unworthy of her.

  With her book pressed to his chest, Lord Shrewsbury put an arm about Rory’s shoulders and kissed her temple.

  “There. That was not so difficult, now was it, my darling? Did I not tell you and Drusilla the Major was so drunk last night he was unlikely to remember a single detail of what happened? And I was right. He doesn’t. No recollection of events past the point of trespassing into Romney’s studio. It seems he and your brother and Mr. Pleasant polished off a goodly number of bottles of claret before the start of their mischief-making. Blind drunk, the three of them. We ought to forgive them their disgrace, don’t you think? Particularly the Major. Any man who fights as bravely for his country as he has deserves to play just as hard. The horrors of combat can greatly affect a man. Even a strong-minded man like the Major must have his dark moments. A bit of drunken tomfoolery allows such men to forget those moments, however briefly.”

  He kissed her again and hugged her to his side, adding with real regret,

  “What a piece of rotten luck for the three of them that your small party happened to pay a visit on Romney at the same time. All three are, when not drunk to dissipation, true gentlemen and are abjectly apologetic to have caused you and Drusilla the slightest distress. If it is acceptable to you, I will not have them apologize in person, it will only further distress your sister-in-law. The sooner the entire episode is behind us, the better. Don’t you agree, my dear?”

  Rory nodded, not entirely convinced that her brother and his friends were so drunk as to have lost all memory of their behavior, particularly Mr. Cedric Pleasant, who was perfectly lucid and clothed the entire time. Her brother was drunk, that was true, but the Major? If she detected spirits on his breath it was not so marked as for her to think him drunk, and she had not tasted alcohol on his tongue… Instantly, heat flooded her face at the remembrance of his deep kiss. If he went about kissing females unknown to him in a way that made them melt against him, what must his kisses be like for females he truly cared about?

  “Are you perfectly well, Rory?” Lord Shrewsbury asked, arm still about her shoulders. He had felt her sway and shiver. “You told me at breakfast you did not suffer any nightmares, and you would tell me if there is anything else troubling you…?”

  She forced a smile and took back her book. “Yes. Of course, Grand. I slept well indeed.”

  “Shall I come to the Pinery to see your great surprise?”

  “No. No, Grand. The Major—Lord Fitzstuart is waiting for you on the terrace. The surprise can wait. Besides, I must change into my outfit for the theater…”

  Shrewsbury chuffed her under the chin. “We have been looking forward to this afternoon for some time, have we not? And I have an added surprise for you. Your godmother has invited us to visit her box.”

  “Oh? How-how lovely. I shall enjoy discussing the play with Mme la Duchesse.”

  Shrewsbury walked Rory from the book room and through the anteroom to the long gallery, his conversation all about the upcoming visit to Drury Lane to see Sheridan’s School for Scandal. They stopped before a small closet with a half door, inside which was a bench with a velvet cushion upon it. Running vertically through the closet was a silken rope that threaded through a system of pulleys attached top and bottom. This allowed the closet, which was in fact a lifting chair, to be raised and lowered with ease by its occupant.

  Shrewsbury had the lifting chair installed fifteen years ago, patterned on the one in the French king’s private apartments at Fontainebleau, allowing Louis’ mistress, Mme de Pompadour, to visit him in secret. For Rory, it gave her independence of movement. As a child she had been required to call on a footman to carry her up and down the broad staircase, with its many steps twisting up through the center of the Dutch house. Seated on the velvet cushion, she could pull herself up and down with ease to the first floor where her rooms were located. Shrewsbury could still recall the look of absolute delight on her little face when she took her first ride in the lifting chair, her brother racing up the staircase to try and beat her to the first floor. It was a game they never tired of, even now.

  Two footmen stood sentry either side of the lifting chair, and one opened the half door for Rory, but before she could step inside, Shrewsbury put his hand over hers.

  “Rory. My dear. I do not want you to recall particulars of last night that might distress you, but Mr. Watkins told me he found you crumpled in a gap at the back of the stage—that you had fainted…”

  “Yes. Yes, he did. I did.”

  “Do you remember how you got there, or why you fainted?”

  “I cannot—I cannot recall the precise moment, no…”

  “Mr. Watkins has written up a report of the evening—”

  “A-a report? Why?”

  “Please. Do not alarm yourself. None shall read it but me. And if in the meantime if you do recall any particulars… I hope you will confide in me…”

  Rory hesitated, then slowly met your grandfather’s blue eyes. She smiled weakly.

  “Of course, Grand.”

  LORD SHREWSBURY NODDED, and with a kiss to her forehead let Rory step into the lifting chair. He watched the chair ascend, Rory waving to him when he just stood there looking up into the void. He smiled and waved back. His granddaughter’s hesitation to respond to his questions, the way she avoided his gaze, her smile that was not a genuine smile, were all signs of concealment. He had not been a spy for His Majesty for as long as he had and not know she was hiding something from him. Knowing Rory as he did, she would only withhold the truth to protect another. He suspected that other was her brother, Harvel, Lord Grasby.

  He was fond of Grasby, who was his heir, but it was Rory he loved. From him she had inherited the Talbot blue eyes and quiet determination, and from her mother a sweet nature and delicate Nordic features. Shrewsbury had despised the children’s mother, his daughter-in-law, with every fiber of his noble being because she had brought out the worst in him in every conceivable way.

  Ironically, for all his experience as a spy, and his ability to see through the subterfuge of a person’s public face to their hidden desires and machinations, he had failed to see that his daughter-in-law wore no mask. She was what she appeared: A beautiful woman with a heart of gold. Shrewsbury knew only one woman who fit such a description, Antonia, Dowager Duchess of Roxton, and he was not prepared to believe two such women could exist in his lifetime. What's more, he was too bitter, too eaten up with shame that his son and heir had married so far beneath him, to entertain the idea of accepting such a female for a daughter-in-law. She was not only a foreigner—a Norwegian!—but the illegitimate daughter of a minor court official and a seamstress.

  When his son and new family returned to England he was so eaten up with resentment, he refused to have anything to do with them, until one day his daughter-in-law paid him a visit. It was the first time he had set eyes on her, and he was instantly smitten. She brought with her his little grandson, who was not quite five years old, and father and son were soon reconciled.

  He had no clear recollection of how he spiraled into such depths of depravity, and at the time he had blamed her completely. She had bewitched him body and soul. Only hours after his daughter-in-law gave birth to Rory, she was told her baby was not normal and would, in all probability, not live beyond a few months. She blamed herself, for what she had allowed him to do to her, and threw herself off a balcony. The world was told she had died in childbed. Her husband was inconsolable. He would not have suspected the truth in a thousand years or more, but his wife left him a note. He drowned himself, leaving Shrewsbury bereft and with the care of a little boy of six and a newborn.

  It was these two orphans who finally set him free from his bitter loneliness. Grasby was not much older than seven when he had made a
n impromptu visit to the nursery, impelled by an enquiry from Antonia Roxton as to how her goddaughter was progressing. The wonder for Shrewsbury was that the Roxtons had willingly sponsored his granddaughter, particularly when no physician could assure him she would walk, or if indeed she had impaired brain function, as was often predicted with malformed children.

  The Duchess’s enquiry had shamed him into visiting the nursery he had never entered. He had needed a footman to show him the way. He, England’s Spymaster General, was ignorant of the layout of his own house! What confronted him not only piled shame upon shame but shocked him into action.

  His little seven-year-old grandson was huddled in a dusty corner, being beaten with rushes. With his thin little body he was trying his best to shield his year-old baby sister, who was screaming uncontrollably. But it was not fear which had her screaming, it was the iron shoe clamped about her twisted little foot and secured with iron rods and bolts just below her chubby knee, forcing it into the correct alignment. Her brother had been attempting to remove the iron shoe, and for his compassion got a beating that broke the skin on his back.

  That very day, Shrewsbury took control of every aspect of the children’s lives. New servants, new tutors, new, bright surroundings. No more beatings, no more iron shoes or clamps, and talk of “curing the cripple” was forbidden. He had agents scour the Continent for a physician able to treat his baby granddaughter’s deformity, and found one in Professor Petrus Camper in Amsterdam. An expert in many fields, Camper was also an expert on feet. And while unable to cure Rory’s club foot, he gave Shrewsbury, and in turn her little brother, the necessary assurances Rory was normal in every other way. From that day forward, brother and sister grew up inseparable. Grasby was his sister’s champion, and Rory her brother’s greatest supporter and confidant.

  So it was easy for Shrewsbury to believe the siblings would protect each other, even lie for one another; that Rory would keep from him certain particulars of events at Romney’s studio all to shield Grasby. He would not press her for information. He would find out in other ways. Watkins’ report would be a start. Having those who were present questioned would provide a more complete picture. Writing out his instructions to trusted agents could be postponed until tomorrow morning. The Major was waiting for him. Tonight he meant to set aside the troubles of the kingdom, and more importantly, within his own family, and spend a leisurely evening in the company of his granddaughter. Yet, he could not shake the belief that Rory had not been honest with him—that she felt the need to lie, and that troubled him more than he cared to admit.

  NINE

  R ORY HAD LIED. She had never lied to her grandfather and it made her heavy of heart. She had lied, not to protect her brother, but to protect Major Lord Fitzstuart. If the Major had no recollection of the night before, more precisely his encounter with her, then what was the sense in her recalling the incident, and to her shame? What purpose would it serve for her grandfather to know the truth? It would only cause him great distress. And for the Major to be prompted to remember an episode he clearly couldn’t care less about and, had he been sober, would not have engaged with her, was a humiliation she could not endure.

  She did not blame the Major for his lack of memory. For him the encounter was just one of many; she just a number in a long line of countless females whom he had trifled with over the years. Trifled with… What an inane expression! In her case, it was apt. But she was certain the Major had done a great deal more than trifle with other females. She had engaged in nothing more than a brief kiss. A brief kiss that was not worth his remembrance. But to her, not only was that kiss a moment to treasure, the entire evening had been so exciting she had committed it to memory. Such an encounter was never likely to happen again. Which just underscored her sheltered existence. She looked down at the book in her hand. In her day-to-day life she was a spinster whose prime interest was the nurturing and cultivation of the pineapple.

  Distracted with her thoughts, she handed her walking stick to her maid without seeing her, and climbed up on the window seat with its view of the formal gardens. Bradley’s treatise on gardening she dropped on the rug, all the joy of her discovery overridden by her malaise. Her head ached and she felt hot, and yet strangely cold. Perhaps she was coming down with a fever? The studio had been without heat and she without her cloak… But in his arms she had not felt cold at all; quite the opposite…

  She found her woolen shawl at her feet and went to put it about her shoulders, when her maid, Edith, did this for her.

  “You look worn to threads! Too much time spent in the heat of that Pinery,” the older woman castigated her lovingly, fussing with the sit of the shawl. “And after the upset last night, I dare say it’s all added to the extra color in your cheeks. Now you sit there nice and quiet and I’ll have a cup of tea fetched. You have time for a cup before you change for the theater. But first let me remove your shoes…”

  Rory nodded, hugging one of the tapestry cushions to her as she snuggled deeper into the pillows at her back. As she always did, Edith removed the shoe from Rory’s right foot first.

  Just like the pretty shoes worn by countless young ladies, Rory’s were often covered in material that matched her gowns. But unlike most shoes, which had identical lasts, Rory’s were made to fit her left and her right foot individually. A master cordwainer, recommended by Professor Camper, had been making her shoes since she was a little girl. He took casts in plaster of Paris and made shoes that conformed to the twisted shape of her right foot; except for mules, she wore the latest fashionable footwear.

  The shoes Edith held, as she covered Rory’s stockinged feet with her white muslin petticoats, were purple satin slippers with low heels of white leather. Rory stared at the shoes and swallowed back tears. She barely heard Edith tell her to have a little doze while she fetched the tea, and turned her face to the window as the heavy curtains were drawn across the window seat. Snug in her little corner, it was only then that she realized tears were spilling onto her flushed cheeks.

  Foolish! Stupid! Ridiculous creature! she castigated herself. Stop feeling sorry for yourself this instant! Crying for no good reason. If you must shed tears, then do so for not telling Grand the truth. So last night was the most exciting night of your uneventful life? Be thankful it happened at all. You now have a memory to keep, and it is yours alone to cherish…

  “Rory? Rory? Are you there? May I come in?”

  Rory dashed both hands over her wet cheeks just as the curtains parted and Grasby stuck his head between the hanging velvet. He looked sheepish, and was in undress, having shrugged a silk banyan over his white shirt and brown velvet breeches; a matching silk turban covered his short cropped blond hair. Rory nodded and gathered up her white muslin petticoats, sitting up against the cushions to give her brother space on the window seat’s tapestry cushion. He needed no further invitation and eagerly scrambled to join her, quickly closing the curtains again, as if hiding them away from the rest of the world. For Grasby, he couldn’t think of a more comforting place to lick his wounds.

  “Remember when we’d hide in Grand’s book room?” he said with genuine affection, back up against the wooden paneling. Following his sister’s lead, he wrapped his arms about a tapestry cushion and hugged it to his chest. He was already starting to feel better. “We would giggle and whisper to each other to be quiet. Grand never said a word. He pretended he didn’t know we were there behind the curtains! Even when he had meetings with those long-nosed fellows from the Foreign Department who came and went with all those papers. I don’t think we ever fooled him, do you?”

  Rory shook her head. “No. Not once.” She smiled at a memory. “There was that time you tumbled off the seat and onto the carpet in full view of Grand and his visitors. They did not break sentence, and continued on with their meeting as if nothing was untoward. Even when I had to show myself to help haul you back up behind the curtain, not one of them said boo.”

  Grasby smiled crookedly. “I didn’t fall, R
ory. You pushed me out.”

  Rory widened her blue eyes. “Did I?”

  “Yes, you did! Don’t think you can pretend innocence. I know you better than that!”

  They both laughed and then immediately fell into an awkward silence. Rory returned to gazing out the window, oblivious to the view of blue sky, green velvet lawns and a topiary garden that stretched to the river. Grasby anxiously watched her. He saw her cheeks were wet and knew she was upset. It wasn’t difficult to figure out why. Despite his own sad and sorry state of affairs pressing down upon him, it said much for his brotherly devotion that he pushed those aside, concern for his sister’s well-being overriding all else. Still, he avoided the topic uppermost in their minds for a little longer, enjoying just sitting with her, the world shut out.

  “I thought I’d be turned away at your door; that you’d be dressing for the theater,” he said in a rallying tone. “Whenever Silla makes ready for an outing, particularly if she knows important people will be in attendance—whoever they are, but Silla knows ’em!—her dressing begins straight after nuncheon. I dare not interrupt. Not that I would. After nuncheon I prefer a nap. I still manage to dress in half the time. I daresay that’s because I don’t have to be laced and buckled into panniers…”

  “Edith is fetching tea… Then I’ll dress…”

  “Yes. I asked her to fetch me a cup, too. Have you decided on a gown? Didn’t I hear you tell Silla you were wearing a gown of purple silk brocade worked with multi-colored flowers—

  “I know I’ve been boring you and Grand to frustration with my enthusiasm for Sheridan’s new play, and what I’d wear on the night.”