“There’s no need to swear. Hush now. Mother will hear you.”
“I don’t care. I will not hush, Hope. Not anymore. We were trapped here with Father and now that he’s dead, it is supposed to be better, but we are still trapped. We are trapped by our very sex. You know what I saw as Emerson? Men listened when I spoke, truly listened. There’s a whole world out there, denied us because we are women. I want that world.”
“What do you think you would do? Go gallivanting about London with Oscar Titherington?”
“I might.”
“He is a cad and a rake. You can’t trust him.”
“You barely know him.”
“I know he stank of brandy when he tried to kiss me at the ball. I slapped his face for it. He seemed to think you would have been more amenable.”
That took the air from Faith’s argument.
“He kissed you?” Faith had a sick feeling in her stomach.
“Tried,” Hope corrected. “Then, he implied you would have let him take such liberties. I very nearly called the man a liar. I said my sister would never do so. Now I am not so sure. I am not sure I know you at all. You kissed the man, didn’t you?”
Faith did not answer.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t know.” Faith admitted shame-faced.
“Because you knew it was wrong.”
No. Faith shook her head.
“You are keeping secrets from me… Me Faith! You lied to me. We don’t keep secrets from one another, at least we didn’t and now: secret meetings, trysts with Titherington and absconding to London? I don’t even know you anymore. This has to stop. Emerson needs to go away.”
“No.”
“It is over, this dressing like a man. I know you liked it, but it’s over now.”
“I had to. You agreed.”
“I agreed to retrieve the books. We have the books.”
“But to have a play on a London stage. Think of it, Hope.” Faith entreated taking her sister’s hands.
“No. I will not think of it. This was supposed to be a name on a piece of paper. Then, it was a single outing to the Baron Torsford’s home here in Nettlefold, not London! It’s dangerous, Faith. Can’t you see that?
“It is important to me. I thought it was important to you as well.”
“It is, but not like this.”
“If you’re scared you don’t have to come,” Faith said her voice as icy as her sister’s. “You’re not my keeper, or my mother or my husband. I don’t answer to you, Hope. We may be a pair, but we are two separate people.”
“This involves me. This involves the whole family. Isaac has tried to bring this family back to…”
“Oh, stop. I don’t want to hear about Saint Isaac,” Faith spat. “This is about our writing. Our work, and the truth is, you are willing to throw it all over so you can make a good match. Well, I could give a fig about a good match. I don’t need a man to guide my life. I don’t need Isaac, I don’t need a husband, and I don’t need you.”
Hope looked stricken.
“I’m the one who does the plots. You add your bit of poetry and fluff, but if you will not help me I will do it without you. The truth is, I am Emerson. I have always been. You can go play with your poetry and your proper ladies novels. Don’t ask me for help.”
Tears were streaming down Hope’s face and Faith wanted to stop and hug her, to take back all that she had just said, but she could not. She had found who she was meant to be in Emerson. Her own tears were tight in her chest. She was an author and a playwright. She could not give it up, not even for her twin. She could not stand to see her sister in pain, so she left, reentering the manor and shutting the door solidly behind her.
18
The sun was shining. It seemed wrong that the sun could shine so brightly when Faith was so miserable. She and Hope were still not speaking. The quarrel left Faith with a deep melancholy and despite her hasty words, writing was much more difficult without her twin’s input. Additionally, she was having difficulty sorting out her feelings for Oscar Titherington. He had expressed a desire to court her, but he knew nothing of her writing or that she was Arthur Emerson.
As much as Faith cared for the man, and had come to think he cared for her, she could not bring herself to trust Titherington with the secret. It gave him far too much power over her to reveal her passions. If she were forced to choose between marriage to Titherington and legitimacy as a playwright, she knew which she must decide. The loss brought a sharp pain to her heart. Faith thought of Titherington’s kiss on the lane, and the rush of heat that had filled her when he held her in his arms. The thought that she might never again know his touch distressed her deeply, but she forcibly repressed the feeling and hardened her resolve.
She had promised herself when Father died to never again let a man control her. She would not fall into the same trap her mother had: near caged within her own house for decades. Prudence had fallen victim to the same with her first husband and now nearly Mercy as well. Not Faith. She would not allow it.
She knew she must erase all thought of marriage to Oscar Titherington.
Faith dressed in Mr. Emerson’s clothes and combed her hair into a severe queue. She put on the sideburns and used a bit of rouge to define her jaw. To be Emerson made her feel closer to the one shining moment when she had been most happy. She made the trek to the old storehouse where she could sit in the seclusion of her own thoughts and write. Hope had avoided their shared hideout since their argument. Faith sat pen poised, but the words would not come.
Faith thought of the exhilaration she had felt when she toasted with the gentlemen at Torsford’s Ball. She had felt so alive and filled with promise. Somehow, the books did not seem quite so exciting when they were only sitting in a box. Now, nothing but endless days stretched before her. She remembered the taste of brandy on her tongue as Titherington joked with her, and she wondered if she would ever again feel such joy.
* * *
Oscar Titherington tromped about the wood outside of his cottage with an agitated unease. Mary-Elizabeth had intimated that she had seen Faith Baggington in this area of the wood, but he had not seen the lady for nigh on a week, and he was disconcerted. Miss Faith had persuaded him to wait for her male relations to return rather than follow them to London, and he had done so. For his trouble, he had been shunned from the house. He had no word of the lady. Oscar continued his agitated ramble brandishing his long tapered walking stick. Rather than use the walking stick for its purpose, he was swinging it with abandon, chopping the heads off the wildflowers that had just begun to bloom.
No matter how many rides he had taken, Miss Faith Baggington was nowhere to be found. It was now to the point Demon’s Reach was in need of a new shoeing and the blacksmith had suggested Oscar ought to give him a rest. He was doing so, cutting through the wood and acting like a love struck fool for only a glimpse of her.
He had no doubt that she was avoiding him, as he had suspected when he was near tossed from their home. He knew his mistaken attention to her sister had caused offense, but the knowledge did nothing to ease his frustration. He could not alter the action, nor did he see how to make it up. He wanted to see her, damn it all. It was as if the minx had put some sort of bewitchment upon his mind that made him unable to stop wondering where she was or when he might see her again. She haunted his dreams and haunted his days.
It would be just his luck that for a gentleman who had never before had a problem charming a woman, the one lady that he did wish to please wanted nothing to do with him. He supposed he had earned her censure with the wild goings on of his past. Still, could she not see that he was attempting to make a change?
The thought made him laugh. Of course she would not, for he had only ever happened upon her alone and teased her with the sort of flirtatious commentary that she must expect to be his normal rakish behavior. In the past, he had to admit, idle entertainment, boredom, and even drunkenness had spurred his behavior. His fli
rtation with Miss Faith had been for an entirely different reason. He enjoyed the sheer, unfettered pleasure in her company. The feeling was altogether dissimilar.
He broke into a small clearing that seemed out of place in the old wood. Overgrown grasses and fallen trees surrounded a dilapidated old outbuilding that looked as if it had been forgotten for centuries and yet there was a quaintness about it that drew him. The door to the loft had been thrown open and a shadow within caught his attention in a flash of movement. Oscar crouched to try to get a better view, but the figure did not again approach the opening.
Gypsies, he thought. “Blast these damn thieves and highwaymen,” he muttered under his breath. He had long heard of an undercurrent of dangerous folk on the outskirts of Nettlefold and other prominent communities along the London-Bath Road. It was exactly that sort of thing about which he had tried to warn Miss Baggington upon their first meeting. Now, he felt relief that she had not been out walking lest she had happened upon some dangerous fiend. The thought turned in his mind to terror. What if that is why she had not been seen, he thought? What if she had been taken or harmed in some dastardly manner. It was not an unlikely fear. There were dishonorable folk about Nettlefold. This he knew.
For all of Oscar’s troublesome ways he had never been involved with such seedy individuals. He and the Oxford gents had been prone to nightly parties and perhaps a few drunken jaunts, but they had never meant harm to others with their amusements.
Oscar rounded the clearing so that he might creep up upon the barn for a better look without being seen. The closer he crept the better he could hear what he determined to be at least a pair of voices within.
“I have not traveled for weeks on end, with hardly a bite to eat, but stale bread, to leave this place empty-handed,” said a male voice that was both hoarse and weary. There was something off about the tone and Oscar wondered if the trespasser was sick or not quite right in the head. He clutched the silver head of his walking stick all the more firmly. The knowledge that nothing but a quick turn of his wrist would reveal a dagger from within brought him solace, since he carried neither his sword, nor his pistol.
“What shall we do with the lady?” another voice, more feminine but just as dangerous, asked. Oscar’s pulse leapt as he realized that the situation was much more dire than he had thought. “Perhaps we ought to throw her overboard and be done with it.”
Oscar felt his head snap back in confusion. Overboard, he thought?
He stood from his crouch and made haste to the ladder. He took the rungs three at a time so that he might burst upon the unsuspecting tramps before they could take note of his approach.
“What is the meaning of this?” he demanded as he emerged intent to drive the villains from their hiding.
Rather than facing a band of ragged gypsies or convicts on the run, he heard a shriek as he dodged the stub of an unlit candle that came flying at his head.
“Blast and botheration! You gave me a fright.” The man clutched at his chest and Titherington recognized Mr. Emerson.
“I heard voices,” Oscar said as he caught his breath and picked up the offending object. “Where have they gone?”
The man’s eyes opened wide. “There are no others,” he said in a breath as if his voice had failed him. “Only me.”
Oscar’s eyes scanned the room to be certain. In the center of the loft sat a double-long desk that had been crudely fashioned from a pair of wide planks balanced upon two sawn logs. The setup offered two old chairs as seats and hollowed knots in the wooden surface from which an opened inkwell was suspended.
“It was only me,” Emerson repeated. “I was… I was reading.”
“You were plying your craft! Playacting!” Oscar declared and felt at once the tensions drain from his muscles. Amusement soon followed. “Well, keep on.” He crossed his arms and leaned against a massive beam that ran floor to ceiling as if he had every intention of enjoying the show. Perhaps there would be some joviality in the day after all.
* * *
“I think not,” Faith grumbled and began gathering up her pages with hurried swipes of her hands, but even as she moved, she realized she had an opportunity to find out more about Mr. Titherington. Even as the thought crossed her mind, she knew it was a bad idea. She would be ruined if she were found out, and to what purpose? She would be near Mr. Titherington, but he would only be near her cousin. Still, perhaps she could find the true nature of the man.
“I thought you were in London,” he observed.
“I returned,” she said unnecessarily. When she moved as if she wished to round the desk and leave, Oscar stood his ground. He was not preventing her exit, but he could see that she did not wish to rush past him just the same. “I thought we were friends. Why did you not send word? Why have you been hiding away?”
“I haven’t been hiding,” she lied. “I have been working.”
“I see. What is this place?” he asked. He moved away from the beam and toward the desk under the guise of inspection so that, if she wished, she might make her retreat.
“It’s just an old cottage, the Baggingtons have let me use,” she said with a sigh and a shrug.
“Cottage? This is more a byre. At least the weather has turned. You must come up to the house, Emerson. There is no need for you to exist in such squalor.”
“I come here to be alone and craft my stories.”
“Where do you sleep?” Titherington asked looking around.
Faith hesitated. She and her sister used to hole up in the barn on nights when their father was cruel. There was an old chaise in the corner and Titherington’s eyes went to it.
“Looks like a place for a tryst.” Titherington observed, and Faith’s cheeks blossomed. She would have stammered an apology, but of course, she was playacting Mr. Emerson. There was no need to apologize. “No one of consequence,” Titherington mused. “Though, one of Mrs. Hardcastle’s girls might be persuaded.”
“I thought you were reformed,” Faith spat. “Go on now. You are cutting up my peace.”
He shrugged. “I meant nothing by it. Where are your cousins?” he asked in an attempt at distraction.
“You speak of my cousins on the heels of a tryst. Why, shame!”
Titherington chuckled. “I was referring to Lord Mortel, and the lot. As you said. I am reformed.”
“I doubt it.” Faith said with huff, “If you must know Isaac is still in London.”
Well that at least was part of why Miss Faith had not granted him visit in the past week. “The Baggingtons did not offer you use of the house?” He asked.
“They did. I prefer to write here.”
Oscar could not fathom why, but he supposed such strangeness was the way of reclusive artistic types.
“I am afraid I made a blunder with your cousin,” he said sitting on one of the chairs that Isaac had brought from the attic so long ago. It creaked under his larger form. “She will not receive me.”
Faith realized that the man had no intention of going on his way. She knew she should not encourage him, but her heart was racing with an unaccustomed excitement. She realized that she wanted him to stay. She wanted to talk to him, and the writing was not going well anyway without her sister. The truth was she wanted company. Perhaps it would clear her head. Logic said his presence would only make her feel more befuddled, but she, nonetheless, put the book aside and gave the man her attention.
She thought he looked forlorn, though his eyes were hopeful.
Faith held her ground. She spoke aloud Hope’s fears. “It seems they have been made wise to your ways, Titherington. No woman wants a man who would take her sister for a dalliance as well as she.”
“I would not do so.” Titherington said.
“Do not lie to me,” Faith said sternly. “Hope informed me of your actions at the Torsford ball and…”
“No, Emerson,” he interrupted. “There is no comparison. It is true that they are both beautiful, but it is Faith I wish to court.”
Faith sucked in a breath. Could she believe him? Did it matter? She had made her decision. She did not want to court him. She did not want to court anyone. No man would allow her the freedom to write and publish. She would not be shackled. Like most men, he would see only the physical. She gave a slight shrug. “They are twins,” she said.
“That does not mean they are the same,” Titherington insisted. “Hope is beautiful and bright, flirtatious even. She has the same visage as her sister, but she does not have her heart. Faith is the one for me. She has a grit to her and a willful spirit.” He stood and paced away. “But she will not have me, Emerson. I understand why, but please. I entreat you, speak to her for me. I have long been the rogue, but I want to change. Truly I do. It is a hard path, I know, but one that I wish to take.”
Faith looked dubious. “Suddenly, you have this change of heart? It is no wonder the lady disbelieves you.”
Oscar realized that if he wanted the man’s help to woo his cousin, he needed to be truthful.
He shoved his hands in his pockets. “My grandfather is ill,” he explained. “It would do him well to see me settled.”
“Settled,” she said surprised. “You? The rake of Nettlefold?”
“I do wish it so,” he said. “I suppose holding my friend’s newborn son and heir has opened my eyes.” Oscar could not explain how he had felt holding the child and thinking of his grandfather’s mortality. He shrugged one shoulder and continued. “My entire life, all of my frivolous extravagance has been funded by his meticulous estate and financial holdings. I know I do not have a title, but my grandfather amassed quite a fortune in the shipping business, and my grandmother, God rest her, was a daughter of a baron. When my father died in the war I suppose I threw myself even further into whatever trouble I could manage to stir up. Any sort of distraction from his loss, no matter how temporary, was pursued with great vigor. I refused to think that one day responsibility would fall to my shoulders. It was meant for my father; he was trained to it, not I. My grandfather… I was certain that he would live forever. Now, it is a shock to find that he shall not.”
The Lady to Match a Rogue: Faith Page 16