A Most Unsuitable Man
Page 9
Fitzroger announced that he was ready. Ashart sat on the floor at Genova’s feet. “Pray for victory, love.”
“Can he win?” Miss Smith asked, putting a hand on his broad shoulder.
He covered it with his own. “There’s a chance, at least, a better one than I would have had. You haven’t seen either of them fence his best yet.”
Rothgar could be more brilliant? Damaris’s heart sank.
The bout began with surprising gentleness. Both men seemed to be tapping and trying, a secret dialogue that she couldn’t understand. Little movements of the blade, countered in a certain way. The step back, the return. The new test. The response.
Then, abruptly, Fitzroger fired into action, driving Rothgar back in a flurry of attack almost into the watchers sitting at one end. But Rothgar evaded in a twist that clashed bodies for a moment, and the positions were reversed. It was the first physical contact of the day, and showed a different level of intent. This, she suspected, came closer to fighting to the death.
They fought fast and furiously now, but with moves, twists, and turns she’d not seen before. Sometimes she thought one or other attempted to flick the sword out of the other man’s hand. She knew it mostly by the shared grin that followed.
Then Sir Rolo bellowed, “Time!”
Both men stepped back, breathing deeply, running with sweat. Both nodded, and plunged back into battle. Damaris put a hand over her mouth. Did they mean to kill each another?
She gasped when Fitzroger went down on one knee, but then his foil shot up toward the heart. Rothgar spun and knocked the blade aside, and almost skewered Fitzroger from above, but Fitzroger was already rolling to his feet in one action, lithe as a cat, his weapon flicking toward the exposed flank. It was parried and they were off again.
Damaris had to remind herself that the flexible, buttoned blades couldn’t do much damage except to an eye, and these skillful men never let the blades get close to the face. All the same, her mouth was dry as paper, her heart pounded, and she wanted this over— over before someone was hurt.
And she wanted Fitzroger to win.
With burning ferocity, she wanted her hero to win!
It was stopped in the end by pure exhaustion. As if spoken and agreed, both men stepped back and bent over, fighting for breath. They were swarmed by excited men as they wiped their faces and necks, both grinning and radiating extreme delight.
Clearly, this bout would be talked about in manly circles for years to come. Looking around, Damaris could see that many women would remember it, too.
“Men!” Genova Smith said, and Damaris saw Ashart had joined the throng.
Damaris wasn’t used to men and didn’t understand their ways, but she knew exactly what Miss Smith meant. Mysterious, exasperating, but breathtakingly wonderful men. And she had just witnessed their true delight.
She recognized the spirit that had sent her father sailing the seas. Perhaps the fortunes won had been incidental to the thrill of the challenge. And her mother had expected him to settle in Worksop.
Fitzroger slipped out of the crowd and came toward her, the necklace in his hand. Her heart began to pound again, so hard that she feared she might faint.
He dropped to one knee, holding out the prize. “I believe I’m supposed to present this to my fair lady.”
The casual tone could be offensive, but his eyes were bright and his skin glowed, making him impossible to resist. Besides, they were watched by everyone.
She took the pretty piece in which tiny stones and pearls made a circlet of flowers on the chain. “I believe,” she said in the same tone, “I’m supposed to say something like, ‘My hero!’ ”
His eyes lit with amusement. “No, no, dear lady. You are supposed to reward me with a kiss.”
People chuckled, but a kiss seemed too intimate, too dangerous here, where she could feel the heat of his body and smell his sweat—a smell, she realized, entirely different from Ashart’s. Unique. Identifiable. Arousing in and of itself.
He took her hand and placed it on his shoulder, his hot, damp shoulder. His bright eyes challenged her. In response, she wanted to grab his hair as she had earlier and ravish him. But instead she leaned forward and placed a chaste kiss upon his lips. “My hero.”
He rose with a subtle power that could slay her all on its own, managing somehow to draw her to her feet at the same time and to turn her. Then his hands were brushing her neck as he put the necklace around it, as he fastened the clasp.
His fingers stroked the nape of her neck for a moment, sending shivers down her spine. She could do nothing but try to stay calm when she wanted to turn and press herself to his body, to inhale, to encircle.
Then he was gone. When she did turn, he was leaving to dress.
“How pretty,” Miss Smith said.
Damaris fingered the necklace, dazed.
Lady Bryght came over, petite, red-haired, and smiling. “Congratulations, Miss Myddleton.”
“I did nothing for it.”
“No, no!” Lady Bryght said, laughing. “Never think like that. A lady inspires a gentleman’s greatest achievements and thus can take credit for them all.”
Lady Arradale joined them. “That’s why we delight in capturing the best specimens.”
Lady Bryght eyed her. “Are we going to fight over who is best, Diana?”
“Only with pistols.” Lady Arradale smiled at Damaris. “I’m an excellent shot. Do you know how to use a pistol, Miss Myddleton?”
“No.” Damaris remembered her foolish attempt to take out the carriage pistol, and Fitzroger’s strong hand over hers.
“You shall learn. I’m delighted you’re to be an even closer part of our family as Rothgar’s ward. I shall call you Damaris, and you must call me Diana.”
“Thank you, my lady. Diana.”
Damaris felt overwhelmed, but was relieved to talk to the ladies for a while rather than having to mingle. She suspected it was an intentional kindness.
Then Diana said, “May I presume upon you as I would with a sister, Damaris, and ask you to sing for us? The men need to change their clothes, I fear, to be suited to polite company. A song from you would pass the time delightfully.”
Nerves tightened Damaris’s throat, but she was confident in this one thing, at least. And when Lady Bryght said, “Oh, yes, please do!” she could not refuse.
Diana clapped her hands and announced the treat, and everyone settled to listen. Damaris collected herself, wondering what song would best suit the moment. A playful piece came to mind that seemed daring, but it should confirm her carefree disposition, and seemed relevant to the moment.
She smiled around to everyone and began.
What does any lady wish
More than a handsome hero?
What good roast meat upon her dish
Without a handsome hero?
For oh, a lady cannot abide
Without a hero by her side,
By her side, a hero.
Some of the ladies applauded, and all were smiling.
A lady may have a fine circle of friends
All of the finest station,
Theater and balls she attends
But she’s saddest in the nation.
For, oh, a lady cannot abide
Without a hero by her side,
By her side, a hero.
She responded to Sir Rolo’s grin by walking closer and singing to him.
Will any man do to assuage her desire,
To have a hero by her?
No, he must be willing to leap through fire
And challenge dragons for her.
For, oh, a lady cannot abide
Without a hero by her side.
By her side, a hero.
Laughing, Sir Rolo backed away in pretended horror. She turned and saw Fitzroger coming downstairs, restored to careless elegance. She strolled toward him, enjoying the acoustics of the hall.
Be gone, ye men of timid hue,
A lady needs a hero.
To prove that you’re a hero!
For, oh, a lady cannot abide...
People began to join in, and she turned to encourage them.
Without a hero by her side.
By her side, a hero.
Fitzroger reached the bottom of the stairs and said to all, “Are jewels not enough for you ladies?”
“No!” some chorused.
Damaris turned back to him, laughing with the rest.
Prove yourself through fire and steel, sir,
Prove that you’re a hero.
Then before you a lady might kneel, sir,
Kneel before a hero!
In danger of faltering because of her own daring, she put her hand on his sleeve.
For, oh, a lady longs to abide
With a true hero by her side.
By her side, a hero.
She stepped back and curtsied deep to him, then turned and curtsied to the applauding hall.
“By gad, Miss Myddleton,” Sir Rolo declared, “you could make a second fortune on the stage!”
“That’s always comforting to know,” she replied, smiling but shivering with awareness of the possessive hand Fitzroger had placed on her shoulder.
“You would kneel?” he asked softly.
She turned to him, slipping free of his touch. “Before a hero, yes.”
“Don’t you think a true hero should avoid exposing a lady to fire and steel?”
“No, I want adventure.”
The challenge shivered in the air between them.
“I shall have to arrange it then. Anything,” he said with a bow, “to be my lady’s hero.”
Damaris felt as if the floor were melting beneath her feet, but he took her hand and led her in to dinner.
The long table was set for the fifty or so guests, and gold and silver platters gleamed in the candlelight. Rothgar’s personal musicians began to play out in the hall, sweet music drifting in to enhance another magical afternoon and evening.
As always, music was balm to Damaris. It soothed her nervous excitement and helped her pay attention to the plan. However, clearly everything was going well.
It certainly wasn’t difficult to demonstrate that she had no interest in Lord Ashart and found Fitzroger attractive. She knew it must show in every smile and gesture.
As it was, people no longer watched her. At first talk was of fencing and heroes, and then some began to play the rhyming game. Damaris happily took part, for she found it easy.
She truly did come to feel she belonged, but all the same, she was relieved when Lady Arradale rose and led the ladies away to the drawing room for tea and conversation. Once there, Damaris went to the harpsichord and played. Music provided respite.
“You play so well, dear!”
Damaris looked up, still playing, to smile at Lady Thalia Trayce, extraordinarily dressed in a white gown shot with silver and trimmed with pink lace. Her fluffy white hair was crowned with a confection of lace and feathers.
She was somewhat crazed, but Damaris had heard it was because her betrothed had died in battle when she was young and she’d never recovered. She was harmless—quite sweet, in fact.
“Thank you, Lady Thalia.”
“And your song earlier. So witty. I do agree about heroes, dear. And we are to be traveling companions! I’m sure that will be so delightful, even at Cheynings.” She pulled a smiling face and shuddered. “The dowager has let it go sadly, I hear. But Fitzroger! Now there’s a hero for you.” She looked around. “Whist!” she declared, and headed for a table.
Her sister, Lady Calliope—an enormous lady in a wheeled chair—and an older couple joined her.
Damaris stared after her, wondering if the words a hero for you had been meant as they’d sounded. Of course not.
Damaris would like to learn whist, for she gathered it was the most popular game in society, but cards had been forbidden in Birch House. Her only experience had been playing cribbage with a bedridden old woman. She should have taken lessons while at Thornfield Hall, but she’d not thought of it. She would take lessons in London. She’d watched some games here and thought she understood the basic principles.
As usual at Rothgar Abbey, the gentlemen did not linger long over their port, and they soon joined the ladies. When dancing was announced, Fitzroger invited her to go to the ballroom with him, and Damaris was delighted to accept. As the evening unfolded, she never lacked a partner. She had to dance with Osborne, who put on a tragic air and called her cruel, but even that couldn’t dampen her spirits.
When she eventually returned to her room, definitely ready for her bed, she rejoiced that Fitzroger had been right to make her return. She wrote herself a note as reminder: Reward Fitzroger. Smiling idiotically to be writing his name, she tucked the note into her trinket box. In doing so, however, she saw her mother’s wedding ring.
On her deathbed, Abigail Myddleton had asked Damaris to take the ring off her finger, saying, “They call it a symbol of eternity, daughter, but remember, that can be an eternity of sorrow, an eternity of pain. I’ll not go into eternity wearing that man’s shackle.”
She wouldn’t be dissuaded, so Damaris had obeyed, then asked, “What shall I do with it?”
“Keep it. And remember, never trust a man.”
Inside the ring, Damaris had found words engraved, presumably at her father’s request: yours until death.
And then he’d abandoned his wife.
She rolled up her note to herself and put the paper through the ring as another kind of reminder.
Never trust a man.
Chapter 7
The next day, Damaris took breakfast in her room and supervised the packing. At ten o’clock, she went down the hall, cloaked and muffed. They could have made an earlier start, but the Dowager Lady Ashart had refused. And now, at the appointed time, she was not there.
Ashart and Miss Smith were talking to Lady Arradale. Lady Thalia, in a mantle of flowery velvet, sat between Lord Rothgar and Fitzroger. Damaris wanted to join him, but she would not give in to temptation. Instead she wandered the hall, savoring memories of pleasant times here. Especially of the time sword fighting.
A tingle of heat started and she slid a look at Fitzroger. She caught him looking at her and looked hastily away. Where was the dowager?
How selfish and irritating she was. She seemed to think she was the queen. Given command of this journey, Damaris would leave without her.
“What about that prickly garland causes such a ferocious scowl?”
Damaris started and realized that she had been scowling at a holly branch adorning the mantelpiece. “I was thinking of a prickly old woman,” she said to Fitzroger, praying she wasn’t blushing.
“What an excellent thing that she didn’t become your grandmother-in-law, my sweet. The war would have been endless.”
“I wish you wouldn’t call me that.”
“My sweet? I’m hinting you in a more honeyed direction.”
“What am I now? Vinegar?”
“At times.”
“Vinegar is a very useful liquid, sir. For cleaning, pickling, dressing wounds...”
“But not welcome if it’s supposed to be wine.”
Damaris fought a smile. She delighted in these verbal jousts. “It’s hardly strange if I’m sour. We’re going to Cheynings in winter, and I’m doomed to the constant company of a blinding beauty.”
“You can hold your own.”
“Tell me I, too, am a beauty, sir, and I’ll know you for a lying scoundrel.”
Despite her words she waited for flattering reassurance, primed to fire at him again.
Instead, he looked her over. “Plain as a pikestaff.”
“What?”
He pretended surprise. “You don’t want to be a sharp and dangerous weapon? Very well, Genova is a faceted diamond that catches every eye with obvious flame. You, my honey, are a blood-red cabochon ruby, a smooth surface beneath which seethes fire and
mystery. Don’t gape.”
He gently closed her mouth, then dropped a light kiss on her lips. “I might try to convince you of your charms, but it would be much too dangerous.”
“Why?” she breathed.
“It would be like training a loaded cannon on all the men of England.”
“Lud, sir, I can’t follow you. Pikes, rubies, cannons? And besides,” she said with a grimace, “the men will line up to be shot with my moneybags. They won’t care about me.”
“They will, Damaris. I promise you, they will.”
He sounded far too serious, so she turned her back. “Flattery again? I do wish you wouldn’t.”
“I care about you.” She felt him step close behind her. “And it has nothing to do with your moneybags, as I have no hope of marrying them.”
“So you say.”
“Don’t doubt my word.”
She spun around. “Or?”
Something crackled in the air between them, and she realized that she’d love a fight as fierce as the sword fights yesterday.
But he stepped back, adjusting the simple frill at his cuff. “Unfair, my sweet. If any other woman implied I was a liar I’d remove myself from her presence for all time, but I’m sworn to dance attendance on you.”
“I release you, then. I want no unwilling servant.”
“I’m not your servant.”
“Attendant, then. I have no need of you.”
“Have you not? You need someone to prevent you from throwing yourself away on the wrong man.”
She brushed it off with a laugh. “I promise you, I will marry no lower than a viscount. Does that suffice?”
“Title has little to do with it. I’ll make sure you choose wisely.”
“Whether I want you to or not?”
“Yes.”
She inhaled a truly irritated breath. “You have no authority over me, sir, and I’ll marry whomever I choose!”