by Edith Layton
“Of course you look fine in it. You know that. You don’t need flowery compliments from me, do you?”
“No, of course not. But what kept you?” she asked, changing the subject. “You were gone so long we worried.”
“I know, and I’m sorry about that. But I did very well for us. As I just told Alfred, shipping was held up by a storm and I had to wait to start the bidding.”
“I’m sure you hated waiting around in Williamsburg, with nothing but taverns and shops, theaters, and friends to occupy you,” she said, teasing, though her husky voice made the suggestion sound much less innocent.
“I’m happier to be home,” he said quietly. “I’m always happy to be home; you know that, Della. I leave because I must. We’re lucky enough to be able to get shipments here from upriver, but we have to go downriver to decide who to ship to.”
“I know. I was only joking.… Well, then, tell us all about it,” she said eagerly.
There was the sound of a throat being cleared, very hesitantly, but very loudly. “Ah, but we…you said we…I thought…we were supposed to go for a ride this afternoon, Mistress Della,” said the gangly young man, who had watched everything, with a sudden burst of bravery, though he darted nervous glances at Jared as he did.
“But Jared’s home, and he was gone for a month!” Della said, looking at him with dismay.
“And I’ll be home when you get back,” Jared said. “It was a long, dusty trip. I could use a few hours to wash and dress. Run along with Stephen and have a good time.”
“Most kind. Thank you,” the young man said, flustered. When he finished bowing, he offered Della his arm.
“Go on,” Jared urged her. “Don’t worry. I’ll be here when you get back, and you’re all dressed up for your ride anyway.”
“And very nicely, too. That gown is lovely. We’ll take the road down to the mill and back again, if that suits,” Stephen chattered as he led Della from the house. She looked back once, like a lamb getting a last glance at a sunlit meadow before being led into the slaughterhouse.
“What’s that all about? She’s not seriously interested in him, is she?” Jared asked Alfred when they’d gone.
“I don’t know. But she is twenty years old, after all,” Alfred said too casually. “Time she was interested in someone, don’t you think?”
“Twenty,” Jared said, shaking his head. “Lord, it’s hard to believe. But I’m seven and twenty myself now, and by the end of this summer, I’ll be a year older. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Alfred. It’s what I’ve been thinking about all the way home.”
“Longer than that, lad, I’ll warrant. I think I know what you have to say from the tone of your voice. I’ve been waiting for it,” Alfred said with a heavy sigh. “But come, first refresh yourself, and then we’ll talk it out. We’ve a few hours, at least, until Della gets back. Stephen’s been waiting to take her for a ride for three years now; I doubt he’ll return her very soon.”
“Poor Della, but she made her own bed,” Jared said, laughing as he went up the stairs. “All I have to do is change clothes, so I’ll be down soon. I must speak to you,” he said, pausing to look back, his face suddenly still and serious, “and the sooner the better.”
*
The sooner she got home, the better it would be, Della thought impatiently. She adjusted her bonnet, squirmed on the hard carriage seat, and sighed. She wished she knew the time, because although the sun hadn’t moved much, she felt like they’d been driving for hours. Stephen didn’t seem to notice. He was so busy talking about himself she believed she could have dragged the tall case clock from the hall with her if she’d wanted to count the hours, and he wouldn’t have noticed. They sat high on his carriage and jounced down familiar country roads, the dust and the humidity making her glorious dress as limp as her spirits as he blathered on.
It was her own fault. She’d agreed to come, after all. She’d been ignoring her suitors for years, and now there were few eligible ones left. Not that it mattered. But she’d promised her father she’d give them a chance, remembering there was also a chance Jared might return in time to see her in all her glory. That was why she was enduring this afternoon with Stephen Perkins, of all people, who still didn’t have any more brains than he did eyelashes. But at least he was a man—a man who goggled at her in her new gown and then stammered praise: “Awfully pretty, wonderfully fetching.”
“I never guessed, I never dreamed, I never knew. Ah, Della, you look beyond beautiful—you look like the woman I’ve been seeking all my life. What a fool I’ve been not to see what was under my very nose,” was what Jared should have said.
Della fidgeted again. “Goodness!” she said, interrupting Stephen’s story. “Just look at the sun! We must have been out for hours. Don’t you think it’s time we turned back?”
Stephen consulted his watch. “No, I don’t think so,” he said. “Only an hour, actually. But I’ll turn ’round if you like. Anxious to see your brother again, eh? Understandable, absolutely. Family loyalty is an excellent trait in a girl.”
“He’s not my brother,” Della said quickly.
“Yes, yes, one knows, but one tends to forget,” he said, “since everyone thinks of him as such.”
Yes, everyone but me, Della thought sadly.
“Still, I imagine he is the perfect brother,” Stephen said, and this time he wasn’t just trying to please her. She knew how awed he was by Jared, as most young men in the area were.
“Yes,” Della said with a sigh, because that was exactly the problem. He was the perfect brother. But she didn’t want him as a brother.
It had always been Jared, from the moment she’d seen him standing there on the docks, blue with cold, shivering, ragged, bruised and beaten, and proud as an angel. He had saved her brother, and then went on to give dimension to her life. He’d been friend, counselor, protector, and teacher in turn. Knowing him had shaped her, and she knew she was shaped for him. Her feelings for Jared might have begun as infatuation or fascination, but they had grown into something different, and they’d deepened as she’d grown to know him as a man. That was why he was the only man she’d ever wanted. Not that she thought he was perfect; she knew him too well for that. He was still proud as the devil and still driven by that obsession to prove who he was. But that didn’t bother her; he was human after all, and that humanity called to her.
That wasn’t all that drew her to him. When he’d come into the room today, she’d looked up to see him suddenly there—tall, bronzed, radiating strength and that wonderful attraction that always made all others in the room fade away, and it took her breath away. He did that to her. He made her dizzy with desire. And why not? His shining hair was the color of honey in the comb, his eyes were changeable gray—sometimes bright as rain in sunlight, sometimes soft as autumn mist. He had a long jaw and a strong nose in a lean face; in truth, there were handsomer fellows. But none who glowed with masculine power the way he did. His very presence made her feel as though she’d taken a fever. And she wasn’t the only one. Every girl she knew envied her—for all the wrong reasons. Being near him didn’t bring him nearer to her.
She was twenty years old now, and her love for him was a longing nothing could ease. It made her ache, heart and body. When she’d been a girl, she’d often crawled into his arms for comfort. She wished she could take more than comfort there now, but she didn’t dare touch him, because she knew she’d betray herself if she did. She couldn’t risk that. The only thing worse than loving him without being loved in return would be loving him and having him know it, and his still not loving her in return. He’d feel sorry for her, or be uncomfortable with her, and their easy intimacy would be lost. Nothing could be worse than that.
Other men had offered more. And why not? She came from good family and her father had money. She could sew and cook and manage a household, as well as dance, read, and write in a fine hand. She admitted she might be a trifle spoiled and used to getting her way—but that would
be good for him, because her way would always be his. Other men found her alluring. She had clear skin and a small, straight nose—she took careful inventory and tried to be fair about it—and blue eyes, and if her hair wasn’t as beautiful as Jared’s, she thought—hers being as midnight black as his was sunlit—at least she had plenty of it and it curled. She had a small waist and a slender but curved body with high, pert breasts, and if she craned her neck enough, her looking glass showed that her rear was in similar shape…
…and she could have been a dumpling or a beanpole for all it mattered. All she could see was tender affection in his eyes when he looked at her.
What did it take? she wondered morosely. She’d danced out of the house on the arm of that foolish young English soldier the week before Jared left, tittering like a mad thing, because giggles and admiration seemed to be what men in uniform liked best in a woman. Jared had been amused. Lieutenant Evers had been wonderfully pleased. He’d tried to steal a kiss and then apologized and asked her to walk with him again, so he could try to steal another. She decided not to bother. She had kissed some young men. But there was a wrongness to it that had nothing to do with morals. And if she closed her eyes and thought of Jared, it only made it worse.
Jared loved her as a sister, and she had to accept that it might never be more, even if he did one day—miraculously—look up and see her as a woman—before he found another woman. Because she knew instinctively that once Jared gave his heart, it would be given completely, exclusively, and forever. Just the way she’d given hers to him.
So far he hadn’t found that woman. Della suspected it was because he was so busy making his fortune. But Jared was getting to a susceptible age. He had no lady love, but she knew he had loved women. Most men did, when they went to town. Ruby Fairchild, whose uncle owned an inn in town, told her years ago that Jared visited late at night and had gotten into the habit of taking one particular tavern wench to her room above the taproom after hours. Well, so be it. Men were men, Della had supposed, and though she’d been hurt, the pain had faded because she’d been just a girl. But now some nights she lay abed, hungering and despairing because she knew that if Jared lay in his bed feeling that way too, he’d go to a stranger in town rather than to her. He didn’t realize she was a woman, too—or he could never think of her that way.
Maybe there was nothing she could do except stay by his side as his loving friend and hope someday he’d look down and see her there and want more. She lived for that day. She had time, if nothing else, on her side.
“Home again!” Stephen announced as he pulled the horses up in her drive.
“Wonderful!” she sang and leapt to her feet. “I mean, it was a wonderful drive, Stephen, the carriage being so well sprung and…” She searched for some other nice thing to say because she was always fair. He couldn’t help it if he was not only plain and dull but unknowingly competing with the best man in the world. “…and the horses so well trained,” she said. “Thank you for asking me.”
“We can go again, any time. Tomorrow, then?” he asked eagerly.
There was such a thing as being too nice, she thought as he helped her down from the high seat. “Ah, I can’t. But thank you. Good-bye,” she said quickly, and bobbed a little curtsy before she turned and hurried into the house.
She held up her skirts and raced into the parlor, only stopping when she saw the two men there, talking quietly together. What stopped her heart was their expressions. They were stilled and sober. Usually, when Jared came home from doing business, they were jolly, sharing laughter as well as a drink to good fortune together.
“Ah, Della,” her father said heavily. “Did you have a good time? Young Perkins gone already? Just as well. We’ve something to tell you. Come in, come in.”
She came into the room slowly, her steps weighted by dread, her mind busy. What awful thing could they have to tell her? She tried to prepare herself. She took in a deep breath and steadied herself. The only two people that mattered to her in the world were here before her, safe and sound. So then, whatever else they’d have to say might be bad, but whether it was that they’d lost their fortune or even the roof over their heads, it wouldn’t matter. She’d still have the only things that mattered. She let out her breath in relief. She was ready for whatever they had to tell her.
“Jared here,” Alfred said, “has decided to return to England.”
Della couldn’t hear what else they had to say. Not above the sudden roaring sound in her ears. Nor could she see their expressions, because, for some reason, everything was growing black.
*
“It was sitting in the sun all that time,” she insisted, as they hovered over the couch where Jared had laid her down. “I ought to have worn a bigger bonnet, that’s all. I’m much better now. Do stop fanning me, Nurse; I’ll catch cold if you don’t, and then you’ll be sorry.” She saw the corners of Jared’s mouth kick up, and, relieved, she struggled to sit up. When she had, she went on petulantly, “I didn’t keel over, I—just faltered. I’m fine now. No need for those salts, either. But a cup of tea would be wonderful, just wonderful.”
Nurse hurried from the room, and Della smiled. “Sometimes her remedies are worse than my complaints. Oh, don’t look like that, Jared. I mean it—I’m fine. But are you? England? You’re going back to England? Why?”
She was proud of the way she handled herself, except for that last word, which sounded like a wail to her.
“It’s time,” he said, as he paced the room as though it were already too small for him, as though he’d outgrown their house since he’d left it. “I thought about it all the way home. Maybe it was meeting an English captain who reminded me of the one on the ship I took on my voyage here. Maybe it was just because it’s almost my birthday and it started me thinking about time. But I suddenly realized that if I don’t go now, I might never go—and I must. Della,” he said, with a bright glance at her, “you defended me when I was a boy and I insisted I was really an earl. Lately, I think you and Alfred have tried to forget it altogether, as though it were some kind of childhood illness I’d outgrown or some blemish that would go away if you ignored it. You did it so well you almost made me forget. But I can’t. Nor should I.”
He took another turn around the room. “I stopped talking about it long ago, but that doesn’t change it,” he murmured. “I never stopped thinking about it. I am the earl of Alveston. I was taken from my home and sold into bondage. At first, the only thing that kept me alive was anger and my determination to make someone believe me. When I realized no one would, I worked to live, so that someday I could go back and prove it for myself—and take vengeance. Then I met you.”
He stopped, and looked from Alfred to Della. He smiled. “I was very lucky. Don’t think I don’t know that. You gave me much more to live for. But even then, well fed and well cared for, I’d lay awake at night dreaming the same dream. It was still there—but changed. I didn’t dream of revenge so much as I did of proving that I never lied to you.”
“I’ve come to believe you, lad,” Alfred said. “You know that. It’s just that there’s no point in belaboring a dead issue. It’s done, and it was well done, damn their eyes. You know what I found out all those years ago: yes, there were a pair of brothers, but both died in some accident. Or so they said, and so no one could prove differently—not without papers, and from across an ocean. It’s hard to find out more. There was considerable confusion surrounding the tragedy, and the family drew together around it. The new earl keeps to himself. I doubt it’s your uncle, though, because they say the title passed to a younger man.”
“Then he’s my cousin,” Jared muttered.
“Whoever he is, that’s all I could discover,” Alfred said, raising his hands in a gesture of despair. “It’s a reclusive family with enough power to hide from vulgar inquiries, and they’re far from London, at that. You know it; you’ve tried yourself. So what do you hope to gain by going back now?”
“The truth,” Jared said in
a tight voice. “An admission of the truth.”
“You have no proof,” Della cried, “no way of making them admit it—unless you try to force them, and then what’s the point? You’ll go to prison. You’ll lose everything you’ve worked for. We’ll lose you!” She paused, unable to go on without crying.
“Aye, she’s right,” Alfred muttered. “You’ve become the son I lost, lad. Don’t—I’d ask that you don’t make me grieve for another. And for such a senseless reason.”
“Loss is always senseless,” Jared said, “but I don’t intend to die. And I’m not such a fool as to do them any injury that will harm me.”
“Well, but who can say who’ll win a duel?” Della cried. “You’re very good with sword and pistol, but maybe they’ll cheat.”
“Dear ferocious Della,” Jared said, smiling, “I’m not going to challenge anyone to a duel. Your father’s made me a rich man, and his training made me a clever one, too, I hope. There are other ways to destroy an enemy than with swords or pistols. Pounds and shillings will do the trick very nicely, too.”
Alfred looked up with hope. “Aye,” he said with more confidence, “that’s so. And you’re the lad to do it. But I don’t know, my boy. If you can’t get the title or the confession, you’d settle for revenge? That’s not good business. It’s costly, and in the end, you’ll have nothing to show for your investment of time and money. Revenge is a poor reward: it has a bitter taste, lad.”
“Does it?” Jared said, musing. “I wonder. If you could destroy that which took Thomas from us, would you call that a bitter victory? I didn’t think so. I don’t take his memory lightly,” he said softly, placing a hand on Alfred’s shoulder as the older man lowered his head. “I mention it because I once lost a brother, too. I can’t do anything to bring back Thomas, but I can do something for my brother’s memory. And mine. What I want isn’t revenge—really. Call it justice.”
“I call it stupid!” Della raged. “You’ll only get into trouble. You could lose all your money and your life. Stay here. We believe you—why care about the rest of the world?”