by Edith Layton
“Why do that?”
“Think: how can I leave you here alone?” He chuckled at her confusion. “I can’t leave precisely because you are no longer a child. You’re not his sister, after all, so you can’t stay in his house by yourself without a proper chaperone. The upper classes here are pretty wild; they have more manners than morals. But even they would talk about such a thing.”
“There must be some way we can work it out. I could stay in a respectable inn, with a maidservant, couldn’t I?”
“A lovely young girl alone in the middle of this wicked town, with no one to protect her but a maidservant—or a man who’s not even related to her, and he a man who’s interested in someone else?” Alfred sputtered and then stopped to consider what he’d just said. What if Jared was forced to realize Della wasn’t really his sister? What if he saw that the rest of the world wouldn’t consider her such? And then had to think about her being alone for the first time in her life, realizing that if anything happened to her father, she would always be so? “Aye,” Alfred said slowly, “puss, there might be something in it, after all. Now what inn is fine enough for my dear Della, I wonder?”
“An inn? Impossible. What are you thinking of, Alfred? Leave Della by herself in the heart of London in an inn?”
Jared was shocked. But Alfred didn’t seem upset by his reaction. Instead, he shook back his cuff, inspected it, and answered airily, “She won’t be by herself. The girl will be with her.”
“A maid? Leave her alone in an inn with no one but a servant girl? If we were home, I’d say you’d been out riding too long in the fields without a hat!”
“Della’s a level-headed miss,” Alfred answered, “not flighty or easily led. And she’ll be close by you. The Saracen’s Head isn’t a stone’s throw from here. The Peacock is older, true, but it caters to travelers. The Saracen’s Head has more of a residential air about it. They have fine food and a good cellar, not to mention snug rooms and proper private dining parlors—and their prices show it, but nothing’s too good for my girl.”
“But she could be in danger!” An image of how Della had looked that morning flashed through Jared’s mind. She’d worn another new blue gown, the color that always reminded him of her eyes. But it wasn’t just her eyes the gown had flattered: the color showed up her creamy skin, while the fit showed off her pert breasts, tiny waist, the graceful turning of her arms…Lord! Jared thought. Even her elbows looked delicious today.… He shuddered to think about what the men of London would think, seeing such a girl alone. Thinking about that was easier than analyzing his own reaction to her tempting appearance.
“Much too much danger. What are you thinking of?” Jared muttered. He took a walk around the room to calm himself, running his hand repeatedly through his hair, stopping only to scowl when he realized he’d pulled it from its neat tie.
“I’m thinking of her,” Alfred said. “She doesn’t want to come north with me, and though I regret it, I can’t blame her. She hates my family. If she comes, there’ll be trouble, and there’s been trouble enough. You know her temper—and her tongue.”
Jared did, and smiled in spite of himself.
“It’s my fault, entirely, for talking against them for so many years,” Alfred went on, “but I did dislike them. For years, that dislike served me well. I think it made me work harder and accounts for my accomplishment. I couldn’t let them see me fail. I couldn’t wait to rub their noses in my success. But now I don’t want to do that, after all. Funny, how one’s dreams change as one ages. For I got to thinking: I’m not getting any younger, and neither are they. Why, I’m a totally different man from the one who left England all those years ago. Maybe they are, too.”
He watched Jared’s changing expression and went on, “The bottom line—which is the most important one for a merchant, as I taught you—is that whatever they are, they are my family, after all. I want one last look at them before I leave England; it also occurred to me that I may never pass this way again,” he said more heavily, noting Jared’s expression with a satisfaction he didn’t show.
“Bad news?” Justin said, strolling into the room with Fiona and seeing the same expression on his brother’s face that Alfred saw.
The brothers were supposed to go for an afternoon walk with the ladies. But Alfred had come into the drawing room to talk with Jared first. He knew Della would be late—he’d made her promise to be.
“Bad news?” Jared said through clenched teeth. “Depends on how you look at it. Only that Alfred has gone mad and decided to go up north to visit his long-lost family—and leave Della here by herself—in an inn—until he comes back.”
“Not by herself,” Alfred said patiently, “with a maid. And not just any inn—the Saracen’s Head.”
Justin whistled.
“Why can’t she just stay on here?” Fiona asked.
“With two bachelors?” Alfred asked her.
“Oh, but Jared’s like a brother to her, and she knows that Justin is promised…” Fiona paused, blushed, stole a peek at Jared, and then went on quickly. “I mean to say, she knows Justin is an honorable man.”
“I have no doubt he is,” Alfred said, patiently, “but I can’t trust the world to know it, can I? We’re off to Virginia on the first fair tide after I return, but gossip can cross an ocean, too. I have her reputation to think of. And, I remind you, my dear, that she has no brother. She did, but he died many years ago. Jared is my partner and her friend. Not her brother. And the world knows it, too.”
“Why then, where’s the problem?” Fiona asked merrily. “She shall stay with me!”
“I don’t think she’ll feel comfortable doing that,” Alfred said hastily, thinking of Della’s reaction. “She’s fiercely independent. It might be different if you were Jared’s fiancée,” he said innocently enough, though he watched Jared from the corner of his eye. “But as it is, she’s only met Justin and you recently, and neither of us would wish to impose.”
Before a reasonable argument could be voiced, and Alfred knew there were too many that could be, he added, in all honesty at last, “Jared, if you’re going to carry on, and Della, too, why then, I think I’ll forget it. I’ll try one last time to talk her into going with me because there are some young men there eager to meet her, and who knows? But if she sets up too much of a ruckus, we’ll go home now, and none the worse for it. I can always invite my brothers to my home…why, I think I like the sound of that even better! Let them see for themselves. If Della doesn’t like it, why then, there’ll be no problem, because there are a dozen places she can take herself off to if she wants to avoid them at home.”
“Too bad. She hasn’t seen half of London,” Fiona said sadly.
“I don’t think she’ll mind. She doesn’t care for London really, no more than I do,” Justin commented.
“Oh yes, she’s a country girl, too,” Fiona said. “I forgot—it’s Jared and I who adore London. I shall be sorry to see her go, but perhaps I can visit her someday, too! Jared, you said you’d be going back from time to time,” she said, looking at him from beneath her lashes. “Maybe I could come along. I should love to see it with you as my guide! You’ve told me so much about the New World. I want to see everything you saw, but for myself.”
The brothers were silent. Even Alfred didn’t know what to say in the face of this artlessness—or artfulness. So they all ignored it.
“I wish you’d think it over, sir,” Justin told Alfred. “Please. Della may not like London, but we like her.”
“There’s nothing to think over,” Jared said quickly. “I’m not so mad about London, either. It’s interesting, but it will keep. It’s time for me to learn more about the estate. There’s no problem, Alfred. Della can stay with me and Justin at the hall, because—Fiona, if you’d be so kind—could you see your way to leaving London now and staying on with us there, with your mother or father, of course, the way you did when I first arrived?”
“Of course. Why not?” she said merrily. “What
a good idea! The holidays are coming—we always spend them together. It will be grand! Yes, of course, I’m sure my father will agree. It will be delightful. I came to London because I thought we’d have ourselves a coronation, and that’s something no one would ever want to miss. But who knows when that will be now? It’s not even scheduled. Everyone says the prince is waiting to find a bride first. He wants to marry and take the throne at the same time. Pity,” she said, dimpling, “for I’d hopes myself—he’s only a few years older than I, and he looks nothing like his father—yet. Just think! If I leave London now, I might just be giving up a throne myself, mightn’t I?” Her eyes twinkled up at them; she was as amused with herself as she hoped they would be.
Alfred and Jared laughed at her pretty foolishness. Justin didn’t. “Indeed?” he drawled. “And what of me?—your fiancé? Was I supposed to have challenged him to a duel for your hand?”
“Oh, Justin,” she said without missing a beat with her fan as it stirred her fair curls. “You’re so honorable. You’d step aside for your king, wouldn’t you?”
“If you wanted me to step aside, I would,” Justin said with utter seriousness, “for whatever man—or reason—you give.”
There was a startled gasp from the doorway. Della stood there. She wore the blue gown Jared had remembered, but her face was white.
“What’s this?” she asked in fear, her eyes flying to Jared’s face. She’d heard only what Justin had just said, and looking around she saw the tension in the group before her.
“Aha. The cause of all our troubles. What is this, you ask?” Jared said. “This is a demand, cloaked as an invitation. Alfred’s going north to visit his wonderful family. You are not going to the Saracen’s Head. Or the Peacock. You are coming to Hawkstone Hall with us, whether the menu there is as good or not. There you will stay until Alfred comes to collect you, Mistress Mischief—just try and not!”
She relaxed. “Double-dog dare me, do you?” she asked, her head to the side.
Jared laughed, but his brother and Fiona didn’t; they didn’t know what the two were talking about.
“No. Triple-dog,” he said, putting his legs apart and his hands on his hips as he stared at her. “So?”
“Biting and scratching allowed?” she asked.
“No, and no mud balls, either,” he said, remembering her fight with a neighbor boy who had insulted him—a fight he’d had to rescue her from a dozen years ago, a world away.
Her eyes sparkled. She put her small fists on her hips, gave her rear a tiny waggle that set her skirt shimmying, and threw back her head. “I’m mad as a bull, and fierce as a black b’ar,” she cried in her huskiest voice, mimicking the accent of every brawling river man she’d ever heard. “I’m a high-tailed rooster and a ring-tailed ’coon, and I can fight a pack of wolves with one hand…but what can I do?” She finished in her normal voice. “You’re bigger and meaner. All right, you win. I quit.”
“She means,” Alfred said as he laughed out loud at the expressions on Justin’s and Fiona’s faces, “that she’ll go, but Jared had better watch out!”
*
“You’re sure?” Alfred had asked as he’d stood at the door with his traveling case. He’d stared into her eyes worriedly.
“I’m sure,” Della had said, lifting her chin. “I have to see it out.”
He’d nodded, assured. Then he’d kissed her good-bye and left.
Only now did she allow herself doubts. The coach she traveled in was comfortable, with plush seats, heavy silk on the walls to keep out the cold, and hot bricks at her feet to stave off any chill that seeped through the floorboards beneath the carpeting there. There were even hothouse flowers in holders affixed to the walls by the windows. It was like a traveling parlor, down to the baskets of food provided. The only thing lacking was a roaring fire in a fireplace, stillness—and real comfort. Her bottom ached almost as much as her heart as she watched Jared being entertained by Fiona.
Traveling was traveling no matter how you tried to conceal it, and the body knew it even if the eyes were fooled, Della thought sadly—just as a man’s attraction to a woman was basically a matter of lust, no matter how good his manners were.
Fiona’s eyes sparkled, and she never seemed to get tired or cross—not with such an appreciative audience. Jared sat across from Della, but he might have already been across the ocean from her, because as Della watched only him, she could see nothing but Fiona in his eyes. Fiona never allowed his thoughts or his eyes to wander from her. If his attention wavered for so much as a minute, she called him back to her with a question, a trill of laughter, or, sometimes, even a flirtatious tap of her fan. And though Justin seemed to spend his time looking out the window, Della could see that he was watching Fiona’s reflection in it and not the scenery beyond.
“This is foolish,” Justin suddenly murmured.
“What?” Della asked.
He turned and smiled a crooked smile very like Jared’s. “I spoke aloud? Forgive me. I was thinking of something else. But why should I be? For here we sit, bored to near death, when if we were at a ball, we’d be talking each other’s ears off, wouldn’t we?”
Bored? Della didn’t think he looked bored. A bored man didn’t sit with his teeth and hands clenched. But now she saw his smile was gracious and genuine.
“But perhaps you wouldn’t be chattering at a ball whether or not you had anything to say, as is the fashion, because you’re more of a woman than a lady. I mean that as a compliment,” he said quickly, “because you are a lady born, but lucky enough to be a woman bred. But I don’t know much about that, do I? I’ve heard my brother’s story, but not yours.”
“There’s not much to tell.” She shrugged. “I was born here, but don’t remember much of it because I grew up in the Virginia colony, raised like any other girl there. Jared’s the one with all the adventures. I guess my life was shaped by his.”
“But I don’t know what it’s like for any other girl there,” he persisted.
“Oh,” she said. “Well, let’s see. I live in a big house—not big by Hawkstone Hall standards, you understand. And it’s new—so new that like most places at home, we have more trouble with sap than with dust on our walls.”
His eyebrows rose. He couldn’t have voiced his confusion more clearly. “I mean,” she said, “that the wood at home, even aged wood, is still fairly new. Or at least you can’t count on its being old. And so even if we lay plaster over it, we don’t cover our walls with stretched silk the way you do, at least not right away, because sometimes the wood oozes. So we paint and pray.”
“I’d heard they were religious in the Colonies,” he murmured with a smile.
“No, no.” Della laughed, and Fiona cocked an ear when she heard it, because she hadn’t been saying anything amusing just then.
“Not us,” Della went on. “Most Puritans are up north, and even they aren’t that Puritan anymore. Anyway, my house is very handsome, by our standards. We live by a broad river, so we get to see something of the world, what with so much trade going on. And it’s a busy, growing world. But for me, the most interesting difference between our countries, I guess, is that I grew up reading about England’s bosky forests and shady dells—Sherwood Forest and that sort of thing. But now I see your forests are so…tame, compared to ours. Ours are thick and wild and we have so many of them, with trees so tall their tops can’t be seen; some have never been seen by white men. Not like here; your forests look as civilized as your cities. And you have farms everywhere that have been tended for centuries. I read about England and wolves, unicorns and bears, but we’re the ones who have all that—except for the unicorns, of course.”
“Really? Then I’ll have to talk to your father about exporting some,” Justin said promptly. “They’re such a nuisance here; they devour all our roses and run off with the best maidens. But if we can turn a profit and get rid of them at the same time, it would be wonderful. You say there’d be a market for them?”
She laughed ag
ain, her whole, deep, full-hearted laugh, not the stifled tittering she’d been doing in Fiona’s presence, because she’d thought that was what Jared liked. This time it was Jared who stopped talking to watch her and his brother.
That wasn’t lost on Della, so she turned her shoulder, gave Justin her full attention, and proceeded to tell him about her life in the most amusing way she could. He couldn’t have been a better audience, meeting her every anecdote with a sly quip, asking all the best questions, laughing with her and making her laugh, and making it appear as though he weren’t watching the dumbstruck Fiona out of the side of his eye, either.
In time, Jared joined in, and then Fiona began to play the game. The rest of the journey went well, filled with shared laughter. Still, Della and Justin were the most amused because they’d been the most upset before they’d started their conversation. They had a good time as they drove to the hall, and by the time they arrived, they felt like comrades in arms, although by then, they were cheered enough that neither wanted to think about who the enemy was.
When they got there, Jared waylaid Della in the hall. He looked so grave and troubled that she quickly reviewed everything she’d said in the carriage, wondering if she’d accidentally said something to offend him. There was so much of his past life he seemed to want to forget now.
“I’m sorry,” he said abruptly. “I’ve neglected you, Della. I never meant to. It was rude—no, it was stupid to just let you sit there with nothing to do but watch me. I realized it when I saw what fun you were having with Justin. You and I used to have fun like that. I think sometimes I take this earl business too seriously. I’m glad you’re here to remind me.”
She looked up into his eyes, delighted to be the entire focus of them for once. But she promptly ruined it for herself. “I don’t think you were being too much of an earl,” she said thoughtlessly. “I think you were just having your own fun with Fiona.”
His eyes brightened. A corner of his mouth kicked up. “She is fun to be with, isn’t she?” he asked. As her spirits fell, he grinned and said, “Thank you, Dell. I can always count on you to say the right thing, can’t I?”