by Edith Layton
Lisabeth turned her head and studied the portrait near the window. She frowned as an awful thought occurred to her. “Grandy! You didn’t threaten him in order to get him here, did you? Is that why he came? No wonder he was so stiff and unbending.”
“No,” he said with great mock offense. “I did not. What do you think I am?”
“I think you’re devious, and determined to get what you want. But I know you’d never lie to me,” she said. “So it was probably only a veiled threat, wasn’t it?”
He didn’t answer. She thought she detected the pink of a flush under the stubble of his beard. She laughed. “Aha. That might explain a lot. At least he’s smart enough to be a little wary of you, and me. Well, a visit to us won’t do him any harm. So you told him the tale and he came to meet me? Why? And he’s seven and twenty, you said. So why is he still unmarried? Do you know anything about that?”
He shrugged.
“Well,” she said. “I expect we’ll find out soon enough.”
He breathed easier. He’d hidden the London paper, so she couldn’t learn more about young Constantine Wylde than what she might find in the Peerage. No need for her to know the fellow had promised himself to another. In his experience there was many a slip twixt a word and a vow. That could be decided, and discussed, later.
“Grandy,” she said slowly, “please don’t get your hopes up. I don’t care for him much. But I’ll try to at least be polite. As for him? He might have agreed to see me because he’s a gentleman and it would be the right thing to do, especially because of what you said his father and mine wanted.” She paused and looked at him suspiciously. “Although why you didn’t tell me about that sooner I still don’t know.”
“Wanted to give you the chance to make your own pick,” he said piously. “Since you didn’t, I figured it was time to let you in on what your father wanted.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I’m curious about what my father wanted, and it may be that this Lord Wylde is too. But don’t forget, whatever he is, he’s a lord, and a rich one, and in London Society. I’m just a girl from the countryside.”
“You’re well dowered and well brought up, pretty as a picture and smart as a whip!”
“But we aren’t Society. And he is.”
“We’re Society hereabouts!” he roared.
“Hush! Want to wake the whole house? We may be Society hereabouts, Grandy, but we also have a history that folks around here don’t care about.”
“They do too,” he said. “They’re proud of us.”
“Maybe,” she said. “But our family isn’t one most gentlemen would brag about.”
“Well, his family did worse,” he retorted. “And I’ll have y’know,” he said in agitation, “none of us never died in no commission of a crime neither!”
“That’s because they were never caught.”
“Well, there you are. Nor never would be. Clever as they could hold together, all your ancestors, and lucky too, because luck counts, y’know. As for me, I made my money in business, good investments and such, missy, and don’t you forget it.”
“But your father didn’t,” she persisted.
“Well, neither did young Wylde’s!” he said triumphantly.
She sighed. “All I’m saying is that I’ll be polite. But I don’t want you to expect anything else. I don’t. What his father and mine wanted doesn’t matter.” Her eyes widened. “Unless you mean to hold me to it, whatever I think?”
“ ’Course not!” he said promptly. “You don’t have to take him if you don’t want him.”
She nodded. “Right. If I don’t like him, you’d understand. So if he doesn’t want me either, you’ll have to understand that too.”
“If he hasn’t lost his wits after one look at you,” he said, “why, I’ll eat my own beard!”
She frowned. “I wish you would. Whatever possessed you to try to grow such a ratty-looking thing, anyway?”
He looked guilty, and stroked his ragged, grizzled beard protectively. “Well, I told you I went to see some old mates when I was in London too, and they wouldn’t have recognized me without it. I wore one when I was a lad.”
“So why don’t you shave it off now? Don’t tell me the widow likes it!”
“Her name is Mrs. Twitty,” he said with awful dignity. “Ain’t her fault her man up and died.”
“She’s been ‘the widow’ since I can remember.” Lisabeth’s eyes widened. “Oh! Of course! I’m sorry, Grandy! Does this mean you’ve decided to make it legal? That could explain your eagerness to see me wed and gone, because there can’t be anything worse for a bride in a new marriage than an old flame in the same house, and some women look at any other female that has a claim on their husband’s heart as that. This puts a new face on things. I’ll find someone soon,” she said quickly, “or try, and if I can’t find anyone, why then I’ll go live in London a while, I’ve always had a fancy to—”
“Now wait!” the captain bawled, holding up one hand. “Ain’t nothing like that! In fact,” he added more quietly, before she could scold him again, “she and me, well, we’re sort of going our separate ways anyways. She’s got her eye on Mr. Finn, the butcher, and good luck to them, says I. I never made her any promises, nor she to me, and she ain’t getting any younger, nor am I getting any fonder, so that’s all there is to that. I want you to find a good man so’s I can rest easy, is all. And,” he added slyly, “I could use a grandchild or seven playing about my feet in my old age.”
She laughed. “Well, if you’re waiting for your old age, I can put off meeting someone for at least another twenty years.”
He smiled. She’d forgotten the beard, as he’d hoped. But how was he expected to throw the fear of God into a fellow if he came to him all neat and sweet and clean-shaven, as was the fashion these days? Not that he thought he’d scared young Wylde. But he’d certainly got his attention.
“So all I want is for you to be civil to him, even if he don’t suit you.”
“That jest I made at dinner was too warm, I knew it,” she said, looking guilty. “I just wanted to see how he’d react. It was rude. I’m ashamed of myself. And I confess I did it to shake him up a bit, to see how much life there was in him. But see how he reacted? As though I’d waved a dead fish in his face. What I said wasn’t that crude. He could have concealed his distaste. And he should have, being such a gentleman. Fact is, he’s a prig, Grandy, and that’s that.”
“Early days,” her grandfather said. “How was he to know you wasn’t a prig yourself, just mis-saying something?”
She ducked her head so he wouldn’t see her blush. Bringing her lips so close to Lord Wylde’s hadn’t been a jest or the work of a prig. It had been an overwhelming compulsion. Yet he’d reacted to the offer the same way he had to the jest.
“His father was a good man,” her grandfather said. “Even if he was a foolish lad. But he would have grown out of it, if he’d lived. And his mother was a fine woman. His uncle is a bag of wind, and more impressed with his godliness than God will ever be. Pounding a Bible, spouting it all the time, and acting all holy never got any man into heaven. It’s living right and doing good that turns the trick. An old pirate can get through the pearly gates easier than a parson, if he never done bad for the sake of it, and the parson only preached what he didn’t practice. Or so says I. And so says your Mr. Beecham, I’d wager.”
She shook her head. “He’s not my Mr. Beecham. And he’s not a parson, only a schoolteacher, and a good one, I might add.”
The captain held his tongue. No one knew better than he did that criticizing something set a young person to defending it, and then loving it. Half the crews on pirate ships were lads still defying their parents. Of course, the other half were out-and-out villains who never had parents to defy, because in all likelihood, they’d crawled out from under rocks.
“You’re considering him?” he asked humbly.
“You’d know it if I was. No. He’s just pleasant to talk with. But I can’
t see him as a husband, at least not for me.”
The captain concealed a great sigh of relief. Nothing wrong with young Beecham, except that he was a bore with no more money than spirit, which was to say, not any.
“Well, if there ain’t nothing more troubling you, puss, I’m to bed,” he said. “Got to get up early and talk to Ames. The lawns look weedy. Highborn folk like their grounds neat as pins. What are you planning for tomorrow? Hoped you could take young Wylde for a tour of the land.”
“Of course,” she said simply. “I may not like him, but I do know what a hostess is supposed to do.”
“Good, good,” he said. “Go riding or walking, or whatever. Get to know him before you condemn him to the noose. You might be surprised. Now, are you off to bed too, or is there anything else I can do for you?”
“You’ve done exactly what I needed. I’ll go up presently,” she said absently. “You know how it is with me. Once I’m up and my mind’s racing, I have to cool down before I can rest. You go, though. And thank you, Grandy, for understanding.”
“I always try,” he said gruffly. He rose, as did she. They hugged, and then she watched him make his way up the stair to his bedchamber.
She waited until his footsteps had faded away before she walked up to the portrait near the window again. She cocked her head to the side, scrutinizing it. It had hung there for as long as she could remember, and she was fond of it, but she’d never studied it as she did now.
The young man was posed with a spotted dog, and a fine white horse in the background. Lord Wylde’s father wore clothes fashionable in the last century. It looked like many another noble portrait of an English gentleman. The man was lean and dark, with a sly smile that made him look rakish.
But what most distinguished him from any portrait she had seen was that glittering smile. Devilish, charming, and bright. She’d always liked him.
She curtsied to the portrait and then drifted over to the dark one that hung on the other side of the window. She didn’t have to study that one. She had it committed to heart. She’d loved it when she’d been a girl. The artist who had painted it hadn’t been very skillful. She knew that now, but when she’d been a girl it hadn’t occurred to her. It had been the drama of the portrait that had captured her imagination. It had a history as exciting as any fairy story she’d ever been told. This man might have been a gentleman or a rogue. He’d been both.
He too was lean and dark. But he had a thin mustache over his curling smile, and his close-clipped beard ended in a triangle below his chin. It made him look devilish and polished at the same time. He carried a saber, and stood with his head high, as though ready to take on the world. He’d been painted with the sea behind him. The artist who had created his image wasn’t a fraction as gifted as the one who had limned his grandson, on the other wall, but even he had been able to communicate something of the man’s personality.
It was a murky canvas, but the man’s smile was a slash of white, his eyes sparkled, his high-booted feet were planted apart. He wore a red cloak that billowed in the invisible wind. In all, he looked like a cavalier from an even earlier day. He was so full of life he looked as though he were impatient to leap away from the sitting, stride down the beach, and board the many-masted ship that sailed the painted waves behind him.
Lisabeth had hoped to find him one day, in real life. She thought she had done so. But she was sure the painted gentleman wouldn’t have let her lean in for a kiss and then hopped away like a frightened rabbit.
She sighed. So much for her hopes. The pattern of life here never changed. She’d wondered if the arrival of Lord Wylde would alter it. Much as she loved her life and enjoyed its sweet familiar patterns, still she’d found herself hoping it would. Even heaven must get boring sometimes, she thought. She’d hoped to find a cure for the odd restlessness that had consumed her these last months.
She didn’t really want to marry, there wasn’t a man alive she’d want to devote her life to, and that was what marriage was all about. She didn’t like the idea of some man ordering her life either, and that was also what marriage was about. Because even though she might be a touch lonely here, now and then, she was entirely free, and had been brought up to value that. She didn’t want to go to London either. Her life was here, at Sea Mews, as was her happiness. As well as her boredom and restiveness. She didn’t understand it, but there it was.
Lord Wylde was beyond any living man she’d ever clapped eyes on. Well, but she’d only known sailors and farmers, fishermen, local merchants, and those who came down from London to meet with her grandfather. And local smugglers, of course, as well as some of her father’s former associates. She liked some of them very well, but knew enough to avoid getting involved with any of them. Gentle, educated, boring Mr. Beecham shone in the usual company she kept.
The lord her grandfather had coerced into coming to the heart of Cornwall to see her had turned out to be a bore, and a snob. But at least, she decided, he was a new one.
She turned, and after bowing to the portrait, went up the stairs to bed.
Chapter Six
He’d never felt so alone. It was ridiculous. Constantine had been alone when he came to his childless uncle’s house when he’d been five, after his grandfather had died. He’d felt keenly alone even though his grandfather had seldom spoken to him, much less comforted him. But he didn’t remember his father or mother, and the loss of his grandfather, and so too his home, had startled him. Uncle Horatio had a wife, and a staff of smiling servants, so he’d thought life would become better. It hadn’t. But it hadn’t gotten much worse.
He was used to neglect. His aunt was an invalid, his uncle a hard taskmaster, given to lectures and fond of doling out advice as well as punishment. Being neglected by them was actually a boon. Even though he’d recently told his uncle he hoped never to see him again, he couldn’t feel that as a loss.
He’d felt alone every night he’d gone to a new school too, but had gone to so many he’d learned how to quell the terrible empty feeling, dam up the incipient tears, turn his head into a pillow, and go to sleep.
Now, it was absurd that he felt so lonely. He was a grown man, with friends and acquaintances, and a place in the world.
He thought it might be because he’d seen a picture of his father at last. He wondered whether it was because he’d met the woman his father had purportedly wanted him to marry, and knew he could not. Whatever it was, he couldn’t fall asleep.
The bed he was in was wide and the mattress soft, the sheets sweet smelling and crisply clean; the temperature in the room was just right, and the house was silent. But his thoughts kept his head whirling.
He’d come here to meet the woman the bizarre captain had said he was supposed to marry. Because he’d already discovered the story was true.
He’d expected his uncle to say, “Ridiculous,” after he’d told him about it, or at least explode in fury and vow to get the Bow Street runners on the case. Constantine didn’t want that. Even a false rumor couldn’t be allowed to be breathed to the ton. The matter had to be handled with care and discretion. Uncle would understand; care and discretion were what he lived for. Constantine told his uncle his tale, and then amused himself by privately wagering on what word he would say first. It was the way he’d learned to deal with his uncle years before, and the way he still did. After all, his was a household that dealt firmly and quickly with impudence or ungodliness.
Constantine had never been afraid of corporal punishment, even as a boy, but he’d been told, early on in his stay with his uncle, that infractions that were repeated would be corrected by banishment from the house, and from the family. He didn’t love his uncle, but respected his firmness of purpose, and didn’t doubt him. Being cut off forever from the last of his family would have been a terrifying prospect for any boy.
And so he behaved. But wagers made silently with himself was not gambling. Sins committed in his imagination could not offend his uncle’s ears or eyes. And insolence spo
ken in the mind couldn’t translate to a whipping, or exile. In short, an imaginative boy, he’d discovered early on that misbehavior in the mind was very satisfying, because that way he could obey and disobey at the same time. He didn’t know that that was the time-honored way that slaves, clerks, governesses, and many married women coped with living with a tyrant. He only knew that it worked. Constantine had more lavish daydreams than his uncle or his friends could ever imagine.
“I never thought he’d do this,” his uncle had finally muttered. “Or at least, I thought he would have the common courtesy to come to me first.”
Constantine had blinked and sat up straight. “You know him?”
His uncle nodded.
“And what he said was true?”
His uncle nodded again.
Constantine had leaped from his chair as though it were red-hot, but his stomach felt cold. “My father was a … highwayman?” he’d exclaimed over the sudden roaring in his ears.
His uncle scowled. “No, he wasn’t. He played at being one and it was the death of him. But he spent his life playing at one thing or another. He was light-minded and unprincipled, a rogue and a rotter, the bane of your grandfather’s existence.”
“And you never told me this?” Constantine had asked, amazed.
“To what purpose? We agreed that no one should know, and no one does, except for that old pirate. We thought he’d keep it to himself. What good would exposing your father do now, after all? Only great mischief. You say he wants you to marry his granddaughter? Never. Your grandfather would roll over in his grave. I forbid it. Put it out of your mind. He can’t force you to do anything. Your father was a criminal and so any pact or agreement he made wouldn’t bear upon you in any court of law. Rest easy, say no, forbid the fellow your house, and forget about it. Bigod doesn’t want a scandal at his door at this time in his life any more than you do. Especially if he wants to see his granddaughter well established.”
“My father,” Constantine had said carefully, trying to listen to what he said so he could believe it, “was a highwayman and a cheat, and died in the commission of a crime, and not in the service of His Majesty? And I,” he’d added more carefully, “was never told this because you and my grandfather decided to lie to me about it.”