Lord of the Beasts

by Susan Krinard

  Cordelia rang for a maid to replace the cold tea with a fresh pot. “If she had been born in Seven Dials, I should hardly expect anything of her. But Donal has told me what she remembers of her past…information she declined to share with me, I might add…and though my inquiries in London have failed to turn up any living relatives, it is clear that Ivy’s mother was respectable enough to teach her daughter the essentials of polite society. I believe Ivy’s refusal to cooperate is deliberate.” She paused, monitoring her voice for any trace of self-pity. “I can only conclude that I am failing with her.”

  Theodora did not leap to reassure her but gave Cordelia’s words thorough consideration before she spoke. “It seems to me,” she said, “that you are far too severe upon yourself.”

  “In what way?” Cordelia asked. “I have provided everything I judged that Ivy requires. I have striven not to place undue restrictions upon her activities here at Edgecott, and yet…” Her throat tightened, and she felt the treacherous prickle of tears behind her eyes. “What have I done wrong, Theodora?”

  Her cousin reached across the small table between them and touched her hand. “Nothing. Nothing but expect too much of yourself.”

  Cordelia was temporarily relieved of the necessity of replying by the arrival of the tea. She poured for herself and Theodora, making quite sure that her hands were steady.

  “When I was young,” she said, “I…witnessed the consequences of such wild behavior. I will not see Ivy subjected to the unhappiness that must inevitably come of her present attitude.”

  “Do you think Ivy is unhappy now?”

  “She must be, or she would not—” She looked at Theodora more closely. Her cousin was not one for idle conversation, and her questions were seldom trivial. “Do you think she is happy, Theodora?”

  “I do not know her as well as you, of course. But…” She sipped her tea and carefully set down the cup. “I do not believe that her emotional state is the cause of your dilemma.”

  “If you have advice, cousin, I would be happy to hear it.”

  “May I speak frankly, cousin?”

  “Of course.”

  Theodora met her gaze. “I believe that you are unhappy, and that your unhappiness stems from denying your own feelings.”

  “I have just told you my feelings, and you discounted them.”

  “I do not speak of your concerns about Ivy and your relationship with her.”

  “Indeed?”

  “It seems to me that you have been placed in an untenable position, Cordelia, and you will have to make a choice. Sir Geoffrey makes no secret of his wishes for your future, but you neither refuse nor accede to his requests. Why?”

  Cordelia blinked in mild surprise at Theodora’s uncharacteristic bluntness. “A second marriage is not a thing to be rushed into. I hardly expect my father to understand, but—”

  “It isn’t that you fear the institution of marriage, though you may have convinced yourself that that is so. You simply will not admit that you do not love Inglesham…and that someone else has stolen your heart.”

  Cordelia bolted from her chair, darting across the drawing room with no aim or purpose. “I never knew you to be such a romantic, Theodora.”

  “One in my position must be pragmatic, but that does not put an end to dreams.” She looked down at her hands, small and neat and as ordinary as her face. “And if you will not allow yourself to dream, my dear, then I must do it for you.”

  Cordelia completed her meandering circuit of the room and gripped the back of her chair. “I need not ask whom you believe has ‘stolen my heart.’”

  “Sir Geoffrey has recognized it in spite of his illness. So has Ivy, and Inglesham is not entirely a fool.” She gazed unflinchingly into Cordelia’s eyes. “You have no wish to marry Inglesham. You never did, but now there is a clear reason for putting an end to any expectations.”

  “Why should I not marry one who has been so kind to me and so good to Sir Geoffrey?”

  “Now you are being foolish,” Theodora said with surprising sternness. “You will never marry without love.” She smiled sadly. “I know that you loved Captain Hardcastle during your short time together.”

  Cordelia felt her way into her chair, uncertain that her legs would continue to support her. “Yes. I loved him very much.”

  “And you were very young. You still blame yourself for not saving him, as you blame yourself for Lydia. Delia, don’t you see…”

  Theodora’s voice faded, thinning to the sound of a scorching wind blowing through the trees.

  The night was hot. Even the punkawallahs with their ever-moving fans could not chase the heat away.

  James was still drinking. He had begun early that evening and had not stopped since, though Cordelia had begged him to moderate his consumption. Her pleas fell on deaf ears, as they had so often done of late.

  She sat on the cane chair at her dressing table and stared into her own hollowed eyes. She had thought little enough of Captain Hardcastle’s habits when she had married him. He was charming, amusing, unfailingly generous…so very unlike her father that she had found herself in love with him almost the hour they met. Everyone else loved him, too: his men, his fellow officers and every unmarried lady in the cantonment.

  James had never caviled at her unconventional upbringing. He held her in his arms when she spoke haltingly of Lydia’s death. And when he had asked her to become his wife, it had never occurred to her to refuse. At last she might have her own life again.

  But things had begun to change…when? A week after their marriage? Two? She had begun to realize that James drank more than the other officers. She began to see how it affected him…how he spent so much of his time in a stupor, lost in a world she could never enter. She realized that charming, amusing, generous James wrestled with demons even her love could not exorcize.

  That was when she realized that it was her duty to save him.

  Cordelia rose from the dressing table and walked slowly into the drawing room, where James was pouring himself another whiskey. He looked up as she hesitated in the doorway.

  “Well, Delia?” he drawled, lifting his glass in a genial salute. “Come to lecture me again?”

  She swallowed her instinctive apology and attempted a smile. “Come, my dear…is it any wonder that I am jealous of anything that diverts my husband’s attention away from me?”

  He laughed, tipping the glass this way and that. “Always my plain-spoken Delia.” He drained the glass and moved to set it on the sideboard. It crashed to the floor. He picked up the empty bottle, held it up to his eyes and swore under his breath.

  “’Scuse me, Delia. Not for a lady’s ears.” He opened the sideboard door, peered inside and gave a deep sigh.

  “Now where’d I put it? Got to be around here somewhere….”

  Cordelia gathered her courage. “Won’t you come sit on the verandah? At least the air is fresh.”

  “You go outside, sweetheart. I’ll be along in a moment.” He staggered into the small kitchen. “Where are they?” he muttered, turning in a clumsy circle.

  There was no retreating now. Cordelia lifted her chin. “I had them destroyed.”

  “Beg…pardon?”

  “They are gone, James.” She reached for his arm. “You must see that it is better this way. Without the constant temptation—”

  James shook his head, profound sorrow in his eyes. “Won’t work, sweetheart. I’ll find another.”

  Cordelia closed her eyes, very close to panic. “My dear,” she said, “I know you. I know what you’re capable of, what you might achieve if you were not beholden to the bottle. I will not see you ruin your life before my eyes.”

  He laughed. “Would have been ruined already if not for you.” He cupped her face in his hands. “Mistake, getting married. No good for you. Can’t save me. You should go. Now. Go far away.”

  “I love you, James. I shall never abandon you.”

  His hands shook as he dropped them. He lurched away, cr
ashing into the horsehair sofa. “Have to go out. I’ll be back…before supper.”

  “Please, James…”

  He waved to her jauntily and stumbled through the door. For a moment Cordelia stood frozen, unable to think or feel. Then she sat stiffly on the sofa until her maid found her there near dawn and chivvied her off to bed.

  Anjali woke her well after sunrise, when they brought Cordelia the report that James had made a reckless, unauthorized foray from the cantonment in pursuit of a dacoit band that had been raiding the local villages. He had found the bandits. He had fought heroically. But that had not been enough.

  She knew then that he had killed himself rather than cause her pain. She had not saved him. She alone was responsible….

  “He would not have changed unless he wished it. Over that, my dear, you had no control.”

  The gentle, familiar voice brought Cordelia back to the cool safety of Edgecott’s drawing room. Her hands were icy cold in Theodora’s grip. Tears leaked from her eyes.

  “You don’t know,” she whispered. “You can’t understand—”

  “I understand this much,” Theodora said. “You made yourself responsible for Lydia, James, Sir Geoffrey, now Ivy. You believe you failed to save them. But there is a man here at Edgecott who does not require salvation…one who has the strength to stand beside you as your perfect match, who shares your honesty and your courage. And it is because of this that you love him.”

  Cordelia stood up so quickly that her skirts caught on the tea tray and sent it crashing to the carpet. “There is no further point to this discussion,” she said hoarsely, “and I would ask you not to mention it again. Kindly remember that you are a guest in this house—”

  She stopped, suddenly aware of the cruelty in her words. Theodora had shrunk in on herself, her eyes dark pools of hurt and chagrin.

  “I…” Cordelia began, looking away from her cousin’s humiliation. “I know you meant well, but I…”

  Theodora rose shakily to her feet. “I am sorry to have disturbed you, Cordelia. I think I shall go up to my room and rest.”

  Before Cordelia could offer an apology, Theodora was rushing out the door.

  With a curse far more vulgar than those she normally permitted herself, Cordelia charged from the drawing room and out of the house. Afternoon sunlight struck her eyes, reminding her that the better part of the day remained…a day that should be filled with writing letters, making calls and administering to the affairs of the several charitable organizations to which she belonged.

  Instead of turning back to her private sitting room and the desk with its neat stack of unanswered missives and reports, she ran up the stairs, shed her morning gown, and put on her riding habit. With her trailing skirts looped over one arm, she strode out to the stable and asked a groom to saddle Desdemona. Her thoughts kept up a constant dialogue, arguing among themselves like quarrelsome jackdaws.

  You had no reason to speak to her so, she chided herself as she reined the mare toward her sanctuary beside the river. Theodora deserves better from you, and she meant only the best….

  But I do not love Donal Fleming. She kicked Desdemona into a gallop, and they flew across the grass. I am not afraid of marriage. I am certainly not afraid of marrying Inglesham.

  Yet you don’t love him.

  You don’t, you don’t, you don’t. Desdemona’s hooves beat out a muffled cadence.

  With a sharp pull on the reins Cordelia set Desdemona in the direction of the menagerie. Much to her shame, she had not visited it since her strange experience with Donal there four weeks ago. She had been afraid that the painful emotions of that day would be repeated.

  Now she faced that same risk again. Donal might be there. It was imperative that she face her fears head-on.

  Perhaps we are attracted to one another, she thought with painful honesty. It is human as well as animal nature to seek out the opposite sex. But we can control such instincts….

  She flushed as she thought of Donal’s strong, sunbrowned hands, his direct and fearless gaze, the coiled energy hidden beneath his unfashionable and ill-cut clothing. Surely he would laugh at Theodora’s claims. He was too sensible not to recognize the barriers to any bond beyond the most polite friendship between them.

  A friendship that included confidences she had never shared with anyone but, on rare occasions, the very cousin who claimed to know her mind and heart so well. She had never told Inglesham so much. She could not imagine ever doing so.

  But I have known Inglesham since childhood. He is of an amiable nature, indulgent with his friends, popular in society. He possesses the influence that could further my work. And though he is prone to the bad habit of gambling, I know I could help him, give new purpose to his life.

  While Donal Fleming, her other self mocked, is merely a working man of indifferent background, stubbornly independent, indifferent to convention, careless of how his blunt speech might be received. A man who respects your talents and intelligence without condescension, who cares nothing about the peculiarities of your childhood and youth. A man who would doubtless give his life for the weak and oppressed, be they animal or human….

  Cordelia pulled up as she crested the hill above the menagerie, scanning the row of cages. Donal was there, speaking to a child dressed in a motley collection of ragged clothing in shades of brown and green. The boy had the appearance of a beggar or perhaps a Gypsy, yet Cordelia knew of no such vagrants in the vicinity of Edgecott.

  Curiosity drove her down the hill, and as she reached its foot both Donal and the child looked up. Donal’s eyes widened in surprise, but it was the boy’s gaze that seized Cordelia’s attention. Those eyes—brown and slightly tilted in a face that seemed all pointed chin and red hair—did not belong to a child, not even one of Ivy’s harsh experience. It was as if the boy were really a man of unusually short stature, a man unlike any Cordelia had ever seen.

  Just as she had reached that conclusion, the little man began to spin until he was a blur of motion, shooting skyward in an impossible leap. Then he vanished. Cordelia swayed in the saddle, pressing her fingers into her temples.

  “Cordelia!”

  She opened her eyes to find Donal regarding her quizzically, his hand on Desdemona’s neck. “Are you ill?” he asked.

  “Only a little dizzy,” she said. She accepted his help in dismounting, tested the steadiness of her legs, and sat on the bench. “Who was that child you were speaking to?”

  “Child?”

  “Perhaps a particularly short-statured young man, with rather ragged clothes and red hair.”

  Donal rose up on his toes and settled back again, his expression blank. “I’ve been here alone all morning.”

  “I see.” She let the matter drop, arrested by the shadows under his eyes and the haggard droop of his mouth. “Have you been sleeping, Doctor?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You appear somewhat fatigued.” She hesitated. “Is something troubling you?”

  He smiled, too quickly. “Not at all. I have a deplorable tendency to remain awake long after most sensible people are in bed, and I prefer to rise early. Such odd hours come from spending so much time with animals.”

  And not enough with people, she thought. People who would see that you do not wear yourself to the bone…

  “I do not believe you are telling the whole truth, Doctor.”

  He paused just long enough that she thought he was about to confide some terrible and long-held secret, one that would bind them together irrevocably. But he only shrugged.

  “It’s nothing.” He glanced toward Desdemona. “Where are you riding today?”

  “Out to the river.” She stood up and strode toward the mare. “Since you are not in a mood for conversation—”

  “Cordelia.” His soft footsteps padded behind her, and the small, loose hairs stirred at the back of her neck. “I have missed your company.”

  “I have hardly been far away, Doctor. I believe I saw you at the dinner ta
ble last night.”

  His breath glided along her temple. “May I join you?”

  Cordelia knew how she ought to respond. She ought to escape his influence as often as possible, relegate him once again to the position of trusted employee, nothing more.

  But that in itself would be a mistake, for it would prove that she had something to deny to herself, to him and to Theodora.

  “If you wish,” she said, gathering up the reins. “You will find me along the river path.”

  Cordelia had nearly perfected an air of cool detachment by the time Donal arrived on Boreas. They rode side by side along the river, and a feeling of contentment stole over Cordelia in spite of the day’s unpromising beginnings. She told herself that she had come to terms with Theodora’s assertions. She simply had to prove them wrong, but with grace and moderation, not anger.

  She was just composing some innocuous conversational gambit when Donal halted Boreas and pointed toward a thicket of goat willow crouched at a bend of the river.

  “Do you see him?” he asked.

  Cordelia peered in the direction he indicated. “Him? Oh!”

  It was a fox, sleek and beautiful, its triangular ears pricked toward the intruders. Emerging from among the low-hanging leaves and branches were a trio of kits—round, miniature replicas of their parent, each one intent upon these strange new creatures who had ventured so near their den.

  Donal edged Boreas closer. “Did you know that both male and female foxes share the work of raising their litter? The dog fox grooms and plays with his children.”

  “That is most admirable.”

  “Yes.” He dismounted and walked a little way toward the vulpine family. They made no attempt to flee. “The male and female remain together until the kits are able to hunt for themselves.”

  “And then the male abandons them,” Cordelia said.

  “Not exactly.” Donal crouched, and the adult fox sat on its haunches while the kits began to play in the rough-and-tumble manner of young creatures everywhere. “It’s usually the vixen who sends him away…until the mating season comes again.”