The Lord Who Sneered and Other Tales

by Heidi Ashworth

  “What is your name?” he demanded as he looked down his nose at her from eyes hooded, yet perilously alert.

  Lady Sophie hadn’t the slightest desire to ascertain whether or not he sneered at her, as well, but she could not prevent her gaze from straying to his lips. Even in the dark of the night, it was clear that one end of his mouth was drawn down in a frown, the other drawn up like a perpetually skeptical eyebrow. With nary a thought for the consequences, she wrenched free her arm, took hold of one of the garden lanterns and brought it to his face. It gave her a superior view of the scar that marred his mouth while it illuminated the sweep of rich, dark hair that curled along his forehead and brought fire to the ice-blue eyes. She was tempted to spin on her heel and walk away, but she knew she would acquire no answers without capitulation. “Sir, I am Lady Sophie Lundell,” she announced as she placed the lantern on the wall between them. “Perhaps you are acquainted with my father, Viscount Vane?”

  Unaccountably, he seemed to relax at her words as he turned his back to the parapet and rested his elbows along it in repose. “Ah! Then I should think you have been properly warned against me.”

  “To be sure.” She lowered her glance so that her eyelashes hid the curiosity certain to be seen in her eyes. “Only, I suspect my father’s prejudice towards you to be monstrously unfair.”

  His air of complacency melted away at this speech, and he turned abruptly away to stare out at the lawn dotted with ancient trees that reached into the sky to form a canopy of branches through which the moonlight fell in fits and starts. “You do,” he stated in tones that wavered between doubt and, to her astonishment, hope.

  “Yes, indeed. My father is a great embroiderer of the truth. I never believe more than half of all he says.”

  “I see,” he said, yet he seemed to see nothing at all as he continued to stare out beyond the trees. She minded not at all as it gave her time to peruse his profile, one free of any scar whatsoever and possessed of a strong jaw, a perfect nose, and cheekbones any woman should envy, against which his dark hair was swept forward to mingle with his sideburns. In point of fact, he was most attractive, and she felt the scar to be regrettable. She was so absorbed with the thought that she barely noticed when he slipped an object from someplace about his person and held it up so that it winked in the light of the lantern.

  “You had best go inside, Lady Sophie Lundell.”

  Lady Sophie did not want to go inside. She wanted to find out what he held in his hand, how he came about that scar and why he was considered so villainous that her father should warn her to keep her distance. It was with great deliberation that she moved nearer and asked, “What is that?”

  He glanced at her in some consternation as if he had thought her already gone. “It’s a ring.”

  “I can see that is so, but why do you look at it with such longing?” She hoped the question might prompt a romantic tale of lost or, better yet, unrequited love.

  He turned to face her, his lids riding low over his eyes and his sneer as intentional as his words. “Are you certain you wish to know?”

  She perceived he expected her to change her mind, to falter and flee, but the knowledge merely stiffened her resolve. “Yes, I do believe so.”

  He sighed and turned his back to the trees once again so that she was forced to observe his scar in much closer proximity than before. “It is a reminder.”

  “May I ask of what?”

  “No, but something tells me you shall, just the same.”

  She thought she caught the beginnings of a genuine smile tug at his mouth but could not be certain in light of the scar that pulled the corner of his mouth, always upwards. The mere possibility made her smile, herself, at the thought, and she reached to take the ring from him for closer inspection.

  “Tell me, of what does it remind you?”

  He allowed her to take the ring with an air of surprise that she suspected had less to do with her boldness than his unanticipated surrender. “What else?”

  “What? You cannot mean your injury. Surely you never forget it.”

  “But, of course! I am not accosted by it but once or twice a day in the mirror. The ring, tucked into its place where I am always sure to feel it, reminds me of what others continually see whilst in my presence.”

  Lady Sophie now had more questions than before. “But, where do you keep it hidden?

  “Dear lady, you go too far!”

  His indigence seemed to point towards a man with a far finer set of ethics and morals than she was taught to expect from Lord Trevelin. As such, her questions were mounting in number at an alarming pace. Certainly he would not deign to stand on the veranda with her for the entire evening. She must formulate a question that would cut to the heart of the matter.

  “Then answer me this,” she demanded, her heart racing in anticipation. “Why has my father painted you such a Bluebeard?”

  He turned to face her as he leaned into the parapet, one forearm resting along it and the other poised to pluck his ring from her hand. “Surely you have heard tell the story?”

  Sophie returned the heavy gold signet ring engraved with a monogram so elaborate as to be indecipherable in the near darkness, and uttered a sigh of exasperation. “Should I inquire if I had?”

  “Your kind always do.”

  “How can you make such an uncongenial remark? We have only just met.”

  “True, but I am familiar with your sort.” He favored her with a look of challenge, then seemed to think better of it as his eyes dropped to the ring he held between his fingers.

  “By that you mean that I am young and untried, accustomed to getting my own way and willing to go to great lengths to do so; that I have my father wrapped around my finger like a twine of silk, and attempt to position every man I meet the same.”

  “Hmmm, yes, that would be the measure of it,” he said, then added a hesitant, “perhaps.”

  “Then I am in some way different?” She suspected she was, though in what manner she did not know.

  He drew a deep sigh and turned again to lean over the parapet and face the trees. “It would be best should you return to the party,” he said, placing the ring in the palm of his hand and squeezing it tight.

  As she was thoroughly enjoying herself, she had no intention of doing any such thing. “Oh? And why is that?” she asked as she turned to rest her arms along the parapet alongside his.

  “Because,” he said as if addressing one with the wits of a child, “it is not seemly for you to be seen with me.”

  “Why ever not? You are a peer of the realm, and I am a viscount’s daughter. We have both been invited here tonight. We are doing no harm; we are simply conversing.”

  His head dropped in what seemed to be resignation, and he drew himself up to face her once more. “Then you have not heard the tale.”

  She turned to peer into his face, as well, and looked directly into his eyes so that he might see the truth in hers. “No, I have not.”

  He gazed back at her for a moment, and she saw how his scrutiny touched her hair, her lips, her throat. Quickly, he placed the ring, large enough to fit over his evening glove, onto a finger of his left hand and clasped the knot of gold in the palm of his right. “Well then, Lady Sophie, if you wish to know, I shall tell you, but you must look away from me, or I shall not speak.”

  “Are you afraid I shall think you hideous?” she asked, but he did not answer her that. As she spun about in obedience to his request, she felt her heart squeeze with compassion and determined to refrain from wounding him if she were able. “Then, let us survey the sky, and I shall hear your tale.”

  “If only it were my tale,” he mused.

  “Whatever do you mean?” she asked as she turned to look at him in curiosity.

  “Pray, do not! You must mind your promise or I shall seek out your father. Do not doubt that he shall most certainly send you home.”

  Lady Sophie could not imagine what harm might arise from studying his face whilst he spoke
. Aside from the scar, it was a handsome face in spite of his saturnine expression. There was a hollow look about his eyes as well that stole the light from them. ‘T’was a great pity but, perhaps, pity was the very thing of which he wanted no part. “I do promise, my lord.”

  “Very well, then, if you must have the tale, I shall give it you. It is not a very long one, and when it is over, you might return to the enjoyments of your first ball.”

  “Why do you presume it to be my first?” She almost turned to him in astonishment but recalled just in time that she must not.

  “All unmarried young ladies adorned in silver spangles and eyes of dew are enjoying their first ball.”

  She had hoped he would say something along the lines of: If you had been out of the schoolroom before now, I should have remembered that face, that hair, those eyes. But he did not. It was all very lowering.

  “Then I was wrong to believe I am different.” He did not correct her, and she was taken aback at the pain the omission caused her as if hundreds of tiny needles pierced her heart. “Perhaps you are most correct, my lord,” she said quietly, “in that I should not be here with you. Mayhap I should find my father and have the whole of it from him; or from Lady Avery or Sir Anthony or anyone else present at the ball tonight.”

  He grunted his concession. “You might as well have the story from my lips as any other’s. I only hoped to prolong the moment when you should walk away from me. I cannot force you to remain if, once I have told you all, you should wish to leave my side. Nevertheless, I pray you shall see fit to keep me company a while longer.”

  She felt as if she were playing with fire but play with it she must. “Confess all and then shall I decide.”

  “Very well. As I said, it is not a long tale.” He took a deep breath, removed the ring from his finger and placed it on the wall where he might keep it in his sight. “A decade past, I abducted a young girl for the purpose of forcing her to my will. Or so the story goes.”

  Lady Sophie felt she should, at the very least, gasp. Though she felt his revelation was entirely wicked, she had expected a crime far less predictable and far more romantic. “That is rather dull. Or is there more? Did you hold her at gunpoint? Or perhaps you used a knife?”

  “Of course not! I am not so vile a man. And, as it happens, she was not entirely unwilling to run away with me.”

  “Who was she?”

  She felt him shrug against her shoulder. “Nobody knows.”

  “Surely you know, as well as what has happened to her. Did she marry? Or did you bury her out on the heath somewhere?”

  He threw back his head and laughed and, forgetting her promise, she turned to catch him with a genuine grin on his face. She was astounded to see that his scar had no power to mar such a smile and that his entire face was transformed from that of the saturnine to the sublime.

  “Lady Sophie, you are an original. No one has ever before posed such a question,” he informed her with a sidelong glance from eyes that still twinkled with merriment.

  She could not restrain an answering smile and obediently turned away to stare at the vast lawns before she asked for more. “Then, she is not dead? Of a broken heart? Or a tainted reputation?”

  “You make it sound like child’s play, but it is not that simple.”

  “But you promised to tell me the tale,” she admonished.

  “Yes, I did. I did not, however, promise you the truth.” This admission seemed to dislodge a load of care from his shoulders; she could feel the ease of tension from where she stood, and he now seemed nonchalant, almost carefree. She, however, felt like a child who had been fobbed off with a morsel when she might have had the whole cake. Nevertheless, she could see that he was far more amenable at this moment than any other.

  “Very well, then. I have made my choice. I shall remain here on the veranda if you shall tell me the whole of it. I shall not forget myself again and look at you as you speak.”

  “It is no longer of any consequence,” he said as he turned once again to rest his side against the parapet. “I can’t say why; I don’t believe I know the answer. As to any other questions, I am persuaded I must keep my own counsel.”

  “Then I shall go,” she said, her heart falling as she moved towards the lights and the music, but, once again, he was quicker than she and grasped her by the hand. With a great show of reluctance, she allowed him to pull her towards him though her gaze remained downcast.

  “I have wronged you, Lady Sophie. I did not lie, but neither did I tell you the truth. I am astounded that you chose to linger as long as you have with such a villain and wish only to part as friends.”

  She looked up at him and saw not a sneer but a frank and disarming smile and eyes that gazed back at her in full sincerity. “I do not believe, my lord, that you are wicked, in spite of the wickedness you lay claim to. It is my decided impression that you have been assigned much depravity on account of that scar. If you should only smile more often, I suspect others would forget it as completely as have I. Yet, how might one expect such a felicitous circumstance when you insist on never forgetting it, yourself?”

  He let go her hand as he took the ring from the parapet and enclosed it in his fist. “I mustn’t forget. It would lead to…to expectations the realization of which should prove impossible.”

  She laid a hand on his arm. “I, for one, do not believe anything to be impossible.”

  He stared down at her white-gloved hand against his black sleeve, then looked up to gaze into her eyes. “If only the world were peopled with Lady Sophies.”

  His manner extolled greater intimacies, and she did not hesitate to slide her hand down his wrist and grasp his fingers tightly in her own. “Then I am correct in my assumption that the scar came before the loss of your respectability?”

  “Is that so extraordinary? He drew his fingers from hers and donned the ring in their place. “Scars such as this hardly appear in one’s sleep.”

  “Yet, if you had no such scar, I am persuaded Society’s collective memory of the incident that created it should barely number one year, leave alone ten.”

  “Touché, Lady Sophie! Any man would envy an intellect such as yours. If the deed that sunk me below reproach were the same as the deed that made the scar, I should concede and gladly, but it was not. In point of fact, my injury was the result of a righteous act if you judge me capable of such. Yet, it led to evil as sure as if the Devil were the author of the whole from the beginning.”

  “Then the beginning is where you must start.”

  With a sigh, he turned away from the house to lounge against the stone wall. “It is not a short tale and is one which the hearing of will deprive you of a triumphant splash into society tonight. Yet, if you wish to hear it, I find I cannot say you nay, try as I might.”

  “Why is that?” she asked as she moved to stand, companionably, by his side.

  He favored her with a questioning look from the corner of his eye, one that raked her from head to toe. “It is less than rare when a woman grants me the favor of her presence for longer than it takes to execute a Quadrille, leave alone one of such beauty.”

  His naked admiration caused Lady Sophie to burn with an emotion with which she had had little acquaintance. It was both exhilarating as well as somewhat distressing and left her casting about for a suitable response. “Handsome is as handsome does, my lord. Those who should shun you for anything as inconsequential as a scar is not worth as much as the time it takes to perform the opening bows.”

  He had no immediate reply to this. Instead, he lifted his hand so that it hovered over hers for a moment before he snatched it away and uttered a harsh laugh. “And yet I remain more alone than even Bluebeard.”

  Lady Sophie felt his misery like a cloud of ice over her heart. She thought of her loving father and mother, her bothersome but adoring younger brothers and sister and her devoted governess, all who peopled her life with companionship and affection. How should she find value in a single day of her existence
without them? Impulsively, she placed her hand over his fingers so that the ring was thoroughly obscured. “Should it be easier, now, my lord, to tell the story?”

  He closed his eyes as if pained beyond measure. “I have no use for your pity, Lady Sophie,” he said through gritted teeth. “And I shall tell you naught save my assessment of the weather if you do not remove your hand at once.”

  Wounded to the core, she did as he commanded. “There is your ring laid bare for your perusal, my lord. I wish you joy of it.”

  He opened his eyes and looked at the ring as if to sear its image into his mind. “You do not know what game you play at, Lady Sophie.”

  “I am at no game, my lord. I only wish to see you heart-whole. If that ring holds the origins of your solitude, then why remind yourself continually of what you have suffered?”

  He turned his head to stare at her, the expression in his eyes one of misgiving and his mouth pulled taut so that the scar was a white gash in the light of the moon. “The answer to your question is one I cannot abide. Perhaps you might tell me, Lady Sophie, how to choose differently than have I. First, however, you must know whose ring I wear.”

  She nodded her approval and, with hammering heart, awaited the beginning of what she hoped should prove the rejoinder of her many questions.

  “I suppose you have the acquaintance of Mr. Rogers-Reimann, have you not?”

  “But of course! He is a close friend of my father. He and his wife have been to visit my home on many occasions.”

  “Should it surprise you to know that he is my younger cousin?”

  “Younger? Yes! But, how odd! I had always thought he was of an age with my Father.”

  “Indeed,” he said with a nod. “It is his habits that have aged him so. However, he was not always such. He was once a young man, more charming than comely, and, though I had always thought him a bit oafish, well-enough admired by the young ladies.”

  With his words, the intricate design of the ring resolved into a double R. “The ring is his, then, is it not?”

  He nodded. “He gave it me in payment for saving his life, or, perhaps, as compensation for my wounds.” He ran a finger over the scar at the corner of his mouth in a gesture Lady Sophie surmised to be a well suppressed inclination.