Lady of Spirit

by Edith Layton

  The earl had remembered the Swansons’ invitation, indeed, he seemed to recall his valet telling him about one each day since he’d returned to town, although he knew that couldn’t be true. But at least when in distress the name had floated to the top of his mind and he found himself exceedingly grateful for being able to escape from himself here, so grateful in fact that almost immediately after his arrival he asked the nearest of the platter-faced Misses Swanson for a dance. She refused him. She was to regret it a hundred times that night alone, and to build a great fiction of an infatuation on his part to warm herself with several years later, after she eventually married young Lord Bryant. But she really did have her card filled by then, by a dozen young gentlemen who also felt they owed a favor to her father.

  The new-made earl took it for insult, however prettily the refusal was given. But he wasn’t given to brooding, so he shrugged it off and waded into the festivities, determined to enjoy himself.

  Another, younger Miss Swanson he solicited for the dance was passing fair and might have been a mute, he thought, for all the answers he got to his polite conversation, until her piercing giggles given in reply almost made him miss his step. Miss Darling was a pretty little thing, but her mama made all her conversation for her. Miss Chapman had a cat, she seemed to think it the height of wit to speak about it ceaselessly, but then, the Honorable Miss Lamont had a lisp, which she seemed to regard as equally enchanting. Miss Fontaine was not very handsome but she was very wealthy, indeed, she told him so several times, and the Incomparable Miss Merriman was incomparably lovely to be sure, and was as impressed by the fact of it as she seemed to hope he was.

  By the time he’d passed an hour at the Swansons’, he’d decided he’d encountered the cream of the current crop of debutantes still in London, and they appeared to be exactly like the ones he’d met when he first came into society, and all the ones he’d met since. And, he thought, for all he remembered or cared, they might well have been the selfsame ones, at that. Although he didn’t enjoy their company, he was grateful to them for reminding him just why he never sought them out, and was wondering how soon he could leave the premises without giving offense when a delightful vision swam into his view.

  “Hallo, Clune,” a slight young gentleman said at his side as he gazed forward. “I’m Grayson,” he went on, offering his hand. “We met at Tattersall’s, remember? Well, this is m’ sister,” the graceless fellow murmured, “Lady Honora. She was on fire to meet you. Lady Honora, may I present Colin Haverford, Earl of Clune. There, that’s done. Don’t look daggers at me, Horrie, I’m off. Ta,” the young man said, and true to his word, he backed a step and evaporated into the press of people, leaving the earl to look down at the most charming young person he’d seen all night.

  She was small and dark, just as Melissa Careaux was, but there all similarity between the two females ended. For although she was shapely with huge dark eyes and a curving pink mouth as well, Lady Honora was innocent of paint and powder, her dark hair was smooth and stylish, and her eyes remained downcast beneath thin brows and unusually long dark lashes. She was all that was demure and all that was dainty. The earl led her into the dance with great care, for everything in her aspect bespoke her delicacy of mind as well as of face and form.

  But she had a great deal of conversation, although it appeared to be all in the form of queries. At first, like any male, he was vastly pleased and flattered by her interest in himself. Soon he found himself telling her, during the dance or on the sidelines, then at late supper and over ices, not only about his adventures in the Caribbean, but also all about his family and his holdings, from his London home to his hunting box to High Wyvern Hall itself. In fact, she was so full of questions that he soon grew weary with hearing his own voice. About then, he began to discover that the lovely young creature was more interested in knowing about property he’d acquired than time he’d passed in the islands, and far keener on hearing about his acquisitions than his opinions. By the time her untouched ices had melted, his own heart had frozen, and he had the vague, errant thought of offering her a note to his man of business so that she could document his fortune and dealings with more exactitude.

  But she was an earl’s daughter, and he was a gentlewoman’s son, so he bore with her questions with fortitude, although his answers grew briefer and terser as the hour grew later. The admiration had gone from his eye, and watching her with unclouded vision as she chewed over the latest information about the acreage of his Scottish estate along with her bit of damson tart, he decided that she wasn’t so much ingenuous as immature, she was not so much sylphlike as undeveloped, and not half so attractive as Melissa, whom perversely, he now began to long for.

  He had to be called back from his reverie twice, the second time sharply, before he attended to her again.

  “Terribly sorry, Lady Honora,” he answered in a not terribly sincere tone. “What was it you wished to know now?”

  “Oh no,” she tittered, making so much play with her lashes that he wondered how she ever got to see anything if she always lowered them for effect whenever a gentleman looked at her. She’ll end up marrying the wrong fellow, for she won’t recognize him unless the vicar names him, if she doesn’t take care, he thought whimsically. “It’s only that it’s so close in here,” she pouted.

  “The evening’s at its end,” he commented, pushing the crumbs of his cake into a triangular pattern, destroying the star-shaped form he’d previously created as she’d interrogated him about the number of rooms at the Hall.

  “Oh, not yet,” she said, putting one little hand at her breast in alarm. “Why, how time has rushed past us! I wouldn’t have believed it”—she smiled at him—“but it’s still far from over for me,” she sighed, “for Papa lingers in the card room until he’s won back all he’s lost, or until they throw him out, and in either case that could be forever. Won’t you accompany me out into the courtyard for a breath of air? I hesitate to go there by myself, my lord.”

  Because she’d made him laugh, and because she’d said it so prettily, and because she was an earl’s daughter and he was trying to be a gentleman, he agreed at once.

  And it was not too much longer than that before he desperately wanted to go back into the Swansons’ house.

  “Lady Honora,” he pleaded as he held his head high and back from her searching lips and tried to extricate himself from her clutches, for the girl seemed to have become some sort of Indian goddess once the darkness had covered her and appeared to have grown herself an extra dozen pairs of arms, “I think you ought to go back to your parents.”

  It had been comfortably cool in the night air, and when she’d stopped strolling and turned to look up at him, he’d expected another dozen questions about his estates and had instead been shocked to find her flinging herself forward into his arms. He reacted by holding her as though she’d stumbled, to prevent her doing herself an injury, and then found her arms wrapping about his neck and her mouth seeking his, but fortunately finding only his chin before he’d actually taken a stumbling step backward himself.

  He didn’t have time to think of much but a fervent prayer that her father was occupied with losing his entire fortune and her brother had met with a fatal accident, for it would be worse than fatal for him, it would be wedlock, if he were discovered in her embrace. He hadn’t the least desire to welcome her touch because of that dread thought. Then too, he’d had a surfeit of yielding female bodies since he’d came to London, he could have remained with Melissa for that, it was company for his uneasy spirit that he’d been after tonight. Then he had no more time for futile prayer, he had to concentrate all his efforts on freeing himself. He never would have guessed that such a slender girl had such strength in her slim arms. As he struggled, feeling more foolish by the moment, he was reminded of a grape vine that he’d once tried to unravel after it had encroached on his mama’s favorite quince tree.

  “Lady Honora,” he breathed at last, stepping back a long pace so that she’d h
ave to actually throw herself forward to reach him, and he’d still have a chance of dodging her embrace if she did, “it’s possible you’ve had too much punch. It’s possible it’s the full of the moon. But whatever it is, I suggest you forget it. Now, you have a choice of either entering the house again with me, or going by yourself. But I’m returning now.”

  She seemed to fall docilely into step behind him and he dared not venture another word until he held the French doors open for her and achieved the lighted ballroom, which he now regarded as sanctuary in very much the same spirit in which a medieval felon with a howling mob at his heels would regard a cathedral.

  He wondered what he would say to her, but even as her toe touched the floor, she wheeled around and snarled, “Capon!” at him, before she marched away.

  He decided not to leave at once, feeling it would be better not to run if he’d committed no crime. So he stayed to chat for a few moments with a number of persons whose comments and conversation never registered with him, until he saw a florid gentleman, all smiles, with the Lady Honora’s brother at his elbow, shouldering his way through the throng in order to step out the French doors into the courtyard. They returned a few moments later, the elder gentleman not smiling at all. He spat a few words at Lady Honora’s brother before he stomped off into the card room again. The younger man stood back and eyed the crowd. Then, spying the earl in their midst, he ambled over to him.

  “Papa’s had the worst run of luck at cards for some time, you know,” the younger fellow said softly. “I congratulate you on your footwork,” he added coolly, “but then, I understand you actually worked in the fields once, so I suppose that explains it. Next time, I think we’ll choose a true gentleman,” he sighed, and bowing, left.

  If it was meant to be a cut, it never even stung, and the earl was so blithe when he stepped back into his carriage that his coachman smiled at the way the soiree had cheered up the master.

  Once home, the earl poured himself a libation and raised it in a toast to himself when he was alone in his bath. He celebrated his quick-wittedness and his continuing freedom. He’d recently said, he recalled with an ironic grin, that he didn’t know if he would dare attempt an earl’s daughter. As it turned out, he hadn’t, but for very different reasons than he’d meant. He’d heard stories about the sort of entrapment he’d almost fallen victim to; unfortunately for the lady’s family, they hadn’t supposed he would have. He may have been new to his title, but he’d gone to good schools and the most interesting parts of his education had always come in whispers after midnight. Those half-believed tales had saved him tonight. For though he hadn’t wanted the girl, had he not heard about how some impoverished gentlewomen snared wealthy, unwilling mates to repair their family fortunes, he supposed he might have stayed to cooperate with her, and be discovered by her supposedly enraged papa, if not because of lust, then out of vanity, or even for pity’s sake. And then, of course, he would have shortly been a married man, or an outcast one. He shuddered then, even though the room was warm and he’d wrapped himself around with a towel.

  It would have been a mighty high price to pay for some fumbled embraces, he thought, but then, though Melissa’s attentions cost a good many guineas, and assurance of her fidelity might be worth emeralds and rubies, society put an even more inflationary value on the touch of noble womanflesh. Then, he wondered idly before he realized what he was about to contemplate, what the worth might be of a good woman’s kiss, the value, for example, of a governess’s love? But these were dismal thoughts, he decided, annoyed with himself at such sober reasonings, and it was late, and he was weary.

  Colin Haverford made for his bed at last, as happy to see its white sheets in the moonlight as another man would be to see a lover awaiting him with wide-open arms. But once settled in its embrace, he lay there with wide-open eyes for many long hours. Until at last, he sighed as a man will with a broken heart, for he’d at last reached the end of his rope. He was lonely where he lay. It was in the end, after all his evasions, just that simple.

  He wanted no more courtesans, expensive or faithful, nor did he want a society miss, chaste or not, conniving or not. He hadn’t been tempted by Melissa or Lady Honora tonight, nor would he be again by any female who breathed, from any sphere, because he’d already found what he most desired. He acknowledged at last precisely what it was he wanted, and whether she was an earl’s daughter or an apothecary’s daughter had never been the problem. He had only wanted his freedom until now, until just now, when he finally accepted that he’d lost it long since.

  Then, at last committed, he fell to sleep as he at last could admit he’d done for all the past weeks: with her name on his lips and her face in his mind.

  But in the morning, it was Lady Malverne’s face he had to contemplate.

  *

  “My lady,” he said, bowing properly, as he received her in his study, before he waved her to a chair and took a seat safely behind the polished surface of his desk himself. Then he took care to smile down at her with just the right amount of boredom and annoyance at her arrival at his house unbidden that he thought she deserved and would expect from the head of her family. But she knew the game very well and managed to hide her own impatience and anger as well. She was of an age with his own mama, but was a smaller, rounder person, and though dressed in the height of fashion, was done all in pastels like her son Theo, from her pale blue eyes to her ash-gray hair. She might have been pleasant to look upon in a faded fashion, if it were not for the fact that her pale little eyes held a sharp expression and never left off evaluating her viewer.

  He’d kept her waiting an hour while he dressed, gave orders for his packing and travel to his servants, had a light breakfast in his rooms, and pondered the reason for her odd early-morning visit. A bit of fear that the aborted episode with Lady Honora might have had some repercussions gave his greeting a chill edge, and the remembrance of his visitor’s role in losing Miss Dawkins her original post lent his attitude a certain tension. He scarcely knew what to expect from the lady and yet was surprised to hear the immediate challenge she did issue.

  “Good morning, Clune,” she said. “And what have you done with Theodore now?”

  “Nothing that I know of. Why, what’s he done now?” the earl replied warily.

  “Only hared off to High Wyvern Hall. I understand you’ve that governess there. Has she got him in her coils again?”

  “Assuredly not,” he replied, making sure his voice retained its bored accents, as he riffled through some letters that had been left out for him.

  “Then,” his relative persisted, “why did he fly there? One moment he was off to visit with you here. Then he came tearing home yesterday, sent a volley of messages off to his friends, and then flung his clothes together, collared his valet, and fled for High Wyvern Hall, as though it were on fire.”

  “One hopes it is not,” he replied without a pause or a discernible emotion on his dark face. “And did your dutiful son not tell you the reason for this trip? For I assure you, he didn’t inform me of it, as I didn’t see him here.”

  “I was not at home,” she answered with chagrin. “He left word that he was going, of course, and some muddled story about some message from your mama being delivered whilst he was here waiting on your return, and that it was a conversation he had with the groom who’d brought it that decided him on his immediate course of action.”

  “A letter from Mama?” the earl asked, now genuinely concerned. “Ah, here it is. I came in too late last night to be told of it, although I am sure,” he said, almost to himself, “that if it had been urgent Simpson would have waited up for me to tell me so. Ah,” he breathed as he began to read it. “Aha!” he said as he read it. “Well,” he said at length, when he had done and Lady Malverne had tested her upbringing to the utmost, having managed somehow to restrain herself from snatching the missive from out his hands long since. There was an unreadable expression on his wicked dark face, the lady thought, as he arose and looked down
at her. It might have been excitement, it might even have been laughter, but as she rose and took in a breath to demand an answer, he said:

  Content yourself. Theo’s only chasing after thrills and excitement again, as might be expected of a lad his age. And it is a lady whose presence accounts for his absence all right, but it’s one of high birth and rank. Theo’s obviously on fire to meet her. The only problem is that she’s dead. And has been for several hundred years. My ancestors seem to be stirring. It appears,” he said, “we’ve got a ghost afoot in the Hall.”

  *

  There was only so much haste a good team could make, and so much time it took them to travel, even if they were sprung and then changed at a posting house halfway on the journey. And since that journey could not have been set out upon at dawn, it having been decided upon after breakfast in the first place, and there being a necessity to stop at Lady Malverne’s house to collect up her things and her maid and leave a message for her brother wherever he might be, in the second, the journey had been delayed. It had been delayed further by the heated argument that had ensued, ending only when the lady had threatened to cast herself in front of the earl’s horses if he left without her.

  It was not the scandal, he vowed later, when he sealed her into the coach with a mumbled good riddance, that prevented him from preventing her. It was, he said bitterly, before he mounted his own horse to travel outrider style, the thought of the mess in the street. Thus assured of her welcome, she sat back in his carriage, having gotten as good as she gave, now convinced that there might be some worth to the new earl after all.

  Although two days’ journey had been compressed into one long haul, it was still night, and deep night, at that, when the coach and riders at last pulled up in the courtyard in front of Wyvern Hall. Exhaustion made unlikely camaraderie, and the earl gave Lady Malverne his arm as they made their unsteady way up the stairs to the great oak doors. Even then, when the doors swung wide to admit the master and his guest, they exchanged weary and compassionate grins with each other, acknowledged survivors of a mad ride, as they crossed the portals into the grand hall. But the blackness within caused the earl’s smile to fade.