Lovesong

by Valerie Sherwood

  With a slight glint in her eye, Carolina brought up the subject with Rye as they strolled late that afternoon through the snowy gardens of Broadleigh. The sun was low and there was a mist in the air for the afternoon had been warm.

  “Ah, you have heard about that?” he murmured, and a grin broke over his face. “I thought the lad no force to reckon with but I hardly imagined that he would break and run! I was of no mind to let him off without some souvenir of our meeting so I lunged after him as he fled and lightly pinked the part nearest.” He studied her. “You do not approve?”

  “Oh, yes, I do approve.” Carolina’s lips quivered from trying to hold back her own mirth. “For you have done him no great hurt. But I imagine the stories about me will be even wilder now!”

  “Oh, I doubt it,” he said easily. “Those who saw me work out with the blade will have told that story around as well, and there will be few who would care to offend the lady of my choice.”

  The lady of his choice. . . . The phrase rang clear upon the evening air and for Carolina the words suddenly stilled the sighing of the wind through the snowy branches.

  For there was a growingly possessive look in Rye’s eyes and a warmth in his voice when he spoke to her, a warmth that she felt could mean only one thing: He was going to ask for her hand in marriage.

  He was going to ask, and in spite of all she had said to herself about loyalty to Thomas, in spite of all her protestations to Reba and her noble resolves, it was going to be a wrench to say no to him. . . .

  Chapter 17

  The remainder of the Twelve Days of Christmas in Essex were a time of trial for Carolina. She felt torn, battered.

  Rye Evistock remained a guest at Williston House, where he had been staying since the ball. From there he rode over every day. Rye kept a stem grip on himself, believing Carolina to be virginal and untried and not yet ready, even though he could not but sense the interest gleaming behind those shadowed lashes. But although he yearned for her, he bore in mind that he had promised not to pounce “unless invited.” And Carolina was careful not to invite him for she did not trust that inner Carolina who had been too deeply stirred by their first kiss. So she was careful to keep people around them—or at least to stay within sight where she would have the quick excuse, “Oh, no— people will see,” in case he got too close. And every day she strolled with him, or rode with him, or sat opposite him in the long drawing room of Broadleigh and wondered how long she could keep up this sham that she was a free woman, free to choose—instead of a woman betrothed.

  Whenever she weakened, there was Reba, tugging at her arm, giving her little digs with her elbow, almost wringing her hands when they were alone: “Oh, please, Carol, just a little longer—I will be eternally in your debt!”

  And indeed she found it exhilarating to walk beside that tall commanding figure in gray, noting the power in his light booted stride. It was exciting to know that the sword that swung at his side was feared throughout the county, to smile into that dark, dangerous-looking countenance and imagine for a treacherous moment that she was once again in his arms. . . .

  Oh, Thomas was getting short shrift these days—it was Rye who occupied Carolina’s thoughts.

  He had become her champion—and indeed she needed one, for as Reba ruefully put it, her outspoken Colonial tongue was constantly getting her into hot water—as witness when she again crossed swords with Dolly de Lacey, this time in the Beaumont ballroom just before Twelfth Night where the young people, who had just concluded an energetic game of Blind Man’s Buff, now returned to join their assembled elders for dancing and refreshments.

  Mistress Dolly’s blue eyes narrowed as she saw Carolina stroll back into the room surrounded by eager young bucks. She felt it diminished her position as belle of the county to have all this uproar over a mere Colonial who was visiting the upstarts at Broadleigh. Carolina had reached the center of the big room with its rows of pier glasses marching down the sides and reflecting the assembled company—everybody in the county who “counted”—when Dolly spoke. She gave Carolina, fresh and lovely in her blue and silver gown, a look of pure malice and her piercing voice carried across the room.

  “My father says that Colonials are so much trouble,” she said in a baiting tone. “Always desperate for more credit. . . .”

  Carolina’s eyes flashed at this aspersion on the hard-pressed Virginia planters. When her voice rang out, it was in defense not only of Fielding Lightfoot, but of all the rest. “My father says the laws are wrong else he would not have to ship his tobacco to England so English merchants”—she emphasized the words, staring straight at Dolly, whose father, she’d just been told, was not only a younger son of an old Essex family but a London merchant who reshipped Colonial goods at great profit all over Europe—“can trig out their wives and daughters in”—her gaze dropped insolently to Dolly’s ermine-trimmed velvet gown—“velvet and ermine.”

  Dolly, who had not expected such a hot rejoinder, bridled, and a red spot appeared in each of her cheeks. “That is treason!” she said sharply.

  “That is truth snapped Carolina. “And ’tis high time you heard it!”

  Her clear voice had carried to Rye, who was watching them sardonically. Now he grinned and sauntered over as the music struck up.

  “Allow me to claim our combustible Colonial visitor for a dance,” he said, sweeping her a low bow.

  Carolina took to the floor with her color high, so much so that with her flushed face, her blue and silver gown and her cloud of gleaming white-metal hair, Lord Hollistead, watching, was moved to remark to Sir Kyle, “Our little Colonial wench is red, white and blue—like a flag, is she not?” and Sir Kyle beside him murmured, “Aye, she is—and Rye Evistock carries her like a banner flung on high.”

  The two approving older men were not the only ones whose eyes followed the vivid couple whirling about the floor. A few paces away a vengeful Dolly stood tapping her gold-chased fan across her kid-gloved hand and watched as well.

  “You’re a hot-headed wench,” Rye told Carolina, amused.

  “Dolly got no better than she deserved!” she protested. “My father and all his friends are constantly in debt and ’tis all because by law they’re not allowed to sell their tobacco for the best price, but must needs send it over to England so the English merchants can reap the profits! Indeed they do not even know what price their crop will bring or whether they will have a profit at all until they hear from their London agents!”

  “Life is deucedly unfair,” agreed Rye urbanely. “And what would you have us do?”

  “Change it!” declared Carolina promptly. “Be fair to the American Colonies! Go to the King—”

  “Who is busy with other matters,” murmured Rye.

  “His mistresses, no doubt!”

  “Ah, a firebrand indeed.” But some of the humor went out of his gray eyes. “But I’d lighten up on that tack. This King has a vengeful nature and you’ll wear out your welcome with the Tarbells if you speak out against him too harshly. As a London merchant, Jonathan Tarbell well knows on which side his bread is buttered.”

  “Thank you for your warning, Rye,” said Carolina bitterly. “But ’tis time ‘this King’ came to view his American Colonies and witnessed their plight.”

  “Ye’d do well to heed my advice,” he warned her.

  “I never listen to advice,” she told him coldly, taking an intricate step that swung out her blue velvet skirts. “I follow my own judgment!”

  “Spoken like a foolish wench,” he observed as those pliant skirts rippled back to flutter between his legs as he took a long graceful step and swung her around again. “But if you continue in this line—gossip being what it is—there’ll be speculation that back in Virginia you deal with smugglers’ ships. Remember, you live on the coast.”

  “On the Chesapeake.” She tossed her head, careless if her silver-gold hair lost a few pins.

  He grinned. “A lovely bay for smugglers. But once gossip starts, hot words are l
ike to become fact in everybody’s mind. You could do your father a disservice if you cause him to be thought disloyal!”

  Carolina gasped. “Why, no more loyal man ever lived!” she protested, and it was true, in spite of the fact that Fielding Lightfoot had sometimes been driven to desperation by the Crown’s disregard of Colonial problems.

  “Just so,” he said dryly.

  Carolina subsided, smoldering. She must watch her tongue here! And that would be hard when there were wenches like Dolly about!

  She was still thinking about that when her host begged her for a dance and in a pun about her name told her that she “had indeed a light foot—the lightest foot in England!” Carolina smiled perfunctorily—she had heard that line before. She was about to make some light rejoinder when the music stopped and a surprised voice behind her said, “Why, ’tis Carolina Lightfoot, I’ll be bound!”

  She turned to see the only one of Lord Thomas’s friends to whom he had ever introduced her, Lord Reginald Fanshawe, dressed in mauve velvet and with his ever elusive dark wig, which seemed to have difficulty staying on his head, inclining slightly to the right. His hazel eyes were alight with interest as he impetuously claimed her from their smiling host and whirled her out upon the floor.

  “Is Thomas about?” he asked.

  “No, gone to Northampton,” said Carolina.

  “Ah, that’s where he said he was going,” sighed Lord Reggie. “A pity. I’d hoped he’d be around to liven things up!”

  “I didn’t know you lived in Essex. I thought Thomas said—”

  “Oh, I don’t,” Lord Reggie hastened to inform her. “I live at Little Grange near Ipswich, Suffolk, just as Thomas told you. But I’ve an uncle here in Essex and I’m making the rounds of my relatives before I’m off to Somerset to be married in February.” He sounded a bit rueful and she guessed that he hated to leave the excitement of London for the quiet countryside.

  “I’m surprised Thomas let you from his sight,” he said frankly, looking at her admiringly for she was indeed a blue and silver wonder in Reba’s expensive ballgown. “Indeed I’ve never seen Thomas more taken with anyone!”

  Carolina felt her face flush beneath that admiring gaze.

  “When did you see Thomas last?” she asked.

  “Just before I left London. He was going the other way at the time.” He didn’t enlighten her with the fact that Thomas had been headed for the wedding in Kent at the time he had begun to “make the rounds” of his blood relations. “Come to think of it, Thomas gave me a letter for you. I was to drop it by the school on my way out of London but I forgot all about it when my horse took it into his head to buck me off right atop a fruit vendor’s cart and the fellow wanted reparations for his apples. It quite rattled me when I remembered I’d just spent my last guinea and I had to gallop off as if the constable was after me!”

  “A letter?” Carolina asked quickly. Thomas had sent her a letter! “Oh, I hope you didn’t take it by the school after all?”

  “No, I’ve got it on me someplace—in my boot, I think. I’ll dig it out for you later. But why shouldn’t I have taken it by the school?”

  Carolina recounted what Clemency Dane had written them and Lord Reggie gave a silent whistle.

  “Well, I’d heard of Jenny Chesterton of course, knew she ran with Lord Ormsby and that crowd, but somehow I never connected her with Mistress Chesterton’s school! Suppose nobody did—different kettle of fish altogether!”

  Carolina agreed and, impatient for her letter, went with him to a curtained alcove where he bent down and fished about in his boot, and finally found a somewhat crumpled letter which he thrust into her hand.

  “There,” he said, giving the wig he had nearly lost in his search a slap that sent it tipping precariously over his left ear. “And that’s my last errand of the Christmas season before I’m off to Somerset!”

  Nervously Carolina broke the seal. Her own guilt at how she was enjoying her stay in Essex—indeed, how she was enjoying Rye Evistock’s attentions—gave her the uneasy feeling that there would be some dreadful retribution inside; perhaps the letter would be filled with reproaches. But there were none. Indeed it was a lover’s letter, fond and vibrant.

  “My heart's darling ,'' Lord Thomas wrote (and he had written it with some passion for he had yet to meet dark enchanting Catherine Amberley when he had penned it just before departing for the wedding in Kent). “I can hardly tear myself away from London, knowing I leave you here—indeed I am half of a mind not to go. I fear to see you lest my resolve weaken and so am penning this note which Reggie will leave for you at the school as he leaves London. Rest assured that not a day, not an hour will pass but that I will think of you and miss you, every night without you will find me tossing in my bed unable to sleep for thinking of you. I pray you be faithful to me for you are the one woman, the only woman, who will ever have my love. I will come round to call upon you as soon as I return, never fear I shall forget—despite another letter I have received yesterday's eve from Northampton importuning me to hurry home for my sister is taken ill and they fear she may worsen. Should that happen, they intend to send me a message to hasten—but do not worry your pretty head, dearest, for my sister Millicent was ever a sturdy lass and will shortly recover from her distemper.” And he signed it, “Ever your own Thomas ”

  Carolina put the letter down with a pounding heart. Now she knew why Thomas had left London without coming to see her—he had received a message that his sister had worsened and he had dashed away, not sparing his horses! And she had thought him faithless!

  “What does he say?” demanded Lord Reggie irrepressibly.

  “He says”—she blushed—“he says he will hasten to call on me the moment he returns to London.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” grinned Reggie. “For as I told you, I’ve never seen a man so taken with anyone as Thomas is with you. Lord, he could speak of little else! Well, I had thought not to be able to deliver the letter—”

  “Why?” she interrupted. “Are you not going back to London at all?” For she had been hoping to send Lord Thomas a message by way of his friend.

  Lord Reggie slapped his thigh. “D you know, you’ve given me an idea? Indeed I just might! If I rode away tonight, making my excuses to everybody, I’d have time to sweep through London and have me a game or two and say goodbye to old friends before making the long cold trek to Somerset! Damme, I’ll do it!” He jumped to his feet, throwing back the damask hangings, eager to be gone.

  Carolina had been about to say, “Will you carry a note to Lord Thomas?” But before she could voice her request, Lord Reggie was saying energetically, “I’ll just turn you over to”—he cast quickly about him—“this gentleman here!” And she saw that Rye Evistock had magically appeared outside the alcove. “And I’ll be off!” cried Reggie merrily as Rye stepped forward to claim her.

  Gone was the chance to write to Thomas, gone was the chance to send him a message. Confused as to how she felt, Carolina let Rye lead her out onto the floor.

  “Who was that fellow?” he asked as they moved into the graceful pattern of the dance.

  “Lord Reggie Fanshawe.”

  “Oh, I know his name,” he said impatiently. “Who is he?”

  You mean, What is he to me? she thought, and was guiltily aware of the letter from Lord Thomas which she had just stuck into one of her big side panniers, which billowed out the better to reveal her handsome petticoat.

  “He is a London acquaintance,” she said with perfect truth—and stopped with a vexed little cry as the letter from Lord Thomas fell from her pannier to the floor at their feet.

  In a single smooth gesture Rye’s long gray velvet arm swooped down and he retrieved the letter without missing so much as a step of the dance.

  “And he came, I take it, to bring you this?” he shot at her. “Delivered in private, in an alcove?”

  Her face was flaming. She had the ridiculous feeling of being found out. “No, of course not! It was just t
hat he had the letter for me in his boot and he needed to sit down to get it out! I am sure,” she added with an attempt at humor to divert him, “that if Lord Reggie had removed it while standing he would have lost his wig entirely—for it seems to sit ill upon his head!” That steady gray gaze was on her, very direct and level. Over Rye’s shoulder she could see Lord Reggie, very jaunty with his wig now sitting askew over his right ear, bidding his host and hostess goodbye, and taking his leave. She could now lie outrageously for Lord Reggie would not be here for Rye to question and trip her up!

  “Lord Reggie did bring me upsetting news,” she told Rye in a suddenly confiding voice. “The letter is from one of my schoolmates, who is a cousin of his— Clemency Dane.”

  “I was not aware that the Fanshawes and the Danes were related,” he murmured.

  Oh, God, she thought. I had forgot that the Fanshawes are from the next county and Rye knows their connections! Aunt Pet always told me that liars trap themselves! But she was committed to her course and plunged on. “Clemency Dane has written me bad news about the school.” She told him of Jenny Chesterton’s mishaps, ending with, “I intend to go back but I am sure my mother will retrieve me as soon as she hears what has happened!”

  A smile quirked the corners of his lips and she felt a wave of relief go through her—he had accepted her story completely; it was evident in the sudden relaxation of his manner. “Perhaps you will choose not to remain in London,” he suggested, “but will go even farther afield.”

  To Barbados, he was suggesting. . . . She thought of Lord Thomas’s impassioned, “I pray you be faithful to me for you are the one woman, the only woman, who will ever have my love.” And of Lord Reggie’s admiring, “I’ve never seen Thomas more taken with anyone. ”

  In the tumult of her clashing thoughts she missed a step and Rye smiled down at her confusion, for he thought he knew the reason for it.