He was wrong, of course.
“It is to Virginia I will go if my mother has anything to say about it!” Carolina admitted truthfully.
He laughed, a low rich laugh. “But perhaps your mother will not rule your heart?”
No, she thought, suffocated by this double-dealing role she was playing. Lord Thomas will rule my heart. But of course you do not know that. Lord Reggie could have told you—but he is gone, and Reba will make very sure that I do not tell you, she will plead and storm and I will give in. She felt very ashamed of the role she was playing—and even more ashamed of the fact that her pulse quickened whenever Rye touched her, even with the light touch of the dance, and that her heart beat unsteadily whenever he came near.
I am like my mother, she thought miserably. Knowing what is wrong, but unable to keep a straight course. And again she felt that pull of emotions as he turned her about lightly in the dance and his sleeve chanced to brush her breast.
Her color flamed again and she turned her face quickly away from him, hoping to hide the way she felt—and heard, in agitation, his low laugh.
She was deeply glad when one of the young bucks who pursued her—and whose name in her confusion she suddenly could not remember—claimed her for the next dance. For even being near Rye had become a tumultuous experience that made her heart thunder and her knees grow weak and her senses sway. He is sweeping me off my feet, this gentleman of Essex, she thought in a dazed breathless way—and felt, like a stab, the sharp corner of Thomas’s letter graze her hip through her billowing pannier. And what kind of a woman does that make me?
Shortly after, Reba pulled her aside. “I know you’ve had another brush with Dolly,” she told Carolina. “But you must watch out for her. I’m told she carries tales.”
“What tales?” asked Carolina absently, for her mind was on her own mixed feelings.
Reba gave an expressive shrug. “Anything she can get her hands on. I’ve been pumping one of the chambermaids and she says that everybody knows Dolly is to blame for Robin Prestwood’s breaking off his romance with Elvira Carr. It seems that Dolly carried a tale about what Elvira had said about Robin’s drinking—and it was only half true and anyway Elvira was laughing when she said it; but Robin took it to heart and now he has married somebody else!”
Somehow that story of Reba’s sobered Carolina more than Rye’s earlier warning had. It told her on what gossamer threads was gossip built.
“I have more important news,” she told Reba. “I have just had a letter from Thomas! Lord Reggie brought it.”
Reba’s expression went suddenly wary and her figure in rosewine taffeta seemed to stiffen. “What does he say?”
“Oh—only that he misses me and will call upon me at the school the moment he returns to London. He said he had received word that his sister was ill in Northampton—I am sure her condition worsened and that was why he left without telling me goodbye.” She shivered, all too aware of her divided heart. “Oh, I wish—I wish I were going back to London right away, Reba. Tonight! I wish I had asked Lord Reggie to take me along!”
“Lord Reggie would promptly have taken a room at the inn in Chelmsford on grounds that the weather was too cold for the horses, and you’d have found yourself in bed with him!” laughed Reba. “For I took pains to find out about his reputation after you told me you’d met him. He’s near as wild a blade as Thomas!”
“Thomas is none so wild!” Carolina gave her friend a reproachful look. “Oh, I know he’s changed!” Reba said instantly.
“Oh, don’t desert me now, Carol—for I can see it on your face that you’ve half a mind to! If you do, Mamma may make one of her sudden moves—and you will be to blame for my downfall!”
I will be to blame for everything, apparently, no matter how things turn out, thought Carolina with resignation. For Thomas, for Reba, for Rye—oh, what a mess I have gotten myself into! And the terrible thing is—I don’t seem to want to get out!
“Look out,” warned Reba. “Dolly and two of her friends are converging on you—and I see she’s waving her fan at a great rate despite its being so cold in here! She means to make you say something before witnesses that she can quote to your disadvantage!”
Plainly Rye Evistock was of the same opinion for he appeared just then, cutting out two young bucks who were fast approaching, and swept Carolina out onto the floor right under Dolly’s disappointed nose.
“I think I have just saved you from saying something that could land you in jail!” he grinned. “For I overheard Mistress Dolly brag that she was going to bait you on the subject of tobacco planters.”
Carolina’s silver eyes glinted. “I would have given her as good as she sent!”
“I feared as much,” he laughed. “Better you not meet!”
Flawlessly, Carolina executed an intricate dance step. “I thank you for saving me, sir!” she mocked. But there was no mockery in her heart—or in her glowing eyes. Oh, Rye, she thought yearningly. How alike we truly are! I feel I know what you are thinking even when you do not open your mouth. And even before I need you, you intercede for me!
For Rye had become her protector here in Essex. Of that there could no longer be any doubt. And— Carolina was guiltily aware that that was the way she wanted it to be.
THE TWELFTH NIGHT BALL
BROADLEIGH, ESSEX
January 6, 1688
* * *
Chapter 18
It had snowed again and the Essex countryside was an icy fairyland on the evening of the Twelfth Night Ball. It was being held at Broadleigh, for Mistress Tarbell was letting no grass grow under Broadleigh’s newfound popularity. She was astute enough to realize —galling though it might be—that their newfound popularity came to them via her daughter’s beautiful school friend, that any lady Rye Evistock squired was bound to be accepted by the community and, along with her, the family of “upstarts” Rye’s current lady was visiting. So, craftily, she was giving the ball in Carolina’s honor, knowing that Rye would personally take offense at any refusal to attend such a ball. For Nan Tarbell was a woman of no illusions. She knew that improving her grammar and changing her name to “Nanette” and sending her daughter off to a fashionable school had made no dent at all in the local gentry.
The ball tonight, she promised herself, would.
Outside, the grounds were a shimmer of snow and ice, and the boughs of the old trees were encrusted with a fresh fall of snow; the very twigs glistened. The air was cold and clear and carried with it the distant tinkle of sleigh bells as all the nearby county gentry streamed toward the Twelfth Night Ball at Broadleigh—just as Nan had dreamed.
Inside, Broadleigh had a glitter of its own. The Yuletide season had come late to Broadleigh, but it had come at last. As decorations for the upcoming ball, boughs of cedar and branches of holly had been placed everywhere, and a long garland of holly wound its way up the balusters of the wide Jacobean staircase. Mistletoe cascaded from the chandeliers, and wine (“enough to float away London,” one guest would be heard to murmur) sparkled from expensive goblets. The serving staff had been increased threefold for the occasion and unfamiliar servants were tripping over each other and getting lost in the maze of corridors. Had Nan had time, she would have refurbished the entire house for this gala occasion, but as it was she had trotted out all the silver she owned, all the best linens, and raided all of the goodies from the capacious cellars.
The musicians had been brought up from London and had already consumed too much ale. By the time the guests arrived they were studying their instruments with bloodshot eyes and muttering tipsily to each other that it was a good thing they were to play from yon minstrels’ gallery—that is, if they could make it up the narrow stair that led to it—for otherwise they might fall hiccuping among the dancers’ feet.
Upstairs Carolina and Reba were watching the finishing touches being put to their hair by a brand new hairdresser brought up from London along with the musicians, for all the regular help had been pressed int
o supervision of the new servants.
“’Tis wonderful of you to lend me this new gown, Reba.” Carolina studied her reflection in the long mirror; it gave her back a glory of crystal-encrusted pale ice green velvet, swirling skirts and an elegant figure-hugging bodice that outlined deliciously her soft breasts. At the sides those supple velvet skirts were drawn up into puffed panniers above a rippling ice green satin petticoat that matched the ice green satin ribands that fell in a shower of brilliants from her piled up silver blonde hair. “Indeed,” she murmured, “I have let you do far too much for me.” And if I had not accepted so much, I would not now be wondering what to say to Rye Evistock when I trail downstairs in this lovely gown. . . .
Reba caught that troubled note in her friend’s voice. “But just think what you are saving me from!” she cried instantly.
Carolina turned to study Reba, who looked strikingly handsome in an attention-grabbing gown of champagne taffeta worn with a black velvet petticoat and trimmed in acres of trailing black lace. Her contemplative gaze took in the big garnets set into bangles in Reba’s auburn hair and the garnet and feather fan she was wafting experimentally as her long russet eyes narrowly considered her reflection in the mirror.
How could anyone wish to be “saved” from Rye Evistock? she asked herself silently. Reba’s marquess must indeed be charming! Why, if she had not already promised herself to Thomas—! She let the thought die aborning, for it was a dangerous thought—one of many dangerous thoughts that had crept into her mind lately. She told herself briskly that she must get herself back to London—that would set her back on an even keel! And all would be as it had been before between Thomas and herself. ... A sense of desperation seized her. She would use some pretext if necessary, she told herself restlessly. Perhaps she would tell her hostess she had left valuable possessions at the school which must be personally collected. . . .
Meantime, she was flirting shamelessly with Rye Evistock, holding him off but leading him on, leading him to expect—!
Nan Tarbell, hoping to bring her own daughter into prominence, had told Carolina that she need not be on hand to receive the guests but could come down later. Carolina understood and took the hint. But her troubled thoughts were still with her when she drifted like an ice green vision down the great stairway into a sparkling sea of guests and found Rye waiting for her.
He cut a handsome figure indeed, she thought with a sudden pang, for all that he was tall and dark—and she had always mistrusted tall dark men as being too much like her father! For all that his clothes were not flashy and memorable like Lord Thomas’s, that French gray velvet coat rode his broad shoulders masterfully. And the strong hand that emerged from a froth of white lace below a wide velvet cuff to sweep the tricorne from his dark head as he made a leg to her was a fine hand, strong and chiseled like the features of the sardonic face that looked down on her, smiling. Then once again—as fashion dictated—he donned the tricorne and offered her his arm.
“I had thought to be greeted by you at the door,” he told her.
“Mistress Tarbell said my presence would not be required,” she said, wishing her voice would not always go so breathless at the sight of him.
“But the ball is in your honor,” he protested.
She gave him a mocking look from her silver eyes. “Not from Mistress Tarbell’s point of view. She only said that because she assumed people would come lest you be offended.”
He shrugged. “I am not so much feared as all that.”
“Are you not?” She took his arm and melted with him into the crowd. She could not help noticing, as always, how many people spoke to him warmly, how many friends he seemed to have although he claimed he had hardly seen his home for years. He was a man who enjoyed the company of his fellows and it was hard to imagine him supervising a plantation every day, living a life of isolation. Easier to imagine him traveling, seeing new places, new faces.
“You don’t really stay in Barbados, do you, Rye?” she shot at him. “I mean—all the time?”
Something wary came into his eyes. “Not all the time—I’m here, for instance.”
“You know what I mean!”
“Well, someone must manage the plantation.”
“Then you really are a planter—like my father,” she mused. “I can hardly credit it!”
“Not quite like your father perhaps.” He was laughing now. “I would imagine his lands are better managed!”
“Well, I didn’t mean just like my father,” she amended. “I meant like all the planters, Sandy Randolph and all the rest.”
“Perhaps more like Sandy Randolph,” he said thoughtfully.
“You know Sandy Randolph?” she asked in surprise, for when she had mentioned the name before he had not remarked it.
“No,” he said. “I do not know him—but I have heard of him.”
Of course, she thought. Captain Mercer! The garrulous gentleman who had told Sir Kyle about the goings on at “Bedlam” would have regaled him with wild tales about Sandy Randolph too! About his gambling— losing Tower Oaks and winning it back in a single evening at the Raleigh; about his being one of the leaders of the Tobacco Rebellion, though never caught; about the time he had leaped from the roof after saving his mad wife from that dreadful fire that she had set—endless stories could be told about him.
But Rye’s rueful tone when he spoke of his plantation had surprised her. Somehow she had imagined a man who seemed so competent to be competent in all things. She thought of her mother, so efficient in managing the plantation when her father was gone. “Perhaps you need a wife,” she mused, “to share in the responsibility.” And she was instantly sorry she had said that, for his gray eyes flamed.
“Perhaps I do,” he said softly as the music struck up. “Perhaps I do.” He saw several young bucks bearing down on them and promptly led her out upon the floor. “But tell me, had you the choosing, would you prefer life in England to life in the West Indies?”
He was asking her—oh, no, she had hoped to push off this moment which she had felt coming all along.
She had hoped never to have to give him her answer, to be away, back in London, before ever he could propose —and now he was on the brink of asking her!
“I think—oh, I do not know what I prefer!” she cried. “At the moment all I wish is to dance the night away!”
He looked down at her tenderly, this girl that he was swinging about in the dance. How fragile she was, with her shimmering hair and luminous eyes, how ultimately feminine. He felt that if he were to handle her at all roughly that she would crumple in his arms, a broken doll. Seeing her now in her floating ice green gown sparkling with brilliants—that same color she had worn when first he had laid eyes on her—he marveled that he had had the temerity to drag her summarily up the stairs at the Star and Garter, to thrust her in to wait for his return! Only one woman before her had he held in such reverence as this—and she was dead. She had been a dark vision and her memory had kept him solitary, faithful to an old dream.
But now that dream was fading and another was taking its place: Carolina. Carolina, in all her youth and—as he imagined—innocence. Carolina, a bright new goddess to fill his empty heart and send his soul winging.
Caught up in love for her, he had found himself thinking all manner of wild thoughts: to improve his life, to cease his wild ways, to be worthy of her.
Like a candle flame, she wavered tantalizingly before him.
He would win her, he must!
And did she not care for him even now? Could he mistake those shadowed glances, that winsome smile that bade him welcome? Had she not responded tremulously to his kiss? Did she not willingly turn away from other suitors?
All that must mean something surely!
But did she care for him enough? Was he but a young girl’s fancy? For still he imagined her virginal, untried. Riding home day after day from Broadleigh, remembering how she seemed to be warming to him, he had told himself with a surge of confidence that he
would be the first to stir her from misty unformed dreams, the first to hold her, the first to love her. . . . And that she would respond to him he had no doubt—respond wildly, for he felt in her something reckless and headlong that he knew all too well in himself. And perhaps —something lost as well. . . . And it was that lost kitten quality that he sensed in her, that made him hesitate lest by moving too fast he might frighten her away. Life’s bitter blows had taught him patience. All things in their own good time. . . .
Meantime the Twelve Days of Christmas had sped by on golden wings. And now it was Twelfth Night and the time for decision was upon him. For safe passage back to the Indies aboard the Windward Lass awaited him in London if he chose to take it. But she would sail no later than tomorrow night. He must make his decision now. Tonight.
And that decision—and all that it would mean to him, for it well might cost him his life if he decided to stay—depended entirely on this wisp of a girl in his arms who for some reason refused to meet his eyes. He put that down to maidenly confusion at being so nearly asked to wed.
“Is there some young planter back in Virginia perhaps?” He asked the question reluctantly, knowing there must be someone somewhere for such a golden girl. “Someone who claims you?”
“No, there is no one back in Virginia,” she told him in a suffocated voice. But there is certainly someone who claims me and will be back in London looking for me, perhaps tomorrow!
“Good,” he said softly. “I had hoped that would be the case.”
She noted with alarm that he was holding her even more confidently now!
Suddenly she saw a way out. Rye, scion of a threadbare aristocracy, was a planter. And like the tobacco planters of Virginia who were always skirting ruin, he must be in desperate need of money for had he not been dickering with wealthy Jonathan Tarbell for a daughter he had never seen? To gain her dowry! The only alternative was a wife who would be a financial asset, who could run a plantation.
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