by Cari Hislop
“I haven’t been invited to the ball. I’m delivering a gift. I’m not expected. If you could ask His Grace…” She was urgently ushered up the stairs too hurried to see people staring at her dusty black travelling gown, sturdy leather boots and the silk shawl around her shoulders emblazoned with a gleaming image of the sun. She clutched the wrapped package tighter under her arm as she was propelled from behind through the ballroom doorway and into the arms of a man trying to leave. “I beg your… Oh!” She looked up into adoring pale blue eyes and felt her lower limbs dissolve as strong hands steadied her and then reluctantly let go. “Forgive my dust; I look a fright.”
“You look like a goddess who’s raced her chariot through a dust storm.”
“You’re making me blush.” The come hither smile made her cheeks burn hotter. “I didn’t mean to intrude. The servants pulled me inside hissing something about ‘before nine to please the devil’.”
“I’m the devil and they’ve certainly pleased me. I was hoping you’d come, if only for the other me.”
“I came to give you a birthday gift. I’m sorry I hurt your feelings. It was wrong of me to talk about you as if you weren’t standing there in the flesh.”
“Don’t apologise…”
“Really Lyndhurst, must you have a tête-à-tête in the doorway?” An elegant young man with black hair rudely pushed past. “I’m fit to burst and if you don’t move I’m not going to reach a chamber pot.”
“Jackanapes!” Geoffrey’s roar drew curious eyes. “Blasted relations, where was I? Don’t you dare apologise to me. I was a worm, but if you’ll allow me to kiss your…”
An old woman hobbled up to Tolerance and peered at her through a lorgnette. “Ah Mrs Spencer, we haven’t seen you for months. Have you been travelling?”
Tolerance opened her mouth to answer, but her pleasant reply was drowned out by her friend’s rage. “Do you need spectacles Madam? We’re having a private conversation. Go away!”
“Honestly! I knew you were the devil Lyndhurst, but I didn’t think you ill bred. Your poor mother…”
The old woman hobbled away as Geoffrey bashfully turned repentant eyes towards his friend. “I sound like a selfish tyrant, but you can’t fault me for being upset with that nosey witch. It feels like forever since the last time…” His pale unhealthy skin looked drawn as if the pain in his head was somehow stretching his face.
“Geoffrey…”
“Let me finish.” Sinking to one knee he stared at the dusty hem of her gown as a curious silence rolled over the room. “Those vile things I said…I was jealous and I couldn’t give the man you loved a black eye or dig him up and sell his corpse to a medical school. Forgive me I beg you.”
“I forgave you before you’d left my house. Let me help you up…” He took her offered hand and reverently kissed her fingers. “Everyone is staring at us. There was no need to humiliate yourself.”
“The Dukes of Lyndhurst always kneel to their superiors.”
She smiled and shook head. “I thank my knight in pale blue velvet for the compliment, and assure him it is a sublime privilege to wear his colours.” The ballroom exploded with hushed speculation as Geoffrey jumped to his feet, his face flushed with pleasure. She took his offered arm and allowed him to lead her away from the ballroom and down the hall, but every time he opened his mouth to speak another group of relatives would stop and demand introductions to the Duke’s companion and then ogle her in disbelief. Tolerance sighed in relief when he opened a door and pulled her inside. All she could see was the fire and the lamp light on the mantel casting shadowy shapes across numerous drawings of her face.
“What the Devil are you doing in here?” Tolerance turned to see two people jump up from the floor behind the desk and dust off their clothes. “Get out! This is my study not a barn.” The two young people hid behind their arms as they fled, slamming the door after them. “Cursed relations!”
Tolerance laughed as she watched the man’s reflection watching her in the mirror over the mantel. “Are you including all relations in your curse Geoffrey? Your poor future wife…”
“The last time I called on my chosen Duchess she banished me. Unless she changes her mind I won’t ever have a wife.” He glanced at her with longing and then walked away to open the door. “I don’t want you to think I might do something thoughtless.”
“Geoffrey, I felt perfectly safe.”
Chapter 29
Geoffrey gulped down the aching hunger, folded his arms and forced himself to keep breathing. After months of deprivation his angel was within reach. “For pity sake Angel, don’t insinuate you trust me if you don’t mean it. I know I’ve been a heartless prat, but your good opinion means everything.” She was watching him in the mirror, her hair shimmering silver in the lamplight. It was odd to see her hair tightly plaited and coiled at the back of her head. He wanted to rush to the fire, pull out her hair pins and let it fall free to her hips, but he didn’t dare go near the fire. He’d put his arms around her and cover her with kisses. She might never speak to him again.
“I’ve never been afraid of you.” He gargled on relief. “This is a charming room Geoffrey. It must be quite pleasant in daylight.”
She turned back to face him filling his stomach with butterflies. He’d almost forgotten how lovely she was in the flesh. “I spend most of my time sitting in here…thinking of you.”
She left the fire and returned to the desk. “It would be difficult for you to think of much else considering my plain face is all over the walls. The servants must think you’re mad.”
“It’s the face of an angel; it inspires me to be kind…or at least to try.”
“That’s one of the things I love about you Geoffrey, you have a habit of saying the most flattering outrageous sentiments which I know are quite sincere.”
“And you have a habit of warming my heart with your sunshine and making me feel like I’ve risen from the dead.”
Smiling, she held out a wrapped package. “Happy birthday Geoffrey.” She moved closer until he could feel her shoulder against his arm. He slowly opened the gift and silently read the inscription in the front cover of the manuscript.
Beloved Geoffrey,
I’ve tried to faithfully reconstruct the events of your missing years since we met. I have interspersed the history with my feelings, our personal letters, and entries from my dream diary of nights spent with you in a sunny garden. I could not have survived all the lonely months without you if I hadn’t been able to meet you in my dreams. I would not be surprised if I’ve loved you forever.
Your friend,
Tolerance
“That’s so odd, I’ve been having dreams where I…”
Geoffrey’s words were severed by his ward running into the room holding high a lit candle and flinging herself into her sister’s arms. “Tolerance! I knew you’d come…”
“Blast it child, you’re going to burn down my house.” He took the candle and set it safely out of reach on the desk. “The open door wasn’t an invitation to enter. I’m having a private conversation in my private room.”
The two women ignored him causing uncharitable thoughts about his ward. “Charity? What are you doing here?”
“Hasn’t he told you? His Grace purchased my freedom and saved me from an old Irish Lord as a present for you. Isn’t he wonderful? I’m penniless, but he says I get to live with you and marry whoever I please. Doesn’t it make you want to kiss him? I’d kiss him only I know he’d hate it.” The younger woman dropped her voice to a hush that everyone could hear. “Ever since I arrived he’s asked endless questions about you. I swear he can talk about you for hours without tiring of the subject.”
“Good evening Mrs Spencer, I hope you’ll forgive me for not calling on you before you left London, I was in Paris.”
The room turned with various expressions towards Jonathan Grey leaning in the open door way. “Hello Mr Grey. I see you’ve met my sister.”
“His Grace introduced
us.”
“Did he?”
“Take the child away Grey, before I…”
“I’m not a child. I’m almost the same age as Tolerance when you fell in love with her.”
Geoffrey’s cheeks were suddenly feverish as his ward ignored his glare. “That is a piece of impertinence!”
“How can the truth be impertinent?”
“Because I’m a…” Geoffrey’s roar cut off mid sentence as he noted the Angel’s raised eyebrow. He knew she was silently saying the word ‘tyrant’. “Because I wanted to be the one to tell your sister that I love her. Do you mind?”
Charity covered her mouth with her hands in genuine distress and stared at the two lovers. “Have I ruined your proposal?”
Geoffrey clenched teeth and decided silence was the only sane option. The sisters embraced one more time before the young beauty disappeared on the arm of the dazed Johnny Grey. “I wanted to be the one to tell you that this worthless heart beats to…”
“I’ll wager my Christmas guinea he’s going to kiss her.”
“Ugh! She must be blind. Who’d want to kiss the Devil?”
“My Papa told my Mamma that the Devil has to pay ladies for kisses.”
Tolerance walked over to the door and gave the children a stern silent look that sent them running back down the hall. Closing the door she turned the key in the lock before returning to smile at him. Geoffrey stood there with his arms folded feeling like a trompe l’oeil dummy-board painted to look like himself and propped up against his desk to scare away intruding guests. “I’ve missed you Geoffrey. I was very disappointed when I didn’t hear back from you or see you riding like the devil up my drive.”
“Thomas stole my letter. I was waiting to sign the paperwork to save your sister from being married off to that old lecher. Every morning I’d wake up and have to overcome an agonising urge to order my coach and set off for your blue skies.”
“How much did you pay my parents?”
“A fraction of what I should have paid for you.”
“When Charles died I tried to buy her guardianship, but they wanted five times what I could pay. Thank you for saving her.”
“After what Spencer did to you I couldn’t love you and let your sister risk the same fate. That evil bastard. If Spencer wasn’t dead I’d kill him…slowly.”
“How do you know what Spencer did to me?”
“You told me.”
“I’ve never told anyone, though his servants probably told the world after I sacked the lot of them the day after he died.”
“I remember you telling me…Oh wait, it was in the garden. As I was trying to tell you before your sister interrupted, I have these dreams where I meet you in a garden. You’re always in a white short sleeved gown with your hair undone. We never wear shoes because the sky is always blue and I often find you lying in the grass watching the clouds, but my favourite part of the garden is the fishpond. It has these large red and gold fish that have an uncanny stare as if they’re wondering… What’s wrong Angel? I assure you nothing unseemly ever happens. Well, in the first dream you stomped on my foot, but that was only a sort of misunderstanding.”
“Geoffrey, that’s my dream!”
“What do you mean your dream?”
“In my dream garden I always wear a white short sleeved dress and you always wear white trousers and a shirt open at the neck…”
“Well I wouldn’t be wearing a gown.”
“There’s a wooden bench built around a large willow. The bench has strange carvings that look like some sort of writing and in the far corner of the garden there’s an ancient yew tree with a trunk so large you could carve it into a house.”
“And when we play hide and seek you often hide under its branches because you like kissing me in the cool shadows…”
“…because they make your warm kisses feel…”
“…divine.” The study fell silent accentuating the distant hum of laughing people and cheerful the music in the ballroom.
Chapter 30
Tolerance felt a lump in her throat as painful words insisted on being expelled from her heart. “I wish you had bought me as a child bride. I’d have grown up knowing I could trust you. I would have looked forward to the day I could lock a door and find myself in a half lit room at the tender mercy of my beloved friend.” Large tears like liquid diamonds glinting in the candlelight, rolled down her cheeks. “I would have been the most excited bride to wear orange blossoms. I would have stepped into your arms without fear.” He held out his arms and she blindly stepped into his embrace and relaxed against him as she’d done countless times in the garden. “The reason I refused you was because I was afraid you’d hurt me, that you’d turn into Charles Spencer.” Silent arms held her tight as she sobbed ugly words into his waistcoat. When she finally looked up her eyes shimmered with tears. “If you marry me will you be kind and hold me until I’m not afraid?”
“Sunshine, are you asking me to marry you?”
“Is that very impertinent?”
“Tolerantly impertinent; if I marry you, will I get to hold you in my arms like this at least once a day?”
“I’m afraid you’d have to hold me at least once an hour.”
“Would I get to kiss you at least once an hour?”
“I’d think you unkind if you didn’t.”
“Then I accept. What sort of ceremony did you have in mind?”
“Something private…something soon.”
“I still have that special license. We could marry tomorrow…or…”
Clutching his coat she stood on her tip toes. “Tonight?”
“Tonight?” He pressed a joyous wet kiss to her cheek. “I’ll make you my duchess if I have to kidnap a priest and persuade him at pistol point to perform the ceremony. Wait here…I’ll be right back.” He was half way to the door when he stopped and rushed back. Picking her up he swung her in circles and kissed her on the lips before letting her go and running back to unlock the door. “You there…” The maid froze in terror. “…order my carriage, I’m getting married. Where’s my mother? In the dining room? Good…” He took several steps down the passage before turning and rushing back into his study. “What am I thinking? I can’t leave you here alone. You might fall over and hit your head and forget you love me. I couldn’t bear it!”
Blushing with pleasure, Tolerance laughed as she was pulled out of the study and through the house at a run. She insisted on catching her breath outside the doorway to the packed dining room and watched the tall slender man joyfully weave his way through servants and guests to his mother’s chair. There was a warm comforting peace in her heart. It was the right choice. Her friend suddenly turned around to look for her, the adoring boyish grin filling her heart with love. She returned his smile and laughed as the Duke of Lyndhurst waved his hand and eloquently paid her homage with an old fashioned bow and then blew her a kiss over the heads of staring people. Happiness bubbled through her veins, but in a secret corner of her heart she felt a strange urgency, as if each minute delayed was a minute lost. She brushed aside any thought of future sadness. There was too much to be happy about. She bit her lip as she wondered how the coming evening would unfold. She ignored the anxious butterflies in her stomach and reminded herself that there was nothing to be afraid of. She was going to wed her dearest friend; she’d be safe.
***