by Jo Beverley
She smiled in sympathy, wanting to run out and let the same wind blow her hair and clothes, down by the edge of the wild sea. Alas, alas, that she was Priscilla Penfold and not Lady Skylark.
When he came in, bringing crisp, salty air with him, she said, “The windblown, I assume,” referring to the fashionable hairstyle.
He grinned. “Definitely.”
“I saw you speak to Farouk. Is his English good?”
“Fair, though heavily accented. He confirms he’s from Egypt. His master is not well but improving. They plan to stay here indefinitely. That’s it.”
“I tried the pictures on the visiting Dr. Nesbitt, Mrs. Grantleigh, Topham, and Jean, the maid. Jean and Mrs. Grantleigh thought they might vaguely recognize the older picture, but surely if it looked like Dyer, whom they saw recently, it would be more than that. Nothing at the King’s Arms, I assume.”
“Just the expected rumbles about heathen savages.”
“Then there’s nothing for it but invasion. Farouk’s out, though where on earth is he going?”
“Not far in this weather. It’s too risky,” he added. “Invasion, I mean.”
Laura twitched her shawl into place. “Nonsense. I can try sociability. Priscilla Penfold would do that as a cover for her nosiness. Should I send a message through a servant? No”—she headed for the door—“simply knock.”
“Laura.” He caught her on the way to the door, as he had in Caldfort. His hand sizzled on her arm.
Perhaps he’d meant to stop her, but he let go and stepped back. “Very well. But be careful. I’ll be on guard. Don’t hesitate to scream.”
“I am the best one to do this,” she said, understanding. “Priscilla is precisely that sort of curious meddler.”
“I know.”
She smiled her thanks, then, correct manner in place, ventured into the corridor. As there seemed to be no other guests up here, she wasn’t surprised to find it deserted. All the same, she stayed in character and minced along to tap on the door next to Stephen’s.
Hearing nothing, she knocked harder. Ear to the door, she thought she heard a faint movement. “Captain Dyer?” she called in a fussy voice. “It’s Mrs. Penfold, a fellow guest. I wondered if you would like some company, sir.”
Silence.
She’d expected that.
“Are you all right, sir?” Having given reason for her concern, she turned the knob.
Again, the door was locked. Disappointing, but it supported her hopes. If Farouk locked the doors when he left, Dyer was a prisoner. If Dyer was a prisoner, he must be Henry Gardeyne, Harry’s savior.
She glanced behind and saw Stephen watching her. She waved him back. If this was the parlor, then the next door must be the bedchamber. She walked along and tried that one.
It, too, was locked.
She returned to the parlor door and tried another knock, but heard nothing to indicate anyone was there at all.
She returned to Stephen. “He made one slight noise.”
“If he wanted to be rescued, don’t you think he’d make more? And you’re only just in time. Farouk only walked down to the sea, as if wanting air. He’s almost back.”
Chapter 30
Stephen was sure he would be a lunatic soon. Enacting a stage kiss, when he wanted Laura in his arms with passion. Letting her go into danger, no matter how slight. Sharing these rooms, assailed by her perfume and her body.
Even his bedroom now seemed to carry a ghostly hint of her fragrance. He was going to have to spend another night in that bed, surrounded by it, aware of Laura so close with nothing between them—except honor.
A sane man would want to be free of this torture as quickly as possible, but he dreaded the end of the brief adventure. It was clear that Laura, however, was desperate to be done with it.
“They might be becoming suspicious,” he said. “That was the second time we’ve tried the doors.”
“They don’t know who it was the first time, and since I gave my name, I should seem innocent. Anyway, if Dyer is a prisoner, he may not tell Farouk. But we’re getting nowhere! Let’s go out again with the spyglass.”
“Out? The light’s going and I think a storm is rising.”
She turned to the window as if doubting his words, but surely she could hear the wind, feel it beat against the windows? Outside, dark clouds were pouring into the bay and the storm whipped the sea into white-edged blades. Anchored boats were tossing so wildly some of them might break free in the night.
“Oh, perish it,” she muttered, but then moved closer to the window. “I love storms.”
“I remember.”
He remembered her habit of running out to dance in torrents of rain, hair and clothes plastered to her. Strangely, he didn’t remember being aroused by it, only concerned that she’d catch her death of cold. Perhaps he had been a dull dog.
“I’ve only been close to the sea in a storm once before,” she said. “At Brighton. I danced at the edge of it, flirting with the crashing waves.”
“I know. It was written about in the newspapers.”
He’d been furious. Furious that she was still so foolish, that she might have been in danger, that Gardeyne had probably egged her on. That she’d frolicked as good as naked before the world.
She turned to him with a sane and rueful smile. “So they did. They disguised me as ‘a wild-spirited Thetis of fashionable society,’ with sly hints about the way the spray plastered my gown to my body. Hal was angry for some reason.”
“Perhaps he feared you’d put yourself in danger.” For the first time he felt some fellowship with the man.
She seemed surprised. “Perhaps he did. At least Thetis was famed as a good mother. Dipping Achilles into the River Styx to make him immortal. Of course she botched it, missing the heel she was holding him by.”
Was she thinking of her own son, worrying that she’d not done enough to safeguard him?
“I believe the oracle said that if any part of her touched the water it would blacken and die.”
“That shouldn’t have weighed with her. Or she should have used a rope.”
“But what if the rope dissolved? The gods never make things easy for humans.”
“ ‘As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods,’ ” she quoted. “ ‘They kill us for their sport.’ The Christian God is supposed to be more thoughtful and kind, yet Shakespeare was a Christian.”
“Perhaps we all have times when we doubt the benevolence of God. As during any war.” But then he grimaced. “This is too weighty a matter for a stormy night.”
“Especially when I’m out of sorts because we’ve done a paltry day’s work. Jack could be on his way tomorrow.”
“But is not likely to be. Remember, he and Lord Caldfort have no reason to think there’s urgency. Caldfort may not have told him yet. He may never tell him. Tomorrow the town will be busier. I’ll go around and see what I can find out. And if necessary, we’ll enlist the smugglers and invade.”
He was rewarded with a smile, but then a powerful gust shook the whole house, making Laura look around anxiously. “It won’t be so hard to play nervous Priscilla Penfold tonight. I love storms, but I have no taste for having a building blow down around me.”
He wanted to take her into his arms, to comfort and protect her, but that would raise a different kind of storm. “Look on the bright side. If the walls come tumbling down, presumably we’ll finally see Captain Dyer.”
“At the gates of heaven.”
She was truly anxious, and he might have gone to her, but with a knock the maid entered with wood for their fire.
Having built up the fire and filled the box with logs, she asked, “What will you like for your dinner, sir? We have a Flemish soup, and cock-a-leekie, and good fresh sole, poached or fried. There’s the capon as was cooked with the leeks and a kidney pudding, and to follow, a ratafia dish and a bullace pie.”
“Not the kidneys, please,” Laura murmured, and he remembered that she’d always disliked th
em. He also thought he heard her stomach rumble. He could at least feed his lady.
He ordered the leek soup, fried sole, capon, and both pastries. She had a sweet tooth. “And Topham’s best claret,” he added, “with port and brandy to follow with cheese.”
When the maid had left, he smiled at Laura. “I trust that will do.”
She laughed. “You heard my stomach’s demands. Perhaps a storm stimulates the appetite.” She gave him a strange look and hurried on, “Shall we read Guy Mannering aloud? We can take turns.”
“If you wish.”
She went to her bedchamber to get the book.
An occupation that would bar any personal conversation, Stephen thought. That kiss had clearly alarmed her, though he thought he’d controlled himself heroically. If he’d managed any true heroics, she might be more impressed, but she was right; it had been a paltry day’s work. He was at a loss how to better it without resorting to crude measures, such as breaking down a door. Under cover of the storm, perhaps?
Laura took a moment to collect herself. Stormy appetites, both for food and for a man. The wind rattled the building but it was the deep-throated roar of the sea that shook her, and the pounding beat of it that she felt from her feet up.
She remembered that time in Brighton. Hal had run out to her and swathed her in a cloak, berating her. But when they’d reached her bedchamber, their loving had been some of the best and fiercest ever. She almost felt it now, a fierce, pounding pleasure to the rhythm of the sea.
She swallowed, straightened, and returned to the parlor.
Stephen was sitting in one of the two chairs that bracketed the fireplace. She took the other.
Like a married couple, she thought, but again, she and Hal had rarely if ever spent quiet, domestic evenings. If Hal was sitting opposite her with nothing to do, he’d already have that look in his eye. . . .
She hastily opened the book and began to read, doing her best to slide away to Sir Walter Scott’s Scotland. The plight of orphaned Lucy and the return of Guy Mannering from India seemed to meld with the storm, however, whispering of forbidden desire.
After a while, she passed the book to Stephen, hoping listening would be more calming, but she’d forgotten how well he read. He put on no airs and didn’t try to act out the parts as if on the stage. He simply read the words, letting them spin out the story in her mind, though soon she was hearing him rather than the drama. Simply him.
The arrival of the meal was a relief, though Laura wasn’t sure she could eat. At soon as they sat at the table, she realized that they needed a safe topic of conversation. Safe. Was anything safe tonight? Politics! A dry enough topic for a convent.
“Tell me about your adventures in Parliament.”
“Adventures?” he said, serving her soup. “Hardly that.”
“They must excite you at times.”
“But they would bore you.”
She halted her spoon between bowl and mouth. Moments ago she’d thought the subject dry, but she was hurt by that.
Perhaps he colored slightly. “Let’s say that I don’t know how to make amusing stories out of it.”
He thought her nothing, a mindless skylark. “Why don’t we talk about military reform?” she said briskly. “I know that many of our brave soldiers are now left in a sorry state.”
“Yes, but that’s a separate issue except in the matter of pensions. They are inadequate and often hard to obtain.”
“Can’t that be changed?”
“It’s all tied in to the purchase system. . . .”
By the time they moved on to the main dishes, they were talking back and forth about issues of importance and Laura was no longer trying to prove a point. She was fascinated. When Stephen said, “We have to do something about the situation of children in factories and mines,” she heard the we as acknowledgement that they were talking as equals.
Not lovers, and she was weak enough to feel a pang at that, but mental equals. “Factories are certainly terrible places.”
“Yet industry is beneficial,” he said, taking more meat. “It creates wealth and employment and leaves workers less dependent on the elements for survival. Consider this storm. Such a wanton act of nature ruins crops and blows away winter fodder.”
She pushed aside her plate, frowning at him. “You think factories are better? People work such long hours and are often injured in the machinery. Even children.”
“You are surprisingly well informed.”
It was like a shock of cold water. “Surprisingly? Why do you persist in seeing me as having a head full of feathers? I beat you at chess, remember.”
He suddenly smiled. “Yes. But can you claim to have been an eager consumer of information about social hardships and legislation back then?”
She wanted to, but it would be a lie. “I am truly interested now. Children not much older than Harry are put to work. That cannot be right.”
He nodded. “That’s why we need legislation. We’ve brought in laws to control the cotton factories somewhat. They’re the worst offenders. Little fingers, they say, are nimbler. But there are so many others. Pudding?”
Laura was not much interested in more food, but she took a little ratafia pudding as he served himself to bullace pie and thick cream.
She ate a spoonful, smiling at him. “So you’re charging in there, lance lowered.”
“I hope you’re not seeing me as Don Quixote, tilting at windmills.”
“Sir Galahad, at least.” She abandoned the pudding. “So what other Grails do you pursue?”
“Nothing so insubstantial, I hope.” He, too, put aside his plate. “Port? Brandy?”
“Port, please.”
Laura accepted the glass of ruby red liquid, recognizing, with a deep beat of her heart, that he was about to speak of the things most important to him.
He poured himself brandy and cut a piece of Stilton cheese. “My prime interest,” he said, “is legal reform. Did you know that there are hundreds of capital offenses on the books? It’s a hanging matter to damage London Bridge, or to destroy any tree not one’s own. A man was executed for that only two years ago.”
She stared at him. “How is that possible?”
“Because it’s the law. I gather he was a petty criminal of long standing, but the authorities hadn’t managed to catch him. When they snagged him on this one, they used it as a means to get rid of him.”
“Good lord. But is it wicked of me to see the temptation?”
He pulled a face at her. “Honest, as always.”
“But I do see your point. It shouldn’t be possible to use the law like that.”
He nodded. “Bad and outmoded laws have to be swept from the books because they create opportunities for injustice, but there’s more. They also lead to lack of respect. It’s not overenforcement that’s hurting us, but underenforcement. Most people don’t want to see others hanged for trivial crimes, so juries let criminals off entirely.”
She drank a little more port, feeling the rich wine weave dangerously into her already fevered mind. “What punishment would you ordain? Whipping?”
Even that sent a tingle through her, though she’d never been interested in that vice.
“Barbarous,” he said.
“Transportation? That seems as barbarous to me.”
“But you have a good life here, Laura, with friends and a loving family. Many criminals have nothing to hold them and a taste for adventure. That makes the threat of transportation a weak deterrent. In fact,” he added with a wry smile, “the army in India has a problem with men deliberately getting into trouble hoping for free transport to Australia.”
Laura chuckled, aware that politics wasn’t an antidote to arousal at all. In fact, this talk had stimulated her in a new and deeper way. Stephen was a Galahad, a hero, and his clarity and purpose built a hunger in her, a hunger to have him—brilliant mind, generous heart, and virile, handsome body—for her own.
She recognized what had turned sour in her m
arriage, what had made even passion unsatisfying in the end. Hal’s idle, self-indulgent life had drained her respect.
Though her mouth was dry, she had to say something. “So, what do you suggest?”
He sipped his brandy, his eyes on hers, shadowed in the candlelight as if he was wondering what she was thinking. She hoped he didn’t know.
“Criminals must be deprived of liberty and idleness.”
“In prisons? They are rife with sin and scandal.”
“Reformed prisons, where they’re kept in separate cells and obliged to work. Meaningful work, too, not tow picking or the treadwheel.”
She rested her elbow on the table and her chin on her hand. “It’s a shame to have to confine people at all. Can we not rid the world of crime? So much of it arises out of poverty and unemployment. We see that now. Hard times have pushed even respectable people to vagrancy and theft.”
“Thus,” he said, with a warning glint of triumph, “we need industry and prosperity. Give a man hope of a better future for himself and his family and he won’t risk it through crime. Give him property and he will support the laws that protect property.”
She relaxed back, laughing. “I should have known you’d win a debate in the end.”
The low candles showed how long they’d talked. They’d never rung for the dishes to be cleared, but Stephen had risen a couple of times to build up the fire. It seemed to her to have been the most perfect evening of her life.
“This has been wonderful,” she said.
“Talk about Parliamentary committees and social reform?”
“Talk about something important. I don’t know when I’ve last done that.”
“When you were in London, did you not take part in some of the more serious female salons?”
She felt her cheeks color and laughed to cover it. “Heavens, no. There were too many other things to do. Oh, dear.” She seized on her abandoned port and sipped. “That sounds as if I only discussed serious matters here out of boredom. I assure you that isn’t true.”