Skylark

by Jo Beverley

  “I never thought that.”

  She put aside her port again, needing him to understand. “What I mean, Stephen, is that I was not serious-minded then. I was Lady Skylark. For me, the term haute volee was appropriate. I loved flying high. But we all change, and now my interests and occupations are different.”

  “You now prefer the quiet of the country?”

  She grimaced. “Are you deliberately misunderstanding me? It was the tedium of the country that stirred an interest in politics and the issues of the day.” She shook her head, seeking honesty because suddenly honesty was all-important.

  “Why do we grow as we do, change as we do? If I had not had Harry, if Hal had not died, perhaps I would have continued on course to be a fashionable matron all my life. A patroness of Almack’s, even, believing that who is let in and who is excluded is important. I was not unhappy before. You know I have never been as serious-minded as you.”

  “Yet you’ve just held your own in a challenging discussion.” He rose and rang the bell. “Do you want tea or coffee now?”

  She stared at him, shocked by his indifferent tone. She’d thought they were sharing thoughts and ideals, coming together on a deeply intimate level, but clearly he’d just been passing the time.

  “Tea,” she managed.

  Two maids came to clean away the dishes, and soon Jean returned with the tea tray. Stephen asked her for a chess set.

  “Chess?” Laura queried, wondering if she could reasonably plead tiredness and escape to her bed. It was only minutes past eight.

  “Cards being inappropriate on a Sunday, don’t you know.”

  “I don’t remember you observing that extreme propriety before. I think you want a game at which you think you can beat me.”

  “Can I?”

  “Almost certainly. I haven’t played in years.” She remembered the last game, and after a moment, spoke of it. “The last person I played was you.”

  “In that case, the last time you played, you won.”

  Jean returned with the set, and Stephen moved a small table between the fireside chairs. Seared by frustration, Laura set to work to beat Stephen again, but this time she was completely outmastered.

  When the game was over, she could escape, ragged by the lashings of the storm and the snarl of the hungry sea, but above all by needs and hungers she’d never expected to feel for Stephen. It was more than physical. Tonight she’d become aware that she might after all enjoy a life of quiet dinners and political discussions by the fireside, but Stephen showed no sign of feeling the same way.

  Was it just her ugly appearance? She peeled off her disguise and studied Labellelle in the mirror. Would Stephen want her again when she was beautiful? Would she want him on those terms?

  She crawled into bed, still tormented by the storm that seemed to rattle the beams of the old building, and by her pillowcase, which whispered to her of the last head to lie on it—Stephen’s.

  No amount of calculations seemed to help, and she prayed that tomorrow they could solve the mystery of HG and escape the tortures of this jagged intimacy.

  Chapter 31

  Laura rose the next morning feeling she would hardly need her disguise to look haggard. Her mirror showed her familiar face, however, except for the ugly, glued-on mole. She traced brow, nose, and lips with one finger, wondering what beauty was and what the lack of it did.

  Would Stephen have talked with her about political matters if she’d been Labellelle? Even faced with sallow skin and faded curls, however, he’d thought the matters that enthralled him would bore her.

  He’d kissed her in the dark the first night.

  He’d kissed her again when he could see the Penfold plainness, but only after their playacting as Valancourt and Emily. She was used to more from men and she didn’t know this abode.

  The inn clock struck, and she counted nine. Though she hated to do it, it was time to restore her ugliness before Jean came knocking with her water. She applied the cream and darkened around her eyes. The mole was still so firmly fixed that she was beginning to think it would be permanent, as her mother had always told them sour faces would become.

  It occurred to her that it was quiet outside, and she peeped around the edge of the curtain. The sky was heavy with clouds and the sea still rippled with rough waves, but the storm had passed. Seaweed and wood littered the beach where there’d been none before, and down near the church a boat lay on its side, tossed up by the storm. She hoped no one had been aboard at the time.

  It was relatively calm, however, and it was Monday. As Stephen had said, shops would be open and people about their business. Today they should be able to sort out the mystery, and if not, there was always armed force. She was in a fit state for leading the invasion herself.

  She put on her wig, replaced her nightcap, then rang the bell.

  Jean came promptly with the hot water. “Such a night of it, ma’am! Roof tore right off Farmer Tully’s barn.”

  “I thought there was no danger.”

  “Not here, ma’am, but Joss Tully, he’s a lazy man as doesn’t keep his property as he should.”

  “I saw a boat up on the beach.”

  “Aye, the Cormorant. Broke its moorings, but it’s not too badly off. Anything else, ma’am?”

  “Has Sir Stephen breakfasted?”

  “Not long ago, ma’am.”

  “Then bring my coffee and bread, please. And I’ll have boiled eggs, as well, today.”

  “That’s the spirit, ma’am! I told you as how the air here’d soon have you as right as a trivet.”

  When the door closed, Laura smiled. It seemed the whole town fancied itself a doctor. She dressed quickly and joined Stephen, finding him frowning at the letter from Farouk as he sipped his coffee. She sat and shared her thought about Dyer and die.

  “Intriguing,” he said with a quick, careless smile at her. “Wordplays?” He looked back at the letter. “But what does that give us for Oscar Ris? Riz is rice in French.”

  “And ris is part of the verb to laugh. This is all a joke?” she asked.

  “In Latin, os means mouth. They have come to eat us all?”

  His eyes were twinkling and she returned it. “The scarred mouth is eating rice?”

  They laughed together, and Laura was suddenly certain that she would love to take breakfast with Stephen for the rest of her life. But that was for later, she sternly told herself. When they were safely away from here.

  She took a boiled egg and a slice of toast. “You plan to wander the vast metropolis and ask questions? What am I to do?”

  “As you imply, it won’t take me long to squeeze Draycombe dry. You could keep watch in case any opportunity arises to see Dyer.”

  “Unless I walk along the outside wall like a spider to peer in the window, I doubt I’ll achieve that. I think I’ll station myself downstairs again with my pictures.”

  He rose. “Very well.”

  She buttered her toast. “Did you mean what you said about calling on Kerslake’s men to force an entry?”

  He hesitated for a moment, looking at her. “I’d prefer that to be our last resort. How long can you stay here?”

  Something made her want to say as long as you wish, but she said, “I think I should return to Redoaks, at least, tomorrow, then return to Merrymead. To stay away longer would appear very strange, and Harry will be missing me.”

  She certainly hoped he was. She didn’t wish him unhappy, but surely he must be missing her. “We’ve rarely been apart,” she added, “and not at all since Hal’s death.”

  He nodded. “Let’s see what the morning brings and then make our plans.”

  He left, and she carried her slice of toast to the window to watch him stride away. The wind was still brisk and he had to hold on to his hat like all the other men. Women’s hats with ribbons were much more practical, perhaps because the women often had baskets and children to manage. They needed both their hands.

  A group of small children played on the
beach, hunting among the mess left by the storm. Harry would like it here. He’d never been to the sea. An ache told her how much she was missing him.

  She could write him another letter. Send him a picture of the effects of the storm. She turned to do that, but realized it was impossible. She wasn’t supposed to be here. She was supposed to be at Redoaks, inland.

  Tears threatened, and some of them were from shame.

  She wasn’t ashamed of being here trying to solve the mystery of HG. She wasn’t even ashamed of her passions, as long as she didn’t succumb to them. But she hated to lie to her son.

  She shook herself, put her half-eaten bread back on her plate, and went to get her drawing materials. She had little hope of recognition now, but what else was there to do?

  A good part of the morning passed as she’d expected, with only Dr. Nesbitt joining her in the parlor. In conversation she learned that he was a single man and liked to stop at the inn for an occasional cup of tea as a break from his house. He admired her drawings again, but his only reaction to the picture of the older Cousin Henry was to remark how fortunate the gentleman had been to recover from what had clearly been a crisis.

  Laura decided to modify the picture a little and try to make Henry a little less ill.

  She was startled out of her work by that sixth sense that tells us that someone is staring at us. She looked up to see Farouk just outside the parlor door. Shockingly aware of the younger picture lying on the small table, Laura tried to give him a cold, forbidding look.

  Perhaps it worked, for he turned away. A moment later, she saw him striding down the street. Why had he stopped like that? Had her attempt to enter the rooms yesterday raised his suspicions?

  Was she in danger? If Farouk was the villain he appeared, he might not hesitate to dispose of a meddlesome woman. When she saw Stephen approaching the inn, delight surged into her for many reasons. She gathered her papers and hurried up to their parlor. She had only put her portfolio away when he entered, carrying a small brown box and looking very pleased with himself.

  “What is that?” she asked.

  “A present,” he said, but she recognized a tease, so she wasn’t surprised when he added, “But you’ll have to wait.”

  Because he clearly expected her to be impatient, she merely said, “Very well,” and sought a completely different topic of conversation. Ah, yes.

  He’d gone into his bedchamber to discard his outer clothing, but left the door open.

  “Yesterday, Mrs. Grantleigh and I were clucking over the fact that Captain Dyer didn’t attend church, perhaps prevented by his wicked heathen servant, and I suggested that someone should tell the vicar. Farouk can hardly bar him at the door.”

  He emerged smiling. “Very good! As is your patience.” He gave her the box. “Not precisely a present, though I hope you’ll be pleased with it.”

  Laura opened the box and stared at the object inside. It looked like a metal cup with a long spout, but the spout came out of the bottom.

  She picked it up and peered into the cup part. She could see out through the small hole at the end of the spout, but she looked at him in puzzlement. “A different way of spying? Do we apply it to the keyhole?”

  “An interesting idea, but no. Though you’re close, in a way. The other way around.”

  She put the end of the tube to her eye and looked at him. “I’m not impressed.”

  “Put it to your ear. It’s an Auricular Enhancer.”

  “That sounds risqué!”

  His eyes sparkled. “Only if I whisper improper suggestions down it. If you were hard of hearing, you could hold the spout to your ear, and when I speak into the wide end, my voice would be, by some magic of science that I didn’t entirely understand, loud enough for you to understand me.”

  “Stephen, how brilliant! Where did you find it?”

  “Remember the apothecary shop with a selection of helpful devices for the sick and elderly? I was hoping for information about something bought by Farouk for Dyer, but no. By then, I had been trapped into a guided tour of his wares. He’s admirably enthusiastic. The Auricular Enhancer is his latest delight. I purchased it . . .”

  “Not for me, I hope. I can’t be both nosy and deaf.”

  “. . . for my grandmother.”

  “If you mean the Dowager Lady Ball, she wasn’t deaf last time I met her.”

  “Don’t be distracted by details.” He gestured toward his room. “Shall we try it out?”

  “Yes!” But then she pulled a face. “Farouk’s out, so there’ll be no conversation.”

  “Blast. You’re right. Let’s try it, anyway. I’ll go into my bedchamber, shut the door, and orate. You listen at the wall.”

  He left, and by the time she had the wide end pressed to the wall, he was already into some poem.

  “Last noon beheld them full of lusty life,

  Last eve in beauty’s circle proudly gay;”

  It was Lord Byron’s passage about the Battle of Waterloo from the latest part of his ongoing work Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.

  “The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife,

  The morn the marshalling in arms, the day

  Battle’s magnificently stern array!

  The thunder-clouds pour o’er it, which when rent,

  The earth is covered thick with other clay,

  Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent,

  Rider and horse—friend, foe—in one red burial

  blent.”

  She stayed there a moment, remembering men she’d known who’d fallen in that terrible victory, then pushed straight as he returned to the parlor.

  “You lost friends, too?” she asked.

  “Everyone did. But one, at least, returned from the grave.”

  “Lord Darius.”

  “Yes. It worked?”

  She shook off the solemn mood. “Excellently, though I think you were in orator mode. I don’t know how clear an ordinary conversation would be. What a shame Farouk is out.”

  “We have only to wait for his return. Then we might finally discover what they’re up to.”

  She sat and smiled at him. “I always knew you were brilliant.”

  He bowed. “Thank you, fair lady. Now, I intend to seek some reward in lunch.” He pulled the bell.

  “I’m hardly fair at the moment.”

  “Fair at heart.”

  It was an admirable sentiment, but it didn’t satisfy her.

  “Did you learn anything in town?” she asked.

  “Everyone’s aware of Farouk, of course. It’s not wise of him to be so noticeable, but I’ve not come up with a cunning purpose for it. I suspect he simply doesn’t understand the effect he has in a small English town.”

  “The vicar was concerned enough to mention it in his sermon.”

  “Let’s hope it did some good. We don’t want our business complicated by a riot.”

  “It might give us a glimpse of Dyer.”

  He smiled in acknowledgement. “Farouk’s movements are noted, but all he seems to do is go for long walks. The only purchases I could uncover were a chess set, a pack of cards, and, believe it or not, a copy of Byron’s The Corsair.”

  “Good heavens! Checking it for accuracy about the Arab world?”

  Stephen shrugged, and Jean arrived then to take their order for lunch.

  “And your morning?” he asked, when the maid had gone.

  “Virtually nothing, though Farouk did stop and stare. My heart was in my mouth in case he came in and saw the pictures. But then,” she added, “he probably wouldn’t recognize them, either.”

  He gave her a commiserating smile. “Don’t lose hope.”

  “I want so desperately for Dyer to be Cousin Henry. It means everything!”

  “There are other ways to keep Harry safe, Laura. You can’t think I would let anything happen to him.”

  She held out a hand and he took it. “I don’t, but . . . A child cannot be kept safe, Stephen, as long as someone
wants him dead. Wants it badly enough.”

  When he didn’t argue, she knew that he saw that, too.

  Their lunch arrived then, but Stephen waited by the window as the maid spread it on the table.

  As soon as she left, he announced, “Here he comes.”

  Ignoring food, they both ran into his bedchamber.

  He gave her the instrument and she smiled her gratitude for his letting her go first. She pressed the wide end to the wall and put the small end in her ear, waiting for Farouk to arrive.

  Stephen was over by the corridor door. “He’s coming. I hear the squeaks.”

  “It works,” she whispered. “I heard the door open and shut.”

  Say something, she thought, concentrating fiercely. Say something that makes it clear that Captain Dyer is Henry Gardeyne.

  Then she heard another click.

  She moved back from the wall. “I don’t believe it. After all this, Dyer must be in the bedroom, and Farouk’s gone in there.”

  Stephen came to take the instrument and try, but then he shook his head. “Infuriating, but they can’t stay there forever. Let’s eat.”

  “What if Captain Dyer’s taken ill and is confined to bed?”

  “Then we sneak into the empty room farther down the corridor.”

  “Of course!”

  She moved toward the door, but he stopped her. “Not yet. Give them a little time, and have your lunch.”

  Laura had a strong urge to act like the tempestuous girl she had once been, but he made sense. Sense would be easier all around if she wasn’t in his bedchamber, so she went to the parlor and settled to bread and sliced ham.

  Both of them, however, ate little and quickly, then Stephen rose. “I’ll take first turn at the listening post.”

  It would be madness, besides being pointless, to crowd against him there, so she paced the parlor helplessly.

  “Laura.”

  She started and whirled to find him at the door. “They’re there.” He held out the listening device.

  “You’re a saint!” she exclaimed as she seized it, and unthinking, she kissed him quickly on the cheek. She was halfway to the wall before she realized what she’d done. She carried on, anyway. What was there to say?