by Jane Ashford
It was lucky the valet hadn’t been with him as a boy, Robert thought as he sat on a bench by the door to shed his mud-caked boots. He’d have seen worse than this. “I don’t care. Could you organize a bath?” He looked at the footman. “For Lord Philip, too.”
“I’m knackered,” Philip said. “And starving. I wonder if they’ll give me some sandwiches.” Robert looked at the footman and got a nod of acknowledgment.
When they’d removed all the clothing they decently could, Robert took Philip’s arm to urge him up the back stairs. Plato climbed at their heels, stepping around the bits of mud they left on the treads.
Their bad luck held. When they emerged from the stairwell on the upper floor, they came upon Victoria and two other young ladies moving along the hall in a phalanx.
“Philip!” cried Victoria. “What have you done this time?”
“I didn’t do anything! How was I to know there was a mudhole in that spot? I’ve walked around the lake a thousand times.”
“But where are your clothes? Why are you parading around the house half naked? Mama will have a spasm.”
Philip looked anxious, but he mumbled, “I am not half naked.”
“We meant to slip unseen from the back stairs into our rooms,” Robert said. “Which we will do now.” He put a hand on Philip’s elbow.
“But what have you been doing?” Victoria demanded. She was blocking the way to the bedchambers and showed no sign of moving.
“I stepped into a quagmire on the other side of the lake,” Philip replied. “Which was not there before, I would swear. Lord Robert got me out. He saved my life!”
The eyes of all the ladies shifted to Robert.
“An exaggeration,” he murmured.
“No, it isn’t,” Philip said. He seemed to be recovering his customary spirit. “You knew just what to do. Except for my boot. You don’t think if we go back—”
“No,” said Robert firmly.
“You lost your boots?” cried Victoria. “The new ones? But you promised Papa that your feet weren’t going to grow anymore.”
Philip blushed crimson. “Just one of them.” He looked woebegone.
“If you will excuse us,” Robert said. “We are wet through.” He moved forward, and the ladies parted before him, drawing their skirts away from the threat of mud. Robert made sure Philip got to his room before slipping into his own.
Plato was right behind him. Robert had nearly forgotten about him in the fuss. The little dog trotted over to his cushion by the hearth and flopped down with a sigh.
“Indeed,” said Robert. By the time a bath was brought and he’d set himself to rights, the day would be well along. And he hadn’t seen Flora, properly, for any of it, which he counted as a day lost.
Seventeen
“Did you explain the herbal scents to Miss…Olivia and her friends?” Robert asked Flora that evening. “I don’t seem to know her last name.”
“Townsend,” Flora replied. “And as I knew very well, the woman who concocted them was far more expert. My presence was quite superfluous.” Her tone was tart, but she couldn’t help it. She was feeling frustrated. Everything about the day had conspired to keep them apart. Now, sitting on a sofa in the drawing room, they were surrounded by chattering fellow guests. Including Anthony Durand, planted like a storm cloud in one corner. “How are we to plot properly in this crowd?” she complained. “We might as well be onstage again.”
“People are always plotting onstage,” Robert replied. “Look at Iago. Hamlet, too.”
“Are you suggesting that I step forward and address the audience?” She gestured at their surroundings. “Inform them of our plans in a dramatic soliloquy perhaps?”
“Your acting was much admired,” he replied.
“Mrs. Malaprop does not seem relevant. Quite mal à propos in fact.”
“Had you missed the French reference? All this time?”
“Are you trying to start an argument with me?” Flora was half amused, half exasperated.
“I do miss them.”
“You miss bickering over every second word?”
“A bit.” His smile was heart-stopping.
“I can dispute anything you care to say. I’m very good at it.”
“That’s it. You are. It’s like watching a virtuoso play a fine instrument.”
He said it so simply. He looked so admiring. “Me?”
“Of course, you. There’s no one but you.”
A woman couldn’t ask for more than that sentiment, and the look that accompanied it, Flora thought. He couldn’t know, because she was certain she’d never mentioned it to him, but every piece of clay tablet Flora had ever deciphered, every historical insight she’d drawn from the fragments, had been disseminated under her father’s name. In publications, lectures, symposia, her significant contribution to his scholarship had never been mentioned.
Papa had praised her intellect to his friends. But he literally didn’t see the difference she made to his work. When she’d tried to show him, once or twice, it was as if she used a language far more foreign than Akkadian. He’d been mystified. Even now, some years after his death, if she submitted a piece to a learned journal, it was presented as an extension or leftover of her father’s work. As if she was only a conduit.
“What is it?” Robert had been trying to keep the conversation light, in front of all these people. Her emotions had been so raw the last time they spoke, not the sort of thing to be exposed to the sharp tongues of society.
“Papa taught me everything I know,” Flora said slowly.
“No, he didn’t.”
“What?” This was a fundamental tenet of her existence, accepted by all those around her.
“You’ve learned more since he’s been gone, for one thing.” Robert’s tone was astonishingly matter-of-fact. “And I’m sure you had any number of original thoughts before that. I’ve seen how you work, remember.”
In that moment, Flora understood that her desire for respect went right to the depths of her soul. Perhaps it had been planted by Papa’s struggle for recognition, or Mama’s wounded sensibilities. Whatever the source, it was a fundamental part of her. She would sacrifice a great deal to get and keep respect. And here it was, looking at her from a pair of beguiling blue eyes. Her throat grew tight.
“I miss our talks, and our studies,” Robert added. “I see us back in Russell Square, never at a loss for things to discuss.” He leaned closer. “Or do. It’s maddening being near you and not allowed to touch you, Flora.”
Breathless, she nodded. He was practically murmuring in her ear, in front of everyone. And Flora only wanted him closer still.
“All right,” called Lady Victoria from the center of the room. She clapped her hands to get people’s attention. “We’re going to have a game of charades. Everyone must play.”
It was so ironically appropriate that Flora laughed. “So much of life in the ton seems like a charade.” Before Robert could reply, she added, “I don’t mean that as I used to. I feel a great deal of sympathy for them. So many people trying to communicate, yet forbidden to simply say what they mean. Instead they must imply and gesture and hope.”
Robert gave her a raised eyebrow. Before she could respond Lady Victoria marched up to stand before them. “You are on my team, Miss Jennings,” she declared. “I daresay you’ll be quickest at getting the clues.”
“Without a doubt,” Robert said.
Lady Victoria looked from one of them to the other. “I knew you two were going to get together,” she crowed then. “I spotted it long before anyone else.” She gave Flora a smug smile. “You were my rival. Back then. Before I came to my senses. Edward says I am extraordinarily intuitive.”
“He’s clearly besotted,” Robert murmured.
“Oh, do be quiet. Your famous social address is useless if people say what th
ey truly think.”
“If they’re willing to be rude, you mean?”
“Forthright,” said the daughter of the house. “I learned how to do it from Miss Jennings. Edward thinks plain speaking is better, too.”
“Not if it’s vulgar,” Robert said.
“I don’t know what I ever saw in you.” Lady Victoria looked at Flora. “Are you quite sure you’re not making a mistake? He’s the most irritating man. How could I not have noticed that?”
Flora was saved from replying by Edward Trevellyn’s arrival. “All’s ready,” he told his fiancée.
Lady Victoria turned away. “Charades!” she called.
“Let us meet later in the library,” Robert said to Flora under cover of the noisy beginnings of the game.
“Durand knows about it now.”
“Let him come,” he replied. “I’d be only too happy to throw him out on his ear.” He hesitated, then added, “Leave after me. I’ll wait for you there.”
The charades seemed to stretch on forever. Even admiring Flora’s brilliance at decoding the mimed clues didn’t reconcile Robert to the wait. And when at last the game was finished, many wanted to sit about rehashing the details. Victoria’s team had of course triumphed, chiefly due to Flora. It was nearly midnight before Robert was finally able to slip away to the library. It seemed another eon before Flora arrived.
Her cheeks still glowed from the praises of the other guests. Her eyes sparkled. She looked happy and so very beautiful. Robert imagined the two of them running hand in hand, laughing, up to his bedchamber and repeating all they’d done yesterday, and more. He wanted her eager and carefree. He wanted her in every possible way. For now, however, his vision was not possible. “So, we plot,” he said instead. It was not second best, or even fourth best, but it would have to suffice.
Flora came to sit beside him, bringing the heady scent she always wore and an entrancing smile. “Papa always said that any problem will yield to a combination of care and diligence,” she said. “The first step is to amass as much information as possible.”
“Right.”
“It’s vital to have all the facts. Then one orders them, through analysis, allowing the solution to slowly emerge.”
“Indeed.”
“It’s much more pleasant to ignore Durand,” she went on. “One wants to think of him as little as possible. Never, really. But we must treat him as an obscure bit of cuneiform, to be broken down into specifics in order to be deciphered. And, in this case, defeated. Why are you looking at me that way?”
“What way?”
“With a sort of half smile, and an odd glint in your eyes.”
“Because you are utterly adorable.”
A remark that might have offended her from another man seemed perfectly acceptable from Robert—admiring rather than dismissive. Flora indulged in a long shared glance. It would be so easy to be diverted. Into kisses, for example. His expert, melting kisses that led so naturally to caresses and embraces and absolutely delicious sensations. That made her wild to study with him as he’d learned from her. The idea left her breathless. And then her annoyingly practical mind offered up the thought that Anthony Durand was a spiteful man. Even if he didn’t return here himself, he might send others to plague them. Lydia Fotheringay, or some even worse gossip. She couldn’t trust the safety of this room any longer. “So,” she managed. “What facts do we possess?”
Robert gazed at her as if he’d followed each step of her reasoning. “What do I know about Durand?” he replied. “Let’s see. He has an estate in…Shropshire? But rarely goes there. He is a creature of London, always to be found in one gaming hell or another. An inveterate gambler, from need and from love, it seems. His fortune is unknown, but suspected to be small.”
“What about his family? The name sounds Norman.”
“I’ve never heard of any other Durands. Thankfully.”
“One presumes they wouldn’t all be like him.”
“One is being charitable,” he answered with a smile.
Flora dithered briefly under the warmth of his gaze. “He is…connected with Lydia Fotheringay.”
“Demonstrating a deficiency of taste.”
“In friends, too,” said Flora in a more subdued tone. “He chooses them from among men like Lord Royalton, who live lives of idleness and debauchery.”
Robert merely nodded.
“I don’t see how any of that helps us,” she said.
“He is not much liked, so he has no allies to call on here.”
“Except Mrs. Fotheringay.”
“A slender reed,” Robert said.
“No one likes her very much either,” Flora acknowledged. She sighed. “Papa’s methods don’t seem to apply when the problem is people rather than artifacts. What are we going to do? How are we to catch him cheating?”
“I could probably spot it,” Robert replied. “But trying to get myself into the games won’t work. I’ve told him I won’t play with him. Durand wouldn’t go for it. And even if I managed the thing, he wouldn’t cheat if I was there.”
“No.”
“I can’t even ask where the games are being held without a risk of rousing his suspicions.”
Flora nodded. She began to fear that she was better with dusty old tablets than human beings, too. “Perhaps Lord Philip could? Ask, not play. You did save his life.” She’d heard the full story of the mud by this time.
“An exaggeration. But, no. Durand wouldn’t want to include Salbridge’s son. Too much chance he’d let something slip to his father.”
“Right.”
Hating to see her dejected, Robert considered other helpers. Randolph had volunteered, but as another Gresham, he couldn’t be sent into the games either. And he was a terrible gambler. Notoriously incapable of a bluff. Mrs. Runyon was a resource, if he found just the proper application for her skills.
“You know,” said Flora then. “We might be able to spot the place if we look around the house. The gamesters probably leave some signs of occupation in a room where there should be none. I doubt they pay much attention to housekeeping.”
“A good point.”
Flora half rose, eager for action. “Let’s look.”
“Not now. The card game will be starting, and we might be seen. Tip our hand, so to speak.”
“Oh.” She sank back. “Yes, of course. We should explore in the daytime. After breakfast tomorrow?”
He nodded. “Men who gamble half the night away are rarely up and about in the morning.” He could probably pick out some of the players that way, Robert noted. The ones who weren’t young idiots who cared nothing for sleep.
“Good.” Flora smiled at him.
Their plan made, silence fell over the room. The dying fire popped and crackled.
“I should go to bed,” Flora said.
The phrase seemed to hang in the air between them. Her cheeks reddened.
“I can’t escort you to your door,” said Robert. He didn’t like thinking of her walking the maze of dark corridors alone. Yet, the most reckless male guests were most likely seated around Durand’s gaming table by this time.
“Nor I, you,” Flora replied.
He laughed, and the building tension dissipated. “We’ll reconvene tomorrow.”
She nodded, rising. “Good night.”
He stood and bowed. “Good night.” He didn’t add my love, but he thought they both heard it nonetheless.
It wasn’t fair that she couldn’t be getting into bed with Robert right now, Flora thought a little later, as she pulled up her coverlet. People were sneaking into bedchambers all over the house party, or so she’d been told. Not the unmarried women, though. They…she…were in a special, separate category where all was denied.
Flora punched down her pillows. She was so very ready to be a married woman instead.
She wanted all the delights of love, an epic and fiery passion. She wondered if Robert was thinking of her, as she was of him. She was practically certain he was. It was ridiculous—the two of them, lying in their segregated beds, aching for each other.
She remembered his suggestion that they return to London, get a special license, and marry in Russell Square. She could be his wife in a week. Perhaps less. Why not just do that? He’d said her mother would like it, and she would.
Until Durand started spewing his venom about Mama’s supposed transgressions.
Flora sat up and punched her pillows again, this time imagining that they were Anthony Durand. He was despicable. He spent his life hurting people, and enjoying it. It wasn’t only Mama. How could Flora return to her children’s refuge and face them if she hadn’t lifted a finger to stop Durand?
She lay down again, but it was some time before she fell asleep.
* * *
Despite the short night, Flora woke early, washed and dressed, and went down to breakfast. She found Robert already there, along with a few others. They exchanged a secret glance over their meal; there was no need for more. Ten minutes after he had left the table, she met him in the library.
Flora was surprised to see Plato sitting at his feet. “Mightn’t he bark and attract attention to us?”
“Never.” Robert looked down at the dog. “He is the soul of discretion.”
Flora remembered how Plato had left Robert’s bedchamber after ushering her through the glass doors, leaving them alone. At the moment, the little animal was staring into the dimmest corner of the room as if some fascinating drama was unfolding there.
“He also has rather uncanny insights, now and then. Shall we begin?”
They left the library and moved along the hallway outside, quietly but not furtively. Flora realized that having Plato along lent their expedition an appearance of innocence. Who took a pet on an assignation? The thought made her smile. “Durand wouldn’t use any of the familiar public rooms for his card games,” she said.
“No, even late at the night someone might wander in,” Robert agreed. “He’d want to be far from sleeping guests, too.”