Lord of Legends

by Susan Krinard

  He was nowhere to be found. When she checked, she discovered that the mount he had brought from Donbridge was missing from the stable. With no other recourse, she waited out the rest of the night in her room, listening for his return. Nola hovered about until Mariah ordered the girl to seek her own bed.

  Mariah was furious, knowing that she should have recognized the extent of Ash’s agitation and done something to forestall his untoward reaction. If his intention had been to remain in the prince’s favor, he had surely forfeited it now. The next morning the prince informed Sinjin that he intended to leave for Newmarket early the following day.

  A few hours later his plans went awry. He began to turn even more ruddy than usual, swayed when he walked, and soon took to his bed.

  “The influenza,” his personal physician opined when they sent for him. “It is fortunately a very mild form of the disease. There is nothing to be done but give His Royal Highness complete rest, fluids and simple foods until the disease has run its course.”

  Mariah soon understood why the prince was not an exemplary invalid; he was an active man, unused to confinement. He fretted and complained to the gentlemen of his escort, insisting he was better, only to fall back on his pillows weaker than before; called irritably for first one dish and then another, straining the kitchen’s capacity; and found it impossible to maintain his generally amiable air.

  He had been ill for two days when Ash returned to Rothwell at last, subdued and very quiet. As soon as he learned of Bertie’s affliction, he asked for an audience with the prince. He was denied the privilege, but a few hours later Mariah heard, to her astonishment, laughter coming from the prince’s chambers.

  Sinjin came for her. “You won’t believe it,” he said, “but Ash got in to see Bertie. They seem to have become the best of friends.”

  “But how?” Mariah asked.

  “Come see for yourself.”

  He led Mariah up the stairs to the prince’s suite at the end of the corridor. The door was open, and a number of the prince’s men stood just inside, chuckling or exclaiming as a familiar voice spoke from inside the room.

  “Sinjin,” Mariah said, “what has he done?”

  “To hear Lord Russell tell it,” Sinjin said, “your Mr. Cornell has cured Bertie.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CURED BERTIE?

  Mariah walked closer to the door and peered in over Sir Jeremy Ackland’s shoulder. The prince was sitting in a chair by the bed, clearly whole and hearty, his skin a normal color and his gestures vigorous.

  “Truly remarkable,” he was saying to someone just out of Mariah’s sight. “I had always understood that the Apache are the most bloodthirsty of all the American tribes.”

  “Not as bloodthirsty as one might suppose,” Ash said. “What skills I possess, they taught me.”

  “And those savage skills work damned well, by Jove,” Bertie said, then caught a glimpse of Mariah. “I beg your pardon, ma’am,” he said with his usual courtesy.

  “Not at all, sir,” Mariah said. She glanced at Ash, holding pride of place in a chair opposite the prince’s. “I am grateful that you are recovered.”

  “So am I, so am I.” Bertie beamed at the room in general. “Ah, Sinjin. I trust that your chef is prepared to produce an excellent dinner tonight.”

  “I assure you that M. Mézières will be as pleased as I to celebrate your return from the grave,” Sinjin quipped.

  The prince belted out a laugh as he heaved himself up from his chair. “For now, I wish to go outside. Will you join us, Lady Donnington, and hear more of your cousin’s entertaining stories of life on the American frontier?”

  “With pleasure, sir,” she said. But try as she might, she couldn’t get close to Ash again. His popularity had taken such a turn for the better that every one of the prince’s companions seemed determined to keep their new favorite occupied.

  Only after everyone had finally gone to bed did she manage to corner Ash where he sat in Sinjin’s library.

  “How did you do it?” she asked. “How did you cure the prince?”

  Ash had risen at her entrance. “Lady Donnington,” he said, “I am sorry that I was not able to speak to you earlier. It was not of my design.”

  She moved closer, puzzled by this inexplicable new formality. “What is wrong?”

  He hesitated, barely meeting her eyes. “Nothing is wrong.”

  “You have certainly achieved what you intended,” she said. “You have the prince’s unqualified approval, and this time I doubt that anything you can do will lessen it. How did you cure him? If you can simply explain…”

  “I cannot,” he said, meeting her gaze. “If I had an explanation, I would tell you.”

  “You learned this from the Apaches?” she asked incredulously.

  “No,” he said. “I never met an Apache. I never lived in the West at all.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  He continued to hold her eyes with his. “My entire ‘past’ was all derived from the books I read, and from what you told me of my probable origins,” he said. “My past, my stories of the West…all—”

  “Lies?” she whispered, too stunned to move.

  “Necessary deception.”

  She sat down hard in the nearest chair. “Why?”

  “I could not remain a prisoner any longer.” His eyes were dull with sorrow, and yet a fire burned beneath the veil of sadness. “Even before I met the prince, I knew I could only begin to find the truth if I made myself acceptable to you, the dowager and anyone else I might encounter.”

  Mariah could scarcely believe what she was hearing. “You were…always acceptable to me, Ash—”

  “Was I?”

  She hadn’t forgotten her assumption that he was mad. But that was before she’d come to know him, respect him, love…

  “Was any of it the truth?” she asked, clutching at her stomach. “Surely…some of it must be, or it would not have come so easily to you.”

  He didn’t answer immediately but wandered about the room, randomly touching the spines of Sinjin’s books. “The gypsy knew of my deception,” he said. “She said that I could not keep it hidden for long, especially from you.”

  “And so you are now compelled to be honest with me?”

  His fingertips stroked a volume of Greek philosophy as they had once caressed her skin. “I did not wish to burden you with the truth.”

  “And is that why you were so angry on the terrace?” she asked. “Because you wouldn’t be able to keep up your pretense?” She twisted her hands together in her lap. “What else did she tell you?”

  “That I could not continue without your aid.”

  “I see. And that infuriated you.”

  “You have already done enough.”

  “Evidently I have done too much.”

  Suddenly he was beside her, so close that he needn’t have done more then extend his hand to touch her.

  “You know I care for you, Merry,” he said, “but I would not further disturb your life.”

  “You…you couldn’t…” The memory of what the gypsy had told her was so vivid that for a moment she was unable to speak.

  You love one who will betray you. Yet you will not see the trap until it is too late.

  She had not been enraged at the woman’s calm statement. She had been terrified, but had hidden her fear so successfully that no one but Ash had seen it.

  The betrayal had already come true. Ash had lied to her. He had not trusted her, whatever his excuses.

  You will not see the trap until it is too late. The trap of love, into which she had stumbled without recognizing how very near she was to falling.

  Ash had said he “cared for” her. But to care was not to love. At least she could conceal her love, something she could not have managed if Ash returned her feelings. She was fortunate indeed.

  She emerged from her painful reverie and looked up at him. He was standing in a glaring light that seemed to come from nowhere, far too brig
ht for the gas lamps Sinjin had installed at Rothwell. His outline was blurred, wrong somehow, and his figure was white.

  She had seen this before. Then she had thought it a trick of the light, a temporary affliction of the eye, a quirk of the imagination. For the shape was not that of a human but something larger, something that stood on more than two feet, and from its head…

  Beware my horn.

  Covering her eyes, she sank deeper into the chair. This was not madness, no matter what the gypsy had said. The fairies had not been real. They were but illusions brought on by her guilt over being with Ash.

  You will have the choice between defeat and victory. Choice. That was the one word she could cling to, even as she glimpsed a vision just like the ones her mother had claimed to have seen a thousand times over.

  Unicorns do not exist. I choose not to see it. I choose…

  Immediately the radiance vanished and Ash stood in the ordinary dim light, staring at her with incomprehension.

  “Mariah?”

  She shuddered once and rose to her feet.

  “What do you intend to do now?” she asked calmly.

  He watched her in silence for a moment longer, then bowed his head, as if he were actually afraid of her disapproval. “The prince has invited me to Marlborough House after his return from the races,” he said. “Will you come with me?”

  Before, he had demanded that she go with him to Rothwell. Now he asked. Asked humbly, as if he had really meant it when he’d said that he feared “disturbing” her life.

  As if he had not already done just that.

  “I have not been invited,” she said.

  “But you have. I asked, and the prince was happy to extend the invitation.”

  He had thought of everything. “I will not help you seek revenge against my husband,” she said.

  “That is not what I want of you, Mariah.”

  What could he want, then, now that he’d stolen her heart? He had become so adept at prevarication that he could deceive her with no difficulty, and he continued to learn new tactics with frightful ease.

  If he wanted…what she had shamelessly let him take, those stolen kisses and caresses, she could not let herself give them again. If she did, she would be no better than Lady Westlake. No better than a whore.

  Then there was Marlborough House itself. She understood that it was the very center of high society, as modern as the queen’s court was mired in the past. Mariah had no business moving in such a milieu. In spite of her father’s strenuous efforts, she’d never joined New York’s upper crust in their amusements. All her time had been spent nursing Mama at home and visiting her in the asylums where she had spent so many days of her final years. Even if the Four Hundred had opened their gates to the daughter of a self-made man, she wouldn’t have belonged among them.

  No. She ought to return to Donbridge and wait for Donnington. She ought never to have left. But her treacherous heart held her tied to Ash with bonds that could not be broken. Not until this drama played itself out to the very end—whatever that end might be.

  Face your fears, Mariah. Choose your own victory.

  She looked up into Ash’s eyes. “Yes,” she said. “I will go with you.”

  THE DOWAGER WAS not pleased when Mariah announced her intention to accept the prince’s invitation to Marlborough House.

  “You cannot go,” Vivian said as they sat in Donbridge’s quiet little morning room. “Donnington would forbid it.”

  “Surely the earl could not object to his wife being in favor with the Prince of Wales,” Mariah answered, letting her cup of tea grow cold on the saucer beside her.

  Vivian all but gritted her teeth. “And is he going, as well?” she asked.

  “Mr. Cornell was also invited, but we will not be traveling together.”

  “As if that should make any difference! You will be together at Marlborough House, a place of scandal and immorality.”

  Mariah had had enough. “Along with many others,” she said. “I no more approve of scandal and immorality than you do, Vivian. I shall be in no danger at Marlborough House…unlike your good friend Lady Westlake.”

  For once Vivian was at a loss for words. She had fully understood the reference to Lady Westlake, Mariah was certain. Their conspiracy had been found out.

  Mariah rose. “I will come back the moment I hear that my husband has returned,” she said, and left the room.

  The dowager refused to speak to her daughter-in-law until the packing was complete. Mariah’s maid, Alice, had suddenly, though not unexpectedly, left her position after having expressed dissatisfaction with Mariah’s apparent indifference to her services. Mariah was happy to make Nola’s new position permanent.

  Only when she and Nola were climbing into the brougham did the dowager make an appearance.

  “Kindly conduct yourself as the wife of the Earl of Donnington,” she said icily.

  There was no goodbye, not even of the most formal variety. With Nola sitting in the seat opposite Mariah and the trunks firmly stowed, the carriage set off.

  The journey to London passed quickly. Mariah spent nearly every moment of it wondering how she could possibly fit in among the prince’s Set, who had shown themselves to be both sophisticated and demanding.

  And she was worried about Ash.

  Yet when she arrived at Marlborough House, nearly every rational thought flew out of her head. The house was palatial in its scope, a vast brick edifice with scores of tall windows, its elegant interior filled with paintings by famous artists, including a vast Battle of Blenheim spread across the walls of the main saloon.

  Mariah was efficiently taken in hand by experienced servants and assigned a lovely room in the north wing. She had no time to be afraid. She was soon granted an audience with the Princess of Wales—Princess Alix, as her intimates called her—who was as lovely and gracious as any princess ought to be. She and the prince had introduced an egalitarian element to the royal court by inviting into their home those generally excluded from more formal society: artists and musicians, the untitled nouveau riche, Americans and foreigners of all descriptions.

  Only on the second day, while she was still becoming used to her grand surroundings, did Mariah catch a glimpse of Ash among the bevy of the prince’s familiar friends. He seemed to have adapted immediately to his new surroundings. He had a natural elegance that drew all eyes to him, and everyone was intensely curious about his background and his resemblance to the absent Earl of Donnington.

  His popularity had only been increased by the talk of how he had “cured” the prince at Rothwell. He was kept busy by members of the Set who were eager to experience his Red Indian “healing abilities” for themselves. He disposed of such minor maladies as warts and colds, and his reputation spread so rapidly that Mariah was lucky if she caught sight of him once a day, even in passing.

  She quickly saw that she had been right in her instincts: any aid she might offer Ash now would be entirely superfluous. Instead she was the one in need of assistance, a country mouse shivering in the lair of a pride of elegant lions.

  For the prince’s court, while undoubtedly glamorous, was no fairy tale come to life. Bertie obviously found his older lady friends to be much more engaging than an inexperienced newlywed, and even the other American guests seemed to find Mariah’s company uninteresting. She had nothing new to tell them, no store of witty tales to provoke their appreciative laughter. At times she was so overwhelmed that she found herself merely observing the vigorous, often unconventional, amusements Marlborough House had to offer: the frequent balls, nightly card games, riding every morning on Rotten Row, and various unusual entertainments to keep the easily bored prince diverted.

  “You must not take it so to heart, my dear,” said the very popular Lady Strickland, American wife of the Marquess of Strickland, as she and Mariah stood near the wall of one of Marlborough House’s many drawing rooms and listened to the sparkling conversation surrounding the Prince of Wales. “At least Bertie
welcomes American upstarts like us, which is more than can be said of the queen.”

  Mariah only half heard her words. She was watching Ash, who had just finished relating some amusing bon mot that had his audience laughing and several of the more beautiful women watching him with a predatory eye.

  “Your husband’s cousin grows more popular by the hour,” Lady Strickland remarked. She smiled teasingly. “Is that jealousy I see on your face, Lady Donnington?”

  “Jealousy?” Mariah said lightly. “I am Lord Donnington’s wife. And, as you pointed out, Mr. Cornell is my cousin by marriage.”

  “Ah.” Lady Strickland chuckled. “Well, my dear,” she said, taking Mariah’s arm, “you must let me guide you in these complicated matters. You shall soon learn to find your way.”

  Her reassurance was far from comforting. Mariah knew that she was losing Ash; he moved among the highest ranks with a sense of easy superiority that no one seemed disposed to resent. He had almost begged her to come to Marlborough, but now she never saw him. It felt almost like a second betrayal.

  Only if you are stupid enough not to realize that he has done you a tremendous service. You are safe now—unless you expect him to love you.

  Such sensible thoughts made very little difference to her irrational feelings. When Sinjin arrived a week later, he greeted her with his usual courtesy, but it soon became very apparent that his mind was on something else: Lady Westlake, who arrived the day after.

  Mariah quickly realized that they were pretending to be only slight acquaintances in public while carrying on their affair in the very precincts of Marlborough House. No one seemed to notice or object, and before another week had passed, she began to understand why.

  Vivian had tried to warn her of Society’s ways, but she didn’t fully comprehend until, waking from a dream of Ash, she crept down to the extensive library in search of a book and overheard two maids gossiping about Lord Russell’s affair with the Viscountess Stapledon.

  Nola was waiting in the corridor when Mariah returned to her room.