The Lady's Hero

by Carolyn R. Scheidies

  Betsy blushed. “Why, yes, I think I might. Tomorrow, no, this afternoon, then.”

  Like any dandy, Edward held and kissed her hand until Betsy herself tugged it from his grasp with a giggle. Embarrassed at his ninnyhammered behavior, Edward watched her go.

  Much later, he turned and found himself face-to-face with Angella and the earl.

  For all his plans to confront his sister, he now gulped, wondering how to go on. He had never considered that the earl would be so large or so overwhelming. His own offenses of anger and resentment made him hesitate. Somehow, glancing over toward where Betsy spoke to a short, round woman in a puce gown defused the fire inside. From all he’d seen during the long night, his sister was liked, respected and accepted. That certainly did not “fit” the image he’d built up in his mind.

  It rather surprised him Angella had not discerned the truth of his identity. Mayhap it was because he’d made sure never to allow her to get too close or to get a good view of him. Besides, she wasn’t expecting him at the event and her attention was probably on a hundred other things. She did look beautiful in a gown with roses embroidered around the modest neckline, waist and above the hem. She dressed as their mother would have desired, but never was able due to their meager income.

  Though a slight smile touched the corners of the earl’s mouth, there was a question in his eyes. “I hope you enjoyed the evening, Mr....?”

  “Reverend,” he supplied. A muscle twitched in Edward’s cheek. He was unused to subterfuge, but he was not certain he wanted to reveal himself yet. “It was most enlightening. I fear I am unused to such...uh, splendor.” He could not completely disguise the resentment evident in his tone, which he never realized he held. Such feelings were lowering in the extreme.

  His sister, Angella, smiled at him, her eyes twinkling mischievously in the way that used to both irritate and endear her to him. Now it raised his ire. How dare she act with such ingenuousness! Unless...unless...He closed his eyes momentarily against the questions clamoring for answers.

  He watched Angella glance toward Lucashire for direction. Obviously she sensed something amiss with him. She always was quick-witted. “I say, Reverend,” demanded the earl, “just what is it you want?”

  Edward blinked. For one who had prided himself on his reliance on God, he found himself confused in the whirl of his emotions, emotions having nothing to do with the peace he had in his Heavenly Father. Peace! It seemed an age since he had known peace.

  Was this, then, how it began? First the small sin, then the next, the next. How had it been for Angella? There was no hope now of coming out of this with his dignity intact.

  “Angella.” His familiarity brought a protest to the earl’s lips, his arm surrounded her waist protectively. “Reverend, I say, do you have a problem?”

  “No, yes. Listen...” Nothing came out. Fear glinted on the face of his sister. Of a certain they thought him completely daft. Well, no wonder.

  The Earl and Countess of Alistair walked by, hand in hand. “It was lovely, my dear.” She kissed Angella’s cheek. “I wish you both great happiness.” Lord Alistair shook Lucashire’s hand. He noticed Edward and nodded. “Thanks again for your assistance. Nice seeing you here tonight.”

  Edward stared after the couple as they made their way up the wide staircase. Servants bustled about them in the ballroom cleaning and straightening. In a couple of hours the room would show no evidence of having been swarmed with people.

  Angella yawned behind her hand. Lines of exhaustion settled under her heavy lids. He knew the earl wished him gone, but was too much the gentleman to ask him to leave.

  Angella leaned against the earl as she hid a yawn behind her gloved hand. The earl stepped forward. “Reverend, if you have business with me, fine, but I wish to send Miss Denning to her bed.”

  “Why, so you might join her later?”

  The words ground out of Edward, surprising him as much as they infuriated the earl. He was not even sure he believed his own preconceived notions any longer. With everything in him, he wished to recall his accusation.

  Angella gasped. Her eyes filled with tears.

  The earl clenched his fists. “And just what does that mean? I think you have quite outstayed your welcome...Reverend. If you are a minister of the gospel.”

  Edward straightened. Everything he’d heard from the vicar and Lady Margaret rang in his mind. Rising in indignation to the threat, Edward straightened. “Fine gentleman you, taking an innocent young woman and seducing her to your bed without benefit of the wedding lines. I suppose you thought her not good enough for the likes of the Earl of Lucashire.”

  “And you.” He turned his rage onto his sister. “How could you live with this libertine as though he were your husband? How could...” Edward could go no further. To his shame, tears coursed down his cheeks.

  “Angella, how could you?”

  “Are you mazed, sir?” Angella stared at him, puzzled. “Spensor has not shamed me in any way. We are even now planning our nuptials. Tonight we celebrated our engagement. Did you not know? Who told you differently? Surely you don’t believe he would parade some doxy among the ton as his ward. It isn’t done. I would never—”

  The earl stepped between Angella and Edward. “How dare you accuse Miss Denning of such a disgraceful thing!”

  In desperation, Edward cried, “But Lady Ainsworth saw you...” he lowered his voice “...in his chambers late one night.”

  Angella’s face whitened. The earl, his lips tight with repressed anger, grabbed the man’s arm. “I think you have some explaining to do, Reverend. I want an explanation, and I want it now. Just why does any of this concern you?”

  Desperation stiffened Edward’s shoulders. “Because I am Edward Denning, Angella’s brother...and her legal guardian.”

  Angella gasped. Releasing Edward, the earl caught her as she fainted.

  Edward felt as though his heart stopped until Angella slowly opened her eyes. She lay on a sofa with curved whorled feet, though Edward had no idea why he noticed that detail. Around the formal drawing room candles sputtered their last in the wall sconces. Only the candles in the tall shiny brass candelabrum on the small end table next to the sofa held tall, new candles that cast a golden shadow over the occupants. Though streaks of light at the edges of the heavy curtains proclaimed a new day, no one had yet bothered to pull open the drapes to welcome it.

  The earl anxiously hovered over Edward’s sister. “Angella, darling. Are you all right?”

  Edward returned her stare as she studied him.

  “Are you truly Edward, my brother?” Reluctantly, the earl permitted him to approach.

  “I am. Angella. I am sorry, I thought... I don’t understand, I mean.” He felt unsure of himself.

  “I thought you’d never come,” whispered his sister, swallowing with difficulty. “I began to think you weren’t coming back.”

  Edward clasped his hands behind his back, his heart sick. “I was pretty caught up in my work, I fear. I should have returned long since.”

  “Carey needed you?”

  Though his sister gave him an out, Edward refused to take refuge in the easy admission. “There is always work to be done, Angella, but I have no excuse for not seeing to my family. Even Carey agreed I needed a break.”

  “You got my letter.”

  “Yes, and I returned as soon as possible.”

  “Why the subterfuge?” The earl’s voice was hard. “You abused our hospitality.”

  “I know.” Misery sat like a brick inside. There were questions still, but there was no gainsaying he had wrongly accused his sister. In so doing, he had made an absolute and complete cake of himself.

  “As if your sister has not been through enough without having you denounce her without more proof than that of a vindictive woman.”

 
“She was your fiancée,” Edward said defensively. “She made some pretty damaging accusations. With what I’d already heard from the vicar who took Father’s place, what was I to believe?”

  Angella sighed. “I don’t know, Edward, but coming here tonight as you did, then treating me all night as though I had some loathsome disease. You were never one to evade the truth of a matter before, why now?”

  “Because I wanted to know the truth. Lady Ainsworth said she found you in the earl’s chambers late one night.”

  “’Tis true,” Angella began, stuttered when Edward’s face paled and he sucked in a deep, shuddering breath. “Edward, listen. It wasn’t as it seems.”

  Lucashire faced down the missionary. “Yes, your sister was with me. You wish for the truth. You shall hear it. The whole of it.” Pointing to a nearby chair, he commanded, “Sit down, Reverend Denning.”

  Edward, frowning, did as he was told, his eyes on the cold face of the earl. He saw that face soften as the earl sat on the edge of the couch and took Angella’s trembling hand in his. Lucashire’s visage hardened again, as he once more speared Edward in his penetrating gaze.

  “The good people of Little Cambrage were persuaded your sister was not only deliberately trying to seduce the new vicar, who I might add, is the devil’s own.”

  Edward swallowed with some difficulty. Was not that what the elderly woman had told him? Why had he not listened? “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Of course it is.” The earl actually snorted his disgust. “It was a hum. Reverend Carter wanted Angella for himself and when she soundly refused him, he had her driven out of the village with nothing but what she stood up in. He has now, I might add, been replaced.

  “Had I not come along then, your sister would now probably be dead...or worse. When I arrived, the village bullies were trying to stone her.”

  Again Edward gasped. His hands clutched the arms of the chair. “How could they do such a thing?”

  The earl’s face softened as he continued. “Yes, I became her protector, her guardian, as—I might add—your mother wished.”

  Angella nodded, acknowledging this truth. Edward did not wish to hear more, but he knew he must.

  “No, I did not influence her nearly as much as she influenced me.” He smiled then, at Angella.

  “Up until then I believed all Christians were sour-face hypocrites, claiming one thing, but doing another. Angella was anything but that. She was the most open, honest person I had ever met. And one who held her virtue highly. Her faith, too, was a very real and vital part of her. Her God worth serving.

  “She was willing to die rather than obey me if it meant compromising her faith. She has quite the temper, I discovered.”

  A slight smile tickled Edward’s lips, as well. “Aye, I recall her temper, right well. Seems to be a family trait, I fear. But...”

  Raising a hand, the earl continued. “I desired your sister, but I coveted her faith, as well.”

  Edward could not meet the earl’s steady gaze. Too often, of late, he himself had been hypocritical. “I understand now about the vicar. I did not like him overmuch, either. I did not much credit what he said until I met up with Lady Ainsworth.”

  “Ah yes. My dear betrothed. She came to stake her claim because, once more, her brother was under the hatches. By then I wanted out of the farce. She and her brother could not wait.” There was a cynical twist to the earl’s lips. Angella closed her eyes, shuddered as though she recalled that night.

  “Edward,” Angella said, softly, “did you also become acquainted with Lady Margaret’s younger brother, Herbert?”

  “I did indeed. Seemed a rather slow fellow.”

  “Oh, Edward. Margaret decided that until I was discredited, Spensor would not marry her. She and Harry...” Angella could not go on.

  Anger flashed in the earl’s face, but his tenderness toward Angella was unmistakable. “She had the gall to instruct Herbert to go to your sister’s room and attack her.” Edward gasped, but the earl went on. “Thanks to her little cat, which was asleep on the bed, Angella was able to get away from him long enough to run to my study off my bedchambers.

  “That is where Margaret found us. After I sent Margaret on her way, I tucked your sister in on the couch before the hearth while I went to my bedchambers. The next day I made provisions for Margaret and Harry and sent them out of our lives...I had hoped...permanently.”

  Edward bowed his head. The anger that had been a part of him for so long drained from him, leaving him confused and bewildered.

  Silence. What was left to say? Even the hearth in the ballroom was cold and dead, having not yet been cleaned out for the day. A chill settled in the room, but it was nothing compared to the chill in Edward’s heart.

  He did not deserve Angella’s regard and certainly not Betsy’s. He was unworthy of his calling and yet it was all he had. Angella’s future was assured as the beloved wife of the earl. He no longer doubted that. As for Betsy, how could he hold up his head after all the things he’d thought about her cousin and his own sister?

  There was nothing to do but return to India as soon as possible. He was not sure how he accomplished it, but, not half an hour later, Edward found himself heading back to his mentor’s home. He left Angella calling after him as he left the room, and he was sure he heard Betsy’s voice as he drove away.

  Chapter 13

  After Edward drove off, Betsy hurried back into the drawing room. Under her breath she murmured, “Lord, please. I trusted You. Now what?”

  Angella, still sitting on the sofa with Spensor beside her holding her hand, asked, “Did you speak with him?”

  Betsy dropped into a nearby chair. “No. He drove off and would not acknowledge me.” She paused. “I glimpsed his face. Oh, Angella, he looked absolutely broken. Whatever happened here? I only caught the end when he rushed away.”

  “You were right, Betsy. He....he made accusations.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “He was horrified when they slipped from his mouth and more so when he learned the truth.”

  Betsy wiped a tear from her eye that matched the one running down Angella’s face as her friend sighed. “Poor Edward. What he must have been going through, blaming himself for leaving me behind.”

  Lucashire straightened. “Poor Edward. My dear, what he thought...”

  Angella patted his hand. “I know, but he was too angry and worried to think clearly.” She glanced over at Betsy. “Especially since his mind has been on more than my situation.”

  Betsy felt color warm her cheeks. “He asked to see me later this afternoon, but...I’m afraid...now. You did not see his face. He was humiliated and hurting.” She put her fears into words. “What if he doesn’t return?”

  “Betsy, we must find him.” Angella turned to the earl. “What if, now that he knows I am all right, he leaves....for good. Spensor, I could not bear it if he left.” From his response, Betsy knew her cousin caught the pain in Angella’s voice.

  “I am sorry.” Betsy bit her lip. “But I have no idea where he resides.”

  “I have an idea.” With that the earl got up and pulled the bell cord. When Davis answered, the earl said, “Please bring last night’s invitations that were handed in.”

  Not long thereafter, the three thumbed through the engraved parchments. “Here. Yes.” The earl held up an invitation. “I think your brother came on another’s invitation.”

  Angella read the name and wrinkled her forehead in thought. Excitement danced in her eyes. “Yes. Yes. I recall now. That was Edward’s mentor long past and a firm supporter of his ministry. If he is any place in London, that’s where.”

  Betsy got to her feet. “Come, we have to find Edward.”

  Her cousin held up a hand. “I’ll call for the curricle to be brought round. Meanwhile, my dear Angell
a and cousin, why not change your clothing into something more appropriate?”

  The girls stared down at their formal gowns. Betsy grabbed Angella’s hand. “Come on. Let’s hurry.”

  * * *

  Shame traveled with Edward. Betsy had been wise to keep him from seeing his sister. She was one wise, caring woman. Too bad he’d never discover if she would have accepted his heart.

  He planned to go right up to his room and start packing, even knowing it would take time to find a ship to take him back to India. He fingered one of his father’s books. Mayhap if he pawned them, he could get enough for the voyage.

  However, his mentor caught him before he started up the stairs. “Hmm.”

  Edward started. “I am sorry. I did not see you standing there.”

  Reverend Jeremiah drew close, scrutinizing his face. “Something went horribly wrong.” His gaze narrowed. “You did attend the ball, did you not?”

  Edward turned to face Reverend Jeremiah. “I did and it was the biggest mistake of my life.”

  Taking his arm, his mentor and friend led him toward the library. Seeing no students within, he motioned Edward to a chair by the hearth, the same green-and-rust Georgian-style chair in which he’d sat not long past. It seemed like ages. This time there was no smile on the face of his mentor, who sat on the chair opposite. For a moment the man stared into the hearth, then up at Edward. “What happened last night?”

  “This morning rather.” Edward groaned. “You were right. Betsy was right. I should have confronted my anger and suspicions before confronting my sister.”

  Reverend Jeremiah stared at him in some consternation. “Are you saying you made accusations at the ball?”