Thoughts charged through his head. She was so beautiful and polite it was difficult to imagine her being part of some sort of elaborate swindle, and judging by what Rebekka had said about his father, Lark seemed innocent. But what if that were not the case? What if she were actually shrewd enough to make anyone fall for her charade? He certainly did not want to find himself duped. Or even worse, in a grave situation which jeopardized lives.
~*∞*~
Lark’s face grew cold as the blood retreated. Jonathon sat at her side, staring at her with the most horrified expression ever to be directed at her. She found herself both wanting to know what was going on in his mind and fearing that very thing as well.
He wrenched his gaze from hers and turned to Rebekka. “You may retire for the evening.”
Lark’s heart ceased to beat. She shook her head, as she moved her fingers in a frenzied flurry.
“It is all right,” Rebekka said in a soothing tone before addressing Lord Somerset. “Miss Lark would prefer I stay if it is acceptable to you, my lord. She wonders how you both would communicate without my interpreting for you.”
Jonathon turned a steady gaze to Lark. “I am sure we can manage to communicate somehow. You need not worry.”
Lark was unsure who he was trying to encourage. Her own mind was certainly not set at ease. She spoke again with her hands.
“My lady wishes to remind you of etiquette, my lord. If anyone were to discover you had been together without benefit of a chaperon...”
He raised a silencing finger. “Do not preach to me about protocol. Our situation is not only highly unusual, but exceeds all need for the worry of etiquette, don’t you agree? We are residing in the same house without benefit of marriage. I think that situation is a trifle more volatile than taking an unchaperoned conversation in the confines of the dining room. Why, should the peers discover our situation, we wouldn’t have to worry about entertaining at all, for we would both be reduced to the scathed of society.”
Although she desperately wished it, Lark could not think of another argument. She knew little of the goings on in the ton, but she did know how cruel they could be. Lord Peter had made it clear to her time and again how important it was to follow the peerage’s example. It was one of the many reasons she was so paralyzed by the thought of entering society without the use of her tongue.
Not for the first time since Lord Peter’s death, Lark reasoned that she should able herself to speak. Her throat constricted with the thought, and breathing became difficult as apprehension balled inside her. She lowered her gaze and willed herself to calm.
When she raised her head once again, she found Jonathon eyeing her with the oddest expression. Lark could not discern if he were upset, angry or concerned. She moved her attention to Rebekka.
“You can retire. I suppose we’ll weather fairly,” Lark signed.
“That’s my girl,” Rebekka signed back. “I shall excuse myself, then,” she said aloud, then got up and politely nodded. “Miss Lark, my lord.”
~*∞*~
Jonathon watched the sparks ignite in Lark’s lovely expressive eyes and knew he had irritated her once again. Despite himself, he thought she was delightful. “Would you mind repeating that,” he inquired blandly, when he realized she was doing that thing with her hands, knowing full well he would not understand.
She got up, rang the bell and began to pace the room. After a moment, Chauncy came in.
“You rang, my lord,” he drolled.
Jonathon let out a chuckle. “Not I, Chauncy, Miss Lark.”
Chauncy directed the most mannerly of smiles to the young miss. “What service may I provide, Miss?”
Lark motioned with her hands in a gesture that resembled writing then studied Chauncy with query in her eyes.
“You wish a tablet and quill?”
She nodded, and Chauncy bowed out of the room, returning in no time with a tablet, ink and quill. He placed them on the table in front of her and she bestowed on him the most grateful of smiles. “Thank you,” she signed.
“You are very welcome, my lady. Is there anything else?” He moved his attention to Jonathon. “My lord?”
“That will be all, Chauncy.”
“Very good, my lord.”
Jonathon turned his attention to Lark, who sat writing furiously. She looked up and shoved the tablet at him with a force that should have shattered his image of her ethereal innocence. Perhaps it would have, had it not been for the unguarded insecurity in her eyes.
He took the paper and read, “I find it highly unconscionable, my lord, that you would compromise my position in this manner. Perhaps it would be best if we forgot the entire betrothal. I am sure, with Rebekka’s aid, I can find a position somewhere, perhaps a husband.”
“You think I would jeopardize everything because of a silly affront you feel at being left alone in a room with me? You must consider me a scatterbrained idiot.”
Lark snatched the tablet from him and scribbled once again. “I understand that this situation must be a best difficult for you. It is quite unbearable for me also. But we cannot allow Lord Peter to dictate our future. A future that will be clouded for you being wed to a woman for whom you hold such high contempt. Besides, I might do quite well to leave this house after such a time.”
“Is that what you want? To leave this house?” The reaction his body had to that was a thing he had not before experienced and could therefore not label. A mixture of anger and—despair?—and frustration. Whatever the combination, anger rose to the surface and made itself unmistakably known. He shot out of the chair. “You may as well put away silly notions, Miss Lark. You are to be my wife, and you will live in this house the rest of your life. I suggest you get very well acquainted with that fact; else, life will be exceedingly difficult for you. I plan to follow my father’s instructions to the letter. Is that clear?”
She signed a reply, evidentially forgetting he could not understand, and then picked up the paper and quill. “Quite clear, my lord,” she wrote.
He had no chance to respond before she bolted out of the chair and ran from the room.
Chapter Eight
The library was cold. Jonathon had allowed the fire to ebb into orange-edged cinders. Without really seeing them, he sat watching the shadows dance across his mother’s portrait. His feelings for his betrothed were so unsteady, that scant was his ability to understand them. Because she was so willing to go on her way with nothing, he now felt without doubt that Lark was innocent of scheming; but the possibility that she might be connected to Geoffry, and might put that young lad’s life at risk, still plagued him. He needed Smythe’s report on all of his father’s secrets—and soon. He sipped the sherry he had poured.
He shouldn’t have been so rough on her. She was not only furious when she had taken her leave of him, but had been on the brink of shedding tears. He should have been kinder, but he’d been so out of sorts since his father’s wishes had been made known to him, that he had not once considered that Lark might actually wish to leave Somerset Hall. Her pronouncement had sent him reeling.
His reaction had kept him at odds with himself these hours past. He wanted her to stay; he wanted her to leave—nay, he wanted her to be normal so that wanting her would be acceptable.
Blast it all! He didn’t know what he wanted.
A loud commotion out of doors arrested his thoughts, and he made his way into the great room with a hastened step. Chauncy, donned in a dressing gown and nightcap, staggered out with sleep-hazed eyes.
“Go back to your chamber, Chauncy. I shall deal with this myself.”
Chauncy bade him a groggy good night then disappeared once again. Jonathon unlatched the door, thrusting it open with such a force as to startle his unwelcome guest.
“Cyril! What the devil are you doing, calling at such an unholy hour?”
Cyril pushed past his brother and stumbled into the great room.
“You’re foxed,” Jonathon observed with disgust.
/> “Not quite,” Cyril remarked, “merely a little espirited.” He straightened his spine. “Suppose you don’t have time for your brother now that you’re lord of all you survey, eh, old chum? Thought perhaps you were turning into Papa, what with your absence out and about.”
“Balderdash.” Jonathon waved away his brother’s ranting. “So my mourning is not up to standard. What of it? Before the cock crows, I shall have a wife to consider. But I suppose responsibility is a word with which you are unfamiliar.” He returned to his glass of sherry in the library without thought to his brother.
Cyril followed not at all contrite at his disruption. “In case you hadn’t noticed, brother, I am quite in mourning myself.”
“I see your mourning. Making the rounds once again. Ascot? White’s? Has every other club seen the benefit of your company?”
“I don’t know that I would call it benefit.” Cyril helped himself to a glass of brandy.
Jonathon expelled a deep breath. “What brings you here?”
“Not happy for the pleasure of my company?” Coming from someone else the remark may have sounded caustic, but Cyril had a way with lightening his derision. Nonetheless, Jonathon was not in the mood for bantering with his brother. The hour was late, and he was growing quickly weary.
“Surprised, to be precise.”
“Of course. Surprised.”
“Why should I expect your hasty return? A fortnight ago, you weren’t happy to be in this house. As I recall, you didn’t find advantage in attending the reading of the Will, you held our papa with such disregard.”
Cyril’s eyes darkened as he viewed his brother with an intensity that made Jonathon uncomfortable.
“Does it not bother you, Jon, that he turned us out and subsequently turned up his toes without so much as an explanation?”
Jonathon’s irritation dissolved; for the first time he understood his brother’s dilemma. For himself, his father’s actions were all now explained. The letter the man left had made clear so much of his odd behaviour that Jonathon no longer felt any residual hostility over his father’s odd behaviour, but Cyril did not have the benefit of reading that letter, or of understanding the need for their father’s choices in years past—And Jonathon could not enlighten Cyril now.
“I hold no animosity towards the man,” he told his brother. “Had I the time perhaps it would be well worth dwelling on his oddities, however, I quite choose to overlook the subject.”
“Then you are a better son than I, brother.” Cyril turned up the bottom on his glass and drained the contents. “Don’t suppose you would allow me to stay until the morrow?” He shook his head with haste. “No. Never mind,” he mumbled.
Jonathon was at odds with himself, unsure as to whether he should give Cyril a bed for the night, or not. Despite Cyril’s genuine case of the doldrums, Jonathon could not afford the expense of having Cyril find out about Lark. Jonathon could well envisage his brother inadvertently telling everything while well into his cups. Still he did not know how to turn Cyril out without feeling guilty himself.
For several moments, he sat in silence sipping his spirits and contemplating how to dismiss Cyril without stirring up suspicion or ire. He placed his glass on the mantel, glancing at his mother’s portrait for but a moment. “Would it not be best for you to return home this eve?” He asked at length with a hope he didn’t sound as tinny to Cyril as he did to his own ears.
“Acting Lord Somerset, ay, Jon? Turning me out and hibernating behind these walls. You know the gossipmongers are having their fill.”
“I don’t give a farthing for the vacuous prattle-boxes. I have well addressed that accusation before and shall not entertain it again. Yes, I am Lord Somerset now, no I am not in hiding. I am in quiet mourning. I merely choose not to make an event of my sorrow as is á la modalité. Never you mind. In a trice, all will see me merrily introducing my betrothed.” Jonathon was not sure why he engaged in the useless conversation with his inebriated brother, except maybe that he had felt quite closed-in himself of late.
He had never wished to live in the shadow of his father’s oddities, and did not really care to do so now, but that was going to be quite impossible with a deficient wife in tow.
“How is Miss Blackburn, by the way?” Cyril refilled his empty glass, apparently missing the askance look Jonathon directed at him.
“She is well enough,” Lord Somerset replied in short.
“Such a lovely thing. I daresay you are quite in the pink to have found her. Pity she fails to speak, though. That will surely set the tongues to wagging.” Cyril laughed at his weak pun, staggered backward, and fell into a chair.
“Must we discuss this now, Cyril?” Jonathon asked testily. “You arrive unannounced, well into your cups, and wish to discuss the inadequacy of my fiancée, all at an ungodly hour. When will you learn you are no longer in short coats and should act accordingly?” Jonathon made his way to the doors and flung them open. “I am retiring. I suggest you do the same.” He began to quit the room.
“Sounds as if her failing is a bother to you. If you truly loved her, would you not be more indifferent?”
Jonathon stopped short and spun around. Blood coursed through his veins heating every part of him. It throbbed in his temple, in his neck, quickening his heartbeat. “You are out of yourself, Cyril, and I strongly suggest you remember your place. You will not speak ill of my betrothed. You will not speak ill of my intentions, and you most certainly will not insinuate, even in the slightest, that all is not the picture of heaven between us. Do I make myself clear?”
All he needed was for Cyril to begin a personal investigation into the life of Lark and how she had come to be betrothed. Cyril might be a wastrel, but a cork brain he was not—and he enjoyed solving a mystery as much as the next fellow.
Cyril’s face was blank for quite some time, as if he could not believe Jonathon’s intensity. At length he pulled himself out of the chair, crossed the room and placed a hand on Jonathon’s shoulder. “Calm yourself, brother. I meant nothing by the gibe. Are we not brothers able to tease one another?”
Jonathon’s rage quickly ebbed. He knew Cyril meant him no ill. Regretful of his outburst, he eased out from underneath his brother’s warm hand.
“I take no offense. It is only that the hour grows late and I am weary. Why don’t you retire to your room, and we’ll breakfast on the morrow before you depart.”
Cyril nodded and together the brothers climbed the stairs. “Gammon!” Jonathon bit out when they reached the landing. Cyril turned an inquiring eye towards his brother.
“You go on without me. I quite forgot something.” Jonathon turned before Cyril could say more than a quizzical “something?”
At a concealed spot halfway down the staircase, Jonathon waited for his brother’s footfalls to fade before returning to the landing and going the opposite direction down the corridor. His hand was raised to rap on the door to Lark’s chamber when he heard footfalls once again.
In the shadows, he lurked until he could see but the outline of Cyril descending the staircase. Jonathon’s arm relaxed without having touched the door. With haste, he made his way to the apex of the stairs. “Looking for me?”
Hand over his heart Cyril abruptly turned on the second-to-last step. He looked as if he would alight right out of his boots.” You quite scared me into the grave,” he said breathlessly. “You are a magician to have climbed above without notice.”
“No magician, Cyril. You seemed rather intent on descending the stairs with little thought to anything else. Why might that be?”
Cyril ignored his brother’s gruff questioning and drew his lips into an unaffected smile. “I merely thought perhaps you might need some assistance with the ‘something’ you forgot,” Cyril answered.
“I am finished. I thank you for your consideration. Shall we retire?”
Blast! How was he going to alert Lark to Cyril’s presence now?
Chapter Nine
Lark sat in the gaze
bo watching a sparrow peck at the minute specks on the ground. It looked as though the bird sought food in vain, but still it pecked and flew into the nearby tree, then returned again and again to the same spot.
She smiled and noted the airy breeze in her diary. She loved mornings out on the grounds. She sipped on the piping tea Penelope had brought her. Last evening had been a trial, but the brightness of the new day seemed to outshine past tribulations.
In the light of morning, she resigned herself to the reality of her powerlessness to stop the betrothal, and her powerlessness to make Lord Somerset care for her. Even if she were able to speak, he would not love her. His low opinion of her obviously went beyond her inability to converse.
Unfortunately, her heart refused to be comforted by mere resignation. That was why she had offered to leave. She did not think she could spend the rest of her life living with a man who loathed her…Yet there had been moments when she thought she saw glimpses of admiration in his gaze.
Oh, what had Lord Peter done? She had asked that question so many times over recent weeks that she wondered at her own sanity.
Footfalls nearing the gazebo alerted Lark to someone’s approach. A part of her wished it were Jonathon, for she had not seen him all morning and hoped to mend the rift, but another part of her was afraid of that inevitable confrontation. She adjusted her pale blue day dress and twisted to peer through the white braided slats of the gazebo.
To her surprise, it was neither Jonathon nor Rebekka, but Mister Cyril Rexley. Her mind started to whir with possible excuses for her presence here at such an inappropriately early hour—and without the company of her betrothed and a chaperon.
“I thought it was you out here on this fine morning, Miss Lark,” Cyril said as he stepped into the gazebo.
Lark smiled and was glad of her silent state for the first time in many days.
The Resurrection of Lady Somerset Page 7