Mask of Nobility

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  After a few long minutes, Tor heard the sound of footsteps on the stones in the hallway. Murmurs.

  The door opened and the man that Tor had to presume was Jasper Thomsett stepped through and shut it once more.

  Tor examined him. Thomsett was the same height as Tor, which few men were. That was where any similarity ended. Thomsett had black, curly hair and black eyes, which he must have got from his mother. He was not as broad across the shoulders.

  His chin, though…

  Tor stirred. “You have my father’s mouth and jaw.”

  Thomsett’s lips parted. His eyes widened. “You are Edvard?”

  “I apologize for arriving unannounced in this way,” Tor said. “The decision was sudden and impulsive. I hope you don’t mind.”

  Thomsett gathered his wits. He straightened his shoulders and moved toward the fire. “Not at all, your Highness, although I confess this is so unexpected I am reeling with astonishment.” He stopped on the other side of the mantel shelf and studied Tor. “You have your father’s eyes and hair.”

  “So I’m told,” Tor said. “I prefer to think of them as my own.”

  Thomsett considered him. “I did not think the two of us would ever meet.”

  “In a properly-ordered world, perhaps not.” Tor rested his hand on the high shelf and stared at the flames. “I’m not sure why I’m here, Thomsett. As you can tell from the lack of retinue about me, it is not an official visit.” He laughed. “Not even the cabbie knew who I was.”

  He thought once more of the woman who had tended to the nettle sting. Her direct look and commanding way. That had been as much of a shock to him as the expectation that he open his own doors. He could still feel the tingle on his hands and wrists from her touch and manipulations.

  Such ability in a woman so young and so common needed further consideration.

  Tor shook himself. Well, he had wished to escape his own world. Clearly, he had succeeded.

  “Have you run away, then?” Thomsett said, his tone light.

  “In a way.”

  Silence.

  Tor glanced at him. “I was touring Scotland. We’ve been gone almost a year from Silkeborg, visiting Europe and beyond.”

  “I heard.” Thomsett’s smile was a ghostly thing. “Your life is reported in English papers, too.”

  “That must gall you,” Tor said.

  Thomsett’s smile was complete this time and just as truthful. “I don’t envy you your life for a moment, your Highness. Not one whit.”

  Tor nodded. “If you feel that way, then perhaps you understand why I am here. There has been a cholera outbreak in Scotland.”

  “That, I had not heard,” Thomsett admitted. “It is bad?”

  “Bad enough that Baumgärtner insisted we abandon the good will tour and move onto France. I agreed we must leave Scotland, only when it came to it, I couldn’t abide another official visit.” He glanced at Thomsett and away, stirring uncomfortably. “Baumgärtner calls it a good will tour. In reality, it is a wife hunt. At every turn, marriageable maidens are trotted out for me to inspect.”

  “Ah….” Thomsett’s voice was full of sudden understanding. “Then Baumgärtner has not yet retired? I thought he might. He spoke of it when I was in Silkeborg, five years ago.”

  “He would see me married and an heir to secure the title, before considering it. Only, I suspect Baumgärtner thought it would be a matter of months, not years. I have been trying his patience. This tour has been an abrasive reminder of my failure. I could stomach no more of the parade.”

  Thomsett did not respond at once. He turned and looked into the glowing coals. “You may not enjoy being reminded of how similar you are to your father, your Highness, but your impatience is very much like him. My mother told me many times how the yoke of responsibilities and duties chafed him.”

  “While my mother told me how well his army uniform fit him, the day they met.”

  “Was that not the day they wed?” Thomsett asked, his tone gentle.

  “Precisely. She could not look at his face the entire day.” Tor sighed. “I will not say I envy you your childhood because, frankly, I do not. You were raised a bastard in a country that does not treat bastards kindly. Yet you got the better half of my father—his goodwill and his…love.”

  “You had him in your life.” Thomsett gave an impatient wave of his hand. “We could stand here arguing losses on both sides all day. There is no point. It is what it is. If you are running away, your Highness, then you have come here to hide?”

  “Frank words.” Tor hesitated. “Do you mind my landing upon you and yours in this way? I cannot bring myself to think of it as hiding, even in my mind. I would appreciate a moment to…draw breath. I am not sure how long that moment may last. Baumgärtner will find me soon enough.”

  “Sooner than that,” Thomsett replied. “He’s a wily Swiss. Will he not raise an alarm? He could turn the country inside out, looking for you.”

  “I left a note that will delay that reaction,” Tor told him. “He knows I’ve left of my own free will. He just doesn’t know where I’ve gone. With the Scotland leg of the tour canceled because of the cholera outbreak, my next formal engagement is a month away. He won’t panic until closer to that date.”

  Thomsett bent and picked up the poker and stirred the fire to life. Then he laid a log from the copper basket sitting upon the corner of the hearth onto the coals and watched it catch fire. “You are welcome to the hospitality of my home, your Highness, although you may find my company more uncomfortable than the maidens you avoid. We do not know each other at all, despite being united by a single father.”

  “That is a risk I must take, although if I can withstand the company of Silkeborg’s mayor and his councilors, I can surely suffer through yours.”

  Thomsett smiled. “Then I must put you in the room with my tenant farmers and see how long you last with them.”

  “Ah, yes. Baumgärtner told me about the qualifying clause in my father’s will. He was impressed by your handling of the matter.”

  Thomsett pushed his hands into his pockets. “If it is your intention to breathe, as you say, then you cannot be a guest here as yourself.” Thomsett waved toward the window. “It only looks as though there are miles of fields and sheep out there. In fact, this district is a writhing mass of gossips. If word escapes that an Archeduke is staying at Northallerton, it will spread at a speed greater than the London Express. You will have Baumgärtner here on the doorstep inside two days.”

  “I see…” Tor did understand. This was the first time in his life he had been completely alone. It was a heady sensation to walk by himself, unremarked and almost invisible. He’d strolled among trees and heard only his own footsteps. He had stood by the side of a country road and witnessed a silence so complete that the movement of a bird far inside the trees was loud in comparison. He had experienced all of it only by hiding his real identity. That shield must remain in place for such moments to continue. “I could not claim you as my brother, if I am to lie about who I am. You have ensured the world knows who your father is.”

  “You can claim to be a distant cousin.” Thomsett said. “The Princess Annalies, who is my honorary aunt, actually is a cousin to both of us. You would not be lying, your Highness.”

  “If I am to be a distant cousin, then you must stop using my title.”

  “What should I call you then?” Thomsett asked. “‘Lorensburg’ would be just as revealing as ‘your Highness’.”

  “Your family—the extended family, I mean—Baumgärtner explained to me the practice you have of using each other’s first names, within the family.”

  “I should call you Edvard?”

  Tor winced. “That is what my mother called me.”

  “What do your closest friends call you, then?” Thomsett hesitated. “You don’t have close friends,” he finished.

  “None with the degree of intimacy that allows the use of personal names,” Tor admitted. “My father…” It wa
s his turn to hesitate. His father was Thomsett’s father and Thomsett already resented that the man had been absent in his life.

  Thomsett’s eyes narrowed. “He used a different name?”

  “The one name he was permitted to choose for me, after the committee had finished their selections. Tor.”

  “Tor.” Thomsett tried it softly. “Edvard Christoffer…are there any more in there?”

  “Adam for my grandfather. Bernhardt for my mother’s father.”

  “Edvard Christoffer Adam Bernhardt Tor Lorensburg.”

  Tor shook his head. “No one has ever strung them together in that way before.”

  “It is the common man’s practice,” Thomsett replied. “I have the right to call myself Jasper Anson Dominik of Northallerton, or even just Northallerton, although people in these parts would look at me oddly if I did.”

  “Dominik,” Tor repeated, startled. “He gave you his own name?”

  Thomsett’s gaze met his. “That was all I was given.”

  Tor made himself breathe away the tiny note of resentment chiming in his chest. “You spoke truly, a moment ago. We could challenge each other for a month on our respective losses and wounds, if we wanted to.”

  Thomsett stirred and stepped away from the fire. “I and my family will call you Tor. The rest of the world can call you…Besogende.”

  Tor smiled. Thomsett’s accent was not quite right, yet clear enough to recognize the Danish. “I am a visitor, after all.” He could feel the fluttering of warmth in his chest and middle. It was not from the fire, but from the idea that a tiny group of people—Thomsett’s family alone—would use his father’s name for him.

  It pleased him.

  Thomsett glanced at the carriage clock on the mantel shelf. “Your trunks are outside?”

  “I packed a valise. The driver would have given it to your butler, I suppose.” He frowned. “Should I have carried it myself?”

  “Warrick would have seen to it.” Thomsett tugged on the bell pull next to the fire. “Afternoon tea approaches. I will introduce you to Lilly. Afterward, you must meet Seth and the twins.” Thomsett cocked his head. “Do children bother you?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Tor said. “I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to one directly.”

  Thomsett shrugged. “We don’t keep our children in the nursery all day. You’ll learn quickly enough how to deal with them.”

  Tor glanced at the toy soldier on the floor beneath the sofa once more. “It is all very new to me,” he admitted. He met Thomsett’s gaze. “Newness pleases me.”

  Thomsett put his hand to his temple, as if he had just remembered something. “Oh lord, Bronwen…” He dropped his hand and straightened. “You most likely won’t meet Bronwen until supper tonight. If then.” He gave a self-conscious laugh. “You say newness pleases you, only Bronwen will test your resolve, your…Tor.”

  Tor shook his head. “The newer, the better,” he said firmly.

  “You say that now,” Thomsett replied as the butler, Warrick, stepped into the room. “Wait until supper,” he added, his tone one of warning.

  Chapter Four

  Jasper arrived not long after Fisher had brought Lilly the extra blanket from the linen press and tucked it around her legs.

  Jasper dropped to his knee next to the chaise longe Lilly lay upon and kissed her. It was a warm, slow kiss, that made her heart stir and her body to tighten.

  Then, with a regretful expression, he settled back and brushed a stray hair from her cheek. His gaze moved over her face.

  “I am well,” she assured him, answering his unspoken question. “I am tired, though. We’ve been back from Cornwall for a week and I cannot sleep enough. I don’t know why. This year’s Gathering was placid compared to some years.”

  Jasper smiled, only it didn’t reach his eyes. “The usual hell-raisers were not on hand this year. They’ve scattered about the world on their adventures.” He picked up her hand, his fingers warm and strong. “You’ve been through a physical ordeal that would tax even strong men, Lilly. Give yourself time.”

  Lilly thought of the tiny new grave in the family plot, at the top of the dale. Her throat tightened and her eyes stung. She wiped them with her free hand. “I’m sorry. I do this even with the most lateral of references…”

  Jasper cupped her cheek. Pain showed in his eyes. “Me, too,” he admitted. “I know a man should not admit to that, but I do. No one has caught me at it, yet, although there have been close calls. I miss George, too.”

  “He wasn’t with us for more than a day, yet there is a hole here.” She touched her chest.

  Jasper’s hand squeezed hers. “I may have found a distraction for you.”

  “Beyond Bronwen’s escapades?” Lilly asked.

  “Where is Bronwen, anyway?” Jasper asked. “I checked in the library on the way upstairs. She isn’t at her usual spot.”

  “On the ladder?” Lilly smiled, despite the aching in her chest. “How on earth she finds perching upon a hard ladder comfortable when there are perfectly good armchairs within reach is beyond me. If she is not in the library, then she is most certainly out walking. Possibly with Agatha, if the poor woman is up to it. I hope they don’t get wet.”

  Jasper glanced through the window. “It is cloudless out there.”

  “Look at the horizon. There’s rain coming,” Lilly assured him.

  “I will take your word for it,” Jasper replied, glancing through the window once more and frowning.

  “And the distraction?”

  Jasper hesitated. She felt small tension build in him.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “My brother is here.”

  Lilly stared at him. For a moment, she could not think of who Jasper’s brother might be. Jasper was a bastard and alone in the world.

  Then the necessary facts came to her.

  Lilly tried to sit up. “The Archeduke of Silkeborg is in the drawing room? You left him there?” Horror spilled through her. “Jasper, my God! You can’t leave the room without a royal’s permission! You must go back. Now.”

  “I know the protocol,” Jasper told her. Warmth and humor were building in his eyes. “Actually, he’s no longer in the drawing room. He’s in the second-best guest room, where Warrick put him.”

  “The second best?” Lilly cried, alarm forcing her up and bringing her feet to the floor, in a tangle of mohair and tartan.

  Jasper laughed. “Bronwen has the best room. I suppose Warrick didn’t want to turn her out.”

  “What is he thinking?” Lilly said, trying to untangle the blanket from the flounces on her dress and her heels. “Of course Bronwen must vacate the room. One doesn’t offer royalty anything but the best one has.”

  Jasper unwound the blanket and dropped it on the green velvet next to her. “While Tor is here, he does not want to be royal at all. Warrick thinks he is a distant cousin, visiting from Denmark. Tor Besogende.”

  Lilly grew still, absorbing Jasper’s extraordinary statement. She could feel her eyes widen.

  Jasper picked up her hand again and held it between his two warm ones. “I don’t know how to explain it. I don’t have the full details. I don’t know the man, yet the sensation I got from talking to him for just a few minutes…it was odd, Lilly. I kept thinking he’s just like us. He’s reeling, looking for something to hold on to while he finds his way forward.”

  Lilly’s chest ached. “The poor man,” she breathed. “We must surely be able to help him while he is here, Jasper.”

  “I would not put it so boldly to Tor,” Jasper advised her. “He has the same prickly pride Annalies sometimes displays.”

  “The haughty look she gives, when the strangest things offend her?” Lilly asked.

  “Exactly.”

  Lilly squeezed his hand. “My God, Jasper…Bronwen!”

  Jasper shook his head. “I’ve been worrying how he might react to Bronwen. Only, I think—I suspect—Bronwen’s ways might be just the cure he’s looki
ng for.”

  “We’re used to her, Jasper. Tor—is that what we’re to call him? Tor is not used to anything but the most genteel and mannered people. He’ll be shocked by her. Maybe even disgusted.”

  “Shocked, perhaps. A man who manages to pack his own valise and travel through a strange country by himself when he’s never done either…that sort of man has a resilience that will not let him descend to disgust.”

  Lilly considered it. “As distractions are measured, Jasper, I think you may have outdone yourself with this one. The next little while will be very interesting.”

  * * * * *

  It had taken days of shouting before Bronwen had conceded and promised that, no matter what she might get up to during the day, she would present herself at dinner and attempt to be civilized for the duration of the meal.

  Lilly’s pale face, the first time Bronwen had stayed out in the woods for the night, had been a shock to Bronwen, as had Jasper’s ringing, scathing tirade about responsibility, respect and empathy. He had been as worried as Lilly, a fact that had only made itself known to Bronwen after she had scared them silly.

  Bronwen always made her way back to Northallerton if she was out, now. She would arrange to arrive before the dinner hour so she could wash and dress in her one presentable gown. Sometimes, she even tried to pin her hair up, although most of the time, she did not bother.

  Nor did she bother this evening. The rain had caught her as she had been walking home after seeing Agatha was warm and comfortable in front of the fire pit in her little one-room cott, next to the Willow Beck. Bronwen had left the rosemary with Agatha to prepare for drying, up in the roof of the cottage.

  Because her hair was damp, Bronwen left it loose rather than fight to pin it in a simple coil, the most she ever bothered with. She glanced at her muddy boots and left them off, too. The floor in the house was always warm underfoot, except for the slate in the front hall.