by Corwin, Amy
He tucked the pink slips back into the volume and set it on the shelf with its companions. There were a number of novels in the original French, as well, and in all of those, her name graced the inner cover.
“Archer!” he repeated, striding over to the fire. “How are you faring?”
“Ah, Dacy.” Archer closed the book, keeping his finger inserted between the pages.
When he saw Chilton glance down at the brown leather volume in his lap, he held it up, exposing the gold lettering on the cover. It read, “Robinson Crusoe” by Daniel Defoe.
He felt a rush of kinship with the older man. The tale of survival he was reading was one of Chilton’s favorites. The book saw him through many a lonely night. And daft though it was, he wished the old miscreant sitting in front of the fire was his father instead of the cold man in Chichester.
But, that wasn’t fair, he chided himself. His father wasn’t the least bit cold toward Violet and their son, Edward. It was only Chilton who didn’t fit in. He had been sent away to school when he was a young lad and had barely been home since.
As a boy, he spent many nights staring out of the frosty windows at Eton, watching the moon gleaming on the cool snow and wondering why. After a few years, he realized his family simply didn’t wish to have him around. It was as simple as that.
“What’s the matter, Dacy?”
He shook his head. “Nothing, I hope. That mutt you foisted upon me has decided to whelp.”
Archer laughed. “Hope you had the good sense to call Oriana. A marvel with animals, she is.”
“Yes, she’s up there now.”
“Good. Sit down.” He felt his pockets and pulled out a pack of cards with a triumphant flourish. A few piles of well-worn chips were stacked neatly on the pie-edged table next to Archer’s chair. “A brief game of whist, perhaps? Take your mind off of your impending fatherhood?”
Chilton agreed. After all, he had plenty of time, and there were still a few hundred pounds left in his wallet. If anyone got their hands on it, he would rather it be one of the Archer reprobates.
A smile flickered over his mouth when he thought about the growing stack of pink paper in his wallet. Oriana’s clear, concise hand recorded every shilling she took, with the date, amount, and purpose neatly inscribed.
She seemed inordinately fond of itemizing things on pink slips.
The sardonic thought of blackmailing her with those slips and extracting another kiss flashed through his mind. But he dismissed it. He’d rather she give it willingly, if she could be persuaded.
The first hand went well for him. He was able to take his mind off matters upstairs until Archer broke the silence.
“I probably shouldn’t mention this, Dacy, but I’ve noticed some, well, shall we say some rather speaking glances between you and my niece.”
Chilton fumbled his hand and discarded the wrong card. He grunted and kept his eyes on the table.
He completely missed Archer’s sharp glance in his direction.
***
“Tsk, tsk,” John clucked.
He eyed the lad, wondering how best to deal the hand he wanted Dacy to draw. Warning him to stay away from his niece might just do the trick. Some men ran all the harder if the golden apple dangled just out of their reach. Most particularly if that apple was forbidden.
“Concentration. You must learn to concentrate, Dacy.” He laid his cards on the table and picked up the stack of chips, neatly lining them up in front of him. Then he handed the cards over to Chilton to shuffle and deal. “I'm the last man to try to advise another, but really… My niece is quite, well, to be frank with you, utterly without a sou.”
“I don’t give a damn one way or the other.”
“Now, I never said you did. Just letting you know how matters stand. No sense in raising false expectations. These girls are a flighty lot. Not at all the sort to interest a clever man like yourself.”
“Oriana’s as sharp as they come,” Dacy replied sharply. “Why else this stupid ruse with the dog in the first place, if not to try to gammon her? And it didn’t work, you know. She saw right through it.”
“Perhaps. But she let you stay, didn’t she?” It annoyed John that others couldn’t recognize, or even understand, the beautiful complexity of his plans. Sometimes it was terribly difficult to be an unrecognized genius. Although even the great Machiavelli and his slim volume, The Prince, had been misunderstood and misused.
“Yes, I suppose,” Dacy admitted with obvious reluctance.
“However, that’s not the point, son.”
“What is the point then? Are you trying to tell me you wouldn’t like a man of my stamp in the family?”
“Not at all, not at all. You mistake me entirely. I, myself, would enjoy it immensely. And that is the crux of the matter. I'd prefer you to find someone more amenable to the sort of pursuits you and I indulge in. Well-dowered, perhaps, and content to remain quietly at home.”
“The devil you say! You don’t touch your own wife’s funds to save your life, and yet you want me to marry some unknown chit with sufficient money to fund my gambling habits?” he growled. He discarded the wrong card again.
John smiled, satisfied. He suspected that Dacy's heart wasn't in the game. He wasn't a true gamester despite his astounding abilities to learn a handsome number of the Archer refinements to gaming.
In fact, Dacy proved to be as pluck as they come. He was a good man to have at one’s back, but he'd never be up to John’s brilliant standards. Dacy lapsed far too frequently into the most appalling habits of fair play and honesty.
It was a pity. He had had such hopes when they met. John believed in fair play and truthfulness—up to a point, but that point arrived more frequently than most people realized.
When the other players started taking cards from the bottom of the stack, or slipping them out from their lace cuffs, then John didn’t hesitate to take control of the game. If others bent the rules, they could hardly complain when he followed their crooked lead.
“Surely you've run across a widow or two with a fine figure and a few thousand in the funds?”
“I’m not the least interested in any female, widowed or otherwise.”
“Oh, well, if cards lay in that direction...”
Dacy sputtered unintelligibly.
John collected another pile of chips, grinning. “So you haven't one, yet. Well, keep your eyes open. You can do better than my spinster niece. Much better. There are many women in London who are both attractive and wealthy.”
“There is no woman more attractive than Oriana—that is—Miss Archer. That is, she's a beautiful woman.” He threw his cards down and ran a hand through his unruly hair. “How can you sit there and talk about your niece like this?”
“I didn’t mean to upset you. Just making idle conversation. No one said she isn’t a fine woman—in her way. But you must admit, she has her faults.”
“She's perfect. In every way,” Dacy said. “Any man would be honored—as if she would even consider an ugly, scarred, brute of a man such as myself.”
John laughed at Dacy’s revealing words. It was better than he hoped. “You’d be surprised what attracts a female, Dacy. Don’t underestimate yourself.”
“Then don’t you underestimate your niece. I’m sick of the way this family treats her. I’ve a mind to take her out of here, if she’d have me.” He flung his cards down on the table and stood.
John was surprised to see him throw away a perfectly good—and winning—hand, three aces and a king.
The King of Hearts.
It had to be love.
Chapter Eighteen
New Deal
When Chilton returned upstairs, he felt flustered and out of sorts. He opened his bedroom door and found a madhouse.
There were three small puppies, squirming and pawing each other blindly as they fought over places next to their mother. Oriana and Joshua were mopping up the floor and pushing the puppies back whenever they tumbled out into the vast
reaches of the room. The runt of the litter, a tiny brown female, seemed inordinately interested in the cuffs of the linen shirt she lay on.
Suffused with sudden, intense pride, Chilton gazed at the creatures. Then he bent down and stroked the soft back of a little chestnut female. She rolled over, blind and unstable on her chubby legs. Laughing, he pushed her closer to her mother where she suckled hungrily, forgetting him in her desire for food.
When he glanced over his shoulder at Oriana, she was wrapping up a small bundle.
“A few of them were still-born, I’m afraid,” she said quietly. “But the others look healthy enough.”
“They’re beautiful.” He stroked the wriggling, warm animals.
Their damp fur was drying and curling about their necks and faces, but the rest of their bodies were covered with smooth fuzz. The two males were white with liver spots, while the small female was entirely brown. Her fur was a near match for the golden chestnut of Oriana’s ringlets.
He picked the puppy up and cradled it for a moment in his large hands. It was so warm and fat, squirming at the attention. It sniffed his fingers and blindly tried to suckle his thumb before he placed it again next to Josephine.
Why had he never had a dog before?
How he wished he had had one to comfort and distract him when his mother died. Although he was thirteen at the time and nearly an adult, her death had hit him badly. Particularly when his father ignored his pain and sent him back to school.
Then, a few weeks after the funeral, Lord Chichester married Violet. Chilton heard about it via a brief, cold note explaining that he now had a new stepmother.
The bitter grief somehow seemed further away, now, and almost unimportant. A quick look at Oriana made him understand how his father could have done such a thing.
Although Chilton would never have ignored a child—especially his own child drowning in a dark well of grief.
But he could understand the powerful pull of love, now. He wanted to hold Oriana safe in his arms and forget the consequences.
“How many died?” he asked, realizing that she was waiting for a response from him.
“Three. She had six, but these three... Well, there may have been something wrong with them, or—she was very thin, Mr. Dacy, when you arrived.”
“Please, call me Chilton, or Chil—if you would.”
Her warm smile lit the room. “Of course.” Then she sobered and her gaze turned inward. “I suppose—”
“May I call you Oriana?” he interrupted. “After all, having seen to the birth of my children, I would think it acceptable to use given names.”
She moved nearer the door nervously as if the intimacy of first names brought them closer than she desired. He frowned.
“Yes, well, I need to take these out. We’ll bury them near the stables.”
“Thank you. And thank you for helping Josephine.” He bent down to stroke the dog's soft white fur, saddened that not all of her puppies had survived. But he was grateful three had.
The dog licked his hand and put her head down on her paws, adjusting her body so the puppies could snuggle closer to feed.
“She did all the work,” she said from the door. She turned and left, closing it softly behind her.
He sat on the floor and picked up the little brown puppy again. “Looks like it’s just the five of us. But we’ll see if we can’t make the pretty lady come back. If I can just figure out how to tell her the truth.”
***
Idling near the door to the library, John saw Oriana as she came down the stairs, a small bundle in her hands.
“Oriana, dear,” John called to his niece.
He had dealt with Dacy to his satisfaction. Now he had the trickier hand to play. Oriana, in fact, puzzled and frequently alarmed him. She seemed so placid and ordinary until she turned her brown eyes on him. Those eyes saw too much and she said far too little for his peace of mind.
“Would you join me?” John smiled at her, trying to persuade her.
Then his confidence returned. He had dealt successfully with her in the past. He would continue to do so until he could rid himself of her uncomfortable oversight. When she had a family of her own to occupy her time, she would be too busy to worry over what he was about.
He beckoned her to join him in the library.
She handed the bundle to Joshua who followed her down the stairs. “Take these out and bury them, please.”
“Yes, Miss Archer.”
“And ask Rose or Dot to bring up some food for Josephine.”
Joshua nodded and headed toward the back of the house.
“Is something wrong, Uncle?” she asked politely, moving closer to John.
“No, not at all. I just wished the pleasure of your company. No one cares to bother with an old man, I suppose.”
“You are not old, Uncle John.” She laughed and joined him. She waited for him to sit in the most comfortable chair in the library before sitting gracefully across from him. When he didn’t speak, she prompted him, “Uncle? I’m afraid I’m a trifle busy. Mr. Dacy’s dog has delivered pups. I would like to see that there is room for them in an empty stall. It will be less trouble for him than keeping them in his room.”
“Have you asked him if he wishes to relegate the pups to the stables?”
“No, but why should he object? He can hardly want them tumbling about his bedroom, widdling in his shoes.”
John promptly decided on the best strategy to deal with Oriana. Sympathy. “Dacy can be a bit of a stuffy preacher, can’t he?”
“Uncle! He's not the least bit stuffy! He’s wonderful. That is, he’s very—well, nice.”
“But, unsteady, Oriana. I’m sorry I brought him here.”
“How can you say that?”
“Well, you know how things stand—”
“No, I don’t. And I would sincerely appreciate it if you would explain. What is Mr. Dacy doing here? Everyone agrees he is—or was—a Major in the Rifle Corps. If that is the case, then why is he not recuperating at home? Do you owe him money, Uncle John?”
“No. I don’t owe Dacy any money. Will you please get that nonsensical idea out of your head?”
“Then why did you say he was unsteady?”
A movement in the hallway caught John’s eye. Dacy approached the doorway, an anxious look on his face. Taking advantage of the situation, John moved slightly to keep Oriana from seeing the door.
“I know how you feel about gamesters. I’m merely concerned about your well-being.” He paused and flicked a quick glance at the door. Dacy stood there staring at the back of Oriana's head. John continued, “Have you considered the squire’s offer? You’re not getting any younger, you know. And it is a fair offer. He spoke to me about it, in fact. Good, steady man. To the best of my knowledge, he rarely plays more than a few hands of Beggar thy Neighbor. Just the sort to make you a very decent husband.”
“The squire!” She twisted her hands. “No. Perhaps Mr. Dacy’s gaming isn’t so bad—oh, I don’t know. I don’t suppose it matters, anyway. Really, it’s better not to discuss it, Uncle. What's the use of wishing for something you can never have?”
“You can have the squire, my dear. Don’t be so maudlin.”
“But I want Mr. Da— Oh, perhaps that would be best after all.”
“Dacy!” Archer rose. “Sorry, my dear. I have a quick errand.”
With that, he walked out of the room, leaving Oriana alone like the Queen of Hearts discarded on the gaming table next to Dacy’s matching King.
***
At the sound of a footstep behind her, Oriana nervously glanced around the back of her chair. Chilton entered the room slowly, his eyes fixed on her.
She smiled brightly and rearranged her skirts, desperately hoping he had not heard her. She couldn’t remember exactly what she had said about him—if anything—but somehow she felt it was revealing in some way. Her chin rose. She couldn’t take back her words.
The look in his eyes made her stand up abr
uptly, nearly knocking over the table next to her chair. Some playing cards fluttered to the floor. When she looked down, she saw the King of Hearts staring up at her.
“Let me help you,” he offered, bending down to pick up the cards.
His warm fingers touched hers. She drew back with a sharp intake of breath. When she gazed up at him, he was studying her face with his fine lips twisted slightly into a grin.
She stood up and knocked her head against the edge of the table. “Ow!” she exclaimed, rubbing her forehead.
When he reached for her, she stepped away.
“Let me see.” He moved closer. “Did you hurt yourself?”
With the fire behind her and Chilton in front of her, she was trapped. She rubbed her forehead again and shook her head. “I’m quite all right. Just put the cards on the table, please.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do.”
“Oh, well, that’s wonderful. I have to—um—I have to check on—Cook. I have to go to the kitchen and check on Cook. Please excuse me.” She brushed by Chilton.
Further down the hallway, she swept past her uncle. When he held out a hand as if to detain her, she picked up her skirts and fled to the domestic safety of the kitchen.
Chapter Nineteen
When to Stay in
Last night was dreadful, Oriana thought. She tried to keep her distance from Chilton and avoid any more talks with her uncle. But they both seemed determined to corner her. She had finally escaped to her room and spent the evening reading about rose cultivation.
Unfortunately, she couldn't escape from men so easily in her sleep. Her dreams had been filled with Chilton. The feel of his warm skin under her hands, and the touch of his lips against hers. He had even saved her in a near-nightmare from a sinking ship.
She flushed at the vivid memory of that dream. He had been wearing a pirate patch over one eye, a knife clamped between his teeth and a ragged pair of breeches. Nothing more. Even his feet had been quite bare.