Company Of Rogues: A Shocking Delight Part 29

"Lucy, is something the matter?"

Lucy turned to Maria. "Nothing of importance. I've been suffering from a headache all day, but I didn't want to miss my cousin's ball."

Could Maria believe words, tone, or expression?

"It will get worse as the heat and noise grows, so go home if you need to. Vandeimen will escort you."

"That's very kind of you."

"Alice would want me to take care of you. If you have need, Lucy, I'd be honored to be your confidante."

She'd hoped to be less transparent, but this was Maria, not some stranger.

"My subst.i.tute mother? I was outraged by the idea that my father's bride would be that, but I can see you in that way. I know you're too young, but you were my mother's friend."

"And she mine. My situation wasn't always easy and she alone could understand. She would have been pleased to see you here."

"Restored to her world?" Lucy asked, unable to hold back a bitter edge.

"Enjoying b.a.l.l.s and parties as young people should. She worried that your father was shaping you too much in his mold. Oh, I'm sorry. I've upset you with this talk. I don't know how I could be so maladroit."

"No, no. It's the headache. Oh, blast it, I don't have a headache. It's all so complicated. . . ."

"And this isn't the place. Here comes Stevenhope with his Iphigenia, intent on showing you what a treasure you've let slip. Come round to talk whenever you wish."

Lucy thanked her, and then set to congratulating the happy couple with a sincerity designed to deflate Stevenhope's puffed-up pride.

Lord Vandeimen asked her for the first dance, doubtless at Maria's instigation, but Lucy was grateful. The only thing to do was soldier on through the night until she could collapse into misery. But d.a.m.nation, even at home she'd have Clara bubbling with an excited review of her ball.

She danced the next with Lord Charrington. When Outram asked for the next she could hardly refuse him, but it soon became clear he'd taken Wyvern's departure as new hope. She had to reject him again.

When that dance ended she couldn't endure any more. She pleaded a headache and gained her aunt's uncertain agreement to Lord Vandeimen as escort.

"Perhaps your uncle, dear . . ."

"You all have obligations here, Aunt. Lord Vandeimen will see me safe home. It's going very well, isn't it?"

Aunt Mary smiled her relief. "Very well. I didn't really hope for such as the Ardens and St. Ravens. Clara is enjoying every moment."

Impulsively, Lucy kissed her aunt's cheek, startling both of them, then hurried off with tears in her eyes. Truly, she didn't know herself anymore.

Lord Vandeimen was a perfect escort, seeing to her comfort and not asking any questions.

As they approached the house Lucy couldn't stop herself from asking, "Do you know Lord Wyvern well, my lord?"

"Only as a friend of a friend, Miss Potter."

"I see. Mr. Delaney, I a.s.sume."

"No. He, too, is a friend of a friend. I meant Amleigh. We are neighbors and friends since the cradle. Our estates are nearby."

"How pleasant," she said.

He probably thought it ba.n.a.l, but she meant it. Friends, again. Childhood friends, still close as adults.

She let Hannah fuss her out of her finery and into bed and then lay there, abandoned.

David had gone to Devon. She couldn't believe anything could have arisen that required such urgency, but if it had, he should have written to her.

His silent departure violated everything he'd said, everything she'd felt, everything she'd believed. She could make no sense of it, and could only feel truly, deeply brokenhearted.

Now she understood how people could die of a broken heart.

Chapter 22.

David traveled by mail coach with too much time to think, to regret, to devise reasons to leave at the next stage and speed back to London. All he wanted to do in life was make Lucy happy, and he knew how miserable she must be now, because her emotions would be the same as his.

They were made for each other. Mind, hearts, and bodies, they were perfectly matched, except for his involvement in smuggling, and that he was bound to a place she'd hate.

He s.n.a.t.c.hed fitful sleep as the crowded coach rattled through the night. Susan had tried to get him to hire a chaise, but he didn't have money to waste, especially not now he'd thrown thirty thousand pounds away.

He'd take her penniless if he could be sure she'd be happy.

He left the coach at Honiton and hired a horse for the last part of the journey, enjoying the open air, trying to persuade himself that Lucy could come to love this countryside.

She might well like its best aspects, but she'd dislike the poorly maintained road, the nettles lurking in the hedgerow ready to sting, and the brambles curling out to snag an unwary rider's clothing or flesh.

Brambles would bear fruit, and even nettles could be brewed into a powerful tonic, but she was accustomed to buying such things from a shop and to traveling there over well-maintained streets or walking along firm and cleanly swept pavements.

If she was thinking herself brokenhearted, she'd recover. In time she'd find a perfect man to love.

He rode into Church Wyvern, tired from lack of sleep and heartsore. He left the horse at the Kerslake Arms to be returned tomorrow, and turned toward the looming Crag. For once it suited his mood.

Reluctantly he changed direction. Within minutes word would reach the manor that he was home, and if he didn't go there immediately, one or all of his family would rush up to the Crag to see what was amiss.

He changed his mind again, however, and took the path that led down between the manor and Crag to Dragon's Cove. He was back here because he was Captain Drake, and everyone would understand his checking there first.

He wasn't entirely sure whether his uncle and aunt knew he was Captain Drake. Kerslake Manor stayed calm and contented by turning a blind eye to disruption and celebrating life's joys. He'd embraced that willingly for most of his life and wished he still had the choice. He was fairly sure they a.s.sumed that once he'd become earl he'd pa.s.sed any smuggling responsibilities on to someone else. Again, he wished it were possible. There was no one else capable of managing the Horde in these difficult times.

He entered the George and Dragon by the back door and found Cousin Rachel sweeping the floor. "You're back at a good time, lad. There's word of a cargo adrift. They're keen to help."

He knew what that meant. A s.h.i.+p loaded with contraband had been prevented from delivering its cargo to the appointed landing and gone back out into the Channel, hoping for another try. It would have to be quick. A smuggling vessel couldn't hover for long without a revenue cutter or naval s.h.i.+p spotting it.

David wanted to veto any involvement, but the Horde had obeyed him and remained inactive for weeks. Fred's regular reports had a.s.sured him of that. If he didn't give them this opportunity, there'd be rebellion again, especially since he'd failed to bring back the money that could bring a new kind of prosperity here.

He'd planned employment for all, and a school to give the bright boys better ambitions than being one of Captain Drake's lieutenants. Instead he was returning further in debt than when he left.

"I'll hold a meeting here later," he said. "Pa.s.s the word."

Then he listened as she shared some general gossip-births, marriages, and even a death, along with a brawl that had cost a man an eye and a rumor of a love rivalry that could turn vicious. Captain Drake couldn't restore sight, but he was supposed to provide a Solomon-like judgment between Gabe Bridgelow and Caleb Mutter.

"Lisbet Oke's not worthy of either of them," he said. "She'll cause any husband heartbreak."

"She can't help being pretty."

"She can help the way she flirts. She's been teasing men since before she had b.r.e.a.s.t.s."

"Had a try for you, has she?"

"More than once."

Rachel pulled a face. "That's Lady Belle's fault, see. Married the earl and snared Captain Drake. Bound to stir ambitions."

"Heaven help me. If I had the powers ascribed to me, I'd send her to a nunnery."

"Didn't think we had any anymore."

"I'd found one."

She chuckled and David shared a smile. His situation was no better, but these mundane problems soothed him.

He left the tavern and stood for a moment, watching the fis.h.i.+ng boats out on the water and people ash.o.r.e, dealing with an earlier catch, mending nets. Honest labor.

But he could read behind the smiles they sent him, and the greetings. The captain's back. There's a cargo out there. Now we'll see action and real work.

He climbed the path out of Dragon's Cove, aware of how much Lucy would hate the s.h.i.+ngly surface that slipped beneath his boots. She'd probably hate the hill itself. Were there any significant hills in the City of London? He couldn't remember one in Mayfair.

He walked through a cloud of midges, wafting them away from his face, and then brushed past stinging nettle and spiky thistles.

It still galled him that Potter might think he'd bent to his will, but to stay in London to spite him would have been complete stupidity. The man might well be able to harm him and his people here, and he couldn't ignore that. But above all, as a loving father, he'd been right. Lucy deserved better than a gothic horror of a home, a remote area, and a husband committed to criminal activity.

His mind eased a bit as he returned to Church Wyvern, the village that sat snug in its hollow behind the cliffs. It was a gentler, warmer place. The people here took part in smuggling, but they were different from the salt-roughened fis.h.i.+ng families of Dragon's Cove.

He took the path that circled the village toward Kerslake Manor, his home for most of his life. The path ran between well-tended gardens that were already producing food, but also past where Tom Oke was cleaning out his pigpen, putting the dung aside to rot down so it would be ready to enrich the garden later.

There was nothing wrong with a healthy country smell, except to those unused to it, and it would contribute to vegetables and fruit in time. Nothing grows without muck, they said, and it was true. The ordinary people knew that, and the n.o.bility, too, for they all had estates that included farms. It was the merchants and bankers who lived apart from the land and didn't understand its ways, except that it could produce profit.

He opened the gate into the manor's orchards. It squeaked in the way it always had. This was a familiar place, full of memories of tree-climbing and other games, and the sweet abundance of autumn fruit.

Had Lucy ever been in an orchard? In springtime with the blossoms dense as clouds and bees frantically working them. Then later, when the blossoms drifted down to form a sweet carpet. Or in fruiting time, when a lad could pluck a ripe apple hanging near his head and offer it as temptation to a blus.h.i.+ng la.s.s.

He'd stolen his first kiss here, from Jenny Carter, both of them eleven and sure h.e.l.l's fires would fall on them, but willing to risk it anyway. She was married now, with two babes.

In the Garden of Eden it had been Eve who'd tempted Adam, just as Lucy had tempted him in the d.u.c.h.ess of St. Raven's garden. What would Cressida St. Raven think to have her garden compared to Eden at the time of the Fall?

The other sins had been his doing, however. Amid trees in the park, at Almack's, in the dark theater stairwell. Hades, that theater stairwell.

He was determined to be sane, but he couldn't stop thoughts of Lucy beneath an apple tree with petals falling in her hair, petals that would be rivaled by her perfect complexion.

He turned desperately toward the mellow manor house. He could be sane there.

Lucy might not like the countryside, but she couldn't possibly dislike the archway into the kitchen garden, dripping honeysuckle, nor the lovely house, the gray stone whitewashed and threaded over with roses and wisteria.

He entered, as usual, through the kitchen door.

Annie, who'd been cook here since before he was born, cried, "Davy-lad!" without a hint of apology. Why not? She'd fed him milk and bread and honey, and swatted his behind with her big spoon if he tried to sneak some treat.

He gave her a hug and a kiss, then kissed the cheeks of the two blus.h.i.+ng kitchen maids. "Shall I kiss you, too?" he asked Willie, the young scullery lad.

Willie pulled a face, but he was grinning, too.

Then Aunt Miriam came in. "David, my dear boy." She gave him a big hug and drew him away into the parlor. "Have you had a grand time in London?"

"It's certainly been grand, but it's not to my taste."

"Come now, dear, there have to be some pleasures there."

"Some sporting activities and some interesting bookshops."

"Bookshops! You were never bookish."

"I've much to learn." He suppressed the temptation to pour out his troubles and amused her with stories of b.a.l.l.s and grand eccentrics. "I apologize for not bringing you a gift. I left in a hurry."

She didn't ask why, which meant she guessed something was amiss. Loving, perceptive family were the very devil.

"Having you here is a gift, love. But you'll be going back, surely?"

"The season's coming to an end."

"But what of Miss Potter? You went there to woo her." He was framing an explanation when she exclaimed, "You're sweet on her! How lovely."

"No-"

She just laughed. "Tell me about her. Is she pretty?"

Was his face an open book to her? It would seem so.

Denials would only make things worse, so he talked about Lucy, attempting to sound only mildly engaged. Knowing he failed. He could remember friends being like this, unable to stop burbling on about the object of their affections.

Object of their affections.