He could not look upon his one moment of humanity where young Fossey was concerned with anything more than satisfaction. With Phaedra it was unsullied joy.
Connor, his butler, entered the library and bowed. “A gentleman to see you, sir. He says he is expected; Mr. Dandridge?” He offered a card on a salver.
“Ah, early as one might expect. He is indeed expected; show him in,” Hardcastle said, waving the salver away.
Mercy entered and the two men clasped hands. “Brandy?” Hardcastle said, and then chuckled. “A little early for that, is it not? I suppose we should have coffee.” He rang, and within minutes coffee had been poured and both were comfortably ensconced in deep leather chairs.
Dandridge assessed Hardcastle boldly. “Something different about you, my friend. I mean other than the dashing scar.”
Hardcastle frowned and shook his head, scratching at the scab. It itched furiously, but he supposed that was just because it was healing. “I’m still the same, just a little worse for wear. I’m going to send a Bow Street runner down to Oxfordshire to ferret out those two miscreants, and then I’m going to have them dragged all the way to London. I shall then give them a choice, Tyburn or the colonies.”
“Unlike you to give them a choice, and not likely to be your choice. So what happened after your unfortunate episode with the robbers? Did you hole up at an inn?”
Hardcastle found himself telling his friend—likely the only one he would tell the whole story to—the tale of his sojourn in the Gillian household. He talked about Mr. Gillian, his odd un-vicarish mannerisms, his love of chess and books, and his own intention of offering the older man his London house for the winter. And he talked about the tiny bed in the upstairs room, and told Mercy about Phaedra, her nursing him back to health, her radiance—her goodness. Her sweetness. Her unearthly beauty.
But he didn’t tell him about the bet, nor about Phaedra’s willingness to risk her innocence for the good of a friend. That was a private matter between him and her, and would never be divulged to any living creature.
But Mercy was intelligent and curious and perceptive. “You would have liked to make love with her, I think, old friend. You were sorely tried, I surmise, to keep from offering her a slip on the shoulder.”
“I did nothing of the kind,” Hardcastle said, anger rising. “Don’t speak of her that way or I will—”
“Hold,” Dandridge said with one hand up. “I meant no disrespect, my friend. I spoke only of your actions, not hers. But I see how it is. There is a solution, you know.”
“What is that?”
With a bland expression on his face, Dandridge said, “You should marry her. You could then, in good conscience, make love to her.”
“I don’t intend to marry. Look what happened to Byron, poor fellow. Rakes and rogues do not make good husbands, especially to ladies of unblemished virtue.”
Shaking his head, Dandridge said, “Byron had other . . . complications in his life, and we both know that. His proclivities make him spectacularly unsuited to marriage.” With a sad frown, he took a sip of his coffee, and continued. “He did the only thing he could do by leaving England. I have some pity for him—I think he wanted to love Annabella and be true and kind to her but found that he couldn’t; his own nature would not allow him to be so—but I have more compassion for his wife. Annabella was never comfortable with the, well, with the sensualist in Byron.”
“And why am I any different? Why counsel marriage for me? I will not ruin Phaedra’s life with some ill-conceived marriage proposal. She’s far too precious.”
Dandridge looked at him without speaking for a moment, and then said gently, “But you never fell in love before.”
Hardcastle felt all the breath pressed out of his body. It was like falling and having the wind knocked out of one. It was not that it had never occurred to him—he had heard friends moan about love often enough, after all—but he had dismissed it, as if it had no relevance to him, no chance of being his. “Love,” he said finally, “is for farmhands and dairymaids. Even when an aristocrat feels it, he does not marry for it! That’s absurd.”
“Where have you been hiding your head? This is the nineteenth century, a new age! All around you aristocrats are marrying because they fancy a girl, rather than because she is of the right family or lineage. Any shameful connections in her family? Villains? Murderers? Tradesmen?”
Dandridge was teasing, of course. He was the most democratic of gentlemen and had friends and acquaintances in every level of society. It was his mockery of snobbish behavior that Hardcastle appreciated in his old childhood friend, and yet the same quality that drove others away.
“Even if that was true, even if I did—even if I do love her—” Hardcastle paused for a moment, recognizing that his friend was right. He loved her. He had been in love with her for some time, but had confused the mixture of emotions that made up his love for her as quite separate elements of amity, lust, appreciation, respect and any number of other sentiments. “All right, Dandridge.” He took in a deep breath. “I do love her. And thank you for pointing out to me a hopeless passion that I can never find a way to express within the bounds of decency. I cannot marry her. Did I not tell you what she is? How innocent, how lovely, how—how good? I have a dark and varied history, some of which you know about, some of which I have been too ashamed to tell a gentleman of your purity. I have lain with prostitutes. I have gambled and debauched my way through fifteen Seasons in London. I am not fit to touch her hem.” As he ground out the last words, anguish stole through his heart. It was all far too true.
Impatiently, Dandridge banged his coffee cup down on the mahogany table beside him. “Good Lord, Hardcastle, you make her sound like a saint. No one is a saint.” He leaned over, waggled a finger at him and said, “And do not forget what you have just said, for when you are an old married man, I shall remind you of your worship of her. And you will laugh, knowing all her little faults as you will by then. You are not Byron. Your propensities are not incompatible with marital harmony; not now, anyway. I saw you last night. You didn’t drink, nor gamble, nor even stay past eleven. You looked like you wanted to be anywhere but at the club. And if you are so unworthy, then why would you not take advantage of her even when she clearly had a preference toward you? I suspect there is more than just an innocent kiss between you, but I will not pry. Nor would you take the young baron’s estate, though when I last saw you, before you left London, you fully intended to. I have never known you to work something out in that way before with the loser of a bet.”
Dandridge stood and stretched. “I must leave. I have another friend to see. But just consider this, Lawrence.” He put one hand on Hardcastle’s shoulder. “Against your will, against every intention of your corrupt old soul, you’re being reformed. Your little Oxfordshire angel is in the process of redeeming you. Or you are redeeming yourself. Give yourself over to her and let her finish the job, for God’s sake. By this time next year you will be a boring old married man with a child on the way, quite content to sit at home on your Northampton estate and play chess with her father while she sews by the fire. At the end of the night you will say good evening to Mr. Gillian and carry your little angel upstairs, where you will love her in the peace and tranquility of your own bedroom.”
A chill raced down Hardcastle’s back at Dandridge’s vivid depiction of married life with Phaedra. He could marry her. He could have her for himself, and with God’s blessing, if she would have him. The purest moment of joy he had ever had in his life had come in a moment of torment. When he realized he could not take her even when she offered herself as the price of her wager, he had experienced an odd moment of quietude within himself, and a strange second of absolute, untrammeled joy. Why should he not marry the author of that joy?
The house fell quiet around him; he stared at the wall and thought about his life. Phaedra’s father’s words came back to him. What had the man said? That he was living his life in reaction to his father, which was th
e same as being controlled by him beyond the grave. So much had he abhorred his father’s cheating and miserliness that he had gone to opposite lengths, seeking to prove by rigorously upholding every agreement that he was a different Hardcastle. And yet he had slavishly followed in his father’s rakish footsteps, gambling and wenching and drinking. Not once had he asked himself what he really wanted out of his life.
And now he wanted only one thing: to spend his life with Phaedra. Like a hard spring rain cleansed the foul and polluted streets of London, so her compassion had swept through his heart, cleansing it of corruption. No wonder drinking, gambling and whoring seemed tedious now. There was more to life. He wasn’t quite sure what “more” consisted of, but he was sure it included Phaedra.
Would she have him? Was he deluding himself that there was more between them than just physical hunger on his side and awakening womanhood on hers? No, this time he was not deceiving himself. He was sure of his own heart, and he had some hope that she could, perhaps, love him a little.
“Thank you, Dandridge, I—” He looked up and realized that he had been quite alone for at least an hour. A precious hour that had just been wasted. He leaped from his chair and sped out of the room, shouting for Jean-Marc.
• • •
Another long and lonely night. Just one in the progress of the rest of her long and lonely life. And she was sleepless again. She stood at the window and looked back at the bed, the tumbled blanket and twisted sheets evidence of her restless inability to sleep. It was just a period of transition, she thought, this unaccustomed feeling sorry for herself. Would things be any different if she and Hardcastle had made love? Would she now be slumbering, welcoming sleep, perchance to dream? Of him? Moonlight glinted through the leafy trees, and she reflected that the moon was waxing again; it was almost one lunar cycle since Lord Lawrence Hardcastle had pitched into her life, upsetting the even tenor of her days forever.
The window was open and she moved closer, welcoming the cool breeze on her flushed cheeks. It was almost morning, and yet she had been unable to snatch more than an hour’s uneasy rest. This could not go on. She must find a way to resolve the painful void in her heart. Why was her life not enough anymore? She was still the same Phaedra, without even an illicit love affair to regret—or remember.
The distant sound of a horse, and then a loud shout and following that a cry, split the quiet night. Phaedra stared out the window, down the road, trying to see what the commotion was all about, but she could see nothing. Had somebody fallen from their horse? Were they even now lying injured on the road?
Phaedra raced down the narrow stairs and out the door, bolting down the walk and toward the road without another thought. Old Mr. Brunton, the village drunk, had bought himself, against the advice of his wife, a spirited—some would say unreliable and nervous—horse, and she could not help but picture the poor old man lying on the road, his leg broken, or something worse.
But once out on the road, she could see that there was a scuffle of some sort going on. What to do? She clasped her hands in front of her and stood uncertainly, poised for flight. What should she do? Oh Lord, she prayed, What should I do?
And then she heard it, his voice!
“You’ll not get the best of me this time, you bastards!”
It was—no, she was dreaming. Was it—? She peered into the dim area by a clump of bushes and could see that a struggle was taking place. At least two, no, three men were tussling. Was he there? Was it him?
The struggle shifted out of the shadows and into moonlight, and she saw that one man was taller than the others, and with one booted foot was kicking one of the others and drawing something out of his waistband while his horse careened around snorting and flailing with dangerous hooves. One man got in the way and went down with a scream of pain under the battering hooves.
And now it was evenly matched, one man against one man.
“Lawrence,” she cried out.
With one last kick of his booted foot, the tallest man subdued the last miscreant and turned toward her. It was him! With a cry and no thought for her own safety, Phaedra flew down the road and threw her arms around him.
“My God, what are you doing out here?” he said, rocking back and holding her against him. “Why will you never learn to stay safely inside?”
She buried her face against his coat, and it was as if the floodgates opened or the dam burst; she wept the tears she had been holding back ever since he had gone from her doorstep. A commotion on the road behind her and the knowledge that Hardcastle was shielding her from the view of someone else made her pull away and wipe her eyes on her sleeve.
“What’s goin’ on here? Be these the thievin’ arses we bin lookin’ fer?”
A groan from one of the “thieving arses” was all the answer from those on the ground. But Phaedra recognized the voice and stepped out from Hardcastle’s shadow. “Squire Daintry,” she said, with as much calmness and aplomb as she could muster, given the circumstances—she being on a public road in her night rail with an earl and two highwaymen. “I believe these are the two men you have been looking for. You remember Lord Hardcastle; he has been unfortunate enough to be attacked twice by these fellows.”
“Call it rather ‘fortune’ than ‘misfortune.’” Hardcastle bent over one of them and lifted his grubby hand. “Ah, just what I thought. Daintry, this, as you can see, is a ruby ring and is decorated with my crest. That it is on his hand is sufficient evidence that these are the same culprits.” He roughly pulled his ring off the man’s hand and slipped it back onto his finger. “I suppose my other ring is lost, though we may find it whenever we find where these fellows have been roosting.”
Daintry, stubby and whiskery, was accompanied by the two Simondson boys, who grinned and pulled their forelocks at the generous earl, whom they remembered fondly in all of their toasts at the Pilgrim’s Lantern. “Then we shall take them with us, right, boys?”
“Aye, that we wull,” Dick said. He bent down and hoisted one of the groaning robbers onto his shoulders, while his brother tossed the other one on his shoulder, and they made their way down the road in an odd procession.
Hardcastle turned and saw Phaedra starting back down the road toward the cottage. “Wait,” he said. She turned back to him and he caught his breath. He must be getting older, he thought, that just the sight of a maiden in the moonlight was enough to take his breath away. Though this was not just any maiden. This was Phaedra Gillian, and she stood in a stream of moonglow, her golden hair glittering with captured beams, her night rail skimming over sweet curves he would soon gain mastery over, if he had his way. All he wanted at that moment was the right to pick her up and carry her to a snug room somewhere, where he could whisper in her ear, make her blush, and then make love to her all night long. Dandridge had been right; this was the “more” he had been longing for in his life.
He hoped she would consent to a quick marriage. Or any marriage. He strode to her side, cast away his pistol, and knelt on one knee in front of her. He took her hands in his and said, “Phaedra; that means shining one.”
Her hair fell over one shoulder and caught the moonlight, glinting, sparkling. “As you know, sir, my father has a classical bent. He would not consent to my mother’s choice of name or I would now be a Margaret.”
Her voice was breathless he noted with approval and growing hope. From his angle he could see an enticing outline of her figure in her night rail, and his heart thudded in his chest. “Phaedra, my beautiful, shining girl, I find myself in the worst of predicaments for a man of my reputation.”
Her eyes widened.
“When I was in London, I was bored and restless, even though the entertainments of the city were all still there for me to partake in if I so chose. Friends beckoned me to join them, and yet—and yet I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“I didn’t want to.”
“What entertainments, sir?”
“I shall not answer that,” he said ruefull
y, “for fear of jeopardizing the request I am going to make of you in a very few moments.” The gravel-covered road was hurting his battered knees very badly, but he would not rise. He would remain the supplicant, for he had a boon to beg and was unashamedly fearful of a negative answer. He looked up into her lovely eyes. “I have always been untamed, my sweet seraph—selfish, worldly, a hedonist in every sense of the word.”
“Hedonism; pleasure as the ruling principle of your life,” Phaedra said, slowly, staring into his dark eyes.
He nodded and gazed up at her, afraid, now that he had her rapt attention, to pose his question, fearful of her answer. “I sought pleasure and I took pleasure, in brothels and gaming houses and taverns—I will be brutally honest with you after all, you see—and I gave very little thought to anything else. But pleasure, believe it or not, becomes tedious, and seeking it boring. What I found here in your village, in your home, is—is joy. Joy and pleasure are not the same thing, my sweet Phaedra, and I have learned the infinite value of one over the other. Joy has made me a different man, a better one, I hope. Joy has reformed me, redeemed me. You are my joy, and life will not be the same if you do not say ‘yes’ when I ask you to marry me. Will you? Will you be my shining joy, Phaedra? Will you marry me?”
• • •
A welling of relief and joy and love flowed through Phaedra from some deep, gushing spring. She pulled one hand free from his grasp and touched his coal-black hair, hair so dark it seemed to swallow the moonlight. “How can I say no? I would be denying myself the pleasure of loving you for the rest of my life.” She gazed down at him knelt in front of her. She would remember and relate this moment to her daughters when the time came for them to learn about love and men and women. For no matter what he said about her redeeming him, she knew that the transformation started in his own heart. No woman truly redeemed a man; all she could ever do was love him. “Do you not think that if I am to redeem you, I still have some work to do?” she teased. “I think it takes a terrible amount of effort to reform a rake, sir.”
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