by Edith Layton
“But I was,” he said imperturbably, “on my mother’s side. Owlers and smugglers of brandy, tea, and whatever paid best, sturdy, sneaky lads, the nemesis of the king’s cutter fleet, all on my mother’s side. My father’s kin were the land pirates—they were the bad fellows who lit beacons for safe harbors that weren’t there, wreckers and scavengers, the lot of them, with a few of them taking to the water only to sail sloops as revenue men, to have their wicked fun that way.”
“I thought your father was a duke,” she giggled, “yesterday.”
“So he was”—Arden nodded approvingly—“yesterday.”
She laughed again, and leaned into the wind, finding the mild spring air bracing and the entire trip home far more entrancing than her voyage out had been. It was more than the fact that the season had turned from that icy passage; it was the warmth of the man who accompanied her now most of all, she thought. To keep from thinking that, she glanced away from his stalwart figure, as he stood at ease, his feet braced apart, rising and sinking with the motion of the ship as though he were part of it, and she looked out to the far-off outline of the shore they were rapidly approaching.
“Do you think,” she asked, turning her head and trying to shout her question against the freshening wind, “that Roxie will be able to leave the ship?”
But her voice wasn’t made for volume and he had to move closer, against his will, in order to hear her.
“Oh, aye,” he said, coming to the rail to stand beside her, “for all she looks as though she’s dying now. Once the motion stops, she will. And will rise and walk off this vessel under her own power, and consume half a cow and a few tankards with her dinner, as well, if I know my girl. There’s some that can’t take the sea, for all they have to take it, and they learn to live with it by enduring until they reach land again. Why, there was a first mate on our whaling vessel that weighed little more than a mackerel when we finally rounded the Cape of Good Hope. But after we’d anchored and taken on provisions, he came back on the ship so stout we had to roll him up the gangplank with the kegs of beer.”
“Ar-den,” she said, turning to him, making his name distinctly two rueful syllables, a world of mock censure in her voice, a world of laughter in her eyes.
“Don’t!” he said so suddenly she paused, startled. “I only meant…don’t fidget with your hair anymore, let it be, the wind will always win, let it have its way now and enjoy the romp, there’s a lifetime on land to straighten it after,” he said, looking out to the horizon again, annoyed with himself for alarming her, even more uncomfortable with the way he’d loved seeing that black witch’s mane of hers streaming across her sun-flushed face in the wind, as riotously tangled as he thought it might look in the throes of lovemaking.
“Yes,” she said, and looked out to land as well, but then, discovering she could use her flowing banner of hair now as disguise, she looked her fill at him through the blowing strands of it as he stood by her side as they stood in companionable silence.
He was really huge, she thought again with surprise, as she often did when she realized the power of the man that custom sometimes made her forget, and he was burly and every bit as formidable-looking as he’d been when first they’d met. But now she knew the swiftness and grace with which he moved, and had seen how he was able to carry himself with all the economy and precision of a man half his size. And now she knew how that rugged impassive face could be shocked or startled into betraying some of the thoughts in that labyrinthian mind, and then only by watching those tawny eyes carefully, for they alone could betray some of his many secrets. Not many people knew that, she thought, but then, not many dared to look so close, lest those knowing eyes catch and consider and sum them up first. But when she looked at him, sometimes he looked away. And when she moved too close, he stepped back. And for all that she came only to his shoulder and his thigh was almost the size of her waist, she knew in some way he feared her almost as much as she, in some ways, feared him.
But gazing at that blunted profile, his ginger hair blowing back from his wide tanned forehead as he studied the shoreline, she knew that what she feared in him was not likely what any other being did. Because she was beginning to understand that she wanted what she feared, even as much as she was wary of it. She could no more forget his kiss than she could his kindness or his gentleness with her. And so what she feared most now was his leaving her. The more she knew him, she thought, or rather, she corrected herself, the more he let her know him, meaning to or not, the more she refused to think of parting from him.
So she would do with him, she decided, as she studied him through her cascade of hair, what he advised her doing with another elemental force, the wind. She’d enjoy it while she could, whatever happened, for she’d the rest of her life to mend matters. She really didn’t know what else to do. Although perhaps, she thought on a grin, if it all became too difficult for her, she could do what she did with all her other problems these days: ask Arden.
It might have been that he felt her eyes upon his face as much as he felt the warmth of the sun on it, it might only have been that he couldn’t look away from her for too long in any case, but as she stared at him he turned his head and looked back at her. For one moment, one quiet moment, neither spoke. And then he stirred and sighed, and looked over her shoulder.
“Poor Julian’s a gentleman,” he said, “and so is needlessly spending his trip below decks holding his lady’s hand, or basin,” he said on a smile, “for all the good that will do her, or him. She’d rather he was away so she could be ill in peace, that’s why she chased you off as well—it’s not pretty, being seasick, you know, or do you? You ride the waves like a stormy petrel yourself.”
“I didn’t know I could,” she confessed. “This is only my second time under sail. But I quite like it. It’s exciting. Roxie was raised near the water, on a little island, you’d think she’d be used to it.”
“Exposure don’t ensure comfort,” he said, and paused, for he’d almost gone on to say that he’d seen her every day and yet couldn’t get used to the pleasure of looking at her, could he? And so instead he said, lightly, after a moment, when she looked up at his silence questioningly, “Ah, excuse me, but I’d only naughty analogies spring to my mind just then. But trust me, if being used to something made it easier to bear, there’d be no point to prison, or torture, or even wedlock”—he grinned at how nicely he’d turned that, and added innocently, “now, would there be?”
But she didn’t laugh. Her face grew still and she looked up at him, her brown eyes in the sunlight grown gold, her gaze softened as it roved over his face as she said very softly, “But once, I remember, you didn’t object to wedlock, however it was like prison or not.”
“And once, I remember, I thought your name was Francesca Devlin,” he said harshly. “Listen, my girl,” he went on tightly, taking her by the arms and glowering down at her, “constant exposure to something might not make it more comfortable, but it can make it seem more reasonable when it oughtn’t to be. You’re alone now, and you’re very young. You seem to trust my judgment. Then trust me that you’re better off knowing me in passing. You’ve not met my like before—pray God, you never shall again. You’re very beautiful, and clever, and sweet, and a thousand gentlemen will want you as I do. And any one of them will deserve you more.”
He released her and put his hands on the railing and lowered his head.
“Francesca, or Fancy, or whatever name you choose to call yourself,” he said softly, not looking at her, “let me do one noble thing, please. Let me be your friend. And only that.”
She didn’t know where she got the courage from, for she’d have sworn it was a thing she could never say. But one moment she thought it and the next it was on her lips.
“Be my friend, Arden. Indeed, I’ve never had a better one. But for all I’d like to make you happy, I can’t promise to change how I feel.”
“Time,” he said wisely, nodding at the sea, “time will change that, my dear.
Time will show you the difference between gratitude and love, or at least love of the sort you deserve.”
Time, he thought as she fell still and they looked at their homeland coming closer, time and the only other thing he could control in all of this: distance.
*
Roxanne seemed entirely recovered; in fact, she bloomed from the moment she stepped off the packet and onto dry land, and simpered becomingly as a sailor paused to admire her neat ankle when she did so. Julian, Francesca noted with a mixture of amusement and pity, looked dreadful—or at least as dreadful as he ever could. He was pale and haunted-looking, and-had a slightly hunted expression in his pale gray eyes. He was still enough of a picture to make the barmaid at the waterside inn they stopped at stop in her tracks and gape, but he would be that, she thought, if he were dying, rather than only weary and still slightly queasy from his self-imposed ordeal of nursing Roxanne.
He was much recovered when she came down to join the gentlemen and Roxanne for an early dinner, and, now washed, shaven, and elegantly dressed, he was enough to make every barmaid in Britain goggle. It was odd, she thought as she smiled and took the seat he offered her, that for all his radiant beauty, she’d never thought of him as anything but a friend, and not at all in the way she had begun to think of Arden as one. Perhaps it was because he’d never acted as anything else, perhaps because she’d not for a moment considered that a man that looked like him would so much as notice her, or even perhaps because he was Arden’s best friend, and so always in her mind an adjunct of him—first as an enemy, and then later as an ally, but never as a seductive male. And then, she thought, drawing herself up in her seat with the sudden acquisition of self-knowledge and self-praise, it might have been because she’d known intuitively, from his odd detachment and almost dreamy disinterest, that he was not the sort of man for her.
And then, slumping a little, she looked at Arden and thought: Of course not. After all, Julian wasn’t a self-professed rogue, with a past he claimed to be every bit as wicked as it was mysterious. It was most likely, she thought then, looking so dismal that the company looked to each other at seeing her face, because there wasn’t a reasonable reason on earth why one person was drawn to another, with or against his better or worst judgment.
Her wistful expression spurred Arden and Julian to new heights of creativeness that night. They saw to it that she and Roxanne became breathless with laughter. Arden had a whimsical and outrageous wit, but tonight Julian displayed his own dry and understated humor. Arden, she found, could mimic a hundred accents, English and foreign, and Julian could change his voice to a man or woman’s of any age or condition, soaring up to a falsetto or dropping down to a dying frog’s. Arden, she learned when the two gentlemen discovered a pianoforte in the common room, had a wonderful rich baritone and Julian a sweet tenor that could fly over it. And they both, she realized to her entire embarrassment and delight, knew not only ballads but also music-hall catches, and, as the evening went on, every verse to each of the increasingly salty tunes the local patrons began to harmonize with. And likely knew more too, she complained to Arden as he marched her up to her room when the company began to warm up to “The Mermaid’s Complaint” and she was firmly banished by his edict.
“Roxanne can stay,” she protested, hands on hips as she stood outside her room, arguing with him, she realized in frustration, as if she were a child sent to bed before the dancing began.
“Roxanne is older, widowed, and wildly experienced,” Arden said flatly, though a smile played on his lips.
“Then,” she spat, now roundly vexed with herself and her subservience, as well as with the world and especially with this implacable male, “maybe I just had better go out and find myself an obliging gentleman tonight so that I can live happily ever after, for I think it’s only my lack of bed knowledge that’s making all my problems, and I—”
She never finished the sentence. The last words of it died against his mouth as he reached down and dragged her to himself. There was nothing gentle in this embrace. He held her close and opened his lips against hers to swallow up all her protests, as well as her lips, and only drew back when he realized she was not protesting at all any longer, although she trembled, although she shook, despite how closely and firmly she was held in the vise of his arms.
“Damn you…no, damn me,” he breathed, his hand coming up to his hair and dragging through it as he stepped back. “I’m sorry…ah, don’t look at me like that, I ought to know better, I take you up here to keep you innocent and damn near… Go to bed, Francesca!” he boomed at her.
“Arden,” she said as he opened her door and pointed like a very large, very irate archangel gesturing with a sword, “Arden,” she said as she backed into the room, greatly daring after their evening, and because of the hour and because he’d almost closed the door between them, “Arden…” she said before she did close it, smiling tremulously, “I’m sorry. I liked it. Awfully much,” she added, giggling at his expression as she closed the door, as amazed at herself as he was.
*
“No poplars…look, Arden!” Julian called to his friend as they rode ahead of the coach down the long shaded road into the heart of Gloucestershire, “and no cypresses. Oaks, my friend, good, decent English oaks, and look”—he slewed in his saddle and pointed to the forest as they passed—“beech and larch, and oaks again!”
“I didn’t know you were a horticulturist,” Arden commented, watching his friend’s growing elation.
“England!” Julian shouted, standing in his stirrups as though he were greeting the nation, instead of only alarming the coachman and some birds at the roadside. “Dear England! Remember breakfast? No skimpy dry little loaves and a pat of butter with a cup of bitter coffee for us this morning, but porridge and kippers and eggs and rashers of bacon. Real breakfast,” Julian laughed, “and real forests, and look there—a magpie! Real birds as well. Travel’s enchanting, but maybe mostly because of the way it makes the familiar exotic and so treasured once again. How I’ve missed all this!”
“And real women?” Arden asked, bringing his horse up closer.
“Well, you will note,” Julian said on a grin, “that I’ve an Englishwoman with me, as well.”
“A certain dreadful consistency, yes,” Arden agreed, but more quietly, signaling Julian to hold back his horse so they might speak softly. For here in the early morning the quiet of the country road was complete except for the breeze and birdsong, and the passage of the two riders’ mounts on the hard-packed road, and the steady clatter of the four horses pulling the creaking, rattling coach that followed after them.
“I’d not forgot,” Arden said. “That’s why I wonder if you mightn’t think it wiser to take Mrs. Cobb and Francesca to an inn while we visit with Warwick and his good lady,” and when Julian frowned in incomprehension, he added negligently, “seeing that your relationship with Mrs. Cobb, though intimate, is an unsanctioned one.”
“Good God, Arden,” Julian laughed, “he may be a duke now, but I’ve known Warwick forever, he isn’t the sort to cut up over that, why, he’s had far more obvious ladybirds in his keeping before he wed…” His voice trailed off as he fell silent, thinking.
“Precisely,” Arden said comfortably. “Wedlock changes everything, and though Susannah is the kindest child in nature, Warwick might not be so forgiving…”
“No, you’re right,” Julian answered soberly, “foreign travel’s turned more than my perceptions, it seems to have addled my wits. Continental manners won’t do here. One doesn’t bring one’s mistress to a respectable friend’s home, and actually, oughtn’t even to mention her in front of his wife. Thank you, Arden, for reminding me. We’ll leave them at an inn. Francesca may be blameless, but Roxie…I’d not like to see Warwick’s face when I introduced her to Susannah…” He grew thoughtful again then.
Arden let the silence ride with them for a few more feet and then asked gently, “Should you like to stay at the inn with them as well? I’ve a favor to a
sk of Warwick, after all. I’d like him to have Francesca stay on with them. It may be they can help her find her proper place in life, preferably a safe and married one.” He frowned as though he’d found a flaw in this pleasant program, before he recalled himself and went on smoothly, “I know it’s been two years since Susannah and Warwick wed, but I needn’t mention you’re in the vicinity at all, if you’d prefer.”
Julian turned a face filled with surprise to his friend. He’d known Warwick Jones, Duke of Peterstow, since his schooldays, and had indirectly been the reason Arden had met his best friend two years before. And it was entirely and too embarrassingly true that the only uncomfortable moments he’d had in all his years of friendship with Warwick Jones had been when Susannah Logan had chosen him for her husband, instead of himself. Indeed, the hurt of it was why he’d left England.
But he’d come to see, long after the painful necessity of watching their wedding, that it was his pride that had been hurt the most—and that it had been two friends he’d seen wed to each other, not a lost lover and a friend. For he hadn’t really known her. It was true he’d thought he’d loved her once, but then, he’d thought he loved another lady the week before that. Now he saw that he’d loved being in love more, and the thought of seeing Susannah again, happy in her marriage with Warwick, filled him only with purest pleasure. And so he told Arden, seriously. But then he threw back his fair head and roared with laughter, explaining, between chortles, that since Warwick had written that she was increasing now, the picture he suddenly had of himself, lovelorn and sighing, following an extremely pregnant Susannah about the house on his knees, amused him enormously. That was when Arden relaxed, and, two years after the fact, seeing his friend’s genuine hilarity, believed him entirely over whatever had tried him so sorely at last.
