A True Lady

by Edith Layton

  “It will be a shock to her,” he said, and she felt his breath on her neck as he said it.

  “Aye,” she said, and felt his finger trace a coil of hair on her neck. She felt her skin tingling all the way down her back.

  “Cristabel,” he said, and she shivered, “don’t set your hopes too high, or low. The lady will be as surprised as you are. I tell you what. If you like, we can observe her from afar first and then you can decide if you want to take the final step and meet her.”

  Cristabel didn’t know what to say. His voice and touch unsettled her, but her future worried her more. A fire crackled in the hearth, the rain made it cozy, and he was with her. It was calm and quiet here, in an inn on the outskirts of Bath on the brink of tomorrow.

  “Magnus,” she said in a very small voice, “I’m frightened.”

  He knew what a difficult thing that was for her to say. He was fighting an even more difficult desire. The need to comfort her as well as himself became one yearning. He turned her around and looked down into the depths of loneliness he saw in her eyes.

  “Ah, Cristabel,” he told her, “never be afraid. Never so long as I live.”

  But it wasn’t enough to say it. He lowered his head and kissed her. He meant to offer comfort and reassurance, but when their lips met he found she offered more. He groaned deep in his throat and pulled her closer and she squirmed in his arms, trying to get closer still. She wasn’t a woman who knew half measures in anything she did, and she couldn’t give him less than she felt. Which was more than she’d ever known. She’d never willingly come into a man’s arms to meet his kiss before, and she discovered she wanted even more than that now. He was warm and solid and his hands and lips sent her mind spinning. It was more than comforting, it was a homecoming. She opened her mouth against his, and the taste of him delighted her. Her hands stroked his wide shoulders, touched his hard chest, felt the strong pulse of life in his neck as his hands caressed her to distraction.

  They were alone, and no one would bother them. He had only to bolt the door, Magnus thought dazedly, as his lips feathered down her neck to the sweet, warm skin of her throat, to her breast. She was all willingness, all fire; she twisted and turned in his arms with the same restless desire he felt. Tonight she wore no hoop to hold him off; for the first time he could feel the outline of her whole supple frame as she pressed it against his own. Her breasts were high and hard and sweetly upthrust against his palm; they would be beautiful bared to the firelight. The curve of her waist as it dipped into the swell of her hip was a miracle of grace; her small, round bottom fit into his hand. He would help her from her clothes as she would help him from his. There was a carpet by the fire; he would lower her there, and kiss her and touch her and teach her—that men could not be trusted, he thought with sudden icy clarity.

  His mind struggled against everything his body was feeling. But he saw his course of action too plain.

  He could have her in glory, in the heat of her confused search for comfort and reassurance. And then she would rise from the improvised bed on the floor to find she would have to take him as husband. She was as impulsive and generous and honest in her emotions as she was in her speech; it was what he valued and worried about most in her. She was a creature of sudden passions and equally sudden remorse. He would marry her; that was a foregone conclusion. If he had to move heaven and earth to do it, he knew he would. And she wanted him now. There was every reason to take this hunger to sweet fulfillment. And every reason not to.

  He knew her well—too well, he thought in agonized frustration. Because in possessing her now, he would possess all her free will, and when the heat of passion passed, she’d never forgive him. She would always wonder what her life would have been like if he had offered her only what she needed most tonight: the love of a friend. And so would he.

  She wasn’t the type of woman to be taken on the floor anyway, if only because she had fled a place where men did just that. That thought alone was as a lifeline to him; he caught hold of it and let it pull him back to sanity. It wasn’t easy—he wanted nothing more than to bury himself in her now. But his whole life was dedicated to helping those he loved who could not help themselves. This was no different, only harder than anything he’d known.

  He slowed his kisses, letting them trail up from her breast to her neck to her lips, retracing the blazing trail he’d left. He fought for the control to end this moment of dark passion slowly and sweetly so she wouldn’t mark its gentle passage back to reality. She trusted him. He could not fail her.

  “Tomorrow,” he managed to whisper against her throat, resting his head against her cheek, “tomorrow we must be up early and gone from here. It’s late, Cristabel.” He used familiar names and humor to try to restore himself, as well as her. “If you get back to your room too late, Sophia will be snoring too loudly for you to get any sleep. I have to go get Martin and pour him into his bed now too.”

  She stilled in his arms. He felt her give a shuddering sigh, then a shaky laugh, but there was only grief in her voice when she spoke. “What you must think of me,” she said.

  “I think I was trying to seduce you,” he said, “as I promised I would. And I think that was wrong—at least for this place and this time. But hold the thought, please.”

  She looked up at him, her expression unreadable. Then she threw her arms around his neck and dragged his head down and kissed him so sweetly and soundly that he lost his breath. She released him just as fast as she’d grabbed him.

  “You…,” she said in a broken voice, shaking her head, “you…Magnus, you are—you are, oh, thank you, Magnus, you are wonderful.”

  She gathered up her skirt and fled the room. He stepped into the hall and watched her until she disappeared into her room at the head of the stair. He ached as if he’d run a mile, and there were cramps in parts of his body that he yearned to forget about. But he was grinning ear to ear.

  *

  Like Rome, Bath was a city built on hills. Conquerors had used the natural springs they found here to build their baths a thousand years before. The wealthiest Romans had used the hot, sulfurous waters to bathe in; now the noblest English used them to cure themselves. Cristabel decided the Romans probably had the better idea. It looked like it would take more than a glass of steaming sour water to cure most of the old people she saw struggling up and down the tilted streets of Bath. The younger ones were so beautifully dressed that she knew, before Magnus told her, that Bath was also a fashionable spa, a prime place for the rich of England to find mates.

  She had to caution herself not to skip as she strolled with Magnus now. Her spirit was surging: She was really, actually, possibly going to see her mother! She hadn’t slept the whole night before, just imagining it. But she didn’t feel so much tired as she did strange: out of time and place as she searched the faces of passersby, wondering if she’d see someone who looked like herself, a few decades from now. She couldn’t look for hair like her own, because most of the ladies wore white powder, and it was hard to see their eye color at a passing glance. So she searched passing faces, seeking what she thought she remembered from her infancy as well as what she’d seen in her own looking glass that morning. Not that she had to. Magnus knew where he was leading her. He’d gone out the day before when they’d arrived, and then again early this morning. When he returned he’d been excited, sober, but smiling. He’d held out a hand to Cristabel. “Ready?” he asked.

  She was, and wasn’t, but she scrambled into one of her nicest gowns and walked out with him. It was a clear, bright, cold day. They were on the Parade, near the Abbey, one of the few level places at the center of the town where all the best people eventually congregated. Sophia strolled ahead of them on Martin’s arm, neither of them looking at each other. Cristabel was gaping at everyone that passed, but she looked up at Magnus when he halted.

  “There,” he said.

  She held her breath, and looked. And then lost all her breath as she saw the woman who had to be her mothe
r. She stared for a long moment, until the lady turned and entered the pump room with an old gentleman being carried in a sedan chair.

  “Would you like to follow?” Magnus asked quietly, looking down at Cristabel’s suddenly white face.

  She shook her head violently. “No, no,” she said.

  “Then you don’t want to meet her?”

  “Of course I do,” she said, “but on me own terms, in me own time. When 1 be ready—ah, blast. So I don’t do that, you see,” she told him, her eyes searching his for understanding.

  “An appointment then, of your own choosing.”

  “Exactly,” she sighed, feeling as frightened as she was near to hysterical joy. Because this woman was beautiful and elegant and graceful and assured—everything she had ever wanted her to be. And more than that, everything she herself had ever wanted to be.

  *

  It was a beautiful house in the best part of town. Cristabel’s gown was the finest one she owned: a pure blue that flattered her skin and hair. She hadn’t powdered her hair tonight, although she wanted to look fashionable. It was things like hair and eyes that would call to her mother, and she wanted nothing to disguise them. She couldn’t hide her trembling as Magnus lifted the door knocker.

  He took her hand as they waited for the door to open. “I’m right here,” he reminded her. She nodded, because she couldn’t speak. His words, as well as his big frame and strong, warm hand, comforted her, although nothing could stop the way her heart was knocking against her ribs. She felt short of breath and panicky when the door finally swung open. She became light-headed and dizzy when the footman fetched the butler, who went to see his mistress, and then told them to wait in an elegant, airy salon off the front hall. She found she couldn’t swallow, much less speak, as she waited for her mother to appear.

  Magnus spoke for her when the lady entered the room.

  It was like looking at herself in a way, and yet the woman was nothing like her; Cristabel could see that at a glance. It was evening, so the lady’s age was hidden and flattered by the candlelight; she wore powder, so her hair color was concealed as well. She had a high forehead and brown eyes, and the same nose Cristabel saw in her mirror every day. But in all, her face, so like Cristabel’s, was entirely different: beautiful, calm, serene as Cristabel’s had never been. She glanced at Cristabel, dismissed her with a placid smile, and then turned her attention to Magnus.

  “My lady,” Magnus said as he bowed, “thank you for receiving us on such short notice. As my note said, I am Magnus, Viscount Snow, and I’ve come tonight because I’ve something of great import to tell you. My companion here has traveled many miles, crossed the seas, in fact, to find you. And yet I have reason to believe her very existence may be unknown to you. There’s no point in me going on and on; the situation will speak for itself. My lady, permit me to introduce you to Miss Cristabel Stew, of the Indies.”

  Cristabel wanted to rush into the woman’s arms as much as she wanted to run away. So she did the only thing a lady could; she blushed and, trembling with anticipation, dropped into a deep, low curtsy. But not so low as the one her mother made. Because the lady faltered and would have fallen if she hadn’t caught on to the edge of a table instead. Magnus rushed to assist her, but she sank to one knee and waved him away wildly.

  “God in Heaven!” she cried, staring at Cristabel. “Tell me it’s not true!”

  “I am—I have reason to think that I am—your daughter,” Cristabel said hesitantly, “or so, at least, my father always said. But see, he said only that you’d left us, and so I thought you’d passed on—never knowing that you lived. I found out when I came to London last month. My lady, I think it must be so. Not just because of the marriage lines, and all the stories I heard of you, but because you look—I look—it must be so, I think,” she finally said, fearful of the look in her mother’s eyes.

  “Get out!” the lady cried. “Out now! I’ll deny it to the skies. I’ll swear it’s not so. He raped me then, he shall not do so again. I have influence and money, I will not permit it. I escaped him once, I’ll do it again.”

  “But I am…” Cristabel began to say, and then stopped, realizing that one phrase had said it all, said everything that pained her.

  “I wish to God I could forget it,” Lady Elizabeth hissed, “but I can’t. You have the look of him, the stink of him. Get out, and never trouble me again. I’ll deny you, I’ll tell them who your father is. Who would believe you then? He can’t prove anything because he’s a wanted man; he dare not even show his face in England. Ill-gotten brat of a murderer, leave me now and trouble me no more!”

  “I’m glad to leave,” Cristabel said, backing to the door. “I’ll never come back.”

  She ran out in the hall before she could disgrace herself by crying. As it was, Magnus caught her by the door and held her close and rocked her until she could stop sobbing, great gulping sobs that tore at her throat and brought tears to his own eyes. When she subsided, she raised her tearstained face to him. “I’m done,” she said in a hoarse voice. “I’ll never cry no more. Not for her. Take me from here, please.”

  But before he could leave, a dry old voice called to him.

  “My lord,” an old gentleman in an invalid chair said, raising a thin hand to hail Magnus, “please wait.” He waved the servant who had pushed his chair into the front hall away, and signaled the footmen to leave as well. Then he gazed at Magnus and Cristabel. He was very old, or else moderately old and very ill, because he was thin and blue-skinned, and even his rouged cheeks and high white wig couldn’t bring the semblance of health to his cold face.

  “Yes,” the old man said, staring at Cristabel, “very like. ’Tis a pity. I am Lady Elizabeth’s husband, the Baron Batsford, her only legal husband, my dear,” he told Cristabel in his thin voice, “whatever any bit of paper your father produces says. I’ve men at law to back me up on that. I don’t know your game, my child, but you’d be advised to give it up. Those years were hell on earth for my dear Elizabeth; she wants to forget them, and who can blame her? You are a mistake, my poor child, a sad mistake born of a terrible crime. One best forgotten by all concerned. There’s only hurt here for you. I suggest you let the matter rest and go back to the Islands and tell your father it is useless. She is protected now.”

  “As is Cristabel,” Magnus said in a harsh voice. “She will be my wife. Her father has nothing to do with this. I brought her here in the hopes of bringing her some happiness. She doted on her mother’s memory, you see. But don’t worry, she’ll trouble you no more.”

  He bowed and, putting his arm around Cristabel, led her out.

  “Cristabel,” he said when they reached the street, “look at me. I didn’t know. I couldn’t have guessed. Forgive me please.”

  Her face was stark and shocked, her eyes wide and filled with hurt as she looked into his. “Oh, Magnus,” she whispered, “of course I forgive you. But can’t you see? You must forget me, please.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Sophia was furious, of course. “We just got here!” she fumed as she paced the private dining parlor of their inn. “It took days of absolutely wretched travel to come to Bath. I was very good about it; I hardly ever complained about the poor quality of the roads, the inns, the food, and the company, did I? Now we’re here at last and I can see that everyone else is too. I’d no idea. So much to do, so much to see: dinners and balls, and gambling until all hours! There’s a subscription ball tonight, but I can get in anyway. Beau Nash himself bowed to me at the pump room this morning. I refuse to leave just because she doesn’t want to stay. Take her and leave me. It’s quite all right; I can do with a change of scene.”

  “We can’t travel that distance without another lady accompanying us,” Magnus said in a dangerously even voice, “and you know it, Sophia.”

  “Of course you can; it’s not as if she was a lady,” Sophia spat.

  Cristabel flinched. Magnus didn’t grimace or snarl, but his lips thinned and he stared at Soph
ia with the intensity of a predator about to spring, his narrowed eyes glinting with dark ice.

  “Of course, she’s right,” Cristabel said hurriedly, looking from Magnus to Sophia.

  Magnus wheeled around and stared at her. Sophia flushed and fanned herself.

  “The matter is settled, Sophia,” Martin said quietly. Everyone turned to look at him; he’d been so quiet, they’d forgotten he was there at the table with them. But now he rose from his chair. “I’m returning to London too,” he said, “and of course, I want my wife with me.”

  “But I choose to stay,” Sophia said, stamping her foot.

  “If you do,” Martin said very carefully, “it will not be as my wife. You have a choice, Sophia. Make it. I’ll be leaving with Magnus and Cristabel, first thing in the morning.”

  He threw down his napkin and left the room. Sophia stared after him and then, raising her head, she swept from the room as well, leaving Magnus and Cristabel alone together.

  “I didn’t mean to cause trouble,” Cristabel said miserably.

  “If it weren’t you, it would be something else,” Magnus said. “When an argument’s ripe, anything will set it off. But are you sure?” he asked, looking at her with concern. “She may have second thoughts. Seeing you was a shock; she may come around.”

  Cristabel knew he wasn’t talking about Sophia, because she herself had hardly paid any attention to Martin or his wife. All she’d been doing since she’d left her mother’s house was holding back tears. Concentrating on that was the only thing that helped her sit through a dinner she hadn’t tasted, nodding at remarks she didn’t hear. The thought that kept drumming in her head was louder than any conversation around her: Her mother didn’t want her; her mother hated her, because she was ‘a mistake, a sad mistake born of a terrible crime.’ Try as she might, she couldn’t forget those words, realizing now that her mother had spent her whole life trying to erase her memory.