A True Lady

by Edith Layton

  The old man was pushed into the room in his wheeled invalid chair. At his brief signal his servant left him there in the middle of the room, with only his wife standing still and straight beside him. She looked at Cristabel once, and then stared away into the shadows, where Black Jack’s mocking smile made her shift her feet, and look straight ahead again, her back rigid.

  “My mother!” Cristabel breathed. “Why?”

  “Indeed,” Magnus said harshly, “that is the only question that remains unanswered.”

  “Rodgers told you, I suppose,” the Baron Batsford sighed.

  “Yes, but so did the papers he carried in his wallet,” Magnus said. “He was your man at law. It would have been an easy guess even if he hadn’t damned you with his last breath today. I didn’t kill him, by the way. His heart—or his conscience—did. But why did you ask him to see to it?”

  The old man looked around the room. “I think I’d prefer it if you would introduce me to these others first. I came because you gave me no choice; your message spoke of many dire consequences. Are any of these gentlemen the king’s men? Or simply murderers, like your wife’s father?”

  “Or her mother’s husband?” Magnus asked. “But by all means: Baron Batsford and Madam Stew—for that’s still your name,” he said as Cristabel’s mother gasped, “may I present my brother, Martin Snow, and my good friend, Master Jarvis Kelly—from the Indies. They know everything. And before I go further, I’d add that so do my lawyers and theirs, and that there are letters to that effect in all their possessions now, to be opened and made public immediately should anything happen to any of us tonight—or hereafter. You might as well stop hiring assassins, because all they can kill now is your own future. Now that I’ve obliged you, I ask you to reciprocate,” he said harshly. “No more games, sir. Why?”

  The old man spread his hands in a helpless gesture; his smile was cold and bitter. “It’s obvious, my lord, is it not?”

  “Yes,” Magnus said, “but I will have it said.”

  “Very well,” the baron said, shrugging his thin shoulders. “It was there in your introduction. We didn’t want it known that this—female—is my wife’s daughter. That would lead to questions about her first marriage.”

  “Which is, of course, I remind you, her only legal one,” Magnus said harshly, “which leaves you with no legal heirs, doesn’t it? Only two bastard sons. There never was a divorce, was there? That’s the crux of it. It was never you, Cristabel,” he said, turning to her. “Don’t listen to his venom. It was always her mistake that he tried to correct, not yours.”

  “Mine?” Cristabel’s mother cried, glaring at him. “Mine? Who do you think got me with her? Who do you think forced me into that vile marriage? Why do you think I birthed this—this creature who calls herself my daughter? And why should that hideous time in my life ruin my dear children’s futures?”

  “Mind your tongue, Madam Stew. This ‘person’ is my wife,” Magnus growled.

  Cristabel’s mother grew pale, and even the old man blinked.

  “That, I did not know,” the baron said in a troubled voice.

  “It’s true. It will be in the paper tomorrow,” Magnus said, “and all London will know in a matter of weeks. They would have known sooner if we’d guessed your intent. But there’ll be no doubt this time. We’re going to be married again with all pomp and ceremony, since our first wedding was so hastily conducted at what we thought was my deathbed,” Magnus said with a twisting smile, “thanks to you.”

  Cristabel stared at her mother. The woman was still beautiful. But it was an icy beauty, for try as she might, Cristabel could see no remorse, no softness, in her. She wore gray tonight and her hair was powdered white. Only her eyes and her jewelry had color. She could have been the figure that her father had carved of her to put on the prow of his ship for luck. She was so cold, so inhumanly beautiful, stiff, and still.

  “You were trying to kill me when Magnus was hurt,” Cristabel said to her mother, as though she couldn’t believe it. One last feeble hope made her ask in a very small voice, “You sanctioned my killing?”

  “Why shouldn’t I have?” her mother asked bitterly. “It would have righted a terrible wrong.”

  “Aye, I see,” Cristabel said, nodding to herself. “I do indeed.”

  “You could have legally adopted your sons,” Martin blurted. “You could have told your husband the truth—that your first husband still lived. You didn’t have to try to kill your daughter!”

  “He knew,” Cristabel’s mother said coldly, not sparing a glance for the old man she spoke about. “He always knew. There was no way to get at my first husband to legally end it. He was at the other end of the world, and his life was forfeit if he ever came to England, so we thought that was the end of it—until she appeared and claimed me as her mother. No one else knew about that marriage; I had put it behind me. The pirate himself seemed willing to forget it, why should it have come to light now? Why should one hideous mistake ruin so many good lives?”

  “But I was your daughter,” Cristabel said, shaking her head in disbelief.

  “I have no daughter,” her mother said furiously. “You are a stranger. I avoided the sight of you since the day you were dragged out of me. I left as soon as I could. What more proof do you want of my distaste for you? My daughter? I’ve only your word for it; you don’t even look like me, thank God.”

  Indeed she didn’t, Cristabel thought dazedly, except for her forehead, her eyes, her nose, her size, and her shape.

  “Cristabel,” Magnus said, despairing, seeing the pain in her glowing eyes, “it doesn’t matter. You’re everything you thought a lady should be, but she isn’t. Not by temperament or spirit. She’s your mother in name only, and you should be grateful for it. Forget her. Think of our future, which, God willing, will be bright and long.

  “And I remind you,” he warned the baron, turning to glare at him, “that only God will be the one to decide that. Do as you like with the matter of your marriage and your sons’ legitimacy; we don’t care. We won’t acknowledge you, nor will we prosecute you for past attempts on our lives, because we don’t want notoriety either. But a word of wisdom to you, Baron, and to your woman—or whatever she is now,” he said carelessly, to see Cristabel’s mother blanch. “I suggest you pray to whatever gods will listen that no accident ever befalls Cristabel, or any she holds dear. Because if one does, or if we even think one has—we’ll tell everything, from the first marriage to the false one, from the bastard children to all your attempts at murder. They use a silken noose to hang noblemen and women, but I doubt it’s much more comfortable. Everything will be made public.”

  “If there be any of ye left breathing to hear the news, that be to say,” Black Jack said from the shadows, “’cause the Lord Snow and his lady have friends in the Brotherhood, Baron, and I be reminding ye to never forget that.”

  Cristabel’s mother froze, and Black Jack chuckled.

  Magnus grinned, but his smile was forced because of the look he saw on Cristabel’s face. She was staring at her mother, transfixed by some inner turmoil.

  “And I also advise you to tell your sons about their legitimate sister,” Magnus went on, “whatever you decide to do about their inheritance. We plan to have many beautiful children. It would be best if your family knows of the relationship so they don’t end up falling in love with their own sisters and cousins someday. As for the rest—we’ll neither claim relationship nor deny it, right, Cristabel? Cristabel?”

  But she wasn’t listening to him. Nor was she standing still and shocked anymore. Bright color had flown to her cheeks, and her eyes glistened with fury, not sorrow, now. She strode forward, and they all caught their breaths, because the flickering light glanced off a dagger she suddenly held in her hand. Before any man in the room could stop her, she strode up to her mother and touched the point of the knife to the dimple in her mother’s chin. Her mother gasped, but didn’t move.

  The two women were the same size,
and this close, their resemblance to each other was clear. But one woman seemed made of ice, and the other of fire.

  “Remember this, my lady?” Cristabel hissed as she moved the knife lower. “Too bad you can’t look under your chin to see. It was my father’s favorite knife; its hilt is crusted with topaz. He said it reminded him of your eyes, but he gave it to me as a parting gift. He gave me this, and jewels and gold besides. But he gave me nothing as valuable as his own name, and that, I do see now. He’s done many wicked things, but he knew no better. At least he tried to raise me properly. Listen to me, lady,” Cristabel went on, as her mother swallowed hard, and stopped, because the motion brought her flesh closer to the knife, “and say not a word, because your voice offends my ears, it does. I lived my life trying to be like you, and that’s the only thing I’m sorry for now. For I wouldn’t want to be like you for all the gold in Troy.

  “I have my father’s knife, and aye, his brave heart, too, and I be—I am glad of it now. If ever you speak my name, speak it in a whisper. For I don’t want it to be known that I was spawned by such as you. And if you ever even think of doing my Magnus harm, know this—I will slit you from your chin to your toes, and dance on your innards, I will.

  “To think,” Cristabel marveled, “I wanted to be like you! That I was ashamed of being a pirate’s daughter. Now I’m proud of it. Hear this: Forget me. But never dare forget my wrath.”

  She touched the knife a fraction deeper—not enough to pierce the skin, but to make her point. Then, satisfied by the look in the older woman’s eyes, she withdrew the dagger, flipped it in the air, caught it, and slid it back into her sleeve. Then she turned her back, and swaggered back to Magnus.

  “I be done, now,” she said. “Let’s go home, my lord.”

  They walked out of the inn, and back into the carriage. No one said a word as they drove away, though all the men watched Cristabel carefully. She sat close to her husband, and seemed to be thinking deeply, reviewing all that had happened.

  At last she spoke. She smiled radiantly as she looked up at her husband. “And I scarcely made a slip, my lord,” she said triumphantly. “I was maddened to the point that I saw everything as though through a long red tunnel. It was amazing. But I remembered. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction, and I didn’t. I spoke like a true lady, didn’t I?”

  “That’s because you are one,” Magnus said tenderly.

  “Aye,” she said comfortably, wriggling closer to him, “that I be!”

  *

  The wedding was one of London’s most lavish in recent memory.

  The bride was magnificent in antique pearls and diamonds, and a gown that seemed made of moonbeams and stars. The groom was well dressed and well liked. There were as many jests about his having been caught at last, and by such a beauty—and an heiress from the Indies too!—as there were comments about how proud he was of her, and rightly so.

  The groomsman and his lady wife seemed like a pair of turtledoves themselves, the lady Sophia for once paying more attention to her husband than to her admiring friends. As for young Martin Snow, he was pleased and proud, as if he seemed a little dazed by his lovely wife’s attentions. Who wouldn’t be?

  The strikingly handsome dark man who gave the bride away in lieu of her father—who was, as always, traveling around the world consolidating his fortune, they said—was quite a favorite himself in London these days. Witty and rich, and such a devil with the ladies, it was rumored.

  And if there seemed to be a crowd of oddly dressed men at the back of the church during the service, no one took more than passing notice, because who wouldn’t want to see such a beautiful ceremony?

  The ceremony was so beautiful, in fact, that some lingered, as though loath to leave the scene of such happiness, long after the bridal party had left the church.

  One lone woman waited until all the guests had gone before she rose from her seat at the back of the cathedral. What could be seen of her was graceful and lovely, though her hair was covered by her shawl, and she wore her cloak, even in the church. She walked to the aisle, and looked to see if her maid was waiting by the doors, where she’d left her. When she felt a light touch on her arm, she assumed it was the girl. And leapt in her skin and grew deathly pale when she saw who it was.

  She recognized him instantly.

  He wore a wig, of course, a dark gray one. He was still stocky but dressed as a gentleman now. His beard was gone, and although new wrinkles transformed him somewhat, he couldn’t bleach the touch of decades’ worth of tropical sun from his skin. He was bronzed and clean-shaven, and smelled of bay rum, not sweat and salt, now. But she knew him, of course, the minute she gazed into those dark and glittering eyes.

  “You,” she said simply, her hand at her breast, breathing hard.

  “Aye, ’tis I. Been a long time, ain’t it, luv?”

  “Long, long, indeed,” she said carefully.

  “She were a right beauty, our daughter, weren’t she?” he sighed. “A lady to her fingertips, and a lady true, it happens now. I made sure of that, in every way I could. What about you, Lizzie? I be damned if I’m going to die to make yer marriage legal, but I wonder how yer handling it. Why’d you marry that old stick anyway? Yer bed must have been good and cold—aye! Good usually is cold, ain’t it? There’s a jest fer ye.”

  She studied him. He smiled at her. A small smile came to her own lips. “You’re right. It is cold,” she said, “but he is a lord. And that’s what I wanted. That’s what I got. It seemed a fair trade then.”

  “Hard to believe,” he said, scratching himself thoughtfully. “Ye were a rare handful, lass. As hot in bed as ye were hotheaded out of it. Our daughter’s very like, y’know.”

  “I know. She said she’d kill me if I tried to harm her again or anyone she loved.”

  “Good,” Captain Whiskey said happily. ’Twould save me the trouble. For I’d’ve done for ye meself if ye’d hurt a hair on her head, y’know. Stupid lass to forget that, weren’t ye?”

  “I suppose,” she said calmly. “I acted without thinking. It doesn’t matter now. The baron’s going to legally adopt the boys, quietly, of course, so there will be no problem with the title or estate. And I shall continue to be his wife to everyone else, whatever that paper you still hold says—unless,” she asked sweetly, “you’d care to give it to me? Or perhaps sell it to me? I’m very rich now. Or maybe,” she asked, moving closer to him, close enough to touch him, close enough for him to scent the freesia perfume she always wore, “maybe you’d even be willing to…trade for it?”

  He hooted with laughter. Her face set tight as she watched him wipe his eyes. “Aye, that’s me dear Lady Elizabeth, for sure! Tricky, and still pretty, I grant ye. But I got me a truer lady for a wife now, and want no other. We live far from here; she’ll never know we be still wed no more than your world will know it. I’ll keep it that way, Lizzie, and our marriage paper, too, fer I believe that’s the only way to keep me dear Cristabel safe. She’s the lady you never were, ye see.”

  “Is she?” Cristabel’s mother asked, her thin eyebrow arching.

  “Aye. And ye know it. That’s why I wed ye, when I could have just had ye anyway and forgot ye after. But ye were a lady and a wench together, and it fair boggled me. I had to have ye for mine, forever. I were such a fool. But ye were willing enough, remember? Ye come off that ship and into me arms like a shot, when there were that nice young lord could’ve rescued you. But ye turned yer back on him and come to me. Aye, ye were as hot as yer cold now, me old dear.

  “Aye, that were the problem,” he said with a trace of an old sadness, before he went on. “I’d’ve kept ye with me for all time, and loved ye only—like I promised—aye, like I did. Huh. Till ye played me false with every handsome pirate ye could get yer hands on when me back was turned, and I had to send ye away, or kill ye fer it. Do ye deceive the old gent, as well, I wonder?”

  “That is my own business,” she said haughtily.

  “Aye, right, but who car
es now?” he laughed, “Well, it were good seeing ye, Lizzie, but I got to go now. I told the happy couple I couldn’t stay, but they was so glad I come, they din’t mind how fast I had to go. I had to see ’em one last time. He be a fine gent. I couldn’t have done better, as it turns out,” he chortled. “I be saying farewell now, and I hope we never meet again. I won’t wish ye happiness, but I suppose I don’t wish ye ill, neither. Oh, and save yerself the trouble of calling the watch down on me now, ’cause I’ll be gone afore you can draw breath. Be sure that ye never go near the lass again, hear? ’Cause I be always watching.” And then he was gone.

  She walked out the great cathedral doors, and saw that all the glad company was still there, cheering and shouting to the departing bridal couple. There was such a crowd in the street that their coach couldn’t move, and so the two of them, flanked by their smiling family, were standing waving back to their happy guests and spectators.

  They made a remarkably handsome couple. He tall, well set up, wide-shouldered, long-legged, and dressed all in pearl gray to match his eyes. She slender and yet curved, dainty and yet lush, her lovely face radiant with happiness. She whispered something to him. He answered something in her ear, and her face lit up with laughter. He gazed at her, and on an obvious impulse, cupped her head in his two big hands like a chalice and lowered his head so he could sip at those rosy laughing lips.

  The lone woman at the top of the cathedral steps looked down at them. In that instant there was a flash of longing in her eyes…a hint of some terrible sorrow flickered in her face.

  She closed her hands hard. The bite of her fingernails against her own palms seemed to awaken her. She grimaced, and then shrugged, and then calling to her maid, she turned and walked away from all the joyous company.

  The groom stopped kissing his bride. She dragged his head back and kissed him soundly again.