To Win a Wallflower

by Liz Tyner

  He took the paper, turned it over and examined it. ‘How did you get this?’

  ‘I’ve been selling the dresses my sisters left behind. No one has noticed.’

  ‘I am impressed. You do have a skill.’

  ‘I was taking the money to my sister.’

  He mumbled a growl under his breath, but didn’t speak at first. He held the notes up, then paused. ‘Is that all you have?’ He held the notes steady, then thrust them back at her. ‘Keep them.’

  ‘I shall.’ She snapped them from his hand.

  He just stood there, shaking his head as she tucked the money inside her spencer.

  ‘I do not know how anyone could be so protected as you,’ he said. ‘I can’t figure out who is the aberration. You or me.’

  ‘In my life, it would be you,’ she said.

  ‘Same here.’

  ‘I made a mistake.’ She moved forward, her words quietened. ‘Yes. I made a mistake. I see that now. I should have hired you at the beginning, but then, one doesn’t hire a viscount’s son.’

  ‘No. One does not.’ He raised his hand, and extended a finger and pointed to the trees canopying the road. ‘You left a house of people who care for you and ran off. You risked your entire future. Your life. For what? To chase off after a sister who has no more sense than a sheep without a shepherd?’

  ‘She is having a baby.’

  ‘Your sisters were senseless. Your parents want better for you.’

  ‘I’m sure they do,’ she said. ‘So do I.’

  ‘You left with an old man and old woman who could have sold you to anyone.’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘No. I know of her. She would do no such thing. Many other women in London have hired her for help.’

  ‘How much do you really know of that old bag of tricks?’

  She shook her head, not answering. The woman had helped Honour. Honour had made a mistake and decided that she could only redeem herself by marriage and the woman had helped her travel without anyone finding out.

  ‘Your risk was too great,’ he said.

  She walked faster, catching up to him. ‘Try to stop me. I have practised defending myself,’ she said, moving forward.

  He reached out, dropping the ribbons, one arm clamping on her like a vice.

  She stopped and let herself stumble sideways into him, then she slammed her foot near his boot. He moved his foot aside and she bent her knees, causing him to step forward with the pull of her weight. Then she pushed back her head, not hitting him, but stopping then to turn and look at his face.

  ‘Elbow,’ he growled at her ear.

  She regained her footing and slammed her elbow straight back, and it brushed his coat as he moved aside. ‘Try bending one knee next time.’ He remained behind her. ‘Drop one knee. Lower, twist and slam.’

  She tried it, turning into the elbow punch. He caught her as she stumbled and kept her upright. He felt sturdier than her house and she felt more secure in his arms than she had in her own room.

  ‘Better,’ he said, his voice husky. Her skirt tangled around his legs and he held her close with both hands.

  ‘If I’d not been expecting it, you would have connected well.’ He shook his head. ‘But the sad truth is that you don’t have much strength in that little elbow.’

  He stepped away, but he touched the small of her back with one hand. With his other, he clasped hers, helping her make a fist. ‘Next time, hold it with your other hand and shove back with all your might.’

  His breath brushed her cheek and his eyes changed. Everything stilled as he continued to hold her. ‘Did you notice that you keep throwing yourself into my arms?’

  ‘Not on purpose.’ She thought of the sparring. ‘Entirely.’ She felt a sudden burst of warmth in the air around her. ‘And did you notice you keep catching me?’

  A smile slipped on to his face. ‘What else am I to do?’

  ‘You have little choice there.’ She shrugged. ‘My pardon.’

  But she didn’t know if he would have done it for any woman, or just for her. ‘I suspected you might come after me,’ she said.

  ‘Your parents were worried. I would do that for anyone,’ he said. ‘Well, or I would have sent someone else after them.’

  All the relief at seeing him—all the pleasant thoughts of him coming to her aid—vanished.

  ‘You would?’ she asked. ‘Anyone?’

  ‘I could see how much your father and mother care for you.’

  ‘Of course they do.’

  His head bent closer to hers. ‘There is no of course about it.’

  He turned and strode away, leaving her to catch up.

  She couldn’t speak at first, thinking, and just putting one foot in front of the other as she trekked. Of course. Of course parents cared for their children. They might not always show it. It was nature that parents care for their children. Like mother birds care for their baby birds.

  ‘Some parents care more for their pets than they do their children and some people do not even care for their pets,’ he said.

  He’d somehow become jaded, perhaps because he didn’t have children of his own and never would and it had made him angry. ‘How could you grow up so?’ she asked.

  ‘I had no choice. It was root hog, or die.’

  ‘Root hog, or die?’ she asked.

  ‘It is from the Americas. Some people let their pigs loose in the woods to fend for themselves so they will not have to feed them and only see them when it is time to butcher them. If the pigs do not root out their meals, they die.’

  ‘But you were fed.’

  ‘Of course I was fed, our servants being well trained.’ He met her gaze. ‘Do you have any idea what it was like the first time my father used me to break the glass around him? He found a certain joy in picking me up and using me to clear the top of a table, delighting in the disarray. I think there was game in it for him. A certain skill in sliding me across the table to completely clear it. Finally, no breakables were left on the tables except for mealtimes and the servants placed the lamps on shelves on the wall.’

  ‘No.’ She clasped his arm.

  She felt off balance and, even though her body didn’t touch his, she could feel him along the length of her. He put his hand over the touch she had on his arm.

  He smiled, dark and light mixed. Laughter and anger. ‘It became almost a game to me as well. I learned to land on my feet or roll, mostly. Father’s rages were the Sunday afternoon entertainment. Better than any theatre. It became so routine and so much blustering and rage it was a little like theatre. A farce. I didn’t hate it or dread it. I accepted that it was the way things were.’

  ‘Someone should have stopped that.’

  ‘Who?’ he asked. ‘My beloved grandmother? She instigated it, often as not. My father calmed some after she died. He said he wished he’d not buried her in a crypt so he could have danced on her grave. He would have, too, and hired a fiddler.’

  ‘Still, someone should have stopped it.’

  He paused. His eyes became bland. He seemed to have no thoughts behind his words. Barrett looked at her. ‘Someone should have stopped it, you say. No one was there to stop it, Annie. Sometimes there isn’t anyone there to stop things. That is what I am trying to tell you.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  He looked into the distance, then back at her. ‘Don’t be. It made me stronger.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes. I don’t feel pain the way other people seem to feel it. I don’t care the same way other people care. I just don’t. I didn’t realise it until I saw the others at Gentleman Jackson’s. A man’s face paled from pain. Another cast up his accounts. I could not understand it. I thought them just weak. Then someone noticed how I reacted and told me I was the aberration.’

  ‘I think tha
t isn’t a good thing.’

  ‘I am content with it.’ He shrugged. ‘It is easier to play the game when you cannot be touched. When they cannot make you suffer and you can make them suffer, and they know it.’

  He kicked at a stick that had fallen on to the road, moving it from their path with his boot.

  ‘You have some kindness in you. You care about my safety.’

  He looked at her. ‘Until this moment, I thought I had no weakness left in me. But I see how I have let soft feelings grow in me. A mistake. They’ll do me no good. They’ll make me no richer.’

  ‘Does everything have to be about wealth?’

  He looked away, arms still at his sides. ‘How could it be otherwise?’

  Annie touched his sleeve. ‘Perhaps it could be about people. Deep in his heart I’m sure your father cares for you.’

  ‘No, Annie. For him it’s all about money, more money, and the power it buys.’

  She held the cloth of his coat in her hand. She had to let him know that he was mistaken. That even though his father didn’t appear to care for him—all fathers cared for their children. They might not show it, but the love was there nonetheless.

  She caught his eyes and it seemed as though she could see straight past the man into the child beneath all the whiskers and rough edges. And she wasn’t certain the boy would have been less jaded. In fact, she feared he might have been more.

  * * *

  He stopped moving, reaching up to clasp the leather from the horse’s bridle. Annie held his arm. He’d never seen such an innocent before. Not even in a cradle.

  How could he tell her that she endangered herself with her soft-coloured view of the world? He couldn’t. No one could. Her parents did right to keep her within their reach.

  Annie stumbled. He steadied her and pulled her closer as she walked. ‘I can’t imagine living like you must have,’ she said.

  ‘Just as well. It’s the past. It died away after my father realised I was bigger than he was.’ He laughed softly. ‘A handy thing to have. Size. And then I went to Gentleman Jackson’s and studied the sport of it. Another fortunate thing is the way I learned to take a punch and land easily. It seems I have known it all my life. Like walking and talking.’

  She wrapped her arms around his, her face at the cloth where his coat covered his shoulder. He needed to distance himself, but it would hardly be possible without hurting her feelings. Besides, he liked the odd feeling of walking along as a couple.

  It had a feeling of...he wasn’t sure what. Of companionship. Of togetherness. Of sharing a journey together rather than being alone. Perhaps even of weakness. He sighed internally.

  ‘I can hardly walk another step,’ she said. ‘I didn’t remember how far away the inn was.’

  His footsteps slowed, making it easier for her, as he realised he’d probably been walking too fast for her.

  His voice barely sounded through the air. ‘This morning, did you leave your house for the adventure or for your sister?’

  She shook her head. ‘A little of both. I wanted to see my sister, and then I got angry at her for leaving us. Why did she not trust us enough to stay? Why didn’t she trust us to take her secrets as our own?’

  ‘Secrets,’ he said. ‘The eternal tie that binds families.’

  ‘You understand that?’

  ‘Yes. That, I understand.’

  ‘How could I risk her not having family around when the child is born? And how can I live the rest of my life with my parents watching me as though I am the last bit of porcelain in a treasured set? They have made certain I am the wallflower at any event. My mother stands at my side and does not dance because someone without connections might swoop in upon me and whisk me away. And the ones she picks for me are insipid.’

  ‘Life is a business and your parents want you to be well off. They care for you.’

  ‘They wish me to walk exactly on the path they have chosen for me.’

  ‘We all have to walk the path we were born into.’

  ‘I cannot help being the way I am.’ He heard the apology in her voice.

  ‘I want you to stay the same, Annie. Though I understand that it’s not possible.’ His words flowed with the softness of knife covered with a soft cloth. ‘You have a right to go out among the other people in the world. Even if the world may disappoint you.’ The briefest of smiles. ‘And the world will disappoint you.’

  Chapter Ten

  The inn was up ahead, but it was hardly more than a large house with a battered sign that showed a bird and a boar, if one had an imagination. A horse stood tethered to a tree.

  He stopped. ‘I think it will be easier for you to pass as my wife than it will be for me to pass as your chaperon.’

  She stopped. ‘I...disagree. I think I can...’

  ‘Yes?’

  She held out her rumpled dress and looked at him. ‘You might be embarrassed to have me thought of as your wife. I’m a mess.’

  He examined her face. Petal-soft everywhere. She made the smudges of mud look endearing.

  ‘And you cannot stay in the room with me,’ she said. ‘That would be unheard of.’

  His jaw moved before he spoke. ‘Completely.’ But not un-thought-of.

  He had to keep his distance. ‘We’ll pretend to be married. You’ll tell the innkeeper we’re having a quarrel not long after we arrive and ask for separate rooms. It will certainly convince them we are married.’

  ‘But I’m not a good liar. You should do it.’

  ‘You will do it. You will succeed.’ No one would ever believe his wanting a room separate from her. Not with a brain in their head. ‘It has to be you.’

  She looked at his face, opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. ‘I don’t think I can.’

  He looked at her. ‘We’ll have a fight in front of them, then.’

  She looked at him. ‘That’s preposterous.’

  He shook his head. ‘People disagree more than they agree. Whatever I say, just find fault with it.’

  ‘Well.’ She raised her chin. ‘I will do the best I can.’

  They walked into the inn, where two men sat talking with a woman on a bench near the wall, and the scent of bread filled the room. One of the men wore a battered wig that could have been left over from a grandfather and he had a pipe in his hand. The other had on a pair of breeches with garters holding up his stockings.

  ‘Welcome.’ The man with the powdered wig looked his way.

  ‘Do you have a room for us to rest the night? My wife is tired,’ he said. ‘And so is our horse.’

  ‘What happened to you?’ The woman stood, even though it didn’t make her much taller. She stared at Annie. ‘You look as if you’ve been rolled in a barrel of mud.’

  ‘I need liquid,’ he said, interrupting to keep questions at bay. ‘The stronger the better. If it doesn’t singe my insides, it’s too weak.’

  ‘You been married long?’ the man asked.

  ‘Seems like a lifetime,’ he answered and his eyes flickered to her. She didn’t speak.

  ‘Don’t it, though,’ the one with the garters spoke. ‘I’m married ten years.’

  ‘You’ve not been married that long,’ the wigged one spoke. ‘You was married this last year.’ He stood and filled a mug, and put it down in front of Barrett.

  ‘Well, it seems like ten years.’ The young one laughed.

  ‘Seems like thirty for me.’ Barrett glanced at her. Her eyes flickered and her mouth opened. A stab of guilt hit him. He raised his brows, trying to give her a cue to fight back.

  ‘My wife finds fault with everything I do,’ he said. ‘My wife finds fault with everything I do,’ he repeated.

  Her hand went to her lips and trembled.

  ‘Here, now,’ the one with the powdered wig spoke again. ‘Don’t be abusing your wife so.’ He looked
at Annie. ‘She appears to be a gentle sort.’

  ‘Too gentle,’ Barrett said.

  ‘That’s the best kind.’ The man took a puff of his pipe.

  ‘Yes,’ the other one said. ‘My wife shrieks at me from the moment I step into the house. Be grateful you have such a quiet woman.’

  ‘She could speak a little more.’ Barrett lowered his chin. ‘Annie...’

  ‘I suppose I could.’ The words seemed to end on a whimper and she had a startled look in her eyes.

  ‘Annie? Would you speak?’

  The man with the pipe put it down, rose and had a fist clenched. The other one followed, eyes tight. ‘You leave the woman alone.’

  Barrett watched the two. The wind from his fist would have knocked them over. They were no bigger than the spindles on a staircase—put together.

  He looked at Annie. He didn’t want to tussle with them, or her. They’d knocked all the spirit of a fight out of him. ‘My pardon.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

  ‘Ah, for the love of—’ He turned to the wigged man, tilted his head to the side, firmed his lips and said. ‘I have treated her abominably. I feel guilt to the core of my soul. I would not want to discomfort her for a moment more. Do you have a spare room for me so that I might spent the night in contemplation of my errors?’

  ‘Oh, now...’ The woman walked back into the room. She waved a hand. ‘We women are much stronger than that. We forgive. Over and over and over.’ She smiled at her husband. ‘It is our lot in life.’

  ‘That it is,’ the man said. ‘They’re the salt of the earth. Wives.’

  ‘Do you have an empty room? For me? Near her?’ he asked. ‘I feel that I have deeply wronged her and I would not wish her to forgive too quickly.’

  ‘You are wantin’ another room?’ the woman asked.

  ‘Yes.’ Annie nodded. ‘He has a sickness. An affliction. Epidemeosis. It’s caused by being around me. My humours irritate him.’

  The one with the garters spoke up. ‘Haven’t seen a husband yet not irritated by his wife’s humours being out of order.’ He looked at Barrett. ‘Just get a pair of braces. They’ll hold up your trousers and the humours won’t bother you so bad.’