by Emily Larkin
“The Bromptons’ ball promises to be well-attended,” Merry said. “I expect at least a dozen couples will stand up.”
The latent humor vanished from Sir Barnaby’s face. “I won’t be attending the ball.”
“You’re leaving tomorrow?”
Mixed emotions crossed Sir Barnaby’s face. She saw that he wanted to leave—and that he felt he couldn’t. “I haven’t yet decided.”
“Well, if you do stay, we shall stand up for the minuet and a country dance. Agreed?”
Sir Barnaby’s lips compressed. “I stopped dancing several years ago.”
His tone, his expression, told her that he’d stepped back into his self-imposed dungeon.
“Nonsense,” Merry said, cheerfully. “The minuet and a country dance. Agreed?” She halted and held out her hand to him.
Sir Barnaby halted, too. He looked at her, a frown pinching between his eyebrows, his lips pressed together, reluctance writ clear on his face.
Merry almost backed down—and then she remembered the Sir Barnaby she’d seen at Vauxhall, remembered his blatant joy in dancing. This was a man who needed to dance, whether he realized it or not. She kept her hand held out and an expectant smile on her face, and waited, counting the seconds in her head. Five, six, seven.
“The minuet and a country dance,” Sir Barnaby said, finally. “If I stay.”
They shook hands. “Agreed.”
Sir Barnaby repossessed his hand. He had the expression of a man girding himself for an ordeal: dismayed, and trying not to show it. Merry almost apologized. It hadn’t been polite of her to push—had been extremely impolite in fact.
The path climbed steeply for several minutes. By the time they reached the highest point on the cliffs, Sir Barnaby had mastered his dismay and acquired his blankly courteous look again. Merry ransacked the corners of her brain for a topic that would make him forget his problems and allow her to see the underlying man again.
“My father excelled as a dancing master, not because he was a superb dancer—which he was—but because of his ability to read people.”
Sir Barnaby glanced at her politely.
“You can learn a great deal about people by watching them for a few minutes. What do they look for when they first walk into a room? How do they interact with the other people there? Who do they acknowledge? Who do they ignore?”
Sir Barnaby’s expression was still only politely attentive.
“Father taught me how to judge a person’s character by observation. I often played the music for his lessons, you know. We’d make our own evaluations of the students’ personalities, and compare them after the lesson.”
A faint glimmer of interest showed in his eyes.
“It took me several years to master the trick. Father always saw so much more than I did. It was rather frustrating, for all that it was fascinating.” She paused. Say something, Sir Barnaby.
“I can imagine it would be,” Sir Barnaby said, and his expression told her that he was trying to imagine it.
“Father would tailor his lessons to suit his students; different methods work for different people. If he thought it would help someone, he’d have me partner them—but he was always extremely careful who he selected for me. And if he thought a student might become ill-mannered, he’d send me away before the lesson even started.” She paused again. “Do you think the ill-mannered students were noblemen’s sons, or tradesmen’s sons?”
Sir Barnaby’s eyebrows twitched faintly upwards. He thought for a moment, and then said. “Noblemen’s sons.”
Merry gave him an approving nod. “The tradesmen’s sons were always courteous.”
“And the gentlemen’s sons?”
“On the whole, very civil. Although once we had a new student, a baronet’s son, and Father sent me away within seconds of his entering the room. I gather he would have been quite uncivil, if I’d stayed.”
Sir Barnaby’s eyebrows lifted again. “Who was he?”
“You might know him. He’d be about your age. Sir Humphrey Filton.”
“Filton?” Emotions flickered across Sir Barnaby’s face. Shock was predominant. He halted on the path. “Good God, I should hope your father sent you away!”
“Why?”
“Filton was . . . is . . .” Sir Barnaby acquired a faintly stuffed look. She’d seen it before on men’s faces. It meant that the conversation had taken a turn that was unsuitable for female ears.
“I am an adult,” Merry reminded him. “I doubt that anything you say will shock me.”
Sir Barnaby eyed her for a moment, and then said bluntly, “Filton was expelled from school for assaulting one of the maids. And then he was sent down from Oxford for doing the same thing.”
“Oh.” Merry mentally replaced assaulting with raping.
“I’ve seen Filton sober, and I’ve seen him drunk. He says the foulest things about women. He’s . . .” Sir Barnaby frowned, selecting his words. “He’s dangerous. He should be locked up.”
“He’s not?”
“His family has kept him out of the courts. They’re extremely wealthy, and he’s the only son.”
They resumed walking. The wind tugged at Merry’s bonnet. She gripped the brim firmly, and glanced at Sir Barnaby. Their conversation had taken a more serious turn than she’d intended, but it had effectively diverted him from his own problems. His attention was focused outwards.
“He’ll go too far one day, Filton. He’ll kill some poor woman—and hang for it. But it shouldn’t have to come to that! He should have been stopped years ago. Money shouldn’t be able to circumvent justice!”
He sounded so like Marcus that Merry almost blinked. “Are you active in politics, too?”
“Me? No.” Sir Barnaby’s face lost its animation. He looked away from her. After a moment, he said, “Marcus says he’s giving up politics.”
“Marcus will never give up politics. His sense of social justice is too strong.”
“The slave trade act has passed—”
“Abolishing slavery isn’t his only interest. Get him talking about the slums.”
Sir Barnaby glanced at her.
“He’s extremely passionate on the subject. It’ll be his next crusade.”
“Crusade?” Sir Barnaby’s lips twitched briefly. “Yes, Marcus is a crusader.” His expression was unguarded for an instant. She saw how much he respected Marcus, saw how deep his affection went—and then the shutters drew across his face again.
You are his current crusade, Sir Barnaby. Have you realized that?
She didn’t think he had.
The path swung right, following the curve of the cliff. The wind was strong enough to make Merry’s eyes water. Ahead was the long slope down to the cove. She glanced at Sir Barnaby. She’d learned a lot about him in the last ten minutes—his character, his values—but she hadn’t come close to making him laugh.
Merry halted at the top of the slope. “When it’s this windy, I usually run down here,” she confessed.
Sir Barnaby’s eyebrows rose. “Run?”
“It feels like flying.” Merry spread her arms and leaned into the wind. “See?”
Sir Barnaby hesitated a few seconds, and then spread his arms. He had the expression of a man humoring a child—dubious, half-embarrassed.
“It’s best when the wind’s even stronger,” Merry told him. “But this will do. Come on. It’s fun.”
She ran down the slope, her arms outstretched. The wind caught her with each stride and made her briefly buoyant. Laughter bubbled in her chest. Maybe I should choose levitation as my Faerie gift. Being able to fly—truly fly—would be incredible beyond anything.
Halfway down, Sir Barnaby passed her at a gallop, arms spread like wings, coattails flapping. Merry reached the bottom several seconds after him. He swung round to face her, his face alight with laughter.
Merry’s pulse tripped over itself and sped up. She stared at Sir Barnaby, at his wind-tousled hair and laughing hazel eyes.
&n
bsp; This is a man I could fall in love with.
Chapter Five
Barnaby shook his head and grinned down at Miss Merryweather. “You are most definitely not a Littlewood.”
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he realized they could be misconstrued as an insult. But Miss Merryweather didn’t take them as such. She grinned back at him, dimples springing to life in her cheeks, and retied her bonnet. “Thank you. I have no desire to be a Littlewood.” The dimples vanished and her mouth pursed thoughtfully. “Apparently my grandfather thinks that laughter is vulgar. Mother said she used to be sent to her room for laughing. Sad, don’t you think?”
“Yes.”
“My father’s philosophy was the exact opposite. He said it was important to laugh every day.”
Laugh every day? There’d been a time when he’d done that. A lifetime ago, now. Barnaby raked a hand through his disheveled hair and glanced back up the long grassy slope. He must have looked ridiculous, running down that. A thirty-two-year-old child.
He had a deep longing to do it again.
Barnaby glanced at Miss Merryweather. She was watching him, her eyes astute. She knows I want to run down again.
Barnaby turned his back resolutely on the hillside. The route branched in front of them, one path hugging the rocky shore, one heading inland. “Where to now?”
Miss Merryweather gestured to the inland path.
For a moment, Barnaby almost balked. He wanted to keep walking the coastline, wanted to be the man who could laugh again, not the man who had to go back to Woodhuish Abbey and be Marcus’s guest.
He took a deep breath, and released it in a sigh. The light-hearted, momentary joy drained away. The weight of his betrayal settled on him again. He matched his step to Miss Merryweather’s.
The rough meadow became woodland, cool and green and dark, smelling of loamy soil and leaf mold. Barnaby’s ears caught the sound of children’s voices. He glanced to his left, up the wooded slope. Two boys, perhaps seven or eight years old, came hurrying through the undergrowth, their faces glowing with excitement. They pulled up short when they saw him and Miss Merryweather.
“Good afternoon, young Clem,” Miss Merryweather said. “And young Harry. What mischief have you two been up to?”
Both boys grinned at her. “Nothing, miss,” the taller of the two said. He had cobwebs in his hair, and carried a small shovel. The shorter boy had dirt smeared across his forehead.
Miss Merryweather put her hands on her hips. “Why don’t I believe you?” she said, with mock severity.
The shorter boy gave her a sheepish grin, but the taller one managed a good expression of injured innocence.
Miss Merryweather laughed. “Away home with you. Your mothers will be wondering where you are.”
They scampered past. Barnaby watched them run out of sight. That was Marcus and me, twenty-five years ago.
“I’d wager they’ve found a cave.”
Barnaby glanced at her. “Cave?”
“This coast is riddled with them. There’s a large one near Torquay. Marcus took us to view it last year. I felt as if the roof was going to fall on my head the whole time.” Miss Merryweather glanced up the wooded hillside. “I must remember to tell Marcus. If there is a cave, the men need to make sure it’s safe.”
If there is a cave, I wouldn’t mind being in on that expedition.
They followed the boys along the path and emerged into open parkland. Ahead was a large manor house built of red brick. “Woodhuish House,” Miss Merryweather said. “It’s part of the estate.”
“Who lives here?”
“No one yet. Marcus hasn’t decided what to do with it.”
Barnaby ran his eyes along the building, noting the oriel windows, the wide four-centered arches. “Tudor.” His gaze took in the brick chimneys, tall and decorated with curvilinear patterns. Whimsical chimneys. Fun chimneys.
“Marcus says your home in Surrey was Tudor.”
Barnaby nodded. “It was. But it was nothing like this.” Mead Hall had been built of gray stone, its chimneys grimly unadorned.
“You sold it, I understand.”
He nodded again.
“Why?”
Barnaby shrugged. “I didn’t like it.” He turned his face from her, pretending to admire the long view up the valley. Didn’t like? Mead Hall had to be the place in England he hated the most. He hadn’t been able to set foot in the garden since that afternoon with Lavinia, but he’d held on to Mead Hall for more than a year, stubbornly—stupidly—forcing himself to live there, hoping that Marcus would return to his estate next door, hoping they could patch things up between them.
And then one day Marcus had returned.
Barnaby’s chest tightened in memory. Marcus’s voice rang in his ears. You fucked my wife.
He’d put Mead Hall on the market the very next day. It had been a relief to walk away from the place and know that he would never see it again.
“You live in Berkshire now, I understand. Do you like it there?”
“Yes.” It has no bad memories, and no one knows who I am. “It’s . . .” He searched for an adjective. “Quiet.” Far from London and the barbed gossip of the ton.
Ahead, the valley stretched for half a mile of meadow and trees, with the abbey just visible in the distance. As views went, it was as picturesque as anything Gainsborough had painted, but Barnaby was unable to appreciate it. He walked alongside Miss Merryweather, his legs moving automatically while his brain chewed through the cliff-top conversation with Marcus. Godfather? Me?
He knew he had to decline. But how could he tell Marcus that without hurting him? It was impossible.
The abbey drew closer. Barnaby could see each arched window, see each crenellation on the parapet.
He discovered that he had halted.
Miss Merryweather halted, too. “You think you’re the villain in this piece,” she said, matter-of-factly. “But you’re not.”
It took a moment for the words to penetrate. What had she just said? Barnaby turned his head and frowned at her. “I beg your pardon?”
“I believe I have a fairly accurate understanding of what happened. Marcus told me before you arrived.” Miss Merryweather’s tone was faintly apologetic. “He didn’t want me to judge you based on London gossip.”
Was that sympathy in her eyes? Pity?
Barnaby found himself suddenly furiously angry. “He told you I was Lavinia’s pawn, didn’t he? Well, he’s right. I was! But what Marcus forgets is that I’m not a lump of ivory sitting helpless on a chessboard. I knew what I was doing!” Bitterness was harsh in his voice, corrosive on his tongue. “So don’t tell me I’m not the villain in this piece, because I am.”
Miss Merryweather was unfazed by his anger. “You’re entitled to your opinion, of course, Sir Barnaby, but when I look at you, I don’t see a villain. I see someone who made a colossal mistake for which he can’t forgive himself. And I think that if you allowed yourself to be Marcus’s friend again, you’d be an even better one than you were before. But that’s just my opinion. You, of course, may disagree.” Her gaze was cool, challenging.
Barnaby stared at her. He couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
“You’ll never do anything like that again, will you?”
I would rather die. He shook his head, mutely.
“So forgive yourself, and be an even better friend to Marcus than you were before.”
Barnaby swallowed. “It’s not as easy as that.” He looked away from her, towards Woodhuish Abbey.
“No, I can see that.”
Barnaby stared at the ivy-covered abbey. He knew he should start walking again, but he couldn’t make his feet move. Half a minute passed. A minute passed. Finally, he blurted, “Marcus has asked me to stand as godfather to his son.”
When Miss Merryweather made no response, he looked at her. She was watching him, her gaze shrewd and assessing.
“I can’t do it. Think what people would say!”
“That you’re friends again.”
“There are . . . other interpretations that could be placed on it.” The most obvious being that he’d cuckolded Marcus again, that his role as godfather was tacit acknowledgement that the child was his. Especially if the boy was christened Charles Barnaby.
“You’re borrowing trouble. Charles has Marcus’s coloring.”
Barnaby looked down at the ground, and dug a lump of grass out with his heel. “He deserves a better godfather.”
“Does he? That’s a matter of opinion, surely?”
Barnaby glanced at her.
Miss Merryweather smiled, a warm smile that made dimples dance in her cheeks, and held out her hand. “Come inside. Meet little Charles. You don’t have to decide today, you know.”
Chapter Six
Miss Merryweather’s words stayed with Barnaby half the night, jostling for space in his head along with everything Marcus had said. His skull would surely burst soon, from the pressure of all that was crammed into it. Sleep came in snatches. He woke at dawn, weary and unrefreshed, to the quiet sounds of a housemaid laying a new fire in the grate. When she’d gone, Barnaby burrowed deeper into his bedclothes and tried to find unconsciousness again, but already thoughts were turning over in his head. It was like having a nest of writhing eels inside his skull. They wouldn’t stop moving.
He closed his eyes, and slowed his breathing . . . and the eels in his head slid over one another and gave him Lavinia. Lavinia, sobbing in his arms. Lavinia pressing her warm, salty lips to his.
Memory unfolded: returning her kiss, unthinkingly and instinctively, wanting nothing more than to comfort her—and then jerking back when he realized what he was doing.
The eels in his head obligingly produced another memory: Lavinia’s face—the starry, tear-filled eyes, the soft, vulnerable mouth. Please kiss me, Barnaby, she’d begged. Please make me feel safe.
And he had. God help him, he had. He’d gently kissed her mouth, her cheeks, her eyelids, gently kissed every inch of her exquisite face, and Lavinia had clung to him, and kissed him back, and sighed his name.
