by Laura Parker
“That is right. You never knew what was in the message you brought me.” His jaw hardened. “I wish to God you had. It might have kept you from me.”
She hunched a shoulder in protective instinct. “You speak in riddles.”
“Then let the riddle be answered.” He took from his pocket and unfolded a small piece of parchment and held it out.
She read it twice before looking up at him with absolute astonishment in every curve and angle of her face. “What does this mean?”
“ ’Tis plainly written.”
She gazed at the paper a third time before saying, “You expect me to believe that Lord Abbott sent me to seek the Hind Div’s help as a ruse in order to dangle me before your eyes like a trinket in a market stall?”
He smiled at her phrasing. “Diabolical, wasn’t it?”
“Convenient. Too convenient.” She loosed the letter from nerveless fingers and let it flutter to the floor. “I will not believe Lord Abbot would be so callous as to invite you to sample the wares he set before you.”
For the first time Devlyn looked away from her. “I cannot remember even now all that happened. Once I discovered the letter I was able to piece together fragments of memory with the tale you told me.” He looked back at her, his expression for once absent of hauteur. “It is no excuse but I believe that I must have been intoxicated by wine or the pipe to act so against decency after reading this missive.”
“You did not read it.”
His head jerked back. “What?”
Japonica’s lips thinned. “When I gave the note to you, you tossed it aside. I was not certain you ever read it. Then, later, it did not seem to matter.”
“Bismallah!” Devlyn bit out another curse. “It shows little to my credit but I am relieved to know that I did not act—knowing.”
He again looked away from her. “The Hind Div was a law unto himself. By design a diabolical being: ruthless, treacherous, and without mercy. No less a creation would his equally merciless enemies fear. But I swear that as much as any man may know himself. I would not willingly have debauched a virgin.”
“Of course.”
Her dull tone brought him up short again. “You think I am dissembling, do you?”
“I neither know nor care.” She put a hand to her forehead and rubbed. “I dare say you were drunk. You drugged us both. But you were ready to do it! Even if you believed me to be the assassin you accused me of being, you were prepared to do to some other female what you did to me.”
Devlyn had no answer for that.
“I don’t bear you any grudge,” she said wearily, wondering why he did not just walk away and leave her with her desperate thoughts. “I think I am past hating people, for there are so many to despise. There is Laurel, stupid foolish girl. She did not really understand the consequences of her actions. And now there is Lord Abbott.” Indignation flared in her dark eyes. “To dare presume that he could choose at will a husband for me and send me to him unannounced and unprepared! He must have married me out of pity once we heard you were dead.”
“I don’t think pity was the motive,” Devlyn said softly. “No man who truly knew you would need an excuse to want you.”
Japonica did not meet his eye behind that speech. She could feel her anger giving way when she most needed its steadying influence. She crossed her arms before her chest. “It doesn’t matter now. Nothing matters but that I made a mistake and compounded it by every decision since. I mean to go away. Jamie deserves better than London society would serve him.”
Devlyn felt utterly defeated by her argument. It was one he had yet to solve. “I will not try to stop you going. Just tell me where.”
“No.” Japonica began to sway and gripped the back of a chair to steady herself. The glare of enmity she shot him prevented Devlyn from offering his aid. “I see no reason to tell you. I do not imagine you will see me again. Jamie needs his mother. He has been too long without her while she has tried to right a world that seems determined to go to hell in its own time.” She swayed again, this time her voice all but inaudible. “I am so tired. I can’t tell you how tired I am.”
This time Devlyn did act, moving quickly to take her by the arm and force her to sit again.
When he had, he knelt down before her and took her chin firmly in his good hand. “Quite the little martyr, aren’t you?” he pronounced. “ ‘I am so tired. I can’t tell you how tired,’ ” he mimicked her die-away tone and was rewarded by the rise of hot color into her too-pale complexion. Anger was better than despair.
Japonica pushed his hand away from her face. “I don’t ever want to see you again.” She looked away from him, feeling as if she were letting go of her last chance at safety. “I don’t want anything of yours. I will make my own way. I will leave in the morning with Jamie and Aggie. I ask only one favor of you.”
She turned to look back to face the man so close to her she had only to reach out to touch his cheek. Gazing back at her in mild bemusement was the one man on earth she should despise and loathe, and the only man on earth she had ever loved. “You must make no attempt to find me. Ever.”
Devlyn smiled into her desperate expression. She was not indifferent to him if she could look so bereft in making that request. “Take your son away if you must. But know he is mine, too. And that in time I will come to claim what is mine. All that is mine.”
“I wish you would not,” she said in a small voice, and closed her eyes.
“I know you do. But in a while we will both feel different.” He touched her cheek briefly and though she flinched he held his palm to her cool cheek a moment longer. “I think you have never been properly courted and I think I should learn something of the art.”
When she lifted her head, he smiled straight into her startled brown gaze. “Do you think I do not know how difficult all this has been? That it is too much even now?” He reached forward and kissed her so softly she felt as if her heart would fly right up out of her chest. “Until another time, bahia.”
Chapter Twenty Two
Surrey, April
The morning was mild but promised to grow ripe with the heat and humidity of a temperate spring. The countryside bloomed with color both native and cultivated, from the tufts of red campion to new-green fern fronds and hedgerows of pink rhododendron. Rows of yellow and white daffodils planted along the carriageway to the main house nodded in the passing breeze. In the nearby copse irises thrust up crisp stalks that ended in stately ornate blossoms of blue and purple and gold. Within the ellipse, intricately petaled camellias bloomed full as any rose garden. Forced orange and lemon trees arranged in pots flanked the steps to Croesus Hall, filling the April air with citrus perfumes.
All of this and many other plans had been undertaken to provide a picturesque setting for the wedding that was about to take place. As unorthodox as it was unexpected, the middle Shrewsbury daughter, Miss Alyssum Abbott, was about to be joined in wedded bliss to Mister Charles Repington, youngest son of a baronet and presently rector at Ufton Nervet.
The villagers all agreed it was Miss Alyssum’s lovely song followed by his stirring sermon on the Holy Family on Christmas morning that had set in motion the eventualities of this happy occasion. A few sticklers whispered that it wasn’t quite proper that the two elder sisters had not gone off first, though. The rest were only too happy to share in the joy of the rector and his lovely bride.
Then, too, it had gotten about that the Honorable Fernlow Hepple had been quite helpful to Miss Hyacinthe Abbott in her hothouse preparations for the wedding. He had been seen riding over to Croesus Hall some half dozen times to offer advice. The village gossips were abuzz with conjecture about when a second set of nuptial banns might by posted from the Shrewsbury county seat.
The two avid horticulturists were, thankfully, blissfully unaware of the vulgar speculation. The likely connection had not proceeded so far in either of their reticent minds. And there was plenty else to occupy anyone with a direct connecti
on to Croesus Hall on this day. Most particularly involved in the preparations was the lady of the manor herself.
Japonica stood in the sheltering shade of an oak watching the best horsemen among her male guests play polo in the park behind Croesus Hall. It was a raucous game with many shouts and cries from the players, crashing of mallets, and whinnying of their mounts. An equal number of huzzahs and squeals arose from their appreciative audience. The game was just one of the entertainments provided for the weekend party of guests who had come up from London for the celebration.
The Illustrious Stranger, as The Morning Post of ten referred to Mirza Hassan, was easily distinguished among the players and not only because of his long curly beard. He wore a riding costume of a red fur-trimmed short jacket and a long shirt of green quilted silk, billowing trousers, and gaiters over his boots. A scarlet sash wrapped his waist and his conical peaked hat was emblazoned with the crescent moon. His brilliance stood out even among the sharp coats and expensive finery of the many English military officers who had taken the field.
“See! Oh there, Jamie! Do you see how the ball speeds along when it’s struck?” Japonica asked the child within her arms.
But Jamie’s attention was otherwise engaged. He had spotted Peony’s new pet, a liver-and-white cocker spaniel puppy that scampered toward them across the lawn. Having learned to crawl with great proficiency, he was anxious to try out his skill against that of the puppy and so he struggled to be put down.
Aware of his desire, Japonica bent and placed him in the grass.
Spying a potential playmate of the right size, the puppy dashed over and licked Jamie full across his face. In turn Jamie reached out and caught a fistful of dangling puppy ear and tugged until the puppy yelped.
“Oh no. You must be gentle, sweeting,” she admonished as she pried his chubby fingers from the velvet-soft ear.
With the sense that discretion might be the better part with this new friend, the puppy bounced in and out of Jamie’s reach so that he was forced to try out his hand-and-knee locomotion.
As she watched her son crawl away on the soft bed of thick grass, Japonica was glad that she had not left before she had seen England in flower.
She had Lady Simms to thank for that. The eminently capable lady had first pointed out the unnecessary hardship Jamie would endure if she were to insist upon another long journey in winter. Japonica had not the heart for it, but she did not see an alternative. That was when the lady’s wit had shone brightest.
“Dev tells me you fear the revelation of your natural child to London society,” the lady had said the day Japonica planned to leave Croesus Hall. “I do not see the necessity of it. Aside from his family, who is to question his birth? No one who does not know the complication of it and none do but family. Laurel has admitted as much. Dem foolish child! I should like to shake her twice a day, just to remind her of the harm she nearly caused. Scandal is all very well for the Hanovers. They are, after all, of vulgar Teutonic bloodlines. But it shall never taint our family line while I draw breath!”
Japonica smiled at the memory of the owl-eyed stare Lady Simms submitted her to during that fateful interview. “You are forgiven your error in breeding this once. As it was Dev who you helped to indiscretion, I judge it could not be helped. For I vow, I adore the rascal! As I will come to love his progeny. When he is in breeches, Jamie shall come and live with me for a month every summer.”
To her question of Jamie’s supposed parentage and what it would mean to Lord Sinclair if it became public, Lady Simms had been equally blithe.
“Dev assures me he shall have the matter in hand in due course. Meantime, I must return to London before Leigh sends the Light Bobs for me. I shall put it about that as the viscountess Shrewsbury has been happily reunited with family so little time—the perfect Christmas gift I vow!—she must decline all invitations. Who should question your desire to rusticate? I will further distribute your cards about town with the appropriate PPC writ upon them. What? It is French shorthand for ‘I am leaving.’ So much more fashionable when it’s continental, don’t you know.”
Japonica had her doubts, but who could voice any objection when that lady had the floor?
If there was a hair in the cream it was in consideration of where Japonica and Jamie would live. Adamant was the only word to express her insistence that she not share a roof with Lord Sinclair for even another four-and-twenty hours.
Lady Simms again intervened by devising a plan with the viscount whereby Japonica, her son and the Abbott girls would remain at Croesus Hall. “Quite sensible when one has a babe to care for,” she had assured Japonica. “Dev will live in town. He’s never been one to rusticate for long.”
And so it was agreed.
And just to make certain that the Croesus residence would settle into amiable family life, Lady Simms sent back from London an invitation for Laurel to winter with her. Only too glad to be away from constant reminders of her duplicity and reckless acts, Laurel packed and left before New Year’s Day.
In one of her more recent letters in the constant stream she had begun sending Japonica after Christmas, Lady Simms had written:
“I fancy I was meant to have a brood, had Providence provided. Thus denied my own, I must be about the business of picking up the leavings of others and setting them to rights. Contrary to my first opinion, Laurel has proved to be biddable enough. Once she understood that her rations would be cut when she defied me! The girl lost quite some two sizes as she Adjusted. Amazing what the want of a meringue can accomplish for one’s Attitude. Having only the Past Experience of rearing a boy I now fancy myself to have become a Prime Whip in the management of Young Ladies!”
All had been nicely settled, Japonica mused as she kept a vigilant eye on her son. So nicely, in fact, that but for the occasional hamper sent by Lord Sinclair from Fortnum and Mason, she might have forgotten his existence. If she had been so inclined.
Instead she could not keep from brooding occasionally over his last private words to her. He had said that she had never been properly courted and he knew nothing of the art. Nothing else. Not that he intended to remedy the oversight, mend his lack, or even that he still had feelings for her. He had kissed her. And then made some vague, and to her womanly heart, evasive mention of “another time.”
“What other time?” Japonica murmured to herself. She had courted patience, telling herself that the fact of his kiss was enough to keep her courage up. But more than three months had passed with only the briefest of weekly notes from him, apprising her of Shrewsbury estate matters and making inquiries about his “son’s” health. A kiss was not words and the warmth of it cooled with each passing day. If this long distant politeness was his idea of courtship, it did not serve to secure her feelings or her happiness. The fact that he was now in residence, along with the whole company of gentlemen who had accompanied him to the wedding, including the Mirza, only made her frantic with frustration. So far, they had exchanged not a single private word. One moment she was certain the next time she was near him she would corner him and demand an explanation of his intentions. The next, when he did appear in a room full of people she all but ran and hid.
“He seemed in no hurry to speak with me,” she murmured to herself, indignation fueling her thoughts. She had been as brazen as she knew how the night she had invited him up to her room. Where that courage had come from she would never again know. But she was done with taking the lead in the matter. If this reserved manner was indicative of his new style, she did not like it one tiny bit!
In the matter of Jamie he was far from reticent. According to Aggie, he had made thrice daily visits to the nursery to hold and cuddle his son. With each passing hour her resentment of that fact grew. But what to do about it all?
“If he expects me to speak first he shall have a long gray beard to keep him company!”
Japonica allowed her thoughts to drift off as she ambled after her son who had decided to show an i
nterest in the polo fields after all, and had headed off in that general direction at a rapid crawl.
When the polo match was ended, most of the company strolled off toward the luncheon spread beneath a striped canopy with libations and such sustenance as might suit the fancy of her guests. That was where Aggie waited to take Jamie to the wet nurse. When she had handed him over, Japonica turned abruptly away from the crowd of well wishers, hoping to elude Lord Sinclair.
But Devlyn had already spotted her from his superior height astride his mount. In fact he had kept an eye on her all morning to such a degree that he had missed a strategic shot when for an instant her actions diverted his whole attention from the game. She had bent over to pick up Jamie, presenting him with a magnificent view of the full curves of her flared hips revealed by the tight pull of her slim skirt. The sight pulled him up short and the game swooped past him and moved on.
When she stood up with the child in her arms, the breeze molded her skirts to her slender form and tousled her bright hair that she wore on this occasion in fashionable ringlets. He could not hear what she said to her son—his son. But he saw the babe’s mouth open in a whoop of joy and then watched as she nuzzled the babe under his chin with her nose. The portrait of mother and child stirred something within him deeper than lust. It stirred up the longing to be part of that tableau. No, to have the right to be part of it.
The sight remained with him through the rest of the game with the certainty that she was all he could ever want in a lady.
But what of her and the kind of man she deserved? He had left Croesus Hall the last day of December uncertain he would make her a fit spouse, never mind a proper father for their child.
He had not even begun to understand the sort of person she really was until Laurel’s note supplied him with the key. Written in spite in the hopes of doing mischief, that letter had saved him from making a terrible error in judgment. Going to Portugal to fetch the boy to her seemed the only way to begin to make amends. Then he was going to tell her his feelings for her after he showed her the letter that he found, from Lord Abbott. But she would not listen to him then and he could not blame her. In his self-pity he had treated her shabbily, standing her up for the opera without even a word of regret. And so he had left Croesus Hall on New Year’s Day, hoping against reason that she would by word or action ask to see him again. The months passed and she did not.
