Lady Savage

by Donna Lea Simpson

  In the drawing room the ladies sipped coffee and gossiped; Savina sat down next to Lady Venture on a hard Jacobean seat with a high back. She was going to make an effort, she promised herself. The earl’s sister was difficult, managing, and hard to like, but she already knew the woman had some admirable characteristics. Even though Savina did not intend to marry her brother, it surely was worthwhile to cultivate the friendship.

  And there was not another single person in the drawing room she felt she knew well enough to sit down with. That was the true charm of Lady Venture’s company this night, she admitted to herself, ever willing to be ruthlessly honest.

  “Lady Venture, where is Mr. William Barker this evening?”

  The woman turned a basilisk glare on Savina. “I hope he rots in hell,” she slurred, “and his guts are plucked out piece by piece by ravening wolves.”

  One of the earl’s cousins, seated quite near to them, gasped and tittered, then whispered to her friend. As shocked as she was by Lady Venture’s wild manner, Savina still managed not to let her social face change. “Venture, what is it? What’s wrong?” she murmured, leaning forward.

  The other woman, her plain face set in a grimace that seemed an attempt to keep the tears from rolling down her cheeks, merely shook her head. She smelled strongly of wine, and perhaps more powerful spirits than even that. Her prominent eyes were bloodshot and red-rimmed. That, though, Savina surmised, was from tears and not spirits.

  “Come to the lady’s withdrawing room,” Savina said, pulling the other lady’s arm and forcing her out of her seat. She hustled Lady Venture away from the ill-mannered giggles of the other young ladies, and they moved to a sofa in the dim room where the ladies’ maids stayed to tend to their mistresses. “Now, Venture, tell me, what is it?” she asked as Zazu approached.

  Lady Venture collapsed on the seat and moaned, “He’s gone. William is gone!”

  “Gone? Gone where?” Savina asked, sitting beside Venture and taking her cold hand and rubbing it.

  “He is gone to hell, I hope,” the woman growled.

  Zazu offered a handkerchief, which the lady snatched and dabbed at her coursing tears. She took a deep breath and stiffened her frame. “William Barker is a depraved animal. He has jilted me and absconded with my poor, sweet, innocent Annie. They have gone to Italy, his letter said, and have m-m-married!”

  A torrent of tears followed this pronouncement, and Savina, with Zazu’s help, did all she could to staunch them. Would it be better for Venture or worse, Savina wondered, if she knew that Annie was no innocent victim, but likely the instigator, and that the affair probably had its start in the informality of their island stay?

  Not knowing the answer Savina stayed silent, preferring to tend to the lady and let her cry the inevitable tears of humiliation with a sympathetic audience. At least she would be of use to someone that evening. Instead of returning to the assembled company, Savina and Zazu helped Venture to her luxurious room in the family quarters of the house and found a maid to attend her in her misery. It was the least she could do, her conscience shrieked at her, considering that she had in mind to do much the same to Albert as William Barker had to Venture, if in a more straightforward manner.

  Her goal that night of seeing Tony and talking to him for even a moment in private was doomed from the start, she had learned from Venture. He had apparently gone down to the earl’s estate in the country for a couple of days to see to some estate business. He wouldn’t be back until the next morning, or perhaps even a few days later. With no chance of achieving her main objective, seeing Tony in private, Savina left a message for Gaston-Reade that she was not feeling up to company that night and was returning to nurse her father, and she and Zazu departed.

  Gossip about Lady Venture’s misfortune spread rapidly through the thin winter society, and Lord Gaston-Reade, tense and angry at his sister—as unjust as it was, he perceived her as the initiator of the scandalous chatter—raged ineffectually at the unfairness of his ancestral name and title being dragged through the muck and filth. Listening to one of his lengthy tirades in the parlor of her and her father’s leased home, Savina knew that the time had come. She was being unfair to him by keeping up the charade of an engagement when she had no plans to marry him, and her own motives—her need to sort out her feelings and see Tony one more time—were insufficient to carry on. She was being selfish. There would never be a good time to break the engagement; she had to do it. Though the earl would suffer in the short run by being the object of malicious gossip, Savina knew that being a man and an earl, his freedom from his colonial engagement would make him a much-sought-after personage, especially among those who had a daughter, granddaughter or niece unwed.

  Her decision made, she had only to do the deed. But she did have one more thing to do before she was free to follow her conscience. She rose from her seat by the window and formally said good day to the earl, who stamped out of their rented house to go to his club. Before she broke her engagement, she needed to tell the one person who would be most hurt by it.

  “Papa?” she said, slipping into the parlor, where she thought her father was reading the morning paper.

  “Savina!” Her father leaped up from the settee, his pouchy face red.

  “Oh, Mrs. Beacom,” Savina said, crossing the floor and extending her hand to her father’s old friend, a frequent visitor at their town house.

  That lady, a widow of hennaed and wobbly charm, burst into tears and snuffled into a handkerchief. She took Savina’s hand and squeezed it so hard it began to go numb.

  “What’s wrong?” Savina cried, glancing from the seated lady over to her father, who paced by the fireplace. “Is there bad news?” She knew Mrs. Beacom’s two sons were in the navy and feared the worst. Everyone was on edge and worried, it seemed to her. Negotiations to end the war were under way, but the outcome was uncertain.

  “My dear,” Savina’s father said, approaching and putting his arm around her shoulders, “Nothing is wrong; everything is quite wonderful in fact. Mrs. Beacom . . . uh, Maude, has agreed to be my wife! Isn’t that the most marvelous thing?”

  Taken aback and forced into a hug by the weeping widow, Savina was breathless, but soon concluded that this was the perfect time to break her own news. Any sadness or concern over it would be lost in the tumult, she hoped. “I’m so happy for you both, particularly you, Papa,” she said with all sincerity.

  Her father had long been lonely, and she had always feared he stayed single for her sake. He was a favorite among the widows of Jamaica for his courtly manners and sincere enjoyment of feminine company. He had always championed marriage as the ideal state, and indeed, Savina’s mother was his second wife, his first having died after a happy, if childless, ten years of marriage. There were a couple of ladies in Jamaica that he had come close to marrying, but Savina had disliked both. Mrs. Beacom was a harmless, sentimental lady, a very old friend of her father’s, so his third wife would be the joy and comfort of his declining years. This was her rapid conclusion. “Papa, I have some news of my own I must tell you. I hope it will not taint your own joy.”

  Mrs. Beacom’s tears dried and she gazed at her soon-to-be stepdaughter with something like suspicion.

  Savina took in a deep breath. “I cannot marry Lord Gaston-Reade,” she said. “I am breaking our engagement.”

  Mrs. Beacom gasped and fainted dead away.

  As she and her father tended to the insensible lady, she hardened her resolve. She had been intolerably vacillating until now and it was unfair to everyone, herself included. It was as if the London fogs had infiltrated her brain, clouding her normally sensible nature with self-doubt and fear. No more. She would make decisions about her future.

  Mrs. Beacom recovered and sat with her feet up, sipping a restorative cup of tea as a handsome footman fanned her.

  “Papa, you do understand, don’t you?” Savina asked, pulling him away from his intended bride.

  “No, I don’t,” he said, staring at he
r, his gray brows pulled down in puzzlement. His expression cleared. “But I don’t have to, do I? You have always been your own girl, Savina. When your mother chose your name I warned her such an unusual choice would make you headstrong, but she didn’t listen to me. You’re very much like her, and will do what you want, I suppose. I was frankly surprised when you agreed to marry the earl and come back to England. I very much feared you would demand to stay in Jamaica.”

  She didn’t answer that it was what she had longed to do. “I wanted to make you happy.”

  “My dear, you can only do that by making yourself happy. That’s all I’ve ever wanted,” her father said, patting her shoulder. “His lordship seemed, to me, to be a very capable, kindhearted fellow, and I knew you would find no better in London.”

  Savina sighed as her father went back to sit with Mrs. Beacom. The very next morning she was going to do the deed and break her engagement to Gaston-Reade. And try to see Tony. He was back in London now, she knew, and would be at the earl’s residence the next morning with any luck at all. Her resolve firm on that one point—finally dissolving her disastrous engagement—she went up to her room to write promised letters to friends in Jamaica.

  Seventeen

  Tony sat at a desk in the earl’s library, sorting through a stack of letters that had piled up in the few days he had been down in the country for estate business. Some contained information, some inquiries about the plantation, and others held assorted business-related queries. The very mundane nature of the task allowed his mind a portion free to ponder his situation.

  Life as he was living it was close to intolerable, and he couldn’t take much more. He had made impulsive and sudden changes in position before when bored, but he was older now, and more cautious. That was the only explanation he could think of for why he had not already told the earl to stuff his sheaf of quill pens up his nose and departed.

  Unless it was that he feared if he left the earl’s employ he would never see Savina Roxeter again.

  But Lord Gaston-Reade had used Tony’s every waking minute, filling it with endless work; Tony had expected much of it. They had been away for seven months, after all, and there was a lot of estate business to catch up on. But he hadn’t even had a moment free to see any of his friends yet.

  Worse was the fact that he had barely seen Savina since arriving in England three weeks before, and when he did see her it was only for a moment in passing; he was so afraid of showing too much of his emotions that he had been forced to keep his greeting to a bow and a “good day.” He hungered for a moment alone with her but feared it would only lead to disappointment. It seemed to him that she had changed. She was now completely quiescent and agreeable to the mockery of an engagement the earl insisted was still valid. Perhaps in England she had seen how powerful and well-thought-of the earl was, and had become acquainted with the vastness of his holdings and the lofty elevation of his old Norman title. He had not thought her burdened by cupidity but the simple fact was, women needed to look out for themselves in a world where their worth was generally not calculated by any true measure, but relied on their own fragile, fleeting beauty, the weight of their dowry, and the consequence of the man they could attract with those attributes.

  And even if she cared for him, as he had thought she did, she would not be the first woman to go into a marriage in love with another man. He hadn’t thought her capable of it, but then, he only knew one side of her. Regardless of any of that, his own situation was becoming unendurable. Lord Gaston-Reade, still offended by Tony’s behavior on the island, made him pay in small ways and constantly reminded him of his own possession of Savina Roxeter, as if he knew more than he ever admitted about their mutual attraction.

  As Tony sat, trying to come to grips with the torturous nature of his life as it was, he heard voices in the parlor and crossed the room, entering by the sliding door between the two rooms.

  “Savina,” he said, staring at her, drinking in the delicious sight of her attired in a deep gold velvet cloak and petite hat. Her dark curls dusted her shoulders, brown ribbons from the hat cascading down the back and reminding him of her unbound hair on their island paradise.

  She looked up, and Lady Venture, seated with her, raised her eyebrows. “So, you call her by her Christian name? How . . . enlightening.”

  “We fell into the habit on the island,” Savina said, her chin rising at the glittering challenge in the other lady’s hard stare. “You must have noticed, Venture.”

  “I didn’t. But then I was so very busy, you know, tending the fire that aided our rescuers. It seems,” she said archly, “that perhaps I should have paid more attention to what went on around me on the island.” She rose, walked to the door, and passed by Tony, giving him a sly smile that looked more like a grimace. “Why don’t I go and see if I have any mail yet?”

  Tony kept his temper. Her recent disappointment had made the woman even more severe and captious. Though Lady Venture was being sarcastic, he had wished for this opportunity and would not waste it. She exited, he waited a second, then crossed the room and stood before Savina.

  Though he had been acquainted with her as his employer’s fiancée before they were marooned, it was on their little cay that he had come to know her, and so this polished, poised, elegant young lady before him did not seem like Savina . . . his Savina.

  “How have you been?” he asked, hearing the coolness in his own voice and hating it, but unsure of how to conduct himself given her own behavior of late.

  “I’ve been very well, thank you. And you?”

  He watched her face, but in her averted eyes and still demeanor there was no hint of the lively young woman he had come to know and adore during their month or so marooned. “I’m well.” He sat down in a chair opposite her. “How kind of you to visit Lady Venture.”

  “I came to see Albert,” she said, her eyes downcast. She fiddled with the string handle of her reticule and looked away to the window.

  It couldn’t be clearer to him that she regretted their previous association and wished to distance herself from it. Not only that, but judging from her current behavior, she was wishing him anywhere but with her. “I’m so sorry,” he said, moved by his own needs to stay, even if she wished him gone, “that some in society are being unkind and calling you Lady Savage.”

  “It’s despicable,” she exclaimed, her tone low and trembling. “Simply awful. I am the center of attention wherever we go; you cannot imagine how awful that is. I wish so many things were different. I wish I had done many things differently.”

  He nodded. There could not be a clearer message to him that she wished to forget about their liaison and the passionate kisses they shared. Perhaps she was even afraid he would tell Lord Gaston-Reade about it. That thought became certainty, for it would explain her uneasiness in his presence. She probably longed to warn him to say nothing but didn’t know how. “I think you can safely trust that nothing that happened on that island will ever be spoken of again. It is all sealed and forgotten.”

  She looked up at him finally, but he could not make out her expression, which appeared to mingle consternation with doubt. “Truly? Is it all forgotten?” she exclaimed, her tone breathless.

  He took in a deep, quivering breath. “Yes,” he reassured her. “More than forgotten; it never existed.”

  “Oh.” She looked down at the fur that lined her cloak and stroked it. “Oh. All right.”

  The door slid open and Lord Gaston-Reade strode in. Tony leaped up from his seat. The earl frowned.

  “I understood you were with Vennie, Savina. What are you doing in here, Tony? Do you not have enough to occupy your time in the library? You should have told me; I can think of many more tasks for you. Until you find me another valet you should be at the very least ironing my cravats.”

  “Albert!” Savina said, coloring faintly.

  It was enough. Being humiliated in front of the woman he loved after finding out she no longer cared for him was enough. Tony whirled on
his heel and moved back into the library, but not to stay. No, not to stay. He sped into the hallway past Lady Venture and took the stairs two at a time up to his room.

  • • •

  Savina turned back from the door to the earl. “How could you be so unkind?” she asked. Even if she was feeling the full extent of a broken heart, it did not make her want to see Tony hurt. It had been her mistake, after all, not his, to think what they did the night they spent together in the cave, all of the kissing and sweet closeness, meant he might care for her. It was she who had allowed herself to fall into so precarious an emotion as love with no inkling of it being returned. “You seemed to deliberately wish to humiliate him.”

  The earl shrugged. “It is quite evident to me, Savina, that you think you care for Tony in some way, after the two of you made fools of yourselves on the island. That island did strange things,” he said, his cheeks red and his voice harsh with anger. “Even William, whom I thought a sensible chap, has gone and done the unthinkable by marrying that little . . .” He broke off. “I will not offend you with the word I would have chosen.”

  “No, don’t.” Savina stood. His rude behavior had made what she now had to do easier, and there was no further reason to wait. She needn’t ever come back to this house again, now that she knew Tony didn’t care for her. “It has become clear to me, Albert, that the engagement we entered in Jamaica was based on a fallacious understanding of each other’s character. We would make each other miserable and you would regret marrying me. I have been trying to tell you this for some time, but apparently subtlety will not do. I release you from our engagement, Lord Gaston-Reade.” She took a deep breath, feeling the freedom of her words and rejoicing in them. “I will inform the papers so people know you have not ‘done the unthinkable’ and jilted me.”