The Indian Maiden

by Edith Layton

  He’d looked dashing and totally right upon a horse, but oddly, at one and the same time, though he appeared out of place in a ballroom, he was quite in his own style, and so was thrillingly distinctive in his formal attire. For a gentleman in a black jacket with a velvet collar ought to have a gentleman’s pale complexion to go with it and not be so dazzling with his tanned pelt highlighting the absolute whiteness of his high neckcloth. And that neckcloth, though correctly draped in a waterfall, was meant only to show a languid gentleman’s homage to fashion, as a sort of frame upholding a pallid and interesting countenance, and not for emphasizing a strong, tanned column of neck supporting a well-shaped head with a great quantity of sun-wracked hair.

  In short, the gentleman, though precise to an inch of fashion, breathed vigor and vitality. It was as though someone had almost tamed some elemental creature and brought him, under the barest restraint, into the salon. It was not at all the thing, but it was, as every young lady present sighed, exactly right for him, and, as many of them also hoped, exactly right for themselves as well.

  “If it would make it simpler for you,” he said, a smile at last transfiguring his face, changing the threat in it to mere danger, “I’ll stand behind you and address the back of your head and your left ear. Because I don’t remember that you had any difficulty talking with me when we last met. But if I angle around behind you for a chat, I believe that would eventually cause more conversation than we’d make.”

  But now Faith had managed to bury and forget the fear she’d momentarily known, as she always did when it came to her unsought, and she answered readily enough.

  “It was only that you looked as though you were more likely to drag me to the woodshed than to the dance floor,” she replied, and then, remembering herself, was about to explain her reference, when he answered, “So I was Miss Hamilton. But then I remembered that it was not my responsibility to give you a sound thrashing for telling tales,” and here he bent such a smile upon her that two closely observant gentlemen vowed immediately to go out the following day and lie in the sun until they smoked, if only it would make their teeth gleam so brilliantly when they smiled down at a lady. “It’s not my intention to act as your relative. I might be interested in that status, but I don’t wish to achieve it by pretending to have been born to it,” he said, knowing that he was walking on a very thin social edge, but determined to keep his balance, “but only of attaining it by more legal recourse, perhaps someday.” Faith blinked. But the gentleman could not be serious, in fact, he was definitely laughing even as he spoke, and it might be at her. And this was only conversation, and she was very good at that.

  “Are you trifling with my affections, sir?” she asked, placing one limp hand high upon her breast and opening her eyes very wide, in blatant imitation of every simpering miss she’d seen at the house party.

  “Of course,” he said, “only we English call it flirtation.”

  “But I thought you were vexed with me.” She grinned, batting her eyelashes so violently in jest, it seemed she saw him through a flickering frame.

  “I was,” he said sternly then, “I am. But for your own sake. I can only repeat,” he went on, as her smile faded at the seriousness in his voice and his long hazel eyes, “don’t push them too far, Miss Hamilton. Make a May game of them now, and they will make a long winter’s night of this summer for you. All of them,” he said as he took her hand to lead her into the opening steps of the dance.

  “And since you mentioned woodsheds, if you want a country image, think of this vast room as a great hen house. For most of these creatures are very like. Society breeds the same sort of brainless, chattering, clucking things. And like their feathered counterparts, they too grow excited at the first drop of blood, and they’ll peck a hole through the heart of anything they think is weak, anything they think they’ve wounded. All of them,” he said as he took his other hand, and indicated the entire room as he included it in his sweeping bow to begin the minuet with her. “All of this honored company, all of the hens and chicks and capons and cock-of-the-walks,” he continued as his open hand stretched far and swung wide, presenting her with the assembled ladies, gentlemen, mamas, papas, and chaperones. And as he raised his hand and head, he said, “They are pretty, silly, gabbling creatures, Miss Hamilton. Beware of them.”

  There was no chance for Faith to reply to him, for the figures of the dance took them apart and led them together, but always within ear shot of the other dancers. But she smiled and swayed and dipped and prayed for a suitable answer to brace him with when they were done. She’d joked, she’d acted a part as though her home were in a barn, but that did not mean she truly wished anyone to believe she had no manners or upbringing. If he knew that, as she believed he did, he might well mean his criticism for her own good. Even so, it was unpleasant to be chastened, it was uncomfortable to wonder if one had been in the wrong, and it was still undeniable that he disturbed her and so must be put in his place.

  The dance continued, and the elders and chaperones and timid or choosy gentlemen and unfortunate or selective ladies could only watch as the long set pranced on. The duke, as host, had opened the dance with his duchess, but that lady glowered as she paced through the dance and for the second time in her life regretted an earlier decision. She ought to have let her husband begin the ball with Mary, she decided, as she spied the young American gentleman partnering her unwed daughter. For there, down the line from her, that American female was dancing with Lord Deal. Self-doubt was new to her, and ruinous to her equanimity. And so, although she’d never given a thought to anything outside her own narrow island’s borders for the whole of life, she now decided that the menace from the Americas far outweighed anything she’d ever heard in church about the masses of heathen in the Holy Land, and wondered if there were currently any crusade she could join against the threat of them.

  When the dance ended, Faith had some idea of an excellent retort, but even as she drew breath to thank her partner, most correctly, and give him a stunning set-down most cold-bloodedly, he said, sweetly, “Thank you, Miss Hamilton. And now may I invite you to another dance?”

  But even Faith knew this was not done, two dances with one gentleman being thought exceptional and two together extraordinary, so, forgetting the excellent riposte she’d labored over, she said, “Why, you know I’ve promised it to the earl, my lord, and given all the others away as well.”

  “I meant,” he explained, “at my humble home. Won’t you come, and stay the weekend and dance the time away with me?”

  “I may be from America,” she said furiously, now positive he was making sport of her, “and so you may have felt impelled to use barnyard images in order to communicate with me, but I assure you I have no hay in my hair. But since you like such terms, I’ll tell you, sir, you may call this sort of thing flirtation in England, but at home we’d call it—”

  “My dance, my dear?” the earl asked smoothly, as Faith struggled with the word that had come to her mind but never to her tongue before. As Lord Deal watched with one lifted brow, she was led mutely off into the dance again. And knowing she was watched, Faith danced the night away. And despite Will’s signals, frowns, and whispers, and because of Lord Deal’s observant eyes upon her, she carried the company before her like a high wind from the Americas, leveling them with howling tales told with outrageous glee. If they wanted a primitive, innocent, guileless American, she thought with a mixture of anger and foreboding, why then, they should have one.

  Only at last, when the last guest had left the ballroom to servants cleaning by candlelight, and the moonlight was almost fading outside her bedroom window, did Faith hear the last joke of all. For then Lady Mary, suppressing a great and contented yawn, told her happily, “Only think, Faith! Before he left, Lord Deal invited all of us to his home for the weekend, for a ball!”

  SIX

  Stonecrop hall was not so far from Marchbanks as to make an overnight stay necessary for anyone who wished to see both great ho
uses in one day, even if that suppositional person were forced to walk back and forth to both places. And if that conjectured person weren’t titled, wealthy, and in possession of the sort of Arabian horse that noble persons give stable room to, still he could conceivably take his old nag to breakfast at Marchbanks and then take tea at Lord Deal’s manor without straining himself, his mount, or anyone’s credulity too far. So of course there was no real reason why the party at Marchbanks should remove its comfortable self, with all the attendant difficulties involved in such a venture, only for the purpose of staying a weekend at Stonecrop Hall. Naturally, then, that was precisely what the entire party did.

  Stonecrop Hall had not been opened to the occasional visitor for over a decade, and each person at Marchbanks, from invited guest to attendant servant, knew a certain thrill at being one of the first to be asked back. Its noble owner was not much in the way of society. He had that stirring name attached to him as well as that scandalous story, but that was old days, and as such, old hat. The fellow was older now and as eligible as he could stare, the elder ladies thought, with a tender hope for their daughters. And if a lady were fool enough to cuckold such a fellow, the youngest ladies decided, then she deserved what she got. And if she’d felt she had to do such a dreadful thing, some of the more experienced ones thought, why then, it might be at the very least, interesting, to discover why.

  The gentlemen were mostly happy at having a change of scenery, and a good tale to tell when they got back to the heart of civilization, their clubs.

  And Miss Faith Hamilton, as she strolled along with the other guests who were being walked around the Hall the first afternoon of their visit, could only think that had she known Lord Deal sprang from such a place when she’d first met him, she likely wouldn’t have been able to say a word to him, much less defy him.

  It was not that she was unacquainted with the elegancies of living. Grandfather’s house on Pearl Street was near the Battery, and not only was it one of the finest on the street, but it was in the heart of the most fashionable district, very near Bowling Green. Her father’s home in Virginia was a great white mansion, and Grandfather even had that charming country home in the village of Greenwich, not three miles up Broadway, in the prettiest area, past the farms and through a little wood. Marchbanks was itself grand, built about the time that European eyes first widened at the size of the shoreline of America. But withall, Stonecrop Hall was like nothing she had ever seen.

  It had not been planned out with just an eye to money spent and effect created, and left to amaze and inspire visitors to covet. It had obviously been built and rebuilt and revised down through more years than Faith could imagine, and each time for the comfort or convenience of the owner. It stood in a gracious park, and was built of gray stone and ringed by stone columns, but such was its charm that its glory came from its comfort equally as much as the well-designed beauty of each spacious room. It contained fully as much gilt and statuary as did its neighbor Marchbanks, but there was art rather than artifice to it. Similarly, even the paintings which hung upon the walls, as well as the decorative moldings and panels on those walls themselves, inspired the viewer to appreciation rather than estimation of their prices.

  “Gosh, golly,” she whispered to Will in the thick rustic accents she affected when they joked together about their relative status here among the English gentry. “It took a nice bit of change to put up this barn, don’t you think? And I’ll wager a dollar to your shilling it’s so old, we’ll find King Arthur sleeping in the best guestbed.”

  But Will only strolled on, seemingly oblivious to what she’d said. It was only when he allowed himself to fall behind the others as they walked out to the rose gardens that he replied, in so low a voice that she had to strain to hear him, “Don’t start now, Faith. I mean it. If you’ve decided to make a cake of yourself here, please understand that I have no wish to.”

  “Will!” she said, stopping and staring hard at him. “How can you think that? I only wanted to joke a little with you. The place is so grand, I didn’t much like myself for only staring and mumbling as if I were in church. It’s very nice, to be sure, but it’s only a man’s home, after all. I didn’t think it was sacred. And anyway, what I said was just for your ears. Of course, I’d not embarrass you, I know how you feel about Mary,” she explained in a fierce whisper.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, looking genuinely abashed as he patted her arm even as he took it and urged her along in the trail of the others. “I expect you think me a social climber, no, I know you do. But listen,” he said seriously as he spoke low and gazed at her with a rueful smile, “I came here to England to find myself a wife, and a socially acceptable one at that, it’s true. But I never thought I’d find everything I ever wanted immediately, and right in the house where you’d be staying. Faith, she’s wonderful.

  “She’s beautiful and modest and charming. I know I sound like a lovesick boy, but when I was only a boy, newly come to your country and working at whatever I could turn my hand to in your grandfather’s shipyards, I dreamed of coming home again someday and finding just such a wife for myself. But I didn’t believe I’d actually ever find her.”

  “Will, I know her very well, and everything you say of her is true, but it’s early days yet. You hardly know her, not really,” Faith said, hoping to at least momentarily cool his ardor for her hostess.

  Since Will had met Lady Mary, he’d been a different fellow, not the easy-going, humorous companion she’d known. He had transformed himself instead into this serious, quiet, and very proper imitation of an unexceptional young Englishman. She wondered if she ought to tell him what she really thought—which was that the duchess would never allow the match, no matter what his bank account, since she’d think his breeding was no account, and too, if there was any hope for him, it would never be for this staid copy of a proper gentleman he’d lately become. Because Lady Mary herself was not the picture of absolute propriety Will thought her, not beneath the affect she had to put on for her mama’s sake, not from what Faith had learned in her midnight conversations with her. The Mary she knew might well prefer the old Will, the real Will, the happy-go-lucky, relaxed, and laughing Will, just as she herself did, no matter what her mama said. But then, Will did not know that Mary, just as Mary might never know that Will. Faith wondered with a sigh if she were the only one who would ever know the truth of either of them.

  “I didn’t come from such a home,” Will said with a sort of despair, “but I can, and I shall build just such a place for myself.”

  “Well, I don’t know.” Faith grinned. “It’s a mite grand for all it’s so fine. Do you really think you need a castle? Because I think they’ve already settled their differences with the Normans here.”

  “But Stonecrop Hall is not a castle, Miss Hamilton,” the earl commented as he came up to the pair from behind them, “it’s a country estate. However fine the Viking’s home may be, if you’ll note there’s not a crenellation in sight, nor a decent parapet to pour boiling oil down from. No, I’m afraid even your Red Indian chaps would make easy work of it for all its splendor, not to mention what a Saracen horde could achieve in less time than it takes to tell of it. Good morning, Rossiter, Miss Hamilton.”

  Will flushed as he bowed, and Faith herself wondered exactly what the earl might have overheard. There was no way to tell from his habitually calm, impassive countenance. Before Will could attempt some polite conversation, the earl, in the same flat, laconic tones, drawled, “Oh dear, I believe the good duchess has discovered a pebble in her shoe, or a stitch in her side, or has invented some other sort of fly for her ointment. But then, the interior of Stonecrop interests her far more than the gardens. I quite agree; after all, one rose is much the same as another, no matter which nobleman nurtures it.”

  Looking ahead to where the Duchess of Marchbanks had seated herself on a stone bench in the rose garden, it became obvious that she had decided to wait there until the tour was over and was waving the rest of the
solicitous party onward. As he stared, Will seemed to forget the conversation and the company he was with as well. Recalling himself, he murmured a few words, bowed, and then was off, obviously bent on intercepting and accompanying Lady Mary now that she was released from her mama’s escort.

  “Not too wise, that,” the earl commented as he resumed walking with Faith. “He’d do better to meet with his lady in the moonlight, when her guardian dragon is safely tucked into her lair, thinking she’s sound asleep atop her treasure’s bed chamber. No, the duchess is not likely to encourage that connection. Not that there’s a thing wrong with young Rossiter, mind, his face, monies, and manners are admirable, save for the fact that ‘Mister’ is not quite the word the Duchess of Marchbanks wishes to see engraved on any invitation to nuptials she might issue, and ‘Mrs.’ is not the term of address she expects anyone to ever use when speaking to her daughter.”

  “Yes,” Faith said quietly, “I’ve noticed that about you English.”

  “Have you?” he replied with a rare, long grin stretching across his mouth. “I wonder? I haven’t. For it doesn’t apply to you in the least. It’s one of the little advantages of your sex in our country that a lady can acquire a title quite simply. Her husband, you see, drapes it over her at the moment they are united, it comes with the wedding, like the blanket on the marriage bed. It’s only the gentlemen who have to perform deeds of daring, or endow universities or lend funds to our dear Prince in order to obtain an interesting title. So never fear, we English, as you put it, are not so worried about nobility when it comes to the dear ladies.”