"It's to thank you for everything you ever did for me." He cleared his throat, opened the box and slid it toward her across his desk. "I bought it when I got my first command. I knew you'd be proud of me and...probably prouder than anybody."
Parkes looked down at the box and ran her hand over it, but she didn't pick it up. "You shouldn't have! You daft boy! The things you get into your head."
"I would have given it to you, but...well, I held on to it all these years." She was dead by the time he come on leave after that, and so the brooch of a silver galleon in full sail had remained in its box ever since. While cleaning out the clutter in his office recently, he found it again. "Parkes, I do not know what I would have done without you. I always wished I had..." he paused, swallowed, continued, "had the chance to tell you how dear you were to me. What you ...meant to me."
It was not the sort of thing men discussed. At least, not men like Harry, who preferred not to show particular affection for anybody. People had a habit of leaving him, once they knew he was fond. If he kept everybody at a distance he did not have to worry about that.
But this evening it had to be said.
She looked up then, her eyes shining in a ray of sunlight— a last burst before sunset— and she smiled. "That's what all this was about? Why you couldn't let me go? I knew. Of course I knew it, you daft boy. Don't you worry about that. Now you go upstairs and make yourself look presentable for once. Find a wife tonight, young sir, so that I can have a rest at last."
* * * *
The gravel approach to Woodbyne Abbey was lined on both sides with torches that evening. Horses and liveried servants milled about in the warm evening air, laughing and exchanging jests— probably about their masters'. A seemingly endless stream of ladies in exquisite gowns that trailed gently behind them, made their way up the stone steps into the house. It was all very grand, sumptuous, a perfectly glittering evening.
How different her arrival was tonight, to how it had been some months ago when a wild storm raged above and the house had seemed deserted!
As they entered the grand front hall, the ladies admired the festoons of flowers and greenery that seemed to be everywhere they looked— as if the outdoors had been brought inside.
"It's such a beautiful house," whispered Emma. "You never said how lovely it was."
Had she not? It was true that in the beginning she had not seen much beauty about the place. It was old, drafty and falling down. But Georgiana had come to appreciate the house, for all its creaks and groans. Rather like the master himself.
And there he was, greeting guests with his aunt.
Oh dear, the moment was almost upon her. Would she blurt out something silly, or lose her balance when she curtseyed? Was her hair tidy? Was her gown fashionable enough, or did it make her look like a Norfolk Dumpling?
She hiccupped.
Melinda nudged her in the side. "Stop that!"
"How does one stop hiccups?"
"Hold your breath."
So she did. As she curtseyed to their hosts, she could not speak for fear of making that dreadful noise. But it popped out anyway, and because she'd been holding it in, the sound was much louder than it might have been. Several faces turned to look at the source and Harry's eyes gleamed down at her in amusement.
"Miss Hathaway, you look so pretty tonight I almost didn't recognize you. Until that."
As she muttered an apology, he merely tugged the dance card out of her hand, wrote in it and gave it back to her.
"Aren't you going to introduce me to your companions?" he demanded.
But another series of hiccups overcame her. Fortunately Lady Bramley was able to do the honor for her friends, and once she had recovered, Georgiana obliged with the introduction of her brother.
"Ah, you are the Naval Captain of whom she is so proud," said Harry with a stiff smile and a bow. "I am delighted to meet you."
"And I you, sir," Guy replied, looking unusually awed.
Lady Bramley inquired into their stepmother's health and then they were moving along again with the crowd.
"If you hold a key on your tongue," said Melinda somberly, "that is suppose to help stop hiccups too."
"That's very nice, but I don't happen to carry a key around with me."
But it reminded her that she had never had discovered how Dead Harry got out of his room at night to go wandering after Brown locked him in. It was a mystery for which she might never have an answer, but in true life, she knew now, not everything could be explained.
She looked down at her dance card and saw that he had drawn a large X through most of it, with his initials marked on the first line.
Melinda, observing this over her shoulder, exclaimed, "He must be in love with you."
"Don't be ridiculous."
"He has been pining for you since you left, pacing his library and tearing out his hair. He looks the sort to fall in love quite dangerously. I suppose, in the end he'll carry you off and we'll never see you again."
"You have a great imagination, Miss Melinda Goodheart, but this is all terrible conjecture over a few pen marks on a dance card."
Emma softly agreed. "He could just want to save her the trouble of dancing as he knows she's not very skilled."
"Well, thank you very much! I do exceedingly well after a glass or two of wine," Georgiana exclaimed grandly. "Now I just have to find some."
But before any refreshment could be found— especially in the quantity required— the first dance was announced and Commander Thrasher made a direct course for where she stood, trampling on the trains of a few gowns as he came.
Her so-called friends swiftly abandoned her, and she was left utterly at his mercy.
* * * *
He could not know how, or when, the Wickedest Chit transformed into a beautiful, alluring woman. Some villainy, no doubt, was at foot.
"Miss Hathaway." He took her hand tightly in his, just as the first notes of the minuet began. "This dance has been long delayed."
"Yes." Her face fell sad for a moment, but then she managed a smile. "Your cousin is not here tonight?"
"No. Max is safely out of the way enjoying a house party in Devonshire." He glanced down at her. "I suppose you are disappointed."
Her smile gained strength. "Not at all. I am relieved."
"Oh? I thought you found him amusing. Like an overgrown puppy. Is that not what you called him?"
"Yes. But I do find he has a habit of spoiling my day, whether he means to or not. I prefer to believe the latter and that he means well, but is merely clumsy in his delivery. Perhaps a hippopotamus would be a more accurate description of the way he blumberdumbers along."
"Blumberdumbers?"
She shrugged. "Sometimes I have to make a word up when the right one is not to be found."
Harry nodded, keeping his lips tight until he had tamed the urge to smile like a fool. "I understand your father has hired you to write some stories for his paper."
"He has."
"Then I must congratulate you, Georgiana. You are on your way to having everything you wanted. An independent life."
Her lashes lowered, then swept upward again, taking his heart beat with them. "Am I? Sometimes...I do not know."
"You do not know what?"
"Whether I knew what I wanted. Everything I wanted."
Hope sprung to life within him when she used the past tense. But he must proceed with care, not clumsily. "It is not always easy to know, when one is young, what one wants."
He wanted to hear her say she'd made an error, but perhaps because he wanted it so much that he read it in her eyes when it was not truly there.
She shook her curls and laughed lightly. "It doesn't matter now."
His thumb stroked across her gloved knuckles, wishing their hands were bare again, as they were the first time they touched. "My aunt has taken charge at your school. Perhaps you heard? She seems to have a new lease on life these days, keeps muttering about girls wasting their potential and how she could
have done so much more with her own life. She's making up for it now."
"Oh dear, have I turned Lady Bramley into a revolutionary?" She dazzled him with her smile.
"I fear so." He couldn't smile back. For some reason his lips were too stiff, his throat was bone-dry and his tongue felt too large for his mouth. This was quite ridiculous, he thought angrily; he was a damned war hero who had died twice, and yet this girl left him tongue-tied. "She's not the only one making her mark anew. Have you heard about Mrs. Swanley?"
* * * *
He took her out into the hall and showed her the watercolor of Woodbyne Abbey as painted by the "artiste" Mrs. Evelyn Swanley. It was a mass of color in blobs and smears which, at first glance, appeared to be nothing more than accidental placement— the work, perhaps of four cat’s paws that somehow got into the paint. But after standing for a moment, with one's eyes in a tight squint, the sight was able to transform those smudges of color into an image that was, in actual fact, almost recognizable.
"When the Parson's wife, Mrs. Darrowby, first saw it, she immediately persuaded her husband to a commission a portrait of the church in this ‘new’ style. After that, Mrs. Swanley's success grew in leaps and bounds. She is currently working on a still life for my aunt— some of her favorite gourds, I understand. Those you and your friends did not yet manage to destroy."
The longer one stood before the painting and studied it, the more the image transformed. "I am very happy for her," said Georgiana, still admiring the work. "It seems your aunt's owl was quite right when it gave her that fortune. We know what we are, but not what we may be."
"Actually that fortune was meant for you," he replied quietly. "I meant for you to get the first slip of paper after mine, but she was too impatient and took the owl from me, if you recall."
She did not know what to say to that.
Harry was looking at the painting of his house, his profile turned to her. "But, as you say, it doesn't matter now."
In her peripheral vision she saw her brother watching them, and Lady Bramley too. The hall was crowded and loud, the very sort of thing he hated and tried to avoid. Yet he put up with it tonight. She must not let her imagination run away with her and think any of this suffering was was for her.
"Why did you draw all over my dance card?" she asked finally.
He looked down at her, his eyes as innocent as they ever could be. "Oh, did you want to dance with anybody else?"
"Not really."
"Not really?"
"No." It burst out of her with that patented lack of dignity. "I did not want to dance with anybody else." So much for aloof, she thought, remembering how Max Bramley had teased her.
"Good, because I would have to crush the fellow where he stood." Slowly he smiled and it felt as if a lightning bolt struck her senseless.
Lady Bramley swept across and took his arm. "Henry, you must not monopolize Miss Hathaway's attention. Now come here and let me find you some other ladies to dance with. They will all be insulted if you do not dance with them. We went to all this trouble to get you dressed up and shaved. It cannot all be for nothing, and I'm sure poor Miss Hathaway has had quite enough of you for one evening."
So she watched him being taken away from her. It was rare for him to go meekly at his aunt's orders, but that lady had indeed gone to a vast deal of trouble to get him this far. And he did look far too handsome to waste upon Georgiana, in her old muslin.
She wandered around the dance and watched her friends enjoying themselves. Her brother gallantly danced with both girls and even managed to look cheerful, despite his general dislike of balls. And there was Harry, forced into dancing by his aunt, one fair lady after another. She even saw his lips move occasionally so he found something to say to them. Hopefully it was polite. Not too polite though.
"That's him," she heard somebody whisper behind her. "That's Dead Harry Thrasher. They say he's not all there in the head, you know. After what happened..."
"So I heard. Terribly unpredictable. The Navy did not know what to do with him and if they can't handle a man then nobody can."
Another woman giggled stupidly. "Well, I must say, I wouldn't object to trying."
"But he has a violent temper, they say. If you ask me, Amy Milhaven had a lucky escape."
Now came a low, lascivious chortle. "I doubt Amy Milhaven would agree. Admiral Shaftesbury is hardly a substitute for a man like that. I hear she's desperately unhappy in the marriage."
"And to know what she missed out on...what she might have had..."
A cloud of sighs swelled from the little group of gossiping women as they considered, in unison, the "terribly unpredictable", undeniably handsome, and wickedly fascinating figure of Not-So-Dead Harry.
This was the disadvantage of helping someone back to life, Georgiana thought, chagrinned. Suddenly he was more alive than she'd expected. These other women, with their elegant shoulders and ivory complexions, would never appreciate the many sides of that man. She was feeling quite annoyed about their suggestive whispers and cooing sighs, as they melted all over Harry.
Her Harry.
Eventually she realized she was twisting her dance card mercilessly in her fingers, smudging the pencil marks he'd made upon it. And that was another thing! While he had not wanted her to dance with anybody else, there he was cavorting with one pair of pushy bosoms after another. Did these women know nothing of being aloof? Where was their dignity?
Her pulse was very unsteady, as if she'd just fallen into the lake again.
Slowly she turned and began to walk. As the crowd around her thinned, Georgiana picked up her pace, until she had lifted up her skirt and broken into a most unladylike run.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
"Have you seen my sister?" Guy Hathaway came to him, concerned.
Harry had lost sight of her some time ago in the crowd and neither of her friends had seen her lately either. The four of them decided to look for her. How far could she have gone? Was there an answer to that question?
Although Harry said nothing to the others he feared she could be anywhere in his house. She might even be on the roof, knowing her propensity for trouble and that love of adventure. But when he ran into Brown, the old fellow was looking rather pleased with himself and readily pointed out the sinister glow of light shining from the island in the middle of his lake.
"We put no torches out there, did we?"
"No, sir, I reckon somebody must have rowed out there with one."
Harry eyed the fellow suspiciously. "Somebody? Brown, did you aid that woman in this mad enterprise? It's dark out there, and she could have fallen in!"
"I couldn't stop her, sir. No more than I could stop you getting out of your room at night."
"Have you been at the punch, Brown?"
"I might have had one or two. Thought I earned it after all these years." Then the old fellow chuckled. "There's the other boat standing ready, sir. Should you want to join the young lady. It's a night of moon and stars out there, sir. Quite as it should be."
"As it should be?"
"In a Grand Romance, the lady said."
Harry didn't wait to hear anything more.
* * * *
Brown was right; it was a night of moon and stars, not nearly as dark out on the lake as he'd thought. He removed his jacket, rolled up his sleeves and set off across the still water with as much speed as he could row. In the distance, the summerhouse glowed warmly, a beacon guiding his path. A gentle wind rustled the reeds and bulrushes, and, away across the lawns, slipping out through the doors to the terrace, dance music still played.
As he rowed, Harry tried to think of what he would say to her when he got there. Well, first he would admonish her soundly for taking such a foolish risk all by herself. Good thing it was a warm night. What could she be thinking? Nothing, probably, being a woman.
But by the time he reached the little island, he forgot all that. Because she was there, waiting for him.
* * * *
Geor
giana had used her rush torch to light some candles inside the summerhouse, hoping he would see it from the Abbey. It was not long before she saw his white shoulders and shirtsleeves in the moonlight, heaving their way across the lake.
Tonight the island felt different than it had on that bright sunny day some weeks ago. Tonight it belonged just to the two of them.
"Miss Hathaway, you have a talent for drama," he muttered, breathless as he climbed out of the boat and leapt up the slight slope to where she stood. "What can be the meaning of this?"
She pointed up at the sky. "Look at the moon. It's huge."
"You lured me out here for the moon? We could have seen that from the house. Where it's dry and—"
"Harry, just shut up and kiss me before one of us dies for definite."
While he stood there looking alarmed, she reached up for his ears, tugged his face down to hers and lifted on tiptoe. She had not forgotten how wonderful it was to feel his arms around her, but it still made her heart leap when it happened tonight.
Despite his initial shock, he soon made up for the hesitation and kissed her as if his life depended upon it. The way he always did. As if she was the only woman on his island.
Suddenly the wind picked up, playfully tossing the bulrushes about around the edge of the island, making them sigh and whisper. Inside the summerhouse, although partly sheltered, the candle flames were tugged into a dance of their own and some were even extinguished.
"I love you, Harry," she exclaimed, the wind catching her the hem of her skirt and unsettling that neat arrangement of curls over which she'd taken such unlikely trouble. "I love you so much it terrifies me. I did not want to fall in love, but I have. Now it's too late. I don't know what else to do, but tell you. Being older and wiser, I thought you ought to know what to do about it."
His eyes flared, then narrowed, crinkling up at the corners. "I see." A little twitch at the corner of his mouth proceeded a wry smile. "You realize I don't believe, for a moment, that you think I'm wiser than you."
She struggled to keep her own lips steady and solemn. "Just older then. Experienced in these things."
A deep rumble of laughter escaped into the warm breeze. "Not that experienced. I've never been in love before either."
The Trouble with His Lordship’s Trousers Page 28
