The Lady's Deception

by Susanna Craig

  Quickly, she splashed water on her face and managed to pin up her hair. The chambermaid must have slipped in before dawn and returned their clothes, considerably fresher than they had been. Once she was dressed, she went to the hearth, folded the blanket under which she’d slept, and then stepped behind the screen again, intending to lay it on the foot of the bed.

  This time Bell was awake. “G’morning, Miss Gorse,” she murmured sleepily, reaching for the kitten with half-open eyes. Then she exclaimed and sat bolt upright. “Oh!” Startled, Eileen arched her back and turned into puff of white fur. Bell grinned as she tried to soothe her. “Oh, it is a good morning, isn’t it Miss Gorse?”

  The commotion woke Daphne at last. “What’re you on about, Bellis Burke?” she groaned.

  “You know, Daph,” she said, nudging her sister and giving her a significant look that seemed to be directed at Rosamund as well.

  “Oh. Oh, yes.” Daphne smiled too, though her expression bordered on sly. “Good morning, Miss Gorse.”

  One did not need to be a governess to recognize when children were up to something. At a loss to know what it might be—perhaps they were simply exuberant at remembering they’d been reunited with their brother—Rosamund shrugged and wished them good morning in return.

  “Now, out of bed, you two, and dress yourselves, quick as a wink.”

  “What’s the hurry, Miss Gorse?” asked Daphne. Definitely sly.

  “Ladies do not hurry, Daphne,” she answered, mustering her primmest voice. “They are, however, prompt and prepared to greet the day.”

  Eileen nudged her hand to be petted, so Rosamund plucked the kitten from the tumbled bed and carried her to hearth to keep her from being a distraction to the girls while they dressed. Listening to the sisters prod and annoy one another produced an unexpected twinge of melancholy. The certainty of a sibling’s affection, the security of family, seemed so remote as to be a dream.

  Before they had finished dressing, Paris came in, clean shaven and wearing a fresh cravat. “And how are my sisters this fine morning?” he called from the doorway. “Well rested?”

  “Oh, yes,” replied Bell from behind the screen. “But aren’t you going to ask Miss Gorse how she slept?”

  His eyes sought and found her standing near the fireplace, and he winked. She remembered suddenly how he had called her Roisín. Rosie. She had never imagined the name could give her anything but pain. But when spoken in that suggestive, Irish way of his… Her answering blush seemed to begin in her toes. “I daresay she must have slept poorly indeed, with you two for her bedfellows.”

  “Don’t forget Eileen,” retorted Daphne, and the two girls giggled rather conspiratorially before making their appearance.

  He ushered them downstairs to the inn’s dining room, a considerably quieter and pleasanter room than the pub. Paris sat beside Bell, who was sneaking bits of coddled egg and kippers into Eileen’s basket. Rosamund sat across the table, beside Daphne. They looked for all the world like the little family their hosts believed them to be.

  The charm of that image exerted a dangerous pull. This was not her family, could never be her family. Charles was still her guardian, and he would never permit it.

  A young man came into the dining room and announced in a surprisingly deep voice, “The Claremont is aweigh. The Industry has hailed the shore. If you’re Dublin-bound, make ready to board.”

  The words caused a slight stir among the other diners. Two gentlemen rose and left the room. “Come, girls,” Rosamund said briskly, not looking at their brother. “Finish up now.” Despite Paris’s reassurances, Rosamund still feared Charles and Lord Dashfort might well be aboard that ship.

  Paris, however, continued to eat at a leisurely pace.

  Daphne watched him for a moment. “Aren’t we going back to Dublin today?”

  He glanced at Rosamund before answering. “I thought, so long as we’d come this far, we’d all go to London instead.” All. Her heart caught. “Miss Gorse has affairs to which she must tend, and you two must be missing Mama and Papa.”

  “And Cami and Erica and Galen. Oh, truly, Paris?” squealed Bell as she jumped up and threw her arms about his neck.

  One long-fingered hand covered the back of her head. “Truly.”

  “London,” Daphne repeated, a hint of awe in her voice. “Is that where you’ll do it then?”

  “Do…what?” A puzzled frown appeared on his brow.

  Bell looked up at him and shook her head in a mock scold. “Oh, Paris. Marry Miss Gorse, silly.”

  Rosamund watched the color leave his face, while feeling her own rise. They were saved from having to offer any immediate response, however, by the discovery that Eileen’s basket lay empty on its side on the seat of Bell’s abandoned chair.

  Precious moments ticked by while they debated where to search for the escaped kitten. “She was just here,” insisted Bell, starting forlornly into the basket, while Daphne tried to claim that none of this would have happened if she had been put in charge. Rosamund glanced toward the windows, her mind as choppy as the gray water.

  What on earth had given Daphne that idea that she and Paris were going to marry?

  How much time before the passengers from the Industry came ashore?

  Leaving Daphne and Bell to bicker not-so-quietly with one another, she hurried about the dining room, searching for a little fluff of white among the forest of legs, both furniture and human. An occasional glimpse of something gave her hope, but it was always only a handkerchief or a napkin that had fallen to the floor or, once, a lady’s fur muff lying on a chair.

  At a shout from the kitchen, she jerked upright, nearly striking her head on the corner of a table. Paris, who was closer, went to investigate. Moments later, following a few alarming bangs that sounded like cast iron cookware colliding with the flagstone floor, and a cry of something that might have been pain, Paris emerged, rumpled and with a scratch down one cheek, holding Eileen by the scruff of her neck. Eileen carried within her tightly clamped jaws a lifeless mouse.

  The girls, at once proud and horrified, ran toward the two of them. Eileen, evidently fearful that her prize was to be taken from her, growled loudly enough for Rosamund to hear from several yards away.

  “I wouldn’t come any closer if I were you,” Paris advised, reaching up with his free hand to gingerly brush the scratch on his cheek, then studying the smear of blood on his fingertips. “She’s quite determined to keep it.”

  Determined, indeed. The mouse was fully grown and almost half the kitten’s size, but Eileen had triumphed over it nonetheless. “Good girl,” Bell offered, a trifle tentatively, while Daphne nodded and clutched the empty basket to her chest.

  “The cook offered me half a crown to leave her here to catch pests in the kitchen,” Paris said, one dark brow cocked. “I won’t say I wasn’t tempted.” His sisters gasped in alarm.

  Amusement and annoyance warring on his face, he jerked his chin toward the exit, the kitten still firmly within his grasp. In the inn yard, he managed—Rosamund was never quite sure how—to snatch the mouse from the kitten’s mouth, dropping Eileen into Daphne’s basket with one hand and flinging the carcass into the ditch with the other. “Sorry, puss,” he answered her hiss of protest, “but no disemboweling rodents in the coach. Come, girls. Up you go.”

  The carriage Paris had hired stood before them, and in its traces, four high-stepping chestnuts stamped and pranced, almost as eager to be underway as Rosamund was. At least, until she recalled the quizzing that awaited her from Daphne and Bell. Her only hope was that they might have forgotten in all the commotion over the kitten. And she considered it far more likely that Charles had given up the chase.

  Paris helped his sisters in first, then turned to her and held out a hand to assist her. His injured cheek, the same one she had slapped the night before, was pink again. This close, she could see three
shallower wounds surrounding the angry scratch down his cheek, one groove for each of Eileen’s unsheathed claws. Poor man.

  Steeling herself not to react to his touch, she let him help her into the carriage and found the girls already seated side by side on the backward-facing bench. With a pang of uncertainty, she seated herself opposite the young inquisitors, leaving room beside her for their brother. As soon as he had closed the door behind himself, Daphne released the kitten from her basket prison. The driver chirruped to the horses and the carriage wheels began to roll. As Rosamund watched the tumbling gray water of the Irish Sea recede from view, a little sigh of relief escaped her.

  Opposite her, Bell too was looking out the window. The changing scenery did not hold her attention for long, however. Abruptly, she turned away from the glass. “Do the others know?”

  “Know what?” her brother asked.

  “About the wedding.”

  Without looking at Paris, Rosamund squared herself on the bench and said with as much firmness as she could muster, “Whatever can have given you the notion that your brother and I are getting married?” She blamed that ridiculous book of flower poetry for putting the idea in the girl’s head.

  Bell was frowning now. She disliked being told she was wrong. “Daphne told me. Woke me from a sound sleep and whispered it in my ear. Didn’t you?” She twisted sharply, seeking confirmation from her sister.

  For just a moment, with all eyes upon her, Daphne looked frightened and perhaps a tiny bit chagrined. But her customary boldness soon returned. “The firelight shone through the screen last night,” she explained. “It was better than a magic lantern. I saw you kiss.” Her eyes darted from her brother to Rosamund and back again, taking in their reactions to her accusation. “I even saw you lie down together. And Miss Gorse never came to bed.” Her chin jutted upward in defiance. “I—I know you think I’m still a child. But I’m not a simpleton. I know that means you have to get married.”

  * * * *

  Paris had risen that morning believing the most difficult thing he would have to do that day would be to ask for help from Eamon Graves. Well, second most difficult, actually. First, he’d had to make himself leave Rosamund, warm and sleepy on the hearth.

  He had not considered the particular difficulties to be posed by his sharp-eyed younger sister. If pressed, he would’ve been willing to swear he was incapable of being surprised by his siblings’ antics. But he was certainly surprised now.

  Surprised most of all by the strong, sudden impulse to drop to one knee in the middle of the carriage floor and ask Rosamund Gorse to make him the happiest of men.

  Instead he shook his head in disbelief, refusing to let himself look toward her, fearful that at the sight of her, he might not be able to stop himself. Surely, he could come up with some explanation for what had transpired? After all, he was reputed to be skilled at argument, able to mount a cogent defense.

  “That sounds like quite some dream, Daph,” he said quickly, and laughed.

  “Dream?” The word burst from her, propelled by outrage. “It wasn’t a—”

  He held up a hand. “Look, now. I can’t say where Miss Gorse slept. I certainly wouldn’t blame her if she found the prospect of sharing that bed less than inviting, what with Bell’s cold feet and your snoring.”

  Bell attempted unsuccessfully to muffle her giggle. Daphne turned red. “Paris! I don’t—”

  “I can assure you, however, that I was in the pub all night, playing piquet with the captain of the Claremont. He took me for five shillings.”

  Thankfully, he was in no position to have the truth of this story denied. He had definitely gambled last night. And he had, in fact, given the captain five shillings, along with the letter he’d been struggling since dawn to write.

  Daphne blushed a deeper red, the shade of humiliation, and dropped her gaze to the floor. Guilt chilled him. He reached out a hand and laid it on Daphne’s knee. “Let’s forget about it, shall we?” Still, he did not look at Rosamund. “No damage done.”

  He hoped.

  The girls, however, were not inclined to forget. “Don’t you want to get married, Miss Gorse?” Bell asked, not five minutes later.

  Beside him, Rosamund shifted uncomfortably and cleared her throat. “Why, er…yes,” she answered after a moment. “I would quite like a home and a family of my own someday.” Was that a note of longing in her voice? Hadn’t she seen how much trouble family could cause?

  “Don’t you have any brothers or sisters?” Daphne asked, aghast.

  “I have one brother, considerably my elder.”

  “Like Paris, then.”

  “My brother and I are separated by about the same number of years as you and your brother, yes,” Rosamund agreed. “But I believe they are quite unalike in other respects.”

  Was it true, however? Everything she’d told him last night indicated that her brother was controlling and manipulative. Was he any better? The deception being perpetrated on his sisters was entirely his doing. Every bit of it, from Miss Gorse’s installation as governess in their household to the present awkward conversation. Further proof his siblings ought never to trust him to do the responsible thing.

  “Well, cheer up, Miss Gorse,” said Daphne. “If our sister Erica could find not one, but two gentlemen willing to marry her, you shouldn’t lack for offers.”

  “Girls,” he warned. He wished it were possible to release Eileen again to distract his sisters. But of course the cat was already out of the basket.

  As he spoke Rosamund tugged the ribbons of her bonnet away from Eileen’s eager claws and straightened the loops of blue silk into a neat bow beneath one ear. At this angle, he could not tell whether the ribbon matched her eyes, as he’d hoped when he chose it.

  “After all,” continued Bell, undaunted, “you’re very pretty.” He could not prevent the rough grunt of agreement that rose in his throat. “And not quite on the shelf.”

  Rosamund only laughed.

  He prayed that would be the end of it. Bell, however, still wasn’t ready to give up. “You could marry Paris even if you don’t have to,” she suggested. “He can be quite charming when he chooses.”

  “Bell!” he scolded.

  “But alas,” Daphne added, rolling her eyes and sending a glance of commiseration toward Rosamund, “he does not often choose.”

  “Why, thank you, dear sister.” He let himself slump and scowled a bit. “I’m sadly outnumbered here. Perhaps I’ll just sit with the driver instead.”

  “Oh, Paris, don’t be silly.” Bell giggled. “It’s starting to rain.”

  “I’d still be better off. How’s a fellow to defend himself when it’s three—no, four—against one?” Eileen, having been denied the amusement of Rosamund’s ribbons, was now attempting to make herself a comfortable nest right below his breastbone. She had evidently forgiven him for thwarting her conquest. Her tiny paws kneaded and plucked, snagging his silk waistcoat.

  Rosamund turned just enough that she could fix him with a steady gaze. No, the bonnet’s ribbon didn’t match her eyes. Nothing could match that extraordinary shade of blue. “Do you account me among your attackers, Mr. Burke?”

  She was sitting ramrod straight, and he found something about her posture unexpectedly alluring. Perhaps it was the recent confirmation of the softness that hid beneath its rigidity, the teasing notes that lurked within her sternest voice. He found himself wishing he might have the opportunity to change her mind about the efficacy of a good tongue-lashing.

  Displacing the kitten, he reached across to take up Rosamund’s hand and was rewarded by a gasp that was not all disapproval. “Perhaps you’re right, Bell,” he said, darting a glance toward his sister before focusing on Rosamund’s delicate features. “Perhaps I ought to propose, just to teach our Miss Gorse a lesson.”

  His sisters gave a rare, unified squeal of surprise and
delight.

  Rosamund smoothly eased her fingers from his grasp. “I should exercise caution if I were you, Mr. Burke.” She was all prickly, prim governess now. Aloof and cool, she suddenly made him wonder whether the memory of holding her in his arms wasn’t a dream, after all. Then a defiant spark lit her eyes. “I might just say yes.”

  Chapter 18

  When he had agreed to undertake this journey, Paris had imagined himself fully prepared to face its torments. The general awkwardness and discomfort of travel, exacerbated by sharing a coach for nearly three hundred miles with his two youngest sisters. His family arrayed before him in a disapproving line at the journey’s end.

  He hadn’t fully considered the particular sort of torture involved in sharing that journey with Rosamund, however.

  A thousand meaningless, incidental touches to be endured. The clasp of hands or the cupping of an elbow every time he helped her into or out of the coach. Inside the coach, the nudge of shoulders or brush of legs. Then, of course, there were the nights. He’d made certain there could be no repeat of the temptation at the inn in Holyhead. For four nights, he’d arranged a room for Rosamund and the girls, while he had sat up in the pub, even when he might have had a bed to himself.

  But he hadn’t yet found a public room bench or an ancient oak settle hard enough to keep him from thinking of her.

  Sitting up nights provided a ready excuse to sleep, or at least to feign sleep, during the day, which would have absolved him of listening to the girls’ chatter. But he had rediscovered a kind of pleasure in his youngest sisters’ company. They were bright and amusing and cleverer than he had realized. Besides, he did not want to miss a glimpse of Rosamund’s smile or the sound of her laugh. He even enjoyed her ill-fated attempts to get his sisters to absorb occasional knowledge about geography or the history of the places through which they passed.

  Yes, torment was the word for it, worse now as they neared the end of the journey. The girls had long since given over teasing him about marrying Miss Gorse. But the carriage still seemed to echo with Rosamund’s words. I might just say yes. He wanted her in a way that he had not wanted anything for a very long time. Perhaps ever. Yet he could not quite convince himself that he deserved happiness. And he knew she did not deserve misery.