Lady Anne 03 - Curse of the Gypsy

by Donna Lea Simpson

  “Yes, and don’t look at me that way,” Anne said crossly, splashing some water her way.

  “And it isn’t just his temper, milady,” Mary said, kneeling at the side of the tub to wash Anne’s back. “He’s been known to shut himself away from society for months at a time, so I’ve heard. Sanderson lairned all of that from the young fellows in the castle stable when he stayed there. His lordship would go out riding for hours, then eat a solitary dinner and repair to his study, never to go to his bed at all.”

  Anne’s heart pinched. Poor Tony. He had had much to try him in the months she had known him, for the responsibility of his entire family rested on his shoulders and he took his duties seriously. It seemed to her that his entire family competed for who could try his patience and goodness the most. Or was that just her love for the man talking? Was she so besotted that she was beginning to see him as some kind of paragon? “I see what you’re doing, Mary,” she said. As Mary finished her task Anne reached back over her shoulder and squeezed the cloth, relishing the hot water coursing down her back. “You are emphasizing his faults so I’ll disagree with you.”

  Mary stood, drying her hands on a towel, and had the grace to look shame-faced. “Aye, p’raps I am. He’s a good man, milady, and I’ve never seen anyone so suited to you, if I may say the truth and shame the devil. You’d run any other man over wi’ your managing ways, but he’ll not allow it.”

  “He says the same about me, that he would run any other woman over, but I counter him, strength for strength. So would our marriage be a power struggle our whole lives? It sounds exhausting. And is that all we would have, some kind of marital stalemate?”

  “I think you already know you have more than that.”

  “I know, but …” Anne shook her head, still confused.

  “Why don’t you ask him?”

  “We do have to talk, but I don’t know when we’ll get the chance,” Anne said. She glanced over at Mary. “Unless I go north with them. He has a lot to take care of right now, with Hiram Grover, and I couldn’t, in good conscience, force him into that kind of a discussion here. But if I went north to Yorkshire with him and stayed at Ivy Lodge again, we would have the opportunity.”

  Mary sat on the dressing table chair and Irusan leaped to her lap for his own primping. She brushed his silky fur out, pulling burs and making noises in her teeth at his mangled mane. “You would be able to talk, p’raps, if you didn’t fall into other activities,” she said primly.

  “I can take care of myself, Mary,” she said sharply, but there was a bit of a gnawing worry in the pit of her stomach. She knew Mary was referring to her passionate night with the marquess. Her monthly menses was due soon and she hoped it would start. She didn’t want to be with child. She sighed and shook her head, shrugging it off. It was out of her control. “But dare I leave father here alone with Mrs. Noonan? The foolish woman almost killed us all with her mushroom catsup! And the gypsies … I believe the problem between them and the townsfolk is solved, but I don’t know for sure.”

  “That’s up to you, milady.”

  A possible solution occurred to Anne. She rose and dried off, and began to dress for dinner, studiously keeping her mind away from the thought of Darkefell in his bath, those magnificent, muscular legs stretched out, his delectable bottom in the copper bath, his … well, his other indescribably, deliciously different parts. She felt flames lick her body up and down, and Mary kept throwing her glances.

  “Are you well, milady?” she finally asked. “You’re a mite feverish.”

  “I am quite well, Mary, just a little tired,” she said, regarding herself in the mirror. Irusan wound around her legs and admired their combined reflection, for Mary had made him a bow of moiré silk, which he wore with distinction. Mary had made her look almost beautiful, dressing her in a soft rose brocade robe a l’Anglaise, with trim of the most exquisite Belgian lace ruffled around the low décolletage. Anne sat at the dressing table and Mary dressed her hair, fastening it with a set of tortoiseshell and garnet combs.

  Anne was almost dizzy with anticipation; Darkefell would throw heated looks her way across the dinner table and she would feel him again within her, even as they sat apart. She turned her mind away from such inappropriate and wholly enticing thoughts. “Would … would you see if Mr. Boatin is available for a talk?”

  “Aye, milady,” Mary said gently. “Shall I go now?”

  “Yes. Ask Mr. Boatin to meet me in the library before dinner. I wish to have a chat with him alone.”

  A half hour later she sat with her father by his desk in the library playing with the earl’s seal, a heavy gold stamp ornamented with silk ribbon. Irusan sat atop the desk on a stack of books like an elegant statue, immobile, watching her with his eyes half closed. The chair by the desk had been hers for as long as she could remember, for she had learned many of her lessons in just this spot. “Mrs. Noonan seems content now that her boys are being taught by Vicar Wadley,” she said. “I can’t imagine what caused this sea change in her attitude unless it is the vicar’s excellent care of those imps, but I must say, her boys have improved considerably, too. I hardly know they are here, which before would have been a sign something was about to blow up or a maid was going to be injured or Irusan was going to have to swipe one of them with his claws.”

  “Mmm,” the earl said.

  “Papa, I think we should, as a kind of goodwill gesture, pay for some of the damage people in Hareham have suffered from the Noonan boys and Hiram Grover’s thefts. We could compile a list of complaints and take care of them.”

  “Mhmm. Whatever you like, my dear.”

  Osei tapped on the door and entered.

  “Ah, Mr. Boatin!” the earl said, looking up from his work. “I am overjoyed to see you. I have just been checking a reference on some of the questions you asked about the Mandarin dialect and—”

  “Papa,” Anne said, rising. “I asked Mr. Boatin to meet me here because I wish to talk to him. We are going to sit over by the fire and chat.”

  “Oh.” He looked crestfallen. “Well, perhaps when you’re finished I can have him back?”

  “Dinner will be served shortly, and I will not have you two shut up here and poring over some musty old book. You are both to join the rest of us. Don’t you wish to meet the marquess’s brother, Lord Julius, Papa?”

  “Oh, yes, of course! I had quite forgotten. Forgive me. Go, talk!”

  She and Osei retired to chairs by the empty hearth. Anne gestured to him to sit, and he did, his neat lean frame folding into the chair. He crossed one leg over the other and clasped his hands on his lap. She wasn’t sure how to start.

  “Of what did you wish to speak, my lady?” Osei finally asked, his eyes concealed by the candlelight glinting in his spectacles.

  She watched him for a moment, wondering if he preferred to have his eyes hidden from view, for he always seemed to angle his face just so, just tilted to catch the candlelight in his glasses. She glanced back at her father, his balding head gleaming in the lamplight—he had tossed his wig aside again—as he bent over his task of deciphering a Mandarin script. “My father and you have much in common.”

  Irusan leaped down from the desk and trotted over to where they sat, leaping up to Osei’s lap in one smooth jump. “I am learning much from him, my lady, and I do not speak solely of languages. Your father is …” He paused, then said, flattening his lap for the big cat, who made two complete turns and laid down, “If you will beg my pardon at the comparison, he reminds me of my grandfather.”

  “Really?” Anne said, distracted by Osei’s evaluation.

  “Yes, my mother’s father was the oldest man in our family, and within him resided all the tales that had been collected over the years, all of the knowledge.” He paused, and sadness pinched his mouth and dulled his dark eyes. He ruffled Irusan’s mane. “I don’t know if he is still alive. I doubt that he survived the warfare. I know that my mother and father did not.”

  His open manner was rare
, for he was usually so reticent, and Anne asked, “Would you go back, if you could, to Africa?”

  He frowned and shook his head. “I don’t know, my lady. I wish I knew where my sister is. I have written to those in power, in London, but no one will answer.”

  “Why don’t you enlist Tony to help?”

  His chin went up. “His lordship saved my life. Am I to ask him to do more, when he gave me all that I have, made me all that I am? Impossible.”

  “You proud idiot,” Anne said with a half smile. “First, he did not make you all you are; he gave you some tools and you did the rest. But he would be happy to help and you should know that. I will never understand men.” Anne decided to speak to Tony about it the moment they had time together, which brought her back to her question. “I am not afraid to ask for favors,” she said, “and that is why I’ve asked you here.”

  “A favor of me? I would do anything for you, my lady,” he said, his manners courtly, his chivalry innate.

  Anne ordered her thoughts. “My father, as you well know, is a good man, but running this estate has never been his dream. He does the best he can, but to properly look after things, he needs competent help. I’m trying to find him a new secretary. He requires someone who would help organize him, so his study and research is not so scattered, but it has to be someone special: intelligent, unobtrusive, with a delicate touch. We are, at the same time, hiring an assistant for Mr. Destry. He is old and ill and should not be working, but Papa will not pension him while he is the sole support of his family. I’ve spoken with Papa, and he has agreed to my ideal solution; Mr. Destry’s son, who I know is competent, is currently employed, but I have heard he’s not happy in his position. I hope to hire him as Mr. Destry’s assistant; he eventually may take over the job of estate steward. I’ve sent him a note, with Papa’s consent and approval, of course.”

  She paused, and Osei remained attentive but silent. “That part was easy, finding an assistant for Mr. Destry, but it still leaves me with the problem of Papa’s secretary. It will be a more difficult task to find a suitable gentleman. What I have to ask is, would you consider staying here for a month while I find someone? You have rejuvenated my father,” she said, glancing over at him. “Finding a kindred spirit has made him so happy.”

  He took a moment to collect himself, then said, “My lady, your father understands my quest for knowledge in a way I have not yet encountered. Such learned men as are at Oxford, that is what I imagine they would be.”

  “I think you’d be disappointed in the fellows of Oxford,” Anne replied. “From rumor, I understand that much of what goes on there is drinking, gambling, and whoring.” She colored at her own frank language. “What do you say, Mr. Boatin? Will you stay here for one month while we find someone for my papa?”

  “I could not stay,” he said.

  Anne read the regret in his voice and hope filled her. She knew his concern. “If I asked Tony myself and he said it was all right, would you then consider it? Just for one month. I’m asking you to consider only your own inclination in this, Mr. Boatin.”

  “If it were just myself? I would stay, my lady, for your father and I have begun conversations on my language; he is interested in producing a written form of it using the Roman alphabet to replicate the words as best as I can. In one month we could make much progress, then when I left, I would know enough about your father’s methods that I could continue.”

  “Would you then write the stories from your grandfather?” Anne asked, genuinely curious.

  Light sparked in Osei’s dark eyes. “I would.”

  Anne furrowed her brow, distracted for a moment by an odd thought. “This is a question I have never thought of: do you think in English, Mr. Boatin, or in Fante?”

  He frowned and said, “Are dreams really about any language, my lady? In my day-to-day life I think in English, I believe, though Fante words are close to the surface of my mind and fill my heart. But when I dream … ah, that is different, is it not? For our dreams are from the heart, I think. When language is necessary, when I hear my grandfather’s voice, and that of my sister, I dream in Fante. I dream of the hot African sun and running on the plain after the hunt, and sitting on the ground in front of my grandfather’s hut, listening to his stories.”

  Moved by his sudden animation, she put one hand over his, where it rested on Irusan’s shaggy head, and said, “If you wrote those stories, I would read them with great joy.” She paused, then said more briskly, “Do we have an agreement, then?” He nodded. “Let me speak to Tony tonight,” Anne said. “If you stay, then I can be sure there was someone looking out for my father.”

  “Looking out for him? Do you mean other than yourself?”

  She hesitated, but then plunged ahead. “I’m thinking I would like to go north to … to see Lydia again. She writes such pathetic letters.”

  “You do not need to explain why you would want to go to Darkefell, my lady.” He said no more, but smiled faintly.

  Her cheeks burned, for she suspected that he knew what she and Tony had done together. Taking in a few deep breaths, she concentrated on calming her fluttering stomach and thudding heart. “I plan to go to Hawk Park, and if Lady Darkefell is there, we could travel north together.” Anne shuddered. “As unpleasant a journey as that seems to me.”

  “She is a difficult woman to get to know,” Osei said gravely. “But I have always thought there is something there, something the marchioness is hiding, and it makes her wary and bitter.”

  “What do you mean?” Anne asked. Osei knew the marchioness better than she; could what he thought be true?

  “I do not know what else to say.” He shook his head. “She dislikes me, but I am not sure if it is just an instinctive revulsion on her part—some of your people find my skin offensive—or if it is my person that offends her.”

  Anne, shocked by the fellow’s words, said, “You are the most gracious man I have ever met, Mr. Boatin, and certainly the most fastidious. You are the epitome of what I believe a gentleman should be, and certainly have better manners than your employer.”

  “What is proper for me and what is proper for his lordship are vastly different, my lady, given our differences in station. I must cultivate humility and deference in my position.”

  “True.” She watched him, trying to imagine him as he would have been without the trappings of an Englishman. It was impossible, of course, for she had no idea what his native dress would look like, nor his homeland. “I have a sense that even without the mantle of humility you wear for your position as a secretary, in your proper role as a princely fellow you would still be as polite and courtly as you are this moment. Nothing you have ever said or done is remotely offensive, so whatever Lady Darkefell’s problem is, it has not been engendered by you.”

  “Thank you, my lady, you are very gracious. Meeting you, I feel I have met what I imagine as the perfect picture of an English lady.”

  She laughed and said, “I wish my mother could hear you say that. I am far from what is considered ideal, Mr. Boatin.”

  He hesitated, but then launched back into speech, saying, “I am now going to perhaps destroy all of the good opinion you have of me by being impertinent. But I cannot help myself; my lady, I wish to tell you that I have never, in my years in his company, seen the marquess so happy. But then, I have never seen him in love before.”

  Anne colored, and could not speak. She looked down at her hands.

  But he was done on that subject, and changed it, saying hesitantly, “Excuse me for asking, but would his lordship the earl, your esteemed father, consider a young lady as a fit secretary?”

  “Do you have someone in mind?” Anne asked.

  He paused, ordering his thoughts, perhaps. “When Lord Darkefell brought us—the former slaves—back to England, it was a puzzle what to do with all of us. The danger was, if we left England, would we be seized and thrown in chains, claimed as escaped slaves? In light of the Somerset case, which only protected us in England,
it was a possibility, especially with Hiram Grover still attempting to enforce his claim to us.”

  “The Somerset case,” Anne said, remembering hearing about the case years before of a slave who claimed freedom from being on British soil. “It is still being used as legal precedent, I understand.” Osei, though freed from slavery by virtue of his unique situation, was still not free in the proper sense. If he went to Jamaica or any of the other English colonies to try to trace his sister, he could be taken back into slavery if the ownership question arose. It was still a thorny legal issue. But what did that have to do with the original question of finding a suitable secretary for her father? “Please continue, Mr. Boatin.”

  “When we arrived, only I and one other among the rescued slaves could speak rudimentary English,” Osei continued. “I had learned some from being in the company of Lord Darkefell on the voyage back to England. It was a problem, for the others did not even speak Fante, so I could only understand some of what they said. Lord Darkefell took us to a school in London where a young woman of African origin resided, having begun as a charity student and working her way up to be an instructress.”

  “Really? What is her name?”

  “Miss Clara Simmons. The school was run by the Quakers, and they welcomed us warmly. I have corresponded with Miss Simmons for years now, and she has kept me abreast of the progress of the others Lord Julius and the marquess rescued. They learned, each according to his or her abilities, and found work. One of the young ladies is even now a companion to a young Quaker woman of wealth. But Miss Simmons has lately been made unhappy by … by the attentions of the new headmistress’s son. The school passed into other hands, for the Quaker proprietors sold all and went to Upper Canada to help in the abolition movement there. Miss Simmons confided in me and asked my advice, but I fear she could not await my answer, and has fled the school rather than suffer dishonor at her tormentor’s hands.”

  Fury at the young woman’s situation rose up in Anne like a wave, but she tamped it down. Most important was to establish what was being proposed. “Are you asking if this young lady would be acceptable as a secretary to my father?”