Dair Devil

by Lucinda Brant

  Rory scowled. “Meaning?”

  Grasby could have bitten off his own tongue for his want of propriety. Still he answered her.

  “Meaning, Lily Banks is married and has had four more children to her husband.”

  “So she isn’t Lord Fitzstuart’s mistress?”

  “Mistress? I doubt she ever was in the true sense of the word. She was a pretty little thing when she caught Dair’s eye. Five children later, do you think Dair would be interested in such a woman?”

  Knowing Lily Banks was married and not Lord Fitzstuart’s mistress cheered Rory more than she cared to admit, but it did not stop her saying, tongue firmly in cheek,

  “Dear me, she must be old enough to have a toe in her grave! I can’t imagine his lordship being attracted to such an old crone.”

  “Ha, sister dear! To own to a truth, I’ve no idea what Lily Banks looks like, only that her son by Dair is the spit of his papa. By all accounts, Mr. Banks is a fine fellow. They are cousins, and known each other since children, so Dair told me, hence the same surname. Makes for an easy transition, doesn’t it? He’s a botanist, or is he a plant collector for a botanist? Whatever, he’s an adventurer who travels the world in search of exotic plants.”

  “Then that explains why they occupy a house next to the Chelsea Physic Garden… I wonder if Mr. Banks knows anything about pineapples… Harvel, I must dress now, or I shall be late. And Grand hates to be kept waiting…”

  Grasby hopped off the window seat and shoved his hands in the pockets of his silk banyan. “I dare say Banks might know something about pineapples…”

  Rory hooked her arm about her brother’s and walked with him to the door of her sitting room. “Are you sure you won’t accompany Grand and me to the theater?”

  Grasby stopped on the threshold, the door opened for him by one of Rory’s maids.

  “And give Silla more powder for her cannon? Besides,” he added with a guilty grin, “the theater is more your thing than mine. Silla’s anger has just given me a good excuse not to attend… Oi! Hold on a moment! I never told you Lily Banks lived next door to the Chelsea Physic Garden. So how do you—”

  But Rory had closed the door on her brother before he could quiz her further, already making plans to visit the Chelsea Physic Garden to learn what the gardeners could tell her about the cultivation of the pineapple. She might even be able to offer an exchange of information. She would take along her gardener, and perhaps she could coax Silla to accompany her and make a picnic of the day. And if she happened to wander close to the stone wall and peer over at the house occupied by Lily Banks and her family… It would be serendipity if she caught a glimpse of Mrs. Banks and her children, and most particularly the boy who was the image of his father. After all, had not the Major invited her to Lily Banks’s house, no questions asked?

  Rory would have been greatly surprised to discover that while she was thinking of Lily Banks and Jamie, Dair Fitzstuart was thinking about her and his promise to her grandfather, and what he could do about it.

  ELEVEN

  T HE MORNING AFTER his visit with the Earl of Shrewsbury, Dair arrived at the Hanover Square residence of his cousin just before midday, and found the house in the midst of a family celebration. He had no wish to disturb the gathering and so told the butler he would wait, not in an anteroom but on the steps of the main staircase. He stripped off his tan leather riding gloves and dropped them into the crown of his hat, permitted a footman to shrug him out of his gray woolen greatcoat, and gave up his sword and sash to the butler. Declining any sort of beverage, he asked for a taper to light a cheroot, then took up a position on the stairs that allowed him to stretch his long booted legs in their thigh-tight buff breeches as comfortably as possible. Here he lounged, smoking, both elbows resting on a step across the broad of his back, and staring at the full-length life-size portrait of a titian-haired beauty, his grandmother, Augusta, the first Countess of Strathsay.

  But it was not his grandmother he saw in his mind’s eye as he stared at the imposing canvas, but a young woman not much past twenty years of age, with pale blue eyes that held a twinkle of candor. She was not beautiful, but she was pretty. She was not plump as was the fashion, but delicate, like a fine Meissen figurine. Her hair was an indeterminate pale blonde, and while her mouth was perfectly formed, her lips were the palest of pinks. She was a female who, until the raid on Romney’s studio, he would have passed in the street, or in a crowded drawing room, and not given a second glance. He certainly would not have sought her out for conversation or, for that matter, anything else. That was because his two-days-ago-self had always equated paleness with triteness.

  But now his two-days-ago-self could not stop thinking about this pale beauty. After the raid on Romney’s studio, while his battered and bruised body was being patched up, he was so consumed with going over in his mind every detail of their encounter that he failed to react to the blistering sting when Farrier applied linen bandages soaked in an antiseptic preparation of turpentine, alcohol, and aloe to his abrasions. This caused the batman to wonder aloud if his master had suffered an internal rupture that had left him numb to pain. To which Dair had ordered Farrier to stop fussing like an old maiden aunt and just get on with it.

  While he toyed with the purple silken hair ribbon he had taken from her as a war trophy, he decided her pale prettiness was a subterfuge, just as snow blanketing a multitude of terrains left the landscape featureless. But he was not deceived. He caught the sparkle of mischief in her smile, and the humor in her eyes, at the outrageous situation in which she found herself, bound up with him in a curtain and then astride his torso on the floor at the back of the stage.

  His Delight was no simpering miss, no fainting couch habitué. She confidently and playfully answered him back without artifice. Nor did she try to flirt with him. She was, quite simply, herself, and he found that fascinating. He was not good with words, but to him, for want of a better analogy, she was a star amongst a thousand bright twinkling stars in the night sky, unnoticed and unappreciated, until the fates had intervened. It was only then that she caught his attention, not unlike a shooting star streaking the black night sky, and in the most bizarre of circumstances. How could he ignore her after that?

  God, he must be going soft in the head, waxing lyrical about blanketing snow and night skies filled with stars! What the bloody hell was wrong with him? One too many knocks about the ears on his last tour of duty could account for it. Or it could be that nick from a rebel bullet that had grazed his scalp. He knew of some men forced into restraining jackets, no longer able to cope with the endless bloody scenes that played over and over in their heads: Of limbs hacked off and heads blown to a meaty pulp; screaming death, and crying orphaned children; and rebel civilians who had no place on a battlefield, taking up arms only to be slaughtered in their thousands… Yes, all that could give a soldier a straw bed in Bedlam.

  But had he truly survived nine years in the army, with all its attendant horrors, to lose his head over a female whom he now realized was so out of his reach that she might as well be living in Vladivostok?

  When she had walked into Shrewsbury’s study and dropped a book at his feet, the blood had drained from his face. Seeing her—no, hearing her voice, with that note of eager expectation—had him smiling before he even knew what she was saying or what she looked like. And then it hit him all at once, like a hard fist to his gut. Here was his shooting star and she was Shrewsbury’s granddaughter.

  Worse, two minutes before she showed up, he had given his word to forget all about the previous evening —to forget all about her. He felt he had been tricked out of something precious. Yet, he knew Shrewsbury was doing nothing less than he aught: Protecting his granddaughter’s unblemished reputation.

  He had remained on his haunches, taking an inordinate amount of time to pick up her book before rising to his full height, hoping he had mastered his shock enough not to alert Shrewsbury. Trying his best to remain passive and in control—numb w
as a better word—he had held out the book, looking not at her but over her fair hair. He just wanted her to take it so he could get the hell out of there. Instead of doing so, she surprised him, not only by showing concern for his wounds, but more so because she spoke to him as if they were old friends. And what did he do in response? The only thing he could: Remain mute, and exhibit all the emotional depth of a log of wood. Callous idiot!

  But it was when she touched him that he was forced to muster all his skills as a performer. She held his hand as if it were the most natural thing in the world for her to do so. Every fine hair, every square inch of skin on the back of his hand smarted, the sensation far more intense than the wounds already inflicted. He forced his mind elsewhere, as he had been trained to do in the event of capture and torture. And this was torture. Worse than thumb screws and flame.

  One short sharp sentence and he escaped to the terrace. He was staring at clipped yew trees and boxed hedge rows set out in geometric patterns before he realized a footman had followed him out-of-doors. The servant offered him a tumbler of ale—he downed it in one and demanded another.

  He had suffered a monumental shock. No. Two shocks. The pretty pale female he had playfully tried to seduce at Romney’s studio was not a harlot, nor was her reputation remotely tinged with immorality. She was the Earl of Shrewsbury’s granddaughter, and he was mortified. Had he known, he would not have acted towards her as he had. He certainly would not have said the things he did. But, to his abiding shame, he knew himself for a liar. He did not wish to apologize for his behavior towards her. He had enjoyed their banter, more so because it was honest and unstudied. Most of all, his overwhelming desire upon hearing her voice again was to take her in his arms and kiss her as he had kissed her when they were cocooned in a linen curtain.

  Leading his first cavalry charge had been fraught with less terror than what he had experienced in Shrewsbury’s study. He couldn’t wait to set sail for Portugal.

  With thoughts of Portugal and his imminent mission came the realization he had been sitting on the stairs of his cousin’s Hanover Square mansion for at least twenty minutes. He was supposed to be on his way to Portsmouth, before anyone saw him out and about in London. After all, for all concerned, he was presently locked up in the Tower, while being investigated for aiding and abetting the traitorous deeds of his younger brother. The Tower was where he had sent Farrier, much to his batman’s disgust. Farrier would be spending the next month as a guest of His Majesty. Dair had told him to think of it as a holiday. Farrier had told his lordship he could think of a few things to call his voluntary incarceration, but the word “holiday” was not one of them.

  Dair was about to send a footman to the drawing room to disturb his cousin when the door opened and she came out into the passageway in a whirlwind of ivory satin petticoats with metallic thread embroidery, golden hair threaded with matching ivory satin ribbons, face flushed and radiant. Dair could not help smiling to see her so happy; a far cry from the widow who had mourned the loss of her beloved husband for three sorrowful years. The reason for her happiness followed her out of the room. Jonathon Strang-Leven, newly elevated Duke of Kinross, was just as splendidly attired in dark velvet, his India waistcoat of gold and silver metallic threads dazzling against his brown complexion.

  Dair realized then what the family celebration must be about, and he slowly rose to his boot heels to greet the noble couple and to offer up his congratulations.

  JONATHON CAUGHT ANTONIA about the waist, spun her about and promptly kissed her. She laughed and went to put her arms up about his neck. But being so much shorter than he, she had to go on tiptoe, and her stockinged foot lost its satin mule. Always chivalrous, and mindful of the disparity in their heights, Jonathon effortlessly lifted her onto a chair up against the wall. This allowed her to look down upon him. He kept his hands to her silken waist and smiled up at her. She cupped his sun-bronzed face in her hands and brought her mouth to his.

  Finally alone, after a morning filled with ceremony and family, their attention was wholly focused on each other, and they gave themselves up to a long leisurely kiss, punctuated with murmurings of eternal love and devotion in French, her native tongue, and the language they preferred when in private.

  When they broke free, Antonia remained standing on the chair, arms about Jonathon’s neck, fiddling with the black satin ribbon at his nape. She leaned into him, the layers of her ivory satin petticoats enveloping him like a cloud, and said with a pout, a playful light in her emerald-green eyes,

  “I do not understand at all why it is our marriage it had to be at such an ungodly hour. Did you not want to stay in bed with me? Could not our marriage have taken place this afternoon? A more respectable time.”

  “But my darling wife—Ah! I do so love to call you that. My darling wife. My duchess. My love… Sweetheart, if it had been my choice we would have stayed in bed all day—got married there, for all I care—”

  Antonia giggled. “Truly? But poor Reverend Jenkins, he would not know where to put his eyes!”

  “—but for the sake of our family, most particularly your upright son, I thought it best to get the ceremony over with as quickly as possible. And in surroundings in which he would feel most comfortable.”

  “Julian? Comfortable? Did you not see his expression? He looks as comfortable as a cabbage about to be chopped!”

  Jonathon gave a crack of laughter.

  “Cabbage? Yes. Yes, he does look a bit sour. But don’t take it to heart. He’s an over-ruminator. Think how he must feel. Last night he goes to the theater to see a new play and what happens? The audience is less interested in what’s going on up on stage than they are in the box in which sits his mother. Who, by the way, hasn’t been to the theater in six years, and when she does, she turns up with a brown-skinned giant as her shadow. Worse, she kisses this unknown fellow in full view of the world, setting off a near riot into the bargain. And we know how much Roxton hates public attention of any kind. So the poor man is mortified when all eyes turn on him to see what he thinks of his mother’s outrageous conduct. And first thing this morning, he has to front up to witness his mother marrying her kissing giant, who just happens to be not much older than himself. But with our signatures on that marriage document we are now legally and spiritually bound as one, and there ain’t a thing he can do about it. Which means his mother is no longer a dowager duchess but Duchess of Kinross, and her husband is his new papa.”

  Antonia gasped.

  “New papa?! That is amusing in the extreme! But not to Julian. Yes. When you say it like that, me I understand a little of his anxiousness. So,” she added with a cheeky smile, “would it be rude of us to leave our guests and disappear to the book room?”

  “Our guests, sweetheart, being your sons, your daughter-in-law, Roxton’s chaplain and his godfather? I have invited them to stay to nuncheon.” When Antonia scowled, he laughed and kissed her heartily. “As much as I would love to skulk off to the book room, our absence on this of all days would be noted.”

  Antonia dimpled and teased him. “But… Our marriage it must be consummated to be binding, yes?”

  “And you think, with a houseful of people, the book room the wisest choice?”

  “I did not say anything about being wise—or comfortable.”

  “Just outrageous?” Jonathon grinned. “You’re so adorably wicked!”

  “But that is why you love me, yes?”

  “That and much more…” He went to pick her up off the chair only to place her stockinged toes back on the tapestry cushion. “Damn these hoops! How am I supposed to give you a proper embrace with that wretched device under your petticoats hindering my every move? You’ll go in undress when we are at home.”

  “Married less than an hour and already his Grace of Kinross he is making demands of his wife’s clothing!” When Jonathon frowned, Antonia pinched his square chin. “But of course. For you, and for my own comfort, I will wear as little as possible.” She put a hand to his chee
k. “But not today… Or tomorrow…”

  “Perhaps we could scurry away, if only for half an hour…”

  “Half an hour? I will not be cheated!”

  This made Jonathon laugh heartily, the corners of his eyes crinkling. When he could master himself, he said seriously, “We only have today and tonight before I leave. Tomorrow your family may have you back until my return.”

  “Today you have made me the happiest of women, but tomorrow I will be desolate.” She kissed his forehead softly, then set hers against his and looked into his dark eyes. “How will I bear it?”

  “How will I?” he murmured, gaze never wavering from her.

  Jonathon dared to wonder if it was not all a wonderful dream from which he would awake. But he had woken early that morning with this delectable creature, whom he loved beyond reason, snuggled into his arms. They had made love, as they always did, passionately and without restraint, knowing there were not many hours left to them before it would be months before they shared a bed again. He was off to Scotland to bury his ancient relative and take his rightful place as head of the Strang-Leven family and laird of Kinross Castle on the shores of Loch Leven. His bride would return to the Roxton family estate, to her dower house, to tell her dearly departed Monseigneur news of her remarriage, to arrange her possessions for her new life, and to await his return.

  They had been husband and wife for only a handful of hours and it still had to sink in that Antonia, Dowager Duchess of Roxton was now his wife, and she was his duchess. He was the happiest man alive and he wanted nothing more than to scoop her up and take his wife back up to bed.

  But catching a few moments alone just outside the drawing room would have to satisfy them both. Family awaited them. He was about to suggest they return there when into his subconscious trailed tobacco smoke, pungently earthy, and with a hint of cherry. He instantly craved a cheroot. He did not need to turn to know who was nearby, nor did he take his eyes from his duchess, saying softly to Antonia,