Dair Devil

by Lucinda Brant

  Rory’s fingers convulsed in his on the word coward, realizing the courage it had taken him, a soldier, who had risked his life upon many an occasion for king and country, to confide his fear to her. She cleared her throat of emotion and found her voice.

  “A war hero is no coward. You are not a coward. It is as natural to fear drowning as it is to breathe. How many of us can swim or care to learn? Our sailors are not required to know how to swim, and they spend most of their lives at sea.”

  “Rory, I can swim. At least, I think I still can. I have not been called upon to do so in many years. I was taught as a boy. I presume it is much the same as learning to ride a horse. Once it is learned, it cannot be unlearned. You will think me doubly foolish when I tell you I have no qualms about going to sea. Sailing on the high seas does not trouble me.” He shrugged. “Mayhap it is the smell and taste of the salt in the air, or the motion of the waves, or both, that quells my dread of large bodies of water? Whatever it is, it is fortuitous, or I would’ve had a damned awful time of it sailing to and from the Americas with my regiment.”

  “So it is only still water that bothers you?”

  He smiled. “Thank you for using the word bother. Yes, it bothers me. It bothers me greatly.”

  She looked at their fingers knotted together, and was surprised how small and thin her fingers were in comparison to his. He was a bear of man, and it was difficult to comprehend that with such size there could be a fear of anything, least of all the cool, calm waters of a lake where she spent so many happy hours swimming, feeling graceful and completely alive. She truly did like him with a beard. Close-cropped and as dark as the hair on his head and chest, it suited him. Somehow it made his eyes darker and his smile brighter. What a pity the fashion was for clean-shaven faces.

  She was procrastinating, wondering how best to ask him what had happened in his boyhood to make him fear swimming in a lake. It must have been something monumental, something appalling that had scarred his mind, for he was a soldier who had faced death time and again, and was in every other way fearless. She heard herself ask the question.

  “Why does still water bother you, Alisdair?”

  “Because, Delight, on my tenth birthday my father drowned me in a lake.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  H E DID NOT SAY tried to drown. He said drowned me. Rory was more appalled than she thought possible. So many questions crowded her thoughts that she considered it wise to say nothing at all. He would tell her in his own good time, and in his own way. She did not want to say anything that might forestall him. Yet, the presence of Edith bothered her, possibly more than it did him. It was not right her maid should hear his intimate and clearly harrowing confession, so she sent her away quietly, with a few words, up to the dower house to fetch a footman to clear away the nuncheon things. It must have been the stricken look on her face, for Edith complied without a word of protest, gone from the pavilion with a quick curtsy.

  Rory wondered if Dair even noticed Edith’s departure, such was the faraway look in his eyes, Yet, no sooner had her maid disappeared down the stairs and out onto the lawn than he grabbed her fingers a little more tightly than he intended and said flatly,

  “It was my tenth birthday. Charles and I were waiting for our father to join us by the lake. He was to watch me sail my model sailing ship, my birthday gift. Well, boys will be boys, particularly boys who are forced to wait such a long time that they forget why they are there waiting in the first place.” He flashed a smile up at Rory, from where he had been focused on their fingers entwined. “Before long, we’d stripped out of our frock coats, removed our shoes and stockings, and rolled our breeches up over our knees so we could wade into the water to launch my ship. Any other day, we would have been down to our drawers. But we’d been given the lecture that we had to stay clean because our suits were new.”

  Dair shrugged.

  “To be honest, the details still elude me. All I know is that Charles and I started splashing each other, the ship’s mast snapped in our tomfoolery, and I blamed him. We got into a tussle. It was nothing serious. I was big for my age even then, and Charles was a good head shorter. I’d not have harmed a copper hair on his head… But as younger brothers are want to do, they scream twice as loud and as long. I dunked him for his whining. He breathed in water and started coughing. Instead of being sympathetic, I laughed. And the louder his wails, the louder I laughed. Father had joined us by this time, but we hardly noticed. Charles accused me of trying to drown him.

  “I don’t blame him for saying so. He was only eight years old, and we both feared our father more than we feared monsters under our beds! He was a rigid, cold man who had no time for children, particularly no time for me. He couldn’t fathom why I preferred the outdoors and doing things, anything, rather than sitting still over a pile of dusty old books. I spent my lessons gazing out the window at sheep, and got the birch more times than I care to remember! My lack of aptitude and application frustrated him far beyond his limited patience. He had one view of what his heir should be, and I was not it.”

  He smirked and shook his head.

  “Ironically, Jamie is exactly the sort of son of whom he would have been proud: Scholarly, reserved of temperament, and can spend hours with his nose buried between parchment.”

  “And you are proud of him just the way he is.”

  “Yes. But I have a sense of self-worth. I appreciate the value of difference; the value of him. My father was an insecure, bitter man who harbored long-held resentments. He wanted to fashion me into what he should have become and did not—But back to my tenth birthday…

  “Father said I needed a lesson. He said I needed to know what it was to drown, so that I never again set upon my younger brother. He took me by the back of the head… He held me under water… My face… I remember the tangle of reeds… I didn’t feel the cuts to my flesh… My last conscious moment was black water rushing up my nose…

  “When I woke from the blackness I was on the bank… I was coughing up a lungful of water, and with the water was blood. My face was lacerated from forehead to chin… There were people and shouting. My sister—Mary—she told me the rest. She had come out onto the terrace, saw what was happening and screamed for our mother. By the time they reached the lakeside, I was out of the water and breathing, saved by Banks, the head gardener.

  “That’s right,” he said with a smile when Rory’s fingers moved in his, “the same Father Banks you met at Banks House. At great personal cost to him and his family, Banks intervened. He pulled my father off, got me to dry land, where he slapped the water out of my lungs. Later, I found out my father was too stunned to do anything about Banks’s intervention. But once I was breathing, he struck Banks hard across the face for interfering. Banks did not retaliate. How could he? For striking a nobleman he’d have been strung up, at the very least transported. As it was, he lost his position, so did his wife, my old nurse, and their family were all cast out with no references and nowhere to go…”

  “How did the family come to be at Banks House?” Rory prompted. “Did they have relatives at the house who took them in?”

  Dair shook his head.

  “No. They spent a year living off charity. With no place to go, and with no character references, they drifted, unable to find steady work. And then Monseigneur—the old Duke of Roxton—he found them, housed them, found Banks employment at the Physic Garden.”

  Surprised the old Duke had involved himself in this traumatic episode in Dair’s life, Rory could not help but interrupt. “My godfather found the Banks family a home? He found Mr. Banks employment?”

  Dair looked at her as if there was nothing unusual in this circumstance.

  “Of course. He not only helped the Banks Family, but when he discovered what Father had done to me, Monseigneur called him to account, to explain himself. I do not know what was said in that interview but, not long after, Father went off to the West Indies to inspect the family’s sugar plantations, and he’s never come
back. Rumor is, he was ordered to go by the Duke, and I believe it. I was sent off to Harrow, which was the best thing that ever happened to me at that time, and I got to spend a couple of my school breaks with the Banks Family.”

  He suddenly looked sheepish, and again Rory was rewarded for her silence when he said bluntly, “No doubt had he been able to foretell what would happen during one of those breaks, the Duke would have thought twice about allowing such visits.”

  “You fell in love with Lily Banks and she fell pregnant with your son.”

  “Rory, that is the second time you’ve stated confidently I was in love with Lil. I was seventeen; she was sixteen. What happened between us should not have happened, but it did. I cannot say I wished it had not, because I now have Jamie. We have a great affection for each other, but we never fell in love. Lil is in love with her husband, which is right and proper, and I—I had to grow up fast. There was to be no Grand Tour for me. The Duke gave me no alternative. He bought me a commission in the army and two months after Jamie was born, Lil married Daniel Banks, and I went off to join my regiment. But I have no regrets, about Lil, about Jamie, about my time as an officer.”

  “I do not doubt that at all,” she answered with a smile. “You have a wonderful boy, and he is being brought up in a loving environment; Mrs. Banks is a good mother to him, and to all her sons. But,” she added with a frown of puzzlement, “I do not understand why the Duke of Roxton involved himself in the affairs of your family… How he managed to have your father, who it seems was not at all a pliant and biddable man, banished. Indeed, he seems to have had a fierce temper and a limited understanding of children, of people in general. Such men are best left alone to their books, and possibly should remain life-long bachelors! I hope I have not offended—”

  “Not in the least. Your summation is to the life. But surely you realize why the Duke of Roxton intervened on my behalf, why he got himself involved?”

  When Rory blinked at him, still mystified, he explained.

  “My father brought dishonor not only to his immediate family, but to the wider family connection, and most importantly, to the head of his family. By casting out the Banks Family to fend for themselves, retainers of good character and service, a family whose ancestors had served mine since the time of James the First, Father irreparably tarnished his good name. He might be an earl, but even he is required to answer to a higher family authority, to the head of his family.”

  When Rory’s brows remained drawn together with incomprehension, Dair smiled and sought to patiently explain a matter he had long considered self-evident.

  “We all belong to an extended set of family connections. That’s how it works for people like us; that’s how the nobility remains powerful and in control of the kingdom. Unlike the French nobles, who bow and scrape to their sovereign, we have the Magna Carta. Even your grandfather must, when required, bow to the wishes of his head of the family.”

  “I understand we are all connected in some way or other, but surely Grand, as Earl of Shrewsbury, answers to no one but himself?”

  Dair so far forgot himself that he caught up Rory’s fingers and kissed the back of her hand.

  “He would love to hear you say so! And have you, and everyone else, believe it. As Spymaster General he certainly has more power than most. But in family matters, when it comes to personal and family allegiance and alliances, his lordship is as compliant as the rest of us. Not that the head of our family regularly intervenes or interferes, only when there are disputes, or, in the case of my father’s treatment of the Banks family, when the family’s honor and reputation are at stake.”

  “To what extended family does my grandfather owe his allegiance?”

  But as soon as she said this she had an epiphany. The look of dawning wonderment on her face widened Dair’s smile into a grin; he found her adorable. He let her say it.

  “The Duke of Roxton is the head of Grand’s family, and yours. We—you and I—we belong to the same extended family but different branches?” When he nodded, she smiled. “Oh, that is satisfying! It explains why the old Duke agreed to be my godfather. How could he refuse Grand, even when he probably wanted to, then. Though perhaps it was the Duchess who persuaded him…? She has such a kind and loving heart, and I know how much they loved one another. He would not refuse her.”

  Dair frowned. “Why would he refuse? Why would Cousin Duchess need to persuade the old Duke to act as your godfather?”

  Rory blushed in spite of herself. She did not want to say it out loud, but did.

  “Because I was born—Because of what I am,” she said quietly. “Because—because I am a cripple.”

  Dair’s brow creased with anger and his mouth thinned to a line. He looked as angry as Rory had ever seen him—like black thunder rolling in over distant hills. She tried to remove her hand from his, but he would not let go. She wondered what angered him more—that she had accused her godparents of being petty-minded, or that she had called herself a cripple out loud and thus made him feel awkward in her presence.

  “Balderdash! That is not what you are, you little idiot! You are so much more than that, and if you think their Graces hesitated to become your godparents over such a trifle of a thing, then you do not know them at all!”

  “I did not say they regretted being my godparents,” Rory replied quietly, though she blushed at his spirited defense, wondering what to make of it. “But when I was born, the physicians told my grandfather I was crippled in mind as well as body. Before I was able to walk, and before I could speak and show them I had a functioning mind, it must have been difficult for Grand to ask the Duke and Duchess to be my sponsor. But I see now why my grandfather wanted the head of the family to sponsor me. By becoming my godparents, the Duke and Duchess were not only giving me their blessing, they were silently telling others that I was under their care, too. It had always been a wonder to me why I was readily accepted at Roxton gatherings; why others in the wider Roxton circle invited me to balls and parties, when surely, had I not been the Duke’s goddaughter, the invitation would not have been extended at all.”

  “You undervalue yourself, Delight,” Dair told her gently, all anger evaporated. “A few minutes in your company is enough to cement a person’s good opinion. Besides which, you are quite the prettiest bloom in any ballroom bouquet, all other considerations aside.”

  “A shame then that I’ve been consigned to the ballroom vase since my first season. If only I had been on the ballroom floor with the other pretty petals,” she quipped with a sigh of disappointment, though the dimple in her cheek told him she was pleased with his assessment. “You may then have noticed me sooner.”

  “I’m grateful you remained in your vase while I was away fighting wars,” he said and kissed her hand again, this time looking up into her eyes as he did so, “otherwise you’d be married to another and have a couple of brats by now.”

  “Married to another? That implies there is someone else out there for me…”

  He cocked his head. “So you believe each person has only one true love?”

  She did but she could not bring herself to say so, not when he had asked her with a note of skepticism. It was just as well, because his next confidence made her swallow down those words and banish the idea he could believe in the notion, too.

  “My parents thought so, in the beginning. That was before they married; before they spent their first night together as man and wife.”

  “Your parents did not find a solution to their—to their conundrum?”

  Dair tapped the side of his nose, signal she had hit the proverbial nail on its head.

  “Precisely. I suspect his inexperience, and hers, meant a solution was unlikely.”

  “If they were truly in love, if they were meant to be together forever, they would have worked harder at finding one.”

  “What a romantic you are!”

  Rory pouted. “You say it as if it is a bad thing.”

  “Not at all. But there is something
to be said for being practical, particularly as marriage does mean forever. My parents had never even shared a passionate kiss before the exchange of wedding vows. Remarkable.”

  “You cannot hold that against them. It is not unusual for a well-bred girl and a gentleman intent on upholding her virtue not to kiss until married. Grasby and Drusilla did not share a kiss until they were man and wife.”

  “Just because they hadn’t kissed each other, doesn’t mean they hadn’t kissed others, does it?”

  Rory’s blue eyes widened with shock. “Oh! You are wicked. Grasby, yes, of course. But Silla? No! She was a maid when she married, of that I am convinced.”

  Dair made no further comment, and Rory had the suspicion that he knew just who Silla had kissed, where and when. She did not care to know. Though she was inclined to think it was Dair her sister-in-law had kissed, and perhaps he had then rejected her. That would explain why her sister-in-law loathed him.

  Rory had a sudden devilish thought and decided to test her supposition.

  “I am so pleased we had this discussion. I can now make it my business to kiss as many gentlemen as possible before I settle on the one I marry. It seems experience is required—”

  “No you don’t!” he interrupted, and finally decided the table was a barrier between them that could no longer be tolerated.