Dair Devil

by Lucinda Brant

  “Ne parlez pas! I will hear no more! It is no wonder the poor creature she jumped to her death. Mon Dieu, I do not know how Monseigneur he did not run you through with his rapier upon hearing your pathetic confession!”

  “M’sieur le Duc knew intimately the-the—agony of being in the grip of an all-consuming passion for a much younger beautiful woman. He married you when you were half his age, and the most divine—”

  Antonia gasped, horrified. And then her face flooded with color and her green eyes glittered with an anger she had rarely experienced.

  “How dare you—How dare you compare yourself and your wickedness to the great love Monseigneur and I shared! You know nothing of love! Never ever speak to me of him again. I cannot bring myself to even contemplate your twisted mind. It makes me ill!”

  She took a deep breath and forced herself to regain her calm, to remember why she was putting herself through this distasteful ordeal. Yet, she could not help wondering how she had stomached the presence of this abhorrently loathsome man. But Monseigneur had shielded her from the horrific truth about Rory’s parentage, and the deaths of Christina and her husband, almost until the end of his own life. The revelation had come just weeks before his passing. But she had been so consumed with grief at losing the love of her life, unable to cope with the reality of her beloved leaving her, that anything and everything else paled into insignificance.

  Now, three years on and married to a man she loved and adored, she had returned to the land of the living, strong and determined, and with a desire for all members of her extended family to live happy and fulfilling lives. If she had a grain of sympathy for Shrewsbury, it was because he had been a doting grandparent to both Harvel and Rory.

  The supreme irony was that because he had raised Rory to regard her frailty as just another characteristic of her being, and not a hindrance to her existence, he unwittingly gifted her with self-belief and confidence. But he had wrongly assumed no man would want to marry her, and thus she would never leave him. She would be the ideal companion of his old age. It never occurred to him she would fall in love, least of all with the heir to an earldom, and that gentleman none other than the ruggedly handsome Major Lord Fitzstuart.

  But this made no difference to Antonia’s opinion of Shrewsbury, or her faith that he would spend his eternity in hell for what he had done to Christina. She looked at him now, and saw that her impassioned speech had drained all the fight from him. So she said in a much calmer voice, she the one now in command of the situation,

  “I will allow you a few moments to compose yourself, and to find a way to rid White’s betting book of the offending page. Then you will give the performance of your life and be happy for the engaged couple. After the toasts, Rory she will stay with me until the wedding day, which is a week from tomorrow. It will be in M’sieur le Duc’s private chapel, with family present. If you value her happiness, and her new husband’s goodwill, you will attend.”

  Shrewsbury stared at her with resentment, yet obediently nodded his agreement. When he spoke his voice was meek and pleading,

  “Promise me you will not say a word of this, to anyone. Promise me, for Rory’s sake, and the sake of my family, you will burn that letter to your son.”

  Antonia pretended to contemplate his request. In truth, there was no letter. Not in a hundred years would she commit to ink Rory’s true parentage and the sad story behind her parents’ deaths. It had been a bluff. One that had thankfully worked, for she had not formulated an alternative plan had Shrewsbury not swallowed her story and her threat.

  “For the sake of my goddaughter and my cousin, and your family, yes. I will do as you ask. But only after they have been up before the vicar and are pronounced husband and wife.”

  Shrewsbury nodded, satisfied. He shuffled across to the fireplace and retrieved an innocuous, leather bound volume that had been propped beside the leg of his wingchair. He opened it out to a dog-eared page. Folding the page into thirds into the margin, he then carefully tore the offending page from the book. He crumpled it up and tossed the paper ball onto the grate atop the smoldering logs. Antonia’s green eyes widened as the fire came to new life and the paper ball was consumed by flame. He did not need to tell her the page was from White’s betting book, and that the aberrant wager was now no more.

  Her hand was on the doorknob when Shrewsbury called her back. She looked over her bare shoulder, but did not move.

  “You are wrong, Mme la Duchesse. I do know how to love. I love my daughter. I love her beyond words.”

  “Bon. Then as a loving father you will be overjoyed she is to marry well and for love. Oh, and Edward, if you dare strip me naked with your eyes again, I will have my husband put out your sight.”

  THIRTY

  T HE DUCHESS had been inside the Gatehouse Lodge for less than fifteen minutes, leaving Dair outside in her carriage, when he decided it was ten minutes too long. He hated being confined, but he hated more being sedentary. He needed to be doing something, anything, than sit idly until fetched. One booted leg was unable to keep still, while the other was stuck out along the length of the silken cushion, toe tapping against the door’s silken padding. He took another look at the pearl face of his silver pocket watch for something to do, noted the minute hand had moved all of three minutes, and slid it back in a pocket of his silk waistcoat. He then shoved a hand in a pocket of his light linen frock coat, found his silver cheroot case and small engraved tinder box, which he could not remember placing there, and decided he had had enough of staring at the opulent dark blue watered silk walls of his carriage prison.

  He scrambled out into the fresh air, using the carriage door on the far side of the Gatehouse Lodge, and walked a little way off, towards a stand of tall white rose bushes, keeping the carriage between him and the house, so that he would not be seen from the windows. On his haunches he went about using the contents of the tinderbox to light a cheroot. And once lit, he stayed low, and smoked, dark eyes squinting in the bright sunlight at the serene view of a well-ordered landscape familiar to him since boyhood: The gravel path leading to a winding road just beyond the gate that skirted the lake, then spliced through a long luxuriant avenue of majestic elms, crossed a three-span wide stone bridge, and curled on up to the palatial mansion of the Dukes of Roxton that dominated the second highest point on the estate. Only the family mausoleum commanded a higher vantage point. Yet, on this day the view barely registered. Major Lord Fitzstuart’s mind was crammed full with possibilities and scenarios of what must be occurring within the walls of the Gatehouse Lodge.

  He was used to taking charge of a situation, thinking through the problem and its logistical challenges, and putting a suitable plan into action. But he had promised his cousin he would wait until called; that he would not do anything rash. She had actually ordered him to “not play the hero”, by which he was certain she meant not kicking in doors, climbing a rope or scrambling a drain pipe, and smashing in a window to enter Rory’s rooms by force, if not stealth. All these possibilities were given serious consideration until Antonia made him promise otherwise.

  So he was reduced to pacing back and forth the length of the blind side of the carriage, from driver’s step to footman’s rail, cheroot between his fingers. It wasn’t long before his mind wandered back to storming Rory’s bedchamber. After all, he needed to be prepared in case his cousin’s visit did not go as she planned. He decided Rory’s room would not be upstairs after all, but on the ground floor. He’d noticed the narrow stairwell the night before, and how the steps turned sharply out of sight. She may have been sitting on the lower step waiting for him, but he was sure she did not use the staircase day-in and day-out.

  That got him ruminating about his ancestral home, Fitzstuart Hall, the grand staircase in particular, and the private apartments on the first floor he was going to have remodeled and enlarged for his bride. There were other modifications to the house he intended to have commissioned to make the house as comfortable as possible for her, the
first being the installation of a flying chair like the one Shrewsbury had at his Chiswick House. Perhaps he would have two installed, one in each wing so that her ladyship would not need to retrace her steps if she wished to go downstairs, and it would give her even easier access to all rooms of the mansion. And of course there was the Pinery to be built to cultivate pineapples, oranges, lemons and limes, and perhaps exotic flowers, if such things took his wife’s fancy.

  These considerations kept him occupied as he paced, stopping occasionally to smoke and drop ash and grind this into the crushed stone of the drive with a toe of his jockey boot.

  This visit he was dressed for comfort, in knitted breeches and jockey boots, white shirt and a plain linen frock coat of Prussian blue. And though he had let Farrier shave him yesterday, today he would not be shaved. It was partly a superstitious act. The one time he put in an effort to have his suit of clothes as neat as a pin, and his face as smooth as a nymph’s lovely behind, Shrewsbury had rejected him out-of-hand as suitable husband material for his granddaughter. But mostly his slapdash grooming was how he was most comfortable, now he no longer needed to make an impression. This time he expected Shrewsbury to accept him. But he couldn’t care less one way or the other. All he cared about was Rory’s happiness and marrying her as soon as possible. And that day couldn’t come soon enough!

  The longer he paced and smoked, the more worried he became that his cousin was having about as much success as he’d had the night before. That is, until a footman fetched him to come indoors.

  Dair was so nervous with anticipation his every muscle was as tight as an over-wound watch. He strode past the footman and into the small house, ready to do battle with anyone and everyone. He stepped into the drawing room with a lift of his heavy chin, both hands fisted. His dark eyes quickly scanned the room in search of the only beautiful face that mattered. She was not there. Why was she not there? But before he could ask the question, a crystal champagne glass was thrust between his fingers, and in amongst the chattering and laughing he heard the sound of corks popping.

  It was only then he realized he was being greeted with a warm welcome by a room full of smiling faces, while two footmen scurried about pouring champagne into glasses.

  “You’re just in time!” Grasby announced, stepping forward to greet his best friend. “What luck you happened to arrive just now, as we’re about to toast our news. Apologies I didn’t write and tell you, but Silla wanted to wait until we’d told Grand. Which is the right way to go about things. Still,” he added confidentially, sidling up to the Major to say at his ear, “if I’d known your whereabouts this past fortnight, I’d have told you anyway. What luck you’re staying with the Duke.”

  “What’s going on, Grasby?” Dair asked curtly and drank down the champagne without tasting it. He hadn’t realized just how parched he was. “Where’s your sister?”

  “Steady on! We’ve not had the toast yet! Here, take my glass,” Grasby insisted and put out his hand for another from a footman. “You’re bleached white as falling snow, as if you’ve come bang up against a specter. Are you all right, dear fellow?”

  “Perfectly. Where did you say your sister was?”

  “Grand’s just gone to fetch her. She’s feeling poorly. Seems she had a bad night of it—”

  Dair’s brows contracted with worry and then he set his jaw, anger just simmering away under the surface of his congenial façade. If Shrewsbury had caused Rory any distress, there would be hell to pay. His left hand clenched again.

  “—but we can’t have a toast to a new Talbot without his aunt present, now can we?” Grasby rattled on. “Oh, drat! There I go and spoil the surprise. You won’t tell Silla I told you, will you?”

  “What’s that you say, Grasby? A new Talbot?” Dair came out of his angry abstraction enough to smile and slap his friend’s back. “Not a word, dear fellow! Congratulations. Good for you! About time, too. Rory will be thrilled to pieces to be an aunt.”

  “Between you and me, I was despairing of ever becoming a father after that whole Romney studio debacle,” Grasby confided with a roll of his eyes and a sigh of relief. “At least now Silla’s with child she’s willing to forget that ghastly night ever happened—

  “Surely not ghastly? Well, not ghastly for you…?”

  Grasby snorted his embarrassment. “Steady on! Not so loud!” When Dair lifted an eyebrow, he rolled his eyes again and conceded, “Oh, all right, not ghastly for me! They were lovely, weren’t they, those girls—”

  “Very.”

  “—but a chap has to remember what’s important in life, and being allowed to sleep in the matrimonial bed is important.”

  Dair threw back his head and laughed, which caused a pause in conversations as heads turned in his direction. “Egad, Grasby! You always put matters into perspective!”

  Grasby grinned like an idiot. “Do I? I do! Yes, of course I do! Oh, and you’ll be pleased to know the wife has forgiven you, too.”

  “I hardly deserve such munificence. When did Lord Shrewsbury leave to fetch Rory?” Dair asked, glancing about the room. He saw the Duchess standing by an open window, fanning herself, face turned to the fresh air, and thus he could not catch her eye. He would have crossed to her but Lady Grasby, with William Watkins a step behind, imposed on her solitude and offered her a glass of champagne.

  “Don’t get too comfortable,” Grasby warned. “Silla being Silla, she immediately withdrew her forgiveness upon learning you’d socked her brother in the face and broken his nose!” This time Grasby snorted laughter. “My God, you planted him a beautiful facer! None better, and so I told Cedric and the fellows, who instantly laid down a hefty sum that you’d do it again to him before the year’s out.”

  “No more dares, Harvel,” Dair stated and clapped his best friend’s shoulder when Grasby’s mouth dropped open. “Sorry to disappoint, but that’s how it’s going to be from now on. No exchange of serious blunt and none of it written up in White’s betting book. I’m done being an unthinking ass. I guess that’s not a bad thing, for you, too, what with impending fatherhood. Do you think Rory will be much longer?”

  “Listen, Dair. That’s the third time you’ve called my sister by her name,” Grasby grumbled. “If you’ve a mind to lead her astray I’ll be the one socking you—”

  “Not at all, dear fellow. Quite the opposite.”

  “Eh?” Grasby was baffled, but the smile on Dair’s face carried no lewd insinuation. In fact, he looked pleased with himself, and in a nice, happy sort of way that Grasby’s fears were alleviated. “Well then. That’s all right. I just thought I should mention it because the Weasel has been making some pretty rough insinuations to Silla about your intentions toward Rory. And I can tell you, if he wasn’t my plaguey brother-in-law, and you hadn’t already broken his nose, I’d be the one socking him in the face!”

  “Be my guest. But do me the favor of waiting until he’s properly healed before you put a hand to him. And you’ll have to forgive me for not being so forthcoming with you with our news, but it will all become apparent—”

  “Forgive you? Forthcoming? Apparent? What will? Our news? Whose news? Dair? Dair!”

  “Excuse me, Grasby,” Dair muttered, distracted with the drawing room door opening wide, and stepped past his friend.

  Suddenly he was deaf to his friend’s questions, and lost all peripheral vision, so was blind to Lady Grasby and her brother crossing the room to make themselves known to him; Lady Grasby’s smug smile shrinking to an undignified pursing of her lips when Dair ignored her. All he saw was the doorway and all he heard was the pumping of his heart hammering in his head. He realized he was still wound as tightly as a pocket watch when he thought he might pass out with the anticipation of seeing Rory, and of what was to come after that.

  Lord Shrewsbury walked into view first and then, there she was, his Delight, on her grandfather’s arm and leaning on her walking stick. She was tired about the eyes, but in every other respect she was his beautiful darl
ing girl. He unconsciously broke into a grin and stepped forward. And just as he had done when he entered the drawing room, she quickly looked about her, as if she, too, had lost something or someone.

  And then she saw him.

  JUST BEFORE ENTERING the drawing room, Rory had marveled at the rolling high seas of emotion she had experienced in the past twenty-four hours, from the heavenly heights of unbridled happiness to then be plunged into the depths of black despair, with seemingly no way to claw herself out, only to be lifted up again into the heart fluttering bliss of loving contentment.

  From the heightened anticipation of her grandfather’s welcome response when Dair came to call to formally ask for her hand in marriage, she was left bewildered at finding herself alone in the hall, Dair gone without a word. And then came the numbing desolation of being told, in a matter-of-fact way, how much her grandfather admired Major Lord Fitzstuart’s bravery in accepting an assignment to return to the Colonies on the first available ship, to infiltrate a rebel spy ring on the outskirts of New York, a loyalist stronghold.

  Rory instantly disbelieved her grandfather. She had wanted a servant sent after the Major, to have him called back. She had to speak with him. It was a matter of the utmost importance and could not wait. She would have the news of his departure from the Major’s lips and no other.

  Her grandfather had been completely at a loss to understand her distress. He had patiently sat with her on the stair and asked her to explain why she was so upset by such news. But as she had fallen all to pieces to think the Major had not told her grandfather he was engaged to her, and had accepted a mission to spy on the other side of the Atlantic—as if there was nothing holding him to England—she could barely form a coherent word, least of all form a sentence explaining herself. He had offered her his handkerchief and held her in his arms while she sobbed until her ribs hurt. He suggested she had exhausted herself swimming in the sun that day, was even suffering from sunstroke. He had noticed at dinner there was more color in her face and to her arms than usual. A good night’s sleep would set everything to rights. They could talk again in the morning.