A Stolen Heart

by Candace Camp

  “Thank you. I should be leaving now. My aunt and mother will be expecting me.”

  “You are visiting London with them?” he asked, strolling with her out of the room and down the stairs.

  “Yes. Mama was somewhat reluctant to come, but I could not leave her behind. And Aunt Hortense would never have forgiven me if I had come here without bringing her, too. Besides, even in America, we have rules about what a young lady may or may not do, and generally I find it easier to obey them. Traveling by oneself is not one of the things one may do.”

  “Miss Ward…” They were approaching his front door, and Thorpe found himself filling up with an odd feeling of loneliness. “Would you—that is, I would be most honored if you would accompany me to a ball this evening.”

  “What?” Alexandra stared at him. The last thing she would have expected from him was this. He had been quite forward, of course, in the doorway of his study, but once she had made it clear that she was not a loose sort, she had assumed he would have no interest in seeing her again.

  “I am asking you to a dance.” He had not planned on going to one, but he felt sure that he could pull an invitation to one ball or another out of the pile of invitations on his desk.

  “But I—” She realized that she wanted very much to go. She had little interest in London society, but the thought of dancing with Lord Thorpe set up a jittery, excited feeling in the pit of her stomach. “But surely your hostess would not wish you to bring a stranger to her party. Someone uninvited.”

  A cynical smile touched his mouth. “My dear Miss Ward, no hostess would object to my bringing whomever or whatever I wanted to a ball, provided it meant she was able to score the coup of having me there.”

  “My,” Alexandra said mockingly, “it must be marvelous to be so important.”

  He let out a short laugh. “You think me arrogant again. Let me assure you it is not self-importance, only an acquaintance with London Society. I am a hostess’s prize for two reasons only.” He held up his hand, ticking off the points. “One, I never go to parties, therefore it is considered an accomplishment of the hostess to get me to come. Two, I am a prime candidate on the marriage mart, being both titled and wealthy. It matters not at all that very few of these same hostesses have any liking for or knowledge of me. In fact, I am considered something of a bad apple, but that is overlooked for the sake of my fortune.”

  “Goodness. I don’t know which is worse, your arrogance or your cynical view of the world.”

  “No doubt that is why I am not a well-liked guest.”

  Alexandra had to laugh. “No doubt.” She hesitated, then gave a little nod. “Yes. Yes, I would like to go.”

  ALEXANDRA LEANED BACK AGAINST THE cushioned seat of Lord Thorpe’s carriage, a small smile playing about her lips. She could imagine the look on her aunt’s face when she told her she was going with a lord to a London ball. Aunt Hortense, who had grown up during the war with England and the incendiary time period before that, had a deep-seated suspicion of Britain and all things British. Her dislike had only been strengthened during the last few years, when the British, in the midst of their war with Napoléon Bonaparte, had been stopping and impressing American sailors and impounding ships that were bound for France. Ward Shipping had lost a number of men and two ships that way. Aunt Hortense had been insistent upon accompanying Alexandra to London, stating flatly that she had to protect and help Alexandra, who would, in her words, be “like a lamb among the wolves.”

  Of course, her dislike of the British was not as unswerving as that of Alexandra’s mother, who had argued steadfastly against her making the trip. Alexandra sighed. She didn’t want to think about her mother right now. She turned her mind to what gown she would wear tonight.

  When she stepped inside the front door, however, all such pleasant thoughts fled. One of the maids was standing on the stairs, crying, with another maid trying vainly to soothe her, while her mother’s companion Nancy Turner stood apart from them, looking disgusted, her hands on her hips. From upstairs came the sound of pounding, punctuated by her aunt’s voice, calling, “Rhea? Rhea? Let me in!”

  “Mercy’s sake, child, stop all that blubbering!” Nancy Turner exclaimed, her voice filled with exasperation. “You’d think nobody’d ever gotten mad at you before.”

  The girl’s only response was to cry harder, and her companion said sharply to Nancy, “None of her employers has thrown a teapot at her head before! It’s not her fault. It’s you and your heathen American ways, all of you.”

  “Exactly what heathen American ways are those, Doris?” Alexandra inquired icily.

  Doris gasped and whirled around. When she saw Alexandra, she blushed to the roots of her hair and bobbed a curtsey. “Oh, miss, begging your pardon. I was—that is, I wasn’t thinking clearly. I’m that distracted. I didn’t mean—well…” She wound down lamely in the face of Alexandra’s coolly inquiring expression. “It ain’t what we’re used to, and that’s a fact!” she declared defiantly.

  “Presumably not, if it involves flying teapots. That’s not exactly accepted behavior in the United States, either.” Alexandra turned toward her mother’s companion, a sturdy American servant they had brought with them and who had worked for their family for years. “Nancy?”

  “Mrs. Ward didn’t want her tea, miss, and she, well, flung it, but I’m sure she wasn’t aiming at the girl. You know Mrs. Ward couldn’t aim that well.” Nancy sent the snuffling maid a hard look. “It wasn’t even hot—and I must say, I don’t know what she expects when she brings a pot of barely warm tea to the missus.”

  “Probably not to have it thrown at her,” Alexandra said with a sigh. “I take it that Mother is in one of her moods?”

  Upstairs, the pounding, which had been going on throughout their conversation, grew more fierce, and Aunt Hortense’s voice was sharp as she shouted, “Rhea! Unlock this door this instant! Do you hear me?”

  Nancy nodded, sighing. “Yes. Miz Rhea’s locked her door now and won’t let anyone in.”

  “All right. I’ll go up and see about her. Doris—you take Amanda down to the kitchen and get her a cup of tea. See if you can calm her. I am sure that my mother meant her no harm. Perhaps she should take off the rest of the afternoon and go up to her bed and rest.”

  The maid nodded, put her arm around the other girl and led her toward the kitchen. Alexandra started up the stairs toward Nancy.

  “What happened?”

  “It was my fault, miss,” Nancy admitted with the air of a martyr. “I shouldn’t have left her alone. But she’s been right agitated all day, and I thought a cup of hot cocoa might calm her down. So I went down to make it myself because she likes it just the way I fix it, you know, and I can’t get that foreign cook to make it right.”

  Alexandra nodded sympathetically, resisting the urge to point out to Nancy that she was the foreigner here, not the English cook.

  “But then, when I get down there, they tell me they already sent up a cup of tea—and after all the times I’ve told them that Mrs. Rhea doesn’t like tea in the middle of the afternoon! Not only that, that silly twit Amanda took it, and she’s enough to make anyone throw something at her, I say. Always blathering on in that little voice of hers, and you can’t even understand half of what she says. By the time I got back up the stairs, I hear a crash, and Amanda comes flying out of your mother’s room, crying up a storm, a big wet spot all down the side of her dress—where that tea was, I’ll warrant the pot didn’t come anywhere near her head—and then Miz Rhea slams the door and locks it. She’s been in there for twenty minutes, refusing to come out, and Miss Hortense can’t make any headway with her, it seems like.”

  “Oh, dear.”

  “She’ll open it for you,” Nancy went on confidently.

  Alexandra wasn’t so sure. There had been one or two times since they’d been in England that her mother hadn’t even seemed to know who she was.

  However, she continued up the stairs and strode with more confidence tha
n she felt toward the door where her aunt stood, red-faced, her hand poised to knock again. When Aunt Hortense saw Alexandra, she let out a sigh of relief and started toward her.

  “There you are. Thank heavens. Maybe you can get through to her. Rhea’s locked herself in and won’t come out. It’s bad enough when she acts like this at home—I don’t know what she’s thinking, behaving this way in front of a bunch of Englishmen.” Her tone invested the term with scorn. Alexandra’s aunt was a sturdy, middle-aged woman in a sensible brown dress with a plain cap covering her hair, and her features, now frowning, were usually pleasant.

  “I’m afraid she doesn’t think about such things, Aunt Hortense—or care, either. Why don’t you go down to the sitting room, and I will see what I can do. Oh, and, Nancy, get her some of that cocoa now. It might just do the trick.”

  Alexandra waited while her aunt and the other woman walked away, giving her mother a moment of silence. Then she tapped lightly on the door. “Mother? It is I. Alexandra. Would you let me in?”

  There was a moment’s silence, then her mother’s voice said faintly, “Alexandra? Is that really you?”

  “Yes, of course it is, Mother,” Alexandra replied pleasantly. “Why don’t you unlock the door so we can talk?”

  After a moment there was the sound of the lock being turned, and then the door opened wide enough for Alexandra’s mother to peer out. Her face was drawn and worried, her eyes suspicious. Her expression lightened a little when she saw Alexandra. “Where have you been?” she asked as she opened the door wide enough to allow Alexandra in.

  “I had business to conduct. I told you that this morning. Remember?”

  Rhea Ward nodded vaguely, and Alexandra was not sure that she remembered at all. “Why do you have on your hat?” Rhea asked in a puzzled voice.

  “I haven’t had time to remove it, I’m afraid.” Alexandra reached up, untied the ribbon and pulled the hat off, continuing to talk in the soothing voice she used with her mother. “I just walked in, you see, and I came right up. Aunt Hortense was rather concerned about you.”

  She studied her mother unobtrusively as she spoke, taking in her untidy hair and messy appearance. Several buttons were unfastened or done up wrong, and stray hairs straggled around her face. Remembering her mother’s once neat, trim appearance, Alexandra felt her throat close with tears. What had happened to the gentle, sweet woman she had known in her early years? Though she was still a pretty woman, even in middle age, her face was becoming lined beyond her years, with an unhealthy puffiness that was echoed in her once petite figure. The degeneration was due, Alexandra was sure, to Rhea’s obsessive worries and her unfortunate, secretive dependence on bottles of liquor.

  “Mother, what’s the matter?” Alexandra asked, her worry showing through her assumed calm. “Why did you lock the door against Aunt Hortense?”

  Rhea Ward made a face. “Hortense was always a bossy soul. You’d think the world couldn’t run without her.”

  Certainly their household had been unable to run without her, at least in Alexandra’s youth, she thought wryly, but she kept the opinion to herself. One of the things that her mother frequently despaired about was her own lack of ability.

  “But why did you lock the door? I don’t understand. Was Amanda rude to you?”

  “Amanda? Who is that?”

  “The maid who brought your tea.”

  “Her!” Rhea scowled. “Always sneaking in here. Spying on me.”

  “I’m sure Amanda wasn’t spying on you, Mother. She was just bringing you your tea.”

  “I don’t want tea! I told her that, and she acted like I’d grown horns. Nancy had gone to fetch my cocoa. That was what I wanted.” Tears were in the woman’s soft brown eyes, and her face started to crumple.

  “Yes, dear, I know.” Alexandra put her arm supportively around her mother’s shoulders and led her to a chair. “She’s getting you some right now.”

  “I don’t know what’s taking her so long.” Rhea’s mouth turned down in a pout.

  “She heard the commotion and came running upstairs. You know how loyal to you Nancy is. She was afraid you needed help.”

  “She was right. I did. They’re always watching me, and I know they laugh at me behind my back.”

  Alexandra thought with an internal sigh that her mother was probably right about both the laughter and the curiosity, after the odd things she had been doing since they got here. Was it possible that her mother had been drinking this early in the day? It had proved more difficult to keep liquor out of her mother’s hands since they had been in London, where it was always easy for Rhea to find a street urchin or some peddler who would fetch her a bottle for a few extra shillings.

  “Don’t worry about them,” Alexandra told her mother firmly. “Why, we don’t even live here. You won’t see them again after a few more weeks.”

  Rhea did not look much encouraged by Alexandra’s words. She sat for a moment, frowning, then jumped up, went to her dresser and opened a drawer. She took out a small cherry-wood box that lay within and caressed it, then carried it to her chair and resumed her seat, holding the box firmly in both her hands. Alexandra suppressed a sigh. Her mother’s fascination with this box had grown worse the past few weeks, too. She had had the box for as long as Alexandra could remember, and she kept it locked, the key on a delicate chain around her neck. No one, not even Aunt Hortense, knew what was inside it, for she adamantly refused to discuss it. When Alexandra was young, her mother had kept the box hidden away on a shelf in her wardrobe. The mystery of it had so intrigued Alexandra that she had on one occasion stacked books on a chair and climbed up them in order to reach the box on its high shelf. She had been discovered trying to pry the thing open, and it had been one of the few times her mother had ever spanked her. Alexandra had never tried to open it again, and it had remained inviolate on its shelf. But in recent years her mother had taken the box down and kept it in a drawer beside her bed, locking the drawer, as well. She had brought it with her on the trip, and nowadays she seemed to have it in her hand most of the time.

  “Mother, what is distressing you so?” Alexandra asked softly, reaching out to take her mother’s hand.

  “I don’t like it here!” Rhea pulled her hand out of Alexandra’s grasp, replacing it around the small wooden box. “It’s always cold, and the people are odd. They don’t like me. None of the servants like me.”

  “They don’t dislike you,” Alexandra assured her, not adding that they were more scared of Rhea than anything else. “They just have a different way about them. There are so many wonderful things yet to see. Why, we haven’t even left London yet! There’s still Stonehenge and Stratford-on-Avon, and Scotland. It’s supposed to be beautiful there.”

  “Here we go, Miz Rhea.” Nancy entered the room briskly, a small tray in her hand. “I’ve got your chocolate all ready.”

  Rhea brightened, turning toward the servant and reaching for the cup of steaming liquid.

  “Now, I reckon that will hit the spot,” Nancy went on cheerfully. “And then, if you like, I can loosen your hair and rub lavender on your temples, and you can have a nice little nap before teatime. How does that sound?”

  “Just the thing,” Rhea murmured, a smile beginning to touch her lips.

  Alexandra decided to leave her mother in Nancy’s capable hands and made her way downstairs to the sitting room, where her aunt was installed, working away at a piece of embroidery.

  “Hello, dear.” Aunt Hortense looked at her. “It sounds as if you succeeded.”

  “I got her to open her door, if that’s success.” Alexandra sank into a chair near her aunt. “Oh, Auntie, I’m afraid I made a terrible mistake in bringing Mother here. Perhaps I should have left her at home.”

  “Oh, no, dear, she would have been so lonely.”

  “I don’t know. She didn’t want to come. She didn’t even want me to. But I wouldn’t listen. I was so sure that she would be better with me, that she would enjoy it once we got he
re—that she was just afraid to travel, you know.”

  “I am sure she is better with you. It’s better that we can…well, keep an eye on her. You would have worried yourself silly if we had been over here and your mother back home, and you had no idea what she was doing or if anything had happened to her.”

  “Yes, but she’s so much worse!” Alexandra shot to her feet and began to pace. “I’ve been selfish. I wanted to see England, to visit all the places I’ve always heard and read about. I was so sure it would help our business.”

  “And it has, hasn’t it?”

  “Yes, I think so. And I have enjoyed myself. There is no denying it. I would have hated to give it up. But Mother has been acting so strangely—locking herself up in her room, saying odd, wild things. Why, do you know last night that she looked at me as if she didn’t even know who I was! And today, throwing a pot of tea at that poor girl. I don’t care how cold it was or how little she wanted tea. It is decidedly bizarre behavior for a grown woman.”

  Aunt Hortense sighed. “Yes, it is.”

  “I mean, it isn’t as if she were some ignorant person who had grown up in the wilds somewhere. Why, she used to be a diplomat’s wife!”

  “I know. And she was excellent at it. Rhea was always so good at giving parties, so skilled in getting people to talk and enjoy themselves. She always had odd turns, of course, when she was rather melancholy, but most of the time she was quite vivacious and happy—sparkling, really. I used to envy Rhea her ability to make friends, to draw people to her.”

  “What happened to her?” Alexandra asked bleakly.

  Her aunt shook her head. “I don’t know, dear. She has been getting worse for years. It was better when you were young. But even then, it seemed to me that she had very melancholy moments. I often wonder—well, she was never the same after she came home from Paris. Hiram’s death affected her greatly, you see. They were most devoted. I’ve often suspected that she saw things during that Revolution, horrible things that affected her long afterward. She had a great deal of trouble sleeping at first. I could hear her up, pacing the floor long after everyone had gone to bed. Sometimes she would cry—oh, fit to break your heart. I felt so sorry for her. But what could I do? All I could think of was to take care of you and the house as best I could, to help her with all the business things that she disliked so. Even with Mr. Perkins managing the shipping business and her cousin running the store, she hated to have to listen to their reports and try to sort out their advice. I don’t know, perhaps it was a mistake. Perhaps I took away too much responsibility from her. But she seemed so helpless, so needy…”