Let Me Be The One

by Jo Goodman

  Isabel walked straight to her husband's side, lightly touched his forearm, and took the poker from him with her other hand. She stabbed at the flames once and then set it with the other tools."My lord," she said, addressing her husband, "may I present Elizabeth's husband, his lordship, the Earl of Northam."

  "I know who he is," Rosemont said with some impatience. His voice had a deep bass timbre, rising as it did from that barrel chest.

  "Of course you do," Isabel said, unperturbed."You have met before, have you not? At White's, I think you said. And in the conduct of your government work. I will not carry on, then. I shall ring for tea instead." Excusing herself, she deliberately crossed between them and went to the bellpull.

  "Northam," Rosemont said tersely.

  "My lord," Northam returned. Out of respect for Elizabeth he made a slight bow.

  William Penrose looked his son-in-law up and down in the manner he used to inspect horseflesh. His brown eyes, so dark they might have been black, added to the inscrutability of his expression. "So you have married her."

  "I have."

  Rosemont grunted. "Have you bedded her, then?"

  "Father!" Elizabeth was out of her chair as though shot from a cannon.

  Isabel was even moved to use her husband's Christian name to admonish him. "William!"

  Only North remained silent, his eyes fixed on Rosemont's. They stared in such a fashion while the women held their breath. Finally it was Elizabeth's father who broke the contact by looking to his wife.

  "It is just that he seems to prefer the company of other men," he explained. "They even have some fool name for themselves. The four of them together don't comprise gray matter enough to make a half-wit." His glance swiveled back at Northam. "Well, sir? Are you a sodomite?"

  "William! That is quite enough."

  "Please, Father."

  Northam, when he clearly understood what had prompted his father-in-law's first question, burst out laughing.

  Rosemont grunted a second time. He gestured toward Northam as though no further confirmation of his judgment was needed. "A bedlamite, then."

  This comment actually brought tears to North's eyes as he laughed harder. He held out his hand to Elizabeth, who promptly found the handkerchief he had lent her earlier and placed it in his open palm. He used it to quickly dab at his eyes. Finding the wherewithal to sober took considerably longer. "My friends will enjoy your wit as much as I have," he said at length. "I look forward to telling them how fortunate I am in learning of my father-in-law's good humor."

  "Humph."

  "And in his articulation of the finer points of his opinion."

  "Now you go too far."

  Isabel threw up her hands. "Enough. Rosemont, you will sit over there." She pointed to the large wing chair that was comfortably worn in the exact impression of her strapping husband. "Elizabeth. My lord. You will please sit on the sofa."

  Northam found it interesting that none of them argued. They were all taking their orders from the one who looked least likely to give them.

  Lady Rosemont nodded, satisfied with the arrangement. The scratching at the door distracted her. "Ah, here is tea. We shall all be made composed by it." She turned her back on them and said sotto voce, "Or I shall lace the next pot with tincture of opium."

  If it fell short of composing them, the tea did lend civility to the proceedings. There were no more pointed exchanges, and Isabel guided the conversation skillfully, pressing Elizabeth to describe her wedding dress and the flowers in the church. She went on to talk about the ceremony, omitting any mention of the colonel's presence and the dowager countess's wager with North's friends. Northam was still puzzled about the former but grateful for the latter. He could accept anything Rosemont said outright about him. Comments about his mother would of necessity require that he choose something from Rosemont's wall armory of lances, maces, and battle-axes and strike him with it.

  Unaware of North's lingering interest in a Celtic broadsword, Isabel drew him into the discussion, encouraging him to recount details from the Battenburn rout. While she appeared entertained by the discourse, Northam doubted the same was true of her husband. He contributed when asked a direct question—always by Isabel or Northam—and otherwise sat in judgment.

  When the pot of tea was empty and the plate of cakes still remained largely untouched, Isabel made excuses for herself and Elizabeth to retire to another room and discuss things that were the prerogative of women.

  The doors had barely closed when Rosemont stood. "I know I want a drink. Will you have one with me?"

  North reflected it was less of an invitation than a command. "Very well. Scotch."

  Rosemont nodded. He went to the ornately carved liquor cabinet and removed a decanter of whiskey. He poured two fingers in twin cut-glass tumblers and handed one to Northam, who remained seated on the sofa. Hovering for a few moments longer, continuing his assessment through remote eyes, Rosemont sipped his drink.

  Northam lifted one brow and regarded his father-in-law coolly. "Is there some other name you wish to call me?"

  "Fool."

  "I see I rise in your estimation after only a single hour. I am no longer a buggerer or even a lunatic."

  Rosemont returned to his seat. "You will have observed that I allow my wife a good deal of latitude in her dealings with me. Do not mistake that I will allow you the same."

  Northam made a slight nod, acknowledging what was said. "You will likewise never seek again to embarrass me in front of my wife."

  The earl gave no indication of his intention one way or the other. "Why have you married my daughter? And, pray, do not tell me it is because you have compromised her. I know Elizabeth well enough to know that she cannot be compromised. Her correspondence intimated that she acted to protect you from a false accusation. Is that true?"

  "Yes."

  Rosemont closed his eyes briefly and rubbed his index finger along his hooked nose. He felt infinitely older than his forty-eight years. "God's truth, but she is a willful child." He lowered his hand and looked at North again. "You will have to take her in hand. I left her too much on her own before and after her mother died. Catherine spoiled her, I fear, and I paid it little mind. When I saw what she had become it was too late. I remarried, but Belle was too young to properly discipline Elizabeth. I came belatedly to that realization also. They were fast friends before I understood it."

  That was easily explained, Northam thought, by the closeness in their ages. He estimated there were but six or seven years separating Elizabeth from her stepmother, and some fifteen between Isabel and her husband. Still, he did not question that if Isabel had borne no love for Rosemont at the beginning of their marriage, the same was not true now. As for the earl, he did not extend latitude to just anyone—he apparently had none for his daughter—so North supposed that he must hang the moon by his wife.

  "I find Elizabeth to be..." Northam considered his words carefully. "...determined and deliberate."

  Rosemont nodded. "Willful."

  North chose another tack."What did you mean when you said Elizabeth cannot be compromised?"

  "Bloody hell," Rosemont said roughly, taking another swallow of his drink. "I was not speaking of her principles. I thought you bedded my daughter. If you did, you know she was someone else's whore before yours."

  Northam came to his feet slowly. It occurred to him that Rosemont was not having his first whiskey of the day. Isabel's tea had been a mere hour's respite. It perhaps explained his behavior, though it fell considerably short of excusing it. "She is my wife," he said quietly. "Whatever else you think she is, know that she is that. You will never speak of her as anything else in my presence or I promise I will hurt you. And you will never speak to her thusly in or out of my presence, else I will forget the promise and kill you instead. There are several pieces in your weapons collection that I have come to admire."

  He set his tumbler down on a side table and walked to the doors. "I will talk to Elizabeth and decide if we
mean to stay."

  In the hall North caught a servant on her way to the dining room and asked to be shown to Elizabeth and Lady Rosemont. He expected to be taken to one of the drawing rooms, or perhaps the quiet conservatory. Instead he was led upstairs, not to Isabel's private sitting room as he then anticipated, but to the west wing, where he was informed the young lordship's rooms were.

  It was natural, North realized, that Elizabeth would want to see her brother. Knowing how short their time might be at Rosemont, she had not lost a moment.

  North politely rapped on the door and was called in, announcing himself as he entered. The sight he came upon arrested him.

  His wife lay unmoving, sprawled on her stomach on the floor. The skirt of her gown, wrinkled and quite possibly soiled, was rucked as high as her knees. Her head lay at an odd angle on her forearm. Her other arm was flung outward, the fist lightly curled. At the corner of her mouth the pink tip of her tongue was visible. Her eyes, open wide, were also expressionless.

  North's breath caught. His feet remained rooted.

  Elizabeth flicked the cloudy blue marble in her hand and knocked two of her opponent's marbles from the center circle. Her head bobbed up, her smile gloriously unrestrained. "Oh, Northam, did you see? I am undefeated!"

  Chapter 11

  "Good for you," Northam said dryly. He helped his wife to her feet, then Isabel, who had been similarly sprawled on the floor. Adam Penrose, Viscount Selden, had no difficulty springing to attention. He unfolded sturdy legs from their crossed position and hopped up in a fluid motion, making a formal bow to North.

  "I am Selden," he said. "I am very pleased to meet you, my lord."

  "As I am you," North said. Aware that he was still under grave study by the boy, North returned the same. The child's manner was inordinately confident for one of only six, but not precocious, and he supposed that was Isabel's influence, rather than Rosemont's. As for the look of him, he was much more his father's child. There was a robustness to his small form that Northam imagined Rosemont had had in his youth. He had not yet grown into his hands and feet. They still fit him badly, like a puppy's oversized paws. His eyes were every bit as penetrating as his father's but without the remoteness. They were saved from the illusion of being black by the same shards of gold that favored Elizabeth's eyes.

  As far as North could see, the only feature that Isabel's son took from her was the fine flaxen color of her hair.

  He saw that the boy had finished his assessment also. "Well?" he asked.

  "Our Elizabeth has done very well for herself, I think. We despaired that she would. She is willful, you know."

  "Adam!" Elizabeth and his mother spoke at once.

  North ignored them, as did his young lordship. "Is she?" he asked politely. "How so?"

  "Do not encourage him," Elizabeth said. "Why do you think he says such things if not because our father has countenanced him to do so?"

  North continued to regard Selden, awaiting explanation.

  "Well," the boy said in confidential tones, "my sister has been forever climbing trees when she is expressly forbidden to do so. To the very top, too. And she hunts, my lord. Oh, she is a bruising rider, but it puts gray in our hair."

  "I see," North said solemnly. "That is very wrong of her. Is there yet another example of her willful nature?"

  Selden thought for a moment, and then his eyes brightened. "She has promised to teach me to do both."

  "Elizabeth!" Isabel fairly wailed. "What can you have been thinking to promise him such? And after I expressly forbade your interference in both."

  "I believe that is the very definition of willful," North offered.

  Elizabeth bent down in front of her brother and tapped him on the nose. "You were not supposed to tell," she scolded. "Now I am in trouble with your mother, quite possibly Northam and, if word spreads, certainly with our father."

  Selden took a commanding stance, shoulders back, feet planted. They all recognized it as identical to the posture Rosemont used when he wanted to assert himself. "But he asked straight out," he said. "It is not right I should lie."

  "Yes... no..." She sighed. "But it was a secret, and it is in the nature of secrets that sometimes one must tell an untruth to keep them."

  Isabel came up behind her son and placed her hands firmly on his shoulders. "That is quite enough," she said in disapproving accents. "What can you imagine you are teaching him now?"

  "Life." She straightened slowly and regarded her stepmother without emotion. "I am teaching him life."

  Silence followed. Northam suspected there was still a great deal being said between Isabel and Elizabeth that was outside a male's normal range of hearing. This was borne out when he glanced at Selden, who was certainly feeling the tension between his favorite women, but as lacking in insight as North was himself. North crooked his finger toward the boy and Selden wriggled out from under his mother's grip.

  "I noticed the large pond upon our arrival," he said. "Is it stocked?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Then perhaps you will fish with me."

  The boy cast a doubtful glance out the window. "But it's raining."

  "That won't bother the fish. Will it bother you?"

  Selden's eyes darted to his mother and sister, who had only marginally relaxed their postures. "No, sir," he said feelingly.

  Casting a significant look at both women, Northam took the viscount under his wing and made their escape.

  * * *

  Northam learned in the course of their fishing outing that Elizabeth had already informed Selden they would be at Rosemont for a sennight. It was not in the nature of a promise, but Northam decided against suggesting a change in plans as unfair to Elizabeth. She had fallen in with his wish to go to Rosemont; it would have been churlish of him to alter those plans after one unpleasant exchange with her father. North had to allow that Rosemont's manner of conducting himself was not entirely unexpected.

  Lord Selden proved himself to be a boon companion during the course of their stay. He could sit in relative silence while he fished with Northam or chatter at length when they walked through the gardens. He was knowledgeable about the history of Rosemont and made certain North visited all five towers. He related the darkest tales about each one, quite frightening himself in the telling of them. One story, Northam realized, sounded suspiciously like the plot of Castle Rackrent.

  It was but a small example of Elizabeth's influence on her brother. North had only seen her so easy with herself when she had been flying across the fields on Becket's powerful back. Whatever the rift between Isabel and Elizabeth, it was quickly mended. Nothing was said about the time Elizabeth made for her brother. Northam found her on two more occasions in Adam's room on her hands and knees, teaching her brother the finer points of shooting marbles. North was persuaded to join them, and under Lord Selden's keen supervision he was soundly defeated.

  "It is of no matter," North had explained coolly. "I can still take her in arm wrestling."

  Elizabeth had been wryly amused, first by North's feigned indifference to his loss, then by Adam's worshipful stare at her husband.

  North also came upon them climbing trees in the apple orchard. He was about to inquire as to the wisdom of Elizabeth going against her stepmother's express wishes when he caught sight of a dainty foot dangling from an upper branch. Isabel, it seemed, had been persuaded of the fun of it herself.

  The fly in the ointment continued to be the earl. Though Elizabeth's father was scrupulously polite in every exchange following their first one, Northam could not mistake that it was his wish that he and Elizabeth were gone from his home. It begged the question of why they were invited in the first place. North no longer believed Rosemont had been desirous of making an inspection of his daughter's new husband, and the invitation had certainly not been extended for Elizabeth's sake. What remained in his mind were two possibilities: one, that Isabel had been the one set on having Elizabeth home, or two, that the request for their company had not
originated from Rosemont at all.

  * * *

  Northam propped himself on one elbow and studied Elizabeth's face. She was staring at the damask canopy, her bottom lip caught just a bit between her teeth. He recognized the expression on her still features as one of contemplation. Candlelight flickered across her brow and the slim bridge of her nose and highlighted the gold in her hair. He was not certain she was even aware he had awakened until she spoke softly.

  "Will you be very glad to leave on the morrow?"

  "I am anxious for you to see Hampton Cross, but no, I shall not be very glad to leave. I find there is much about Rosemont that I will miss."

  She nodded. "It is the same for me." There was the manner of a confession in her tone. "I resist coming and when I am here I do not want to leave so easily."

  "It is your home."

  "No. It hasn't been that for a long time."

  "Will you hear me out?" he asked.

  Elizabeth did not answer immediately. Such a question usually presaged some unpleasantness. She did not doubt that was the way of it now. "If you wish."

  "I have come to believe your father loves you, Elizabeth." He saw a muscle jump in her cheek as she pressed her jaws together. To her credit she did not clamp her hands over her ears. "Not in the way you deserve to be loved, but in the only way that he can. He does better, I think, with Selden." He watched Elizabeth's mouth part and staved off her reply by continuing quickly."Pray, do not say it is because Selden is a boy and the heir. Men are not all disposed to favor one child over another because of the vagaries of biology."

  Elizabeth could not let that pass without challenge. "Do you mean to say you would accept a daughter as readily as a son?"

  "I mean to say I would accept our child."

  She pressed her lips together and swallowed with some difficulty. When Elizabeth was certain she could speak with no catch in her voice, she said, "Do you remember what I said to you on the eve of our wedding?"

  He recalled many of the things she said that night, but he suspected he knew which one she referred to now. I find I am selfish enough to hope that you will hate me less if you never love me at all. "Yes," he said. "I remember your warning that I should develop no tender feelings for you."