The Lady to Match a Rogue: Faith

by Thorne, Isabella

  “No, Hope, it cannot. As I told you, you are complicit in this. It is only by some miracle that this has not ruined you both. If this mockery were found out I would be the laughing stock of Nettlefold. Why I would not be able to show my face, and you both would be back to square one, with that awful nickname. How then would you get husbands?”

  “Isaac,” began Hope. “It will blow over. No one knows and…”

  “NO! This stops now. You will be ladies. There will be no more gallivanting; no more writing…”

  “No! Isaac, you cannot,” the girls called together.

  “Isaac,” Mercy interrupted.

  Isaac’s voice rose above the twin protestations.

  “You will bring me the whole of it. Every page; do you understand?”

  “What are you going to do?” Hope asked white-faced. Her voice was barely a whisper.

  “Dispose of the lot of it,” Isaac snapped.

  Hope howled in despair, tears flowing freely.

  Faith found her grit. “I hate you,” she growled. She was not feeling charitable towards men at all, and Isaac’s words seemed to light a fuse. She clutched Titherington’s cane white-knuckled and thought, if she were a man in truth she would not have to take this. She would challenge him outright, but she was not a man. Rage burned in her, but Mercy caught her hand and stood between Isaac and Faith.

  “Wait, please” she said. “Isaac. Faith. Take a step back.”

  Isaac turned on Mercy. “Can you not see I am trying to save this family from the scourge that our father put upon it? You of all people, Mercy, know that.”

  “I do.”

  “But the twins do not,” Isaac snapped. “They were never touched by him. They think this is all a grand joke. All my work was for nothing.”

  “We don’t,” Hope said her voice miserable.

  “Just because he didn’t lay hands on us, does not mean we weren’t affected, Isaac,” Faith said. “We lived here too. Do you think we do not have eyes? That we did not see our sisters’ pain? Our mother’s? We escaped to the old storehouse when you were safe away at school…for years Isaac. Years! Each day fearing we would anger him. Years when you were free of him. We. Were. Not.” Faith chest was tight with anger. She near vibrated with it.

  “Isaac, do you not see that their writing has been their salvation?” Mercy asked.

  “It has to stop, Mercy. I am glad that you found a man to take care of you, but you must see this cannot continue.” Isaac turned back to the twins. “No man is going coddle this fantasy as I have.”

  “I don’t need a man!” Faith shouted. “You are blackguards one and all who think of nothing but yourselves.”

  “I was thinking of myself?” Isaac said, voice rising. “I was thinking of myself alone when I tried to right this family? I have worked day and night for my own gratification?” He shook his head. “I knew I should have put a stop to this long ago,” Isaac said. He turned back to the twins and his tone broached no argument. “You will end this foolishness. I will expect all of your writing on the desk in my library by morning,” he said.

  Hope only sobbed. Faith ached for her twin. None of this was Hope’s fault. It wasn’t fair. Isaac would destroy everything they had worked for just to punish her…Like Father had punished Temperance by destroying the music room.

  “You’re just like him,” Faith spat, her voice low and vicious. She turned and fled up the stairs.

  * * *

  Hope found her sister still wet, but throwing more clothes into the satchel that they had packed with Jesse’s clothes weeks ago. “What are you doing?” She asked.

  “Going to London,” Faith said, “like I should have done all along.”

  “You can’t,” Hope said.

  “Why not?” She tuned on her sister. “Because I am a woman? Well, I won’t be a woman then,” she said. “Titherington said he told Mr. Maddox about our work. He wants to turn it into a play for the theater.”

  “So you’re going to London?” Hope said. “With Mr. Titherington?”

  “No. Not with Titherington,” Faith said. Her voice caught on a sob and instantly, Hope was there for her.

  “Oh, Faith, what has happened?”

  Faith shook her head and dashed the tears from her eyes. “No, I am done crying,” she said.

  “Don’t cry then, but tell me. Please, what has happened?”

  Faith sat on the bed and finally let loose the whole story, from meeting Oscar on the road, to him finding Emerson in the storehouse. She spoke of their days discussing politics and literature; their nights spent reading to one another. “I’m in love with him,” Faith said. “But he wants nothing to do with me. He found out…”

  “That you are a woman?”

  Faith nodded miserably. “He says that I lied to him.”

  “Well, you did.”

  “And that humiliated him. As if what I did had anything to do with him…or Isaac.”

  “Faith, slow down.”

  “No, Hope. I won’t slow down,” Faith spat, the anger reigniting in her. “I won’t let Isaac burn our work. I won’t.”

  “We can give him drafts,” Hope said. “Keep the finished manuscripts, or send them to London…to this Mr. Maddox or Mr. Chapman.”

  Faith shook her head. “No. It will always come back to this. Some man more concerned about his pride than what we want. Well, what I want. I am not going to let anyone stop me, Hope. I promised myself when Father died I would not. I promised myself I would never let another man control me. We spent so long hiding. I don’t want to hide anymore. I want to see our book made into a play and acted upon the stage, not playacting like we have done, but a real theater. Titherington liked the work before he knew…” Her voice caught, but she pulled her shoulders back and stood tall. “We can make it happen. I can do this.”

  “You like it, don’t you,” Hope whispered. “Being a man.”

  Faith sank down on the edge of the bed again and considered. That moment in the river, the moment that destroyed everything, she was supremely glad she was a woman. She wanted to fold into Oscar’s strong arms, and let him love her, but there were things that she hated about being a woman. She hated being silent and marginalized. She hated being pushed aside and told what to do and what not to do. Her opinions were as good as any man’s and her time as Emerson had proven that. She did not think she could ever go back to being silent and biddable as Father had wanted them to be, as Isaac wanted her to be. “I do like it, Hope. I like when people listen to me and don’t judge my every thought as inconsequential because I am wearing a skirt. When I speak as Emerson, people listen. It’s a wonderful feeling.”

  “He is a fiction,” Hope said, but Faith shook her head.

  “I think he is more me than I have ever been. I won’t give him up, not for Isaac, not even for Oscar. I will not.”

  “Oscar?” Hope said, surprised that Faith used his given name.

  Faith shook her head. “He doesn’t matter,” Faith said as she peeled off her wet clothes and wrapped in a drying cotton. She laid the still damp clothes out to dry near the fire. “I want to take them all,” she explained gesturing to the men’s clothes. “I will wait until they are dry, and then I’m leaving. I’ll take the printed books with me. They will be safe.”

  She bit her lip and at last turned back to her sister, opening her arms for a hug. This was goodbye.

  “We should go together,” Hope said.

  Faith shook her head. “No, Hope. I will take care of the books. I will do this for us.”

  “Are you shutting me out? I thought we were a team.”

  She felt a rush of love for her twin. It was like they had always been; a pair. But she was the one who had ruined it all, not Hope. She shook her head. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “Because I am a woman?” Hope asked, and Faith realized how unfairly she had judged her sister.

  “I am as much a part of this as you are, Faith, and you are right,” she said. “We should not let any
one stop us. I want to go with you. Don’t you tell me no.”

  “Very well,” Faith said.

  Hope nodded. “We’ll go to London together. We have always been in this together, haven’t we? I cannot let you go on alone.”

  “Yes.” Faith hugged her twin and was filled with love for her. They had always been two parts of each other. She was glad Hope had not deserted her. Hope was her other half. She did not need Oscar Titherington. She would go to London herself. Emerson would speak with Mr. Maddox and Isaac would not stop her.

  Filled with grim determination, Faith retrieved Hope’s sewing shears from the basket where she had left them, and pulled her plait forward. Without further ado, she sawed through the thick braid.

  “Faith!” Hope cried, surprised and perhaps horrified that twin her had cut her hair. Now there was no turning back. Isaac could not make her fit the role of the demur young miss. She would be herself in Emerson. It was done.

  “I will not look back to who I was,” Faith said. “It is only forward from here.” She tossed the hank of hair on the dressing table and shook the locks loose, running her fingers through it. It felt freeing; somehow lighter and less burdensome.

  “Find some candles.” Faith whispered. “We must pack everything in the storehouse tonight, and be well on our way by dawn.”

  * * *

  22

  Come morning Oscar caught a scowl from Lady Torsford as she looked at his rumpled clothes and blurry eyes. It was nearly noon and Edgar had already broken his fast and left for town. Caroline and Mary-Elizabeth were still at the table sipping tea. Caroline did not comment on Oscar’s appearance, but her censure was clear.

  “I was not drinking last night,” he said, but from her humph, she did not believe him.

  Mary-Elizabeth had a glint in her eye that could only mean she had been up to mischief. Oscar wondered what it was. The girl was very forthcoming about the reason for her glee.

  “The Baggage is gone,” she said cheerfully as she stirred some crème into her tea.

  “What?” Oscar knew that he had upset Faith last evening, but he was also distressed. How could she have lied to him for weeks on end? He had trusted Emerson…well, Faith…and counted the man as a friend. Counted her as a friend. Could a woman be such a friend to a man? He did not think so, and yet there it was. He told Emerson things about Faith herself that he would have never voiced if he had but known, and even when he nearly disrobed in front of her she said not a word, and then he had kissed her. Oh, that kiss. He had meant to punish her, but somehow it all went wrong. It had enflamed a desire in him that could not be quenched by any other. He could not forget her. Baggage, he told himself, but he still could not get her out of his mind. He had spent a sleepless night trying to come to some resolution, but morning found him more confounded. Faith had said she loved him, and God help him, he loved her too.

  “She has run off with another man,” Mary-Elizabeth said.

  “What?”

  “Oscar, do not despair; I shall comfort you in your loss.” Mary-Elizabeth reached a hand across the table and patted his consolingly.

  He pulled away as if he had been burned. “She has not!”

  “Do you not see, now we can be together as we always should have been?”

  “No!” He shook his head speaking rashly and harshly. “I cannot marry you, Mary-Elizabeth. I think of you as a sister, the thought of…” He broke off. The fact that he had nearly said tupping you to his dear friend’s sister at the breakfast table in front of her sister-in-law, made him realize how very out of sorts he was. The thought came to Titherington that he never had to watch his words around Emerson, or rather Faith. He could be himself. He thought of the many hours in her easy company, but pushed the thought away. Now he tried to rally, and finally just shook his head sadly. “No, Mary-Elizabeth,” he said gently.

  The lady’s features settled into a scowl of defeat and she glared up at him with venom in her eyes. It appeared that he had lost his touch with soothing women. Everyone was angry with him—Faith, Caroline, Mary-Elizabeth; mostly Faith.

  “You will not even consider me?” Mary-Elizabeth asked with a scathing drawl.

  “I am afraid not,” he assured her. “It never was from the start. I was certain that you knew that as well as I. Now, what about Miss Baggington?”

  “Edgar said I was a fool.” She fussed momentarily with the napkin on her lap. She was annoyed, but not hurt. They both knew that she had chased him for all of these years for little else than the fun of it. There was not, nor had there ever been, any romantic feeling between them, except perhaps Mary-Elizabeth’s childish crush. Still, she must have known. Oscar did not want to hurt her, silly as she was.

  She looked at him with wide blue eyes and blinked, laying her long lashes against her cheeks. He supposed she could not help being flirtatious. It was simply in her nature. Faith was so much more straightforward. There were no games, only truth, until there was nothing but lies.

  Mary-Elizabeth spoke over the top of her teacup. “Edgar said, devilish as you may be, that you would never toy with my heart and would never risk his friendship in such a way… that you would only ever look upon me as a sister.”

  “It is so,” he confirmed.

  “So be it,” she said with a nod.

  “Now tell me,” Oscar urged. “What is this that you have heard of Miss Baggington?”

  “I didn’t hear anything. I saw her,” Mary-Elizabeth said taking an infinitely long sip of tea.

  “Mary-Elizabeth!” chided Lady Torsford. “You little gossip!”

  “I was only doing it for Oscar’s benefit, Caroline. A benefit I guess he does not want.” She sighed. At last, Mary-Elizabeth admitted that she had been riding out in the mornings searching for where Oscar disappeared to. “I found this old storehouse,” she said. “It was obvious that Miss Baggington and Mr. Emerson are a couple.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Even her clothes were there.” A flush dusted her cheeks with color.

  Oscar felt a spark of anger for Faith that Mary-Elizabeth had invaded her privacy, but he could not explain his rush of feeling. Mary-Elizabeth must be mistaken. Faith and Emerson were one and the same, but he did not say so. “They are cousins,” Oscar objected.

  “Oh Oscar,” Lady Caroline interrupted. “There are many country cousins who do not think the relationship too close. Do you even know if the man is actually a cousin, or only a dear friend of the family? Perhaps, Mary-Elizabeth is right.” Lady Caroline looked at him with pity. “I think this is the first time you were fond of a lady, and she did not return your affections.”

  “She does,” he began, because he knew that she did. He knew her—Emerson—Faith. Oscar considered trying to explain, but realized that would reveal Faith’s secret which he was not willing to do. “Oh blast and botheration,” he said using her words. “There is nothing between them,” Oscar insisted, or perhaps there was everything between them because they were one and the same person. He was not sure.

  Mary-Elizabeth gave him a pitying glance. “Oh Oscar, I am so sorry she has played with your heart, but truly it is best this way. Best you see what a faithless thing she is before you made her your wife. She is not worthy of you.”

  “Mary-Elizabeth, I just said…”

  Mary-Elizabeth dramatically flung her hands into the air. “I know. I shall concede to whatever beautiful maiden wins your heart, but you must let Miss Baggington go. She is not for you. Find another, and perhaps I might even come to care for her myself. I am sorry that you are hurt, but Miss Baggington and her cousin were in that storehouse this morning.”

  “You saw them?”

  Mary-Elizabeth nodded.

  “Please, go on,” he urged.

  Mary-Elizabeth shook her head. Sighed, and with a long breath, she finally spoke. “I believe they are eloping,” she said.

  “What!”

  “She and her cousin were packed and headed down the city road quite early this morning at some haste. I’
ll bet the Lord Mortel found out they were having a tryst and now they are off to Gretna Green. They have been meeting in that storehouse since long before you returned, dear Oscar. I told you she was baggage. You should have listened to me.”

  “No,” he snapped and realized in his need to defend Faith’s honor that he cared for her still. It did not matter that she had fooled him. It did not matter, because he understood. He knew that those books were her life. He had sat with Emerson for enough time to realize that the man lived and breathed those stories. No, it was not a man who lived and breathed for those stories; it was Faith Baggington. Was it any different that she was a woman? They were her life’s blood.

  But he realized, just as she had, that if she published them as a woman, they would come to no account. He liked listening to her read, even when she was Emerson. He liked fishing with her, and discussing the plots of every novel they read along with philosophies and possibilities. She was sharp as a whip, and he liked that about her. He had never thought he would like a smart woman, but she was much more interesting than the latest London beauty. Yet she had that spark too. His thought went to the passion of their last kiss upon the riverbank, and he felt ashamed. She did not deserve to be treated with such callousness. He had spoken harshly in shock and anger and now regretted it deeply.

  Oscar thought of many instances, before that fateful moment in the river, when he had felt and unspoken connection with Emerson. Had some part of him known the truth even when his mind did not? Had some part of his spirit known that they were soul mates? Oscar’s interaction with women had always been based on physical attraction, but Emerson had removed that distraction. In its absence he had come to know Faith as a person. It was amazing to him that he had actually built a friendship with her. It was something he had never thought possible with a woman. He had talked frankly with her. He had shared his mind and bared his soul. He did not want to lose that companionship. He wanted Emerson back. He wanted Faith.