Bound by Love

by Edith Layton

  Fiona was thinking of something clever to say to make him laugh again when the morning peace was broken by the sounds of barking dogs and thudding hoofbeats.

  “I think there’s our Justin,” Jared said, looking across the park to see a single horseman racing across the fields toward the hall, followed by excited dogs. “And he’s riding like a madman. Ho, Justin!” he called, waving his arms.

  They met Justin in the drive. His horse was lathered and he leapt from its back as soon as he’d halted it.

  “Such news!” he said breathlessly. “The king is dead!” Jared went very still, not knowing what that meant for his plans. He looked at Fiona.

  “Long live the king!” she said simply.

  Della gasped audibly.

  “Out with the old, on with the new,” Fiona said, laughing at her expression.

  “He was struck down while going about his business—literally—in his water closet, they say. Or rather, whisper,” Justin reported. Fiona giggled as Della and Jared simply stared. “Some say it was a fitting end. He wasn’t particularly well loved,” Justin explained. “Especially by his grandson, and his grandson is a reasonable fellow, or so we all think. Young George is the first of his line to be born on English soil; thank God for that at last. So he’s also going to be the first king in his line to speak English without an accent. That will be nice for a change. He’s young and open to change, too, just the man to deal with a growing world like ours—and yours, brother. If any man knows the value of a man being himself, as you say they do in the Colonies, why then it’s certainly a prince who saw his own father waiting around all of his life for his father to hand down the title and never doing it.”

  “We were planning to go to London, but now I wonder,” Jared said, “what with the funeral and the public mourning…”

  Justin and Fiona looked at each other and burst into laughter.

  “Brother,” Justin said, “you do have a lot to learn. We’re a practical people. They’ll be more fireworks for the coronation than tears for the funeral. You won’t want to miss it, believe me. As Fiona said, the king is dead; long live the king. We’ll celebrate the last much more than grieve about the first.”

  “Yes,” Fiona said, capturing Jared’s arm as they strolled back to the house. “My goodness, you don’t think there’ll be public mourning and grieving in Virginia when they get the news, do you?”

  “No,” Jared said.

  She replied, “You’ll see—there will be even less mourning here, because we knew him better than did the colonials.”

  Jared threw back his head and laughed, which made Fiona look very satisfied.

  But Della didn’t look satisfied, nor did she know that her heart was in her eyes as she watched Fiona stroll back to the hall on Jared’s arm.

  Justin handed his reins to a stable boy and took Della’s hand. He placed it on his arm and looked down at her with concern. “Fiona is—well, Fiona,” he said carefully, watching Della’s face. “She sparkles. She needs to see approval for it, too. It’s her personality. I think nothing of it, nor should you.”

  Della stared up at him in surprise. His strong, handsome face was filled with tender concern for her. But seeing his face was almost as unsettling as hearing what he said. His was so nearly and yet so completely not the face she needed to see, though he said the words she wanted to hear. Worst of all, he seemed to know her secret, so she hurried to find a different subject to talk about.

  “But is London the place to go now?” she blurted. “I mean, we were talking about going to plays and parties and balls.”

  He understood and let it go. He just nodded, patted her hand, and said, “As you should, because that’s exactly what you’ll find there when we arrive. But let us tell the uncles of our trip.”

  * * *

  The uncles agreed with him, taking the news with their dinner, and drinking to it together, many times. And, in light of the astonishing news about the king, they took their port with the ladies immediately after dinner this memorable night.

  “To a happy coincidence,” one of the uncles said, rising to unsteady feet. It was his eighth toast of the night. “To a new king of England, and a new earl of Alveston!”

  No one drank, and a sudden shocked inhalation made him open bleary eyes and fogged ears to his own awkward toast. “Ah, I meant—” he began, but never got the chance to finish, because Justin spoke up.

  “The king is dead, long live the king,” Justin said, raising his glass. “The earl is gone, long live the earl. So it is, and so it must be. Off with the old and on with the new. To the king! And my brother! And why not? For at least, my friends, they don’t plan to bury me before they raise him up! Or so I hope,” he added with a wry smile, looking at the settee by the fire, where Fiona sat smiling, at the right hand of his brother. And where Della sat, at the other, worrying.

  Chapter 10

  She would look like this on her deathbed, she thought in horror. Della stared back at her reflection.

  “Oh my! Don’t you look wonderful!” Fiona cried, clapping her hands together in delight.

  “No. I look dead,” Della said woodenly.

  Fair-haired girls looked wonderful with a head of fleecy white curls, as did redheads, of course, because of their unfortunate natural hair color, she thought numbly. But girls with gypsy-black hair that suddenly turned white as snow? It was like taking the color from a rose. She looked drab and drained, Della thought, and not only was she not as pretty as Fiona, but she looked twice as old, and sick besides. Della stared at her newly powdered hair with loathing, as though she’d seen something moving in it.

  “No,” she said, rising to her feet. “I’ll wash it out.”

  “After all our work?” Fiona cried. “When it’s so late? We haven’t time. No, you mustn’t; it’s perfect.”

  “It’s perfectly awful on me,” Della said.

  There were many things she’d accepted about London fashion in the week she’d been a guest at Jared’s townhouse here. She now wore a gown whose square neck was so low she was afraid to cough, whose side panniers were so wide she had to walk sideways to get through doors, whose bodice was so narrow and tight she swore she could feel an olive going down when she swallowed it—and she was sure everyone else could see it in transit, too. She could hardly breath and could see her toes only if she sat and stuck her feet way out in front of her. Enough was enough.

  She would wash the powder out. And if Jared didn’t want to wait for her to go with him to their first social engagement here in London, well, then, she thought defiantly, let him not—let him just go everywhere with Fiona. It seemed he wanted that anyway. She stared at the ghost of the woman she’d been and rubbed away a tear, pretending it was a stray eyelash. She was wondering what she’d pretend the next one would be when she heard his voice.

  “Where’s Della?” Jared asked quietly from the doorway of her room.

  She spun around to see him and felt dizzy.

  She gasped. “Oh. But where’s Jared?” She was surprised she could even say that. He took her breath away.

  “Here,” he said.

  He stood in splendor. He wore a dark-blue velvet long coat fitted tight across his wide shoulders, with a froth of lace at the wide sleeves. He had on dark velvet breeches with silver buckles at the knee, over white hose that showed his strong, straight legs. His coat opened to show an embroidered waistcoat of gold and gray. His powdered hair, held with a velvet ribbon at the base of his neck, made his skin look golden and his eyes gleam gray as an evening storm. He looked regal and powerful; tall, lean, freshly shaved, and immaculate. She sighed at the sight of such a magnificent male. But she had spoken the truth. He wasn’t her Jared. Nor was he Justin, who stood beside him, equally splendid in black and wine-colored velvet brocade.

  “Here I am, but where’s our Della, I wonder?” Jared murmured, coming in and walking around her, inspecting her gown, her face, her hair.

  His lips twitched when he saw her defiance and
obvious misery. He’d seen that guilty, shamed, but brave expression before—a long time ago, when she’d filched a pie from Cook, shared it with a stray dog before dinner, and come home jammy and defiant, with the mutt on a string. Otherwise, she looked lovely. But also white, very white. In her white gown and whitened hair, the only color in her face was the flashing blue of her eyes, the berry red of her lips, and the slash of her black brows as they dipped in a ferocious scowl.

  “She hates the powder on her hair,” Fiona complained, “but how can she go without it? She can’t. Absolutely no lady of fashion would. Perhaps if she were blonde, she might just get away with it…but not with those masses of black curls. I know we’re not going to the assembly rooms or a ball, only to a house party. But there’ll be important people there. Look Della, Jared refuses to wear a wig anymore, and he’s had a regrettable influence on his brother in that respect, too, but even they had their hair powdered for tonight! You tell her, gentlemen.”

  “She’s right, Della,” Justin said, “and you look lovely.”

  “You’d look odd without powder,” Fiona insisted.

  “She looks odd with it,” Jared said.

  They all stared at him. He circled Della again.

  “I agree with Della,” he declared. “Pretty,” he said, his head to the side as he considered her as she stood mutinous and ashamed under his scrutiny. “No, not pretty—beautiful, I think, but not like Della. Not any more than I look like me,” he told her with a tilted smile. “You see? Now that the shoe is on your foot, it pinches, doesn’t it? What she means, I think,” he told Fiona, “is that Della is black and white and vivid. This Della is white and beautiful, but she doesn’t feel like herself and she doesn’t like it. We don’t stand on so much fashion at home.”

  “Pooh,” Fiona said, fanning herself rapidly. “Your Dr. Benjamin Franklin wears the most ornate wigs. I’ve never seen him without powder. He’s the picture of fashion, as are all the ladies he entertains here in London.”

  “He isn’t at home now,” Jared said, “and he’s a man who loves London and the ladies and wants to be accepted by both.”

  “Della must be accepted by London, too!” Fiona snapped. “I know I sound miffed, but I am,” she wailed. “I worked so hard to get her looking like that. My seamstress had to sit up day and night to get the gown ready, we took hours doing her hair, and it’s growing so late. You don’t want to arrive when everyone’s jaded and weary. But we can’t go at all if she wears her own hair! She’ll look eccentric, or worse, like she doesn’t know any better.”

  “So I won’t go,” Della said, shrugging. “It’s not that important to me.”

  “All because of your hair?” Justin asked, bemused.

  “I want to feel like myself. I must be true to myself,” Della said. It sounded virtuous, but she realized it was more for her vanity that she wanted to dress her own way. She knew she could look so much better as herself without all these trappings—especially now when she saw that even when she was gotten up to look like a lady of ice and sugar, as was the fashion, it was still Fiona’s fashion, not hers. And she was tired of feeling inferior.

  Fiona was dressed all in white, too, but she glowed with it and was not overwhelmed. She wore white on white, with diamonds and brilliants to make her white gown glisten. Her topaz eyes sparkled as much as the shining pearly dust she’d sprinkled over her elaborately curled fair hair. She was a few inches taller than Della, and a little more slender, but the main difference was her delicate complexion, which was all subtle shades of winter, fashioned by nature to suit fair hair. Della’s camellia skin was meant to be enlivened by the contrast with her own ebony hair.

  “But we’re supposed to introduce our new earl to London tonight!” Fiona said in vexation, stamping her foot. “To show we support him and give him our blessing. I suppose if Della wants to stay home, she may, but we must go. It’s getting late!”

  “I won’t go without you,” Jared told Della simply. “You know that. Can you see me leaving you sitting alone, Dell? For any reason? I can’t. I won’t. I don’t know why it’s so important to you, but so be it. We’ll stay home.”

  Della’s eyes widened, and then her lashes fell over them. She turned away from the hateful image in the glass, picked up her fan, and gripped it tightly. “No,” she said ungraciously, “I’ll go. I won’t sit here knowing I kept you from going somewhere you should be. No, I’ll go.”

  She’d stay home if she could, but she wouldn’t hurt Jared in any way. And he knew it, his knowing eyes be damned, she thought rebelliously. The anger brought high color to her cheeks, and she glowered at him as she swept past him to the door.

  “Very nice,” Jared murmured for her ears only, as she passed him. “Temper is your best cosmetic, Mistress Mischief.”

  “Thank you, Master Rat,” she murmured sweetly, just as though they were home again, teasing the way they used to. Before he became a lord, she thought sadly, and she became a lady—but not enough of a lady for him, obviously.

  If Jared hadn’t seen her as a woman before, he’d certainly never see her as one tonight. It wasn’t what she’d dreamed of at all. Still, she raised her head and took the arm he offered her, because it was near his heart. She smiled at last. At least she was close to him—but not for long.

  A footman intercepted them in the hall. “A message for you, my lord,” he told Jared.

  “I’ll be with you in a moment,” Jared told Della absently, gazing at the sealed letter on the footman’s silver tray.

  He stepped to the side of the hall and, beneath the dim light of a flickering wall sconce, unfolded the letter. He scanned it quickly, made a sound somewhere between a cough and a laugh, crushed the note in his big hand, and then dropped it like something loathsome.

  “Bad news?” Justin asked curiously, noting his brother’s thunderous expression.

  “More of the usual,” Jared said quickly. “Someone else eager to take advantage of another fellow’s good luck. Nothing to concern yourself with, brother.”

  Jared walked back to Della and offered her his arm again.

  “What was it?” she asked worriedly. “The note, I mean?”

  “Nothing but an attempt to pry money out of me. I get many such letters these days,” he said casually, but his eyes were still dark. “Don’t trouble yourself about it.”

  She regarded him gravely. But then her father came to meet them, and she was walked to the carriage between them, as though they were making sure she wouldn’t bolt. She looked back only once, to see Justin scanning the crumpled note his brother had discarded, wearing almost the same look of bitter fury on his face.

  But nothing could distress her for too long tonight. She couldn’t worry about problems with all the wonderful things that were soon to be displayed before her.

  The party was held in a high stone house on a fashionable street. It was filled to the doors with exquisitely dressed people. Della couldn’t stop staring. She’d never seen such jewels, such ornate hairstyles, such a lot of face paint—and that was only on the gentlemen!

  White was popular in London this year, just as Fiona had said. But though all the ladies did wear their hair powdered, some wore brightly colored gowns. Others had radiant patterns on theirs. Della would have been pleased to have a sprig of green on her gown, instead of looking like Fiona’s anemic shadow.

  She wondered if Fiona had insisted she wear white because she knew no one else could look as wonderful in it as she herself did. Then she dismissed the thought. Fiona simply didn’t worry about competition—she didn’t have to. Della knew that as surely as she knew she was out of place here. She wanted to turn and leave; she wanted to see how long Fiona’s wonderful gown stayed white after she threw her glass of wine at it. She wanted to shout at the injustice of it all. She wanted to go home. But home came to her instead.

  “You do me proud,” Alfred said in a voice thick with emotion as he bowed over her hand. “May I have this dance, my dear?”

  De
lla bowed her heavy head, curtsied, put her hand on her father’s arm, and let him lead her into the dance.

  She danced well, as did her father. It was one of the things they often did together at parties at home. They crossed and recrossed each other’s paths in the intricate steps of the stately pavane and had time for a word now and then in the middle as they met. But they didn’t speak much, because Della was so busily watching the steps of the dance—not hers, but others’.

  “It’s politeness, nothing more. She’s his brother’s fiancée,” Alfred said at last, when the dance brought them together, “and Justin doesn’t mind.”

  “I know,” she said simply, and then she added lightly, “He says she sparkles,” before the pattern of the dance led her away from him again. Her eyes didn’t stray far from the couple they spoke of, and neither did anyone else’s. It was true that the appearance of a new earl, returned from abroad to reclaim his title, would make for a prodigious amount of gossip.

  But Della felt it was more than that: Jared danced with Fiona, and they looked too right together.

  Justin danced with another lady, but he watched them, too, his handsome face sober, his eyes dark and considering. And Fiona tossed back her head and laughed. Tall and graceful, Jared moved with her in the pattern of the dance: accepting her, releasing her—but never entirely—preening, courting, flirting, fascinating each other, all in the spirit of the dance, her hand in his, his eyes always on her. And he never stopped smiling down at her.

  It might have been only courtesy, but Della couldn’t bear it. As soon as the music stopped, she murmured something about finding the withdrawing room and hurried to escape from the pain of the sympathy in her father’s knowing eyes. She didn’t go to the withdrawing room, because she knew women sought more than chamber pots there, and she dreaded facing a roomful of gossip. There were things she didn’t want to hear.

  She fled to the long doors that led to the garden behind the house, but sighed in defeat after she slipped outside. As she had feared, the garden was crowded, too. There were already several romance-minded young women standing by themselves there. They turned to see her and then looked away again, disappointed. They were pretending to be there for a breath of air. Each was really hoping for an encounter with some dashing stranger, some exciting man who might ask them why they were there, all alone in the night. Della knew that dream; she was young, too. Girls did that at home, escaping their mothers and maids, looking for adventure. She guessed it was the same in London. Sometimes it worked; most of the time there were too many girls and not enough dashing strangers. It was a chilly night; all they’d probably catch would be colds. She stepped back into the house again.