by Edith Layton
They went out the door together. They said good night, and each went to his own room. But neither went to sleep. Jared lay staring at the canopy above his bed, wondering if it could possibly be true that everything he dreamed of was really his, and wondering why there had to be hard choices mixed in with the wonder and joy of it.
Justin lay awake, wide-eyed, seeing nothing but a blank future, wondering how it was that now that he’d gotten what he’d regretted losing all his life, he was going to lose everything else he ever had because of it. He wondered how it was that a man could hate and love at the same time and with the same intensity, and whether it would really tear him apart, as it seemed to be doing now.
*
It did rain. So instead of suggesting a stroll through the park, a stop at a coffeehouse, and then their usual goggling at the sights of London, Jared called a coach for Della. He took her to the inn, where Justin said he’d join them after he fetched Fiona from her townhouse.
“There’s so much to do in London at night and nothing to do but eat and drink during the daytime,” Della grumbled after they’d been shown to their private parlor and the proprietor had produced the menu with a flourish.
“Yes, but Fiona says that when the weather’s good, there’s nothing like the pleasure gardens. She says there’s music and dancing, plays and promenades there, fireworks on summer evenings, strolling musicians—I can’t wait until spring to see for myself,” Jared said absently as he glanced over the menu and so missed seeing Della’s face. But she grew so quiet that he put the menu down and looked at her.
“Something I said?” he asked.
She shrugged. It was a pretty gesture, he thought. She wore a blue gown and her own unpowdered hair today; her vivid coloring was good to look at on such a gray day.
“Nothing,” she said, and then blurted, “My father says so, too. Only I won’t be here then—not in the spring. You’ll have to write and tell me all about it.”
He frowned.
“I’ll be going home soon—we can’t stay forever,” she said quickly. “We came to see you, to see how you were doing for yourself—because you wrote and asked us to and because we wanted to be sure everything was as you said. And it is. But my father has a business to see to, and there’s our house—we have another life, you know.”
“I know,” he said, still frowning. If she left, he thought, he would be alone in his new life. The thought left him feeling edgy and uneasy. “But there’s no reason to hurry back, is there?” he asked. “I mean, Hoyt can take care of the business from Virginia; I trained him to do it myself. Tully and Cutler can run the plantation; they do anyway. Alfred and I are better traders than farmers. And Alfred can use the time to find some more lucrative connections here. What’s the hurry?”
“Hurry?” She gave an artificial laugh. “I’d hardly call staying months hurrying. There are things to do at home, my dear sir.”
He raised one golden brow. She blushed. “You understand—commitments and so on,” she said, dropping her high-nosed manner, because she could never fool him.
“Oh. I see. Stephen Perkins won’t keep? Or Jasper Threadwell?”
She flushed more rosily. He’d just named her least favorite suitors.
“Or Master Jack Kelly,” she said sweetly, on an inspiration, and saw Jared’s brow swoop down at hearing the new name. “The first mate on the Boston Boy, the ship I came here on. He said he’d call on me when I got home. I can’t expect him to wait a whole year. Or I suppose I should say I can’t expect the women he meets to let him wait that long, whatever he promised. He’s much too young and handsome. And his father owns the ship.”
There, she thought with pleasure, seeing his thoughtful expression, hoping the name itself conjured up in Jared’s mind the image of an ardent suitor. She was very glad she’d suddenly thought of Jack Kelly, but she was also surprised she could think of any other man when Jared was with her.
She thought he looked weary this morning; he obviously wasn’t used to the long hours London gentlemen kept, rolling in at dawn after a riotous night, sleeping until noon, and then rolling out on the town again. She hoped he never would be. Late hours always showed quickly in his face, although she had to admit fatigue became him, making his handsome face look even more romantic.
As he continued to gaze at her, she found she couldn’t look away—she’d be leaving soon, so she wanted to look her fill at him now.
He looked at her as though taking inventory. “Have you strong feelings for this wonderfully rich, handsome, lucky sailor lad? Why haven’t you mentioned him before?” he asked, his voice slow and pensive.
She was delighted. She was about to tell Jared a fine story she’d just made up about her new suitor when he leapt to his feet and smiled, Della and her new admirer forgotten. Della turned to see Fiona walking toward them, shaking herself like an angry, wet kitten.
“Only for you!” she cried immediately, shaking out her parasol. Justin, who’d come in behind her, helped her off with her cape. She wore a rich gown as warm and pink as Della’s was blue. Mist made shimmering cobwebs in her high, dressed, pale hair. She shook again to get rid of the few raindrops that clung like crystals to the hem of her wide skirt, and because her stiff bodice didn’t bend, the tops of her fine white breasts swayed as she, seemingly unaware, did that erotic little jiggling dance. “You’re the only reason I would go out in a deluge for my dinner!” she scolded Jared.
“It’s only a light mist now,” Justin said patiently.
“Come, sit by the fire,” Jared said, drawing up a chair for her.
Della watched as the two tall brothers settled Fiona near the fire, got her a glass of wine, and tried to stop her complaining. It was so foolish, such a lot of fuss over a little bit of rain, that a small smile began to play around the edges of Fiona’s pretty mouth. But neither of the men were smiling, and they did not look at each other as they hurried to help her.
“We’re very grateful that you braved a hurricane to get here today, Fiona,” Della said in a pinched voice. “Not many women would dare put a foot outside in this terrible weather. I’m honored.”
“Of course not,” Fiona said, dimpling. “We melt, you know, in the rain.” And then after that outrageous statement, she giggled.
As the men laughed, Della sighed. There was no way to fight someone who laughed at herself. No reason to fight her, either. Might as well fight a flower for attracting a bee, she thought despondently. Then she settled back in her seat to watch as Fiona took charge of the day.
The inn had French aspirations, serving turtle soup and pheasant with salads and green vegetables in all sorts of rich dressings, along with the usual ham, venison, veal, fish, rabbit, and chicken—and twelve kinds of wine, along with spa waters and beer. The men ate the rich food while Fiona prattled and made them laugh.
Della watched, not smiling or eating, until Jared noticed her plate and asked if she was feeling sick. Sick with jealousy but nothing else, she managed to get a few bites down around the lump that seemed to have lodged in her throat, then murmured something about being full to put him off. If she couldn’t have his honest attention, she didn’t want his sympathy. She wanted to watch what was happening and mark it well in her mind and heart, so that she could never tell herself in the long years to come that Jared’s interest in Fiona wasn’t strong and real and there from the start, and so she could remind herself that there was nothing she could have done about it.
So she sat and toyed with her food and watched her dreams die. She didn’t notice how quiet Justin too had become, until he spoke to her.
“Have you truly had your fill of food?” he asked.
But his sympathetic eyes asked about more. She said simply, “I’m not used to how much you Englishmen eat at noon. If you worked on a farm all morning, I could understand it. But you’ve all only just awakened.”
“Ah, but we don’t eat breakfast,” he said. “We pick at the little biscuits our servants bring us in bed and sluice the
m down with sips of chocolate. Then we spend an hour or two dressing so we can go out to really eat. That’s when we stoke up for the hours of exhausting visiting, gossiping, and parading to show off our clothing that we have to do—before we go back home, change our clothes, and go out again to delight ourselves and our friends until dawn. The only chance we actually get to eat is at noon. We only have time to drink, dance, go to plays and parties, and gamble until dawn after that.”
“And flirt,” she said sadly, watching Jared and Fiona laughing over something together.
“Yes. And flirt,” he said. “It’s an art with us, you see. Haven’t you noticed? Here in London, married folks as well as single ones do it. Engaged ones, as well. It’s the style.”
“From what I’ve been told,” she said slowly, turning worried blue eyes on him, “the married folks here do more than flirt. And no one minds or cares.”
“Some do. Some mind and care. But don’t forget, sometimes flirting is only that.”
“And sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s more,” she said, looking at him steadily.
“Yes,” he said, “that’s so. So sometimes all we can do is to wait and see.”
“Or leave,” she said abruptly. “Did I tell you? We’re going home soon, my father and I.”
“No,” he said quickly. “I think it would be a bad idea. Anyway, I didn’t think you the sort of girl to run.”
She blinked. “Run, walk, tiptoe,” she finally said. He knew, and there was no more sense denying it. She was leaving soon anyway and didn’t care anymore. “Does it matter how I leave? If it did matter, I might not go. But I don’t want to look p-pitiful.” She lowered her head as though studying her plate full of congealing soup. She hoped she wouldn’t cry into it—that would be too pathetic.
“Take care!” Justin whispered urgently. “Not one tear, please, because if you salt the soup, the chef will get very angry. He’ll come raging out of the kitchen with a cleaver. In the old days, it would be fine even if you spit into the soup—it might even improve it—but he’s pretending to be French to lure in customers, and he thinks Frenchmen are supposed to be temperamental.”
A corner of her trembling mouth tilted up, in spite of herself.
“He’s got jambon and mouton on the menu,” Justin went on, “but he couldn’t bring himself to put a frog on the card any which way you spell it. Couldn’t touch one, actually. English to the marrow, he is. Calls himself Jacques around here, but call him that and he won’t even turn around, because he was born a right honest old Alf. He doesn’t know how to say that in French, you see.”
She giggled.
“He did try Alphonse,” Justin said sadly, “but the first time anyone called him that, he hit them a good chop, so…”
She began to laugh. It was such an unexpected bright, free, whole-heartedly happy sound coming from her that Jared and Fiona stopped talking to see what had caused it. Jared seemed surprised that it was his brother.
Della smiled at Justin and said, “Justin was just explaining some of the finer points of being English to me.”
“As I was to Jared,” Fiona said brightly. “Isn’t this fun!”
“Indeed. I don’t know what we did for diversion before you came,” Justin said, but this time it was hard to tell if he was joking.
They dined until there were no dishes left for the waiters to carry out. Then the men excused themselves, saying they were going to secure a coach or some sedan chairs for the ladies.
“It’s their way of saying they have to use the withdrawing room,” Fiona said merrily. “Do you?”
Della shook her head and Fiona went on with a sigh, “Well, I do, but I’ll wait until I get home. Such trouble using those teeny chamber pots they supply when you’ve such a lot of skirt on, isn’t it? How I envy the gentlemen. They just open a flap, stand in the right direction, and—oh! Have I shocked you?”
She had, but not by what she’d said, only that she’d said it. But then Della realized most of the English nobles she’d met here were freer in speech than the people were at home. She supposed it had something to do with the fact that when the Puritans had left England to settle the Colonies, they’d taken their sober influence with them. Whatever the reason, Fiona’s comment wasn’t so much vulgar as it was amusing, like the woman herself was. It was impossible to dislike her, Della thought sadly, even though she purely hated her. She gave up.
“No,” she told Fiona with a faint smile, “you haven’t shocked me. It’s just that it’s odd to hear an English lady say such things.”
“Well, English men are equipped the same as colonial ones, I dare say,” Fiona said. “Unless you know otherwise?” she asked with a giggle.
Della could only smile and shake her head.
“How I envy you!” Fiona said, and Della stared. “You’ve known Jared all these years and I’m only just getting to know him. What a charming man! How unusual he is, so full of spirit and experience, but with such good manners. Even his voice is different from most men’s—oh, not to you, of course. But his accent is not like Justin’s, even though they are brothers. Their voices are the same, but different, like their faces. They look alike in some ways, but are totally different looking. Do you know, I believe there is no way they are alike at heart. Jared is so—adventuresome.”
She spoke about Jared the way any infatuated chit at home might, Della thought, and quickly said, “Because he had to be. And he talks the way most men do at home. Now, to me, it’s Justin’s voice that’s more unusual, even though my own father is from England—as I am, when you get right down to it. Life in the Colonies changes people, I guess. It will be interesting to see if life here changes a man back again.”
“Won’t it?” Fiona said eagerly. “I can’t wait to see.”
There was only so much Della could take. She was tired and sad, and the thought that she was going to leave this place soon made her reckless in ways she wouldn’t have been if she’d planned to stay on. She knew that all of this, including Fiona, would soon be only a memory.
“Yes, everything about Jared is interesting. But you’re going to marry Justin, aren’t you?” she said bluntly.
Fiona looked amused, not dismayed. She laughed, a little silvery laugh. “I am going to marry the earl of Alveston, everyone knows that.”
“But Justin…” Della said, and then didn’t say more, because she belatedly remembered it wasn’t polite, or her place, and it probably wouldn’t do any good anyway.
“Justin is a very nice man. And I do love him—dearly. But Della, you of all people know how it is with men you’ve known since you were tiny! Jared’s like a beloved brother to you—as Justin is to me,” Fiona said with simple wisdom. “But unlike you, I am supposed to marry the man I grew up with.” She made a little sad face, and then looked at Della, her eyes twinkling. “I suppose I would have without a murmur, if Jared hadn’t returned, for I am a very good girl and wouldn’t want to cause my father distress, any more than you’d want to cause yours any. Can you blame me for wanting some spice in my life?”
It was hard for Della to listen, she was so busily dreaming of what it might be like to be expected to marry Jared.
“I never thought things could be different, but now just look at this,” Fiona purred. “All of a sudden, and in the nick of time, there arrives on the scene a man as good as Justin, every bit as handsome, clever, and even more exciting—and it turns out that he is the true earl, the man I was supposed to marry in the first place. Oh Della, dear, isn’t that just wonderful?”
Fiona sat back, her pretty face aglow. She was only a year younger in age than Della herself was, Della realized, but she was very much younger in every other way. She was charming and thoughtless, but no more cruel than a child who wants only to get her way. She couldn’t guess the pain she inflicted, nor would she care very much, probably, if she did. She was content as long as she got what she wanted.
But it mightn’t even be that, Della realized. Fiona might think Della wo
uld be proud or even delighted at the idea of a fine English lady wanting Jared, because it was clear she, like Jared, thought Della loved him like a brother. There was no power on earth that would make Della tell Fiona otherwise.
“But…Justin?” Della finally asked, because she didn’t know what else to say.
“Oh, who knows? We’ll see. Nothing’s settled. Oh, here they are. Gentlemen,” Fiona said, smiling at the brothers, “have you gotten us a coach or a sedan chair to cram ourselves into?”
“Neither,” Justin said. “The rain has stopped, and I believe you ought to walk off that meal. You devoured three cream puffs—not that I was counting.”
“Oh, pooh!” Fiona said with a saucy grin. Placing her hand on Jared’s arm, she put her nose in the air and said, “In that case, I’ll walk with this fellow. He’s far more polite. You weren’t counting, were you, my lord?”
“Only your smiles,” Jared said with enough oily mock courtesy to make even Justin and Della laugh, whether or not they felt like it.
They strolled the few blocks to Fiona’s house. It was late afternoon, and early autumn shadows were creeping down the avenue with them. Della walked behind Fiona and Jared and couldn’t stop watching how their heads tilted close as they chatted. Or the way Fiona’s gloved hand rested so possessively on Jared’s arm. Or the way he held his own hand over hers when he guided her across a street in the wake of the street sweeper’s broom, as though only he could protect the delicate lady with whom he walked.
Della stared at Jared’s back, seeing his rakish new hat and how his neatly tied hair, resting on his strong, wide shoulders, glowed gold with the last sunlight. Afterward, she never remembered exactly what she had talked about with Justin as they trailed along in Jared and Fiona’s shadow, but they did speak and laugh and act as though they were having just as good a time as the couple in front of them obviously were.
