“What a brave man!” Mother cried. And then, turning to her daughter: “Ruthie, are you quite alright?”
“Yes, Mother,” Ruth said, her voice low and gruff. “I am—tired.”
A knock at the door brought Ruth back to the present. “Yes?” she said, standing.
Mother entered. “Are you ready to leave for the ball?” she said.
“Yes, Mother,” she said.
“It is such a shame that Charles cannot be there.”
“Yes, Mother,” Ruth agreed.
“But soon you will be married!”
“Mother, no official proposal has been made.” Thank Lord! “We should not presume things like that.”
“Oh, gosh.” Mother waved a hand. “At my age, one must presume to save one’s time. We haven’t got the time to wait.”
Ruth followed her mother from the bedroom, through the house, and outside to the carriage.
I am coming, Your Grace.
*****
His Grace was a tall, muscular man with an overall look of solidity. When he moved, it was with a quiet power. He was not bullish or bullying, but people moved out of his way. He looked out of earth-brown eyes with a tiredness that pronounced the world eager but ultimately lacking. His square jaw was clean shaven and his features were rock-like. The last time Ruth had seen him, he did not have the scar on his face; it was a long scar that ran from his forehead, across his left eye, and down his cheek. She gasped when she saw it, and then immediately recovered herself. It wasn’t that the scar was ghastly. It wasn’t. It was just that she had been so sure the same man would return that it shook her convictions.
His Grace’s sight rested upon her when she, Mother, and Father entered the ballroom. A footman brought family cups of wine and Ruth was dragged into a group of Goodfellows and Appleyards and Chellenhams and Elwoods. The conversation washed over her with an unreal quality, as though the words were coming from a great distant. Past the head of Lord Appleyard she continually spied His Grace, moving between groups, contriving to get closer and closer to their group, but constantly accosted by smaller huddles of Lords and Ladies. Finally, he was able to navigate the fray and stopped at the edge of their group.
There was a general murmur of Your Grace. Mother and Ruth curtseyed. Father bowed and extemporized briefly on the wonderfulness of the party. His Grace was polite and thanked Father sincerely. With a boldness that Ruth would never forget, he walked around Father and stood directly before Ruth. She could not help but trace the scar with her eyes. It was pink and raw-looking, as though it was only a few months old. His face creased when he realized what she was looking at. The entire group had turned expectantly.
“A Frenchman misplaced his knife,” His Grace said, with a smooth smile. “As a sort of joke I hid it in my face.”
The men laughed raucously at that. The Ladies gasped with astonishment and pleasurable outrage. “My lady,” His Grace said. “Would you honor me with a dance?”
Ruth looked to Mother, who gave the slightest of nods. “It would be my pleasure,” she said.
She followed His Grace to the floor, feeling as though she was following him into the past.
*****
A dance at a ball was a sort of refuge of conversation, somebody had said to Ruth when she was very young. Away from the general throng of Lords and Ladies, there was the almighty Dance, where a man and a woman were alone but for the steps and the music, where whispered words could be exchanged. His Grace led her with practiced steps and Ruth fell easily back into the routine of dancing with him.
“Does the scar frighten you?” he said, a note of anxiety in his voice.
“Not at all, Your Grace,” Ruth said honestly.
“Luke, my lady—call me Luke.”
“Yes—Luke.” Ruth lowered her voice on the second syllable, as though it was magic word.
They danced in silence for a half-minute and then His Grace said, quietly and conspiratorially: “You cannot imagine how I feel seeing you again. Leaving for France was the most monstrous thing I have had to do. It was ghastly. But it had to be done. The King needed a man to inspire the soldiers, and it seems I was that man. But, my lady, oh, if only you could see into my mind’s eye. I was covered in mud one day – mud and blood. Am I frightening you? Must I stop?”
“No!” Ruth said quickly. She was interested, enthralled.
“It was after a battle on the outskirts of a village I forget the name of. There had been many deaths and lots of the men were ready to give in right then. They wanted nothing more to do with battle and I couldn’t blame them. They sat around in a huddle and I sat a little further off. I was ready to give in – we hadn’t won yet – and I feared they might turn on me. There was an atmosphere of danger in the air, like at any moment the world could snap.” He spun her around and they commenced more complex steps. “And then, from the village, a woman came. The battle had started early – an ambush – and the sun was just rising behind the village. She was framed in sunlight and I could not discern the particulars. And for a few glorious moments I thought she was you. Oh, how my heart soared! I even rose to my feet and began jogging toward you, arms outstretched, and then my eyes focused and I saw it was not you. It was just a woman from the village who had come to talk to one of the men. I believe they had been having an affair.”
Suddenly, without her consultation, Ruth’s feet stopped moving. The dance was over.
“But for a wonderful moment, you were with me,” His Grace whispered fiercely. “And things were as they should be. You have not forgotten me?”
“No, but there is something you must—”
Mother touched her elbow. “Daughter, look who it is!”
Ruth was almost dragged into another group of smiling Lords and Ladies, one of whom was a girl Ruth had played with as a girl. She was married now. All of her childhood friends were. She was the embarrassment.
She was the anomaly.
*****
It was some time before His Grace came over to where Ruth stood and asked for another dance. Ladies cast her suspicious glances, and Mother’s head snapped around with surprise, before she regained her composure. But was she going to refuse a Duke? His Grace led her once again to the floor. He led her around the floor with fluid steps and once again the two of them became segregated from the rest of the ball. It was just the two of them, alone upon the floor, alone in the universe.
“You were going to tell me something,” His Grace said.
“Yes,” Ruth muttered. “I fear it will not make you happy.”
“My lady?”
“I am being courted by a man,” Ruth said, unable to hide the tremor in her voice. “Oh, Luke, I do not love him! I really rather despise him!” It was the first time she had voiced her real feelings for Charles to anybody but herself. “He is a brutal man. He makes cruel, salacious, scandalous comments. He asked me if I had ever been to a brothel!” Ruth wished she could forget that, but she had remembered it vividly. Mother and Father had been duped by Charles; they let him escort her alone around the gardens. He had smiled at her with a sickening glint of hunger in his eyes when he asked the reprehensible question.
“Who is he?” His Grace asked; his voice suddenly mechanical.
“Charles Stone. Lord Charles Stone.”
His Grace bit his lip, and then nodded. “He is the son of Reese Stone, the silkman?”
“That is him.”
“He is beneath you, my lady,” His Grace said in confusion. “What would possess your parents to allow him to court you?”
“I am six-and-twenty,” Ruth said. “I see it in their eyes, Luke. They are beginning to lose hope. They think I will become like Father’s auntie – God bless her – who never married and was quite miserable for it.”
“They do not know you already love another!” His Grace said fie
rcely. His Grace had always been a passionate man. One spark could ignite the fire in him. But Ruth sensed a new intensity of passion with him, as though he had been boiled somehow, or was on the cusp of exploding. He looked into her eyes, and the earth-brown seemed to bury her. I will have you, those eyes said. You are already mine. This man is nothing. “Has a proposal been made?” His Grace said. “Did your parents give permission?”
“No proposal has been made.”
(And the steps continue; and the footmen circulate; and the groups of Lords and Ladies titter and gossip.)
His Grace let out a sigh. “Then nothing is official,” he said. “That is something, at least. You must end it, my lady. You must end it with this man. I am going to contrive a reason to come to Wells in May. That gives you one month to end it with this man. Please, find a way. For us.”
The dance ended, and once again Ruth was swept into the tumult of titters and gossip.
*****
A week after the ball, Lord Charles Stone wrote that he would be in town the following day, and would like to meet with Ruth. Ruth detested the way in which he presented himself in his letters. In them he was always polite and courteous and honorable. But when she was alone with him, she felt as though worms were crawling down her back. Once, he had even feigned falling as an excuse to touch her upper leg. “Clumsy,” he said, in his thick-voiced slur, and gave her leg a squeeze.
Ruth knew she should just tell Mother about his conduct, but Mother seemed so excited that Ruth had finally found somebody to marry her that she didn’t have the heart. She knew that Mother was wrong – that her excitement was based upon a lie – but looking into her wrinkled face, so bright it was almost youthful, she just couldn’t.
Before she knew it – before she was ready – Charles Stone had arrived. He emerged into the drawing room behind the footman with his usual arrogant sneer. But when he turned to Mother his features softened and he appeared respectable and thankful. He was a portly man, a man of ill restraint. His belly was large under his jacket and strained the buttons. The tail did not reach his thighs, obstructed by his rump. His britches always seemed on the verge of bursting open. He wore a thick, slug-like moustache and his eyebrows joined in the middle, creating a unibrow. Once again Ruth could not see why Mother had agreed to this man entering their home, even if he had money.
“May I take—”
And of course Mother with agree.
She did, and Ruth and Charles walked the grounds together, unescorted. Scandal! He didn’t say anything for a long time, and then he stopped near a tree and leered at her, looking plainly over her body. “You look good,” he said bluntly. “May I touch you?”
The worms started down her back again, and she shivered. “My lord, I really wish you would not say things like that.” Her voice was cold and calm. She would not allow a hint of outrage or emotion. She would not act in his play.
“But, Ruth,” he said. (She had never given him permission to use her name.) “But, Ruth,” he went on. “I just want one touch you. Can you deny your future husband that? Oh, yes, I mean to ask your Father today! I believe he will say yes! Tut-tut, six-and-twenty and unmarried! What a prize!”
“I will not marry you,” Ruth blurted, standing with a straighter back. “You are a salacious, sickening man.”
“Yes,” he said, without the least hint of embarrassment. “And soon this salacious, sickening man will be your husband.”
When he grinned he looked like a gargoyle; a sadistic one at that. Ruth had to fight an urge to retreat from him. “I will not marry you,” she repeated, with more firmness in her voice. “I will not subject myself to a lifetime of misery like so many women have endured at the hands of men like you. I weep for my fallen sisters, but I will not become one.”
He regarded her with detached curiosity, like a student of the natural arts regarding a new species of flower for the first time. He tilted his head, and the fat on the side of his neck rolled into thick layers, each marked by a flapping of skin and fat. “What other choice do you have?” he said, the tip of his tongue showing between his gummy lips. “What choice do you have?” he repeated, though this time as though consulting with himself. “You are becoming old. You are a burthen upon your parents, and I fear for you that you shall not like how their behavior will shift if you refuse me. Plus, it is not your decision. It is your father’s.”
“If you ask him,” Ruth said slowly, gauging the man her eyes, “I will tell him the full account of your inappropriate behavior. I will inform him of your comment concerning brothels, and the improper conduct you have displayed in my presence time and time again. The whole realm already sees you as an upstart, sir. Would you have Lord Eyre think the same?”
“Upstart,” he mused. “Yes, I suppose I am. My father was a dealer in silk. We have not sigil, and our ancestry does not stretch back to King Arthur, like the oh-so-noble Eyres. But you have to know, my dear Ruthie, that a woman is often assumed to be complicit in such relations. I believe that is why you have not informed him so far.”
“You are correct,” Ruth said, her voice still emotionless. “Yes, sir, you are correct. But if that is the price I must pay for de-masking you, then so be it. If my honor must be called into question to destroy yours, then I shall lay my head upon the block.”
“You are feisty!” he exclaimed, clapping meaty hands together. Squelch-squelch-squelch. “I do believe I will have some fun with you on our wedding night—”
“What is the meaning of this?”
The voice was instantly recognizable to Ruth, and yet it seemed impossible. His Grace was early. All the same, he emerged from behind a nearby tree. He wore his military jacket and britches, with knee-high boots that accentuated his muscled legs. “What is the meaning of this, silkman?” His Grace barked.
“Who’s this brave chap?” Charles said, turning carelessly to His Grace.
“He is the Duke of Stunton, a Brigadier and a veteran of France,” Ruth said, trying to keep a smile from her lips as His Grace walked boldly up to them.
Charles’ face changed immediately. He stared at his feet. Red bloomed in his cheeks and he fumbled at his collar. “Your Grace,” he said, his voice tight with barely-restrained anger. “I—I did not see you there, Your Grace.”
“That is because I concealed myself,” His Grace said easily. He moved boldly between Ruth and Charles, and stared openly at the man. “I heard some frightful things,” he went on. “But I am not easily shocked. I suggest you take the lady’s advice, and scuttle back to the hole in which you dwell. On the border, isn’t it? Almost in Scotland? Yes, yes,” His Grace waved a hand, “I know where you reside.”
“Are you threatening me, Your Grace?” Charles breathed.
“Threatening you?” His Grace said, feigning shock by putting his face to his mouth. “Oh, no, my dear fellow. In France we learnt many things. Chiefly, we learn that threats are naught by courtroom baubles, and duels a joke. No, I would not threaten you for bothering my lady. I would simply end you.” He spoke in calm, measured tones. But Ruth could tell he was angry: even angrier than when he discovered he had to go to France and leave her, all those years ago. “Do you understand?”
Charles didn’t say anything for a long time. A rabbit hopped by the scene, looked at them quizzically, and then hopped on its way. A wind blew from the south, disturbing the greening leaves. At length, he spoke: “I understand, Your Grace.”
“Then I suggest you leave,” His Grace said, squaring his shoulders.
Charles looked at His Grace, and then to Ruth, and then back to His Grace. Finally, he turned and fled into the forest, away from the Eyre estate and toward Wells.
His Grace turned to Ruth. A light breeze disturbed his hair, which was short and curly and fell to just above his eyes. “My lady,” he said. “I can see that you are surprised.”
“Surprised? Yes
, yes, but glad, too.”
“I have written to your father, but unless he has concealed the information from you – which I cannot see him doing – I must infer that the letter never reached him.”
“There has been no letter that I know of,” Ruth confirmed.
“Very well,” His Grace said. “I will take a room in town, and send a calling card on the morrow.”
“Father and Mother will be awfully surprised!”
“Do you think they will allow me to visit?”
“Yes, of course, Your Grace. You are a Duke; you are above us all.”
“Oh, no, Ruth,” His Grace said, and moved closer to her. “I am not above you, my lady. Never think that. I would ask to kiss you, but I see that this scene has distressed you. On the morrow, if there is a chance, may I kiss you? I know it is wrong of me to ask—”
“You may,” Ruth said. A tinge of emotion touched her voice.
“On the morrow, then,” His Grace said, and bowed extravagantly.
“Wait,” Ruth said, as he made to turn.
“Yes, my lady?”
“How did you find me?”
His Grace smiled. His hard eyes softened with light for a moment. “Perhaps the Providence wishes for us to be together. I came through the war. A lark in the forest is a small thing after that.” He paused, and then added: “But a tête-à-tête with Lady Ruth Eyre is a heavenly thing, so I suppose events have a method of self-balance. On the morrow, my lady.”
When Ruth returned to the house, Father asked where Lord Stone had gone. Ruth hated lying to her father, and she probably would have told the truth if it had not implicated His Grace is some minor dishonor. “He turned suddenly strange,” Ruth said. “All of a sudden, Father, he proclaimed that he must take his leave. It was rather embarrassing, really.”
“How is that?” Father said, removing his pipe from his mouth.
“Well—he said he had to tend to his silk.”
Father rarely laughed, but a small smile lifted his lips. “Oh,” he said. “Oh, very well, then.”
Romance: Detective Romance: A Vicious Affair (Victorian Regency Intrigue 19th England Romance) (Historical Mystery Detective Romance) Page 28
