by Edith Layton
Her eyes searched his. “No kisses?” she asked softly. “No physical contact at all?”
“I’m not a cad,” he said gravely. “I lost my head once. I won’t do it again, even though I dearly wish to. Now, go to sleep. I’ll stay on a week or so more with my friends. Then, we’ll ride for London. Within a week, I’ll settle matters with Miss Winchester and then see it appears in the newspaper. Then I’ll send for you and announce our pledge for the world to see. Please understand. Please wait.”
She nodded. “I will.” But then her chin rose. “But only for a few weeks more. And if you find when you return to London that you’ve returned to your senses, I’ll understand.” She poked a finger into his cravat. “Understand that.”
“And if our one moment of forgetfulness proves fruitful?” he asked. “What about that? Would you expect me to forget that too? I promise you, I would not.”
She shrugged. “Then you’d remember. I can’t stop that. But I’ll never wed where there is no love. Not for the sake of a child, or myself. Be easy. I understand that there’s not much likelihood of that. After all, it only happened once.”
“But you’ll tell me?” he persisted. “As soon as you know?”
She cocked her head to the side. Her smile was not merry. “Yes. No. You’d never know. Forget it for now.”
“I can scarcely forget it if time is of the essence,” he said.
“So far,” she said, “it is not. Don’t look for trouble. Go on and do what you must, and understand that I’ll do the same. Good night, Lord Wylde.”
He caught her hand as she turned to go, his expression angry. He pulled her toward him, stared into her eyes a moment, then bent his head and kissed her. Their kiss was long and fervent, and they clung to each other. Then he drew back.
“See?” he said in a shaken voice. “I’ve already gone back on my word. I’ll leave in a few days. I can’t trust myself for much longer than that.”
“I wouldn’t mind if you forgot yourself,” she said, touching his sleeve.
“I would,” he said. “Good night, Lisabeth. Trust me. I’m leaving sooner because when I’m with you I can’t trust myself.”
“But I don’t care,” she said.
“I do,” he said. “I can’t help that. If you want me, understand that this inconvenient morality of mine is as much part of me as my eyes or my nose. It is what makes me what I am. I’m not my father or great-grandfather. Don’t marry me because I remind you of them, marry me in spite of what I am.”
She nodded.
He bowed, and left her.
“He’s a good man,” Miss Lovelace said into the silence of the room. She yawned. “Too good for the likes of me. But he’ll never give you a moment’s worry when you’re finally wed.”
“He never said he loves me, not once,” Lisabeth whispered.
Miss Lovelace rose from the chair slowly and with difficulty. “Well, that’s a gentleman for you.”
“Yes,” Lisabeth said bitterly. “He won’t lie.”
“Didn’t say that,” Miss Lovelace said on another huge yawn. “He won’t say ‘bip,’ not he, until he’s free to say it.”
“He did things he wasn’t free to do,” Lisabeth said.
“He’s a man. He’s not a saint, or a man milliner. You wouldn’t want him so straitlaced and proper he didn’t sometimes give way to temptation, would you? Proves he’s human. Now, what’s the matter? You look as though you’re going to cry.”
Lisabeth shook her head. “How will I ever know how he really feels about me? Especially if I don’t get my courses? I don’t want to lie to him but I don’t want him to marry me just because of one mistake.”
“He wouldn’t be the first or the last to do it. But you’re making the stew before you’ve caught a fish. Wait and see. Now, give me your arm, I’m to bed, and so are you. And it’s a lucky thing your young man isn’t the type to go creeping up to your chamber by night. Morality will keep him in his whole skin. The captain keeps a loaded horse pistol by his bedside. Why, one night I remember, he heard a creaking below stairs, and he was up and out of bed and down the stairs in the altogether two seconds later. Had he not seen it was a cat in time, there’d have been cat all over the dining chamber wall.”
“Lovey!” Lisabeth said, eyes wide.
Miss Lovelace patted her hand. “Not to fret. Many a long year ago, that was, when both he and I didn’t look so bad in the altogether. Nor did either of us have a reputation to win or lose. That’s over and done. Now, there’s not a soul I’d let see me like that. Save for the doctor, of course. I’m not a prude. Only a prune.” She laughed. “Now, let’s go to bed.”
Constantine went riding out with his friends the next morning, and Lisabeth, waiting for him, was so anxious she could not stop pacing.
“He’s telling them now, is he?” the captain asked as he came into the front salon and saw her walking to the window and back again.
“So he said,” she muttered.
“Doing it by the book,” the captain said, nodding. “The lad’s got manners. Lizzie?” he asked, in a voice she hadn’t heard from him in a long time. “You sure of this? He’s handsome, rich, and well mannered, I grant. But is he the fellow for you? You’re not conventional; we didn’t raise you as such. Right or wrong, I wouldn’t want you to try to change for someone else’s sake. There’s nothing wrong with propriety, but it can make you feel tight-laced if you act like that to make someone else happy. Is he worth it? Marriage is a long time, God willing. And don’t talk to me about my great-grandchild coming, unless you’re sure, and then we’ll discuss it. But even if so, you know how we live here.
“There’s many a likely lad who would take you to wife with three brats at your skirts, and thank heaven for the chance to do it. Oh, people gossip. But everyone round here judges a lass by her heart and her brain, not her past. All I’m saying is that you’re worth ten other females. So don’t do anything because you think you must.”
“What do you really think of him, Grandy?” she asked, stopping to study his face as he answered.
“He’s not his father, nor his great-grandfather,” the captain said with a sigh. “Sometimes I think I see a glimpse of them in him, trying to get out. But he was brought up strict and proper and he never rebelled, like they did. So I don’t know. Thing is,” he said, lowering his eyebrows, and studying her expression from under them. “If you were sure you loved him, I don’t think you’d ask me that. You plain wouldn’t care.”
“Right,” she said sadly. “And I didn’t care, before. But now … ? When he’s with his friends he’s different.”
“I know. Make sure you know what and who he is wherever he is before you post the banns or exchange one vow with him,” her grandfather cautioned. “Because afterward, it will be too late. Oh, not for you to come home! You can always come home to me. But for you to be free to find another.”
“Thank you, Grandy,” she said. “I know that. I’m not stupid, you should know that too.”
“You think you’re in love,” he said. “That makes anyone stupid.”
She smiled. And then her smile faded. “But not he,” she said softly. “That’s the problem.”
“Aye, I know it,” he said, and then they both stood and looked out the window, waiting for Constantine and his friends to come back.
Chapter Fifteen
“Marry her? Well, this is indeed news,” Blaise said carefully. “I can certainly see the attraction. Miss Lisabeth is charming, quite lovely, an original, in fact.”
“Aye, so she is,” Kendall said. “But you’re already promised. What are you going to do about Miss W.? She’ll be mad as fire.”
“She’ll be wounded,” Blaise said, correcting him.
“Wounded, you say?” Constantine asked. “Do you have a tendre there yourself?”
Blaise shuddered, very theatrically. “Never. It’s only that I have sisters, three. And so I pride myself on understanding the female mind. A lady mightn’t want a fello
w, but as soon as it looks as though he doesn’t want her, you can wager she’ll change her mind and desire him, madly. Though, admittedly, that’s hard to see in a female as reserved as your fiancée. Ah, that is to say, your soon-to-be former fiancée. As for Miss W., at least I can say it at last: she’s far too cold for me. I may not have enough money to marry where I would, but I have enough care for myself not to marry where I wouldn’t even if I had to.”
They sat in the sunlight at an outdoor table in back of the inn, where they could speak without being overheard.
“Miss W. will want your head if she doesn’t get your hand,” Kendall persisted.
“I doubt she’ll care,” Constantine said. “That is, if the disengagement is done with discretion and made to look as though it’s her idea.”
Blaise tapped his fingers on the wooden table. His expression grew serious. “Con? We’ll support you, as ever. But you’re far too flippant about it, in my opinion.” He spread his hands. “Yes, I know I’m usually the flippant one. But all jokes aside, I can’t see Miss W. giving you up. Not for another female. Not for anything short of a direct assault, which we know isn’t your style, or we wouldn’t be friends. You set too little store in her pride. Why in the world should she let you go? She’s already been congratulated by her friends, the date’s been set, I don’t doubt she’s already gotten some fine wedding gifts.”
Constantine took a deep breath. “Have you forgotten the reason I came here? Not just to meet the woman the captain said had been my fiancée since birth, but to find out about my family history. I did. I was shocked at first, and then in a way, strangely proud of the bold old monsters. Me, the descendant of a pirate, and a highwayman? Do you think Miss W. will be proud, or even amused? No, gentlemen, she’ll be glad to wash her hands of me.”
“But you also wanted to be sure the ton never discovered any such thing,” Blaise persisted. “Have you changed your mind about that?”
“Yes,” Constantine said simply.
Blaise and Kendall exchanged a troubled glance.
“If you want to challenge me to a duel for saying this, I will meet you, though I’d think it a waste of time,” Blaise said. “We are equals, at least with pistol and saber. Kendall here has the edge in fisticuffs. But …” For once the glib Blaise seemed at a loss for what to say. He exchanged another look with Kendall. “You want to be free of Miss W.? We can see that,” Blaise went on. “But you live for propriety, old man. And now you say you don’t care?”
“What he’s trying to say is that this is so sudden,” Kendall blurted. “What we want to know is if your hand’s being forced. You aren’t a sudden sort of fellow. It looks like a ‘compromising position’ sort of thing. Don’t scowl. Makes sense. After all, you stayed here longer than you intended, and in their house. The girl’s clear as rainwater, or so it seems. But we know you. Moral as a monk in chains. Now this! Thing is, one look can tell you that the old captain is as shrewd as he can hold together. If you’re caught in a trap, we want you to know we’ll help spring you.”
“Just so!” Blaise said with relief.
“It’s a trap of my own making,” Constantine said.
His friends looked at each other.
“And you both know my engagement to Miss W. was never a love match.”
“And this one is?” Blaise asked.
“And this one,” Constantine said carefully, “is something I never expected to experience. But no one is forcing me to anything.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” Blaise said, sitting back. “And you know? I think you can pull it off. We’ll help. We can make sure no one casts the first stone. After all, many in the ton have not only skeletons in their closets, but a veritable symphony of old bones rattling on their family trees. We can remind anyone who disparages you of them.”
“A lot of bones still with meat on them too,” Kendall said. “What you’re going to do isn’t so terrible. Been done before. Isn’t like you’re abandoning a wife, as many do. Breaking off an engagement’s not so terrible. Especially one with Miss W. Having interesting ancestors isn’t so terrible neither, except to the very highest sticklers, which I grant you were, Con. And I admit I like you better this way. But as for others? It wouldn’t be a tragedy to anyone except for those with their noses so high in the air they can’t smell their own stench.”
“Yes,” Blaise said, warming to the subject. “My own father was a gambler, he was famous for how much he could lose in a night. Which is why I have to marry to keep the ancestral roof over my head. But I’m welcomed everywhere.”
“Had a grandfather who was never seen sober after he passed his thirtieth birthday,” Kendall said. “Well-known fact. Yet I can go anywhere I want too. You’ll do, Con. And if you don’t, Blaise and I can dig through the ton and find some newer bones to chew over. No one will shun you. We’ll see you through this.”
“Drinking is a gentleman’s leisure-time activity, the more leisure, the more drinking,” Constantine said on a sigh. “Your grandfather was a drunk, Kendall, but all he did was ruin his own constitution. And gambling is positively necessary to prove blue blood; losing was your father’s only crime, Blaise. But robbery, rapine, and defiance of the king’s law? Not many people have pirates and highwaymen in their background. I suppose I could weather it, but I don’t know if I want to expend the effort. It’s a good thing Lisabeth doesn’t care about such things.”
“Her family must have been knee deep in villainy,” Kendall said, looking around to make sure the barmaid wasn’t within hearing distance. “Wouldn’t doubt it. The captain’s a rare old rogue.”
“Yes, but a crafty one,” Constantine said. “He never was caught or convicted of anything, though I don’t doubt he dabbled in those trades, and smuggling too. But in fact, Lisabeth’s lineage is much cleaner than mine. Her father was a friend of my father’s, and a loyal one, but he never was caught at a crime. He only chased women and was killed by a jealous husband. My father chased stagecoaches and was killed by a guard on the king’s mail. But Lisabeth doesn’t care. The reverse, in fact. I suspect she was drawn to me because as an inventive and lonely child she heard the stories, saw the damned portraits, and formed an imaginary attachment to my dashing ancestors.”
“Uncanny,” Kendall said. “You do have the look of them, you know. Almost funny, you being such a proper fellow.”
“And,” Constantine added, “she’s had a unique upbringing.”
Kendal and Blaise exchanged another look.
Constantine waved a hand. “Yes, it’s an odd household, filled with retired villains. You get used to them. Now, since you two villains are hell-bent on helping me, here’s how you can do it.” He leaned forward. “Would it be too much to ask that you both show Miss W. some interest when we get back to town? At parties and such? Not enough to get you caught, but enough to bolster her confidence?”
“She won’t want to catch me,” Blaise said. “I’m a fortune hunter. Everyone knows that. But I am an ornament in Society. I’ll do the pretty with her, if you like.”
“She won’t want me,” Kendall said. “I’m too rough for the likes of her. But I’ll butter her up one side and down the other, for you, Con.”
Constantine smiled.
“Never approved the match,” Kendall said as he drained his mug of ale. “Always thought you two were too alike. Ice meeting ice only freezes harder. You need a fire, someone to warm you up, Con, and that’s a fact.”
“Indeed? You say that with such emphasis. Have you an interest in my Lisabeth yourself, so soon?” Constantine asked him.
“Well, I would, if I could,” Kendall said. “She’s mighty good to look at, acts like a lady, and looks like a lass a man can talk to. You’re a lucky fellow.”
“And how do you want us to act toward Lisabeth?” Blaise asked.
“Hands off,” Constantine said, and sketched a bow to their blossoming smiles.
They were alone at last, in the garden. Constantine’s friends were in the hou
se, playing a game of cards with the captain and Miss Lovelace. Lisabeth and Constantine said they were going out for a breath of air. No one at the card table so much as looked up. Miss Lovelace was cleaning out their pockets.
The garden was cool, and smelled of grass and night-blooming flowers. Constantine and Lisabeth didn’t speak at first.
“I leave tomorrow,” Constantine finally said.
She stopped and turned to him, eyes wide. “You never said.”
“I didn’t know. But we’ve entertained my friends royally this past week. I should have left days ago. I suppose I dragged my feet because I was loath to leave you, if only for a little while. This has all been like a dream of contentment. But it can’t stay that way; I’m too tempted to wrong you again here. I have business to finish up in London. I must face it. I don’t want to leave, but I have to go, for our sake.”
She couldn’t think what to say. She didn’t have to. He took her in his arms and kissed her until she moaned. Or he did. Neither of them knew, but both cared. It ended the moment.
“I can’t go on like this,” Constantine said in frustration against her hair. “Your scent, your warmth, your laughter, all inspire me to hold you close. But I shouldn’t, and neither should I meet you in secrecy. This is no hole-in-the-corner affair; I want you for my wife. It’s best for us both that I’m going to London tomorrow. When we meet again, I’ll be free. You’ll come to London and we can see each other freely and openly. Then we’ll only have to wait a week or two, for courtesy’s sake, to announce our wedding plans.”
“Courtesy?” she asked.
“To my former fiancée, and so as not to make it appear that we marry in haste.”
She looked up at him. “But what if there’s reason to move faster?”
There was a smuggler’s moon; enough to see by, but with enough shadow to fuel imagination and conceal realities. Here, in the shadowed garden, Constantine looked more like the dashing man in the murky old portrait than he’d ever done. The scant, fluctuant moonlight showed up his dark winged brows, the planes of his cheekbones, and the sudden slash of his white smile, but she couldn’t read his expression.
