His gaze settled on the ebony hair sweeping along Emily’s neck, refusing to be forced into curls. Recalling its silk against his fingers, he tossed the reins to a stableboy and walked to where she was standing beside her sister.
His smile became a frown when he heard Emily say in an intense tone, “Miriam, please! It will take but a moment for me to say what I must to you.”
“I do not need to be chided for my foolishness again,” her sister replied before rushing away.
“Is something amiss?” he asked quietly.
He might as well have shouted, for she started at his question. She glanced at him and away, but not before he noted the distress on her face.
She shrugged. “Just Miriam being as stubborn as I am.”
He did not believe her nonchalant answer. “If you would prefer not to go to the village today—”
“No, no, I want to go.” Her smile became more genuine. “I really do.”
“I am glad.” Taking her hand, he led her to the horse she had ridden to Wentworth Hall. “Ready to go?”
She hesitated.
“If you want to ride in the carriage with the others, Emily, you need only say so.”
When she raised her chin, he could not guess if the motion were in defiance of him or her own thoughts. “I would be delighted to ride with you, Damon.”
Those were the last words she spoke to him as they left Wentworth Hall. Behind them, the voices of his other guests were as joyous as the music growing louder as they approached the village. He paid neither the music nor the voices any mind. When he led the way over the arch of the stone bridge and into the village, he said as little as Emily. He might have tried to ease the silence with another woman, but Emily had spoken the truth. She was stubborn.
Swinging down from his horse, he greeted Mr. Frasier, who had been on the village council for as long as Damon could remember. The white-haired man wore a rumpled coat of a rusty black over his breeches that had musty odor.
“My lord,” the elderly man said as he pumped Damon’s hand, “I am so glad you could join us today. This ceremony has been held every year since Wentworth Hall was built, and I hate to think of us skipping a year.”
“As I would.” Not wanting the old man to see his smile at the words Frasier repeated every year, he turned to help Emily from the horse. A mistake, he realized, at the very moment he grasped her at the waist. Beneath his hands, her slender curves teased him to pull her closer. As he set her on the ground, he sought to hold her gaze, but it evaded him.
He sighed silently as he said, “Emily, allow me to present you to Mr. Frasier, the mayor of Wentworth Bridge. Mr. Frasier, Miss Emily Talcott.”
Emily was shocked when Mr. Frasier shook her hand as earnestly as he had Damon’s and said, “We are delighted Lord Wentworth has brought you to join our celebration.”
“I have,” Damon replied, “not wanted to inflict Wentworth Hall on any guests until it was in better condition.”
“Thank goodness, you have proven a better master of that estate than your father.” Mr. Frasier turned to Emily and smiled. “Lord Wentworth’s father was a fine man, I assure you, but he had no mind for business and tradition. If not for Lord Wentworth here, I daresay this old ceremony would have died out.”
Noting the detached expression Damon wore, Emily wondered which of the effusive Mr. Frasier’s words had disturbed him. She could not ask, not when she had refused to share with him how distressed she was at Miriam’s refusal to listen to the truth about the man who called himself Marquis de la Cour.
“But Miss Talcott cares nothing of that,” Mr. Frasier went on, “do you, Miss Talcott?”
Emily smiled, not sure what else to do or say.
Damon came to her rescue by taking her hand and drawing it within his arm. “If you will excuse us, Frasier, I want Miss Talcott to see everything Wentworth Bridge has to offer.”
“I suspect you do.” Mr. Frasier laughed heartily.
She started after him as he went toward a whitewashed church that was set in the middle of the half dozen stone cottages that seemed to be the whole of the village.
“Pay no attention to Mr. Frasier,” Damon said. “He enjoys a good jest.”
“Apparently.”
“Can I hope your answer means you are willing to call a truce about whatever I have done to upset you?”
“You?” She smiled sadly as she put her hand over his holding hers on his arm. “Forgive me, Damon. For once, you are not the one who has flurried my milk.”
“And I suppose it is none of my bread-and-butter who put you into such a pelter?”
“Can we just forget it?” Her smile wavered as she looked past him to where her sister was giggling with the marquis. Beyond them, Mr. Simpkins was helping Valeria from an open gig. Blast that man! If he would just open his eyes and see the truth, Miriam would gladly set André aside.
“Can you?”
She shook her head. “I am not sure, but I can try.”
His finger beneath her chin curved along her cheek in a clandestine caress. “I want you to enjoy this day.”
Her heart fluttered like a newborn leaf in the wind. “I will try, Damon. I vow that to you.”
“A vow you will keep?” He chuckled and tapped her nose.
“Like you, I always keep my vows no matter what.”
“I know.”
Before she could ask him to explain, Damon called to his other guests. Instantly they were surrouned by his friends, who were eager to discover every excitement waiting in this small village.
Swept along by the anticipation, Emily tried to do as she had promised. Damon’s jesting and his friends soon pulled her out of the dismals. She would have a chance to speak alone with Miriam. The right time would come.
Emily decided the whole shire must be at the fair. As the setting sun began to lengthen the shadow of the church’s spire, more and more people crowded onto the green. Music played a wild rhythm, and people danced in the road and on the grass. Food beckoned with delicious aromas. Sticky faces matched the stains left by butter and ale. Children raced underfoot, but no one chided them. This was a day for fun.
She wished she was having some. Wandering from table to brightly decorated table, she tried to stay close to her sister. André did not hide he was not pleased with her company, but she cared nothing for his opinions. Miriam seemed as delighted as one of the children with all the entertainments, clapping at the puppet show and cheering the races run by the village’s lads.
André brightened when they passed Damon, who was speaking with Mr. Frasier. As if the mayor were of little import, the marquis pushed his way between Mr. Frasier and Damon.
“Are you going to spend the whole day with business, mon ami?” André demanded.
Emily wondered if only she noticed how Damon’s back stiffened. His voice was even as he answered, “I just finished. I shall not be late, Mr. Frasier.”
“Thank you, my lord,” the old man said. He flashed the marquis a frown before walking away.
André laughed. “You English are as eccentric as I had been led to believe.”
“That may be so, but I challange you to find a cook in all of France who can better Mrs. Wiggs’s meat pies.”
“Is that so?”
“If you don’t believe me, I suggest you try one.”
“A challange I must accept.” He offered his arm to Miriam. “Ma chérie?”
When Emily started to follow them, Damon caught her hand, drawing her back. “Let me go.”
He laughed quietly.
“I find nothing amusing about this.”
“Odd, for I find it very amusing.” He led her in the opposite direction. “Most of all, I find you amusing.”
“What an appalling thing to say!”
“But the truth.” He continued to smile. “I find things dull without you to enliven them with your ardor, which eases the cynicism that has become a deplorable habit with me.”
Glancing back and seeing Papa
join her sister and the marquis, much to André’s dismay, if she could read his expression rightly, she relaxed. Mayhap Papa was not as oblivious to the situation as she had believed.
“You vowed to me,” Damon said, drawing her attention back to him, “that you would have fun. How can you when you are shadowing de la Cour and your sister?”
“I was trying to have fun.”
“I thought we were to be honest with each other.”
Regret clogged in her throat. He had no idea how much she wanted to be honest. “Forgive me. I cannot help being uneasy about Miriam and that man.”
“As well as you should be. ’Tis unlike you to let your sister act the blind buzzard with de la Cour.” He scowled. “You should let her fry in her own grease.”
“She is my sister, Damon.”
He shook his head. “When are you going to stop worrying yourself near to sickness about your father and sister? You concern yourself so deeply with their lives that you have no life of your own.”
“As you concern yourself unduly with mine.”
“Not unduly, Emily.” His fingers brushed her cheek with the tenderness that always unraveled her vexation with him. “I wanted you to have fun today, but I fear it is hopeless.”
“I told you I would.”
“A vow you will keep no matter what?”
She could not keep from smiling. “Point taken, Damon.” She relaxed and took a deep breath of fresh air. “How can you bear to leave this for the stuffiness of Town? If I had a country house, I never would wander far from it.”
“Don’t you think even this becomes monotonous?”
“I cannot imagine that ever happening.”
“Nor can I.” His smile vanished as he gazed across the river at the walls of Wentworth Hall.
Emily bit her lip. So many things she was begining to understand about Damon, for his devotion to his ancestral home was the key to the many puzzles that made up the man who was working to rebuild a dream. Happiness spread like warm sunshine through her as she imagined sharing his dreams.
She lowered her eyes. Damon wanted no one to complicate his life. He had made that clear. She had too many entanglements in his life. She had no need for another, but her heart refused to listen. She yearned to be with him, to toss aside her past and make a future at his side and in his arms.
Impossible! taunted the voice of reason in her head. As she gazed at the warm tan of her skin, she recalled the shock in her mother’s family’s eyes when Papa had arranged to return to England after her mother’s death.
“You cannot take the child with you,” she could hear her grandmother say as clearly as if the old woman stood beside her. “She will be ostracized.”
“No one need know the truth.” Papa had been confident of fortune always smiling on him. “I will speak of it to no one, and she is but a child. No one will heed her.”
Grandmother shook her head, her sable hair falling forward into her troubled eyes. “But when she becomes of an age to marry, it cannot be kept a secret then. Charles, you know how parochial English society is. If they learned about me—”
“They shan’t.” He bent to look Emily directly in the eyes. “We will keep it a secret, won’t we, Emily?”
She had been not much more than a baby, but she had understood that Grandmother was upset. She wanted Grandmother to smile as she did when she rocked Emily in her arms and sang the songs of the mountains and the trees and the spirits of the animals who lived among them.
“Yes, Papa,” she had whispered, “I will keep it a secret.”
And she had. Until she had met Damon, holding that secret within her heart had not been difficult. Now she wanted to open her heart to him, but she knew of no way to keep the secret from falling out.
“Emily?”
“Yes?”
He took her hand and placed a penny on it. Folding her fingers over it, he said, “Guard it well, Emily.”
“A penny?”
“The quit rent on the bridge to Wentworth Hall. Since the first Wentworth took up residence here, the rent has been paid annually at this fair.” He raised a brow and chuckled. “An archaic custom, but one that is enjoyed by everyone in shire. In fact, it’s suggested that the name Wentworth is a tidying up of the name given to my family by the ancestors of the villagers here.”
“What name was that?”
He grimaced. “Rent-worthy.”
Laughing, she asked, “But why are you giving the penny to me?”
“Tradition states that it should be paid by the prettiest lady in the shire.” Again he closed her fingers over the penny. “And that, without question, is you.”
“You flatter me.” She laughed and pressed the coin into his hand.
The church bell rang slowly. Damon smiled as he handed her the penny again. “If you fail to pay Mr. Frasier his one pence, we shall not be able to return to Wentworth Hall without swimming across the brook. The bridge will revert to the holding of the village fathers.” His fingers closed over hers. “I can think of no one else I would trust with this important task.”
“Trust?” she whispered.
“Will you do this for me, sweetheart?”
Sure he would hear her pulse thumping, she nodded. He gripped her arms and pressed his mouth over hers in a swift kiss that left her gasping for breath.
“Let us be done with my duties here,” he whispered, “then I would like to show you another section of my gardens where the roses are the color of your luscious lips.”
“I would like that.”
“So would I.” He burned succulent fire into her lips again before his tilted with a roguish grin. “This time without Sanders to watch over us like a protective mama.”
She did not hesitate as she nodded again. Mayhap she was mad, but she wanted this moment of madness when she could forget about the secrets haunting her. She ached to surrender to passion.
Emily went with Damon to where Mr. Frasier stood by the thick stones of the arched bridge. The old man’s eyes widened, then he grinned. Bowing his head toward them, he raised his hands. The crowd became silent.
“Greetings, Lord Wentworth,” Mr. Frasier said, suddenly as somber as a judge sending a man to swing on a choker.
“Mr. Frasier.” Damon’s voice was equally grave.
Emily was amazed to discover that the sparkle of mischief in his eyes was nowhere to be found. Here was something Damon took as seriously as his garden. Comprehension was wondrous, for another facet of this man came clear for her. Damon might play the demon in London, but, here, he reveled in his life as the lord of Wentworth Hall and gladly assumed all its duties and obligations. He had been honest when he told her he would be happy to stay in the country all the time.
“Lord Wentworth, long before either of our great-great-great grandsires were born, this village has looked to Wentworth Hall and its lord for protection. In return, we have given our blood and our service.”
“You have served well as the blood of this village was spilled alongside that of my family as we have defended this land from all who would have put us from it.”
Mr. Frasier held out his hand. A man, who wore a drab coat that was almost identical to the mayor’s, placed a parchment in it. When Mr. Frasier unrolled it, Emily was startled to see dark creases that bespoke the age of the parchment. She was not sure what Mr. Frasier read because it was, she guessed in Latin, but a few phrases were close enough to French to catch her ear.
Letting it roll closed, Mr. Frasier handed it back to his assistant. “You understand your obligations, my lord, as agreed to by the first lord who claimed this land when King Ethelred held England in dominion against the Norse threat?”
“I understand.”
She admired Damon’s lordly mien. For a moment, she could imagine him in the primitive tunic of his ancestors, a shield at his arm and a longbow in his hand. His hair would have drifted past his shoulders, and he would have not been constrained by the canons of propriety from stealing the heart of any
woman who caught his fancy.
When he looked at her and slowly winked, she almost gasped aloud. To have him guess the course of her errant thoughts would be … Would be what? Not humiliating or embarrassing. It would be dangerous for him to guess how he tempted her to be as brazen as a lass of ancient days.
Mr. Frasier cleared his throat, and Damon turned back to him. “In exchange for our fealty and the use of this bridge so that he might send a messenger to call us to arms, the lord of Wentworth Hall vows to pay a quit rent. Do you agree to this quit rent for yet another year, my lord?” His voice carried across the hushed rumble of anticipation from those watching.
“Yes, I agree to pay the quit rent, for Lord Wentworth holds his vows as dear as his life.” He put his hand on Emily’s arm and drew her forward to stand in front of Mr. Frasier. “Accept the pence for the quit rent from this lady.”
At a sharp intake of breath, Emily wondered if everyone on the green had inhaled at once. Dear God, what had she done wrong? She wanted to be certain her hat was in place, that her skirt had not risen to reveal her stockings, that no crumb of the cake she had enjoyed earlier clung to her face.
Mr. Frasier smiled, startling her as his wrinkles rearranged themselves. “I will accept the quit rent from your lady, my lord.” He held out his hand.
“Give it to him now,” Damon whispered.
She handed Mr. Frasier the coin. He held it up for all to see. A cheer reverberated against the church. Beneath it, he said, “Thank you, Miss Talcott, and may you have every happiness in your future.”
Startled by the old man’s brazen wink, she glanced at Damon. His face was impassive, but she saw the twinkle had returned to his eyes. “Wasn’t that fun?” he asked quietly.
Rhyme and Reason Page 19
