“I was not speaking of material things. I do not mean to prose at you, but—this is a very serious undertaking, and a potentially lengthy one. You mean to take upon yourself the responsibility for another living being. Another soul, Dev, to be shaped and moulded and—provided for, through many years to come, If you are to do it well, it will entail selflessness, compassion, and—love. A large order. Are you—quite sure…?”
Rage, swift and white-hot, tightened Devenish’s lips. He had been judged yet again, and found irresponsible! He stood and, taking up his many-caped drab coat, shrugged into it and said with a taut smile, “Well, I collect I’d best say the rest of my goodbyes.”
Shocked by this unfamiliar hauteur, the Colonel came to his feet also. He had been very distinctly warned off; a door closed in his face as it never had before. “I’ll not detain you longer,” he said politely. But his love was deep, so that with his hand on the doorknob, he swallowed his pride and turned about. “Dev, lad, I am so sorry. I only meant— Don’t be too hasty in your plans! This—infatuation of Yolande’s…”
Devenish flinched. “It is no infatuation, sir. Have you not seen them together? It is … as though they were—one being.”
His heart aching, the Colonel gripped the younger man’s shoulder. “If only there was something I could do! I know how—how deeply you have loved her all your life. It must be…” And he stopped, the words eluding him.
Devenish lifted a hand almost absently to cover the one that rested on his shoulder. “If I thought,” he muttered, “that I would have the least chance of winning her, I would call Craig out and…” He was silent for a moment, then raised his brooding gaze, saw the helpless sympathy in his uncle’s eyes, and smiled wryly. “But, do you know, sir? Of late I’ve begun to wonder…”
“What, Dev?”
“Only that … I have loved her, as you said, all my life. But—when I see her with Craig, I think … perhaps, there are degrees of loving, and—and theirs is something … almost holy. That I will not ever be granted.”
The Colonel had the same thought about the relationship he shared with his own lady, and so it was that his affection for this valiant young man, and his comprehension of the grief that he knew must be intense, overmastered him. He spun around and strode rapidly to the window, to stand staring blindly into the sunny morning.
A quick uneven step. A strong arm, tight about his shoulders. And his nephew’s voice, husky with emotion, said, “Now, God love you for that sympathy. You always were true blue. The best and kindest uncle who ever took in a lonely scamp, and was curst seldom thanked for it! But—” Devenish turned the Colonel to face him, and smiling rather uncertainly into those blurred eyes, said, “You know—sir, I have always felt … I have always, er…”
Tyndale gripped his elbow. “Yes,” he said huskily. “I know.”
* * *
“You were not going to leave without saying goodbye, I hope?”
Craig! Devenish thought, “Damn!” but turned, and said lightly, “Lord, no. I just came down to see if Monty has assembled the luggage. My elf seems to have acquired a prodigious amount of paraphernalia since we come.”
“Yes. Dev, I—”
“Don’t, Craig!” Despite himself, Devenish’s voice was harsh. “You saved my life, and you’re a damned good fellow. If I had to—to lose her, I could not wish … it to be to a better man.”
Craig swore furiously at him. “What a perfectly wretched thing to say! You might at least have knocked me down.”
Devenish laughed. But the worst, he knew, was yet to come.
* * *
Yolande’s eyes were red, but she put out her hand like the thoroughbred she was, and said composedly, “Ride safely, my dear. And take care of your little lady.”
He took her hand, stared down at it, so sweetly resting in his own, and released it hurriedly. Looking up, he saw that she was blinking rather fast and, reaching back into the many happy years he had so stupidly taken for granted, feigned indignation. “Now, dash it all, Yolande. If you’re going to turn into a watering pot…”
She laughed shakily. “Odious creature! You always did treat me as if I were a tiresome little sister.”
“Is that what drove me to the ropes?” The words were out before he could stop them. He saw her mouth twist and said a swift, “I shall have to be more careful. And I shall expect a very special invitation to the—ceremony.”
“You shall have it—of course. And … Josie shall be a flower girl, if she would—like…” Her voice broke. “Oh … Dev…”
She was in his arms, weeping. He held her very tight, hoarding these priceless seconds. “Yolande…” he whispered. And, fighting for control, said, “No tears, if you please. I seem to—bring you very often to tears, of late.”
“I love you, Dev,” she sniffed. “I wish I did not love you—quite so much.” And she pulled away, looked up at him for an instant, the tears bright on her cheeks, then leaned to kiss him.
“You will … find your happiness … my very dear,” she managed, and fled.
* * *
Josie had been granted her wish to ride Molly-My-Lass to the edge of the Drummond estates; beside her, Devenish rode his beloved Miss Farthing, and the carriage followed with a groom behind, to lead the Clydesdale back to Steep Drummond. Montelongo had ridden ahead to arrange rooms for them in New Galloway, so that they were now quite alone, and Josie thought she had never been so happy.
“Oh,” she sighed, looking with glad eyes at clear heaven, lush meadows, and contentedly grazing cows. “Oh, ain’t it a ’licious morning?”
“What?” muttered Devenish. “Oh—er, yes. Delicious.”
“I doesn’t see,” she persisted, “how everything in the whole world couldn’t be anything but filled with happy on a day like today.”
“You cannot be filled with happy, my elf,” he protested. “Frightful grammar.”
“Yes, Mr. Dev.” She slanted a mischievous glance up at him. “Just the same—I is.”
He smiled, his heart like lead.
“’Course,” said Josie thoughtfully. “You ain’t. Not just at this minute, p’raps. But afore you knows it—voilà! you will be.”
As always, her use of French intrigued him so that for a moment he forgot his misery. “How so? What I mean to say is, I am happy. As a cursed lark, in fact.”
“No.” She shook her small head so that the curls bounced beneath the bonnet of primose straw that Yolande had bought her.
“Nonsense. After all, we’re going to Devencourt, my, er, home, and—”
“And you hates Devencourt.”
He stared at her. “Josie—are you quite sure you’re only eleven?”
“I be very old sometimes,” she said, matter-of-factly. “All ladies is. And I be a lady—or, I will be, when you—” She broke off, looking guilty.
“When I—what?”
“I’m not s’posed to know.”
He thought, “Oh, God!” “But,” he said rather stiffly, “you, ah—do know?”
“Yes. Oh, yes!” She all but jumped up and down in the saddle, her small face radiating joy. “And you won’t be sorry, Mr. Dev. Not never! I’ll be the bestest daughter what ever you had! I’ll take care of you and be perlite and learn to talk pretty like—her. I know I won’t ever be pretty like—her, but you won’t have to go to that great crawly place and be sad all alone.”
Torn between dismay and laughter, he asked, “Who told you?”
“Oh, the servants knew.” She said airily, “You cannot keep nothin’ from the servants, you know. Aunty Caroline says.”
He blinked. “Aunty … Caroline?”
“She telled me to call her that. I was frighted of her at first, but she’s a dear. Monty says she talks too much.” She giggled.
They rode in silence for a while, then he said carefully, “I hope poor General Drummond may not be utterly cast down because I took you away from him.”
She thought about that. “I ’spect he was. But
some folks gets to dance on a bubble, and some gets to be casted down. Like me and you.”
There should be an answer to that, he thought dully. But he could not seem to find one. They were at the brow of the hill. In another minute Steep Drummond would be out of side. It was as well. He did not want to see it. Never again. But somehow he was drawing his horse to a halt, motioning the carriage and groom to move ahead, and turning aside to guide his mare to the brow of the hill and the shade of a great tree where he had sat once before. His mount began to crop at the rich grass, and Devenish, quite forgetting the child beside him, leant forward in the saddle and gazed across the lush green valley to Steep Drummond. Was she at one of the windows that twinkled in the morning sunlight, looking out, trying to see him? Was she—out of the affection she bore him—grieving to see him go? Yolande … my own, my love … Yolande.…
A small sound roused him from this hopeless yearning. He glanced around and straightened in dismay. Josie’s head was bowed. Even as he watched, something bright and glittering splashed down upon Molly-My-Lass’s broad shoulder. He reined closer. “Child…? Josie? Do not! Whatever is it? Please—do not cry!”
“I can’t … help it,” she sobbed, raising a woebegone countenance. “I cannot bear it when your eyes gets … so awful sad. Like you was all full of tears inside. I—I wants to make you happy. I wants so for you to not—not give a button for her. But—I cannot help! I cannot help you. And, oh, Mr. Dev—Josie loves ye so!”
Who could not be touched? A heart of stone must have melted before that youthful anguish. And however cracked it might be at present, the heart of Alain Devenish had never resembled stone. He reached out, Josie leaned to him, and in a trice she was sitting across his saddle bow, sobbing gustily into his cravat and clinging to him with her skinny little arms.
“Milady Elf,” he said, stroking her soft curls, for her bonnet had fallen back during the change of mounts. “Hush, now. If you keep weeping, you will make me even more full of tears.”
She at once wiped fiercely at her flowing eyes. Devenish groped for and offered his handkerchief. Josie dragged it across her face, blew her nose stridently, and tucked the handkerchief into the front of his jacket. It was quite soggy, but he gave no sign of his inner dubiety. “That’s better.” He smiled. “Now”—he slapped the reins against the neck of the mare and started her towards the waiting carriage, Molly-My-Lass following amiably—“am I to understand then, that you are willing to be a dutiful and obedient daughter, brightening my declining years, and caring for me in my dotage?”
Josie gave a watery giggle.
“I see.” He fought against looking back as they started down the hill. “In that case, we shall have to arrive at an understanding, my elf.”
She peeped at him, uncertainly.
“I will have no more popping off at the least little whim to consort with drunken rogues,” he adjured.
Josie chortled.
“To say nothing,” he went on, “of going about putting bears into the toolsheds of respectable farmers.”
She snuggled against him. “Oh, Mr. Dev,” she sighed, blissfully aware that Steep Drummond was now safely out of sight. “What a complete hand you are.”
“That is precisely the sort of remark you must not repeat!” he groaned. “Now—pay heed to your papa, child, if you please.…”
On they went, Devenish speaking with grave earnestness, and the child’s piping laugh threading through his remarks like quicksilver. Now, whether it was because of the infectious happiness in that youthful laughter, or because, in seeking to lead Josie from sorrow, Devenish briefly forgot his own woes, who shall say? Certain it is that the sharpness of his anguish eased a trifle, and despair’s dark shadow began to lift from his heart. After a while, he restored the child to her own saddle. They resumed their journey then, travelling side by side through the brilliant morning, towards England, and home, and whatever the future had in store for them in that bright promise that is called—tomorrow.
EPILOGUE
MAJOR CRAIG TYNDALE ushered his lady up the deep steps of the castle. “We’ve done very little as yet,” he said with a trace of anxiety. “I hope you’ll not be disappointed, Yolande.”
“No, but how could I be? This is to be my home. I’ve been so anxious to see it ever since you and Uncle Alastair began the work.”
“And I have longed to bring you these whole ten days. It was very kind of your papa to let you come.”
“And even kinder of him to travel up here. But, now that we are officially betrothed, it is not very shocking for me to be here alone with you—is it?”
He smiled down into her face, so enchantingly framed by the pink ruffles of the dainty bonnet she wore. “A little, perhaps, but Laing is with us, after all.”
He threw open the heavy door, revealing the majestic sweep of the Great Hall, gleaming with fresh paint, brightened by rich carpets, and mellowed by the careful placement of fine furniture. Watching his love with no little anxiety, he said, “It is rather isolated, I daresay, but we’ll only spend the summer here, you know. I thought we would purchase a house in Town for the Season, if you should care to. And you will wish to spend time with your parents of course.”
“And you will want to take me to see your home in Canada—no?”
“You would not object?” he asked eagerly. “It would be a long, tiresome journey, but I thought perhaps, if we should be—er, that is—when we have set up our—our nursery, perhaps you might be willing to go.”
“Foolish, foolish man.” Yolande looked up at him, her eyes soft with love. “I can see that you have done beautifully with Castle Tyndale, and I shall enjoy being here with you. Or in Town—with you. Or on the high seas—with you. Oh, Craig—my very dearest love … do you not yet know? My happiness lies not in where we are—only that we are … together.”
Mr. Laing, checking the chestnut mare’s harness, shook his head bodingly. “Did you see that, Heather?” he enquired. “Picked her up in his arms and carried her across the threshold like they was already wed! Shocking! These young people today have no least notion of how to go on!”
He was quite mistaken. Standing in the Great Hall, a slender girl clasped against him, her arms about his neck, and his lips pressed crushingly to hers, Major Craig Winters Tyndale knew exactly how to go on.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Patricia Veryan was born in England and moved to the United States following World War II. The author of several critically acclaimed Georgian and Regency series, including the Sanguinet Saga, she now lives in Kirkland, Washington. You can sign up for email updates here.
PREVIOUS NOVELS BY PATRICIA VERYAN
Married Past Redemption
Feather Castles
Some Brief Folly
Nanette
Mistress of Willowvale
Love’s Duet
The Lord and the Gypsy
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Epilogue
About the Author
Previous Novels by Patricia Veryan
Copyright
THE NOBLEST FRAILT
Y. Copyright © 1983 by Patricia Veryan. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
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First Edition
eISBN 9781250108876
First eBook edition: November 2015
The Noblest Frailty Page 33
