Rapture Becomes Her

by Shirlee Busbee

  Speculation in her eyes, she asked, “How was it that you were at sea in this weather? Jeb said you could have knocked him over with a feather, when he spied you in the Channel.”

  “No one would be happier than I if I could tell why I was in the Channel or how I came to be there,” Barnaby answered. “The last thing I remember is leaving London, planning to stop briefly at Eastbourne where I was told the Joslyn yacht is anchored.”

  She studied his face for a long time and Barnaby was on the point of squirming when her eyes dropped and she began to fiddle with the quilts on his bed. “Well, it certainly wasn’t a night to go sailing, I can tell you that,” she said.

  “I agree.” Watching her closely, he said carefully, “It isn’t a night for man or beast to be abroad, let alone at sea, and that makes me curious about your Jeb’s arrival just in time to save my neck. What was he doing out there?”

  She glanced up and half smiled. “With all that has gone on tonight, Jeb’s presence in the Channel is what arouses your curiosity?”

  “That and the girl-dressed-as-a-boy, Emily, and her amazing disappearance into the wardrobe,” he answered, an amused gleam in his black eyes.

  “Ah, and here I was hoping that you had still been unconscious during Miss Emily’s escape,” she said in a rueful tone.

  Barnaby laughed. “No. We had not quite made our, er, introductions when, Flora, I believe her name is, dashed into the room with the news that the squire was below.”

  Mrs. Gilbert nodded. “Yes, Flora is my middle daughter and the most sensible one—although they are all good girls.” With quiet pride she added, “I have five daughters—Faith, the eldest, and Molly, next to Faith in age, are the other two, along with Flora, that were up here when I arrived. Harriet and Mary, my two youngest, met me when I returned and warned me what was afoot.”

  A timid tap on the door caused Mrs. Gilbert to look in that direction. “Yes?” she asked.

  “It is me, Ma,” answered Flora through the door. “I have some hot broth for his lordship.”

  Mrs. Gilbert chuckled and said to Barnaby, “I think it is curiosity rather than mere kindness that is behind Flora’s arrival.” Crossing the room, she unlocked the door and opened it. Flora slipped into the room carrying a large pewter tray covered with several items. Locking the door behind her daughter, Mrs. Gilbert said, “Set it on the small table by his lordship’s bed.”

  Flora did more than that. After placing the tray on the table, she piled even more pillows behind Barnaby’s back and offered him a mug of the broth. Smiling encouragingly, she said, “This will make you feel better.”

  To his surprise it did. It was more than just broth; minced bits of chicken and carrots, cabbage and onions floated in the salty hot liquid and Barnaby sipped it appreciatively. He was, he discovered, hungry and finished the mug of soup in a few long swallows, along with a thick slice of bread.

  Flora refilled the mug from the covered green china tureen she had brought along and offered him more bread, and by the time he had finished two more mugs of soup and another large chunk of bread, the worst of his hunger had abated. From the tray, Flora offered him his choice of ale or wine and he settled on a tankard of ale.

  Not only had the food and drink revived him, but the dizziness, while still there, had also receded. Smiling at the two women, he said, “Thank you. For the first time since I found myself in the Channel tonight, I feel as if I might actually live.”

  “Which brings us back to what you were doing out in there in the first place,” said Mrs. Gilbert, her eyes fixed on his face.

  “No,” said Barnaby gently, not willing to be sidetracked, “it brings us back to Emily and what she was doing here dressed as a boy and what Jeb was doing out in the Channel tonight.”

  Chapter 3

  Mrs. Gilbert’s friendly air vanished and her lips thinned as she and Barnaby stared at each other, neither giving an inch. Flora glanced from one face to the other and sighed. Touching her mother’s sleeve, she muttered, “Ma, we can trust him. He saw Emily go into the wardrobe and he never said a word to the squire.”

  “Just because he didn’t give Emily away to the squire doesn’t mean we can trust him,” Mrs. Gilbert said grimly. Her eyes never leaving Barnaby’s dark face, she added, “How do we know he didn’t keep his mouth shut just to make us trust him? And I’ll remind you that we only have his word that he is who he says he is.” Her voice hard, she concluded, “He doesn’t need to know our business. For all we know he’s a revenuer informer or someone from the Nolles gang sent to spy on us.”

  Flora hadn’t considered that and some of her friendliness faded as she considered Barnaby. “Ma’s right,” she said. “This could just be a trick just to make us trust you.”

  “Don’t you think it was a little foolhardy on my part to get myself nearly killed in order to ingratiate myself with you?” Barnaby asked. “What if your Jeb hadn’t seen me? I’d have drowned.”

  “Perhaps it’s a shame you didn’t,” Mrs. Gilbert snapped. “Especially if you mean to go poking about in something that is none of your business.”

  “Ma! You don’t mean that,” Flora exclaimed, shooting Barnaby an anxious look, clearly torn between taking his side or her mother’s.

  Mrs. Gilbert held her ground for a moment and then sagged. Tiredly, she said, “No, I don’t mean it—at least not about drowning. It’s been a long night and I am not as young as I used to be.” Sinking down on a chintz-covered chair near the bed, she studied Barnaby for another long moment. “What goes on in here is none of your business,” she finally said. “I don’t see why you want to know more than you do already—unless it is merely to have a grander tale to tell your fancy friends.” When Barnaby would have objected, she raised a hand silencing him and said, “If you are who you say you are, tomorrow you’ll ride away to your fine house and go back to your fine life. A life, I might add, that is vastly removed from ours and, except for the rare times you might stop in here for a tankard of ale, our paths will not cross.” Unhappily, she added, “It would be best if you forgot everything you’ve seen or heard here tonight and just be grateful that you’re alive.”

  Barnaby hesitated. Mrs. Gilbert had a point, but she was wrong in her estimation of him. He owed them his life and that was a debt he could never repay. Aware of how very much he owed them, he wasn’t, he admitted, going to be able to ride blithely away tomorrow just as if nothing had happened. As for his fine house and fine life—he was quite positive that he would be more comfortable amongst the inhabitants of The Crown than he would be mingling with the likes of Cousin Mathew. The last thing, however, that he wanted to do was upset and alienate the very people who had just saved his life. He could wait to have his questions answered.

  Smiling crookedly at Mrs. Gilbert, he said, “Very well, I will follow your wishes. I am grateful for all you’ve done for me and while I can’t promise that I’ll forget everything about tonight, I owe you too much to continue bedeviling you.”

  Relief spread across Mrs. Gilbert’s features. “Spoken like a true gentleman,” she said, rising to her feet. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I must go below and see how things are faring down there.” She nodded toward her daughter. “If you need anything else Flora will see to it. Good night, my lord.”

  Her expression thoughtful, Flora gathered up the things from his meal and once the door had shut behind her mother, she said apologetically, “Ma didn’t mean any disrespect, it’s just that . . .”

  “She has enough to do running a smuggling operation without having to deal with me,” Barnaby said.

  Flora gasped and stared round eyed at him.

  Barnaby laughed in spite of himself. “Why else would Jeb have been crossing the Channel tonight?” he asked reasonably. “I may be a newcomer to your shores, but I’ve heard tales of the smuggling trade going on in certain parts of England—in particular this area. My youngest cousin, Simon, already warned me not to make a, er, fuss if I find some casks of brandy left in my sta
bles.” Flora remained mute and he went on calmly. “I’ve thought about Jeb’s rescue of me tonight and smuggling is the only logical explanation for him being where he was when he saw me.”

  His words did not reassure Flora. If anything, they made her even more wary and she took a step back, eyeing him uneasily. “Very well,” he said. “Don’t tell me anything, but I’ve figured out the smuggling part of it already, but Miss Emily now . . .”

  Gripping the tray as if she thought about hitting him with it, she said fiercely, “You leave Miss Emily out of this! She has enough troubles as it is.”

  “I’m not trying to get her or you into any trouble. I’m simply trying to understand what is going on here.” Gently, he said, “I’m on your side, Flora.”

  “That may be,” Flora said sharply, “but until Ma says you’re on our side, I’m not telling you anything—so don’t try to charm me.” Nose in the air, she swept from the room, slamming the door behind her.

  Barnaby glanced around the empty room. “That went well,” he muttered.

  Having stripped off her wet clothing and scrambled into the long, flannel nightgown and woolen robe that one of the servants, probably Sally, had left warming by the fire for her, Emily thought that things had gone very well. Especially, when one considered how badly events could have turned out, she admitted tiredly. At least Jeffery hadn’t caught her at The Crown.

  Out of her cold and wet clothing, the flannel nightgown and woolen robe did much to drive away the chill she had suffered during the mad ride home. Weary in every bone in her body, she stared down at the pile of sodden clothes, knowing that she had to hide them before Jeffery came home and stormed into her room. Once he discovered she was not at The Crown, this would be the first place he would look.

  Too tired to be clever, she kicked the wet clothes and muddy boots under her bed and twitched the ruffled blue silk bed skirts back into place. She didn’t think that Jeffery would bother to look under the bed and she half smiled, picturing him down on his hands and knees peering under her bed. No, her cousin wouldn’t look under the bed—it would be beneath him. Not that much else was, she thought disgustedly.

  Turning away from the bed, she pushed back a strand of silvery-fair hair that had come loose from the queue. Reminded that Jeffery didn’t need to find her with a wet head or her hair worn in such a masculine manner, she undid the black silk ribbon that held the queue in place and shook the mass free. The pale tresses hung in wet clumps and she knelt before the fire and finger combed through the bright tendrils as they dried, waved and curled in wild abandon about her head.

  A tap on the door had her stiffening, even as she realized that Jeffery would have just barged into her room. “Yes?” she called.

  The door opened instantly and, framed by a multitude of dusky curls, Anne’s pretty little face, tense with anxiety, appeared around the edge. Seeing Emily before the fire, she glanced back over her shoulder and said to someone behind her, “It’s all right, she’s home.” Pushing the door wider, the edges of her pale rose robe flying, Anne rushed into the room, crying, “Oh, thank God! You are back. Jeffery was looking for you and he is in a terrible state.”

  Emily nodded. “I know—he nearly found me at The Crown. It was only by luck that I escaped.”

  Wearing a heavy, puce woolen robe, Great-Aunt Cornelia followed Anne, her carved walnut cane thumping loudly as she half walked, half limped into the room. “It wasn’t just luck,” Cornelia snapped in her deep voice. “If you couldn’t outwit that mackerel-brained jackass then you’re not the woman I raised you to be.”

  In spite of the situation, Emily grinned at her great-aunt. The widow of her grandfather’s only brother, Cornelia was the only mother Emily remembered clearly. Her own mother had died during her birthing and it was Cornelia who had swept up the squalling infant and carried her away. It was Cornelia who hired Mrs. Gilbert as wet nurse for Emily and much to her father’s guilty relief, taken over the household and the raising of little Emily—leaving him to pursue his horses and hounds.

  Outspoken and irascible, Cornelia was both the joy and bane of the family. Built on Amazonian lines, at eighty-nine years old, she carried herself as erect as a woman half her age and even now a look from her hazel eyes had been known to drop grown men to their knees. Emily had always loved her outspoken, gruff great-aunt, but never more than when Cornelia fixed Jeffery with that eagle-eyed stare and caused him to pale and stammer and retreat at a gallop.

  “I did have some help from Flora,” Emily admitted, smiling. Cocking her head to one side, she asked, “Did you know about the hidden staircase in the big wardrobe in the best room at The Crown?”

  Seating herself in a yellow chintz wing-backed chair near the fire, Cornelia cackled with glee. “Lord, yes! I had to use it once myself.”

  Staring at Cornelia, astonished, Anne blurted, “Never say that you ran a smuggler ring, like Emily?”

  The old squire’s marriage to a young woman only a few years older than his daughter had been the talk of the neighborhood when he had married a twenty-year-old, Anne Farnham, nearly a decade ago. Emily had been aghast at the marriage—Anne was only two years her senior and until the old squire had presented his bride to her, she had never laid eyes on her or guessed he was contemplating marriage. Cornelia had been openly scornful of the new young wife, grumbling in her carrying voice, “Nothing like an old fool, blinded by a lovely face.”

  It had been peculiar welcoming such a young bride, but it would have taken a harder heart than Emily or Cornelia possessed not to warm to the little brown-eyed sprite the old squire had married. Full of laughter and sunshine, a smile always on her lips, Anne had danced into their lives and enchanted them all. Emily decided years ago that it was those huge, heavily lashed brown eyes of Anne’s that melted the coldest heart. Certainly none of them, she admitted fondly, had been able to resist Anne when she fixed those speaking eyes on one and oh, so, meekly suggested some modification to a routine or décor that hadn’t been altered in forty years.

  But even if Anne hadn’t been a darling, Emily and Cornelia would have welcomed Anne into their hearts for one simple reason: Anne had been deeply in love with her much-older husband. Even if she had been a harpy, rather than the delight she was, Emily and Cornelia would have forgiven her much for being a doting wife to her not-always-considerate husband.

  Looking at these two women who meant so much to her, Emily knew that the risks she had taken tonight had been worth it. And she would continue, she thought with a clenching of her jaw, to take those same risks until they were all safe and out from under Jeffery’s thumb.

  “Smuggling?” Cornelia said in reply to Anne’s question. “Good gad, no!” A sly smile curved her lips and her hazel eyes gleaming, she murmured, “My husband had discovered I was meeting Lord Joslyn there, and Flora’s great-grandmother came running up the stairs to warn me.”

  Since it was well known that Cornelia’s marriage to her husband had been an arranged match and that they both loathed each other, neither Emily nor Anne was particularly shocked by her words. It was precisely the sort of explanation they expected from her.

  But the identity of Cornelia’s long-ago lover startled a gasp from Emily. “Lord Joslyn?” she exclaimed.

  “Hmm, yes, the sixth viscount . . .” She tapped her lip and looked thoughtful. “Or was it the seventh?” She shrugged. “Probably both of them—the Joslyns are very handsome men.”

  At Anne’s expression, Cornelia snorted. “Oh, get that die away look off your face. It was a long time ago.”

  “Um, I think I met the eighth viscount tonight. There was a man . . . an American. Who else could it be?”

  The object of two pairs of intent eyes, Emily flushed and muttered, “Jeb found him drowning in the Channel and had no choice but to rescue him.” Briefly, she related the sequence of events.

  “Oh, my! How exciting!” exclaimed Anne, picking up a silver-backed brush from the dressing table nearby. Walking up to Emily, she began
to brush the heavy locks. “Did you find him handsome?”

  Emily grimaced. “No. I was too worried about how much trouble he was going to cause us to pay much attention to him.” Thoughtfully, she added, “He’s a big man, dark-skinned and black-haired but without a strong resemblance to the Joslyns.” She cast her mind back to the man in the bed and admitted, “I suppose one would say he was handsome in a rough, rugged sort of way. His features are harder, less chiseled than say, Mathew Joslyn’s.” She shrugged. “Of course, he wasn’t at his best either.”

  “Were you frightened when he grabbed your wrist?” Anne asked, big eyed. “I would have been.”

  Cornelia snorted. “You’re frightened of your own shadow, poppet,” she said not unkindly. “Of course, you’d have been frightened.”

  When Anne nodded a bit wistfully, Cornelia looked at Emily and said, “What I’d like to know is how Jeffery knew you were at the inn.”

  Nearly purring from Anne’s steady brush strokes through her hair, Emily shrugged. “Obviously, someone told him,” she muttered.

  “Most likely that rascally bailiff, Daggett, he hired after your father died,” Cornelia sniffed. “The man is robbing him blind and because he simpers and fawns over him, your cousin believes him to be wonderful. Bloody fool!”

  “Well, I think it is that horrid man, Kelsey,” Anne said fiercely.

  Cornelia’s brow rose and Emily twisted away from the blissful strokes of the brush to look over her shoulder at her.

  “What?” Anne asked, puzzled by their reactions.

  “You rarely have anything bad to say about anyone or anything,” Emily said carefully. “Yet Kelsey appears to have aroused your dislike.”

  Anne flushed. “I’ve always thought it cruel that Jeffery turned out poor old Hutton and replaced him with Kelsey.” Her jaw set, she added bitterly, “He’s rude, a boor a-a-and a wretched stableman. He doesn’t know the first thing about horses and Hutton had such a wonderful touch with them.”