Valentine

by Jane Feather

  Lady Gilbraith surveyed the gracious Elizabethan facade with a critically proprietorial air that sorely tested Theo’s resolution. “Quite a handsome house, I suppose. But these half-timbered buildings can be abysmally cramped inside.”

  “I don’t believe you will find Stoneridge Manor cramped, ma’am,” Theo said stiffly. “It’s generally considered to be a most spacious example of Elizabethan architecture.”

  “We shall see,” her future mother-in-law stated in a tone that indicated she didn’t believe a word of it. “Gilbraith House is a most elegant gentleman’s residence. I trust my son will not find his inheritance lacking in any of the amenities.” She sailed toward the steps, her daughter at her heels.

  Theo stared in disbelief at Sylvester, who met her gaze with a rueful smile. “All right, gypsy,” he said. “You’ve earned yourself a suspended sentence dependent on continued good behavior.”

  Theo ignored this. “Why didn’t you warn me?” she demanded.

  “Warn you that my mother is a witch?” His eyebrows lifted in ironic question mark. “Be realistic, Theo.” He drew her hand through his arm. “Come, let us go in and do what we can to support your mother. It’s not for long. You can curb your tongue for two days.”

  There was a distinct “or else” lurking behind the last Statement, but threats or not, Theo decided she owed him the effort to endure his mother’s incivilities with a good grace. She certainly owed it to her own mother.

  However, she could strike a bargain as well as the next man. “I can curb my tongue if you can curb yours, sir.”

  She looked up at him, her head on one side, a challenging spark in her eyes. “Promise me you won’t accuse anyone in the stables until I’ve had a chance to talk with them.”

  Sylvester’s lips tightened, but he remembered the revulsion on the head groom’s face. The standards and conditions in the stables would be set by him. Maybe Theo had a point. She certainly knew these people as he didn’t.

  “Very well. But if you let your tongue run away with you in my mother’s company, Theo, you will pay in full measure for that outrageous display of incivility. Is it understood?”

  Theo grimaced at this uncompromising tone but then reflected she’d won both a reprieve and a vital victory. She shrugged. “Crystal clear, my lord.”

  “SYLVESTER, YOU MUST change the furnishings in this sahn without delay; they’re positively shabby.” Theo lifted an imaginary lorgnette and frowned, her mouth pursing, as she delivered this uncannily accurate mimicry of Lady Gilbraith amid delighted whoops of laughter from her sisters.

  “Theo, you mustn’t,” Emily protested halfheartedly when she’d stopped laughing.

  “But you sound just like her,” Clarissa said. “And you have that exact manner with the nose.” She tried an imitation, and Theo flung herself onto a cheerful chintz sofa, clapping vigorously.

  “Would someone help me wrap these rabbit skeletons?” Rosie asked from the schoolroom table, where she was hard at work packing up her museum, listening with half an ear to her sisters’ irreverent conversation. They were frequent visitors to the schoolroom, particularly when they wished to be undisturbed by other members of the household.

  “Here, I’ll help you.” Clarissa came readily to the table. “Although I really don’t care for skeletons.”

  “But they’re beautiful,” Rosie said, carefully aligning a spine.

  “It’s Mama I feel sorry for,” Emily said. “Lady Gilbraith’s done nothing but complain since she arrived. The bedchamber was too drafty, the bathwater wasn’t hot enough, the servants are too slow.”

  “She’s insufferable,” Theo stated, fierceness replacing the laughter in her eyes. “She behaves as if she owns the place. Anyone would think we were the usurpers. I don’t know how much longer I can continue to hold my tongue.”

  “You are being remarkably forbearing,” Clarissa observed, delicately wrapping a thighbone in tissue paper. “Even when she told you that you don’t make the best of yourself and you need the guiding hand of a fashionable woman.”

  “At least she didn’t say that in front of Mama,” Emily said, joining the two at the table. “But I really expected you to fly off the handle, Theo.”

  “Unfortunately, I can’t. There’s a sword of Damocles hanging over my head,” Theo said crossly.

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  “Damocles had a sword suspended over his head by a hair at a banquet so he didn’t dare eat anything in case he disturbed it,” Rosie explained earnestly.

  “Yes, I know the story. I want to know what Theo particularly means by it,” Clarissa said, looking inquiringly across at Theo, who had jumped off the sofa and was pacing restlessly around the sunny schoolroom. “Who’s holding it over your head?”

  Theo sighed. She should have known better than to have started this. “Stoneridge, if you must know. But there has to be a statute of limitations, and when it’s up, that old bat isn’t going to know what’s hit her!”

  “Theo!” Emily protested, but with a chuckle.

  “A statute of limitations on what?” Clarissa persisted.

  Theo sighed. “We were at outs, and I said something he didn’t like, so I’m paying for it by being impeccably polite to his mother in the face of unbearable provocation.”

  “Oh.” Clarissa looked as if she’d like more details, but to Theo’s relief Emily diverted the subject.

  “Perhaps you won’t see too much of her after you’re married.”

  “My only comfort is that Stoneridge thinks she’s a witch too,” Theo said.

  “He gave his sister such a set-down yesterday,” Clarissa remarked. “Did you notice … when she was moaning about ringing and ringing for morning chocolate? He said it wasn’t fair on the staff to be expected to provide chocolate ten minutes before nuncheon, and if she woke up at a decent hour and bestirred herself a little, she’d be a lot less invalid-ish.”

  Theo grinned. “Yes, I enjoyed that. But he doesn’t give his mother set-downs, and I’d dearly like to oblige.”

  “I could put one of my white mice in her bed,” Rosie offered. “She was horrid to me yesterday. She said I was too young to be in the drawing room, particularly with dirty nails. I didn’t think they were dirty … but they might have been,” she added. “I’d been digging for worms.”

  “I think the white mouse is more likely to suffer than the Witch Gilbraith,” Theo said. “She’d probably squash it. Actually, it’d probably die of fright if she so much as looks at it.”

  “Oh, then I won’t,” Rosie said matter-of-factly, bringing a sheet of pinned butterflies close to her bespectacled eyes for examination.

  “We’d better go downstairs,” Emily said reluctantly. “We can’t leave Mama holding the fort for too long.”

  “This time tomorrow they’ll be gone.” Clarissa rose to her feet.

  “And we’ll be installed in the dower house.” “And Theo will be a married lady,” Rosie finished for her sisters. “I wonder what that’ll be like.”

  “Are you nervous?” Emily asked, linking her arm in Theo’s as they left the schoolroom.

  Theo shook her head. “About the future, perhaps, but not about tomorrow.”

  “Or tomorrow night?” Clarissa gave her a sharp glance as they turned out of the west wing into the central hallway.

  Theo grinned. “No, most definitely not about that.”

  “But has Mama told you what happens?”

  “Yes, but I already knew, only I couldn’t really tell her that.”

  “How did you know?”

  “Stoneridge has been very informative,” she said mischievously.

  “Theo, you haven’t already—”

  “Not quite, because Stoneridge wouldn’t,” she explained. “But I’m not expecting any surprises.” “Surprises about what, cousin?”

  The three gasped at the earl’s cool voice coming from the corridor behind them. How much had he heard?

  Theo spun round. Sylvester was laughing, hi
s eyes bright, and she knew he’d heard a great deal more than he should. “Were you eavesdropping, my lord?”

  “Not at all. I just happened to come up behind you,” he said, raising his hands in a gesture of disclaimer. “But I’ll tell you something, my love, if you’re not expecting any surprises, you might be in for a shock.”

  He let his eyes rest on their flushed faces as they absorbed this. They were all three distinctly unnerved by his sudden appearance, and he enjoyed the sensation of having the upper hand for once in the massed company of Belmont females. Deliberately, he cupped Theo’s chin in the palm of his hand and kissed her mouth.

  “Life is full of surprises, cousins.” Releasing Theo’s chin, he offered a bow of mock formality and turned aside into the long gallery.

  “I’m glad Mama wouldn’t let him choose me,” Clarissa said thoughtfully, examining her younger sister’s countenance. “He’s very worldly and … and, well …” She searched for the right word. “Mature.” She settled for that, although it wasn’t quite what she meant. “Not that I don’t like him,” she added hastily. “I do … but he’s a little intimidating.”

  “An understatement,” Emily declared. “But he seems to understand Theo.” She knew this was what her mother believed, although Elinor had confided to her eldest daughter that she expected the marriage to be punctuated by fireworks.

  “I believe that disposes of my marriage quite satisfactorily,” Theo said dryly. “I’m going to my room. There are things I have to do.”

  Her sisters watched her retrace her steps, then exchanged a speaking look and went downstairs to support their mother in her continuing ordeal with her guests.

  Theo closed her bedroom door with a sigh of relief. Tonight would be her last night in this room. Since her grandmother’s death, the apartment traditionally occupied by the Countess of Stoneridge had stood empty, the furniture under holland covers, but now, after twenty years, it had been prepared for the new countess.

  Apart from new curtains and bed hangings, the furnishings were the same as they’d been for three hundred years. The feather mattress had been refilled, the paneling and cherrywood furniture polished and waxed, the tapestry carpet new stitched where it had frayed, the heavy silver candlesticks polished until the old silver seemed almost translucent. And yesterday she’d seen Dan, the handyman, oiling the hinges on the connecting door between the conjugal bedchambers.

  Her lips still felt warmed by that light kiss, and she crossed her arms over her breasts as familiar tingles of excitement lifted the fine hairs on her spine. Tomorrow night the mysteries would be revealed, and she would fully understand these strange surges of desire.

  Her private smile was unconsciously smug as she picked up the china doll on the window seat, thoughtfully examining its round placid face and bright-blue glass eyes. She’d keep this room just as it was for her own daughter.

  But there must be a son too. A son who would eventually become the sixth Earl of Stoneridge. Her father’s blood would run in his grandson’s veins, and the child would return Stoneridge to the Belmonts.

  Theo sat on the window seat, no longer aware that she was cradling the doll just as she had done as a little girl. She closed her eyes, conjuring up her grandfather’s face, clear and strong still in her memory. Her father’s face was lost to her, except in the portrait on her wall. Opening her eyes again, she gazed at the picture, looking for the distinctive resemblances between father and son. They were there in the high-bridged nose, the full upper lip, the set of the chin. When the time came, she would make her son in their image.

  But there would be no children yet awhile. The little bottle that would ensure that lay hidden at the bottom of one of the drawers in the dresser.

  At noon the following day she walked up the aisle on the arm of Sir Charles Fairfax, who had once thought to see her married to his own son.

  Sylvester watched her approach, smiling slightly at the demure traditional appearance she presented, the raggletaggle gypsy he’d first encountered invisible beneath the floating veil, the lithe figure, so quick and so efficient in combat, disguised by the yards of virginal white silk and the gauzy train clouding behind her, borne by her elder sisters.

  Rosie, in pink muslin, walked solemnly in their wake, bearing a bouquet of white roses. She seemed to be concentrating on her steps, Sylvester thought, noting how her eyes were riveted to the ground. On second thought, she was probably on the lookout for some interesting example of insect life in the cracks in the paving stones.

  Theo stepped up beside Sylvester as Sir Charles covered her hand briefly with his own in affectionate reassurance. He was a dear, sweet man who’d known her since she was a baby, but he wasn’t her grandfather … he wasn’t her father. And she knew Elinor would be feeling the same. Tears filled her eyes and she blinked rapidly, grateful for the concealment of her veil. She would not break down; she must be strong for her mother as Elinor would be strong for her.

  Then her sisters stepped aside, and Reverend Haversham began the ceremony.

  It was over very quickly, Theo reflected, as her husband lifted her veil and the organ burst into renewed life. Too quickly for such a momentous change in one’s life. She was now a Gilbraith.

  But only in name.

  She’d exchanged her name for the right to call Stoneridge her own. For the right to see her children inherit their grandfather’s birthright.

  His lips were on hers in the ritual kiss, and their open eyes met. For a puzzling second she thought she saw something almost like triumph in the gray gaze. Then it disappeared, and she saw instead a sensual invitation that she knew was mirrored in her own gaze.

  She walked out of the church on her husband’s arm, her veil thrown back, hearing the shouted congratulations of the estate and village folk, knowing them to be genuine. They were happy to have a Belmont in the manor … even a Belmont now called Gilbraith.

  They walked back to the manor through the village as tradition dictated, the villagers following them, children throwing wildflowers in their path. Theo responded to the shouts of congratulations with laughing comments, calling people by their names, asking after family members who weren’t in evidence.

  Sylvester was content to smile and wave, presenting a genial, friendly appearance, leaving the personal touch to his wife. Satisfaction bubbled in his chestr He’d done it. In four weeks he’d courted and wed his passport to a complete inheritance. Against all the odds, he’d persuaded this temperamental hoyden to abandon her prejudices and take his name. Of course, fate had given him one ace in his pack—Theo’s innate passion. Up to now he’d used it to his own advantage, but from now on it would be an instrument of pure pleasure for them both.

  Almost as if she’d read his mind, her hand crept into his, her fingers scribbling over his palm in a gesture that somehow contrived to be wickedly suggestive. He closed his fingers tightly over hers, stilling their motion, and bent his head close to her ear.

  “Patience, gypsy. All in good time.”

  She gave a choke of laughter and a little skip, and Sylvester grinned. For the first time since Vimiera, he felt a lightening of the spirit, a sense of pleasure in the prospect of the future.

  The stranger, clad in the rough homespuns of an itinerant peddler, kept to the rear of the cheerful throng of visitors accompanying the bride and groom to the manor. His eyes and ears were everywhere as he assessed the reactions of the locals to their new lord of the manor. The cloaked and masked man who’d employed him in the Fisherman’s Rest on Dock Street had given him precise instructions: He was to find an opportunity to create a little mischief for the earl—fatal mischief, if at all possible. The man had been a rum sort, swathed in his cloak and speaking through a muffler so his voice had been distorted, but his gold was good.

  The stranger took a coin from his pocket and bit it to reassure himself of that fact. He glanced with a Londoner’s contempt for country folk at the smiling, jovial men and women around him. Fawning fools, the lot of ’em—
dependent on the goodwill of the manor for their livelihood; falling over themselves to make a traveler welcome. He’d strolled into the taproom of the Hare and Hounds, announced himself as a peddler, and no one had questioned him, even in the absence of a pack. Amazing how gullible country bumpkins could be. They’d give him all the information he wanted and not even know they were doing it.

  Tampering with the earl’s saddle had been as easy as taking cake from a baby: a little chat with the stable lads, a stroll round the tack room, identifying the fine-tooled leather saddle with its embossed design around the pommel. And then five minutes with a hammer and a handful of tacks in the early hours of the morning in the unguarded stable block. It was a damn shame such a neat plan hadn’t had the desired results. But there were all kinds of accidents that could befall a man interested in the sporting pursuits favored by the gentry.

  He followed the crowd up the driveway to the gravel sweep in front of the house. The bride and groom turned on the step to wave at the cheering peasantry before disappearing through the garlanded oak door. The throng immediately surged toward the back of the house, the soi-disant peddler in their midst. In the kitchen courtyard tables groaned under the weight of pies and puddings, hams and barons of beef, and kegs of ale were ranged against the orchard wall. The manor clearly knew what its tenants expected on these occasions, the stranger reflected, holding a tankard beneath the foaming tap of the keg. Such bounty would be hard to come by in the city.

  He drank deeply and looked around. No one was questioning his right to partake of this bounty. Fools. He could work the crowd and pick every pocket, and they’d never suspect. But he was being paid too well to do something else for it to be sensible to muddle things up. He strolled casually out of the yard. This would be a good opportunity to explore further. No one would take any notice of an inebriated wedding guest wandering the grounds.

  In the long gallery the small group of friends and family were gathered with more restrained exuberance than the villagers in the kitchen courtyard. Lady Gilbraith, her daughter in tow, made the rounds of the guests with all the assurance of a hostess dispensing the hospitality of her own house. The Gilbraiths had come into their rightful inheritance, and everyone should know it. Elinor’s old friends regarded this assumption of authority with puzzled disgust, but Elinor herself struggled to appear untroubled by it. Her daughters, however, all noticed the tautness to their mother’s mouth, the unusual stiffness of her posture as she moved around, discreetly seeing to the comfort of her guests as they reeled from the onslaught of Lady Gilbraith.