by Laura London
“I thought it was clever,” objected Lorraine, rather hurt. “After all, I could hardly say it was one of the local farmers. Mrs. Coniston knows everyone about and she’d be bound to figure out the cheat. Besides, what if she sent them a fruit basket in thanks and they denied it? Lynnie, you know I couldn’t say that it was the highwayman.”
“No,” agreed her sister. “But you might as well have, if you were going to make up something as flimsy as a tinker! Only imagine how it looked. I was standing by the window with Mrs. Coniston, hoping you’d be home soon. After I’d found your bonnet and scarf and the word ‘safe’ written in the snow, I assumed you’d been taken to someone’s home to dry off—but, anyway, there we stood by the window when Melbrooke walked in. He’d just come back from riding. They had told him in the stables about your accident, and he took my hand in the kindest way and said he was very sorry it had happened.”
“It was good of him to be so concerned!” said Lorraine with sincerity.
“Daresay it was, but I wished him at Jericho not thirty seconds later. Consider, you arrived slung over the saddle front of a young gallant like fair Ellen Netherby and then trip happily into the house, to announce you’ve been rescued by a tinker and his wife! Not only was there not a whiff of a wife, but tinkers don’t ride away into the moonlight with their capes flying out behind them; nor do they ride thoroughbreds, carry holstered pistols over their shoulders, or salute ladies with their hats in farewell. Nor do ladies throw them kisses in reply!”
“Oh, dear,” said Lorraine in a chastened tone. “I don’t know what possessed me. I would never have done it if I’d known anyone was watching.”
Lynden wiggled her bare toes in the silky plush of the carpet. “Very likely not, but in the meantime here’s Melbrooke supposing us a pair of lunatics! Of course, he didn’t say a word of doubt about your story, but he had that look—I know it now—the look that says if you want to pretend this is the truth, then I’ll pretend it’s the truth but we both know it’s a lie.”
On the bedside table, a half-empty teapot in Chinese blue and white peeked seductively from under its quilted tea cozy, tempting Lorraine to wander over and pour herself a scant cup. A small worried pucker disturbed Lorraine’s smooth brow as she stirred in sugar with a dainty silver spoon.
“Lynnie, perhaps we’ve been wrong about this. Perhaps we should have confided everything to Lord Melbrooke. Deception is such a—a squalid and cowardly business, and, really, isn’t that what we’re doing, when you think of it?”
“I suppose it is,” said Lynden. “But you take much too dim a view of deception. According to Uncle Monroe, politicians and diplomats engage in it constantly, and those are quite up-in-the-world persons so it can’t be completely without merit.”
Lorraine perched on the edge of her bed, balancing the teacup on her knees. “This is different, Lyn. Lord Melbrooke is your husband. What of your vows?”
“My vows, my vows! What of them? If you’ll recall, I agreed to love, honor, and obey, not to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth!”
“No, but deceiving Lord Melbrooke is hardly showing him love and honor!” reproved Lorraine gently. “And I’m covered with shame to think that I was the first to tell Lord Melbrooke an untruth and you were forced to back me! Lynnie, I’ve been wrong! Let us at once repair to Lord Melbrooke’s library and divulge all, throwing ourselves on his mercy.”
“Of all the grandiose, play-acting, fidgety ways to talk! Lorraine, what has gotten into you?” exclaimed Lynden. “If we tell Melbrooke the truth, then chances are that within the clock’s tick he’ll be out, rousing the sheriff to arrest your highwayman! You can’t tell the whole story without revealing that you know what the highwayman looks like and have a fair idea where he lives, can you? They’d hang him, I’m sure, and you wouldn’t like that to happen to… Oh, it puts me off to forever be calling him the highwayman. What’s his name, Raine?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t tell me,” Lorraine said and then burst into tears.
Lynden came hastily to sit beside her twin, putting an arm about her trembling shoulders with a suddenness and protective ferocity that made Lorraine’s precariously balanced teacup rattle a threat.
“There, you shan’t cry, Rainey, you shan’t! Dearest of sisters! Don’t think about Melbrooke, not for a moment. So what’s a lie? It’s in a good cause, isn’t it?” Lynden leaped to her feet, her hands clasped in excitement. “I have it, Raine, I have it! A good cause! That’s what it is!” She sat down quickly again and the teacup rolled to the floor.
“Lynnie, the tea!” cried Lorraine.
“Never mind it, you oughtn’t to have been soaking down tea in a crisis, anyway. Besides, this is my house, isn’t it, and if I choose to spill and break teacups in it, I’ve a right, haven’t I? But never mind that! I have a plan! Lorraine, do you recall the Ladies’ Benevolent Society back home that the vicar’s wife always pushed Aunt Eleanor to patronize? The one that made the squire’s footman marry our parlor maid after he got her in an interesting condition? Well, Lorraine, you and I could form our own Ladies’ Benevolent Society and induce the highwayman to reform his criminal ways!”
“Why, Lynnie! But… but that was quite a different thing,” said Lorraine, rather aghast at the idea. “And he may not like to be reformed!”
“They never do,” said Lynden knowingly.
“No, perhaps not,” agreed Lorraine. She dampened her handkerchief in the water basin and kneeled to dab at the tea spot in the rug. Then she gathered the shards of the teacup in her palm. “Lynnie… I wonder, did you happen to notice anything particular about the highwayman? In the way he carried himself? I mean, in his manner?”
“Of course,” said Lynden promptly. “He spoke like a gentleman. At least he spoke in the way of a gentleman. The manners of a gentleman and the mouth of a… oh well, I know what you mean. But of course I noticed it. Anyone would have. Why?” Then her eyes sparkled excitedly. “Ah, yes! I take your meaning. What if he was not just aping the manners of a gentleman, but was really one such fallen on hard times?”
“It wasn’t just apery, it was his natural manner,” said Lorraine seriously. “Lynden, I think—no, I can’t say it, ’twill sound so foolish.”
“Don’t mind that, Rainey. Heaven knows, and so do you, that I’ve been the world’s first fool more times than the bunny’s sought clover. Go on.”
“All right. Don’t laugh. I knew today who it was that Lord Crant reminded me of. He looks quite, quite—bizarre though it sounds—like the highwayman!”
Lynden placed an open palm on her cheek. “Marry come up, Rainey, you’re right!” She sprang up from the bed, poured two cups of cold tea, handed one to Lorraine, and raised her cup in a solemn toast. “To the Ladies’ Benevolent Society for the Reformation of Highwaymen!”
Lorraine’s misadventure was to have its logical consequence. By the next morning she had developed all the symptoms of a severe head cold and sore throat. Mrs. Coniston, a medical conservative, was fearful that it might turn putrid and prescribed an exhausting regimen of mustard foot baths, teas of potherbs with lemon, and bed rest. When Lorraine was awake, the sisters sat together on her bed plotting schemes for the benefit of the highwayman that, had he been privileged to hear them, would have both touched and alarmed that young man. Lynden took her meals with Lorraine, as well, sending a message through Mrs. Coniston to Lord Melbrooke that she wished to keep the invalid company, admitting only in the most secret corner of her heart that this noble resolve was partly based on shyness at dining tête-à-tête with her elegant husband. As a result, Lynden saw nothing of him over the next week, save a few short encounters in the hallway. If Melbrooke disliked this arrangement, he gave no indication, but continued on his even, independent path, dividing his time, as close as Lynden could tell, between his writing and riding out-of-doors. Visiting his mistress, thought Lynden, as she watched him cantering across the rocky valley floor on his stallion with its long flow
ing mane and tail.
One such afternoon Lorraine was napping so Lynden, rarely at a loss for occupation, pulled a traveling chess set from her drawer and retired to the stables, where she most improperly engaged in an absorbing attempt to teach the younger groom chess. She spent several happy hours letting her pupil beat her at no less than three games and left only when he was called off by Mr. Coniston to change the bedding of the carriage horses.
Lynden drifted back to her bedroom and stowed her chess set. She then noticed that the connecting door to Lord Melbrooke’s bedroom had been left open, apparently an accident by one of the chambermaids.
Lynden walked over, resolved to close the door, but instead found herself standing still, her hand on the doorknob, gazing into her husband’s room. She had not seen it since her first night at Fern Court, and then had hardly noticed it; she had been too full of the day’s excitement to draw more than an impression of neatness and understated beauty. The furnishings were of richly grained hardwood with brass inlay and ornaments, the upholstery thick, matte-surfaced, and deep green. Beside the bed a dwarf bookcase sat beneath an exquisite Cotman watercolor landscape. Lynden came closer to study the painting. She recognized its subject as a bridge not far from Downpatrick Hall in Yorkshire. Leaning down, she tried to read the titles of the books in the bookcase but soon gave up, finding most of them to be in French or Latin.
The massive, silent rectangle of Melbrooke’s bed lurked to Lynden’s right, seeming to inspect her alien, feminine presence in its domain. It was a sober, puritanical furnishing, the Brazilian rosewood frame cut at the head in high unpainted relief with the Melbrooke coat of arms. A stickler for irreverence, Lynden crawled toward the middle of the great bed and poked her finger insultingly into the mouth of a ferocious dragon quartered within the shield. As she withdrew her finger, she saw with dismay that she had left a prominent fingerprint to mar the immaculate, waxy polish. Never mind, she thought, and tried to repair the damage with a corner of her skirt, but merely succeeded in increasing the damage, rubbing off more of the delicately applied finish. The effort left Lynden feeling curiously incompetent and cross, so she rolled over on her back and glared at the frugal plasterwork ceiling. A fine unpretentious view, she felt, and wondered how it would have appeared to her had she shared this bed with Melbrooke. Would the ceiling have hung low over her, oppressive and eerie, or would it have drifted toward heaven, shining and celestial like a silk altar-hanging? And the act. Would it have been painful and shocking as her mother had hinted, or would it have been like his kiss in the chapel, only longer and more intense?
A rift in the clouds allowed a broad beam of winter sunlight to pass, and a golden layer of light from the high window appeared on the middle of the bed. Lynden rolled into the amber rectangle, enjoying the shimmer it imparted to her butter-colored bombazine day dress and the penetrating warmth to her winter-chilled muscles. She stretched like a sleepy puppy, her arms generously outflung.
There was a soft click and a swish as the door opened, and Lord Melbrooke entered the room, staring down at his pretty, dark-haired wife and registering no less surprise than she did herself.
“Lynden, for God’s sake, don’t move,” he said, and Lynden, convinced by his tone that a single movement would jeopardize her welfare, if not her life, lay petrified. “Close your eyes,” he ordered, and she obeyed.
Lynden felt the bed give to each side of her and then came the touch of his lips on hers. The suddenness with which the kiss was offered caused an inadvertent response within her, and she shivered with soft surprise. His hands were on her back, lifting her to him, fitting her body to his as he placed firm, burning kisses on her neck. Her lips fell open as she drew in a deep, sighing breath, and he covered them again with his own, filling her with a deep, penetrating kiss, a gentle, probing exploration of her silkiness, her moistness. She shivered again, involuntarily, and he spoke her name, bringing a hand up to steady her, his fingertips brushing cool against the fevered skin on her cheekbone. His mouth followed the path of his fingers, and then kissed her eyelids. Steady lips brushed against her forehead; she felt his breath in her curls, and the tender caress of his hand was on her back, on her shoulder. Lynden’s heart beat painfully under his hand’s gentle pressure at the quiet slope of her breast, and her body began to feel confined, swelling and ripe, closed in by the butter-colored gown, as though the dress would flame and dissolve under the heat and touch of his hands.
Frightened, she pushed against his chest. “Don’t! I—I don’t like it.” She lied.
He released her immediately and sat back to watch her trembling and sparkling beneath him, like a proud, pouting child who has refused dessert and at once repents and defends her gesture.
“I wasn’t trying to torture you,” he said softly.
“I know that.” Lynden turned her burning cheek to the pillow.
“I’m relieved,” he answered drily. “Your response left me in some doubt.”
Lynden turned back to make a shy study of the calm gray eyes, unsure whether to convict him of irony. With his experience perhaps he was only too well able to determine her response, to see through the shallow surface of her resistance. Then he might think her easy, as women were usually easy for him, so the rumors said. And he had his mistress, the deep-bosomed, catty Lady Silvia. Must he come to kiss and confuse Lynden, too? She tried to stoke the angry fires within her but their response was sluggish and unenthusiastic. What would have happened if she had not pushed him away?
“You didn’t like my—well, my response?” questioned Lynden cautiously. Let him reveal some of himself for a change.
Melbrooke shrugged slightly. “It isn’t for me to like or not to like, Lynden. It only is. I’m sympathetic, if that’s what you want to know. It must be very hard to spend seventeen years as a child and then overnight be expected to turn into a woman.”
The corners of Lynden’s eyes tilted reproachfully. She was not sure that he was not accusing her of immaturity. “I suppose you think we know each other better now,” she said, attempting a sarcastic tone.
He smiled. “I suppose you think we don’t. All right. How does your sister feel today?”
Nonplussed by the sudden change of subject, Lynden said, “Lorraine?” and then thought, That was dumb, as though I have several sisters. “She’s quite well, and Mrs. Coniston says that we might go out tomorrow, of which we are glad! At least I’m very glad,” she amended. “Lorraine is not as committed to the out-of-doors as I am.”
Melbrooke placed his hand in the shaft of sunlight, examining it. “I hope this doesn’t make me sound too much like your Uncle Monroe, Lynden, but I wish both of you will develop a commitment to stay off the ice. There may not be another conveniently placed peddler the next time one of you takes the plunge.”
“It wasn’t a peddler,” protested Lynden, chewing her lip. “It was a…” For one sick moment she forgot what Lorraine had said he was, then it came back to her. “Oh, yes, it was a tinker.”
“A tinker,” Melbrooke repeated dutifully. “And his wife. But tell me, do you think I believe that?” he asked on a note of passive inquiry.
Able to make nothing of his expression, Lynden asked him, “What will happen if you don’t believe it?”
“I’ll pretend I do until you confide in me—I hope, shortly. Frankly, it’s a strain on my powers of dissimulation, being such a—forgive me—such a poor story.”
“Pooh!” said Lynden, deciding quickly that aggressive dishonesty and spirited deceit were the only ways to combat Melbrooke’s rather disarming openness. She had the feeling that if she didn’t set him back sharply, he would have the truth from her in two minutes flat. “It isn’t a poor story. It’s a fine story! Oh! What I mean is, it’s the truth! All tinkers needn’t look the same, need they? Some might be young and—and quite dashing! And I’m sorry if I made you angry by pushing you away just now, but really, you shouldn’t have tricked me—I mean, to say ‘hold still’ like that as though some huge
hairy spider were about to hop on my nose. It was too bad of you, and it was the only reason that I didn’t get up straightaway when you came into the room.”
He placed his fingers lightly, lightly on the side of her neck. “I’m sure you would have, and it would have been a pity because, you see, I wanted to kiss you. It’s not an unnatural desire, little one, no matter what you might think.” His fingers touched her cheek once more, and he stood and held out his hand to her, as if to help her up. “I hope now that once you’ve found your way into my room that you will make it a habit to come.”
Not very likely, thought Lynden, allowing him to help her from the bed. She wandered toward the door to her bedroom behind Melbrooke, who turned the doorknob and pushed the door open for her. Instead of leaving, however, Lynden paused in the threshold, crossed her hands behind her back, and leaned against the door frame.
“Umm… Lord Melbrooke?”
“Yes, Lady Melbrooke?”
“Oh, very well, then—Justin. I was wondering about Lord Crant…”
The shuttered gray eyes scanned her. “You wouldn’t be the first. You have a specific question, I take it?”
“Yes,” said Lynden, wishing it was not his habit to make such intimidating withdrawals. “I wondered if he had any children.”
His eyes lightened for a moment, as though her question had surprised him. “Children? No, he’s never been married.”
“Not married? Oh. But what about illegitimate ones?” asked Lynden with studied casualness, hoping he would attribute the high color in her cheeks to his recent kisses.
“I don’t know, Lynden, that’s not the kind of thing I discuss with other men. It’s possible.” He took her chin between his fingers and tilted her face slowly into his cool gaze. “But I’m curious. What’s made you interested in that?”
“Nothing! That is… oh, nothing. He seems like the type, perhaps,” Lynden faltered nervously.
