Skylark

by Jo Beverley

  “And who the devil is Oscar Ris? That really niggles at me. My impression is that nothing in that letter is meaningless.”

  “It doesn’t relate to convicts or the antipodes?”

  “Not in any way I can see, and I’ve studied the matter a great deal in my investigation of the legal system. Oh, to the antipodes with the lot of them. The wind’s dropped. Let’s go out and watch the sunset before dinner. Without a telescope. For nothing but pleasure.”

  It delighted her as she’d not expected to be delighted here, and perhaps she could encourage a proposal rather than forcing it. A glance in the mirror as she put on her bonnet gave her great doubts. Seduction would have to be for the night, when she was Labellelle.

  It was lovely to be out, however, breathing in the fresh briny air as they walked down the beach admiring the last of a sunset that was fiery instead of gray. A sunset that turned the rippling waves bloodred.

  Laura closed her eyes to that and inhaled. “Perhaps the sea air is healing.”

  “Now the storm’s passed.”

  She turned to look at him. “Benign and destructive. Two sides of the same thing.” Like love, and desire, and two writhing bodies in a bed. She tried to read his every look and word, seeking the truth of his desires—and his points of vulnerability. He was a mystery to her, but moment by moment, she wanted him more.

  They strolled on, just out of reach of the sea’s eternal lick. Like a bloodred lover lapping at skin or at hot, secret places. She swallowed, trying to control the ripple of sensual awareness, but feeling the rumble of the sea up through her shoes, up, up . . .

  Their only contact was linked arms, the only permissible contact between a sickly woman and her escort. She longed to turn into his arms, to imitate the sea by kissing, licking, and it was nothing to do with maternal purpose. . . .

  “We’d best turn back,” he said, doing so, speaking as if they were only invalid and escort.

  The sun’s last fire was fading, darkening the sky and stealing passion from the sea, but that did nothing to the way she felt. He didn’t share her desires, however. That was obvious.

  “What will you do when your mourning is over?” he asked.

  She was expected to make practical conversation? “I expected to live on at Caldfort.”

  “Keeping Harry safe will be easier if you live elsewhere.”

  “I know that.” She heard her own snappish tone. “It will not be allowed.”

  Could she put the situation to him honestly and make a marriage of convenience? If he refused, however, it would alert him.

  “Influence can be brought to bear. So, where would you choose?”

  She let a silence linger, hoping he might make a suggestion, a proposal. Then she said, “At Merrymead, I suppose.”

  “Not London?”

  “My jointure is generous, but it won’t stretch to ton life, and Lady Skylark can’t subsist on the fringes.”

  “You could live with Juliet until you marry again.”

  He was discussing it as if it were a dry matter of law.

  “So I could,” she said tartly. “Once I can leave Caldfort, finding a husband should be no problem at all.”

  No problem at all.

  As they climbed the shallow slope up to the road, Stephen wanted to smash something or force a kiss on her, wanted to fall to his knee and beg her to marry him, him! But she wasn’t following any of his leads and he didn’t want to press the matter now. Not now, not here, where she had entrusted herself to him. Not when she had no easy escape if his proposal was once again an embarrassment.

  Not when she might have said that she no longer cared for life in London, where his work required him to live for most of the year.

  “I probably would like to live in London again,” she said, making him wonder if he’d spoken his thought aloud. “If I had Harry with me and a fashionable establishment.”

  He couldn’t give her the pinnacle of society or a peerage title, but he could manage fashionable.

  Before he could put together the right response, she continued. “As for marriage, I take the matter of providing the perfect stepfather for Harry very seriously.”

  “And who would that be, the perfect stepfather?”

  She glanced at him, but in the gathering gloom even the light from the windows of the inn couldn’t reveal her expression. “Someone with enough power to overrule Lord Caldfort, of course, and stave off any threat from Jack. Someone able to fight for Harry’s welfare, but also able to love him, to be a true father. And,” she added, sounding strangely rebellious, “someone with enough money to support Lady Skylark’s new flight. If I go to London, it can only be to fly.”

  He didn’t understand her tone and it unnerved him. Had she guessed his feelings and was trying to warn him away from repeated folly?

  “Only a fool would want to cage a skylark,” he said, and opened the inn door for her.

  A few moments later, Laura swept into her room and clenched her fists. Stephen had turned cold as the sea at the mention of Lady Skylark. Why, oh, why, had she been driven to honesty? Why hadn’t he taken her hints about marriage?

  She felt torn into warring pieces. She was Harry’s mother, who needed Sir Stephen Ball as a weapon, primed and loaded. She was Stephen’s friend, who’d chase off another woman who wanted to use him as she did. She was a wicked woman who desired him—honor and sense be damned.

  And tonight she must decide, and act.

  Chapter 34

  She composed herself, straightened her wig, and returned to the parlor to find Stephen at the table, scribbling on a piece of paper. It reminded her of so many times in their youth that a wash of pure warmth soothed her.

  She smiled and went to look over his shoulder. He had the copy of Farouk’s letter open, but was writing on another piece of paper. “What are you doing?”

  “Hunting for a meaning,” he said tensely, pencil circling the name Oscar Ris. “The mouth of Carris. Or perhaps in distorted Latin, the mouth of love?”

  “HG has been in thrall to the mouth of love?” As soon as Laura said it, a lewd image filled her mind. Quickly she added, “Backward it’s Sir Racso.”

  He flashed her a grin. “That sounds like the villain in a farce. With a few more letters we could be looking for Scarred Boris.”

  She sat beside him, suddenly surprisingly happy for this lighthearted moment. “Rascal? I like rascal.”

  “You’re missing an a and an l,” he pointed out. “Osiris? An Egyptian connection.”

  “You’re missing an i.”

  “It has to mean something,” he muttered, tossing down his pencil. “I can’t help thinking that it’s key to everything.”

  Laura picked up the pencil and wrote herself. Sir Acros. Sir Scora. Sirra Soc.

  He burst out laughing. “Sirra Soc? A buffoon in a pantomime.”

  “Definitely . . .” But then the letters rearranged themselves. “Stephen!” She gripped his hand. “It is an anagram! It’s corsairs!”

  Hope blossomed. “That explains the ten years! It explains why now. It explains freedom. It explains everything! Ever since the Mary Woodside went down, Henry Gardeyne has been a slave on the Barbary Coast, one of the ones recently freed from Algiers by the navy!”

  He stared at the paper. “Good God, and look. Egan Dyer is an anagram of Gardeyne.” He turned to frown at her. “But there were hardly any Britons among those slaves. And an aristocrat? He’d have been ransomed years ago. The corsairs always took ransoms if they could.”

  “But it has to be. It can’t be coincidence.”

  “It must at least be the story behind it. The one supposed to trick Lord Caldfort.”

  She instantly saw what he meant but didn’t want to think it could be true. “You’re being sensible again,” she complained. “It is possible, I grant, but it’s equally possible that Henry Gardeyne’s been a slave, isn’t it? After all, why would Dyer—or whoever he is—and Farouk talk about freedom when they didn’t know anyone was l
istening, unless it was true?”

  “As you said, convicts?”

  “Who have escaped from New South Wales?”

  “Or served their time and returned.”

  “I find it hard to imagine Farouk as a convict, but I will consider it later. For now, let’s assume that when the Mary Woodside went down, Henry Gardeyne wasn’t drowned, but captured by the corsairs. Perhaps ransom was demanded and not paid.”

  “By his loving father?”

  She frowned. “No, that’s not possible. He was apparently so devastated by his son’s death that it hastened his own. But there might be some explanation.”

  He took her hand. “I know you want to believe this, Laura, but let me play devil’s advocate. If by some mischance Henry Gardeyne was enslaved in Algiers for nearly a decade, when he was freed, he could have commanded every service and comfort from the navy. He’d have been brought home on the best and fastest ship and lionized throughout the land.”

  She grimaced at him. “Instead he sneaks in on a smuggling boat with only an Arab servant. Farouk could be Algerian, though, rather than Egyptian.”

  “But it that case, Dyer—Henry, whoever—is more likely to have been servant to him. And why would an Algerian—and an educated one, since he speaks and writes English—take such efforts to bring his slave back to England? And again, why not simply deliver him to Lord Exmouth, as he was supposed to?”

  Laura sighed. “The devil has an excellent advocate in you. It doesn’t make sense. But it doesn’t make much sense as a hoax, either. Why has educated Azir Al Farouk sneaked into England to attempt a rather feeble extortion?”

  Stephen thought for a moment. “The loss of his slaves has been a financial blow. He encountered Henry Gardeyne once. Yes,” he said to her, “I’ll work with the idea that Henry survived the wreck long enough to end up in the hands of the corsairs. In fact, Farouk purchased Henry, and was about to demand ransom when Henry died. He wrote it off as a loss, but in this current situation he remembered Henry and also some possession that could establish a claim. He found someone resembling Henry and brought him here to try to squeeze money out of Lord Caldfort.”

  “It holds together,” Laura said, “but it would hold together if HG really was Henry, wouldn’t it?” She answered herself. “No, because then he would have been ransomed. And besides, everyone says Dyer is pale. How could he be pale after ten years in Algiers?”

  He squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry, but I think all we have discovered is the explanation behind the hoax. Perhaps there was an enclosure with the letter laying this out for your father-in-law.”

  “And if Lord Caldfort pays, Farouk will report the deed done, and he and his accomplice will go off to South Carolina or wherever. Oh, dear. Perhaps he really does intend to kill his dupe and leave a body for Lord Caldfort to find.”

  “Perhaps drowned. That can make bodies hard to identify.”

  “I refuse to feel sorry for the wretch,” Laura said, but she did. Farouk sounded so strong, and Dyer so weak. “Do you think he’s really a cripple?”

  “What? Do you want to rescue him? I doubt he’d cooperate.”

  Laura realized that she’d drifted to accepting the worst possibility, not the best. “I won’t give up until I’m sure,” she said. “Imagine if it is Henry and we leave him to Farouk’s or Jack’s mercies. Yes, if Dyer is Henry he should have announced himself to Lord Exmouth, et cetera, but he would have spent ten years as a slave. They were horribly punished, and he is injured in some way. Perhaps Farouk befriended him and persuaded him that this quiet return was a better idea than being, as you said, lionized.”

  He picked up the piece of paper and rolled it into a ball in his hands, something he’d done in the past when struggling with a decision. “You want it to be so, but the evidence doesn’t point that way.”

  “I must be sure. I can afford to stay another day. Even if Lord Caldfort has told Jack and Jack left this morning, he can’t arrive until late tomorrow.”

  He nodded and tossed the paper accurately into the fire. “Very well. We still need a way to compare HG to that picture. Such a seemingly simple matter to thwart us.”

  “We could set the inn on fire.” She raised her hand. “I know. I’m not even considering it.”

  “You make me consider a little smoke. . . . But it’s too risky. I could try to pick the lock.”

  “Do you know how?”

  He smiled. “Yes.”

  “Stephen! And you never told me? Or showed me, for that matter.”

  “Heaven knows what you’d have done with a skill like that.”

  She pulled a humorous face, but inside it hurt.

  “Or I could break down the door, with or without the assistance of Kerslake or Topham.”

  “Oh, I forgot! Kerslake sent a message.” She leapt up and brought it to him. “Perhaps he has something to contribute.”

  He broke the seal and read, but then passed it to her. “Only confirmations.”

  He was right. Kerslake wrote that the details of the landing were as he’d said, and that the two men had arrived alone. He’d found no word of a likely child in the area, or of people who could be in league with the two.

  “He does reiterate the offer of help,” she pointed out. “I’m sure that with his help we can pop HG out of that room like a nut out of its shell.”

  “But once we do, the subterfuge is over. We have to be ready to take them prisoner, possibly against armed resistance. People could get hurt, and if we muff it in any way, they could escape. What do you want to do? I told you that in the end, the decisions would be yours.”

  That weighed on her, but at the same time she felt liberated. She wouldn’t need to seduce Stephen tonight, to steal his freedom. There was still hope.

  “We try patience for just a little longer,” she said. “We listen at the wall in the hope of clarity. Perhaps tomorrow will be warm, and HG will sit at an open window. Perhaps, oh, perhaps something will happen. For tonight,” she said, taking his hand, “let’s simply enjoy this time together. We were apart too long.”

  His look was quick and searching, but he said, “That sounds delightful. Shall we order our dinner served now?”

  She agreed and watched as he rang the bell and then gave the order. Simply watching him, listening to him, gave her such joy. And now she had hope. Some deep instinct told her that HG was Henry, so both Harry and she would be free. She would move to Merrymead for the time being, and if Stephen didn’t come courting her, she would go courting him.

  Not force, not seduction, but courtship, where they could both learn about each other and make the right decision.

  They waited for the meal in the relaxed pleasure of old friends. “You said Farouk purchased a copy of The Corsair,” she remembered. “That fits now. Perhaps he likes the fact that it portrays the corsairs as heroes.”

  “Quite possibly. It’s said Byron based it on some adventures of his own, and of course he liked to dress up in the costume.”

  “Which was nothing like Farouk’s costume.”

  “My money’s on Farouk being authentic.”

  “Mine, too. He is certainly the real thing.”

  When the servants had spread the meal, Laura and Stephen sat and continued to talk about the famous poet and his stormy, scandalous life.

  “ ‘Linked with one virtue and a thousand crimes,’ ” Stephen quoted. “Many think Byron was describing himself.”

  Time, talk, and perhaps wine had eased tension.

  “His virtue being his art?” she asked, watching the play of candlelight on her glass of claret. “Is not one great gift enough?”

  He studied her across the remnants of their meal. “And what is your great gift, Laura?”

  She looked at her glass, sipped from it. “Harry.”

  “I don’t think a child, even children, can be the prime purpose of a life. Your art is above the common standard.”

  “I have no wish to become an artist.” She met his eyes. “Perhaps m
y art is to be a bird.”

  She saw no particular reaction. “And fly high? There’s nothing wrong with that. The skylark gives a great deal of innocent pleasure.” He put down the glass he had been merely toying with. “I will regret this, but I must tell you something.”

  “Don’t.” It came out without thought, and she frowned over it. “I mean, don’t tell me something I must keep secret. I’m not sure I’m trustworthy at this moment.”

  “It’s not a secret. I want you to know. I did not arrive at Caldfort by accident.”

  She stared at him. “You are part of Farouk’s plot?”

  “Damn it to Hades, Laura. Of course not.”

  Such swearing didn’t shock her, but it startled her when it was Stephen. “I’m sorry. Why, then?”

  His lips tightened as if to hold back words, but then he said, “I fabricated a reason to visit Caldfort because I wanted to court you.”

  She realized her glass was tilting and hastily put it down. She almost said Why? but that would be silly. “And found me in a fuss and flurry. But you said nothing later.”

  She should be relieved, ecstatic. It was such a shock, however, that she felt numb. And he had given no sign until now. Or no clear sign . . .

  “The fuss and flurry seemed continuous,” he said.

  “I think I had the notion of snaring your attention through heroics, but it would seem that I’m not the heroic sort.”

  “Nonsense. I wouldn’t have wanted anyone else by my side through this.”

  He smiled. “Which isn’t quite the same thing.”

  She wasn’t sure what to say. If she could believe this—and why shouldn’t she?—it was everything she needed and desired.

  If she could only be sure that she was the right wife for him. She didn’t doubt his words, but she’d seen many men choose wives from desire and discover disaster.

  “At times,” she said, “I haven’t been sure that you like me.”

  “We’ve talked over this. I like you.”

  “But do you love me?” She shook her head. “I shouldn’t ask that.”