Lord of Legends

by Susan Krinard

  Having been warned by Mariah, Sinjin prepared himself for the event of Ash’s arrival.

  MARIAH ARRIVED AT ROTHWELL in the barouche an hour before dinner, Ash riding beside her on Donnington’s favorite mare. It was a bit of poetic justice that the temperamental animal took to Ash immediately, nibbling affectionately at his fingers. And Ash was an excellent rider, as befitted someone who had grown up in the American West.

  None of which eased Mariah’s qualms. In the end, she’d had no choice but to accompany Ash to Rothwell. The alternative was to stay at Donbridge and watch him go off on his own, his intentions still very much in doubt, when she still might have a chance to guide him. Even Vivian’s speculative smiles had failed to change her mind.

  The prince seemed happy to see them. He was especially effusive toward Mariah, whom he complimented on her gown and general beauty.

  Under other circumstances, she would have been nervous to find herself under the prince’s eye, but her discomfort was of no importance now. Sinjin exchanged knowing glances with her as His Royal Highness and his retinue came down for dinner, Ash following quietly in their wake.

  Just before they were to go into the dining room, Lady Westlake arrived in her own carriage. Sinjin was clearly surprised to see her, but he quickly hid his feelings.

  Mariah was well aware that a very sly fox had just entered the henhouse. One look at Pamela’s arch expression told Mariah that Lady Westlake was not in the least surprised to see Ash, and that she had somehow obtained a very clear idea of who and what he was. They were briefly introduced, and she responded with exactly the right combination of surprise and pleasure. While Mariah was granted the privilege of entering the dining room on Bertie’s arm, Pamela accepted Sinjin’s escort, clinging possessively.

  Once they sat down at the table, it soon became obvious that Ash had forgotten a few of the essential skills Mariah had just begun to teach him. He began by using the wrong spoon for the soup, ignoring every course that contained meat, fish or fowl, accepting only the side dishes of greens and vegetables, and refusing the excellent wine Sinjin had brought up from his cellar.

  “A vegetarian, are you?” the prince asked, observing Ash with a gimlet eye. “I was not aware that gentlemen dined so differently in America.”

  Ash met the prince’s gaze. “I do not eat meat, sir.”

  Lord Russell laughed, and several of the other peers raised their brows in disbelief. Bertie leaned back in his chair and fingered his side-whiskers.

  “How extraordinary,” he said. “And I suppose they haven’t the proper cutlery in the West, either?”

  The question was not quite hostile, but the prince had always been a stickler for certain niceties. Mariah spoke up quickly.

  “The West, as Your Royal Highness is aware, spans a very large area,” she said. “I understand that Mr. Cornell was accustomed to few luxuries in the isolated region where he was brought up.”

  “Perhaps he was raised by Red Indians,” Russell suggested with a smirk.

  “Yet he speaks like an Englishman,” Lord Gothard put in.

  “We all have our little eccentricities,” Mariah said mildly.

  Bertie laughed. “Truer words were never spoken.” He smiled at her. “I can always bank on honesty from our American ladies.”

  “You do me too much honor, sir.”

  The prince waved her comment away. “You have a valuable friend in Lady Donnington, Mr. Cornell.”

  “I am quite sensible of that fact, sir.”

  “As you ought to be.” The prince stretched and glanced around the table, favoring Lady Westlake with an appreciative nod. “An excellent meal, Ware, made all the more delicious by the presence of such lovely ladies.”

  Mariah had seen enough flirting in her day to recognize it in Bertie’s tone. Pamela all but batted her eyelashes, simpering in a way Mariah found nauseating.

  You needn’t put up with her any longer, Sinjin, Mariah thought in disgust. Let the cat find other prey. But she knew very well that Sinjin was not the man she had at first assumed him to be. He was not troubled by Lady Westlake’s infidelity. He might not be prepared to give her up her “favors.” If the viscountess was less than honorable, then Sinjin, too, must be judged in a similar vein.

  Unable to meet his gaze, she endured the rest of the meal in silence. When the dessert course was finished and general conversation ended, it was Lady Westlake who rose to escort Mariah from the room. Her proprietary air set Mariah’s teeth on edge.

  “What a marvelous surprise,” Pamela said, sipping her after-dinner cordial. “I never would have guessed that there could be such a remarkable resemblance between two men.”

  “I take it the dowager informed you of Mr. Cornell’s arrival, Lady Westlake?” Mariah said sweetly.

  Pamela was unfazed by the insinuation that she and Vivian had been in such close communication. “It will soon be the talk of the countryside,” she said, smiling just as sweetly. “And you say you never met him before this morning?”

  “If I had, it would surely have been the talk of the countryside long before this.”

  “Ah. Yes.” Lady Westlake continued to stare into Mariah’s eyes. “You must miss your husband all the more with such an uncanny reminder so close at hand.”

  “Of course.”

  “What an interesting meeting that shall be.”

  It wasn’t clear whether Pamela was referring to Ash and Donnington or Donnington and his wife, but she couldn’t mean anything good by it either way.

  Mariah herself had ceased to know whether she wished for Giles’s swift return—making an end, for good or ill, to this untenable situation—or if she hoped he would never return at all.

  Someone will suffer. If Donnington is guilty, he will be compelled to pay for what he has done to Ash. Even if he is innocent, he surely must know something of what went on at his estate.

  “Why, my dear, you look positively ghostly,” Lady Westlake said. “Here, drink this.”

  She thrust a glass of sherry into Mariah’s hand. Mariah drank, and the liquor went directly from her lips into her legs, numbing her feet.

  “There,” Pamela said. “Much better.” She drew her chair closer to Mariah’s. “Something is troubling you, Lady Donnington. Has Mr. Cornell upset you? He was a bit…peculiar at dinner, and the prince seemed somewhat put out.”

  Mariah sat up straight and set the glass on the side table. “Mr. Cornell may have his eccentricities, but they are no worse than those of many an Englishman. He has been a perfect gentleman since his arrival.”

  “So I have heard.” Pamela smiled as if she harbored a secret, then rose to fetch Mariah’s glass and refill it. “My dear Lady Donnington, you and I have perhaps not been as close as I might have liked. I fear I have given you little reason to trust me, and I have been…improper in my attentions toward your husband. I have made other mistakes, as well.” She sighed and shook her head. “I see that my frankness shocks you. But I prefer to be as American in my honesty as you are so very…English in other ways.”

  Mariah suspected another barb, but she was still reeling from the fact that Pamela had as good as admitted her designs on Giles.

  “You continue to doubt,” Lady Westlake said. “I quite understand, but I do hope to prove myself your friend. You see, I…” She blushed, an unnatural sign of modesty on such an experienced face, and glanced away. “I have found true love at last.”

  Mariah drank the second offered glass of wine before she could think. True love.

  With Sinjin?

  “You have guessed,” Pamela said, her gaze still averted. “I confess I…was not prepared to face such a change of feeling when he and I first became better acquainted. But now…”

  The chair squeaked as Mariah got up and walked across the room. “I might congratulate you, Lady Westlake, were it not for your husband.”

  Pamela’s cheeks turned a darker shade of red, and she took several agitated steps. “My husband…” Her voice dropped very
low. “I pity him, Lady Donnington. I truly do. But he is not interested in…” She drew a shuddering breath. “I was very young and naïve when we married. He was already ill and has declined much. He does not love me.”

  Nor, it would seem, does Donnington love me, Mariah thought. Still, that does not permit us to betray our vows.

  “Your thoughts are so transparent,” Pamela said with an edge of laughter in her voice. “You disapprove of me greatly, do you not? As you disapprove of Sinjin. You have lived a very sheltered life, my dear.” She poured herself a glass and sipped at it casually. “Perhaps it might help you to know that Westlake cannot give me children, even if he had any interest in attempting it. He cares nothing for what I do. I have no life with him. No—”

  Mariah could have sworn that Pamela actually choked on a sob. Even her cheeks were wet. Unwanted pity knotted in Mariah’s chest, but it could not overcome her disgust.

  “What do you want of me, Lady Westlake?” she asked bluntly.

  “Is it not obvious?” Pamela lifted her head. “I am as much in need of a friend and confidante as you, Lady Donnington. We can help each other.”

  “I do not take your meaning,” Mariah said.

  Lady Westlake dabbed surreptitiously at her eyes, and when she looked up there was no remaining trace of vulnerability in them. “Let us be entirely open with one another,” she said. “You judge me, but I am not deceived by your veil of innocence, Mariah. I never have been. I have some influence in society, whatever you may think of me.” She held out her hand. “Consider what I have said. Do not so hastily reject my friendship.”

  “You were never a friend to me, Lady Westlake.” Mariah rose without taking the offered hand. “Good night.”

  PAMELA STRODE OUT OF the drawing room a moment after Mariah’s exit, concealing her fury. She was glad she had done so when she nearly ran into Sinjin.

  “Pamela,” he said harshly, seizing her arm. “What are you playing at?”

  “Sinjin!” she said, genuinely startled. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  He released her arm with a scowl potent enough to slice through steel. “I heard what you said to Mariah. What did you mean by it?”

  “Mean by what? Come, Sinjin, there is no need for—”

  He steered her out of the corridor and into a smaller room, papered and furnished in yellows and pale greens. “You have no desire whatsoever to make up to Lady Donnington,” he said, pushing her into a chair. “You dislike her. You envy her. Do you expect her to believe you are sincere now?”

  Pamela saw that she must tread very carefully indeed. “But I am sincere, Sinjin. I understand why Lady Donnington has been so little at ease in recent days.”

  Only the slightest twitch of a brow betrayed Sinjin’s concern. “You make no sense, Pamela.”

  “Is it not true that Lady Donnington had known Mr. Cornell for some time before he presented himself at Donbridge?”

  Sinjin had himself under better control now and didn’t rise to her bait. “Whatever gave you such an idea?” he demanded.

  “Just a bee in my bonnet, if you like,” she said lightly. “Obviously it is untrue.”

  “It is.” He bent over her, trapping her with his hands braced on the arms of the chair. “You had best leave Lady Donnington alone.”

  “But she does need a friend, and I can be a very good friend.”

  He snorted and pushed away from the chair. “What about the other?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The part about Donnington.”

  “I know…I do realize I have been wrong in…in attempting to—”

  He walked to the mantelpiece. “Give it up, Pamela. Even you haven’t the ability to make that sound sincere.”

  She got up and came to stand behind him. “You don’t believe me. You truly don’t believe me.”

  “That you’ve found ‘true love’ with me?” He snorted. “As if you were capable of such an emotion.”

  “You know what I said about my husband was true.” She laid her hand on his arm. “I have nothing at home. I had nothing until I began to feel…what I feel for you.”

  “And all those other lovers?”

  “They meant nothing to me.” She pressed her cheek to his rigid back. “I do love you, Sinjin. More than I can say.”

  She fully expected him to reject her again. Instead, he turned and took her face between his hands.

  “Pamela,” he said, searching her eyes. “Tell me the truth. It won’t change anything between us.”

  “Won’t it?” She covered one of his hands with hers and brought his palm to her lips. “How shall I prove it to you, my darling? What will you accept?”

  The muscles of his jaw flexed. “Leave Mariah alone. Leave Cornell alone. And when Donnington returns…”

  “Your brother has no claim on my heart. It is already given.”

  He kissed her, savagely enough to bruise her lips. Then he walked out the door without a backward glance.

  She found a chair and sat down heavily.

  He does believe me. My God, he loves me.

  For a moment she found the idea immensely amusing, though her amusement passed quickly. Sentiment had no place in what she intended to do, not for the dowager and not for herself. But she might make very good use of Sinjin’s emotions.

  Voices sounded in the corridor. Someone laughed. Pamela rose and went to join the prince in the drawing room.

  ASH SPENT THE NEXT hour on the edge of the prince’s group, listening to the men trade jokes and reminiscences, while the pale-haired Lady Westlake joined in their laughter and Mariah listened attentively.

  His relative isolation left Ash plenty of time to think about what had passed in the dining room. He had seen the amused contempt on the faces of the men when he had failed to touch their filthy meat and when he had used the wrong tools. Such disdain would have been unimportant to him had Mariah not been there to witness it.

  She had defended him. There was humiliation in knowing she had found such an act necessary. He should have spoken for himself, no matter if the prince thought the worse of him for it.

  But would that not have embarrassed Mariah all the more? He had urged her to accept the prince’s invitation and accompany him to Rothwell in hopes of getting her away from the dowager’s influence and interference. But should she become weary of his errors and leave him…

  Ash waited until the prince was fully occupied with Lady Westlake and edged toward Mariah.

  “I would speak with you,” he whispered close to her ear.

  She smiled at something Lord Russell had said, her expression serene. “We have no privacy here,” she said, matching his low tone. “And I cannot simply leave with you.”

  “Tell us the story of the tiger hunt in India, sir,” Lady Westlake said loudly to the prince, her gray eyes flashing in Mariah’s direction. “I should love to hear it again.”

  It was almost as if the woman had deliberately called attention to herself so that Mariah could escape the prince’s notice. Ash well remembered Mariah’s warning that he stay away from the woman, and he could think of no reason why Lady Westlake should assist them.

  Yet he would not argue with the opportunity. He beckoned to Mariah, and after a moment of hesitation she drifted with him to the opposite end of the room.

  “I hope you are enjoying your visit, Mr. Cornell,” she said in a normal voice.

  “I require your help,” he said more quietly.

  She gazed at him earnestly, her lovely eyes wide. “What is it, Ash?”

  “You tried to make it seem as if what I did at the table was acceptable,” he said, “but I know it was not.”

  “I understand that your memory is not yet complete,” she said, lowering her voice. “And it is not as if you are conversant with English—”

  “The use of cutlery is the least of my concerns,” he said. “I did not want you to guess how much…” He glanced aside, allowing his expression to reveal the vulnerability he felt.
“There are vast gaps in my memory, Mariah. They may cause you further difficulties.”

  “They have caused me no difficulties so far,” she said. “The prince is not likely to remain annoyed for long.”

  The conversation on the prince’s side of the room faltered, and several faces turned toward them.

  Mariah laughed. “Mr. Cornell,” she said loudly, “what an amusing story.”

  Her body was tense as she waited to see if the others would notice how close she and Ash had been standing. They seemed, however, to be more interested in the prince and quickly returned to their own conversation.

  “We must be more careful,” Mariah whispered. “We must show no partiality for each other.”

  “Do they not realize that we are friends, Mariah?”

  “They believe we have only been acquainted since your arrival at Donbridge, but the dowager…” She sucked in her breath. “Let us return to more practical matters. How can I help you?”

  “I would request further instruction in the proper way of dining and any other skills you believe I still require.”

  “How can I guess what skills you have forgotten?”

  “It would be better to take no chances.”

  Her brow furrowed. “I can’t teach you here. At Donbridge—”

  “We would be under the scrutiny of the dowager, would we not?”

  She didn’t answer, but he saw the acknowledgment in her eyes. “You ride beautifully,” she said, “and that is a skill the prince always admires. Sinjin had agreed to show you the proper mode of dress for each occasion, if it can be done discreetly. As for the rest…” She hesitated. “Do you remember how to dance?”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ASH REMEMBERED READING about dancing in his books, but he’d never seen a detailed description of how it was done. Waltzes, polkas, quadrilles…all words to describe movements he could only imagine.

  “Will you teach me?” he asked.

  “Not here,” she said, glancing again at the prince’s party. “Not now. But…” She seemed to reach a decision. “Tonight, after everyone has gone to bed, we shall meet on the terrace. We can practice there, if we are very quiet.”