by Louise Allen
‘With reluctance, Miss Polkington.’ She pouted. ‘Not from lack of admiration of my partners,’ he added hastily. ‘More to spare them from having their toes crushed.’ She giggled and began to chatter about past balls and parties. Nathan ate his duck and contemplated an evening torturing himself by watching Clemence dance.
He could imagine her feet in those bronze kid slippers twinkling beneath the modish quilted hem of her skirt. Perhaps there would be a flash of silk-stockinged ankle. Her shoulders would gleam even more in the candlelight as her skin warmed with the exertion and her small breasts would rise and fall with her breathing.
And he would be in severe need of a cold plunge in the lake in a minute if he didn’t control his imagination. Nathan spread his napkin strategically across his lap and attempted to recall the unerotic image of Clem’s grubby bare feet protruding from the bottom of flapping canvas trousers. It did not help.
But at least inconvenient arousal, however uncomfortable, did not threaten the pain of unrequited love. He had known he had to accept it for himself, but to believe that might Clemence feel the same way was agony.
By the end of the meal Nathan was convinced he would rather be boarding a heavily defended pirate ship than facing an evening of dancing.
‘Do you think Hoste is going to want to work on?’ he asked Melville.
‘You sound as if you wish he will!’ His friend nodded towards the group of guests clustered around Lady Standon. There was his senior officer, joining in with the persuasion to have the long drawing-room carpet rolled up. ‘I’m looking forward to an impromptu hop.’
‘I’m going to have a strategic sprain,’ Nathan said dourly, making his way to the side of the room and favouring his right foot.
‘You have hurt your ankle, Captain?’ It was the curate, bright-eyed with sympathy, his hands full of sheet music.
‘An old weakness.’
‘Could you turn the music for me if you are not to dance?’ Taking silence for consent, the other man led the way to the piano. ‘I do not dance myself, you understand, but rational exercise in a respectable setting such as this is most acceptable, I feel.’
He prosed on, leaving Nathan stranded by the side of the piano, attempting to ignore Melville’s unsympathetic grin. Lady Standon came over.
‘Mr Danvers, so good of you to play. I am going to teach the company a new round dance and what we need is a nice strong rhythm—ah, yes, this will do nicely. Strongly marked, mind! But I will walk them through it without music first.’
Lady Standon clapped her hands. ‘Please, take a partner and form a big circle, facing in. I am going to teach you La Pistole, it is new from France.’
Nathan watched, half an ear on the instructions, while the couples turned to face each other, walked back and then together, linked hands and circled…Clemence was smiling up at Eden Ravenhurst, her theatre-manager cousin, one of the less reputable Ravenhursts. How lovely she looked with him, his height balancing hers, her unconventional looks, piquant in contrast to his conventional handsomeness.
They were all making some gesture with their hands that made her frown, fleetingly, then circling again and beginning again with the partner behind them.
‘Ingenious,’ Mr Danvers remarked. ‘Very simple and they are constantly changing partners. Most amusing.’ At Lady Standon’s gesture he struck up the music and the couples began their measure.
Clemence had still not regained her smile. Back and forth, join hands and circle, back again. What was there to frown about? Then everyone raised their right hands like children playing at shooting, aimed at their partners and stamped their feet hard. Bang! Around the circle, dancers were laughing, clutching their hands to their breasts and circling to face their new partner to start again.
She was no longer in profile, now he could see her full face and she had gone pale. Lord Hoste raised his hand, aimed—bang! Clemence broke out of the circle and ran.
Nathan took a dozen long strides to where the commodore was turning to follow her. No one else seemed to see anything amiss. ‘Leave her to me, sir,’ he snapped and was past and out of the room before the older man could respond.
Clemence had not gone far, only through the small salon and out on to the terrace where she was standing quite still, her back to him. She had her arms crossed tightly and was clasping her elbows as though to hold herself together. Her shoulders were quivering. She did not move as the heels of his shoes struck on the stone flags.
‘Sweetheart?’ He pulled her against his chest, and she came as rigid as a board, her arms still tightly locked. ‘What is it? I’m here.’
‘You weren’t,’ she said, her voice choked. ‘You weren’t there.’
‘You wanted me to dance with you?’ This seemed a violent reaction for such a cause and not at all like her.
‘No! You weren’t there when he was going to shoot me. I was going to die and then Street shot him in the face and he died instead and I saw—’ Her voice choked off into silence.
Appalled, Nathan gathered her tightly into his embrace and held on. She didn’t seem to be weeping. After a moment he ventured, ‘When?’
‘Just before the mast came down.’ She gave a little shudder and he felt her shoulders relax. ‘I dream about it, you see,’ Clemence said into his shirt front. ‘Not before, but ever since you left me here. I don’t dream about anything else, just that. I think it’s because you were there for everything else.’
Nathan rubbed his cheek against the soft curls on her crown. He hadn’t been there. And now Clemence, his brave Clemence, who had fought McTiernan, climbed from her balcony to freedom, defied her scheming, evil family, was reduced to running away from a romping dance with friends in the safety of the English countryside.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he murmured. ‘So sorry.’
‘No.’ She shook her head, the curls moving back and forth on the starched folds of his neckcloth. ‘You gave me Street. He shot the man and then you came for me. It is my fault I am so foolish.’
‘Oh, no, not foolish, sweetheart.’ He rocked her against the warmth of her body. ‘Just tried beyond your strength.’
She had needed him. His absence gave her nightmares. She had looked him in the eye and told him, with some emphasis, that she knew when she was in love with a man. But she had never been in love or formed an attachment, she had told him that, too. His head was spinning.
‘Clemence.’ He tipped up her face. She had stopped shuddering and her eyes were dry. ‘Clemence…’ He wanted to say it—the temptation to say those three words and see the reflection of her feelings in her eyes was almost overwhelming. ‘Clemence.’ Somehow he managed to clench his teeth and be silent. It was harder than it had been to walk with composure to be flogged, to stand here, silent, when the woman he loved was in his arms, waiting.
And then she smiled faintly and lifted her hand to his cheek, running the back of it down and along his jaw. ‘It’s all right,’ she murmured. ‘It will be all right.’
How could it be? He frowned down at her, not at all comforted by the sadness in her candid eyes or the calm resignation in her voice.
‘Ahem.’ They both turned. Lord Hoste was standing, a cloak over his arm, regarding them somewhat quizzically from the window. ‘You aunt feared you may be finding the night air chill, Miss Ravenhurst.’ He held out the cloak and she went out of Nathan’s arms towards him.
‘Thank you, my lord.’ Clemence allowed him to drape it around her shoulders and then, without a backward glance, stepped over the low sill and was gone.
‘Snuff?’ Lord Hoste produced an enamel box and flicked it open with his thumbnail. ‘I think this might be an opportune time for a quiet talk, Stanier.’
Chapter Twenty-One
‘That young man is in love with you,’ the duchess remarked, taking a sip of chocolate.
They were seated in the first-floor bow-window embrasure of the duchess’s apartment, having breakfast tête à tête and somewhat later than the rest of the guest
s. Clemence was heavy-eyed after a troubled night’s sleep. The nightmare had not come, but her dreams had seemed full of Nathan. ‘He is?’ she managed, wincing at the inadequacy of the response.
Her aunt regarded her severely over the rim of the cup. ‘Do not be coy with me, Clemence.’
‘I think he is. But he doesn’t think he is good enough for me.’
‘You could do better,’ the duchess remarked dispassionately. In a shaft of morning sunlight the three naval officers, Tompion the secretary on their heels, paced back and forth along the Rose Garden terrace, hands behind backs, as though on the poop deck.
‘Only in worldly ways,’ Clemence retorted, then subsided at her aunt’s smile.
‘Indeed. Don’t you want a title?’ Clemence shook her head. ‘Or a great deal of money?’
‘I have quite a lot of money, that’s the problem—or a big part of it. He doesn’t wish to figure as a fortune hunter. I had an idea about that.’ The duchess’s eyebrows rose. ‘I don’t intend giving it away, or gambling it or anything foolish. I am going to speak to Mr Wallingford the lawyer this morning, with Cousin Sebastian. They will advise me.’ The energy that speaking about her idea had produced ebbed away again. She shrugged. ‘At least I can guard against fortune hunters in the future.’ Her eyes followed the three men who had come to an abrupt halt. Captain Melville was shaking Nathan by the hand. ‘I wonder what that is about.’
‘Doubtless Captain Stanier has had a brilliant idea for dealing with the pirates. He will be back at sea soon, no doubt.’
‘No doubt,’ Clemence agreed, biting her lip. ‘Aunt Amelia. You very kindly invited me for the Season, and I expect it is going to take some months to work matters out and deal with my uncle. But in the spring, I would like to go back to Jamaica.’
‘Alone?’ The duchess’s fine brows rose.
‘I will find a companion. I am going to run the business.’ She wiped her fingers on her napkin, surprised at how comforting that declaration felt, now she had made it. ‘I am enjoying England and London will be a great treat,’ she added, politely. ‘But Jamaica is my home.’ If she had to nurse a broken heart, home was a far better place to do it than a chilly foreign land.
‘I see. You believe that despite your scheme for removing your wealth as an obstacle, you will not secure an offer from your gallant captain?’
‘No, not now. There was a moment last night—if he had been going to speak, then surely it would have been then. It seemed I tempted fate to believe that somehow it would all come right.’ Clemence shrugged again, struggling against gloom again. ‘I only really believe it at three in the morning.’
‘Compromising yourself will not help,’ the duchess mused, earning a startled glance from Clemence. ‘There is nothing worse you can do that has not already happened.’ Clemence felt herself go scarlet and opened her mouth in protest. ‘Well, you know what I mean! Proposing to the man will only have him reiterating all those noble sentiments. You will just have to shock him. I don’t suppose Street could turn pirate again and kidnap you for ransom?’
‘He wouldn’t dare.’ Clemence smiled at the thought. ‘Eliza would give him the rough edge of her tongue. Oh, look, there they go now, walking the dog.’
‘That is one expression for it,’ her aunt remarked tartly as the three figures vanished into the deep shade of the shrubbery.
‘They will get married soon,’ Clemence assured her, making a mental note to speak to Street, very firmly, on the subject.
‘So I should hope. Now then, do you intend telling me what sent you flying from the drawing room last night?’
‘I do not know whether you would wish to hear, Aunt Amelia. It is something that happened on board the pirate ship. Something very…unpleasant.’
‘I have nerves of steel,’ the duchess said, pouring herself another cup of chocolate. ‘Come along.’
‘Very well.’ Perhaps talking about it would help chase the nightmare away. ‘I told you that Nathan had managed to send the Sea Scorpion after the decoy ship and when they came alongside there was a battle with men boarding and hand-to-hand fighting? Nathan had sent me below to free the merchant sailors locked in the hold and when I came up again he was fighting. I found myself with Street. A sailor came in with a pistol, he raised it and aimed it at my head.’
‘Oh, my goodness, the dance!’
‘Yes. It went off and for a moment I thought I was dead, but he missed me and Street shot him. In the face.’
‘Right in front of you,’ the duchess said faintly. ‘I can imagine what that must have been like, coming on top of fearing that you were about to die yourself. But that fat rascal saved your life.’
‘Yes, ma’am. Then, when Nathan left me here, I started to dream about it. Horrible nightmares. Poor Eliza tries to wake me, but she finds it hard.’
‘You know, deep in your mind, that you are safe when he is near? Yes, I can see the logic in that, although it never occurred to me that nightmares might have a basis in logic.’ She tossed her napkin on to the table, her face sombre. ‘Leave speaking to Street about your maid to me. It is not something that an unmarried girl should have to deal with.’
A footman came in. ‘Lord Sebastian’s compliments, Miss Ravenhurst, and he and Mr Wallingford will await your convenience in the library at ten.’
‘Thank you.’ Clemence stood up and squared her shoulders. Time to think about those hideous months after her father had died. Time to set the wheels of justice in motion. That at least she could achieve.
Two hours later Sebastian was looking grimly satisfied and Clemence felt drained. Mr Wallingford, who must, she thought wearily, be the human equivalent of a terrier crossed with a mole, tapped his piles of notes into a neat stack and beamed. He had burrowed after every detail and, having found it, dragged it out for inspection and shook it vigorously to see if anything else fell out. He appeared to find the process extremely stimulating.
‘Oh, very nice. We have him, we have him. He won’t be able to wiggle out of this.’
‘But he says he can forge my signature,’ Clemence fretted.
‘Nothing a smart young lawyer can’t deal with—and I have just the man in my offices. He’ll have the help of the naval representative out there, I understand—and the Governor will be receiving a communication from the highest level, informing him that he is to throw Naismith to the wolves. In the form—’ he smirked ‘—of my Mr Gorridge.’
‘He’ll most certainly have that,’ Sebastian confirmed. He got up and poured three glasses of madeira, surprising Clemence by handing her one. ‘You need it. Now. This scheme of yours about your money—are you certain? You cannot undo it.’
‘I know.’ Clemence sipped her wine. ‘I expect to go back to Jamaica as soon as this is settled and to run the business. I do not wish to attract fortune hunters. This idea is for my own protection as much as anything.’
‘You do not expect to marry here in England?’ Sebastian asked, his dark gaze resting thoughtfully on her face. ‘I thought perhaps that this was to facilitate—’
‘No. I do not expect it.’ There had been the faint recollection of her dream, like a wisp of smoke when she awoke. A dream of the pool in the forest, of her being in Nathan’s arms and gold rings glinting through the water. The ghost of the dream had lingered all morning. Now it faded and left her. There was nothing like the down-to-earth realism of a lawyer to snuff out foolish fantasy and as they had talked she had let go of it as though she had felt Nathan’s hand slip from hers.
Nathan had had every opportunity to tell her he loved her last night on the terrace, she told herself, and he had not. Now she felt certain that he never would. She hated his honour for keeping them apart. She admired him for possessing it. With it, they could never be together—without it, he would not be the man she loved.
Clemence saw virtually nothing of Nathan all day. Either the weather was warmer than it had been, or she was becoming used to the English climate, Clemence thought, as Jessica made the unus
ual suggestion of an alfresco dinner.
Rugs were spread on the grass below the terrace, tables and chairs brought out and dotted about and Cook and her minions began to set long tables as a buffet.
Lady Maude appointed herself chief floral arranger and bore Clemence off, armed with baskets and small shears to raid the long borders. ‘Are you going to marry Captain Stanier?’ she enquired, handing Clemence some foliage sprays.
‘I-No.’ Clemence was taken aback by the frontal attack. ‘Why would you imagine I should?’
Maude chuckled. ‘I am not very long married. I see the way he looks at you and the way you look at him and the way you both carefully don’t look at the same time.’
‘Oh.’ Clemence looked warily at Maude as she sat down in an arbour and patted the seat next to her.
‘And?’
‘I love him. I think he may—does—love me. But…’
‘You’re a Ravenhurst. Probably a rich one. He is just a career naval officer.’ Maude threw up her hands. ‘Men and their honour! Eden is illegitimate. Did you know that?’
‘I gathered,’ Clemence said carefully.
‘As much pride as a porcupine has prickles, that man. I had to take drastic action in the end and tell him if he couldn’t see the difference between pride and honour then I didn’t want to marry him anyway.’
‘Goodness.’
‘I threw him out of my bedroom—’ She saw Clemence’s dropped jaw and grinned. ‘I was ill in bed, he was pacing the corridor outside,’ she explained.
‘Well, I thought I had an idea to deal with the money, but I still can’t see how I am going to attack that conviction he has that I am destined for better things just because I am a Ravenhurst. I hoped, just for a few moments, last night. But he did not speak.’
‘Hmm. Well, I have to say, that your Captain Stanier may not be a Ravenhurst, but he is certainly worth fighting for.’
‘If I can only find weapons it is fair to fight with,’ Clemence murmured, half to herself.
