Jo Beverley - [Malloren 03]

by Something Wicked

  Resolving to stop at any sign of bleeding, she gently raised his leg and began to unwind the bandages. “It might be stuck. I’m not going to rip it off. Am I hurting you?”

  “No.”

  She suspected he was lying, but his need to know the truth seemed greater than any pain. She prayed silently that he was wrong, and that the wound was healing. What if he had to lose the leg?

  The bandages were not stuck, and easily came off a final pad of cloth. “I don’t suppose these are the original dressings anyway.”

  “Bryght Malloren bandaged me on the wharf. The doctors ripped those off.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Ouch, indeed. They were in a hurry to extract the ball. It was deep, they said, and came damned close to the bone. They’ve been under there twice since. So, how does it look?”

  She carefully raised the pad to expose a jagged, stitched wound.

  “You’ll have an interesting scar,” she said, but smiled at him. “Still red and puffy, but I see no sign of trouble.”

  He leaned up. “Get a mirror and show me.”

  Chastity straightened and looked at him. “Why do I feel you are not the ideal patient?” But she heaved an oval, gilt-edged mirror off the wall and held it so he could inspect his leg.

  After a moment, his expression lightened. “It doesn’t look too bad, does it? It feels worse. As if it’s swollen to twice its size and oozing pus.” He smiled for her, almost the lighthearted open smile she remembered from before disaster. “Thank you.”

  Chastity replaced the mirror, taking the chance to steady her lips. Fort deserved happiness, and she thought perhaps it lay within his grasp with Elf, and yet she knew the barriers between them might be too strong to be breached.

  Steady smile in place, she returned to replace the bandages. “Do they think you will limp?”

  “They say not, but I don’t trust their unctuous reassurances. I’ll be grateful, I suppose, to be alive and mobile. Perhaps I’ll even be grateful not to be a suitable candidate for a duel.”

  Chastity was straightening the covers over the cage. “I would be very cross if you fought Cyn, you know.”

  “Have done. A sickbed gives plenty of time to think and I’ve been thinking. If the whole mess was anyone’s fault, it was Father’s, and he’s beyond reach. I’m through with Mallorens. Instead, I’m going to use my energies and powers to put right what Father put wrong.”

  Chastity listened approvingly to plans to improve conditions on the earldom’s land, and to support worthy causes in parliament. All the time, however, her heart ached for Elf, who was surely included in that wholesale rejection of Mallorens. It ached for Fort, too, who might never know the kind of love she had found.

  If she could see any point, she might even try to delay their departure from England to help sort out the tangle, but she had little hope.

  They moved on to chat of general subjects, but she noticed that he never mentioned Elf or showed any curiosity about her safety.

  Perhaps he’d received a report.

  Perhaps he really didn’t care.

  Dingwall returned, a doctor in tow. A smiling, bowing sawbones whom she would suspect if she were the patient. But Fort’s treatment had clearly been effective, so she made no objection. She rose and took her brother’s hand to say good-bye.

  It wasn’t until she opened the door that he broke.

  “Lady Elfled,” he said, “I assume she is well?”

  “Oh, perfectly,” said Chastity, and left with a grain of hope in her heart.

  Elf welcomed the excellent report of Fort’s progress, though she’d have preferred a message asking her to call. She knew just how likely that was. To preserve her sanity, she set about other business, the first being to call on Amanda and explain everything.

  Her friend listened, mouth loose with shock. “Lud, Elf. Such things could only happen to you!”

  “They happened to him, too,” Elf pointed out, helping herself to more tea.

  “You know what I mean. You are every bit as rash as you were as a child, and every bit as fortunate to escape with your life!”

  Elf sighed. “I don’t feel fortunate.” She stirred a lump of sugar into her cup. “Except in my family, of course.”

  Amanda actually paled. “You mean they know? All?”

  “Of course.” Elf shrugged. “The foolish man insisted on making it clear to Cyn and Rothgar’s face.”

  “Perish me! And . . . ?”

  “And, what?” asked Elf in spurious innocence.

  “And what happened?”

  “They’ve given me a job.”

  “No! Don’t tell me Rothgar’s set you to scrubbing in the kitchen.”

  Elf burst out laughing. “Amanda! Of course not. I’m in charge of part of the family affairs. Would you care to come with me to inspect silk warehouses?”

  “Silk. How delightful!” Amanda leaped to her feet but paused. “You mean that’s all that happened? You plunge into mad adventure, end up in danger and scandal, and you’re put in charge of buying the family’s silk?”

  “That’s all.” Elf didn’t bother to try to explain the extent of the Malloren enterprises.

  “Well, I think it abysmally unfair! I, quite the innocent party, received a stern lecture on folly.”

  “I’m sorry for embroiling you, then.”

  “Oh, don’t be.” Amanda broke into a smile. “Looked back on, we had quite a splendid adventure, didn’t we?”

  “Yes,” said Elf with a sigh. “We most certainly did.”

  Some hours later, after a tour of London’s principal silk warehouses, Elf returned Amanda to her house and ordered her carriage to continue to Sappho’s house.

  She made a more decorous entrance this time. Her footman knocked at the front door, and being informed that the mistress of the house would receive Lady Elfled, came back to hand her out.

  A maid led her upstairs, but not to the drawing room. Elf was taken to a disorderly study strewn with books and papers and flooded with the light of three long windows.

  Sappho, in a loose gown, her hair in a long braid, came over to take Elf’s hands. “My dear! You look much improved.”

  Elf smiled, surprised at the burst of affection she felt for this strange woman. “I doubt that was hard to achieve. I was a veritable wreck when I invaded here last.”

  Sappho drew her to a chaise, pushing off a drift of scribbled papers to make room. “I’m so pleased you felt able to come to me.”

  “I might not have even dreamed of it if Amanda hadn’t said I was with you.”

  “But still, you felt able to come. And Lord Walgrave? How is he? I hear he was wounded.”

  Elf caught the question in the statement. “Lud, I didn’t shoot him!” She gave a simple version of the Scots plot and its ending.

  “Well,” said Sappho, leaning back in the chaise, “I think I am quite cross with you both. No one thought to invite me on this adventure. I’d have liked to have been on that barge in the river.”

  Elf chuckled. “It never occurred to me that you would wish it. I apologize.”

  Sappho waved an elegant hand, heavy with unusual rings. Elf wondered for a moment whether she could take to wearing loose clothes in rich oriental fabrics and heavy rings in fantastic shapes.

  “I don’t think so,” said Sappho gently, as if she could read her mind.

  Elf knew she was blushing. “I suppose not. I have neither the height nor the looks for it. I do wish, though, that I had a style of my own.” She spread her pale green skirts with dissatisfied fingers. “Whenever I choose clothes to suit my own taste everyone swoons with horror, so I end up wearing things like this.”

  Sappho tilted her head, studying her. “Very often, you know, we think an outward change will bring about an inner change that we desire.”

  “You mean—?” Elf stared at her. “Are you suggesting that my taste for bright materials is because I want my life to be brighter? That seems . . .”

  “Strange? I
ndeed it does, but there is truth in it. And there is truth in the deed, as well. I suspect that your adventures were not carried out in cream and pale green.”

  Elf shifted uneasily, thinking about her scarlet outfit and her lacy stockings, and the moods she’d been in when she’d bought them. “But what does that mean? It would mortify my friends and family if I were to go about in gaudy clothes.”

  “Yes, we have to balance our needs with those of the people we love. What outfit would you want now, today?”

  Elf pondered it, then laughed. “I don’t seem to care. I’ve just gone through four silk warehouses with Amanda. She wanted to buy up the entire stock and I hardly felt any interest at all. Certainly none in the purples and scarlets.”

  “Perhaps you are different inside, then?”

  Elf tested it. “Perhaps I am.” She was not content, for Fort was a nugget of frustration deep within, but she recognized a new steadiness in herself, a degree of calm.

  “But still,” said Sappho, “what outfit would you choose today?”

  Elf raised her skirt to study it. It was a corded green poplin with a gray stripe so narrow as to be hardly visible and tiny leaves worked between. “I’m tired of these little motifs,” she said. “They’re . . . timid. They’re also girlish, and I’m no longer a girl.”

  Sappho just nodded, encouraging her to continue.

  Elf leaned back and closed her eyes. “I suppose I’ve become afraid to choose boldly, and my maid feels it safest to be—well—safe.” She tried to let her mind summon a gown that would please her but after a while she opened her eyes and shrugged. “Perhaps I just don’t have the talent for it.”

  “And yet your brother says you choose materials for the houses with great skill and judgment.”

  She must mean Rothgar. Elf felt a strong temptation to ask Sappho about Rothgar and his place in her life, but she managed to restrain herself. “That doesn’t seem so set with pitfalls.”

  “It proves, however, that you can choose wisely in the right circumstances.”

  “I suppose it does. I shall just have to think of myself as a tester bed and decide what hanging will do best!”

  Laughing, both women rose, and Elf turned to Sappho. “I do thank you, for everything.”

  “I help women,” the poet said simply. “But you are more like a sister to me.”

  Now Elf felt compelled to ask. “Because of Rothgar?”

  “Of course.”

  It seemed as if Sappho was inviting the question, so she asked it. “What is he to you?”

  “Certainly not my protector,” said Sappho with a smile. “What we have is not easily named, but very precious. We are close friends. Sometimes we are lovers, but it is an extension of friendship, not the force that ties you and Walgrave together.”

  “Ties us together!” Elf exclaimed with a bitter laugh. “Pushes us apart, more likely.”

  “No, that is another force. But this is beginning to sound like a lecture at the Royal Society.”

  Elf chuckled and pulled on her gloves, a final question niggling at her. In the end, she asked it. “You will not marry him?”

  “It bothers you?”

  “No,” said Elf, though it wasn’t entirely true.

  “We will not marry,” said Sappho, leading her downstairs. “Our bond is strong, but not the bond that would make a good marriage.”

  Elf paused at the door, for the question of good marriages interested her greatly. “Why not?”

  “Think, Elf.” Sappho gestured around her home with one of those strangely beringed hands. “I am content in my place, as he is in his. Neither of us would be happy in the other’s. What we have, we can have without marriage and without loss.”

  “Does marriage involve loss, then?”

  “Oh yes, and should only be undertaken if the gain is equal to or exceeds the loss.” Then she laughed. “I am sounding scientific again, and love does not blend with science. Please call again, Elf, whenever you wish.”

  “I will. Thank you.”

  Elf returned to her carriage, head full of yet more new and challenging thoughts. Perhaps she’d be put out of her misery by her head simply exploding.

  As soon as she arrived home, she summoned Chantal and conducted a thorough review of her wardrobe. Yes, definitely. The garments were pretty, but dull and safe except for the few odd outfits purchased in one of her fits of rebellion.

  And “odd” certainly described them.

  She fingered a gown in a vivid print of tigers. As a fabric it was rather splendid, but both the mantua maker and Chantal had been right to protest that it wouldn’t make a good gown. Perhaps, she thought, she’d just been in a mood to snarl at the world.

  She came across a gown of sulfur yellow and winced. Heaven knows what inner turmoil had prompted that. She’d certainly never worn it.

  There weren’t actually many disasters left, because last year when Chastity had turned up in rags, Chantal had taken the opportunity to get rid of most of Elf’s nightmares. Elf still pined a little for the raspberry silk, but Chastity looked magnificent in it and it didn’t suit her own coloring at all.

  She gave Chantal permission to dispose of anything she wished and the maid almost wept with joy. Perhaps soon she would find the courage to order new gowns entirely to her taste and see just what resulted.

  It would be something else to distract her mind and pass the days until Fort was well enough for her to assault him yet again.

  Chapter 17

  Patience was definitely not one of Elf’s virtues, and despite regular reports from Chastity, she had to fight every day not to invade Fort’s house and force herself into his presence. Even if he cursed and threw things or glared at her with icy disdain, she still would see him. She would be able to reassure herself about his health with her own eyes.

  And they had been able to talk once, when she was just Lisette. Why could they not talk now and find a way out of their situation?

  Sometimes she felt it would be easy if they were only face-to-face, but then she would note that Chastity did not encourage her. That gave her strength to stay away. If their next meeting would be conducted with the noise and smoke of open warfare, she must surely wait until he could face her on his feet.

  Some days she weakened and wrote letters to him. Thus far, she had found the resolution to destroy them unsent.

  Every night, however, lonely in her bed, she was tormented by a thought. Could she have found the one man she would love intensely and forever, only to be barred from him by family history?

  Romeo and Juliet seemed truly to be the story, and it was depressingly likely that the end be sad.

  She’d fight, though. She’d fight for happiness. But not, unfortunately, until he was on his feet.

  To keep her sanity, she flung herself into work, new and old. Running Rothgar’s various households took some of the day, as did her work for the business.

  In addition, she pursued her idea about self-defense. Soon she and Chastity were quite skilled with a pistol. Rothgar had made no objection, and had even commissioned a gunsmith to design weapons suited to their smaller hands, including tiny ones able to be safely carried in a pocket.

  He’d dissuaded them from learning swordplay, however.

  “It’s a dying art, Elf, only of use in duello. You are unlikely to be challenged to a duel.”

  “Perhaps I’d like to challenge someone.”

  The look in his eye told her that he knew whom she had in mind. “In that case, choose pistols. It evens out strength and reach. For general use, however, you may want to consider a knife, since you seem to favor them as evening ornament.”

  So another adviser appeared, this time Hunot, a taciturn black man who taught interesting ways to kill and maim with a short blade. Cyn took an interest in these lessons, and soon they were all developing a good eye for a throwing knife.

  One day, having sent her knife quivering into the heart of the man-sized target set up in a spare bedroom, Elf heard app
lause and turned to see Rothgar clapping, smiling slightly.

  “Do you want to try?” she asked.

  He held out a hand, and she placed a knife in it. In moments, it thunked beside hers. “How do you think I knew about Hunot, my dear? I like to be as well-armed as possible without unsightly bulges. Cyn has only missed these skills by taking himself off into the crude military world.”

  Cyn laughed. “I’ll take you on. Cannons at twenty paces.”

  Rothgar bowed slightly. “I regret that I must decline. Elf, papers have arrived from Lyons.”

  So Elf hurried off to the other matter that kept her days crowded—her part in the Malloren affairs.

  She was beginning to understand the excitement Bryght found in business affairs. Cyn considered it dull stuff. He needed open air and physical activity. Rothgar, she thought, saw trade and finance as a means to an end—power and security for his family. But Bryght, and now she, saw it as a challenge, as a great game.

  Bryght had been a gamester in his day, and found the same thrill in business. Elf had never been much enthralled by the roll of a die or the turn of a card, but placing money on a likely invention or sending out ships in search of profit—that could excite her.

  And knowledge.

  Knowledge in itself was a delight.

  Now she knew the way silk varied according to country of origin and the way it was processed. She knew about throwing and doubling, and the full meaning of denier. She had visited the silk weavers in Spitalfields and watched and listened, learning about different qualities and finishes.

  In one of these discussions, she had picked up the name of a certain Jacques de Vaucanson in France. He, apparently, had already developed the improved method of weaving used in Spitalfields. He was said to be working on other projects.

  A servant of the Mallorens was already in France investigating Monsieur Vaucanson and the potential for investment.

  She listened, too, as Rothgar talked about legal and Parliamentary situations. Plans were afoot for Britain to ban the import of finished silk. If that came to pass, silk weaving would boom. If it didn’t, expanded production facilities could lie idle.