Jane Feather - [V Series]

by Violet

  She sighed and then flushed again, afraid that he would have heard the little sound. Gareth detested it when she moped. He read into her unhappiness unspoken criticism and dissatisfaction with her lot.

  Both of which were true. But Lucy swiftly buried that rebellious acknowledgment; her mother had told her more times than she could remember that a wife’s duty was to show her husband only unquestioning support and obedience and to accept cheerfully the life he chose to give her. And Julian, after her father’s death the only man whose opinions she’d been aware of, obviously shared her mother’s viewpoint. Besides, he’d been so much against the match in the first place, she couldn’t possibly expect his sympathy because marriage to Sir Gareth Fortescue wasn’t all that she’d dreamed it would be.

  But it was very hard. Another little sigh escaped her. It was very hard, at eighteen and after only ten months of marriage, to be left alone day and night after day and night while her husband pursued all his old activities and relationships as if he’d never stood at the altar with her.

  “Well?”

  She looked up guiltily at this sharp interrogatory. Gareth was scowling, his hand circling a tankard of ale.

  “I beg your pardon, Gareth?”

  “Well, what does your brother have to say?” he demanded impatiently.

  “Oh, I haven’t read it yet.” She offered a timid little smile and slit the wafer sealing the missive.

  “Oh,” she said again. The letter was as brief and succinct as all her brother’s communications, and it took but half a minute to make herself mistress of the contents.

  “Well?”

  “Julian says he’s going to be in England for a few months. He has some work to do at Horseguards and at Westminster for the Duke of Wellington, and then he’s going to Tregarthan for the summer.”

  “Good God! Whatever for? Has he bought himself out of the army or something?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Lucy said, frowning. “But he says he has someone with him … a … a Spanish lady.” She looked up in clear bewilderment. “He says he owed her father a favor, and when he was dying, he asked Julian to take his daughter under his protection and arrange for her introduction into English society. Apparently she has some Cornish connections that she hopes will acknowledge her.”

  Her china-blue eyes widened as her bewilderment increased. “It doesn’t sound at all like Julian, does it?”

  Gareth gave a snort of laughter. “If it were anyone but St. Simon, I’d say he’d brought himself a light skirt back from the wars, but he’s such a stickler for the proprieties, he’d never sully the precious turf of Tregarthan with an irregular liaison.”

  Lucy blushed crimson and took a hasty gulp of her tea, choking as the liquid scalded her throat.

  “Don’t be such a ninny, Lucy,” Gareth said, not unkindly. “You know something of the facts of life, my dear. You’re a married woman now, not a virginal chit. St. Simon’s as red-blooded as the next man, he’s just deuced straitlaced about where and when he indulges a man’s natural urges.”

  “Yes … yes, I suppose so.” Lucy pushed back her chair and stood up hastily. “If you’ll excuse me, Gareth, I must talk with cook about the menus.”

  She hastened from the room, leaving her husband to reflect that if St. Simon had been less straitlaced, Lucy might have been a more lively partner, both in bed and out of it. Her brother, ten years older than herself, had been her guardian for the seven years before her marriage, and his notions of propriety when it came to the behavior of a St. Simon were devilish strict.

  It was a pity, really. Gareth refilled his ale tankard, noting with relief that his hangover was dissipating with each gulp. Lucy was a pretty little thing, and he found her soft, feminine roundness quite appealing, but she didn’t know the first thing about pleasing a man. It was no wonder he continued to take his pleasures where he’d always taken them.

  His scowl returned abruptly as some memory of the previous evening dimly surfaced through the brandy haze in which he’d spent the majority of the night. Marjorie had been nagging him again. She was always wanting something more. The diamond bracelet he’d given her hadn’t been of the first water … the new dressmaker didn’t know what she was doing, it was absolutely imperative she patronize Lutece instead. The money was nothing … nothing … not if he truly cared for her … and didn’t she make him happy? Happier than a man deserved to be?

  Gareth shifted in his chair, remembering with the familiar ache how very happy Marjorie could make a man. But her price was too damn high—and getting higher by the day.

  He looked around the elegant parlor of the gracious Sussex mansion, out through the windows to the smooth expanse of lush green lawn. His family home had been going to rack and ruin when he’d married Lucy St. Simon. Her dowry had put it to rights, and it was her dowry that was financing Marjorie’s expensive tastes … or, rather, his own expensive habits.

  A faint waft of distaste disturbed the normally unruffled surface of his self-assurance, and the astonishing thought presented itself that he might try to break some of those habits. He was a married man, when all was said and done.

  And the pile of bills from his creditors was growing ever larger … tailors and wine merchants and shoemakers and hatters. Tattersall’s had to be settled, of course, on settlement day, and his debts of honor couldn’t wait either. Fortunately, the tradesmen weren’t pressing too hard for payment as yet; his marriage was recent enough to give him fairly extended credit, but he didn’t care for the idea of having to apply to his brother-in-law for a loan to settle his debts. St. Simon had already cleared a mountain as part of the marriage settlements.

  Not that St. Simon would refuse him, or even pass comment on his brother-in-law’s profligacy, but he’d raise one of those bushy red-gold eyebrows and look as mildly incredulous as good breeding permitted.

  No, it wasn’t to be countenanced, if it could be avoided. Gareth pushed back his chair and stretched, frowning as an idea percolated through the gradually clearing fog of his hangover. Why not pay St. Simon a visit in the ancestral home? Rustication would be tedious, of course, but it would take him away from the temptations of Marjorie and the racetrack and the gaming tables, not to mention provide respite from his creditors’ billets-doux. And maybe it wouldn’t be that tedious. It might be amusing to see this Spanish lady St. Simon had under his wing. There was something rum there … very rum.

  And besides, a little Cornish air would do Lucy the world of good. Quite peaky she’d been looking just recently. She loved Cornwall and all her childhood haunts and would be overjoyed at the prospect of spending a few weeks of the summer there with all her old girlhood friends.

  Firmly convinced that he was acting entirely in his wife’s best interests, Gareth Fortescue strolled out of the breakfast parlor to inform Lucy of his brilliant and noble decision.

  “But, Gareth, Julian hasn’t invited us.” Lucy turned from the secretaire in her parlor, dropping her pen to the carpet in her dismay. “We can’t arrive uninvited.”

  “Oh, nonsense!” Gareth dismissed this with an airy wave. “He’s your brother, he’ll be delighted to see you. Why, you haven’t seen him since the wedding, and even that was only a fleeting visit, he was in such a hurry to get back to his regiment.”

  “Yes … but … but, Gareth, what of this Spanish lady? If he’d wished me to come, he’d have asked me.”

  “He didn’t like to ask you to give up your summer to help him with this obligation, depend upon it,” Gareth declared comfortably. “After all, we’re still barely home from our honeymoon.”

  He smiled and chucked her beneath the chin. “Depend upon it, Lucy, he’ll be grateful to have your help in entertaining this guest. Besides, he should have a hostess if he’s entertaining a single lady, even if he is in some fashion her guardian. Your arrival will make everything all right and tight.”

  Bending, he kissed her lightly. “Now, be a good girl and arrange everything, so we may leave by the end o
f next week. We’ll journey by slow stages, so you won’t become fatigued.”

  “Oh, dear,” Lucy murmured as the door closed on her husband’s confident departure. While it was wonderful to have Gareth so cheerful and attentive, she knew her brother and knew that an unheralded arrival would not be appreciated. He didn’t approve of Gareth, and sometimes Lucy had the sneaking suspicion that he didn’t particularly like him, either. Her brother’s bright-blue eyes would go cool and flat when he was talking to Gareth or even mentioning him in conversation. And he was always impeccably polite to him, as if to some very distant acquaintance.

  Lucy had seen and heard her brother with his friends, and she knew how he despised what he called Society’s fribbles—men who wasted their time and energies in the clubs of St. James’s and dancing attendance on the Season’s belles and heiresses. Even from her own prejudiced viewpoint, Gareth came into that category. Unlike Julian, he was not a man of action and fierce opinion. But he was hardly unusual in that. It was Julian who was the strange one, according to Society’s lights.

  She sighed and turned back to her secretaire, drawing toward her a piece of hot-pressed paper in her favorite pale blue, nibbling the end of her quill as she tried to think of a tactful way of announcing to her brother their imminent arrival at Tregarthan.

  And what of this Spanish lady? What could she be like? Was she young? Presumably, if her father had left her to Julian’s protection. It was not at all like Julian to take on such a task, but, then, he did have a very honed sense of duty and obligation. Perhaps the lady’s father had saved his life, or something equally desperate.

  Was she beautiful?

  And what in the world would Cornish society make of someone sounding so exotic? They were plain, insular folk who had little truck with the world outside their own Cornish land. Maybe the Spanish orphan didn’t even speak English.

  It was all most extraordinary. Fired by curiosity now, Lucy began to write rapidly, following Gareth’s suggestion that her brother might wish for a hostess if he was entertaining guests. She’d be happy to take on the duty for her dear brother and was looking forward to seeing him again after such a long time. She trusted he was well and sent her …

  Here she paused. What did she send him? Her love? No, that sounded contrived. Julian was always pleasant to her, but he’d always been somewhat distant and hadn’t hesitated to exercise his authority as brother and guardian on the rare occasions when she’d been tempted to balk at the restrictions he and her mother considered necessary for a daughter of the house of St. Simon.

  She settled for warm regards, sanded the sheet, folded and sealed it, then went in search of Gareth to frank it for her. Julian should be almost in Cornwall by now, since his letter had been dated a week previously, so this missive should arrive at Tregarthan a few days after his own arrival. Too late for him to write back and tell them not to come, and he was far too courteous to send them away once they arrived.

  He could be very chilly, though. Lucy pushed this aside, finding herself eager for the change the journey promised. And Gareth would be with her for the next few weeks. There’d be no more nights spent with … with whomever he spent them. And maybe she could learn to please him a little … or at least to appear as if she didn’t find that unpleasant tangling of bodies completely distasteful.

  Feeling much more cheerful, she went into her bedchamber to examine her wardrobe and decide what she should take with her for a summer in Cornwall.

  Did it ever stop raining in this ghastly gray country? Tamsyn leaned out of the window of the inn at Launceston, gazing across the jumble of slate roofs glistening and slippery with rain. It hadn’t stopped since they’d landed at Portsmouth two weeks previously. It wasn’t fierce and tumultuous, like Spanish rain; it was just a continuous wet mizzle, and the cold was so damp, it seemed to seep into the marrow of her bones.

  Behind her in the small bedchamber, Josefa muttered to herself as she repacked the belongings they’d used overnight. She was not enjoying this sojourn in the cold, gray land where the sun never shone, but El Baron’s daughter had said it had to be, a decree that for Josefa was as powerful as if it had come from the baron’s own lips.

  There was a brisk rap at the door, and Gabriel entered, ducking beneath the low lintel. Rain dripped off his heavy cloak. “You ready with that portmanteau, woman?”

  “Ay de mí,” Josefa muttered, struggling with the stiff straps and buckles. “I’ll be glad when we get where we’re going.”

  “Won’t we all?” Gabriel said dourly. His big hand rested for a moment on her arm in a rare gesture of sympathy. At least he’d been born in this land, but it was an alien shore for a peasant woman from the barren mountains of northern Spain. She gave him a rather shy smile, then bobbed her head, basking in the surprising gentleness of his sudden smile. Gabriel was her man, the sun to her earth; she always walked two steps behind him, and his word was law.

  Gabriel hefted the portmanteau. “Little girl, you’re to travel inside the carriage today. Colonel’s orders.”

  “Since when has he been giving orders?” Tamsyn snapped irritably to Gabriel’s retreating back. It seemed the last straw on this dismal morning. “I’ve no intention of being swayed and jolted in that chaise. It makes me feel sick.”

  She followed Gabriel down the creaky wooden staircase, across the lamplit stone-flagged hall, and out into the gloomy inn yard, where stood the postchaise that had brought them from London, ostlers putting the horses to, one of them tethering Cesar behind.

  Colonel, Lord St. Simon stood watching. His cloak was black with the drizzle, and a steady stream ran from the brim of his beaver hat, but he seemed oblivious of the weather.

  “Good morning.” He greeted Tamsyn briskly. “I trust you slept well?”

  “I always do,” she replied. “Even when the sheets are damp. Will it ever stop raining?”

  He laughed shortly. “Yes, one day it will. One morning you’ll wake up to bright-blue sky and sunshine and birdsong, and you’ll forget all about the rain. It’s one of England’s tricks.”

  Tamsyn grimaced, disbelieving, and huddled into her cloak, her hair already plastered to her head.

  It was no weather for a buttercup, Julian caught himself thinking with a ripple of amusement. She looked shrunken and doleful, her bright hair rain-dark, her small body hunched into the heavy cloak, all her challenging, impudent sparkle vanquished by the dreary climate. Then he began to wonder what his brigade was doing, and his amusement died. If she didn’t like the weather in her adopted country, she had only herself to blame.

  How long had it had taken Tim to whip the men into shape after the excesses of Badajos? Where were they on the long march to Campo Mayor? Who was still alive? The questions as always roiled in his brain, and he had to force himself to come back to the rain-soaked yard of the inn at Launceston and his present preoccupations.

  “I want you to travel inside the chaise with Josefa this morning,” he said curtly.

  “So Gabriel said, but I don’t wish to. I’d rather be wet than nauseated in that smelly, jolting box.” She turned to release her horse from the rear of the chaise.

  Julian caught her arm. “I need you inside, Tamsyn.”

  “Why?”

  “We’re crossing Bodmin Moor,” he stated as if that were answer enough.

  Tamsyn frowned. They’d arrived at Launceston early the previous afternoon, and the colonel had insisted they go no farther that day, citing in much the same tone as now the crossing of Bodmin Moor. “So, milord colonel?” She dashed rain from her face as she regarded him with raised eyebrows.

  “So, buttercup,” he replied deliberately, “I need you to ride with your damned treasure. Gabriel and I will be outside as a first defense, and you will be armed and ready within.”

  “Oh. Are there bandits on this Bodmin Moor, then?” Her expression livened considerably.

  “We call them highwaymen,” he said with an arid smile. “But they’re as savage and ruthless a
breed as any mountain brigand or robber baron.”

  Tamsyn decided to let that pass. “Gabriel has my weapons. I’ll fetch them.” She went off immediately, her step much crisper at the prospect of a little excitement to enliven this dreary journey.

  Julian stamped his feet on the cobbles and turned up the collar of his cloak, running a mental check over his own weapons. “Into Bodmin and out of this world” was what the locals said when preparing to cross the bleak, windswept moor. Apart from his school years he’d grown up at Tregarthan, the St. Simon family estate overlooking the River Fowey, and considered himself as much a Cornishman as the landlord of this Launceston inn, steeped in the lores and customs of the county. And he loved every blade of grass, every flower of the hedgerow. He took pleasure in the thought of getting his hands on the reins of his estate again, of walking around his house, riding over his lands. If he was truly honest, there would be some compensations for this enforced rustication.

  He’d made some progress on Wellington’s account in London, presenting to the lords of Westminster the duke’s urgent need for more men and money. They’d listened to him with flattering attention and suggested he return in a month to answer further questions once they’d had a chance to mull over the duke’s request. The wheels of government turned very slowly, and Julian had not expected any immediate decisions. He’d written to Wellington with what news he had and was resigned to returning to London in July, when he hoped there’d be more concrete results to impart. He knew this politicking was vital work, but it was dull work, nevertheless, for a man who thrived on the smell and sound of gunfire, the challenges and privations of forced marches, and the quirks and vulgarities, the courage and the foolishness, of the common soldier. Not even the prospect of his own house and land could truly compensate for that loss.

  And if it weren’t for the bastard spawn of a Spanish robber, he would still be with the army. Wellington would never have sent him on this diplomatic mission if the opportunity hadn’t presented itself so forcefully.