Had We Never Loved

by Patricia Veryan

  Amy had warned him. “She’ll suppose ye’re trying to make yer new peculiar more respectable,” she’d jeered. “What you going to say then?”

  In the event, he’d fought to sound like a viscount instead of a shivering schoolboy, and had surprised himself by saying firmly that he wanted Miss Consett garbed as befitted a young lady. Mrs. Wilks, her arms crossed upon a vast bosom that swelled wrathfully, had rested a pitying glance upon Amy, then fixed the Wicked Lecher with a baleful glare and said she was “Just closing.”

  Quelled, Glendenning had prepared to evacuate, but Amy had saved the day by dropping a curtsy, and saying in her most refined voice that she would be ever so grateful if marm would keep her shop open just for a little while. “I do want my family to be proud of me,” she’d said wistfully.

  Startled, but at once taking advantage of the indecision that had appeared in Mrs. Wilks’ stern eyes, his lordship had put in a remark that there was to be no quibbling over expense. After a moment’s hesitation, curiosity and greed had overpowered the upright proprietor. Mrs. Wilks had conducted Amy to a rear alcove, drawing the curtain closed while regarding the viscount with a glare that clearly bespoke her willingness to deal with him did he dare attempt an entrance.

  There had then ensued a flurry of whispers interspersed with occasional Well I never’s, Bless my soul’s, and Fancy that’s. He had shrunk when the curtain was opened just sufficiently for Mrs. Wilks to squeeze past, but instead of recriminations, she had beamed upon him, and begged that he sit and have a cup of tea while he waited. A young girl with a head cold, a thousand freckles, and a painful shyness had been summoned to make tea “for his lordship.” Mrs. Wilks had bustled about, gathering up gowns and petticoats, stockings and shoes, ribands, and dainty articles that were hurriedly whisked from sight. These were all conveyed to the sacrosanct precincts behind the curtain, from whence came sounds of stress, giggles, and more whisperings.

  At this point the freckled lass sniffed herself into view, carrying a laden tray. She poured his lordship a cup of tea, most of which went into the saucer. His attempt to set her at ease by smiling his friendliest smile and pointing out that he had freckles too, resulted in the lifting of two red-rimmed blue eyes to his face, and an adoring expression that appalled him.

  Mrs. Wilks did battle with the curtain again, and rushed past. “Imagine!” she said, returning with her arms full of caps and shawls. “Poor little dear! You’re a fine Christian man, sir! That you are!” Still beaming, she disappeared around the billowing curtain, leaving Glendenning to indeed imagine—with considerable apprehension—the drama Amy might have concocted for her.

  He was finishing his fourth cup of tea when the curtain opened.

  “Close your eyes, my lord,” commanded Mrs. Wilks.

  Since he was fairly sure by now that she did not intend to inflict bodily harm upon him, he obeyed.

  A rustling. Then, “You can look, sir,” said Amy.

  He opened his eyes and almost dropped the cup.

  A vision stood before him. A petite, shyly mischievous, delectably feminine creature, all glowing youth and loveliness from the dainty ruffles of her cap to the hem of her pale pink travelling gown. Her glossy hair had been brushed into fat ringlets that flirted with her shoulders. From under many petticoats a tiny high-heeled shoe was revealed as she held out her skirts and promenaded for him, her velvety dark eyes watching him with something between nervousness and laughter.

  The proud proprietor slipped a maroon cloak around Amy’s shoulders, and said something, but Glendenning couldn’t have told what it was. He was vaguely aware of paying his reckoning, thanking Mrs. Wilks, and ushering Amy to the waiting carriage. The wheels were rolling again, the hooves were pounding, and still he was benumbed. She was exquisite! A rare beauty from the top of her head to the tip of her toes. He’d noticed at the start that she was a lovely creature. He’d not begun to realize just how lovely. Properly dressed, she would take London by storm. She could be groomed, educated—though she had a fair start on her education already, and—

  “Love a blooming duck,” said Amy. “How do yer birds of paradise ever walk about in these horrid morning-news?”

  One of her new shoes shot into the air and landed on the opposite seat.

  Glendenning’s considerably tattered nerves reacted in the form of a stern reprimand. “No lady,” he scolded, “would ever remove her slippers in front of other people. Least of all would she kick them into the air like—like any hoyden.”

  She was silent for a minute, then her laugh was markedly unrepentant. “Give it up, mate! You won’t change Amy Consent by changing what Amy Consett wears. You should’ve left me back there with old grizzle-guts, ’stead of—”

  “There is no cause to be crude. Mrs. Wilks was kind, and—”

  “She was kind after I told her a pack of lies. You’d rescued me from the gypsies, I said. You’d been sent by me grieving family to find me and restore me to their loving arms. Cor, what a rasper! And she swallowed the lot. Most people, lordship, is that gullible it’s a perishing shame ter slumguzzle ’em.”

  He said frowningly, “I think ’tis not slumguzzle, Amy. You are obviously of good breeding. If we could discover your true parents, we might—”

  “Might what? Make me inter a lady? Marry me to some high-bred gent?” From under her thick lashes, she watched him intently, and added in a rather breathless voice, “Like—like one of yer friends, f’r instance?”

  He hesitated. “Certainly we could find you some—some worthy man.” He could picture many of his acquaintances did they catch so much as a glimpse of her. It would not be marriage they’d offer, but if she played her cards right, Amy Consett could end up a very wealthy—

  “You means if I told all manner o’ fibs, some respectable tradesman might be tricked into offering fer me.”

  “Er—I see no reason why not.”

  “I might aim so high as a grocer. Or a milliner, maybe?”

  He had the sensation that she was very rigid and still, and he said kindly, “Is entirely possible, were you to—ah, be a little more careful with your speech perhaps, and—”

  “And cheat and lie and pretend to be a lady. Like you cheat and lie and pretend to be a honourable man?”

  He had been staring rather fixedly out of the window, but at this he gave a gasp and jerked around to demand, “What the deuce d’you mean by that?”

  She turned also and he saw to his surprise that her face was flushed, her eyes glittering. “I mean that from the first you’ve picked and snipped and found fault with me. For why? ’Cause I is what I is.”

  “The devil! You asked me to—”

  “No pleasing you, was there?” she swept on. “Every chance you got, you rubbed me nose in me iggerance and bad blood.”

  “I did nothing of the kind! Why, you wretched, ungrateful—”

  “Looked down yer perishing nose at me. And at Uncle Ab, what is a honest, God-fearing man what never done no harm to no one. You!”

  Infuriated, he seized her by the arms. “I suppose you didn’t filch my purse! Aye, and that poor clod’s at the Mop Fair besides! I suppose you didn’t steal my mare and damn near cause me to get my brains beaten out?”

  “There you go,” she said, blazingly defiant. “Have at me. I’m just a common gypsy. And you’re a noble Quality cove—when ye’re not trying to force me to yer wicked will! And in the very bedroom where I nursed you!” She saw him flinch, and knew the barb had hit home, but she was hopeless and bitterly hurt, and the need to hurt back was so strong that she raged on. “Well, we may be low, Ab and me. We may be coarse folk not worth the likes o’ you wiping yer pretty boots on. But I’ll tell you what we ain’t, lordship. We ain’t filthy turncoat traitors!”

  Even in the gathering dusk she saw all the colour leave Glendenning’s face. He released her hurriedly and sat back, staring blankly at the window. After a moment of taut silence, he muttered, “To be loyal to one ideal is inevitably to be traitor to anot
her, Amy.”

  “Fine talk,” she said with something very like a snort. “It don’t change the fact ye’re a Englishman born and bred, and you betrayed yer king and country. Lor’! What a awful thing!”

  His jaw tightened. “You do not understand.”

  “Hah! Seems t’me like every time gents does something wicked, they say other folks ‘don’t understand.’ Ain’t much not to understand about treason.”

  Goaded, he said, “Charles Stuart is a fine Scottish gentleman. His father was the rightful king—not a foreign prince who—”

  “What? Was this German George a evil man, then?”

  “I did not say he was evil. But he doesn’t want England. He doesn’t like England. He refuses to learn our language, and—”

  “Not like your Bonnie Prince, eh? Your precious Charlie Stuart who says only the king’s got a right to say what happens in Britain. No one else. God told him there mustn’t be no parliament, he says. Nor any laws made ’cept what the king makes. And everyone must treat him like he’s divine, and do what he—”

  He said explosively, “Good God! Who’s been teaching you all that stuff?”

  “Me books, mate. Me books and me iggerant uncle. But ye knows better, a’course. You knows so much better you went off and turned yer sword ’gainst loyal gents. Or is you going fer to deny it?”

  “No. I fought for what I believed best for—”

  “For the noble Horatio Clement Laindon, Viscount Glendenning. And what about yer mum and dad? Proud of you, was they?”

  He flushed, and said grittily, “If you knew as much as you think you know, Mistress Consett—”

  “I know one thing, nobleman. I prigs a cackler now and then, or separates some silly gudgeon from his purse. But I ain’t never took no one’s life. Specially someone what was fighting for England! I ain’t never took the chance I might have to stick a horrid sword into one of me own friends!” She thrust her scornful face under his nose and hissed, “I—ain’t—that—low!”

  She had cut him on the raw, and his temper flared, sweeping away the restraints of convention and proper behaviour. “You little shrew,” he raged, for the first time in his life shaking a woman hard. “How dare you name me traitor? If Prince Charles had won, ’twould be the followers of German George who’d have had that word flung at them! Who’d be hounded and slaughtered even now, and— Ow!”

  His grip was steel. Unable to elude it, Amy had turned her head and sunk her teeth into his wrist.

  Glendenning jerked his hand back. His eyes narrowed. “That’s the second time, and a time too many, my girl!” Wrathfully, he lifted his other hand.

  “Go on,” she panted. “Hit me! Oh, but you live down to that horrid red hair, you does! A fine Quality you are, to bash a helpless female!”

  His anger fled, and left him, once again, appalled by his loss of control. That he, who had always revered women, should have so brutally shaken this fragile creature! That he should have, even for one instant, contemplated boxing her pretty ears! He bowed his head and, deeply ashamed, said brokenly, “God forgive me! I’m as bad as those chals of yours. Worse! For I was taught chivalrous behaviour from my cradle. You’ve every right to … to despise me.”

  He heard a muffled sound and looked up. She was weeping, making no effort to hide her tears, sitting there watching him, with tears slipping unchecked down her lovely face and sobs wracking her.

  He felt as if a knife had plunged under his ribs, and he pleaded brokenly, “Don’t! Amy, for the love of God don’t cry! I cannot bear it!”

  He reached out to her, then drew his hand back again, and groaned, “Always, I bring you to tears and unhappiness. You had better have gone with Absalom. He’s ten times the gentleman I am.”

  Light as a feather, her fingers touched his cheek. “But you—you was—were right … l-lordship. I did pr—steal your purse.”

  “But you gave it back!”

  “No I didn’t. You got it from Florian. And we took your lovely gry—I mean, horse.”

  “Absalom did. And you made him bring her back, and you nursed me, and cooked and—and fought so bravely beside…” The words faded and were forgotten, because she was smiling tremulously through her tears, and in her eyes was a tenderness that took his breath away.

  “I bit your poor hand, two times,” she said with a gulping sob, and taking up the injured member, she pressed it caressingly to her cheek.

  A great flood of elation swept over him. He knew at last that from their first meeting the spark of love had been growing ever stronger. His heart had whispered of it and he’d refused to hear. He had denied his deepening affection, closed his mind to it, tried to push it away. But still it had grown, quietly, inexorably, wonderfully. And now it was past denying, for it was no longer a whisper, but a shout, a heady joy that filled his entire being so that he was at once ecstatically happy, and awed, and humble.

  “Amy,” he whispered. “Oh, my lovely, my precious. What a fool I am, not to have known till now!”

  He had no need to seize her, for she melted into his embrace. He kissed her tear-wet cheeks, and her brows, and her perfect nose, and he whispered his adoration even as he claimed her lips.

  And Amy gave him kiss for kiss, and murmured her own gentle and cherishing words of love.

  Outside, the wind was rising, and the rain beat down strongly. But in the carriage, a man and a girl clung together in a haze of bliss, heedless of rain and wind and gathering shadows; shutting out all else but the wonder of this enchanted moment.

  At length, resting his cheek against her curls, for her cap had long since fallen off, the viscount asked the question that fond lovers have asked from the beginning of time. “Do you really love me, my Amy?”

  “Don’t you know, dearest? Can you doubt it after the way I’ve kissed you and—and let you kiss me?”

  He kissed her forehead, and she snuggled happily against his crushed cravat. Marvelling at the change in her, he said, “How prettily you speak now.”

  “’Twas you taught me, Horatio.”

  “I thought I had failed miserably. You did so well when first we started, but then you seemed to delight in speaking roughly, as if you didn’t want to try any more.”

  “I know.”

  “Why?” he persisted, tilting her chin, and running a finger softly along one slim arched brow.

  “Reasons…”

  He chuckled. “What reasons, my heart?”

  Sitting up straighter, she answered slowly, “At first, I thought you was just a lazy good-for-nothing rich wastrel. Then you seemed kind, so I thought I’d try and learn a bit from you. Only…” She sighed. “You were so gentle with me. So patient, and never complaining no matter how bad off you was. And you never tried to—to maul me about, or take advantage, even when we was alone, night after night.”

  He said miserably, “But—I did, Amy. I—”

  “Only once,” she said, quick to defend him. “And even then, you couldn’t stop being an honourable gent, and you was—were so ashamed. I could see you was getting to—to like me a bit. To … want me. But even then, you treated me with respect. Like I was a real lady—not some gypsy mort—”

  He put a hand across her lips and said firmly, “You are not. I know it. We’ll find out where you came from, and it will be some good family, I’ll warrant!”

  “No, Tio.” Her smile was tender but very sad. “It’s no good to hope fer miracles. We’ll never find who I am, or where I come from. There’s too many like me. Too many stole childers—I mean—children. And that’s why when I began to—to fall in love with you, I was so awful afraid.”

  He took both her hands and kissed them lingeringly. “Lord knows, I gave you reason. How you can love me, after I have been so blind, and treated you so disgracefully, I shall never understand. But I know at last that to the end of my days I will love you. And that never will I deserve the wondrous, beautiful, tender, courageous lady that is my Amy.”

  She gazed at him adoringly for a m
inute, then, reaching up, she took off his wig and ruffled up his hair. “What a fine gent I found to love me. A true blue nobleman. And in spite of the unkind things I said, I do so love your auburn curls.”

  With a murmur of impatience he tried to pull her to him once more, but she held him off, and said with a tremulous laugh. “You can’t never know how much I wish … Only—it ain’t no use, y’see. I ain’t of your world, nor ever could be. And—and you couldn’t never step down into mine. That’s why I tried to seem even more coarse and—and ig-norant than I be.” She shrugged, but her voice was so thready that she could hardly continue. “I fought ’gainst caring for someone I—couldn’t never have. I knew—if I let myself love you, ’twould only bring me sorrow. And you too, perhaps. But—but it got too strong for me. I couldn’t—” Blinking away tears, she threw herself into his ready arms, and gasped, “Oh, my Tio! I wish I hadn’t loved ye so.”

  A cold finger touched between his shoulder blades and cruel reality came to taunt him. When he’d lost Dimity Cranford he had thought love would never be his again. But it had come, and this time he had given his heart to a peerless creature—who was hopelessly ineligible. He set his jaw stubbornly. This was what he’d been seeking all his life. If his lady was a trifle unpolished, she was also beautiful and valiant and pure, and he wasn’t going to give her up. He said staunchly, “We’ll find a way, my darling girl. Somehow. We’ll find a way.”

  The carriage rumbled on through the rainy dusk, and the two inside still clung to each other, although they were silent now.

  Amy’s eyes were closed as she hoarded every second of this blessed nearness; the strength of his arms about her, the dear clean manly scent of him, the sure knowledge that he loved her. Memories she would keep for as long as life lasted.

  Glendenning’s face was grim, his mind engaged in a desperate search for an answer. The answers were there. Starkly merciless. His father would think he had run mad. Certainly, he would forbid such a marriage, and though he could not deny him the title, he could throw him out, cut off all communication with his family, deny any funds until his own death. To defy the earl, to take Amy for his wife, would be to lose all the other people he loved; to lose friends of a lifetime, who would surely be horrified by such unheard-of behaviour. Even if his knowledge of architecture would secure him a position, he and his love would face years of poverty. More, his disobedience, his refusal to accept the responsibilities of his birth and heritage, would hurt his father deeply, and cause him to be shamed before the world. It would grieve his dear stepmama beyond bearing. And if, by some miracle, Bowers-Malden relented and sanctioned the marriage, Amy would be shunned and despised by the ton. He knew all too well how cruel Society could be. Not that there was any need to waste time considering such a possibility—by no stretch of the imagination would my lord Gregory Clement Laindon permit so disastrous a marriage, or countenance that a nameless gypsy girl would someday become Countess of Bowers-Malden.