Lady Derring Takes a Lover

by Julie Anne Long

  Captain Hardy seemed more bemused than anything.

  “Have you yet seen her blink?” he asked resignedly.

  “Perhaps she’s never seen a soldier before.”

  “Doubtless her parents wisely kept her far, far away from them.”

  “Perhaps you ought to tell her about the time you were shot. She might keel over into a swoon.”

  “By all means send her over here so that I may get the swoon underway. Anything to prevent her from playing the pianoforte.”

  “You’re truly not a music lover, Captain Hardy?”

  “I like music well enough.” He sounded surprised by the notion that she might think otherwise. “Good music, well played. It’s just that I’m haunted by one particular sound and I don’t want anything to interfere with my memory of it.”

  “The wind snapping in the sails? The ringing sound that bullets make when they glance off your iron hide?”

  He’d lowered his voice. “That sound you made when I moved inside you for the first time. It has quite ruined all other sounds for me.”

  It was as if he’d given the entire room a mighty spin, like a roulette wheel. Heat rushed across her limbs and convened in a pulsing pool between her legs.

  He smiled, slowly, wickedly, with a certain sympathetic satisfaction. She imagined him smiling rather like that after he’d run a pirate through. Satisfaction at finding just the right vulnerability and promptly exploiting it.

  She would not be surprised to hear the thunk of Miss Bevan-Clark’s maidenly body toppling from the settee onto the floor.

  As for Delilah, she looked down at the table.

  Her breath, not to mention her composure, was lost.

  He didn’t say another word.

  “The reason that I won’t play Faro is that I’m not much of a gambler,” she said. “The opening of perhaps The Grand Palace on the Thames notwithstanding. It was less an act of risk than desperation, which has, as you can see, become a triumph.”

  He smiled at that, too. “Where is young Farraday this evening? Certainly Miss Bevan-Clark would transfer her pretty gaze to him the moment he arrives.”

  “Is her gaze pretty, then?”

  Out this came, unbidden. She was appalled that she sounded as much a twit as Miss Bevan-Clark.

  He let her stew in mortification for a second or so, before he said, “Certainly. But it’s not your gaze.”

  He said these things so matter-of-factly. As though he’d experienced everything in the world, sifted through the dross, and was confident that he emerged with the only things of truth and value.

  It was thrilling.

  And a bit irritating.

  And, in a way, a bit overwhelming, in truth. She hadn’t experienced any of this. Of affairs and flirtation and innuendos.

  She caught Angelique’s weather eye from across the room and forced a mild little solicitous smile onto her face, and cast a glance over at the maiden aunts.

  “Captain Hardy . . . while I am far from unmoved . . .”

  He waited. No prompts, no interruptions, no changes in topic. He waited. As he always did.

  And despite the demands of his presence and personality, this waiting felt luxurious. He allowed her space in which to be herself. He did not assume that what she had to say could possibly have no merit, because she was a woman.

  He did glance down at her hands. Which were knitted together.

  He noticed things, Captain Hardy did.

  She put a stop to the knitting.

  “I have never before taken a lover,” she said in a low voice. “And in your presence . . . reservations about that begin to seem frivolous.”

  “Excellent.”

  The little smile and the timbre of his voice and the way his skin took the firelight made it seem absurd that his long-fingered hands were resting against his ritualistic brandy instead of, perhaps, her breasts.

  “But away from you . . . when I watch my ceiling at night . . . and perhaps it’s the way I was raised, which seems to have more of a hold over me than I anticipated . . . I begin to wonder at the difference between a woman who takes a lover she knows scarcely a thing about . . . and a woman who works in a brothel earning her living from men she knows nothing about.”

  He went utterly still, his face stunned blank.

  She saw the words sink in as he slowly leaned back in his chair.

  His expression settled in and became troubled.

  He, who so excelled at inscrutability.

  Well. It seemed she possessed the power to shock, too.

  “And while I understand I currently have a choice about such . . . such things . . . whereas other women may not . . . and I will never judge such a thing again . . . I confess it troubles me a little.”

  He rubbed his brow. It occurred to her that she’d never seen him indulge in a fidget. Unlike Delacorte, who probably didn’t realize it, but fingered one of the silver buttons on his waistcoat when he had a good hand in Whist, or Mr. Farraday, who was all fidgets. Women could not be said to be fidgeting when their hands were nearly always busy with work.

  “Clearly the solution lies in not watching your ceiling at night.”

  She smiled. “And they say you’re not amusing.”

  “They say so many things about me.”

  His expression remained abstracted, however.

  Odd to think that he might not have the answers to everything.

  And then he took a sip of brandy.

  “Good evening, friends.” Farraday strode into the drawing room, bringing the scent of rain and tar and cigar smoke with him. He’d already whipped off his gloves and was making straight for the fire as though he’d lived there all his life and was perfectly at home. Then again, in all likelihood, he felt at home in the world, at home anywhere, really, because the world had been kind to him.

  “Devil of an evening!” he declared. “Delacorte, break out the chessboard, I know precisely how to beat—AHHHHHHHH!”

  It was a cry of horror worthy of any musicale. And it was quite genuine.

  He’d fixed his eyes upon Lucinda Bevan-Clark.

  “Andrew!” she gasped with a hand clapped to her clavicle.

  She leaped to her feet and her head pivoted wildly to and fro. She darted a few feet to the left and a few feet to the right and then came to a stop right where she’d begun, in front of the settee.

  Her maid, Miss Wright, sighed and rolled her eyes.

  All of which rather answered lingering questions regarding coincidences.

  The rest of the room was frozen in absolute fascination.

  “What are you doing here?” they said at once, unanimously accusatory.

  “Did my mother send you?” they said next, simultaneously.

  Andrew took a breath. “Lucinda, why don’t you tell me why you’re here, when you were meant to be at a house party, just as I was.”

  “I’m here quite on my own, thank you very much.”

  “Without Miss Wright?”

  “Of course with Miss Wright! She’s right over there!” As if Miss Wright were an accessory akin to a muff or a pelisse and it would be unthinkable to make a move without her.

  “Ho there, Miss Wright,” he said.

  “Good evening, Mr. Farraday,” she said, with great irony.

  “But that must mean . . .” Mr. Farraday was working things out.

  “We were on our way to the house party, which is where I expected you to be, but I decided to escape from the coaching inn on the South Road in the dead of night and paid a driver to take us to a boardinghouse and this was the first place we came to.”

  “You could have come to harm, Lucinda!” He seemed genuinely distressed. “You ought not to have gone by yourself, even if Miss Wright was with you.” It was rather sweet that he thought of her welfare before questioning why on earth she should want to escape.

  “That’s precisely what Miss Wright told her,” Miss Wright muttered.

  “Oh, Andrew, you’re a dear to care.” It was al
l desperate warmth mingled with agitation. Andrew’s face visibly brightened. “That is, you’re not like Captain Hardy, you’re still young and inexperienced in the ways of the world, but you’re dear in your way.”

  Poor dear had no idea that flattery beaded up and rolled right off Captain Hardy.

  Andrew cast a startled glance at Captain Hardy, as if it had never occurred to him that someone so elderly could hold any appeal for Lucinda.

  “But . . . you’re a very good sort.” She bit her lip. “Oh, Andrew. It’s just that I . . . I don’t want to . . . I don’t think . . .”

  Every breath in the room was held.

  But she didn’t say the words.

  “Lucinda, you’re a topping girl,” he said urgently, hardly poetry, but he said it so fervently and sincerely every older person in the room melted ever so slightly. “A bit prone to speaking before you’ve given it any thought, which can be a bit wounding,” he said, looking a trifle wounded himself. “But you’re so . . . funny and game, as well.” He said this with a sort of tender exasperation.

  She beamed at him, not the least offended. “You know me so well, Andrew. It is rather nice to see you. You’re looking well. But . . .” Her pretty brow furrowed. “Why are you here?”

  “But I don’t want to . . . that is . . .”

  He stopped.

  He’d gone white about the mouth with the sheer terror of honesty.

  “Say it,” Miss Jane Gardner urged in a gleeful hiss from the corner.

  Delilah darted a shocked, quelling look her way.

  The silence was suddenly painfully suspenseful.

  Miss Bevan-Clark bit her lip and clasped her hands tightly together.

  Mr. Farraday twisted his kid gloves in his hands.

  And then Dot dropped one of her knitting needles with a clink and everyone gave a start.

  And yet no one spoke. The fire cracked and popped. Apart from a tiny squeaking sound which might have been one of the Gardner sisters’ stays as she exhaled, the silence was so fraught it was very nearly like another guest in the sitting room. It would challenge Mr. Farraday to chess any minute.

  When a voice finally came, the impact was like the voice of God.

  “I’ve heard that you excel at playing the pianoforte, Miss Bevan-Clark. I would be happy to turn the pages for you if you would favor us with a song.”

  Everyone pivoted in shock.

  Captain Hardy rose slowly, gracefully to his feet, and he was smiling—nay, beaming—at Miss Bevan-Clark.

  Delilah stared at him. Her mouth was open. She could not be more stunned if the clock on the mantel had come to life and said the same thing.

  Miss Bevan-Clark’s mouth had dropped open. She’d slumped in her seat a little, amazed.

  And then pink washed her charming, speckled cheeks.

  “At this rate we can pay the bills by selling tickets to our quiet evenings in the drawing room,” Angelique murmured.

  Trepidation began to simmer in Delilah’s gut.

  What was he playing at?

  But he wasn’t looking at her and he gave her no clues at all.

  He’d fixed his silver gaze on Miss Bevan-Clark as though she were due north. He probably had her freckles counted by now.

  Mr. Farraday was staring at Captain Hardy with grave uncertainty.

  She gave her head a frisky toss. “Certainly, Captain Hardy,” she said, her voice a-tremble. “I should be happy to.”

  The girl rose with great dignity and, amidst a gauntlet of fascinated eyes, sauntered through the dense silence to the pianoforte and sat down on the bench.

  And Captain Hardy joined her there, peering solicitously over her shoulder as she leafed through a variety of selections.

  “She plays very well, indeed,” Mr. Farraday said, suddenly. Ever-so-faintly belligerently. “I’ve heard her play dozens of times. At my family’s home and at assemblies. And we’ve danced dozens of times, too.”

  Captain Hardy regarded him expressionlessly. “How fortunate you are.”

  Mr. Farraday flushed.

  He sat down hard on the settee in the place vacated by Miss Bevan-Clark.

  A moment later he’d crossed his arms about his torso protectively again, the way a cat will tuck its tail about its feet when it feels uncertain.

  He, like everyone else, was riveted.

  “Do you know ‘The Soldier’s Adieu’?” Miss Bevan-Clark asked.

  “What manner of officer would I be if I didn’t know ‘The Soldier’s Adieu’?”

  She twinkled up at him as if it were the most enchanting thing anyone had ever uttered.

  “But if you could perhaps play it in a key suitable to a baritone?” he said, so kindly Delilah’s stomach knotted.

  Of course he was a baritone.

  She remembered the rumble of his voice in her ear. I need you, Delilah.

  She was struggling with a sensation new to her. Rather like she’d swallowed a horse chestnut and it was pulsing spikily in her gut.

  Somehow she’d failed to consider that taking a lover might entail jealousy. She was not attached; why should she be jealous?

  So unnerved was she that she jumped when Miss Bevan-Clark pounced upon the keys with passionate vigor, swaying into the lilting ballad.

  She played competently if not artistically.

  Suddenly everyone was leaning forward just the littlest bit, on pins and needles waiting for Captain Hardy to open his mouth.

  (In Dot’s case, perhaps quite literally on pins and needles, given that she was mending. She was feeling in vain beneath her bum for a dropped pin.)

  And when the first note emerged—rich, confident, soaring, and absolutely lovely—everyone sighed.

  Delilah’s heart literally squeezed like a little fist, a sort of sweet pain. She could not have said why.

  And if he didn’t land precisely on every note—sometimes just a hair north or south—he sang with matter-of-fact ease and imbued the sentimental song with a certain martial resonance, and for some reason her throat began to knot.

  And then he finally—finally—glanced her way. It was just a flash of silver.

  Rueful, though, that flash.

  Even, perhaps, a bit . . . mischievous.

  She loved and hated the relief that swooped through her like the winds off the sea. She understood what he was about now.

  And it told her more than she wished she knew about how she felt about Captain Hardy.

  She knew what to do next.

  She moved from the little table, past Mr. Delacorte, who was patting his great thigh and humming along, past Angelique, who was looking reluctantly transfixed, as if it had been too long since she had heard music and was absorbing it like a flower absorbs rain, across to where Mr. Farraday was sitting in silence, reluctantly enjoying the performance, arms crossed tightly, and jouncing a leg.

  She sat down next to him.

  “It’s remarkable,” she confided to Mr. Farraday as Captain Hardy and Miss Bevan-Clark rounded on the second verse. “It’s been such a challenge to bring Captain Hardy out of his shell, and Miss Bevan-Clark seems to have done it within minutes. She must be a truly singular girl. One of a kind.”

  “Yes,” he said tersely, after a delay. He was watching the singular girl and Captain Hardy, and his face was a battleground of subtle conflicts.

  At last the song came to an end.

  Everyone applauded with great enthusiasm.

  Captain Hardy even took a bow.

  “Hardy, I suspected you had hidden talents, you old sea dog!” Mr. Delacorte boomed.

  Captain Hardy manfully suppressed a wince. “Not hidden, Delacorte. Simply rationed.”

  Miss Bevan-Clark was gazing up at Captain Hardy as if he was responsible for the moon hanging in the sky.

  Andrew Farraday was gazing at Captain Hardy as though he’d robbed him at knifepoint.

  But then Miss Bevan-Clark’s head pivoted to seek Andrew Farraday’s gaze. And what she saw there made her blush pink again. />
  And duck her head.

  Oh, the days when one blushed at everything.

  Then she peeked up between her lashes.

  Andrew was staring at her, with a faint frown, rather arrested, as if perhaps he hadn’t seen her in this light before.

  “Perhaps now we can all dance!” Delacorte enthused.

  Captain Hardy froze. “Optionally, perhaps we ought not get carried away, Delacorte.”

  It was too late. Delacorte was carried away. He was already shoving furniture aside.

  “Nonsense, nonsense,” he said happily. “If you can sing then you can dance, Captain. I dance a fair reel and we’ve enough people here for a quadrille. A waltz wouldn’t even go amiss if some of the ladies wouldn’t mind dancing with each other. Oh! Shall we waltz? No one is about to care whether we do it well. We needn’t stand on ceremony among friends.”

  “A bit daring, isn’t it?” Angelique said. “But then, we did play Faro.”

  Very dryly said.

  “It’s all between family here,” Mr. Delacorte said, which were such uncommonly sweet words to Delilah’s ears she was tempted to kiss him on the cheek. “We’ll make a lark of it. What say you all? Can you play a waltz, Miss Bevan-Clark?”

  Miss Bevan-Clark opened her mouth.

  Then closed it again.

  Her expression revealed that she very much wanted to dance, rather than play the pianoforte.

  “I can play a waltz,” Angelique volunteered. Just a tad slyly.

  “Well, that is splendid!” Delacorte could not be more thrilled.

  Angelique stood and smoothed her skirts. “And perhaps Mr. Farraday would like to show Lady Derring how once dances the waltz in Sussex,” she suggested.

  Mr. Farraday’s eyes went wide.

  But he could not, of course, refuse this suggestion and still be a gentleman.

  Captain Hardy may have started it, but they were all colluding now.

  “I should be honored if you would dance with me, Lady Derring,” Mr. Farraday said, because he possessed excellent manners and because Delilah was smiling sweetly at him and he was as putty in her hands. But then, in the hands of the right woman, Mr. Farraday was the sort who would be putty for the rest of his days.

  Unlike the man who’d instigated this whole thing.

  But a hunted look skittered across Miss Bevan-Clark’s face when he leaped to his feet and held his hand out to Delilah, who allowed the young man to pull her to her feet.