Barbara Metzger (22 page)

*

The last dance was another waltz. Leigh considerately asked if she would like to go home, rather than sit it out, but Aunt Amabel was still deep in conversation. Mme. Aubonier and the dowager had left ages ago with Lord Parkhurst, so there was no need to consult their wishes. Jacey wanted to talk to Leigh. She glared at de Silva till he veered off, blowing a mock kiss, and then she turned to the earl.

“I owe you an apology, my lord, for not respecting your opinions. I know I must not expect you to agree with all of mine, yet I am sure you will grant me the right to hold them, no matter how cork-brained. As I must yours.”

“I don’t have cork-brained opinions, poppet, but thank you. I was afraid you were still angry with me. You know, I can’t decide if you are more charming at your most sincere or at your silliest. Come.” He took her hand.

“But…but, Leigh, I can’t dance with you! I haven’t been given the nod to waltz, and Aunt Amabel said I would be labelled fast if I did it without permission. And we’ve already danced twice. You know—”

“I thought we agreed on that at least, that all these silly conventions were so much manure to wade through. Do you want to waltz?”

“Oh, yes!”

“With me?”

“Of course!”

“Then come.”

A corner of heaven must be reserved for young lovers’ first waltzes. It was almost like kissing to music, the way Leigh did it, holding her closer than customary. They were breaking so many rules, one more didn’t matter. Nothing mattered to her now, except his warm hand around her, the brush of his thigh against hers, those blue, blue eyes staring into hers like eternity.

It wasn’t till the dance was over that he told her he’d gotten approval from Sally Jersey. Sally hadn’t even asked for a favour back, thank goodness. Some sacrifices he was willing to let Baron make for him, but there were limits to the others. He didn’t discuss any of this with Jacelyn, who was still humming the last refrain. Nor did he mention that the third dance was as good as having the banns read. It was time to go home.

The window or the servants’ door, that was the question. Coming back through the kitchen in britches would be hard to explain, when the staff might be at their own breakfasts. But the dog couldn’t climb trees—up or down—so the rear exit it had to be. On second thought, Jacelyn turned back and opened the window for the return trip. She could always scramble up the tree and leave the dog in the courtyard, saying she’d let Pen out early.

Getting into the stable was no problem; the door facing the rear gardens was always unlatched. She didn’t dare open the wide stable doors facing the mews, for the noise would surely wake the grooms asleep overhead, so she led the mare back through the courtyard and out by the small delivery gate. She couldn’t latch it behind her, of course, but perhaps it would go unnoticed in the morning’s bustle. As for getting the mare back, if the stablehands were awake—well, she’d worry about that later. Perhaps she should have taken Lem, but he would have argued with her till it was too late to go. Besides, as she’d just written in a long letter to her papa, she had to fight her own battles.

Jacelyn had stayed awake for three hours after sharing her success with a rapturous Pinkie, rather than chance staying asleep past daylight. She filled in the time with writing home. She’d previously told her father about the bareback ride and Richmond, so now she related her experiences at Almack’s, and the people she’d met, and how nice most of them were, just as he’d said they’d be. Lord Trevaine’s last letter, in his fine angular script, had advised her to look for the best in people, and laugh at the worst, if she could. If she was unhappy, he’d written, she should come home immediately. She made sure he wasn’t fretting himself that she was miserable, or that she was so enamoured of this new life that she didn’t miss him and Treverly. She also explained to him—and herself—some of the lessons she was learning. She’d always been independent; it was easy in the country. Here in London, where she was never alone, other people had a much greater say in her life. The very trip to London itself wasn’t her choice. Now there were so many telling her what she must and mustn’t do, where she should and shouldn’t go, even whom she should and shouldn’t talk to. She felt she was losing part of herself, even more by trusting so fully in Claibourne. She must not let herself become a hollow shell filled with social conventions, nor an empty extension of the earl’s will. She’d managed by herself at Richmond; she would manage tonight. What she wrote to her father, without mentioning cockfights or solitary 4:00 a.m. rides, was something to the effect that a man—or woman—had to do what a man had to do, and stand on his own two feet to do it.

Or her mare’s four feet, as the case may be.

The ride through London was quick. Her route bypassed the less savoury neighbourhoods she had been warned about countless times, thank goodness, and the Great North Road was wide and clear. There were even some travellers about, mostly draymen and farmers going to market. None paid any mind to the boy in the floppy hat, if they noticed him at all by the moon’s uncertain light. She reached the crossing at Upper Dene without incident. A few times she thought she’d heard hoofbeats other than her mare’s, but the imagination played tricks on dark nights, she knew. Pen never signalled anything untoward so she’d kept riding. Now here she was at the five-fingered crosstie, trying to stand on the mare’s saddle to change the direction signs.

Pen was off in the bushes and the mare was fidgety and Jacelyn couldn’t quite reach. Every time she got her hands on the Little Dene marker, the horse took a step ahead, or tried to put her head down, or whuffled nervously. Jacelyn then had to sit down and pull the horse back into position, all while she kept looking over her shoulder. It was spooky out here, alone, miles from home, in the dark. She stood in the saddle again, wishing it were Baron’s back. His was rock-steady and a lot taller. That sign was high, she was short. “Drat.”

“Need some help, sweetheart?” asked a voice from behind the bushes, followed quickly by Jacelyn’s shriek, then Pen’s barking.

“You…you bastard! What do you mean, sneaking up on me, scaring me half to death!” Jacelyn sputtered as the earl slowly, casually, walked over to her and her horse.

“What I’d meant to do, you widgeon, was throw the fear of God into you. What in bloody hell are you doing out here with only your overgrown rug rat for protection, when I specifically told you how dangerous it was?”

Avoiding the question, more than a little nervous at the harsh expression on his usually smiling face, to say nothing of his hand steadily tapping a riding crop against his leg, she countered: “What in…bloody hell are you doing here?”

“I am following my instincts, which right now tell me to use this”—the whip—“where it will do the most good.”

She shivered. Lord, he meant it! This wasn’t Squire’s burning fury, nor her father’s warm, sorrowful regard. This was cold, hard anger. She’d never seen anything like it in the easygoing earl, and she didn’t want to see any more of it. She pulled her horse back.

“Stay.” She stayed. “Miss Trevaine, did you ever, I repeat,
ever
, stop to consider that you might be in danger, riding around the streets of London by yourself?”

“I did think of it, my lord. No one would bother a poor boy off on an errand.”

“Not even a poor boy on a rich man’s horse? You foolish little innocent. No one bothered you, my lady, because I was a block behind, with a pistol very visible in my waistband. Otherwise you would not have gotten past Portman Square.”

“You…you followed me from Parkhurst House?”

“To my dismay, I find I am beginning to understand how that hare brain of yours works. Your charming apology didn’t quite answer; it never said you’d give up, even if it was a hen-witted idea. Therefore, yes, I followed you, lest someone break your sweet little neck before I got a chance to!”

As he took two steps closer to her, Jacelyn began to speak, quickly: “My lord, I can see where you might be a trifle overset—”

“Hah!”

“—since you are responsible for me, and your aunt is sponsoring me, but you must understand that I couldn’t not do something about the cockfight.”

“I must?” He took another step, but the whip tapping was, at least, less frequent.

“Remember what you said about saving every fallen sparrow? I know I cannot even come close, but what if I could save even one rooster? Wouldn’t that be worth trying? And I did listen to you. I would have gone to Dene’s Landing in the morning and demanded they call off the fight, but for what you said about all the rough folk.”

“Thanks for small favours, puss.”

Ah, he was back to the pet names. His “Miss Trevaine” was more chilling than the threats. “And I thought of going there tonight and freeing the birds…if I could find the place, and if the cocks were there yet, but I decided that would be too dangerous also. See, I’m not entirely foolhardy.”

“Do you know about the simpleton who jumped off the bridge after the ha’penny he dropped? He was clever enough to remove his boots, but he still couldn’t swim.”

“It’s nothing like! If I could just switch the signposts, I’d ride home and no one would be the wiser.”

“Certainly not you,” he muttered. Louder, he asked, “What, my sweet, did you hope to accomplish? I can see you mean to confound the London bucks, send them off to…where? Upper Dene? Bathny Willow?”

“Actually I was hoping they’d get halfway to Scotland before they realized the mix-up. Lord Forster said most of the men would stay up through the night, at their clubs, rather than have a few hours’ sleep. I can only think they’ll be somewhat worse for it, by seven or eight.”

“Which is all the more reason why this was a chaw-bacon scheme!”

“I won’t be here then. Besides, most will be driving too fast, racing their curricles as the sporting group seems to do all the time, so they won’t be paying careful attention to the markers.”

“That’s not to the point. You send a few Town bucks to the rightabout, but you haven’t ended the cockfight, or even delayed it.”

“I know,” Jacelyn admitted sadly, “but it was the best I could think of. I reasoned that the young gentlemen from London had the most money, and the most leisure time. If they weren’t there to make their enormous wagers, perhaps it wouldn’t be so profitable for the local men, who would then go back to their chores. If there wasn’t so much betting, maybe, just maybe, one bird wouldn’t have to die for their pleasure. Do you understand?”

“Get down… For heaven’s sake, stop looking like a frightened rabbit. I’m not going to beat you. Yet. You can reach the signs from Baron’s saddle.” He whistled for the stallion while she dismounted, then lifted her up.

“This is another crime against the Crown, you know,” he remarked casually from the ground as she tugged and twisted at the fingerposts. “I’m not sure where it ranks in relation to kidnapping, but you are certainly turning out to be the felonious sort, aren’t you? You know, my dear,” he added just when she finished, “I think it’s time you learned that crime doesn’t pay.”

Jacelyn thought of adding another misdemeanor: stealing the horse she was on and riding away as fast as she could. Baron would come to Leigh’s whistle, though, even if she weren’t standing upright. She stayed where she was, but Leigh walked around the horse and, reaching up, grasped her firmly around the knees.

“Yes,” he said, “it’s long past time you learned that your womanhood won’t always protect you from the results of your follies.”

He lifted her off the horse, then down the length of his own body to the ground, still in his arms. He brought his mouth down to hers in a fierce kiss, while his arms tightened around her till their bodies touched everywhere. The kiss went on and on, and where his hands or his lips didn’t touch she ached for him.

At last he raised his head, but still held her cheek pressed against his chest. “Oh, Lord,” she heard him groan, through the smooth fabric of his jacket, and over the blood thundering in her own ears. “What was the deuced lesson?”

*

“Listen to this, George. Jacelyn writes that they are calling her “Miss Trevaine, the Toast of the Town.’ What do you think of that?” Lord Trevaine turned the sheets of his daughter’s latest letter while Squire sipped his wine and studied the chessboard.

“To be honest, Elliot, I wouldn’t believe a word of it, if m’sister hadn’t written the same thing.”

“I’m having difficulty crediting it myself! My Jacelyn, in her pigtails and boy’s clothes, always in some bumblebath…curtseying to the Queen. My sister Amabel says she did it gracefully, too. Jacelyn writes that she had no time for her own spasms over the hooped skirts, she was so afraid Amabel would succumb to the vapours and swoon dead away.”

“Damned foolishness, if you ask me,” said Squire, capturing Trevaine’s bishop.

“I agree, and so does Jacelyn. She says that she enjoyed the literary evening at Miss Kinbeck’s much better, but that Amabel fell asleep.”

“Shouldn’t wonder. I always told you the girl didn’t need all that fancy book learning you kept spoon-feeding her. Isn't she going to any balls and such? That’s all Clothilda ever writes about. Who danced with Priscilla, who sent flowers. Mrs. Bottwick’s interested in that piffle. Says it’ll help next year when my Samantha makes her curtsey. Not looking forward to it, all that doing the pretty.”

“Indeed, there seems to be a great deal of that. Listen: ‘In the week since Almack’s I’ve hardly spent two hours at home, except to change my clothes and sleep. There are so many invitations Mme. Aubonier and Aunt Amabel have long arguments over which should be accepted. Claibourne and I have had to delay our morning rides and Pen’s exercise until after ten, we get home so late. Friday we had tea at Miss Montmorency’s, dinner at Lady Hockney’s, attended the Royal Theatre (an undistinguished Richard the Third) and then went on to two different balls! I need more gowns, Papa, but Mr. Sprague assures me my account is still solvent.”’

“Hell and blast, they never have enough gowns. Be thankful you’ve only the one daughter, and that one discovered fripperies late in life. For a female, anything over the age of five is late! Lord, what it’s cost me in India muslin already, I could have bought the whole deuced East India Company.”