Barbara Metzger (34 page)

Claibourne started to exclaim, “Mad at us?” but Jacey hurriedly put in: “Percy is better off abroad, but I still think Fenton is getting off too easily. What about Mrs. Dawe’s cat? Fenton didn’t care how many people he hurt, besides you.”

“Thank you, my dear,” Claibourne said dryly, “for considering my life as valuable as the cat’s. The actual criminals, the ones Fenton was paying, will go to prison. They have confessed, and named Fenton, so he is just as guilty. The magistrates and I have offered to keep him on parole, since he never leaves his house anyway. He knows, however, that if there is the slightest hint of trouble, his gargantuan Jensen goes to gaol too. He’d be lost without the man. Beyond that, if anything whatsoever ever happens to you, or me, or our families, Fenton hangs, wheelchair or no. He’s sworn pax, and I am tempted to believe him.”

He led Jacey to a stone bench. “Enough of Fenton and Percy and the magistrates. It’s time for another reckoning, Miss Trevaine. What the devil were you doing there last night?”

“Saving your life. Again.”

“Oh.” Claibourne abruptly sat down next to her. “Did I thank you?”

“No, you didn’t. You threatened and yelled and sent me home like a schoolboy caught putting worms in teacher’s desk.”

“You know, I hadn’t quite seen it from that perspective. From where I was standing, it looked a great deal as if you were endangering your life and your reputation, despite my orders to the contrary. You don’t make a good soldier, pet.”

Jacey giggled. “Too bad, now you can’t have me court-martialled.”

Claibourne was serious. “Indeed. So what am I supposed to do with you?”

Jacelyn took a deep breath and spouted: “You could tell me you love me, for a start.” There, she’d said it!

Claibourne raised an eyebrow. “I could? I’ve been thinking about this a lot, Jacelyn”—and about time, she thought, but didn’t say it—“and I think perhaps you were right all along, we don’t really need to marry.”

“What?”

“I know it’s an about-face, but it’s for the best. You should have someone younger, not an old officer like me who’ll be forever telling you what to do, and getting angry when you do the opposite. You should have lots of Seasons, beaux, and balls. You deserve someone who doesn’t drag around a parcel of dirty-dish relations like the clanking chains on a castle haunt. And you need someone you can trust, not someone with such a spotted past that you’ll always wonder.”

“What do you need, my lord?” Jacey asked quietly.

“I need to return to Durham. I should have been there ages ago, to see to the land myself. And I need to know I can support my wife, without living off her income. The money would always come between us, Jacelyn.”

“No, Leigh—”

“Shh, let me finish. You say it doesn’t matter, but it does. You wouldn’t respect me, and I would resent being in your debt.”

Jacey’s eyes were wet. Leigh couldn’t see because his back was turned. “It’s because of my distempered freaks and silly scrapes,” she decided.

“Never, Jacey,” he said, turning and taking her limp hands in his. “All of that is just part of your bright honesty, your goodheartedness. You mustn’t ever change. You’re like a rose. The thorns are there, certainly, but oh, how sweet the blossom.” His voice was breaking. He stood and walked away.

“I…I’ll be leaving after dinner, I think. It will be easier all around. I’ve spoken with my aunt. She’ll stay on in London with her French friends for a while.

“You should send a retraction to the newspapers when you return to Treverly. By spring everyone will have forgotten all about the engagement. Will you make my farewells to Lady Parkhurst?”

Jacey couldn’t talk, for the lump in her throat. She just nodded, eyes down. He came closer and kissed the top of her head. “I only want what’s best for you, Jacelyn. I’m not it.”

And he walked away.

Jacey cried for an hour, out in the courtyard, then she got mad. The concrete benches fought back so she went inside and attacked a row of china shepherdesses on Aunt’s mantel. Then she found Pen and cried some more, hugging each of the pups in turn.

There wasn’t a soul, from the scullery maid to the Squire, playing three-handed whist with Lord Parkhurst and Mr. Sprague in the parlour, who didn’t know that Lord Claibourne was gone, and Miss wasn’t half pleased. Aunt Amabel locked herself in her bedroom. Lord Parkhurst and Mr. Sprague shrugged helplessly. Squire waited until he could hear Jacelyn’s footsteps trail up the stairs before he went into the library to help Pen wipe her sodden puppies.

*

Jacelyn was spread-eagled on her bed, damp, drained, devastated.

Tante
Simone passed Pinkie, weeping on a chair in the hall outside, and scratched on Jacey’s door. “
Petite
, may I enter?”

“Entrez-vous, madame.”

The old woman, dressed in black as always, sat at the foot of Jacelyn’s bed. “He is gone?”

“Yes.”

“And he told you why?”

“He gave me a barrelful of reasons. The sense of it would fit in a thimble. He doesn’t love me.”

“
Non, cherie
, he loves you a great deal.”

“Tante Simone, he wouldn’t leave if he loved me.”

“He leaves
because
he loves you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“How could you? He is only a foolish man, trying to be noble. Logic and reason have nothing to do with a man’s pride, child.”

“Then you think he really does love me?”

“I know it. He told me.”

*

One half hour later Jacey was in the library, wearing Lem’s britches and jacket, her uncle’s pistol in the waistband, unloaded, her streaming hair held back with a ribbon. She’d never replaced the hat, and she didn’t care. Lord Parkhurst had turned craven and disappeared to his club. “Private affair, I’m sure,” Sprague had mumbled, bowing himself out. Squire appeared not to notice her odd ensemble as he continued his hand of solitaire.

“I’m not going to let him just ride off without a by-your-leave! It’s my life he’s ruining too, for the most hare-brained reasons I’ve ever heard. Arthur could reason better than that. Pen could reason better than that!”

Squire turned over a red three. He needed a black three or a red four. “Damn.”

“And I am going to ride through the streets of London just like this so he sees I don’t care what anybody else thinks of me. It makes no difference if I’m ruined, if he won’t come back with me.”

The red four. “Ah!”

“Did you hear me? I’m going after him.”

“What’s that you say, m’dear? I wasn’t attending.”

“I said I’m going after him!” she shouted.

“Of course you are. I’d be shocked if you weren’t.”

“You would? But…but…?”

“You’re still Jacelyn Trevaine, ain’t you? Never did the conventional thing in your life, nor let anyone hold the bridle for you. I don’t figure you to start now.”

“Then you approve?”

“You never paid that any mind before, either. There’s just one thing you should know, missy. If you go off like that, you better be prepared to marry him. I sent your uncle out for a special license and a vicar. There’s been enough of this harum-scarum engagement. You understand?”

*

“Stand and deliver,” came the command from the bandit up ahead.

“What the blazes?” Haggerty was on the box; his lordship was inside, sleeping after being up all night. Baron trotted along behind.

Haggerty peered and pondered. This was the strangest holdup he’d ever seen. Broad daylight, the gun wasn’t even drawn, and the highwayman’s face mask was a paisley scarf. He grinned and pulled up.

Jacey rode over and dismounted, taking the pistol out of her waistband. She entered the coach and aimed it directly at the earl, who had woken at the carriage’s change of tempo.

Claibourne was not amused. “You little fool! I suppose you rode through Town like that, too, after all we’ve done to protect your deuced reputation. We settled it all this afternoon, Jacelyn. Your dramatics won’t change anything, so what the hell is this about? And if that damned pistol is loaded, I’ll put you over my knee right now. If it isn’t, and you rode out here alone and unprotected, I’ll use the carriage whip!”

Jacey ignored the last, saying, “This, my lord, is a kidnapping. We settled nothing this afternoon, and now we are reopening negotiations. I am holding you for ransom.”

Claibourne laughed bitterly. “Wasn’t this where I came in? Jacey, that’s the whole point. I haven’t enough money to buy farm seed, much less my freedom. You’ve made a bad bargain, my dear. There is no ransom money.”

“Then I’ll just have to keep you.”

He took her firmly by the shoulders. “Listen, dearest, I’ll try to explain again.”

“No, Leigh, I only want you to answer one question. Do you love me?”

“More than I’ve ever loved anything in this world. That’s why—”

“Shush. Here, take this.” She put the gun in his hand, pointed it at herself, and whispered, “Help! Help! I am being held prisoner!” She took a cheque out of her pocket and handed it to him, as he sat there, grinning foolishly.

“It’s blank,” he said, putting the gun down and drawing her onto his lap.

“Of course it is,” she told him. “You’ve just captured me, my lord, for all time, and you can demand everything I own.” As she turned her face up for his kiss, she added, “You already own my heart.”

For all time.