The Lion's Daughter (37 page)

This
latter anxiety drove Varian from the bed to gather up his clothes.

“I'll
send your grandmother up with some garments for you,” he said
as he thrust himself into his trousers. “She's already seen to
the packing.”

Esme
burrowed under the bedclothes. “Aye, she's eager for me to be
wed. This is all her doing, isn't it?”

“It's
all
my
doing.”
Varian pulled on his shirt. “Qeriba simply cooperated. Whether
I'd found her and Percival downstairs this morning or not, the result
would have been the same. Do not begin imagining anyone has forced me
to marry you, or that I'm acting out of some absurd notion of
nobility.”

He
moved back to the bed and gazed sternly down at her. “I am not
noble. I have wanted to make you mine practically from the start.
Since you neglected to forestall me, you shall be. It's quite simple,
Esme. Don't make it complicated.”

Reproachful
green eyes peered up at him. “I see how it is. You make me
drunk with lovemaking, so I cannot think, and so I will say, 'Yes,
Varian. No, Varian. As you wish, oh great light of the heavens.'
“

He
smiled in spite of himself. “Precisely.”

“Just
wait,” she warned, “until I become more accustomed to
your tricks.”

“Then
it will be too late, because we'll be wed.” Varian shrugged
into his coat, avoiding her gaze as he continued, “There'll be
no more tumbling about together until then. We leave for Corfu in a
few hours. Once there, you'll be chaperoned.”

That
shot her up from the blankets. “Chaperoned? You cannot be
serious!”

“You
ought to know that Percival had prepared himself for a duel this
morning, to avenge your honor. You cannot wish to shock his youthful
sensibilities further by living in sin with your betrothed.”

Varian
headed for the door, then paused. “You won't be entirely among
strangers. Qeriba has agreed to come as chaperon, and I am given to
understand Donika's family will provide a suitable Albanian
celebration before we're properly wed in a proper Anglican ceremony
by a proper Anglican minister.” He threw her a guilty glance.
“You needn't fear you'll be without friends on your wedding
day.”

He
didn't wait for an answer and was already through the door when Esme
called him back. He stood just at the threshold, bracing himself for
the outburst.

“Thank
you, Varian,” she said softly.

He
relaxed and smiled.
“S'ka
gjë.”

Chapter
21

SIR
GERALD GLARED AT THE LETTER HE'D ONLY just received, though Lord
Edenmont had written it more than a fortnight ago. The delay was
Percival's doing, no doubt, as was everything else. The wedding was
only two days away. With cooperative winds, one might reach Corfu in
a day
—
but
to do what?

Sir
Gerald raised his scowl from the letter and directed it across the
Bay of Otranto. What in blazes was going on over there?

Jason
had gone and got himself killed, heaven be praised, but heaven
granted precious small favors. The curst fool had left a by-blow
behind, and Edenmont claimed he meant to wed her.

“Bloody
blackguard,” Sir Gerald muttered. “Probably thinks I'll
buy him off. Hah! Let him have Jason's bastard
—
and
the plaguey one my false bitch of a wife saddled me with as well. Ten
years to conceive a child,” he grumbled as he began to pace the
terrace.
“
'A
miracle,' Diana called it. As if I couldn't count.”

He'd
counted. Nine months before Percival's birth, Sir Gerald had been
abroad. Not for a moment had he believed that Percival had arrived
prematurely.

The
old outrage hadn't cooled with time. The mere sight of

the
boy was enough to set it ablaze. Now there was another of lason's
bastards to deal with.

The
baronet stormed back into the house and on to his study, composing
along the way a scathing reply to his lordship. As Sir Gerald took up
his pen, however, his eye fell upon the chess set, minus a queen. He
ground his teeth.

The
Queen of Midnight, he'd learned, had been seized by British
authorities days before it reached Prevesa. Shortly there
after,
two more ships had been
intercepted, and word had spread quickly. Several customers had shied
off, and it was very likely the rest would soon do the same. He'd put
a great deal of money out; at present, he'd no hope of any coming in.

He
might very well have to apply to his mother for funds, a ghastly
prospect. The old witch was sure to cross-examine him. Though his
records were creative enough to protect his secret, the process would
be humiliating all the same. The dowager would find fault with him,
because she always did. It was Jason, the prodigal son, she'd always
doted on, though she feigned otherwise. Even now, were Jason alive,
the senile old harridan would give him
...
whatever he wanted. As she'd
always done, except that last time. Now there was this girl

Edenmont
claimed was Jason's.

Putting
his pen aside, Sir Gerald took up the letter once

more.
The girl had written a note, but there was nothing in that. The
baronet flung down the sheet covered with her illegible scrawl and
re-examined Edenmont's.

“Hopes
for my blessing
...
no, here. Aye, plain enough now.
Take her to England, will you, and Percival too, if I like?”

That
was what it was all about. Edenmont meant to take the girl to her
witless old grandmama and use Percival, too, if he could, to soften
the old hag's heart and brain.

“Oh,
no, you don't,” Sir Gerald growled. “Not my inheritance.
Not one groat, Edenmont. The crone may be in her dotage, but I'm
not.”

THE
WEEKS BEFORE the wedding passed like a long, bewildering dream,
filled with strange faces and strange voices with their clipped
English accents. Though in the center of it, Esme felt she was
looking in from another world, watching herself do as the dream
required of her.

Varian
had lodged her and Qeriba with the clergyman, Mr. Enquith, and his
wife. They were both kindly people, but strangers. Varian and
Percival's visits were so rare that they seemed strangers as well.
While they bustled about Corfu, arranging the proper English wedding
Varian was so determined to have, Esme undertook the more daunting
task of making herself into a proper English bride.

Her
regrets and anxieties she banished to the depths of her heart. Her
father's murder remained unavenged, her homeland on
thé
brink of disaster, but it was too
late for her to act heroically. Her betrothed was a foreigner, a
lord, a penniless debauchee, but it was too late for her to act
wisely. Esme had given her heart as well as her virtue and could call
neither back.

She
would be his baroness, which meant she must at least appear a lady.
Upon this, consequently, she fixed her mind. She made herself take
interest in the fashion books Mrs. Enquith displayed and dutifully
helped the two older women translate patterns into frocks. Esme took
her lessons in English manners with the same singleminded
concentration. It had to be done, she told herself. There was no
choice.

A
few days before the wedding, Donika
—
along
with most of her relations
—
arrived,
and Esme entered the
prénuptial
celebrations with the same
resolve to do what must be done. She feared for the future, but it
was merely heartbreak she feared, she told herself. That was simply
unhappiness, and life was unhappy for most human beings. What she
felt inside, therefore, she kept locked within, showing others
nothing but confidence and smiles.

In
this way the strange dream time came to her wedding day, which dawned
warm and bright.

Standing
in the morning sunlight, Esme patiently endured her friend's fussing
with her hair and frock. At last Donika stepped away. As she
scrutinized the sea green gown, her anxious frown smoothed into a
smile.

“What
will your bridegroom think when he sees you now?” she asked.
“His little bird he called you
—
but
today you are a princess.”

Esme
resisted the urge to smooth the folds of her skirt.

They
were smooth enough, and her palms were damp. “L-lit-tle
b-bird?”

Donika
laughed. “Y-yes. How you stammer. He called you his little bird
that day in Saranda and said you'd flown away with his heart. I wept
to look at his sad eyes and hear the grief in
his voice. All the women wept
then
—
and
later, when they heard how he'd leapt into the water after you. So
beautiful a man, so strong and tall, and filled with so much love.
How lould we deny him?”

“No
woman can deny him.” Esme's voice sounded high, thready. “I
could not even try, and now
...”

“Now
you shall make each other happy.”

“
Happy.
God have mercy on me.” Esme
pressed her fist to her breast, as though this would stifle the
violent thrashing of her heart. “Oh, Donika, I cannot
—”

Donika
grabbed her hand and yanked her to the door. “Yes, drag your
feet and I shall push you on, and you shall appear a properly modest
bride. But you
shall
be
wed, my friend.”

Though
Donika led her, it was the dream that carried Esme along.
Uncomprehending, she was swept through a blur of faces and buzz of
voices until she stood before the clergyman. Then the fog lifted.
Esme looked up to find her beautiful god smiling tenderly down upon
her. All about him seemed to shimmer. Glistening jet framed the
smooth marble of his face, and his eyes gleamed silver. Even his
voice seemed to glow, within her, as he said the words, and the
warmth drew a tremulous smile from her in answer.

Then
there was movement, and the blur and buzz closed in once more. “My
lady,” the strange English voices called her. It made no sense,
yet she answered unhesitatingly, by rote, with the polite phrases
she'd been taught.

Hours
later, the dream carried her to the harbor. She was aware of Petro,
sobbing as he embraced Percival, then cheering considerably when
Varian pressed a bag of coins into his hands. Then there were Donika,
Qeriba, friends
...
the sounds of farewell in her own
language. Esme felt Varian's arm about her, steadying her as she
watched the boat sail away, yet it all remained unreal,
incomprehensible.

The
haze did not lift fully until she stood at the bedroom window of the
house Varian had rented. The house was his

surprise
for her: a large whitewashed
structure on the Bay of Kouloura, on Corfu's northeast coast. The
window looked toward her homeland. The vanishing sun burnt faint
copper sparks upon the deep blue-green of the Ionian.

She'd
already lit the candles. She'd changed into the lacy night rail Mrs.
Enquith had so lovingly sewn, and taken the pins from her hair. She'd
brushed it until it shone, using the silver-handled brush from the
set Percival had given her. The room boasted a large looking glass,
in which Esme had studied herself.

She'd
seen reflected one small, scrawny girl, utterly alone.

Now,
painfully awake, she stared out the window.

That
was not her homeland across the narrow stretch of water. She was not
Albanian any more. She was a girl without a country, without family.

Her
uncle had not come to the wedding, doubtless because he couldn't bear
acknowledging her, not even to get his own son back. But Percival
must return to him somehow, sometime, and Esme would be shut out, as
her father had been.

She
had nobody,
was
nobody,
only Lord Edenmont's wife. Not even a proper lady. She'd mastered the
rudiments and performed and recited as any schoolboy might recite
Latin. She, too, could recite Cicero and Catullus and the rest. That
didn't make her a Roman.

She
started at the light knock on the door, and her heart hammered
painfully. She could barely choke out the words to bid her husband
enter.

The
door was flung open, revealing the tall, splendidly formed lord who'd
made her his
—
and
nothing but his
...
and Esme burst into tears.

In
an instant, Varian was across the room. Without a word, he scooped
her up and carried her to the bed. He didn't put her down but kept
her cradled in his lap, while Esme clung to him, sobbing helplessly.