A Reckless Desire (6 page)

“You're keeping me from my dinner, Lucia,” he said, waving his hand impatiently to show he wished her to move aside. “I don't intend to stop here more than an hour, only long enough to change horses and dine, and you've already squandered a good ten minutes of that time before we've even left the carriage.”

Mortified, she hopped down from the carriage and ducked to one side of the tall footman holding the door while his lordship quickly stepped from the carriage after her.

They were in the yard of a country inn, with all around them a noisy, confusing muddle of other travelers and their carriages and horses, as well as servants and stable boys from the inn itself. Lord Rivers's spotted dog was dancing about two other dogs, their tails wagging furiously as they barked and bounced back and forth under the carriage's wheels. Clearly the Fitzroy crest on the carriage door was the most impressive in the yard that afternoon, for the innkeeper himself was standing before them, beaming with his hands clasped over his green apron.

His lordship stopped before the innkeeper, giving the man only a moment to bow before he addressed him.

“Good day to you, Hollins,” he said, or rather announced, as his voice boomed heartily across the yard. “I trust your good wife is well?”

“Very well, my lord,” the innkeeper declared, “and already in the kitchen overseeing your dinner, just as you like. The same fare as you always order, my lord, with the same table in the back parlor set and ready for your pleasure.”

His lordship laughed, and clapped the innkeeper on the shoulder. Whatever testiness he'd felt with Lucia seemed to have been forgotten, and had passed clear away.

“Add a tankard of your excellent ale, Hollins,” he said, “and I shall be a happy man indeed,” he declared.

He whistled for Spot to join him, and went striding off toward the inn's door with the keeper bobbing along at his side.

Still standing to one side of the footman, Lucia watched Lord Rivers go. She'd a fleeting image of him that became instantly frozen in her memory, of his broad shoulders in the dark blue coat, framed by the inn's doorway, the length and confidence of his stride in his polished black boots, how the skirts of his coat flapped around his legs and how the afternoon sun gilded his blond queue, tied with a black ribbon.

Then he was gone, and she was left with the much more pressing question of what she herself was supposed to do next. She'd been abandoned for now, that was clear enough, and she felt both irritated and a little wounded by it. She'd ridden in his carriage with him almost as an equal—which of course she wasn't—but then he'd scolded her as if she remained a servant, which she wasn't, either, or at least not his servant. As a woman, she couldn't very well remain with the carriage while the horses were changed by the stable boys, nor could she stand by herself about here in the yard and wait for his lordship to return.

What she wished most was to eat. Lord Rivers's insistence on his own dinner had served to remind her that she'd had only a cup of watery tea and a slice of buttered bread early this morning and nothing since, and as if to remind her further, her empty stomach rumbled loudly.

“You can dine with us, miss,” the tall footman said beside her as if reading her thoughts. “Won't be as fancy as the fare in the back parlor, but his lordship always sees that his people are well looked after, and you won't go hungry.”

She flushed, sure that he must have heard her rumbling stomach. She didn't want to be pitied, but sometimes it was better to be practical than proud.

“I'm not sure I
am
one of his people,” she said. “At least not to eat.”

“Fah, of course you are, miss,” the footman said. “You wouldn't be here in this place if you weren't, would you?”

She couldn't argue with that. She wasn't sure where she'd be, but it definitely wouldn't be here.

“Thank you, yes,” she said, grateful. “I'd like that. And you needn't call me ‘miss.'
Lucia
serves me well enough.”

The footman nodded. “I'm Tom Walker, and this is Ned Johnston,” he said, cocking his head toward the other footman. “Stay with us, and we'll watch after you. But we'd best hurry if we want to eat. His lordship keeps powerfully strict hours.”

Slowly she nodded in agreement, remembering how his lordship's watch seemed to pop from his waistcoat with ridiculous frequency.

“Come with us, lass,” Walker urged again. “We can't very well leave you here with those rascals from the stable.”

He wasn't handsome like his master, but his plain face had a kind smile, and right now to Lucia that seemed of much greater value than all the world's gold watches and their titled owners. With a sigh of relief (or perhaps resignation) she fell in with the footmen, following them through the inn's second door, to the parlor meant for servants and other lesser folk. At least here she'd know her place, which was more—
much
more—than she'd have in the company of Lord Rivers Fitzroy.

There was a set pattern of things that Rivers always did whenever he stopped at the Red Hart Inn on his way to the Lodge. He would solemnly taste and judge the latest batch of ale that Mr. Hollins brought him, and offer an opinion that he suspected was repeated over and over throughout the county. Then Mrs. Hollins would appear with the first plate of her excellent ham with leeks, which he would praise as it deserved. Next a younger Hollins child would be brought and pushed toward him to sing a warbly song in his manner, which Rivers would also praise, and which it usually did not deserve. Only then would he be left alone with his dinner and his book in the little private parlor.

But today when he was left alone, he abruptly realized that he shouldn't be, and called again for Hollins to join him.

“There was a young woman accompanying me today,” he said, feeling both mystified that Lucia was missing and a little careless that he'd only now noticed her absence. “She was to dine with me.”

“Yes, my lord,” Hollins said. “The small dark lass with the straw hat?”

“That's the one,” Rivers said, relieved. “If she's out there in the hall, pray show her in here.”

Hollins screwed up his mouth, clearly unhappy to be unable to oblige. “She's not in the hall, my lord. She's dining with your other servants, in the long room off the kitchen.”

“She is?” Rivers paused, his fork in the air with surprise. He thought he'd made it clear that he wished her to dine with him, both here and during her stay at the Lodge. “With the servants?”

“Yes, my lord,” Hollins said. “Shall I fetch her here?”

Rivers considered, his fork still poised in the air with the ham steaming faintly before him. Although Lucia had said she'd memorized the passage as he'd asked, he'd seen her sleep so long that he suspected her claim wasn't true. It couldn't be. No doubt she'd chosen to eat with his footmen to avoid having to confess the truth about the passage.

He was sorry she'd made that choice, and sorry that she'd felt it necessary to avoid him, but in a way he didn't blame her. She'd clearly been exhausted when she'd joined him, and then he'd expected too much of her so soon. Besides, if the other Di Rossis he knew were any indication, swearing to untruths to save their skins was as natural as breathing. Of course he must deal with that, but not now.

“No, Hollins, that will not be necessary,” he said. “Let her dine where she pleases.”

At last he brought the forkful of stew to his mouth, striving to show that Lucia's choice was inconsequential to him. With great deliberation, he once again opened the French philosopher's book that he'd brought with him from the carriage. He smoothed the pages open with the heel of his hand and rested a clean pewter spoon across the top to hold them open while he ate. As a bachelor, this was often how he dined at home, alone with a book, and perfectly happy that way, too.

But this evening he wasn't happy, and the book that should have provided ideal company failed again to hold his interest. Instead his thoughts kept wandering to the Red Hart's long room off the kitchen, a place where he'd never been, nor had ever considered.

He imagined long tables with benches, with the diners sitting close-packed together. There would be much laughter and jesting and shouting over one another, the way it always was among servants, and not a word about any French philosophers. He pictured Lucia sitting squeezed between his two tallest footmen, Walker and Johnston, with her looking almost dainty between them in their elegant livery coats. Or maybe they'd shed their coats to preserve them while they ate, so she'd look even smaller, a tiny figure in dark blue against the white linen of their shirtsleeves. He wondered if they'd made her laugh, and then she'd laugh, too, her cheeks rosy and her eyes bright and—

“Mrs. Hollins has just taken an apple pie from the oven, my lord,” Hollins said, his round face appearing at the door. “With a wedge of fine cheddar, there's few things more tasty.”

“Thank you, no, Hollins, I believe I am done.” Rivers rose abruptly and stuffed the book into the pocket of his greatcoat. “Pray send word to my driver that I wish to depart.”

The word was swiftly sent, and by the time he'd returned to the yard, his carriage was waiting with his footmen at the ready. Walker opened the carriage door, revealing that it was empty, with no sign of Lucia except for that wretched box of hers. Rivers frowned, glancing about the yard for her. She couldn't dare be late again, could she?

Then he looked up, and there she was, sitting on the bench between his driver and Rooke.

“Please, Lucia,” he said. He told himself he wasn't begging; he was simply being patiently agreeable. “Come down at once. I wish you to ride inside with me.”

Her eyes widened. “Very well, my lord,” she said, and as she gathered her skirts in one hand to climb down both his footmen rushed to help her. Rivers whistled for Spot, who had wandered off during the delay, and at last they were all in the carriage again and on their way.

At last:
that, he thought, seemed to be the best way to describe this entire day.

She was sitting squarely in the middle of the seat across from him, her back straight, her hands clasped, and her expression a little wary. That was wise. She should be wary after what she'd just done to him at the Red Hart.

He took a deep breath to compose himself.

“Lucia,” he said. “It would appear that we have certain matters to discuss between us.”

“We do indeed, my lord,” she said with startling indignation. “Yes, we do have our agreement and the wager and all, but there's many other things that need saying now, else I
will
be going back to London and that wager of yours is over and done.”

“ ‘Things'?” he repeated, taken aback. “I would say there are things. You didn't follow my wishes at the Red Hart, but went off with my servants. Then you virtually scolded me before the entire inn yard, pretending that I'd somehow wronged you.”

“Which you
did,
my lord,” she said vehemently. “You woke me to call me a liar, and then swept me away so I wouldn't keep you from your dinner. What was I supposed to make of that?”

He frowned. He was not accustomed to being addressed with such…such
directness.

“I woke you because we had stopped,” he said. “I expected you to join me when I dined, as I had specifically requested earlier. Nor did I accuse you of lying. You maintained that you had learned the passage, whilst I had observed you sleeping instead. I chose not to believe you. That is not the same thing.”

“It amounts to the same thing by my lights, my lord!” she exclaimed. “Why would I have claimed to have learned your lesson if I hadn't? What would I have gained by lying?”

“Perhaps you were uneasy about having to make such an admission,” he said, growing a bit uneasy himself. “Perhaps it was easier to, ah, exaggerate.”

“Bah!” she said with determination. “I'll show you how I exaggerate, my lord.”

She leaned back against the squabs with her palms pressed down flat on the cushions, one either side of her, and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath, and in a loud, singsong voice, she recited the twelve lines he'd given her.

O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!

The Courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword,

Th' expectancy and rose of the fair state,

The glass of fashion and the mould of form,

Th' observ'd of all observers, quite, quite down!

And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,

That suck'd the honey of his music vows,

Now see that noble and most sovereign reason

Like sweet bells jangled out of tune and harsh,

That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth

Blasted with ecstasy. O, woe is me

T'have seen what I have seen, see what I see.

Cautiously she opened her eyes, unsure of what his reaction would be.

Speechless, Rivers stared at her, stunned by what he'd just heard. She'd learned every word of the passage, exactly as she'd said she had, and without a single error, too. True, there was much about her recitation that would require work. It was perhaps the strangest reading of Shakespeare that he'd ever heard, turning the golden words into a kind of droning street vendor's cry—or worse, into the very twin of the dreadful Madame Adelaide—but he'd take it. He'd take it, but he'd something else to do first.

He needed to apologize.

He swept his hat from his head and held it to one side, and bowed his head.

“Madam, you have my heartfelt apology,” he said solemnly. “I didn't believe you, even as you professed the truth. You did indeed do as I asked, without error.”

Her cheeks grew red, and she ducked her chin, unable to meet his eye. “You shouldn't say that, my lord, not to me.”

He settled his hat back on his head. “Why not, when it was true? I was wrong.”

“Because of who you are, my lord, and who I am,” she said, her hands twisting restlessly together in her lap. “It's not right. I did what you told me to do. It was no great task, either.”

“But it was,” he insisted. “I was in the wrong, and I'm not above admitting it. Most people have the devil of a time memorizing much of anything, let alone Shakespeare. Yet you did it with apparent ease. That's a necessary gift for an aspiring actress.”

She looked up at him uncertainly, her chin still lowered. “You do believe that is so? That I have a gift?”

“I do,” he said, and he would have said it even if her thick dark lashes weren't fluttering over her cheeks. They were very beguiling, those lashes, especially in the dusk of early evening, and because of them he let his compliment stand as it was, without the qualifications that would make it more honest. There would be time enough tomorrow for a true critique. “It will without doubt make my—our—task far easier.”

“Oh, I am
glad,
” she said fervently. “You cannot know how I feared you'd changed your mind, my lord, that you'd wanted no more of me, that I'd somehow made you unhappy and that you'd leave me behind, there at that inn.”

“I wouldn't do that,” he said, appalled that she'd think so low of him. “What made you think such a thing?”

“What else
was
I to think, my lord, when you spoke to me all stern as you did?” she asked, spreading her fingers open over her lap. “My life with the company was not so fine, my lord, but it was what I had, and I gave it up for what you offered me. With you I had a chance to better myself, but if you're going to take that chance back from me, well, then, I wish to know now, so I can make other plans for myself.”

Rivers made a noncommittal grunt. She'd spoken so plainly that it stung Rivers's conscience, and perhaps his pride as well. He knew he must answer her just as plainly, or both conscience and pride would give him no peace tonight.

“You're a direct little creature, aren't you?” he said at last. “What manner of assurance do you wish from me? Must I ask a solicitor to draw up papers for signature? Would that be enough?”

He wasn't entirely jesting. She, however, wasn't jesting at all, and she frowned thoughtfully.

“Like some sort of apprenticeship papers, my lord?” she asked. “Binding me to you, but making you promise to look after me?”

He grimaced, deeply regretting having begun this particular line of conversation. “Somehow I doubt any respectable court would agree to that,” he said. “Besides, they'd question why my word as a gentleman wasn't sufficient assurance for you.”

“Forgive me, my lord,” she said solemnly, “but your word as a gentleman won't hold much water considering I'm not a lady.”

He grunted again.
“Touché,”
he said. “Not only is your memory exceptional, but your argument as well.”