Amy Lake (10 page)

“Don’t be upset, Reggie,” said Cassandra.  “Father means well.  He says that the man is rich as Croesus, and will offer a good price.” 

I sighed.  “I’m not upset, I assure you,” I told Miss Barre.  In fact, this was some of the best news I’d had in a twelvemonth.  With Three Stags sold—  “It would be a relief to see Freddie spend less on brandy.”

“So I thought.  Should I tell Sir Reginald to approach your father?”  She hesitated.  “They don’t quite get on.”

As I well knew.  “No,” I decided.  “But I will mention it myself.”

* * * *

After tea I prepared to leave.  I had originally insisted that Cassandra accompany me back to Roselay, but after careful discussion we decided not.

“Best to see him on your own,” said Miss Barre.  “I rather imagine the countess will ensure you have the opportunity.”

“No doubt.  What shall I say?”

“Something adventurous.”

Chapter 13:  The Rose Garden

Lud, but the man was handsome.

That was all I could think of when Lord Davies entered the room.  The viscount was dressed as seemed usual for him, in unadorned black, with a cravat tied as simply as possible.  All the other knots I was familiar with—the Mathematical, the Trone d’ Amour or even, heaven help us, the Osbaldeston—seemed fussy and overdone in comparison.

His mother accompanied him but not, on this occasion, his sisters, and I wondered what excuse the countess would find to send us off alone.  There were no other old portraits of family members to consider.

But ’twas the dowager viscountess who addressed me first.

“Lady Regina, you look lovely,” she said.

Possibly true, I thought, sparing a sideways glance for the countess.  At least I am not in pink.

The tea was sent for and we all chatted for a few minutes.  The weather was uncommonly fine, the news from the Continent satisfactory, but the situation with Miss Montvale and Lord Peter Wilmott—

“Mother,” said Lord Davies, in a warning tone.

—at any rate, one supposes that one must wait and see.

The prescribed twenty minutes was nearly over when Lady Davies turned again my direction.

“Lady Regina, we understand that Roselay has a prettyish garden to the west.  My son takes such interest in these things—for the estate, you know,” she added, turning to the countess.  “He has mentioned several times that he so wishes to see how you have managed in the London air.” I did not need to look at the viscount to know this was a fiction.  I could almost feel his posture stiffen from where I sat, at the opposite end of the divan.

“I wonder if you might be so kind—”  The viscountess hesitated and did not finish the sentence.  I think the tension between myself and Lord Davies was becoming manifest even to her.

Although not, of course, to my mother.

“Oh, what a fine idea!” exclaimed the countess, all smiles and good feeling.  “Regina, be a darling and show Lord Davies the park.”

* * * *

And so it was the Viscount of Cardingham and I once again found ourselves isolated, able to talk, to have a private exchange, all under the aegis of our mothers.  The Roselay gardens are, I must admit, quite fine.  We walked in silence for several minutes, my hand tucked under his arm, where my fingers could detect the smallest twitch of muscle under the fine wool.  The constant din of town is muted at the back of the house, and the plantings arranged so that it is almost possible to believe one is in a much larger park.  The fragrance of rose—the house is renowned for them, of course— was everywhere.

’Twas impossible to discuss what I most wanted to know.  ’Twas impossible to say—

Has this all been playacting?  

Even the kiss?

From the tension I felt in him, Lord Davies was having no easier time.

“What is all this about the ‘London air’?” I finally asked, remembering the viscountess’s strange remark.  I was grateful for a neutral topic, and genuinely curious.

He laughed a bit.  “’Tis a Cornwall supposition, which my mother has found amusing to adopt,” he said.  “The atmosphere in town is said to be consumed, as it were, by all the people, and unhealthy for plants.”

I had never heard this, and said so.  “Do Cornwall folk believe we live without a single flower or bush?”

“They exist, it is thought, but in a small and struggling form.”

Small and struggling, I thought.  Somewhat like me.

“I am the first to admit that London is not the cleanest of places,” I told him, “but—”

He nodded at the evidence of robust greenery all around us.  Roses bloomed in every possible colour, accompanied by drifts of daffodil, with woodbine draped from the tracery of a wrought iron framework.  The whole was hedged in with glossy box.

“Yes, evidence seems to indicate that all is well,” said Lord Davies.

“’Tis my favorite part of Roselay,” I said.

“Carys would love this,” said the viscount. 

“She is most welcome to visit,” I replied.  It was perhaps pushing the matter to assume a friendship with the gentleman’s sister, but ’twas also mere kindness; no matter what my father thinks, one cannot be on guard for one’s consequence at every moment of the day.

He smiled.  “She would be a severe trial to you, I think,” he said, “as she would wish to know the name of each flower.”

“On that score she has luck.  I know them.”

Lord Davies was surprised.

“Our gardener was talkative,” I explained, “and I spent half my childhood in hiding from my parents, as I suppose we all do.”  I glanced up at him, and saw that his expression was shuttered.  “But perhaps I should not have spoken for everyone.”

His face cleared at once, but I felt some hesitation in it, some effort.  “No, you have the right of it.  My own preference was the attic.”

“Of course,” I said.  “A child’s paradise.”  I had spent time in Roselay’s own, when I could manage to avoid the governess.  The odd bits of iron and wood, trunks full of ancient gowns and hats— 

“Yes.”

“’Twas unfortunate I had no sisters,” I told him.  “We could have spent months in the eighteenth century.”

Lord Davies looked a bit confused.

“My mother never throws out a gown.”

“Ah.”  He was silent for a moment, then added, “I found an old sword, once.”

“Goodness.”

“I spent hours shining it and re-working the scabbard.”

“And then you were . . . a guardsman, perhaps?  Or a knight?”

He looked a bit sheepish.  “A pirate.”

“Excellent.”

“Isolde and Carys were supposed to be captaining the other ships, but they refused to give in without a fight, and when my mother saw us—”

“That was the end of the sword.”

“Quite so.”

We had reached the end of one path, and turned—on my part, unwillingly—back toward the house.  The viscount’s manner had been more reserved than I had expected, but he was surely beginning to warm, and I had nearly forgotten why I was supposed to be angry with him.  The scent of roses was intoxicating, perhaps.  What other excuse was there?
  “Is Isolde enjoying town life?”  I attempted.

“More than anyone, I believe.”

I laughed.  “Perhaps not more than Lady Helen.”

He glanced at me.  “Lady Helen Wilmott?  Lord Peter’s sister?”

“The very one.”  I think I blushed, remembering that he was friends with Lord Peter, or at least knew him well.  Had I said anything too revealing in front of Lady Helen? 

No, but I was anxious to change the subject.  “Finding a suitable match would be difficult for your sisters, I imagine, in Cornwall,” I blurted—there is no other word for it.

“True enough.  Although Isolde would tell you she has no interest in marriage.”

“Many young ladies say the similar,” I said, “but change their minds as they reach twenty.”

“One hopes.  The twins are but seventeen.”

Cassandra and I had guessed about that age.  “There is plenty of time, then.”

This comment, to which I had given little thought, sparked a flash in his lordship’s eyes.  “Not according to my mother.”

“Ah.”

And then he said something extraordinary, something no gentleman ever said to a young lady.

“You are of an age to be wishing for a husband, though, as I imagine.”

I raised my eyes to his face, startled into an open look.  What he said was the truth, and ’twould be a foolish woman who denied it.  We had no other choice but to marry, and one’s reputation suffered if the event was delayed too much past, say, twenty.

But to speak so plainly—

Was this his lordship’s way of broaching a marriage between us?  If so, ’twas badly done, I decided.  As if my choices were so limited that I would welcome any advance.  In Cassandra’s rosebud sarcenet, with a few tendrils of hair framing my face to good effect, I felt keenly the injustice of his poor regard.

I put on the calmest expression I could manage and turned away.  “I suppose so,” I replied evenly.  “Do come look at these damask roses.  Their fragrance is extraordinary.”

“Lady Regina,” said Lord Davies, not moving.

It was only then that I realized his own annoyance, having been led astray by my own.

The viscount, angry with me?  I’d done nothing, I was not the one pretending interest to secure a sister’s marriage—

For a moment I had the oddest sensation, ’twas as if we stared into each other’s soul.  Odd and alarming; I stepped backwards with a sudden movement and nearly tripped.  The viscount caught my arm and kept me upright, but his expression was as harsh as I had ever seen it.

“What do you want from me?” said Lord Davies, as rude and unpromising a question as I ever heard.

I was stung into an intemperate reply.  “I want nothing from your lordship, I assure you.”

“Your brother—”

“My
brother
?  What has my brother to do with anything?  And what right—”   

And then he was kissing me, his mouth on mine, but ’twas less about fondness or affection and more a declaration of war.  I began to struggle, but his lordship’s arm around my waist was iron and his other hand held the back of my head so that I could not even turn away.

And then I stopped struggling.  Because nothing was like that kiss, and I had my own weaponry.

We continued for some minutes and, in looking back, I believe things might have progressed to a point neither of us could have stepped away from, if the dowager viscountess’s voice—coming from a point blessedly out of view—had not interrupted.

“Talfryn?  Lady Regina?”

We broke off with a start.  I was gasping for breath and the viscount seemed in little better condition.  He straightened his cravat as I smoothed the folds of the sarcenet, neither of us meeting the other’s gaze.  I hoped my coiffure was not in too great a disarray; I could feel a hairpin or two coming loose.

“My lady?” said Lord Davies, holding out his arm.

I tucked my fingers under the arm, and we returned to the house without further word.

Chapter 14:  The Viscount Wavers

Damn the chit.

Damn his own thoughts, which returned over and over to their kiss in the rose garden.  And nearly more than a kiss; Talfryn knew good and well that he had passed the boundaries of self-control on that occasion.  He had been searching for—had every intention of finding and unfastening—the buttons at the back of Lady Regina’s dress when the viscountess had called fair warning.

And a warning it was, no doubt.  For as much as his mother wanted the connection between their family and the Earl of Aveline, she knew better than to force the issue with Lord Davies.

The viscount did not like to be pushed any more than did his sister Isolde.  Not by his mother, and not by Lady Regina Knowles.  In Talfryn’s mind—which was rather in a tangle by the memory of the young woman’s lips against his own—there was suspicion on this latter point.

He wanted nothing more than to propose marriage to Lady Regina, and to have her at his side for the rest of his days.  But they had now engaged in two highly improper kisses, the most recent of which had bordered on the scandalous, and Lord Davies was not so sure of his own charms that he did not wonder—why?

Why would a young woman of good breeding and sense throw herself at his feet?  The suggestions made at White’s still rankled; he turned them over and over in his head.  Lady Regina’s brother wished to marry the daughter of the Duke of Wenrich.  The duke was in dun territory, and was having none of Lord Wilfred’s suit.  The Knowles’s fortune was not in quite so reduced as that of his grace, but the family would certainly benefit from association with a young man of substantial wealth—

At his side.  And in his bed.

Gods.

Did she really find him so attractive?  Or was her interest piqued by something considerably less romantic?

The Viscount of Cardingham, for all that he had discovered of Lady Regina, did not yet know her at all.

Chapter 15: What do Gentlemen Want?

Miss Barre was nearly agog. 

“And
then
what?” she asked, her eyes wide. 

We were sitting in the music room at Roselay once again.  I had played Mozart sonatas for hours that morning, trying to calm myself.  Without much success, I should add.

“I think he was attempting to undo the buttons of my gown.  Well, of your gown, actually.”

I did not add that he had succeeded with the top button, a condition I did not discover until I had returned to my bedroom.  If either the countess or Lady Davies had noticed this, they made no mention.

Although, really, what could one say? 

Regina, darling, I believe you are half out of your dress.

’Twas only one button, I reminded myself.

“Oh!” said Cassie.  “How marvelous!”

I wasn’t so sure.  “He seemed almost . . . angry,” I told her.

“Good heavens, why?”

“I have no idea.”

And yet, I did.  What if—I had told myself, in the sleepless hours of the previous night—what if he was being pressured by his family to show interest in me, and marry me, only he really had taken me in dislike?  Wouldn’t that be enough to make anyone angry?