Elisabeth Fairchild (21 page)

Chapter Thirty-two

She stepped through the gate that led into Melanie’s garden on Richard’s steady arm, her mother in their wake, and was reminded of another night at another garden, so many nights ago—an evening that had felt to her like a beginning, as much as this evening felt like an end. She had longed to see Pip as much then as she longed, now, to avoid him.

It seemed ironic that she wore the same gown she had worn on that long-ago evening, beneath a red domino. Ironic because, while clothed the same, she felt she was a completely different person than she had been then.

“I hear Lord Wilmington’s cousin has arrived to take possession of his property,” her mother said from behind them.

“Yes.” Richard pointed at a handsome gentleman surrounded by a bevy of women. “Fortesque is his name. A nice enough chap.”

“I shall just go and see if I can manage an introduction,” Lady Ballard said, and abandoned them, fluttering away like a great moth in the growing darkness.

They walked on in silence a moment, Patience moody, trying to imagine what it must be like to be thrust from one’s home, in awe of Melanie that she chose to celebrate so publicly her own ousting.

“What of Melanie?” she asked Richard, hoping he would tell her something of his situation in that regard.

He smiled. “Well, she will soon be making her home elsewhere. Won’t she? Other gardens to tend.”

Pip’s gardens.

Poor Richard.
What a brave face he wore. Sadness and a sense of loss swept through Patience with such intensity she felt like weeping. Pip had never really been in love with her. She had been foolish to dream dreams of him so long without encouragement. She began to believe his latest behavior a last desperate bid for freedom from a confirmed bachelor and womanizer—for that was what he was, and always had been. Like Chase, only not too much like Chase, thank God.

But that Melanie, whom she had come to respect, should discard Richard as she had, that she should change strategy in the last stages of their game of love, with such a dear and deserving fellow, seemed the height of cruelty.

Poor Richard. Poor, dependable Richard.

So lost was she in contemplation of her mounting pity for him that the walk was nothing more than an impression of the sweet scent of flowers, of a myriad of flickering lamps. His question startled her.

“Will you wish them well?” he asked.

Ahead loomed the smell of food, the lilt of laughter, the elegant stirrings of a string quartet.

A game of blindman’s bluff among the temples and ruins in the garden was already afoot. A female guest wearing a red blindfold stumbled past them laughing as she staggered, arms out. A gentleman teased her into following him.

Could she? Would she? It seemed too much to ask.

She asked. “Have you no intention of pursuing her?”

Richard turned his head to watch the young woman with the blindfold. “One must always wish one’s friends lucky in love,” he said. “Shall we make our presence known to our hostess before we engage in any games?”

Games? She was in no mood for games. She noticed he avoided answering her question.

“I wish you lucky in love,” she said as they went on, past a bubbling fountain and into an alcove where tables and chairs had been arranged for the guests to dine.

Richard turned to look at her, lamplight flaring in his eyes, the reflections from the huge punch bowl and a tower of glassware captured in his glance. “Thank you, Patience. Perhaps we shall both be lucky.”

Laughter turned her head, a familiar sound. Melanie held court at one of the tables, and at her side sat an amused Pip, golden hair glinting in the lamplight, cheeks flushed as a cherub’s.

No angel this. She knew all too well the devils that drove him, the unholy desires.

Heat rushed to her cheeks, an unwanted fire quickening in the places he had touched. But she felt no flicker of hope. Only shame, deep and undeniable, and regret that she had not realized sooner that he would never be hers. She steeled herself to meet his gaze, steeled her heart against any last pangs of regret. She must play the hand she had been dealt.

“Here they are!” Melanie rose to greet them with a smile. “We have been waiting for your arrival to make our announcement.”

Pip rose as well, his laughter stilled, his smile fading, a wary watchfulness in his eyes. He feared her reaction, what she might say, his fear for Melanie. She might ruin things for him in a moment, and he knew it. Patience felt power over him far greater than that wielded on a chessboard or in backgammon—a power she did not want.

She forced herself to meet his gaze unblinking, emotions guarded. This was the moment she had been dreading, a moment in which the past hung heavy between them, a moment on which their future—had they any—balanced.

What did she want? What did she really want? To give him pain as he had pained her? To seek revenge?

“I understand congratulations are in order.”

Richard put out his hand. His smile was genuine, the words unforced.

Patience was stunned by his sense of gentlemanly grace in that moment, by the simple beauty and appropriateness of Richard’s unfailing manners.

“Thank you, Richard.” A sudden glitter of tears wet Melanie’s cheek as she leaned forward for his kiss.

Patience marveled anew at his calm, good-natured acceptance of what this woman had done to him—with his best friend as accomplice.

Partners in crime, she considered them, and wondered as Richard shook Pip’s hand and clapped him on the shoulder how one man could be so gracious and giving, another so heartless and grasping.

“Will you wish me happy?” Melanie asked her, a trifle hesitant in the question, her smile a shade too bright.

“One must always wish friends happy in love.”

She parroted Richard’s words.

Hearing them, he turned to smile at her with a sympathetic twist to his lips that kindled in her an answering smile.

Pip turned as well, his expression guarded, as if he had expected rejection from her, as if he believed he deserved nothing less.

“I believe a toast is in order,” Richard said. “Help me fetch the glasses, will you, Pip?”

Pip agreed. Other than a nervous glance in Patience’s direction, he seemed glad to be led away.

“I am so relieved.” Melanie held out her hands to Patience. “I thought . . . Well.” She laughed. “Never mind what I thought.”

Patience allowed herself to be swept into Melanie’s embrace.

“I thought,” Melanie whispered into her hair, “given your feelings for Pip . . .”

Patience jerked back, angry now, unable to resist voicing her feelings now that Pip and Richard were not there to hear. “Pip? Never mind Pip. What about Richard?”

Melanie squinted at her in surprise. “What about Richard?”

Laughter behind them. Patience could think of nothing to laugh about. She lowered her voice.

“How could you hurt him so?”

Melanie stepped back as though she had been struck, looking over her shoulder at the gaggle of guests who made their way through the tables, laughing and talking, teasing the young man who now wore the blindfold, leading him onward with taunts and coaxing.

Melanie leaned forward to ask, as if incensed by the question, “How could I hurt him?”

So puzzled she managed to look, as if she had done nothing wrong, nothing questionable.

Words poured out of Patience. “How could you abandon Richard when he has loved you so long, when he meant to marry you?”

Melanie laughed and shook her head. Leaning close she said, aghast, “Richard was never in love with me. It has always been you.”

Patience stood stunned, disbelief freezing her tongue. And in that confused state she fell prey to the young man in the blindfold. He bumped into her quite by accident. And having first begged her pardon, he then cried, as if amazed, “You’re it! I cannot tell you how happy I am to have happened to bump into you. I thought I’d never touch anyone!”

“Should not have touched Patience, lad. She does not play that sort of game.”

It was Pip who spoke, his tone apologetic. He had returned in that instant with drinks, Richard at his heels.

“I am not playing,” Patience protested weakly, overcome by what Melanie had said, not ready to believe it, not ready for Pip’s attempted apology. She had eyes for no one but Richard.

“Oh, but you must play blind man,” the young man whined. “I shall just tie it on, shall I?” He held the red scarf before her eyes.

“Come. Come, Patience.” Richard set aside the drinks he carried to assist the young man who would blindfold her. “It’s just a game.”

She said nothing to stop him when he pressed the red scarf to her eyes with hands that shook ever so slightly, when he tied it tight against her head with much care for her curls.

She allowed him to turn her in place three times, until she was dizzy with the turning, and completely disoriented. The hands at her shoulders seemed those of a stranger.

She stood, head whirling, her world spinning, the ground unsteady beneath her feet. She put out her hands to steady herself, to reach for something, anything to stop the world from spinning, the world that seemed determined to turn upside down.

Richard loved her! Could it be true?
“It has always been you.
” So completely sure of herself Melanie had sounded. So startled by Patience’s assumption that he had been in love with her.

She could not help it. She let slip a few hot tears, the silk catching the moisture, the cloth hiding her eyes, hiding her face as the possibility that this was true welled within her.

Her whole world was already spinning; she did not wish to stumble about making a fool of herself in a blindfold. What she wanted was to run away somewhere and hide, and weep until she could weep no more.

The hands that had spun her fell away. Head still reeling, she stood a moment, unsteady, trying to understand her own folly.

How could she have so completely misunderstood? How could she have supposed Pip’s interest turned to her when all along it had been Melanie he loved?

“Patience,” came a whispered voice, Pip’s voice, and then Pip’s stifled laugh.

They expected her to play, did not realize she had been playing all along, stumbling about in the darkness of self-deception, blindfold on, unable to see the truths right before her eyes.

“Patience. You cannot just stand there.” Melanie’s coaxing. Her party. She did not want the games to fail to entertain her guests.

How entertained had she been, Patience wondered, to know that silly little Patience vied for Pip’s attentions as much as she did—had—from the very start? She had had him under her thumb before Patience had ever arrived in London. She could see, looking back.

“She looks like someone in that mask,” Pip said quietly from somewhere to her right. “I cannot quite place . . .”

“The lady in red?” Melanie suggested. “The one who bested you at chess?”

“But that was you,” Pip said.

Patience laughed at that, a little hysterically, the scarf puffing out away from her mouth.

“Not me,” Melanie said with a laugh. “Whatever gave you such a nonsensical idea?”

“Does she mean to stand there all evening?” the young man who had once worn the blindfold said from somewhere behind her.

Patience thought about the night in Vauxhall Gardens, of Richard leading her to Pip, knowing he might lose her. What courage that had taken. She thought about his generosity in spending money he could ill afford on food and wine, on cake she had not eaten. She thought about the way he had chased after her, into the dark wilderness of the trees, ready to save her from harm. Blind. She had been blind.

She thought of Chase, and Pip’s castoff cockatoo, and the boy, Toby. Richard loved the unloved, even when they did not acknowledge or appreciate his love—as she had not appreciated it. She thought about tearing the blindfold from her eyes, of running away, deep into the park, beneath the trees. She would fall down in the grass and bemoan her stupidity.

Before she could follow through with the idea his voice turned her head.

“Patience.”

Richard. Dear Richard.
She turned toward him—the only one among them she wanted to face in this moment. She took a step, held out her hands, suddenly afraid of falling, bewildered by the darkness.

“Patience.” Richard again, directly ahead of her, exactly where she had heard his voice before.

She took another step.

“You are supposed to try to get away, my lord,” the young man said.

Richard’s reply was quiet, but very sure. “You play the game your way; I will play the game mine.”

“Oh, ho!” Melanie murmured.

She took another step, another, and then she could hear footsteps in the grass, moving toward her, not away. The scent of him engulfed her, cedar and lime. Richard, dear Richard, always there when she needed him, always looking out for her. Her waving hands found purchase on his sleeve, gripped the arm that had so often been her support.

“And so I am caught,” he said.

Chapter Thirty-three

“He is in love with you, you know.” Melanie’s voice in her memory. She had said as much the last afternoon Patience had come to this garden.

Richard. All along it had been Richard. How long had he harbored feelings for her? How long had she been blind to them?

Melanie had tried to tell her as Pip and Richard stood throwing stones. “Pip said he had yet to tell you—said he had been afraid to tell you these many years.” Not Pip who was afraid, but Richard.

What a fool she had been. A blind fool. She tightened her grip on his arm with one hand, with the other wrenched the blindfold from her eyes.

The expression on his face touched her heart, the concern in ageless agate eyes.

“Are you all right, my dear?” he asked and, arms encircling her head, reached to untie the blindfold, hands gentle in her hair, his eyes as gentle in their loving regard. “It is tangled.”

He loved her. How clearly it was writ upon his face.

“I have been blind,” she said, safe in the haven of his arms, trying to catch his eyes, but his hand, his gaze, were fixed upon her head, tugging at the knot. Another moment and he would step away, and she did not want him to.

They were watched. They were listened to, but it did not matter.

“I have been so very blind,” she repeated.

“That is the point of the game,” the lad who had foisted this stupid blindfold on her said with a laugh.

She paid him no mind, all her attention on Richard, dear Richard, dependable Richard, whom she saw as if for the first time—his face gilded by lamplight—his dear, beautiful face.

“How long have I been so afflicted?” she whispered, regret in her voice, regret paining her heart.

Something changed in his eyes, a spark of light and warmth and . . . was it hope blooming? His hands fell still. His breath—did it catch in his throat?

“Methinks we tarry here too long,” Melanie said softly.

“This game is best left to two players,” Pip agreed.

She saw them only peripherally, and did not turn to watch them go. Her gaze was fixed on the pensive set of Richard’s mouth, the uncertainty in his eyes.

He busied himself with the knot in her hair again, whispered to her curls, “Since we were children, Patience. I have loved you since we were children.”

She lifted her chin that she might see the wonderful truth of it shining in his eyes. “Oh!” she whispered, her voice very small. “Really? All this time, and you said nothing?”

How close to the vest he played his cards, she thought.

He clasped tight her hand, and whispered, “You were in love with my best friend—I had no right to speak, and little to offer.”

She laughed as she wept and, tilting her chin higher, standing on tiptoe, kissed his chin. The kiss was infinitely gentle, warm, and salty.

“Little to offer”—she gave a watery chuckle—“other than your constant, beloved companionship, sound advice, and deepest friendship.”

“These you were ready to accept of me.” His voice was wistful. “I wanted more. I longed for your passion.” The scarf fell away, his hands as well. “I know you have always considered me a friend.”

He pulled the scarf through his fingers like a magician.

“Yes,” she said, her voice weak. Too weak. Her best friend. She could not imagine life without him.

He bowed his head, clumped the scarf in a ball.

“I have always clung to the belief . . . that your fondness for me . . . might deepen.”

She leaned closer as his voice dropped, catching one end of the scarf, tugging it from his hold.

He took a deep breath, chin set, lips thinned, consternation weighing heavy in his gaze. “That you might . . .”

She slipped the scarf around his neck.

“. . . at last, come to lo—”

She did not allow him to finish. She simply stood on tiptoe, drew him closer, and kissed him on the tip of his nose.

He stood frozen a moment.

She leaned back and looked him in the eyes, and murmured fondly, “Dear Richard. You have been so very patient with your Patience.”

He shook his head and stepped back. “No more word games, my dear.”

“Oh, but you must, Richard,” she insisted, her cry heartfelt.

He sighed, holding up his hands. “Patience. Do not play with me.” He opened his mouth as if to say something more, and then, with a shake of his head, walked away, fists knotted in the small of his back.

“But . . .” She ran to stand in front of him, breath coming fast, her pulse racing. “You are the soul of Patience. You cannot give up so easily.”

He looked at her in disbelief, and said nothing for so long that tears sprang to her eyes, and she whispered, “Please, Richard.”

So still he stood, so dark the pucker of winged brows.

“Speak plainly with me, Patience.”

“I have. I do.”

“Do you mean it?” His voice was faint. “No game, this?”

She stood on tiptoe then to kiss him on the lips—a sweet kiss, a tender kiss—while he remained frozen, resistant to her, until with an unexpected moan he swept her into his arms and crushed her to him, and endowed their second kiss with all the love this patient man had kept bound within himself over a lifetime’s worth of waiting for her to notice him.

It was a kiss that left Patience breathless, weak in the knees—a kiss that stirred within her an unexpected wave of passion, which prompted her to kiss him again and again with such fervor that at last he held her at arm’s length and looked into her eyes, and said, “Who are you?”

She laughed. “Impatience.”

He threw back his head to loose a heartfelt laugh before he bent his head to dizzy her again with the impatient passion of his kisses.