Kate Moore (14 page)

16

After the cascade, Lord Warne led his guests to the supper box reserved for them. Susannah allowed herself to laugh at something her brother said. The highwayman, if he was there among the masked revelers around them, could not approach Juliet while they ate the famous wafer-thin ham and drank the punch.

She entered the box after the others, but the arrangement of seats put her directly in Lord Warne’s view. Every moment his gaze seemed to fall on her, and his nearness in spite of a perfectly respectable distance of some seven or eight feet, caused her a different sort of unease. Her brother’s quiet conversation could not keep her from turning at the sound of that other, deeper voice.

For several minutes the talk was of the marvelous cascade and its tribute to the new royal couple. That topic exhausted, Evelina began a discourse on the preparations for Juliet’s ball just days away. Susannah’s gaze collided with Warne’s briefly, and she looked away. Then Ann Trentfield and the Chaworth-Musters strolled by, and Evelina called out to them. Greetings were exchanged, and a place was made for Mrs. Trentfield while her companions sauntered on. Again the wonders of the cascade were remarked until Mrs. Trentfield turned to Susannah.

“But you’ve been to Vauxhall before, haven’t you, Mrs. Bowen?” she asked.

There was a pause. Susannah nodded.

The orchestra began to play dance tunes, and Evelina to complain of the departure in rapid succession of Brummell and Byron. Not even Brentwood’s ponderous responses could stem the flow of her ladyship’s lament.

At that moment Susannah accepted her brother’s invitation to a quadrille. Juliet and Eastham joined them. Susannah was more than glad to leave the confines of the supper box. She could still watch Juliet, and dancing freed some of the unbearable tension of the evening. For a moment she let herself enjoy the lights, the music, the sweetness of the spring air, the freedom to move.

“Is Lord Warne a suitor of Miss Lacy’s?” Henry asked.

“Not really,” Susannah replied, knowing her brother must be suspicious of the marquess’s interest in the Lacys. “He needs Evelina’s connections, I think.”

“I can’t like the way he looks at you, Susannah.”

Susannah missed a step and recovered.

“He’s offered you no insult, has he?”

“Of course not.” Warne did watch her. Her brother’s words confirmed it. And there had been that kiss in the park and the waltz at Almack’s. As a green girl, she had made much of similar attentions, weaving an illusion of a man’s love that had been her ruin. She would not do so again. She shook off thoughts of Warne and glanced around for Juliet. Her cousin and Eastham were just coming down the set, appearing pleased with one another’s company. It was Eastham on whom Susannah now pinned her hopes of a match for her cousin. His person was unremarkable but pleasant, his estate had met Uncle Lacy’s approval, and while passionate about his hunting, Susannah judged him capable of sincere affection. Susannah allowed herself a small smile. The cottage in Wincanton might be hers after all.

She was just looking for Juliet again at the end of the set when Lord Warne appeared before her and solicited her hand. Henry cast her a swift, knowing look, but said nothing to his lordship. With a slight bow he left them. The other dancers began to arrange themselves for a waltz, and Warne cocked an eyebrow, as if daring her to dance with him. She held her ground, gathering her skirt in one hand. He stepped up to her and slipped an arm about her waist, drawing her closer than the dance required and testing her.

“My lord,” she began, and the music started, sending them into the dizzying whirl she remembered. Within a few turns, he spun her to the edge of the crowd, and with an abrupt movement, he drew her away from the others.

“Your cousin is missing,” he said.

***

Kirby said nothing until he had led Juliet where the distant orchestra faded and the night sounds of birds, and leaves, and insects humming filled their ears. He halted beside a stout tree trunk, took off his coat, and wrapped it around her shoulders. They had an hour or more until the bell sounded for the fireworks. Under cover of the noise and excitement of the display, he would return her to his father’s party. He drew the lapels of the coat together below her chin and willed himself not to kiss her right away.

“‘Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy be heaped like mine,’” he began.

“Romeo, again,” she said, meeting his gaze. “Go on.”

“‘And that thy skill be more to blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath this neighbor air.’”

“Oh,” she said, “but you know I have no skill like that. What does she say?”

He told her.

She repeated, “‘But my true love is grown to such excess I cannot sum up half my wealth.’” And he thought he had never heard the line before. He stepped back from her then and shoved his hands in his pockets.

“This has to end you know,” he reminded her.

“What has to end?”

“Our . . . friendship, our meetings.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m about to finish what I came to London to do.”

“And then?” Her voice sounded small.

“I’ll leave. I have a passage to America.”

“America?” She said it as if he had said the moon. “What will you do there?”

“I’ll make my way.”

“But you’re Lord Warne’s son.”

“I will throw off my birth. In America no one has a title.”

“You could not stay here and be an untitled gentleman?”

“No.”

There was a little silence in which a bird, disturbed from its perch, gave a cry and flapped its wings. “Then, we truly must not see one another again.” She took the coat from her shoulders and handed it to him.

“You want to end it now?” He hadn’t expected that. He had calculated on meeting her several more times. He did not take the coat. If he did not reach out and take it, she could not give it.

“I am no foolish, romantic girl. If you do not love me and wish to marry me, then I don’t want to see you again.”

“Marry you?” he burst out. He took a couple of steps back from her, stopped, and then strode right up to her again. “I canna’ marry you. I have nothing. What a pair we’d be!”

“I have a portion,” she said evenly. She was holding the coat folded over her clasped hands.

“Which your father controls,” he pointed out. “He could disown you in an hour.”

“Well, he wouldn’t.”

“Well, I willna’ be dependent on your money. I’ve made my way for three years.” He had told her how he had worked his way to London with a theatre company.

“Well, if you’ve made your way, why can’t I?”

“Ladies don’t.”

“Your mother did.”

He had to admit she had, but at what cost to her pride and his, to see her toil for that petty, stupid woman. He could not bear it if Juliet Lacy, too, were reduced to such circumstances on account of him. “I don’t want that for you.”

She took a deep breath. “Then give up your revenge.”

“What?”

“Go to your father, and tell him who you are. Let him be a father to you.”

“Never.” He could not think of anything else to say. Rage and hurt tied his tongue in knots.

She held out the coat again. “I can find my way back,” she said.

“No. Ask me something else. I’ll do it.” He had raised his voice.

She stepped up to him, took his hand, and folded the coat over it. “I have thought about this. Lord Warne does not know about you. He did not deliberately hurt you. But you know about him. You want to hurt him. I’m not sure that’s right.” Her eyes were solemn. She turned and began to walk away.

“I haven’t even kissed you,” he called after her.

She stopped. “I know,” she answered. “I think it’s best if you don’t.”

“One kiss,” he said. He hated to beg, yet he was begging.

She did not turn but only shook her head.

“I can’t let you go back alone. I’ll walk with you.”

She nodded. He came up to her side and saw that she was shivering. Once more he put the coat over her shoulders. They began to walk in silence. His throat hurt, and it was an effort to speak. The noise of the orchestra grew louder and just beyond them through the trees he could see a lighted path where others moved about.

He put a hand on her shoulder and stopped her. She did not look his way. “I must kiss you,” he said. He moved around in front of her, taking her other shoulder in his hand, but her face remained stubbornly averted. “For good-bye.”

“For good-bye, then,” she agreed. She tilted her face up.

He leaned forward, moving as slowly as he could, savoring the feel of her shoulders under his hands, the scent of her, the mingling of their breaths in the cool air, willing the moment to last, to shake her as much as it was shaking him. Their lips met, and she gave him hers in a kiss of piercing sweetness. Then she pulled back.

“Good-bye,” she said.

***

Susannah glanced quickly at the shifting crowd of dancers, the groups strolling along the edge of the colonnade, the party in their supper box. Juliet was nowhere in sight. Lord Warne was striding rapidly away from the dancing area, and Susannah hurried after him. Over her shoulder she could see Lord Eastham and Henry talking to the Miss Phillipses, and next to Evelina, Ann Trentfield, her sharp gaze restlessly scanning the crowd.

“You didn’t see Juliet go?” Susannah asked Warne.

“No. She told Eastham she was joining you.”

His voice had a sharp edge to it, and her temper flared in response. “This was your doing,” she pointed out. “You wanted her here, where her presence might draw your thief, and yet you did not watch her?”

He was looking about, but at that accusation his gaze came back to her. “I took my eyes off her but for a moment. If we find her before the bell rings for the fireworks, you can easily explain her absence.”

“We? You expect me to search with
you?”

“Yes, Mrs. Bowen. Did you want to invite the others to hunt for your cousin?”

She glared at him. “Look for your thief then, Lord Warne. I will look for my cousin.”

A thin, copper-haired gentleman dashed up to them, and Warne turned to him.

“Bellaby, did you see them?”

“Saw the girl go through the first arch not two minutes ago with a fellow in a black domino,” the gentleman said. He stared at Susannah, giving her an arrested look, as if she were the answer to a puzzling question.

Warne set off for the arch, seizing Susannah’s hand and pulling her after him. “Let’s find
them
, then,” he said.

Beyond the first arch, Bellaby left them, slipping into a band of trees along the lighted walk.

“He lived for five years in Canada, hunting and trapping,” Warne explained. “He’ll pass through the woods to the end of the park, then work his way back to us. We’ll meet somewhere in the middle. We will find them.”

The wide, lighted walk stretched away through three more arches. Along its length couples and groups strolled, their laughter and talk making bursts of gaiety in the night air.

“The thief will take her away from the lights and the crowd, as he did at the Royston ball,” Warne said. They stepped into the darkness under the trees and began to make their way through the woods. Acres of them, Susannah thought.

In silence they picked their way over roots and around bushes, pausing to listen when they came upon voices in the darkness, circling clearings where a statue or a gazebo stood in moonlight. The music faded, the rustlings of leaves and their own swift steps filled Susannah’s ears. There was no sign of Juliet and the highwayman. Other couples talked or embraced or quarreled, but not the pair they sought. She tried to think of Juliet, but the warm joining of her hand with Warne’s filled her mind. In that grip she felt the driving energy of the man. She shivered, and Warne stopped.

“You’re cold,” he whispered, his voice unexpectedly near her ear. His warm breath against her hair made her tremble with a different sensation.

“It’s no matter,” she said.

He released her hand and removed his coat. Then he draped it around her body. The coat was warm, and he took her by the shoulders. She froze at the contact, unable to move. “Thank you,” she said, trying to break the warm, languorous spell of his touch. Juliet was somewhere in the night giving her heart and perhaps her person to a man who could ruin her and leave her with nothing.

Warne’s hands fell away from Susannah’s shoulders. After a charged moment he led the way again. She concentrated on listening. If their eyes could not spy her cousin, their ears would find her.

When they had been wandering in the wood for the better part of an hour, Susannah stumbled and caught herself by clinging to his hand. He stopped instantly. “Are you all right?” he asked over his shoulder.

“Why weren’t you watching her?” she asked. She could not keep the reproach from her voice.

He turned slowly. His hand still gripped hers. A breeze whispered through the trees overhead. “I was watching you.”

She suddenly felt weak. “Me?”

“You,” he said frankly. “Did you mean to distract me? To protect your cousin and her lover from my wrath?”

“Are you mad?” She pulled back, trying to free her hand from his grip. “I am the one that wants a safe marriage for Juliet. You contrived this evening. You made it a trap for your thief, baited with my cousin.”

“Who willingly left the protection of her family for a secret assignation with a highwayman.” His hand stilled hers.

“With the man who stole your calling cards.” She could not keep the disdain from her voice.

“You have no idea what this thief has done,” he said levelly.

“Tell me, then.”

He gave a sharp tug on their joined hands, bringing her up against him. His other arm circled her waist and held her pressed to him. “When you tell me why you would consign your daring young cousin to the likes of Brentwood or Eastham. You would never marry such dullness.”

Susannah twisted her hand in his grip, but could not break his hold. “I would be honored . . . if a man such as Brentwood . . . made me an offer.” She pushed against his chest with her free hand.

“But you wouldn’t take it.”

“How can you say that? You don’t know me.”