The Courteous Cad (21 page)

‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken.’”

“Well recited, brother,” William spoke up, clapping. “But, Olivia, I beg you not to let your indignation be overthrown by Randolph’s display of poetic facility. I assure you that your husband might just as easily have quoted Hamlet’s famous aside: ‘To be, or not to be: that is the question.’ He learned both verses at the feet of our tutor and understands the meaning of neither.”

“All the same,” she replied, awarding Randolph a pretty smile, “I confess I am utterly charmed. You are reading the book I gave you, and you quote sonnets to me from it. William, when you marry Miss Watson, I hope you will be as good and kind to her as my husband is to me. As Shakespeare expressed so well, Randolph and I have endured tempests, but we are not shaken.”

William watched in befuddlement as Olivia sank down onto the settee beside Randolph, nestled against his shoulder, and set a light kiss on his cheek. Randolph, meanwhile, wrapped his arm about his wife’s shoulders and gave his brother the most insolent and victorious smirk in the entirety of their kinship.

Barely holding in a groan of dismay, William stalked out of the room and started up the staircase toward his rooms. He would leave for London at dawn, ride directly to the row of elegant homes on Cranleigh Crescent in Belgravia, present himself at Trenton House, and ask to speak to Miss Prudence Watson. She would not be there, and his suspicions about her would be confirmed.

It was a good plan, one that could not go awry. His only hesitation was its outcome. Did he really want to know that Prudence was playing the role of Polly the bashful wool spinner? that her purpose was to fuel an uprising among the mill workers? that each word she had spoken to him, every kiss, every longing gaze . . . that everything about her was false?

The jolt of the wagon’s wheels crossing a rut in the road startled Prudence from her sleep. With a start, she realized she had been resting her head on Mr. Walker’s shoulder. He had kept the rough wood cart moving toward London all night, but try as she might to stay awake, Prudence had been unable to keep him company.

Streaks of lavender-hued clouds now stretched across the orange sky as the sun crept into view. Trees, dusted with pale green buds and pink blossoms, lined the roadway. Rabbits dotted the new grass that had risen from the ground at the first signs of spring. Hungry and heedless, the small creatures hardly looked up as the wagon rattled by. Overhead, robins, wrens, sparrows, and titmice swooped and chittered as they gathered twigs for their nests or fussed at other birds invading their territory.

“You were tired,” Mr. Walker said as Prudence covered a yawn. “Now you understand the lives of the poor laborers who supply the aristocracy with their luxuries.”

Despite her drowsiness, Prudence bristled. “You forget that I was not born into wealth, nor do I revel in the opulence that my father’s fortune might afford me. Moreover, I worked with Anne to build the lace school in France, and I labored alongside the women as they pinned patterns to lace pillows and wove threaded bobbins among the pins.”

“I had forgotten,” Walker confessed. “The months we were apart brought me a numbing agony. I could not think of you except to imagine you dead. And so I taught myself not to think of you at all.”

“Did you forget me?”

His dark brown eyes met hers. “I could never forget you. Why do you think I left Tiverton? Why did I refuse to stay in London with Ruel? You were there. You were everywhere. I needed to escape you before it was too late.”

At his confession, Prudence’s eyes misted. “After you went away, I thought I would never love again.”

“You were wrong. I see the way Sherbourne looks at you . . . and you at him. It will be a good match between the two of you.”

“There can be no serious attachment between us. You know that as well as I.” She studied a small flock of sheep grazing near the road. “I like your Bettie very much. That is the better match.”

“You approve, then?”

“Do you need my approval?”

“No. But I would welcome it. You are a woman of insight and wisdom. You saw something in me to love, even though I was an old blacksmith with a stolen youth and a bitter heart.”

She shook her head. “You had a broken heart, not a bitter one.”

“It was broken, but you mended it. Your love healed me, Prudence. I will never be able to thank you enough.”

“I want no thanks. My joy will be found in seeing you happily wed. The father of children. The master of a home.”

Walker fell silent for some time, letting the horses amble along the road to tug mouthfuls of grass and startle the rabbits. At last, he spoke.

“Sherbourne’s life will be blessed by you. He is not a bad man . . . nor is he a good man. Instead, he is a lost sheep, and the Good Shepherd has not yet found him.”

Prudence reflected on Walker’s reference to one of Jesus’ many parables. He had told His followers about a shepherd who owned a flock of one hundred sheep. When the shepherd realized that one had gone missing, he left the ninety-nine and searched for the lost lamb until he found it. Jesus had gone on to explain that in the same way, God—whose love for mankind is greater than the mind can understand— pursues those who go astray. Prudence had always liked the thought of a loving shepherd, but she never imagined that the poor lost lamb had gone willfully astray.

“How can William be both good and bad?” she asked the man at her side. “Jesus said we cannot serve two masters. We will love the one and hate the other.”

“Sherbourne serves no master. He is like so many—serving only himself. A man who honors his own desires above all else will one day discover that he is nothing more than bones, skin, flesh—a small worm that has little strength and will soon die.”

“I know what you say is true.” As she spoke, Prudence reflected on her father, a man who had given away his heart in the pursuit of money and power. Was William Sherbourne like that?

“The god of self is powerless and imperfect,” Walker was saying. “He is like a badly forged iron rim on a carriage wheel. When the road is rough, the weak rim snaps, the wheel breaks apart, and the carriage falls to the ground in pieces. Sherbourne makes this discovery now, and this is why he needs you.”

Prudence considered Walker’s words. As always, his wisdom and insight touched her deeply. But in this case, his argument was flawed.

“You speak as if Mr. Sherbourne and I already have formed an attachment,” she pointed out. “I assure you, we are not engaged. A marriage between us would be a disaster from start to finish. I cannot save him, and certainly he can never make me a happy woman.”

Walker chuckled. “Miss Prudence Watson, you know so much about everyone—and so little about yourself. Let me tell you what I have observed. You are happiest when the man you truly love is near. And though I have struggled to understand it, that man is William Sherbourne.”

Twelve

Mary squealed, leapt to her feet, and threw out her arms as her sister stepped into the drawing room at Delacroix House. “Prudence! You are here! You are here at last!”

With equal ardor, she clapped her hands to her cheeks and shrieked at the appearance of her younger sibling. “Good heavens, what has happened to you? You look like a guttersnipe!”

“Pru?” Now Sarah, the eldest of the three sisters, rose from her chair near the fire. “Is it truly you?”

“It is I,” Prudence confirmed, hurrying forward, unable to think beyond the anxieties that plagued her. “I am so glad both of you are here. I remembered only moments ago that today is Friday, and therefore the two of you would be joining Henry for tea. Or at least I hoped that was still your custom.”

“But of course,” replied the man in question. “It has been my delight to host my aunt every Friday since my return from sea several weeks ago. When Mrs. Heathhill returned from the north country, she began to join us as well. And today our joy is made complete by your unexpected arrival.”

Prudence cast a glance at Henry Carlyle, Lord Delacroix. A tall, well-built gentleman with a mop of curly gold hair and the brightest of blue eyes, he stood near the hearth, his expression one of amused surprise.

But there was no time for formal greetings. Prudence caught Mary’s hands. “I speak of Mr. Sherbourne. He is on his way to London even now, sister, and he must not learn that I have been staying in Otley.”

“William Sherbourne sent a message to Delacroix House this morning,” Henry spoke up. “Though I have never met the gentleman, he stated that he wished to confer with me about an urgent matter of some import. He hoped also that I might include in the party my aunt, Mrs. Locke, and her family. As I expected them today for tea, I invited him to join us. We expect him momentarily. Indeed, we believed your knock on the door was his.”

“Mr. Sherbourne is coming here? Momentarily?” Prudence stifled a gasp.

“We hoped that you might be in his company,” Mary said. “Sarah and I were certain the reason Mr. Sherbourne requested to meet the entire family was that the two of you had reached an understanding and were coming to London to give us your happy news.”

“Were we correct in our thinking?” Sarah asked. “Have you become engaged to William Sherbourne?”

“Upon my honor, no!” Agitated, Prudence shook her hands. “Of course not. Do I look like a woman newly engaged?”

“Truthfully, no,” Henry replied.

All three sisters turned to him, their expressions conveying varying degrees of annoyance. But Mary was quick to regain her footing and address her sister again.

“If you did not come to London with Mr. Sherbourne,” she began, “how are you here? How is he here without you— yet both arriving on the same day? And why are you garbed in these . . . these rags? Your fingers, sister! They are turned to leather knobs!”

“I have been working in the mill,” Prudence explained. “In disguise.”

Before her sisters could make further exclamations of shock and horror, she went on. “Mr. Sherbourne knows of neither my masquerade nor my purpose in it. Praying that I might anticipate his arrival, I engaged Mr. Walker to drive me here by horse cart, and I—”

“Horse cart?” Mary cut in. “You came to London on a wagon?”

“Mr. Walker?” Sarah cried. “Mr. Walker of Tiverton? The blacksmith?
He
brought you by horse cart?”

“It is too much to explain,” Prudence said. “If Mr. Sherbourne is expected at any minute, I must—”

“Ahem.”
A footman stepped into the room, a silver tray resting on his open palm. “My lord, a gentleman calls on you, wishing to present his card. He awaits your pleasure in the foyer. May I show him in?”

“Who is it?” Henry asked, reaching for the small white name card lying on the footman’s tray.

“Oh, it must be William!” Prudence wailed, turning to her sisters. “He will see me! I am ruined!”

“Indeed, it is Mr. Sherbourne,” Henry announced as he studied the card. “His family’s crest is very noble.”

“Hang his crest—we must leave the room at once!” Mary grabbed Prudence by the arm and began dragging her to the far end of the drawing room. “Sarah, why do you dawdle? Help me wash our sister and try to restore her appearance to some semblance of normalcy. Dear Henry, do your business with Mr. Sherbourne—and take your time about it!”

“Of course,” the young man replied, the hint of a grin tugging at his mouth. “I am most eager to see the washed version of my dear cousin.”

The three women hurried through a side door, rushed down a corridor, and scampered up a flight of steps to the suite of rooms once inhabited by Sarah and her late first husband. She told her sisters she felt certain she had abandoned several items of clothing there after she wed Charles Locke and moved away.

“Bring us a pitcher of water,” Mary ordered one of three maids who had been summoned along the way. “Warm water, but not too warm, for we must make haste. Go to it at once, I beg you! And you, young lady, what is your name?”

“Eliza, madam. And she is Jane.”

“Eliza, please search the drawers and chests for gloves. Anything will do, for we must cover my sister’s woefully spoiled hands. Jane, if you cannot find slippers, clean her shoes as swiftly as may be.”

“Oh, dear, my memory has failed me!” Sarah’s voice echoed as she peered into an enormous mahogany armoire. “The wardrobe is empty. No, wait—I see a gown near the back. But this is a ball gown. It will never do.”

“Give it to me,” Mary ordered, snatching the filmy blue-green garment from her sister’s hands. “Do something with her hair, Sarah. Have you a comb? Oh, horrors—these sleeves are wildly out of style. Whatever are we to do?”

“William will never notice the sleeves,” Prudence avowed. “He’s not that sort of man. He likes the out-of-doors and riding in the country far more than appraising the fashion of ladies’ dancing gowns.”