The Indian Maiden (27 page)

“My lord,” she said very clearly then, great distress banishing easy tears, “I’m leaving. Going home, yes. Because nothing is the same now. It’s not only that he’s going to marry her,” she said solemnly, and as her listener hung on every word, he couldn’t help but note, with sorrow, that she hadn’t called the gentleman Grandfather since she’d gotten his news. “It’s also that I’ve thought ahead, and it’s plain my condition’s changed with this change in life. It’s a lucky thing,” she said on a dreadful little grimace, “that I didn’t take Methley up on his offer. Because you see, I’m not an heiress anymore. I’m just an American girl with too little breeding and too many caricatures to her credit.

“Well, you see, my own father is not very wealthy,” she explained, “and what he has he’ll doubtless drink away before he leaves this earth. And Mama spends every penny she gets on her own clothes and entertainment. And think, now that he has a new family beginning, there’ll be little left to give me, won’t there? I doubt I’ll even be as welcome in the business now that he may anticipate sons to pass the whole lot down to. Though I won’t be penniless, I’ll certainly be no prize package any longer. I’ve been devalued, I suppose.” She grinned, humorlessly. But looking up, she was startled to see no answering smile, nor even that softened expression he so often wore when he saw her grin. Instead, the gentleman was clearly enraged.

“Money?” he demanded, so loudly that she stepped back in surprise. “You think I care about whether or not you can bring me money?”

His tanned face was even darker with anger, his eyes flashed. He was a large gentleman in a towering rage, and a formidable sight. He looked down his long nose at her, and said, with no trace of humor or affection to temper his icy fury, “Beyond admitting my penchant for investments, I have never mentioned money to you, my dear, neither mine nor yours. But comfort yourself that I have enough for two. And had I been interested in earning more in the marriage bed, I would’ve done so long before now, since a gentleman’s stamina there, I’ve heard, is far superior in his extreme youth, and I’ve never been a fellow to give short worth for good money.”

He noted her wince, and it seemed to calm him, for he eyed her as she stood quite still and watched him fearfully, and then he said, more thoughtfully, “But do you know, Faith? I don’t believe a word of it. No. On reflection, I find I don’t believe you at all, and that’s singular, because you’re such a bad liar, and for a moment there, I did. It’s now clear to see how you fooled me,” he said coldly, “because it’s equally clear that you lied to yourself. Think on, Faith. Would I care about your fortune?”

“Perhaps not,” she said bravely, “but I do.”

“Oh, there’s truth,” he said, “but it’s also likely very true that beyond the disappointment—and there’s no doubt a lady with no conceit might like to feel she’s brought more than herself to a marriage—there’s a lack of trust in me as well as in yourself. You think that if you haven’t a fortune to wave over my head, I’ll abuse you, underrate you, devalue you? Perhaps, but I think rather it’s that you want to avoid the whole truth—which is that you haven’t enough trust in me to marry me. And that you fear you’ll never conquer your fear of me, or men, or marriage, and fear to even try.

“Poor Faith,” he said, and smiled sadly at her as he took up one of her hands, “with so much fear, and so much mistrust, there’s no room for love at all. Whatever reasons you fling up against the match I’ll put down, but there’s a limit to my patience, and none, I fear, to your invention. So, much as I love you, I cannot pass the rest of my life arguing my cause. If you were willing to let yourself love me, I wouldn’t have to.

“My dear,” he said with great sorrow, “I wish you well, I wish you everything you might wish, but I must let you go.”

He placed cool lips briefly upon her hand, and bowed. Then he looked deeply into her confused eyes, and smiled sweetly and turned toward the door. But he’d gone hardly a pace when he heard her voice, as angry as his had been moments before.

“You can’t go,” she cried. “No, you cannot. For it’s none of it true. Or maybe it was,” she said, pausing to think as he bit back a smile and turned around to face her again. “But it don’t signify,” she argued, staring at him, clearly outraged. “You can’t explain all this to me, and make me see that I was scared for a minute and just trying to cheat myself again—just because Grandfather’s let me down doesn’t mean you would as well. I wasn’t thinking clearly because I’ve had so many things happening all together, and you can’t run away from me now when I most need you, I love you most of all, and—Barnabas, you’re laughing at me!”

“At us, love,” he corrected her as he caught her up in his arms, “because I don’t know what I would have done if you’d let me go. It would’ve looked wonderful if after all that drama, I’d turned around when I reached the door and said, ‘Oh, but on second thought
...
’ wouldn’t it have? Yet that’s precisely what I should have to have done. Did you seriously think I’d let you run off to America now to find some other fellow to wed, after I’d invested all that time getting you to be comfortable about the idea of marriage? After I’d done all that work? I may not talk about money overmuch,” he whispered into her ear, “but understand, though I’m no Yankee trader, I expect value for my investments.”

“Well then,” she said in a small voice, daring to raise her hand to touch that tempting, shining hair her cheek rested against, “remember I’m still an American, an alien.”

“So was my mother,” he said happily, running his lips lightly along her cheek. “She was Scots, and the word she called my father, lovingly, but nonetheless, frequently, was ‘outlander.’ The most important difference between us is the most obvious and interesting one, Faith, and it isn’t our nationalities. And it is, to the eternal benefit of our race, found in every marriage. And you have five freckles this side, but they’re fading, poor things. I think I’ll
burn
all your sun bonnets on our honeymoon, I’m that greedy for more of them.”

“There’s all those caricatures of me,” she said more weakly.

“I do hope there’s enough to paper all the privies at Stonecrop Hall, don’t you?” he breathed, momentarily closing one of her bright eyes with a soft kiss before he smiled down into it again and balanced her by promptly attending to the other one.

But for all that he held her, and for all that he gave her so many tender salutes, he never presumed to draw her into deeper embrace, and he avoided her mouth entirely, just as his hands stayed carefully and conventionally upon the neutral surface of her back. This was so difficult for him, he discovered he had to keep his hands still and flat upon her back to ensure that they neither strayed nor trembled with the effort of not straying. Thus, he felt her take in a deep breath, and braced himself for yet another one of her protests, because for all he’d declared he’d grown impatient with them, he knew that as he’d raised them all in her mind, he’d have to answer to each of them. Still, he was totally unprepared for the one she offered next.

“Barnabas,” she asked in a tiny voice, “don’t you Englishmen kiss a girl’s lips at all?”

“My dear,” he said very seriously, “I don’t dare presume. It may be too soon. I don’t want to frighten you. I gave my word on that, you know.”

“But
...”
she began, and then she closed her eyes without his kissing them shut, because since the thoughts she wanted to express had come to her in the darkest night, she had to approximate the conditions of their birth to remember them precisely. She, too, didn’t want to waste all the time she’d recently invested, especially since it had been time she’d have preferred to have passed sleeping, as all the rest of the world had been doing all through the past nights.

“I’ve thought about that, too,” she said, “and it occurs to me that I wasn’t the only child to have seen what I saw. Well, no one had separate rooms in olden days, and there were families with dozens of children and still there are lots of us around today, aren’t there? Because, you were right, not everyone who sees what they oughtn’t curls up in a
corner
and withers away. And I don’t want to either, not anymore. And do you know, too, that once we’d talked about it together, it seemed to become less important.

“But the truly important thing, Barnabas,” she said, taking such a great deal of time with the three syllables of his name that she opened her eyes at last to his complete and fascinated attention, “is that, how shall I know what to be frightened of, if you don’t show me? We could wait forever, and how should I know? Be sure I’ll tell you,” she breathed as his smiling lips at last approached hers, “if I take alarm.”

But she told him nothing in words for several moments, although by then he knew very well that whatever else he was doing to her, it was never terrorizing her.

When she spoke again, as he closed his own eyes in profound gratitude and relief as he rested his cheek against her warm hair, she said in a wondering voice, “Just think! I didn’t want you to stop, Barnabas, though I was frightened, a little, I think. But not of you, oh never of you. Only because I’d never felt such things before. It’s quite wonderful, but I didn’t fail you, did I?” she asked anxiously.

“You could never fail me in that,” he murmured, “for my lovemaking will never test you.”

“But Barnabas,” she persisted, “I mean, is it only me, or is it supposed to be just a little frightening for everybody, the way that one loses oneself so completely?”

“Yes,” he said thankfully, “just a little, at first, for everybody. But love, that’s half the fun of it. You’ll see. Because you’ll never guess what you will find if you do succeed in losing yourself. Oh, there’s so much I long to show you, Faith, and so much I think you’ll teach me, whether you believe that or not,” he said on a shaky laugh. “But not, I think, in the duchess’s small salon. Nor until we’re safely wed. And never until you’re ready. Now then,” he said, sighing, but nonetheless putting her an arm’s length away, “why is it that your hosts left you alone with me for so long? I can’t approve such ramshackle chaperonage.”

“Oh,” she said, drifting back close to him, “Grandfather’s with the duke, and the duchess was brangling all night with Mary, and I haven’t seen either of them all day, so
I
think they’ve got more important fish to fry. I seem to have inspired Mary to rebellion, and I’m glad of it. I only hope it benefits Will in the long run, though now I’m not too sure I did him a service, though I know I helped her.

“But you know, Barnabas,” she went on, hiding her eyes beneath downcast lashes, with something in the way she drawled his name as she traced one finger slowly along his sleeve causing his eyebrows to lift, “since I have so very much to learn, I really wonder if this match is fair to you, who after all, have probably had most to do with more learned ladies in the past. After all, I shall need a very great deal of instruction and gentle handling, and careful, patient teaching
...”
But at that she couldn’t bear his expression a moment longer, and began giggling even as he took her back into his arms.

“The careful handling part sounds lovely,” he said, holding her securely, “but I think I’ve created a monster. It’s very fortunate that I adore monsters,” he explained happily as he proceeded with the first of his courses of instruction that she’d so clearly indicated she desired.

She was such a rapid study, he later admitted, that it was just as well that the door to the salon was soon thrown wide and the Duchess of Marchbanks tottered in, gasping in distress. She was so disordered that she didn’t seem to note the sort of communications she’d interrupted, but after Lord Deal regained enough presence of mind to assist her to a chair and ring for the butler to procure her salts, sal volatile, and water, she managed to cry out plaintively, “Gone! Gone, she’s gone. Do you know where she is, girl?”

“Who?” Faith asked, and received a glowing smile for her idiocy from her gentleman, who seemed to take it as proof of his proficiency and applause for his abilities.

“Mary, my Mary has gone!” the duchess wailed, almost pitiable in her bereavement, until she sat up a bit straighter and growled at Faith, “Eloped! She’s run off with him. And it’s all your fault.”

“I hardly think so,” Lord Deal said smoothly before Faith, who’d been surreptitiously attempting to straighten her gown and her hair as well as her wits, could answer, “since Faith hasn’t spoken with Lady Mary all day.”

“But she spoke with her before,” the duchess howled, “and she filled her head with seditious things, treasonous things, disobedient, outrageous and unacceptable, rebellious thoughts.”

“Oh, well of course she did,” Lord Deal said with
a
great show of boredom, as he left the duchess and came to stand by Faith’s side and put his arm around her. “She’s an American.”

SIXTEEN

The
night
was
cool and still, but neither Lord nor Lady Deal was sleeping. The lady lay propped against her pillows, and her husband propped one hand beneath his shaggy head as he leaned on his elbow and looked down at her.

“
...
And another reason,” he continued to say, as he toyed with a strand of her hair, “is that as an American you’re delighted to share this chamber with me, which pleases me no end, where an English lady might think it
déclass
é
, and I do get so lonely in the midst of the night, not to mention how hideously cold my feet can become during our wretched English winters, that’s no small factor contributing to marital happiness, and another reason is—”

“Barnabas,” she giggled, “that’s twenty-seven reasons you’ve given me thus far tonight.”

“Of course,” he said sadly, “but if you persist in saying silly things about how you worry about what people will think of our wedding, you’ll never get to sleep tonight, for all the wrong reasons,” he added even more sadly, “for as it happens, I’m not in the least tired, and should very much like to be, if you take my ulterior meaning.”

“I do, Barnabas,” she said at once, and he nodded and said, “Just so, and there’s number twenty-eight, for you always do, and that’s even more delightful. And what generally follows is number twenty-nine through fifty, it’s that marvelous.”

“Only fifty?” she said with mock despair before she held him off and said, “But truly, Barnabas, I sometimes wonder. I’ve no claim to title, and that’s so important here.”

“Where?” he asked, looking around their bedchamber
suspiciously as she laughed, for he always made her laugh, even here, in their bed, when he wasn’t making her sigh with happiness. The wonderment was that once he’d freed her from the ice which had held her fast, she was discovering to their mutual delight that it had only been a surface covering and it seemed she had a molten core. But they’d been married for a week, and now she was at last beginning to wonder about how life would be when the novelty of marriage had worn off.

“See here,” he said sternly, as though he’d heard her thoughts, “once and for all, if I’d wanted a title, I would have lent some money to Prinny and picked out a few more for myself. I didn’t have to marry one. I married the only female I wanted, and would have done even if you’d come from another planet, not to mention another country. All right?”

“All right.” She smiled as she began to believe that it might be that the novelty of this union would never wear off.

“Barnabas?” she said in a moment, causing him to lift his head instantly, for he still was always alert to her every change of mood, “just think, Grandfather is almost home by now.”

He repressed a sigh and drew back from her and lay back on the pillow beside her, too wise to press his suit when she clearly was distracted by something else, too experienced to take it personally, and far too respectful of her intelligence to think it was of no moment.

“Do you miss him, Faith?” he asked softly, watching her profile in the light of the single candle they’d left to light them to pleasure. “I can’t help that, I can only try to make this so much your home that you long for no other except for sentiment’s sake.”

“It’s not that,” she said at once, turning her head to look at him, “it’s only that I thought of Will, and Lady Mary, and Methley, and of how my coming to England changed so many lives. And I wondered if I did the right thing for Mary, though I don’t know how I could have done anything else. I told her what I believed in, not to convert her but to let her know why I was disappointed in her. And look what I caused.”

“You caused her to be happy, or at least to choose her own path, and to take charge of her own future. That’s no small achievement,” he said, “no matter what the duchess thinks. And be sure, by the time Mary comes back into society, the duchess will be pleased to show everyone how thrilled she is at her new son-in-law, and no one will ever guess how hard a pill he was for her to swallow. She lives on gossip and knows how to turn it to her own uses. At that, I think they’ll be very good for each other; he’ll keep her anger from her daughter, for she’ll never blame Mary so much as she does him, and she’ll, no doubt, amuse him.”

“Poor Will,” Faith sighed.

“Isn’t there a bird in your country that says that?” he asked curiously, as she smiled, “but there’s nothing poor about him, my love. His was the very best fate of all, and doubtless he’ll tell you so often enough when he thanks you over and over again in all the years to come.”

“Oh Barnabas,” she sighed, for he’d said everything she’d wished him to, and better yet, had made it all sound as though he meant every word of it. “Oh Barnabas—do you know,” she said with a sudden frown, “I don’t care for that name in the least. No,
Barn
aby is even worse,” she forestalled him by saying.

“Oh, but you’ve called me by some other names recently, far better names.” He laughed, and bent low to whisper them to her, and was pleased to see her faint blush clear and remarkably extensive even in the scant light of the flickering candle.

“I’ll grant you’re not likely to use them in company, although I promise you,” he said wickedly, “nothing would please me more. But if I have to put up with Faith, you’ll just have to learn to abide Barnabas. Viking, you’ll allow, is too cumbersome.”

But hearing that old name with all its painful implications caused her to instantly reach out to him, and their spoken conversation ceased. The candle guttered out and the room was lit by the glow of a late summer’s moon, when Lady Deal murmured breathlessly, with a certain amount of suppressed laughter, “Barnabas, the children.”

“Really, my love,” he complained, “I’m doing the best I can. We’ve only been married a week, though. I don’t know what else you expect of me.”

“Oh no,” she said on a wide grin, which caused a delay before she could speak again. “But really—” she tweaked at a lock of his hair to make him pay attention—“I had the most dreadful thought. A Viking and a Wild Indian. Oh Barnabas, whatever shall our children be?”

He thought a moment. Then, just when he decided yes, that was precisely where he wished to kiss her next, he whispered before he did so, “Why, formidable, my darling, absolutely formidable.”

And although he’d said it just to make her laugh, in light of present circumstances, he was just as pleased, no, even more pleased, when her only answer was to catch up her breath, and then to let it out slowly in a long, shivering, very contented sigh.

The moon shone down on the sleeping town of Edinburgh as well. And the Lady Mary lay back in her bed as well. But her husband stood at the window in his dressing gown and looked down at the old, dreaming city.

“I think,” the Lady Mary said decisively, “that we can return to town any time now. I doubt,” she said smugly, “that Mama will seek annulment now. A week, after all, is time enough to have started anything.”

Her husband turned his attention from the window, and when she saw him gazing at her, she said, “Oh no, I have no evidence. But I have hopes, don’t you?”

“Of course, my dear,” he said.

“It will be odd,” Lady Mary said pensively, “to meet up with Faith and Lord Deal again, but I think they intend to spend most of their time at Stonecrop Hall and travel in entirely different circles, and we, of course, will stay in Town, won’t we? I don’t see that as a problem. I know you’ve been friends, but Faith and I had harsh words before I left. Though I thank her and shall always, for giving me the courage to break from Mama, I cannot think she loves me well.”

The gentleman stirred, and an unreadable expression crossed his face as briefly as a cloud shadowing over the face of the moon. He turned to gaze out the window again, though there was something faintly like regret in his voice as he said, “And her love, does that matter so much then?”

“No, of course not,” she said. “Not now that I have you. But it’s curious, her words made such a difference in my life. I wanted you. I had from the beginning, but I would have bent to Mama and gone elsewhere if it hadn’t been for Faith. She gave me the courage to send for you, and to leave with you. Were you shocked at my proposal?” She laughed. “But really, her words went to my head. I dared. Since that day, I’ve been a different person. Although you,” she said passionately, “are the only one accountable for making that person feel like a woman, you know.”

The invitation in her words, the command implicit in her outstretched hand, were impossible to ignore. Her husband went to her. And as the Earl of Methley slipped off his dressing gown and came to his countess as he’d been bade, he said, with more of his old irony than passion in his voice, “If Faith freed you, my dear, and I made you a woman, why is it that you remind me so of your dear mama so often lately?”

“I’ve grown up,” she said, and smiled at him as he came close, for she took it as a compliment. And the Earl of Methley, who had gotten everything he’d once thought he wanted, looked into his future and sighed when he admitted to himself, before he submitted to his wife’s desire, that doubtless he’d gotten everything he deserved as well.

There was only one more day of sailing, and then the ship would dock safely in New York. Will Rossiter explained this patiently to the two young women who stood at the rail looking out at the sea that as yet had no horizon. The moon might be rising high in the land they’d lately left, but here the afternoon sun blazed a path to the New World he was telling his rapt audience about.

Franklin Godfrey had stayed in the cabin to get some paperwork done, but Will had been restless, and so had come out to the deck to pace and think about all that he had lost, and gained, and given up and left behind him.

He hadn’t known the fair-haired lady he’d left at the Duke and Duchess of Marchbanks’ townhouse. For surely, the Lady Mary he’d offered his heart and his name to would never have let him speak his entire heart and mind, sitting like a stone until he was done and then she never would have said, “Oh no, Mr. Rossiter. It’s out of the question. You have funds, but so do I. My husband must be able to offer me something I do not have.”

“Like love?” he’d asked, confused.

“Oh no,” she’d smiled, looking ethereal even as she’d said it, “like a higher title, silly.”

He’d been badly wounded, of course, perhaps he’d even bled a bit internally when he’d heard she’d run off with Methley. But what had Barnabas said at his wedding the day before he’d left? It had definitely staunched the flow.

The bridegroom had poured him some champagne, and then commented, in the half-serious way he said the most important things, “Will, she never was your sweet fair London lady, the one who bandaged your hands and won your heart. And it wasn’t fair to expect it of her. But if you’d like, you can always search for that particular lady before you leave. I’d expect, though I don’t claim to be a wizard with figures, that the female of your dreams would be about a generation older by now. And if she is, there’s a chance she might be a widow, and if you don’t mind wedding a grandparent (there’s a great deal of that sort of thing going ’round, you know), why I’m sure you’d have a blissful union.”

Will smiled at the thought now, and was pleased to discover it became easier to do so with each league the ship leaped forward. The two young women looked at him curiously, to discover his jest. One was an English lady, this one all correct, a vision in dark tresses and pink cheeks, and the other, her maid, a creature of russet curls and the whitest, most contagious smile he’d ever seen. Oh yes, Will thought, this one would do very nicely in the New World. Her mistress would be shocked, and the little maid, delighted, but they’d soon find title meant nothing in the land they approached, unless it was on a deed to property.

He felt enormously cheered at the thought, especially since he stood before them right now because he’d decided in his disappointment and chagrin to give up his dream of living in England again, and was returning to his life and home in New York.

“But ooo, sir, how can you be sure that there are no Indians to torment us?” the maid with russet curls simpered, flirting outrageously while her mistress tightened her lips in disapproval at her servant’s audacity. Oh yes, Will thought merrily, some surprises in store here, before he said carelessly, “Why, because I just left the last one in England.”

The girl tittered and then said, “Oh fie, sir. You’re only having fun with us. For how should you know? You’re as British as I am, and that’s as much as old John Bull, it is.”

“But there’s where you’re out,” Will said seriously, and then he paused, because the more he thought about it, the more he knew it to be true.

“I’m an American,” he finally said.

And as he heard the words, he knew he spoke the truth.

Then he grinned widely as he felt a great swell of relief, and a great weight lifted from his heart as he added, “And I’m going home now. Yes, I’m on my way home at last.”