Buch lesen: «The Complete Regency Bestsellers And One Winters Collection», Seite 13
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chase drifted in and out of consciousness. Gentle waves lapped at his body. Fresh, cool water trickled between his lips. Soothing murmurs came and went. The scents of herbs and lemon hovered about him. And orange flowers. Always orange flowers. As if he were floating in a sea of Alexandra. Or drowning in it. He couldn’t tell.
He woke in the morning—it had to be morning, what with the light stabbing him square in the eye—to find her asleep at his bedside, head buried in her arms.
“Alex.”
“Chase?” She lifted her head. “Chase.” She pressed the back of her hand to his brow. When she spoke, her voice cracked with emotion. “Thank God.”
“I told you I wasn’t ill.” He struggled to a sitting position. “I suppose I just needed a good night’s sleep.”
She blinked at him. “A night’s sleep?”
He rubbed his eyes and cursed. “Don’t say you let me sleep through a full day and a half. Good Lord.”
“Chase, it’s been a week.”
“A week? That’s impossible.” He noted her tangled hair and the dark circles haunting her eyes. “What happened to you?”
“If you think I look dreadful, you should see yourself. You had pneumonia. You were burning up with fever for days. No fewer than three physicians waited on you. You had everyone so worried.”
“You needn’t have been worried. I’m fine.”
He scratched his jaw and found it thick with whiskers. A week. Bloody hell. He swung his leaden legs over the side of the bed and prepared to stand. He could do with a wash and a shave. Perhaps then he’d feel human again.
“Don’t you dare.” She laid her hand flat on his chest. “You’re not yet ready to stand.”
“I can determine that for myself, thank you.” He brushed away her hand. Planting his feet on the floor, he shifted his weight off the bed and stood. For a fraction of a second, anyhow. Then his knees buckled, and he found himself seated on the bed again, with black and white dots swimming before his eyes. “I’ve determined I’m not yet ready to stand.”
As he waited to regain sensation in his knees, he looked around at the bedchamber’s new appearance. His bed hangings had disappeared, and the walls looked as though they’d been repapered. On closer examination, they’d been covered with sketches and letters—all of them in a child’s hand. He pulled one from where it had been tacked above his headboard.
Dear Mr. Raynod,
Sam says evry time you kiss Miss Montbadin we have an outing. Pleas get well and kiss her soon.
Yours truley, Daisy Fairfax and Milisent Fairfax
P.S. I made a draring of a tyger, but it is not much good.
Alex peered over his shoulder. “Her writing is coming along well, isn’t it? Even if her spelling needs a good deal of work. I quite liked the tiger.”
Chase’s stomach twisted in a knot, and it wasn’t from hunger.
Alex reached for a paper at the bedside, unfolded it, and put it in his hand. “This one was from Rosamund.”
Dear Mr. R.,
Miss M. says I’m to write a letter of confession. I took four shillings and a nacre button from your library desk, this Monday last. They have been returned. I am sorry to have committed such a grievous act. Please take mercy on your wayward ward. The Tower of London is much too poorly lit for reading.
Yours, etc.
Sam F.
“I suspect she took more money than that,” Alex said, “but I only caught her with the four shillings.”
“I see.”
“Oh, I must send a note to John straightaway. He was here all night, and he went home to sleep. He’ll be so relieved to hear you’re awake.”
Chase was confused. “John? Who’s John?”
“Mr. Barrow.”
“You’re on a first-name basis with my solicitor?”
“No. I’m on a first-name basis with your brother. Ever since we gave the doctors the boot, we’ve been trading the watch back and forth.” She reached for a cup. “Here, take some broth.”
He pushed the cup away. “What are you doing?”
“You need nourishment to regain your strength. Perhaps I’ll take the girls for ices and bring you some back? It will be some days before you can take solid food, but it would be a change from beef tea.”
“It’s not the beef tea,” he said irritably.
Damn it, had his whole week in the country been for nothing? He’d meant to put distance between them. This was the opposite of distance. This was closeness. Intense, unbearable closeness unlike anything he’d ever known. The walls were closing in on him, with their sharp-toothed tigers and sweetly printed words.
“I told you in no uncertain terms we’d reached the end of this. You, me, and the girls. Then I wake up to you fussing over me, feeding me spoonfuls of beef tea. Drawings of flowers and tigers and pirate ships all over the walls.” He gestured angrily. “For Christ’s sake, Alex. When are you going to give this up?”
She stood still for a moment, and then set the teacup down with a clatter. “‘Why would a sea captain’s daughter be afraid of boats?’ You asked me that the day you left. Recall it?”
Chase was dizzied by the swift turn of conversation. “I suppose.”
“I’ll tell you why I’m afraid of boats. I lost my father when I was twelve years old. The Esperanza foundered in a storm. He threw a blanket over my shoulders and forced me to leave in the little captain’s gig. Told me to row as hard as I could. He promised to call me back to the ship once it was safe, but the ship was breaking apart already. My father ordered the crew to the jolly boat. He kept trying until the end, making certain all his men were safe, but . . .” She swallowed hard. “As they say, the captain goes down with the ship.”
God Almighty. How terrified she must have been.
“I tried to reunite with the rest of the crew.” She shook her head. “But it was too dark, and the waves were too high. We were separated within moments, and I couldn’t reach them. I called and called until I was hoarse. Perhaps they, too, foundered and perished. When the morning came and the sky cleared, I was alone. Drifting in the middle of the ocean. A crewman on an English brig happened to see me, and they came to my rescue. Ask me how many days I waited.”
“Sweetheart, you don’t need to—”
“Eight,” she said. “Eight days.”
Jesus.
“No provisions. Only a bit of rainwater. I can’t describe it. The slow crawl of time when you’re dying of thirst. Every breath, every swallow. It’s all you can think of. Toward the end, I grew delirious, and that was a mercy. I still find myself back there in dreams. I don’t imagine the boat, the storm. I only feel myself drifting in the dark, and when I wake, I’m desperate for water.”
“So that night when you came down to the kitchen . . .”
She nodded.
“Alex, I’m so sorry.”
“You don’t need to pity me. I’m here. And I’m alive. So there’s your answer, Chase. When am I giving up? I’m not. I did not give up on myself then. I am not giving up on you now.” She smoothed her apron. “Now I’m going to tidy myself up, take the girls for ices, eat two of them myself, and not bring you any. When we return, I’ll send Rosamund and Daisy in to visit you, and you will behave. Treat me as you like. But you will not belittle those girls for loving you. I won’t allow it. And do not ever waste your breath again with more of that ‘lost cause’ nonsense. Consider yourself found.”
“Wait.” He tried to push himself to a stand again, but he’d wasted what strength he had in the first attempt. “Don’t go. Give me a chance to—”
“Oh, and by the way.” She stopped at the door. “While you were ill, you pissed yourself. Twice. Just so you know.”
The pirates held Chase captive, and this time there was no slipping the knots to escape. Over his days of slow recuperation in bed, he was indoctrinated in the Pirate’s Code, fitted for a peg leg, and given a gold hoop earring. (God only knew where Rosamund had pilfered that from.) His tea and broth were served in ship’s rations, on two-hour bells.
Alexandra had taught her sailors well. So well, in fact, that she never needed to join the work at all. Chase had the feeling he was being punished. And he had the feeling he deserved it.
What she’d given him, however, was an excellent motivation to recover.
By the fourth day, he’d had enough. If he had to listen to Daisy read that book about girls climbing towers and boys picking flowers one more time, he would go mad.
When the girls came in that afternoon, they found him out of bed, bathed, properly attired, and ready to do something, anything, other than convalesce.
“Oh, boo.” Daisy pouted. “You shaved. You made a better prisoner when you were scruffy.”
“It’s just as well,” Rosamund said. “Now that you’re presentable, you can come with us to tea.”
“Tea?”
“We’re going to tea at Lady Penny’s house,” Daisy said. “We’ve been two weeks in a row now. She’s Miss Mountbatten’s friend, and she has a hedgehog. And an otter named Hubert, and a goat named Marigold, and a two-legged dog named Bixby, and a heap of other animals.”
“Literally,” Rosamund interjected. “Literally a heap.”
“Today, I’m allowed to pet the hedgehog if I remember my manners. Also, Miss Teague bakes the scrummiest biscuits.” She took Chase by the hand and tugged. “You should join us.”
“I don’t believe I’m invited,” he replied.
“You can come. That is, if you wish.” Alexandra stood in the doorway. She was wearing that fetching yellow frock again, and he suddenly felt starved for sunshine.
Starved for her company, as well.
“You’re certain?” They locked eyes, and he searched her expression for hints to her true emotions. “I don’t want to go where I’m not wanted.”
“Lady Penelope would welcome you.” She worked her fingers into her gloves with short, impatient tugs. “She takes in every creature that wanders past, no matter how ill behaved.”
Chase knew the tone of a woman’s enthusiastic invitation, and that was not it. Alex was clearly hoping he’d decline.
This afternoon, he’d be disappointing her hopes once again. “I’ll order the carriage.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Alex cursed herself all the way to Penny’s house. Why had she invited him? She’d been so relieved to see him well and strong again, she hadn’t been thinking clearly. And she never dreamed he’d accept.
The carriage ride to Bloom Square wasn’t a long one, and they arrived before she was ready.
Once Chase had helped her out of the carriage, she kept a tight grip on his hand. “Lady Penelope Campion and Nicola Teague are two of my dearest friends in the world.”
“I understand.”
She didn’t think he did, not truly. “Penny and Nic . . . well, they’re not the usual sort of ladies. They weren’t among the finishing school set. If you are even the slightest bit teasing or unkind, I will rip that gold earring straight through your earlobe.”
He cursed and fumbled at his ear until he’d removed it himself.
She shouldn’t have mentioned it.
“One last thing,” she muttered as Rosamund reached for the door knocker. “If Lady Penelope Campion offers you a sandwich—you will eat it. And you will like it.”
“Why does that sound like a threat?”
She didn’t answer. He’d learn soon enough for himself.
The door opened, and Penny greeted each of the girls with sound kisses on their cheeks. “Come in, darlings.”
Then she noticed Chase, and Alex sent up a prayer. Please, Penny. For once, remain calm.
Penny threw her arms around Chase and caught him in a hug, rocking him back and forth. “I’m so relieved to see you. I’ve been desperately worried ever since I heard you were ill. Alex was beside herself.”
Right. Brilliant.
“Come in, come in,” she urged. “Nicola’s already here. She’s made teacakes.”
Alex held the girls back. “Wait. You know they’re meant to be practicing. Go on, girls.”
The girls curtsied. Not especially smoothly, but they were improving. “Good afternoon, Lady Penelope,” they said in a chorus of two.
“Rosamund, would you introduce Lady Penny to our guest?”
“Mr. Reynaud, may I present—”
“No, no. The other way around,” Alex said. “You ask Lady Penelope if you may present him, because she’s his superior in society.” And his superior in many other ways.
“Alex, you know I despise that sort of thinking,” Penny said.
“They need to learn. Their guardian wishes them to be proper young ladies.” She turned to Chase. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Reynaud?”
Rosamund began again, the promise of teacakes outweighing her impatience with the exercise. “Lady Penny, may I present our guardian, Mr. Reynaud. Mr. Reynaud, this is Lady Penelope Campion.”
Chase not only bowed, but took her hand and kissed it with devilish charm. “Enchanted, Lady Penelope.”
“Oh,” Penny sighed. “You are wonderful. I knew you would be.”
Etiquette lessons were left at the door. Penny’s house didn’t lend itself to propriety, anyway. The upholstery was shredded, and the carpet pattern was medallions interspersed with tufts of loose fur, and if a one-eyed kitten wasn’t mewling and climbing the draperies, a yipping two-legged dog was racing around the room on its specially made cart.
Alex loved the place unreservedly.
Chase was introduced to Nicola, whose reception of him was as icy as Penny’s was warm. No kisses on the hand. Nic swiveled her gaze to Alex the moment he’d turned away and mouthed a simple Why?
Alex could only shrug.
They all settled themselves in the parlor. The girls dashed off to the back garden at once.
“Where are they going?” Chase asked.
“Oh, they’ve gone to feed Hubert his tea,” Penny explained.
“Hubert?” he asked.
“The otter.”
“Yes, of course. A beautiful creature, the otter.”
“Isn’t it, though? They’re so affectionate. Hubert adores Rosamund and Daisy. We all do. You must be so proud of your girls.” She lifted a plate and offered it to him. “Sandwich?”
Aha. Here was the moment of truth.
“This one is a new recipe of mine.” Penny pointed at one half of the plate. “I call it tuna-ish.”
“I’m . . . unfamiliar with that.”
“Well, the tuna is a Mediterranean fish, and I had a letter from a cousin in Cadiz who told me it makes an excellent sandwich with a bit of soured cream. But I don’t consume animals, so I made my own version. Instead of tuna fish, it’s tuna-ish. The secret is in the brine.”
She pointed at the other half of the plate. “And this is my usual specialty. Sham. It’s everyone’s favorite.”
“Sham?”
“It’s like ham. Only made from vegetables, all pressed together into a loaf and sliced thin. I’ve been told it tastes even better than the real thing.”
Alex caught his eye.
Do not hurt her feelings. Do not. Or I will never forgive you.
“Lady Penny, that sounds delightful,” Chase said smoothly, and for a moment even Alex believed him. “Thank you, I’ll take two of each.”
In the end, he ate three of each—and asked Penny for the recipes. He praised Nicola’s baking and listened to her describe her latest fascination: the engineering challenges of tunneling under the Thames.
Even the hedgehog uncurled in his hand, offering her soft underbelly for a gentle stroke.
He didn’t commit a single act of unforgivable behavior. With the exception of being unforgivably wonderful, perhaps.
As they hugged in farewell, Penny whispered a teasing question in Alex’s ear. “So? How does it feel to be falling in love?”
Hopeless, Alex silently answered.
It felt hopeless indeed—because it was.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
In the office the next morning, Chase clutched his side and groaned.
Barrow gave him a sidelong glance. “Is it the bank accounts?”
“No, it’s the sham. Or maybe the tuna-ish.”
“I won’t ask.”
“Good. I don’t want to talk about it.”
Barrow stretched his arms overhead and yawned. “You know, I’ve noticed that doll of Daisy’s hasn’t taken ill in weeks.”
“I suppose my own bedridden state was entertainment enough.”
“Hm.” Barrow cast a pensive look out the window. “Speaking of beds . . . As far as I can tell, you haven’t shared one with a woman in weeks, either.”
“Oh, yes. I did finally manage a period of celibacy, didn’t I? And all I had to do was nearly die.” Chase narrowed his eyes at him. “What are you on about, then? Don’t tell me you’re going to badger me to keep the girls.”
“I mean to suggest you should marry Miss Mountbatten. And then keep the girls.”
What?
“That’s impossible.”
“Don’t you love her? I think you love her.”
Chase avoided answering that question, and he did so easily. He’d had a great deal of practice avoiding merely thinking about that question.
“It doesn’t matter how I feel about her,” he said. “I’m not marrying, ever. You know my reasons.”
“Yes, but your reasons aren’t good.”
“I’m responsible for my cousin’s death. I refuse to replace Anthony’s legacy with my own sorry bloodline. The title should have been his.” He hesitated, then decided to have out with it. “And if it couldn’t be his, it might as well have been yours. You’re the elder between us. We both have Reynaud blood.”
Barrow sat back in his chair, crossing his legs. “So. We’re going to talk about that now, are we?”
“We may as well.” Chase gestured at all the paperwork around them, and the immense wealth and lands it represented. “You’d make a much better duke than I will. Are you certain I can’t give this to you? At least half of it?”
“I’m afraid not. It’s all entailed.”
“Well, at least start embezzling or something.”
Barrow chuckled. “I’ll take that under advisement.”
“I’m serious.”
“Chase, you’re going to make a better nobleman than half the peers in England. At least you look after your dependents. You know, it hasn’t escaped my attention that since we took over all this, you’ve asked me to establish no fewer than six trusts and legacies for ‘devoted servants.’ I’ve seen your servants. They’re not devoted.”
Chase sighed. Difficult to argue that point.
“So I’m guessing I’m not the only bastard your father sired.” After a moment, Barrow asked quietly, “What about the girls?”
“I don’t know.” Chase covered his eyes. “It’s possible they’re his, but I can’t be certain. Doesn’t make a difference, though. I intend to provide for them. School, dowries, trusts.”
“So you can care for all your father’s bastards, but not a family of your own?”
“Bloody hell, Barrow. I don’t ‘care’ for all his bastards. It’s just money.”
Barrow’s face went hard. “Oh, really.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Chase cursed his thoughtlessness. “But this is a perfect illustration of the point. I am shite at caring. Friendship, maybe I can manage. But guardianship? Family? Absolutely not. After Anthony was killed, I took his body home to Belvoir. I’d sent an express in advance with the news, but somehow it hadn’t yet arrived. My uncle only learned of it upon seeing the body. Do you know what it looks like when a person’s heart breaks right in front of you?”
Barrow shook his head.
“Well, I do. And I never want to see it again.”
They were silent for a minute.
“Chase, when you love someone there’s always a chance you’ll hurt them. But if you let them go, hurting them isn’t a possibility—it’s a certainty. I watched that woman spend day and night by your bedside while you lingered near death.” He arched an eyebrow. “You pissed yourself, you know. Twice.”
“Yes, I heard that,” he said irritably. “Thank you for bringing it up. Again.”
“Alexandra’s in love with you. If you can’t find it within yourself to love her back, then you’d better make that very clear. Sooner rather than later.”
Chase nodded. As always, his annoyingly smug brother had the right of it. “I’ve promised them an outing to the British Museum tomorrow. I’ll speak with Alexandra at the first opportunity.”
After a mere two minutes in the Egyptian Room, Alexandra knew this outing was the most brilliant idea she’d had all summer.
“Look at them.” She nudged Chase’s arm. “Have you ever seen those girls so happy?”
“Of course they’re happy,” he replied, sounding markedly less enthusiastic about it. “Daisy is surrounded by death, mummies stacked three to a case, and even Rosamund couldn’t dream of this much plundered gold.”
“Just think of the educational benefits.”
Daisy pushed up her spectacles and bent over a label on the glass case of an intricately carved stone coffin. She sounded out the word, syllable by syllable. “Sar-co-pha-gus.”
“Come look at this.” Rosamund waved her sister over. “Before they wrapped the mummy, they took the organs out and stored them in golden jars.” She pointed. “This one’s for the brain. It says here they pulled it out through the mummy’s nose.”
“Ooooh.”
Alex turned to Chase. “You can’t deny that they’re learning.”
He only shook his head in response.
Secretly, Alex agreed with him somewhat. She, too, hoped the girls would develop other interests with time—or if not other interests, at least less morbid and criminal applications of them.
“May we go on to the South Seas curiosities?” Rosamund asked. “I want to see the maps and things from Captain James Cook.”
“You may go ahead of us,” Alex told her, “if you mind Daisy. We’ll join you in a moment. And no running.”
Once the girls had left the Egyptian Room, Alex maneuvered toward a quieter corner between galleries. “We should talk.”
“I’ve been thinking the same.”
“The summer’s drawing to an end.”
He nodded. “And so is our arrangement.”
“Yes.” She lowered her voice. “Promise me one thing, if you will. Wherever you send them to school, don’t make them stay there over school holidays. If you won’t have them at your house, send them to me. I stayed at school every holiday for years, and it was misery.”
“Surely you didn’t stay every holiday.”
“Where would I have gone? I’d no family. There was one year another schoolgirl invited me to summer with her family at their country home. But in the end, it didn’t come to pass.”
She didn’t tell him the rest of the story. That the schoolgirl—Violet Liddell—had spent weeks describing all the wonderful things they would do together that summer. Picnics and buying ribbons in the village and staying up all night, giggling. Alexandra had dreamed of it every night for months, imagining all the adventures she and Violet would have together. What she looked forward to most wasn’t adventurous at all. Family dinners.
When the term ended and Violet’s parents came to collect her, Alex was waiting outside with her trunk, dressed in her best frock and beside herself with excitement for the journey. She waited to be introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Liddell, but that introduction never came. Instead, Violet turned to her with a cruel smile and said, “I hope you have a fine summer, Alexandra.”
And she climbed into her family’s carriage and left.
Alex would never forget the shame of lugging her trunk back up to the attic dormitory one step at a time, while the other schoolgirls stood by laughing. They’d known what was coming. They’d all known.
“Just promise me,” she said. “Easter, Christmas, summers. Don’t leave them there. They need to feel that they have a home.”
“Blast,” Chase muttered, turning toward the wall.
“What is it?”
“I spied someone I know—and don’t particularly like.”
“Where?” Alex turned her head.
“Don’t look,” he hissed. “I’m hoping he didn’t notice me.”
She returned her gaze to what lay in front of her. “I’m hoping no one notices we’re staring at a blank wall.”
“Very well, have a look. But be casual about it. At the far end of the gallery. The shorter fellow compensating by means of an absurdly tall hat.”
Alex turned in place, trying her best to look aimless about it. Although she wasn’t certain it looked better to be aimlessly turning in circles than to be staring at a blank wall.
As she completed her circle, she caught sight of the man Chase had described. Her stomach churned.
“Tell me he’s not looking this way,” Chase mumbled.
“He’s looking this way.” Which meant Alex wanted to pick up her skirts and sprint in the opposite direction.
“Reynaud?” The voice carried from the other end of the gallery. “Chase Reynaud, is that you?”
Chase cursed under his breath. “No escaping it now.” He turned and raised his hand in a halfhearted greeting. “That’s Sir W—”
“Sir Winston Harvey.”
“You know him?”
“I set the clocks in his house for three years.”
“Then you know he’s insufferable.”
Her skin crawled. “Oh, yes.”
In the distance, Sir Winston began taking leave of his current conversational partner—the quicker, presumably, to make his way down the length of the gallery to them.
“I’ll go to the girls,” Alex said. “They’ve moved on to the Grecian marbles.”
“No, stay.” He tugged her to his side, drawing her hand through his arm. “If you’re here, he won’t regale me with tales of his sordid brothel adventures. He seems to think I’ll be impressed.”
“I’d rather go with the girls.”
“What did he do?” He must have caught the tense note in her voice. “Tell me.”
“It was mostly just leering,” she whispered. “A pinch or two. You know, the usual.”
“The usual?”
“The usual for him. Chase, it was years ago. He won’t even recognize me. Just let me go.”
But it was too late. The man was upon them now.
No escape.
