A Difficult Disguise (25 page)

“I have the headache,” she all but shouted from the relative safety of her bed, the words no longer a complete lie. If Fletcher didn’t get back soon to rescue her, she wouldn’t be surprised if she developed the stomachache as well.

“That’s not all that’s going to ache, halfling, if you don’t get yourself down to the yellow saloon in precisely thirty minutes. Your devil-worshipers have come for their human sacrifice, not that I’ll let them have you. If anyone is going to snap your lovely neck, it will be me—most probably as a gift on the fiftieth anniversary of our wedding. Until then, I shall do my utmost to restrain myself. Rosalie, do you understand me?”

Fletcher! Rosalie collapsed against the pillows in relief. She didn’t know how he had done it, but he must have been able to get a lift back to Lakeview... just in time to save her. She smiled dreamily. Wasn’t it just like her dearest Fletcher to be there when she needed him, even if he could not resist making fun of her?

“Yes, Fletcher,” she called out joyously, sure he would hear her. She threw back the covers and ran to rescue her gown from the corner, hoping it would not need to be pressed, for it was the only gown she possessed. “I’ll be prompt, I promise.”

Rosalie held the gown in front of her and danced around the room, her fears flown. Fletcher would protect her, even if he made no bones about letting her know he thought her to be a bacon-brained twit. Fletcher loved her.

Aunt Belleville, whose acquaintances would have sworn the woman could not say boo to a goose, felt herself beginning to believe she would like nothing better than to slap Mrs. Beale silly.

She had been sitting across the tea tray from the woman for nearly a half-hour now, and Mrs. Beale hadn’t stopped speaking for a moment.

“And so I say to you, Miss Belleville,” Mrs. Beale was saying now, her bloodless lips barely moving, “can you blame me for being overset? The girl has shown herself to be a snake in the bosom, a heartless creature, to have run off, leaving us distraught and nearly without the funds needed to launch a search for her. I think she’s deranged, if you want my honest opinion, and I have already made inquiries with the local madhouse to have her put away.”

“Then she won’t be marrying me?” Sawyer Beale broke in from his seat beside his mother. “But, Mama, you promised me, right after we heard about William—although, come to think of it, Rosie always has hated me.”

“Shut up, Sawyer,” his mother ordered shortly, upon which Sawyer shut his mouth, his lower lip beginning to tremble.

Aunt Belleville looked toward the hallway, praying for her nephew to appear and rescue her before she did the Beale woman an injury. “We have seen no sign of insanity in Rosalie,” she put in weakly, thinking about the way Rosalie had looked the first time she had seen her. Was it insane to dress in boy’s clothing and sleep in a stable? Perhaps some people might believe it to be so, but Aunt Belleville much preferred to think of Rosalie as an eccentric. She liked the girl, for one thing, and for another, she could not make herself useful tending Fletcher’s children if Rosalie were proven to be just a tad dotty and he was to remain a bachelor.

“Not insane, Miss Belleville?” Mrs. Beale challenged. “And what would you call running off in the dead of night, leaving your only family behind, to traipse alone through the district, falling afoul of only God knows what devilment? She has undoubtedly been ruined by now, which is why I will no longer agree to give my blessing to any marriage between the girl and Sawyer. I will not have my son bedding down with soiled goods.”

Aunt Belleville’s eyes widened as a great fury enveloped her. A lady she might be, polite she might be—but enough was enough! “Now see here, Mrs. Beale,” she retorted hotly, “I feel I must take umbrage with what you are implying, by Jupiter, and I must tell you, ma’am, I can be exceedingly disagreeable when I put my mind to it.”

“That she can, Mrs. Beale,” Fletcher agreed softly from the doorway, unable to stand outside and listen to any more of this nonsense, the even tone of his voice effectively capturing the attention of everyone in the room. “ ‘By Jupiter,’ Aunt? I didn’t know you had it in you. I may yet reconsider the idea of a gilt ceiling for the music room. Bless you, Aunt, but please don’t put yourself into a taking. I am here now.”

Fletcher walked into the room, his quick scrutiny measuring the Beales against his mental picture of them. They were not, either singularly or collectively, a sight to inspire poetry.

He looked at and dismissed Sawyer in a heartbeat. Young, overdressed, and sadly lacking in both shoulder and chin, Sawyer registered in Fletcher’s mind as no more than a bloodless extension of his black crow of a mother, who most assuredly considered herself firmly in charge of everything, from what her son ate to whether he crossed his legs at the knee or the ankle.

Mrs. Beale, on the other hand, presented at least an interesting if not a particularly pleasing sight, reminding Fletcher of a full moon on a coal-black night. Her immense black-clad body represented the night, and her chalk-white face, so full cheeked that her eyes appeared punched into it, likes raisins in a pudding, had to be the moon.

Fletcher tipped his head to one side, measuring Rosalie’s charges against Mrs. Beale’s appearance. Yes, it was possible to believe this woman capable of holding a Black Mass. He doubted it highly, but it was possible. In any event, he couldn’t fault Rosalie for wishing to put as much space between herself and the Beales as humanly possible, and he made a mental note to congratulate her on her daring.

“Mrs. Beale, I presume? A thousand apologies for keeping you waiting,” he said after a moment, bowing in front of the woman. “Allow me to welcome you to Lakeview and to thank you for your timely response to my request to come here. I trust the journey did not prove too arduous?”

Mrs. Beale’s reply to his carefully calculated question, as lengthy as it promised to be boring, gave Fletcher the time he needed to formulate a plan to get himself and Rosalie shed of the overstuffed beldame and her muckworm son as soon as possible and with the minimum of fuss.

“Yes, yes, indeed,” Fletcher answered vaguely as Mrs. Beale’s voice finally ground down, knowing that all such a woman wanted in life was someone who would agree with her. “And you—Sawyer, isn’t it?—how did you fare on the road?” he asked, turning to the younger man to survey him through the lense of his chased-silver quizzing glass.

Sawyer, Fletcher could see, had been as impressed by Fletcher’s carefully selected dove-colored pantaloons, silver-buttoned coat of superfine, finely starched cravat, and spotless waistcoat as he had been intended to be. “The cheese was bad at the inn we stopped at,” Sawyer whined absently, for he did not know how to speak without whining. “I say, Mr. Belden, that cravat’s a masterpiece. Slap up to the mark!”

Fletcher grinned down at the young man, who hadn’t risen to shake his hand. “I try,” he answered humbly, turning back to Mrs. Beale. “Do I have your permission to sit, ma’am?”

“You have my permission to fetch Rosie to me as soon as possible, so that we might be on our way back to Patterdale. You do have her, don’t you?”

“Does anyone ever really ‘have’ anyone else, ma’am?” Fletcher questioned philosophically, neatly crossing one leg over the other at the knee, because it was his choice to do so. “I mean, you must have thought you had her, but like a little bird, she flew away, only to light down here, at Lakeview. How can I be assured that you could keep her, if you were to ‘have’ her again?”

“Fletcher,” Aunt Belleville exclaimed, aghast. “Surely you don’t plan to hand dear Rosalie over to this horrid woman, do you?”

“That’s a good question, ma’am, and one I too would delight in hearing answered, as it would appear your nephew changes his mind as often as he changes his clothes.”

“Rosie! My hopes were quite cut up!” Sawyer leapt to his feet, his thin body quivering, whether with delight or with dread only he knew. He took two steps forward, and Fletcher audibly cleared his throat. Sawyer stopped in his tracks, looked down at his feet as if asking them what they thought they were doing, then subsided once more into his chair.

Fletcher’s nonverbal threat did not so intimidate Mrs. Beale, who quickly launched into speech. “There you are, you heartless girl. Come here at once so that I might look at you. That had better not be rouge I see on those cheeks.”

“Rouge,” Aunt Belleville choked out, taking the woman’s words as a personal insult. “I’ll have you know, Mrs. Beale, that no child in my charge has ever worn rouge. And to think I had felt sorry for you. It’s no wonder poor Rosalie ran off. I would do likewise, had I been her.”

“Exactly right, Aunt Belleville,” Rosalie agreed, joining her champion on the settee, to put a protective arm about the woman’s shoulders. “Mrs. Beale, that was a most insulting remark, and I demand you apologize to Miss Belleville at once.”

“Apologize?” Mrs. Beale sputtered, her three chins beginning to wobble. “I’ll do no such thing, you impertinent chit. I won’t take any sauce from you, girl, or any orders either.”

“Ladies, ladies, please, can’t we talk reasonably?” Fletcher interposed, rising between the women before they could come to blows. Things had been going so well until Rosalie had joined them. He had taken the Beales’ measure and had been about to offer them what they wanted—money—in exchange for Mrs. Beale’s cooperation in settling the matter to everyone’s satisfaction. Now, thanks to Rosalie, and his aunt’s unexpected display of venom, there was nothing else for it but to go dragging through the entire guardianship question. “Surely there is no need for dramatic confrontation?”

Three sets of female eyes were now riveted in Fletcher’s direction, and he found himself wilting fractionally under the strain.

“She insulted me, nephew,” Aunt Belleville complained, pouting.

“You have no right, sirrah,” Mrs. Beale challenged gruffly.

“Oh, go put your head under the pump, Fletcher,” Rosalie groused in a less-than-loverlike tone.

And with that the three ladies were off again, arguing nineteen to the dozen, until Fletcher longed to clap his hands over his ears.

He had tried to be good. He had tried to be fair. He had, as a gentleman of the world, attempted to settle a ticklish matter with a minimum of fuss, protecting Rosalie’s reputation while at the same time putting an effective period to any of Mrs. Beale’s claims to guardianship over the woman he loved—the “delicately nurtured” young woman who had just told him to go soak his head.

He felt tempted, most sorely tempted, to quit the room and leave the three of them behind to tear one another’s hair out at the roots, winner take all. But he called himself a gentleman and he couldn’t opt for the lower road in that way. It fell to him to restore some sort of order to the conversation, and he knew of only one way to do it.

Taking a deep breath, he announced importantly, “May I have your attention, please? Ladies, Mr. Beale? Thank you. William Darley left his sister, Rosalie, in my charge, naming me as her guardian until such time as she marries or comes of age. I have a letter to that effect—duly witnessed and depressingly legal—in my possession. As I plan to wed Miss Darley within the week—against her will if necessary, I might add—it would appear that I am to be not only the executor of William’s wishes but also the means through which his wishes will be accomplished. Now, have I satisfied everybody here, or am I going to have to get nasty?”

“You were wonderful!”

“Yes, I was, wasn’t I?” Fletcher leaned down to kiss the top of Rosalie’s head, glorying in this high praise.

Rosalie snuggled more deeply into Fletcher’s embrace as they sat close together on the settee, the rest of the household already in bed for the night. “I thought Mrs. Beale would have an apoplexy, but she seemed to accept William’s letter at last. What choice did she have, really, with you all but daring her to disagree with you?” She turned her head to look up at him. “You can be very masterful, you know.”

Fletcher grinned, liking the thought that his betrothed considered him to be masterful almost as much as he reveled in the knowledge that she believed him to be wonderful. “And have you at last allowed yourself to be convinced that she had only planned for you to marry her wretched Sawyer and harbored no plan to involve you in a Black Mass?”