A Reckless Beauty (21 page)

Now Fanny understood. “But Loringa, your sister. She followed the dark, didn’t she, Odette?”

“Beales. She followed Beales. She follows Beales. For years, I could not feel her. But I feel her now. Deep in my bones, I feel her.”

“And that’s what you want to tell me, Odette? That you feel your sister? Coming closer?” Fanny unconsciously reached for the
gad,
the alligator tooth she had pinned inside the bodice of her gown.

“Closer, but not yet near. I am the stronger one, as when we were children. I can keep her muddled now that I know what she is about, keep her away. But not forever. And so I told your papa. So I am also telling you. I feel your fear, child, and that fear is inside you for good reason. I hold that fear in respect. It is a gift to you from the good
loa,
to remind you to be careful. The day will come, it is already on its way. But I also know this, am sure of this. The day is not here yet, there is time yet to prepare for the day we face our final battle.”

Fanny sometimes believed Odette could see everything, that she knew everything. Then, at other times, she thought of her as just Odette, the woman who had loved and scolded them all. Fanny couldn’t remember her mother, save for that one single memory of her pushing her down, covering her with her body. Odette had been her mother, as much as she’d ever had one, and at the moment Fanny wanted to believe everything Odette said to her.

But it was hard. So hard.

Odette put her hand on Fanny’s shoulder. “And one thing more. When you look at the man, see the man. Be fair to the man. Do not see the fear, plan for the fear. Do not see the past. See the man, look into his eyes, for there you will find your truth. Do you understand me, child? Rian would want that.”

Fanny lowered her head, spoke softly. “Rian and I weren’t twins. But we were different sides of the same coin, weren’t we? From the time we were children. He was the giver, and I was the selfish one who only took. He was the good to my evil.”

Odette’s sigh was loud, exasperated. “You’re as evil as that bedpost, child, and just as thick. Mourn your brother. That is right to do. But do not bury yourself with him, for that is to dishonor his memory.”

“Brede said we can’t change the past, but we can find a future.” She looked at Odette. “But I can’t see it. I can feel the fear, and I can’t see any other future, not until Edmund Beales is gone forever. I lost Rian to him by my own selfishness, that’s what they think, I know they do. I can’t lose Brede to him, too. So I’m sending him away.”

“He won’t thank for that, child.”

“I know,” Fanny said. Then she reached out to hug Odette around the waist, bury her head against the old woman’s soft bosom. “I know.”

F
ANNY STAYED
in her bedchamber for the remainder of the day. She cried a little, slept a little, and then decided that—as had been the opinion of her family many times during her youth—she still “wasn’t fit to associate with reasonable human beings.”

Callie had come knocking on her door earlier, bringing food to her, and Fanny had surprised herself by downing every last bite, then wiping at the last bits of juice with a hunk of fresh bread. It was both a wonderful and horrifying thing; how life went on. The sun still rose and set, bellies still insisted on being fed, younger sisters were still interminable pests….

As the hours dragged by and the sky outside darkened and the sounds inside Becket Hall seemed to go low and hushed, she wondered what Valentine was doing. If he’d eaten. Where he’d sleep. If he’d decided she was right, and he had taken advantage of what she’d so stupidly said and was already on the road to Brede Manor.

She also spent some time thinking about what Odette had said. Odette believed her, believed her nightmare and her fears were real. A gift from the
loa,
the good spirits. How could fear be a gift?

Because her fear was also a warning? Yes, that made sense. Edmund Beales was still their enemy, still bent on destroying all of them. Loringa, Odette feeling aware of her again, was a warning.

Rian had been the most heartbreaking of warnings.

All of her life, for as long as she could remember, Becket Hall and her family had been Fanny’s world. Romney Marsh her home. She’d felt safe, sheltered. Cocooned. Blissfully unaware.

A child.

Now she’d seen some of the world. She’d seen a city. She’d seen a battlefield. She’d seen the beauty and the horror. And all she’d wanted, all that she’d thought would heal her, keep her safe, would be to run to Valentine, who would then shield her, protect her.

That’s what she felt for him, about him. Wasn’t it? This strong man, this worldly man. This man who, when he looked at her, made her long to race into his protective arms.

To hold her.

To kiss her.

To make the world go away.

Her thoughts stopped her as she stood naked in the middle of her bedchamber after washing at the basin, her arms raised as she pulled a white lawn nightgown over her head. She tugged the material down and over her hips, her thoughts echoing in her head.
Hold her. Kiss her.
Revel in the softness that came into his world-weary eyes when he looked at her. Feel her heart flutter in her breast when she looked at him, when he teased her, when he blustered, when he…

Where had Eleanor put him? Which chamber?

No. She couldn’t do that.

Make the world go away.

Yes. She could.

Fanny pushed her fingers through her hair, hunted in her wardrobe for the slippers Callie had embroidered for her last Christmas.

Make the world go away.

Slipped her feet into the slippers. Dragged a dressing gown from the wardrobe, shoved her arms into it, tied the satin strings at her neck.

She clapped a hand to her mouth to hold back a startled yelp when someone knocked on her bedchamber door. She turned toward the door, saw a spill of light beneath it. Whoever was there had come bearing a candle, as if unfamiliar with the way in the near dark and needing extra light.

“Who…who’s there?”

“Open the door, Fanny.”

“Brede,” she whispered, her heart skipping a beat. He’d come to her? Just as she was about to go to him? That wasn’t fair. Now he was the better man, not she. Besides, he’d just ordered her to open the door. Who was he to give her orders?

Oh. Her husband.

Well, wasn’t that
convenient
for him!

“Go away,” she called out loudly enough for him to hear her through the thick wood. “I’ll…We’ll see each other tomorrow.”

“Fanny, open the door. And I won’t ask you a third time.”

“Good,” she said in a firm voice. “Then I won’t have to hear from you again tonight.”

She thought she heard a low chuckle on the other side of the door. But that couldn’t be right. She hadn’t said anything the least amusing.

Then she watched, her eyes wide, as the large key in the lock fell onto the floor. She heard another key fumbling in the lock, from the other side of the door. She watched as the latch was depressed. Stood stock-still as the door opened and Valentine walked into the room.

“How…”

“Odette gave it to me, along with directions to your chamber and a warning to begin as I plan to go on, or else be henpecked for all of my life,” he said, placing the key in his waistcoat pocket. “She hardly seems to physically fill the role of Cupid, but she seems a pragmatic woman. After all, you and I are married. And I have to sleep somewhere, don’t I?”

“Might I suggest the stables, my lord,” Fanny said, backing up several steps, even as she longed to run to him.

Odd. He was dressed in his London clothes, but his cravat was hanging untied and he looked…he looked a bit
fuzzy
around the edges. He was part haughty peer, part ruffian tonight. He was a twin, all by himself, two halves of the same whole. Two men, inhabiting the same body, sharing the same soul. Why hadn’t she seen that before? Had Odette seen it? Was that another meaning Fanny had been supposed to understand? Two men; but one body, one heart, one soul. One who had often been forced into the dark, one who hoped for the light. Which one of them craved
her?

Valentine smiled. “The stable, is it? There’s five pounds I owe Spence.”

Fanny shook herself back to attention, looked at him owlishly. “I beg your pardon? Spence?”

“Yes. After he knocked me down, we decided we rather like each other. He said the stables. I had thought you’d simply tell me to take myself to hell.”

“Spence—Spencer
hit
you? Why?”

“Well, there remains a difference of opinion on that,” Valentine said, depositing the candle on a nearby able. “Court says it was because Spence is most articulate with his fists, rather than his mouth, but Jack’s position is that I simply possess a face many men see and would like to hit.”

Fanny stepped closer, to get a better look at Valentine in the dim light. She saw that his cheek was rather red, a bit puffy. Then she looked into his eyes, and narrowed her own at him. So,
that
explained his rather fuzzy look. “Brede—you’re
drunk.
”

“Nonsense,” he said, walking past her, already slipping off his cravat. “A bit in my altitudes, possibly, but surely not cup-shot. Three parts inebriated, if anything. I’m an earl, my dear. Earls don’t condescend to getting
drunk.
”

“I did this to you, didn’t I? I reduced you to this—crawling into a bottle.”

He turned to face her. “You give yourself too much credit, my dear. I am perfectly capable of lifting a glass on my own.”

He began opening the buttons on his waistcoat, ticking off reasons as he did so. “We drank to your brother. We drank to Wellington. To Blücher. To lasting peace. To pretty Uxbridge. And, again, to Rian. Many, many times to Rian. We would have drunk to the Prince Regent, but we don’t much care for Fat Florizel, none of us. Oh, and we drank to my marriage. Can’t forget that, can I? So here I am…presenting myself to my bride.”

“Oh, Brede…”

He stripped out of his jacket and waistcoat, pulled his opened shirt clear of his buckskins and then looked about the dimly lit chamber. “No bootjack? Pity.” He sat himself down on the rocker and held up one booted leg to her. “You’ll do the honors, wife?”

“I’ll call for someone,” Fanny told him, suddenly nervous. Valentine was so elementally male. He’d taken her to bed, yes. But that had been different from the way he was now. He wasn’t comforting her now. He was…why, he was almost
taunting
her.
Daring
her with a naughty, little-boy smile on his face.

She was most certainly going to have a stern talk with the interfering Odette tomorrow, and her brothers, as well—and she hoped those brothers, and Jack included, would spend most of the rest of the night hanging their heads over their chamber pots, sick as dogs.

“Call for someone? Nonsense. You’re no more than five feet away from me, and perfectly capable,” Valentine said, waggling an admonishing finger at her. “Why, wasn’t it you, Fanny, who pointed out to me that we’re much too lazy, too dependent on others when we could just as easily fend for ourselves?”

“Oh, shut up, Brede,” Fanny said. “I don’t need to be flogged with my own words. Brace your hands on the arms of the chair.”

Valentine rocked back and forth. “Feels like we’re back on the yacht, doesn’t it?” His eyes clouded. “Would that we were….”

Fanny shook her head, giving up the fight. The sooner she had gotten his boots off, the sooner she could lead him to her bed, where he’d probably promptly fall asleep. “Keep your leg stuck out, and plant your other foot firmly on the floor,” she ordered.

Then she turned her back to him and rather mounted him, as she would a horse, one foot planted on either side of his leg, her back to him.

“Ah, isn’t that a lovely sight,” Valentine said, not so deep in his cups that he didn’t know he was driving his new bride insane. Seemed fair enough…as that’s what she’d done to him. “Wiggins’s rump doesn’t hold a candle to yours, sweetings. But he does wear white gloves when he removes my boots. To avoid smudging the leather, you understand. Do you by chance have a pair of white gloves handy, wife?”

“Hang your smudges. I could cheerfully strangle you at the moment, Brede,
and
my brothers,” Fanny growled from between clenched teeth as she put one hand on the heel of his boot, the other beneath the sole, and then began to work the high boot free of his leg. The boot had been well-made, and fit him like a second skin. She couldn’t budge it.

“Here we go,” Valentine said, lifting his other leg and planting the sole of that boot on her backside. “You pull, sweetings, and I’ll push. Seems fair enough, and much like what we’re already doing between us now, at any rate.”

“You
are
drunk, aren’t you, Brede?” she asked him, daring to turn her head to glare at him. She’d seen her brothers drunk a time or two over the years, but she didn’t remember them being quite so articulate at the time, being more prone to hanging on each other’s shoulders and singing bawdy songs.

His smile was lopsided, as if he had a cheroot stuck in the corner of his mouth, which he didn’t. “I’m beginning to believe so, yes. Whatever I am, it’s an exceedingly pleasant feeling.”

“How happy I am for you,” Fanny snapped as she applied all her strength to pulling off the boot as he pushed against her rump.

Seconds later she held the boot in her hands and the rocker had tipped sharply backward, loudly crashing to the floor. “And even happier now,” she added in some satisfaction, watching as Valentine looked up at her, his expression perplexed. And rather comical.

“Unhorsed, by gad,” Valentine said. And then he giggled.

Giggled!
The Earl of Brede?
Giggling?
He was still somehow sitting in the rocker, but with the rocker now having fallen backward to the floor. His one booted foot and one stockinged foot were both waving high in the air. He was totally helpless, and giggling. Oh, how low she’d brought him!

“Stop that,” Fanny ordered, tossing the boot to one side and holding out her hands to him. “Here, for pity’s sake, let me help you up before someone comes to check on the noise and sees you like this. Your position lends nothing to your consequence, my lord.”

Valentine laughed all the harder.

“Oh, you’re impossible,” Fanny said, circling behind the overturned rocker and grabbing the top ends of the spindles. She put her back into it, trying to raise the rocker, but it was no use. Not with Valentine lending her absolutely no help whatsoever. “You know something, Brede? I should just leave you here, like a tortoise turned over onto its shell.”

At last Valentine sobered—slightly—and maneuvered himself until the rocker tipped onto its side. Slowly, admittedly clumsily, he at last managed to get his feet, and even righted the chair. “Perhaps, wife, we should move to the bed, and try this business of the boots again?”

Fanny considered this suggestion for a moment, and then decided that he probably should get into bed, before he passed out where he stood. She waved him in the general direction of the tester bed, and he sat himself down on it, then laid back, closed his eyes.

“Last time I felt like this,” he told her as he gazed up at the canopy, admiring the embroidered roses, “I wasn’t much younger than you are now, Fanny. I seem to recall that, marvelous as I feel now, the feeling won’t last. Pity, as I believe I’m rather enjoying the sensation….”

Fanny didn’t answer, but just worked hard to remove his other boot, finally succeeding in her third attempt. She then lifted his legs while urging him to shift himself more fully onto the bed.

“Certainly, my dear. Your every wish is my command. I’m sure it is. Now, precisely what did you want me to do?”

“If I asked you to go soak your head in one of the horse troughs, would you do it?” she grumbled, giving his legs one last push.

Valentine pulled himself backward, his head almost reaching the pillows, so that she helped him as best she could, trying to make him more comfortable.

“Lift your head, Brede, so I can slip this—Yes, that’s better. I hope you don’t get…Well, that you won’t be sick. Not because of me. Rian was right, when he’d tease me that I could drive a man to drink. It’s very lowering, you know, that you should prove him right, and I hope you’re satisfied. I think I’m going to cry.”

Valentine reached up a hand and grabbed her shoulder, pulling her down to him. His head had begun to spin, not quite as pleasantly as before. Odd, not feeling in control, in charge; master of his actions. Odd, yet somehow freeing. He felt his heart open, escape the tight leash he’d learned to keep on his feelings. He wasn’t sure if he imagined, or actually said the words.

“Women weep, sweetings, while men pour themselves into a bottle. All to forget. Come lie with me, Fanny. Together, we can forget. War, the terribleness of it…all the good men lost for no reason than another man’s ambition, another man’s greed. Another man’s lust for power. No more deaths, Fanny. I’m so damnably weary of all the deaths, all the good friends lost to me. So many dead. Before, at the end of the day, we’d ask who had died. Now we can only ask, sweet Jesus, who is still alive? So many gone…too many. But it’s over, this time it’s finally over. Lie with me, Fanny, and we’ll have no more nightmares….”