Alicia (35 page)

When Nigel appeared at her side, she turned to him questioningly. “The Honorable Thomas Morgan has been called away rather suddenly,”
he remarked dryly. “I do not think he will approach your daughter again.”

“Do you know what he said to her?”

“No, but it could not have been much considering their surroundings. She will receive a note of apology from him tomorrow.”

“I hope it does not spoil her evening. She was feeling much more easy about men when we talked the other day. Your mother has arranged our entertainments so carefully that no previous cloud has darkened them, but she warned me that she could not warrant that tonight would be as secure with this press of people.”
She turned to observe Felicia, who smiled confidently up at Rowland as he led her toward them. By the time they arrived they were bickering good-naturedly.

“Rowland says it does not count as a dance, so that he should still be allowed one other this evening,”
Felicia explained.

“And Felicia claims that the dowager instructed her that she must not stand up with anyone more than twice in the evening, so that I have used up my quota,”
he returned mournfully.

Their laughing appeal to Alicia calmed her fears and she said judiciously, “I think, as you did not enter the dance with him, that he may have his second dance, but I would advise that it be later in the evening.”

“There. You see, Felicia? Not the least need to question my judgment,”
Rowland admonished her with a grin.

Felicia regarded him almost shyly. “Then in future I shan’t, sir.”

As he watched the young people move away, Nigel remarked, “She is growing up, my love.”

“I know, and it is suddenly happening too fast.”
Her gaze rested proudly on her daughter. “Your mother must be pleased with her tonight; all her lessons have been well applied. Thank you for acting so quickly, Nigel, for she seems to have disregarded the incident.”

“I doubt either of you will be much troubled in the future, Alicia. Are you glad we came to London?”
he asked teasingly.

“You know I am, wretched fellow, but I look forward to returning to the Court, too. After all this bustle I will enjoy settling into a normal life with you and the children.”

“And Rowland, and my mother, and Miss Carnworth, and the general, and…”

The brilliant June sunlight streamed through the windows of the folly, a gothic jumble of bricks in a state of organized decay. Felicia surveyed the distant buildings of the Court fondly, then turned to Rowland with a mischievous smile. “Mama is not to be a shopowner any longer, you know. Mr. Dean, bless his soul, left his estate to Mr. Allerton, who is to purchase it from Mama.”

“Thank God,”
Rowland replied fervently, his eyes dancing in the light. “Now it will not be necessary for me to marry the daughter of a shopowner.”

Felicia regarded him wonderingly as he took her unresisting hand. His eyes became serious as he asked, “You will marry me, will you not, Felicia?”

“I...I should like to, Rowland, for I cannot bear to think of a life without you. But I am only turned seventeen and Mama will think I am too young.”

“We will wait a year, if they wish it. Uncle Nigel does not seem to mind that I have moved into the Court more or less permanently.”

“He is the most accommodating man. Do you know he has invited my oldest cousin to come here with an eye to teaching him the management of his estate near Ambleside?”

“Felicia, you are straying from the subject,”
Rowland pointed out gently. “Will you...can you marry me next year?”

“Yes,”
she said softly, “of course I can.”

“I know what happened last autumn.”
His eyes held  hers as she involuntarily tried to withdraw her hand from his clasp. “No, there is no need for you to be afraid of me, ever, Felicia.”

“I am not afraid, Rowland, I am ashamed,”
she murmured as she turned her head away.

“There is even less reason for that. Will you come with me to speak with your mother and my uncle?”

She nodded mutely and allowed him to assist her onto Dancer. Her hopes, her dreams, were being fulfilled, but the June day somehow did not seem as bright as it had. The young man riding beside her, familiar as he had become, was after all a stranger, who had for months known of her humiliation and not revealed his knowledge. It would have been horrid if he had, of course; she could not have borne that. But all his consideration was based on his knowledge. She reviewed in her mind the countless times he had avoided touching her, asked her permission to hand her onto her mount. How could she not have realized that he knew?

Alicia and Nigel were seated companionably in the summer parlor discussing the visit of her nephew. They had appropriated the room for their own use, a desire which was respected by the residents of the Court. As it was unusual for anyone to seek admission to their sanctuary, Nigel raised his brows curiously at the tap on the door, but called, “Come.”

The young people who entered displayed none of the radiance that might have been expected in a newly engaged couple. Felicia smiled hesitantly at her mother, but her overall demeanor was worried, while Rowland sought his uncle’s eyes anxiously.

“I have asked Felicia to marry me, sir, and she has accepted.”
He turned to Alicia and said gravely, “We hope to have your approval, ma’am, and are prepared to wait a year if you think it necessary.”

The news was no real surprise to Alicia, but her daughter’s expression certainly was. She had expected that unbounded joy would accompany such an announcement, for, although Felicia did not speak of her feelings toward Rowland, ever since the ball she had chosen his company over that of every other young man who had sought her favor. And Felicia’s acceptance of Rowland’s touch had become quite routine and unconscious, or so her mother had thought. Concerned, Alicia turned to Nigel for direction, and he appeared as troubled as she.

“Sit down, if you will,”
he suggested calmly, with a reassuring smile to his wife. “Perhaps we could get to the source of this unalleviated gloom. I myself remember feeling quite elated when your mother agreed to marry me, Felicia.”

The girl lowered her eyes and spoke softly, her hands folded anxiously in her lap. “He knows about what happened...in the autumn.”

“Yes, I told him, my dear, to forestall his upsetting you in any way inadvertently. I am sure he told no one else,”
Nigel offered, and there was a quick, confirming nod from his nephew.

“But I didn’t know that he knew,”
she protested, with a pleading look at her mother. “Can’t you see, Mama? He has treated me differently, and I did not even know!”

Rowland gave a helpless gesture and addressed Alicia earnestly. “I cannot see what difference that makes, for I could not have done otherwise.”

“I was equally upset when I learned that your uncle was my partner in the shop,”
Alicia informed him ruefully as she took her daughter’s hand. “Felicia, love, Rowland’s protection of you would not have been of any use if he had not been able to disguise his knowledge. I agreed to Nigel telling him at the time so that you might not be overset by any innocent exchange. You must not feel deceived, for Rowland heeded the advice out of his very real concern for you.”

While Felicia brightened somewhat under her mother’s persuasion, Rowland grew more restive. At length he said abruptly, “I brought Felicia to you for a different reason, actually. I cannot leave her in ignorance any longer of...what happened in Paris.”
His eyes entreated his uncle for support.

“No, I suppose not,”
Nigel said thoughtfully.

Rowland paced the length of the room, aware of Felicia’s gaze on him. He returned to take her hands as he crouched in front of her. “I wanted you to be with your mother when I told you, my love. If you cannot bring yourself to marry me, I will understand, but I could not just pretend that it never happened.”

He seemed unable to proceed and Alicia, with a weighty sigh, murmured, “She is but a child, Nigel.”

“No, love, she must become a woman now, for she is contemplating marriage.”

Felicia followed their remarks curiously and studied Rowland with alarm. “What is it that I should know, Rowland, that everyone else knows?”

“After Mr. Tackar tried to burn the shop, he went to Paris. Letters from him were received by a number of people in London, in which he told lies about you and your mother and my uncle. I could not allow such a matter to pass; it would have been unthinkable.”
His voice pleaded with her to understand. “And so I went there and I fought a duel with him. It was a matter of honor, Felicia. I went intending to kill him, and I did.”

She stared at him incredulously. “I always thought Papa Nigel must have killed him. He was away at that time.”

Alicia interposed. “Nigel met Tackar the day after he was at our cottage, and Tackar was seriously wounded. But Nigel did go to Paris to meet him again, only to find that Rowland had preceded him.”

“I see,”
Felicia said softly.

“My outrage and my anger carried me through the duel,”
Rowland admitted. “Afterward I felt wretched—not the wound, you understand, but that I had killed a man. You must not think that I take it lightly, Felicia, for I have never done anything so dreadful in my life. It is all very well to say that he did not deserve to live, which is true. It is another matter to have killed him myself.”

Into the silence which followed Rowland’s remarks, his uncle spoke. “By law he would have been guilty of a capital crime, had he been prosecuted. Tackar was familiar with a gentleman’s code of honor, and chose not to abide by it. Doubtless the honorable course is not always the easiest to follow, Rowland, but under the circumstances, as I told you at the time, you had no choice.”

“I could have aimed to wound him.”

“Which would have served no purpose at all,”
his uncle replied firmly.
“You
do not put your life in jeopardy with such a scoundrel to no end. You could as easily have been killed.”

Felicia’s face paled at the thought and she clutched at Rowland’s hand. “I would not have let you do it! Not because you killed him. I can feel no remorse for him, awful as that may sound. He deserved to die, and though I know it is hard for you to reconcile yourself to killing him, I am not horrified that you have done so. But you should not have taken such a chance to protect my name. My mother has taught me that I can hold my head high no matter what others say of me.”

“Such a pity that men cannot see it that way,”
Alicia added pungently, with a grimace at Nigel. “They must be forever charging at windmills in defense of our honor.”
She shook her head but continued sadly, “Unfortunately there is some justification of their attitude. A ruined reputation can prove the end of a young woman who has no means to refute it. Nigel and Rowland quite effectively managed to do so in this case, Felicia, and I hope you will not think unkindly of Rowland for doing what he felt he must.”

“No, of course not,”
the girl replied softly. She raised a hand to touch Rowland’s face tenderly. “I am proud that you thought enough of me to undertake such a dreadful task, my love.”

When Rowland bent forward to kiss her, Nigel grasped his wife’s hand and hurriedly drew her from the room. They wandered hand in hand to the solarium where they gazed over the lush lawns and flower borders.

“I suppose he had to tell her,”
Alicia said wistfully.

“Yes, love, he did. In his eyes she had the right to refuse him for his actions. You must let her become a woman, Alicia. With the strength you have given her, she can help him share his burden.”
Nigel pulled her to him, to the astonished amusement of the gardener working in the flower beds, and kissed her gently.

“I have protected her since she was a baby,”
Alicia sighed.

“It is time you let Rowland do so, my dear.”

“Yes, I promise I shall.”
She looked up to see his very special smile and asked, “You will help me?”

“Be sure I will, my love.”

Copyright © 1980 by Elizabeth Rotter

Originally published by Dell Publishing Company, and

subsequently by Warner and Signet

Electronically published in 2002 by Belgrave House

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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.