Dair Devil (52 page)

Unable to breathe, Rory collapsed.

She awoke in the arms of a footman, who carried her, not to her bedchamber on the ground floor, but upstairs, where she was set down on the bed in the small guest bedchamber over the front entrance. Edith came, and her grandfather, too. She lay there, listless and cold. She honestly wondered if she could be bothered breathing, such was the pounding in her head and the ache in her heart.

In her fog of despair, she heard her grandfather tell Edith he was locking the door. He did not want his granddaughter doing anything foolish in the night, such as run off to the dower house. He would unlock the door at a reasonable hour in the morning, when he hoped a good night’s sleep would see his granddaughter recovered her wits.

Rory’s gaze must have wandered to the window, for he added that it was impossible, for whatever reason, to open the window. And as there was a considerable drop, and nothing between the window and the gravel drive to break her fall, should she smash the glass and climb out, she would surely break every bone in her body, if not kill herself.

He then kissed her forehead and told her she meant the world to him and that he loved her so very much. With the turn of the key in the lock, she burst into tears and cried herself to exhaustion and fitful sleep. She woke with the dawn and found Edith asleep in a chair at the foot of the bed, most uncomfortable and shivering with cold, the wrap pulled up over her having slipped to the floor. The fire in the grate had gone out, the scullery maid unable to access the room to provide more wood for the night. Rory was so sick in her heart she felt nothing except the ring on her finger…

The ring! The pale lavender sapphire ring Dair had slipped on her finger after asking her to marry him. Why had she not thought to feel it on her finger before now?! With dawning wonder she stared at the beautiful stone in the gray morning light until her eyes went dry, fearing that if she blinked it would not be there, that she was dreaming. But it was still on her finger, exquisitely cut, beautiful in its soft lavender hues, and
hers
. The ring became her talisman of hope and belief.

She knew then Dair had gone away without a word to her, for any reason other than he had forsaken her. He did love her. He did want to marry her. The proof of his words was in this ring. But perhaps her grandfather had rejected him as a suitable husband—he had said as much the night before—and, dejected, Dair had not the heart to face her with such news. But she was confident he had left the house only to come up with a plan, and that he would not leave England for America without her. If she had to elope with him to the war-torn Colonies, then so be it. Nothing and nobody would stop her!

Feeling so much better, and confident the day would bring Dair to her with some plan for their future, Rory drew the wrap back up across Edith, and added one of the two coverlets from the bed for good measure, to ensure her maid was kept warm. She then snuggled in and fell asleep almost instantly, she was so achingly tired. Waking to a late breakfast brought up on a tray, she surprised Edith by eating well and then declaring she would bathe, and wear the soft green silk gown
à l'anglaise
, with the embroidered under-petticoats. And to bring her a cold compress for her eyes to take away the puffiness. Then Edith could dress her hair in a coil of braids and curls.

When Lord Shrewsbury enquired of Edith how her mistress was holding up after the night before, Edith was able to tell him that when she left Rory in her bath, she was singing to herself; it was if the previous night’s melodrama had never occurred. Far from looking pleased, the old man’s frown deepened. He wondered what scheme his granddaughter was hatching to see herself reunited with the Major. He ordered the footman to keep his granddaughter locked in the upstairs bedchamber, with only her maid to be given access; a footman to stand guard at the door at all times.

Rory was bathing when Edith brought her the news that Lord and Lady Grasby and Mr. William Watkins had arrived from Chiswick. With this news, she was again locked into the bedchamber, and this time without warning or explanation, which worried her as to her grandfather’s motives for keeping her locked up, even from her own family members.

And then Major Lord Fitzstuart did return! She was dressed and ready to go downstairs when a second carriage turned into the drive. Edith was at the window and called her over in time to see the carriage door furthest from the house fling wide and the love of her life appear. Rory could have fainted with happiness at seeing him. She pressed her hands and little nose to the glass to better see him when he went down on his haunches to light a cheroot, and wondered if she shouted he would hear her. But then she reasoned, so would the rest of the house, so best to keep quiet and be ready to flee when he kicked in the door. Perhaps she should think of a plan to help him in his rescue of her. To this end she had Edith help her remove the candles from their brass holders. She played with the weight of them, judging the best way to hold a candlestick to use it with force. Edith swayed with worry at the passion for violence her young mistress displayed when demonstrating the use of a candlestick as a weapon.

But neither candlestick was required to be misused. Nor was the door kicked in. It was unlocked by a footman to admit a short, upright lady who introduced herself in French as lady-in-waiting to Mme la Duchesse d’Kinross. She came with orders for Edith to have Mlle Talbot’s belongings packed up and sent out to the Duchesse’s waiting carriage. Mlle Talbot would be spending the week at the house of her godmother in preparation for her marriage to Major Lord Fitzstuart. Not understanding French, Edith looked to Rory for translation. But upon hearing the phrase…
in preparation for her marriage to Major Lord Fitzstuart
, Rory again went into shock and forgot to breathe, crumpling to the floor in a heap of billowing petticoats.

Revived, Rory existed in a heightened state of awareness, the mixed emotions of relief and disbelief causing not only her heart but her mind to race. And while Edith went off with the Duchess’s lady-in-waiting to supervise the packing of portmanteaux, the footman locked Rory into the bedchamber again with the apology he could not free her until word came from his lordship.

Finally her grandfather did fetch her, and with the news everyone was awaiting her presence in the drawing room. He did not speak of events of the night before, and while there remained so many unanswered questions, Rory could not bring herself to ask him. He looked to have aged overnight. His shoulders stooped and his hands had acquired a slight tremor. Worst of all was the haunted expression in his blue eyes. He could not meet her gaze, and when he spoke he sounded frail; gone was the confident resonance.

How could she stay angry with him? She kissed his cheek, put her arms about him and said she forgave him and would always love him. He broke down, asked her forgiveness for being over-protective, and in an about-face, he said the Major was indeed a good man who was worthy of her. They then both shed a tear. When sufficiently composed, they went downstairs, arm-in–arm, Shrewsbury resigned to being a bystander, Rory to greet the first day of the rest of her life.

I
N
TWO
STRIDES
Dair was before her. She smiled up at him. He grinned down at her. They were so happy to see each other they giggled. Rory let go of her grandfather’s arm and handed him her walking stick. But when she turned to look at Dair again, when she saw that he was indeed still there before her, she was so overcome with relief she crumpled. A shaking hand to her mouth and tears in her eyes, she sobbed.

Dair instantly scooped her up and held her against him, face nuzzled in her hair, silent, feeling the strong tremors of release coursing through her lithe frame. But then he realized the tremors were not only hers. He did not speak, just held her, and let her cry until she stopped of her own volition. When she moved in his arms, he let her go. He gave her his handkerchief. And when she had dried her eyes, he quickly wiped his own and thrust the handkerchief away.

Neither was certain who moved time on after that. But she was in his arms again, on tiptoe, chin tilted up to kiss him. He stooped and crushed her mouth under his, all social constraint abandoned. They were too relieved, too overjoyed, too in love to be bothered with convention and propriety. All that mattered was they were together, they were to marry, and as soon as possible. Everything and everyone around them disappeared in a fog of unimportant movement and noise.

They would have stayed this way, locked in a passionate embrace, but Rory came to a sense of her surroundings when a glass shattered on the floor.

Lady Grasby had gasped in shock to see the couple embrace and kiss, and dropped her wine glass, champagne splashing the silk ruches of her bodice. Never in her lifetime would she have suspected this outcome. She did not believe her eyes. She glanced swiftly at her brother, who looked just as shocked as she felt, with his jaw hanging loose. But it was at her husband she stared hardest. Lord Grasby’s immediate reaction mimicked hers, but then a change came over him, and his mouth lifted into a silly grin. He hugged himself, as if needing to contain his joy, shoulders hunching, shock giving way to enlightenment and then sheer delight at sight of his sister and his best friend so happy in each other’s arms. Lady Grasby’s eyes filled with tears and her mouth puckered; it had nothing to do with sentimentality. Her moment to shine in the candlelight had come and now it was gone, extinguished by this couple’s unbridled happiness.

The breakage caused a general commotion, and footmen ran about picking up the shards, while Mr. William Watkins was heard to comment that he was not surprised her ladyship lost hold of her glass. The shock of witnessing such an indecent spectacle of a couple giving in to such base behavior in such exalted company, and in the broad light of day, was enough to alarm even the most liberal mind amongst the assembled company. He expected the Major to instantly offer up his apologies to her Grace and to his lordship.

“M’sieur! You have the sensibilities of an old maiden aunt, the manners of a washerwoman, and the face of a rat catcher,” Antonia stated bluntly, staring down and then up at the tall reed-thin secretary, from his highly-polished buckled shoes to his fashionable but excessively curled wig
a le faisan
. “I am told your face it is the result of the first two. So me, I have no sympathy. So now, M’sieur,” she ordered, pointing her closed fan at Mr. William Watkins, “you will be quiet, as if you are not here at all. Lord Shrewsbury he is to perform the toasts. Then both sides of the family they can be surprised equally by the news of the other. I do not doubt it will provide some of you with conversation for the rest of the week. But my goddaughter and Lord Fitzstuart, they will be excused from such enlivening discussion, because me I am to take them to an appointment with my son and his chaplain, to discuss the wedding ceremony to which you are all invited next week. And there! I have told you the news, without really meaning to. My lord, the toasts, if you please. M’sieur le Duc cannot abide tardiness.”

But as she was handed up into her carriage, the Duchess gave her driver the order, not to take her to M’sieur le Duc d’Roxton, but to drive to the mausoleum. She must share the couple’s news, and her own, even more startling announcement, with Monseigneur, before going on to the big house.

Sunlight streamed in through the glass oculus of the opulent crypt of the last resting place of the Dukes of Roxton and their relatives, illuminating the Italian marble flooring, and showing the way deeper in to the cavernous space.

A footman and Dair carried in urns filled with white roses. The footman placed the smaller of the two urns at the base of a black marble sarcophagus that had upon its lid the sleeping figures of a man and woman in white marble: The last resting place of the Earl and Countess of Stretham-Ely, known for most of their lives as Lord and Lady Vallentine, Antonia’s beloved brother and sister-in-law; parents of Evelyn Gaius Lucian Ffolkes, who, according to Dair, now called himself M’sieur Lucian.

The large urn of white roses, Dair placed at the base of the fifth Duke of Roxton’s imposing tomb. The nobleman, sculpted in white marble, was so to the life, he stared down his long nose from his chair, as if he still surveyed all before him with the same arrogant disdain he had shown all but his family in life. To Dair, the Duke had been a second father, a stern second father, but a loving one for all that. And so after placing the urn, he stepped back and stood for a moment with head bowed, before joining Rory on the marble bench opposite. He put out his hand to her without taking his eyes from the Duke, and when he felt her fingers entwined with his, he smiled and then looked at her. She was staring at him fixedly, and when he put up his black brows in a silent question, she touched his shoulder so he would dip it to allow her to whisper near his ear, and thus not disturb the Duchess.

“When I was six years old, M’sieur le Duc told me that when I was older I could have his beaky nose… He was true to his word… You have his nose.”

Dair sat up with a frown, looked at her, then up at the statue of his cousin, for he was related not only to Antonia through their mutual ancestress their grandmother, but to the Duke who had been their grandmother’s first cousin. But he had never before thought much about his blood connection to the Duke. And yet, staring at him now, it was glaringly obvious he had indeed inherited his strong nose. That the old Duke had predicted the love of Dair’s life would marry a man with the same strong nose as he possessed was mere coincidence, but it still sent a shiver down his back, and formed a lump in his throat. He held Rory’s hand just that little bit tighter.

The couple then sat silent and attentive to the Duchess, who remained standing before her first husband’s tomb, first to arrange the flowers to her liking, and then to look up at him with a hand to the toe of his buckled shoe. It was as if contact with cold marble was somehow needed for her to feel that little bit closer to him, to bridge the insurmountable gap between the living and the dead. And although she never said a word out loud, Rory was certain her godmother was communicating with her beloved. She knew it was so when the Duchess finally came over and sat on the bench, with her hands lightly in her lap.