Duainfey (13 page)

"Now, miss," he'd continued after a pause to see if Becca would cry. "Sir Jennet has asked to speak with you alone this morning. I have given my permission. You will await him in the ladies' parlor and you
will
be meek and mild. You
will
apologize and make whatever amends Sir Jennet deems appropriate." He paused, staring at her hard.

"
Whatever
amends he deems appropriate, Rebecca, am I plain?"

"Yes, Father," she said quietly. "You are quite plain."

"Excellent. I suggest you go now and wait for him to come to you."

She curtsied, turned—

"Rebecca."

She turned back. "Father?"

"If Sir Jennet calls off the marriage, I will remand you to the Wanderer's Village," he said coldly. "I cannot have you disrupting my household any longer."

Becca took a deep breath, made another curtsy—and left.

It had been several hours since that interview. Becca sat behind her embroidery frame, alone in the ladies' parlor. Cook had twice come in to give her tea, and to leave a plate of biscuits. The tea was strong, and it was the reason she was slightly . . . less dull than she might be, with a dance, and an hour's sleep in her immediate past.

"I will not," she whispered to her embroidery, "marry Sir Jennet."

The threat of banishment to a Wanderer's Village—that was frightening. Still, she might yet escape to Sonet, and Dickon had said he would—

The door opened, loudly. Becca started, and rose as Sir Jennet strode into the room.

She bumped the embroidery frame as she did so. It wobbled crazily; she snatched at it with her good hand, missed—and the whole went crashing down, silks and needles dashing across the floor in tangled confusion.

Sir Jennet looked down at the minor disaster, then back to Becca, a frown on his ruddy face.

"You were scarcely so clumsy on the dance floor," he remarked, and it came to her with a slight shock that he was angrier now than he had been last night.

"Dare I hope to receive an apology for last evening's outrageous and immodest behavior, madam?" Jennet continued, his voice hot and hard.

Becca felt a flicker of temper, and took a breath to still it.
You did wrong,
she reminded herself,
and hurt his pride. For that, he is indeed owed an apology.

"Indeed, sir," she murmured, dropping into the slight curtsy that was the most her one-handed state allowed. "I am very sorry to have distressed you, especially after you were so kind as to offer to sit with me."

There came from Sir Jennet, not a bow accepting this olive branch, but a glare, and a silence so heavy Becca feared it might crush him.

"Is that," he said finally, "what you consider to be an apology, madam? How differently we judge your crime!"

"Crime, sir?" Becca felt her cheeks heat. "Is it a crime in the Corlands to dance at a dance? For I assure you that it is not here!"

"To mock one's husband in public is certainly a crime; and women have been placed in the stocks in the marketplace for less cause than you gave me last night!" His face was darkening toward purple.

"To characterize dancing with one as mocking another, sir—"

"An entire set!" he roared, overriding and shocking her. "Your father
assured me
that the incident which crippled you had broken you of any further desire for wanton and abandoned behavior! I see that what he characterized as an acceptance of proper female modesty was merely a lack of opportunity. Let one pretty man come into your orbit and you immediately throw over every propriety, with no thought of what hurt you may do to those who are responsible for you—and show no remorse, even after your error has been taught to you!"

"Re—" Her voice failed.

Perhaps Sir Jennet took her silence for a sudden understanding of her so-called crime, for his face softened somewhat, and he inclined his head.

"Just so. Come, madam. Soon you will be my wife, and removed to a strange land. It will profit you to be my friend, and not anger me. Make amends, sweetly, as I know you can, and let us begin again."

She stared, seeing—not him, not the ladies' parlor and the bright spill of embroidery across the sun-drenched floor, but long dank hallways, and a room so cold her bones ached with the thought of it.

If I die,
she thought, very clearly and calmly.
If I die up there, of cold and neglect, he will have my portion. It is that which he wants, not me. No one will rescue me, not Dickon, nor even Irene. What woman needs rescue from her husband?

To place yourself wholly in his hands,
Altimere spoke from memory—
it is a bold act. But is it a wise one?

No,
she thought, panic rising.
Not wise at all
. Nor was it wise to anger him again—and already his face was beginning to darken.

Becca dropped into the lowest curtsy she was capable of sustaining, head bowed modestly.

"Sir Jennet, I do apologize most humbly for my folly of last evening," she said, her voice chaste and soft. "Of course I cannot wish to anger you, or to harm you in any way."

Sharp scythe,
she thought, staring down at the floor,
let that be sufficient.

The silence grew, then he moved, his heels hitting the floor hard, and his boots came into her line of vision. He reached out and raised her. When she lifted her eyes to his face, he smiled.

"There, then," he said, jovially, all trace of his former anger vanished. "I knew a firm hand was all you needed. We'll get along famously, you and I. And you will never mock me again, will you, Rebecca?"

She glanced aside, hoping he would take it for maidenly modesty.

"No, sir," she whispered, and swore in her heart that it was true.

"Good—indeed, excellent! Then I know that you will be pleased to know that your father and I have agreed that it will benefit no one to put off our marriage until Midland's harvest. I am here, now. There is no need for me to make a second lengthy journey just as winter is setting in. He has today written to the Governors' Counsel, requesting a special license." Jennet smiled, and Becca felt her blood freeze in her veins.

"We shall be married and on our way home to the Corlands before the week is out!"

They would not tell him how long he had slept—or perhaps the one who attended his awakening simply did not know.

He bore scars, livid against his brown skin, which argued for a slumber of some uncommon while. The wounds he had borne were terrible, and in his lucid moments he had not expected to survive them. That he had done so was well, however, for duty lay before him.

They brought him clothes, the leather leggings and vest of a Wood Wise, and good, sturdy boots, which was also well. They gave him a belt, but neither knife nor bow, from which he deduced that one with more insight into his case than his present attendant would soon wish to speak with him. Those who were newly wakened were sometimes confused in their minds. Naturally, one would not wish to arm such, for fear that they might do themselves a hurt.

He was in no danger of doing himself a hurt—but no matter. They would learn so, soon enough.

He dressed himself deliberately, covering the scars with clothing, stamping into his boots. The belt he considered, frowning, for it were very nearly an insult. Yet, the healers would think of it as honoring his
kest.

Not wishing to offend those who wished only to convey honor, he threaded the belt 'round his waist, settled the patch over his right eye, and turned as the door opened, admitting the attendant, who bowed low, stammering that the chyarch would see him now.

"So soon?" Lady Quince stared at Mother over the rim of her teacup. "Obviously, the gentleman is smitten."

"It would seem to be so," Mother murmured. "He sees no reason to subject Becca to a journey at what is, in his own country, the threshold of winter."

"And by marrying now, there is time for a honeytrip before he may be wanted at his own harvest. That is well-thought, I must own." At last, her ladyship sipped her tea, placing the cup back on the saucer with a tiny clink.

"Well, then, Miss!" she said, with a gaiety that seemed entirely horrible to Becca. "Did I not tell you that he would soon overcome his annoyance and realize that he must make a push to secure that was promised?"

Becca swallowed in a dry throat, and made shift to smile. "Indeed, you told me just that, ma'am," she murmured, and raised her own cup so that she need not speak further.

The tea, she knew, was quite good—Lady Quince's tea was always perfectly brewed. It must, therefore, be only what her father was pleased to style an "overwrought imagination" that produced the burning in her throat, as if it were not tea, but vinegar that she sipped.

Her "overwrought imagination" could not, however, be blamed for yesterday's shocking series of events. It was a fact that she had been forbidden to leave the house without her father or mother as escort—"by order of the Earl," so the footman who had barred the front door against her explained apologetically.

She had not been allowed to visit Sonet, nor to tend her garden, nor to repair to her workroom. Which was, Mother said brightly, when Becca laid these same facts before her, just as well.

"For you have a prodigious amount to do, you know, Becca! And a very short time to do it in. Now. What do you think about—"

"I think that I would like to visit Sonet," Becca interrupted. "She expects that I will be here through the summer; this sudden, unexplained departure—"

"Need not be unexplained," Mother interrupted in her turn. "You may write her a note. Any of the servants will be happy to carry it for you."

But Becca did not write to Sonet when she left her mother. Instead, she had walked firmly and briskly down the hall to the door of her father's study—and paused, with her hand on the knob.

Beyond the door, her father was shouting—which was, regrettably, not . . . entirely unknown. It was, however, no luckless lackey whom he disciplined this day, for a second voice, not—quite—shouting, cut across his, and it was that which gave her pause.

For the second voice had been Dickon's.

Prudently, she had removed down the hall to a position of less exposure, and had scarcely ducked into the shelter of the library when a door slammed, and slammed again, and angry footsteps approached.

Becca stepped out into the hall—and stopped, her hand flying involuntarily to her lips.

She had often seen Dickon angry, but this—surely this was fury.

"Becca!" he snapped, sounding more like her father than himself. He caught her arm and snatched her back into the book room, closing the door quietly behind them.

"You will not go to Father," her brother told her, his voice breathless and tight.

"But—" she began, and started back a step when he slashed the air with an impetuous hand.

"Yes, yes, I know! You are not to go visiting on your own, nor are you allowed the solace of your plants, or your work. Protest it and you will find yourself locked in your room until your wedding day!"

Becca swallowed. "Dickon, I cannot marry Sir—"

Again, he slashed the air between them, turned and strode energetically to the window.

"There is no choice," he said flatly, staring out over the formal garden.

Becca gasped. "There must be a choice! I must send a message to Sonet—"

"No. Any notes will be taken directly to Father."

She went to his side, and touched his sleeve. "Would—you—not carry a note for me, Dickon?"

His laughed so bitterly that she winced, and snatched her hand away.

"I might have done, but—not after this. I had no idea that Father—" He shook himself, turned and put his hands on her shoulders. She looked up into his face, seeing sorrow, now, and affection, and something else, for which she had no name . . . 

"There is no choice," he said, his voice so low she could scarcely hear him, as close as they stood. "For either of us."

". . . dress?" Lady Quince asked, loudly enough to startle Becca out of these distressing memories.

"The wheat will do splendidly," Mother answered, calmly. "The event is on us so suddenly that it will only be family—and close friends, of course!—in attendance. If it is fine, perhaps an outdoor wedding, in the formal garden."

"That should please the bride," Lady Quince said, with a roguish glance at Becca, who bent her head, pretending to be considering the biscuit-plate.

"Why should we not try to please the bride?" Mother murmured, giving Becca a fond smile. "We are all very proud of Becca for her—"

A tap at the door interrupted her, for which Becca could only be thankful. Lord Quince stepped into and made his bow.

"Madam," he greeted his wife. "Lady Beauvelley—and Miss Beauvelley! Just the lady I was wanting to see!" He turned to Mother. "Might you spare her for a few minutes, ma'am? I've that item I discussed with you here to show the young lady."

Mother sighed and put her tea cup down. "It is a handsome gift," she said slowly, not quite meeting his yes. "I fear the Earl will consider it
too
handsome."

"Is that so? You leave Robert to me. As far as 'handsome'—well, ma'am, so it is! A bride gift is supposed to be handsome! Besides that, this filly was born to be Becca's. I knew it the instant I saw them together. It would be cruelty to keep them apart."

Mother laughed, hand up and palm out. "Pray save your eloquence for the Earl! You will need it!"

Lord Quince grinned and gave a bow. Straightening, he beckoned. "Come along, young lady, and tell me if you think she'll do."

Becca rose, eager to be away, and eager, indeed, to see Rosamunde again.

"Ma'am?" she said to her hostess, but that worthy merely moved an indolent hand.

"Go on with you! And mind you look her over minutely! Your mother and I have many things to speak of!"

Yes, Becca thought, she imagined so. She curtseyed and followed Lord Quince out.

Rosamunde whickered as they approached the fence, and Lord Quince rumbled a laugh.

"She recognizes you," he commented, and pulled a carrot out of his pocket. "You know your duty, I'll warrant."