Lord Haversham Takes Command (15 page)

Harry felt Mira’s gaze on him and knew she wished to share one of her mirthful glances, but he dared not. “Then I shall not trouble you with another rendering. At least not until luncheon!” he said with a hearty bray. “I am off then, to my tailor, as I have so said.
A bientot, alor
s!” he called and rode off as clumsily as could manage. He paused and turned to giddily wave a handkerchief and thereby verify that Mira had ridden off with her aunt and cousin as her knew her to be safer in their company than at his own side.

The knowledge sobered him as he felt something akin to despair rise in his breast. Only once before had he been in so hopeless a position. Though the boating accident had happened four years prior, it was just one more matter that stood in the way of his happiness with Mira. Now he was England and operating in her very orbit; he had long believed that could never occur. Perhaps he was capable of formulating the words to tell her the truth about what had happened that long ago night after all.

With great effort, he gathered his wits and told himself that as long as both he and Mira were alive and not wed to another, there was still a chance they could be together. His first priority must be safety, and his second to get through the remainder of the day without incident. Once he was out at sea, he could worry about all that stood between them; her parents’ objections, his hopeless mother, the possibility that Mira might wed another, his own doubts and fears and feelings of unworthiness — but not before.

When he reached the great lawn that stretched between Cedars and the path down to the sea, he urged his horse into a gallop and streaked to the stables. There was much to do, but first, he must catch his mother’s monkey. A rapid but thorough investigation of the stables produced a net on a pole that had most likely been used, quite recently in fact, for the scooping of fish from the sea. Something told Harry he would have a far more difficult time in the capture of the monkey than even his mother had in the acquisition of the sole at table the night prior.

He could just see her, barefoot, her skirts hitched up between her legs as she dragged the net wildly through the water, and finally, the stamp of her foot at her failure, eventual acknowledgment of defeat, and her return to the house to order some poor unsuspecting servant to fetch her fish. The fact that he could so easily picture such a scene threatened to renew his feelings of despair, but he ruthlessly quashed it and commenced his hunt.

He thought the best place to start would be in the house, though he could hardly corner his mother in full view of his guests and demand from her the monkey’s whereabouts. It would be best if he found it on his own, unobserved by any of his visitors, most of whom should have risen from their beds by now. As such he went round to the back of the house and entered through the kitchen door.

“Heaven have mercy!” squawked the cook as she waved a wooden spoon at him. “You gave me such a turn!”

“I am sorry to have disturbed you, only, I must ask … it sounds utterly absurd, I know, but have you seen a monkey hereabouts?”

“A monkey! A real live monkey?” she cried. “I should think not. Not in my kitchen!” she insisted with a warning look for the various kitchen girls who ranged round her and who might, unaccountably, be hiding a monkey somewhere about their persons.

“Ah, well, you never know when monkey brains might appear on the menu,” he said.

“Monkey brains for eating? I have never heard of such a thing!” the cook cried and shooed him out of the room.

His hunt through the breakfast room was deplete of monkeys but filled with more guests than he had expected, among them the entire Crenshaw clan, as well as Mira’s closest friend, Viola Carlson-Johnson. If the way she bent her head in earnest conversation with Stephen was any indication, she was fast on her way to becoming Mira’s sister-in-law as well.

“What is that deplorable object you have there, my lord?” Lucy Sutherland asked. “It reeks to high heaven!”

“Oh, this?” Harry said. “It’s a … a butterfly net. I have a mind to catch a few this morning,” he added with a Bertie-like twitter designed to remove the suspicion from every face in the room. In point of fact, he had never seen so many pairs of quizzical eyes in all his life. Only too late did he ascertain the presence of his mother.

“Oh, don’t be silly, Herbert! That’s the net I used to catch fish yesterday. It is quite broken, I am sure! If fish won’t swim into it, I am persuaded the butterflies will simply fly away from such a noxious thing, aren’t you?” she asked of Sir Hollis who was too busy scrutinizing Harry to respond.

In fact, the Carlson-Johnsons as well as the Sutherlands, the Marquess and his daughter Ramona, and the DiPastenas were all staring at Harry with a disconcerting intensity. The thought that any one of them could have something to do with the notes left under his door unnerved him so that he almost dropped the net as he stumbled from the room. Thankfully, he left before his mother had the chance to bring up the subject of monkeys or zoos or what she might have in store for the ball later that night. Whatever it was, he had no time to worry about it at present.

The drawing room was littered with various other guests, none of whom bore the expression of one who had encountered a monkey on the premises, so he headed upstairs and looked through his mother’s rooms in her absence. His search turned up nothing but a few mice, and, with great reluctance, he decided his time was better spent in the hunt for a small rowboat to plant in readiness for the night.

This chore was child’s play compared to the last, and he returned across the lawn to the house in time to witness Mira’s return from her ride, along with the Duke and Duchess and several other guests who had attached themselves to their party at some point along the way. In contrast to his expectations, Mira did not sulk or wilt; she seemed hardy and happy to be in the company of others. Not for the first time it occurred to him that she was better off with someone — anyone — other than himself. Though he was sure she knew that he must once again bow out of her life, he could not be so confident that she would forgive him. However, a man who harbored dark secrets, heavy obligations, and the Haversham genes was hardly what a young girl dreamed of in a husband. If he were honest, he barely wanted it for her either.

Rather than join Mira in the stables as he wished to do, he sheered off, determined to busy himself with other tasks. He had invited a number of gentlemen in expectations that, should Harry not win the Crenshaws’ approval, one or two would prove more palatable to Mira than George. It could hardly be otherwise. Until then Harry would make himself least in sight until dinner which would give Mira a chance at privacy with a suitable candidate for her hand and afford Harry a much needed rest from the burden that was Bertie.

Though his insistence on visiting his tailor was meant to be a ruse, Harry’s despondent mood was hardly lightened by the suit of clothes he donned for the night. Unlike his London wardrobe, his clothing at Cedars had not been updated in quite some time, and the seams of the slightly too-small suit he had brought with him had finally succumbed to the pressure of Harry’s more mature body. This meant he must resort to a suit that was too short, too narrow, and too out of date to feel the least elegant. He loathed that Mira’s last sight of him would include far too much shirtsleeve and silken hose for his liking, but there was naught to be done about it.

Dinner passed in wave after wave of misery, and halfway through Harry was unable to take another bite. He sat in silence and picked at his napkin while he studied the faces at table in an attempt to determine who was most likely to be a traitor to his, or even her, country. His gaze strayed to Mira more often than was seemly, but the sight of her exquisite face entirely devoid of any sign she mourned his departure was too painful to endure for many minutes in a row.

Harry felt his head droop lower and his chin sink deeper into his cravat, but he was too dispirited to rouse himself. It was with relief that he quit the table without lingering with a glass of port as did the other men. Instead, he employed his time until the dancing to renew his hunt for the monkey. An active search soon devolved into a mere wandering of the halls while he punished himself with one pessimistic thought after another, most of them having to do with Mira’s demeanor. Perhaps he had been wrong to think she loved him. She did not seem to suffer as did he and, after all, she had never said as much.

He commenced the ball by asking Mira’s friend, Miss Carlson-Johnson, to dance. He hoped his actions would not be misconstrued, but he refused to give his would-be-murderer the impression that he was overly attached to any one young lady. To do so would be to put her in danger, so he followed up the first dance with a waltz with Lucy, a jig with Heather, the March with Ramona, and the Quadrille with Jenny. He was acutely aware he had but a few hours more in Mira’s presence, perhaps forever, but he spent the second hour of the ball in the company of his other guests as well, and he took Viola Carlson-Johnson into midnight supper on his arm for good measure.

He could not enjoy his folly, however, especially when every time he met Mira’s gaze, she stared back at him with smiling eyes. Hardly knowing what he wanted — Mira safe or in his arms — he sent Viola back to the ballroom on the arm of a disgruntled Stephen. Harry watched them go, begrudging them their straight and simple path to marriage. He watched Mira go as well, on the arm of one of the gentlemen he had invited for her benefit, and waited until the room emptied of his guests while he sat alone and attempted to gain a semblance of control over his emotions. It was then that he thought he saw, out of the corner of his eye, an ominous shadow scurry across the room. He was on his feet in an instant, and the pistol he always kept concealed in his clothing was out in a flash. However, there was no one in the room.

Carefully, his pistol still aloft, Harry bent to regard what lay below the tablecloth and spied a pair of very short and hairy legs hanging down from a chair on the opposite side. He threw himself across the cluttered table only to be met by a wide-eyed stare from a pair of huge brown eyes set above two rows of very sharp teeth which moved up and down in unison with the most appalling screeching Harry had ever had occasion to hear.

He threw out his free hand to throttle his mother’s monkey, but it bounded off the chair and down to the far end of the table where Harry regarded it from his position sprawled across the remains of someone’s meal. He knew the moment he stood the monkey would be off again and decided it was a pointless endeavor. Thoroughly frustrated, Harry got to his feet and replaced his pistol as the monkey jumped to the floor and disappeared under a chair. With a sigh of disgust, he dropped into the nearest seat and put his face in his hands. If his mother wished to entertain a monkey, who was he to say her nay? If Lord Melbourne wished him to depart England, how could he refuse? If Mira failed to go into a decline over his departure, so be it!

With the resignation of the damned, he removed the remains of someone’s dinner from his shirtfront and walked to the door, determined to spend his last hour in England with whomever was willing. To his mingled dismay and delight, his way was barred by the one person he least expected to see.

Chapter Fifteen

“Why, I doubt I have seen anything so comical!” Mira said blithely. She could not help but notice Harry’s low spirits at dinner and ached to see him smile. “I believe you have a sprig of parsley in your hair, just there.” She pointed to the offensive article, but despite the care she took to make light of it, his face drained white and his eyes glittered in a way that wrung her heart.

She took a step closer and put her hand on his arm. “There is a waltz playing; I don’t believe we have danced together all night,” she added breezily as if she hadn’t suffered agonies from his neglect of her. She couldn’t fathom why he should wish to dance with every girl but she; it couldn’t be that he was put off by her appearance as she had taken care with her toilette and donned a gown in his favorite deep blue that matched her eyes to perfection.

Harry said nothing, nor did he move, and, in spite of their being quite alone in the room, there came a strange sound from behind him on the table. She stepped round him to see what it could be and gasped in surprise. “Harry, is that a monkey I see?”

Finally, he stirred and to her relief, spoke. “Yes, I do believe it is.”

“Well,” she said, determined to have her waltz, monkey or no. “I don’t see how it should prevent our dancing together.”

She thought he bit back a smile, but the slight curving of his cheek prodded a tear to spill down his face and the ghost of the smile was gone. Thoroughly at a loss, she reached up to pluck the greenery from his hair, but he anticipated her action and threw up a hand to forestall her.

The misery that had threatened to overwhelm her all day rose into her chest but she waited, her hand held painfully tight in his own. Finally, he opened his eyes, his brow creased with sadness or anger, she knew not which. Mira longed to know what she had done to displease him, but it seemed that his store of words was used up.

“I shan’t mind the parsley if you do not,” she said, choking on tears of her own.

Suddenly, the monkey took up a shrill screaming so loud it threatened to bring others into the supper room and put an end to their privacy. Mira was crushed. The moment she had seen his face in the stables earlier that morning, she had known he must leave but knew not when and assumed they would spend every possible moment together in the meantime. She had been at pains to hide her sorrow so as not to spoil what time they had together but to no avail; he had stayed away all day, had taken supper with her best friend, and had failed to ask Mira for even one dance the entire evening. What had she done to deserve such pointed disdain? How long did they have together before he disappeared from her life yet again?

It seemed not long, for the moment the inquisitive faces of his guests began to flood into the room, Harry pushed through them and stalked through the doorway. Mira watched him go with her heart in her throat, unable to follow or speak or even think.

“Is that … a monkey?” the Marquess asked. “Because, if it is, I know of a very good recipe for monkey brain stew.”

Mira felt a frown crease her own face as she turned to face him. “People eat monkey brains?”

“Not Sarah Siddons!” Lady Avery cried as she forced her way through the crowd hovering around the entrance to the room. “Oh, Miss Crenshaw! I most especially wanted you to meet Sarah, my monkey. I had hoped to have an entire zoo set up for tonight, but even if I could have found an animal other than a mangy old bear, I wasn’t terribly clear on where I should have it. I thought perhaps in that corner … ” she mused as if Mira’s world were not crashing to the ground.

For once in her life Mira was glad of her brothers’ advice and happily ignored her hostess who was too caught up with fashioning a cage for Sarah Siddons from the dining chairs to notice Mira’s neglect. Hastily, she made her way out of the supper room through the gathering crowd that included slack-jawed Crenshaws of every stamp. The exception was her mother who smiled her encouragement and put out a hand to halt Mira’s progress and whisper in her ear.

“It was when I had run from a house party that your father followed
me
,” she said with a squeeze to Mira’s hand who threw her arms about her mother for a tight embrace.

“Oh, Mama! Thank you!” she cried, whereupon she ran into the ballroom and looked about for Harry. It took but a moment to determine he was not there and she struggled to tamp down her burgeoning sense of alarm. Why had she never told him of her feelings? If he were to leave her again, it wouldn’t,
couldn’t
be before she had told him how very much she loved him. She attempted to work out where he might have gone as she ran through the door leading out of the ballroom into the passage and down the stairs that led to the main floor of the house.

Once arrived at the ground floor, she heard a faint commotion that seemed to be coming from the back of the house. Breathless and nearly frantic, she rushed through a maze of passages and finally into the kitchen to find the servant girls cowered in the corner like so many birds in a cat-stalked nest. A woman in an apron had a pan raised high above her head and looked as if she meant to use it on a tall man in black. With a start, Mira realized the man was Harry, and her heart nearly leapt out of her chest.

He, however, was quick on his feet and dodged the crazed woman only to be accosted by the butler who took a swing at him. Harry dodged the butler’s fist as well and rapped him soundly on the head with the butt of his pistol.

Mira screamed. Why would Harry do such a thing? She called after him but had no hope of being heard for, with a mighty roar, a second woman wearing the keys of a housekeeper at her waist lunged for him just as a thundering from behind Mira threatened to collapse the house. She turned towards the noise to see a dozen footmen dash into the kitchen at a dead run, Sarah Siddons in the lead. With a screech, the monkey vaulted onto the scrub table, into the sink, swung across the greasy wrought iron chandelier in the middle of the room, and landed in a heap on the housekeeper’s head, whose ensuing screeches rivaled those of her primate oppressor.

Heedless of the mayhem around him, Harry sprinted for the back door and disappeared into the night. Without a thought except that she could not bear it if she hadn’t the chance to speak with him before he disappeared, Mira followed him into the darkness. The sky was heavy with storm clouds and there was little light as she peered across the lawn towards the sea, however, she thought she saw a flash of white on the far side of the lawn just before it winked out of sight. Convinced it was one of Harry’s overly-exposed shirt cuffs, she picked up her skirts and ran just as the rain began to fall.

The lawn came to an abrupt halt at the edge of the cliff that overlooked the ocean far below, but Harry was nowhere to be seen. Her skirts and hair whipped tight around her by the wind, she stood and scanned the path that led down to the beach, the rain stinging her face like tiny bits of hail. Then she saw a flash of white in the distance, so far down the path it might as well have been across the ocean. Where was he going? Would he ever return?

The wind in her skirts threatened to blow her from the rocky ridge, but she gathered the fabric into her arms as best she could and flew down the path, the soft, kid leather of her dancing slippers shredding into smaller and smaller pieces with every step. If she did not catch up to him, she knew not what she would do. Nor did she know how she could allow him to leave her if she did. Nearly blinded by the rain, she trained what was left of her vision on the treacherous path, so it came as an utter shock when she ran headlong into him with a thud against his rock-hard chest.

“You little fool!” he ground out, his arm tightening around her with a viselike grip. As instantly as he had locked her in place, he let go and gave her a bit of a shove to the side.

Dazed and more than a little confused, she looked up to find that he held aloft a pistol as close as could be without the muzzle being quite literally in her face. For the briefest of moments she feared he meant to use it against her, but common sense allowed there was no cause, and she realized he pointed it up the path from whence she had just come. Suddenly, a shout rose into the air and the outline of a man came into view as he scampered down the path mere feet from where they stood.

“Mira,” Harry growled, his vision trained on the man, “get behind me this instant!

Mira thought it best to do as he said but hadn’t a chance to move before another shout came from the path above.

“I know what you are about and I insist you stop immediately!” cried a man in a voice remarkably like that of George.

“Or what, Your Grace?” Harry challenged, stepping in front of Mira. “You shall cudgel me with your stickpin?”

The man had now drawn near enough for Mira to decipher his expression in the inconstant moonlight. “George, surely Papa must have spoken to you by now. I am not yours, and you have no right to treat me thus!”

“I demand that Miss Crenshaw return with me to the house this instant, Haversham! I find your actions heinous, though you are correct in that I have no means to force you from your aim save through my wits.”

“You would be better served by the stickpin,” Harry quipped. “Am I correct to assume it was you who have been dogging my every step?”

“I admit to having followed you once or twice since your return to England’s shores, yes. It was in Miss Crenshaw’s best interests.”

“Word of my activities abroad seem to have preceded me,” Harry said.

“But of course; you are infamous! I couldn’t tolerate the thought of Mira being deceived by you but I needed proof before I could hope to dissuade my cousin Anthony from allowing his daughter anywhere near you.”

“And did you obtain your proof?”

“Not precisely, but it would seem your secrets do not end with your return to the bosom of your family. Being as I am a fair man, I did try to warn you away.”

“Then I was correct in assuming it was you who penned those notes?” Harry demanded.

“What notes?” Mira asked from her position behind Harry’s right shoulder.

“The ones left here at Cedars, signed anonymous,” Harry explained.

“I did not write any such thing!” George cried in a huff.

“Didn’t you?” Harry needled.

“No! I left them unsigned. Much more distinguished that way, and by half!”

“All right, then, George,” Harry said as if speaking to a particularly dull-witted child. “How is her fate sealed?”

“Need I explain? I should have thought my intentions towards Miss Crenshaw have been made more than clear!” George shouted. “And do put down that gun before someone gets shot!”

Mira, in possession of a fantastical thought, felt she ought to speak up. “Harry, I believe he thinks us to be eloping. By boat!”

Harry lowered the gun just a fraction. “Then you are not in league with Randall and the rest?”

George shook his head. “Randall? No! Who is he?”

“My butler,” Harry replied, scanning the path up to the cliff.

“I suppose he is on his way down here to put a stop to this debacle as well, in which case I will be happy to accept his assistance. If you think I shall let you disappear with her, Haversham, you are sadly mistaken! As such, I have alerted the authorities, and they will be here presently. I will
not
be jilted by my own cousin!”

“George, how could you?” Mira cried. “We aren’t even officially engaged!”

She was never to know what his response might have been for there came a loud crack, and Harry had her off of her feet and in his arms in the flicker of an eye. As he ran to a dinghy that rested in the sand at the water’s edge, understanding dawned and Mira suddenly realized from whence the danger came. “That was a gun! Who is shooting at us?”

Harry jerked his head towards the ridge of the cliff above the path. “That would be a traitor and his compatriots, otherwise known as Randall and the footmen of Cedars, aided and abetted by my cook and housekeeper.” He placed Mira on her feet within the confines of the boat, told her to get down, and turned his attention to the men on the ridge of the cliff.

Mira did as she was told, but George would have none of it.

“She will do no such thing,” he commanded as he reached into the dinghy and attempted to pull Mira to her feet. “She is coming with me!”

Harry placed a foot into the dinghy to keep it from drifting out to sea. “Don’t be a ninny, George! Get off the beach or you’ll be shot!”

“Not without Miss Crenshaw,” George shouted over the crash of the waves.

Mira rose to her knees to implore her cousin to do as Harry said, but her voice was lost in the crack of a gun as Harry shot into the sand at George’s feet who, in turn, lost no time in running headlong down the beach to cower, in relative safety, behind an outcropping of rocks.

There came another shot from the ridge above as Harry pushed the dinghy farther into the waves and jumped inside. As they headed out into the deep water and were tossed about in the waves, Mira wondered if drowning weren’t an easier death than being hit by a bullet. Her mind was suddenly filled with all she had heard about the boating accident at Eton, the one everyone spoke of but never explained. She had no clue as to what actually happened, but the consequences must have been grave or it would not have been something of which no one would speak. What had Harry done? Was she doomed to drown if a bullet didn’t kill her first?

“Harry,” she said, forcing the words through her chattering teeth. “I’m frightened.”

He pushed her down into the bottom of the boat in reply, picked up the oars, and began to row. “Just … trust me!” he shouted.

What could she say in response? The question of whether or not she trusted him was the one she had given herself to answer often and often, and it was always, eventually and somewhat unaccountably, yes. The clouds shifted, and, for a moment, the moon reflecting on the water provided the light she needed to look into his face as he battled the waves. There was nothing of Bertie there, nothing but the Harry she had known and loved, as well as the Harry she had wished for and newly discovered.

“I do trust you!” she shouted above the roar of the waves and knew he had heard her when his face split into an exultant grin. Warmed by his smile, Mira felt utterly unafraid. She was cold and wet and shivering, but as she glided into her future with the man she loved, she refused to consider any details except that Harry —
her
Harry — returned her love, and they were together.