Silken Secrets (21 page)

“Just look at how she runs after him,” Bess pointed out to Joseph.

“Shameless hussy!” Joseph said admiringly.

Chapter Seventeen

Her trip to Dicaire that had begun on a mad dart slowed to near immobility as she drew nearer. Lord Dicaire didn’t come to meet her. He was content to let her come to him. She had set out expecting to have her ears scorched, but as she drew near, he put his two hands out to her and smiled softly. She ignored his outstretched hands.

“Why did you come?” she asked in a low whisper.

He observed that there was more fear than joy in her greeting and seized her hands to draw her nearer. “Why, a gentleman always keeps his promises, Mary Anne, and I promised you I would return.”

“You didn’t say tonight!”

“I decided to leave you in the dark on that score, as you left me in the dark in your cellar.”

He folded his arm over hers and patted her hand possessively as he surveyed the throng. Every head in the room was turned to the door. Every eye stared at the elegant gentleman and Miss Judson. The clink of cutlery on crockery and the murmur in the hall fell still.

“Do you think we ought to bow or something?” Lord Dicaire asked, and laughed.

“I think you should be warned,” she said, “that Uncle has hired a lawyer. Mr. Hawken feels he has a very good chance of getting him off. Possession is nine-tenths of the law, you know.”

“It was certainly nine-tenths of the problem.” A smile played in the dark recesses of his eyes. “I consider the matter closed. As to my own incarceration in the cellar, you surely don’t imagine I will boast of being bested by a girl and a bruiser? Tell me, what other laws has your uncle been breaking? It can only be of the law of gravity; he’s already ruptured all the others.”

His speech was delivered in accents more playful than serious, yet more loving than playful. She looked up at him doubtfully through the fan of her long lashes.

Before more was said, Lord Eddie came legging toward them. “So you made it back, eh, Dicaire? Nice to see you again. How is your papa?”

“He was fine, the last I heard.”

“Still chasing after the fillies, is he? The two-legged ones, I mean. What a man he was. You don’t much resemble your papa in looks.”

Mary Anne bit her lips, waiting to hear what insults her uncle was about to deliver on his old friend. “No, sir,” Lord Edwin continued. “Your father was a fine figure of a man, and handsome.”

Rheumy blue eyes skimmed over the well-built Adonis before him. “My own papa was the same, a fine specimen,” he said sadly. “The human race is petering out. Here are you and I, sunk to caricatures of our ancestors.”

“My father is five feet and eight inches,” Lord Dicaire told him.

“Eh, five feet? Why, Peachie was a giant. Built like my Fitch.”

“My father’s name is Alexander. You must be thinking of someone else.’’

“Aren’t you Lord Peacham’s lad?” he demanded.

“No, sir, my father is the Earl of Pelham.”

“Pelham, you say? Well, I’ll be damned. I thought you was Peachie’s son. I made sure of it, or I wouldn’t have been in such a hurry to hand over my niece to you.”

“Uncle!” Mary Anne exclaimed, horrified, and cast an apologetic smile at Dicaire.

“Too late to shimmy out of it now,” Dicaire warned him. “Take care, or I’ll have you up on a breach of promise suit.”

“I don’t mean to say I forbid the match,” Lord Eddie said mildly. “You seem a decent sort of lad, but there’s Peachie’s boy, you see. He is expecting to marry Mary Anne.”

“Uncle,” Mary Anne said, “there is Mr. Hawken looking for you. You had best speak to him.”

“Is he, by Jove? Yes, he will be after his blunt now that I—heh, heh. You youngsters run along, then, but mind you behave yourselves.”

Lord Dicaire lifted a questioning brow. “Tell me, when was this match between you and Peacham’s son arranged?”

“You would do better to ask where. It was all in Uncle’s head. He thought a match between his friend’s son and myself would lessen the chance of prosecution.”

“I’ll bear that in mind.”

The youngsters went to a small table in the corner of the room. “What happened in London?” Mary Anne asked. It was not what she wished to discuss, but she was curious.

“We read your shawl and figured out Mrs. Lalonde’s message.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Your shawl. Mrs. Lalonde embroiders her messages in silk, in case they are intercepted. It is an old system, resurrected from the medieval ages. Mr. Barton, an antiquarian at the Admiralty, came across the idea. We trained a woman and sent her to France, where she managed to find work in the proper circles. Each stitch has a meaning, each color of silk, and each figure in the pattern.”

“You mean it was my
shawl
you were looking for all the time? I thought it was a piece of paper—a note!”

“I didn’t know it was a shawl. Mrs. Lalonde uses various items. If the message is brief, she sometimes uses only a little silk runner or handkerchief. Other times I have received ladies’ reticules or gloves.”

“How curious! And you decipher the messages?”

He nodded. “I have it double-checked by Barton, just to be sure. He’s the expert.”

“Was the news good?”

“Interesting—some movement of troops. There’s no reason to suppose an invasion is imminent.”

“How did you get to London and back so quickly?”

“By horseback. Even at sixteen miles an hour in my curricle, there wasn’t time. I’ve spent the better part of the day galloping,
ventre a terre,
to make it back before the assembly was over.’’

“Why were you in such a hurry?” she asked. Lord Dicaire didn’t answer in words, but his smile was answer enough. “You must be very tired,” she said in an unsteady voice.

“Not too tired to waltz. I want to hold you in my arms.’’

When the music began, they waltzed, and when they remained together for a second dance, it was taken for confirmation by the watchers that Miss Judson had indeed nabbed herself a prime parti. Heads nodded wisely, but Mary Anne didn’t see them. She didn’t see anything but those dark eyes caressing her.

When the party was over, Lord Dicaire joined Lord Edwin, in the full expectation that he would be invited to spend the night at the Hall. He was not disappointed.

“I hope I can convince you to accept the hospitality of Horton Hall for a few days, Dicaire,” Lord Edwin said. He frowned and added, “A contradiction in terms, what? But you’re welcome to a feather tick and Plummer’s burned offerings.”

“As I’ve already made up my bed, I shall accept,” Lord Dicaire said blandly.

Fitch was late in coming. Half a dozen people offered them a ride home, but Lord Edwin waved them on.

“My groom will be here shortly.” He smiled.

When the building was locked and deserted, they were still standing. “What has happened to Fitch?” Lord Edwin demanded a dozen times.

“Where did you see him last?” Lord Dicaire asked.

“I made the mistake of giving him three guineas when I got—that is, his salary, you know. I was a little in arrears.”

Lord Dicaire was careful not to ask any more questions on that score. “The tavern, then,” he said. “I’ll fetch him.”

He found Fitch lounging over a table, singing at the top of his lungs.

“Where’s Lord Edwin’s carriage, Fitch?” he asked.

“You’re back for a dose of my home brewed?” Fitch asked, ready to hit somebody.

“No, your carriage. Where is it?”

“At home in the stable.”

“You must have driven it to town. Think, where is it? At the inn?”

“Nay, I drove Joseph Horton’s hay wain. You never looked at our hay wain. It was there all the time, right in plain sight, till I borrowed Jeremy’s boat. But then the rain came, so I got it into the barn. It was a tough climb up to the loft, but easier bringing it down. Made it in one trip tonight—a hundred bales. I must take Joseph’s hay wain back before he misses it, and fetch the carriage. The old boy will turn rusty if I’m late.”

Lord Dicaire thought for a moment, figuring out what had transpired. He could forgive Fitch’s condition when he considered the amount of lifting and carrying he must have done the past few days. Taking the silk from the lugger to hide it in the old derelict hay wain, moving it to the boat, to the barn, to the hayloft, to Joseph’s hay wain and thence, presumably, to the local draper. It was the most complicated feat of engineering since Hannibal had maneuvered his elephants over the Alps.

Fitch deserved his rest, but how were they to get home? A smile lifted his lips. “Where’s Joseph’s hay wain?” he asked.

“Out back of the tavern.”

“Sleep tight, Fitch,” he said, and left.

It was a quarter of an hour before Lord Dicaire drove up to the assembly hall in the hay wain. “Climb aboard,” he said.

“Eh? What’s this?” Lord Edwin demanded. “Fitch! He’s gone and drunk himself into a stupor. That’s what it is. Ah, well, I’ve nothing against a hay ride. Give me a hand up, Mary Anne.’’

Lord Dicaire hopped down. “You’re driving, Uncle,” he said, and tossed him the reins.

Lord Edwin frowned. “Am I your uncle?” he asked.

“Not yet, but you will be when I marry your niece.”

“Ah, you’ve arranged it with Peachie’s son, then. Good work. I like a fellow who takes charge.”

“We can’t drive home in a hay wain!” Mary Anne exclaimed. She snickered to think of the elegant Lord Dicaire, sunk to such a shift.

“Too toplofty?” Dicaire teased, and tossed her up on what was left of the hay.

“Gee up, you old jades,” Lord Edwin said, and the horses lurched forward into the night.

All was suspiciously quiet behind him, save for an occasional rustling in the hay.

Mary Anne lay on her back, looking up at the sky, which was spangled with tiny stars. Lord Dicaire lay beside her on his stomach, looking at the pale, enchanting oval of her face, and her dark eyes.

He plucked a straw from her hair. “I want to apologize for this morning, Mary Anne. When I suggested you set me free—I felt a perfect fool when you tore up at me. Rightly so! I had no idea how close you were to your uncle. Plummer told me a few things. That suggestion was only a desperate attempt to escape.”

“I wanted to free you, James, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.”

“I admire your faithfulness. I wouldn’t give a brass farthing for a woman without it. I had known for days I loved you. That was the moment I knew I must marry you. Your uncle—and Peachie’s son—capitulated easily. Now I must convince
you
to have me.”

She gazed lovingly at him. Moonlight highlighted the shape of his brow, the slash of his nose, and cast the rest in shadows. She couldn’t see him very well, but she felt the excitement of his closeness and felt his breath warm on her cheek.

“I can’t imagine why you’d want to marry someone like me,” she said with perfect honesty.

“That’s one of the reasons. You have no idea how irresistible you are. Don’t you ever look in a mirror?”

“All the time, but—”

“Well, you aren’t in love with yourself, so perhaps you don’t see what I see.”

“I’m afraid I lack town polish, James.”

He touched the curve of her cheek, which glowed in the moonlight. “Any gem may be polished. It is the quality that interests me,” he murmured. “I’ve wanted to do this ever since I saw you at the inn,” he said, and pulled her into his arms to kiss her.

The kiss blended perfectly with the night and the stars. It was like another gift of nature. The first strangeness soon passed, and she felt at ease in his arms, despite the excitement that raced in her blood. No thought of the thousands of acres of his estate or of the London mansion occurred to her. She only knew she had magically found the man who was made for her, and she reveled in his love.

After an ardent embrace, he lifted his head. “Well? You haven’t told me your feelings, Mary Anne.”

“I think you already know them. My diary...”

“Good lord, I didn’t read that!” he exclaimed. “Er, what did it say?”

“It said ‘Tonight at the inn I met the sort of gentleman I should like to marry.’ I was so embarrassed to think you had read it, and here am I, telling you!”

“I look forward to hearing what else you wrote,” he said, and pulled her into his arms again.

As Lord Edwin jiggled the reins, it occurred to him that he had done a pretty good week’s work. No need to squander any blunt on a trousseau, after all. Dicaire liked to handle things for himself. He could get a carriage to go with the new team. He’d make his maiden voyage to—now where the devil was it that Dicaire lived? He’d need a new jacket to go visiting noblemen. Already owed the tailor fifty or sixty pounds. He could pay, say, ten on account. By jingo, Dicaire might put in a word for him at Whitehall about his pension! One hand left the reins and began tapping his cheek thoughtfully.

Copyright © 1988 by Joan Smith

Originally published by Fawcett Crest in August, 1988

Electronically published in 2006 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads

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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.