Terri Brisbin (21 page)

“I no more expect to wed him than he does me!”

“That is good.” Alfred’s face turned hard and grim, and beyond cajoling. “And no notions of running off with him, either, or of letting him set you up in keeping, mind? No amount of gold or jewels is worth that, and I won’t have your heart broken while he plays his games.”

“No, Father,” she said, shocked not by what he was saying, but that he’d made himself say it. “But I promise you he means nothing to me—less than nothing!”

“For your own good, I pray you’ll keep that promise.” Abruptly his features sagged with weariness, and he rubbed his sleeve across his face as if to clear away the memories of the past.

“I know you’re half your mother’s child,” he said, not bothering to hide the old bitterness, “and carry her passions in your blood as well as mine. But while love can make a woman bloom like a rose, lust and greed can trample her into ruin, and so it did to your mother.”

“But I’m not her, Father,” she said, wanting to share the burden of his misery as she laid her hand on his arm. “I’m your Cordelia.”

“True enough, lass.” He put one hand over hers, and she felt the tremor of emotion in his fingers. “Which is why I fear for you so, you see. I want you to love a man who’ll deserve you, who’ll accept you for what you are. I want that man to treasure you as a gem, not a bauble.”

She thought again of Romeo and Juliet and the tragedy that had come from their misguided passions, and then thought of how warmly the earl had smiled at her in the moonlight. In less than a fortnight, the company would give their play to the earl’s guests. The day after that, they’d move on, and just as surely she, too, would vanish from the earl’s thoughts.

“There now, lamb, don’t be gloomy and sorrowful,” he said, giving her fingers a little pat. “A wedding play calls for happy faces all around. Smile at His Lordship, beguile him, charm him all you please. But guard your heart well, Cordelia. Guard your heart, and keep it safe.”

“I will, Father,” she said softly, sadly, though that heart seemed to grow heavy in her chest, longing for all she could never have. “I will.”

B
alanced on a footstool, Cordelia leaned toward him, keeping her arms outstretched behind her with her shawl draped over her wrists like fluttering wings.

“‘Now has come the dreaded time when we must part,’” she said, her voice full of anguish as she gazed up into his eyes. “‘Until, reunited by love, we make another glorious start!’”

From his seat on the garden wall outside the ballroom, Ross shook his head in wonder. She was too fine by half for that weasel-faced rascal, that was certain. It might only be a play that he was watching, but Cordelia Lyon was making him believe every word.

She brought her arms forward in a graceful arc, tipping her head to one side as she touched her fingers to her lips, her expressive face racked with sentiment and grief. It was, Ross decided, about the saddest, most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, even if he doubted very much such a poignant scene had ever taken place between Emma and Weldon.

“‘Come back to me with the fleetness that gifts only true lovers’ wings,’” she said, arching on her tiptoes up to Carter, the actor playing Weldon. “‘And return with the ardency that makes my heart sing!’”

“‘My heart only such endless devotion knows,’” the actor replied, placing his hand over that same devoted heart while he made sure to keep his profile seen by the audience. “‘Such passion! Such yearning! Such—such’—oh, Jupiter, Cordelia, for the life of me I cannot recall what follows.”

“‘Such fervency that glows,’” Cordelia supplied without breaking her pose.

Carter cleared his throat. “‘Such fervency that glows! Oh, dearest lady, the queen who—who’—oh, hell.”

“No, no, no, Ralph!” With an impatient sigh, Cordelia folded her arms over her chest. “You’ve had days and days to learn these lines, Ralph, or have you caught Gwen’s disease?”

Carter snorted, puffing out his chest so his belly wouldn’t look as large. “How can you imply that I’d catch anything from Gwen, the ancient old sow?”

“Know your lines, Ralph,” said Alfred Lyon sternly, ruling from an armchair as if it were a throne, “and she won’t imply anything.”

“That’s all right, Father.” Cordelia hopped down from her footstool. “It must be near to midnight, anyway. We’ll stop for the night. But by all that’s holy, Ralph, if you do not know your piece by morning—”

“But I shall, dear lady.” Ralph rolled his eyes with an overwrought sigh and patted the hand still resting over his heart. “Have ever, ever I failed you, Mistress Lyon?”

“More times than I can count, Master Carter,” she said wearily, turning away. “Just let this not be another.”

But to Ross’s surprise, she headed not to the door that led to the rest of the house, but to that which opened onto the garden wall where he was sitting. He’d barely time to scramble down before she was there, standing in the doorway staring at him with her hand on the latch.

“Miss Lyon,” he said. “Good, ah, good day.”

“Rather, it’s good evening, my lord, nearly good midnight.”
She frowned, more perplexed than surprised, as if she’d already expected to find him here. “I come out for a last breath of air, and here you are again. It would seem you wander your estates more by night than any roving tomcat.”

“I wasn’t roving,” he said. “I’m often awake at this hour working. But tonight I was watching you rehearse.”

“From here, my lord?” she asked. “Why didn’t you come inside instead of peeking through the windows?”

“I didn’t want to distract you.” This wasn’t entirely the truth. What he wanted—and had wanted the past two nights when he’d also sat here watching—was to be distracted himself, with her doing the distracting, the way she’d done in the orchard. “I imagine you’ve suggestions enough from Emma without having me in the audience, too.”

She looked up at him through her lashes, a frank, skeptical look that he liked for being so unladylike. “That is a great change in you, my lord. Three days ago you were prepared to write, cast and direct the entire play yourself.”

“I have reconsidered that position,” he said, wincing inwardly at how pompous that must sound to her.

“But not the one that makes you worry about your investment?” she asked, the skepticism still there.

That was exactly the reason he’d come to watch the first night, but he wasn’t going to admit that now. “My sister has decided that she wants this play very much, and so I want it for her, and the best possible version, too. Besides, I do not like intrusions upon my work, and I would imagine you feel the same.”

“An intrusion would have been welcome tonight, my lord.” She sighed, looking past him to the moonlit garden. “There’s no use pretending otherwise. You were watching us. No one seems to be able to remember their lines, and their acting’s as stiff as wooden signboards. And I agree that your sister deserves so much more.”

“From what I saw, it looked fine,” he said, thinking only
of Cordelia’s performance. “Damned fine, and worthy of Drury Lane.”

She smiled ruefully. “You are most kind, my lord, if not properly critical. I know I shouldn’t be telling you this, considering that you’re our patron, but it will take a Romish miracle to make
The Triumph of Love
as good as I want it to be, and as good as your sister deserves.”

He hadn’t expected such frankness from any actress. But then Cordelia wasn’t sparkling now, either, the way she’d been in the orchard. Instead she seemed tired and discouraged, and while he felt sure he’d hear no more
Romeo and Juliet
under this night’s moon, there was a new vulnerability to her that he hadn’t expected. He longed to put his arm around her drooping shoulders and tell her whatever she needed to hear to feel better.

“Another day or two, and everything will be as it should,” he said. “You’ll see. That’s the way it is with any meaningful work. The more it means to you, the more power it has to confound you at every turn.”

She glanced back at him, her eyes full of challenge as she shoved a loose strand of hair away from her forehead. “You are an earl, my lord. Forgive me for speaking plainly, but what can a noble gentleman like you know of work?”

“I know a great deal about it,” he declared, wounded that she’d judge him to be only one more idle nobleman. “I may not have to toil to keep a roof over my head, but I assure you that I work as hard at my scientific endeavors as any man, rich or poor, in this kingdom.”

Her shoulders stiffened with wariness. “If you plan to talk to me of the heavens, my lord, using your stargazer’s nonsense meant to turn my head so you can kiss me again, why, then I shall leave you directly.”

“It wasn’t nonsense,” he said defensively. “It was purest fact.”

“And was it purest fact that made you kiss me because I am a mere actress, and fair game for any gentleman?”

“I didn’t kiss you because you are an actress,” he said, stunned she’d assume something like that. He wasn’t a calculating rake, any more than he was a boorish, undereducated wastrel. “The fact is that I kissed you because, well, because I wished to.”

She frowned, her chin ducked low. “I am not certain that is a fact, my lord.”

“It is,” he countered, “and I am not a man who treats fact lightly. Besides, you were the one trying to confuse me by reciting Shakespeare’s plays to me. That wasn’t precisely fair, either, you know.”

“Shakespeare isn’t meant to be fair.” Her sudden fierce smile caught him off guard. “‘My intents are savage-wild, / More fierce and more inexorable far / Than empty tigers or the roaring sea.’”

“‘The roaring sea’?” The phrase snagged in his head. “Is that Shakespeare, too?”

“You do not know?” she scoffed. “It’s also from
Romeo and Juliet,
of course. The play’s been much on my mind because of your sister.”

“But the ‘roaring sea’—you couldn’t know that that is my work, what I study, described in two neat words that I’d never thought to put together. Waves and tides and currents, and the nature of oceans. These are the things that fascinate me, Miss Lyon.” Caught up in his own enthusiasm, he seized her hand. “Come, come, and I’ll show you!”

But she pulled away from him, taking two steps backward for good measure. “I do know the tides are guided by the moon, my lord, and I’ve had enough of moonlight ventures with you.”

“My device for the replication of ocean waves is in my library, across the garden, there, and most assuredly free of any moonlight.” He couldn’t fathom why it seemed so suddenly important to him that he show her his projects, but it was. “I have seen your work, Miss Lyon. Now I should like you to see mine. My ‘roaring sea,’ as you called it.”

She frowned, rubbing her hand where he’d held it while she considered, but it took her only a second to decide.

“Very well, then, my lord.” She skipped down the steps ahead of him to the lawn, her trailing skirts catching on the grass. “I should like very much to see the proof of a working earl. It shall make for an amusing story to tell the others, such as a red calf born with two heads.”

With three long strides, he caught up with her, leading the way to his library. “The waves, Miss Lyon, are infinitely more interesting than I.”

She smiled, not exactly at him, but close enough to be encouraging. “I try to find interest in everything, my lord, for I never know when I might need to draw upon the experience for a role. Why, someday I may play a mermaid, frolicking in your very same waves.”

“A mermaid.” He gulped, imagining her all too easily as a sailor’s bare-breasted delight, sinuously ducking in and out of the waves. “Are there many roles for mermaids?”

“Alas, no, my lord,” she said. “There is the problem of staging. Water is the very devil to portray. Ah, I’d no notion your library was so close to our little makeshift theater!”

Opening the door for her, he saw the room through her eyes, with charts and maps and journals scattered everywhere and open books anchored by exotic seashells. At least the candles had been kept lit and replenished by the servants familiar with his nocturnal ways. He hurried to clear a chair for Cordelia, sweeping aside a basket of dried, puckered seaweed he’d gathered off the coast of Brazil.

“So this is your lair, my lord?” She ignored his offered chair to wander around the room, her curiosity unfazed by his clutter. She didn’t look tired now; now, she seemed interested and full of life. “Here is where you do this great work of yours?”

“Yes.” He cleared his throat, watching how gracefully she
moved, pausing to touch a shell or study a map. His “lair,” she’d called it, and perhaps it was. She was the first woman he’d ever invited to see it, though, granted, she was also the first who’d ever wanted to. “I am still unpacking from the voyage, so things are not, ah, quite organized as yet.”

“What is a tidy desk but the sign of a dull and empty mind, my lord?” She stopped before the long, low tank made of wood that ran the length of one wall, and carefully raised one corner of the black oilcloth covering it. “Is this the famous wave-making device that I have been promised?”

“It is.” He came to stand beside her at the wooden tank, so close he could smell the heady, distinctive fragrance of her hair and skin. Her muslin gown was cut dramatically low in the bodice, giving him a glimpse of her high, round breasts pressing against the thin cotton. He remembered how warm she’d been in his arms, that body soft and yielding as he’d held her against him.

He remembered, and so did she. Sensing his interest as much as his presence, she glanced up at him from under the dark veil of her lashes.

“Remember, my lord, no stars or moonlight in here,” she warned, then glided away to the far end of the tank, safely out of his reach. “No Juliet or Romeo, either.”

His gaze still on her, Ross shrugged out of his coat and tossed it onto the back of the chair before he began rolling up the black tarpaulin, trying to focus his attention on explaining the tank instead of on her breasts. “Thanks to Mr. Boyle’s observations, it is accepted that no single wave can rise higher than six feet from the water’s surface.”

She looked up sharply, her eyes wide. “Faith, you can make a wave rise six feet tall in this fish tank?”

“Oh, no,” he said, smiling. “I must work on a smaller scale, and calculate the differences upward. When a single wave combines with others in a storm, you see, then the results can
be twenty, thirty, even forty feet high. What makes these waves join together? Can such unions be predicted, and thereby avoided? Solving such a puzzle would make for safer voyages for ships and sailors alike.”

She smiled back at him. “And for the mermaids, too, I’d fancy.”

“For a mermaid, such mountainous waves would be mere sliding boards,” he said, wishing she hadn’t reminded him of those damned mermaids again. “But many more English sailors die each year from treacherous seas than from French guns. That is why I was granted passage on board the
Perseverance—
to study waves throughout the world’s oceans.”

“So you truly did sail to the Pacific Ocean?” she asked with surprise. “I thought that was only Lady Emma’s invention.”

“Oh, it was quite real,” he said. “You’ve only to look around this room to see how I could not resist bringing back a memento from every last port and island.”

“Fancy.” She leaned over the tank’s water with fresh interest, her face reflecting up at her. “So this water was brought from a faraway ocean?”

“I’m afraid it’s drawn from the well in my stable yard.” Leaning forward like that, she was granting him an even better view of her bosom, and making him roll the tarp more and more tightly in his fingers. “The water’s changed every week, to keep it pure. If I’d imported genuine seawater clear from the Pacific, by now it would be stinking to the heavens of dead fish and stale brine.”

She chuckled, smoothing her hair back behind one ear. “You know Lady Emma is particularly intrigued by the notion of you among the ladies of Tahiti.”

“Is she now?” He leaned the rolled tarpaulin in the corner of the room, relieved to have even that small distraction. “It astounds me how those ladies are all anyone here in England wishes to discuss.”

Her chuckle deepened, warm and rich. “I doubt I could find that island on your maps if I looked all night, yet even I have heard the stories about the navy men among the Tahitian women, like foxes set among the most willing hens.”