The Bargain (26 page)

“You must be very resourceful,” commented her father, bemused.

“It isn't I,” she assured him. “It all comes from plays. I learned a great many plays, you know, growing up with Bess.”

“And so you tell them the story of a play, and they…”

“Do the same,” she finished. “It has worked quite well.”

“Amazing. And so life follows art. Are you advising Lord Alan as well?”

Ariel's expression shifted at once. “No,” she said.

“He does not require any help in his romantic adventures?” he probed, testing the hypothesis that was forming in his mind.

“I have no idea,” she answered rather curtly.

“Ah,” he said again. “Well, as I told you, you are very welcome to remain here. If you like, I will tell Lord Alan he is free of his responsibility and may go.”

His daughter looked at him rather wildly.

“And I would be happy to escort you back to London myself, should you decide to go,” he added.

“We… we just arrived,” stammered Ariel.

“Of course.” He felt a little guilty enjoyment in the rapid play of expression over her face. He did like teasing out information, he thought, and confirming his theories.

“I… don't… I shouldn't wish Lord Alan to think that I did not appreciate the help he has given me,” she stammered.

She cared about this young man a great deal, Bolton thought. It was obvious in her eyes and expression, in her distress at the idea of his leaving. What were Gresham's sentiments in this matter? he wondered. He found that a father's protective instincts came very naturally despite his long separation from his daughter. “Well, well,” he said. “You must decide. I stand ready to help you in any way I can.”

She frowned and bit her lower lip.

“Shall we go back?” he suggested and saw that she was grateful to agree.

***

They had reached the low stone wall around the herb garden behind the house when they heard the music. It floated on the soft air like a fairy melody, fading in and out with the vagrant breeze.

“Someone is playing the pianoforte,” said Bolton, surprised. “My mother used to play. She loved the instrument so much that I have kept it in tune for her sake. But who…?” Glancing at Ariel, he saw that she was frozen in place, her full lips slightly parted, her eyes wide. “Shall we go and see?” he asked.

“No! I mean…”

He watched her struggle for words. Another piece of the puzzle emerging, he thought, but an obscure one.

“We… we shouldn't disturb… them,” she said. “I believe… I believe it is very annoying to be interrupted when you are playing.”

She didn't want him going to see who was playing his pianoforte, he thought. And she was fairly certain who it was. That meant it had to be the glowering young lord she had brought with her. Fascinating. “We wouldn't have to disturb them,” he couldn't resist replying. “We might just look in.”

“No. I… I don't think we should.”

She looked a bit frantic, and Bolton took pity on her, shrugging agreement. “I have some papers to look over,” he suggested experimentally.

The relief in her face was so obvious he almost laughed a little. He must stop teasing her, he thought. “I'll be quite all right on my own,” she said. “I don't wish to take you from your work.”

He let her go. But he would have been happy to give stiff odds that she was heading straight for the front parlor and the pianoforte.

He would have won those bets. Two minutes later, Ariel was standing outside that room, all her attention focused on the music that was pouring out of it.

It was beautiful. And it seemed to her full of passionate emotion, driven by will and need and desire. She could have listened for hours. But even more, she wanted to see the player. What did he look like when he produced this melody? What was in his face; how did he move? Yet if she opened the door, he would stop. She was certain of that. He must think they were still out walking. Soon, he would decide his time was up.

Silently, she slipped away from the door and out of the house into the garden once more. Following the wall around the corner, she counted two windows for the dining room. The next should be it. Ariel eased her way up to the next tall window and peered around the side. Yes; she could see the pianoforte across the room and Lord Alan leaning over the keys. Unfortunately, what she could see was his back.

She moved quietly around the corner of the house to the front wall, where another window gave the opposite view. This one was very close to him, though. Ariel crouched beneath the sill, and then cautiously raised her head to look over it.

She was barely three feet from Lord Alan, gazing upward into his face as his fingers moved over the keys. The golden afternoon light slanted across him, illuminating his entire figure. She could see every nuance of expression, every shift in those handsome features. He looked at once abstracted and intent—almost exalted. You might have called his face immobile, Ariel thought, if you didn't notice the eyes. They burned with a controlled fire, a wild serenity, that was like nothing she had ever seen before. This was the sort of passion he had been talking about in front of Wells Cathedral, she thought. It burned in him, the force that guided his life. He was no cold, rational machine. His logic and systems served something far grander.

But was it reserved for science and music? she wondered, her hands gripping the windowsill. Were people excluded from that warmth? He had rejected the whole concept of love. Watching him, listening, she wished with all her heart that he was wrong about himself.

Abruptly Lord Alan's head jerked, as if he had heard some sound from the rest of the house. At once, his hands lifted from the keys and the music stopped. Ariel dared to watch a moment longer as he gathered himself, his customary cool expression returning to his face. But when he started to rise, she ducked out of sight, not wanting to be caught. She sat there under the window, behind the shrubbery, for some time before making her way up to her room.

Daniel Bolton sought out Lord Alan in the early evening, when Ariel had gone upstairs to change for dinner. “I wanted to thank you for making such efforts on my daughter's behalf,” he said.

Lord Alan bristled as if he had insulted him.

“You are very tenacious in this matter.”

“What I do is no concern of yours,” he snapped.

Their eyes locked. For a long moment, the air sang with tension. This was a formidable man, Bolton thought. But he had a strong will himself. “True,” he said. “But it is surprising, really, that you would spend so much time on Ariel's affairs. I suppose you have little else to do.”

The younger man's eyes flared. “I hold a fellowship at Oxford,” he snapped. “I am engaged in important scientific researches there.”

“Are you?” Impressed and interested despite himself, Bolton added, “What sort?”

“I am studying the nature of light,” came the curt reply.

“Really? After Goethe? Or perhaps Young?”

“You know Thomas Young's work?” said Lord Alan, looking surprised.

“I was extremely interested in his theory of color vision.”

The younger man looked impressed. “I am continuing his experiments with refraction and dispersion,” he said, “but I intend to demonstrate definitively that light is by nature a wave, rather than a corpuscle.”

“Fascinating. You are working with the principle of interference?”

Lord Alan nodded. “I have just set up an experiment to test it under rigidly defined conditions. Or I had, before all this began.” He looked rueful.

This made Bolton recall his original purpose. “I am surprised you can bear to be away from your work for so long,” he said.

“It is difficult,” the younger man answered.

“Why are you doing it then?” he asked bluntly.

“That is… somewhat complicated.”

Bolton waited.

“I was called to London by the regent.”

“Ariel told me about the supposed ghost.”

“Did she?”

Lord Alan had grown suddenly uncomfortable, Bolton thought. The resolution and authority with which he had begun this conversation were gone.

“I gave my word that I would help her look into her mother's death,” he said.

“And you traveled down from London with her on this errand?”

“Of course.”

He left a short silence once again. “A father might be concerned about your intentions toward her,” he said then. “It is a rather unconventional association.”

To his surprise, his assured, aristocratic visitor flushed like an awkward schoolboy. At once, he looked angry at his own reaction. “I have no intentions toward her!”

“Ah.” Bolton raised his eyebrows in what he was sure was a very annoying way.

“I mean, it is not a question of… my sentiments toward Miss Harding… I would never harm her!”

“I see.”

“You don't see anything,” was the heated reply. “You know nothing about her. You met her only two days ago.”

Jealousy, thought Daniel Bolton. That was very interesting. “True,” he conceded. “And yet I find I am all the more concerned because of my previous neglect.”

“Well, you haven't any right to be,” Lord Alan snapped. “I can take very good care of…” He stopped, clenching his fists and looking utterly frustrated. It took him a moment to regain control of himself. When he had managed it, he said, “You must excuse me. There is something I must see to.” His tone was icy, and he did not wait for an answer before turning and leaving the room.

Extremely interesting, thought Bolton. He would have to observe these two more closely, though he had little doubt that he was right about the state of their feelings.

A sudden impulse made him raise his head and sit very still, then grin like the precocious boy he had once been. It was an outrageous idea, and yet… irresistible. Rising, he went to his writing table and penned a note to his friend the bishop at the great cathedral in Wells. He would have it delivered in the morning. And in the meantime, he would see what else he could stir up in the volatile situation he had uncovered. Having a daughter was really quite intriguing, he thought. He'd been a fool not to try it sooner.

***

The following afternoon Alan found Ivydene Manor curiously empty. Hannah had gone out somewhere with the housekeeper, Gladys, with whom she had struck up a friendship. There was no sign of Ariel's father. In the stables, the men they had brought with them from London were accompanied only by a stableboy. “Where is Bolton?” Lord Alan asked them when he went out to inquire.

“He walked out this morning with a large basket,” said one of their men.

“He'll be collecting plants then,” explained the stableboy. “He's always goin' into the fields and the woods lookin' for new 'ens.”

“Without telling anyone?” demanded Alan.

The stableboy looked startled. “I reckon he tells Mrs. Moore.”

“The housekeeper is not here either,” Alan informed him.

The boy shrugged his ignorance.

Returning to the house, Alan saw Ariel walking through the garden toward the back gate, and he walked faster to catch up with her. “Where are you going?”

“Up the hill,” she replied a bit stiffly. “My father showed me a ruined chapel that I—”

“You shouldn't go alone.”

She bridled at his tone.

“Why is there no one here?” he added before she could speak. “I find it extremely odd that Hannah, the housekeeper, and Bolton have all gone out without telling us.”

“Do you imagine that Hannah has joined some sort of conspiracy against us?” she said as she turned away.

“Of course not. But…”

Ariel opened the garden gate and stepped through.

“It's just deuced odd,” he grumbled, following her onto the path that led uphill.

“Why do you dislike my father so?” demanded Ariel.

“I don't dislike him,” he answered stiffly. “I scarcely know him.”

“Anyone can see his good qualities. He is so kind, and intelligent, and sympathetic.”

“Perhaps he exhibits these more to you than to others,” replied Alan dryly.

This silenced her.

“You're happy, aren't you?” he added then. “It means a great deal to you, finding your father.”

“Of course.”

“It changes things for you.”

“I like knowing I have a family. A place.”

“It makes other parts of your life less important,” he concluded and felt a heaviness descend over him like a stifling winter cloak.

“I don't know about that,” objected Ariel.

“Perhaps it becomes the most important.”

She cocked her head to consider this. “It changes everything,” she agreed finally. “I don't have to wonder anymore. And I'm no longer a… a nobody.” She hesitated, then said, “My father has told me that Ivydene will be mine one day.”

“So your future is settled,” he said bitterly.

Ariel frowned at his tone, as if she found something insulting in it. “Well, I am no longer an actress's bastard child,” she answered.

“That is not what I—”

“You can be as haughty and distant as you wish. You are a duke's son.”

“I have not been—”

“My father is a respectable man who seems to care about me despite our long separation,” she added. “Of course that means a great deal.”

“I understand that. I simply think that you should go slowly and—”

“Oh, how could you understand anything about how I feel?” Ariel cried. “You have always known your status and been respected and admired. You have always had family around you. You can't imagine what it's like, making up stories about your father and enduring the petty gossip and malicious speculation of schoolgirls. You have no notion…” She broke off and started walking rapidly again.

Alan followed in silence. She was right, he thought. He never would really know what she had endured in this instance, or in many others. “I hope I have never appeared to feel any difference in our stations,” he said. “Because I do not.”

Ariel glanced at him, then looked at the ground. “No,” she said. “No, you didn't. I beg your pardon. I did not mean—”

“No one in my family was ever allowed to become snobbish,” he added. “My mother despises that sort of thing.”

“They have been very kind to me,” acknowledged Ariel formally.

A silence fell. They walked along the wooded path side by side, sunlight slanting over them through the branches.

“What will you do now?” Alan asked at last.

“What do you mean?”

“Will you stay here?”

She threw him another quick glance. “As you wanted me to?”

“I?”

“You said that you would leave me here, if Daniel Bolton turned out to be my father.”

Something in the way she said the words “leave me” shook him. He tried to read her expression, but she continued to gaze at the ground.

“My father has offered me a home,” she said then. “So, you see, you don't have any responsibility to me any longer. You may cast off that burden with good conscience.”

“Burden,” he repeated, trying to work out what she really meant.

“Well, duty, or at any rate a promise you wish you hadn't made. You can be free of it now.”

“You want me to go?” he asked.

She didn't reply at once. He very much wanted to see her face, but she continued to hide it from him.

“You can do as you like!” Ariel said at last, and she turned to start down the path. “I don't want to see the chapel after all. Let us return to the house.”

But Alan caught her arm and held her back, forcing her to look up at him. “I regret no promises I made,” he said.

Ariel looked pale and strained. “You are a man of your word,” she said, tugging at her arm to free it from his grasp.

He let her go. “Yes,” he acknowledged.

“It is very important to you.”

“Performing what I have said I will do? Yes.” He couldn't understand why she harped on this point.

She gazed at him. They were very close together. “Or what others say you should do,” she added.

Alan shook his head. “I am not bound by—”

“Such as when you offered for me,” she interrupted.

She stood stock-still, gazing up at him with those mysterious dark eyes. What were they asking him? Alan wondered. He could not bear to hear her refuse him again. “I had taken unforgivable liberties,” he hazarded. “I am not the sort of man who—”

She stepped away from him. “I was there,” she said. “If they had been unforgivable, I would have mentioned the matter!” Turning, she started down the hill away from him.

He was right behind her. “I wanted to show you that I am not like the men you had been warned about,” he protested.

She stopped so suddenly that he nearly careened into her. Hands on hips, she said, “You think I am unable to tell the difference? Of course, a feeble intellect such as mine would not be capable of much discrimination, would it? Well, you have made your point. I am completely convinced that you are a man of honor, who does his duty no matter how difficult or distasteful it may be.”

“You are distorting what I—”

“I beg your pardon. Have I misunderstood again? It is so difficult for a mere female to comprehend your great mind.”

“Stop it!” He took hold of her shoulders and shook her slightly.

She glared up at him.

The small sounds of the forest faded from his consciousness. He could see nothing but her lovely face. Alan couldn't stop himself. He pulled her hard against him and kissed her as if their lives depended on it.

Her lips were as sweet as he remembered. The contours of her body were as soft and arousing. There was nothing in the world that he wanted more, and when she relaxed in his embrace and opened her mouth to his, he pulled her even closer, exultation hot in his veins. He would never let her go again, he thought.

But this certainty was broken by the sound of someone clearing his throat, and then a polite, “Pardon me?”

Alan released Ariel, who swayed a little on her feet, and turned to find Daniel Bolton standing among the trees beside the path. The basket on his arm was overflowing with leaves and flowers. “I was on my way back to the house,” he said as Alan silently consigned him to perdition.

Alan and Ariel moved a step apart.

Bolton cleared his throat again. “I feel I must ask, er, what's all this then?”

“I intend to marry your daughter,” declared Alan.

He said it like a knight throwing down a gauntlet, Daniel Bolton thought. But the way he glanced toward Ariel made it difficult to tell whom he was challenging. “Do you?” It was really quite gratifying, he thought, to have one's conclusions so clearly confirmed. Time to test the rest of it. “And is she in agreement with this plan?”

Both men turned to Ariel. Bolton watched emotions shift across his daughter's lovely face. “I must say, speaking as a father, that it appears to me—”

“You have no say in this,” declared Alan. “You have barely met. You have no right to interfere.”

“Still, I am her father,” was the calm objection.

“Whom she hasn't seen in twenty years.”

“Nineteen.”

“Be quiet,” said Ariel.

Looking surprised, the two men obeyed.

Ariel thought of the man she had glimpsed outside the cathedral at Wells, of the passion she had seen in his eyes as he played the pianoforte. But even more she considered the way he had just kissed her. She should have been relying on her own perceptions since the day he first touched her, she thought, and not on what he chose to say. She had had ample evidence that in matters of the heart he often didn't know what he was talking about. Of course, he thought that he did. It might be quite difficult to convince him otherwise.