The Dreamer (12 page)

He bowed to the captain, but the captain did not return the gesture. As the duke had been speaking, the captain first looked startled, glancing at me and then to Norcross again, and then he turned angry, and his hand clenched at his side. “Nothing will please me more, believe me,” he exclaimed, “than to finally get her off my hands.” And without another look at me, he turned on his heel and left.

I stared after him, shocked and injured at his outburst.

The duke, too, looked at the door in concern, though he did not seem surprised. He turned and offered me his arm. “Shall we go?”

But I nearly thrust him away from me in my anxiety, and I hurried out of the store.

The captain was about to enter the coach when I emerged. He turned when he heard me calling him, and I saw that he had already lost all the previous anger, and he looked pale. When he saw me, he did not hesitate to take my hand when I reached out to him.

“Forgive me, Rachel,” he said immediately. “I didn’t mean it.”

“You aren’t angry?” I asked.

He shook his head. “You’re free to dine with anyone you please.”

“But it angered you so much.” I climbed into the coach.

The captain followed me in, sitting opposite me once more. I crossed to join him on the other side, feeling the inordinate need to be close, that I might understand this fascinating man more.

Just as I did, and as the captain was about to swing the door closed, the angelic face appeared at the opening, looked first on the vacant side before turning and finding us.

He smiled his beautiful smile and said with amusement, “How delightfully cozy. There are two benches of course, but I don’t blame you, Tucker. Me, I am certain I would do the same with such pretty company.”

The captain’s face went red, and he leaned forward aggressively. “Look here, Dubois …” he began, but he stopped and sat back again. With effort, he continued lightly, “Forgive the outburst, Your Grace. It’s been a long day. Miss Madera’s certainly free to dine with you as long as there’s an appropriate chaperone. Your mother, of course, will be joining you?”

“Of course,” the duke said with a smile, and held his hand out to me. “Miss Madera?”

I hesitated, looking from him to the captain again. “Go on,” the captain said with a sigh.

“Miss Madera?” the duke queried, raising his eyebrows, his hand still extended.

I leaned back against the seat.

“Thank you, sir,” I said to him. “But I’m afraid I’ll have to decline. It was very good to meet you and … and you
will
come around and visit us, won’t you?”

“But of course,” he told me, his accent seeming suddenly very thick.

“We’ll be at ….” I looked at the captain.

“You know Lady Alistair, I presume,” he said reluctantly.

“Yes. But won’t you reconsider,
ma cherie
? Captain Tucker, you see, has said it meets with his approval. You have nothing to fear from me, I assure you.”

I blinked at his choice of words. “Fear you? I don’t fear you.”

“Then come and see my home. It is very beautiful and historic. It was built almost two hundred years ago by Catholic Monks.” He winked at me as he reached in again, this time capturing my hand to draw me out.

“Really?” I asked. “Does it have a chapel?”

“Why of course,” he answered with a smile. “And secret passageways.”

“Secret passageways? How intriguing!” I moved towards him.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a small gesture from the captain, a movement with his hand, like he was going to reach out and touch me, but he stopped and dropped it at his side.

I pulled away. Or rather, I tried to, but the grip on my wrist was sure, and the duke continued to draw me out. I laughed. “Captain, help me! He won’t let go!”

Immediately, the captain’s hand shot out and captured my forearm. He pulled me back into the coach, and when he did, the duke released me. “It is tug of war, isn’t it, Tucker?” he said with a knowing smile.

“It is,” the captain answered as though he wasn’t angry at all anymore. He, too, smiled. He even thanked the duke for his help in the shop and invited him to come and call when he had the chance.

But his smile disappeared as soon as the door closed. The coach jerked into motion.

He brooded in silence, his eyes intense. Dark energy emanated from him, filling the coach with an almost palpable aura of danger.

“I think you frighten me a little bit after all,” I said in a hollow voice.

He examined me carefully, his mood shifting swiftly, and in a move I never would have anticipated, he put his arm around me and gently drew me close. “Why didn’t you go with him, Rachel?” he asked. It seemed a very important question to him.

“Why didn’t I go with him?” I had a difficult time thinking.

“You could have,” he told me carefully. “I would have understood. There is so much he could have shown you, my dear. You could have increased your knowledge, gathered new information … written your little notes.” The jibe did not sting, for he smiled rather sadly as he said it. “There is nothing left that I can teach you, I’m afraid.”

He called me his dear. He’d never called me his dear before. I shook my head in confusion. “Captain … I … that’s not true.”

“It
is
true. You are all alone in a strange place with no one to support you. It is imperative that you build a life and make … friends.” His tone had gotten quite bleak, but it suddenly became lighter when he added, “It was rather imprudent of you to choose to come with me when such an invaluable resource had presented itself to you, wasn’t it?”

“I know. But I ….”

“Your education will be neglected.” There was an edge of bitterness in his tone.

“Captain.” I laughed, pulling away from him. “You are talking nonsense. My decision was perfectly sound. I have yet to meet this Lady Alistair, and there is still the proposition of the hidden treas —” I stopped myself at his darkening look and continued disjointedly, “And anyway, I … I hadn’t yet thanked you for my new dress.” I looked down and smoothed it with my hand.

He looked at the dress. “Ah, yes. Your decision was logical and steady after all. I should have known. You would never make the mistake of making choices based on anything else, would you?”

“I … you …” I stumbled, not knowing the right answer now.

But he stopped me, touching my hand and stilling it from absently smoothing down the skirt. His voice suddenly gentler he said, “You’ve already thanked me for the dress. A thousand times.”

Chapter Eight

Notes: These pompous, conceited, bloated old goats! I have no patience with them. If this is the best society has to offer, I’ll happily take my chances on the perils of the open seas.

Greatly disappointed in Captain. Proved undeserving of confidence placed in him. That is all. Nothing left to be said.

The man who opened the enormous, gleaming mahogany door was small and balding and fit exactly every stereotype of the pretentious eighteenth century English butler.

His eyes traveled over us cursorily, deducing in the matter of seconds that we were people of no consequence and therefore hardly worth the evidently
considerable
effort common courtesy required.

“I’m sorry, sir. Is Lady Alistair expecting
you
?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Well,
I’m
afraid she is occupied at the moment and is not taking visitors. If you would be so good as to leave your card …,” he told us in snooty, nasal tones, hardly moving his lips, his eyes scanning us from head to foot as he held out a silver tray, careful not to let our unworthy fingers touch the revered cloth of his immaculate white gloves.

The captain placed a card on the ridiculous tray, and the butler began to close the door on us.

“We’ll wait here until she’s seen the card,” the captain told him just before the door slammed shut.

It appeared that the captain had been right. New attire was certainly required for this assignment. Yet, still I was unworthy. Evidently, since my lovely new dress weighed less than a thousand pounds and was narrow enough to fit through doorways, I must be a beggar from the streets and kept as far away as possible from the lady of the house.

And here I’d been thinking I looked pretty darn spectacular!

“Why do we bother with them, Captain?” I muttered, my unhappy eyes still on the closed door.

“Because she’ll be an asset if we do this right.”

“Why? Because she’s rich and pretentious?”

He looked at me, a smile behind his eyes. “You know, for such a rational female, you’re acting awfully emotional all of a sudden. What is it? We put you in a pretty dress and you immediately lose all that careful, objective detachment? If I didn’t know better, I would say your feminine pride had been pricked. He’s just the butler, you know.”

“Emotional! How dare you. I couldn’t care less when fools have no taste. It’s the beauty of being here only to observe. The subject’s personal reaction to me is of
no
consequence. Where are my notes. I need to write this down.”

His lip twisted, and then he said, “Hush. Someone’s coming.”

The door swung open, and there stood the tallest, stateliest woman I’d ever seen. She had to have been in her fifties, though without the use of surgery or a modern exercise regimen, she managed to have clear, soft skin and a beautiful, trim figure, and her poise left me strangely tongue-tied. Her eyes were suspicious, and then they grew wide, and she said, “Mallory Tucker. It
is
you.”

“Lady Alistair. You didn’t have to come to the door.”

“After all these years. What on earth are you doing here?”

“Waiting to be invited in, if that’s alright.”

“Of course, of course! Forgive me,” she said, and opened the door wide.

Well, I thought grudgingly, perhaps I had been a
trifle
impulsive in my first impression.

I looked around in interest. The foyer was large and spacious, and there was a round table with a vase full of flowers in the middle of the floor. Doors lined the hall on either side, and a large staircase swept up to the second floor. There were other furnishings, but description would be useless as antiquities are not my line of expertise.

And then my eyes went to our hostess, and I wondered when she would invite us into a room to sit down. Still she stared at the captain, something between astonishment and apprehension in her gaze. She momentarily glanced behind her at one of the closed doors, and I thought I heard voices, though I couldn’t be sure. And then she turned again and her eyes went to me. Her brows went up enquiringly and she smiled slightly.

Taking her hint, the captain said, “Lady Alistair, may I present Miss Rachel Madera.”

She gracefully held out her hand to me, and I took it.

“So, you’re finally betrothed! Congratulations Mallory. She is very pretty. How kind of you to bring her by to introduce us. Now, if that is all ….”

We both shook our heads. “Oh, we’re not getting married,” I said.

“You’re not?” she asked, and then she, too, began to look shocked, eyeing me from head to toe. “Then, you’re unchaperoned?”

“In fact, it is a part of the reason we came to see you,” the captain told her. “But the explanation is going to be involved, and I rather hoped we could sit down.”

Increasingly agitated with every word, Lady Alistair nearly wrung her hands now. “Oh, Mallory. Of course I’ll sit with you, but I’m afraid I have a small party assembled, though we’re just about to break up. So if you’ll give me a moment ….”

“Forgive us for intruding,” he answered easily. “Take all the time you need. Rachel … I mean, Miss Madera and I shall wait for you.”

Lady Alistair stopped and eyed me when the captain stumbled over his words, but she didn’t say anything. And when her eyes returned to the captain, it was to see him entering the first door on the right.