58
LORD JOHN RETURNS
River Run, March 1770
Phaedre had brought a dress, one of Jocasta’s, yellow silk, very full in the skirt.
“We got better company tonight than ol’ Mr. Cooper or Lawyer Forbes,” Phaedre said with satisfaction. “We got us a real live lord, how ’bout that?”
She let down a huge armload of fabric on the bed and began to pull bits and pieces from the frothing billows, issuing instructions like a drill sergeant.
“Here, you strip off and put on these yere stays. You need somethin’ strong, keep that belly pushed down. Ain’t nobody but backcountry trash goes ’thout stays. Your auntie wasn’t blind as a bat, she’d ’a had you fitted out proper long since—long since. Then put on the stockins and garters—ain’t those pretty? I always did like that pair with the little bitty leaves on ’em—then we’ll tie on the petticoats, and then—”
“What lord?” Brianna took the proferred stays and frowned at them. “My God, what’s this made of, whalebones?”
“Uh-huh. Ain’t no cheap tin or iron for Miss Jo, surely not.” Phaedre burrowed like a terrier, frowning and muttering to herself. “Where that garter gone to?”
“I don’t need these. And what lord is it that’s coming?”
Phaedre straightened up, staring at Brianna over the folds of yellow silk.
“Don’t need ’em?” she said censoriously. “And you with a six-month belly? What you thinking of, girl, come into dinner all pooched out, and a lordship sittin’ by the soup a-gogglin’ at you through his eyeglass?”
Brianna couldn’t help smiling at this description, but replied with considerable dryness nonetheless.
“What difference would it make? The whole county knows by now that I’m having a baby. I wouldn’t be surprised if that circuit rider—Mr. Urmstone, is it? didn’t preach a sermon about me up on the Buttes.”
Phaedre uttered a short laugh.
“He did,” she said. “Two Sundays back. Mickey and Drusus was there—they thought it was right funny, but your auntie didn’t. She set Lawyer Forbes on to law him for the slander, but ol’ Reverend Urmstone, he said ’twasn’t slander if it was the truth.”
Brianna stared back at the maid.
“And just what did he say about me?”
Phaedre shook her head and resumed her rummaging.
“You don’ want to know,” she said darkly. “But be that as it might, whether the county knows ain’t the same thing as you flauntin’ your belly through the dining room and leavin’ his lordship in no doubt, so you put on them stays.”
Her authoritative tone left no room for argument. Brianna struggled resentfully into the stiff garment, and suffered Phaedre to lace it tight. Her waist was still slender, and the remaining bulge in front would be easily disguised by the full skirt and petticoats.
She stared at herself in the mirror, Phaedre’s dark head bobbing near her thighs as the maid adjusted the green silk stockings to her own satisfaction. She couldn’t breathe, and being squeezed like that couldn’t be good for the baby. The stays laced in front; as soon as Phaedre left, she’d undo them. The hell with his Lordship, whoever he was.
“And who is this lord we’re having for dinner?” she asked for the third time, stepping obediently into the billow of starched white linen the maid held for her.
“This be Lord John William Grey, of Mount Josiah plantation in Virginia.” Phaedre rolled out the syllables with great ceremony, though seeming rather disappointed by the unfortunately brief and simple names of the lord. She would, Brianna knew, have preferred a Lord FitzGerald Vanlandingham Walthamstead if she could have got one.
“He a friend of your daddy’s, or so Miss Jo says,” the maid added, more prosaically. “There, that’s good. Lucky you got nice bosoms, this dress is made for ’em.”
Brianna hoped this didn’t mean the dress wasn’t going to cover her breasts; the stays ended just beneath, pushing them up so that they swelled startlingly high, like something bubbling over the rim of a pot. Her nipples stared at her in the mirror, gone a rich dark color, like raspberry wine.
It wasn’t worry over which bulges she was exposing that made her oblivious to the rest of Phaedre’s brisk ministrations, though; it was the maid’s casual He a friend of your daddy’s.
It was not a crowd; Jocasta seldom had crowds. Dependent on her ears for the nuances of social byplay, she would not risk commotion. Still, there were more people here in the drawing room than was usual; Lawyer Forbes, of course, with his spinster sister; Mr. MacNeill and his son, Judge Alderdyce and his mother, a couple of Farquard Campbell’s unmarried sons. No one, though, resembling Phaedre’s lordship.
Brianna smiled sourly to herself. “Let ’em look, then,” she murmured, straightening her back so that her bulge swelled proudly before her, glistening under the silk. She gave it an encouraging pat. “Come on, Osbert, let’s be social.”
Her entrance was greeted by a general outcry of cordiality that made her mildly ashamed of her cynicism. They were kind men and women, including Jocasta; and the situation, after all, was none of their doing.
Still, she did enjoy the expression of mild shock that the Judge tried to hide, and the too-sweet smile on his mother’s face, as her beady little parrot eyes registered the blatant fact of Osbert’s unbound presence. Jocasta might propose, but the Judge’s mother would dispose, no doubt of that. Brianna met Mrs. Alderdyce’s eye with a sweet smile of her own.
Mr. MacNeill’s weatherbeaten face twitched slightly with amusement, but he bowed gravely and asked after her health with no sign of embarrassment. As for Lawyer Forbes, if he noticed anything amiss in her appearance, he drew the veil of his professional discretion over it and greeted her with his customary suavity.
“Ah, Miss Fraser!” he said. “Precisely whom we were wanting. Mrs. Alderdyce and myself have just been engaged in amiable dispute concerning a question of aesthetics. You, with your instinct for loveliness, would have a most valuable opinion, should you be willing to oblige me by giving it.” Taking her arm, he drew her smoothly to his side—away from MacNeill, who twitched a bushy brow at her but made no move to interfere.
He led her to the hearthside, where four small wooden boxes sat on the table. Ceremoniously removing the lids of these, the lawyer displayed in turn four jewels, each the size of a marrow-fat pea, each nestled in a pad of dark blue velvet, the better to set off its brilliance.
“I think of purchasing one of these stones,” Forbes explained. “To have made into a ring. I had them sent from Boston.” He smirked at Brianna, plainly feeling that he had stolen a march on the competition—and judging from the faint glower on MacNeill’s face, he had.
“Tell me, my dear—which do you prefer? The sapphire, the emerald, the topaz or the diamond?” He rocked back on his heels, waistcoat swelling with his own cleverness.
For the first time in her pregnancy, Brianna felt a sudden qualm of nausea. Her head felt light and giddy, and her fingertips tingled with numbness.
Sapphire, emerald, topaz, diamond. And her father’s ring held a ruby. Five stones of power, the points of a traveler’s pentagram, the guarantors of safe passage. For how many? Without thinking, she spread a hand protectively over her belly.
She realized the trap Forbes thought he was luring her toward. Let her make a choice and he would present her with the unmounted stone on the spot, a public proposal that would—he thought—force her either to accept him at once, or cause an unpleasant scene by rejecting him outright. Gerald Forbes really knew nothing about women, she thought.
“I—ah—I should not like to venture my own opinion without first hearing Mrs. Alderdyce’s choice,” she said, forcing a cordial smile and a nod toward the Judge’s mother, who looked both surprised and gratified by being so deferred to.
Brianna’s stomach clenched, and she surreptitiously wiped sweaty hands on her skirt. There they were, all together and in one place—the four stones she had thought it would take a lifetime to find.
Mrs. Alderdyce was jabbing an arthritic finger at the emerald, explaining the virtues of her choice, but Brianna paid no attention to what the woman said. She glanced at Lawyer Forbes, his round face still reflecting smugness. A sudden wild impulse filled her.
If she said yes, now, tonight, while he still had all four stones … could she bring herself to that? Inveigle him, kiss him, lull him into complacency—and then steal the stones?
Yes, she could—and then what? Run off into the mountains with them? Leave Jocasta disgraced and the county in an uproar, run and hide like a common thief? And how would she get to the Indies before the baby came? She counted in her head, knowing it was insanity, but still—it could be done.
The stones glittered and winked, temptation and salvation. Everyone had come to look, heads bent over the table, murmuring their admiration, herself temporarily overlooked.
She could hide, she thought, the steps of the plan unfolding inevitably before her mind’s eye, quite without her willing it. Steal a horse, head up the Yadkin valley into the backcountry. Despite the nearness of the fire, she shivered, feeling cold at the thought of flight through the winter snows. But her mind ran on.
She could hide in the mountains, at her parents’ cabin, and wait for them to come back with Roger. If they came back. If Roger was with them. Yes, and what if the baby came first, and she was there on the mountain, all alone with no one at hand, and nothing to help but a handful of stolen brightness?
Or should she ride at once for Wilmington and find a ship to the Indies? If Jocasta was right, Roger was never coming back. Was she sacrificing her only chance at return to wait for a man who was dead—or who, if not dead, might reject her and her child?
“Miss Fraser?”
Lawyer Forbes was waiting, swollen with expectation.
She took a deep breath, feeling sweat trickle down between her breasts, beneath the loosened stays.
“They’re all very lovely,” she said, surprised at how coolly she was able to speak. “I could not possibly choose among them—but then, I have no particular liking for gems. I have very simple tastes, I’m afraid.”
She caught the flicker of a smile on Mr. MacNeill’s face, and the deep flush of Forbes’s round cheeks, but turned her back on the stones with a polite word.
“I think we will not wait dinner,” Jocasta murmured in her ear. “If his Lordship should be delayed …”
On cue, Ulysses appeared in the doorway, elegant in full livery, to announce dinner. Instead, in a mellifluous voice that carried easily over the chatter, he said, “Lord John Grey, ma’am,” and stepped aside.
Jocasta breathed a sigh of satisfaction, and urged Brianna forward, toward the slight figure that stood in the doorway.
“Good. You shall be his partner at dinner, my dear.”
Brianna glanced back at the table by the hearth, but the stones were gone.
Lord John Grey was a surprise. She had heard her mother speak of John Grey—soldier, diplomat, nobleman—and expected someone tall and imposing. Instead, he was six inches shorter than she was, fine-boned and slight, with large, beautiful eyes, and a fair-skinned handsomeness that was saved from girlishness only by the firm set of mouth and jaw.
He had looked startled upon seeing her; many people did, taken aback by her size—but then had set himself to exercise his considerable charm, telling her amusing anecdotes of his travel, admiring the two paintings that Jocasta had hung upon the wall, and regaling the table at large with news of the political situation in Virginia.
What he did not mention was her father, and for that she was grateful.
Brianna listened to Miss Forbes’s descriptions of her brother’s importance with an absent smile. She felt more and more as though she were drowning in a sea of kind intentions. Could they not leave her alone? Could Jocasta not even have the decency to wait a few months?
“… and then there’s the wee sawmill he’s just bought, up to Averasboro. Heavens, how the man manages, I couldna tell you!”
No, they couldn’t, she thought, with a kind of despair. They couldn’t leave her alone. They were Scots, kindly but practical, and with an iron conviction of their own rightness—the same conviction that had got half of them killed or exiled after Culloden.
Jocasta was fond of her, but clearly had made up her mind that it would be foolish to wait. Why sacrifice the chance of a good, solid, respectable marriage, to a will-o’-the-wisp hope of love?
The horrible thing was that she knew herself it was foolish to wait. Of all the things she had been trying not to think of for weeks, this was the worst—and here it was, rising up in her mind like the shadow of a dead tree, stark against snow.
If. If they came back—if, if, IF. If her parents came back at all, Roger would not be with them. She knew it. They wouldn’t find the Indians who had taken him—how could they, in a trackless wilderness of snow and mud? Or they would find the Indians, only to learn that Roger was dead—of injuries, disease, torture.
Or he would be found, alive, and refuse to come back, not wanting to see her ever again. Or he would come back, with that maddening sense of Scottish honor, determined to take her, but hating her for it. Or he would come back, see the baby, and …
Or none of them would come back at all. I will bring him home to you—or I will not come home myself. And she would live here alone forever, drowned in the waves of her own guilt, her body bobbing in the swirl of good intentions, anchored by a rotting umbilical cord to the child whose dead weight had pulled her under.
“Miss Fraser! Miss Fraser, are ye quite weel, then?”
“Not very, no,” she said. “I think I’m going to faint.” And did, shaking the table with a crash as she fell forward into a whirling sea of china and white linen.
The tide had turned again, she thought. She was buoyed up on a flood of kindness as people bustled to and fro, fetching warm drinks and a brick to her feet, seeing her tucked up warmly on the sofa in the little parlor, with a pillow to her head and salts to her nose, a thick shawl round her knees.
At last they were gone. She could be alone. And now that the truth was out in her own mind, she could cry for all her losses—for father and lover, family and mother, for the loss of time and place and all that she should have been and would never be.
Except that she couldn’t.
She tried. She tried to summon up the sense of terror she had felt in the drawing room, alone among the crowd. But now that she truly was alone, paradoxically she wasn’t afraid anymore. One of the house slaves popped a head in, but she waved a hand, sending the girl away again.
Well, she was Scottish, too—“Well, half,” she muttered, cupping a hand over her belly—and entitled to her own stubbornness. They were coming back. All of them; mother, father, Roger. If it felt as though that conviction were made of feathers rather than iron … still it was hers. And she was hanging on to it like a raft, until they pried her fingers off and let her sink.
The door to the small parlor opened, silhouetting the tall, spare figure of Jocasta against the lighted hall.
“Brianna?” The pale oval face turned unerringly toward the sofa; did she only guess where they had put her, or could she hear Brianna breathing?
“I’m here, Aunt.”
Jocasta came into the room, followed by Lord John, with Ulysses bringing up the rear with a tea tray.
“How are you, child? Had I best send for Dr. Fentiman?” She frowned, laying a long hand across Brianna’s forehead.
“No!” Brianna had met Dr. Fentiman, a small, damp-handed golliwog of a man with a strong faith in lye and leeches; the sight of him made her shudder. “Er … no. Thank you, but I’m quite all right; I was just taken queer for a moment.”
“Ah, good.” Jocasta turned blind eyes toward Lord John. “His Lordship will be going on to Wilmington in the morning; he wished to pay you his regards, if you are well enough.”
“Yes, of course.” She sat up, swinging her feet to the floor. So the lord wasn’t going to linger; that would be a disappointment to Jocasta, if not to her. Still, she could be polite for a little while.
Ulysses set down the tray, and soft-footed out the door behind her aunt, leaving them alone.
He drew up an embroidered footstool and sat down, not waiting for invitation.
“Are you truly well, Miss Fraser? I have no desire to see you prostrate among the teacups.” A smile pulled at the corner of his mouth, and she flushed.
“I’m fine,” she said shortly. “Did you have something to say to me?”
He wasn’t taken aback by her abruptness.
“Yes, but I thought perhaps you would prefer that I not mention it in the midst of the company. I understand that you are interested in the whereabouts of a man named Roger Wakefield?”
She had been feeling fine; at this, the wave of faintness threatened to return.
“Yes. How do you—do you know where he is?”
“No.” He saw her face change, and took her hand between his. “No, I am sorry. Your father had written to me, some three months ago, asking me to assist him in finding this man. It had occurred to him that if Mr. Wakefield was anywhere in the ports, he might have been taken up by a press-gang, and thus be now at sea in one of His Majesty’s ships. He asked if I would make use of my acquaintance in naval circles to determine whether such a fate had in fact befallen Mr. Wakefield.”
Another wave of faintness passed over her, this one tinged with remorse, as she realized the lengths her father had gone to, in attempting to find Roger for her.
“He isn’t on a ship.”
He looked surprised at her tone of certainty.
“I have found no evidence that he was impressed anywhere between Jamestown and Charleston. Still, there is the possibility that he was taken up on the eve of sailing, in which case his presence on the crew would not be registered until the ship reached port. That is why I travel tomorrow to Wilmington, to make inquiries—”
“You don’t need to. I know where he is.” In as few words as possible, she acquainted him with the basic facts.
“Jamie—your father—that is, your parents—have gone to rescue this man from the Iroquois?” Looking shaken, he turned and poured two cups of tea, handing her one without asking if she wanted it.
She held it between her hands, finding a small comfort in the warmth; a greater comfort in being able to speak frankly to Lord John.
“Yes. I wanted to go with them, but—”
“Yes, I see.” He glanced at her bulge and coughed. “I collect there is some urgency in finding Mr. Wakefield?”
She laughed, unhappily.
“I can wait. Can you tell me something, Lord John? Have you ever heard of handfasting?”
His fair brows drew together momentarily.
“Yes,” he said slowly. “A Scottish custom of temporary marriage, is it not?”
“Yes. What I want to know is, is it legal here?”
He rubbed his jaw, thinking. Either he’d shaved recently or he had a light beard; late as it was, he showed no sign of stubble.
“I don’t know,” he said finally. “I have never seen the question addressed in law. Still, any couple who dwells together as man and wife are considered married, by common law. I should think handfasting would fall into that class, would it not?”
“It might, except that we’re rather obviously not dwelling together,” Brianna said. She sighed. “I think I’m married—but my aunt doesn’t. She keeps insisting that Roger won’t come back, or that if he does, I’m still not legally bound to him. Even by the Scots custom, I’m not bound beyond a year and a day. She wants to pick a husband for me—and God, she’s trying! I thought you were the newest candidate, when you showed up.”
Lord John looked amused at the idea.
“Oh. That would explain the oddly assorted company at dinner. I did notice that the rather florid gentleman—Alderdyce? A judge?—seemed inclined to pay you attention beyond the normal limits of gallantry.”
“Much good it will do him.” Brianna snorted briefly. “You should have seen the looks Mrs. Alderdyce kept giving me, all through dinner. She’s not going to have her ewe lamb—God, he must be forty, if he’s a day—marry the local whore of Babylon. I’d be surprised if she ever lets him set foot over the doorstep again.” She patted her small bulge. “I think I’ve seen to that.”
One brow rose, and Grey smiled wryly at her. He set down his teacup and reached for the sherry decanter and a glass.
“Ah? Well, while I admire the boldness of your strategy, Miss Fraser—may I call you ‘my dear’?—I regret to inform you that your tactics do not suit the terrain upon which you’ve chosen to employ them.”
“What do you mean by that?”
He leaned back in his chair, glass in hand, surveying her kindly.
“Mrs. Alderdyce. Not being blind—though by no means as astute as your aunt—I did indeed observe her observing you. But you mistake the nature of her observations, I’m afraid.” He shook his head, looking at her over the rim of his glass as he sipped.
“Not the look of outraged respectability, by any means. It’s granny lust.”
Brianna sat up straight.
“It’s what?”
“Granny lust,” he repeated. He sat up himself and topped his glass, pouring the golden liquid carefully. “You know; an elderly woman’s urgent desire for grandchildren to dandle upon her knee, spoil with sweetmeats, and generally corrupt.” He raised his glass to his nose and reverently breathed in the vapors. “Oh, ambrosia. I haven’t had a decent sherry in two years, at least.”
“What—you mean Mrs. Alderdyce thinks that I—I mean, because I’ve shown I’m—that I can have children, then she’s sure to get grandchildren out of me later on? That’s ridiculous! The Judge could pick any healthy girl—of good character,” she added bitterly, “and be fairly sure of having children by her.”
He took a drink, let it drift across his tongue, and swallowed, relishing the final ghost of the taste before answering. “Well. No. I rather think that she realizes he could not. Or would not; it makes no difference.” He looked at her directly, pale blue eyes unblinking.
“You said it yourself—he is forty and unmarried.”
“You mean he—but he’s a judge!” The moment her horrified exclamation came out, she realized the idiocy of it, and clapped a hand over her mouth, blushing furiously. Lord John laughed, though with a wry edge to it.
“The more certainty therefore,” he said. “You are quite right; he could have his choice of any girl in the county. If he has not so chosen …” He paused delicately, then lifted his glass to her in ironic toast. “I rather think that Mrs. Alderdyce has realized that her son’s marriage to you is her best—possibly her only—expectation of having the grandchild she so ardently desires.”
“Damn!” She couldn’t make a move right, she thought with despair. “It doesn’t matter what I do. I’m doomed. They’ll have me married off to somebody, no matter what I do!”
“You must give me leave to doubt that,” he said. His smile quirked sideways, a little painfully. “From what I have seen of you, you have your mother’s bluntness and your father’s sense of honor. Either would be sufficient to preserve you from such entrapment.”
“Don’t talk to me about my father’s honor,” she said sharply. “He’s who got me into this mess!”
His eyes dropped to her waistline, frankly ironical.
“You shock me,” he said politely, seeming not shocked at all.
She felt the blood surge up in her face once more, hotter than before.
“You know perfectly well that’s not what I mean!”
He hid a smile in his sherry cup, eyes crinkling at her.
“My apologies, Miss Fraser. What did you mean, then?”
She took a deep sip of tea to cover her confusion, and felt the comforting heat run down her throat and into her chest.
“I mean,” she said through her teeth, “this particular mess; being put on show like a piece of bloodstock with doubtful lines. Being held up by the scruff of the neck like an orphaned kitten, in hopes somebody will take me in! Being—being left alone here in the first place,” she ended, her voice trembling unexpectedly.
“Why are you alone here?” Lord John asked, quite gently. “I should have thought that your mother might have—”
“She wanted to. I wouldn’t let her. Because she had to—that is, he—oh, it’s all such a fucking mess!” She dropped her head into her hands and stared wretchedly at the tabletop; not crying, but not far from it, either.
“I can see that.” Lord John leaned forward and put his empty glass back on the tray. “It’s very late, my dear, and if you will pardon my observing it, you are in need of rest.” He stood up and laid a hand lightly on her shoulder; oddly, it seemed only friendly, and not condescending, as another man’s might.
“As it seems my journey to Wilmington is unnecessary, I think I will accept your aunt’s kind invitation to remain here for a little. We will speak again, and see whether perhaps there is at least some palliative for your situation.”