Edith Layton (21 page)

“My pride, my joy, my absolutely charming boy,” a familiar voice said in bored tones, with a decided edge to them, “it would be lovely if you’d introduce yourself, you know.”

“Crispin Allard Samuel Wycoff at your service, ma’am,” the young man said hastily, bowing again.
“Forgive my lapse. But I’ve heard so many wonderful things about you, and it appears every one of them is true.”

“Oh yes.” Lucy nodded. “
Very
much your father’s boy.”

He blushed as ruddily as Lucy herself ever had. Things were easier after that. They chatted comfortably, like old friends met by chance on a bright spring afternoon. And if Lucy held her parasol and cast her face in shadow every time she looked up at Wycoff, she told herself it could be thought it was the sun she was shading her eyes from. No one would ever guess she was shielding her expression so he wouldn’t guess the wild joy she felt whenever she looked at him.

She’d missed the low thrum of his voice, the quirked smile on his lips, the humor and desire in his sparkling eyes. She’d missed the sheer overwhelming presence of the man, so sure and so powerful. She wanted him nearer than her elbow, felt him closer than the sun on her shoulders. She was, she knew, in a fever of desire and the throes of pure pleasure simply because they stood together, side by side. She was safe from him here. And entirely threatened by him. The contradiction made her dread the afternoon ending.

Wycoff looked down at her and felt his heart slow, at peace. She was here, with him, as he’d asked her to be. She looked lovely, of course. She made Crispin laugh, she was a delightful companion, and he wanted to set his heart galloping by taking her
into his arms and tasting those plush lips again. He remembered their midnight moments in his cabin, and wanted to blot out the sun and relive them with her now. He suggested they walk on.

They went strolling two by two along the embankment: she with Crispin, Jamie with Wycoff, Perkins and her maidservant bringing up the rear.

Crispin smiled down at Lucy, and spoke softly. “I’m so glad he’s home,” he confided to her. “He always managed to spend holidays with us. But now my term’s almost done I can come see him. Candice will be green with jealousy. She’s my sister. A whirlwind and a caution, but my own dear brat, I dote on her as much as Father does. She’s on fire to see him, but her school doesn’t let out for another month. Ma’am,” he said, suddenly, “Jamie said your plans were still up in the air. I don’t mean to be presumptuous—but I must be. For my sake as well as my sister’s, could you see your way clear to staying on here, at least a while longer? If you do, that would keep him in England, where we want him to be.”

Lucy halted, amazed.

He colored again. “He’d have my head if he knew I said it, but it’s clear as the nose on my face—and that’s mightily clear, you’ll agree—that you’re the reason he’s here, and what he’s staying around for. Don’t judge him by what they say, please. I know something of it, and I promise it wasn’t all his fault. They’re catching up with us, so all I can say now is that he was father and mother to us, even from afar.
Ho! Jamie,” he called, pointing out to the water. “What do you think of that three-masted schooner there?”

Very much like his father
, Lucy thought a little sadly. As good at deception as he was, at least. Was it in the blood, she wondered?

“What has he said?” Wycoff asked softly as he came up to her.

“Only good things about you,” she answered.

“And it makes you sad?”

She nodded.

He looked troubled by her answer.

He was. It was a rare day. His son was here, his bright triumph. Tall and straight in mind and body, everything he himself had started out to be, unsullied by time or disgrace. Lucy was here with him, too, strolling on his arm, as though he’d a right to her. Clever young Jamie looked up at him with admiration. At least Lucy didn’t look at him with disgust. Only fear. But he was afraid, too.

“I don’t know what that Turner woman told you,” he told her suddenly, urgently, low. “There weren’t that many women, not really. I know it sounds weak and doesn’t absolve me. But the thing is, those there were are highly placed and still very visible. I’m working hard as I can to convince you of that. You, and everyone else. I can’t wash it clean in a week. But I will. You’ll see—I hope.”

She nodded again. There was nothing she could say, and far too much she wanted to do.

It was twilight when Lucy and Jamie got back to the hotel. She brooded. There were another five days and nights until the ball where she might see Wycoff again.

“You’ve a visitor, Mrs. Stone,” the desk clerk said.

Late afternoon shadows showed Lucy only the shape of a man rising from a sofa and coming toward her. She sucked in her breath as he neared, and held it as he bowed over her hand. Her heart sank, though at first she didn’t understand why.

“Lucy,” William said with admiration. “You look good. No, better. Lord, you look fine!”

“Well, it’s all these new clothes,” she said, for something to say. Meeting him like this, out of time and their usual place, confused her. It tilted reality on its ear. All she could think was that she’d been angry at him, and how strange it was that he was actually here. “The Ameses,” she asked fearfully, her reasoning slowly returning, “They’re all right?”

“Fine. I’ve come on business—well, I made the business to come for. Wanted to see you and how you were faring, and so here I am.” He shook his head. “I’ve got to get myself new clothes made up, too, while I’m here, if they make such a difference. You look years younger. And in the latest kick of fashion, too.” He looked past her shoulder, where Sukey was obviously waiting. His eyebrows went up. “Got a maidservant, too?”

Lucy held her breath.

“Looks like your brother-in-law’s done right by you, and that’s a fact,” William said.

Lucy breathed again, rejoicing in his hasty assumption.

“I’ve rooms in this very hotel,” he went on, with triumph. “Took them when the clerk told me you were still here. Cost me a pretty price, but it’s worth it. Well, Ames told me where you were staying. Glad you haven’t moved on yet. I was surprised, though. Thought you’d be at your noble brother-in-law’s castle, or what have you.”

“We’re not going there. He’s coming to London instead.”

His eyes lit. He smiled, visibly relaxing, looking at her with a proprietary air. She remembered why they’d quarreled. She remembered why she was unhappy at seeing him again.

“Have dinner with me tonight then?” he asked. “They say the food’s good here. I just arrived, or I’d have asked sooner. Why not, Lucy? Old friends, newly met in a strange place?”

She thought of saying she’d a previous engagement. But she didn’t and he lived here and would know if she lied. If she said she had a headache, she could stay in her rooms. But that would be hiding. She wouldn’t do that. “Fine,” she said. And gritted her teeth. Because that was the wrong answer. Hiding in her rooms would at least make him wonder if he had any real competition. His expression showed he thought he’d none, and was halfway to winning her back.

He was, she thought sadly, at least halfway right.

“Ma’am?” Sukey said. “Are we going out today?”

“You may,” Lucy said. “I can’t.” If she showed her nose out the door, William would pounce. He had yesterday. She’d thought he’d be exhausted after his long journey, but he was out and about early the next day, and insisted on accompanying her to the park with Jamie. Thank goodness for Sukey, she’d thought. But that made her think about Wycoff, and made her even more unhappy.

“What ever became of that Wycoff fellow?” William had asked too blandly, as if he didn’t know. Anyone inquiring at the hotel could have found out he never came to call on her. They both knew it.

“I see him now and then, at social affairs—balls and routs and the like,” Lucy answered airily, to let him know he’d grow a tail before there was any chance of him being invited to such.

But he wasn’t a bad man, and they
were
old acquaintances, and she was very much on her own here in London. She never forgot that, however kind they were to her, the Ryders, Lord Dalton, and the lofty Earl of Drummond were Wycoff’s friends first. She did have a few gentleman callers after the ball. But they were either gossips or in search of a woman with a fortune, and she had nothing for any of them. William, with all his faults, was at least her own friend. Even if she didn’t want him, his presence was flattering. But persistent.

“You
can’t
, Madam?” Sukey asked, puzzled. “Are you unwell?”

“No,” Lucy sighed, “but I’ll stay. I’ve a book to read.”

She turned back to the pages of Miss Austen’s last book without seeing them, yearning to leap up and go out with Jamie and Sukey. When they stood by the door looking back at her one more time, she laid her book down. Jamie grinned. He knew her as well as she knew herself. “Well, I—” she began to say, but there was a tapping on the door. She grimaced.
Caught either way
. William was early today.

But the strange couple who stood in her doorway were complete strangers to her. The slender woman was her own age, most of her pale hair covered by her stylish bonnet. Her face was unremarkable; her clothes gave her all the distinction it lacked. She stared at Jamie, not Lucy. So did her companion, who was well dressed, portly, of medium height, but looked shorter because of his posture. His hat hid his hair; what little she could see of it was sparse and gray. He was wan, of middle years, his face familiar…

“
Jonathan?
” Lucy gasped.

He looked at her at last. His eyes had puffy pouches under them, but held the living memory of Francis’s dark brown eyes—and Jamie’s.
He was only two years older than Francis!
she thought in astonishment. But Francis had been gone for almost ten years. Even so, his brother looked too old for his years.

“Hello, Lucy,” he said. “So this is my nephew? It must be. James? You look like your father, you know.”

“And like you,” his wife told him as she studied Jamie. “Your eyes, exactly. And your hair.”

“When I had it,” he laughed. “So what do you have to say for yourself, young man?”

Jamie glanced at his mother, and then bowed to them. “Good morning, sir. Are you my uncle, then?”

“Then, and now,” the baron Hunt said with pleasure. “Or should I say, even more now that you’re finally here. We’ve waited a long time to see you, my lad. Nine, are you now?”

“Ten soon, sir.”

The baron laughed. “Boys! Always eager to add a year. I remember when your father was your age and wanted to have his own curricle, the tales he told our father to convince him he was ready for it…” He looked around.

“Won’t you sit down?” Lucy asked, belatedly.

“Thank you. It was a long and wearisome trip. So tell me, lad,” the baron said as he slowly lowered himself to a chair, “are you as keen a rider as your father was?”

Jamie ducked his head. “No, sir. That is to say, I would be, maybe, if there was time. But I have so much to do.”

Lucy felt ashamed and proud. Jamie had his father’s eyes and his mother’s pride. Because it was more than lack of time. It was lack of money for horses and the leisure to ride them.

“Well then, sir,” his uncle said, “we’ll make the time, won’t we? Your father was mad for horses. I
told him he was wrong to choose the navy rather than the cavalry. Maybe he came to realize it and that’s why he left it so soon.”

He had a friend in the navy
, Lucy thought,
and Francis was always mad to do whatever his friends did—and whatever his brother told him not to do
. But she didn’t say it. Jonathan seemed so taken with Jamie. All these years he’d ignored her and her son. But things had changed. Jonathan was prematurely old now—it was evident in how he moved, and clear to see in his face. As was his fascination with his newfound nephew. The baron Hunt had more than money, he had connections and prestige, and who knew what he might do for his long-lost nephew, after all?

So Lucy sat, hands folded, and watched Jamie and his uncle get to know each other. Jamie talked sixteen to the dozen, his uncle laughed at every other word he said. His aunt watched as Lucy did. Only Lucy never beamed all the time on the pair of them, the way the lady Alice did. Nor did she breathe a word, even though she heard a dozen things about Francis that were wrong or wrongly said; she didn’t want to interrupt. She didn’t venture to say a thing.

No one noticed.

A
nd they have a boy-sized curricle, Uncle said, though he thinks I’d need a man-sized one soon enough,” Jamie reported. “And a whole kennel of hunting dogs, though Uncle don’t go hunting much anymore, his health and all, but they’ll get me any sort of dog I want, as well as a horse. Mama, I can’t wait to go visit them!”

It sounded like the baron wanted more than a mere visit from them, Lucy thought with delight. She sat back. She could finally stop pacing. It was already dark. Jamie had been talking without cease for a half hour, ever since he’d got home. His uncle and aunt had kept him out long past his bedtime, and returned him with many an apology.

“You know how unreliable those ferrymen are,” Jonathan had said. “We were told there was an hour
wait. As it was crowded we decided to have dinner while we waited. Then there was the trip back. Sorry for any distress it caused you, but you must have known he was safe with us. There was no way to get word to you in any event. We took Jamie to see Vauxhall Gardens after I told him about how much his father used to enjoy the place. It was a spur of the moment idea, but he liked it, I think.”

“I
loved
it!” Jamie enthused, looking up at his uncle very much as the dog he’d been promised might have done.

It had been three days since the baron Hunt and his wife had come to London. All told, Lucy had spoken with them for an hour, if that. They’d passed every daylight hour with Jamie, though. Lucy occupied herself by avoiding William, visiting Gilly, and waiting for Jamie. And thinking of Saturday evening, when she’d be able to see Wycoff again.

Jamie’s eyes were shining in spite of the lateness of the hour. It was right that he see his uncle. Wrong for her to feel lonely and left out—or at least so she told herself. Hadn’t she brought him here for this very purpose? His uncle obviously took to him. It was more wrong still for her to feel this niggling sense of unworthiness. No, she told herself in disgust,
it was plain jealousy
. Jonathan had the time and money to fulfill Jamie’s every wish. It seemed he was trying to.
Good!
she told herself. That was the whole reason they’d returned to England.

“We’ll visit them,” she said. “I don’t know how long we’ll stay, so I’d forget about the dog for a
while. That’s what we planned to do when we arrived, remember? Let’s give your uncle time to recover himself and we’ll go back with him when he leaves. He doesn’t seem to have much energy.”

“Well, no. But he said he feels better when I’m with him than he has in years!” Jamie enthused. “Tomorrow we’re going to the Admiralty where there’s a friend of his who knew father, and then to Tattersall’s so I can see the horse auctions. He wouldn’t do that if he couldn’t, would he? Oh. And he says he wants to speak with you tomorrow, too.”

She’d like to talk with someone who’d known Francis, too. But she wouldn’t invite herself along. That was probably what he was going to ask her, Lucy decided. “Good,” she said on a yawn. “Now wash and go to bed. It will make tomorrow come faster.” That was, after all, why she went to bed so early herself these days.

She wore her best walking dress the next morning. Sukey had her newest bonnet laid out on the sideboard so she could just pluck it up as she walked out the door.

But the baron and his lady had eyes only for Jamie when they arrived. “Jamie!” Jonathan said after Sukey let him in. “Guess what I’ve brought with me? A new carriage. It’s not mine yet. I’m testing it, to see if it suits. Go downstairs, it’s in front of the hotel. I’ve told John Coachman to show you its features so you can help decide if we should buy it. If we do, then you may help choose the horses we’ll need for the trip back. Go down. We’ll follow soon.
We just want to talk with your mama before we go.”

“Right! I’ll see you later, Mama!” Jamie fairly sang as he flew out the door. He took the stairs two at a time before Lucy could tell him not to. She shook her head; Jonathan chuckled. But then he grew sober.

“I have to talk with you, Lucy,” he said. “Be off about your duties, girl,” he said with a wave of his hand at Sukey. “The lad’s all ears, bless him, so this is as good a time as any for our chat,” he told Lucy, slowly lowering himself into a straight-backed chair.

His wife took another chair and sat ramrod straight. Lucy put out a hand on the arm of a sofa, and came to rest without thinking. She bit her lip. This was not going to be an invitation to the Admiralty. “Yes?” she said.

“Well,” he said after Sukey had left, “my lady and I weren’t sure what we’d think when we met Jamie. To be honest, if we didn’t like him, we’d never be having this talk. You don’t know me very well, Lucy. That’s as much our fault as Francis’s. But we kept track of you and Jamie all these years. The Ameses are our distant relatives, too, and as head of the family I made sure to keep in contact with them. They always urged us to meet Jamie. But time passed—one imagines one has all the time in the world…”

He sighed heavily. “The plain truth is we can’t have children, my lady and I. The doctors say it’s not certain. But we’ve ten years of trying without so
much as a spark to show for our efforts. I was ill this past autumn, and a long time recovering. It made me start thinking of the succession. It looks to be Jamie who’ll be the next baron Hunt. My doctors say that will be years from now. But I’ve less faith in them than ever.

“If I didn’t like the boy, I’d make other provisions. Leave my money away from the estate, even if it broke my heart. The estate has been in the family three hundred years. I’d not like to leave it to chance. But we like him very well indeed.”

“I’m so pleased,” Lucy said calmly, though her spirits soared. Everything she’d worked and saved and hoped for was actually going to come true for Jamie!

It must have showed on her face. Jonathan sighed again. “Hear me out,” he said. “The lad looks enough like me to be my own son. I’d like to raise him as such.”

There was a silence. They both looked at Lucy. “
What?
” she finally said.

“Well,”—he shifted on his chair—“it only makes sense. If he’s to run the estate in due time, why not learn the way of it now? I can send him to the best schools, as he deserves. I’d like to be father to him; he needs one. My lady is a kind woman, quite capable of being a mother.”

Lucy heard a fizzing in her ears. She suddenly saw through a long crimson tunnel that ended in Jonathan’s plump face. She held her breath and her tongue with effort. A decade ago, she’d have fled in
tears. Living on her own, fighting every battle by herself for so many years had given her courage, and her love for Jamie gave her strength. Her besetting sin was rashness. She knew she couldn’t act on her impulses. There was no way she could kill Jonathan. She refused to shriek, or order him out either. When she did speak, her voice trembled, but held.

“And me? Have you forgotten that Jamie has a living mother?”

“Of course not, and neither would he,” Jonathan protested. He avoided her gaze. “But this would free you, Lucy. Think on. This is difficult, but if we can’t speak truth now, when can we? We know, we’ve heard—that you have other interests. Why not? You’re still a handsome woman. Who can blame you? And Lord Wycoff is most persuasive.”

Lucy sat absolutely still. But her hands tightened in her lap, and even her lips turned pale.

Jonathan shook his head; it set his jowls quivering like a weary basset hound. “You traveled to England with him. How could that be a secret?” He heard her indrawn breath.

“Yes, we made inquiries. We had to discover what sort of person you were, Lucy,” he said. “Credit us with that much concern about the boy. I will say you’ve been discreet since you got here. But it’s almost impossible to have a secret in London. Now, without Jamie to worry about, you could do as you please. You’re not in society, you can and likely will return to America. But with a fine income coming to you monthly, you’d be your own mistress, not
dependent on the generosity or whim of any man to set your table or buy your clothing.”

Color flooded into Lucy’s face. Embarrassment and rage warred with each other, keeping her silent as she struggled for composure.

“We wouldn’t forget you, or let you live in penury,” Jonathan went on. “We’d settle a handsome monthly stipend on you.”

“We so wish you’d written to tell us of your hardship all these years, instead of being so proud,” his lady added nervously, in a light and breathy voice. “The Ameses said you were doing well, but Jamie has told us what he has done without.”

“With money and freedom, you could do as you please,” Jonathan said, shooting a quelling glance at his wife. “Although, to be sure, you’d be better off not doing some things. Wycoff has a certain history you may be unaware of. He’s a famous philanderer. Were I you, I wouldn’t put any trust in him. He discards women as easily as he acquires them. But that’s your choice.” He slapped his palms on his knees and looked at her. “And so? May we take Jamie home with us? It would be best for him, and you.”

“He’s a dear boy,” Lady Alice whispered. “Just think, Lucy. This way he can have everything he wants, too.”

“And if the doctors are wrong?” Lucy asked, turning to her, eyes blazing. “If you conceive a boy, my lady, what of my boy, then?”

“Then I’d rejoice,” the lady said softly. “But
James wouldn’t suffer. The Manor has thousands of acres. We have ample funds. He’d still have a place in society, and our hearts.”

“As well as a good education,” Jonathan added, “and every opportunity. If you take him back now? He’ll have you. And whatever fortune you can procure for him.” He looked at her as though they both knew how little that would be, shrugged, then slowly rose to his feet. “Don’t answer right away. If you love him, you’ll make the right decision. Come, Alice, we’re promised to Captain Blake for luncheon. We’ll see you again this evening, Lucy. Don’t worry, we’ll take care of Jamie.”

But that was what she worried about. Lucy paced the room after they’d gone, first whispering “
No! Never
.” A life without Jamie? A boy without his mama?
Impossible!
Then she fell silent, tormented, wondering,
Why? They could give him everything his mama couldn’t
. Every argument she thought of had a counterbalance. She wanted to take Jamie home. She wondered if she’d ever forgive herself if she did. And if Jamie ever would.

She was home in England, at last. Jonathan paid her fare here, so she still had the money she’d saved up and her choice of worlds to conquer. Her future looked brighter than it had in years.
But not so bright as Jamie’s could be with Jonathan and his wife. The right schools, the right upbringing, preparing him for ownership of a fine estate
. If she took him away now, Jonathan might be able to leave it away from him, or leave only the estate, useless to Jamie with no funds,
or experience at managing it. Did she have the right to deprive Jamie of his birthright? Was it love or selfishness that was urging her to snatch him up and fly back to America now?

She thought of Wycoff, and suddenly knew, surely as she knew her name, that if she didn’t have Jamie’s future to worry about, she’d gamble her own. Not in marriage perhaps. But if she was alone in the world with no one to think of but herself, who knew what she might dare?

So could it be that she was trying to keep Jamie just to protect herself from risking a liaison with Wycoff?

She froze, contemplating the terrible thought. No. She breathed a shaking sigh. She’d acquit herself of that. Above all, beyond everything, she loved Jamie with every particle of her being.

Enough to give him up for his own good? Or would it be for his own good?

She didn’t know. She felt as though Jonathan had struck her, her head and chest ached so.

A tapping on her door diverted her from her agonizing reasonings. Without thinking, she threw the door wide.

“There you are!” William said. He walked in and threw his hat down on a table. “I never seem to find you in. You’re out at cock crow and in bed by dusk—you ought to do it the other way round now that you’re in London, you know. What’s toward?” he asked suddenly. “You’re weeping.”

She felt her cheeks. “Am I? So I am,” she said,
fishing in her pocket for a handkerchief. “Rain without thunder, though I could swear I was screaming. William,” she said, turning to him simply because he was a familiar face and she had to talk with someone, “I don’t know what to do.”

She told him all. It was good to just put it in words. Every offer, every argument, all her fears and hopes for Jamie. All, except for the bit about Wycoff, because upset as she was, she knew telling William that would be folly. William sat listening quietly. She never looked at him, too intent on expressing her thoughts and hearing her own arguments. When she was done she looked at him at last, and bit her lip. He was beaming.

When he saw her expression of hurt surprise, he looked guilty. “Well, I’m glad you came to me,” he said, and she knew what he’d looked so pleased about.

“They’re not wrong,” he went on. “It’s the boy’s birthright. Gods! What it must be like to be handed your future on a silver tray!” he muttered. “Not to have to work and scratch for every cent. Look at me—I moved heaven and earth to get here. But look at Jamie. He’ll have enough gold to come visit you whenever he wants.”

“Visit me?” she said, a dangerous look in her eyes, “Where?”

“Home,” he said. “With me,” he added. “Look, my girl, enough shilly-shallying. I offered you a good home before. It can be a better one now. Not only am I making new business out of this trip, but you said
the baron would be filling your pockets, too. Between the two of us, we’ll do very well. Buy ourselves a house bigger than the Ameses’, keep it just for ourselves and fill it with our own children. You’ve had one, you’ll have more. Who knows? Maybe Lord Wycoff will sell us the old Carlisle place?”

“
Out!
” Lucy said. William gaped at her. Lucy regretted her tone. However obtuse William was, he did care. But how could he understand a mother’s love? But who better than he, with that mother of his? She was very confused. She put a hand to her forehead. “I mean, please go now, William. I’ve too much to think about now to talk with you about the future.”