Aurora (24 page)

“We didn’t discuss it. You told me you were going to see her.”

“You didn’t ask me not to.”

“Much good it would have done! You didn’t say you were going to parade yourself through town with her and Charlie. You didn’t say you were going to go calling on her, and make a spectacle of yourself at a party, flirting with her.”

“I wasn’t
flirting
with her. I was trying to find out what she’s up to, and I think I would have done it too, if
you
hadn’t acted so foolishly. I haven’t been back, haven’t seen her at all since the party. I feel in my bones I’m doing the wrong thing. I could get it out of her, but as you dislike it so much, I have given it up.”

“She’s turned you off, in other words.”

“Dammit, you make it sound as though I were courting her. She’s my stepmother.”

“Is she?” she asked in a sneering way, to show him what she thought of this relationship.

“Her credentials are not in doubt. I can only assume you have reverted to mistrusting mine.”

“No, sir, it is not your
credentials
I mistrust.”

“You have no cause to mistrust anything else. Certainly not my feelings for you. I love you. I haven’t shown you in the right manner, I expect. I haven’t had the advantage of a very proper unbringing, leaving home when I was so young. I don’t know how to court a lady in the approved way. I am not a slow learner, however, and if you would direct me, as I have asked you before to do, I would not be long catching on to it.” He stood looking at her with an uncertain, unhappy but withal impatient face.

It was impossible, but the daring, reckless, elegant gypsy was showing signs of discomposure. She was so astonished she could only stand looking while he continued talking, surprising her more with every word he uttered.

“I don’t have any experience with ladies—real ladies, I mean.”

“Lady Alice will be surprised to hear she is not numbered amongst the elect.”

“There is no courting done there. Not by me, at least. I am becoming an adept at
retreating.
Now why are you so
angry
with me? Is it only my seeing Clare? I won’t see her again. Or is it something else? What ought I to have done, or to do? Should I have gone to see your father—have written him, perhaps? I have been wondering if that was what bothered you, that I hadn’t observed the usual formalities. You should have told me, if that’s what it is.”

That no sort of public gesture had ever been made of course had been subjected to scrutiny long ago by Miss Falkner. She concluded she had been no more than a useful flirt, and to hear him state in dead earnest his intentions were not only honourable but seemingly firm and immovable was heart-lifting news.

“You forget we never discussed marriage,” she pointed out. “How could I ask you to write my father in that case?”

“Surely when you allowed me to make love to you it was understood between us. Things cannot have changed that drastically since I have been away. Ladies and gentlemen do not behave as we have toward each other unless there is a commitment.” He looked at her closely, frowning slightly in uncertainty, and she came to realize that he was actually at a loss as to where he stood. He didn’t know how to conduct a polite courtship in his own country. Kissing gypsies and housemaids he obviously knew well, but with a lady he was at sea.

She had to smile at his ignorance, and he became even more confused. “I’ve done something wrong. I know that, but I didn’t mean to,” he continued earnestly. “I hope you haven’t taken the idea I wasn’t serious. I am. I want to marry you. I have dreamt for years of a girl like you. My manners are disgusting to you, no doubt, after my long exile. I am a near barbarian—I was told
that
often enough by Bernard before I left, and my female acquaintances since then have been demimondaines and worse. I can learn to be civilized if you will give me a chance.”

“All right,” she said magnanimously, “but the first thing you must learn is that you must not be making up to any other ladies. That is very much frowned on in polite company.

He grabbed her two hands and kissed them, then looked up. “Is this all right?” he asked, fearful of offense after being so lately forgiven. As there wasn’t a living soul for a half mile around, and particularly as his ardour pleased her so well, Miss Falkner permitted it to be acceptable.

“Where can we go to talk?” he asked.

“What’s wrong with here?”

“I hate graveyards. Let’s go to the meadow.”

“I hate meadows,” she answered, teasingly. “I always see something I don’t want to when I go there. Usually you carrying on with Ghizlaine.”

“Ah no, that was the forest,” he reminded her, and they began walking off.

“Not the second time. A few days ago I saw you with Ghizlaine, and though you were in the forest, I had an excellent view from the meadow.”

“You saw that, did you? If you hadn’t been on your high ropes, you would have had an explanation long ago. I tried to tell you at the party, but you gave me such a cold shoulder the words froze on my lips. And very odd it looked, to see Clare on good terms with me while you and Marnie all but cut me dead. I can’t imagine what everyone thought. Yes I can, though. They’ll think she’s proved I’m an impostor, and I have made some arrangement with her.”

“Never mind that. Let me hear your explanation for sitting with your arms around that old gypsy.”

“Young gypsy—she’s only twenty-six.”

“Already married twice. To say nothing of affairs on the side. Well, what is your story?”

“The story, and it is pure hypothesis, is that it is Ghizlaine’s first husband that lies in the grave wearing my uniform. Not my rings, though. I talked them into leaving my rings out. Not that I could bear to wear them after what they’ve been through, but in a few generations it will only be an interesting story. Ferdinand—that’s the gypsy’s name—disappeared at the same time as Horace. The gypsies were camped in the forest then, you remember, after attending the gypsy fair. It wasn’t their usual time for a visit. Anyway, Ghizlaine’s husband vanished. He was tall, the right size and right hair. Well, it is more than hypothesis, I think. I got the picture of the man in Clare’s sketch pad—you remember the one you showed me. I had Wilkins get it for me. It is very handy living at the inn. Sam Friggins is my contact with Wilkins, and I sent a message with him. Wilkins purloined the pad for me, and I showed the picture to Ghizlaine. It is her husband. He disappeared at the right time, and she still misses him, too. I was only comforting her when you saw me. Perfectly innocent. Clare knew him, of course—
vide
the sketch. Horace was still alive long after the burial, so it seems to me the corpse is what remains of Ferdinand. How he got shot and into my uniform I haven’t discovered. Ghizlaine knew Lady Raiker was sketching him. It was done quite openly, apparently, with chaperon and all at Raiker Hall, but this is not to say there weren’t more private meetings later on at night. Clare was doing a series of character studies and paid the gypsy to pose, so Papa would have suspected nothing. The gypsy returned in the late afternoon from his last sketching session but went out that night, to do a spot of poaching, he said. He never came back. He was a bit of a wild buck. The gypsies were afraid he’d been caught out in some illegal act, something more serious than poaching, I mean, and never reported him missing. He might have been stealing or pursuing some servant girl. I quizzed Ghizlaine about the emeralds, but she claims no knowledge of them. I can’t tell whether she’s telling the truth or not. She lies, but skillfully. He
might
have been actually after the necklace—or Clare. He clearly never got them in any case. I think if I went back to Clare and dropped a few dark hints about Ferdinand, I might frighten her into a confession. May I?” he asked, with a quizzical look.

Rorie shrugged her shoulders.

“This is a
discussion.
I am not telling you I am going. I hope I learned my lesson, but it would be interesting to hear what she has to say. I think I must go. End of discussion. Speak now, or forever hold your peace.”

She had a pretty good idea he would go whatever she said, and of course she wanted him to force Clare’s hand if he could. “No objection,” she said.

Already he appeared to have forgotten he had asked for permission. “I’ll call tonight and let you know tomorrow what she says. No headaches, please. You didn’t have one at all, did you?”

“Of course not. There is a useful bit of information for you, savage. When a lady says she has a headache, it means she is in the sulks with you. A bouquet of flowers will often cure the headache, or a well-worded
billet doux.
Of course if you have caused a
migraine,
you might require a stronger cure.”

“What is the cure for migraine?” he asked with great interest.

“Nothing less than a proposal of marriage. You want to be careful where you go causing migraines. And it must be in writing, the proposal, without instructions to destroy the evidence.”

“Would you like your evidence in writing? I have no objection in the least, but would require a written answer. It is more likely
you
who will try to get out of it. Is it quite settled we are to get married, incidentally?”

“No, it isn’t.”

“What?” he asked, surprised.

“If you want a lesson in civility, sir, let me tell you, an offer of marriage is not to be thrown
incidentally
at the tail end of a discussion.”

“But we were discussing a proposal.”

“I still don’t like the
incidentally.”

“Fussy! I’m not at all sure a blonde is worth the bother. Shall I write to your father, or speak to Marnie?”

“Marnie is in charge of me, temporarily.”

“And
1
am in charge of Marnie, temporarily. Till she marries John, I am the head of her family. I give myself permission.”

“No, really, Kenelm, that is not at all the way to go about it.”

He laughed, shaking his head at her gullibility. “I shall write to your father. Marnie might say no, the mood she’s in.”

“The mood she is in, she’ll write to Papa advising him to withhold his consent. Let me talk her around. Wait a few days.”

“You won’t let her talk you out of it?” he asked, perfectly serious.

“No.”

“Promise.”

“She won’t try to, so long as you don’t buy Clare the Gypperfield place.”

“How did you know she was hinting for it?”

“Call it woman’s instinct. How should she do so, if she doesn’t think you are Kenelm?”

“She knows who I am, and is beginning to give thought to a bargain with me. Ferdinand will lessen her bargaining power considerably. Well, here we are at your favourite meadow, and no sign of Ghizlaine. Whom shall I kiss instead?” he asked, regarding her with an anticipatory light in his eyes.

“Don’t feel obliged to ravish some woman every time you walk through the place. It will be at our back doorstep when we live at the Hall, with dairymaids and berry pickers abounding.”

“It sounds promising, but in the meanwhile the only ravishable woman I see is you.” He reached out his arms toward her, but she stepped back quickly. “Indian manners again on my part?” he asked, surprised at her withdrawal.

“Hindustani manners, to quote Malone.”

“I didn’t find the Hindus so hard to get an arm around. You let me before, at the Hall.”

“I didn’t
let
you. You caught me unawares,” she explained, finding it difficult to train this wayward suitor.

“Look at the fox!” he said suddenly, pointing over her shoulder. She looked quickly back, and found herself gripped firmly about the waist.

“If it’s ‘unawares’ you require, I am happy to oblige,” he said, and kissed her full on the lips, long and hard, before she knew what had happened.

“That was
not
a very nice trick,” she said, blushing with pleasure after a long embrace, during which she made no effort to free herself.

“I
thought it was nice. I may not be up on my manners, but I will require no help in dealing with a woman when I manage to get her alone.”

“Try to remember I am a lady.”

“You
try to forget it, sweet. Only in company need you be a lady. When you are with me alone, you are a woman.
My
woman,” he said possessively.

Miss Falkner, though she was thrilled at his highhanded manners, felt obliged to object to this bald assertion.

“I am a confirmed Indian in that respect,” he told her. “Puttee, suttee and all the other Indian ee’s. You had better take good care of me. When
I
go, you hop up on the funeral pyre and go with me.”

“And if I go first?”

“Then I would break all the rules of the game and jump up and be roasted with you. I don’t want to go through life without you.”

She was well enough pleased with this ardent nonsense that she let him walk with her right to the gate, and thus, laid herself open to a lambasting from Malone.

“I saw you,” the Irishwoman said. “You’ve fallen under the Hindustani’s spell again. You were holding hands with him! I’ll get out the lye soap. If this keeps up I’ll tell your sister.”

“I’ll tell her myself. I am going to marry him,” Rorie said defiantly, expecting a rolling pin to fall on her head, for Malone had picked one up lest the Hindustani invade the house.

“You never mean it!” she exclaimed. Miss Falkner had the unexpected pleasure of seeing Malone speechless for a full ten seconds. “You’ve never got an outright
offer
from him!”

“Certainly I have, and I have accepted.”

“Accepted! I should say so! Whoever thought you’d get him, and Lady Alice trotting as hard as her legs will carry her after him! He’s the handsomest rascal that ever drew breath. I could love him myself without too much prodding. Why, Berrigan is nothing to him, a great lump of a lad with no sparkle or dash or conversation. Give me a good rascal any day.
We’ll
keep him in line between the two of us.

“I thought you hated him?” Rorie asked, confused.

“I hated to see you mooning after him when I thought he was up to no good. He’s the kind there’s no getting over. Are you sure it’s marriage he means?”