Blackstone's Bride (14 page)

Violet did not miss the quick stiffening in Penelope’s spine, the faint contraction of her smile. Her grace recovered at once. “I have a husband, your majesty.”

“Oh a husband.” The prince waved away the husband. “A husband must always make way for his wife’s admirers. You must allow me to become one of your
cavalier servente
, Duchess, for I am sure you have many.”

“How very Italian sounding, your majesty.”

When the prince begged everyone to be seated again, Blackstone sat with the royal party, and Penelope sat next to Violet.

“What happened to the prince?” Penelope circled her own lips with one gloved finger. “Is it a state secret, or are you at liberty to say?” Penelope’s question was about the prince, but her gaze was on Blackstone. Violet watched her watch him.

“Bee stings.”

“What?” Penelope’s laugh was bright and genuine. She looked directly at Violet. “Did you take him to one of your projects?”

“I did.”

“I must say, he bears it well.” Again, Penelope’s gaze returned to the royal party, to Blackstone and not the prince.

When she turned back to Violet, she observed, “The prince doesn’t seem to quite understand the way of things here, does he?”

Violet agreed. She tried to see what the other woman saw in Blackstone. To her he was both Blackstone and not Blackstone. He had seemed so much older than Violet when they had been lovers, but she realized now that when she’d first met him he had been but seventeen. She had believed him to know infinitely more than she did because he could ride and shoot and hold his own in conversations about money and politics with her father and brother. In those first months of knowing him she had feared above all that he would find her ignorant and silly like other girls.

Penelope watched her closely. Violet tried to keep a bright indifferent face.

“Now my dear Violet, I came to condole with you as you knew I must. You must find Blackstone’s return at this moment of your own triumph quite awkward.”

Violet studied her gloved hands.

“But what does the prince mean by calling him your fiancé? Is the announcement in the papers true?”

Her gaze flew up. He had agreed not to make an announcement and yet he had. “I beg you, do not misunderstand our situation. My brother was to play host to the prince, you know, but business has delayed Frank’s return to London, and the ministry sent Blackstone to us because of his knowledge of that part of the world.”

“Ah, so Blackstone has been inflicted upon you by an indifferent or ill-informed government.” Penelope cast a quick glance at Blackstone.

“I hoped you would understand.”

Penelope rose. “I think I do. Perfectly. I simply tore up your letter, Violet. We must still give our ball, my dear. I insist.”

Penelope’s rising, signaled the others that the interval was ending, and there was a general shuffling of limbs and chairs to form a path for her. Blackstone rose, extending a hand to help her move through the disordered chairs. He meant no pointed attention. It was natural to him to offer courtesies. It was only that his smile made a woman want more from him, want something his sinful body seemed to promise. Violet understood that the duchess made the most of her momentary contact with him. When she thanked him, there was a subtle invitation in those green eyes. The countess saw it, too, and her face briefly lost its doll-like sweetness.

The play resumed. In her perturbed state of mind Violet saw nothing of the slave girl’s travails or her touching reunion with her dying father. She realized that she had fallen in love with Blackstone as a girl, without ever seeing him in the company of other women. He was her brother’s friend. He had seemed to belong to them, to their family, and to her in particular. She knew that he had a mother and sisters, but she had not imagined his female acquaintance, had not considered how other women would see him. Nor had she seen his behavior towards them. It was something more than civility. His body seemed designed to awaken sensual awareness in any woman he met.

His friends saw it. The duchess saw it, but Violet had not seen it until now because she had only known him at Hammersley House. In those early days they could not have been more alone if they had been cast ashore on some barren island in a distant sea like Crusoe. The folly of it struck her forcibly. All the rules for female behavior existed so that impressionable girls like herself would not be subject to the stirring effect of a man’s presence. She had made the mistake of thinking herself different from those other girls. She had known herself to have a good mind and steady nerves. She’d never been silly, and she’d felt fearless. She’d been wrong. The only right thing, the only hardheaded, sensible thing she’d done in her whole connection with Blackstone had been to end their engagement.

And she would do well to remember that fact. His hand still bore the signet ring, the most famous signet in England perhaps, with its unmistakable bold masculine
B
on the black face and its gold acanthus leaves on the band. The ring appeared prominently in the infamous painting with the man’s fingers splayed possessively down across the naked collarbone of a reclining beauty, claiming her as his own.

Violet’s humiliation had taught her not only about men but about her true friends. The school friends to whom she had announced her engagement, dropped her at once when her humiliation became known. Since that time, she had learned better how to judge a prospective friend. The satisfaction in knowing that she had been wise, and that the more she knew of him the wiser she appeared, was a peculiarly dull satisfaction. Being wise didn’t quicken one’s steps or make one laugh or shout aloud. It simply meant you wouldn’t trip and break your shin. Violet supposed in time, and with Frank’s safe return, she would take off Blackstone’s false diamond and begin again.

* * *

Hours later Blackstone sauntered into Frank’s room with the easy authority he always showed. “What did you learn tonight?”

Violet had a dozen candles burning, anything to reduce the intimacy of their meeting. She wanted no repetition of the morning’s kiss. She had wrapped herself in a warm wool shawl and taken a wing chair by the window. “Frank never saw the prince’s regiments. The fact seemed to puzzle the prince, as if he couldn’t figure out how he’d managed not to show them off to his English visitor.”

“How did Frank miss them?”

“Apparently, they’re billeted away from the capital in a place called Tiraspol. I thought Dubusari rather quick to divert his highness’s mind from the subject.”

“Dubusari manages them all. And he’s not as frail as he looks.” Blackstone watched her from across the room, a preoccupied look on his face. After their morning encounter, he seemed as determined as she was to hold himself aloof.

“You’re right. He doesn’t tire, and Cahul watches Dubusari as much as he watches the prince.”

“So what do we make of that? Does it help us find your brother?”

He was distracting her with “we” and “us.” They were not an “us,” and to let herself think they were would be a dangerous relaxing of her guard against the memories, which kept massing like troops ready for an attack. “The count and countess don’t behave like married people.”

“You’re right there. She’d do away with him if she could.” He seemed to see her then, and moved towards her, reaching up to pull the end of his cravat, undoing the fashionable knot. He pulled the linen free of his neck and undid the button at his throat so that the points of his collar fell away.

She swallowed, watching him toss the discarded linen over the back of a chair. She wanted him to stop being familiar and at ease as if they’d taken up where they left off. “Murder him? She looks seventeen and talks about gowns and hats. She’s never said anything to me that indicates she’s other than a peahen, and she bats her eyelashes at you with enough force to blow the leaves off a garden path.”

Blackstone leaned an elbow on the mantelpiece. “She’s an odd sort of seductress, I agree. She doesn’t bat, however; she widens her eyes.” He widened his own eyes in mimicry.

“Seductress?” He would recognize such a thing she supposed.

“Have you noticed? She’s more intentional than a mere flirt. She has quite a repertoire of helpless gestures—the trembling hand on the sleeve, the helpless shrug—nothing accidental, nothing spontaneous, and she’s always watching the effect, but she’s not affected herself. Not like your friend, the duchess.”

“
Friend
overstates the degree of connection between Penelope Frayne and me.”

“Yet, she’s paid you calls, which you’ve returned, and you are working together on your ‘worthy endeavor,’ a ball.”

His gaze was shrewd and knowing. He had noticed more about her calendar than she liked, but even he didn’t see what was now so plain—Penelope’s interest in Violet’s charities had begun only after Blackstone’s return. Penelope had sought her acquaintance, not out of common interest in charity, but out of interest in Blackstone.

“Violet, are you with me? We’re trying to understand the enemy.”

She looked up to find his blue gaze fixed on her. She had to make him stop saying
we.
“Who is Vasiladi?”

He pushed away from the mantelpiece and moved to Frank’s writing desk. “A Greek patriot with whom I spent some time.”

“You need not lie to me about him. I can look at you and see that his hospitality did not include sufficient food. Is Vasiladi the reason you mortgaged Blackstone Court?”

“I thought you were keen to investigate the people who have taken your brother.”

Violet took a steadying breath. “I had a banker investigate you.”

“Did you?” He flattened his palm against Frank’s desk. Light gleamed on the gold of his ring. “Are you worried that I’m after your fortune with our false engagement?”

“You put an announcement in the papers after we agreed not to.”

“I didn’t in fact. My employer did.”

“The government? Why?”

He did not answer.

“Blackstone.” Violet plunged ahead. “My investigator found that your entire estate, everything that is not entailed, is mortgaged. The townhouse is closed. Blackstone Court is leased to a crockery maker. A man who makes knickknacks with scenes on them.”

“He’s quite prosperous.”

Her hands fisted in the folds of her shawl. She wanted to hit him to shatter that imperturbable calm. “And your mother and sisters are living in Bath, and not in the most elegant of addresses.”

“Yes, Elena, has not hesitated to point out to me the disadvantages of their situation, comfortable, but obscure. I expect to restore them to a better situation within a year.”

“I couldn’t discover where you are living. You don’t keep your own stable, apparently, but today, you were . . .” He regarded her over his shoulder with a look she’d seen before, when she’d broken their engagement, his face barren of expression, as if he’d gone away somewhere and left a mask behind. But he was changed, too. In the candlelight she saw the hollows in his gaunt face. His face with its lean edges was nothing like the sleek faces of his friends. Her mind, her busy, unstoppable mind that wanted to know things, went on putting the bits and pieces together. She pushed herself up out of the chair.

“Your year in Greece was not about goats and harems. It was about ransom. You paid Vasiladi money.” Her mind raced on calculating, connecting the little she knew. He didn’t blink or change. “How much you must have paid!” Almost, she wanted to reach out to him, but she kept her hands knotted in her shawl. “What did you ransom, Blackstone?”

“Your investigation has been quite thorough, madame.” He came towards her, his mouth a taut line. She titled her chin up to meet his dark rigid look. He reached down and disengaged her hands from the wool.

“You seem to be wearing a lap dog, Violet.” The edges of the woolen shawl fell open. She felt it slip and cool air settle around her.

He took her left hand in his and closed his fingers around the false betrothal ring he’d given her. “Violet, this is paste on your finger. Your large fortune is in no danger from my lack of fortune.” He turned away.

“You could have told me,” she told his back. She did not understand him. He risked public censure for becoming engaged to her with no fortune of his own. He would be named a gazetted fortune hunter and endure more public scandal. She could not think what could possibly make him do it. She opened her mouth to ask, but he cast her a dark glance over his shoulder.

“I’d rather, as always, that my private concerns not be so wholly available to public scrutiny.”

Violet was stunned. Here was an end to
we
and
us
.

“You said the prince’s royal guard is quartered at Tiraspol.”

She nodded.

“That’s on the Russian border. Interesting.” His voice had regained its ordinary tone. “I wonder who decided to train the army there.”

Violet made herself stand tall and steady. Blackstone had recovered. He was in control of himself. He could come into Hammersley House and flip the pages of her calendar and unsettle her life, but she was not permitted to know the first thing about his life.

And Frank was still missing.

Chapter Fourteen

“. . . you should take it into further consideration, that in spite of your manifold attractions, it is by no means certain that another offer of marriage may ever be made you.”

—Jane Austen,
Pride and Prejudice

Violet found Mr. Rushbrooke in her straw-colored drawing room at an exceptionally early hour. Together they had worked to sponsor a cricket match between a group of town boys and some collegians. Violet had dressed for the day’s excursion in a chocolate jaconet dress with a corded band around the waist and a square collar of worked muslin. Not a single unnecessary inch of her person would be exposed to Blackstone’s scrutiny.

When Granthem greeted the visitor and asked if Mr. Rushbrooke would be accompanying Miss Hammersley to the cricket match, Mr. Rushbrooke turned quite somber and regretted that he would not. The night had restored his natural color, except for two red splotches in his cheeks, like bright flares above his sober clerical black.

He fixed Violet with a stern look and announced that he would take no more than a minute of her time.

“Mr. Rushbrooke, do sit down, and let us offer tea and marmalade cakes.”

“If you insist, Miss Hammersley.”

“I do. The effects of the sun are not to be trifled with. I hope you will take care until you feel fully recovered.” Violet nodded to Granthem who turned at once. He had probably already ordered a refreshment tray.

She sat, and Mr. Rushbrooke did the same with obvious reluctance. He regarded her with an expression of sullen petulance as if he were offended, and he seemed to be gathering himself to make a speech.

Granthem returned with a footman bearing a tray of tea and cakes. As he placed it on the table before her, he smiled at her. “Your lads have their match today, don’t they, miss?”

Violet nodded.

“Good luck then. I’ll be putting my money on them.”

Granthem cleared his throat, and the footman retreated into proper anonymity. With their leaving, Violet could feel the heaviness of Rushbrooke’s disapproval settle in the room. She poured and served and waited.

After far too long, her guest brushed cake crumbs from his fingers. “I own I am disappointed, Miss Hammersley. I did not understand that you intended to bring Lord Blackstone with you yesterday.” He frowned at Violet’s hands.

She stopped twisting Blackstone’s paste diamond on her finger. What a ridiculous situation. She could not blame Rushbrooke for misunderstanding her true circumstances. “We are much together at this stage of our betrothal.”

“So I see, but I can’t think that betrothal to a man like Blackstone suits you, Miss Hammersley.”

Violet felt herself stiffen. The diamond and the pretense it represented had betrayed Mr. Rushbrooke into being impertinent. She wanted to remind him that though he was a friend, he was not in a position to advise her on such a personal decision. “A woman must decide which man suits her.” She spoke as gently as she could. If he would take the hint, they could get past the awkward moment. “More tea?”

He shook his head and leaned forward, speaking earnestly. She hardly recognized him as her old friend. “My dear Miss Hammersley, a woman may mistake the basis of her attachment. Blackstone is a man who represents an affront to all that we’ve been working for among the poor and the destitute. He’s turned your head. You can’t think properly. You’ve abandoned all our work.”

Violet felt the first prick of resentment and an utterly unreasonable desire to defend Blackstone.

“Mr. Rusbrooke, I am temporarily obliged to entertain the prince, but once the royal visit ends, I will continue my usual interests.”

“How can you—betrothed to such a man—the enemy of all we work for.”

“You must acknowledge that yesterday Lord Blackstone acted with quick and kind competence when you fell ill.” It was true. Blackstone was equally kind to silly clergymen and to distempered horses that tried to kill him.

The drawing room door closed quietly behind her. She put down her teacup, and prepared to rise as soon as Granthem announced that the carriage was ready. She would be glad of an end to the awkward encounter.

But Granthem did not speak, and Rushbrooke carried on. “Nevertheless, a man of Blackstone’s habits of idleness and excess should not have been present at a demonstration intended to promote industry and honest work.”

It was now necessary for Violet to stop her guest before his certainty, his insistence that he knew her, created an irreparable rift between them. “Mr. Rushbrooke, I think . . .”

She got no further. A pair of warm strong hands clasped her shoulders.
Blackstone
.

His voice, quiet and cold, sounded so sure and calm after Rushbrooke’s effusions. “You’ve said enough, Rushbrooke.”

Rushbrooke flushed an alarming shade of pink. He jerked to his feet and pointed a shaking finger over Violet’s head at Blackstone. “You, you have ruined a good woman.”

Blackstone’s hands remained unmoved on Violet’s shoulders, his fingers pressed against her collarbone. “You mistake her character, Rushbrooke, if you imagine that I or anyone can corrupt Miss Hammersley. I would leave now if I were you.”

“Are you—”

“Now, Rushbrooke. With your dignity intact.” Blackstone’s hands kept Violet from rising to see her guest off.

Rushbrooke stepped forward, colliding with the tea table and rattling the cups in their saucers. He steadied himself, executed an abrupt turn, and stalked off. He did not quite slam the door but closed it as firmly as he dared.

Violet sat still under Blackstone’s hands. She could not decide whether to thank him for coming to her defense or to hit him for interfering. He had driven off one of her friends, scratched him out of her life, like a dance partner scratched off a dance card. But she had not realized quite how Mr. Rushbrooke had been thinking about her or how he was less a friend than a man who thought he could take charge of her life.

“I’ve made things awkward for you apparently.”

“Yes. I think one of us, Mr. Rushbrooke or myself, must resign from the Beekeepers Association.”

“You won’t have to. He will.”

Violet realized Blackstone was right. He had been in company with Mr. Rushbrooke three times and understood him perfectly. “I expect I’ll receive a letter from him later today.”

“He would not have made you a good husband, Violet.” He lifted his hands, and Violet shivered in their absence. His hands had been warm and unexpectedly comforting on her shoulders. She had never associated Blackstone with comfort.

“I see that. I’ll remove him from the list of hopeful applicants for my hand. Thank you. I had not thought of him in quite the same light as that in which he apparently thought of me.”

“No, I’m sure you did not. He thought of you as a way to fulfill his ambition for a bishop’s miter.”

“You don’t flatter, do you?” Violet dropped her gaze to her clasped hands in her lap.

“Did you think that he saw you as a beautiful, desirable woman he had to have in his bed?”

Bed
. Violet had not put bed and Mr. Rushbrooke together in the same thought. The possibility made her shudder, and she knew that Blackstone saw the betraying tremor. She hated to give him the satisfaction. What did she know of bed after all, but being in bed with him?

“Imagine it, Violet. Yourself as Rushbrooke’s bride, returning here to Hammersley House to live, while that earnest, rising man of the cloth serves a modest church and waits for the more important appointment to come. There will be the usual congratulations and wedding cake and friends, though I think your papa and Frank will hardly smile. Mr. Rushbrooke will be quite pink with pride and happiness. He will swell a bit and squeeze your hand, and say ‘my dear’ and ‘my wife,’ as often as he can. He will describe the great projects that the two of you will do together as you scold the poor into propriety and thrift. With elaborate courtesy and formality he will come to you in your bedroom, modestly covered from his shins to his chin in a nightshirt and wrapper, uneasy but stoutly determined to do his duty as a husband and clergyman.”

“Stop it. You don’t know how it would be between me and my chosen husband.”

“But I know how it could be, Violet.” He dropped a kiss on the top of her head and left.

* * *

Blackstone took Violet’s hand to steady her as she descended from the open barouche. What a joke that firm grasp was. Nothing could steady her less than the touch of his gloved hand holding hers, lifting her down to the ground. With the kiss in her bedroom and the banishing of Rushbrooke, Blackstone was back in her life, but this time, she told herself, she was not a green girl. This time she knew how to resist him.

Clouds piled up in the blue sky overhead, turning from dazzling white to sullen gray. Somewhere the prince rattled on about the upcoming match, spectators gathered under a red-striped awning, and a cool breeze ruffled the cricket whites of two teams of boys gathered on the green expanse of the pitch. Dubusari, the count and countess, and Cahul descended from a second vehicle, but Violet could not attend to those distant events. Her world was the narrow realm of touch where she and Blackstone connected. She tried to turn off her awareness of him. One could blow out a candle, shut a door, lift one’s fingers from the pianoforte and stop the sense impression of the moment in an instant, but the sensation of Blackstone’s touch marked her in some way, made her skin tighter, more sensitive where his hand had been.

He had first touched her when she was thirteen and learning to ride. The plan had been to teach Frank so that when Frank visited Blackstone Court, he and Blackstone could wander the estate on their own. Violet had tagged along for Frank’s lessons. She had missed dozens of Blackstone’s touches before she learned to attend to them. He had fitted her foot to the stirrup or positioned her hands on the reins or caught her by the waist as she descended. Then one day he’d given her a queer look and backed away. She had puzzled over that look for weeks before she saw him again. Much later she understood it. She had definitely not seen that look for years. It was one of the things she’d lost.

When her feet were firmly on the grassy verge of the field, she withdrew her hand from his.

“Ah, Miss Hammersley, a perfect day, a perfect spot.” The prince wore a top hat and a splendid set of cricket whites. Over one shoulder he carried a pristine, untouched bat, its polished wood surface unscratched by play. “Your brother gave me this bat. He told me I could not understand your countrymen if I did not understand the game cricket.”

Violet could imagine the scene. Giving his Moldovan host a cricket bat was just like Frank, a way he had of making diplomacy a bit playful, and not so deadly earnest. Violet had had something of the same idea when she had proposed a cricket match between the Knightsbridge team and the boys from Camden Town.

In the carriage, Violet and Blackstone had agreed that his highness could play. The dangerous episodes of the past two days were accidents or they were acts of the prince’s own people. The public nature of the cricket match should guarantee a measure of safety. As Violet looked about she saw only the two teams, the group of schoolboys from Knightsbridge and her own team from Camden Town, and their families, gathered to watch them. She doubted any enemies, except perhaps the prince’s own countrymen, lurked in the small crowd.

The prince tapped his bat against the ground. “I’ll take a few practice swings, if I may. I’ve not had a chance, since your brother visited me, Miss Hammersley. No one in my country understands the science of bowling.”

The prince took a batsman’s stance when the sound of another carriage arriving made them turn. Violet recognized the livery of the outriders at once, the Duchess of Huntingdon’s servants. She did not think she had ever mentioned the match to Penelope, nor that the duchess had any interest in a charity game between schoolboys. If Penelope had troubled herself to come this far on a blustery day, it was for Blackstone, not for a group of nameless boys.

“You do not mind that I invited other guests, Miss Hammersley?” The prince tossed his bat to Cahul and took hold of Violet’s hand. He had the grace to look like a schoolboy who had overstepped. “The duchess assured me that she would be quite honored to attend one of your charities, Miss Hammersley. You and she are working together for some seamstresses, are you not?”

“We are, Prince.”

He smiled broadly, delighted to have his way. He patted Violet’s shoulder and hurried over to welcome his guest. Violet was conscious of Blackstone at her elbow.

“I wonder who put the idea of inviting the duchess into his head.”

“You don’t think it was his idea?”

“I don’t think he has the capacity to have an idea.” Blackstone palmed a red leather ball in his hand with the ease of familiarity.

The prince returned with Penelope and the rest of his party, and once all the greetings had been exchanged, he began expressing his enthusiasm for the event.

“It’s a dangerous game, Prince,” Blackstone offered with a faint smile on his lips. “They say a cricket ball killed Frederick, the Prince of Wales, near here not long ago.”

“Seventy years ago.” Violet shot Blackstone a sharp glance. “I doubt our young bowlers, for all their expertise, will throw with such lethal power. We’ll have each team choose a bowler to pitch to you, your majesty. It will be an honor for them.”

Blackstone nodded, an amused gleam in his dark eyes. “Prince, and your grace, I’m going to see how Miss Hammersley’s lads are doing, shall we?” Blackstone led them out onto the pitch headed for Violet’s team on the opposite side of the field. Violet wanted to know how he had recognized which team was hers, but she wasn’t going to call him back.

She turned to her own duties, greeting the team from Knightsbridge. They were sure of a win and aware of conferring a favor on lesser mortals. She supposed they were not so different from her brother at that age, but their certainty of victory irked her, and her smiles felt strained again. That was the result of having Blackstone back in her life. Things she had been doing for years now seemed irksome. It didn’t matter. She must do them anyway, and keep doing them after he left again.