Dair Devil (51 page)

He was used to taking charge of a situation, thinking through the problem and its logistical challenges, and putting a suitable plan into action. But he had promised his cousin he would wait until called; that he would not do anything rash. She had actually ordered him to “not play the hero”, by which he was certain she meant not kicking in doors, climbing a rope or scrambling a drain pipe, and smashing in a window to enter Rory’s rooms by force, if not stealth. All these possibilities were given serious consideration until Antonia made him promise otherwise.

So he was reduced to pacing back and forth the length of the blind side of the carriage, from driver’s step to footman’s rail, cheroot between his fingers. It wasn’t long before his mind wandered back to storming Rory’s bedchamber. After all, he needed to be prepared in case his cousin’s visit did not go as she planned. He decided Rory’s room would not be upstairs after all, but on the ground floor. He’d noticed the narrow stairwell the night before, and how the steps turned sharply out of sight. She may have been sitting on the lower step waiting for him, but he was sure she did not use the staircase day-in and day-out.

That got him ruminating about his ancestral home, Fitzstuart Hall, the grand staircase in particular, and the private apartments on the first floor he was going to have remodeled and enlarged for his bride. There were other modifications to the house he intended to have commissioned to make the house as comfortable as possible for her, the first being the installation of a flying chair like the one Shrewsbury had at his Chiswick House. Perhaps he would have two installed, one in each wing so that her ladyship would not need to retrace her steps if she wished to go downstairs, and it would give her even easier access to all rooms of the mansion. And of course there was the Pinery to be built to cultivate pineapples, oranges, lemons and limes, and perhaps exotic flowers, if such things took his wife’s fancy.

These considerations kept him occupied as he paced, stopping occasionally to smoke and drop ash and grind this into the crushed stone of the drive with a toe of his jockey boot.

This visit he was dressed for comfort, in knitted breeches and jockey boots, white shirt and a plain linen frock coat of Prussian blue. And though he had let Farrier shave him yesterday, today he would not be shaved. It was partly a superstitious act. The one time he put in an effort to have his suit of clothes as neat as a pin, and his face as smooth as a nymph’s lovely behind, Shrewsbury had rejected him out-of-hand as suitable husband material for his granddaughter. But mostly his slapdash grooming was how he was most comfortable, now he no longer needed to make an impression. This time he expected Shrewsbury to accept him. But he couldn’t care less one way or the other. All he cared about was Rory’s happiness and marrying her as soon as possible. And that day couldn’t come soon enough!

The longer he paced and smoked, the more worried he became that his cousin was having about as much success as he’d had the night before. That is, until a footman fetched him to come indoors.

Dair was so nervous with anticipation his every muscle was as tight as an over-wound watch. He strode past the footman and into the small house, ready to do battle with anyone and everyone. He stepped into the drawing room with a lift of his heavy chin, both hands fisted. His dark eyes quickly scanned the room in search of the only beautiful face that mattered. She was not there. Why was she not there? But before he could ask the question, a crystal champagne glass was thrust between his fingers, and in amongst the chattering and laughing he heard the sound of corks popping.

It was only then he realized he was being greeted with a warm welcome by a room full of smiling faces, while two footmen scurried about pouring champagne into glasses.

“You’re just in time!” Grasby announced, stepping forward to greet his best friend. “What luck you happened to arrive just now, as we’re about to toast our news. Apologies I didn’t write and tell you, but Silla wanted to wait until we’d told Grand. Which is the right way to go about things. Still,” he added confidentially, sidling up to the Major to say at his ear, “if I’d known your whereabouts this past fortnight, I’d have told you anyway. What luck you’re staying with the Duke.”

“What’s going on, Grasby?” Dair asked curtly and drank down the champagne without tasting it. He hadn’t realized just how parched he was. “Where’s your sister?”

“Steady on! We’ve not had the toast yet! Here, take my glass,” Grasby insisted and put out his hand for another from a footman. “You’re bleached white as falling snow, as if you’ve come bang up against a specter. Are you all right, dear fellow?”

“Perfectly. Where did you say your sister was?”

“Grand’s just gone to fetch her. She’s feeling poorly. Seems she had a bad night of it—”

Dair’s brows contracted with worry and then he set his jaw, anger just simmering away under the surface of his congenial façade. If Shrewsbury had caused Rory any distress, there would be hell to pay. His left hand clenched again.

“—but we can’t have a toast to a new Talbot without his aunt present, now can we?” Grasby rattled on. “Oh, drat! There I go and spoil the surprise. You won’t tell Silla I told you, will you?”

“What’s that you say, Grasby? A new Talbot?” Dair came out of his angry abstraction enough to smile and slap his friend’s back. “Not a word, dear fellow! Congratulations. Good for you! About time, too. Rory will be thrilled to pieces to be an aunt.”

“Between you and me, I was despairing of ever becoming a father after that whole Romney studio debacle,” Grasby confided with a roll of his eyes and a sigh of relief. “At least now Silla’s with child she’s willing to forget that ghastly night ever happened—

“Surely not ghastly? Well, not ghastly for you…?”

Grasby snorted his embarrassment. “Steady on! Not so loud!” When Dair lifted an eyebrow, he rolled his eyes again and conceded, “Oh, all right, not ghastly for me! They were lovely, weren’t they, those girls—”

“Very.”

“—but a chap has to remember what’s important in life, and being allowed to sleep in the matrimonial bed is important.”

Dair threw back his head and laughed, which caused a pause in conversations as heads turned in his direction. “Egad, Grasby! You always put matters into perspective!”

Grasby grinned like an idiot. “Do I? I do! Yes, of course I do! Oh, and you’ll be pleased to know the wife has forgiven you, too.”

“I hardly deserve such munificence. When did Lord Shrewsbury leave to fetch Rory?” Dair asked, glancing about the room. He saw the Duchess standing by an open window, fanning herself, face turned to the fresh air, and thus he could not catch her eye. He would have crossed to her but Lady Grasby, with William Watkins a step behind, imposed on her solitude and offered her a glass of champagne.

“Don’t get too comfortable,” Grasby warned. “Silla being Silla, she immediately withdrew her forgiveness upon learning you’d socked her brother in the face and broken his nose!” This time Grasby snorted laughter. “My God, you planted him a beautiful facer! None better, and so I told Cedric and the fellows, who instantly laid down a hefty sum that you’d do it again to him before the year’s out.”

“No more dares, Harvel,” Dair stated and clapped his best friend’s shoulder when Grasby’s mouth dropped open. “Sorry to disappoint, but that’s how it’s going to be from now on. No exchange of serious blunt and none of it written up in White’s betting book. I’m done being an unthinking ass. I guess that’s not a bad thing, for you, too, what with impending fatherhood. Do you think Rory will be much longer?”

“Listen, Dair. That’s the third time you’ve called my sister by her name,” Grasby grumbled. “If you’ve a mind to lead her astray I’ll be the one socking you—”

“Not at all, dear fellow. Quite the opposite.”

“Eh?” Grasby was baffled, but the smile on Dair’s face carried no lewd insinuation. In fact, he looked pleased with himself, and in a nice, happy sort of way that Grasby’s fears were alleviated. “Well then. That’s all right. I just thought I should mention it because the Weasel has been making some pretty rough insinuations to Silla about your intentions toward Rory. And I can tell you, if he wasn’t my plaguey brother-in-law, and you hadn’t already broken his nose, I’d be the one socking him in the face!”

“Be my guest. But do me the favor of waiting until he’s properly healed before you put a hand to him. And you’ll have to forgive me for not being so forthcoming with
you
with
our
news, but it will all become apparent—”

“Forgive you? Forthcoming? Apparent? What will?
Our news
? Whose news? Dair? Dair!”

“Excuse me, Grasby,” Dair muttered, distracted with the drawing room door opening wide, and stepped past his friend.

Suddenly he was deaf to his friend’s questions, and lost all peripheral vision, so was blind to Lady Grasby and her brother crossing the room to make themselves known to him; Lady Grasby’s smug smile shrinking to an undignified pursing of her lips when Dair ignored her. All he saw was the doorway and all he heard was the pumping of his heart hammering in his head. He realized he was still wound as tightly as a pocket watch when he thought he might pass out with the anticipation of seeing Rory, and of what was to come after that.

Lord Shrewsbury walked into view first and then, there she was, his Delight, on her grandfather’s arm and leaning on her walking stick. She was tired about the eyes, but in every other respect she was his beautiful darling girl. He unconsciously broke into a grin and stepped forward. And just as he had done when he entered the drawing room, she quickly looked about her, as if she, too, had lost something or someone.

And then she saw him.

J
UST
BEFORE
ENTERING
the drawing room, Rory had marveled at the rolling high seas of emotion she had experienced in the past twenty-four hours, from the heavenly heights of unbridled happiness to then be plunged into the depths of black despair, with seemingly no way to claw herself out, only to be lifted up again into the heart fluttering bliss of loving contentment.

From the heightened anticipation of her grandfather’s welcome response when Dair came to call to formally ask for her hand in marriage, she was left bewildered at finding herself alone in the hall, Dair gone without a word. And then came the numbing desolation of being told, in a matter-of-fact way, how much her grandfather admired Major Lord Fitzstuart’s bravery in accepting an assignment to return to the Colonies on the first available ship, to infiltrate a rebel spy ring on the outskirts of New York, a loyalist stronghold.

Rory instantly disbelieved her grandfather. She had wanted a servant sent after the Major, to have him called back. She had to speak with him. It was a matter of the utmost importance and could not wait. She would have the news of his departure from the Major’s lips and no other.

Her grandfather had been completely at a loss to understand her distress. He had patiently sat with her on the stair and asked her to explain why she was so upset by such news. But as she had fallen all to pieces to think the Major had not told her grandfather he was engaged to her, and had accepted a mission to spy on the other side of the Atlantic—as if there was nothing holding him to England—she could barely form a coherent word, least of all form a sentence explaining herself. He had offered her his handkerchief and held her in his arms while she sobbed until her ribs hurt. He suggested she had exhausted herself swimming in the sun that day, was even suffering from sunstroke. He had noticed at dinner there was more color in her face and to her arms than usual. A good night’s sleep would set everything to rights. They could talk again in the morning.

But Rory knew everything would not be all right in the morning. She had to see the Major
that
night
. Her grandfather had to understand. Tomorrow was too far away. She had to see him now, tonight, that instant.

Such was her distress that she refused to go to her rooms, and again demanded her grandfather send a servant out into the night to call the Major back. He was staying with his cousin the Duchess, just a ten-minute walk down the lane. When he again patiently refused, saying he would not disturb the Duchess’s household at such an hour, and that she was being uncharacteristically unreasonable to make such demands, she declared her intention of calling on the Major herself, and at once.

It was only then that her grandfather became angry. He called her selfish. She was to desist with her unbecoming behavior at once. Did she not remember who she was, the granddaughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury? Displaying the manners of a fishwife, and before servants, was unacceptable. He would not stand for such behavior from his own blood. He had ended his scolding with the heartfelt hope that she had not lost her head to the likes of the Major.

He had raised her to have a discerning mind, to know her own worth, and to behave accordingly. She was not a hair-brained, penny-pinched nobody prepared to offer herself to any nobleman, body and soul, in the hope of entrapping him into marriage. Did she not have a sense of discrimination? Certainly the Major would one day inherit a noble title. But he, Shrewsbury, knew him better than anyone. The Major was the last man on God’s green earth he would allow any female of his acquaintance to marry. He was a known seducer, a reckless risk-taker, with his own life, and anyone else’s if it suited his purpose. He had bastard children practically littering the countryside. Did she not understand there was good reason his moniker was Dair Devil?

But what had stopped her sobbing and caught the breath in her throat was his quiet, almost pitiful, prediction that his heart would break and his health never recover if he discovered she had so much as permitted the Major to kiss her hand. As for having her pretty head filled with ridiculous notions that such a man could love her and would offer her marriage, she could banish such thoughts. If the truth be told, he was just the sort of conscienceless libertine to make up to her, all to satisfy some ludicrous wager made between young men of the Major’s ilk. But he was confident she had the sense and sensibility to see through such schemes.