Edith Layton (14 page)

Daffyd stood at the entrance to the maze, leaning against the wall of hedges, one ankle crossed over the other. “Nice tune,” he said when he was done singing. “But wrong Gypsy laddie. Johnny’s my brother. I’m Daffyd. The name was my father’s choice. He traveled in Wales once, met up with a man with it, and liked the cut of him, or so he said. He probably only swindled a heavy purse from the poor fellow and never forgot his good luck in doing it. My father scorned gypsy names and wouldn’t let my grandmother give me one. Just as well, she wanted to call me ‘Luca’ and if not, then ‘Vesh.’ My father did at least one good thing for me in his life.

“My mother…your pardon,” Daffyd said with a slight bow to his brother. “
Our
mother, didn’t give a damn about my name. She left before I got one. Your pardon for my language,” he added with a real bow to Meg.

His brother looked at him with something like amusement before he asked, in puzzlement, “But how did you get here so fast?”

“I’m a Rom. I carry a knife,” Daffyd said, with an elaborate shrug. “I thought you knew that.”

“A knife? I see. Bother the sonnet, is that it? You heard voices and sliced your way here?” The viscount gasped. “You
did
?” He shuddered. “Ah, well,” he finally said. “It will only take another generation or two to get the maze in proper shape again. So be it. It will keep my gardeners busy. That was very hasty of you, brother. Still, I applaud you. It was so in character, direct and to the point, literally. Like Alexander and the Gordian knot.”

“Alexander?” Daffyd asked. “Did he have a lying, cheating brother too?”

The viscount’s smile slipped. “Much is amusing, my dear Daffyd.
That
, I fear, is not. Would you care to explain or rephrase?”

“Would you care to rethink this afternoon?” Daffyd asked as seriously. He uncrossed his ankles, and stood, legs apart, looking straight at his brother, all hint of humor gone. “I don’t need a protector, or an apologist. I certainly don’t need one who’s also a seducer.”

“Not a very successful one,” the viscount said, as he too rose to his feet. “Rather say, I was looking after your interests.”

“Looking down a bodice for them, were you?” Daffyd asked.

“I find that insulting, as well you know I would,” his brother said coldly. “I don’t carry a knife, but I’d be glad to oblige you with a sword.”

“Knife, sword, or pistol,” Daffyd answered grimly. “Or bare hands. Which are you asking me to?”

Meg rose to her feet. The brothers weren’t joking anymore. She saw it in their tense postures, heard it in their voices. She didn’t want to see them fight, didn’t want bloodshed. Most of all, she was aware this was the viscount’s house and Daffyd was only a guest here, and one with a criminal past. Even if he won any dispute he had with his brother, he’d lose.

“Gentlemen!” she cried. “If you please.”

They turned and looked at her.

She stood tall as she could. “I don’t like feeling like a bone two curs are squabbling over,” she announced. “If you’re angry at each other, fine and good and it’s no business of mine. But don’t make me the reason for it, because then it is my concern. I was not seduced. And I can fight my own battles. And you know? I find I don’t want the company of either of you now, because now I can clearly see what I couldn’t before. You two are truly brothers—if not apparently on the surface, then certainly under the skin. You’re two of a kind. And
not
a kind I care for!”

She stormed out of the circle. She saw a doorway in the hedge, and went through it. She stalked down the narrow path she stepped into, her heart pounding—with exultation. Because it was hard to tell which of them had looked more surprised, and
then insulted, by what she’d flung at them before she stomped off. Whatever else she’d done, she’d certainly diverted their anger.

She marched on, praying they wouldn’t kill each other and hoping she’d find her way out of the maze before the sun set so she could call for help to stop them. Moments later she heard running footfalls, and then found Daffyd pacing at her side.

“You don’t know the way out,” he said.

“I do, and I will
not
have more holes poked in my maze,” the viscount said as he came up behind them.

“Then make peace,” Meg said. “I can’t bear to see fighting.”

“Oh that,” Daffyd said with a negligent shrug. “He knows I didn’t mean it.”

“I do now. I cry peace, brother,” the viscount said. “I cheated, but in a good cause—only as a test, and for your sake. Miss Shaw passed the test, as she would any I could fashion, because she’s pure in heart and without artifice, as I, alas, am not. I had to be sure because I do care for you. And I don’t confide in those I don’t deem fit to hear confidences. As for the seduction, it got nowhere. She simply can’t see me.”

“She sees well enough,” Daffyd said. “But it’s past, and done, and forgotten.”

“Yes. By me,” his brother said. “And so at least, I hope it is for you. As well as for you, Miss Shaw.”

“It’s forgotten,” Meg said, though she was privately surprised that the lofty gentleman apologized
to her. She decided to capitalize on it before he regretted it. She stopped and turned to confront the pair. It was dim in the narrow passage and hard to read either of the brothers’ expressions. That made it easier for her.

“I may only be a guest here, and not for long, at that,” she said. “So, please, if either of you know, tell me—where do you think Rosalind Osbourne is? Am I near, or ought I to give up hope of finding her?”

“She was here,” the viscount said. “Thanks to my admirable staff, that much I now know. I didn’t know who she was at the time, though. Many wayward travelers find their way here. My hospitality is well known, as is my boredom and penchant for wanting diversion without asking questions. I don’t think she’s coming back. She was a bird in flight. Still, I may know where she’s flying off to. We’ll discuss it at tea. Even if you want to leave immediately, it would be foolish to travel at dusk. We can have at least this one night together.

“That is, if it’s really peace, brother?” he asked Daffyd. “I find that matters quite a lot to me. With all I have, I haven’t enough relatives I trust. In point of fact, you’re the only one. Will you stay to reassure me of your friendship?”

Daffyd bowed. “I will. I’m honored. Peace, brother.”

They shook hands. Then they strolled back to the house, retracing the way they’d come, this time in comfortable silence. Only now the viscount walked in front of Meg, leaving Daffyd to be at her side.

But when they finally exited the maze, the viscount stopped. He looked back, and frowned. “There are no holes in my hedges. Not a one. You’re lean, brother,” he said, “but I don’t see any slice or wedge big enough for you to squeeze through. Even a squirrel couldn’t.”

Daffyd grinned. “Learning’s a tool, or at least that’s what the earl said when he taught me my letters while we were in Newgate. He kept saying it as he kept up my lessons as we shipped out on our long passage to the Antipodes. ‘Knowledge is a tool,’ he always said. ‘Sometimes it’s a hammer, sometimes it’s a knife.’ I prefer to use mine like a knife, because it can cut through anything, like Alexander’s blade.

“We prisoners often recited poems to each other on our trip to New South Wales,” he went on. “It whiled away the hours at night when we were locked in the hold until dawn. It’s amazing how trying to remember poetry can take up all your concentration even when a storm’s rocking your world, and especially when you begin to think you’ll have to finish the rhyme with bubbles, not words.

“‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day’ is one I remember. You gave me a head start with the first part,” he told his brother. “Lucky I remembered the rest:

“‘But thy eternal summer shall not fade,’” Daffyd quoted. “‘Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st, Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade, when in eternal lines to time thou grow’st; So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this,
and this gives life to thee.’ It’s a poem about love and how it can help a man transcend time and death. It’s one of my favorites.”

The viscount clapped his hands, and laughed with glee.

Daffyd didn’t notice. He was reciting to Meg, and too intent on watching her brilliant blossoming smile to pay attention to anything else.

T
he guests at the viscount’s pleasure house retreat, as Meg quickly came to think of it, found Daffyd’s dark good looks and aloof manner fascinating. This included the straying countess, the youthful dowager, the baronet’s silly mistress, and half the staff, most but not all of them female. Meg noted it, but watched Daffyd’s reactions even more closely. So far as she could tell he was amused by all the attention he received, and nothing more. But then, she thought darkly, he was brilliant at concealing his feelings.

As now, after dinner, in the dim light of the viscount’s study, where the three of them were alone at last. Their tea that afternoon had been constantly interrupted by too many wandering guests for them to
have a private conversation. The dinner they’d just had was spent in the thick of the viscount’s fashionable and forever chattering company. But now they’d gone off by themselves. The viscount had given orders not to be disturbed. Meg sat at the edge of her chair, anxiously waiting for news of Rosalind at last, so she could decide what to do and where to go next.

Daffyd, looking as handsome as the devil in his dark evening dress, wandered the study, his movements fluid, restless, and soft as shadows as he paced, waiting for his brother to speak.

The viscount sat back in a deep red chair by the fireside. He cradled a goblet of brandy, and stared into it as though what he had to say was printed there.

“Nice pose, brother,” Daffyd commented from the side of a mantelpiece where he’d paused. “Very noble. Get a goggle-eyed spaniel to sit at your feet and have it painted for posterity. But first tell us about the Osbourne chit, or else Meg will burst with curiosity and that will make a mess of your study.”

Meg couldn’t smile. It was too true. She leaned forward.

“Well,” the viscount said, “it appears I had a visitor last week who may well have been the girl you’re looking for. She wasn’t fair-haired. In fact, she was dark as you are, brother, but not half so pretty. That was because she wore a truly ghastly wig, a cheap, dead-looking, lank black thing a servant girl would wear for her Cleopatra costume at a public masquerade.” He shuddered. “I don’t rely on my own obser
vations, though they’re usually acute. Nor did I much care about the wench, since she had eyes for only her attentive male companion. But the maidservants who attended to her now confirm that the wretched mess on her head was indeed a wig, and that she was fair as the dawn beneath it.

“Still, she was, in spite of her appalling disguise, a taking little creature. At least so her companion thought. He was a redheaded fellow, but I wouldn’t swear he was born one either. She spoke with a lisp and everything she said was obviously a lie. They were a genteel pair, or so I believe, because they were mannered and accustomed to command, and they knew about my hospitality, which proves it.”

“So you’re never invaded by barbarians?” Daffyd asked in disbelief. “How can that be? This place is famous to the rich and noble who want a comfortable, rustic spot where they can sport. This very evening I was invited to play billiards, try my hand at hazard, whist, vingt-et-un, and…” He glanced at Meg and changed whatever he was about to say to, “…more intimate pastimes. And that was
before
dinner. Don’t tell me you don’t get commoners in disguise here, not to mention Captain Sharps out to pluck a pigeon.”

The viscount waved his hand. “Of course that sort find their way to my gates, but they seldom get in, or stay long if they do. I’m not a fool and neither is my staff. Those two were runaways; anyone could see that. But they were also wellbred, used to money and being waited on, and inexperienced. Anyone would
be able to see that too. I’ve no doubt they were more plucked than pluckers,” he added with a grin, “because she was uneasy about accepting my hospitality, and he was apologetic to her and to me. They’d come to the bottom of their purses, I think, and were on their way to the coast, and out of the country.”

Meg started. “Did they say so?” she asked.

“Yes, and no,” the viscount said. “They asked directions to Plymouth, and the best, though most reasonably priced inns to stop at on the way. They claimed that wasn’t because they didn’t want to spend the money, but because they wanted to see the ‘real England.’ I doubt they’d have asked that if they’d been bound for London, as they later remembered to claim they were.”

“What did the man look like?” Meg asked.

“A well enough looking youth, for all that the red hair didn’t suit him. That’s all I recall. I fear men aren’t usually my focus of attention,” the viscount said.

“And this was how long ago?” Daffyd asked from the window seat where he’d momentarily perched.

“Three days before you arrived. So if they’re bound for sea I doubt they’ve boarded ship yet. It would take them that long to get to Plymouth if they went straightaway after they left here, and they didn’t seem in any particular hurry. They seemed like a pair of honeymooners, forgetful of the passing hours. Are you going after them?”

Meg blinked. The question was addressed to her. “I don’t know,” she said. “I suppose so. I don’t see
how I can quit the quest now when I’m so close.”

Both men studied her. Tonight she wore the green gown, and the color gave life to her fair complexion and showed the whiskey-colored glow in her eyes. The gown did even more for her shape. It was lower at the neck than any gown she’d worn so far, and the material that fell from the high waist clung to her supple young body, outlining her curving hips and rounded bottom.

And so while famous beauties and professional courtesans were well represented tonight at the manor house, both men privately thought that Miss Margaret Shaw certainly could hold her own against them. And each privately thought the other fellow wanted her to hold that body against his own as much as he himself did.

“You realize,” the viscount told her, “that whatever secrecy your quest had in the beginning may have been sacrificed here today? My guests are rackety, with nothing more than their own pleasures on their minds. But because of that they have a lot of time, and yards of room even in those shallow brains for trivial information. Your face, form, and I fear, soon your name itself will be part of their gossip.”

“I gave a false name,” Meg said.

“So you did,” the viscount answered. “It’s expected here. They can unearth the right one in no time.” He shrugged and took a sip of brandy. “Or maybe not.”

“They might,” Daffyd said. He leaned his shoulders against the wall at the side of door, where he’d
paused again. “They have money for bribes and can put two and two together even if they can’t count much higher. The gossip about the runaway Osbourne chit’s already out. News of her runaway governess will spread just as fast. You’re supposed to surface again in a few days, Meg. If you don’t, someone will twig to your scheme. Going on down this road is a bigger risk for you now than it was before.” He glanced at his brother.

The viscount nodded. “Yes,” he said, looking at Meg. “And so that’s why I’d suggest you let Daffyd take over now so you can find a safer harbor. I’d love it if you stayed on with me. But I’m being noble tonight and so will tell you the truth: That’s the worst thing you could do if you want to preserve your reputation. I can offer you fine food, diversion, amusement, and comfortable shelter, but my brother’s right. My guests are scandalous, and since you haven’t a chaperone you can imagine what people will think of you if you stay on here.”

He shrugged. “But what if gossip and speculation about you gets out while you’re blamelessly traveling back to the baron’s house? Or even when you’re on your way to the Lake District, where I understand your aunts abide? Or while you’re snugged in your ex-governess’s cottage as you told the Runner you’d be? You could say your trip was interrupted because your carriage broke a wheel, or you were delayed on the road, or even that you or your governess fell ill. You’d be where a good sensible governess compan
ion ought to be. You could deny anything and be able to laugh any rumor off as spite or nonsense.

“If not?” He spread his hands. “I’m very impressed by you, Miss Meg. In fact, I’ve been taken with you in such a short time that I’m astonished at myself. You’re bright and lovely—and courageous, which is a scarcer commodity than the other two, believe me. And so I’d like to help, and not just for Daffyd’s sake. I’m willing to do whatever I can for you. But even I can’t promise what will eventually become of you if your adventure is made public. I have the feeling that a life as a demimondaine wouldn’t be to your liking. But I honestly can’t think of any other profession you’d be suitable for if it was discovered that you’d stayed on here with me, or traveled the length of England with no one but Daffyd as your chaperone.”

He sighed. “The nobility can be as immoral as they please and still live relatively happy lives. As witness Daffyd’s and my erring mama. She doesn’t suffer for her youthful folly. Nor, you’ll have noted, did most of the runaway ladies in those morose folksongs. Their errant gypsy lovers did. The difference lies in their titles. The sad truth is that the less noble suffer for the merest misadventures. Even a well-paid courtesan isn’t precisely free to do as she wishes, you know.”

“I know!” Meg said through gritted teeth, “I don’t
want
to be one of them, and I don’t plan to. But I have three more days. I’d like to use them as best I can.” She raised her head high.

“I know everything you say is true,” she told them both. “I also know that those last days are all I’ll have of freedom for the rest of my life if Rosie Osbourne doesn’t go home. What would you do if you were me? That is, if you can even imagine being a female without money or connections? Would you be content to sit back and hope someone else will solve a problem that would affect the rest of your life? I don’t think so.

“I know I’m a woman and supposed to wait and pray for a solution. And I certainly know what I risk by not doing that. But if Rosie vanishes and my future life is spent in a kind of bondage because of it, how could I ever forgive myself for not having tried my best to find her? Could you, if you were me?”

She sank to the chair again, and shook her head. “Stupid of me to even ask. You’re men. How could either of you ever imagine how it is to be a woman? I suppose even asking you is insulting. Forgive me.”

The viscount fell still.

But Daffyd spoke up from where he’d paused, by the side of her chair. “I know what imprisonment is,” he said. “And what loss of free will is, too. I’ve helped you because of that and I’d help more if I could. But your time is running out. It may be time to run away home, Meg.”

She ducked her head, and sniffled.

The viscount leaned forward and handed her a handkerchief. As she dabbed her eyes and then her nose, Daffyd reached out a hand to touch her shoulder. He realized what he was doing at the last second,
dropped his hand and quickly paced away. Meg saw none of it.

His brother did.

“Still, three more days,” the viscount mused. “And considering you’re only three days from Plymouth? And that you might even meet up with the runaways on the road as you go there? I don’t know. Maybe one last desperate attempt
is
in order.”

Meg looked up.

“Consider,” the viscount told a frowning Daffyd, “her reputation is almost in tatters as it is. Even if she escapes gossip, the fact remains that her charge ran away with her none the wiser. She’ll never get a recommendation from the baron if his daughter successfully elopes.”

“You could find someone with some kind of reputation to write her a commendation,” Daffyd said.

“
I
?” his brother asked in disbelief, one hand going to his heart as though he’d been stricken. “I couldn’t find anyone to write a recommendation that would be believed by anyone remotely respectable, not even if they were recommending someone for the position of rat catcher.”

“There’s our mother…” Daffyd stopped, and scowled. “All right then, there’s my friend, the earl…” He frowned again. “Surely there’s someone we know whose recommendation would be unexceptional!”

“Perhaps we do, maybe we could think of someone…eventually,” his brother said. “And what should Miss Shaw do in the meantime? Even if we
got a bishop to recommend her, there’ll always be the possibility of doubt about her culpability in all this. That will cloud her future. But what if she finds the runaway within her three days, persuades the chit to go home, and returns to the baron in triumph? That would mend all, wouldn’t it?”

Meg looked up with sudden hope.

“Can you keep her safe for those three days?” the viscount asked Daffyd.

Daffyd paced the room for long moments.

The viscount’s eyebrow went up. Meg sat stock-still.

Then Daffyd grudgingly answered. “Yes.”

Meg leaped from her chair. “Oh, thank you. I mean, you will come with me to find Rosie?”

“Aye,” Daffyd said gruffly.

The viscount smiled.

Daffyd did not.

It wasn’t until later, when Meg was asleep and the viscount’s other guests were all tucked into each other’s beds, and the house was dark, that the viscount broached the subject again.

“Having doubts?” he asked Daffyd as they sat alone in the study after planning out the next day’s journey.

“Aye,” Daffyd said.

“Then cancel the plan and send her home.”

“It would undo her. I can’t.”

“But you think you can’t keep her safe?”

Daffyd placed his empty wine goblet on a table,
rose, and stretched. “I’m to bed. I leave at dawn and need some sleep.” He paused. “If I forget in the flurry of leaving, thank you again, brother. I can count on you, and I do, and I want you to know I appreciate it.”

“It’s nothing you wouldn’t do for me. And who knows? One day I may have need of you, too.”

“You’ll have me,” Daffyd said.

“I know it. But, Daffyd, I’m somewhat distressed. I’ve come to like the chit. You
really
think you can’t keep her safe?”

“Depends on what you mean by that,” Daffyd said over his shoulder, as he left the room. “From discovery, aye. Probably. But from me? Now that’s a different story.”