For the Love of a Pirate (26 page)

“He still isn't,” she said.

“Maybe,” her grandfather said on a shrug, “but he isn't who you thought he was, is he? He was different when he was with us at Sea Mews, wasn't he?”

She nodded.

“Want to know why?”

“I do, Grandy,” she said with feeling. “I really do. Do you know?”

He shook his head. “I think so. He was shocked when I told him about his father, and then he was fascinated by tales about his wicked great-grandfather when he came to us. That made him act different, I think, like he was trying on their lives to see if they fit. But believe me, I can see that now he's back in his own waters, he's himself again.”

She hung her head. “Yes,” she whispered. “That's the problem. He seems to be.”

“Aye,” her grandfather said, sighing. “Now you have to think. He
is
an honorable man, and he'll marry you if he thinks he has to. But that don't mean he's the right one for you. Can you fit into his tight little world? And does he really want you to?”

“I don't know,” she said. “But I mean to find out. And if I must, can we leave for home as soon as may be? Because I'd rather be without him than sitting at a table with him, and still be without him—or at least, without the man I came to London to find. Can you understand that?”

He rose to his feet slowly, like a very old man. “Aye, my love, I can,” he said. “We'll leave the minute you say you want to.”

“I'll tell you tomorrow,” she said. “I can't take this much longer. But you and Lovey have to leave us alone for a few minutes. I promise I won't fall into his clutches, or he, into mine,” she added with a crooked smile. “If we kiss, it will either be: ‘hello, there you are at last,' or ‘good-bye.' But we really have to talk, alone.”

“Consider it done,” he said, “watch for the moment.”

They were going for a drive around the city the next day, with a stop to see Elgin's marbles, Constantine had said. Lisabeth dressed in a new russet walking dress, topped by a fine bonnet to shade her face and eyes if the sun was too strong. She had a shawl to wear if the weather changed, which it often did at the turning of the season. She also carried a parasol covered by an oilskin, in case they took an open carriage and it rained suddenly. She was prepared for whatever happened. But she didn't know how she could find a way to get Constantine alone so she could talk with him.

Still, after she'd dressed she found she had an hour to think and plan before she was to meet him in the hotel lobby. She was sitting by the window, plotting, when her maid went to answer a tap at the door.

“A Miss Winchester to see you, miss,” her maid said.

Lisabeth shot to her feet. “Show her in,” she said. She remembered the name, and wished she could say no. But she had to see the lady and hear why she had come here, and what she had to say. For the life of her, she couldn't understand why a woman who didn't want a man because of his ancestors' pasts would care about the man's future.

A tall, slender woman in an elegant blue walking dress came in through her doorway, followed by a servant, dressed in black.

“Miss Bigod?” the slender woman said, nodding her head in the slightest bow Lisabeth had ever seen, one step from insult.

“Yes?” Lisabeth said, feeling invaded, but holding her head high, as she studied her visitor's face.

Miss Winchester wasn't a pretty woman, or even a fetching one. She was, however, regal, cool, and unapproachable, with icy blue eyes. Her blade of a nose was pinched as though at a bad odor, and her thin lips were tightly compressed as she studied Lisabeth from her nose to her toes. She might look better if she'd been happier, but Lisabeth thought she was the sort of female that people called “handsome” because she wasn't precisely ugly, or attractive. And she certainly looked hostile.

Lord! Lisabeth thought. Were I a man, I'd sooner snuggle with a snake. What had Constantine been thinking of when he proposed to this woman? Then Miss Winchester spoke, and Lisabeth knew.

Miss Winchester's accents were upper class, and her modulated, cool voice was the sort used to command. “Miss Bigod,” she said, “it has come to my attention that my former fiancé has been seen about town with you of late.”

Lisabeth straightened her back. She'd never followed the command of anyone she didn't either love or respect. “But if he is your former fiancé, as you say,” she said, “then what business is that of yours?”

“Ah!” her visitor said with a cold smile. “I see that you are defensive. With reason, I suppose. My business, Miss Bigod, is that I've known Lord Wylde for many years. I know his family. Or knew of it as well as he did before he met your grandfather. His behavior since he returned from his visit to your home has changed drastically. I've spoken with his uncle, and those friends of his who truly care about him, not those care-for-nothings Kendall and Blaise. We believe that you somehow have trapped Lord Wylde into a situation he cannot, as a gentleman, extricate himself from. And so I am here to tell you that those of us who care for him will not let him give his life and his future away.

“Lord Wylde had visions of a seat in Parliament,” Miss Winchester went on, her hands neatly folded in front of her as she spoke. “He had a future bright with promise as a force behind the very throne. And yet, since you came to London, he has been seen embracing you, in public, like a commoner. That, I am convinced, is not the man I know.”

Lisabeth stared. This cool creature didn't recognize Constantine's behavior. But neither did she. Which was the man they knew?

“If you care for him, as you say,” Miss Winchester went on, “will you let him throw his brilliant future away?”

“Who says he'll throw it away?” Lisabeth demanded, her hands on her hips, until she realized, from Miss Winchester's slightly amused superior stare, that the gesture made her look like a washerwoman. So she hurriedly took her hands off her hips and hugged herself instead. That made her look as though she were trying to protect herself. But she was.

Miss Winchester's smile was not warm. “You want to be his wife? Do you know how to entertain the cream of London Society? Are you known to any of the statesmen, politicians, or poets of the land? Related to any living peers, or to anyone of note in town? No, I didn't think so.”

“Constantine never said that was one of the qualifications for being his wife,” Lisabeth said.

“‘Constantine' is it?”

“It is,” Lisabeth said. “And I can't see how a woman who claims to care for him, and wanted to share his life, would toss him away because of who his ancestors were.” She bit her lip the moment she'd finished speaking. That was not what she'd meant to say. She didn't want to make the horrid woman change her mind about how desirable Constantine would be as a husband. What would Constantine do if Miss Winchester did decide to take him back? Could she legally do that? Would he care even if she couldn't?

“I did not come here to argue with you,” Miss Winchester said. “Actually, I wanted to see the sort of female you were. Now, I have done. And I begin to understand much that had escaped me before. You are pert, and attractive, in a countrified way. And you are without scruples, obviously. So I leave you with this: I have not inconsiderable influence. I will have you, and your grandfather, and all your family investigated. And I will see that you are made to pay if coercion was used on Lord Wylde during his visit to you. His past, you see, is never so important to me as his future. Nor is it to him either, I believe. I suggest you think on that.

“One thing I know even now. You will never be admitted to the best places in London or in all of England, for that matter. Poor Lord Wylde may think he has no choice in the matter of whom he eventually weds. I shall try to show him that he does. And, I promise you, whether he marries you or not, I will make sure you never forget it.”

“You only say that because you're mad as fire that he's not languishing for you!” Lisabeth blurted. “And I can't blame him!”

“I doubt you know what he is feeling, Miss Bigod,” her visitor said, as she turned to leave. “Lord Wylde has excellent address, superior manners, and is not a man to wear his heart on his sleeve. Have you not noticed?”

And without waiting for an answer, she left the room, leaving Lisabeth furious, frightened, and challenged.

N
o one looked at Lisabeth as she walked through the museum. No one so much as peeked at her at the restaurant where Constantine brought her and Miss Lovelace afterward, for ices. And no one glanced at them as they rode back in their open carriage, through the park. But Lisabeth knew she was being watched out of the corner of every eye by the way heads hastily turned away when she felt someone's gaze on her. And she felt it often.

“I must speak with you,” she told Constantine as he steered his team round the lake in the park on the way to the gate. “Just you and me. It has to be somewhere private. Miss Lovelace and my grandfather agreed that we may.”

“Only not for too long, and never where anyone can observe you,” Miss Lovelace said casually from the back seat, looking to the side, as though she were paying no attention to them.

Constantine smiled. “I can't take Lisabeth to the end of the world,” he said. “We can't be observed going to my town house. We can't be seen going upstairs together at her hotel. What do you suggest?”

“There are two chairs to the side of the hotel lobby,” Miss Lovelace said. “They are far from everything else.”

“But near enough so that two people alone, in close conversation, will be noticed,” Constantine said. “Being private is no problem. London has many places where one, or particularly two, can be alone together. Being seen going or coming from somewhere private is the difficulty.”

“True,” Miss Lovelace observed, with a frown.

Lisabeth felt as though she might explode. “Be damned to gossip and convention,” she said angrily.

“Do you mean that?” Constantine asked, eye brows raised, as Miss Lovelace swelled with indignation.

But before her old governess could chide her, Lisabeth spoke up again. “Maybe I did. But excuse me, I'm sorry I said it.” She looked around in despair. “Wait! Look there! It's mild, it's late in the season but it's still summer,” she said quickly. “Why don't we rent a small boat, and go rowing, there, on the lake, like some others are doing? The only way anyone can eavesdrop is if they hang on to the back of the boat. And you, Lovey, can't fit in without us capsizing, so no one will stare if we don't have a chaperone. And if you can get up to anything in a boat made for two, my lord, well then, more power to you!”

Constantine's mouth twitched. “Excellent idea. Can you row, Lisabeth?”

“I'll swim if I have to,” she said through clenched teeth.

Constantine rowed the little rented boat out into the lake. The lake was wide, and if not blue as the open sea that Lisabeth was used to, then at least the water seemed clean, though green, because of the growth of pond weeds. In the distance, on the shore, they could see people walking, children and dogs playing, milkmaids and peddlers, and Miss Lovelace dwindling to a little figure as she sat patiently on her bench, still watching them.

Constantine had taken off his jacket, because it fit so well. As he said, he'd burst the seams if he exerted himself in it. He was in a white shirt and a blue waistcoat, and Lisabeth admired his broad shoulders as he rowed. It was odd, she thought sadly, that she'd been intimate with this man and yet had never seen him without his clothes on. Still, she understood that many couples married for years had never undressed for each other. Was that also done in Society? She hoped not. Then she remembered that mightn't matter anymore.

She held her parasol over her shoulder and turned it to prevent the sun on her face, because she knew a white complexion was so highly prized here in London. And also so that she could peek at him without him knowing,

“Yes, I do cut a manly figure,” he said.

She wanted to bat him with her parasol, but forced a grin instead. “I never knew your name was Narcissus, my lord,” she said. “So we've come to the perfect place. All you need do is look down in the water to be happy. But not for too long, if you remember what happened to the original Narcissus. By the way, I ought to have asked before we went sailing, but then I knew the lads could save you. Can you swim?”

“Like a fish,” he said. “And you?”

She laughed. “I grew up by the sea. I'd be a fool if I couldn't.”

What was it, she wondered, about Constantine and the outdoors? It brought out the humanity in the man. Though they sat opposite each other, she felt closer to him than she had since she'd come to London. He was warm and natural with her again.

“So,” he said suddenly, “out with it. I enjoy rowing; the view from here is lovely, of you especially. That parasol isn't doing you much good. I spy freckles. They're charming. But I'm curious.” He rested the oars on either side of the boat and let it drift. “What do you have to say that's so secret?”

“Lots of things,” she said, trailing an ungloved hand in the warm water. She looked up at him again. “But before I do, I suppose I ought to tell you: Miss Winchester came to see me this morning.”

That startled him. His dark eyes opened wide. “Did she, though?” he asked. “About what?”

“About me. And you,” she said, casting her gaze down to the water her fingers were in. “She said I— Well, she as much as accused me— No, she didn't ‘as much as,' she accused me of ‘coercion,' of somehow blackmailing you into a . . . Constantine,” Lisabeth said, sitting up and confronting him, “she said if I continued to see you, she'd make certain I'd be punished for it. She said I'd ruin your political ambitions. She intimated that she cared for you, as I did not. She said I had no scruples. Oh, and that she'll see my family is investigated.”