Skylark (3 page)

Lady Caldfort suddenly banged her spoon on the table. “Where’s the food? Why is there no service in this house? Lazy slovens, the lot of them!”

Thomas the footman dashed in. “It’s coming, milady. Just a few minutes more.” Then he dashed out again.

Lady Caldfort kept rapping the spoon on the table, such a grim look on her face that Laura feared she was contemplating violence.

“Take that damned spoon off her,” Lord Caldfort growled.

Laura did so, grateful that at the same time he snapped, “Stop your folly, Cecy!”

Lady Caldfort gave up the spoon but scowled.

“Pour the wine, Jack,” Lord Caldfort ordered, and Jack rose to fill all their glasses with red wine. Lady Caldfort took a deep draft and it seemed to pacify her. Laura tried to feel sorry for the woman, who had endured the Gardeynes far longer than she had, but it was hard. She was so totally selfish.

Like mother, like son?
Laura wondered, for Hal had been selfish at bottom. Unlike his mother, he’d been blessed with good looks and a kind of jollity that passed for generous charm, but underneath . . . Fortunately, he’d had a kind of generosity in bed, for he took pride in pleasing a woman. A gentleman’s duty, he would declare, but she’d suspected that if she were hard to please, he’d have neglected her. Fortunate for their marriage that she had not been at all hard to please.

The strangest thing was that she’d only quickened once.

No, don’t think about the pleasures of marriage. Multiply the number of glasses by the number of plates. Add the number of candles in the chandelier. . . .
At last, thank heavens, the servants hurried in with dishes.

“And about time, too!” Lady Caldfort snapped, lifting the lid off the nearest dish herself and spooning soup into her plate.

Laura smiled at the maid placing a tureen in front of her and thanked her. How lucky they were that Caldfort had a competent and forbearing housekeeper in Mrs. Moorside, who came to Laura rather than Lady Caldfort if any troubles arose. The soup, as always, was excellent. A good cook was another blessing, and Laura made sure to count them all.

She believed in people accepting responsibility for their actions. She had married Hal Gardeyne by choice, thinking herself the most fortunate young woman in Dorset. In the first years of her marriage she would have described herself as a happy bride.

She had made this bed and must lie in it, and she would do so with as good a grace as possible. She could even be content if she could only be sure that Harry was safe.

A gun
, she suddenly thought.
A gun would be very useful.

With that in mind, she welcomed Lady Caldfort’s early and abrupt exit from the dining room and followed her, even though there was no question of the ladies taking tea together. Lady Caldfort marched upstairs. Laura picked up one of the spare candles, lit it at the hall fire, and headed toward the back of the house. Toward the gun room.

Hal had taught her to shoot. It had been amusement for him while living quietly here, and had amused her until he’d tried to get her to target a rabbit. She’d refused, and in disgust he’d given up the lessons.

She knew how to load and prime a gun, however, and Hal’s were stored in the gun room, waiting for the day when Harry would be old enough to use them. Splendid hunting pieces, ornate dueling pistols, practical, deadly horse pistols. Her interest, however, was a smaller pistol that he’d carried in a pocket when out at night.

She went into the room and made a face. The former Lord Caldfort had dabbled in the new art of taxidermy in order to preserve his hunting triumphs. A stag’s head loomed over the door, three foxes, one with a chicken in its mouth, ran along the tops of cabinets, and various predatory birds eyed her. She supposed they were all properly preserved, but to her the room always smelled of decay.

She hurried past the racks of big guns and put her flickering candle down to open the drawer where Hal’s pistols were kept.

It was empty.

She frowned and opened the one to the left, but it held Lord Caldfort’s pistols. The drawer to the right contained old ones, kept only for curiosity value. She slowly closed that drawer, guessing where Hal’s pistols were.

Jack had taken them.

She stared at a beady-eyed hawk. Again, it was not unquestionably suspicious. Hal’s guns were the best money could buy, and if his brother wanted to use them until his son was old enough, why not?

But it felt like a deepening of the threat. She considered Lord Caldfort’s pistols, but shook her head. If she was discovered, what excuse could she make? With Hal’s guns she had intended to say she wanted Harry to get used to one—unloaded, of course.

The bigger guns wouldn’t be of much use to her, anyway. Her hands were small and she’d never really been able to handle Hal’s ordinary pistols. Only the smaller one.

She picked up her candle and left the room, as weaponless as before.

Laura didn’t sleep well that night, despite trying to persuade herself that any threats were in her imagination. The next day brought a blessing in the form of a long letter from Juliet. After making sure that Harry was safe in the nursery, Laura took the letter to her boudoir to enjoy.

One benefit of marriage to Hal had been her ability to introduce her younger sister to London society. Their own family were county gentry of the most minor sort. Their grandfather had been a yeoman farmer until he made the transition to gentleman farmer. Hal Gardeyne, heir to a viscountcy, had been a brilliant match.

In London, Juliet’s good looks and loving nature had won her, too, a man of excellent family. She’d had to wait two years for Robert Fancourt to rise high enough in the Home Office to afford a wife, but she hadn’t seemed to mind. That thought troubled Laura now and then, but things in the past were past worrying over.

Juliet was certainly happy now. She adored her Robert and thrived on living most of the year in London.

Lines of social gossip and stories of comings and goings soon had Laura relaxed and smiling. Here at Caldfort, it was easy to forget that elsewhere life went on its merry way, even in October.

Fashionable London would be quiet, but Juliet clearly found much to keep her busy. The bustle and hum almost rose from the page like an aroma, catching Laura’s breath with longing.

She looked up from the letter and out at the tranquil countryside. It was doubtless shallow of her, but oh, to be in town, too. Walks in the parks, shopping, the theater, exhibitions, lively company, and the sheer fun of being with her favorite sister.

She shook off wistfulness and turned to the next sheet. Juliet never tried to economize by crossing her writing.

Oh? Laura felt a strange sensation, as if something had tugged at her insides.

Laura wondered how many other people had thought that. The idea had never crossed her mind—until the day Stephen had so inappropriately proposed. She’d already been betrothed to Hal. What had she been supposed to do?

But she shouldn’t have laughed. . . .

She looked back at the slightly blurred writing.

Laura had achieved the grand age of fifteen when they’d performed that play, but to her, too, seventeen had seemed a great age. Stephen had been one of those young men who mature early, perhaps because of his serious attention to his studies and to issues of politics and law. He’d never been dull, though. She remembered working with him for weeks during his summer holiday from Harrow, turning the dramatic novel into a short play. The taste of it in her mind now was of challenge and pure, thrilling excitement, yet she’d not thought of it for years.

How strange. Had she deliberately wiped it from her memory?

Staging the play had been pure, thrilling excitement of another sort. She’d had the role of Emily and he Valancourt. Daringly they’d written in a kiss, and she’d come close to swooning with embarrassment at that stiff and awkward press of lips to lips in front of an audience of his and her families.

She laughed a little now at that, but what business did Stephen have of asking after her? Their friendship had faltered after his proposal, and died when he’d maliciously pinned her with the name Lady Skylark. They’d hardly met or spoken in six years.

Lady Skylark. She still didn’t understand how he could have been so cruel.

She’d gone straight from her wedding to London, and instantly become a toast. She’d loved being the beautiful Mrs. Hal Gardeyne, which had soon become La Belle Laura. Heady stuff at eighteen, but she didn’t think she’d been insufferable.

Then someone—rumor said it was Brummell himself—had turned that into Labellelle. It simply meant the “beautiful
L
,” but the unique construction had seemed mysterious and sophisticated, everything Laura longed to be.

But then, overnight, she’d become Lady Skylark.

Everyone thought it charming and a perfect fit, and so it had stuck.

She’d hated it.

People assumed she had a lovely singing voice, and she didn’t, but the real problem was the other meaning. Overnight, she’d transformed from mysterious, sophisticated Labellelle into a feckless and immature child, because
skylarking
was a term used in the navy for lads who played dangerous games high in the rigging.

When she’d heard a rumor that Stephen had christened her that at some drunken, manly gathering, she’d known it was true and known it was malicious because
Skylark
had special meaning for them. A meaning connected to his absurd and embarrassing proposal.

She’d known immediately that she shouldn’t have laughed, known that she’d hurt him, which she’d never wanted to do. He’d abruptly walked away from her and left the area until after her marriage, so she’d had no chance to make amends. She understood his pain, but there had been no call for such a cruel retaliation.

It was all in the past, all in the past, but if Stephen was asking about her now, she worried about his motives. Did Juliet have anything to say about that?

He’s two years older than I am,
Laura thought, and skimmed over Stephen’s noble causes, Stephen’s pithy quotes, Stephen’s prospects of becoming Prime Minister, for heaven’s sake.

No.

Laura let the letter sag.

Go home?

Immediately she thought,
Why not?

She hadn’t seen Juliet since the wedding six months ago. She hadn’t been home since then, either. She rose to her feet, folding the letter, a smile already tugging at her lips.

A week away! It felt like paradise and would restore her perspective. Perhaps she would see that her fears about Jack were gothic, and most important, in her bustling home in another county, Harry would be completely safe.

Eager to have it settled, she hurried downstairs and knocked at the door to her father-in-law’s study. Silence. She knocked again, thinking that if she started preparations immediately, they could even leave tomorrow.

Tomorrow!

No reply.

She frowned at the door panels. Lord Caldfort lived between this room and his bedchamber across the hall. He preferred the study during the day, but he retired to bed if he suffered one of his bad spells. She couldn’t pursue him there.

She turned away, but then heard a faint, “Come in.”

She went in quickly, thinking he might be ill. Indeed, though he was sitting behind his desk with the postbag and letters still in front of him, he looked even pastier than usual.

“Is anything wrong, sir? Do you need your tonic?”

“Nothing more than the ordinary. What d’ye want? Disturbing m’peace. Everyone’s always cutting up m’peace.”

Laura abandoned concern. He wouldn’t hesitate to summon the doctor if he felt worse. She made her request, hoping his mood wouldn’t turn him difficult.

He surprised her. “Back to Merrymead, eh? Well, why not? It’s a six month or more since you’ve been there. When do you want to go?”

This was a little more enthusiasm than Laura was used to, but she wouldn’t complain. “I see no reason to delay, sir. We seem to be in a spell of dry weather. I would like to be off tomorrow, if that is agreeable.”