The Old Maids' Club 02 - Pariah (9 page)

Red silk satin, today. For the second time in only three days, Aunt Rosaline was wearing red. And again, for the second time in three days, Lord Roman had been able to convince her that Christopher Jackson had merely been delayed.

It was nothing short of miraculous.

The increase in these incidents, however, was more than just slightly alarming to Bethanne. She tried to hide her discomfiture by taking a sip of tea.

“You’ve been to the colonies, then,” Aunt Rosaline said determinedly, looking expectantly across at their guest. “Are there truly savages there, sir? I can’t imagine why those rebels want to be there in the first place.”

Before he responded, Lord Roman passed a brief glance over to Bethanne. He’d finished repairing the fence yesterday, and today had not arrived at the cottage until teatime.

Bethanne had felt his delay to be a welcome reprieve, and yet she’d also felt an inexplicable sense of loss at his absence. She shifted uncomfortably on the divan and gave him a tiny nod of encouragement. It felt odd to encourage the man to lie to her aunt, but the truth caused more harm than good.

“Yes,” he said after her gesture. “I fought in the colonies alongside your Lieutenant Jackson. And the savages you speak of are called Indians by the locals. Some of them are quite civilized, however.”

“Civilized? They run around barely clothed in animal skins, shooting bows and arrows. Christopher has told me all of that and more in his letters. How is that civilized?” Aunt Rosaline picked up the quill from the writing table beside her. Not to write—her vision was too poor for such a task—but to fiddle with it. She drew it through her fingers the way she always would with a cheroot. Her nerves had to be nearing the fraying point for her to be thinking about smoking.

Bethanne’s nerves had passed that point more than a year ago.

Indeed, her entire life of late had been a lie, so why not allow yet one more person to become complicit in one of them with her? This lie, at least—allowing Aunt Rosaline to believe Lord Roman had been in the colonies with Lieutenant Jackson—was harmless. No one would be hurt by it one way or another. The same could not necessarily be said for the other lies she’d told or the secrets she’d kept. She hoped no one would be hurt, but…

Lord Roman smiled at Aunt Rosaline. “Is that truly more savage than a society which would treat an unmarried mother as a leper?”

Bethanne flushed, a rush of heat racing over her cheeks. She wanted to leave. She wanted to stand up, escort him out and bid him never to return, and then bury herself beneath a mound of pillows for an hour or two until she could think clearly again.

Instead, she changed the subject. “Lord Roman, will your father and mother be returning to Hassop House soon? I assume you’ve been sent ahead to prepare the house for their arrival. Perhaps they will Christmas here?”

He eyed her curiously, taking a long moment before he responded. “No, ma’am. My family will not be joining me in Derbyshire.”

“Oh,” Bethanne said for lack of anything better to say. She took another sandwich from the tray and popped a bite of it into her mouth in order to refrain from asking any more personal, intrusive questions.

His lips quirked upward in a rueful sort of half-smile. “I’ve taken over the stewardship of my father’s estate. After selling my commission, I needed something with which to occupy my time.” He fell silent then. For quite a long while.

Bethanne chewed and swallowed, then chased her bite of sandwich with a lukewarm mouthful of tea, and still he had not said anything else.

“Would Lord Herringdon not allow you to find your footing with the rest of the family after your service?” Bethanne blurted out. “Surely you have been gone from them for far too long.” He was hardly a young man any more, after all. She imagined he was at least five or six years beyond her almost nine-and-twenty, if the fine lines around his eyes and the silvery bits sprinkled in his dark hair were a true indication.

Lord Roman regarded her for some time with an unfathomable expression. “My family remains in London most of the year. I am unfit to live in London.” Then he turned to Aunt Rosaline, who was still fidgeting with her quill, effectively grinding that line of conversation to a thorough and complete halt. “Tell me, Lady Rosaline, other than talking over tea, how do you like to spend your days? What things do you hope to do with your Lieutenant Jackson when he returns to you?”

Bethanne shouldn’t begrudge the man his privacy and secrecy. After all, she carried more secrets than she knew what to do with, and she had long been loath to allow any but a select few to learn more than she wished to share.

Yet it niggled at her that he’d answered her question so vaguely and then brushed it aside, no matter how impertinent it had been of her to ask in the first place.

But then Aunt Rosaline was going on and on, fair to bursting with the need to tell this man all of the things she longed to do once again with her long-gone beau. “And then he’s promised to take me riding, my lord. Please don’t tell my brother this, but Christopher doesn’t force me to ride on one of those blasted sidesaddles. They always drive me batty, even if they
are
more proper for a lady.”

Was
that
where Aunt Rosaline had begun riding a traditional saddle? With Christopher Jackson? Bethanne snapped her jaw closed. All these years, and she’d always thought her aunt was simply a rebellious hoyden. Which she
was
, to be sure, but perhaps there was a bit more.

The clatter of a carriage sounded on the road outside, and Bethanne’s eyes shot wide. They couldn’t be here already, could they? With all of the snow on the roads, she’d been sure her cousins would hardly arrive before suppertime, if then.

She’d wanted Lord Roman to be well and truly gone before they arrived. It would be easier to explain about him if he wasn’t present, after all. And she wanted her cousins to help her sort out a way to keep him from prying into her business. How could she do that with him sitting on the other side of the room?

Bother it all.

“Are you expecting guests, Miss Shelton?” he asked, rising to look out the window. “There’s a carriage pulling into your drive.”

“Yes,” she muttered. “My cousins are due to arrive for a visit today.” Perhaps he would do the polite thing and excuse himself.

“You must excuse me,” Lord Roman said, as though in answer to her unasked prayer.

Bethanne almost smiled in victory. Almost. But instead of taking his leave of them for the day, he merely took his coat from the stand next to the parlor door and made his way out to the drive, standing there as though to greet them.

Of all the nerve.

Bethanne drew on her redingote as she raced out after him, fighting to get her arms into the sleeves without tripping over her own feet as she went. “What could you possibly think you’re doing?” she hissed out when she got close enough he could hear.

He spared her a glance over his shoulder, seemingly fighting a losing battle to hide his smile from her, with his lips twisting into rather uncommon shapes. Drat the man for laughing at her. “I intend to greet your guests and assist in moving their trunks inside,” he said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world he could be doing at that precise moment in time. Lord Obvious had made his return.

Indeed, why would she have thought he would do anything else? “And what do you think gives you the right to do so?” By this point, she’d caught up with him, taking two to three strides for every lumbering one of his.

“The right? Miss Shelton, surely even you can see that this is a necessity.” He waved toward the carriage, which only had a driver and one outrider for the three occupants.

Oh, she
hated
him for being correct on that score.

Lord Devonport stepped down from inside the carriage and then turned to assist Tabitha and Jo in their descent. Lord Roman came to a stop a few paces away from them with a pleasant expression upon his face. Bethanne nearly fell over from the abruptness of the change in his pace.

“Bethie, what in God’s name is going on here?” Jo demanded, her strawberry-blonde curls nearly flying free from her pins with the force of her displeasure. She planted her hands on her hips in that oh-so-familiar haughty gesture, and glared at Lord Roman with disdain the likes of which Bethanne hadn’t experienced in a great many years. “Who is he, and what is he bloody well doing here? Have you gone mad?”

“Jo!” Bethanne chastised, glancing at Lord Roman to see how he’d reacted to this. He seemed to be stifling yet another laugh, but still. She faced her cousin again. “Not out here.”

Lord Devonport chuckled, which was no help at all. He’d known the family for long enough to know what a handful Josephine Faulkner could be. Therefore, he ought to know he shouldn’t encourage her.

Not that Jo had ever needed any encouragement.

Then Tabitha shook her head and held up her hands with a shrug. “I think,” she said definitively, “Bethanne has the right of it, and it would be best if we take this conversation inside. Don’t you all agree?” She didn’t wait for their response, but scurried away from the carriage toward the cottage, fiddling with her chignon as she went.

“Where my lady leads, I must follow,” Lord Devonport said jovially and followed behind her. How very odd to see him following Tabitha around like a lovesick puppy. They’d married several months ago, but Bethanne hadn’t seen them together in such a way.

She shook the thoughts from her mind, then crossed her arms over her chest and frowned first at Lord Roman and then at Jo, then back again at the gentleman. She let out a sort of harrumphing sound, much as her mother used to do, before turning her back on them and making her way inside. The two of them could sort it out themselves. She had more important things to do.

Once inside, Lord Devonport assisted Bethanne out of her redingote. She handed it to Mrs. Temple, who was waiting just inside the door, ready to do her bidding. “Can you let Joyce know we’ll need a fresh pot of tea? And more sandwiches.”

Lord Roman and Jo came in several moments after her, the latter glowering and the former grinning like a loon.

“A lot more sandwiches,” Bethanne amended. “And cakes.” This afternoon was turning into a very long one, indeed. Then she directed them all into the blue parlor, where Aunt Rosaline was still waiting in her red silk satin.

“Oh, guests!” Aunt Rosaline cried, and Bethanne cringed at the looks of astonishment on Jo and Tabitha’s faces. She had warned them what to expect, but experiencing it firsthand was a different thing entirely than reading of it in a carefully worded letter.

“I’m sorry,” Aunt Rosaline continued, reaching for the quill on the table beside her, “but have any of you seen Lieutenant Christopher Jackson on your way? I’ve been expecting him, and he’s rather later than he’d said.” Her voice wavered as it always did when she was in such a state, and she turned the quill over between her hands in such rapid succession that it was a wonder the thing didn’t break.

Bethanne pressed her eyes closed and took a breath.
Stay calm
. She, at least, needed to remain calm.

But then Lord Roman cleared his throat, catching Bethanne’s attention. Her eyes flashed open. Was he truly going to attempt to reassure Aunt Rosaline again? How had he not yet grown weary of such an occurrence?

She had quite some time ago. But then again, she’d never been very good at it. Lord Roman seemed to have a certain knack for it, a calming air about him which Aunt Rosaline responded to—something Bethanne sorely lacked.

“I must apologize for Lieutenant Jackson, my lady,” he said, proving himself once again to be more of a gentleman than almost any man of Bethanne’s acquaintance. “He’s been delayed and sends his regrets.” He spent a few minutes regaling her aunt with false stories of her beau’s bravery and the reason for his delay.

It seemed to come so easily for him, like he didn’t have to think up such feats at all, but had actually seen the man performing them. But then again, he likely had seen them—just not involving Lieutenant Christopher Jackson.

After Aunt Rosaline once again sat quietly and was no longer fiddling with the quill in her hands, Lord Roman turned to Bethanne and her cousins. He lifted a brow in amusement, so she turned to see what had caused such an expression to come over him. Lord Davenport was looking at him with the slightest hint of puzzlement and a great deal of admiration. Tabitha bore a smile bright enough to light an entire ballroom at night. Jo, however, eyed him through slits, her arms crossed over her chest almost in accusation.

Unsurprisingly, she spoke first. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

“Oh, for goodness’s sake,” Bethanne muttered. She couldn’t believe her cousin would verbally spar with the man after he’d just soothed Aunt Rosaline in such a way. “Jo, calm down, would you?”

Lord Roman smiled over at her. Bethanne rolled her eyes in her cousin’s direction, which led to the gentleman chortling.

Jo, however, did not appear amused. “Calm down? Bethie, I hardly think you of all people ought to be telling me to calm down when there is a strange man in the house. How much does he know?”