The River of No Return (19 page)

She was teasing him from out of the depths of her fear. He smiled. “Why shouldn’t the great marquess have his say? I have to be good for something. Riding roughshod over my sisters is one my most venerable duties.”

That small sparkle faded. “I thank you for your kind invitation, my lord, and believe me, I accept. I accept wholeheartedly. But I cannot come with you at once. Although the scandal is baseless, Eamon has reason enough to want me at Castle Dar. If I come with you now he will simply demand me back.”

“Demand you back? You’re a full-grown woman. You can do as you choose. . . .” Even before the words were out of his mouth, Nick realized that the sentence he had just spoken only made sense after two centuries of struggle that had yet to happen.

“Where exactly have you spent these past three years, my lord? Among some Amazon tribe?”

“In all honesty, I cannot say,” he said, and it was almost true. “I—I had amnesia.”

“It must certainly have been somewhere quite different from England.”

“It was.”

She simply looked at him. She, who had known him as a child and now saw him as an adult. Nick couldn’t believe how good it felt to have that gap bridged. How good it felt just to have those ink-dark eyes rest on him, even with that quizzical look in them. “Then I’ll kill him,” he heard himself saying. “If he won’t allow to you to come to Blackdown with me now, I’ll kill him.”

She laughed. “You will have to make up your mind between the two options you give me. Either I am to do just as I please and walk out of the front door, or you are to kill him and carry me off like a pillaged sack of flour!”

She was right. He did sound like a maniac. He needed to get control of himself. Himselves. But he didn’t want to. Her laugh was enchanting. It was the same one he had heard yesterday as she galloped away toward the river. He wanted to kiss her. He Nick Davenant, and he Nicholas Falcott. For once they wanted the same thing.

He dropped his hand from where it rested on hers, to keep himself from grabbing it and pulling her to him. “What do you propose, then?”

She looked down the fields toward Blackdown. “I had been planning to run away. I could affect a bolt to London and come to you instead.”

Nick sucked in his cheeks. “But that would cement your bad reputation, and frankly it would besmirch my name as well.” He smiled. “And since I am as pure as snow and as guileless as a dove . . .”

She snorted. “Oh, indeed.”

The snort did it. Nick was lost. He stared at her like a mooncalf. Why shouldn’t he fall down on one knee right here and ask for her hand? He
was
Blackdown, at least partially. And she was an earl’s granddaughter. If it weren’t for the Guild he wouldn’t even hesitate. He would be expected to do it. Do it and then live happily ever goddamn after, day following day.

“My lord?”

He blinked.

“Is something amiss?”

“I . . . need to think.” He stepped closer to her. “I need to think, and I need to consult with Clare. Don’t run away. Don’t do anything. Just meet me here tomorrow.”

Her eyes widened, and he realized he was looming over her, demanding that she meet him again, unchaperoned. For God’s sake, the nineteenth century! It was ridiculous. “To make plans,” he said, stepping back.

“Of course.” She put her nose up, affecting not to have misunderstood him. Perfection. “That is, if Clare raises no objection to you trysting with the whore of Stoke Canon.”

“I shall be here, Julia, never you fear. Now let me toss you up.” He put his hands at her waist, felt the delicious swell of her hips, and in spite of all his instincts, which urged him to pull that beautiful derrière back against himself, he placed her neatly in her saddle, allowing his hand to rest for just a fraction of a second on her thigh.

She looked down at him, her eyes grave. Then, without saying anything more, she turned Marigold back toward the path through the woods. The horse made its careful way through the trees, soon disappearing into the shifting shade. Nick stood stock-still, staring after them. Then he yanked Boatswain’s head up from the grass, threw himself into the saddle, and galloped all the way back to Blackdown House.

J
ulia rode slowly through the woods. Blackdown was back from the dead. And just in time to help her.

She had recognized him immediately, but the longer they talked the less she could see the boy in the man in front of her. By the end of their conversation she had felt she was talking to a stranger. His eyes crinkled when he smiled. What had been dimples were now two deeply carved lines. He had a scar across his eyebrow.

Well, he had been in the wars, hadn’t he? He had been lost for three years. He must have been terribly injured, not to know himself for that long. Terrible things could age a man.

This new Blackdown was unsettling. The distance in his eyes had suddenly become a nearness that seemed to sear right through her. The strength she had felt in his arms when he helped her into the saddle. He was grown.

As was she. Twenty-two. Almost on the shelf, that’s how grown she was.

In other words, the years had flown. Time had passed. There was nothing strange in that.

Yet there was something off-kilter. Time had passed, but it had passed
wrongly.
Blackdown looked older than he should. And she, who had never seen the world, never been to a ball more grand than an impromptu minuet at a neighbor’s—she realized, in his presence, that she had not ever truly stepped across the threshold into adulthood, despite being too old to be young.

All her problems seemed to be about time.

She ducked her head to avoid a low-hanging bough. Do not borrow trouble from tomorrow. That had been Grandfather’s motto, and look what good it had done. It turned out that yesterday’s trouble had been brewing in Stoke Canon ever since she’d arrived. Some suspicion of her mother’s virtue, long buried, but ready to burst forth. The chicken-and-the-egg conundrum. Was she bad because her mother was bad, or was her poor dead mother being vilified only now that the daughter was in trouble?

Julia laughed bitterly. Because now she was, indeed, living down to her reputation. She had, after all, agreed to meet Blackdown again tomorrow. Julia would be the first to admit that she had been raised largely by accident, but it was wrong for a young woman to sneak off and meet a man alone in the woods. Even she knew that much about propriety.

As for Falcott, he was no paragon. He had put his ungloved hand on hers, when she reached up for her pommel, then left it there for ages. And then when he had tossed her up, for just a moment that hand had rested on her leg. She had looked at his hand, both times. The ring that had looked too big when he was young now suited his strength exactly. His hand was beautiful. More beautiful than the rest of him.

Did
he believe she was Eamon’s mistress?

Marigold emerged from the woods and broke, unasked, into a trot. Julia welcomed the jolting gait. Maybe it would bring her back to herself. Because it didn’t matter what the marquess thought. What mattered was that she now had an invitation to Falcott House, the invitation that she desperately needed. The grandeur of his title and his home, the unquestionable virtue of his sister and her chaperonage—her honor would be salvaged. All she had to do was find a way to leave Castle Dar.

* * *

“So. You disobey me.” Eamon stood in the doorway, watching her climb the steps.

“Good day, Cousin.” Julia found that the sight of him no longer nauseated her.

“Get in here.” He reached out for her arm as she walked up the steps.

She jerked it away. “Unhand me. There is no need. I am coming in.” She swept past him into the dark hallway, stripping off her gloves and unpinning her hat. She laid them on the footman’s chair and turned to face her fulminating cousin. “What is it you want of me?”

Eamon’s tombstone teeth gleamed in the dim light of the entrance hall. “I have found the talisman,” he said.

Julia raised her eyebrows. “Really? Have you stopped time?”

“No, but I will soon enough. Come. I want to see if you recognize it.” He led the way into the study, and Julia suppressed a gasp. The piles of strange items that the servants had collected for Eamon had all been cleared away. Everything of Grandfather’s, all his stones and books and knickknacks, was gone. The room was bare and the desk entirely clear, except for one small, colorful box sitting in the exact center of the leather desktop.

It was the lacquered Chinese box that Grandfather had shown her years before.

Eamon picked it up and handed it to her. “Have you ever seen this box before?”

“No,” Julia lied. She held it lightly. “What is it?”

Eamon looked at her, long and piercingly, and Julia returned his gaze. Apparently satisfied, he took a piece of paper out of his pocket. She could see that it had a line or two of Grandfather’s writing on it. “‘July the twenty-first, 1803,’” Eamon read out loud. “‘Solved reached in forty-eight seconds.’”

Julia turned the box over in her hands. “It requires a solution?” She hoped her voice sounded innocent.

Eamon snatched it out of her hands. “Yes, stupid girl. It is clearly a magical box of some sort. There is either something in it or something in the opening of it that must unlock time. I found it in a hidden compartment in this desk—devilish clever, but I found it. This box, and a worthless miniature of some mulatto.” Eamon dug carelessly in his pocket and extracted another square of paper. He handed it over and Julia gazed down at a remarkably realistic painting, smooth as ice. It depicted a young woman’s laughing face. The woman’s skin was darker than English people’s, her hair a deeper black, her eyes a clearer blue. Indeed, the colors of everything in the picture, including the slice of sky behind her head and the yellows of her dress, seemed richer than any Julia had seen before. She turned the painting over, but there was nothing written on the back. The paper was slick; Julia had no idea how the paint could possibly adhere to it. She held it back out to Eamon, but he waved his hand. “Keep it if you like.”

“Might not this picture be the talisman?”

“Give it back!” He snatched the painting and studied it. “Perhaps, perhaps . . . but how?”

“If Grandfather hid it with the box, perhaps they are to be used together.”

Eamon frowned at her, suspicious. “You suddenly seem very eager to help, Julia.”

“As you know, Cousin, I do not believe there is a talisman. I believe Grandfather’s talent died with him. But if this trinket will satisfy your quest for one, I shall be delighted.”

“There is a talisman.” Eamon pushed the painting back into his pocket, oblivious to her sarcasm. “I am sure of it. It is this box. But the note is puzzling. The box must be manipulated in a certain way for exactly forty-eight seconds? Could that be it?”

Julia knew very well what the note chronicled. Grandfather had been looking at his stopwatch while she had tried to solve the puzzle. She had thought herself defeated, for the box never opened. But clearly she had, in fact, succeeded, and he had been testing her speed with it. Why?

Eamon was half twisting the box one way, then twisting it back, and half twisting it another. He was clearly afraid to disarrange it. “How does it work?” he muttered to himself. “What is the secret?”

Julia cleared her throat. “Cousin, may I please leave you to this?”

Eamon looked up at her blindly, the lacquered box sickly bright in his pale fingers. Then he nodded. “Yes, yes. Go. Run along. In fact, I don’t want to see you for the remainder of the day.”

And I hope to never see you again, Julia thought as she left the room.

* * *

Nick leapt from his horse, tossed the reins to a waiting groom, and ran from the stable yard to the house. He began yelling for Clare before he was even properly inside.

She came running, her face pale. “What is it? Are you ill?”

“I am completely well,” he said, “but what in the devil’s name is wrong with you?”

“With me?” His sister drew up short. “Have you hit your head again?” She came forward, hand outstretched to feel his forehead.

“There’s nothing amiss with me.” He pushed past her and strode ahead into the drawing room, then turned and pointed a finger. “But you need a damned good explanation for why you haven’t been to see Julia Percy, when you must know that her reputation is in tatters. The new Lord Darchester is keeping her locked up like a prisoner. Or are you deceived by the slander?”

“Heavens.” Clare sank onto a settee. “I feared that something was terribly wrong over at Castle Dar. There has been talk among the servants that the new earl might be mad. Their footman is betrothed to our kitchen maid and she said—”

“I see. You feared something might be wrong. And you heard from the servants that the earl is mad. So instead of helping our family’s friend and neighbor, you spent your time weaving plans with Jem Jemison for the destruction of Blackdown.”

Clare thinned her lips and took a moment to respond. “Mr. Jemison has left Blackdown, you will be pleased to know. He has gone to London.”

For some reason this only enraged Nick further. “So now I must find a new steward? Wonderful! And why didn’t he tell me of his decision to leave? I am the marquess—”

“I hired him when you were dead,” Clare said sharply, her temper finally flaring. “And so he came to me this morning and told me he was leaving. He is in London, trying to find another way to care for the soldiers of
your
regiment.”

“Oh, they were my soldiers, were they, who were going to swarm like locusts over my land? You didn’t tell me that yesterday. And now you imply that I am the rich man of the parable, that I turn them from the door like Lazarus the leper! I understand you, Sister. You imply that I am a negligent boor, and perhaps I am. But you are no better. Explain to me about Julia Percy, and why you have abandoned her!”

Clare stood still, allowing his rage to crash around her, her face rigid. “You have been away too long. You forget: You cannot simply burst into the home of a belted earl on the strength of servants’ gossip and demand that he hand over a member of his family.”

Nick threw up his hands. “Of course not. Perish the thought that it might be possible to rescue Julia from the clutches of a madman. Shall I tell you? It is because he is a lord of the realm and his accusers are servants. And because she is a woman, with no rights of her own.” He rounded on Clare, pointing a finger at her nose. “I tell you, Clare, the world has got to change. You women must stop regarding yourselves as chattels.”

At that, Clare put back her hands on her hips and laughed. “Your bump on the head certainly changed you, Nickin. You accuse me of destroying Falcott for a dream of brotherhood and equality—meanwhile it appears that you have been transformed into a Godwinite!”

“Perhaps, I have been! And so should you be.”

Her laugh died, but her eyes smiled at him. “What happened to you in Spain?”

“Never you mind.” Nick crossed his arms over his chest. “Now explain yourself, woman.”

“A Godwinite, but still pigheaded! Of course I have been to visit the new earl, and to see Julia. Do you think I am heartless? She adored that crusty grandfather of hers, and she must be devastated without him. I arrived home from London the day after the old earl died, and I went immediately to Castle Dar. I was turned away, but I returned the next day and again the next. The other women of the parish have also tried to call. We left cards, we left invitations, we even went as a group and sought to be admitted. The men have gone, too. Although we could tell it pained good Pringle to do it, we were all repeatedly turned away.”

Nick glared at his sister, then strode away across the room and back again. “Talk, talk, talk,” he finally said. “Gossip and talk. The good people of the parish fret and worry: ‘Oh, poor Julia.’ Then, my dear sister, do you know what they do when they are home again? They tell vicious stories, and they relish every word. Did you know, Clare, that everyone thinks she is Darchester’s mistress? After only a fortnight?” He nodded at her. “Oh, yes. I suppose you are not privy to the more salacious rumors that fly about the village, due to your being . . .” He paused. “Due to . . .” He finished lamely.

Clare sat back down. “Due to the fact that I am a spinster, you mean? You have ranted like a lunatic for ten minutes, and now you choose to mince words? I am a spinster and a noblewoman. As a result, no one ever tells me anything. Why don’t you come down off your high horse, take a seat, and let us have a rational conversation about this problem. I am indeed appalled to learn that our neighbors think so badly of Julia, and I am ashamed that I have not done more to try to see her and find out the truth of her situation. But let us not lose our heads. Tell me what you know, and together we shall find a way to secure Julia’s freedom.”

Nick glowered.

She patted the seat next to her and raised her eyebrows at him in the time-honored gesture of an older sister. “Sit,” she said.

“As you wish.” He collapsed down next to her, draped one arm around her shoulders, and stretched his legs out. He tried, unconsciously, to shove one sneaker off his foot with the toe of the other, and looked in some surprise down the length of his body, past his jacket and breeches to his tall riding boots. “I am in all my dirt,” he said, remembering suddenly that he really ought to change out of his riding clothes before conversing with a lady, even if that lady happened to be his sister.

“Yes, you are a barbarian,” Clare said. “Now tell me.”

Nick let his head fall back against the sofa. He spoke up to the ceiling. “I rode to the wood, and encountered Julia riding over from Castle Dar,” he said.

“I thought she was a prisoner.”

“She is, to all intents.”

Clare sighed. “I don’t mean to doubt you, Nick, but are you certain she is in such dire straits as you imagine? After all, she was riding about. When did you even have the chance to hear village gossip? You returned only the day before yesterday.”

“Count Lebedev overheard the news of Julia’s supposed disgrace bantered about the inn yard, of all places. And I know Julia is in danger because she told me she was, and I believe her.”

Clare nodded. “Julia is a dramatic little body,” she said, “but she is not a liar.”