Elisabeth Fairchild (4 page)

He nodded, the pinched look leaving his mouth. “I shall hold you to your promises.”

Chapter Three

Patience expected magic.

Hints of it dangled glowing from the trees, fairy lights to light the path as they followed the row of dinner boxes that curved in a deep horseshoe framed on either side by pinnacled turrets, domed niches in which Patience caught a glimpse of the promised statues of Apollo. Ahead, in the deepest curve of the shoe, loomed a larger pavilion, triple tiered and balconied, with a stone arch at the top fancifully aglow with light, gay with color and noise.

Magical. Yes, this evening promised magic.

Richard wore his serious expression again.

Patience gave his arm a playful nudge. “Anyone among your acquaintance you can recommend to me? Someone who will not mind a wife without artistic talents?”

He took the question seriously, as she had known he would. “Tell me, Patience, what faults would you indulge in a husband?”

“Faults?” She arched her brows and tried, for the moment, to look just as serious as he, while in her mind’s eye all she could picture was Pip—wonderful Pip. “Why, none. I expect perfection.”

Half serious, half in jest these words were said.

His brow furrowed above the black silk of his mask. He looked for a moment like a confused bandit.

She wanted to laugh at seeing his dear features so perplexed. To control the amused quiver of her lips she pursed them. “Do I set my sights too high?”

He smiled, knowing she teased him. She always teased him. “For mortal man, perhaps. But there have been Greek gods who took mortal wives. Perhaps you can find an English one.”

She laughed. “Wife?”

He laughed as well. How she loved the sound of it. “You know that is not what I meant.”

It was her turn to be serious. “Well, if there are no English gods, and I am forced to settle for mere, flawed mortal, if I were fond of him, I think I should have to accept him as he was.”

“Good.”

“I may not be ready for marriage, but I quite think I am ready to fall in love.”

He tilted his head to regard her most intently. “Are you really? Well, if that is the case . . .” He drew a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. “There is one.”

Did he mean to tease her now? She studied his features carefully—what she could see of them beneath the mask. “Only one English god? I thought as much. Will he have me, do you think? Shall I retreat to a nunnery?”

He tried not to laugh, and failed, which made her smile. She loved to make Richard laugh.

“If you are very good,” he teased.

“Oh, dear,” she said. “Do you think he will recognize me in this mask, and know that I have been up to mischief in Vauxhall Gardens?”

“I think he might forgive you if you promise not to tease me into bringing you here again.”

Too serious he sounded again. Too serious the look in his eyes. Patience was in no mood to be serious. “This
one
you mentioned?” She waggled her brows at him.

“Yes?” he asked warily.

“Tell me more.”

“Well.” He closed his eyes a moment, and then turned to look away before he said, “Rare is the man you could love.”

He left her speechless a moment with such a remark.

And then he looked at her, the mask hiding what she needed to see in his eyes. She could not tell by way of his mouth if he still teased her, until he went on, saying, ever so seriously, “Rarer still the man I would entrust you to.”

He took her breath away, so unexpected was the compliment, the depth of feeling in his voice.

“I am touched,” she said at last, and reached out to touch his arm.

He started back, leaving her hand poised in midair. She did not quite know what to make of her friend when he spoke with such intensity and then shied away.

“I would not have just any man,” she said, her voice matching his in intensity. “I knew I could count on you. Who is this
one?
”

He pursed his lips. Such a serious mouth. So seriously he took their conversation, when she had not intended to be at all serious this evening.

He sighed and turned to watch the orchestra a moment, and when he turned back to her the almost overwhelming sense of focus and intensity had vanished. “Do you mind waiting for his name? He is not currently in a position to make a serious attachment.”

She laughed, rather relieved he should say so, definitely relieved he took a lighter tone. “Perfect. Neither am I. All I want this evening is to have some fun with old friends.”

“And so you shall, for here we are.”

Their destination proved to be one of the Turkish alcoves of the pavilion, fancifully shaped cast-iron braces girding the inner aisle of the gallery. Here a crowd clustered around a circle of card tables, masked ladies and gentlemen peering intently at backgammon and chessboards. A gentleman walked among them in a peacock blue coat, white-figured waistcoat, and chalk white small clothes. An eye-catching white cockatoo perched on his shoulder. An emerald, amethyst, and gold paisley scarf had been tied across his eyes and nose as blindfold. Leading him from table to table, just as eye-catching, perhaps a bit more so, a bright-eyed, dark-skinned lad clad in an exact match of his master’s coat and waistcoat also boasted a splendid emerald and amethyst turban edged in gold bullion.

Patience gasped. “Oh, my!”

He had grown taller, little Pip. This dashing young gentleman was a good head taller than she, slender of build, his limbs well formed, his posture proud. He was all that she had imagined and more—much more. She might not have recognized him at once had it not been for the unchanged and irrepressible cheeky grin, the tiptilted nose, those carefully pomaded golden locks.

She remembered how his hair had curled against the humid dampness of his neck—the humid dampness of his hand about her ankle.

The cockatoo squawked and preened, crest rising. “Pay me a penny! Pay me a penny!”

A richly clothed woman at one of the tables obliged the bird in holding out a coin.

As it took the copper in its beak, Pip scolded in a voice far deeper than she recalled, his tone familiar, as was the jaunty tilt of his head, “A penny, Pippet? Silly bird. The duchess could as easily afford to give you pounds.”

“Silly bird,” the bird agreed with a piercing whistle.

The crowd laughed.

“Pippet?” Patience chuckled, joy bubbling in her chest like champagne. “How long has Pip carried a bird about on his shoulder?”

“A fortnight. Perhaps two.” Richard’s voice seemed singularly unenthusiastic. “Since he tired of the monkey that used to cling to his hair.”

Patience tried to imagine Pip with a monkey perched on his shoulder instead of the bird. She had imagined him in many ways, but never with a monkey or a bird.

“Shall I give him a shout?” Richard asked flatly.

Her heart lurched into her throat.

“Wait.” She stopped him with a touch, unprepared to face this flamboyant creature she had so long dreamed of seeing again.

Richard looked down at her hand. “I thought you wanted to speak to him.” He sounded faintly . . . was it resentful? Perhaps it was only the mask that made him sound different.

“What is he doing?”

“Making a spectacle of himself. It is his favorite pastime.” Again the flatness of voice, as if he were put out by the question. His gaze fell. His tone changed. “Pip plays chess and backgammon, blindfolded, a dozen games at a time, at least once a week here.”

Patience could not prevent admiration from infusing her voice. “He always was clever at games.”

“Yes,” Richard agreed evenly. “Even more so now.”

Was he jealous?

She could not be certain, could not read his expression as he stood masked beside her, his gaze following Pip’s movement, but it made sense that any ordinary young man would be jealous of the head-turning creature before them.

“Does he win?” she asked.

“More often than not. You know Pip’s way with games. The two of you were alike in that way. He walks away with a fistful of sovereigns whenever he does one of these garden gambles.”

A trace of wistfulness—definitely a trace of wistfulness was to be heard in those words, and for the first time Patience considered how it must have been for Richard, always the loser, always polite in complimenting them on their skill. She and Pip had, from the start, been a challenge to one another; she better than he at backgammon—he the usual winner when they played chess. Neither of them liked to lose.

Richard had always been the good sport, a gentlemanly loser. Even when his father died. Even as his brother squandered the family fortune. He would not speak of such things to her, no matter that she always asked after his family. Such a quiet, uncomplaining soul.

She smiled at him. “Can anyone play?”

He nodded. “If there is an opening. Do you wish to play?”

“I want to beat him.”

“At backgammon? There is a board coming open now.”

One of the players rose from a table as he spoke. The chair, once emptied, was as quickly filled.

“Sorry,” Richard said, taking her hand, and leading her closer to the games. “We must make a push to the front in order to take a chair.”

“I would prefer a chessboard,” she said. “If one comes open.”

“I thought you were better at backgammon?”

She waggled her brows at him. She had imagined this moment, prepared for it. “I’ve been practicing.”

He considered the tables afresh. “Ah! Well then, perhaps Lady Wilmington will give up her place.”

He pushed forward and bent his sleek, dark head to address a pretty young woman with beautifully coiffured honey-colored curls.

Patience found herself wondering who this Lady Wilmington might be to Richard. She knew him well enough to touch his hand, to bat at his cheek with her closed fan.

And Richard smiled, as if he were in no way offended!

Lady Wilmington turned to look at Patience through a glittering silver mask. She beckoned elegantly with a gray-gloved hand, her every movement and gesture a source of fascination. As she rose from her chair, a look of intense interest in her eyes, her gaze slid from Richard to Patience and back again.

“Richard tells me you can beat Philip.” She leaned closer to whisper. “Is it true? I have never had the pleasure.”

Deep was her voice, and throaty. How did she manage to sound at the same time breathlessly seductive and stay-your-distance standoffish?

Patience smiled uncertainly. “I—I always beat Pip at backgammon. Chess, never.” She shrugged. “But I love a challenge.”

“Pip, is it you call him? So that is the mystery of the bird’s name.” Lady Wilmington gestured toward the cockatoo with a graceful sweep of her fan, a mischievous smile taking possession of her lips. “Naughty Philip. How he did tease when I asked him.”

Her words were suggestive. Patience was unsure how to respond. She glanced at Richard, only to find all of his interest focused on Lady Wilmington as she rose, gracefully relinquishing the chair with a playful wink behind her fan and the suggestion, “Your move, my dear. It is endgame and I am afraid I leave you with few options. My king is in check.”

Chapter Four

Patience studied first the board, and then her opponent.

Only four players were left in the game: Her white king and a pawn that must be queened, the black king and his rook.

As she sank into the chair, eyes flitting from the chessboard to Pip and the boy and back again, she calculated her next move and how much time she had to make it.

Richard leaned down to say, “I shall be just behind you, talking to Lady Wilmington.”

“Mmm-hm,” Patience murmured, her mind already focused on the game. She was rather good at narrowing her attention. One must be to succeed at chess, at backgammon, at cards.

Pip approached, his every gesture flamboyant, designed to catch eyes. The tails of his coat whirled as he turned from chessboard to backgammon. The lad who followed like an obedient and adoring pup called out each move made by Pip’s opponents. Pip nodded, smiled brightly, directed the lad where he wished his men moved, and told a joke while the lad did his bidding.

A gasp, a groan, a smattering of applause from those who looked on, and the backgammon player sank back, his men blocked from further play.

“How does he do it?” she heard a woman murmur, and shut out the gentleman’s reply as she turned all her attention to the board, to the battle before her.

Lady Wilmington’s king was in peril. Patience moved him from knight five to knight four.

And suddenly Pip was before her, in a whirl of pomade and cologne, the odor unfamiliar, exotic, loudly spicy, pinching at her nose, forcing her to look at him, to stare at him, to forget everything but Pip.

He took her breath away.

Pip. Dear Pip. Glorious Pip. Handsome Pip. His chiseled chin, missing all baby fat, jutted firmly, more pronounced than before. The spare, agile force of his stature seemed more intense, mature. Every tight-knit muscle in his compact frame pronounced him alive, so very alive, and virile, and male.

All of the longing she had kept buried within herself these many years surfaced, overwhelming her, setting heart and pulse to fluttering. Her mouth went dry. All words, all coherent thought flew from her head, a flock of squawking birds, like the one who eyed her, head cocked, from his shoulder.

This fine young man had once slid beneath her skirts! He had grasped her ankle and breathed humidly upon her knee. She had imagined this encounter so many times, so many ways, none of her imaginings anything like the reality of the moment. Pip was so very large and colorful and devastatingly real! He was a stranger to her, an unknown, which conflicted completely with her sense of having thought of him, of having known him in her mind and imaginings every day since their last conversation.

Intimidated, she flinched backward as Pip and the cockatoo swooped close. “Hmm,” Pip murmured as he leaned in to sniff her hair.

She had never imagined this.

“New player,” he announced as he stood tall. “Female. A young female. Am I right? Come to rescue an imperiled king?”

“Yes.” The lad at his heels leaned against her table, his eyes as bright as the bird’s, adoring, acknowledging his master a clever fellow.

“Yes,” the crowd called out to him, echoing that sense of adoration.

“A young female set on besting you.” She guarded her voice, throwing it deeper than usual, trying to sound self-assured and throaty, like Lady Wilmington.

The lad announced to him her move. “King to knight four.”

Pip smiled and ruffled the boy’s hair, and leaned in over the chessboard as if he could see through the blindfold. He said with a seductive drawl, “You cannot best me, my dear. Your poor pawn is hopelessly outmanned.” And with that he announced his move—“Rook to queen five. Check”—and went on to the next player while the lad saw to it that the rook threatened her king once again.

Patience eyed the boy with interest, wondering who he was that Pip should use him thus.

The lad gave her no more than a glance. He was the firefly darting brightly from game to game, his posture and stance mimicking that of his master, the cheeky grin that possessed his mouth exuding confidence and superiority.

She focused on the board again, the cheers as Pip rousted another opponent fading in her mind as she studied how she might yet queen her pawn. She would not be distracted by the sudden heated rush of memory. She must not think of the moment this handsome young man had crawled beneath her velvet skirt so long ago, so very long ago, and both of them changed enormously since then.

She must narrow all thought and feeling to the limitations of the chessboard. She sharply studied all possible variations of movement across the field of dark and bright squares.

It was obvious what she must do next. She moved her king out of immediate danger, and Pip was upon her again, in a whirl of coattails and the spicy riches of liberally applied cologne. It was clever of him, really, to assault the senses so completely. Pip the dazzler. Pip the whirlwind of energy. He overwhelmed and conquered—as he always had. He was not, after all, a complete stranger.

“White king to knight three!” the lad cried out.

Pip leaned in close again to say, “We have met before, my pretty, yes?”

“Yes,” she admitted, low-voiced. “On more than one occasion.” Her manner was flirtatious, as Lady Wilmington had been flirtatious.

Head cocked, Pip smiled the dazzling, heart-catching smile she remembered, the smile that had won him what he wanted so many times as a child. He had always wielded it like the sharpest of swords, straight to the heart. Men and women fell prey to the power of such a smile. It made her knees weak. Her heart thudded loudly in her ears.

“Rook to queen six,” he instructed the lad. Again the smile flashed. “Check again, my dear. Your king is on the run, and soon to be mated.”

He whirled away, her eyes fixed on the board, and she saw at once the possibility for her pawn.

She moved her king and sat back to watch his next approach. Another player fell under his spell, another cheer from the crowd, and then he was teasing and laughing with a gentleman at the backgammon board next to hers, the fellow flushing as scarlet as her cloak when the dice favored Pip.

Glowing with his exertions, even more handsome than before, the tails of his coat, and blindfold aflutter, Pip and the exotic cockatoo swooped down on her.

“What have you for me, my lovely?” he asked.

“White king to bishop two,” the lad cried.

Pip cocked his head, as if surprised. “And so you would force a stalemate, would you, in queening your little pawn?”

“I do not give up without a fight,” she said, amazed that he remembered the board so clearly.

He smiled, shrugged, and made the move she had anticipated: rook to queen five.

He meant her to queen her pawn, sacrifice his rook, and end the game in a draw, but she had a surprise waiting for him upon his return to the board.

“Pawn to bishop eight,” the lad cried.

“And so”—Pip yawned, as if her move bored him—“your pawn becomes a queen.”

“Not queen,” she said, and watched him swallow the yawn with a dawning frown.

“No?”

“No, my pawn becomes a rook.”

He pondered this development a moment before, with a shrug, he said, “Rook to queen’s rook five.”

He might have whirled off again as the lad moved his rook, had she not swiftly made her own move and said quietly, “King to knight three. Check.”

The crowd flocking about the tables chirped in surprise.

“He is trapped,” someone murmured.

Pip stopped, head cocked, more birdlike than ever, the faintest of disappointed expressions tugging at his lower lip.

“Beaten me, has she?” he asked.

“Indeed she has,” someone called. Was it Richard?

Pip bowed with an elaborate flourish. “And thus it is demonstrated that it can be done with nothing but a clever pawn.”

Patience smiled. “As long as that pawn is in the hands of a clever woman.”

Behind her, Lady Wilmington laughed.

Beneath the blindfold Pip’s lips thinned, and then he smiled his most seductive smile. He leaned over her chessboard so that they were, for a moment, face-to-face, so close that she was swallowed up by his cologne. His pomade overpowered her. The virile, unfamiliar undercurrent of the man her childhood companion had become took her breath away. “So, Mistress Confident,” he said, his breath a caress against her cheek, “do you dare to play another game with me? A different game?”

Heat flooded her cheeks. She found she could not look at him. He loomed too close. She thought again of the day he had slipped under cover of her skirts.

The crowd’s comments grew bawdy.

Patience blushed, unused to being noticed, much less applauded in so public a fashion.

Pip had always possessed flash, and the right words, and an attitude of superior strength. He used it to help him win. She had watched him rattle Richard with it for years.

Richard. She turned her head to look for him. But Lady Wilmington stood alone. Patience gripped the chessboard to steady herself, to reclaim her equilibrium.

Where had Richard gone?

Pip meant to unnerve her. It would give him an edge in the game. And she was unnerved without Richard at her back, dear, dependable Richard.

“Tell me how I know you, my pretty,” Pip whispered, his breath dizzyingly warm against her ear, his lips a breath away, as she had imagined.
Oh, my!
This was much better than she had imagined. This very real and very virile Pip shook her far more than any Pip of her imaginings.

She inhaled sharply, then caught sight of movement in the crowd ahead of her, the movement of Richard taking fresh position that he might observe her play from better vantage, that she might observe him. He smiled reassuringly.

It bolstered her courage. This was only Pip, after all.

“Come, come, my dear. Tell me, where have we met?”

Her voice clear enough to carry to the edges of the throng, she said, “Telling too much, my lord, would spoil the game. But I would warn you I am much better at backgammon than chess.”

The crowd applauded.

Pip barked out a laugh as he rose, posture proud, the paisley silk that bound his eyes whipping in the breeze, his expression as cocksure as the cockatoo, who thrust out its chest and unfurled its topknot of feathers with a cry of, “It’s a game. It’s a game.”

Pip was amused. He was always amused. “Oho!” He threw back his head to laugh. “A worthy foe!”

Beyond him, with the slightest of nods, Richard pointed to the abandoned backgammon board closest to where he stood.

Spirits high, laughter bubbling in her throat, Patience rose, situated herself behind the board, and swiftly arranged both sets of men to begin the game. Around her, new players filled the empty tables.

How did he do it? she wondered, impressed afresh. Twelve games at once, while blindfolded. Could it be he memorized all twelve games as he went? Pip had always demonstrated a remarkable gift for remembering things.

She thought again of the moment in which he had slid under the table, under her skirts. Heat flared in her cheeks—and lower, a heat, a need he stirred in her. It left her as damp as the nape of his neck had been that day. He would remember as clearly as she did. She was sure of it.

He took them on again, a dozen players. He flitted between like a jovial, clever-witted butterfly. The crowd loved him, the players, too, even as he beat them. He had a special word, the gleam of that heart-stopping smile for each and every one of them.

The outcome was no different than expected. He beat them, one after another, except for her. She had always bested Pip at backgammon. To best him blindfolded hardly seemed sporting.

The dice favored her from the start with double aces, which brought a smile to her face, a chortle to her lips every time she let them fly from the cup. She played a running game, her back men hitting or jumping the bar early due to a series of doubles, Pip’s lad calling out the play with a glee that matched her own.

Pip did his best to catch up, but the numbers were not fortuitous.

“Quatre ace!”
the lad cried out. And “
Trois deuce!
Bad luck again, my lord, for you are left open for a hit.”

And with the next throw, as luck would have it, hit him she did, trapping his man for the better part of the play. She had him from the start. She knew it. She could feel it in her bones. It sang in her veins almost as loudly as did her pleasure in seeing him, in watching him make his moves without his knowing it was she who blocked his play.

He frowned on his next throw when
deuce ace
fell to his lot, opening up another man for another hit. He pursed his lips unhappily on the fifth cast, tossing aside the cup in frustration when the lad announced low numbers yet again.

He had no choice but to play a blocking game, his manner growing more intent with every pass. The brilliance of his smiles faded; his teasing manner grew more acerbic when she trapped two of his men on the bar.

He knew he was losing.

She knew she would win, and reveled in it—even teased him a bit. It was not altogether kind of her, but it was Pip, and she had always enjoyed teasing him, besting him. She was sure he would eventually recognize her voice, or the manner in which she moved her pieces. She waited for discovery.

Perhaps it was unfair of her. He was, after all, distracted.

Her sense of elation at the idea of a double victory soured as their play progressed, as Pip’s remarks became more biting, as his forehead knitted in a frown above the paisley blindfold, as his sparkling smile and unending wit faltered. Pip had always hated to lose. On occasion, as a child, he had been known to throw tantrums. She had almost forgotten. It was so long ago. He was now a man grown. She had never imagined he still fell prey to any ill-mannered sensibilities. And he had met her first win with good-natured jests and a keen sense of competition.

He had changed, but not completely.

She began to think he would not lose twice to her with the same mature humor and sportsmanship. She hated to think he might revert to childish petulance. He had once gone four days without speaking to her when she beat him too soundly at whist.