Elisabeth Fairchild (9 page)

Patience shook her head. “I do not think so. Their features were not at all similar.”

Pip listened attentively. “She was pretty, yes? I am sure she was pretty.”

Lady Wilmington’s smile faded as she folded her fan.

Richard’s head rose. Patience could feel the weight of his gaze upon her without even looking at him.

“Surely any woman’s perceived beauty is a matter of taste,” she said carefully.

“Well, she was most definitely to mine. Smelled nice, too. Lily of the valley, if I am not mistaken.” Pip’s enthusiasm was irrepressible. For a moment it buoyed Patience.

“I wear Lily of the valley,” she reminded him, sure he must know her now, sure it would take only a good whiff of her to jog his memory.

“Is it you who smells so sweet?” Pip asked. “And all this time I thought it her.”

The remark struck at her pride, dagger sharp.

“Sorry to disappoint,” she said. Her own sense of disappointment swamped her, dragging down the point of her chin.

They were looking at her, all of them, and that Richard and Lady Wilmington knew the truth of it made their examination harder to bear.

“No, no, now, pet,” Pip tried to soothe her. “Do not look downcast. You do not disappoint me. Not in the least.”

She looked up at him, hopeful, wanting him to make it right again.

“You have been far more forthcoming than these two.” He looked pointedly at Richard and Lady Wilmington. “Whom I thought my dearest friends. Now tell me more of my mystery woman.”

Patience tossed her head, shrugging aside her melancholy, looking first at Lady Wilmington, who gazed back with a tight-lipped smile—an expression of pity.

She did not wish to be pitied.

Richard’s head tilted. His eyes narrowed, as if he would read her feelings without a word said. Patience licked dry lips and, forcing a smile, looked Pip directly in the eyes. “I think she enjoyed herself,” she said.

“Did she?” Lady Wilmington sounded a trifle surprised.

“Yes.” Patience lifted her chin. “Would you not agree? It looked as if she enjoyed beating him. She was laughing as she ran away.”

“Laughing? Was she really laughing?” Pip asked.

“Exhibiting very strong emotion, yes,” Richard said.

Patience smiled at him.

“Is it so very impossible to imagine someone might find you amusing on occasion?” Lady Wilmington teased.

“That tears it,” Pip cried. “We must track down this elusive sylph. I must know who she is.” He stood and, leaning over the table, reached for Patience’s hand. “And you are going to help me.”

She thrilled to the touch of his hand. “Am I? How?”

He leaned closer and whispered, “Our little secret.”

A secret shared with everyone at the table
, she thought, and yet he managed to make it sound magical—intimate.

“I shall call on you soon to hatch my plot,” he promised. “You have my word.”

Chapter Ten

Patience daydreamed as she walked.

“Our little secret,” Pip had whispered. “I shall call on you soon.”

How warm his hand to hers, how electric the brush of fingertips. She had thrilled to the same illicit, breath-held feeling of guilty anticipation earlier, at the sight of naked legs.

His breath had tickled her cheek.

His promise gilded the evening. Lamplight painted laughing faces. Candlelight upon the tables gave every eye a bright twinkle. The stars strove to match that light.

“I do not cut short our evening too soon, do I?” Gloved hand at her elbow, Richard steered her through orderly rows of columns that separated them from dinner boxes crowded with revelers.

Patience started. A drunken fellow reeled out in front of them, muttering something incomprehensible. Richard took a firmer grip upon her elbow to smoothly skirt the man’s staggering progress.

Under a canopy of leaves they went, she and dear, reliable Richard, who would see her safely home before the revelry grew too rowdy, his arm steady beneath her gloved hand, while her head swam with music and memory and imaginings of the future.

Patience sighed and gave her head a shake, her mind still firmly rooted in the pulse-tingling sensation of Pip’s lips grazing her fingertips, his voice provocatively low. He would come soon—on his honor. She could not doubt such a vow.

“Did you ask me something?”

“Do I spoil your evening in cutting it short?”

“Oh, no. It has been a lovely evening.” She twirled to the music, pulling him into the magic of flute and strings, so that they danced instead of walking, and still made progress in the direction he would lead her. And then she fell into demure step beside him, and flung back her head to gaze at the stars that had so fascinated him earlier, and said, “Do you know I have enjoyed nothing so exciting since we have come to London as this trip to Vauxhall?”

“This illicit trip?” he chided. “You did not enjoy our afternoon in Hyde Park?”

“Of course I did. And very kind of you to think to take me there for a lunch alfresco.”

“But?”

Patience bit her lower lip and looked up at him through her lashes. “But there is something very exciting about coming here without Mama, knowing she and Papa would not approve, wearing a mask so that no one will know to tell them I have been naughty.” She could no longer suppress her smiles, and so gave up the effort. “The hoyden revived,” she said with a mischievous sideways glance.

And then she blushed, for with mention of the word resurfaced the image of a true hoyden, her legs at any rate, and suddenly Patience took the word and all its connotations deeply to heart, and felt ashamed to so lightly associate herself with the term.

Richard stopped to look into her eyes as well as one might from behind a mask in an outdoor park under shadow of the row of trees that would lead them through the gatehouse. He tilted his head in remarking, “I do not care to hear you use that word in describing yourself.”

Neither did she, at this point, and so she agreed at once.

“As you wish.” And knowing why it mattered to her, she wondered why it mattered to him, and if he had, after all, seen the same legs she had.

“You arouse my curiosity,” he said slowly, and she wondered anew if he chose the word
aroused
by chance or by design.

“Do you find this evening more exciting than the ball at Percy’s?”

Percy’s? Oh, dear.
The ball had been, in her estimation, incredibly boring.

She nodded without hesitation. “Much more so.”

“Really?” He sounded so very serious in asking, as though her answer surprised him.

Richard was always so very grave in his conversation. Even as a child he had been thus—there was seldom anything light or carefree in his manner.

She gave his hand a squeeze, and hoped to bring a smile to his lips in saying, “I enjoyed meeting your friends, of course.”

He nodded gravely. “I am glad.”

“This friend you mean me to marry?”

He turned his head, lamplight gleaming in his eyes. “Yes?”

“Was he among them? Did we dance? I loved the dancing.”

His jaw tensed. “Was there no one there you were particularly drawn to?”

“Not really. I enjoyed our dance more than any other.”

He fell to studying his shoes. “I enjoyed dancing as well,” he said. “But?” He looked up, lips pressed together.

It was her turn to frown. “What do you mean, but?” Why should there be a
but
when it came to their dancing?

“There is a
but
inherent in what you were saying,” he prodded.

She let go her hold on his arm and turned to observe the last row of dinner boxes. So many people to see here, so many beautiful hats and dresses, so many glittering satin masks. It had been a wonderful evening, a dazzling garden to visit. “Well, there was no chance of seeing Pip at Percy’s, was there?” she said.

“Ah! And was that so very important?”

“But of course. The three of us together again. Like tonight. It is my fondest childhood memory. I should have been dreadfully lonely without the two of you to play cards and catch fish and climb trees with.”

“I cherish those times as well.”

She whirled and, looking back the way they had come, wrapped her arms across her chest and said fervently, “I shall cherish this evening always. Thank you for it. For bringing me to the forbidden garden where proper young ladies dare not roam, and costumed women walk among the stars, and—”

“Pickpockets lurk,” he said wryly.

“So you say,” she said, and patted the little bulge beneath her skirt that was her reticule. “But I have not been preyed upon, as you so dourly predicted.”

“That’s a relief, for somewhere along the path from the food kiosks to the Wilmingtons’ dinner box”—he patted at his pocket—“my purse was snatched, and I very much regret to admit that we must depend upon your allowance to tip the coachman this evening.”

“But of course. And very sorry I am to hear that your evening was so troubled. You said nothing when it happened.”

“No sense in upsetting our gay party. I shall repay you, of course.”

“Never mind that. It is what the money is for, and I owe you for my dinner, which had to have come from your pocket, as you were the one who fetched it. Indeed, did you pay for everyone’s dinner? And the wine? Your pickpocket could not have had much leavings after such an outlay.”

“No. He was left with next to nothing.” Richard sighed and tipped his hat to the gatekeeper as the man swung wide the Dutch door for them.

It occurred to her that it was rather odd that he should sigh for a pickpocket’s losses. Pip would have laughed, as would she. But Richard sighed.

Dear Richard.

Chapter Eleven

Patience delved into her skirt pocket for her purse.

As they stood beneath the stars at the street’s edge, waiting while a lad ran to tell the coachman they were ready, she discreetly handed over her reticule and said, “You will need a coin or two for the lad as well, will you not?”

Richard nodded as he struggled with the knotted string, his hands strangely awkward. “Cannot see to do anything through this blasted mask,” he complained, and wrenched it from his face.

She said, “Here, let me,” and had it open in a trice while he, tight-lipped, head down, shoulders hunched, looked in the direction the lad had run and whirled the mask by its string, around his finger first one way, and then the other.

“Thank you,” he said, and took the handful of coins she handed him, far more than he would need, and yet he did not argue with her, did not insist she take any of them back again, simply looked her in the eyes with a most profound expression of gratitude.

“I should thank you,” she said, a trifle uneasy that he regarded her so.

He blinked, pocketed the coins, looked away a moment, mask dangling limply, before he said in much more his usual tone, “Whatever for?”

“You did not tell him I was the woman in red,” she said.

“Nor will I,” he said calmly as he carefully looped the strings about the nose bridge of the mask.

“You knew I did not wish it?” She reached up to untie the strings of her own mask.

He frowned, and paused in answering her, for the coach arrived, and there was the footman opening the door and letting down the step, and Richard held out a hand to her, that she might more easily climb up.

Patience settled into the coach and waited for Richard to seat himself beside her. The door was slammed shut, and the footman’s jump onto his station at the back gave the coach its final sway before the horses were bidden “Walk on” by the coachman above.

Richard spoke then, his voice low, that he might not be overheard, so low Patience had to lean forward to hear above the rumble of the wheels. “In all honesty, dear Patience . . .” He twisted to look her directly in the eyes as he spoke, each word enunciated carefully. “I did not tell Pip you were the woman he found so fascinating because I am loath to be the one to put anything in the way of what I consider an excellent match for our friend.”

She leaned back abruptly, cheeks burning, as if he had slapped them both, her jaw very tight as she restrained the torrent of words she longed to fling at him. “I see,” she said coolly, when she did not see at all. “And why is it such a good match?”

He sighed and rubbed at the bridge of his brows. “Good breeding. A spotless reputation. She has the head for finance that Pip has not, and from all signs she cares for him.”

She closed her eyes to him, to the moonlit lines of tension in his forehead, to the rigidness of his posture. She felt betrayed. “And do you see signs that he loves her?”

“Would you suggest otherwise?”

She listened to the wheels’ thunder, felt it rumble from the seat she rested her head against, as his breath, his words, had earlier rumbled against her breast. She could not see his face in the darkness, only now and then a glimpse of the curve of his cheek, the movement of his hand, the gleam of his eyes.

I’ve a headache brewing
, she thought. “Something he said made me wonder.”

Richard’s lips pursed. “If he does not, more’s the pity. Of all those he has shown an infatuation for, she would make him the best wife.”

She watched for him, in glimpses, surprised to find in the occasional flare of lamplight that he had turned to do the same, his eyes seeking hers from the darkness.

“And the woman in red?”

“What of her?”

“Is he infatuated with her?”

“Of course he is—for the moment. Pip is a man in love with the idea of being in love.”

There he was, and there. The familiar nose loomed from the darkness, the steadfast calm regard. His eyes narrowed. “Do you wish him to be infatuated?”

“No, of course not. Don’t be silly,” she lied as she rubbed the fabric of her sleeve where his hand had rested as he promised to call on her, and soon. Richard was gone again, the coach drenched in darkness deep as a lake, and just as still, and she wondered if she had imagined the hint of concern in his question.

When he said nothing in response and the silence gathered thick as the shadows between them, she asked nonchalantly, “Would it be such a bad thing? Would we not make as good a match as he and Miss Sophie . . . what is her name? I have forgotten.” Her head, the clarity of thought, felt as if it were being swallowed by darkness as surely as his face had been.

“Defoe.” His voice rose quietly from the gloom.

Defoe!
Her foe. She could not read his expression—there was not enough light—but she could see from the occasional gleam of his eyes that he still pinned her with his gaze in an attempt to delve the darkness as much as she. “I cannot see you happy with him.”

He could not see much of anything at the moment, could he?

She opened her mouth to object, but his voice cut hers short. “Not just for the moment. I know how incomparably entertaining and absorbed Pip can be. What I mean is that I cannot see you happy beyond the moment. Can you see yourself content with him as an old man? When you are an old woman?”

So seriously he asked the question, so intense the tenor of his voice. She heard him lean forward in the seat, read the gleam of heartfelt concern in the sudden glow of a street lamp. She resisted her first impulse to blurt out a defense, and seriously considered her answer.

He leaned back as she pondered, his features lost to her, and yet she could feel the urgency of that concern even in the darkness.

So long had she imagined Pip as her only happiness that Richard’s doubts seemed at first ridiculous. Of course she would be content with him beyond the moment. Had she not been content with thoughts of him for most of her youth?

And yet Richard was not one to waste time with the ridiculous. Would she be happy with Pip an old man, perhaps plump and gouty like Lord Wilmington? How difficult to think so far into the future, to imagine Pip no longer young and virile. Would she love him any less for it? Surely he would cling to his wit, his sharpness of mind. He would not lose his love of games, would he?

She said at last, quietly, with conviction, “I could not, would not love anyone dear to me less for no more reason than that they had aged as much as I.”

He said nothing. The darkness cloaked all hint of reaction.

She sighed.

“What of you? And this mysterious love of yours? Could you love her less merely because she grew wrinkled and bent with age?”

Silence from the shadows. She watched his hands stir, restless in their grip upon starlit thighs. Such long legs he had—they had always seemed long to her, especially as a girl.

He uttered a heartfelt, “No.”

She thought of Lady Wilmington and wondered if he found her all the more admirable for her affections for the old man she had wed. “And if she loved another?”

He started, leaned forward. Again she caught glimpse of his features. He looked as if she had struck him hard across the cheek with the question. “Why do you ask?”

And so it would seem, whoever she was, she did love another.

“Would you still love her?”

He hovered a moment, unmoving in the darkness as if imprisoned by her question, and she knew for a certainty her suspicions were well-founded. She would lay money on it. He was in love with Lady Wilmington.
Poor Richard.

“Yes,” he said at last, his voice weak, but growing stronger in repeating the word a second time. “Yes, I would still love her!”

“You would wait for her?”

He took a deep breath. “What do you mean?”

“I know who you are in love with,” she said quietly.

His head tipped at a fresh angle, the gleam in his eyes reflecting all the light the night had to offer. “You do?”

“It is . . .” She smiled into the darkness, confident she saw quite clearly where love was concerned. “It’s obvious to me.”

He drew a deep breath and turned to gaze out the window, his hands restless on his knees, the dark sheen of his hair gone silver in the starlight. So tense the dark bulk of him looked, as if he would spring from the moving carriage in an instant.

“You surprise me.” He shook his head. In a sudden flash of light she saw that he had closed his eyes. “I thought myself so very careful—discreet. You do not know how many times I have longed to tell you, to reveal all that I feel, to profess my undying affections.”

“For Lady Wilmington,” she murmured.

The dark shape of him went very still against the backdrop of moving darkness.

She nodded, pitying him. “I like her very well, Richard, after only one encounter. And it is clear she holds you in very high regard. I can see why you would fall in love with her.”

His brows shot upward, into the dark shadow the forelock of his hair painted briefly on his forehead. “Can you, indeed?” He released the clutch on his knees, flexing his fingers as he did so. Was he frowning?

“Yes. Also why you have not revealed—indeed, cannot reveal—your feelings for her.” She reached forward to give his poorly illuminated hand an affectionate pat.

His flinch surprised her.

“I promise not to tell anyone,” she assured him.

“That would be best,” he said, voice low. He retreated into the shadows again, withdrawing his gloved hand from hers.

It pained her that the gesture of affection should be rebuffed. “Quite right,” she said with asperity. “I am not one to start a scandal.”

“It would be a falsehood,” he said flatly.

“What?” she chided. “You would tell me it is not Lady Wilmington?”

“I would. I do.” He sounded put out with her.

“I do not believe you.”

“Do you call me a liar then?” So angry he sounded, and sad. She could not imagine why he should sound sad if it was not Lady Wilmington.

“No. Never that, but . . .” She was mightily confused. “If not Lady Wilmington, then who?”

Silence from the shadows. His hands told her nothing.

She made an impatient noise. “But you just said you had been longing to tell me.”

He laughed, and yet it was not a sound of amusement so much as chagrin. “And now I’ve no desire at all. Indeed, I shall lose all patience with you if you persist in asking.”

Light at last, revealing what she would rather not see, his features severe, unhappy with her, and then the darkness returned, as colorless and empty as her heart.

“You would lose all patience with your Patience?” Her laughter sounded flat and false, and yet she must try to stir his humor, must scan the darkness for some small sign that he relented. “That is not at all like you, Richard. I begin to dislike this phantom woman, whoever she may be, if she puts you out of sorts.”

He held tongue, refusing to look her way, seemingly engrossed in the flashes of light and shadow to be seen through the window, irritation trapped in bursts upon his features.

Patience found herself undeniably cross with him as the carriage delivered her in silence to the town house her parents had taken. It was so unlike Richard to sulk—to cease all conversation. So ill-mannered. She did not know what to make of it. Indeed, she did not.