He laughed in genuine delight. “A night of debauchery? My dear child, I would like to show you one. Then you would not be so careless with language. It seems to me that we spent five hours in fast driving before we arrived here, and less than three hours in debauchery, which sadly was mine alone.”
Joanna shrugged with considerable eloquence, a dismissal of this perfectly correct statement. She felt quite exhausted from her night without sleep, and she was rapidly losing patience with her escort.
“You’re the one careless with words, sir. If I remember rightly, in the garden at Fenton Stacey you compared my eyes to a summer sky, when they are quite black. As black as my hair, in fact.”
“A winter sky—at midnight,” he corrected, still blocking the doorway so that she could not leave. “Like the darkness we drove through all night. I was creating poetic images, my dear.”
“And now you’re truly foxed,” Joanna continued as if he had not spoken. “And think to enact a small drama for your amusement. Very well. I wonder why you did not make the attempt before now. If it will be enough for you to let me pass, you may kiss me, if you like.”
He narrowed his eyes a little. “May I? Have you ever been kissed, Lady Joanna?”
She turned away and walked to the window. Pushing hard at the catch, she opened it and looked down into the courtyard below.
“By someone like you? No, I haven’t. But I think it might be quite an interesting experience. You’re a rake, aren’t you? I imagine you’ve had lots of practice.” Her mood changed suddenly and she put both hands on the sill. “Good Lord! How outrageous! That team is ready to drop.”
“What?” Quentin sounded a little disconcerted.
“A man just arrived in a high-perch phaeton, of all things. Beneath a liberal spattering of mire, one can see that the wheels are picked out in yellow and black in the very latest mode. There’s an exactly correct amount of seriously shiny brass. It’s a most expensive rig to risk among the flyers and wagons, yet it would seem that he has driven that showy town carriage at breakneck speed along the turnpike. His cattle are quite soaked with foam.”
Joanna leaned further from the window.
“You might have more care for those poor horses, sir!” she yelled. “Do you think to call yourself a gentleman?”
* * *
Fitzroy leaped down from the phaeton, handed the reins to an ostler, and looked up. Some termagant was shouting at him from an upstairs window.
He had driven hard and fast in pursuit of his father’s curricle. It had been absurdly easy to trace. After leaving Miss Able’s Academy, Quentin had obviously made no effort to cover his tracks, and had attracted notice at each toll gate and posting house by the speed with which he was traveling and his liberal dispensing of vails.
By the time the sun was coming up over Bedfordshire, Fitzroy knew he would catch up with the fugitives long before they reached Scotland. But he was also painfully aware that Lady Joanna Acton had just spent a night in his profligate brother’s company.
He was not at all sure what he was going to do about it when he caught up with them.
Nevertheless, his last change of horses had put him not more than a few hours behind them. He would make inquiries here at the Swan, get a quick bite to eat and fresh horses, before pressing on once again.
The sound of a young female voice dropping invective on his head was the cap to an already exhausting journey.
“Do you think to call yourself a gentleman?”
She was leaning from a window, the thin morning sun shining on impossibly rich black hair piled on top of her head in a mass of curls. Above perfectly molded cheekbones, her eyes were impenetrable. Deeply black, they seemed to be all pupil under glossy black brows which arched provocatively up at the center. Her color was high, bringing a deep flush to her cheeks.
For one absurd moment, he thought of the fairy tale: hair black as ebony, skin white as snow, lips red as blood—Snow White, who lay in a glass coffin and waited for a prince to awaken her with a kiss.
Their eyes met for one burning instant before she blushed and spun away. A moment later a brown-haired gentleman appeared at her shoulder.
The man looked at Fitzroy and laughed. With a wink he pulled the girl from the window, only to take her exquisitely delicate chin in his hand.
He searched her face for a moment while she stared back up at him. Then he began to kiss her far too thoroughly on those blood-red lips.
Fitzroy’s driving whip bent almost double in his hands.
Quentin
, for God’s sake!
* * *
Lady Mary retired to her bedchamber with every expectation of going straight back to sleep. She felt feverish and ached most uncomfortably in every limb, but she was filled with relief that this dreadful family emergency was in Fitzroy’s competent hands.
For as long as she could remember, Fitzroy had been rescuing Quentin and shielding him from the wrath of their father. It didn’t occur to her that he could ever fail.
A sleepy lady’s maid had just helped her to undress and put on her night rail, when the entire house reverberated to the sound of a slammed door, agitated voices, and heavy footsteps ascending the stairs.
To the astonishment of the maid, the door to Mary’s chamber burst open and the agitation swept into the room.
“Evenham! Pray, Mary is ill.”
Lady Evenham, Mary’s mother, was clutching at the sleeve of a handsome, dark-haired gentleman, who bore a striking resemblance to his oldest son, Fitzroy. He had the same height and dark, deep-set eyes. His black hair, graying only a little at the temples, framed a face with the same strong cheekbones. But there was no mistaking the air of absolute authority with which he moved and spoke.
One imperious gesture waved the maid away. With a quick curtsy, she fled.
Now, heaven help me!
Mary breathed to herself.
The Black Earl, himself. Father.
Lord Evenham strode across the room to stand over her. He looked splendid, in a dark blue evening jacket with a discreet scattering of gold: his watch chain, his rings, his cravat pin.
“Your mother believes you too ill to speak, Mary, but I am given to understand that, in spite of your indisposition, less than an hour ago you made Smithers fetch Fitzroy’s phaeton. You then had him drive you to Lord and Lady Carhill’s ball—which earlier you declined to attend with your mother and myself—at two o’clock in the morning. There you had a private interview with your brother Fitzroy, who has now disappeared with said phaeton. Will you please tell me what possible emergency could justify this extraordinary behavior?”
Mary looked down at her hands clasped together in her lap. A hot flush crept up her cheeks. She felt miserable.
“The child has a fever, Evenham. She should be abed.”
The earl glanced once at his wife.
“Exactly, madam! She also has a kind heart and a foolish brain. What she intends to withhold from us is that Fitzroy has gone in pursuit of Quentin, who has taken my curricle in order to effect an elopement. An
elopement
, madam! He has stolen a schoolgirl from Miss Able’s Academy for Young Ladies and is taking her to Scotland as we speak. If Fitzroy does not catch them in time to avoid scandal, an inflammation of the lungs will seem like a blessing in comparison.”
“Get into bed, Mary,” the countess said calmly, taking a seat beside the fire.
Lady Mary looked at her father.
“Go ahead!” He waved one hand. “It’s none of it your fault. However, I would ask that you inform
me
before you go scurrying to Fitzroy, if such a situation ever arises again in the future. You may worship the very soles of his boots, Mary, but Fitzroy is as determined to bring disaster to this family as his brother is. And worse! He is the heir.” He struck his fist once into the palm of the opposite hand. “So before you go into a decline, I pray you will tell me the name of the girl Quentin has seen fit to ruin this time. Otherwise I shall get the information out of the servants, an indignity I prefer to avoid. Out with it, madam!”
Mary climbed into bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. She kept her eyes fixed on the painting that hung on the opposite wall. It was a portrait of eight pigeons, which she, Fitzroy, and Quentin had kept as children.
Tails spread, rust, gray, salmon, and ivory, a rich bloom on their feathers, the birds were arranged in an elegant group in the foreground. Evenham Abbey sprawled in the background, its medieval arches and crumbling towers a picturesque ruin.
In the days of Henry VIII, it had been a rich prize for the king to hand to his most loyal supporter, a man who had married one of Catherine of Aragon’s Spanish ladies-in-waiting, but had been prudent enough to change his religion when his sovereign required it. An ignoble enough beginning to Evenham power and prestige, the wealth that had come from all that abbey land, stolen from the monks.
She took a deep breath. “It’s Lady Joanna Acton, Papa. I’m very sorry.”
For a moment, her father stared at her in silence. Then he crossed to the fireplace and courteously helped his wife to her feet. Lady Evenham walked to the door and allowed him to open it for her. The earl did so with practiced grace, and she stepped into the corridor as if entering a measure in the ballroom.
Lord Evenham said nothing until he was about to close the door behind him.
It was just one sentence, but the implacable words were quite distinct.
“Then it’s Fitzroy who will pay for this,” he said.
* * *
The pupils at Miss Able’s Academy were expected to rise at six and wash in cold water in preparation for their devotions in the school chapel. Thus it was still dark when Miss Able was informed that Lady Joanna was not in her room, and that several of her things had gone missing.
Miss Able called immediately for Joanna’s little sister, Lady Matilda Acton.
Milly stepped into the headmistress’s study still sleepy, but she kept her back straight and met Miss Able’s pale eyes with more defiance than was seemly. She was dressed in a simple muslin gown and cotton apron over ankle-length pantaloons. Her blond hair lay in two golden plaits. The plain dress only enhanced Milly’s quite exceptional beauty.
Miss Able was seated behind her desk, but Milly had to stand, head up and shoulders straight, for as long as was deemed necessary to teach little girls correct deportment and respect for their elders.
Since in the past this had stretched to over an hour, she exaggerated the stance, just enough to annoy without giving Miss Able any room to correct her, even though her left stocking was uncomfortably twisted in her shoe and she hadn’t had any breakfast.
Milly thought about Joan of Arc before her inquisitors and bore it stoically.
“Your sister appears to have left us, Lady Matilda. Did she speak to you about it?”
Milly curtsied. It helped the stress on the back to move whenever the opportunity presented itself.
“Yes, Miss Able.”
“Report to me exactly what she said, if you please. Exactly!”
Milly’s blue eyes were perfectly serious, her small chin quite steady. She curtsied again and hoped the rustle of her skirts would cover the rumble of her empty stomach. Miss Able’s pupils were expected to control such indecorous expressions of bodily function.
“Yes, ma’am. She said that she intended to go where there was hot water to wash with in the morning. Where no one would ask her to memorize enormous stretches of meaningless Latin, instead of introducing her to the modern poets. And where there wouldn’t be any more interminable sermons from dried-up old ladies in abominable wigs. I remember her words exactly, Miss Able. My sister Joanna is very fond of the modern poets. That’s what we all read together when we visit our brother Richard at Acton Mead. The modern poets, and Shakespeare, of course. Richard’s wife, Helena, has a wonderful voice for reading aloud.”
“I’m sure Lady Lenwood allows you to hear only what is proper,” Miss Able said, her voice tight. “What else did Lady Joanna tell you?”
“When I asked her if she planned to run away alone, she told me not to be silly, that a gentleman was going to meet her with a curricle at the end of the lane at midnight, and that she would be quite safe. I’m not in the least concerned for her, Miss Able.”
After a dreadful silence, Miss Able let out a groan. To Milly’s amazement, she put both hands over her face and groaned again. All her horror that the little girls knew that she wore a wig melted away, as she concentrated on the one piece of information appalling enough to destroy her.
“A gentleman?” she said at last, with an odd little choke.
“Yes, Miss Able. He’s the Honorable Quentin Mountfitchet, a son of the Earl of Evenham, you know. So it’s quite all right.”
The pale eyes squeezed shut. “Pray, Lady Matilda, will you please ring the bell for Miss Sandhurst.”
Milly rang the bell, and a small, thin lady entered the room.
Miss Able looked up. Her skin had the look of mud in December.
“Miss Sandhurst, we are faced with a calamity. Lady Joanna Acton has run away with a gentleman in a curricle, a gentleman with a most unfortunate reputation. She has been gone since midnight. There is no alternative but to send a message to her family immediately.”
Miss Sandhurst turned white, then green.
“Oh, my! The Actons? Lord and Lady Acton? Oh, my!”
“Will they come here, Miss Able?” Milly asked. “And Richard?”
The headmistress looked sharply at her noble pupil. It was as if frost had crept over the mud, sending a craze of ice shards across the ground.
“Lady Matilda, you will be pleased to write an essay on the benefits of the regimen at this school. Two thousand words. By nine o’clock sharp. You will place particular emphasis on those requirements that are designed to secure the physical, moral, and spiritual health of the pupils, and thus convert heathen children into English ladies whose future calling is to serve as the wives and mothers of this great nation. You may go.”
Milly curtsied and left, filled with enough admiration for her sister’s escape to almost offset the burden of writing two thousand words of hypocrisy.