The Crafters Book Two (17 page)

“Oh, but you mustn’t!” Anthea had cried, aghast even though she wasn’t quite certain of the meaning.

“I would never think of it, miss,” Hester replied, eyes dry but swollen thoroughly now. “I shall bear the babe if it is my last living act—but, oh! —how am I to manage? Your aunt would throw me out into the street if she knew! What am I to do?”

Anthea hesitated between fear and propriety for a moment, then clasped Hester’s hand firmly and said, “You must have faith in your mistress.”

“Oh, I do, miss! What do you bid me do?”

“Not just myself, Hester—Aunt Trudy.”

“Oh, no, miss!” Hester pulled her hand free, shrinking away. “She’d fly into a rage if I told her! She cast me out on the instant!”

“She would do no such thing,” Anthea said firmly. “You know her, Hester—she is a kind and understanding person, who would never condemn another woman for being swayed by love. Come, we must tell her.” And taking Hester by the hand, she swept her off, protesting, to Aunt Trudy, her confidence in her aunt so great as to surmount any doubt.

That confidence was not misplaced, though Aunt Trudy was saddened by the news, then lectured Hester on her folly. Hester, to her credit, only acknowledged the truth of her employer’s words and asked Aunt Trudy’s pardon, which was given instantly. “But what are we to do with you, girl? We can’t have you staying here to suffer the ridicule of your fellow servants, and have your shame known to the world.”

Hester’s eyes filled again. “I would never think of shaming you, milady.”

“Nor would you ever do so.” Aunt Trudy embraced the poor maid. “You are of my household, Hester, and it is not my custom to desert my people in their hour of need. But where shall we send you when your condition can no longer be hidden?”

“Aunt Trudy?” Anthea said diffidently.

“Yes, child?” Aunt Trudy looked up. “She is your maid, after all, and you must accept some measure of the responsibility for her well-being. What can you recommend?”

“Send her home. To my home, I mean—to Windhaven.”

“The very thing!” Aunt Trudy clapped her hands. “None know you there, Hester, and heaven knows there’s need of you. The housekeeper is compassionate and gentle, I’ve seen to that—though she’s stern about duty, mind! Your secret would be safe there, and we can legitimately send you to see to your mistress’s affairs for several months—really, there wasn’t a single room in the house fit for a young lady, and you’ve wit enough to see to the transforming of a suite, Hester. The babe will be safe there—”

“Oh, yes! It was a wonderful place to grow up!—Your pardon, Aunt,” Anthea said, lowering her eyes.

“Given gladly,” Aunt Trudy replied. “There are tenant families who would be glad enough to have one more if there were a little money to help feed it, and if you’re minded to have the child adopted. However, there are also wetnurses available to tend it, if you don’t wish to give it up but have it reared in the manor. For you know, Hester, that we’ll expect you back in London within the year.”

“I would want nothing more, milady! Oh, thank you, milady!” And the tears flowed again, but this time it was Aunt Trudy who took the maid into her arms and risked water-spotting her gown.

* * *

Life proceeded at its normal, and rather dizzying, pace; Hester remained in attendance on Anthea, for it would be a few months more before her condition was so pronounced as to require her removal. Anthea found that there was a bond of sympathy established between herself and her maid now, and she felt free to confide in Hester, especially in regard to her feelings about her two foremost suitors. She did not explain, though, that she rather hoped neither of them would encounter Sir Roderick, for she didn’t believe Hester would be reassured to learn of the family ghost of Windhaven Manor just now. Besides, Sir Roderick had assured her that only family, or those extremely gifted with that Talent the Celts termed “fey,” could see him. There seemed little danger of that, though, for Sir Roderick had been oddly absent since the Season’s beginning. To be fair, Anthea would have had to admit that she hadn’t had time to chat with him, and he apparently didn’t want her to slacken her breakneck course.

Lord Delbert’s attentions became more and more ardent; he began to steal a kiss in the garden, and in the drawing room, when Aunt Trudy was absent—kisses that became longer, his tongue dancing lightly over her lips in a pattern that sent thrills coursing through Anthea’s whole body. She knew she should have slapped him, told him to desist—but was afraid that he might.

Mr. Crafter, on the other hand, was unhappily the soul of propriety—Anthea could have wished for the opportunity to compare his kisses with Lord Delbert’s. He did, however, spend more and more time looking soulfully into her eyes, and once, when she protested that a man of such broad experience and depth of learning should find an unlettered chit like herself to be boring, he assured her, “Nothing could be farther off the mark, Miss Gosling. You are astonishingly well-read for so young a lady, and have a lively and inquiring mind that entrances me.” Then his gaze sharpened in that disconcerting intensity of his. “But more—there is some quality about you that attracts me mightily, as the steel to the lodestone. You have some element of empathy that far exceeds that of most people, and I suspect you have an inordinate sensitivity which you are at pains to hide.” Anthea felt alarmed, and her face must have shown it, for he broke the tension with a puckish smile. “Besides, you’re the best opponent at chess I’ve had in many a year. Will you play?”

She would, but she found herself wishing that it had been another game to which he had invited her. She wasn’t quite sure what it was, but she wished it.

It was Lord Delbert who named it, one night when Aunt Trudy was detained with the housekeeper. He pressed Anthea to him, kissed her far more passionately than ever before, then whispered, “I can no longer live without you—I must have all your favors at once, and for all my life! Run away with me tonight, to Gretna Green!”

And Anthea, to her shame, said yes.

Delbert swore her to silence, claiming that if Aunt Trudy knew of it she would prevent them for more months than he could stand—that he would positively wither away from unrequited love. Anthea doubted that, but she was as impatient as he for the wonders his presence promised, though she wasn’t certain what those wonders were; so she refrained from telling her aunt, though she felt dreadfully guilty in doing so.

But she had to tell Hester, of course. After all, she couldn’t have packed by herself.

* * *

Aunt Trudy had to attend the soiree, even though Anthea had a headache—it was, after all, a social obligation. As soon as she heard the carriage depart, Anthea was out of bed and changing into her travelling clothes. She felt horrible at deceiving Aunt Trudy, who had been so good and kind to her, but Love was master of all, and surely her aunt would understand when she came back wedded to one of the most eligible bachelors of the
ton.

She and Hester dragged the portmanteaus down the back stairs. There, in the mews, was a carriage, with Lord Delbert, all smiles, right beside it. Anthea hesitated at the sight of the enclosed vehicle, knowing she would have no chaperone—but Lord Delbert swept her up in his arms, kissing her deeply, and the blood began to pound in her veins, and she knew that the love for him that ached in her breast was all that truly mattered.

Then they were in the coach, and Anthea caught a bare glimpse of Hester waving as they were whirled away. Then Delbert’s lips closed over hers again, and she could think of nothing else.

It was the most romantic evening of her life. Champagne and passion in a closed coach, kiss after kiss, growing more giddy and more silly as the miles passed. At some point in all the jesting and jollity, she mentioned how he would love Windhaven, as soon as it was restored. He seemed to still beside her then. “Restored? Is it so awfully run-down, then?”

“Oh, yes, and buried under a mountain of debt! But Aunt Trudy tells me that it will yield income again, in ten or twenty years.”

“But surely you will inherit from her when she dies.”

“Perhaps something, though I wouldn’t wish to claim it, she has been so wonderful to me already. But she has two sons and two daughters, so of course the bulk of her estate must go to them.” She suddenly realized what she was saying, and gave a self-deprecating laugh. “How silly of me, to discuss such mundane matters!”

“I am fascinated with every word that drops from your lips.”

Lord Delbert turned away; a cork popped, and liquid poured. It was a moment longer before he turned about again to offer her another glass. There was more champagne and more passion then, his kisses becoming ever more ardent—then a sudden unaccountable weariness came over Anthea.

“It is the strain and the excitement,” Lord Delbert soothed. “Sleep, my love. I would have you fresh and vivacious when we arrive at the first inn.” Then waves of sleepiness engulfed her, and Anthea drifted off into dreams of bliss.

Anthea, waken!
came Sir Roderick’s voice in her mind. The dreams had become more and more carnal; she dreamed of lips pressed to her naked flesh, light fingers caressing her until she ached with longing. But Sir Roderick’s voice was commanding, and she wakened, though her head throbbed and the whole world seemed shrouded in fog. She wondered that the wine had been so strong—then realized that those light fingers were caressing her in more than dreams, in the very life, far more intimately than they should, and Lord Delbert was gazing down at her with a smile of rapt delight—and not at her face. His breath was coming in ragged gasps, and his face was flushed. She cried out in shock, and he looked up at her with a devilish grin. “Wakened so soon, my pretty? Well, that will only add spice to the adventure.”

“But, my lord ... Gretna Green ... can you not wait ... ?” Though part of Anthea wished he wouldn’t.

Delbert threw back his head and laughed, and there was a note of cruelty in that laughter. “Foolish girl, there will be no Gretna Green! What need have I, a lord, of a ceremony?”

Anthea stared, electrified. “But ... love ...”

“Say ‘money,’ rather. I’m ocean-deep in debt, silly wench, and needed a rich marriage to bail me out. The rumors said that you had estates—they mentioned nothing of debts! Still, if I cannot have relief of one kind from you, I’ll have another.”

“My lord!” she protested, flinching away—but his arm prevented her, circling behind her. “My aunt!” she cried. “Your reputation in the ton ...”

“And would you be foolish enough to speak of it? I assure you, none of your predecessors have! Though even if you did, what matter? I’m finished in London, anyway, if I can’t have a sea of silver right quickly. I shall have to leave to wander the Continent, so what matter Society now? Be sensible, wench, and lean back and enjoy it, for you’ll not have such another night again!”

She didn’t doubt that, though not as he’d meant it. She remembered the young women with stony faces, and realized, with horror, that she was about to join their ranks.

“Don’t tell me that you had no notion of this,” he said with a sneer, “for I could tell by your kiss that you had mind for one thing only.”

“I never had! Shame on you, sir, to think so of me!” Then Anthea realized that the motion of the coach had stopped, that it was still. “Where ...”

“On a country track far to the north of London, my dear, and the coachman has taken the horses far away. There will be none to disturb our lovemaking.”

“My lord, if you love me, you will wait!”

“Love?” Delbert’s lip curled in a cruel sneer. “What is love but the yearning of body for body? Don’t tell me that you haven’t felt it, my lass, for I’ve known the heat of your body and the pounding of your heart—here, even here.” The cupped hand tightened. “I know what kind of girl you are, Anthea, even if you do not—and your being here, alone in a closed coach with me, gives proof of it!”

“No!” she cried, trying to writhe away from him, but the arm that was curled about her tightened, holding her securely, as he laughed.

A delaying tactic, my dear. A wager,
Sir Roderick’s voice said in her mind.
A game of chess.

Anthea’s heart leaped to know she was not alone, though she blushed with shame at the thought of Lord Roderick’s witnessing her disgrace, and knew there was little he could do. But it was even as he said—the longer she could postpone the inevitable, the less inevitable it might become. “A wager, my lord! A game of chess! If you win, I shall not resist you—indeed, I shall surrender myself to the passions you claim to detect!”

“A wager?” Delbert drew back with a gleam in his eye. “That might add spice to the encounter. Chess, d’ye say? Foolish child, do you think you could best me?”

“It might heighten the pleasure, as you say,” Anthea said, her voice trembling.

Delbert heard; his grin widened. “And my forfeit, if—ha, ha!—I should lose?”

“Then you will let me go, my lord, unharmed and intact, and will say nothing of this night’s doings to anyone.”

Delbert frowned, but the gleam remained in his eye. “High stakes, but why not? I’ve played for higher. Where are your chess pieces?”

They were in her portmanteau, and she had them out in a trice, managing to rebutton her bodice as she did. She laid out the pieces, then began the longest game of her life—not merely because of the suspense or the stakes, but because, as Sir Roderick’s voice pointed out to her:

He will never let you go unmolested, even should you win. Your only hope is to prolong the game
—
the longer, the greater the possibility of rescue.

She saw the truth of it in the anger that flashed in Delbert’s eye when she took a pawn. Thereafter, she was careful to lose steadily, never taking a piece of his unless she had lost two of her own, but prolonging each capture as much as possible. Meantime, she tried to ignore the caresses of his voice as he described the pleasures she would experience when this opening game was over, and tried to fight against her body’s longing to surrender. Yet when she grew too distracted, Sir Roderick’s voice was ever there, counseling,
pawn to queen’
s
knight six ...
king’
s
bishop to queen’
s
rook five..
.
Beware of pawn take at queen’
s
bishop four ..
.