The Songbird's Seduction (15 page)

“No one would ever take you for a poser, Bernie,” Mrs. Martin assured her. “As for something having happened to Lucy, you must not think it. I am confident the ferry agents would apprise us if such were the case. But just to put our minds at ease, let me send one of the hotel pages to the ferry’s office and see what he can discover. I’ll be right back.”

She rose to her feet, the glitter from the gems around her throat and wrist vying with the jetty beads adorning her elaborate black gown. The sisters watched her go, then, as soon as she’d disappeared, turned and regarded one another with similar expressions of guilt.

“I feel quite wicked,” Lavinia whispered sotto voce.

“I know,” Bernice agreed in equally dolorous tones.

“If anything has happened to Lucy I will never forgive myself for . . . for . . .”

“For enjoying yourself so much,” Bernice finished.

“Exactly!” Lavinia breathed, relieved to have her could-be transgression out in the open.

Bernice nodded. “I know. I admit I was not altogether in favor of leaving Robin’s Hall but now that we have embarked on our adventure, and with so convivial and knowledgeable a guide, I find it quite invigorating.”

“And we only left England this morning!”

“Exactly so. Who knows what agreeableness the next days will bring?”

“Who knows?” Lavinia echoed.

“And all the while, poor Lucy may be in mortal danger.”

“Never say so.” Lavinia reached across the table and patted her hand. “I believe, dear sister, that our fear for Lucy is in actuality guilt over not missing her company more.”

Bernice narrowed her eyes. “You have been reading progressive literature again haven’t you?”

“Some,” Lavinia admitted.

Bernice opted not to criticize. “Well, you and your books may be right. I do feel awful admitting it, but I don’t believe I would be nearly as, well, relaxed if Lucy were with us. I would worry about exposing her to some of Mrs. Martin’s more sophisticated conversation.”

Lavinia leaned across the table. Bernice did likewise. Lavinia glanced right and left and lowered her voice. “Such as her story about the ‘jolly little trout’ in the chorus?”

“Precisely.”

“You don’t think Mrs. Martin ever told Lucy that story?”

“Good heavens, no! I am sure she has every respect for Lucy’s youth and unmarried state.”

“I think so, too. But if Lucy were here we would have had to quash that interesting chat.”

“Just so.”

“I have news, comrades!”

At the sound of Mrs. Martin’s voice the sisters sprang apart.

“I had no sooner reached the lobby when I spotted an emissary from the ferry company speaking to another guest awaiting the boat. First the good news,” Mrs. Martin said. “Dear Lucy is fine. Safe and on dry land.”

“Oh, good!” the sisters breathed in relief.

“Unfortunately, that land is not France.” She waved the air impatiently. “What I mean to say is Lucy is on an island. Sark. The seas were so rough that the ferry was forced to seek safe harbor there.”

“Oh, poor Lucy!”

“The agent assured me that everyone is fine. Apparently the situation is not without precedence.”

“So she will arrive in the morning?”

Mrs. Martin’s lovely face crumpled. “I am afraid not, ducks.”

“What do you mean?”

“The ferry was damaged on some rocks coming into the island and they need to make repairs before it is once again seaworthy. They’ll be stuck there for another day at the least.”

“Then we must wait here for her? What am I thinking? Of course, we must.” Though Lavinia tried to sound hearty, Bernice was not fooled. Tension threaded through her voice and pulled at the corners of her eyes. The last time Lavinia had left home had been fifty years ago and look what had happened then. It would be a small wonder if she did not feel some trepidation, for it was one thing to go on an adventure with competent companions, quite another to be marooned in a foreign land without friends or resources. She might not recall how to say “good morning” in French, let alone how to order a meal, though she supposed she could pantomime.

What interested Bernice was her own
lack
of trepidation. She had always been the cautious one in their family, the one least likely to take chances, run risks, or do anything interesting for that matter; yet the prospect of being alone in France didn’t overset her at all. Her concern was all for Lavinia.

Mrs. Martin lifted her hands. “I would stay with you if only I could. But I have prior commitments. I am expected in Châtellerault tomorrow night for a performance. I know this—”

“Oh, my. Of course. We would not think of imposing on you!” Lavinia exclaimed in an agony of embarrassment, reaching for her
water glass and in doing so upsetting her wineglass. She stumbled to her feet as it spilled across the table, drenching the linen cloth. At once, a waiter appeared to mop up the mess, contempt implicit in his silent efficiency. Lavinia’s eyes shimmered with unshed tears.

Feeling her sister’s mortification keenly but uncertain how to help, Bernice stared at the red wine pooling beneath her dessert dish.

“
Ça ne fait rien!
” Mrs. Martin snapped at the waiter, rising majestically from her seat and pulling out a chair while ignoring the surreptitious gazes of the other diners. “Please be seated, Lavinia. We might as well enjoy this fellow’s little one act play. I saw a similar piece in London once.
How to Avoid Being Tipped
, I believe it was called.”

At this, the waiter, who hitherto had evinced no knowledge of English, became all gracious consolation, smilingly bidding “
les madams
” to forgive him for placing the wineglass so unforgivably near the edge of the table.

Lavinia sank down in the proffered seat, her color high. Bernice made no effort to restrain an unladylike smirk of satisfaction.

“I didn’t mean to be so clumsy.”

“You weren’t,” Mrs. Martin said. “Now, where were we? Oh, yes. About my tour. I was about to say that though I understand what I am about to ask is an imposition, but I would count it a great favor if you would consider coming with me rather than staying here and waiting for Lucy. Châtellerault is practically on the way to Saint-Girons.”

Bernice stared. Whatever Mrs. Martin had been about to say, she would bet the deacon’s life it hadn’t been that. And from the look on Lavinia’s face, she thought as much, too.

Mrs. Martin, however, continued on in the same slightly apologetic tone. “As silly as it may seem to you ladies, I always perform so much better knowing there are familiar faces waiting to greet me afterwards. I am afraid I cannot ask you to attend my little
performance—I am in the envious position of playing to sold-out venues,” here she lowered her eyes modestly, “but I can guarantee you will not be disappointed in the town or the hotel.

“And we can leave word for Lucy, telling her where we have gone. Or rather where I have absconded with you.” She chuckled lightly, her gaze darting from face to face. “That is
if
you would be so kind as to let me abscond with you? Just for a day or so?”

Bernice knew little about people outside her own small sphere. She knew still less about theatre people and other artistes. But she understood innate kindness and recognized generosity of spirit and in Marjorie Martin she saw both.

“Why, thank you,” she said before Lavinia could demure. “It would be our pleasure.”

Lucy awoke with a start and bolted upright, dazed and disoriented in the thick darkness. Her narrow bed felt lumpy and unfamiliar. And the
smell
—dear Lord. Was that
her
?—was definitely unfamiliar. Where . . . ? How . . . ?
Archie
.

“Archie? Archie!”

A loud bang greeted her frantic call, followed by a muffled curse. Then the door at the foot of the bed swung open and the figure of a tall, strapping man was silhouetted against the doorway. He held one hand to his forehead.

“What is it?” He sounded terse. “Lucy, are you all right?”

At the sound of his voice, her tension dissolved. He hadn’t abandoned her. “Yes, Archie. I’m all right.”

Broad shoulders slumped with relief then tensed again; this time, she suspected, not with anxiety. “Then why did you shout like that? You scared the hell—the daylights out of me. I banged my head jumping up.”

She didn’t take offense. She liked that he’d leapt to her aid. It made her feel like a damsel in distress. And he played knight-errant so naturally . . . a tad crabbily, true, but naturally nonetheless, as though he’d rescued slews of damsels . . .

Her smile faded. In point of fact, he would probably come running to any old damsel’s aid. She wasn’t sure whether this was a good thing or a bad one.

“Well? What happened? Mouse? Bug?” She couldn’t see his expression, backlit as he was, but his tone was long-suffering. Apparently the females he’d known were not keen on wildlife. Weak sisters, the lot of them. “Bat?”

“As if a cute little bat would rattle me.” She gave a sniff. “I woke up and I didn’t know where I was and the only thing I could remember was you but you weren’t here so I . . . I called for you.”

It was all coming back to her now. The horrific sea voyage, the nearly-as-horrific cart ride, the frequent stops for her to . . . the frequent stops, and finally, gloriously, Archie lifting her from the cart and carrying her against his warm, solid chest for far too short a distance before laying her down on a lumpy mattress. Then a woman with a nose as thin and hooked as an oyster knife had stripped her clothing from her before giving her face and hands a cursory wiping, and
then
had come blessed sleep.

“Oh.” He didn’t sound displeased, just mildly bemused. As if he didn’t really know how to feel about her admission.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“We’re in the Beaufort house on the island of Sark, about twenty-five miles from the French coast. You’re occupying their recently married daughter’s room.” He turned and started to close the door.

“Wait!”

He stopped. “What?”

“Where are you sleeping?”

“In the next room.”

“There’s another bedroom next to this?”

“No. It’s a sort of parlor. I am making use of what passes for Madame Beaufort’s settee.”

She was asking questions just to keep him there. He’d already half turned to go, allowing the light from the parlor to wash over his features. The top two buttons of his white shirt had come undone, presumably while he slept, and she could see a dark whorl of hair just below the notch at the base of his neck.

She’d never seen a grown man without his shirt on, only a couple male cousins in their early adolescence with whom she’d once snuck out to go swimming when she was ten. They’d been as pale and smooth and narrow as worms, only the jut of shoulders hinting that something more prepossessing might await in their future.

She wondered just how hairy Archie’s chest was under his shirt. The thought made her hug her knees tight to her chest. “Why not a bed?”

“Because there is no other bed.” His tone implied she ought to have realized this without being told.

“But I distinctly recall the woman offering bed and board for the both of us.”

Even in the dim light, she could detect color rising in his face. “That is because she thought we were married.”

“Oh.”

Once more he started to pull the door shut and once more she stopped him. “Is it hideously uncomfortable?”

“I’ve slept in worse.”

Now, that was intriguing.

“Why didn’t you go find a real bed in another house?”

“Because I didn’t want you to wake up and think I’d left you.”

This time, he did close the door.

Lucy flopped on her back in the bed, listening to the sound of the surf pounding against the rocky shoreline. She strained her ears to hear if she could detect Archie moving about, but other than a single scrape of chair legs against bare floorboards it was silent.

First he had come after her—well, he had actually come after her great-aunts, but she wasn’t going to quibble over trivialities—and then he’d stayed with her when he might have left to find a warm bed of his own in some other house. Why?

In Lucy’s short life all the people who had ever concerned themselves with her well-being had done so out of a sense of duty. Even the great-aunts, whose love she did not doubt, had originally accepted her into their home because they had felt obliged to do so. It was probably true of Archie as well. He was just that sort of an inherently decent type. A gentleman born and bred. But deep within, she found herself hoping something more than simple decency accounted for his concern.

She snuggled down beneath the blankets, thinking about how it had felt to be in his arms—at least when she hadn’t been worried she was going to get sick all over his shirt—how strong and capable and warm he’d been. She thought about the spark of amusement he tried to douse whenever it ignited in his coal-black pirate’s eyes, and the utterly endearing perplexity he evinced when he looked at her.

Something about her upset and confounded and attracted him. Poor darling. He really did need someone to teach him how to enjoy life.