Chapter 17 #2
“Are you, too, going to try to warn me off?”
“No, not that. But it’s easy to see our beloved through a veil of illusion. I remember you laughing when I described Cyn as sensitive.”
“It was a startling concept. But I suppose he is, for a man.”
“Indeed. But he is also ruthlessly practical, and tough as boiled leather, which I should have known a soldier has to be.”
“Does it bother you?”
“Not now, but it takes time to learn all dimensions of a person. Fort is his father’s son.”
“Fort is not at all like the old earl!”
“Yes, he is. And he knows it, which is one of the things that galls him. He’s proud to a fault, hates to admit to any error, and believes in his divine right to do as he pleases.”
“You can’t expect a Malloren to quibble at the latter.”
Chastity shrugged. “I’m just warning you to plan your assault on the real man, not on a memory that lingers from here. Is that your old woman?”
Elf turned to see Dibby Cutlow hobbling down a rutted lane.
She seemed in slightly better form, and Elf realized she wore new boots and a fresh, untorn apron. Could sixpence buy all that?
Elf went to meet her. “Mrs. Cutlow. I wanted to be sure you were all right.”
The old woman’s eyes shifted around, still anxious and wary. “Doing fairish, ma’am.”
“I thought perhaps it might be a bit far for you to visit me in Marlborough Square if you were in need.”
“ ’Twould be a fair way, ma’am, yes. But I’m fair set. ’Is lordship saw to that.”
“His lordship?” Had Rothgar had taken over this matter for her?
“Lord Woolgive, or somin’,” said Dibby. “Seems ’e was with you that day, and ’e sent a crown. Said as there’d be another every week, and there has been, Gawd bless ’im.”
Fort! Well really, what business did he have stealing her charity case? Just because she’d let the matter slip from her mind for a week or two . . .
Elf determined to take her cause back.
“And do you have a good place to live, Mrs. Cutlow?”
“I ’as a room.”
“Would you like a place in the country? Far away from here.”
The old woman stepped back. “Don’t take me away, ma’am. I don’t want to leave ’ere!” Her gnarled fingers clutched her apron and it looked terribly as if she were going to cry.
“No, no. Of course not! No one will do anything you don’t want . . .” Elf felt like crying herself. She just wanted to help this poor woman, and yet everything was going wrong.
As it had with Fort.
Was she really just a clumsy meddler?
She looked around, and the germ of an idea came to her.
She touched one of Dibby’s clenched hands.
“I’m pleased Lord Walgrave is seeing to your welfare.
Don’t worry about anything else. But my offer remains.
If you have a problem or are in need, just send someone with a message to Malloren House in Marlborough Square, and I will do what I can. ”
With that, she gave the impatient girl her penny, and returned to the coach.
As the coach lurched its way back to the road, Chastity asked, “She is not in need, then?”
“She doesn’t seem to think so. Probably because your brother has made her his pensioner at a crown a week.”
“You sound rather aggrieved.”
“I think he did it just to contest me!”
“Perhaps a little. But he is genuinely kind, you know. He’s made many improvements since becoming earl.
The servants are better treated and paid.
I gather he’s visited all the estates, and dealt with long-standing grievances of the tenants.
Our father was not kind, and from being blackmailed, he’d become a veritable clutch-fist.”
“I’m pleased he’s being responsible.” Elf meant it. She loved to hear of Fort’s virtues. She was still aggrieved, however, by his interference in her business. “I have a plan . . .”
Chastity pulled a face at her. “What now?”
Elf chuckled. “Oh, nothing wicked, I assure you.”
“Are you sure?”
Alerted by something in Chastity’s voice, Elf asked, “Yes. Why?”
“Because I visited Fort this morning and found him finally out of his bed and on a chaise. He’d been refusing to make the change of scene if it involved being carried, but apparently he managed to hobble across the room with the aid of a crutch.
You did say that when he was vertical, you would feel free to assault him. ”
“He’s not vertical on a chaise!”
“I’m sure he’d struggle to his feet if you entered the room.”
“And doubtless injure himself.”
“Elf, are you scared?”
Elf looked at Chastity. “Well, of course I am.”
“He won’t hurt you, I’m sure. He’s developed a certain balance in his feelings.”
“I might upset his balance, mentally and physically. What if I push him into bitterness again, and he tries to make it all public? Now he’s up and about—”
“He wouldn’t be such a fool.”
“Are you sure?”
“No,” Chastity admitted. “But truly, he seems to have put it all behind him. He’s much like the brother I knew before Father’s death, but better. More mature.”
“And where does that leave me?”
Chastity sighed. “I’m not sure there’s any hope. He appears to have put you behind him, too.”
“Out of sight, out of mind?” Elf tried not to let her pain show.
“Perhaps in sight, in mind . . . But that’s why I’m frightened.
Now, I can hope. I can dream of it all coming right.
Once I put it to the test, I might find that you’re right .
. . Anyway, it isn’t fair to sting him when he can’t run away. ”
“He could have you thrown out,” Chastity pointed out. “I think you should put it to the test. He’s talking of removing to Walgrave Towers as soon as he’s stronger.”
That hit Elf with panic. She’d gained some comfort from the knowledge that Fort was only streets away. “And we’ll soon be at the Abbey. No one stays in London in the summer. Lud, anything could happen if I let months go by. Oh, this is worse than a visit to the tooth-puller!”
Chastity laughed. “Now, there’s a fine romantic sentiment. Shall we go visit him, then?”
“Now? Oh, I don’t think so . . .”
Elf’s hand went to her hair to check if it were tidy, and she assessed her outfit. She was wearing the dull forget-me-not dress again and a plain cap, and a flat, flower-trimmed hat made little improvement.
Dull, dull, dull. Spinsterish dull. Why hadn’t she pursued the matter of bolder clothes? In a few days, she could have something better.
“He wouldn’t admit me . . .”
“I hope he wouldn’t be so impolite, but we’ll never know unless we try.”
“Lud!” Elf’s heart raced with panic and longing, and her hands were probably soaking her cotton gloves with sweat.
“Courage,” said Chastity. “Where’s that Malloren spirit?”
Elf rolled her eyes, but the prospect of seeing Fort after more than two weeks was too tempting to refuse, even if all she saw was the cold, unforgiving earl.
As they headed toward the better part of town, she spotted a flower-seller. Stopping the coach, she called the woman over. Soon she possessed a pretty nosegay of sweet-smelling roses.
“What’s that for?” Chastity asked. “I assure you, his sickroom is not noxious.”
“When a person goes a-wooing, aren’t they supposed to take flowers?”
Fort was pleased enough to hear that his sister had arrived, for convalescence was a damnably boring business.
Various friends visited to play cards and gossip, but they couldn’t fill all the hours of the day.
He had books he should read, and his secretary, Jellicoe, kept bringing papers to do with the affairs of the earldom or matters arising in the House.
For some reason, he found it hard to keep his mind on such stuff.
And his idle mind had a wretched way of wandering to Elf Malloren. Or rather, to Lisette in this room, masked, disheveled, melting under his touch, driving him to ecstasy with hers.
He found it damnably hard to blend that delightful creature with Milady Elf of the sharp wit and even sharper tongue. And yet for some reason the notion of having Elf here, sandy-haired and maskless, of doing with her the things he’d done with Lisette . . .
Plague take it!
If he could think of a reason to give, he’d move to some other room.
Any other room. He looked around with distaste at heavy furniture and somber hangings.
He could claim the room was haunted. It wouldn’t be far from the truth.
The ghosts of his father and Lisette made very strange bedfellows, though.
He was smiling at that thought as Chastity came in, carrying a nosegay. “Roses? Charming, but an unusual gift for a gentleman.”
She leaned down to kiss his cheek. “I don’t see why ladies should be the only ones to be given flowers. Anyway, they’re from Elf.” A still watchfulness belied the casual way she tried to say the words.
Having no idea how to react, he looked away. “How . . . quaint.”
The roses were tossed into his lap, their perfume suddenly assaulting him.
“Gentlemen are usually polite about gifts.”
He gazed at the simple country bouquet of assorted roses, pink, cream, and yellow. “Only to the giver,” he pointed out.
“She’s below stairs. Shall I call her up?”
“God no.” His heart started a sudden staccato of panic.
“Afraid to see her?” Chastity was as tight-lipped and angry as she had been in their worst times, and he could put that to Elf Malloren’s account.
“Perhaps I prefer not to hang for murder.”
He knew the accompanying gesture in this melodrama was to toss the roses to the floor. Instead, of their own will, his fingers touched one cool, soft petal.
Soft as Lisette’s skin.
As Elf’s skin.
’Struth, most women had soft skin. One wench or another, what did it matter?
“You’ll hurt her feelings.”
His sister sounded a little less irate so he looked up, and he made himself speak calmly and logically. “Chastity, it would not be wise. If Lady Elfled is capable of rational thought, she too will realize it’s for the best.”
She rolled her eyes. “Lud, but you sound just like Father. Bone-headed and insufferable!”