Claire Page 2
On an uneasy breath, she confessed, “Yes— And I know why you’re here.”
His blue eyes were faintly sardonic. “Do you?”
“Yes, of course. You’re to marry one of my sisters,” the child said frankly.
He regarded her plump figure without expression in that spare face of his. “Yes,” he said, after a moment, nodding at her. “You don’t mind if I finish my walk? I cannot stand too long on this foot of mine, you know.”
“Oh! I’m sorry!” she said, in genuine solicitude. “Are you hinting me away, or shall you care very much if I walk with you?”
Some of the distance that those blue eyes had acquired on mention of her name disappeared in a faint smile. “No, I suppose not,” he nodded, and resumed his slow progress. “I’m to go once around the lake today. I’m disgustingly slow; I hope you won’t mind.”
“In fact I shan’t mind to have a few moments to speak to you,” she admitted, and took her empty basket in her hand as she strolled along beside him. “I’ve just turned eighteen; I know I’m not precisely grown up yet, but I’m not at all as— as insensible as my sisters think I am. It is why I’m here.”
“Why,” he began, glancing at her round, slightly freckled face from the corner of his eye, “exactly, are you here, Miss Ffawlkes?”
“To— Well, to explain the situation to you, of course,” she said, in that open way of hers. “You’d think that out of five of us, Papa could find a wife for you, but I assure you, Lord Banning, it’s not anything so simple!”
He grew distant once again as he leaned heavily on his cane down the walk toward the lake. “I see.”
“Clytie and Cleo are married, of course; very happily so, too, I ought to say; and then there’s Claudia, and Chloe, and,” she said hesitatingly, “me.”
“I see,” he repeated.
She eyed him angrily. “This is deuced uncomfortable for me, too; you don’t have to throw that stare at me, as though you wished to freeze me!”
His brows shot up in astonishment. “I beg your pardon!” he said instantly. “I don’t wish to freeze you!”
“I shall tell you straight out that we’re just as put off by all this business as I can very well see that you are! It is Papa’s idea, and don’t look at me as though I’ve had the least thing to do with it, for I assure you, I don’t care a flinder if you’re a royal duke!”
The vaguest intimation of a smile was quickly hidden. “No, I can see very well that it shouldn’t hold the least weight with you at all.”
“But I do care about my sisters, you know!” Her dimpled chin squared firmly. “I care very much about them, in fact! Much more than they think!”
“Claudia,” he guessed, as they reached the edge of the lake, and began a slow progress through the dewy grass around it, “and Chloe.”
“Papa’s already decided on Claudia, you see,” she said, frowning in that fervent way of hers that made those thick dark brows almost meet over her freckled nose. “And she is far too timid; she will never say the first word against him, when she knows very well she ought to stand up to him!”
“Nothing like her younger sister, I am certain!” he said quietly, eyeing the plump little face and the lake past it.
A warm summer breeze ruffled her pigtails as she nodded. “He is the kindest man in the world, but he will take these idiotic notions into his brain, and one might as well argue with the setting of the sun as to argue with a Navy man, I assure you, Lord Banning!”
“I quite agree!” he nodded. The distance in his blue gaze had been replaced by a very well hidden amusement. “My father was an Admiral; I should know!”
“You see!” she pointed out. “And the Admiralty’s sent up a week ago to tell him that Villeneuve’s on the run again, and Nelson’s called him back as soon as his ship was repaired, so he’s to be off again in the morning at dawn, and I know why you’re to come to dinner tonight, and so I have quite made up my mind to have it out with you this morning, before both of them weep themselves to death!”
“Claudia and Chloe?” he asked sympathetically.
“Well, of course! For Claudia is— Claudia is timid, I have already told you, and bookish, and she likes Chaucer much more than dancing, and she dotes on Shakespeare and Milton and a great deal of other rubbish, and in truth she is the most quiet person! I have never seen her crack so much as a tear!”
“Haven’t you?”
“And yesterday morning, after I had seen you, you know, and while we were talking upstairs in the schoolroom, and then Claudia came in, and it wasn’t five minutes before she had flooded the room! I have never been so astonished in my life!”
“Over marrying me?” he inquired steadily.
“Yes, of course! For she doesn’t want to marry anyone, you see, and of course it has nothing to do with you, or— well, it has nothing to do with anything— ”
“Do you mean, that I’ve spent a year in prison?” he asked quietly.
Her round face flushed. “I wasn’t going to say so, but if you’ve brought it up, then I suppose I needn’t be so sticky over it! And Claudia has said that it wasn’t your fault!”
“No, it wasn’t,” he said carefully. “And your father has been very kind to rescue me from a very unfortunate situation. I shall be ever grateful to him.”
“Yes, I have said he is the kindest man alive in most things, but such a clothead when it comes to how he ought to deal with us! For he knows a great deal about ships and crews and guns, and such, but not very much about women! Which is quite astonishing, considering that he was married to one for twenty years, and that he has five of them for children, not to mention a number of housemaids and Miss Pritt!”
“Who,” he inquired, without a flicker, “is Miss Pritt?”
“Oh, our governess, of course! She’s been with us for ages, only she has gone home to see her mother who is ill, so you shan’t meet her tonight! But Cleo and Clytie are coming with their husbands, you know, so there shall be a tableful!”
“With Claudia and Chloe still in tears?”
“Well, I hope not! Although Chloe— she’s desperately in love with Timothy Dickinson, who is one of my father’s ship’s officers, and he’s leaving in the morning with Papa, and I don’t place the least worth on Chloe’s resolution! I expect she will cry for a week!”
“Ah,” he said, in sudden enlightenment, “Cleo and Clytie are married, and Claudia is timid, and Chloe is in love! Which leaves only— you!” His assessing blue gaze swept over her again. “How old are you, Miss Ffawlkes?”
On another furious blush, she turned her plump face down toward her toes, peeping out from beneath the much-mended blue gown. “I have told you, I am eighteen; quite old enough! And if you don’t much care which of us you take, I shan’t mind to have you! For I am not in the least timid, and neither am I in love, nor married, and of course, it is quite the only thing to be done!”
“Yes, I see that you are exactly right,” he nodded. “You’re very noble to offer yourself up to sacrifice; I hope your sisters appreciate it quite as they ought to!”
“Yes!” she said, in the most intimidating way, staring fixedly at something nonexistent out ahead of her. “So do I!”
“Well, you may go home and tell Claudia and Chloe that it’s all arranged, and that they shan’t have to marry me, since you’ve agreed to do it,” he said calmly.
A stricken look came over her face. “I hope you don’t fall instantly in love with either of them! For I should warn you, sir: my sisters are all four of them devastatingly beautiful! Even Claudia, who squints when she reads too much!”
“Are they?” He eyed her plump face carefully. “Well, I shall exercise a great deal of restraint!”
“You needn’t be so doubtful!” she said, with a knowing glance. “I can see that you’ve got the wrong opinion entirely from me, for I assure you, I am not at all like the rest of them!”
“I should hope not!” he said, laughing, and did not mean it quite the way she took i
t, and saw instantly that he had offended her. “For your father to be saddled with five Furies would be quite unfair!” he said immediately.
“Furies?” she repeated, astonished.
“Well, of course! The North Wind has nothing against your will, Miss Ffawlkes, I am certain! But don’t regard it; I like you!”
She was so overcome with that simple statement that she forgot to drop her eyes. “Yes, so do I!” she said impulsively, with a smile that any of the four devastatingly beautiful sisters would have been happy to claim. “In spite of your— ” She halted.
“Of my— ”
He was about to say being a debtor, when she interrupted, “Of your age! I am certain it doesn’t matter!”
It surprised him into a shout of laughter. “Well, not so very ancient,” he said, and looked altogether different than he had yesterday.
“I shan’t mind it!” she assured him. “And you’re very kind to take me! I am certain that Chloe and Claudia will not appreciate it nearly so much as they ought to!”
“Certainly they will not!” he said, shaking his head, with a glimmer of amusement in those deep blue eyes fringed faintly, still, with pain. “I’ll tell you what; don’t say a word to them, and let me speak to your Papa tonight, and then you may let them suffer a little more today! It will make them much more grateful!”
“Excellent idea!” she said, laughing, and as they came to the east side of the lake, she told him she ought not to stay any longer, and left him in peace to finish his walk.
And so, three months later, on October 25, 1805, the youngest of the Ffawlkes girls become Claire Drew, Lady Banning, wed in a solemn ceremony to Varian Drew, the fourth Baron Banning.
They had thought that her father would be home for the wedding, but he was not, and in her characteristically forthright manner, Claire said she didn’t much think it mattered. Like her sisters, Claire had been born while he was at sea; their beautiful mother had died while he was at sea, so Claire did not find it at all odd that she should be married while he was at sea. Dressed in a lovely white silk and tulle gown trimmed in ribbons the color of her eyes, the bride was charming, if somewhat plump.
After that historic dinner last July at her father’s manor house outside Finchingfield in Essex, Lord Banning had offered for plump little Claire, much to the surprise of Sir Colbert and Clytie and Cleo, and to the heartfelt relief of Claudia and Chloe, who had, indeed, wept most of the next week. The next morning the young baron had left Essex to straighten out his rather messy financial affairs, and they had not seen him again until he had returned to Merrill Hall the 21st of October, to stay with his old school friend Anthony Merrill until the wedding.
Upon Banning’s return to Essex, the two peers had discussed Varian’s imminent nuptials. Tony Merrill was a reflective sort, tall and broadly built, and occasionally his placidity was mistaken for laziness or dullness by those who neglected to notice the humorous intelligence in his eyes and the firm muscles across his back.
“You know, she’s not but a child, Tony,” Varian Drew, Lord Banning, had said over breakfast one morning after he arrived in October. “Barely eighteen; hasn’t the least idea of what she’s doing. I feel like a beast.”
They had had an invigorating ride at seven, out in the brisk cool air of autumn among the golden oak leaves and the mist. Now that Varian’s foot was healed a little better, he had begun to ride again and to acquire a little color in his face.
Tony Merrill had been shocked that day in London last May when he had first seen Varian Drew sitting quietly downstairs in the public salon of his hotel and struggling to rise as he saw Merrill’s entrance. Their meeting had come a week after Sir Colbert had discovered that the son of his old friend had been thrown into debtor’s prison after the terrible events surrounding his father’s death, and had languished there the better part of a year, still nursing that damned pistol wound in his foot. Somehow Sir Colbert had arranged to pay off the better part of the Banning debts, which had amounted, Tony Merrill rather suspected, to over thirty or forty thousand pounds, and then Sir Colbert had sent word up to Tony to come down to London and collect the young man from the Clarendon, as he was quite lame with his foot.
Tony had taken one look at Varian Drew’s gaunt face and, with a sudden blurring in his eyes, had embraced his old friend. “Why didn’t you let me know? You should have sent me word, Varian,” Merrill had said in a rough voice, and then he had brought him straight up to Merrill Hall and had gotten a doctor to look at that damned foot, and it had been a good thing indeed that he had, or Varian likely would have lost it.
“She’s a bright girl, Varian; with a little age, I think, and perhaps a little careful— schooling, you know, she’ll make you an excellent wife,” Tony said over his sirloin. He cast a bland eye over his friend’s plate. “You won’t acquire muscle having tea and toast for breakfast, Varian; eat up. You’ve got to find another two or three stone before you look like yourself again.”
Varian Drew laughed and rather unwillingly attacked his sirloin. “I had thought to take her with me to India, Tony; what do you think?”
“You’ve still got that bee in your brain, Drew?” said Tony calmly. “I wish you will stay here; there’s fortunes still to be made on English soil. Take the twenty and buy yourself up some good property, and you’ll be just as well off as haring half-way round the world to India.”
“If,” said Varian Drew, “I buy property, I shall buy back Banningwood, you know, and that shan’t be any twenty thousand. A hundred twenty thousand more like, I imagine.”
“You’re being damned sentimental over a piece of forest,” said his friend bluntly. “And you won’t make anything like what you think you will in India. It’s damned hard work and little reward for the most of it. For every hundred that go, there isn’t one who comes home rich. I wish you won’t do it,” Merrill said.
“I haven’t made up my mind,” Drew nodded pleasantly. “It rather depends on my grandmother, for I can’t very well go off and leave little Claire all alone in London if she doesn’t like the sound of India. If the old lady won’t have her, and she won’t go with me, I suppose I’ll stay,” he said reasonably.
“Good; I’ll make it a point to make sure you do,” Tony Merrill said, smiling in his placid way at his friend.
Although late in October, the wedding day dawned sunny and warm. The bride, by far the calmest member of the Ffawlkes household, managed to see that her four sisters, with the occasional attendant husband, Miss Pritt, and a number of other guests and so on, arrived on time at the ancient church in Finchingfield. With a minimum of fuss, the ceremony was performed with Tony Merrill standing up with her in her father’s absence. She didn’t seem to have the least compunction over Varian Drew’s light kiss at the end of the vows, which Merrill’s quiet glance noted with relief, and she walked out of the church looking very much grown up on Varian’s arm. They went home, and everyone discovered with some enthusiasm that Cook had laid out a feast in the dining parlor in their absence, and they fell to the sandwiches and cold cuts and punch and pastries with a delightful sense of celebration.
In fact, it was happier than any of them thought it could have been; the day was warm enough that they had opened up the doors of Sir Colbert’s manor house and pushed back the chairs in the small drawing room, and Merrill’s gardener— who did in fact have a daughter named Susie— went home and brought back his son and brother to play their plain English country songs for the party to dance.
In the midst of a gay tune that Claire was dancing with Merrill, the music suddenly came to a halt and the dancing stopped. Claire, after a single look at Merrill’s face over hers, turned quickly toward the doorway.
It was her eldest sister Clytie; she stood shakily in the doorway, clutching the paneling with one hand and a white flutter of paper with the other, with a bloodless, breathless gaze of horror on her face.
“Clytie?” began Claire, her straight brows meeting, almost, over her nose.
“Oh, Claire!” said Clytie blankly, staring at her sister. “On your wedding day!”
“What is it, Clytie? Tell me this instant!” exclaimed the youngest of the Ffawlkes, with her normal impatience. “Papa!” she said suddenly, in horror. “Something’s happened to Papa?”
And even as she spoke the whispered words, her sister was nodding; she said, “He’s been wounded; there was a battle at Trafalgar a few days ago, and he’s been hit,” and as her husband Philip reached her, she sank into his arms, and the paper fluttered to the floor.
Claire had it in her plump hands in a second; she read it over quickly, and read it once again, and swallowed hard, and said, “Well, I shall just have to go to him, that’s all,” and turned, and saw Varian Drew staring at her. “You do understand, don’t you?”
He nodded. “Of course I understand. We’ll both go,” he said.
“Nonsense!” she said brightly. “I shall go and bring him home; that foot of yours shall be much more a hindrance than a help, if you must know,” and did not see the blue eyes suddenly shield themselves from her gaze.
“And I’ll go,” said Chloe instantly, struggling with herself not to worry too much over a certain young officer of her Papa’s crew.
“And of course, so will I,” nodded Claudia, with her calm good sense. “We shall bring Papa home ourselves and nurse him until he’s well. It’s quite decided. We had better go up and pack, for I suppose we ought to leave right away. Does it say where he is, Claire?”
“Yes,” she nodded, reading the note once again. “He’s at Faro. Wherever that is.”
chapter one
Home from Abroad
The second time Tony Merrill met Varian Drew in the lobby of the Clarendon Hotel was almost as great a shock as the first. It was evening; it had just rained in that perpetual drizzle that often afflicts London during April, and Merrill was still shaking the water out of his hat when he caught sight of a golden-haired giant with brilliant blue eyes and skin the color of walnuts coming across the lobby in a long stride to meet him.