Wish List Part 15

He saw he'd made a mistake when the captain's face, already red, took on a deeper, almost purple shade of rage. His feeling of satisfaction and confidence a.s.sumed the barest quiver of uncertainty.

"Contradict my orders, will you? In my own house! My own house!"

"I should go," Vivian whispered.

He did not want her to have to stand here and suffer as a target of Captain Twitchen's fury. The man might say something hurtful. "Perhaps for the moment," he whispered back.

She started to slip away from him, and he bent down and pressed a quick kiss to the top of her head. "Not to worry. You'll be called back down within the hour, I promise."

She cast him a quick glancea"was it one of hope and uncertainty?a"and he smiled in rea.s.surance.

Once she was safely from the room, Captain Twitchen lent full force to his ire. "Now, sir, are we going to settle this like gentlemen?"

"That is indeed my intention."

"Pistols or swords?"

Richard felt a sinking in his gut. Soothing Captain Twitchen was going to be more difficult than he'd thought.

An hour pa.s.sed, and there was no call for Vivian to come down. She paced her bedchamber, she listened at her door for footsteps or the distant sound of voices, she watched from her window as guests left in pairs and in groups. She built up the fire in the grate, and wished that there was something to eat.

Horrible, to have been seen by Captain Twitchen with her bare legs wrapped around Richard, flat on her back, his mouth at her breast. She knew that she had briefly entertained causing such a scandal, buta The sickening embarra.s.sment of it made her stomach churn. Far worse, was not knowing what was presently happening down in the library.

Another quarter of an hour pa.s.sed. Was Richard still here? He must be. He and Captain Twitchen must still be arguing. She rubbed her forehead; the muscles there were sore from her frown of worry. Richard had given every indication that he would ask permission to wed her. Captain Twitchen couldn't possibly refuse, could he? Surely his pride could not be so severely offended.

And if it were?

She would marry Richard despite the captain's objections. She would abandon all family ties, if that was what it took. It would be cruel repayment for the generosity the Twitchens had shown her, but there was no other choice. She had to have Richard. She would have him.

Only, if she could, she would do so without breaking her ties to her cousins. She found herself surprised. In the short time she had been with them, she had grown fond of them alla"Mrs. Twitchen with her social ambitions and motherly heart; Captain Twitchen and his blunt good cheer; even Penelope had become something of a friend, despite her selfishness.

But the one thing Vivian knew about this life was that caring ties to others were more precious than gold, more precious than t.i.tles or gowns or beauty. She would not easily give up even the meager ones she had with the Twitchens.

And she would never give up the one she had now with Richard. Never.

Another half hour pa.s.sed. She was torn between the need to find out what was happening and the fear of interrupting and somehow spoiling whatever advantage Richard may have gained.

She went to the window and gazed down at another pair of partygoers as they departed. She could feel the cold of the night seeping through the gla.s.s.

A knock on her door turned her around, and Mrs. Twitchen entered. She rushed towards her cousin, then stopped as she read the distress upon the woman's face.

"Is Mr. Brent still here?" she asked.

"He is, but not for much longer if Captain Twitchen has anything to say about it."

"Tell me, what is happening?"

"This is a fine mess you've managed to get yourself into," Mrs. Twitchen said in a stern voice that quavered on the last word. "A fine mess. I can only be thankful that we are yet in the country, and that it was the captain who came in upon you, and not one of our neighborsa"else I don't know how we would have been able to save you from a future with that man."

"The captain hasn't refused Mr. Brent, has he? Surely he could not have!"

"Mr. Brent has nearly caused my husband to fight a duel, that's what he has done! The foolish man!" Mrs. Twitchen wrung her hands and then burst into tears, sinking into the chair by the fire.

Vivian didn't know which man Mrs. Twitchen meant was the foolish one, but she felt a wave a guilt wash over her at the sight of the woman's distress. She went and knelt by her side, and laid her hand on the woman's knee.

"Hush, now. Hush," she said. "Mr. Brent would never engage in the nonsense of a duel."

"Nonsense? This from you, sitting there with your honor in shreds!" Mrs. Twitchen dropped her hands from her wet and reddened face. "Captain Twitchen has more honor in him than Mr. Brent could ever dream of, and knows a coward and a sneak when he sees one. We won't be letting you throw your life away on such a man, that we won't!"

Vivian sat back on her heels, taking her hand from Mrs. Twitchen's knee. She steadied herself to disagree. "Mr. Brent is the most honorable man I have ever known. It may be a peculiar sort of honor, but it is true and deep, and I love him for it. I will marry him, with or without the blessing of you and Mr. Twitchen." She bit her lip. "But I would rather have it."

Mrs. Twitchen's expression softened to one of pity. "You are not thinking clearly, child. Don't think that because I'm old I do not know what you are feeling, the pa.s.sions that are in your heart. And that is how I know that this is a time when you must rely on those older and wiser than yourself, who can see with clear eyes. Mr. Brent is a scoundrel, and will bring you nothing but unhappiness. It is too late to save you from the pain of an entanglement with him, but we can at least save you from public dishonor."

She had lived long enough by the rules and wishes of others. No more! "I am well past my majority. I can make up my own mind in this."

"Have you forgotten the engagement Mr. Brent broke in the past? Do you not think that other young woman felt as pa.s.sionately as you do now?"

"I am sure there must have been a good reason behind that." And she was.

"How can you know?" Mrs. Twitchen asked. "You have known Mr. Brent little more than a week. I have been with the captain nigh on two decades, and still do not know him entirely. Anyone can be charming for a week, my dear. Let his history speak to you of who he truly is."

Vivian shook her head and stood. "It is his very history that tells me he is a man worthy of love. You cannot dissuade me from what my heart knows is true." She marched to the door and laid her hand upon the k.n.o.b.

"Vivian, darling." Mrs. Twitchen rose and came toward her, hands fluttering. "Can you at least give us this one night? Can you at least sleep upon it, and let us know that you have considered fully?"

Vivian took in Mrs. Twitchen's frantic concern, her distress, and wavered. She let her hand fall from the k.n.o.b. If waiting one night was all that the Twitchens required of her, she would be heartless not to give it. Such was not so much to ask. The bond she felt with Richard would not suffer for a handful of hours apart.

"I will sleep upon it."

Mrs. Twitchen nodded and opened the door herself to go. She was through it and pulling it closed when she paused and turned, her face in the narrow s.p.a.ce between door and jamb.

"Forgive me, child. I do this for your own good."

Vivian lunged for the k.n.o.b, but was too late. The door slammed, and the key turned in the lock from the other side.

She was a prisoner once again, to another's idea of how she should live.

Chapter Eight.

Twelfth Night The few bits of Christmas greenery in her room had been taken down and were waiting now in a dried-out pile to be fed into the fire. Her hopes of a marriage to Richard Brent might as well burn along with it.

Vivian had been locked in her room for five days now, allowed to send no letters nor receive them, and even Penelope was forbidden from visiting. Vivian saw Mrs. Twitchen daily, and suffered through her lectures and, more dangerously, the growth of the seeds of doubt that the woman planted and watered so carefully.

Richard wanted her. She knew he did. He had offered for her, she was sure of it. Did he love her enough to continue to fight for her, whatever the obstacles?

He had never said he loved her. But he must, he surely must! He had given her every indication. She could count her own love for him as nothing, if she could not trust that he would hold steady to his purpose and free her.

The isolation was making her mind play tricks, and she had no biscuits or tarts with which to soothe herself. They were cold meals that were brought to her by Mrs. Twitchen, with nothing of pleasure to be found in them.

As the days pa.s.sed, her mind turned in upon itself, reluctantly treading garden rows of doubt. She pulled each plant that showed signs of green, whacked them with her hoe, scuffed them over with her shoe, but Mrs. Twitchen always came back to nurse them to health.

Richard Brent was an honest man. He was an honorable man. He would not abandon her. She must hold tight to that truth.

From her window she had twice seen him come to the house, and leave shortly thereafter, always pausing to gaze up at her window, where she stood with her fingers against the gla.s.s, as if she could reach through and touch him. But then Captain Twitchen would emerge from the manor and shoo Richard away, preventing any exchange of words between them.

She had not seen him for two days now. Was he himself beginning to doubt the wisdom of pursuing this course? Had the captain convinced him that it would be better for her to marry another, that she would be happier with a man with an unsoiled reputation?

She would not be able to bear it if it were so.

She wished she had lain with him as a wife, there upon the library table, for all to see. There would have been no question then of what their future would be. If she ever saw him again, she knew precisely what she'd do.

He had tried reason. He had tried patience. He had put to use all his powers of persuasion, and all to no effect. He had run out of gentle options, a realization that had come to him upon receipt early yesterday of Penelope's letter: Dearest Mr. Brent, Forgive me for writing to you so, but I feel you must be told: my cousin is being fed only crusts of bread. She has no coal to keep her warm, and is threatened with beatings if she does not give up her insistence that she be allowed to wed you. My father has threatened to send her to a Catholic convent in France, where you would never see her again. I fear for her healtha"nay! I fear for her very life. She will be dead of grief within a fortnight if she is not saved. I have heard many things about you, but I trust they are not true. Here is your chance to prove yourself.

Yours Faithfully, P.

Of course he knew she was exaggeratinga"he doubted very much that Vivian would be sent to a French convent, no matter the provocationa"and he was somewhat annoyed by Penelope's allusion to his past, but Vivian was confined to her room, that he knew. And he very much doubted that pastries and cakes would be part of the meals sent up to one suffering such a punishment.

His Vivian, without a pudding. What misery must she be suffering! He smiled sadly at the odd thought.

And what might she begin to think, as the days pa.s.sed and he left her languis.h.i.+ng, the only words she heard those painting him as the darkest blackguard. His smile vanished. Might she not begin to think that he had abandoned her? Might she not begin to wonder if the Twitchens were right and if their reasons were ones to which she should listen? Especially since they were so intent upon protecting her that they would lock her up?

That sweet pa.s.sion she had given him in the library might even now be dying.

He could not let that happen. The time for diplomacy had pa.s.sed, and it was now time for action. That was the reason he was now creeping toward Copley Grange in the dead of night with a satchel slung over one shoulder and a rope around the other. In a vest pocket he carried a special license to marry, which he had ridden all the way to Dorchester to obtain.

The windows were dark at the grange, as he hoped they would be. He took a handful of gravel from the drive; such stones were the time-honored choice of swains for waking maidens in their bowers. He stood beneath Vivian's window and tossed them at the gla.s.s, one by one, wincing at each plink of sound.

He was only on his third stone when she appeared, a pale wraith behind the gla.s.s. She must have been awake. A moment later she opened the window.

"Richard!" she whispered.

"Shhh! Stand back. I'm going to toss up the end of a rope." He wasn't going to give her the chance to tell him to go away. He was going to rush up, sweep her off her feet, and carry her to safety. This was something he'd always wanted, and he'd finally found someone who was worth his affection. He wasn't going to let her escapea"no matter what happened.

He coiled several lengths of his line into a loop heavy enough to throw, and when she had moved away he gave it a heave.

And missed. The rope fell down the side of the house and into the shrubberies.

"d.a.m.n!"

"Where's the rope?"

"Shh!" He scrounged around in the bushes, untangling the line, hoping no one in the house heard him thras.h.i.+ng through the branches like a deranged animal.

Coils once again in hand, he gave them another heave, and this time they sailed through the window. He heard the thunk as they hit the floorboards, and grimaced.

Vivian appeared again in the window. "What now?"

"Tie it off to the leg of your bed."

"Right." She disappeared, and the dangling rope jerked and swayed in the faint moonlight as she set to work. "Done," she said, appearing again.

He pushed through the shrubberies to the wall of the house, and gave the rope an experimental tug. It felt sound. He jumped up and grabbed as high as he could on the rope, and was rewarded with a groaning screech from above and a slow sinking back to the ground.

"The bed! It's moving!" Vivian whispered.

"d.a.m.n! Is there anything heavier in the room?"

"No, nothing. But wait, I think I can brace it."

He waited while she did so, flinching with each sound of dragging furniture, expecting at any moment to see the front door open and an outraged Captain Twitchen appear with pistol in hand. The man would certainly shoot him.

"All right! I think I've got it, but I'm going to have to go sit on the chair."

He didn't inquire what she meant, he just climbed. The rope held, sinking only a few inches, the sounds from the room mere creaks of strained wood rather than groans. His head was almost at the sill when he suddenly dropped several inches. That, and the cry from Vivian were his only warning before he began to fall.

He caught himself by one hand on the sill, releasing the rope that snaked past him and tumbled to the ground. With a grunt of effort he pulled himself up to the window, Vivian grabbing his arm and helping him to where he could straddle the sill.

"My knot gave out," she said.

"I gathered." He released a shaky breath, peering back down at the twenty foot drop to the ground, and to the shadows where their escape route lay twisted in the dirt.

He turned to Vivian. Her hair was down, thick and dark against the white of her nightgown. A nightgown under which, he suspected, she wore nothing at all.

"What are you doing here?" she asked. She looked surprised, bewildered, and awfully pleased.

"Penelope wrote and said you were being starved. I've brought you tarts and cakes." He swung his other leg inside, then took the satchel off and opened it, holding it out for her to see.

"You risked your life to bring me pastries?" She looked a bit sheepish, but moved closer, brus.h.i.+ng against him, the satchel ignored. He could smell a hint of flowery soap, and under it the scent that was Vivian's alone.

"I came to take you away." He dropped the sack to the floor and wrapped his arm around her waist, drawing her close. Her flesh was soft and warm under his hand. "Only, I seem to be proving an inept rescuer. I don't know how I'm going to get you safely to the ground without the rope."

"Don't you?"

He was about to say "No, I don't," but then she kissed him and was touching him everywhere, and suddenly there were more important things to do than talk. His other arm went around her, and they stumbled backwards, tripping over the chair laid on its back on the floor as a brace, barely making it to the bed before falling together, sinking into its deep mattress.

Vivian was going to be his wife. If he could not take her through the window, he would take her here, on the bed. Then she would be his forever, and no one could put a door between them ever again.