Chapter Four
May 10, 1811
About four in the afternoon. Near the village square of Buyukdere on a day somewhat warmer than usual. Meaning it was more than eighty degrees Fahrenheit. Baking hot for the English who were not raised in such constant heat. At the shops nearby, a good many people sat under canopies or umbrellas eating sherbet sold at two paras the cup.
“I was very sorry to hear about your brother,” Anthony Lucey said. “Mrs. Lucey and I were devastated by the news.”
Foye nodded. He and Lucey were walking from Lucey’s palace toward the village square at a leisurely pace. He’d rather take a brisker walk, but Lucey, though a trim and hale man, was years older than he. He let Lucey set the pace.
Their plan was to stay in the shade of the fruit trees that abounded here and to buy a cup of sherbet from a favorite vendor of Lucey’s. “Your letter arrived the day before I left England. Your memories of him as a boy were a comfort tome.”
“I am glad to know that.”
“It was unexpected,” Foye said. His father and Lucey had been friends since their Eton days and had maintained a correspondence throughout the years Lucey had been living in Turkey, up to the day his father died. After that sad occurrence, he and Foye had continued a warm and cordial exchange of letters. He’d corresponded with Foye’s brother, too, though not quite as often. He’d found Lucey’s letters among his brother’s effects.
“High time you got married, don’t you think? You’re not going to let your disappointment put you off the idea, are you?” Lucey asked. The man was quite serious. Well. There wasn’t anyone left to push him on the matter, was there?
“I do not expect to marry, sir.” He suppressed a smile as they stood to one side to let a pair of Grecian ladies pass them by. Both women looked at Foye. One grabbed her companion’s arm to hurry them past while the other gave him a glance that lingered at his groin.
“Not marry?” Lucey came to a full stop but hurried to catch up when Foye continued walking. “Not marry?”
“That is my decision, sir.” He spoke firmly. Decisively. The problem was he knew it for a lie. He would marry. Eventually. To the woman of his choice. An older woman with some experience of life.
“Your father should have insisted you get married before he passed. I know he wanted to see you settled down with a wife and children. He told me so.” Lucey kept his hands clasped behind his back. “More than once. What father doesn’t wish to see his children happily married?”
They passed beneath an almond tree, and Foye reached up to snag a twig from a branch, “Oh, he tried, sir. But I didn’t see the point in tying myself down then.” He shrugged. He’d been too busy then with a string of mistresses, opera girls and ballet dancers. Besides, his brother had been married and at that time had a son. Who, alas, had not lived. At the time, he saw no reason to be married and a great many why he should not be.
But then he’d met Rosaline, and marriage had suddenly seemed the most desirable state in the world. For a time.
He had written to Lucey of his broken engagement, but perhaps in too few words; there was to be no wedding after all, he had said, and he was in the process of returning any gifts that had been sent in advance of the wedding. Nothing more.
“I would have been a wretched husband had I married.”
“Nonsense,” Lucey said.
He laughed to himself. “I appreciate your support of me.” He dropped his twig, stripped bare of leaves now. “I suppose Miss Prescott thought so, too, though.” He was pleased to discover that he could speak of Rosaline without feeling as if his heart were being crushed all over again. “I would have been a poor husband for her. Doubtless she is happier now than she would have been married to me.”
“Tosh,” Lucey said, releasing one hand and waving it in the air as if that proved Rosaline’s error. “The girl was a fool to marry anyone but you, and that’s a fact.” He clapped Foye between his shoulder blades. “Didn’t mean to stir up old wounds, my lord. I only meant to say that if you’d married when you were merely Lord Edward, as you ought to have done, you’d have been in a position to marry after your heart.”
“I was very much in love with Miss Prescott,” Foye said. He wondered, though, if that were true. Rosaline had not loved him. What would have happened if he’d married Rosaline and then discovered she did not love him? Well. She had saved him that humiliation, hadn’t she? The prospect of unending years spent bound to any woman without love or even the smallest affection deadened him inside.
“You’ll love again,” Lucey said.
“No. I shan’t.” Foye held up a hand when Lucey started to speak. “Spare me the protestations. It’s not a matter of meeting the right woman. Nor waiting for my broken heart to heal.” Very true. When he married, his wife would be suitable and experienced enough to understand love would have no place in their marriage. “There’s nothing more to be said on the matter.”
Lucey sighed. “The shop’s just there.” He pointed. “I must warn you, my lord, that Mrs. Lucey has designs upon your single state.”
Foye laughed despite himself. He had been dodging matchmakers for quite some time now. “What is her name?”
“Miss Anna Justice.” Lucey looked at him, abashed. “A lovely girl, if that matters.”
“No.” They changed course for the direction Lucey indicated. A girl. Therein lay the problem.
“Who knows,” Lucey said. “You might change your mind.”
“Isn’t that Sir Henry and Miss Godard sitting just outside?” Foye asked. He recognized them right off and was grateful for any excuse to speak of something else.
He shaded his eyes against the strong sun. “So it is.”
“Interesting man, Sir Henry,” Foye said, just to keep things on track.
“Ill-tempered, but brilliant. Quite brilliant. Mrs. Lucey finds him endearing. I don’t know why. Fortunately, his niece hasn’t inherited his disposition.” Lucey gave him a sideways look. “Shall we join them, or would you rather not?”
“Join them, by all means.”
Lucey chuckled. “A lovely young woman, Miss Godard.”
“Yes.” Foye saw no reason to deny the obvious. “But from that it does not follow that I will wish to marry her.”
“Pity, really. You and Miss Godard would suit rather well.”
Foye stopped walking. “She is too young, sir. I’ve no wish to marry a girl. Lovely or otherwise.”
He threw up his hands. “I’ll say no more!” He lifted his hat and wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. “Twenty-five years I’ve lived in this country and I still long for fog.” He stuffed his handkerchief into a pocket. They started walking again. “Whatever you think of her, she’s a dear thing. She’ll make someone a fine wife, I’ll warrant you that.”
Thank goodness word of her disgrace had not made it to this side of the world. He looked toward them again. He and Miss Godard had a great deal in common. “I did not have the impression she was looking to marry.”
Lucey came to a stop. “Furthest thing from her mind, I’d say.” They stood in the direct sun rather than in the shade along the side. It was devilishly hot. Lucey rocked up to his toes and back as he stood there, sweating.
Foye walked toward the Godards and shade.
“Sir Henry!” Lucey called out when he and Foye were nearer the table where Godard and his niece sat. An empty cup of sherbet on the table was overshadowed by the mass of papers spread over the surface. Sir Henry pushed his hat farther back on his head while Miss Godard bent over a sheet of paper, writing something. She had her tongue stuck into the corner of her mouth.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Lucey,” Sir Henry said. He rapped a misshapen finger on the table near his niece. “Did you get that down, Sabine?”
She kept writing. “Yes, Godard.”
How strange that she addressed her uncle with such a lack of intimacy. Or, rather, that she addressed him as if she were a male companion of his.
She glanced up, taking in Lucey and him, then returned her attention to her page, writing the entire time. Her penmanship was excruciatingly neat. Which he found an astonishing accomplishment considering the speed with which her pen moved over the page.
“May we buy you and Miss Godard another sherbet?” Lucey asked.
Foye watched Miss Godard. She’d done writing and was now scanning her page for errors, he presumed. She wore a white cloth over her head, hiding much of her golden blond hair. Her frock wasn’t a very interesting one but for the way she fit into it. She had a lush figure for so small a woman.
“You’ve brought Foye along.” Sir Henry nodded in approval. He gestured for them to sit. “I am afraid, however, that you cannot buy us both another sherbet.”
“Are you quite sure?” Lucey said. Foye fetched two chairs from another table, and Lucey sat, gratefully, in the shade. Foye stayed on his feet since he expected he would be the one to procure the sherbets. Miss Godard appended another sentence to her document. At minimum, be was fifteen years her elder. The difference in their ages and experiences was simply too vast.
“He means, Mr. Lucey,” Foye said with a nod at the empty cup, “that since only one of them has indulged it is impossible to procure another for them both.”
Sir Henry let out a bleat of laughter and thumped his cane on the ground. “Very clever, my lord. What did I tell you about him, Sabine? Did I not tell you he was a man to watch?”
“Yes, Godard, you did.” She capped her bottle of ink.
Foye wondered what it must be like to be constantly in the company of a man like Sir Henry. One had to admire her for her fortitude. If she was perhaps a bit odd, he understood why.
“Lord Foye is precisely correct,” Sir Henry said. “Sabine hasn’t had a sherbet, Mr. Lucey, so it’s impossible to buy her another.” He thrust his head forward, eyes sharp as the edge of a sword. “You may, however, buy me another if you like.”
Miss Godard laid a hand on her uncle’s arm. “Godard,” she murmured.
“Orange for me,” Lucey told Foye.
Foye took a look at the remains of Godard’s sherbet. “Will you have orange again, Sir Henry?”
“Clever fellow, you are.” He bobbed his head. “Very clever, wouldn’t you say, Sabine?”
“I cannot say, Godard.” With movements economical and precise, she closed up the box that held her writing supplies. “He is, however, observant.”
“Hah!” Sir Henry craned his head sideways to look at him. “Thank you, my lord, yes, I should like another orange.”
“And you. Miss Godard?” Foye asked. Would she look at him or not? “Will you have a sherbet, too?”
She stopped straightening the papers on the table in an attempt to make room for Lucey and him. Sheaf of papers in hand, she smiled at him, and Foye had several competing reactions as a direct result. Why, he wondered, did she look surprised by his question? Another thought was that Miss Godard was even prettier when she smiled. Stunning, actually. Her smile was not in the least flirtatious or suggestive. She gave no sign that she found his title any reason to behave differently. She was merely…sweet. In fact, she looked pleased to have been asked, and that made him pleased to have done the asking.
“Can there be any question?” Lucey said. “Of course a sherbet for Miss Godard. Will you have orange?”
“Thank you.” Her smile at Lucey made her entire face light up. She was still smiling when she looked at him, and Foye’s body reacted even though the remains of her smile weren’t meant for him. “Pomegranate, please,” she said with a curt nod.
Foye bowed to her. “I am delighted to indulge your every whim, Miss Godard.”
She did not smile, and why should she, given his connection with Crosshaven? Why indeed?
He went inside the shop and found, to his relief, that the shopkeeper spoke enough English for him to return with a white-turbaned native servant behind him carrying a salver with the requisite sherbets: three orange and one pomegranate.
The table was clear of papers now, with but a slim stack remaining at Miss Godard’s elbow. She accepted the sherbet from the servant with a nod and a phrase he took for the local language.
Foye sat down, sweeping his coattails behind him once he’d angled his chair so his legs did not hit anyone else’s. “You speak Turkish, Miss Godard? I’m impressed.”
“That was Arabic, my lord.” Spoon in one hand, she rested her arm on the table. “Enough to say please and thank you and not much more. My Turkish is somewhat better.”
Good Lord. She was a solemn thing, wasn’t she?
“Don’t believe her for a moment,” Lucey said. He accepted his sherbet from the servant. “I’ve heard her chattering away like a little magpie. Perfect accent, every word.”
Miss Godard gazed at Lucey, alert and focused. “I am not fluent, Mr. Lucey. As you well know.”
“Every time I hear her speak, I think I’m listening to a native with an imperfect command of the grammar.”
“You are a frighteningly accomplished woman, Miss Godard,” Foye said. She was waiting, he realized, for her uncle to start eating.
“I excel at languages,” she said. This she stated as fact, not a boast. She leaned toward her uncle and resettled the napkin over his lap. Only when Sir Henry had begun, laboriously, eating with the spoon clenched in his crippled hand, did she relax and start on her own sherbet.
His was delicious. Cool and sweet. The perfect refreshment for a hot afternoon. “I considered choosing the pomegranate, Miss Godard, but found I hadn’t the courage.”
She pushed her bowl toward him. “You may taste mine, of course. Please.”
He dipped his spoon into her sherbet.
“Well?” Lucey asked.
“Hmm.” He closed his eyes and pretended to savor the taste for a while. “I’m not sure. May I try more?”
“Of course.”
He took another spoonful. “It’s very slightly tart,” he said. Damned if he wasn’t determined to get a smile out of her. “And, yet, I’m not certain, Miss Godard. One more?” He waited for her to nod before her took yet another spoonful. “Do you know,” he said when he’d eaten that, too, “I’m still unsure.” He looked into her cup. “I may need to eat the rest before I’m able to decide. In the spirit of a proper inquiry, do you mind?”
Lucey and Sir Henry laughed, and even though all he got from Miss Godard was a tiny smile, hardly even a smile at all, Foye felt his body clench. Breathtaking. Absolutely breathtaking. Foye signaled to the shopkeeper, and when he came out, he ordered another pomegranate sherbet.
“That’s not necessary.”
“Yes, it is.” He held her dish in one hand while he scooped up a heaping amount of what remained and ate it. “Yours is practically gone, and I don’t think you’ve had more than a spoonful.”
“It’s quite all right,” she said.
But the second sherbet was bought, and Foye handed over the necessary coins. He leaned against his chair and relaxed. Sir Henry, for all that he was sometimes so gruff, was an engaging conversationalist, deeply knowledgeable on a great many subjects. Their conversation ranged from philosophy and natural history to the sights they’d each seen during their travels. As for Miss Godard, she was never at a loss. She was much like her uncle in respect of her knowledge and insight. No one questioned her participation, least of all her uncle. Presently, though, the sherbets were consumed and the point reached when they must leave or admit a closer acquaintance.
Foye surprised himself by saying, “May we escort you and Sir Henry home, Miss Godard?” If they did, perhaps he’d manage to get a proper smile from her.
She glanced at her uncle. “We ought to finish your chapter,” she said.
“And how is the book coming?” Lucey asked.
“Book?” Foye said.
Sir Henry pushed away his empty cup with a look of regret. “I am engaged in the writing of an account of our travels, my lord. Sabine is my official secretary for the endeavor.” He grinned. “And a hard taskmaster she is.”
Foye stood, knowing very well that Miss Godard had used her uncle’s project as an excuse to see him on his way. Lucey did the same. He was sorry they were parting and perhaps sorrier that Miss Godard had wanted to stay behind. “Good afternoon, Sir Henry.” He turned. “Miss Godard.”
She reached for her uncle’s papers just when he expected her to offer her hand. There followed an awkward moment when his hand was extended in the expectation of bowing over hers. She did not proffer hers in return, and Foye lowered his arm while she said, holding a stack of papers, “It was a pleasure seeing you again, my lord.” Foye was coming to hate that crisp, impersonal tone of hers. “Mr. Lucey, do give Mrs. Lucey my regards.”
On their way back to Lucey’s house, Lucey said, “Extraordinary woman, Miss Godard.”
“I found her rather cold,” he said.
“The girl needs a husband, no matter what her uncle says.” They kept walking. Though Foye said nothing in response, he could not help thinking that had it not been for Crosshaven, she might already be married. His opinion wasn’t so different from Lucey’s. “Well,” Lucey continued, “My dear wife often warns me not to meddle, but I tell you, Foye, I am determined to find her a suitable husband. Especially now that you tell me there’s no hope for you.”
“None whatever,” he said.
“There’s a dozen soldiers who would do quite well for her. Sir Henry’s not going to live forever, you know. None of us are. What’s to become of her if she hasn’t got a husband?”
Foye said nothing to that, either. He was struggling with the unpleasant realization that for some reason, he thought of Miss Godard as his. She wasn’t. What’s more, he did not want her to be.
His.