Chapter Eleven
Gervaise groaned and clutched his head, castigating himself for an imbecile. It wasted several vital seconds, for by the time he ran after her, the front door slammed shut. Swearing furiously at himself, he ran upstairs to his chamber, where, without waiting for his valet’s help, he pulled on his boots and grabbed his greatcoat from the chair.
As he ran downstairs once more, swinging the coat around his shoulders, Gertie, the maid polishing the brasses, simply opened the door for him and stood aside.
At least, thanks to the snow, he could follow her footsteps. They took him to the woods, where her footprints vanished into a muddle of others, including horse and dogs. He walked on, his breath streaming out like smoke in the cold air. He knew she couldn’t have gone far, and that he knew these woods better than she did. On the other hand, she had been brought up with gypsies and was no doubt quite adept at hiding.
In the end, he simply followed muffled sounds that could have been faint footfalls or piles of disturbed snow dropping from tree branches. And then he saw her walking ahead of him. He lengthened his stride to catch up. He made no effort to hide his approach, but she neither increased her pace nor waited for him.
Falling into step beside her, he searched her face for signs of distress. After several moments, she cast him a rueful half-smile. “I told you I wanted to go out by myself. Here I am, walking off my ill-temper.”
“I don’t mean to dictate to you,” he said quietly. “But I need to look after you as well as I can.”
“I understand,” she replied. “But you are not responsible for me.”
“There, we must agree to disagree, but yes, we should discuss it like rational beings instead of me simply laying down the law. I’m too used to doing so.”
“Yes, you are,” she agreed, but at least her eyes were smiling again.
He took a deep breath. “And I should not have kissed you like that. It was meant to be comforting, in a friendly kind of a way, only with you I’m afraid it will never be that.”
She looked away, color seeping into her cheeks. “You should not apologize. I should. I have wanted you to kiss me since we first met.”
Gervaise’s heart turned over. Her honesty moved him, thrilled him in a way he did not quite understand. “Then why did you run away?” he asked softly.
She didn’t answer for several paces. “You’ll think I’m silly.”
“Never that.”
She glanced at him, doubtfully, but it seemed she had decided on honesty. Taking a deep breath, she said, “You kissed Eleanor.”
“I know who you are.”
“You never kissed me when I was merely Dawn.”
He halted, taking her hand to make her stop with him. “Yes, I did. You think I’ve forgotten, but I haven’t. I kissed you the first night I met you. Since the day after, I knew you were Eleanor.”
“No, you didn’t. You thought I might be, hoped I might be. You didn’t know.”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Dawn, Eleanor, Miss Conway, Cousin, they are all you.”
She stepped closer, raising her face to his. Her brilliant eyes sparkled, her lips glistened. “Then kiss me again,” she said intensely. “Me, as I am, not some lady you wish me to be.”
Gervaise swallowed. He had told her once before that if he kissed her he would not stop. But for her sake, he would stop. He would.
“One kiss,” he said hoarsely. “And then I will be good. We will both be good.”
Her smile was anything but good. Something that wasn’t quite laughter threatened to close up his throat, and then he gave in and sank his lips into hers. She yielded, parting her lips for his invasion. With aching slowness, he took possession of her mouth, her tongue and teeth, tasting, exploring. And when she threw her arms around his neck, tangling her fingers in his hair and kissed him back, arousal exploded.
He closed his arms around her, sweeping his hand down her back to press her luscious body against him and hold her there. She seemed to melt into him, and then she moved in his arms, caressing him with her whole body, her whole being. No one had ever excited him like this, and certainly not from a mere kiss…
Sense struggled to break through the sensual fog. He wanted to push her against the thick trunk of the tree behind her and take her there and then. He wanted to flee with her to the castle and take her to bed…
Instead, very gradually, the effort shaking his entire body, he detached his mouth from hers and loosened his hold without releasing her completely. Her quickened breath mingled with his as he took her face in his hands and let his thumbs trail over the corners of her mouth.
“You leave me speechless,” he said hoarsely. “And senseless.”
She held onto his wrists. “I haven’t left you at all.”
“Not yet.” He smiled and turned his head to kiss the insides of her wrists. “Not yet. And now, we will be good.”
He released her face and tucked her hand decorously in his arm to walk back to the castle. At least that was his plan. But when she swept up some snow from an overhanging tree branch and formed it into a snowball, regarding him with mischievous intent, he suddenly had far too much energy for staidness.
As soon as she threw the snowball at his shoulder, he ducked to avoid it and scooped up snow from the ground. Her second snowball hit its target, but as she ran on, laughing, his caught her in the back. He ran after her to follow up the attack, a snowball in each hand. The first one brushed her shoulder as she dodged behind a tree, which she used for cover until he swept around and bombarded her.
Never one to give in, she fought back, and ran on. He grinned and followed. He couldn’t remember when he had last enjoyed such simple fun.
A long snowball battle later, they finally arrived back at the castle in time for late breakfast, flushed and laughing as they shook snow from their clothes. His bad leg ached, but he didn’t care.
Serena, descending the stairs with Caroline, regarded him with a faint smile on her lips and an odd expression in her eyes that he couldn’t quite read. Some of it was amusement. Some of it was concern, though for what he could not fathom. He felt…happy.
*
After they had waved the Benedicts off to Haven Hall, Gervaise announced that he was going over to Henrit, if anyone cared to accompany him.
“I’ll come,” Serena said brightly. “I have some silk I promised to Catherine. Cousin, would you care to visit the Winslows? It’s a pleasant ride.”
“Mr. Winslow is the local magistrate,” Gervaise told Dawn.
For an instant, she looked confused, as though she had forgotten the whole subject of her identity and disappearance from Haven Hall. Then she nodded. “Yes, of course. Is it far?”
“About an hour’s ride there and another back again,” Serena said.
“Is it possible to go in the carriage?” Dawn asked unexpectedly. “I find I have no energy after the ball. And then defending myself from his lordship’s vicious snowballing!”
She did not look at Gervaise, but he understood what she was doing. Although he had tried to hide that his leg ached, she must have noticed all the same. He was about to deny it and insist that they ride, but Serena said, “Of course, that’s a much better idea. I’ll order the carriage sent round.”
He declined to make a fuss. In fact, Dawn possessed a very natural tact, for he found he did not even mind her coddling.
They set off for Henrit as soon as Gervaise was more properly attired for a morning visit. The Winslows’ estate was one of the more accessible in the area, and although the snow had made the road slower and more difficult than usual, any snow drifts had been cleared away.
Mrs. Winslow welcomed them with her usual delight. Catherine, her eldest daughter, and Serena had been friends since childhood, so she was used to his sisters running tame around her house. Besides, her good-natured snobbery made her preen at a visit from the earl himself.
Mr. Winslow was winkled out of his study to take tea with the visitors, which he did very graciously before Gervaise requested a quiet word. At once, Winslow hailed him off to the study and poured him a glass of brandy “to keep out the cold” he insisted with twinkling eyes.
Gervaise grinned and raised his glass in a silent toast to his host.
“So, what can I do for your lordship?” Winslow asked genially, waving him to a chair on one side of the fire while he took the other.
“I was wondering what you remembered about the disappearance of Eleanor Gardyn.”
Winslow’s bushy eyebrows flew up. “Mainly that we never found her. It still breaks my heart. When I think of my own children, the pain of Robert and Barbara Gardyn—” He broke off. “Such a tragedy. What on earth has brought that into your head?”
Gervaise took a sip of brandy. “You may have noticed Miss Conway’s coloring.”
“If I didn’t know better,” Winslow said carefully, “I would say there was Gardyn blood in there.”
“So would I. In fact, it’s my belief there is. Sir, I have to confess to you that she is not my cousin. That was a ruse to justify her staying with us while I made some inquiries. It’s my belief she is Eleanor Gardyn.”
Winslow’s brows descended into a frown. “On what evidence?”
“Her appearance—she could be Theresa Gardyn’s twin—and her age were what drew me first. But she remembers certain things no one else would know, like meeting me at the castle during that reception in May of 1799 and calling me my lord.”
“That is somewhat scant proof.”
“I know it would not convince a court of law.”
“Where did you find her?”
Gervaise hesitated. “With the gypsies who camped on my land a couple of weeks back.”
“Dear God, Braithwaite!” Winslow exclaimed in disgust. “There could be any number of reasons for her to possess such coloring! What are you thinking of—”
“Passing off a gypsy on polite society?” Gervaise finished for him, allowing a hint of steel into his voice which made Winslow bite his lip. “I was thinking of just such prejudice which, even if it were justified, would not apply to her. Hear me out, sir. I spoke to the man who brought her up, who is not her father by blood. He claims he acquired her from another gypsy couple during the Appleby horse fair in June 1799. Moreover, his description of the dress this child was wearing fits almost exactly with the one Miss Muir gave me of what Eleanor wore the day she vanished.”
“They could have heard that somewhere and remembered it,” Winslow pointed out.
“I know. But put with the rest, it surely means something.”
Winslow drank his brandy in a distracted kind of way. “What does she say? Does she claim to be Eleanor Gardyn?”
Gervaise shook his head. “I think as she is more distressed about it than anything else. At first, she denied it utterly. She herself brought up the possibility of her being a Gardyn by-blow.”
“Julius was a bit of a loose screw in his youth,” Winslow recalled.
“He was. I haven’t spoken to him on the subject, and at least until I do, it remains possible that he is her father.”
“But you don’t believe that.”
“No, I don’t,” Gervaise said flatly.
“And your interest in this case has nothing to do with your ongoing feud with Gardyn? Or the fact that he is currently seeking to have Eleanor declared dead and claim her inheritance?”
Gervaise drained his glass. “It did when I first saw her. I was drunk and angry and thought I had found in her a way to annoy him. But when I saw the portrait of Theresa Gardyn side by side with her, when I learned more about her and what she feels and remembers, I am as sure as I can be about anything. The only trouble is, as you say, I lack evidence. Is there anything at all to tie Eleanor’s disappearance to gypsies? And if so, do you have any names?”
Winslow stared at him for a moment, then set down his glass, stood, and walked to the shelves behind his desk. He took down a fat file as if he always knew where it was. And laid it on the desk. “Come and search with me. Two pairs of eyes are better than one.”
*
Dawn knew Gervaise was discussing her with Mr. Winslow. She wondered what he would learn, and whether what he told Mr. Winslow would change the magistrate’s attitude toward her. Those who did know her history—the Braithwaites and Tamars, the Benedicts and even the Grants—had shown her nothing but kindness and acceptance. But the Winslows were not Gervaise’s particular friends. They would not necessarily believe him, let alone do what he asked.
Dawn wasn’t sure she believed. Things she knew, things she remembered, could only have come from Eleanor’s memories. But that was almost like hearing about someone else’s life. She did not feel like Eleanor. She felt like Dawn. And she wanted to be whichever of them Gervaise had kissed. Because that kiss was the most soul-shattering, wonderful thing that had ever happened to her.
Well, she could neither influence nor overhear the conversation in Mr. Winslow’s study, so she decided to make her own inquiries. When Serena and Miss Winslow moved to the table, comparing ribbons of silk with scraps of other fabric, Dawn remarked how much she had enjoyed last night’s ball.
“So did I,” Mrs. Winslow confided. “I must admit I am glad they have continued the balls throughout the winter, for everyone looks forward to them and they do keep us lively and entertained. You certainly had no shortage of partners, Miss Conway. You are quite the social success in Blackhaven.”
“Everyone was most kind. Tell me, ma’am, are you acquainted with Mr. Gardyn?”
Mrs. Winslow’s gaze flickered around Dawn’s hair before coming to rest on her eyes once more. “Julius?” she said mildly. “Of course. He was at Haven Hall a lot when he was young. Before the tragedy. We don’t see him so often now, of course, except when we go to London, and Mr. Winslow is there more often than I. Now there is some rumor of him taking over the hall.”
“So I heard,” Dawn murmured. “I met him last night. Lord Braithwaite introduced us, but I had the feeling they were not friends.”
“Sadly not. And to be frank, it all comes from Mr. Gardyn’s side, for Braithwaite is the most good-natured of men.”
“Then what is Mr. Gardyn’s problem with his lordship?”
Mrs. Winslow lowered her voice. “Jealousy.”
A jealousy of her own twisted Dawn’s stomach. “Of a lady?”
“Possibly, though I never heard such. But no, it is deeper than that. Braithwaite was born to wealth and title, a viscount since birth and an earl from the age of fifteen. Julius is a scion of a younger branch of the Gardyns, always struggling for money. He went into parliament for the sake of position, I’m sure, and very expensive it must have been for him in the beginning. However, he made a success of it, became, I’m told, quite an influence in his party. He probably hoped—hopes—to be an important government minister one day. Prime Minister, even!”
Mrs. Winslow shrugged. “And then, Braithwaite broke his leg and had nothing better to do than take his seat in the House of Lords. And he was energetic and passionate, held diametrically opposed views on many matters, and everyone liked him. You may have noticed,” Mrs. Winslow added wryly, “that his lordship has an easy and charming address with everyone from servants and farm laborers to fellow aristocrats. Julius does not. And so, I imagine Julius is furious because Braithwaite imposed himself on his territory, took away, as he sees it, everything he had worked years to accomplish. Or at least winning it for himself in a matter of months. It is Braithwaite now who is the rising star of the party, who is expected to go far.” She smiled. “Of course, it does not preclude Julius rising also, but he was always inclined to envy.”
“You do not like him,” Dawn guessed.
“No,” Mrs. Winslow admitted. “I was about to say he was a bitter young man and bitterness is a trait I do not admire. But I have to confess my own bitterness is at the root of my opinion, for when we were young, Julius Gardyn looked down his almost-aristocratic nose at the poor curate’s daughter. I was not good enough to be danced with or even noticed. Such things hurt when one is young.”
“Yes, they do,” Dawn agreed, and tried to smile.
*
“Well?” Dawn demanded, on the carriage ride back to the castle. “What did you learn from Mr. Winslow?”
“That the dress you wore when Ezra took you in fits with the description he has of Eleanor’s dress the day you disappeared. That several people had reported seeing gypsies in the area in the days leading up to the disappearance. One person said they met a tall, scary looking gypsy horse trader called Abraham.”
Dawn swallowed. “Abe is tall,” she admitted.
“The authorities found and spoke with an Abraham at Appleby,” Gervaise said. “But he had no child with him and denied all knowledge. Nothing was found among his or his wife’s possessions to connect them to you.”
“Because he had already passed me on to Ezra?” Dawn suggested.
“That is my theory. Only I can’t understand why he would have taken you in the first place if only to give you away again.”
“Money could have changed hands,” Serena pointed out, tactfully.
“I’m sure it did,” Dawn agreed.
“But you were a child from a wealthy family,” Gervaise argued. “Couldn’t Abe have got more money out of your parents for your safe return than whatever he managed to squeeze out of Ezra?”
“That wouldn’t have been an option to them,” Dawn said, “if the authorities were crawling all over Haven Hall. Perhaps it was a plan that went wrong.”
“Then it was a plan doomed to go wrong before you were taken,” Gervaise declared. “We need Abe.”
“And the dress,” Serena put in.
Dawn regarded them both with curiosity. They both seemed more involved, more invested in this investigation than she was. People she hadn’t known more than a fortnight ago were putting themselves out to prove she was a lady of property, just because it was the right thing to do.
Well, she supposed Serena was pleasing her brother. And Gervaise’s motives were not quite so pure. Revenge for a hundred slights and for the willful wrecking of a plan to make many lives better. And yet she could swear now, they were both supporting her. As if they liked her.
Warmth spread through her as they drove back to the castle—home, as she had begun to think of it in her head, just as the earl had become Gervaise in her thoughts. And Gervaise did like her. She had always sensed it in him, caught glimpses of the intense desire he controlled so well. But his kiss had told the truth. No one could kiss like that and not feel. And yet he had not kissed her until she had told him she was Eleanor. The knowledge had upset her at first, but now a new suspicion struggled to be born.
Eleanor was a lady by birth. Not a great match for an earl by worldly standards, perhaps, but it would be a respectable one. Did he…did he like her enough to be considering marriage with her?
The idea deprived her of breath. With difficulty, she reined in the wild happiness and tried to squash it. He had known her two weeks and she had lived virtually all her life with gypsies. What was respectable about that? And yet, despite wanting her as she knew he did, he had not touched her. He had more or less admitted previous liaisons of the unrespectable variety, so why hadn’t he seduced her? Because he thought she was untouched, innocent?
In fact, she was. She had lain with no one, not even with Matthew despite his best efforts. She hadn’t been awaiting a prince—or even an earl—to carry her off, but she had wanted to be swept off her feet into love.
She risked a glance at him in the seat opposite and found him watching her. God help me, I do love you.
She couldn’t help smiling at him, and his lips twitched in instant response. His eyes gleamed, too, and then darkened with desire. But he would not take her because she was a lady. An innocent young lady, whom he could, conceivably marry.
If she looked back on all their encounters, as they got to know one another, could they not be viewed as a somewhat unconventional courtship? Not that she had any real idea of what constituted courtship in the upper classes. She had a vague idea it was all somewhat cold, arranged to their own advantage by the parents who then, perhaps, waited to see if their children could bear each other.
She could more than bear Gervaise. Suddenly, she wanted to weep because life could hold no greater joy than to be married to him. A joy she had neither sought nor expected until this moment. A few days, a week, or even just one night of pleasure was all she had ever hoped for… She would still take that. But it seemed there were advantages after all in being Eleanor. For Gervaise, she could be a great lady.
Happiness seemed to be bursting out of her.
The rest of the day passed in slightly breathless laughter, banter, and fun. She spent no more time alone with him apart from half an hour before dinner when she practiced her reading.
She knew all the letters now and most of the sounds they made, although a few oddities still baffled her. It meant she could read most words, and he assured her it would take only practice before she could read as fluently as he. Writing was a little harder, but she found that when she looked on it as drawing instead of something alien and learned, she could form the letters more easily with her pen.
There were a few delicious moments, when she met his gaze across the desk, when he leaned over her to show her where to best place the tail on her “f” and she looked up to find his lips only an inch or two from hers. There was strange delight, too, in not touching him, in simply anticipating the next moment when it could happen.
For now, she enjoyed every minute of his company and his family’s. After dinner, while Gervaise read long reports from Parliament, and Serena and the girls worked at their embroidery, Lord Tamar brought her the guitar. She played whatever came into her head, love songs and dances, until she lost herself somewhere between complete happiness and a bitter sweet nostalgia from the memories that inevitably flooded her along with the music.
“Do you miss them?” Serena asked quietly. “Your Romany family?”
They are the biggest part of my life. I will always miss them. And yet I never want this evening to end. She smiled. “A little,” she said aloud, glancing up. From the sofa, Gervaise searched her face.
“Bring the picture, Rupert,” Serena commanded her husband, and Tamar obediently left the room.
“What picture?” Dawn asked.
“The one he made of your encampment,” Serena replied.
Dawn vaguely remembered him sketching quietly that evening. She had been too lost in the earl to even glance at what he had done. Since then, she had discovered that Tamar was a somewhat eccentric nobleman and had actually earned money exclusively from painting before he had married Serena. But she didn’t think she’d actually seen any of his work to judge its appeal. While she waited, she schooled herself to show only pleasure in his painting.
But when he self-consciously propped the unframed canvas against the back of a chair, all that self-control vanished and she simply stared. The scene was lit by lamps, golden light spilling over the scene. She recognized the lamps and the cushions and even the man who looked into the picture from the shadows. You could not make out his face, only his hand which was held in that of a gypsy girl whose hair was veiled. She looked beautiful, alluring, a little tragic, her smile at once mischievous and tempting.
“That…that is me!” she exclaimed in wonder. “And the tent…did it really look like that to you?”
“Beautiful, mysterious, and quite charlatanesque,” Tamar assured her.
“I’m not a charlatan,” she said automatically. “I’m not that beautiful either.”
“I disagree,” Gervaise said, standing behind his younger sisters who had thrust their way to the front to see. “That is just how I saw you, too. Tamar has a knack of catching the essence of a scene, of a person, and making the whole beautiful from within.”
“Only if the beauty is there to start with,” Tamar insisted. “I can draw ugliness, too.”
“I imagine you can draw anything,” Dawn said fervently. “I love your picture.”
“Then it is yours,” Tamar said at once. “To hang on your wall or face down under the bed, according to your mood.”
Dawn laughed. “How could anyone put this face-down? You are kind, my lord, but I could not accept—”
“Of course you can,” Gervaise insisted. “It’s a gift. He’ll paint other versions to sell.”
“Where your face is veiled,” Tamar said apologetically, “just in case you prefer it that way.”
She wanted to weep, so she seized the guitar instead and leaning against the arm of a chair began to play a wild dance, thumping the guitar as well as her feet to keep the rhythm. “Dance!” she commanded Tamar, who seized Serena and began to caper in a way that made everyone, including his partner, hold their sides with laughter. The girls soon joined in, Maria with Helen, and Alice tugging Gervaise into the dance.
Dawn could not be still either, so she danced around them, still playing. And then she walked around Gervaise and he faced her, circling her, advancing on her until her heart turned over and she believed that any dance was possible for them.
She laughed aloud because life was suddenly so wonderful.
And then the drawing room door opened and two ladies walked in.
The elder, who came first, was frowning with ferocious astonishment. A thin, straight-backed, haughty looking lady in a plumed hat of high fashion and a fur-lined traveling cloak.
“Braithwaite!” she snapped, and everyone halted in their tracks.
Dawn stopped playing. Alice groaned.
“Oh, the devil,” Gervaise said ruefully beneath his breath and then, as though unsure whether to laugh or be annoyed, he went forward to embrace the lady. “Mother. Welcome home.”