A Lady's Guide to Ruin (12 page)

Still, she and Elinor caught each other's eyes every few moments, worry growing thick in the air between them. She had played her part poorly with Elinor and Martin. Now she would play it in front of five new judges. And she had but three days to prepare.

At last, Joan could not keep up the reading. She closed the book in her lap. Mrs. Wynn looked up with a frown. “You must tell me about these friends of yours,” Joan said lightly. Daphne would be nearly as anxious as she to get the measure of them.

Elinor caught on immediately. “Oh, well. There's Kitty—that is, Lady Grey. You will like her. She is very friendly. She has a talent for getting a lifetime's accounting from every acquaintance; she'll know the name of your childhood dog and what you like for supper before an hour's through.”

Joan nodded at the warning. She would not have to fret too much about answering true to Daphne's life, so long as she remembered what answers she spun. They would have nothing to check her story against but itself.

Elinor continued onward, her bland words coded with hints and warnings. Lord Farleigh was smarter than he let on, and had something of a reputation for making ladies swoon; Captain Harken, the sailor, had spent a considerable amount of time near Daphne's hometown, and nursed an unrequited infatuation with Lady Grey. As Elinor spoke, Joan's impression of her—already quite favorable—improved several notches. She had not spent her years of quiet retirement shutting out the world. She had been watching it, cataloguing its details. When she confessed that she had never in fact
met
Captain Harken, Joan was startled, given the vivid portrait she'd painted of the man.

The one glaring omission was Lord Grey, and the way Elinor danced around mention of him was information in itself. At first Joan suspected an old romantic entanglement, but then she saw the unease that tightened the corners of Elinor's mouth. Her brother's dear friend had no champion in her, Joan decided. She would steer well clear of him.

At last the embroidery was done, Mrs. Wynn was back to her customary semi-comatose state, and the afternoon was wearing well into evening. Joan pled a headache and slipped off to her room, only to pause in the hallway. There was a snuffling sound from the room two down from hers where Lady Phoebe was to stay. Joan crept to the door and peered in. Maddy sat on the bed in the midst of shucked linens, wiping at her nose with her hand and leaking tears down both cheeks. Joan stepped in, shutting the door behind her. Maddy leapt to her feet.

“Sorry, miss,” she said. Her voice was all a wreck, but she was, Joan noted with small envy, one of those rare people who could be lovely even when weeping. The tip of her nose was red, but her face was perfectly composed as glistening tears trailed their way to her chin.

“Here,” Joan said, and held out a handkerchief. “No need to apologize. You and M—Lord Fenbrook both are forever apologizing to me. It's a terrible habit.”

Maddy took the handkerchief and managed a wan smile. Joan mirrored it in encouragement.

“Why are you crying?” she asked.

“It doesn't matter. I should finish with the bed,” Maddy said.

Joan stifled a sigh. She felt more at ease with Maddy than with Elinor, in truth, for all Elinor was incandescent in her kindness and her wit. Joan had grown up with patches on her skirts, not oak paneling and servants at her beck and call. “Please tell me,” Joan said. She seized both of Maddy's hands, crushing the handkerchief between their fingers. “I'll worry if you don't.”

“It's only that . . . Before my sister asked Lord Fenbrook to take me on here, I was in Lord Grey's household, miss. And I'm afraid . . .” She cut herself off abruptly.

“You're afraid of him,” Joan said, voice flat. She might have guessed. The thing that Elinor could not say. The thing Martin probably had never noticed. He who was gripped by rage at the thought of hands upon his cousin's flesh. “Has he hurt you?”

Maddy shook her head. “Only said things, miss. And there were other girls that left before.”

Joan nodded. There would always be other girls, and excuses for their absences. Sometimes those other girls
ended up in neighborhoods like hers, babes at their breasts and a few meager coins pressed into their palms as severance. Joan had never met one with a happy ending to her tale.

“If he says anything to you,
anything
, or makes you fear he'll hurt you in any way, you tell me,” she said fiercely. “I don't need to tell you to try not to be alone with him. And if he goes to your room . . .” She stopped. This was not Moses they were talking about. If he went to Maddy's room, Maddy would have no way to defend against him. “If he goes to your room, kick him in the balls,” she said. “Damn your place here. I'll tell you a secret: I'm rich. And I'll take you with me when I go, if you need to get away.”

“You're not like anyone I've worked for before,” Maddy said, voice teetering between nervousness and admiration. “I don't think I could do what you said. But surely he won't do anything. Not here.” She shuddered.

“Just remember,” Joan said. “You come to me. For anything.” She frowned, considering. “You don't speak French, do you?”

“No,” Maddy said, as if she had admitted to spitting inside Joan's bonnet.

“Pity. I think there are a few things you would like about France, now the war's over. When you run away to work for me, we'll have to take you there. You can be my lady's maid, and we can be roguishly unfashionable together.”

“I think only men can be roguish,” Maddy said, but she was smiling now.

“Not in France,” Joan declared. “In France anyone can be a rogue. Now dry your eyes, and don't fear Lord Grey.” She tugged Maddy's cap back into its rightful place,
carefully adjusting the pins. The touch made Maddy shudder, and Joan's lips twitched in a frown. She really was rich, or would be. Rich enough, anyway, for a small house with just enough servants that every one of them could be a little bit out of place. Somewhere tucked away, where no one knew Daphne Hargrove or Joan Price. She would never have to shimmy up another drainpipe, or kiss a man while she lifted keys from his pockets.

She rather liked the idea.

“Oh!” Maddy cried as Joan stepped away. “I almost forgot. Lord Fenbrook forgot something he meant to write in the letter he left to be posted and went to root around the stack himself. I hardly had time to grab yours, but I did, and looked a fool, too.” She slid the small, folded sheet from beneath her apron and offered it. “Your secret's safe, but it's stuck here, miss.”

Joan sighed, taking the letter with a sinking feeling. “There is nothing to it, then, but to walk to town myself,” she said. She tugged at a short lock of hair. “I can't very well say I'm going to buy ribbons.”

“A new handkerchief,” Maddy said absently. At Joan's prodding look, she flushed. “You cry so much, miss, anyone would believe you need a store room full of 'em. Meaning no impertinence, miss.”

Joan pressed a hand to her lips but she couldn't hold back her laughter.

*   *   *

Martin paused at the foot of the stairs. Daphne, laughing. He stood transfixed by the sound—warm, unladylike peals underlain with something smoky and decadent. He wanted to charge up the steps to find out what had made her laugh,
so he could replicate it. Twice a day, and thrice on Sundays, until one of them was in their grave. Possibly beyond.

But instead he wrapped his hand around the knob at the base of the bannister and closed his eyes to listen. In a moment the sound stopped, and he strained to catch the click of a shutting door and the rustle of skirts. Her steps passed by her room—he did not wish to think about how clearly etched the location of the door was in his mind—and hurried back toward the staircase. His eyes snapped open just as she emerged from the hallway, color high in her cheeks and a look of mischief giving way to her typical half-quizzical expression. She saw him, but instead of stilling for an instant as she normally did, she flounced down the steps with a wide, girlish grin.

“Cousin,” she chirped. “Is the weather fine? I thought I would walk to the village. Elinor is ever so tired and I am tripping over her like a puppy.”

“She seemed fine when I saw her,” he said, not quite sure why he was trying to contradict her. To keep her in the house, he supposed. Nearer him, so that he might have a chance to hear her laugh again. He'd thought he preferred the still, slightly-sad version of Daphne. He hadn't seen her joyful yet, that was all. She was radiant.

“What's that?” Elinor, Mrs. Wynn in tow, had turned the corner.

“You don't seem tired,” Martin said. “You seem quite lively.”

Elinor propped a hand against the wall, pressing the other to her chest. “Oh, Daphne. I thought I had hid it well, but you're right. I'm wrung out like a rag. I may need to stay abed until supper.”

Martin looked between the two of them, sensing
conspiracy and powerless to countermand it. He swept a bow to each young lady in turn—including Mrs. Wynn in a fanciful flourish at the end, which set her blushing like a schoolgirl—and held out his arm to Daphne. “After all your travails, you can hardly be out on the road to the village alone. I shall accompany you.”

Daphne's mouth made a little O. “But we can't be out together, alone,” she said. She looked at Mrs. Wynn and Elinor, looking rather like a horse about to bolt.

“Nonsense. It will be broad daylight, and several wagons will be coming and going to deliver supplies for our coming weeks,” Martin said. “Besides, we are cousins, however distant, and we are in the country. Country rules. Even Mrs. Wynn can't argue.”

Mrs. Wynn sniffed, indicating that she very well
could
argue, if she had a mind to. Elinor's mouth pursed as if she were about to kiss someone unpleasant, like their maiden aunt Fanny. Mrs. Wynn finally stirred herself to a response. “It will do,” she said. “As I cannot leave Lady Elinor's side in her time of crisis.”

Two arched brows at that, one from each sibling, and a sound suspiciously like a snort from Daphne. Martin swiveled his gaze back to the latter, feeling
smug
, God help him.

“Very well, I consent to your escort,” Daphne said. The look she cast Elinor was—apologetic? Ah. That, at least, clarified a few things. Elinor had decided to play guardian of his easily wounded heart, had she? What dire warnings had she filled Daphne's head with? Probably nothing more than the truth: that they were a poor match, and that men could not be trusted, when in the grip of infatuation, to guard a woman's honor. He should not marry her; therefore, she should not encourage his attentions.

Elinor was wrong on a few counts. He could control himself. It would be a greater task than those of Hercules, but he would lop off the offending member—a wince at that thought—before he would ruin Daphne. Moreover, he
could
marry her.

As soon as Hudson found Charles.

Daphne had not yet taken his extended hand. He curled his fingers over. “Is something wrong?”

“I'm not dressed,” Daphne said, her tone overly patient. He raked his gaze up and down her lithe form. She very certainly
was
dressed. Far more dressed than he would have preferred her, with a bodice that barely dipped below her clavicle—he paused there, admiring the trio of freckles that adorned the left-hand sweep of said clavicle—and sported a scalloped collar which hid the alluring sweep of her neck. He reached her feet, passing over the too-long hem that showed not a glimpse of petticoat or delicate ankle, and met a pair of green slippers.

“Ah,” he said at last. “I see.” She would never get to the village in those. He would be carrying her before they were halfway. This seemed to him an excellent idea with no downside whatsoever, but he doubted his sister or Mrs. Wynn would agree. “I shall wait,” he said, dripping with gallantry.

She stuffed another laugh behind those small lips and a flicker of satisfaction warmed him. He would make her laugh. He would make her happy.

Joan began to wonder if Martin was drunk, the way he carried on about every sheep and flower they passed, each remark more ridiculous than the last. It seemed early in the day for the pursuit but she had not known the man for long.
Every third Saturday, become drunk by one in the afternoon
, she imagined him jotting down. Where he would jot such things, she couldn't say. A diary of life goals, she supposed, alongside
Remain handsome at all times, so as to tempt young ladies out of their promises to my spinster sister.

Ah, but she was not a lady. And Martin would never be so unkind as to refer to his sister as a spinster. She was appalled that she had, actually.

“Ah!” he cried. “The hint of a smile. You find the thrush a comical character as well, I take it?”

She stared at him. “Is that what you were on about?”
she asked. His face crumpled into abject disappointment. That nearly
did
make her smile and she pressed her fingers to her lips in feigned horror to cover it. “Forgive me,” she said.

“It is done. Provided you tell me what
did
make you smile,” he said. They had halted on the road. The thrush that had apparently earned Martin's scorn hopped across a fence, oblivious to the insults recently heaped upon him.

She pressed her lips together. “I was thinking that your sister was not a spinster,” she said. “That she is in fact quite lovely, and kind, and charming, and that if it is this year or twenty years from now, she will make some man so mad with passion for her that he will fall onto his knee immediately.” The lie had the benefit of being one she agreed with, and being far more in line with Daphne than her own barbed musings.

“I do believe you are right,” he said, suddenly quite grave. “I am glad that the two of you get along so well. We had worried . . .”

“That I would grate on her,” Joan finished for him. She started walking again, suddenly conscious of how deeply they were staring into one another's eyes. This was why walks could be unchaperoned, she decided. So long as she was forced to watch her footing and look ahead, she did not have to struggle quite so hard to keep from leaning in to him again. That had not happened, she told herself.

The heat in her lips—and much farther down—gave lie to that. It could not happen again, she amended. She put a hand to her chest, as if to hide the flush of heat. She'd changed into a pale dress dappled with spring blossoms for the walk, thinking the lower cut would
help
with the heat. Her problem was proving more internal than external,
however, and the dress only served to reveal it, if Martin cared to examine her.

“It did seem more a favor to your parents than to Elinor,” the lord in question said. “I hope I don't insult you.”

“I am well aware of the impression I give off,” Joan said stiffly. “And the great kindness that you did in bringing me here.”

“Your father hopes that you might have a Season,” Martin said. “We could arrange it. Find someone to sponsor you.”

“I am only a minister's daughter,” Joan said. “Of a most unfashionable parish.” The idea of Joan Price debuting in London was so ridiculous she almost laughed.

“Yes, but your father is only a minister because his father had the poor sense to have sixteen children, and stick your father at the end of the line,” Martin said. “Ours is a good family, down to the narrow ends of the branches.”

“Sixteen,” Joan muttered, and gave a little shake. She could not imagine fifteen siblings. One was bad enough. It seemed to her that one had roughly a one-in-two chance of a sibling one got along with. Increasing the number of siblings merely added to the ranks of those one had to avoid.

“You don't want sixteen children?” Martin said.

“I don't want any,” Joan said flatly. He looked at her in surprise. She ignored it, fixing her eyes instead on a placidly chewing cow on the other side of the road. She had become inured to the country, she realized. On the way in, she'd gaped at the wide expanse of golden fields as if they were palaces.

“None?” he asked.

“I would not want the risk,” she said.

“The risk of mortality?” he asked.

“The risk of not liking them,” she said. “To be stuck with another person and to discover you don't get along would be quite horrible.”

“I think most mothers love their children,” he said. “Whether they get along or not. And if you don't, you can hire a fleet of nurses and see them on Christmas and their birthdays.” He said it lightly, but she detected an undercurrent of distaste. And longing. Ah, he wanted children. A good-sized set of them, she guessed.

“I think I will get a dog, instead,” she said.

“A dog?” Now he sounded amused. “A little white one, to yap at the maids and muddy your lap with its paws?”

“No. A great silky hound,” she said. “Who can walk with me to the village so that I will not be beset with highwaymen, and who will bark only at unwanted suitors and conceited cats.”

“I think that is all cats,” he said.

“I knew a quite humble calico once,” she said, not entirely sure why she was keeping up the banter. If she had any sense, she would have stared ahead and let him keep rambling all the way to town.

“Elinor had a pair of kittens when we were young. She called them Snowflake and Parsifal, for reasons I could never discern. Parsifal had the constant look of a martyr. Snowflake was always hitting him over the head for the slightest infraction. If any cat were humble, it would be Parsifal.”

“Ah, but that's not true humility,” Joan corrected him. “Not if he was browbeaten into it. My dear Princess Perilous held all the neighborhood in her thrall, and yet would shepherd young kittens across the road and offer her wide, soft belly to any hand who wished to touch it.”

“And that is humility?”

“For a cat,” she confirmed, trying very hard to remain somber.

“Princess Perilous?” he said weakly, and Joan had to turn away to hide her smile.

“My br—” She stopped.
My brother named her
, she was going to say. Moses had presented her with the little kitten one day when she was sick.
Don't cry
, he'd said.
Princess Perilous will protect you now.
She'd asked what
perilous
meant. He said he didn't know; he'd sounded it out from a newspaper headline and thought it sounded catlike and grand.

Had they ever been like that? It seemed like a dream.

“Your . . . ?” Martin prompted.

She wetted her lips. “My bosom friend, Anne, named her,” she said.

“Ah.”

She snuck a glance at him out of the corner of her eye. He had a speculative, faraway look, one that she saw often on Elinor's features. On Elinor, it meant she was mulling over an observation to turn it into a bit of wisdom, a new piece of information to add to her bank. As Martin lacked such a bank, as far as she could tell, she wondered what the look presaged.

A wagon had approached. Its driver was a well-weathered man with a peppery beard. He tipped his hat to the both of them and greeted Martin by name. Without pausing, they exchanged a few hurried words—about the weather, mostly, nothing out of the ordinary, but Martin still took the time to listen to the farmer and bid him good day. They continued on their way, then, their conversation quelled. The wagon was out of sight behind them and the village just ahead before they spoke again.

“You cannot choose your children,” Martin said. “But I think that if you choose your husband very, very well, you have a good chance of getting along with them. And there would always be him. Your husband. If the company of your children failed to delight.”

She had wondered how she might slip away from him to complete her errand. Now, he suddenly tugged at the hair that fell over his brow, a habit she'd noted twice before, and gave her an abbreviated bow.

“Wait for me at Mrs. Tuck's, will you? I have business to attend to,” he said.

“I thought I was your only business,” she said, capping the words too late. They were genuine, and disappointed. Never mind that she'd
needed
to be rid of him. She scowled inwardly at herself.

“I'll be back soon,” he promised. “I've only just thought of something. You will be safe in the village. And I will be quick.”

Then he turned on his heel, and walked the way they had come. She stared after him. Had she put him off so thoroughly? Her talk of children . . . well, it was true. If he faulted her for it, so be it. She didn't want children, or a husband for that matter. At the least, not in the abstract.

But if that husband was him, if those children were
theirs
 . . .

There was no use thinking about it. She touched the hard edge of the letter hidden in the folds of her skirt, and pressed onward into the village.

*   *   *

Joan made quick work of posting the letter. The man in the office was a dour sort who did not so much as glance
at the letter before fixing her with a stare that seemed to say
what are you still doing here, then?
She flashed a Daphne smile and hurried back out.

The sun was doing its best to spangle the roofs and make the cobblestones glitter after an overnight rain. It ought to have lent charm to the village, but it was a rather dumpy old place, without the wholesome character she'd been led to believe that such locales possessed. The people seemed friendly enough, though, and Mrs. Tuck, proprietress of Joan's next destination, kept up a singsong patter of praise about the town. And its local lord, Joan noted. Martin had a good reputation. It pleased her.

When she was stocked with not one but three new handkerchiefs, as well as a new bonnet and a tonic which Mrs. Tuck assured her would make her hair grow back faster, she hurried out of the shop. It wasn't until she hit the street that she remembered she had meant to wait inside for Martin's return. She glanced back. Mrs. Tuck was flitting about the store, as if whipped into a frenzy by the day's only visitor. Joan shook her head. She did not think she could survive the onslaught of conversation a return would bring.

She would see Martin coming from the square, where an old well—no longer functional, judging by the flowers planted in the still-hanging bucket—served as a gathering place for children, a pair of old women, and a trio of dust-colored mutts. She interested them only long enough for a greeting from the women and a perfunctory sniff from each of the mutts. She perched on the edge of the well and turned her face upward, letting it catch the sun. Presently, one of the dogs, this one silver-muzzled with age, came to lean against her calf. She patted it idly and it made a thrumming noise as if in imitation of a cat's purr.

She had wandered off down a sunny lane of daydreams, many of them involving her fingers and Martin's dark curls, when the dog suddenly stiffened and growled. She snatched her hand back, all too used to mercurial curs, and then saw what it was staring at.

No. He couldn't be here. It was impossible.

Moses. He hadn't seen her. Couldn't have seen her. He stood down the way, conversing with a gray-haired man. But any moment he would turn, and she would be finished. She rose to her feet, casting around for any avenue of escape. There. A little side street, the nearest thing to an alley the small village managed. She dashed for it, clutching her parcel from Mrs. Tuck's. Were those footsteps behind her? She lunged for the nearest doorway. The knob turned. She stumbled forward into a dark room and shut the door behind her.

Her shin barked against something. A rake. She hoisted it, dropping bonnet and handkerchiefs, and backed up until she hit a wall. This was no more than a storage shed. Dust filled her nose. A crate nudged against her knee. She had nowhere to go. And the doorknob was turning. She readied her rake, wishing it were a pistol. The door opened. She swung.

“Daphne?” Martin said accompanied by the whistle of air past the rake, and then Joan struck something soft, very hard.

*   *   *

It was a good thing he had thought to duck, Martin thought dimly. For one thing, he was still in possession of his head, though the well-being of the rolled canvas tent beside him was in question. For another, he found himself rather delighted to discover the extent of his cousin's vocabulary.
He had always heard, and believed, that it was a terrible thing for such words to grace a lady's lips. He'd been wrong. It was peculiarly erotic, perhaps because they were among the most
honest
words she'd yet hurled at him.

“Martin. Martin, bloody hell, I'm sorry,” she was saying. The implement of his narrowly averted demise was still clutched in both of her hands, lit by the narrowest sliver of light from the door. He straightened, took it from her, and set it gently aside. “Bugger me,” she said. “You're alive.”

“I ducked,” he said weakly.

“Close the door,” she said.