Lavender Blue Read online

  “Good afternoon, Duke,” she said stiffly, afraid that he might see through her guard to the vulnerable creature within. She also feared he would sense the aching desire that continued in spite of his odiousness when drunk.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Such formality? Am I no longer to be Jovian?”

  “I hardly think it is appropriate, do you?”

  “Why not? I still feel the same way about you.”

  She drew back. “Well, such sentiments are not mutual, especially at Christmas.”

  He had the grace to look remorseful. “I know I hurt you that Christmas, Anthea, but—”

  “You were a monster, as every holly garland and every carol remind me.”

  “So you will not accept my posy of lavendula vera?” He sought to change the mood by teasing her with Lady Letitia’s penchant for Latin names.

  “Your posy?”

  “Yes.”

  “But—”

  “But what?” he inquired.

  “Where did you get it?”

  “A lavender field at Cathness, of course.”

  She stared at him, then at the lavender. “A field! Oh, come now!” she said incredulously, not realizing until then that deep down she imagined the shrub had been grown under glass.

  “A field is where it came from, and I picked it only yesterday.”

  Annoyance now began to crease her brow. “That is nonsense, and you know it.”

  He seemed amused. “As you wish,” he murmured.

  “Besides, lavender field or not, I was under the impression you had been in London since the middle of November.”

  He glanced away. “Perchance the ribbon tied itself, and the posy flew of its own accord.”

  Anthea studied his matchless profile. “From all accounts the only thing that flies of its own accord is you, sir.”

  “Don’t tell me you believe such tales?” There was mockery in his tone as he looked at her again.

  She didn’t answer, for unlike Aunt Letty she could not entirely discount the rumors. How could she, when to be with him was occasionally to suspect the closeness of another world, a place of magic and the supernatural, of spells and wonderful powers?

  “Tut, tut, Anthea.” He wagged a gloved finger sternly. “How can you, one of the most sensible and practical young ladies in London, actually admit to thinking I can fly? I leave that to gentlemen who imbibe far too much after-dinner port.”

  His words almost made her start, as for the first time she realized he was quite sober. There was no alcohol on his breath or slow mumble in his voice. But even so, she could not help her next words. “Too much after-dinner port? Well, you would know all about that.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  “It’s what I know, and the fact that for once you appear to be unfuddled by drink makes no difference. So if you are intent upon humbugging me that you now eschew all things alcoholic, please do not insult my intelligence.”

  His eyes arrested hers. “Anthea, I have never voluntarily taken more than a drink or two.”

  Her anger ignited. “A drink or two? Jovian, it’s a miracle you are apparently sober today!”

  “Well, at least I am Jovian again, if only so that you may insult me more. And to think that I was gallantly intent not only upon presenting you with lavender but also congratulating you.”

  “Congratulating me?”

  “Upon your new stepmother.”

  She stared. “How did you—? Oh, of course—I was forgetting that Lord Lisnerne is your uncle. Your mother’s brother, I believe.”

  “Indeed so, and he is very fond of me, whether or not I am pickled.” He gave a light, infectious laugh that brought tears to her eyes.

  “Why did you have to change so?” she whispered. “Why did you have to become so despicable most of the time that I cannot even respect you now, let alone love you?”

  His laughter died away, and he reached out toward her. “Oh, Anthea, my dearest, darling—” He broke off as thunder rattled overhead.

  Startled, Anthea looked up. Thunder? On a December day that would surely be acceptable at the North Pole?

  Jovian glanced urgently all around the garden, clearly expecting to see something, and then his gaze fixed upon the low box hedge where a hare crouched on the frost-white winter grass. It was watching them, as if eavesdropping.

  “Damn you,” Jovian breathed, his gray eyes almost as cold as the winter as he regarded the wild creature.

  “Jovian, it’s only a hare!” Anthea said, puzzled by his reaction. But then, to her utter amazement, the hare stood up on its hind legs, drew its mouth back, and bared its teeth as if laughing at Jovian, who hurled a handful of gravel at it. After shaking its scut in a very insulting manner, the hare loped away behind the hedge, leaving paw prints in the frost.

  As Anthea was doubting the evidence of her own eyes, it occurred to her that it was unusual to have seen a hare in the capital at all, even in the garden of spacious Berkeley Square. She turned to Jovian, but he spoke first. “Beware, Anthea, for things might soon happen that are far, far beyond your experience.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked a little fearfully, for there was a note in his voice that commanded belief.

  “I pray that you need never know,” he said, then looked suddenly past her, as if seeing something there. She turned instinctively to look, but all she saw was the gray half tones of the gathering fog. When she looked at Jovian again, he had gone.

  A pang of deep unease chilled her heart, for she had not heard his steps upon the gravel; indeed, there had been no sound at all to signal his sudden departure. What was she to think? That he had ... flown away?

  She called his name, but there was no response. Suddenly the garden seemed a very strange place, especially as the fog had now closed in sufficiently to veil the surrounding houses. Her unease increased sharply, and with a shiver that was not only due to the cold, she hurried from the garden. On reaching the pavement her footsteps echoed through the chilling vapor, but she was sure other footsteps were following. Jovian? She halted hopefully by the wrought iron railings that fronted all the houses in the square.

  “Jovian? Is that you?” But no one replied, and as the fog eddied, the following footsteps continued to draw closer.

  Fearful of footpads, Anthea drew beneath the lantern arch of the houses, then pressed back by the door and kept very still as the footsteps grew louder. She held her breath as a figure emerged from the fog. To her relief it wasn’t a footpad but a brown-cloaked woman of about forty. Relief quickly yielded to puzzled surprise as the woman, whom she did not know at all, directed at her an unmistakably hostile glance, then disappeared into the fog toward Berkeley Street.

  Anthea was confounded. She did not know the woman at all yet had been subjected to a look of such antagonism that they might as well have been sworn enemies. The woman must have taken her for someone else. Yes, that had to be the explanation.

  Gathering up her cloak, Anthea hurried on to Daneway House, where Aunt Letty had become so anxious about her that footmen were about to be dispatched to search.

  Chapter Three

  January 1814 found Napoleon in retreat and most of Britain and Europe still in the relentless grip of the worst winter in living memory, putting to shame even 1795, which was referred to as the famine year. Deep snow had now fallen too, and the Thames was covered with ice so thick that it supported a makeshift fair to which thousands of people had resorted.

  At first Jovian’s enigmatic warning by the statue had remained in Anthea’s head, but as the days passed and nothing happened, she began to believe him to have been in drink after all that day, just concealing it well. She did not see him again, and by the time the lavender in the vase in her bedroom was past its best, she had all but forgotten what he’d said, although occasionally his words would cross her mind. “Beware, Anthea, for things might soon happen that are far, far beyond your experience.”

  One particularly cold afternoon, she and her aunt were on
ce again seated in the warm drawing room when another letter arrived from Ireland. Anthea’s heart sank as she saw that it was black edged. Oh, no! Papa?

  Lady Letitia saw, too, and sat forward in dismay, but then Anthea saw that the letter was in her father’s hand. “Be easy, Aunt Letty; it cannot be Papa for he has written it.”

  Lady Letitia had gone quite pale but now breathed out a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank heaven, thank heaven!” Then her brows drew together. “Then it must be Lisnerne, I suppose.”

  Anthea thought the same as she broke the seal, but when she read the brief lines, she found it was not Jovian’s uncle either. “Mrs. Pranton has passed away,” she said haltingly. “At least—I mean—Papa’s new wife ... er, Lady Daneway, has passed away.”

  Lady Letitia’s hand crept to her throat. “Lord preserve us,” she whispered. “What happened?”

  “She died unexpectedly in her sleep.”

  Lady Letitia stared. “She must have been very ill.”

  “Not that it was realized at the time, but the doctor now supposes it to have been a frail heart.”

  “Oh, my poor dear brother ... Is he coming home?”

  “No. He is so distressed that Lord Lisnerne has persuaded him that the only possible diversion is a long-discussed expedition to Brazil. Up the Amazon, to be precise. They plan to leave in April, and Papa will not return here beforehand.”

  Lady Letitia stared at her. “The Amazon? Well, I daresay it will give them both something else to think about. Such as caimans, flesh-eating fish, and boa restrictors.”

  “Boa constrictors,” Anthea corrected gently.

  “Mm? Well, whatever one calls them, delightful feather fashion accessories they are not. I would much prefer him to simply come home, instead of wandering off across the world. But grief takes us all in different ways, I suppose. When I—” Lady Letitia didn’t finish, and busied herself quickly with the notes she was making from Culpeper.

  Anthea looked quizzically at her. “When you what, Aunt Letty?”

  “It doesn’t matter, my dear.”

  Anthea did not pry further, but was once again prompted to suspect a sad love affair. Had Aunt Letty’s sweetheart died? It would seem so from the tears that were now being blinked away.

  Lady Letitia dabbed her eyes in a way she imagined was surreptitious enough not to be noticed, then spoke again. “Your father has always wanted to explore the Amazon river. As a boy he was quite home loving, but from the moment he was sent on his Grand Tour he became a veritable Egyptian.”

  “Egyptian?” Anthea was perplexed.

  “Gypsy,” Lady Letty rephrased herself. “Does the letter say anything else?”

  “Well, the most important thing as far as you and I are concerned is that my new stepsister, Corinna, is to come here to be with us.”

  “Oh. Well, I daresay the Amazon is hardly the place for young slips of things. If she is to be with us, I suppose we will have to wear mourning, even though we never met her mother.”

  Anthea nodded. “Full black, I should imagine. Well, for a time anyway.” She glanced at the letter again, and for the first time noticed another sentence written in haste at the very bottom. “Oh, one moment, Papa mentions mourning here. He says we are not to wear black, or even gray. It seems the late countess loathed mourning, and Corinna has not worn so much as a black ribbon, so we must not, either.”

  “I have to say I agree about mourning, which is becoming a most onerous custom.” Lady Letitia sat back in her chair. “That is that, then. Now we will never know what Mrs. Pranton was like.”

  “Lady Daneway,” Anthea corrected automatically.

  “Oh, yes. Lady Daneway,” her aunt murmured sadly. “Still, we will meet Corinna.”

  “Yes.” Anthea lowered her eyes sadly. “Poor Papa, he is destined to remain lonely after all.”

  * * *

  In sunny late April, with the ferocious winter over at last and the defeated tyrant Napoleon on his way to exile on Elba, eighteen-year-old Corinna Pranton walked across the park at Castle Lisnerne toward island-dotted Lough Erne as it sparkled beneath the cloudless County Fermanagh sky. Tomorrow her new stepfather would leave for far-off Brazil with Lord Lisnerne, and later today, under the protection of her mother’s former employer, Lady Fisher, she would commence her journey to England. It was the country of her birth, although she could not remember it at all.

  Anthea’s new stepsister was golden haired and beautiful, with green eyes to match the emerald countryside around her. Corinna turned heads wherever she went, but in her innocence hardly noticed anyone. She was being as brave as she could without her mother, whose sudden demise had left her quite bereft.

  Death had come from nowhere, for there had seemed nothing wrong the evening before, but come the next morning, she was cold in the bed beside her adoring new husband. The earl’s grief had matched Corinna’s, and he had gladly seized upon Lord Lisnerne’s suggestion of Brazil. There was no such escape for Corinna, who now had to confront two ladies who might not feel at all like welcoming her into their household.

  It had not seemed possible that the Earl of Daneway could in so short a time have made Corinna feel he really cared about her, but he had, and she loved him for it. She wished he would first come to London with her, instead of going so far away, but so intense was his anguish over the loss of her mother that he could not quit these shores fast enough.

  On a day like today, however, with daffodils and creamy narcissi nodding among silver birches along the lake shore, Corinna found it a little easier to face her new future. She hummed “Lavender Blue” to herself as she walked. Her mother had often sung it to her when she was small, and it had remained a favorite ever since.

  Corinna enjoyed the warmth of the spring sun on her face, and the scent of the flowers was so enticing that she bent to pick a particularly fine double-headed narcissus. But an Englishman’s voice made her straighten guiltily.

  “What’s this? A fair flower thief?”

  On a track nearby she saw a dashing gentleman in a yellow phaeton that was drawn by black horses. He was dressed in the finest that London tailoring could provide and was tall and handsome, with dark hair, flashing eyes, and the sort of roguish smile that banished her embarrassment. How could he have driven up without her hearing? Was he a friend of Lord Lisnerne’s?

  He jumped lightly down from the phaeton, made the reins fast to a birch branch, then came over. Bending, he picked the narcissus for her. “It may not be lavender, and I may not be a king, but if I were, you would certainly be my queen,” he said engagingly, as he held the flower out to her. "Take it. Allow me to be the despoiler of this beautiful corner of nature’s garden.”

  Corinna gazed shyly into his eyes and unwisely accepted the bloom, even though she knew it was wrong to have anything to do with a stranger. A fragrant narcissus was what she perceived; yet in reality it was a sprig of mistletoe. The dark-haired, dark-eyed stranger had given her the mystical golden bough that marked the beginning of her beguilement, and from that moment, she was in the utmost peril.

  Chapter Four

  June came, and as London gave joyful thanks for peace, Britain’s allies, Czar Alexander of Russia and King Frederick William of Prussia, paid state visits that gave considerable extra prestige to the festivities.

  Corinna was now in residence at Berkeley Square, and she and Anthea were tentatively feeling their way toward a sisterly relationship. It was not easy for either of them, but their shared love for the absent earl ensured their best efforts. Not that Anthea found it difficult to warm to Corinna; indeed, within a week of that young lady’s arrival at Berkeley Square, Anthea decided that if she was anything like her mother, it was easy to understand why the governess had become Countess of Daneway.

  On first coming to Berkeley Square, Corinna had been so nervous she spoke only in monosyllables, but gradually, as Anthea strove to make her feel welcome, the new addition to the family began to relax and be herself. The loss of her much loved mot
her still lay heavily over her, but as the days passed and spring changed to summer, she began to come to terms with what had happened.

  Lady Letitia approved greatly of her new charge, who had been very well brought up. Whatever the late countess’s background, she had certainly seen to it that her daughter was given every possible advantage. Corinna could speak French, was adequate in Latin, played nimbly and prettily on the piano, and was talented at drawing and painting. In short, she was most unlikely indeed ever to prove an embarrassment, and her beauty inclined Lady Letitia to hope she might make a very good match.

  Her ladyship’s eye soon settled upon sandy-haired, hazel-eyed Viscount Heversham, who, although not the most handsome or prominent fellow in London, was certainly wealthy and in need of just such a wife as Corinna. A match would be the making of both of them, Anthea’s aunt decided, her matchmaking urges moving effortlessly from trot to canter. Lady Letitia was in her element when it came to plotting other people’s romances. Anthea had proved a grave disappointment to her in that respect, so Corinna was an unexpected but very welcome boon.

  Corinna received a few social invitations from those of Lady Letitia’s friends who knew of her existence, but it was decided she would not accept any of them this Season. Lady Letitia considered it best that she should use her first summer to settle into her new and very different life, and then come out formally the following year.

  The only time Corinna met members of Society was when Lady Letitia gave a private dinner party at Daneway House, to which young Viscount Heversham was occasionally invited, of course. It was a gentle and sensitive introduction to the high society of which Corinna was now bound to become a part, and Lady Letitia was gratified to see several shy smiles secretly exchanged between the two young persons she had decided were an ideal bride and groom.

  So Corinna drove out with Anthea and Lady Letitia and went shopping with them. She visited art galleries, attended the theater in their private box, and accompanied Anthea on long walks around Mayfair and in Hyde Park, but her name did not figure among the guests at any grand balls or other such occasions. Lady Letitia noted with some satisfaction that she often mentioned Viscount Heversham. It boded well.