Читать книгу Vixens - Bertrice Small - Страница 9

Chapter 1

Frances Devers had spent the several weeks crossing the ocean in a fog of sorrow and pain. A short year ago she had been courted by the handsomest man in all the Colonies. And then at Christmas Parker Randolph had asked for her hand, and she had accepted. He was a Virginia Randolph, although not from the more important branch of the Randolphs who were involved in the politics of the Colony. His family were distant cousins, but still he was a Virginia Randolph, her sister Maeve said enviously, admiring the diamond-and-pearl ring her youngest sibling now wore. Maeve was married to the eldest son of a local tobacco farmer.

The preparations had begun for a June wedding. There had been parties and balls and even picnics once the spring came. There was a trousseau to be made. A modiste and a tailor had come all the way from Williamsburg with their staffs to do the work, helped, of course, by the plantation servants. There were virtually no slaves on her family’s tobacco plantation. Neither Kieran nor Fortune Devers believed in slavery. While they bought blacks at the slave auctions, the Africans remained slaves only long enough to be civilized. Then they were freed legally, paid a wage, and given shelter and food. Whether they remained was their decision, but most did for the Devers were known to be good employers.

The wedding of Frances Devers and Parker Randolph had been one of the most anticipated affairs of the year in the Colonies. The guests had come from as far as Massachusetts Bay and Barbados. The bride was the youngest child of a very wealthy and distinguished family. The groom was a Virginia Randolph. No expense had been spared to make this a gala event. The bride was beautiful. The groom set hearts a-flutter among the female guests. And then, the girl in the duke of Lundy’s coach shuddered, putting from her mind the terrible images that refused to cease torturing her.

In the scandal and the chaos that had followed that terrible day, she had been comforted by her family, interrogated by the local king’s justice, and prepared to be sent away from Maryland after her husband’s funeral. She would go to England. To her grandmother, a woman she had never met. To a part of her family she didn’t know. Six weeks after her wedding, she was put upon a ship. The ship belonged to her family’s trading company, she was informed. She hadn’t been aware her family owned ships. She was distantly related to the ship’s captain, she was told. His wife would be her chaperon. Her longtime, and loved personal servant, a young black woman named Junie-Bee, would not accompany her. The break with Maryland was to be complete.

The day Frances boarded the Cardiff Rose II, her entire family accompanied her to the vessel. Her eldest sister, Aine, a nun with the Sisters of Saint Mary, had come for the wedding. She remained on in the tragic aftermath to comfort their mother. There as well were her eldest brother Shane and his wife, her brothers Cullen and Rory and their wives, her sister Maeve and her husband, and all her nieces and nephews. The youngest of her parents’ sons Jamie and Charles, unmarried and adventurous, envied her. But they all cried, even her roughnecked brothers who had been closest in age to her. No one knew if Frances Devers would ever come home again.

Fortune Devers was pale. She wept copiously at having to part with her youngest child. She silently cursed the Virginia Randolphs for not knowing their son. Kieran Devers was drawn and, for the first time in his life, looked old. His heart had not been strong these past few years. This dreadful misfortune and the resulting consequence had taken a toll on his now-frail health.

“I am so sorry, Papa!” Frances sobbed on her father’s shoulder a final time.

“Nay, lassie,” he reassured her, stroking her dark hair. “You were right.” He should have listened to his voice within, for he had sensed something off about young Parker Randolph. But he loved his child too much, and so he had pushed his doubts away, and let her follow her heart. Now they were all paying for his mistake. And they would lose her for it.

“These people you are sending me to . . .” she began.

“Your grandmother knows the truth of the matter, lassie,” he said. “She will love you, and you will love her. Jasmine Leslie is a good and sensible woman. Listen to her, my wee Fancy,” he continued, using the nickname she had had since childhood, “she will guide you well. Your mother’s family are wonderful people.” And he kissed the top of his daughter’s head. “You have her eyes, you know. Hers are that marvelous turquoise, too.”

“They are?” Frances sniffed.

“Aye, they are,” he said, smiling for the first time in weeks. “She was a princess from a foreign land. She traveled to England for over six months aboard a great vessel, the first one to be called Cardiff Rose. You will travel only a few weeks, my dearest daughter. And while I am an Irishman born, England is a lovely land, too. You will be happy there.”

“Not without you and Mama!” Frances cried. “Not without my family, Papa!”

“You have a very large family, my child,” Fortune told her daughter. “Most of them you have never met. But I have spoken to you over the years of them all. You will live with your grandmother on my brother Charlie’s estate. You will have two of your cousins for companions. They are young girls like yourself. Your uncle is related to the king himself! You will probably go to court, Fancy! And one day, knowing my mother, you will again find a man to love, and this time he will really love you.”

“Never!” Fancy spat.

“Surely you do not still hold an affection for Parker Randolph?” her mother said nervously.

“No, I do not,” the girl said stonily.

Fortune heaved an audible sigh of relief, and remembering it Fancy Devers almost laughed aloud. No. She held no passion for her departed husband. But she would never again allow any man to gain the slightest hold on her heart. Men could not be trusted, except, of course, for her father, and brothers.

Finally the ship was ready to sail. With much kissing and crying, Frances Devers bid her family and her childhood a final farewell. She then proceeded to weep her way across the Atlantic until England came into her view. The captain’s wife, a motherly woman who had raised two daughters of her own, was wise enough to offer Frances her warm companionship but no advice unless solicited. She coaxed the grieving girl to eat and spoke warmly of Lady Jasmine.

When their vessel had finally anchored in the London Pool, there had been a smaller boat awaiting her, a barge. They lowered her in the boatswain’s chair from the deck of the Cardiff Rose II to the deck of her waiting transport. The little cabin was elegant with its green velvet bench and fresh flowers in crystal holders on either side of the enclosure. There were pink roses, daisies, and delicate ferns. Her luggage finally stowed aboard the barge, and a second river transport, Fancy Devers began her journey upriver to Chiswick-on-Strand where she would stay the night at a place called Greenwood House.

It was midafternoon of an early September day, and the great bustling city through which the river Thames glided was a revelation to a girl who had never before in her entire life seen a real city. She didn’t know which way to turn next, or if she should be afraid. The door to her enclosure was open to allow the river breeze to cool her. One of the rowers kept shouting out the places of interest as they passed.

“There be Whitehall, miss. King’s not there right now. The gentry likes the country in the summertime. There be Westminster Palace. There be the Houses of Parliament for all the good the gentlemen politicians do us common folk. There be the Tower where traitors are kept and then gets their heads chopped off, miss.” This last was said with great relish.

Finally the barge nosed its way into a stone landing quay and docked. Liveried servants hurried down the green lawn to the water’s edge and helped Fancy out. Her luggage was already being unloaded. A young woman servant ran down from the house and curtsied before her. She had dancing gray-blue eyes, and her hair was ash brown beneath her cap.

“I be Bess Trueheart, mistress. Your grandmother has sent me to serve you. We are to depart for Queen’s Malvern on the morrow. Please come into the house. You will want a bath, I am sure, and your dinner. And a bed that does not rock,” she concluded with a smile. Then she curtsied again.

Fancy laughed. For the first time in weeks she actually laughed. “Thank you, Bess Trueheart,” she replied, “and you are correct. I am hungry, tired, and dirty.”

In Greenwood House she had been greeted by the servants, many older than younger, who welcomed her warmly. They remarked on how very much she resembled an ancestress, whose picture hung in the Great Hall overlooking the river. The housekeeper took her there, and Fancy was surprised by the portrait of the woman that was pointed out to her. She had dark hair, skin like cream, and her head was held at a proud tilt. She wore an elegant gown of scarlet velvet, embroidered with pearls and gold thread. They did resemble each other, but Fancy thought the woman far more beautiful than she was.

“Who is she?” she asked the housekeeper.

“Why, miss, that be your great-great-grandmother, Skye O’Malley. But you do not have her eyes. You have the duchess’s, your grandmother’s, eyes. I never in all my born days saw eyes that color except in her, and now you.”

The next morning, Fancy and her new maidservant departed for Queen’s Malvern, outside Worcester. It would be a trip of several long days. Her uncle, the duke, Bess told her, had arranged for the best of inns along the way. She was not to worry herself about anything at all. The weather was usually good in early autumn. The roads would be, if not dusty, dry so they should be home in no time at all.

Fancy sat back and took Bess’s advice. She closed her eyes and thought about Maryland, and her family, and tried to push what had happened from her memory. But along with the thought of tobacco being harvested, the sweet smell of it drying in the barns, and the long skeins of geese soaring above the Chesapeake as the trees began to turn, came images of Parker Randolph.

They called him the handsomest man in the Colonies, and outwardly he surely had been. He was tall and lean of body, with wavy dark blond hair, and the bluest eyes she had ever seen. His smile had been quick. His laughter infectious. His manners and his charm legend. And she had believed him when he said he loved her. Fancy blinked back her tears.

But Parker hadn’t loved her at all. His soul had been as black as his features were beautiful. And she had found out too late. Too late to prevent their marriage. Too late to prevent the scandal that surrounded his death. Her dreams of love, a life of happiness like her parents had shared, had been brutally crushed. But she had at least been fortunate to escape Parker before he caused her worse pain than the reality of what he was already had. If only they had learned of his true character, and that of his family, before she had become his wife.

But they hadn’t known, hadn’t even suspected. After all, as Maeve so succinctly pointed out, he was a Virginia Randolph. His more important Virginia relations had helped Kieran Devers quell the storm of controversy that had erupted over Parker Randolph’s death. Faced with the true facts of the situation, and as horrified as the few others who knew what had really happened, they had used their considerable influence to extinguish the uproar as swiftly as possible. The truth was not pretty and had it been known, the scandal would have been impossible to contain.

So they had agreed with Devers that the sooner the widow departed the Colonies for England, the quicker this disgraceful situation would die down. With Frances Devers gone, the talk would fade away, probably by winter, everyone was quite certain. And so she had been exiled from everything and everyone she had loved. But Parker Randolph had taught her a valuable lesson. He had taught her that men could not be trusted. He had taught her that her father and her brothers were unique.

And when she had asked her parents why they had not told her these things before she wed, her mother had wept bitter tears. They had been so happy together, Fortune explained, that the difficulties they had faced in their youth in England and Ireland had been forgotten as the years passed. Aine, her eldest sister, had known the real story. So had Shane, Cullen and Rory, who had been named for deceased relatives and friends in Ireland. When pressed, Maeve recalled something about their father’s wicked younger brother but little else. Neither Jamie, Charlie, nor she had known a great deal of their father’s early history. And they weren’t particularly interested.

They knew about their mother’s family, who it seemed were wealthy and powerful people. Their grandmother was, in their minds, a colorful character who had outlived several husbands and had had a royal prince for a lover. She had known dukes and kings. Their mother said that her mother’s own father had been the ruler of a great land thousands of miles across the earth. Fancy remembered that as children they had not quite believed their mother’s tales. She was, it seemed, a great storyteller, touched with the gift of gab, her father would tease, for their mother had also been born in Ireland although she wasn’t raised there.

But now, Fancy considered, those stories did not seem quite as outlandish as she and her siblings had believed. The comfortable luxury she had experienced so far was eye opening. She had never before known servants who had been with a family for generations. She had never experienced the fawning respect given to her and her equipage as they entered the assigned innyards and the inns. The lady wished a bath? At once! The lady preferred duck to capon? Immediately! It was all most revealing, and her curiosity was piqued. She found she was anxious to reach Queen’s Malvern. And then suddenly they were there.

The elegant carriage that had been drawn all the way from London by six perfectly matched bays with cream-colored manes and tails moved smartly through the gates of the estate. Interested, Fancy pulled down the window and peered out. Located in a small valley in the Malvern Hills between the rivers Severn and Wye, the house and its lands had once been a royal property. Late in the reign of Elizabeth Tudor, the queen, in need of monies, had sold the estate to the de Marisco family. They had left it to their favorite granddaughter, and it was her son, the duke of Lundy, who now possessed it.

Constructed in the reign of Edward IV as a gift for his queen, the house of warm mellowed pink brick was built in the shape of an E. The brick outer walls were covered in shiny dark green ivy except for one wing that had been burned during the Commonwealth and reconstructed just five years ago following the king’s restoration. The windows were tall and wide with leaded panes. The roofs were of dark slate with many chimneys. It looked a comfortable home to Fancy. Waiting before the house upon the carefully raked gravel drive was a small group of people. The most striking of the group was a woman in a garnet silk gown, the cream-colored lace of her chemise showing above the neckline, a lacy shawl draped about her shoulders. The lady had silvery hair with two ebony wings on either side of her head. Next to her stood a younger woman wearing a silk dress of ocean blue. Her hair, a dark blond, was fashioned with elegant curls. Next to her was a tall gentleman in a black velvet suit with snow-white lace cuffs, and a white shirt. His auburn hair was cropped short, and he had silver buckles on his shoes. With these three stood two young girls, quite similar in appearance. One wore a gown of deep green silk, and the other a gown of rich violet. Both had dark hair as did Fancy. How alike we are, Fancy considered. We could be sisters. How odd. I wonder if Mama knew. They are more like me than my own siblings.

“The old woman is your grandmother,” Bess said. “The gentleman by her side is the duke, your uncle. The blond lady is his wife, Lady Barbara. The two lasses your cousins, Lady Cynara and Lady Diana.”

“Are they sisters?” Fancy asked.

“Nay,” Bess quickly said. “Lady Cynara is the duke and Lady Barbara’s daughter. Lady Diana is the duke of Glenkirk’s lass.”

Fancy struggled to sort out the relationships as her mother had explained them to her. “She’s a Leslie?”

“Aye!”

“Her father is my mother’s brother,” Fancy said aloud. “He is the eldest of my grandmother’s Leslie children. My mother is the youngest child of her second marriage to the marquis of Westleigh.”

“If you know that,” Bess chuckled, “you know more than me, mistress.” Then she said, “Lady Diana is the sweetest lass you’ll ever meet with, but beware of Lady Cynara. She’s proud beyond all bearing of her Stuart blood. She don’t mean to be difficult, but she can be. Don’t let her bully you, and I hope you’ll forgive me for being so frank, but here you are, all the way from the Colonies, and not knowing a soul. My conscience wouldn’t let me rest if I didn’t give you the lay of the land, Mistress Frances. You seem as good a lass as your cousin, Lady Diana.”

“I’m grateful to you, Bess,” Fancy quid. “It is difficult being so very far from home, and a stranger.”

The coach now drew to a stop. The door on the right side was opened by a liveried footman, and the steps pulled down so its occupants might dismount the vehicle. The duke of Lundy stepped forward, and offered his hand to Fancy.

“May I welcome you to England, and to Queen’s Malvern, Niece,” he said, helping her from the coach. “I am your uncle, Charles Stuart, your mother’s younger brother.” He bowed and drew her forward into the group of her relations.

“I am your grandmother.” Jasmine Leslie greeted Fancy with a smile, and then she kissed the girl on both cheeks. “You look nothing like your mother, but you certainly do look like your cousins, and all of you resemble my grandmother. Blood will indeed tell. Welcome to England, and to Queen’s Malvern, dear girl.”

“And this is my wife, Lady Barbara,” the duke continued.

Fancy curtsied politely.

“And your cousins, my daughter Cynara and my niece Diana Leslie,” the duke concluded.

Fancy curtsied again, and her cousins returned the gesture, but all three girls were eyeing each other curiously.

Jasmine put an arm about Fancy. “Bess Trueheart has taken good care of you, Frances?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am!” Fancy replied. “She has been most helpful. I wanted to bring my own servant, Junie-Bee, but Mama said my break with Maryland must be complete.”

They entered the house and settled themselves in the old hall that was Jasmine’s favorite room at Queen’s Malvern. The servants took her traveling cloak and came forth with trays carrying goblets of fine wine and delicate little sugar wafers, which they passed about. The family settled themselves about the fireplace. It was blazing merrily, taking the chill off the late afternoon.

As they sat making polite conversation, Cynara Stuart suddenly burst out, “We’re going to court this winter, Cousin Frances!” Her bright blue eyes were sparkling with excitement.

“We have been to court before,” Diana Leslie said softly.

“But only to be presented to the king,” Cynara replied. “They say he is the best lover in all the world.” She smiled archly.

“Cynara, mind your manners,” Jasmine chided.

“Well, everyone says it, Grandmama,” Cynara replied.

“We only visited a day at court,” Diana explained to Fancy. “We met the queen, too. She is not particularly pretty, but she is very nice.”

“They gave us sobriquets,” Cynara continued. “Everyone who is anyone at the court has a sobriquet. They called Diana Siren. They say she is so beautiful that she could lure men to their destruction, but I don’t think she ever would. Diana is far too sweet.”

“And Cynara they have called Sin,” Diana added with a mischievous grin. “I cannot imagine why. I wonder what they will call you, Cousin Frances.”

“My family calls me Fancy. I could not pronounce my name when I was a very little girl. I called myself Fancy in an attempt to say Francey, which is what my brothers first called me. Soon everyone was calling me Fancy. When someone calls me Frances, I wonder what it is I have done wrong,” Fancy finished with a little smile.

“Your mother’s first house was called Fortune’s Fancy,” the duke of Lundy remarked.

“I never lived in that house,” Fancy told them. “It was destroyed in a fierce storm six years after it was built. It was one of those storms that sometimes comes from the Caribbean in late summer. The house that replaced it is called Bayview. It was built on the same spot and oversees the Chesapeake.” She sighed, and her lovely face grew sad. “I will miss it.” Her voice trailed off.

“Of course you will,” Jasmine said briskly. “It would not be natural if you didn’t. I am an old woman. I have lived all but sixteen years of my life in England and Scotland, yet I still think of the palace where I grew up. It was set on the shores of a beautiful lake in a region called Kashmir. As I was the last, and the youngest of my father’s children, and my mother was English-born, my father thought it better I live there where the climate was more temperate than farther south where his court was, and the air tropical. My first husband was a Kashmiri prince. He was very handsome with dark eyes,” she told them, smiling.

“How many husbands have you had, Grandmama?” Fancy asked.

“Three,” Jasmine answered her, quietly pleased that this new arrival had addressed her as Grandmama. “The first was Prince Jamal Khan. He was murdered by my half brother. That is why my father sent me to my own grandmother in England. I traveled many months to reach here. My second husband was the marquis of Westleigh, Rowan Lindley. He is your grandfather, Fancy. My third husband was Jemmie Leslie, the duke of Glenkirk. And your uncle Charlie’s sire was Prince Henry Stuart, who had he lived would have followed his father, King James, onto the throne.”

“How did my grandfather die?” Fancy asked, curious. “Mama says she never met him and always thought of Lord Leslie as her father.”

“Your grandfather was killed by a religious bigot in Ireland. The bullet was meant for me, however, but Rowan died instead,” Jasmine explained. “I was just enceinte with your mother, dear girl.” She smiled. “You have a very large family here on this side of the ocean, Fancy Devers. In time you will undoubtedly meet many of them. My own grandmother had six living children. They have in their turn spawned many progeny, who have done the same. I believe my grandmother’s descendants now number over four hundred souls in England, Scotland, Ireland, and the colonies.”

“Gracious!” Fancy exclaimed. “I did not know that. All Mama said was that we had family here.”

“Has your mother been happy?” Jasmine asked.

“I have never known Mama to be unhappy until recently,” Fancy replied. “She and Papa can sometimes be most embarrassing, for they seem to love each other fiercely. I thought . . . I hoped I might find that kind of love one day, but . . .” She stopped, and said no more.

“Love,” Cynara said grandly, “is but an illusion, Cousin.”

“Indeed?” her grandmother noted dryly. “Considering your lack of expertise in such matters, Cynara, I am surprised you should believe such a thing.”

“I have heard it said,” Cynara began.

“I am relieved to learn your opinions are not based on personal experience,” Jasmine answered sharply. “It is unwise, Cynara, to repeat such things, as it only makes you look foolish and ignorant. You are, after all, only fifteen.”

“You were married when you were my age, Grandmama,” Cynara said pertly. She tossed her dark head, and her curls bounced.

“It was a different time and a different place,” Jasmine answered. “My father was not well, and he wanted me settled before he died. My foster mother was not particularly happy about my youthful marriage at all.”

“Did your husband make love to you right away?” Cynara queried her grandmother, wickedly.

“Whether he did, or he didn’t, is not a topic for discussion!” Jasmine turned to her daughter-in-law, whose face was flaming at this point. “Really, Barbara! Have you no control over this girl? What Fancy must think of her I can only imagine.”

Fancy, however, was already fascinated with her cousin Cynara. Cynara was so very beautiful, and she seemed so sophisticated, even though she was a year younger than Frances Devers. Wisely, though, Fancy said, “Would you think me rude, Grandmama, if I asked to be shown to my room? My travels have been quite fatiguing.”

“Of course not, dear child,” Jasmine said quickly. She arose. “I shall take you. I have chosen your room myself. It is near to mine, and Diana is on the other side of you.” She linked her arm in Fancy’s and led her from the hall.

“What do you think?” the duke of Lundy asked his wife.

“She is lovely,” Barbara Stuart replied. “Is it not interesting how alike she, Cynara, and Diana look? She is tired now, but in a few days we shall get to know her better, but Charlie, I think your mama’s judgment will hold as it usually does in these matters.”

The duke of Lundy nodded in agreement. “I suspect that you are correct, my dear,” he responded.

“Does Grandmama think she killed her husband?” Cynara asked her parents boldly.

The duchess of Lundy closed her eyes in exasperation. Cynara was so damned reckless in her speech. And her acts, Barbara Stuart thought. What was going to become of her?

“There is no evidence that your cousin killed anyone, Cynara,” her father said quietly. “I will appreciate you not repeating gossip, especially unproven gossip.” He stared hard at his youngest daughter.

“Well then, why is it said of her that she did?” Cynara demanded.

“There was some terrible tragedy,” the duke explained. “Even I do not know the truth of the matter. But you will keep in mind that if a crime had been committed, then your cousin would have been charged, and she was not. A bridegroom dying after his wedding is very unusual. It is precisely because there is little knowledge of what happened that people have decided to make up these stories, Cynara. I hope that you will never find yourself the subject of such gossip.”

“Does Grandmama know?” Diana ventured softly.

“I believe she does,” the duke replied.

“Poor Fancy,” Diana said. “How difficult it must have been for her to lose her bridegroom in some dreadful manner. And then be sent away from all she knows and loves for her reputation’s sake.”

“You left Glenkirk when you were eleven,” Cynara said, “and it hasn’t affected you at all, Siren.”

“But I was delighted to leave the Highlands, Cyn,” Diana answered. “I far prefer the elegance and sophistication of England. And I shall one day make a good marriage here. It would have been difficult for me to do that at Glenkirk. Besides, my family comes south almost every summer to visit. And next year my sister, Mair, will join us. Fancy, however, has crossed an ocean to come to Grandmama. When will she ever see her brothers and sisters, or her parents again?”

The duke smiled warmly at his niece. Diana Leslie was always so thoughtful of others. He had never known such sweetness and often wondered where she had gotten it. And yet when called up to be strong, Diana was exactly that. She was unlike his youngest child, and yet the two, so different, were fast friends. They had been since that summer his mother had asked his brother to leave Diana with them. The duke of Lundy had always hoped Diana would be a good influence on his daughter, but it did not seem that way. Yet there was a bright side to the situation. Cynara had been unable to foist her naughty ways on her cousin. “You have a good heart, pet,” he told Diana.

Cynara rolled her blue eyes, but then she grinned. “Let’s go see what kind of clothing our cousin has brought with her from the Colonies. Her traveling gown wasn’t half-bad at all. I would not have thought a little colonial so fashionable. And what jewelry does she possess, I wonder? Grandmama will give her some, certainly. She has so much,” Cynara noted. “Don’t you just love the ruby ring she gave me for my last birthday?” She flashed the gem before them as she did at least several times daily.

“Please allow your cousin to settle herself before you burst in on her, Cynara,” her mother suggested. “There will be plenty of time to rifle through her possessions over the next few weeks before we go to court. Fancy will be tired, and want to rest.”

“Oh, very well,” Cynara said, then turned to Diana. “Let’s go riding,” she suggested. “We just need to change our gowns.”

“Go for a walk in the gardens,” her father said sternly, “and leave your grandmother alone with this new grandchild. She has missed my sister all these years and is thrilled to be able to have at least one of Fortune’s children with her at long last.”

“The gardens are lovely right now,” the duchess responded, helpfully.

“There are new puppies in the kennels,” Diana volunteered.

“Ohh!” Cynara exclaimed, excitedly. She loved dogs, and had been promised a new puppy from the next litter to be born. “Are they Bella’s?” she inquired.

“Yes,” Diana said with a smile.

“I get first pick!” Cynara responded.

“You know that I prefer cats to dogs,” Diana reminded her cousin as the two girls hurried from the hall.

The duke of Lundy chuckled. “I do believe that with Diana’s help we have saved Fancy from our daughter. At least for the time being,” he amended with a grin.

“Fancy looks so sad,” the duchess remarked. “Poor child! I hope she will come to love and trust us.”

“Why is it,” the duke wondered, “that Cynara did not get your kind heart?”

“She is like my father. Practical,” the duchess said. “And like my mother. Determined to have her own way in all things.”

“You rarely speak of your parents,” he noted.

“No, I do not,” the duchess replied. “My father is long dead, and my mother died just before my first husband, Squire Randall. She was always jealous of my father’s love for me and would have allowed that brute of a second husband of hers to put me into service, even though I had not been raised to be a servant. Thank God for Madame Skye! Who knows what would have happened to me if it hadn’t been for her.”

“She was a remarkable woman,” the duke of Lundy agreed. “I wonder what she would think of these three great-great-granddaughters of hers, all of whom resemble her most strongly. My mother grows more like her each day,” he remarked.

His wife smiled. “Aye, Charlie, she does,” she agreed. “She will brook no nonsense from any of our girls, and she will certainly get Fancy past her melancholy longing for Maryland.”

“I believe she will,” he said, wondering even as he spoke what was going on upstairs in his house right now.

Fancy had followed her grandmother obediently from the hall. She was tired, but the worst was over. She had crossed an ocean in surprising safety and traveled from London to meet her relations. And she had liked them all upon their first meeting. She knew far more of them, she realized, than they did of her. Her mother had never ceased to speak of her family in England and Scotland. It had always been very obvious to Fancy that her mother’s siblings were most dear to her. Of course her memories were of young men and women, little boys, and an infant sister named Autumn. But now all of those siblings were well into their middle years, even the baby sister whom Fortune never knew.

Her grandmother stopped before a carved oak door and opened it, stepping through. Fancy trailed after her, and there was Bess Trueheart waiting with a smile. Fancy let her gaze sweep the chamber. It was large, the walls paneled in an old-fashioned manner, but there was a large fireplace, already blazing brightly on this late afternoon; and there was a big leaden-paned bow window with a seat in it. The room was decorated with velvet draperies at the windows, of rich turquoise blue with gold fringe and rope tiebacks. The furniture was sturdy oak, well polished and obviously comfortable. The floors were covered with a thick wool carpet of turquoise and cream.

“How lovely!” Fancy exclaimed, pleased, and she bent to sniff at a bowl of late roses on a table.

“It was my room when I first came to Queen’s Malvern,” Jasmine replied. “Of course it has been redecorated since that long-ago time,” she concluded with a smile.

“Come into your bedchamber, mistress,” Bess beckoned. “There be another fine fireplace here too, and a bed big enough for a large family, I’ll vow.” She ushered Fancy into the room.

It was, Fancy saw at once, every bit as lovely as the previous chamber, but she was surprised. “Two rooms? For my very own?” she wondered aloud. It was certainly not this way in Maryland where she and each of her siblings had had a bedchamber for themselves, and not one as spacious as this suite was.

“It is called an apartment,” Jasmine explained. “It is the custom in great houses to have a dayroom and a bedchamber.”

“Mama never told me that,” Fancy admitted.

“What did she speak about when she spoke of England?” Jasmine asked her granddaughter.

“She spoke of her family mainly,” Fancy answered.

Jasmine nodded. “I wonder if she missed us as much as we missed her. I still cannot believe that I let my precious child go so far from us. I thought perhaps she might come home to visit one day, but then the troubles began, and King Charles I was executed. The years of the so-called Commonwealth were difficult. I took my youngest daughter and went to France after my Jemmie was killed in the Stuart cause. I could not bear to remain at Glenkirk after that.”

“Mama has been very happy, Grandmama,” Fancy said. “I think only if she lost Papa would things change for her. She is, I believe, very much like you in many ways.” Suddenly Fancy hugged Jasmine. “You have made me feel so welcome,” she told the older woman. “Thank you!”

“Why, my dear child,” Jasmine exclaimed, “you are my granddaughter, even if today is the first time I have laid eyes upon you. I have known you, your brothers, and your sisters through your mother’s correspondence, but I will admit that I am right glad to finally have you here with us, even if it is tragedy that has brought you. We will wipe away those awful memories for you, my darling Fancy.”

“What do you know?” Fancy asked her grandmother tremulously. Her voice had begun to quaver, and tears sprang to her eyes.

“Your mother has told me everything,” Jasmine said. “No one else in the family is privy to that information, nor will they be unless you decide to share it with them one day. We will speak no more on it, my child.” She enfolded Fancy into her embrace, and kissed her gently upon each of her cheeks. “This is England, and you are here to make a fresh start. The misfortunes of last June are behind you.”

Fancy hugged her grandmother back. “Thank you, Grandmama,” she said softly. “I am still coming to terms with what happened. I cannot believe I was so foolish as to fall in love with a man who did not deserve my love. He was so handsome, and so charming, and everyone envied me. He was, after all, a Virginia Randolph.”

“I suppose,” Jasmine remarked dryly, “that in the Colonies that means something, but here in England it does not, dear child. And more young women than not have fallen in love with the perfect man only to discover that the apple has a rather large worm. You are quite fortunate to have been freed of your worm so you might begin anew.”

Fancy giggled. “Somehow thinking of Parker as a nasty worm helps me put everything in perspective.”

“Men, dear child, are best kept in perspective and taken with a grain of salt,” Jasmine advised. “Now, I shall leave you to get some rest. Bess will bring your supper here in your apartment so you may escape for tonight, at least, the questions your cousins Cynara and Diana are undoubtedly dying to ask you. I think you must be well rested before you are thrown into the company of those two vixens.”

“I already like them,” Fancy said. “We look so much alike but are all so very different, it would seem.”

“You will become good friends, of that I am certain,” Jasmine assured her granddaughter. “I shall come and visit you after dinner to make certain that you are comfortable. Bess Trueheart will take good care of you, I know.”

“She already has, Grandmama,” Fancy replied. “How clever of you to pick just the right serving woman for me before we even met.”

“I told you, my child, I know you from your mother’s letters,” Jasmine reminded the girl. She smiled. “I shall return later.” Then she left the bedchamber, and Fancy heard the door of the dayroom that opened into the hallway close.

Bess bustled in. “A nice hot bath, Mistress Fancy?”

“Oh, yes!” came the enthusiastic reply.

“Let me get your skirts and bodice off,” Bess said, “and then I’ll see to the bath while you take a wee nap.”

Fancy nodded. It all sounded wonderful to her. She stood still while Bess unlaced her bodice, removed it, and then undid the tapes of her skirt. Fancy stepped out of the puddle of material, and Bess next pulled the laces loose that held up her many petticoats. They fell to the floor with a slight hiss. Fancy stepped over them, now clad only in her lace-trimmed chemise.

“You get into bed, mistress,” Bess instructed her, gathering up the pile of garments. “When your bath is ready, I’ll wake you.”

“Oh, I won’t sleep,” Fancy said.

“Well, just close your eyes then, and rest,” Bess suggested. Then she hurried from the room with Fancy’s clothing, closing the door behind her.

What kind of a tub would it be? Fancy wondered, closing her eyes. The tub she had bathed in at home was oak and comfortably large. Her mother had always believed in almost-daily bathing, although Fancy knew that other people thought her mother overfastidious. Her eyes closed. Everybody was so nice to her, she thought. The duke and his pretty wife. Her grandmother. Her cousin Diana. And Cynara. She had never met a girl like Cynara. She would wager that Cynara would not have been taken in by Parker Randolph. She wouldn’t have been a simpering little fool, boasting silently in her pride over having caught the handsomest man in the colonies. Cynara would have seen right through Parker Randolph. No one else, even her parents, had. Yet somehow, even on their briefest acquaintance, Fancy believed that Cynara would have immediately known Parker Randolph for what he was.

Her thoughts slipped back to her wedding day. Her gown was so beautiful, and Mama had given her a strand of pearls for her very own. Parker had looked so distinguished as he awaited her at the altar of the plantation church. Like all of Fortune and Kieran’s children, Fancy had been raised with knowledge of both her parents’ faiths. She preferred the Anglican religion of her mother as did her sister, Maeve. Her elder brothers practiced the Roman Catholicism of their father. Her younger brothers claimed their explorations kept them from church, but Fancy knew that they were simply not church-going men. One day again they would be, she was certain, but not now.

The ceremony had been beautiful. The feasting afterward had been lavish. And then she had been escorted to the bridal chamber by her mother, Maeve, and her sisters-in-law to be prepared for her husband’s arrival. When she had been undressed, put into her silk-and-lace nightshirt, and her matching cap with its silk ribbons, Aine had come in, and said a blessing over her. Then they had left her to await her husband. The tears began to slide down Fancy’s pale face. I must put this from me, she thought silently to herself. What has happened has happened. Nothing can change it. Parker did not love me. He is dead. And I must begin a new life here in England. Lord, her eyes felt so heavy. Her thoughts became jumbled. Fancy Devers finally slept.