Page 75 of Reforming Lord Ragsdale
“I want to know if you are afraid,” he asked.
“I used to be,” she said honestly, knowing that she could not lie to her brother. “But now that you are to come with me, I don’t think there is anything that can frighten the two of us.”
“But suppose Da and Sam are dead?” he persisted, taking her hand.
“We will decide what to do if it comes to that, Tim. Go to sleep now.”
He slept peacefully, quietly, but he would not relinquish her hand. She sat on the floor beside him, knowing that sleep was far from her.I wish my conscience were as clear as yours, Tim, she thought as she gazed at his relaxed face.I have labored so hard to mend a faulty character, not realizing all the while that it was mine.
She undressed finally and crawled into bed, only to stare at the ceiling and listen to house noises until everyone was asleep.Oh, well, she decided as her eyes began to close,it is better to love foolishly than to hate bitterly. I hope I am wiser than I was and more kind.
~
Her resolution was firm, and in the morning she dressed quietly and tiptoed out of her room, careful not to waken Tim. She went to the front hall for the mail, dreading that Lord Ragsdale would rise early and demand more conversation.
The mail was gone. She looked around at Lasker.
“Lord Ragsdale has already perused the correspondence and placed it in the book room,” he said. “He has gone to Norfolk, taking Miss Partridge and her mother with him.”
She sighed with relief and went to the book room. His usual list of instructions was on the desk as well as a folded note. She sat down and opened the note. “Dear Emma,” she read, “Clarissa is eager to see the manor and figure out more ways to spend my money constructively. We will return after your ship sails, so let me wish you happy journey and good news at the end of it. Excuse my bad manners. John Staples.”
There was no need to read it again and search for hidden meanings, for there were none. She managed a smile and chided herself for being an idiot.We are talking of LordRagsdale, she told herself,he who loves to kiss women. It was that and nothing more. I am only chagrined that I caused such a kind man any embarrassment. I trust he will soon forget it, if he has not already.
His kindness to her continued through the days of his absence. Her next visit to the bank was more in the way of a command performance, as the custodians of a major portion of Lord Ragsdale’s wealth assured her that she was to take the enormous sum of two hundred pounds with her. She could not imagine such largess and told them so, but the senior partners only looked at each other and chuckled.
“He told us you would say that,” they assured her. “Lately, he is so well-organized and sensible that we do not argue with him over paltry sums.”
I have created a monster, she thought with amusement. “Very well, then, sirs, so it will be. Never let anyone say that I don’t know when to save my breath to cool my porridge.”
She also knew better than to argue when Lady Ragsdale insisted that they visit the cloth merchants and purchase yards and yards of muslin goods, and silk stockings, and bonnets of a practical nature. “I cannot imagine where you will get these things if we do not buy them now,” she said, explaining away her own generosity. She paused in front of a boll of handsome burgundy wool. “Do you suppose. . .”
“No, my lady,” Emma said hurriedly. “I fear it is rather hot in the antipodes. Let us confine our enthusiasms to muslin.”
“It seems so ordinary,” said Lady Ragsdale with a sigh. “Do you not suppose there will be balls there occasionally or even musicales?”
I could never tell this dear lady what I fear I will find, she thought as Lady Ragsdale cast a longing eye on a nearby bolt of pale yellow silk.We are going to a convict colony, a place of harsh rule and desperate men. She, who had been coddled so gently, would be horrified if she knew how hard it might be. I shall never tell her.
“Do you know, you may be right, my lady,” she said, choosing her words carefully as her own fears returned. “I think that silk would be entirely in order.”
“I knew it!” Lady Ragsdale declared in triumph. “With that and a pair of Morocco leather slippers to match, I will pronounce you fit. You may keep my paisley shawl,” she added generously.
~
“Where can we squeeze it all?” she grumbled to Tim several times in as many days when Lady Ragsdale continued to add to the contents of the sea chest. Her largess spilled over into another trunk and then another, each requiring the strenuous efforts of the footman to close them, with Lasker sitting on top, dignified to the end. “This has to be enough,” she said firmly on her last night on Curzon Street as Lady Ragsdale met her on the first-floor landing with another nightgown.
“Certainly, Emma,” Lady Ragsdale agreed. “And if I think of anything else, I can send it ’round later.”
Emma turned away to hide her smile.Lady Ragsdale, you have no concept of geography, she thought. She took the nightgown from Lady Ragsdale, said good night, and went into the book room for one last look around. She could hear Tim and the footman bringing the trunks down two flights of stairs. Lasker had made arrangements with a carter to pick them up at first light.
And we will follow, she reflected. A penny post from the dockyard had informed them of their departure with the tide in the early afternoon. She went to the window to stare down at the street below, rain-slicked from a sudden squall and washed clean of the day’s commerce. Soon there would be only months and months of waves and wind and small ships. “And wormy food and sea biscuit,” she said out loud as she opened the window for a deep breath of flowers in the window box. “And seriousuncertainty, as you would say, Da. I wonder what I will find at the end of my journey.”
She tidied the room, hopeful that Lord Ragsdale would be able to discover everything in order when he returned. She was about to turn out the lamp, but suddenly she knew it wasn’t right to leave without even a farewell note.There can be no harm in expressing myself this last time, she thought,no harm at all.She sat down at the desk.
It was easy to tell Lord Ragsdale thank you on paper, to thank him for putting the heart back in her, for making her angry enough at times to keep her from melancholy, for finding her family, for tying up the ragged strings of her life. She labored over the page, wanting to express her whole heart and mind. “I do not know whatever good I may have done you, my lord, but you have given me back my brother,” she wrote, then hesitated.I could tell you I love you, she considered, the quill poised over the inkwell.It would be true, probably the most true thing I ever wrote.She put down the quill and rested her chin on her hands.There will always be some part of me that longs for you, but should I say that to a man so soon to be tangled in the toils of matrimony?
“How fortunate I will be so far away,” she said, and picked up the quill again. “I can be no possible threat, Clarissa Partridge, bless your pouty hide.” She wrote swiftly then, telling him of her love, leaving nothing out, not mincing a single word. Nothing could be safer; she would be in the middle of the Atlantic before he returned from Norfolk. She picked up the letter, still frowning over it, wondering why even that declaration was not enough.
And then she understood and laughed out loud, sticking the quill back in the ink.Not only do I love you, Lord Ragsdale, she told herself as she wrote the words,I alsolikeyou.
