Rainbows in Your Eyes

Chapter 1

Chapter 1Sussex, 1949

“What do you think?” Roddy asked his lover, who sat across from him in his favorite armchair.

“Hmm?” Tommy looked up from the Messenger. “What do I think of what, love?”

“Sending our daughter off to Paris?”

“She is nineteen, now.” Tommy let the monocle that magnified the vision of his left eye fall to the end of its ribbon. His right eye, which had been blinded in the Great War, was concealed by a black silk patch. Roddy had been unable to resist once confessing he found that patch exceptionally dashing, not to mention arousing. It appeared that was all Tommy needed to hear to determine never to replace it.

“And she’s so beautiful.” The young woman he regarded as the daughter of his heart took his breath away.

“I have to agree with you there. You never met her mother.”

“No.” Not while she was alive, at any rate.

“Eira Gwyn was more beautiful.”

“Is that even possible?”

“Spoken like a loving papa.” Tommy closed his newspaper and let it drop to the carpet beside him. “Who do you think we could get to take her to Paris?”

“Mrs. Atkinson?” Roddy asked, looking as innocent as he could. “I understand she’s taking her granddaughter there to purchase some new frocks.”

Tommy growled. Mrs. Atkinson was a near-neighbor of Tommy’s mother and Roddy had no trouble remembering the squire’s feather-brained wife from a disastrous dinner party years before.

“We’ve always given Shani everything she could want.”

That was true. Puppies, kittens, ponies, an excellent education. She’d even asked for a brother once, but of course that was the one thing they couldn’t give her. She did have plenty of cousins, though.

Lately, however, with her schooling completed, she’d been pleading to go to the Continent. The war was four years in the past now, and it should be safe enough, but he found it difficult to give his consent. He supposed he was just an overprotective papa.

Tommy waggled his eyebrows and patted his knee in invitation, and Roddy smiled, got to his feet, and crossed to his lover, then lowered himself to Tommy’s lap.

“Mother called earlier.”

Roddy rested his cheek against Tommy’s white-blond hair. Tommy would be turning sixty the following year, but one would never suspect—remarkably firm muscles and not a strand of gray. “How is she?” Lady Eugenia meant the world to him—she treated him like her own son—but she was growing old, now, and both he and Tommy worried that she was slowing down.

“Her joints are bothering her a trifle. Bertie was thinking of taking her to Italy, or perhaps Greece for a few months.”

“Grandmama is going to Italy?” Shani had slipped in without either of them being aware.

Tommy groaned softly, and Roddy felt a blush rising from his throat to the roots of his hair. He whispered, “You’re a distraction,” which earned him a quick kiss.

“I could go with her,” Shani said, all innocence. She suddenly grew serious and dropped to her knees beside them, gripping their hands. “Oh, please. Oh, please. I must go.”

“Why this sudden urgency, petal?”

“I don’t know. I just know I must go to Walachia.”

“That’s in Romania, isn’t it? I’m sorry, Shani, it’s impossible.” Tommy caught her chin and raised it so their eyes met. “That’s Soviet territory. Even if we had no objection to taking you there, you wouldn’t be able to go behind the iron curtain.”

She turned pale, and for a moment Roddy thought she might faint. “I…I hadn’t thought of that.”

Roddy worried his lower lip, then exchanged glances with Tommy. He gave her hand a squeeze and rose. This wasn’t a spoiled child whining for a treat.

Her eyes welled with tears, and he wanted to swear. If Tommy saw—

What was he thinking? Of course her Pere would see. Tommy pulled her up onto his lap and rocked her gently. “Don’t cry, petal. Suppose Papa and I take you to Town?”

She’d had her come out a couple of years before. Dinah had said she’d made her own come out at seventeen. Roddy thought Shani had been too young, but what did he know? He was just the brother of a Methodist preacher and had had no knowledge of the Ton before he’d become involved with Thomas Fortescue-Smythe. Shani had been presented to the king, and she’d had a wonderful time, but in spite of her looks, unfortunately, in the parlance, she hadn’t taken. What the devil was wrong with those young men to overlook our beautiful girl?

“Could I…do you think perhaps I could get a new wardrobe from Paris?” Her eyes sparkled, and Roddy could see Tommy was so relieved he honestly began to consider it.

“Grandmama won’t be able to take you,” Tommy reminded her, and her shoulders slumped.

Roddy hated to see her unhappy. “We could drive up…”

She sighed and shook her head. “I love you for the offer, but I’d need a lady to help me choose the gowns.”

“Hmm.” Tommy drummed his fingertips against the arm of his chair. “What about Aunt Dinah?”

A sensible, no-nonsense woman, as well as a diamond of the first water, Dinah was Lady Fortescue-Smythe, the wife of Tommy’s older brother. If she were going along, one of their strongest objections would no longer be valid.

“I would love it, but isn’t she preparing for Hal’s wedding?”

Hal was the couple’s oldest son and heir. He’d spent a few years gallivanting around the world before coming home. After cutting a swath through last season’s crop of debutantes but settling for none, he had surprised everyone by proposing to a nurse he’d known while serving in the army and had unexpectedly run into again in Town.

“I think she’ll take the opportunity. Kitty’s back in town.”

Roddy burst into laughter at the seeming non sequitur. Lady Dinah had been thrilled to finally have a baby girl in the family after all the sons she’d presented her husband. Bertie had taken one look at the newborn and announced, “We’re naming her after you, my love. She’ll be as dainty and delicate as…well, as her own Mama.” Only as the little girl grew, surrounded by brothers determined to teach her how to keep herself safe, she’d learned to hunt and fish and ride as well as any of them. She was almost as tall as them, was smarter than her brilliant brother, and had taken honours in her field of study, earning a PhD and traveling the world in search of goblin sharks of all things.

As it turned out, having two Dinahs in the family was confusing, and calling their daughter Dinah the Younger sounded like something from the Augustus period of ancient Rome, when everyone was either the younger or the elder. Fortunately, the girl child had provided herself with a suitable nickname. While the family had been holidaying in the Scottish highlands, they’d chanced across a wildcat. The little girl had started toward it, crying “Kitty!”

Bertie had caught up his daughter and backed away cautiously—the animal had a reputation for being a man-killer, and it would have made mincemeat of five-year-old Dinah. Fortunately, the animal had vanished into the undergrowth. Dinah had cried for the “kitty” the entire journey down the mountain. Her brothers, not having been there, thought the entire incident hilarious and took to calling her Kitty. The nickname stuck.

“Kitty’s home? Are we going to London to see her?” Shani jumped to her feet and clapped her hands. “Please say we may!”

“I’ll put in a trunk call to Aunt Dinah and see if she’s willing to make a trip across the Channel.”

“Thank you, Pere.” She threw her arms around him. “Call her now?”

Tommy smiled and pinched her chin. “All right, petal.” And he went to call his sister-in-law.

* * * *

Olivia Lancaster glanced up from the letter she’d received from her oldest daughter and stared impatiently at her youngest. For the past two seasons, Olivia had pushed Lydia to accept a proposal from one of the young men who’d danced with her at the various balls and parties. After all, she was of good birth—her father was the younger son of an impoverished earl—and Olivia had brought a good deal of money to the marriage. She’d had hopes Viscount Haynsworth, an older gentleman, would come up to snuff, but apparently he’d learned Olivia’s grandfather had been in trade, and the viscount turned his back on Lydia.

As for the young men, Lydia had refused every one of them.

“You’re not pining for the viscount, are you?” Olivia demanded.

“No, Mother.”

“Then you have to choose someone.” She was unable to conceal her annoyance at her usually docile daughter’s recalcitrance.

“I have time. I’m only nineteen.”

“I was married at that age and had already given birth to your brother. Don’t you want to be married?”

“I’d like to continue my education.”

“Nonsense.” Olivia didn’t need to ask where her daughter had gotten such an outrageous idea. Lydia had become friends with a young woman who lived outside the town of Whyte in Sussex and had attended the same school. Olivia had objected to the friendship until she learned Miss Sayer-Smythe was the favorite niece of Sir Bertram Fortescue-Smythe. Sir Bertram might only be a baronet, but the family had held the title since King James first bestowed it on one of his favorites. And Sir Bertram had unmarried sons and an unmarried daughter, ideal catches for Lydia and Sylvester, if they would only make the effort.

“But I don’t love any of them.”

“Tish and tosh.” She ignored the desperation in her daughter’s voice, because young girls could be that way and it meant nothing. “What does love have to do with it?”

“Mother! Didn’t you love Father?”

“Of course not.” Olivia felt a hard flush cover her cheeks at her daughter’s shocked gasp. How could she have let that slip? She hastened to correct herself. “That is to say, I trusted your grandparents when they told me love would come in due time. Which it did.”

Lydia tilted her head and blinked at Olivia, an action that always made her want to slap her daughter.

“If you don’t marry soon, people are going to talk.”

“About what?”

“Never you mind about that. They just will.” Olivia could hardly tell her daughter she feared the girl would be labeled a sapphist. She returned her gaze to the letter she held. “Elspeth tells me Lady Smythe is taking young Dinah and—” She paused, not wanting Lydia to know how little she thought of the girl who was too pretty for her own good and who was altogether too friendly with her daughter. “—her niece to Paris to see the latest fashions provided by the House of Kercadiou on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré.”

“Kercadiou.” Lydia sighed. “I wish I could have one of his gowns.”

And why shouldn’t she? Olivia asked herself. Her daughter was as lovely as Lady Smythe’s niece and not nearly the hoyden. “Hmm.” She believed she had an idea. She wouldn’t tell Lydia just yet, in case things fell through, although she was fairly certain they wouldn’t.

She went to her writing desk and withdrew a sheet of cream-coloured paper. She’d write to Lady Smythe and see what the possibility was of the woman agreeing to her and Lydia accompanying the Smythe party to Paris. And once that was done, she’d approach Archibald for the money. It was always easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask permission.

She smiled primly and began writing her missive. She’d seen Kercadiou’s latest line, and wearing one of those lovely gowns, Lydia would be certain to attract the attention of at least one of Lady Smythe’s sons.

* * * *

Tommy whistled happily as he drove home from Whyte, the town closest to Almeria Hall. He and Roddy had found the house that was now theirs thirteen years before. It wasn’t huge, but it was large enough for them, and they’d lived there happily with their daughter since.

Only their little girl wasn’t so little anymore. She was nineteen, now, and soon, they knew, she’d marry and leave them. Whichever young man she chose had better treat her well. From his time in the Great War and his involvement with the government afterward, Tommy knew any number of ways to kill a man, and his lover—who’d blown up a German steamship in East Africa during that selfsame war—would be more than happy to help him dispose of the body.

Still, they couldn’t keep her hidden away at Almeria Hall all her life, and their sister-in-law planned what she hoped would be a more successful season for Shani, especially considering the Paris frocks Tommy and Roddy would be footing the bill for.

He and his lover would escort the women to Paris, and while Shani went dress shopping with Dinah and Kitty, he planned to take Roddy to dinner at the Eiffel Tower. While he’d been in Whyte earlier, he’d looked into it at the local travel agency and had a packet of brochures.

He and Roddy hadn’t been out of the country in some years, and it would be an enjoyable experience. Perhaps, after Paris, they’d go to Vienna, and he’d take Roddy to Palais Schwarzenberg, where his lover could order whatever he liked.

Tommy licked his lips. After enjoying those fabulous sweets, he was looking forward to all the time they’d spend in bed as well.

Tommy turned into the Hall’s drive, parked the estate wagon at the rear of the house, and got out, feeling inordinately pleased with himself.

“Captain Smythe! Captain Smythe!” One of the stable boys came tearing up to him and clutched his arm. “Thank God you’re home, sir. Mr Sayer is down!”

Tommy felt his stomach lurch. “Where?”

“The training ring.”

The brochures fell from Tommy’s hand, and he took off running, the boy completely forgotten. Tommy arrived in a matter of seconds, skidding to a shocked halt.

Roddy lay sprawled on the tanbark of the training ring, his ankle at an unnatural angle, his face almost a shade of grey. He bit down hard on his lip and forced a smile. “S-sorry, sweetheart.”

“Dammit. Dammit, dammit, and dammit once more.” He had a strong stomach, but just then he was sure he was going to lose his lunch. “What happened?”

“My fault. The gelding balked and threw me,” Roddy said through tight lips. He had told Tommy at breakfast he planned to school the bay later in the morning.

“I ought to shoot the beast.”

“Not his fault. Tell—tell Shani I’m sorry. I don’t think I’ll be able to go to Paris with her just yet.”

“Never mind just yet. You’re not going anywhere.”

“But—”

“Don’t worry about it. Dinah is capable, and she’ll have Kitty with her.”

“You can go—”

“No. I have no intention of leaving your side.”

“But—”

“No.” Tommy knew he could be like putty in his lover’s hands, but this time he intended to stand firm. And fortunately, just then, reinforcements arrived: their head groom drove up with the doctor, and Roddy sank back with a soft groan, acknowledging defeat.