Читать книгу Regency Collection 2013 Part 1 - Хелен Диксон, Louise Allen, Хелен Диксон - Страница 29

‘Bree?’ Max’s heart seemed to stop, then he saw she was smiling.

‘Max! Oh, Max, it is all right! She isn’t Drusilla.’ She flung herself into his arms and clung. Hell, I must reek of brandy. She doesn’t seem to mind.…

From the pavement he heard the rasp of the hackney driver’s voice. ‘Blimey! That’s a willing tit,’ and a snort of laughter. He glanced up. Thank goodness, at least she had Piers with her.

Max bent his head as his arms closed round her. ‘Darling, I know, I was coming to tell you.’

‘Five minutes either way and we’d have passed each other.’ Piers came up the steps to join them. ‘You’d be hammering on our door, we’d be upsetting Bignell all over again. Do you think we ought to go inside? I mean, there’s a couple of bucks strolling this way, and a carriage has just pulled in three houses along, and I don’t know what your neighbours are like …’

‘Come on.’ Max steered them both inside and into the study. It seemed impossible to let go of Bree, but somehow he managed to untangle himself and sat her down. ‘Pour three glasses of brandy, Piers, I think we need it.’

‘You’ve been drinking it already,’ Bree said. ‘Piers said you’d be drunk.’

‘I’ve had a few, I’ll admit. Bree, what happened? Did Fanny confess? I assume that’s who she is.’ He wanted to touch her, hold her hands at least, but he knew if he did, then he would not be able to stop himself kissing her and they needed to talk first. Suddenly, opening up in front of him, was a lifetime of being able to kiss Bree.

‘I think she must be Fanny. I only realised at three o’clock this morning. I’d been dreaming. All the things I had noticed and yet not realised the significance of, were churning about in my brain and I woke up—and there was the answer.

‘She’s a woman of twenty, not one of thirty. Her hands, her skin where it isn’t pockmarked, her hair, are all those of a very young woman. And to hear her talk, she is so immature—Rosa spotted that and she is used to young girls. If we discount ghosts, then it being her younger sister seems the only solution. But how did you guess?’

Max got to his feet, lifted the small oil painting off the wall and handed it to her.

‘Oh, it’s you! What a charming study. When was it painted?’

‘Shortly before I met Drusilla. I found myself brooding over my brandy glass, staring at it. And then I looked in the mirror and saw how I had changed.’

‘You are even better looking now,’ Bree said loyally. ‘Your face has gained maturity and strength.’

‘Thank you.’ He smiled affectionately. ‘I found myself thinking that I had changed significantly and how little she had, if you discount the effects of the smallpox. And suddenly, about an hour ago, it dawned on me.’ How could he ever express to her how it had felt, that relief, that blinding sense that an emotional death sentence had been lifted? Then he saw the love in the blue eyes watching him and he knew that Bree’s feelings for him were as deep as his for her. And that her hurt had been as acute.

‘I sat for a while, just trying to work it all out, make certain I was not mistaken. Then I knew I had to come to you.’

Piers cleared his throat, jerking them both back to the present. ‘Rosa said she knew things.’ He blushed. ‘Private things about your marriage.’

‘I expect Drusilla confided in her.’ Max shrugged. ‘Not the sort of thing one should talk to girls her age about, of course, but she was angry, bitter, confused and I suppose it all came out.’

‘What are we going to do now?’ Blinking in the candlelight, Bree looked as though she had just woken up from a bad dream.

‘We send out the wedding invitations. Or at least, I get my secretary to do that.’ He couldn’t resist it. He got up and went to sit on the arm of her chair, and began to stroke the mass of blonde hair she had bundled roughly into a net.

‘Yes.’ She leant her head into his caressing hand like a cat being stroked. ‘But what about Fanny? Max, what made her do it? I just cannot believe she is intelligent enough to work this out for herself.’

Damnation. He had hoped she would not realise that. Once he had emerged from the shocked joy of realising that Drusilla had not come back to haunt him, Max had wondered that very thing. And then the memory of Ryder’s letter fallen to the floor at Latymer’s feet in the club had come back to him. This time he was going to call the man out, and this time he had every intention of putting a bullet into him.

And despite the fact that she could not see his face, Bree had sensed his reticence. Hell, he thought with the sense of willingly giving up not just his heart but his entire life, I’m never going to be able to keep anything secret from her.

She twisted round in the chair to look up at him. ‘Max. You know something.’

‘I think it is Latymer again. I suspect he read a letter from Ryder to me. It named no names, but it had enough in it to give him a start if he was wanting to pry into my business.’

‘What are you going to do?’ Piers demanded, on his feet, fists clenched.

‘Call him out. He will not be able to wriggle out of it this time. I have no intention of accepting an apology.’

‘Max—what if you kill him?’ Bree’s brow was furrowed with anxiety. ‘I don’t want to be left standing at the altar while you flee to the continent!’

‘You don’t worry he might kill me, I notice,’ he teased her, amused at himself for the warm glow of pride her assumption of his superior skill gave him.

‘Of course not.’ She rubbed her cheek against his sleeve. ‘But you must be careful. He might be such a bad shot he will hit you by accident.’

‘May I be a second?’ Piers asked.

Max nodded, ignoring Bree’s gasp of denial. ‘Yes, you and Ryder. One of you will have to act for Latymer—I can’t afford to let anyone else in on this, not even Nevill.’

‘Piers is too young!’

‘No, he is not. I’ll look after him.’ Max winked at Piers over Bree’s head.

‘It is supposed to be the other way round,’ she scolded. ‘Oh, I suppose it will be all right if Mr Ryder is there—he, at least, seems sensible.’

‘That has put us in our place,’ Max observed to Piers. ‘Now, let’s think this through. We will confront Fanny after breakfast. I want Ryder there. I think it will be useful to have a witness from outside the family.’ Bree glanced up and smiled, a fleeting curve of her lips, acknowledging that word. Family. ‘We will see if our suspicions are confirmed and then deal with it.’

‘And Fanny?’

Wring her neck for causing you one moment’s pain. Max bit back the words. ‘What do you want me to do about her, my love?’

‘Give her a modest pension, find her a cottage—a long way away.’

‘Reward her for trying to ruin our lives?’

‘Show you are as generous as you are loyal and clever and brave.’

‘I think I’ll, um … go and see if the hackney is still waiting,’ Piers announced gruffly.

‘We’re embarrassing him.’ Bree smiled.

‘Do him good,’ Max rejoined unsympathetically. ‘He’s learning about affairs of honour, he can start learning about sex.’

‘Max!’

‘And love, of course. Which reminds me—how long is it since I kissed you?’

‘Far too long.’ She curled deliciously into his embrace, squeaking with alarm as he slid into the chair with her, bundling her in his arms until she was sitting on his knee.

‘You know, you make me feel younger than I did when I met Drusilla.’

‘I do? Why?’

‘Because you are a grown woman. You don’t need treating like a child, you don’t sulk, you deal with me as an equal. So I can relax.’

‘Oh.’ The twinkle in Bree’s eyes was decidedly grown up. Max could feel the effect of it solidly in his groin. ‘I am not sure I want you very relaxed.’

The only answer to that was to kiss her.

‘Bree, how many days now until we are married?’ Lifting his lips from hers, Max sounded as breathless as she felt.

‘Nine?’ she hazarded vaguely.

‘I don’t suppose we can send Piers home in the hackney and—’

‘No.’ Bree planted one hand firmly on Max’s chest and got to her feet.

‘Oof! I thought you’d say that.’ Apparently resigned, he stood up. ‘Off you go, then. Ryder and I will be there by seven if I can locate him, then we can decide how best to confront Fanny. Catching her off guard will probably be best.’

He opened the study door for her, then seized her round the waist and bent to kiss her again as he slowly walked her backwards towards the front door. Torn between ecstasy and giggles, Bree let herself be shuffled slowly along, her fingers tight around Max’s lapels.

‘Do you wish the door opened, my lord?’

With a squeak Bree jumped backwards. Bignell was standing there, immaculate in full livery, a branch of candles in one hand and an expression that she could only call stuffed on his face.

‘Thank you, Bignell,’ Max said with admirable aplomb, rather spoiling the effect by enquiring, ‘Do you sleep in your livery?’

‘No, my lord. Upon hearing voices, I first came upstairs in my nightgown, if Miss Mallory will excuse the mention of such a garment. Having identified your voice, my lord, I returned downstairs, restored the blunderbuss to its cabinet and assumed my garments.’

‘I see, excellent.’ Bree could see that Max was biting his lip, presumably to stop himself laughing. ‘Er, carry on.’

Outside he hurried her down the steps and into the hackney, hanging on to the open door and giving in to his amusement with his back safely turned to the butler.

‘Oh, dear,’ Bree said faintly, ‘I really do not think Bignell approves of me.’

‘I approve of you, which is rather more to the point,’ Max said, struggling to get his face straight before returning inside. ‘He just has to put up with you. I will see you before breakfast. Sleep well.’

‘Goodnight.’ Bree reached out and touched his face, the stubble on his unshaven cheek prickling her fingertips. ‘Goodnight.’

‘Well,’ Piers said somewhat breathlessly, as the tired coach horse plodded back northwards. ‘Life’s not like this at Harrow, you know. It’s going to be devilishly dull when I go back.’

‘Good,’ Bree said with feeling. ‘I am certain I am a very bad sister, exposing you to all this.’

‘I’m not going to be able to talk about it, am I?’ he said, suddenly glum.

‘No,’ Bree agreed. ‘You are not. That’s one of the disadvantages of being grownup—lots of exciting secrets you can’t brag about.’ She reached out and gave his hand a squeeze. ‘Never mind, you are going to acquire a very dashing brother-in-law.’

Rosa was already up and arranging her hair when Bree peered sleepily round her door at half past six the next morning. ‘Goodness, you look half-awake,’ she exclaimed, putting down her brush. ‘Poor love, couldn’t you sleep?’

‘No, but not for the reasons you might expect.’ Bree shut the door and came to perch on the end of Rosa’s bed. ‘Piers and I were at Max’s house at half past three this morning.’

‘What!’ Rosa gasped, then shot a hasty look at the closed door. ‘Is it about Drusilla?’ she whispered.

‘Yes, only she isn’t. Rosa, it is all going to be all right.’

Bree’s revelations, and the arrival of the gentlemen at the kitchen door, provoked a flurry of activity in the household, for it proved impossible not to tell the staff at least something.

‘Well, I never did!’ Cook exclaimed, banging sugar snips down with some feeling. ‘A confidence trickster in our house, and I was going to make her a nice kedgeree.’

‘I think we’d all appreciate it anyway,’ Bree said soothingly, although her stomach revolted at the mere thought of anything more than plain bread and butter.

Max and Jack Ryder vanished upstairs, Bree and Piers took themselves off to the breakfast room and Rosa went to roust their houseguest out of her room.

‘She must have been fierce when she was a schoolteacher,’ Piers observed with a grin.

Fanny drifted in, smiled wanly at them and took the remaining seat with its back to the screen which hid the door to the back stairs.

Bree plied her with tea and toast, sang the praises of Cook’s special kedgeree and launched into energetic conversation with Rosa and Piers.

‘More kedgeree, Piers? It is very strengthening. Toast, then? Fanny, do be so kind as to pass the butter.’

And quite unconsciously Fanny did just that. It was not until she had the silver dish in her hand, halfway to Rosa’s, that the name Bree had used penetrated. ‘Oh!’ She dropped the dish with a crash and stared round wildly. ‘What … what did you call me?’

‘She called you Fanny. That is your name, is it not?’ Max put the screen to one side and stepped out, leaving Ryder lounging against the serving buffet, one sharp eye on the door. ‘You are my sister-in-law, I believe.’

Fanny stared at him, her mouth open, clutched a napkin and burst into tears. ‘He said you would never know!’ she wailed. ‘He said it would be so easy …’

‘Brice Latymer told you that, did he?’ Ryder enquired casually while Rosa pressed a handkerchief into Fanny’s hand and told her briskly to pull herself together.

‘Mmm.’ She nodded, sniffing miserably. ‘He told me what to say, told me to pretend about the letters, so could say I didn’t trust you. He said we could split the money.’

‘How did he find you?’ Bree asked. ‘Were you in Portsmouth?’

‘No.’ Fanny gulped. ‘I never left Winchester. I was apprenticed to Mrs Pilgrim the milliner. The girl who cleans the pews came to see me, told me this gentleman was enquiring about the Cornish family. Then Mr Latymer came, enquiring about what the other gentleman had been asking for and the sexton sent him to me.’ She looked apprehensively from one face to another. ‘What are you going to do with me?’

‘Find you a cottage and give you a small annuity,’ Max said. Bree saw him wince slightly as the great green eyes fixed on his face. ‘And I never want to hear from you again.’

‘I’ll take her to your attorney,’ Ryder offered, ‘then put her on the next stage to Winchester.’

‘Thank you.’ Max looked grateful not to have anything more to do with his errant sister-in-law. ‘I’ll just write a note for him.’

Bree tried to apply herself to wedding preparations, lists and arrangements, but the constant coming and going of Mr Ryder and Max was distracting, and when they came to collect Piers for their call to Latymer’s lodgings she was left too nervous to concentrate. ‘Don’t forget he has a swordstick,’ she called down the stairs after them. ‘Don’t trust him an inch.’

They came back, hours after she had expected them, all three with the look of small boys who had been deprived of a treat. ‘What happened?’ Bree demanded, practically dragging them into the drawing room.

‘He’s done a runner off to Scotland,’ Ryder said, running his hand through his hair. ‘It’s where the family comes from. By all accounts he has been having a watch kept on this house. When the lad saw Fanny being taken off by me, he ran back to Latymer, who must have realised the game was up.’

‘He’s gone on the stage,’ Piers said glumly. ‘I thought Max could take his curricle and we could give chase, but he said you’d ring a peal over him if he did that.’

‘I am so glad you didn’t,’ Bree said with feeling. ‘That is just what I need, a bridegroom halfway up the Great North Road in pursuit of a duel!’

‘But I think we can feel free to tell everyone—in strict confidence, which they will not observe, of course—all about the card-sharping incident. He’ll never be able to show his face in London society again,’ Max said, stretching long legs out to the fender. ‘Do you think, Miss Mallory, that we may now proceed to a trouble-free nuptials?’

‘With this family?’ Piers snorted. ‘I doubt it!’