Читать книгу Valerian Inglemoore - Bronwyn Scott - Страница 8

London, June 1820

Valerian Inglemoore, the Viscount St Just, had a secret, a dreadful secret that caused him to tremble in guilt and self-loathing as he stood alone on Lady Rutherford’s veranda, gazing at the paper lantern-lit garden beyond the balustrade, but not really seeing it.

His secret was all consuming, too consuming to spare a glance for the elegant town garden with its fountains and well-laid paths that wound through knot gardens and small privet hedges.

Under normal circumstances, the garden would have been quite enticing. But tonight, his secret was nearly too much to bear. He was twenty-one and he was in love with Philippa Stratten, Baron Pendennys’s daughter, and she was in love with him. She was to meet him here tonight.

But nothing would ever come of it.

That was the secret.

Tonight, he was breaking it off with her, at her father’s request. Tonight, he had to convince her after two months of stolen kisses and clandestine meetings that his affections were nothing more than a young man’s fleeting fancy. He didn’t know how he’d manage. He loved her so much.

After tonight, he’d never take her in his arms, never feel her run her fingers through his hair, as if it were the rarest silk. The last two months had been heaven. He’d danced with her at her début in April and every night since. They’d made a habit of heated kisses in curtained alcoves, and taking long walks in gardens during Venetian breakfasts and afternoon teas. It had been simple enough to manipulate time alone with her. He was an avid botanist as well as a horseman. It was plausible enough to say they were going off to look at a certain variety of flower or to see a new colt in the stables.

Oh, yes, they’d fallen madly in love with each other. One could almost say it was love at first sight except that he had known Philippa for years. She was his best friend Beldon’s sister. The threesome had spent school holidays roaming the Cornish coast together. He’d known since his first visit home with Beldon that his heart could belong to no other.

Behind him, the Rutherfords’ ballroom played host to three hundred of London’s finest dancing away the night in their silks and satins, champagne never more than a footman’s tray away. But he cared not a whit. His heart was breaking.

‘Valerian.’ A familiar, dear voice spoke his name in the darkness. He drew a final breath, praying for the strength to give her up. It would be for her own good, although she’d never believe it.

He turned towards the sound of her voice, letting her beauty overwhelm him as it always did. The effect was no less devastating tonight. This evening, her beauty was at its zenith, shown to perfection in the pale blue fabric of her gown. In the moonlight, the fabric appeared to shimmer when she moved. A soft summer breeze drew the thin fabric of her gown against her body, reminding Valerian of the fine figure beneath the filmy layers of summer chiffon.

‘Val.’ She whispered his name in response, moving towards him, her hands outstretched. ‘I could hardly wait.’ She wore a gentle smile on her lips, a soft look for him alone in the blue depths of her eyes. It was intoxicating to think the excitement that simmered beneath the surface of that gentle smile and soft look were all for him.

He savoured it. After tonight, he would not feel such joy again.

She slipped her gloved hands into his, expecting him to take her in his arms as he usually did. He swallowed hard against the temptation. He’d come out here to do his duty to her family, a family which had loved and harboured him since his adolescence. They’d asked him to give her up for sake of their finances and her future. It was a difficult task at best. Her merest touch, her slightest affection, made it Herculean.

The embrace did not come. He could not give it to her as much as he desired to take her in his arms and feel her against him. To do so would be to fail the family in the only thing they’d ever asked of him. As a man of honour, he owed them more.

She looked up into his face, reading him aright, unconsciously warning him to better school his features if he was to carry off his task believably. ‘Aren’t you happy to see me?’ Philippa began.

‘Of course I am happy to see you. I am always happy to see a dear friend,’ Valerian said, hoping Philippa didn’t hear the unspoken lie. He’d always seen her as much more than a friend.

‘Then kiss me. I’ve waited all day for you, for this moment.’ She flirted, trying to press up against him, to make him take her in his arms.

He was too skilled for her untutored efforts. ‘Philippa, stop. We have to talk.’

‘Here?’ She glanced around curiously, disappointment evident on her features. Valerian wondered what she’d been expecting that this location was not suitable. Certainly, she wasn’t expecting what he had to tell her. Her father, Baron Pendennys, had indicated that Beldon and Philippa were completely in the dark about the family’s situation.

The balcony was mostly empty, but there were a few couples strolling about. It wasn’t nearly as private as he’d hoped. Valerian shook his head. ‘No, not here. Come walk in the garden with me.’

They found a bench settled among rhododendrons in full bloom and sat. Valerian kept her hand. He nodded towards a bower of roses across the pathway. ‘The roses are lovely. I hear Lady Rutherford has imported a special yellow rose from Turkey.’

He was stalling and he knew it, putting off the news as long as he could, storing up every memory of her—beautiful, innocent Philippa, believing in the purity of his love when he’d come to prove her beliefs ill founded and her heart played falsely. It would be years before she would understand this was a sham designed to protect her family.

‘What is it, Val? You didn’t come out here to show me roses,’ Philippa coaxed.

‘I spoke to your father earlier this evening.’

Her face lit with joy. A little cry of delight escaped her lips. She clapped a gloved hand over her mouth. He replayed the words in his head the way she would hear them. He knew he’d mis-stepped. She thought he had come to propose. He must be more careful, more convincing.

Valerian shook his head in warning. ‘No, Philippa, it is not what you think. Your father has told me of your betrothal to the Duke of Cambourne. He accepted an offer for your hand this afternoon.’

Philippa furrowed her brow, disbelief and confusion warring across her face. His words had achieved their goal. This pronouncement was so far from what she’d expected she couldn’t even be angry. She couldn’t get angry with him until she put the pieces together. The poor girl hadn’t even known Cambourne was interested, although the betting book at White’s had been full of wagers over when the widower Duke would make his move. The men about town had privately acknowledged Cambourne’s interest in the Season’s finest débutante weeks ago. Valerian had hoped to wait out the storm. He might have succeeded if the Baron’s need for funds hadn’t been so desperate.

‘Cambourne? You must be mistaken, Val.’ She was all naïve logic, standing up and shaking out her skirts, convinced she only had to march into the ballroom and explain the situation to her father. ‘He loves you. Nothing would please him more than to welcome you into our family. He would want this for me, for us.’

‘Wait, Philippa.’ Valerian kept his voice even and cold, not betraying the emotion threatening beneath his hardening veneer. ‘I came out here to encourage you to accept Cambourne’s offer.’

‘What do you mean? You want me to marry Cambourne?’ Philippa exclaimed, horrified. ‘He’s old enough to be my father! I don’t love him. Beyond a few dances, I hardly know the man at all.’ Her infamous temper started to show now that the initial shock had passed. Valerian did not relish being on the receiving end of her sharp tongue.

‘You have the rest of your life to get to know him, Philippa.’ Valerian dismissed her argument with callous disregard. ‘He’s an excellent catch for you, if you think about it.’ Valerian made a show of ticking the other man’s merits off on his gloved fingers. ‘He’s from our part of the world. You’ll still be close to home and your family. He’s wealthy. He loves horses as you do. He’s not a cruel or unattractive man. You could find happiness with him. He will offer you stability and security.’

‘But not love,’ Philippa fired back. ‘Here you are, laying out his assets like a business merger. But the only one I care about is love. He can’t possibly love me. He doesn’t know me. You know me, Val. If those criteria are so important to my father, then why won’t you suit? You live in our part of the world, you love horses, you’re kind and attractive, you have money. Under those conditions, I don’t see why your offer isn’t as good. What was wrong with you, Val? Let me talk to my father. We’ll be engaged by midnight. You’ll see.’

Valerian looked into the azure depths of her beseeching eyes. It was deuced awkward playing the jilt. If he was successful, she’d walk out of the garden thinking he was unaffected by the turn of events. She’d never know he’d carried a ring in his pocket for the last two weeks, hoping against hope that Cambourne’s suit would come to naught.

The ring was still there, in the left pocket of his evening coat. And there it would remain. He strongly doubted he’d ever give it to another. It was slow torture to outline Cambourne’s merits to her, to offer her reassurances that all would be well when in fact he didn’t think he’d ever be well again. His stomach was churning.

‘What was wrong with me?’ Valerian echoed with feigned flippancy ‘For starters, I don’t want to be engaged by midnight. Secondly, I didn’t ask.’

More lies. He had asked anyway, even knowing the situation. Her father had explained plainly that the young viscount didn’t have enough money—at least not until he was twenty-seven and came into his inheritance. But Baron Pendennys couldn’t wait that long. It had hurt enormously to realise his dreams had been sold for golden guineas. He would be a wealthy man for ever living without the one thing his money couldn’t buy.

‘What? You never asked?’ Her eyes filled with tears, her voice full of disbelief. ‘I don’t understand.’

God, she was beautiful. Valerian fought the urge to pull her against him. She stood so close it would hardly be an effort to do so. He could smell the light fragrance of her lemon-scented soap rising from her skin, the lavender rinse of her clean hair.

She sat down hard on the stone bench, grasping at the logic of it all. ‘I thought you loved me. I thought you wanted to marry me.’

Valerian fought the urge to follow her down, and take her hands in comfort. He had to stop touching her or she’d know it was all a lie.

‘Keep your voice down. We don’t want to draw attention,’ Valerian scolded, covertly casting his gaze about the area. ‘The last thing we need now when it’s all over is to be compromised.’ He’d meant it to be a set-down. She seized on it as the answer to their troubles.

‘That’s it!’ Philippa said wildly. ‘If you compromise me, Father will have to let us marry and Cambourne will have a gracious out. Everyone would understand he couldn’t marry me then.’

Valerian felt himself rouse at the very idea. It would be easy enough to compromise her, but he loved her too much not to warn her of the consequences—consequences she couldn’t fathom through the lens of her innocence, but with three years of town bronze on him, Valerian could. ‘Philippa, no one in London would receive us. We’d live a life of exile and I could not doom you to that. I could not doom myself to that,’ he added selfishly.

Philippa could not be fooled, and her face tilted, perplexed by the incongruous statement. ‘Do such things matter to you? I thought if you had your horses and your gardens and me, it would be enough.’ She rose and moved into his embrace, her head finding its way to his shoulder.

Valerian let her, although he held himself stiff, his arms wooden at his side. He was tired of fighting on all fronts. It was inevitable now. He was down to last things. He would not see Philippa after tonight. He’d decided already that he could not go back to his home in Cornwall and watch her become the wife of a neighbour. It would drive him insane to know she and her husband lived only a day’s ride away. He’d known when he met her tonight what he had to do. He’d known she would try to argue against her father’s choice. He’d known he would have to resist her entreaties no matter what form they took. He had not known how painful it would be.

In her desperation, Philippa was arguing with all the tools at her disposal, even her body as she was doing now. Early on in their relationship, he’d revelled in teaching her about a man’s body. There was something heady about tutoring one’s beloved in the sensual arts. He’d never dreamed he would not be the one to teach her the ultimate love lesson. He fought back the wave of nausea sweeping his form.

Philippa raised her head from his shoulder, a lock of her long hair falling from its loose coiffure. Valerian involuntarily reached out to brush the russet strand back from her face. How many times had he made that gesture in the past months?

‘If you won’t marry me or compromise me, at least give me one night of passion. Let me be with you, as we intended to be together,’ she whispered.

Just hearing her utter the words completed his growing erection. A small moan of regret escaped his lips as he shut his eyes, gathering his strength. With her head on his shoulder, thankfully she could not see the torture on his face, although he knew she could feel his desire straining against her stomach. God knew how much he wanted her. He made no attempt to hide his arousal. She knew how she affected him and he her. But he was a man of honour. He’d promised to let her go.

‘That’s a very unwise suggestion, Philippa,’ he heard himself saying in a steady voice that sounded as if it came from another man who watched the vignette unfolding with great uninterest.

‘Please, Val,’ Philippa cried, clutching his hands. ‘I love you and you love me, I know you do. I can feel it.’

He had to end this scene soon. She was on the verge of breaking and his restraint was failing. If this went on much longer, his reserve would crack and they would spend the rest of their lives paying for the foolishness of a few mad minutes. He would not do that to her.

‘Don’t beg. I can’t stand to see you grovel,’ he said in a low voice close to her ear. Then he released her and stepped back, preparing to say the most difficult words he’d ever uttered, but he had to make her believe them. ‘I do love you, but perhaps not in the same way you love me. I am sorry if you’ve misunderstood my intentions when we started our little experiment in l’amour. We are finished now, you and I. Whatever we had is done, a fair-weather fling. That is how it is for a man.’

He could feel the nervous tic jump in his cheek as a silent curtain fell between them. A tickling bead of sweat ran its slow race down his back as he waited on her next words. His heart warred with his mind. His mind wanted her to see the practical logic of ending their affaire and accept his hurtful fabrication. His heart wanted her to see the words for the farce they were.

He watched coldness steal over Philippa’s face as her features changed from desperation back to anger. An unchecked fury raged in the depths of her eyes as her mind raced towards the conclusions he’d wanted her to draw. When she spoke, he could hear her voice tremble with emotions.

‘A fair-weather fling? This was all a game to you? Everything was a lie?’ she cried as the truth spread across her face, like clouds across the sun, as she began to acknowledge the import of his words. He wished he didn’t know her so well as to guess her thoughts. In her pale face he saw her doubt and pain. He knew that she believed that every knowing look, hot kiss and searing touch had been little more than seductive perjury of the worst kind. He’d played his part well. She believed those gestures had meant nothing at all to him while they had meant everything to her.

‘I thought you were a man of honour, Valerian.’ Her voice trembled. Her heart was breaking.

Valerian tightened the reins on his resolve. ‘I am a man of honour. That’s why I feel I need to call a halt before our sweet interlude goes any further.’

‘Interlude?’ Philippa was incredulous. ‘You make it sound as if our affaire is nothing more than an intermission at the theatre! Something to occupy your time between activities!’

Valerian held himself stiffly, ready to deliver the coup de grace, the last stroke. ‘I am to leave tomorrow to join my uncle on the Continent, something of a belated Grand Tour now that peace has been restored.’

‘Valerian, this is not like you. You’re playing a cruel game.’ There was reproach in her voice for both of them. Reproach for his despicable behaviour and self-chiding for her rashness. She was wrong, of course, he loved her very much, but there was no honourable way out of the situation. Perhaps it was best if she believed the worst, that his love was a fraud, that she was an extended exercise in dalliance. Valerian said nothing in his own defence. Instead, he gave her a neat bow. ‘I’ll leave you here. I can see you need a moment to collect yourself before returning to the ball,’ he said with polite coldness and turned to leave.

Philippa called to him one last time. Her anger was perilously close to giving way to tears as she spoke in a strangled whisper. ‘Tell me you loved me, that it wasn’t all false coin.’

Valerian stopped, but did not look back. Like Orpheus, it would be his undoing. ‘Miss Stratten, I cannot.’ He comforted himself with the fact that it was the truth. He was too choked with emotion to utter the words she wanted to hear. Worse, he knew the reason for his silence would be misconstrued as heartlessness. In reality, to say the words would be to give her false hope. If she thought there was any window of opportunity for her case, she’d not give in. Philippa was tenacious. He was counting on that tenacity to help her through this crisis and build a new life for herself.

Valerian closed his eyes as loss swept through him. It was better that the words went unsaid, no matter what cruel conclusions she might draw. His logic was cold comfort when Philippa spoke again, her emotions mastered, her quiet parting words piercing him like a venom arrow to the heart. ‘I will not forget this, Valerian.’

Miserable and heartsick, Valerian squared his shoulders, intending to find Philippa’s father and tell him the deed was done. He’d no longer stand in the way of the family’s financial stability. He’d tell Beldon to take Philippa home. Then he’d leave—it was the only truth he’d told tonight.

In the other pocket of his evening coat was his uncle’s letter, inviting Valerian to join his uncle’s family on the Continent where he served as one of Britain’s premier diplomats. The letter had come yesterday in response to Valerian’s own inquiries. Valerian knew he could not stay in England and watch Philippa’s new life unfold. Instead, he would go and serve England against whatever threats arose and try to exorcise the memory of Philippa Stratten from his hot blood.