Читать книгу Captain Langthorne's Proposal - Elizabeth Beacon - Страница 11

Serena had decided years ago that not even Sir Charles Grandison and brave young Lochinvar rolled into one dashingly perfect gentleman could persuade her to marry again. Not that Sir Adam had marriage in mind. No, even if he had been attempting to get her alone, he had a very different proposition to make her. Anyway, although he looked like a hero, Sir Adam Langthorne would probably tell a damsel in distress to pull herself together and fight her own dragons before he rode to her rescue. For some reason that sounded a wickedly tempting combination in a suitor, so it was just as well he had no intention of courting her.

‘That chaperon certainly won’t be me,’ she snapped, taken by surprise both by his determination to turn her into Rachel’s duenna and her own unwavering opposition.

Half an hour ago she might have found the idea of being removed from her monotonous routine and a distinctly unpromising future alluring—and in Rachel’s company as well. So why was she about to refuse such an escape from her responsibilities?

‘I should wait to be asked if I were you, my lady,’ he reproved, that infuriating smile once again making her palm itch to slap it off his lips.

‘I still won’t do it,’ she insisted implacably.

‘Well, that settles that, then,’ he said. And if he was trying to appear cast down he was failing dismally.

The wretched man was confident of getting his way; she could see it by the unwavering determination of his firm mouth and his golden-brown eyes had a glint in them she deeply mistrusted.

‘Unlucky Rachel, to possess such a fair weather friend,’ he said mournfully, and this time her wrist actually swung out before she sharply ordered it back to her side, and glared at him with infuriated ferocity instead.

‘We have no need to prove our friendship, sir, so I suggest you save your tricks for those who might be taken in by them,’ she told him, with a glare that should tell him she was too polite to say what she really felt about his stubborn aim of getting his own way, whatever the consequences.

‘If I ever find another lady so perfectly suited to bear my sister company I shall seek your advice,’ he said blandly, and she could see no lessening of his iron resolve whatsoever. ‘I’m determined to turn her thoughts into more hopeful channels, and she trusts you, my lady,’ he insisted relentlessly. ‘Rachel won’t put her confidence in a stranger.’

‘Perhaps, but she needs someone older to reintroduce her to the ton,’ she countered.

‘Indeed,’ he agreed meekly. ‘But such a hardened cynic might misjudge my sister and try to shuffle her onto someone rich and titled but totally unsuitable in every other way, don’t you think? While Rachel’s capable of fending off such an insensitive soul herself, it would probably ruin her stay, and you would let her pick out her own suitors.’

‘Rachel’s chaperon will be in for a surprise if you let her expect meek agreement with her every whim,’ Serena persisted.

‘No, she won’t. You know her too well for that.’ He held up his hand when she gathered breath to condemn his high-handed assumption that she would agree to his scheme. ‘I don’t want Rachel to be upset by battling over every detail from the cut and colour of her gown to how many steps she can take in the park with a beau without causing a scandal. Together you can both ease yourselves back into the polite world and actually enjoy yourselves,’ he replied, so reasonably that Serena had to remind herself she was in danger of being manipulated by a master.

‘I refuse to tell my best friend how to run her life,’ she said doggedly.

‘Little chance of that—which is why this arrangement will suit so well, if I can bring it about,’ he said with a wry smile.

‘Do you always arrange the lives of your family and friends in the way you feel is most likely to do them good, Sir Adam?’

‘Whenever I can,’ he replied, with an unrepentant shrug.

‘Lord, how I pity them.’

‘Lady, you have no need to,’ he told her, and suddenly there was an infinity of promises in those intriguing eyes of his, and she felt a shiver run down her spine that had to be apprehension—didn’t it?

‘So you say,’ she managed to reply, steadily enough.

‘So I know,’ he said quietly, and this time there was a steadfast intent in his gaze that worried her more than anything that had passed between them so far.

Serena made a determined effort to put everything else aside and concentrate on Rachel’s well-being. ‘I’m not sure I could stop the staidest two-in-hand racing out of control,’ she admitted ruefully, ‘let alone keep Rachel from being overwhelmed by unsuitable gentlemen.’

Rachel Langthorne was a considerable heiress and, even if she was far too shrewd to fall for a fortune-hunter, would find the ton at play intimidating after so long at Marclecombe, caring for her grandparents and more lately her ungrateful brother. For Rachel’s sake Serena supposed she had to take this idea seriously, even if going to London for the season in Sir Adam’s company was the last thing she should do if she had any sense at all.

‘You’d soon get back into the way of it,’ he said with remarkable gentleness. And Serena didn’t make the mistake of thinking he was referring to driving a pair of spirited Welsh greys around Hyde Park.

‘Not if I stay here, I won’t,’ she replied stubbornly.

‘Faint heart,’ he accused her lightly, as if he was supremely confident she would see things his way if he persisted long enough.

‘If you like,’ she told him steadily, striving for the appearance of indifference, even if she couldn’t quite manage the fact.

‘I’m not one to meekly give up on an enterprise likely to succeed so well, Lady Summerton,’ he warned her, with a mildness she refused to mistake for wavering of purpose—he was altogether too dangerous to her peace of mind for such leeway.

‘And that enterprise is?’ she demanded frostily.

He had the effrontery to laugh at her imitation of an affronted aristocrat before sobering. ‘My sister’s future happiness, of course,’ he told her seriously. An underhand statement if ever she’d heard one—for how could she argue with such a motive?

‘I’m not convinced going to London would enhance it,’ she argued stubbornly.

‘We’ll see who’s right when we get there, then.’

‘No, for I’m staying here, remember?’

‘Of course,’ he agreed, with a smug smile that was enough to try the most patient of saints as they approached Burgesses’ rather perfunctory front garden at last, and Serena was forced to swallow a less than polite reply.

‘Oh, my lady and Sir Adam—what a pleasure to see you both,’ Mrs Burgess declared rather breathlessly as she bustled out of the front door.

‘Good afternoon, Mrs Burgess, and how are you today?’

‘None too stout, I fear, Lady Summerton.’ The worthy lady faltered, and Serena sent Sir Adam a reproving look when she saw his broad shoulders shake—for Mrs Burgess was very far from slender after her many pregnancies.

‘I’m very sorry to hear it. Perhaps we could all take a glass of your delicious cowslip wine while you tell us all about it, Mrs Burgess?’ said Serena.

Which would serve him right, she decided. The idea of Sir Adam Langthorne choking down this good lady’s home-made wine when he was reputed to have the finest cellar in the county made her long to laugh out loud.

‘None of that potent brew for me thank you, ma’am, I need to keep a clear head for whatever business your husband has with me,’ he informed their hostess with an engaging smile—the slippery rogue. ‘But there’s no reason you and her ladyship can’t have a comfortable coze before I see her home.’

‘I can find my own way, thank you, Sir Adam.’

‘Normally I’m sure you would, Lady Summerton, but after indulging in Mrs Burgess’s famous cowslip you might go astray. We can’t have her ladyship spending the night in a ditch, can we, Mrs Burgess?’

Serena might have been tempted to argue for the ditch if her hostess’s eager ears had not been taking in every word. Instead she sent Sir Adam a pallid smile that promised revenge, and allowed herself to be led into the parlour and fed plum cake and gossip while she cautiously sampled her wine. It really was quite pleasant, she decided, and she was thirsty. But when Mrs Burgess would have topped up her glass she managed to refuse.

‘I have no wish to become tipsy and prove Sir Adam right—delicious as this is, Mrs Burgess,’ she excused herself, and sipped gratefully at the cup of tea she was offered instead. ‘Now, tell me all about this ghost the sexton saw the other night. It sounds a most unlikely tale to me, and I can’t help but wonder if he hadn’t been at your excellent wine.’

‘I wouldn’t waste it on the likes of him,’ Mrs Burgess declared with a disgusted sniff. ‘That ne’er do well would drink the dregs out of the chalice of a Sunday if he could get hold of them. The drink has got to him well and truly at long last, and I dare say he’ll be found laid in one of his own graves one morning, stone-dead. I’ll believe in that there ghost when I set eyes on it and not before, my lady.’

‘I’m pleased to hear it, as all sorts of wild tales are doing the rounds. A voice against it is most welcome.’

If rather surprising, Serena added in her head. Mrs Burgess usually believed every wild rumour that went around, and added a few embellishments before passing them on. She had several times told Serena that the French were stealing Burgess’s turnips and the eggs from her hen-house, despite the fact that Red Bridge Farm was seventy miles from the sea.

‘And that daft besom he’s married to has spread tales as would make your hair curl,’ Mrs Burgess went on indignantly.

‘Has she indeed?’

‘Said this ghost of his rose up out of the Canderton vault and that Lady Canderton was walking, she did, my lady. I told her sharpish that my old mistress was as respectable a woman as ever walked God’s good earth. She would no more come back to haunt us than the King himself would—if he was dead, of course, which he ain’t. Might just as well be, the poor mad soul, but that’s neither here nor there. I’m not having that baggage putting it about that my poor late lady’s unquiet in her grave, for she was as decent a woman as you could find in the whole of England.’

Serena vaguely remembered hearing Mrs Burgess had been in service before she’d wed. The family had died out with Sir William Canderton’s death twenty years before, just a few months after his formidable mother went to her own eternal rest. The land had been sold off to pay wild Sir William’s debts, and the ancient house demolished as a danger to anyone rash enough to venture inside its rotten shell.

Mrs Burgess was probably the only one who cared if the Candertons were at peace or not, and that seemed rather sad. Serena set herself to soothe her with such a liberal helping of sympathy and flattery that by the time Sir Adam reappeared her head was reeling with our Liza’s hives, the shocking price Mrs Burgess’s remaining eggs had fetched at market, and the French spies who were ruining the country from within.

‘You should have kept on with the wine,’ her escort informed her unsympathetically when they finally got away from the voluble farmer’s wife. ‘No doubt the infernal woman talked you into a headache anyway. More alcohol might have blurred her confounded rigmarole.’

‘I doubt I could keep sufficient guard on my tongue.’

‘There’s that, of course, but once she’s in full flow I doubt she hears what anyone else has to say.’

‘Probably not. But she was in a rare state over the rumour Wharton is putting about. I’ve never heard her as voluble as she was today.’

‘Whereas Burgess is as close mouthed as she is loose-tongued—which may explain why they go on so well together. He’s the ideal audience, and she saves him the effort of thinking of aught to say.’

‘So far as I can tell Mrs Burgess is upset that the sexton said he saw a ghost coming from the vault where her late mistress is laid. She takes offence that so virtuous and generous a mistress should be thought to trouble the living instead of staying respectably dead.’

‘I hope time will deal so well with my reputation after I’m gone, then. Lady Canderton was a complete tartar. They had the pew behind ours in church, and she used to clip me round the ear whenever she felt I wasn’t paying enough attention to the sermon. She once got me a fine beating for stealing cherries out of her kitchen garden as well.’

‘Deserved, I suspect,’ she said unsympathetically.

‘Rachel was the culprit. But maybe Lady Canderton thought I should take her punishment as I shared her booty.’

‘None of which gives reason for her ghost to walk. Indeed, it sounds like a mare’s nest to me, and I dare say Mrs Burgess is right.’

‘That seems unlikely. But about what?’

‘The sexton is addicted to the bottle—and not her cowslip wine neither, “for he ain’t worthy to so much as taste it.”’

‘Are you sure you didn’t have too much yourself?’ he asked, grinning at her imitation of the voluble woman.

‘Not nearly enough, I assure you, Sir Adam. Now our ways must diverge, as I need to see Janet Partridge and I doubt she wants to see a gentleman when she’s so near her time.’

‘I dare say you’re right, but I’ll escort you to her door nonetheless. Gadding about the countryside alone with all those light-fingered Frenchmen and restless ghosts running about is pure folly, my lady.’

Sensing a serious note under his teasing, she wondered fleetingly what it might feel like to be ruthlessly bullied for her own good by Sir Adam Langthorne for the rest of her life. She had undoubtedly drunk too much of that wine after all, because it seemed a seductively attractive notion—and that would never do.

‘I doubt if either are bold enough to venture abroad in daylight, and I have no wish to visit the churchyard or Hangar Woods during the hours of darkness, I assure you.’

‘You have no taste for the gothic, my lady?’

‘None whatsoever—which shows a sad want of sensibility I dare say. Indeed, I can imagine nothing more horrid than coming across a headless spectre or a restless spirit while I’m busily minding my own business and harming nobody.’

‘I suspect one or two of them might like to come across such an appealing quarry as yourself, though. But it’s my belief Wharton is hiding something in that churchyard and means to frighten everyone away from it—especially after dark.’

‘So you intend to go there just to confound him?’ she asked sharply.

‘Maybe I’m foolish enough to wonder what a supernatural encounter might be like,’ he admitted laconically. Why did she think he was serious about this odd business? Surely there weren’t really French spies running about rural Herefordshire for want of something better to do?

‘Trust a man to be curious,’ she accused, knowing she had no right to protest his determination to run headlong into the first danger that presented itself because he might be bored after his adventures in Spain.

‘And trust a woman to know best,’ he parried infuriatingly.

‘Not two minutes ago you were warning me to be careful, and it’s commonly held to be the other way about.’

‘Have you never wanted to break out of the role you were allotted in life, Lady Summerton?’

‘Frequently. But then I grew up.’

‘Ah, so that explains it! Women grow up and men just learn to hide their curiosity a little better.’

‘Or we pique your curiosity, so you satisfy it at no cost to ourselves.’

‘Then you want to know about the ghost after all?’

‘No, but I should like to know just what Wharton is hiding in that vault.’

‘Meet me there tonight and find out, then,’ he challenged her, and for a reckless moment she was sorely tempted.

Sharing outrageous midnight adventures with Sir Adam Langthorne seemed the ideal way of proving to both of them that she wasn’t as staid and colourless as he thought. Glimmers of the wild young girl she had once been, up for any mischief on offer, must still lie under Countess Serena’s sober façade after all. She reminded herself that reckless actions led to uncomfortable consequences and managed to crush her inner hoyden for the time being.

‘Not even if I consumed a whole bottle of Mrs Burgess’s wine. You’re a former soldier, and used to alarms and night watches. It’s probably your job to satisfy the curiosity of your neighbours while we sleep safely.’

‘I hope I know better than to go looking for trouble, but I’m also a churchwarden, and duty must outweigh caution.’

‘Good luck, then, Sir Adam,’ she managed to say, cheerfully enough, and offered him her hand in farewell as she opened the Partridges’ front gate.

He bowed over it like a beau from a previous age, and kissed it lightly instead of shaking it. Fire shot through her, as if he had touched his lips to bare flesh instead of her supple leather glove. She snatched her hand back and looked about her. Luckily the men were at work and the women busy cooking. This time she had been lucky, but she must avoid him in future.

‘Thomas will meet me here with the gig,’ she lied brightly.

‘He must have learnt the dark art of being in two places at the same time, then. When I met him not half an hour ago he was on his way to Hereford. Either he’s a top sawyer and that old grey nag a phenomenon, or you’re guilty of shameless untruth, my lady.’

‘It’s not at all the thing for a gentleman to argue with a lady,’ she said hotly, squirming at being caught out under his amused gaze.

‘Dear me, what a hard furrow such paragons choose to plough.’

‘How would you know?’ she muttered under her breath, but his sharp ears caught her words and he gave her an unrepentant grin.

‘I wouldn’t, of course. But I’ll meet you here after I’ve seen the smith. Shall we say half an hour, my lady?’

‘You can say what you like, Sir Adam,’ she replied with a shrug she hoped looked as pettish as she felt. ‘I’ll go my own way.’

‘I can’t tell you how glad I am about the first part of that statement. Half an hour and no longer,’ he ordered, and turned away, as certain of being obeyed as if she were a subaltern under his command.

She’d see about that, she decided militantly, tapping at the front door.

‘Lady Serena—how lovely,’ her once properly reserved ladies’ maid exclaimed. ‘Come on in off the street, do,’ she ordered as they embraced with a lack of reserve Serena’s sister-in-law would have found profoundly distasteful between one-time maid and mistress.

How that neat, coolly efficient maid had once intimidated her, Serena recalled ruefully. Yet since coming to Windham as the new Lady Summerton she and her personal maid had become firm friends. Indeed, Janet knew a great deal about her that Serena had trusted in nobody else. Over the last five years the aloof little Londoner had blossomed, and become as staunch a convert to country life as you could find anywhere—especially since succumbing to Zachary Partridge’s heartfelt pleas to become his wife.

‘Marriage suits you, Janet,’ she told her.

‘Ruined my figure, but I dare say Partridge’ll not stray far.’

‘He can’t take his eyes off you long enough to look elsewhere, and well you know it.’

‘I’d never have married him otherwise, Lady Serena,’ Janet said, and sent her a speculative look. ‘Time you found yourself a good man who loves you, Lady Serena. It’s two years since himself died, and not even the Countess Almighty could object.’

‘I like my independence too well to give it up.’

‘Independence? Those other two countesses don’t let you rest from sunrise to sunset—and I never took you for a coward, my lady,’ Janet told her sternly.

Serena wondered why her words never seemed to carry weight. ‘I’m not made for domesticity, and prefer to stay as I am.’

‘I did say you must find a good man this time,’ Janet chided, more gently, and Serena knew they could stand here arguing all day and never agree. Janet was like a dog at a bone when she was trying to organise the life of one of the select band of people she truly loved.

‘Well, your Zach might live under the cat’s paw nowadays, but I cunningly escaped you when you married him, and fully intend to follow my own path from now on,’ she teased, and a militant light came into her old friend’s eyes.

‘Cat’s paw, my foot,’ Janet snorted. ‘Sir Adam Langthorne is a fine man,’ she continued, as if she had not heard a single word Serena said.

‘Yes? And what has that to do with the price of fish?’

‘He’ll make some lucky lady a fine husband.’

‘I’m sure he will, but he certainly won’t be mine.’

‘Strong men don’t have anything to prove, so he’ll treat his lady like a queen, I’m thinking.’

‘I dare say. I’ll dance at his wedding when it comes.’

‘Happen you’ll do it with a heavy heart, then,’ Janet insisted.

‘Nonsense. I’ll wish him very happy.’

‘Aye, and so will I—supposing he weds the right lady,’ Janet agreed, with a significant look at her former mistress.

‘Today, however, I wish him at Jericho. So, unless you have any other plans for the rest of my life to discuss, I’ll take myself off and be in good time for my dinner for once.’

‘Sir Adam has the look of a very determined gentleman,’ Janet observed with some satisfaction.

‘And I’m an equally determined lady,’ Serena declared firmly, hoping that was the last she would hear of the subject. Sir Adam had taken up too much of her day already, and she didn’t care to grant him any more of it.

‘There now—even you admit how well matched you are, Lady Serena. Fate. That’s what it is.’

‘It’s wishful thinking, and next time I come I hope you’re thinking straighter.’

Janet put her head on one side, as if to deliberate better—a sign that a pearl of wisdom was about to fall. ‘With respect, my lady, it’s your thoughts that have got out of the way of running true, and we both know why.’

‘Maybe, but luckily I’m in too much haste to stay and argue with you today, Janet. So, if there is nothing else you want to lecture me about, we can have a really good dispute about it another day.’

Giving her tenacious ex-maid a quick peck on the cheek, Serena hurried out of the neat house on the village green before Janet could regroup. Only twenty minutes had gone by, so she could set out for Windham with impunity. She had never asked Sir Adam to treat her as if she were a young miss just out of the schoolroom, so a few minutes cooling his heels outside Janet’s house might prevent him repeating that particular error.