Читать книгу Captain Langthorne's Proposal - Elizabeth Beacon - Страница 13

Sir Adam gave her a sharp look, but Serena focused her attention on the east lodge of Windham looming on the horizon as if she had never seen it before. She had never discussed the darkest days of her marriage and widowhood with anyone but Janet and Rachel, from whom it had been impossible to hide her unhappiness, and she refused to start now.

‘Thank you,’ he finally said quietly, and she turned to look at him at last.

She could see nothing on his face but relief that she had agreed to his scheme. He was a good and thoughtful brother, yet she couldn’t dismiss the idea that she had just conceded the first round of a match that was more important than she knew—and to a master of strategy as well.

‘Unless you wish to be invited for dinner at Windham tonight, I suggest you set me down by the picket gate into the park, Sir Adam, so I can walk to the Dower House unremarked,’ she said, rather helpfully for someone who had been so neatly outmanoeuvred.

‘Will you be there?’ he asked, and she tried not to care that he asked as if his enjoyment depended on her company.

‘Luckily my sister-in-law takes my no for an answer, but you wouldn’t be so fortunate, I dare say,’ she said lightly.

‘Then I shall do as you say, my lady, and trust such humility will lead you to greet me with a little more than bare civility when next we meet.’

‘I hope you don’t think me so rude as to ignore my neighbours, sir?’

‘Well, that is good. I must put myself forward more often,’ he replied, with a decided twinkle back in those rather fascinating eyes.

She really must concentrate harder on winning their battle of words and wills if she was to see him every day when they went to London, she decided. Refusing to dwell on his victory, she graciously allowed him to tie the reins to the kickboard once more and hand her down with due ceremony.

‘Thank you, Sir Adam. You have saved me from arriving home all aglow from walking home on a warm day.’

‘I have, haven’t I? What a splendid gentleman I am,’ he said, in a self-satisfied tone that had her hiding a smile despite her resolution to be all dignity and propriety with him from now on.

‘That you’re not. I’m too much the lady to say what you really are.’

‘Very commendable, my dear,’ he replied, then gave her such a warm smile before he touched his hat brim with his whip and drove away that he left her feeling as flustered as if she had run all the way home after all.

When she reached the Dower House her flushed cheeks and windblown hair led the Dowager to inform her that she looked like a milkmaid, which gave Serena a good excuse to seek out the privacy of her chamber while she restored her appearance to suitably subdued order. A quiet evening at the Dower House with a cosy fire and a good book was, she decided, just what a female under siege from a determined gentleman and her own wayward inclinations needed to restore her peace of mind.

Sir Adam made sure the whole household knew he would be busy with his account books and correspondence that evening. He even managed to give them some attention—until his sister came in to inform him he was very poor company and she was going to bed. He murmured something suitably infuriating, before going back to his figuring as if lost in concentration, then sat back in his comfortable chair, feeling vaguely guilty as she wished him an impatient goodnight and left with a sharp click of the door that told him she would have slammed it if she wasn’t too much of a lady nowadays.

If he let Rachel get so much as a sniff of his planned trip to Thornfield churchyard in the middle of the night she would attach herself to his coattails like a burr. He grinned as he recalled their youthful misdeeds, and decided their neighbours must have windmills in their heads to think the outwardly proper Miss Langthorne bore the slightest resemblance to the real woman under that false image. Frowning now, he thought of another deceptively proper young woman, and wondered what on earth he had been about to encourage Lady Serena to join him on this midnight adventure. At least now he was away from her incendiary presence and thinking rationally again. What would he have done if she had taken him at his word? Although, given the impulsive nature he was certain only lay dormant under all that propriety, it was better to know where she was and what she was up to, it had been pure folly to even hint he would welcome her presence tonight.

He lay back in his chair and contemplated the youthful widow Lady Summerton until his glower gave way to a wolfish smile that would probably have given Serena palpitations had she only seen it. She thought herself so different from the spirited young woman she had once been, before George Cambray had convinced her that all that made her unique was deplorable. What a pompous dolt the man had been! To win such a wife, then fail to realise his extraordinary luck confirmed every doubt Adam ever had about the Cambrays’ collective intelligence—and George’s lack of it in particular.

Yet perhaps he had the late Earl to thank for giving his wife such a disgust of marriage that she was still widowed now, when Adam had come home. The very idea of another man coming between him and his fate made his fists clench and the heady passions he had been holding in check since the day he came home threaten to slip their leash at long last, so that he might march over to Windham Dower House and drag the stubborn female home to his bed, will she nil she.

For the thousandth time he ordered those untamed longings back to their kennel and told them to stop there until they could have their day. If it took years, somehow he would get her to trust the reckless passion that slumbered under her prim exterior. At least Summerton hadn’t quite managed to stifle the warm, sensuous woman he still caught a tantalising glimpse of now and again under all that protective starch, but he must give her ladyship room to realise that what she now considered the shady side of her nature could be set free after all, without disaster inevitably following.

There had been one or two cracks in her determination to hold him at arm’s length lately, and he planned to widen them at every opportunity. Perhaps he should give her a little longer to accustom herself to being wanted as he wanted her, but he wasn’t a plaster saint and his patience was beginning to wear out. There had been a spark of very feminine interest in her lovely azure eyes today, before she’d retreated behind her proper façade and pretended they were little more than strangers.

It was high time he fanned the sparks into flame. If he hesitated she might take herself off to Bath after all, just to make their lives difficult. Fighting the surge of primitive, possessive emotion threatening to put everything else out of his head, he reminded himself he had other business to deal with tonight. Somehow he had to forget the lovely Serena, Countess of Summerton, and give his full attention to the task in hand. He could spare tonight for whoever was using such a grisly hiding place, but woe betide them if they got between him and his true quarry too often.

Shrugging out of his well-cut evening coat and elegant waistcoat, he swiftly replaced his snowy linen with a dark shirt and stock he had hidden in the window seat earlier, then flung his grandfather’s old cloak over it all, listening for any sign of wakefulness. Nothing indicated anyone was stirring, so the household must have left him to his figuring and gone to bed as ordered. Carrying the soft-soled boots he had secreted here for midnight wanderings, he raised the sash on the nearest window and silently closed it after himself before ghosting out into the night.

Even as he rode towards Thornfield, fugitive thoughts of Lady Serena wouldn’t quite lie. Surely she wouldn’t take him at his word and join him after her vehement denial and her current love affair with propriety? Or would she? He shook his head impatiently. Of course she wouldn’t. If she loved him Serena might find it impossible to stay safe and warm in her bed while he took the mild risk of watching for the unwary miscreants using the Canderton vault, but at the moment he didn’t think she knew what love was. He stifled the thought that if she turned up after all it might show that she cared more than she knew, and tried to dismiss the idea that even the best of women were devilish unpredictable at times.

There was only one thing wrong with Serena’s plan to spend an evening in splendid solitude—and he was well over six feet tall and possibly the most infuriating gentleman she had ever met. She knew Sir Adam would go to Thornfield Church at dead of night to find out what was going on, and that he would probably do so alone. The thought of him lying there injured and needy until he was found in the morning, after some mysterious attacker had done his worst against that magnificent body by some foul means, ruined her longed-for respite.

At last she put aside the book that had failed to capture her attention and tried to think about the whole business logically. She considered the macabre idea of body-snatchers coming this far into the country to ply their gruesome trade, and concluded that nothing in that particular vault was fresh enough to interest them even if they did. With a shudder at the very idea, she told herself she had no wish to set foot in a churchyard at any hour of the night, and parted the heavy curtains to stare out into the darkness and carefully consider how she could get there undetected.

Suddenly there was no question of her staying here, and all there was left to do was to get out of the house without anyone knowing she had gone. Telling the butler she would retire early, then waiting impatiently for the nightly rituals to roll inexorably on, she knew she should be feeling guilty at such deception. Instead she was impatient at having to wait so long before she could safely slip back downstairs. Having to undress and get into bed was a confounded nuisance, of course, but she managed a few artistic yawns before ordering her maid off to bed too.

Somehow Serena made herself wait, listening to the soft sounds of an occasional footfall on a creaking board as everyone finally went to bed. At last it seemed safe to get up and dress in an old black round gown she usually wore to walk the dogs, before draping a black crepe shawl over her unfortunate hair. Carrying kid half boots soft enough not to make much noise when she ran across the cobbled stable yard, she left her room, feeling as exhilarated as an errant schoolgirl escaping her stern governess.

Long ago she and her cousins had crept about Heron House in the dark when they were supposed to be in bed. Practising their staff work, her cousin Nick had called it at the time. According to her father’s household they needed no practice, already being limbs of Satan who would rather make mischief all night long than sleep quietly in their beds like good Christian children. Serena smiled and felt that childhood daredevilry rise on a shiver of pure rebellion as the dignified propriety George had insisted on his countess assuming at all times cracked irreversibly. Looking back, she realised it had just been easier to comply with his demands than argue with them and she was suddenly ashamed of what her marriage had made of her.

She could think of few things George would have hated more than to see her now. He would have been furious, she decided, with an impish grin her childhood partners in crime would have recognised with glee. She briefly wondered if she was really worried about Sir Adam’s fate, or just intent on enjoying her unaccustomed freedom. A bit of both she concluded, as that unwelcome picture of him lying injured in the darkness forced itself into her mind once more. Bracing her shoulders, and telling herself not to be a pessimist, she slipped the key to the garden door out of her pocket and turned it so stealthily it moved the mechanisms without so much as a click. At least good housekeeping occasionally paid off, she decided wryly, relocking the door and slipping the key onto a chain round her neck before she set off across the garden, blessing her night eyes for rapidly adjusting to the darkness.

It had all been much too easy, she decided a few minutes later, as she finally allowed her mare to break into a trot. The Dowager’s ancient coachman and groom were at the Hall with the equally ancient carriage her ladyship considered superior to any modern conveyance. Her own groom, Toby, was walking out with a girl from the village, and so the stables had been deserted. She frowned briefly, deciding she must have words with him about leaving the horses unattended when she was done with her own nocturnal adventures. No self-respecting horse thief would steal the Dowager’s stubborn old mare, of course, but Serena didn’t want to lose her lovely Donna, the one present she had received from George she had truly appreciated.

‘Gently, lovely girl,’ she murmured, as the fretting thoroughbred grew frustrated with the slow pace. ‘It’s much too dark to risk our necks tonight, but next time it’s clear moonlight we’ll have a good gallop, and to the devil with propriety,’ she promised recklessly.

Donna shook her dark head sagely, as if she understood every word, and suddenly Serena felt like laughing out loud. In the darkness, with nobody awake for miles around to see her, she felt young and carefree again for a few precious moments. Maybe the fact that she was still only four and twenty was breaking through the pall of respectability George had insisted on at last. Indeed, she was enjoying herself so much that she might have let her horse find her way as she chose until dawn came if not for Sir Adam’s lone watch for villains unscrupulous enough to disturb the dead.

Nagging concern finally nipped away her euphoria in the most disturbing fashion, and if Sir Adam had been nearby he might have received a mighty scold for his recklessness even as she managed to ignore her own. Such a protest might be interpreted as caring for the wretch’s well-being, of course, so she would just make sure he was safe, then go home without him ever knowing she had been there. She checked Donna and wondered how on earth she could conceal her from any watchful ears and eyes.

Farmer Grey’s barn was far enough away from both farm and village for her to leave Donna there in safety and walk the rest of the way in silence. When they got there she found it already tenanted by Sir Adam’s raking grey, and Serena sighed even as her mare pushed impatiently at her shoulder. Donna might not get a gallop tonight, but the exclusive company of her beloved Silver Birch was probably even better to her way of thinking.

Serena unsaddled her mare and rubbed her down. No doubt she would have a job catching her when it was time to persuade her to leave her favourite companion behind, but that was a problem for later.

Afterwards she would have no idea how she’d managed that walk through the dark countryside. Before she had had the warm breathing presence of her horse to keep her company, but now she suddenly felt horribly alone in the deserted lane. Or at least she fervently hoped it was deserted. All of a sudden her imagination was ready to believe almost anything was lurking just beyond the limits of night vision. The furtive movement of some living thing off to her right made her freeze in her tracks, almost expecting a heavy hand to fall on her shoulder, or an angry fist to club down on her head. She softly cursed herself for an over-imaginative fool when she heard the sharp, hoarse call of a vixen and forced herself to carry on, despite the shiver of primitive fright it gave her.

Once a hunting barn owl went past her on pale wings and she recalled the country superstition insisted that they were omens of death. Yes—death for some small creature going unwarily about its business, she told herself hardily, and ordered her racing heartbeat to slow down. The creatures of the night were not to be feared in this safe corner of England; it was the human beings who might be in it that she should be wary of.

She managed to reach the churchyard wall in safety, and once she’d furtively clambered over it there were a whole new parcel of fears and superstitions to overcome.

Luckily Serena had never been terrified of the peaceful dead. To her way of thinking a churchyard set in a sunny countryside was far too quiet a place for the dead to bother haunting. If they walked at all, they would look for more promising places than hallowed ground, and she quite enjoyed a stroll among the gravestones while she was awaiting the Dowager after church on Sundays. Fortunately George was interred in the Cambray mausoleum at Windham—which reminded her, she must make sure nobody ever put her with him when she reached the end of her earthly span.

She reassured herself that her fascination with the worthy inhabitants of the village in days past didn’t make her morbid, as the Dowager insisted, but this place certainly had no horrors for her by daylight. Now it felt curiously alien, though, and the sweep of a furtive breeze in the yew and holly trees sounded like someone whispering dark mischief to an imagination that had suddenly grown annoyingly vivid. There was nobody here, she assured herself. Well, nobody but Sir Adam Langthorne, and she might well give him a large piece of her mind when she finally tracked him down and found him perfectly hale and hearty.