Читать книгу The Regency Season Collection: Part Two - Кэрол Мортимер, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 25

Chapter Sixteen

As a delicate and vulnerable baby Verity had needed Chloe to concentrate all her energy on her, but did she truly need it now? She considered how a mother could cope with her child growing up. Mrs Winterley had treated Luke like a cuckoo in her nest his entire childhood because she wanted her own child to inherit, but now that James regarded his own mother as sceptically as his brother did, how must it feel to be rejected by the very being you adored? Chloe felt a moment of motherly sympathy with the woman before she disliked her all over again for doing her best to make the half-brothers hate each other. Little wonder it took years for Luke to recover his faith in human nature with such a stepmother. Then his self-centred fool of a wife did her best to convince him he was cold and unlovable and compounded the damage before running away.

She recalled how warm-hearted and passionate he could be and blushed. Telling herself to keep her obsession with the master of the house a secret, Chloe set her maids the tasks of washing and cleaning the paraphernalia of mourning, then storing it in the darkest attic they had. When they were all busy, she took a half-hour of peace and quiet for herself and sneaked into the library to shut the door on the world.

No need for the entire household and Brandy Brown to know she always kept one or other of Luke’s letters in her pocket to re-read when she wanted to feel he was close by; or that sometimes she just wanted to set out for the north to find him and to the devil with appearances and duty. She sat back against the cushioned comfort of the little chaise in front of the unlit fire where they had sat one memorable January afternoon and let herself hear his deep voice in her head while she read the words he seemed more able to put on paper than bring on to his tongue to woo her with when they were together. Wasn’t that just like him? Yet would she love him half as much if he was glib and careless and ready to pour forth his every emotion?

Here on the West Coast of this fair land the gorse is in blithe flower outside my window, and the sight and heady, astringent scent of it reminded me so sharply of my prickly Lady Chloe that I had to set pen to paper in order to dream of you as I write and wish we could be together again, but this time in every way that word knows how.

Typical of him to begin with an insult, then turn it into a charm, she decided as she fingered the paper where his pen had scratched, then been mended and refilled with ink, bringing the scene to life so vividly it was almost as if she had been sitting nearby, shaking her head at his impatient curses, while all that had to be done before he could continue.

As dreaming of you is all I seem able to do at the moment, I might as well sit here and suffer the frustrations of the damned, while I imagine you with your knitted brows and a quick shake of that clever, unwise head of yours as you wonder if I have finally run mad from missing you in my life and especially in my bed.

She stopped as she read that once again and stared unseeingly at the wonderful portrait of Virgil and Virginia over the mantelpiece. As always, it showed two lovers so lost in love they couldn’t spare their very expensive artist friend time to look anywhere but into each other’s eyes. When her heart stopped racing at the very idea of Luke here with her, saying things like that and holding her as if he couldn’t bear to let her go, she focused on the painted likeness of those other lovers and frowned.

Was taking all your lover had to offer part of the true generosity of love? How would she know, never having been one in any sense until now? Even if it took a daring leap of faith and imagination, the risk could be well worth taking though. Sinking a little deeper into the cushions of the chaise she’d shared with him the day Virginia’s will was read, she took up Luke’s letter again and let herself imagine him writing it with such un-Luke-like candour it made a tender smile lift her lips at the very thought of him putting so much on paper for her.

This is such a beautiful land, full of contradictions and surprises, so really it’s a lot like you. I’m sure you’ll like it when I get you here for a visit with no lost lovers to unmask at the end of it and, I sincerely hope, no forced politeness to a relative of yours I couldn’t warm to if lost in an icy waste alone with her. I would rather snuggle up to an icicle than your once so famously beautiful paternal aunt, my Chloe.

Lady Hamming is still outwardly attractive, but not even her close family dare touch her, presumably fearing her chilliness is catching. I’m surprised she hasn’t given poor Hamming frostbite or turned him into an ice statue after so many years of marriage, but he seems to consider her a marvellous curiosity it’s best not to try to understand rather than his comfortably familiar companion through life.

Chloe smiled fleetingly at his vivid picture of an aunt she had no desire to know after she had conspired to sell Daphne to a depraved old lecher. Luke had laid her aunt’s character open to her without any need for them to meet and she knew he was protecting her again. Chloe frowned and wondered why she wasn’t offended by the notion—especially after swearing never to let another man shape her life the day she left Carraway Court for the last time.

‘Is it part of love; learning to let someone make your burdens lighter?’ she mused out loud. ‘I really wish you two would pay attention and answer a few of my questions,’ she told the painted lovers across the hearth crossly. ‘What can I be expected to know about true love, after being brought up a Thessaly?’

As if they had answered, which was clearly impossible, the portrait of the first ‘princely’ Earl of Crowdale and his devious countess in an exquisitely painted book of hours, before her father sold it, seemed to sparkle before her mind’s eye. Little doubt those two rogues adored one another, she decided, recalling them turned towards each other and holding hands as if that was the bare minimum of contact they could endure. The Thessaly family made a good start on loving immoderately and against the odds. What a shame so few of their line carried on the tradition, she felt she was being told now and wondered if Virgil and Virginia would scold her wariness if they truly could see her now.

‘Good point,’ she conceded, ‘although I never actually knew them.’

‘You knew me.’ Virginia’s voice, even richer and more full of suppressed laughter and devilry than Chloe remembered, seemed to echo in her mind and add weight to lying, loving Lady Crowdale and her pirate lover. ‘I’m one-half of us two, my dear Chloe, and a love like ours doesn’t fade and die when facing a challenge,’ the imaginary Virginia added.

‘Death is quite a challenge,’ Chloe replied out loud, very glad she had shut the door behind her when she came in here to read and dream of her love.

‘Only if it stops you living in the first place,’ Lady Virginia’s voice seemed to add before she withdrew from their non-conversation and was only a painted image again: fabulous Lady Virginia, Comtesse, Marquise and now Lady Farenze, sitting for her third marriage portrait and unaware of anyone but the man she’d married for love.

Luke’s letter continued, and how could she miss a voice in her head when his loving words were right here in front of her?

The only way Lady Hamming reminds me of you is in how opposite you are to her in every way. It’s been like trying to chip away at granite to get anything about your sister out of her or hers, but at last Hamming let fall something about the ‘sad business’ as he called it last night, while we dipped too deep into a bottle of aged malt whisky he’d managed to hide from his wife and her equally frosty butler; it cost me the devil of a head this morning, but at least this visit north of the Border hasn’t proved a wild goose chase after all.

I’m sure Hamming could have been a decent man with more will-power and less frost in his life, but he was busy on his Irish estates that spring, so her ladyship was unchecked by any softer impulses her lord may have. He knows something was done in his absence, but it will probably cost me a few more sore heads to get the whole tale out of him.

I really don’t know how you manage to think yourself unimportant to me when I’m risking my poor Sassenach constitution to find the name and fate of your sister’s mystery lover. Apart from that, and being parted from you and Eve when I least want to be, I must admit that I have an easy enough role in all this.

Poor Peters seems to be faring less well in London, since he had to treat with some of the worst rogues the place can hold and visit its lowest hells to find the true depth of your elder brother’s decline. It truly is a decline, Chloe, in every sense of the word. The wider world appears to think your younger brother more led into evil than devoted to it, but the current earl would make Francis Dashwood and his silly Hell Fire Club blush.

Nobody in Crowdale’s inner circle would be surprised to hear how deplorably he and your father treated you and Lady Daphne and little Verity, but Peters tells me a very wealthy City merchant is rumoured to be about to permit Crowdale to marry his only child, a seventeen-year-old, naïve schoolgirl available to pawn for a title at just the wrong moment. Any whisper of his heartless conduct towards his little sisters and niece until that alliance is sealed will blight the whole plan.

Chloe gasped with pity for the very idea of that unfortunate girl being left at the mercy of such a man. Her brother certainly wouldn’t balk at wedding an innocent for her father’s money when his father had done the same thing to her mother. She resolved to do whatever she could to stop the marriage, but not even her disgust at such a scheme could dim the glow of happiness she felt at being loved by such a fine man as Luke Winterley. Most men who lusted after an upper servant would have schemed to get her dismissed, or forced her to become his mistress ten years ago, but even now Luke had gone away and let her be when she begged him to, while he waited for her to believe the unbelievable.

For years he’d avoided this house when he clearly loved it, in order to make sure an upper servant of his great-aunt could raise her child in peace. Bran was quite right; he was an exceptional gentleman. She recalled how brusque and bad-tempered he’d been about it with a smile. The promise of such a rare love was so breathtaking she could hardly bring herself to believe it was within her reach. To reassure herself it was, if she dared accept the wonder, she re-read the ending of his letter.

You must take every care of yourself whilst I’m not there, love. I have sent Josiah to stay at Miss Thibett’s school, with that lady’s full knowledge and permission, so your girl can be kept safe whilst I gather the whole tale of your sister’s adventures. Then Peters can give it verbatim to that ambitious alderman and even he won’t be able to dismiss it as a warm story thought up by one of Crowdale’s detractors. Peters seems to have some surprising connections of his own, so one or two vigorous and wary rogues will be joining the staff at Farenze Lodge soon to outfox anyone intent on harming you to keep me quiet, if it should come out I have been asking questions about Daphne and Chloe Thessaly’s disappearance.

Please say and do nothing reckless in the meantime, since yours and Eve’s welfare are crucial to me and your brothers are clearly desperate for the girl’s dowry and will do anything to make sure this sad tale and their appalling treatment of their very young sisters never comes out, or at least not until the marriage is safely over and cannot be revoked.

Believe me a blind fool if you like, but I bitterly repent a decade of refusing to look into my own heart and find you there tonight, love. I’d rather live without a limb than endure another ten years without you, so even if you can’t return my feelings, please don’t run away again and disappear as you did from your father’s house all those years ago. I’ll run mad fretting about your safety and happiness if you remove me so completely from your life. I shall stop now, before I sink myself for ever in your eyes by begging pathetically for anything you feel able to offer me. You must give that freely and I must turn into a patient man.

I think of you with every other thought and for a curmudgeonly old bear like me to say that you must know I mean it,

I am, now and always, your Luke Winterley, whether you want me to be or not.

Chloe caught herself staring into thin air and smiling broadly at a mental picture of him as he signed his name at the end of her letter. When she read his words again it all seemed so simple. She could echo her love back at him across the miles between them without a second thought.

‘Oh, I want you all right, Luke Winterley,’ she told the place where he’d signed his name as if it might bring him back all the sooner, ‘And I wouldn’t love you half so well if you were more charming and less bearlike,’ she whispered softly. Then went to make sure her maids were setting about the spring cleaning whilst the master of the house was away, to stop herself from sitting and dreaming the whole day away.

* * *

Several days later Luke urged his weary horse onwards and fought his frustration that this was as fast as he could get to Farenze Lodge. He’d had the best horses money could buy under him all the way, but he still wasn’t getting there fast enough. It was asking too much of this poor beast and he was weary to the bone, but fear drove him on relentlessly and he’d bid his head groom goodbye when the man had almost fallen from his saddle some time yesterday.

Nearly there, the words seemed to echo in his head with every step, but he still felt as if the devil was on his tail, his rank breath hot on the back of Luke’s neck and the chaos of hell at his back. He’d racked his brains all the way south to work out when Chloe’s wicked aunt began to watch him with active malice. He hoped he’d outrun the messenger she must have sent south as soon as she realised he was in Scotland to track down a pair of star-crossed young lovers, not to buy one of her husband’s precious racehorses, or marry the last unwed Hamming daughter left on her hands.

In the end he’d realised Hamming must have told her about Luke’s interest in Lady Daphne Thessaly’s tragically early death and he cursed the woman’s ability to prise information from her amiable but shallow lord. It wasn’t hard to see where Chloe got her brains, but thank heaven she and her sister got their warmth and sweetness from their mother as well as their distant Thessaly ancestress.

His love could say what she liked about bad blood, but everything about her screamed her difference from her father, brother and icy aunt. If Lady Hamming was ever presented with a tiny baby to cast into the world alone or protect with her last breath, she would place it on that frosty church step, then walk away without a second thought.

There, at last, the Lodge was in sight and he asked his tired horse for one last effort as the urgency that brought him south as fast as he could get here needled him. At first glance all seemed serene and hope stirred that he was in time. As he rode into the stable yard and nobody came out to welcome him or take his weary horse, it was clear he was wrong and Lady Hamming was as coldly efficient in getting messages to her disreputable nephews as she was at everything else.

‘Take him,’ he barked at the stable boy who ran breathlessly into the yard and stood with his mouth open as if he’d forgotten who Luke was. ‘Put him in a box and rub him down, then let him rest.’

Weariness forgotten, Luke jumped from the saddle and dashed towards the house, wondering what the hell had happened. He went through the back door and into the kitchen to save all the fuss of rousing Oakham and explaining why he had no luggage and looked more bearlike than ever.

‘Ah, here’s his lordship at last. Now we can relax and worry about you and your injuries while he sorts everything out, sir,’ he heard Chloe say calmly as if she was welcoming a late guest to a party and he felt his temper snap.

‘What the devil is going on?’ he rapped out as he surveyed the crowd cluttering the kitchen with what he felt was excusable irritation.

‘Mr Revereux has been shot,’ Eve informed him calmly.

The man’s name punched through the haze of weariness dragging at him and he blinked to bring the Adonis wilting on the scrubbed kitchen table into sharp focus.

‘Has he now? I’ve been searching the length and breadth of Britain for the man and find him lying on my kitchen table? Good day to you, Revereux, do make yourself at home, won’t you? Perhaps you’d enjoy a few covers and the odd side dish when you’re done and the rest of my house and gardens are of course available for your enjoyment when you’re not reclining on the kitchen table.’

‘I think Papa is tired and hungry. He certainly looks as if he hasn’t slept for days,’ Eve explained his lack of hospitality with a furious sideways look for him and a sage nod for everyone else. Luke felt as if even her presence might not prevent him swearing long and fluently if someone didn’t explain what was going on very soon.

‘Of course he is. I dare say he’s found out something crucial and travelled here far too fast to inform us of it, so do go and sit by the fire and rest for a moment, my lord.’ Chloe finally spared the time to turn from her patient and soothe him, as if he were a dangerous wild dog she was trying to see the best in before he bit someone.

‘Yes, I have,’ he thundered, quite unappeased. ‘I found out he was it,’ he said with an accusing gesture at the pale and interesting-looking blond god trying to fight Verity Wheaton off without hurting her. She refused to be diverted with a hardy determination that reminded Luke strongly of her aunt.

‘Then you are Verity’s father, sir?’ The question seemed to tumble out of Chloe’s mouth before she could silence it and first she stared at the stranger, then had the gall to glare at him, as if he should learn to guard his tongue. Luke felt another check on his temper snap.

‘I am,’ the pale and interesting hero gently pushed his daughter’s hands aside before he sat up to confront Luke with that knowledge, and what a fairer side of his nature told him was excusable pride in his daughter, as well as a challenge in the clear blue eyes Verity had inherited from him.

‘My papa is dead,’ Verity insisted with a frown nearly as fierce as the one Luke felt pleating his own brows on her face. At that moment he felt a deeper kinship with the bewildered, belligerent girl than ever, even as another man claimed her as his own.

‘So some would have you believe,’ the man muttered darkly and shot Chloe a look of angry dislike that made Luke’s ire boil over like the saucepans he could smell doing the same in the background.

‘If you weren’t being physicked for that injury and lying on my kitchen table already, I’d knock you down for that,’ he bellowed at the prone figure of his latest unwanted guest. ‘Lady Chloe gave up everything to keep Verity safe and happy and you lie there and accuse her of usurping your role and scheming to keep the child to herself? You’ll meet me for that insult as soon as you’ve recovered from whatever wound some worthy soul has inflicted on you to teach you some manners before I could do it for him, sirrah.’

‘No, he won’t,’ Chloe said flatly, glaring at him for defending her integrity and he turned a blazing challenge on her instead.

‘Why the devil not? He’s the idiot who ruined your sister’s life.’

‘My father and brother did that. He saved her from a marriage that would have been hell on earth and I can’t bring myself to think what they might have done to make me miserable if I’d stayed home to be bartered off to some rich roué as well. If Captain Revereux loved my sister even for a week or two, it was more than either of us had from any other human being after our mother died and I’m thankful for it.’

‘Thankful to lose your twin sister? To endure what you have done? To be left alone with her in that shack in the hills Peters reports they consigned you to like a pair of unwanted puppies while she waited for her child to be born? Why forgive the sins of everyone in your life who wishes you harm and never mine, when I want only the best for you, woman? Well, I give in, I’ll finally accept you don’t want what I do and leave you to your happy family reunion while I take myself somewhere I can endure being regarded as a devil in human form more easily,’ he said with a hitch in his voice he didn’t care to hear at all.