Читать книгу The Regency Season Collection: Part Two - Кэрол Мортимер, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 27

Chapter Eighteen

‘Managing female,’ Chloe muttered as she stood outside Verity’s room, glaring at the blank and highly polished closed door.

‘It takes one to know one,’ Luke grumbled as he rose from his seat just along the corridor, then tugged her further away so they wouldn’t disturb Verity.

‘You think I’m overbearing, then?’ she asked absently. It was wonderful to feel all that warmth and strength and maleness so close again.

‘Of course I do, love. It’s been your job for the past decade or more to be a managing female. You wouldn’t be much good as a housekeeper if you weren’t a little overbearing at times, now would you?’

He understood her and still wanted to spend his life with her. It was odd and unaccountable, but it felt dazzling to know that stubborn, clever, complicated Luke Winterley was indeed the wild lover of young Chloe’s dreams, as well as his slightly gruff, everyday self to make it all real and possible.

‘You don’t mind that I’ll never be able to turn myself into a meek and biddable little wife if you marry me, then?’

‘I’d be deeply disappointed if you did, my fiery, short-tempered love. Does that mean you’re thinking of saying yes to me at long last?’

‘I refuse to discuss it when you’re weary half to death and should probably be in bed instead of prowling about the place like a restless wolf. You clearly rode south so fast you nigh killed yourself and the poor horses you rode along the way.’

‘My bed here never holds much attraction without you in it, Chloe, but I can’t tell you how often I have wished for a faster way to get to you these last few days.’

‘Or how many times I wished you were here,’ she told him with promises of all they would be heady between them. ‘How is the patient?’ she asked absently, doing her best to tear her fascinated gaze from his smoky dark one in the dim light at the top of the stairs to the nursery wing they hadn’t got round to descending yet.

‘Revereux refuses to sleep. Unless we convince him Verity’s quite safe until he can guard her like a mastiff with a bone again, he’ll be running a high fever by morning.’

‘Exasperating man,’ Chloe said, fear that the Captain would insist on claiming his daughter still haunting her like a bad dream.

‘As you have accused me of being one of those so often, I hope you don’t expect me to condemn him for it. You do know Virginia’s elder sister wed a Revereux though, don’t you, my love?’ Luke asked gently.

‘I thought his name sounded familiar. Then I’m surprised he hasn’t visited whilst I’ve been here, although I’m very glad he didn’t. It would be hard to deny my daughter is related to him now I’ve seen the strong resemblance between them. Do you really think Virginia knew who she might be and didn’t tell me, Luke?’

‘I doubt it. Can you see my darling great-aunt resisting such a wonderful chance to interfere in so many lives if she did?’

‘Not really—it does seem an odd coincidence, though.’

‘They do happen and Virginia and her eldest sister never did get on. Lady Revereux was rigidly respectable and even I have to admit Virginia was outrageous in her youth. Virgil was no saint either and I doubt the stiff-necked old stickler approved of their marriage. The current earl is a downright prig, so we’ll have to wait and see if this fellow takes after him or has a bit of humanity in him to leaven all the Revereux starch he’s probably inherited. Until we know how Revereux found Verity we won’t know if Virginia knew or not, though, so we’d better keep the man alive for now.’

‘Don’t even joke about it, Luke,’ Chloe replied with a shudder at the thought of Verity losing her father as soon as he’d found her.

‘It was in poor taste, but what do you expect from a barbarian? It’ll be your job to civilise me.’

‘Maybe I like you as you are,’ she said with a witchy smile.

‘Hell cat,’ he responded with a hot glitter of masculine interest in his eyes she’d thought he was too weary to feel after his epic journey south.

‘Wolf,’ she countered huskily, all the temptations of loving him fully running like a hot tide through her heart and mind.

‘Mr Revereux refuses to take the potion the doctor left for him,’ Culdrose interrupted them from the bottom of the next flight of stairs and Chloe stared down at the ladies’ maid blankly for a moment.

It was a timely reminder there were other things to do than find Luke Winterley’s faults fascinating and his wonderful qualities even more unique than she’d realised.

‘It’s quite like old times for Culdrose, I suppose,’ she informed the patient crossly when she entered his bedchamber with Luke sauntering in her wake and openly enjoying the view.

‘Why so, ma’am?’ the patient asked with an impatient frown.

‘Our late employer was every inch as stubborn as you are proving to be.’

‘Sensible woman,’ he muttered glumly.

‘There are those who would argue, but did you never meet the lady yourself, sir, related to her as Lord Farenze believes you to be?’ Chloe couldn’t help asking.

‘Only as a boy and I’ve been at sea since I was thirteen with very little leave spent in this country. I recall her telling me then that she might like me better if I didn’t have such a high opinion of myself. She said if Bonaparte was to be defeated by vain boys I would be an admiral before I was thirty.’

‘That sounds very like her, I should try not take it too much to heart, sir.’

‘It’s very difficult to remain a spoilt brat as a midshipman in the senior service, your ladyship,’ he admitted with a rueful smile that tempted Chloe to like him more than she wanted to.

‘Then why not take your medicine and prove it, Mr Revereux?’

‘Slyly done, Lady Chloe, but if those rogues could get so close to abducting Verity in Bath, how can I risk fogging my wits when she’s in the middle of an isolated country estate miles away from authority?’

‘Because I know how to protect my own, Revereux,’ Luke stepped forward to tell him and there was enough challenge in his deep voice to tell the man he was on shaky ground. ‘Our enemies are now too busy avoiding their creditors to bother scheming against us.’

‘Foreclosed, have you?’ Revereux asked as if he understood the true facts of the matter far better than Chloe did.

‘This very morning a friend of mine delivered a detailed account of Crowdale’s past sins to the City merchant who almost let him wed his only child.’

‘Heaven knows, they’re heavy enough,’ the Captain said with a restless movement against his pillows, then a quickly suppressed gasp at the pain it caused him that made Chloe flinch in sympathy.

‘Heavy enough to finish him in this country; he’ll have to flee if he’s to avoid being imprisoned for debt, as well as various sins we won’t broadcast for the sake of Lady Chloe and your daughter. ‘

‘Since we’re being so protective of my sensibilities, why don’t you take this draught, sir, before I succumb to hysterics after such a long and trying day?’ Chloe asked, glaring at both men as she tried to understand their veiled references.

‘You don’t fight fair, do you, Lady Chloe?’ the patient asked with a wry smile that made her see why Daphne fell so deep in love with him.

‘How can I when there are so many unfair advantages on the other side, sir? Gentlemen have a monopoly on dashing about the country engaged on adventures you refuse to explain to us dim-witted females. If I can wait until tomorrow to find out the facts of my sister’s tragic love story, you can sleep and recover from your injuries and show a little patience as well. Verity and I wait on the whims of annoying males who feel they have a right to dictate our lives without asking us.’

‘I feel sure half that tirade was directed at me, Revereux. It would be diplomatic to restore your strength before she takes you on again though,’ Luke cautioned.

‘And you’ll swear to me my daughter is safe?’ he asked with such painful anxiety that Chloe softened a little and even smiled when he directed his question at her, instead of dominant, masculine Viscount Farenze.

‘I kept her so when nobody else cared a tinker’s curse what happened to her, Mr Revereux, I will do so for as long as she needs me to,’ she promised.

‘Very well, do your worst then,’ he murmured grudgingly and finally allowed himself to feel wretched.

Chloe nodded at the waiting Culdrose, who managed to tip a healthy dose down the gentleman’s throat when he opened his mouth to argue he’d do it himself.

‘No better than a stubborn babe,’ Culdrose muttered grimly.

‘Nor much more use than one right now,’ he admitted wearily.

‘Then you’ll sleep like one if you know what’s good for you,’ Culdrose told him severely and sat in the chair by the bed as if settling in for the night to make sure he did as he was bid.

‘I think we can safely leave her to it,’ Luke whispered as he urged Chloe out of the room. ‘The poor fellow doesn’t stand a chance of stirring from that bed until he’s healthy as a horse once again.’

‘Would she could keep him there,’ Chloe murmured and met his steady gaze with a shrug. ‘I know, he’s Verity’s father. What if he wants to take her away, Luke?’

‘We’re still at war, Chloe, and I doubt he could leave the sea right now even if he wanted to. Verity has a perfectly good family to love and care for her and, in his shoes, I wouldn’t even try to prise the child away from a woman she has no intention of being parted from.’

‘Thank you for being ready to take us both on then, but I can’t pretend he doesn’t exist, can I?’

‘Hardly, but come downstairs and dine with me, my darling. If I manage to stay awake long enough, we can talk about where we shall live and love and, if we’re lucky, raise the rest of our vast tribe of children yet to be born.’

‘I haven’t officially agreed to marry you yet.’

‘Then you’d better do so, Lady Chloe Thessaly. I’ve waited long enough to be your lover and refuse to be gainsaid much longer.’

‘You’re too tired to make love to Venus herself, if she bothered to step down from Olympus for such a disagreeable bear as you are tonight,’ she told him as he took her hand and tucked it into the crook of his elbow. ‘But I’m saying yes anyway,’ she added.

‘Good, I’ve waited over a decade for one of those from you, Mrs Wheaton. I intend to hear you say it again and again as soon as I’ve got my ring on your finger.’

‘Not before then?’ she asked, all her scruples forgotten as she stared up at him with a scandalous invitation in her eyes.

‘In three days if I can get a licence quickly enough, lover,’ he said implacably.

‘You’re turning into a puritan,’ she said sulkily, rather insulted he could resist her now their marriage was so close. ‘Three days?’ she asked incredulously as that part of his statement finally got past the heady promises of their marriage bed.

‘Our courtship has been quite long enough, we can marry as soon as you’ve found a gown that isn’t made up from black bombazine.’

‘I have a very nice grey-stuff gown for best,’ she told him solemnly, running through an inventory of all the gowns unsuitable for a housekeeper Lady Virginia had pressed on her over the years in her head and selecting the most unsuitable of all.

Luke did his best to hide his horror at the idea of meeting her at the altar dressed so and Chloe laughed, then met his tired eyes with a teasing smile.

‘It’s all right, love, the neighbours will be shocked when they see me walk up the aisle in the splendid white ball gown Virginia gave me for my last birthday. As they will already be reeling at the secrets we will have to reveal about my past, present and future by then, I suppose we might as well give them something else to wonder about.’

‘True. How do you feel about being the focus of gossip for miles around, my lady?’ he asked as Oakham opened the door of the Green Parlour the family used before dinner when not entertaining.

‘Indifferent on my own account, but a little worried about how it will affect Verity and Eve,’ she replied, then Eve and her governess greeted them with a flurry of questions about the Captain and Verity and even that concern was laid aside for another day.

* * *

It took Captain Revereux two days to evade his nurse and make his way downstairs without Culdrose knowing he’d gone. Luke found him ensconced in the family sitting room before dinner and began to dislike him all over again. Eve was busy finding cushions to make the chair by the fire where Luke usually sat more comfortable for the interloper and Chloe was ordering a feast fit for a king in honour of his recovery.

Trying hard to be fair, Luke could see why an impressionable young girl like Daphne Thessaly would fall so hard for the young Adonis Revereux must have been, but couldn’t quite suppress a sting of jealousy when Chloe fussed over the man as if he were a fallen god. He felt much better when Revereux fidgeted uncomfortably at so much feminine attention, then wondered if he might even learn to like him one day when the man called a halt.

‘I am very well now and have always healed quickly,’ Revereux said, so they sat and wondered who would ask the rush of questions they all wanted answers to, but felt too polite to launch straight into as soon as the man was feeling well enough to come downstairs again.

‘When does your ship sail, Revereux?’ Luke asked, as genially as he could when he was trying not to wish it might be tomorrow.

‘In three weeks’ time,’ the Captain said with a frown and Luke felt a twinge of guilt at reminding a guest he would soon have to depart, but only a twinge. He was feeling very impatient to get on with his wedding. ‘She’s been in dry dock for a refit, then I am to get her back for sea trials in a fortnight and, all being as it should be, we will embark a week later.’

‘And where will you be bound, Captain?’ Chloe asked, looking relieved he would shortly be out of the country, but Luke knew they would have to resolve Verity’s future before the man left.

‘I’ll be sailing under sealed orders, Lady Chloe, so I really don’t know.’

‘How exciting,’ Eve said with stars in her eyes, as if she dreamt of sailing the seven seas in a state of constant adventure and upheaval.

‘Not really,’ Revereux argued with an indifference to the idea Luke must remember to thank him for later. ‘Apart from the danger and upset of a storm and the rush and alarm of battle, life at sea is sadly tedious and the men dread serving on the Caribbean station because of the yellow fever and the like. I hope we’re not bound there, Miss Winterley, for I can’t like the place for all its warmth and natural beauty.’

‘Is it so beautiful, then?’

‘Aye, and rich and devilish hot at times and the sugar plantations are worked by unlucky slaves I don’t blame in the least for feeling rebellious and running away whenever they get the chance.’

‘Oh,’ Eve said, looking a little downcast. ‘I’m sure I should as well and I’m very glad Papa has no business interests there after all. Will you not tell us how you found out about Verity and tracked her down and rescued her from her wicked uncles though, Mr Revereux? It sounds a very dashing tale and quite fit for one of Mrs Radcliffe’s novels.’

‘I dare say it was nothing of the sort and anyway it is a story that can wait, love, if the Captain wants to tell his private affairs to such a curious miss at all, that is,’ Luke intervened before the poor man felt obliged to recount his ill-fated love story between entrées.

‘Indeed, and dining en famille is a treat that can easily be withdrawn from young ladies not yet out.’ Chloe reinforced his warning with a stern eye on Verity and both girls rolled their eyes at the unreasonable nature of parents, then behaved like a pair of unlikely angels.

* * *

‘Would you like to take a brandy or shall we join the ladies and be sociable over the teacups, Revereux?’ Luke asked at the end of the meal and thought he saw the man pale at the idea of returning to Culdrose’s stern rule before he had to.

‘I’d best avoid brandy for the time being. I don’t want to risk lurching about like a drunkard until I’ve got my land legs again.’

‘Then I’ll bring my glass to the drawing room, if you ladies don’t object?’

‘I think we might bear that much dissipation calmly enough,’ Chloe said.

Luke grinned, knowing he’d never find her company tedious if they lived to be a hundred, when she gave him a look that warned him she knew he was up to something and was in two minds about putting a stop to it.

At last Oakham and his acolytes were dismissed and Miss Yorke, Eve’s governess, excused herself to write to her elderly parents. It was very close to Verity’s bed time, but Luke was glad Chloe didn’t send her away. This tale needed to be told and arrangements about her contact with her father and where she would live made before the man went back to sea.

‘I think the time has come to tell your story, Revereux. I hope you won’t mind doing so in front of Eve and myself, since I’ll soon be Verity’s uncle by marriage?’

‘Neatly put,’ Revereux said with a challenging look in those sharp blue eyes of his that said he would be no pushover if his ideas didn’t chime with theirs.

‘Why, thank you,’ Luke said with an ironic bow.

‘I will try to emulate you,’ Revereux said with a sigh, then watched the fire and seemed to be staring into a past full of mixed blessings. ‘I took a bullet in my side at the Battle of the Nile. I was eventually given shore leave to recuperate with my maternal grandfather, a minister of the Scottish church, since even the Admiralty decided they didn’t want me back until I had some flesh on my bones.’

‘Your poor mother must have been beside herself with worry,’ Chloe said.

‘She has one son in the navy and two in the army and often says the one who gives her the most worry is my brother Henry, who stayed at home and followed in his grandfather’s footsteps. A practical female, my darling mother,’ he said with a rueful smile that said a lot about his affection for her.

‘I hope we’ll have the chance to meet her one day,’ Luke put in, to remind them time was wasting and Cully would be down to bear her patient off to bed again very soon.

‘So do I, but to return to my tale, I was feeling better and growing restless and bored, as young fools of eighteen often do when they don’t have enough to do. Then, one day I met a young lady walking the hills on her own and sadly lost. Not that she minded being so, she told me, since as she didn’t know where she was, she hoped nobody else would either. When I pointed out that I now knew, she had a fit of the giggles and admitted I was right. I fell in love with her on the spot.’ Revereux smiled broadly at nothing at all and even Luke couldn’t help but sympathise.

If only he was heart-whole and still innocent when he’d first laid eyes on Lady Daphne’s sister, he’d have done exactly the same. Deep down he probably had, he realised now, then refused to admit it to either of them for a whole decade; which made him more of a fool than Revereux, so he could hardly blame him for diving head first into love with a very different Thessaly twin.

‘After that she used to get lost whenever her aunt took her eyes off her long enough for her to get away from Hamming House and I haunted the hills and moors around my grandfather’s manse like a lost soul, hoping she would and I could meet up with her. Apparently her aunt had a splendid marriage planned for her and the vast settlements on offer that would set her family back on the road to riches. Daphne told me most of her family could go hang, but she was worried about what would happen to you when we wed and frustrated their whole rotten scheme, Lady Chloe. Her only regret was that our marriage would part her from you.’

‘You were married?’ Chloe said incredulously.

‘I loved her far too much to risk leaving her unwed and with child once I was considered fit for service again and sent back to sea.’

‘Then how did she end up in that state and alone anyway?’ she demanded fiercely.

Luke thought her magnificent as she defended her sister ten years after her death. Looking away to distract himself from the heady thought of the day after tomorrow he’d been forced to compromise on for their wedding, Luke saw his daughter and Verity were listening to Revereux’s tale of star-crossed lovers with round-eyed fascination. Perhaps he should send them to bed? No, the last thing he wanted was either of them thinking a runaway marriage sounded deeply romantic, so far better for them to stay and realise the pain and sorrow that impulsive wedding had caused Lady Daphne and her impulsive young lover, as well as Verity and Chloe.

‘I didn’t know she had done so until I cornered your younger brother one night when he had drunk nearly enough brandy to sink a man o’ war and threatened to beat the story out of him if he didn’t tell it of his own accord.’ He paused and sent his daughter and Eve a dubious look and obviously reached the same conclusion Luke had done and decided they ought to hear the sad end of his grand love affair after all. ‘I owed him that much for standing by while his brother and the thugs he’d hired beat me within a hair’s breadth of my life, then had me carried south and put aboard the next ship leaving for the East Indies.

‘Imagine how I felt when I finally came back to my full senses and found out I was halfway to Java with the captain and all the ship’s company to convince I was who I said I was, not some poor pressed fool who’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. They couldn’t have turned about and taken me back to my wife even if they had wanted to and I was lucky to have ended up on a good ship. The ship’s surgeon treated my new wounds as well as the ones I’d nearly recovered from until the attack and the captain didn’t have me shut in the brig for insubordination, or dropped off at the first port as a lunatic. I raged and resisted, but had to accept my fate and serve out my time until the ship sailed for home three years later.’

‘Oh, you poor man,’ Chloe said sadly.

She looked torn between pity and reluctance to let him off all blame for her sister’s sorry plight. Luke’s heart went out to her, but she had to accept Verity now had a father who deserved some say in his child’s future. He waited for Revereux to finish his story and trusted Chloe to reach the same conclusion.

‘Never mind me, Daphne suffered a fate I wouldn’t inflict on a dog,’ Revereux said, clenching his fists as he had to fight his still-raw feelings for his lost love. ‘You know more of that than I do, Lady Chloe. I was a thousand miles away by the time the poor darling bore my child in that apology for a house your father and brothers sent you both to endure, as if that whole greedy scheme was your fault and not theirs.’

‘Why did they do so when you were married?’ she mused now, puzzlement and pain so dark in her violet eyes that Luke took her hand to show her she wasn’t alone with it this time.

‘Probably because we were wed, not despite it,’ Revereux said gently and waited for her to realise what he couldn’t say in front of the girls.

Unwed Daphne would still be young, lovely and saleable, if shop-soiled; wed she was none of those things and had frustrated them of the fortune the raddled old duke was willing to pay for a virginal wife. Daphne had been meant to die and her baby along with her.

‘No! Oh, Luke,’ Chloe gasped as that fact finally bit deep.