Читать книгу The Virtuous Courtesan - Mary Brendan - Страница 9

Chapter Four

‘Mr Pratt! It is a surprise to see you, sir.’

Joseph Pratt had advanced ahead of her housekeeper into the neatly furnished room Sarah used as a small parlour. Having given the fellow a glower for arriving at Elm Lodge uninvited, Maude Jackson withdrew and shut the door. For a moment she lingered with her good ear near the panels before removing herself to the kitchen.

Moments ago Sarah had been sorting through her jewellery box. Apart from a few family heirlooms left to her by her mama, she had no wish to keep the rest. All were pieces Edward had bought for her and she would sooner be rid of painful memories of him. She would also sooner have the cash they might raise. Now the casket was put aside and, with a perplexed expression, she got to her feet. It could only be a matter concerning Edward’s will that brought Joseph Pratt to her door. She looked enquiringly at him, but no immediate explanation was forthcoming.

Joseph fiddled with his hat brim, his cheeks taking on a bashful glow. A smile slanted sideways at her before he burst out, ‘I beg you will not deem my call an unpleasant surprise, Miss Marchant.’

Sarah’s bemusement increased. ‘I can only answer that when I know what prompted it, sir,’ she returned politely. ‘I imagine it concerns the business in your office yesterday.’

‘Precisely…’ The confirmation was issued with a sibilant throb.

‘I hope there is no more bad news…’ Sarah ventured, unable to properly decipher his queer attitude.

‘No…no,’ he reassured with a flap of a hand. ‘Please do not alarm yourself.’ A look of studied sympathy shaped his flaccid jowls. Inwardly he was gratified to learn that she considered the prospect of becoming Gavin Stone’s mistress as bad news. ‘I know the terms of the will must have come as a terrible shock and disappointment to you.’

His eyes were drawn to the open jewellery box. The sight of it boosted his confidence. Ladies sorted through their gems for only two reasons: to bestow them or to sell them. He came to the swift conclusion that Miss Marchant was taking stock of her assets so she might cash in. And that heightened his suspicion that she had not yet come to an arrangement with the deceased’s brother.

Joseph had seen Gavin Stone earlier that day. Although they did no more than exchange a nod in greeting, the scowl the fellow had on his face was enough for Joseph to surmise that Gavin was no closer to securing his inheritance. But Edward’s heir had six months in which to win over Miss Marchant before he lost his fortune. In the meantime the lady could either choose to swallow her pride and go to him or foster a little dalliance elsewhere to pay her bills. Joseph had deduced that she might prefer the latter simply to avoid the churlish rogue for as long as possible. In fact, he was increasingly hopeful Miss Marchant might be persuaded to accept discreet assistance from a personable lawyer…and naturally display ample gratitude for it.

Emboldened by what seemed to him perfect logic, Mr Pratt continued, ‘It’s my ardent wish that I might ease the…um…regrettable situation in which you find yourself, Miss Marchant. To that end I am begging you will favourably consider what I am about to put to you.’

Sarah looked up at him, a spark of hope livening her weary eyes. Had he come to tell her that he had discovered a legal solution to their woes? He was looking at her intently as though something of significance was on his mind. His language was rather flamboyant but then he might be anxious that before business was concluded she would fly off in a huff as she had yesterday.

‘I…please do sit down, sir. Naturally I am interested in any suggestions that might improve my lot. I shall get Maude to fetch some tea.’ Sarah’s tone held muted excitement and she speedily set about summoning Maude to bring refreshments.

Joseph sat down, satisfaction settling on his features. Miss Marchant seemed to have grasped his meaning and was not too coy to show pleasure at it. He lounged back into the sofa and drove specks from his cuff with finger flicks. Her enthusiasm was to be expected. He was, after all, a pillar of Willowdene society. Miss Marchant was no doubt thanking her lucky stars that a charming and prosperous saviour had prevented her enduring the attentions of less worthy individuals.

Sarah returned to sit opposite her guest who had taken the space on the sofa she had vacated. She was eager to learn in what way he might ease her situation. But he remained stubbornly silent and was impertinently eyeing her jewellery.

‘I expect you have been looking through your keepsakes.’ Joseph continued peering judiciously into the casket. He had decided to kindly condescend to have tea and a little chat for her modesty’s sake. He sighed, touched a finger to a silver bangle. ‘Memories of the departed are a comfort at such times.’

‘I have had my memories tarnished,’ Sarah answered, truthfully.

‘Quite.’ Joseph sagely nodded. ‘The prospect of being left in the care of a…shall we say…licentious fellow is not something a young lady of refinement ought ever to face.’

Clasping her hands in her lap Sarah leaned forward in her chair. ‘I think you are about to suggest an alternative,’ she prompted. ‘Please let me know what it is, sir. I am impatient to hear anything of benefit.’

Joseph goggled at her. He had been hoping for a positive response to his proposition but a little reticence—even if faked—would also have been welcome. He did not want his prize devalued by the knowledge that Miss Marchant bestowed her favours too easily. He looked at her lovely face, aglow with expectation, rosy lips parted in readiness to smile. He swallowed and eased his position, deciding her eagerness was quite charming for it was having the required effect. ‘You have been treated badly, my dear,’ he said hoarsely, ‘but I can offer you not inconsiderable consolation. I only await your permission to describe the advantages to you.’ He made to pluck one of Sarah’s slender hands from her lap.

Sarah quickly withdrew her fingers, but sent him a tight smile. She needed no physical demonstration of his benevolence. His words would do very well. When he made another clumsy lunge for her midriff, she sprang to her feet and put distance between them. ‘What advantages, sir?’ she prompted rather impatiently.

Joseph was also on his feet, but he gave up his pursuit of Sarah. His attention had been drawn to a woman of more advanced years. Maude had reappeared, not bearing the tea tray, but news of another caller.

‘Mr Gavin Stone is here, miss.’

That gentleman was strolling into the room before either of its occupants had fully digested news of his arrival.

‘Mr Stone…’ Sarah’s flustered greeting drew a penetrating look from Gavin’s deep blue eyes. His attention then flicked to her companion.

Joseph executed a very stiff bow and, with his sallow complexion mottling, stalked to the sofa to collect his hat whilst muttering about the need to take his leave.

‘Don’t go on my account,’ Gavin said placidly. His tone seemed at odds with the long hard stare concentrated on the lawyer. It had the effect of hurrying Joseph towards the door.

The sight of Gavin Stone, attired in riding clothes with his black boots gleaming through a layer of dust, had unsettled Sarah for a moment. He had the look of a prosperous Romany come a-calling with his rugged tanned features and careless dark locks. Now, as the lawyer reached the door, Sarah quickly jerked herself to her senses. A suspicion niggled at her that this might be no chance meeting between the three of them, but something the gentlemen had deliberately concocted to browbeat her. Her conspiracy theory was soon quashed: Joseph Pratt looked distinctly put out by Gavin’s arrival. She was, too, for had the lawyer not been about to expound on a way of improving her lot?

‘You have not yet fully explained the reason for your visit, sir,’ Sarah reminded him, skipping to the door to intercept his departure. ‘We were talking of—’

‘It is of no consequence now, Miss Marchant,’ Joseph interrupted brusquely. His floridity increased until he was red to the roots of his receding hair. With a jerky bow he was soon gone from the room.

‘How odd,’ Sarah murmured to herself, unaware that her genuine puzzlement had caused Maude’s gimlet eyes to slide to meet those of her remaining guest.

Maude had not liked the lawyer, but she’d welcomed this fellow turning up unexpectedly. She knew as soon as he gave his name that he had every right to be here. Gavin Stone was, of course, the wild brother who’d inherited the big estate and that included Elm Lodge. That aside, she’d also given him a once over and decided he was handsome enough to be as bad as he liked. Sometimes scoundrels changed when they found what they were looking for. And Maude reckoned, from the way that Gavin Stone was staring at Sarah, he’d met his match. Satisfaction writhed across her pursed lips. ‘Shall I bring in the tea, miss?’ Maude asked.

Sarah glanced at Gavin. They had parted yesterday on frosty terms. She did not want to offer him her hospitality, yet to deny him a cup of tea seemed mean. A glint of humour in his eyes betrayed that he was aware of her quandary.

‘Yes…thank you, Maude.’ The firm order for refreshment sent Maude immediately from the room.

To break the tense quiet Sarah blurted, ‘Mr Pratt is quite an odd character, I think.’

‘Do you? Why?’ Gavin asked mildly.

‘I’m still not sure what was his purpose in coming here today. I thought at one time he was about to tell me he had found a legal loophole through which we might both wriggle to freedom. But if that were so, he would have stayed to tell us. He went off in a peculiar mood, I thought.’

Gavin strolled closer to inspect the look of bewilderment on her face. He could detect no coyness, no sham modesty. She seemed genuinely unaware that the lawyer had designs on her virtue. Once again he was struck by her apparent innocence…her undeniable beauty. He could understand why Joseph Pratt had felt compelled to try his luck. Gavin imagined the lawyer would not be the only gentleman sniffing around Miss Marchant, spouting sympathy and suggestions.

‘I think Mr Pratt was about to tell you he expected your personal attention in exchange for any assistance he offered.’

Sarah frowned and then her brow smoothed, her eyes widened in shock. Quickly she brought her soft lips together and turned away from him to shield her confusion. He would think that! The lecherous beast!

‘I do not think you should judge every gentleman by your own lax morals, sir,’ she retorted crisply. She twirled around to face him with her chin at a haughty angle. ‘I found nothing…offensive…in Mr Pratt’s behaviour.’ The moment it was out, Sarah knew that declaration was not quite true. The lawyer had indeed tried to grab inappropriately at her person. The more she pondered on the encounter, the more she realised there had been ambiguity in his conversation too. Had she been a gullible fool not to realise he had an ulterior motive? Fast on the heels of that crushing thought came a yet worse one. Would others follow? Now Edward had gone, would she be seen as fair game?

Sarah knew she was pretty. From quite a young age her mother had told her she had been blessed with exceptional looks. Her dear mama had had great hopes that her beauty would lure a wealthy suitor and solve all their financial woes. But it wasn’t to be.

More recently Edward Stone had praised her looks. In the sly eyes of some of the men hereabouts she’d seen reflected Edward’s admiration. Oh, in front of their womenfolk they might purport to dislike her, but she’d sensed that privately they’d coveted Edward’s young paramour.

And so did his brother.

Whatever Gavin thought of her as a person—and he had made his opinion of her clear yesterday when roundly attacking her character—it would not dampen his lust. The fact that she had a heart and a soul and a yearning for affection and respect would bother him not one jot. He was here today for the same reason as had been Joseph Pratt…to have her naked beneath him.

She sensed colour creep to stain her milky neck and a hand moved involuntarily to shield it. Would he still lust after her if he knew that her body was not so pretty as her face?

‘Please sit down, if you would like to.’ The words were ejected in little above a whisper.

Gavin wordlessly declined the polite invitation by moving instead to take up a position by the chimneypiece. Sarah sat down, then wished she had not, for she could sense his pitiless gaze warming the top of her head.

‘Joseph Pratt is unlikely to be the only gentleman interested in propositioning you.’

Sarah’s small teeth sunk into her bottom lip. So he could read her thoughts too. She simply nodded and blinked.

‘Is that what you want? A parade of gentlemen callers from which you might choose a wealthy candidate to keep you?’

Sarah flew to her feet, her fists gripped tight by her side. ‘You know I do not! If that were all I wanted, I would have accepted my fate and settled on you. You will be richer than all of them put together once you have the Stone inheritance.’

‘But I have not yet offered my services,’ Gavin reminded quietly.

‘You do not need to, sir,’ Sarah replied damningly. ‘You have said you will not forgo your inheritance and neither will you spare me.’

‘Your complaints would be better directed at Edward. He engineered this bizarre scheme.’

Sarah could not argue with that. She expelled a sigh, gesturing hopelessly. ‘At least you seem to have absolved me of any guilt in trying to trap you into it. For that I am grateful.’

‘My conceit might suffer to admit it, but I know you would rather choose your future, as would I.’ Gavin moved closer to watch her reaction to what he said next. ‘And you? Do you still believe that I am wicked enough to have asked my brother to bequeath me his beautiful mistress?’

‘As you say,’ she said carefully, keen to foster the fragile harmony, ‘neither of us wants to be shackled to a stranger.’ Had she not been made of sterner stuff, she might have melted beneath the sultry sapphire gaze that had accompanied his compliment on her looks. But her memory was not so short. She had but recently been the butt of his scorn and insults.

‘Perhaps it was Edward’s intention that we no longer be strangers.’

‘I would sooner he had introduced you in the normal way whilst he was alive,’ Sarah commented pithily.

‘Edward was always careful to keep out of sight anything of his I might have wanted.’

More subtle praise. She could not deny he was a skilful flirt. Again heat bled in to her cheeks. His rough-velvet voice allied with those steady predatory gazes combined to create quite a heady attack on the senses. Their conversation seemed no longer focused on material considerations, but had become quite intimate.

She felt suffocated, unable to rise to the challenge of playing his sophisticated game. She stepped away. ‘Your reminiscence about your brother is not helping solve our predicament, sir,’ she said briskly.

‘But I think it is,’ Gavin quietly begged to differ. ‘We need to ascertain what reasons he might have had for wanting to entwine our lives upon his demise.’ Gavin strolled to the window and looked out into woodland. ‘He must have realised that this would come as a shock to us both. He had little fondness for me, I know, and if it is some sort of bad joke, I allow him his laugh. But you?’ He turned and slanted Sarah a look. ‘Were you at odds over something that might have prompted him to secretly seek revenge?’

‘No,’ Sarah hotly denied. ‘Nothing like that passed between us. I believed we were friends till the end.’

‘Friends?’ Gavin echoed drily.

‘Yes, friends,’ Sarah repeated with some emphasis. ‘It is possible for a man and a woman to share a friendship as well as a bed.’

Gavin bowed his head in mock humility. ‘Thank you for that insight, Miss Marchant,’ he drawled. ‘Hard-hearted rakes do not know such things.’

‘Neither do they know when to accept a very good deal.’ She came closer to him to make her point. ‘You will be better off having Elm Lodge occupied than empty. You are foolish not to immediately accept my suggestion to housekeep for you. A fortune is almost yours for a tenancy and a paltry annual sum.’

Gavin’s smile deepened to a lazy chuckle. ‘I’m almost persuaded,’ he murmured infuriatingly.

Sarah flung herself around in a temper and stalked off two paces. ‘I am done with trying to be reasonable.’ She retraced those angry steps to glare up at him with sparking topaz eyes. ‘I do not give a fig what becomes of you or your brother’s inheritance. You may return to London empty-handed and end in the Fleet.’ She sucked in a breath to add, ‘Oh, I know you are a spendthrift, too. I know all about you.’

‘And are you going to return the compliment and tell me all about you?’

Sarah blanched, shrinking back a pace. She had not expected that unwanted question. She parted her soft lips to demand he take his leave, but was silenced by the sight of Maude entering with the tea tray. If the servant noticed her mistress’s flushed cheeks and fiery eyes, or the tension vibrating her neat figure, she gave no sign. ‘Shall I pour, miss?’ she asked placidly.

‘No…thank you,’ Sarah added with a hint of apology for her brusqueness.

The brief interlude whilst Maude settled the tray on the table allowed her wits to curb her temper. She must secure essentials for her and her family. Once Maude had departed she enquired coolly, ‘What has brought you here today, sir?’ A rustle of dimity skirts was the only sound as she paced to and fro, waiting for his response. Suddenly she halted and frowned at his silence. ‘If the answer is nothing in particular, then I must ask you to leave.’

‘I think you know why I’m here,’ Gavin returned mildly. ‘I want my inheritance and I am prepared to comply with the spirit of Edward’s will to get it. In short, Miss Marchant, I have no objection to protecting you in the way my brother intended I should.’

‘You might have no objection, sir, but I do,’ Sarah hissed once she had drawn sufficient breath to do so.