Читать книгу Regency High Society Vol 1: A Hasty Betrothal / A Scandalous Marriage / The Count's Charade / The Rake and the Rebel - Mary Brendan - Страница 12

‘There’s a letter for you, Miss Cordell,’ said Rose, as she helped her mistress remove her pelisse on her return from the morning service.

‘A letter?’ exclaimed Harriet, examining the sealed missive curiously. ‘Who can have written to me—I saw everyone I know at church this morning!’

‘Ned sent it up from the gate lodge, miss,’ ‘said Rose, hanging up the outdoor garments. Said it had been pushed under the door.’

Harriet unfolded the paper and read the contents with a frown. Dearest—meet me tomorrow in our own special place—C.

Puzzled, she turned the note over to check the direction and saw her name clearly written there.

‘Well, it can’t be meant for me—who do I know with that initial? Charles Ridgeway, to be sure, but I am certain it is not he—and young Lambert, last evening—oh! I see!’

Smiling broadly, she sat down and removed her bonnet. ‘It’s some sort of boyish prank, I suspect—a wager with one of his friends, I suppose—although I don’t quite see—still, it’s of no importance.’ And she tossed the note aside and allowed Rose to tidy her hair before going to the earl’s chamber to keep her promise of giving him a full account of the previous evening’s entertainment.

She found his lordship sitting in a large armchair by the window and clapped her hands in delight. ‘You are out of bed!’ she exclaimed, as she bent to kiss the top of his head.

He held out his hand and motioned her to a footstool at his feet.

‘So you’ve come to tell me of your great success.’ He smiled. ‘I fear you have been forestalled. Sandford has already been here singing your praises. I hear he had to fight his way through the mêlée to dance with you!’

Harriet blushed guiltily as she recalled the embarrassment she had caused the viscount over her mix-up with the dances, although it would appear from the earl’s words that she had been forgiven for her lapse.

‘Not quite, my lord,’ she said. ‘But it was all very great fun and Judith looked delightful. She came out of mourning especially—you do not mind?’ She looked at him anxiously, conscious of the knowledge that Philip had been his son.

The earl shook his head and sighed. ‘No, poor child. It is time. She has a life of her own to live.’ He patted her hand. ‘Now, what about this daring exhibition you gave with Sandford?’

Harriet beamed. ‘Oh, he must take all the credit for that, my lord. I was completely innocent and taken totally off guard, I assure you! But he does dance divinely, you know!’ At her vivid recollection of that episode her heart seemed to skip several beats.

‘Takes after his sire, of course,’ chortled the earl.

Quickly marshalling her thoughts, Harriet took hold of his hand and replied with an impish grin, ‘Then I insist on being privy to these remarkable skills! So you must make haste to get back on to both feet.

Beldale studied her animated face. ‘I doubt I shall be on my feet before you leave, child,’ he said, his voice gentle.

Harriet flinched and her vivid eyes clouded over.

‘I keep forgetting,’ she said tremulously. ‘When I am here with you I keep forgetting!’

She bent her head to brush away a tear and the earl laid his hand on her burnished locks and smiled a strange, quiet smile to himself.

‘Now, now, no tears today, if you please,’ he commanded briskly. ‘I demand to be amused. Tell me more of Judith’s party.’

Harriet dismissed her melancholia and set about entertaining Beldale in her usual appealing manner and soon they were both laughing at her anecdotes of the previous evening.

‘And the oddest thing,’ she finished, wiping her eyes. ‘One of the young daredevils has actually sent me a billet-doux but neglected to sign his name, so I fear I shall never know who my reluctant admirer is!’

‘Then he must take his chances with the rest of us,’ chaffed Lord William. ‘I have no doubt you will now be so inundated with invitations from our neighbours that I shall have to make an appointment.’

Harriet shook her head vigorously. ‘Not so, my lord,’ she responded, with great seriousness. ‘Your requirements would always take precedence. I have come to regard you as—almost—as a—father. Is that very presumptuous of me? I do miss him so.’

The earl was silent for a moment and Harriet was afraid that she had offended him with her impetuous remark until he took her hands in his and said, warmly, ‘Harriet, my dear child, you have paid me the greatest compliment. I am well aware of the deep bond that existed between your father and yourself. When you have been with me I have often found myself regretting that I did not spend as much time with my own daughters as I might have done—although I must confess that I do not recall them having quite as lively a nature …’

His eyes twinkled at the blush that appeared as he patted her cheek. ‘Do not be so eager to extinguish it completely, dear girl. I am already filled with envy that your grandfather is soon to be the fortunate recipient of your infectious chuckle.’

‘I pray that I find such favour with him,’ said Harriet fervently.

‘I cannot think that you will fail to do so,’ his lordship vociferated, ‘unless he is blind or deaf or the greatest curmudgeon ever and we know that he cannot be any of these, for he is presently braving the tribulations of long-distance travel to come to your rescue!’

Harriet nodded and rose to her feet, seeing Chegwin approaching with the earl’s medication. ‘That’s true,’ she said. ‘And my consolation is that the longer he takes the more time I can spend with you!’

‘Away with you, shameless hussy,’ laughed Beldale. Then a thought struck him. ‘Go and practise your beguiling charms on Sandford—I’ll warrant he is not so easily moved!’

Harriet smilingly wagged her finger at him and left the room, with every intention of keeping as far away from the viscount as good manners allowed, for she was perplexed to find that his very presence suddenly seemed capable of exercising the strangest effect upon her composure. At the morning service, for instance, he had elected to stand next to her in the family pew and his fingers had (quite accidentally, she was sure) brushed against hers as she had leaned forward to pick up her prayer book. This, for some reason that she could not fathom, had prevented her from finding her place and he had taken her book from her and had handed her his own, open at the correct page. She was not even sure that she had given her responses correctly, so aware had she been of Sandford’s own resonant, articulate returns. Worst of all, she was sure that she had detected an undercurrent of suppressed laughter in his voice and a swift sideways glance at him had revealed his amused scrutiny of her discomposure. His eyes had held that same disconcerting gleam, which she had done her best to ignore on the previous evening. When he had helped her into and out of the carriage his hand had seemed to linger on her arm a fraction too long and she had, once more, been conscious of the unrelenting intensity of his gaze as he sat opposite Lady Caroline and herself during the ride home from church.

Mentally shaking herself, Harriet hesitated outside the earl’s door, unable to decide whether to return to the safety of her own room and stay out of harm’s way or to venture downstairs. The events of the last few days were clearly affecting her brain, she concluded, and turned resolutely to the head of the stairway, only to perceive the object of her reverie emerging from his own chambers nearby.

‘Ah, Miss Cordell!’

Sandford registered Harriet’s violent start at his appearance but made no comment. He had, in fact, been listening somewhat impatiently for the click of his father’s door-latch to signal her emergence; therefore his presence was no accident.

‘You have been regaling his lordship with a fuller and more entertaining account of last evening’s delights than that with which I was able to furnish him, I imagine?’

He seemed to Harriet to be in possession of some private and amusing intelligence and this added to her sense of confusion.

Oh, well—yes—that is—I did my best to do so,’ she answered, in breathless agitation, at the same time attempting a decorous retreat to her own quarters, but he put out his hand to stay her movements.

‘Would you care to join me in a carriage ride?’ His voice suddenly seemed almost boyish in its eagerness. ‘It is such a lovely afternoon and I have to inspect some cottages. I would be honoured if you would accompany me.’

Harriet’s eyes widened in surprise. ‘That is very good of you, my lord,’ she said cautiously. ‘I confess I should be glad to get out into the air. If I may just collect my bonnet … ?’

Sandford, watching her disappear into her room, had a sudden insane urge to leap on to the banisters he was holding and slide down them, just as he and Philip had done in their youth. Instead, to March’s grinning amazement, he bounded down the stairs two at a time and ordered up the carriage.

Sitting on his box behind the driving-seat, Tiptree wondered dismally if he was witnessing his colonel’s’ last stand. Having been privy to most of the ‘guvnor’s intermittent campaigns into ‘petticoat territory’, he had to admit that he couldn’t recall anything quite like this one. There had been that stunning blonde in Vienna, he mused, until Lord Sandford had discovered that the lady was a damned sight more interested in his money than in his manners and a certain contessa in Salamanca had seemed to be streaking to the winning post except for her unfortunate tendency to gamble heavily—not one of his lordship’s favourite pastimes, Tiptree knew, considering the anguish such profligacy had brought to certain close members of the family. Other beauties had been guilty of having either no conversation at all or far too much and one memorable dazzler had kept dogs! Tiptree shuddered at the recollection of trying to keep three dribbling lapdogs under control in his lordship’s open carriage whilst his master accompanied her ladyship into a milliner’s salon. Those boots had never recovered, he thought, scowling at the back of Harriet’s chip-straw bonnet, as though she were to blame. So, what was special about this one? he wondered. Her dad had been a real good goer, he allowed, and her ma—well she had been a proper trooper in her time. He’d never heard anything either good or bad about the daughter. She was certainly no beauty, not to his taste, anyway, with her ginger hair and cat’s eyes, although she was quite a taking little thing—plucky, too and with a laugh that ‘fetched the sun out', so he’d heard Smithers say, not that there was much sign of it at the moment, he observed.

Harriet was doing her best to remember Martha’s teachings. Her back was straight, her feet were together and her gloved hands were clasped neatly in her lap. Her eyes she kept firmly to the front, on the road ahead. She had exhausted her entire fund of polite conversation, wondering glumly if the English gentlewoman’s lot in life were always this dreary and almost wishing that she had stayed at Beldale. Sandford, on the other hand, seemed to be enjoying himself hugely. Out of the corner of her eye she had caught sight of a wide grin on his face, his beaver hat was tipped rakishly to the back of his head and his whole bearing seemed to be one of carefree relaxation, while she herself felt foolishly stiff and uncomfortable.

‘How about the hedges?’ His voice was brimming with suppressed laughter.

‘I beg your pardon?’ She half-turned towards him, and then quickly recovered.

‘Well now, let’s see,’ he continued. ‘We’ve had the weather—yes, it is extraordinarily warm for the time of year! And it is fortunate that the rain is keeping off for the haymaking and, yes, the orchards are full of fruit and, yes, I do consider thatching to be the most skilful of crafts!’

Harriet could feel a chuckle starting in her chest and struggled to suppress its unruly behaviour. ‘Wh-what about the hedges?’ she asked, holding her breath, but refusing to look at him.

‘Let’s think,’ he said, his head on one side, considering. ‘Do they need trimming, I wonder, or shall I have them pulled up, burnt down or simply consign them all to the Devil!’

Harriet put her hands up to her mouth in an effort to maintain her composure, but it was to no avail. Her lips curved into a smile, her eyes began to sparkle and the wayward chuckle burst into a peal of laughter.

A delighted Sandford reined his horses in to a halt and motioned to the widely grinning Tiptree to jump down and hold their heads. Taking out his handkerchief, the gleeful viscount then proceeded to mop up the tears of merriment that were spilling down Harriet’s cheeks.

‘Not fair—not fair,’ she gasped, pushing him away. Her lips still quivering, she attempted to straighten her bonnet, which had somehow cast itself adrift, and regarded Sandford disapprovingly from beneath her wet lashes.

‘Ah, but don’t they say ‘'all’s fair …''?’ he said, reaching out to take her hand and leaning towards her but, just at that precise moment, there came the sound of horses’ hooves on the lane and Tiptree’s low warning, ‘'Ware ‘'parkers'', guv.’

Harriet looked on with undisguised interest as Tiptree vaulted back on to his seat and the viscount spurred his team once more into action.

The occupants of the oncoming chaise saluted Sandford as the two vehicles passed one another and his lordship, although smilingly lifting his whip in reply, wished them in Hell.

Truth to tell, he was feeling slightly abashed at his conduct.

He knew perfectly well that he would have tried to kiss Harriet had it not been for the interruption, but knew equally well that their relationship was far too tenuous to survive such precipitant action. Glancing down at her, he wondered if his rash behaviour had indeed set his cause back still further. He immediately resolved to make up any lost ground without further ado, but found himself forestalled.

‘I do believe you were setting up a flirtation, my lord,’ said Harriet cheerfully, rearranging her skirts.

Sandford, totally unprepared for this challenge, reddened and could only stammer, ‘Not at all—you are mistaken—I must apologise …’

‘Oh, come now, sir,’ Harriet apostrophised. I am not a schoolgirl—you surely do not think that you are the first gentleman who has tried to kiss me? Although, upon reflection, I must confess that I have never before been ravished on the public highway!’

‘Ravished, madam!’ Sandford was appalled. ‘I have never ravished anyone in my entire life—I’ll have you know …’ He stopped, having caught sight of her laughing countenance, and grinned ruefully. ‘Touché—your hit.’

He drove on in sheepish silence for some minutes until a thought occurred to him.

‘Where did gentlemen try to kiss you, may I ask? Not since you have been under my protection, I trust?’

‘Certainly not, my lord,’ replied Harriet, demurely peeping up at him from beneath the brim of her bonnet. ‘There was a very dashing subaltern in Lisbon, I recall—two, as a matter of fact.’

‘And did they succeed?’ asked Sandford, all agog for her reply.

‘Succeed? Oh, I see.’ Harriet laughed in delight at his masculine phraseology. ‘Well, one did—kiss me, that is— but then the other discovered us in the alcove and offered to ‘'darken his daylights''—I believe that was the expression …?’

Sandford’s lips twitched. ‘Sounds about right,’ he said carefully. ‘What happened then?’

‘Well, my first gallant appeared to doubt the other’s ability to do any such thing and responded with a similar offer of his own—something about ‘'drawing his cork” and ‘'spilling his claret''—as I recollect.’ Harriet said mischievously.

‘Your memory serves you well,’ said Sandford, grinning as he pictured the scene. ‘And then?’

Harriet sighed deeply. ‘They then seemed to be more intent on having a mill than making love to me,’ she said, in rueful reminiscence. ‘So I returned myself to the party!’

The viscount gave a shout of laughter and lightly flicked his whip at the horses’ heads, his good humour having suddenly returned.

‘I wish I had known you in those far-off days,’ he said, recalling some of the headier moments of his own time in Portugal.

‘We were introduced on one occasion, my lord,’ she offered. ‘I doubt you will remember—I was only sixteen at the time—a mere child curtseying to your exalted personage. I fancy that your thoughts were more occupied with the very colourful señora two paces to my left …’ She dimpled at his look of shocked recollection. ‘I see that you recall the lady—a capitano’s wife, I believe?’

‘Yes—well, perhaps the least said about that particular incident, the better,’ Sandford interposed hurriedly, ignoring his passenger’s laughing eyes. ‘And that was the only time we met?’

Harriet considered. ‘My friends and I used to run to watch you ride past at the head of your company—you were something of a hero to us,’ she said, her lips curving in memory. Then she collected herself and laughed a little selfconsciously. ‘We were only children, of course—I doubt if you noticed us.’

‘I never thought of myself as a hero, certainly,’ protested Sandford, remembering many such scenes. ‘But I am sorry that I was not better acquainted with you—I wish I might have doffed my hat to you all as we rode out of town!’

‘And what ecstasies we would have fallen into then, my lord,’ replied Harriet gravely, although her mouth twitched at the corners.

Sandford’s eyes gleamed with amusement.

‘If you are trying to provoke me, Miss Cordell,’ he said, his enjoyment mounting, ‘you would do well to remember that you are no longer a child—and must therefore be prepared to accept the consequences of such fulsome encouragement.’

Harriet laughed out loud and shook her head at him. I withdraw all such comments, my lord,’ she chuckled. ‘And you may be assured that I had outgrown all such adulation well before my teens had ended.’

‘Now that is a pity,’ Sandford groaned, in mock despair.

‘I was quite prepared to accept just a modicum of adulation.’

‘Oh, no, sir,’ replied Harriet, mirthfully aware that she had won the round. ‘You have persuaded me that I must seize every opportunity to discourage such vanity!’

‘Hoist by my own petard, dammit!’ he laughed, pulling in the reins.

The curricle had reached a fork in the lane and Sandford had slowed the horses to negotiate the narrower of the two ways. This smaller track led down to a row of ramshackle dwellings, the furthest of which had obviously been destroyed by fire.

‘Mr Potter’s cottage, I collect?’ said Harriet, looking about her with interest as, with Sandford’s assistance, she descended from the carriage.

He nodded, surprised but gratified that she had remembered Ridgeway’s tale.

‘We’d been trying to persuade him to move out for months,’ he said, walking over to the ruin. ‘The rest of the tenants were rehoused last year in the new cottages by Top Meadow …’ He gesticulated back towards the fork in the lane. ‘Old Josh refused to go—said he’d lived here since he was first married and he intended to die here.’

‘Pretty near did, too, by all accounts,’ interjected Tiptree, who, having tethered the horses, had joined them. ‘Set fire to his bed with his pipe, so I hear. Lucky for him Jack Rawlings was driving his cart along the top lane and got him out.’

‘Was he hurt?’ Harriet asked, her sympathy for the old tenant immediately aroused.

‘Not really, so I’m told,’ replied the viscount, ‘superficial burns to his hands and legs. Meggy—his daughter—soon sorted him out, according to Charles, but she’s had the Devil’s own job trying to keep him away from here.’ Sandford indicated the blackened roof timbers. ‘Going to fall in any minute, I should say. We’d better get a gang on to it right away. The whole row should be pulled down and rebuilt.’

‘Poor old man,’ said Harriet, her eyes pricking with involuntary tears as she surveyed the pitiful ruins of Josh Potter’s belongings. She bent down and picked up part of the charred remains of an ancient book.

‘Oh, look!’ She showed it to Sandford. ‘It’s his family bible—how awful! His whole history written off in a single stroke.’

She placed what was left of the ruined volume reverently on the stone windowsill and, as she did so, a withered blossom fluttered from between its leaves. Harriet caught the faded, almost transparent pressing in the palm of her hand and stared down at it bleakly.

Sandford could see the tears trickling down her cheeks and stepped hastily towards her.

‘Please don’t distress yourself,’ he said, holding out his hands. ‘I should not have brought you here—I hadn’t realised it would be so—you are recalling parallels, I imagine?’

Harriet nodded. ‘As you say, my lord.’ There was a catch in her throat and she smiled tremulously at him as he once again applied his handkerchief to her face. What a watering-pot you must think me!’

‘You never allow me to tell you what I think of you,’ brusquely returned his lordship, resignedly pocketing his damp accessory. ‘What have you got there?’ He pointed to her hand.

She showed him the pressed flower, then looked at him in sudden inspiration. ‘Do you have a card-case with you, my lord?’

Sandford frowned and nodded. ‘Of course,’ he said, patting his breast pocket. ‘Why do you ask—you surely do not require me to leave a calling-card here?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ sighed Harriet patiently, as though to a child. ‘I need to keep this memento safe for Mr Potter. You can slip it carefully between your cards until we return to Beldale—then I shall think of something.’

‘Yes, I’m sure you will,’ said Sandford, eyeing the relic in distaste, but he handed over his card-case as requested and watched in amused silence as Harriet gently placed the ancient favour between its folds and tucked it into her reticule.

The return journey to Beldale was accomplished without incident. The interchanges between them were friendly and relaxed and when Harriet mentioned that she would be riding with Judith early the following morning Sandford, anxious to avoid damaging the fragile tenure of their newly forged relationship, forbore from insisting that she should take a groom.