Anne Barbour (3 page)

Hester smiled tightly. “Entertaining is not perhaps the
mot juste
, Larkie. This gentleman—”

But Miss Larkin’s mind had leaped to what appeared to be a critical flaw in the scene before her. She smiled nervously. “Perkins, why have you not brought tea?” She then stared, aghast, as the serving maid burst into tears.

Another fairly lengthy interval passed before Miss Larkin was put in possession of the facts.

“Merciful Heavens!” she gasped at last. “Why, the little minx lied to me! She said she was the daughter of a family fallen on hard times, just moved into a neighboring village.”

“I’m so sorry, Miss Blayne.” The girl sobbed. “I was afraid if I just walked up to the front door and told you who I was, you would simply have returned me to my guardian.” She flung a bitter glance at the earl. “I thought that if I could obtain a position here, I could—well, make myself indispensable—and become your friend, and—” At that point, Chloe was once more overcome by her emotions, and broke out anew in a noisy flood of tears.

Thorne was beginning to feel as though in the space of an hour he had stepped from his neat, ordered world into a universe inhabited by lunatics. He roused himself from the numb disbelief into which he had sunk. Rising, he moved to his ward, grasped her arm, and pulled her down to a settee beside him.

“Now, see here, my girl,” he barked, shaking her slightly. “This will not do. It’s all very well to apologize to Miss Blayne, but what about me? What about Aunt Lavinia? Did you give any thought to us? No, of course you did not. You simply wove your ludicrous plot and carried it out regardless of the consequences. Now, go upstairs and gather your belongings and we will—” He stopped, suddenly aware that his acerbic discourse was not having the desired effect. Beside him, Chloe had stiffened alarmingly, and across the room. Miss Blayne and her companion were staring at him with undisguised hostility.

“Do you see how I am beset?” cried Chloe to Miss Blayne. “Oh, please, ma’am, may I not stay with you?”

The feminist transferred a startled gaze to Chloe.

“My dear, I find myself in utmost sympathy with your predicament, for”—she turned to glare once again at Thorne—”for, in my opinion, your guardian is one of the most odious men I have ever met. However,” she continued in the face of Thorne’s burgeoning protest, “if he is, in truth, your legal guardian—

“What do you mean, ‘in truth’?” The words burst from Thorne in a torrent. “Of course, I am her guardian! Or,” he finished sarcastically, “are you accusing me of plotting to kidnap the little twit? I should imagine that line of thought would greatly appeal to a female scribbler of absurd notions.”

For a moment Thorne thought Miss Blayne would fly up from her chair and strike him. Her cheeks reddened and her slender fingers curled into fists. In the next moment, however, taking a deep breath, she relaxed.

“No, I believe you are truly responsible for Miss Venable, unfortunately for her.” She turned her gaze once again. “My dear,” she said to the still-sobbing girl. “All I can tell you is to hold fast to your ideals. You will not be in this man’s thrall forever. In the meantime, if he is actually being cruel to you, you must tell me, and we shall call in the authorities. I am not without some influence in these matters, and I will help you.”

Under Thorne’s appalled gaze, she crossed the room to sit beside Chloe, taking the girl’s hand in hers and staring earnestly into her face.

Evidently, this suggestion was too much even for Chloe’s exaggerated sensibilities, for she jumped a little.

“Oh, no,” she said, blushing. “He does not beat me—or anything like that.”

For a fleeting instant, Thorne beheld an odd expression in Miss Blayne’s eyes—one almost of satisfaction. Could she have been leading Chloe on to an admission that her situation was not as desperate as she had led her hostess to believe?

“But,” continued Chloe in a rush, “he is forcing me to marry a man I cannot love!”

“What?” gasped Miss Blayne and her companion in unison, and Chloe shot her guardian a triumphant glance.

“Of course,” snarled Thorne. “In order to secure her vast fortune, I have promised this innocent young bud to an elderly reprobate. The man is two-and-eighty years old, toothless and spavined. He drinks heavily and has already driven three wives to their graves, but he is immensely wealthy and has promised a handsome settlement on the day he weds my ward, thus saving me from debtors’ prison. I gamble, you know. I can only regret that I do not possess a mustache that I could twirl for your edification.”

On the settee, Hester’s lips twitched. “Very well, my lord, we will concede that you are not a villain from one of those wretched novels put out by the Minerva Press.”

“Oh, no,” interposed Chloe. “That is, Mr. Wery, the man Uncle Thorne chose for me is not old or wicked, or any of those other ridiculous things he said. I suppose, in fact, he’s a very nice man. The point is, I do not love him, and cannot envision spending the rest of my life with him.”

“Love!” snorted the earl.

Hester raised her brows.

“You do not approve of love, my lord?” she asked innocently.

“I simply do not believe it. At least, not the fairy-tale version that my ward seems to dream about. I believe that marriage should be based on a sensible agreement between two people and their families.”

Chloe simply looked at Hester, lifted her eyes heavenward, and shrugged her shoulders.

“I see,” Hester said. Gracious, what a perfectly ghastly fellow he was. “And is that how you chose your wife?”

“I?” asked Thorne, startled. “I am not married—nor do I plan to fall prey to parson’s mousetrap in the foreseeable future.”

Chloe dimpled. “That’s not what Aunt Augusta says,” she remarked with a twinkle.

“Aunt Augusta is a scheming busybody,” he retorted, then looked about in some embarrassment. “However, that is neither here nor there. Come now, missy. You have imposed for long enough on Miss Blayne’s good nature. Get your things together and let us be on our way.”

Chloe’s features crumpled. “But I do not wish to return home. I want to stay here,” she wailed. “Why cannot I remain—just for a little while?” She whirled toward Hester. “I shan’t be any trouble. In fact, I shall be happy to act as your maidservant. I have so much to learn from you.”

Hester’s impulse was to add her voice to Chloe’s distressful plea, for she understood perfectly the desires that were at work in the girl. Lord knew she had ached to be away from her family when she was that age. One look at the earl’s forbidding features, however, brought her to her sense of duty.

“As I said, my dear, that cannot be. However, I promise to answer any letters you might send, and when you are a little older—

The earl strode forward and took his ward’s hand. “That will be enough, Chloe. We are leaving—now. You may send for your things.”

“No!” cried Chloe dramatically. “Never!” So saying, she wrenched out of her guardian’s grasp and ran from the cottage.

Surprise held Thorne immobile for a moment, but after a startled oath, he bolted in pursuit. Hester hurried after them, trailed by Larkie. Before she reached the open door of the house, however, a sharp sound caught her ears, followed by the sound of a body crashing to earth. Next, a loud “Oof!” reached her, embellished by a stream of curses.

She dashed out of the door to be greeted by the sight of the Earl of Bythorne stretched supine on the brick pathway that led from the front door. Entangled in his feet were the trowel, spade, and gardening fork Hester had dropped upon the earl’s arrival.

Chapter Three

Sometime later, Thorne was ensconced on the little settee in the front room of Hester Blayne’s cottage. His left boot had been removed and his foot was swathed in a cold cloth.

“Nonsense,” he said for the third or fourth time. “I do not need a doctor. I have merely turned my ankle. Now, if you would be good enough to return my boot—

“Young man,” interposed Miss Larkin austerely, “the doctor has already been sent for. You may not have your boot, for your ankle is swollen to twice its normal size. You have clearly suffered a very bad sprain, and there will be no traveling to London for you today.”

Her tone put Thorne so forcibly in mind of his old nurse that he was momentarily silenced. He sent a supplicating glance to Miss Blayne, but received no succor there.

“Indeed, my lord,” she said, “I do apologize again for my carelessness in leaving my gardening tools in the path, and it would be compounding my offense to send you off in such a state. Tomorrow, the swelling will probably have gone down a little, and—

“Tomorrow!” roared the earl. “I cannot possibly stay the night here.” Good God, he thought wildly, he had plans for this evening. He was expected at Desiree’s place. Her name was something of a misnomer, since she was coming up on fifty and weighed close to thirteen stone, but her girls were attractive and clean. He could not possibly undergo a night in a houseful of good women. In the morning, he would no doubt find himself covered with a lace doily and polished with beeswax.

“On the contrary,” retorted Miss Larkin. “You will spend the night here, and after that we shall see what we shall see.”

Incensed, Thorne twisted around to stare at her. “My good woman, I am perfectly capable of looking after myself, and I tell you, I do not choose to stay here!”

Swinging his legs over the edge of the settee, he attempted to stand, only to fall back in an ignominious heap.

Damn! he thought despairingly. It needed but this to set the seal on one of the most wretched days he could remember. If he had brought Williams with him, he could probably have managed, but the only servant on hand was his tiger, a diminutive lad who was far too slight to be of any support going to and from the curricle. He scowled at Chloe, who had returned to the house after becoming aware of her guardian’s mishap. She stood now a little away from the commotion centered on the settee, her blue eyes filled with penitent tears.

“I’m sorry, too, Uncle Thorne. I did not mean that you should pursue me.”

“Tchah!” was Thorne’s only response to this ingenious speech.

The doctor, when he arrived an hour or so later, confirmed Miss Larkin’s diagnosis.

“I think,” he said judiciously after a careful examination of the offending appendage, “that if cold compresses are applied throughout the rest of the day, the swelling might diminish enough for you to depart tomorrow. I shall send along a crutch for you, and with your young servant’s help, you should be able to get home without too great a discomfort.”

With this, Thorne had to be content. The doctor helped him upstairs to Miss Blayne’s guest bedroom, a surprisingly commodious chamber that contained a comfortable bed and was otherwise handsomely furnished.

The doctor assisted him in disrobing, and after he was settled in the bed, garbed in an ill-fitting nightshirt proffered without explanation by Miss Larkin, Thorne sank back into the pillows with a deep sigh.

Downstairs, Hester turned to her companion and uttered a sigh nearly as profound as that of her guest. “Larkie, what can you have been thinking of to invite that man to stay here? He was right, you know. He could have made his way home with the help of his tiger and Miss Venable.”

“Hester, I am shocked.” Miss Larkin’s spectacles bobbed with the violence of her feelings. “You would have me violate the most basic rule of hospitality—turning an injured man out of our home, merely because he presents a slight inconvenience?”

“Slight inconvenience! Larkie, we are not accustomed to entertaining gentlemen. In addition, the earl is one of the most unpleasant of the species I’ve yet encountered. Lord only knows what his demands will be while he’s here.”

“It will only be for one night, my dear,” Miss Larkin reproved gently, “and for that I suppose we must be thankful.” She hesitated. “Lord Bythorne’s reputation is—is not what one would wish in a guest of this house.”

Hester lifted her brows. Larkie had a sister in London who had worked as housekeeper for the Viscount Manning for some years, and was looked on by Larkie as a font of information and gossip. Thus, Miss Larkin considered herself an expert on the foibles of the ton. She pursed her lips. “Not to put too fine a point on it, Hester, the man is the most notorious rake in the country. They say he has conducted illicit affairs with half the married women in London, and has actually fought duels over them. Why, only last year it was said that he had a meeting with Lord Archer—” She caught herself. “Well, that’s neither here nor there. At the moment, he is not a threat to your virtue, at least, nor is he in a position to be demanding anything.”

Hester fell silent, recalling the moment she had ushered the Earl of Bythorne into her home. His presence had seemed to fill the room, exuding an arrogance bred of centuries of privilege and an overpowering maleness that created an odd flutter of panic in the pit of her stomach. She shook herself. What nonsense. She had been dealing with male bombast all her life and she was no green girl to be cowed by the overweening pride of one peer—no matter if he was a registered rake. She sighed.

“You’re right, Larkie. He’s no better nor worse than any other man, I suppose, and he is a guest. I shall go and see what I can do to make him comfortable.”

Her resolution, however, suffered an immediate setback when she reached the bedchamber given over to his lordship. Her soft knock brought a gruff response from within, and she entered to behold the earl propped up on a mound of pillows, glaring at her. Again, she experienced a stir of unease deep within her. Even lying in bed in relative helplessness in a cotton nightshirt, his fashionably styled hair rumpled and a shadow of pain on his features, he reminded her forcibly of a predatory animal—a large, temporarily discommoded creature from the heart of a primeval forest.

Once more, she shook herself free of her fancy.

“Is there anything more we can do for you, my lord? I know you cannot be wholly comfortable right now, but perhaps—would you like something to read?”

The earl grimaced. “An Apologia for Women’s Rights, perhaps?”