The Passionate Prude

by Elizabeth Thornton

  After dinner, leaving the men to their port in the dining room, the ladies retired to Serena’s dressing room, where Serena collapsed upon a stuffed chintz chair, folded her arms across her chest without a word, and elevated her delicate black brows. A smile lurked in the depths of her eyes, however, robbing her threatening posture of any genuine displeasure.

  “You must find my actions a trifle inconsistent,” Deirdre ventured when she saw that Serena was determined to put her on the defensive.

  “Totally incomprehensible,” intoned Serena with unrelenting severity, and then spoiled the effect by smiling fondly at Deirdre. “Ninnyhammer! Don’t you think I know you’ve been fighting your attraction to Gareth Cavanaugh since we made our bows together as schoolroom misses?”

  “How could you know such a thing? I never said anything to you.”

  “That’s how I knew, dunce! It was so out of character. Every other one of our beaux was fair game for examining under a microscope. The laughs we used to have at their expense! It really wasn’t kind in us to hold them up to ridicule, even if it was merely girlish mischief and we did it only in private. But Gareth Cavanaugh was off limits from the very beginning, as I recall.”

  “You exaggerate,” said Deirdre distantly. “It was only that Gareth’s foibles didn’t lend themselves to being made light of.”

  “You mean his reputation, of course? That doesn’t signify. Reggie explained it to me. He says that Rathbourne’s sin in the eyes of the ton was in thumbing his nose at them. He didn’t give a fig for public opinion, and could not be forgiven for it. But I’ve told you that before. So! You’ve finally come to your senses! Do you know, I was beginning to think that you were too dense to see that you were meant for each other? How did he manage to persuade you?”

  Deirdre blushed to the roots of her hair, and began to stammer out an incoherent explanation. Serena took pity on her friend and broke in with a twinkle, “I’m sure, I’m sorry I asked. No, don’t roast me, Dee. My morals are not in question. And to think my grandmother always held you up as a pattern card of morality. Shame on you, Deirdre! Which brings me to something else. How came you to be on such familiar terms with the Uxbridges—I mean of course, the Angleseys? What a turnabout after what you last said to me about their affair.”

  Deirdre shook her head and grinned ruefully. She did not know what answer to make, and delayed by taking a turn around the room before sitting herself on the stool at Serena’s dressing table. “I can’t explain what I don’t understand myself,” she said frankly. “I used to think I knew the difference between right and wrong. Now I’m not so sure. How can I be the judge of something I know nothing about? I can only say that the Angleseys are amongst the kindest people I have ever known, and I think that the shabby way Lady Char has been treated is the worst kind of hypocrisy. I’ve given up thinking I have all the answers, I suppose. It’s made me think I may have been wrong about lots of things.”

  There was something in Deirdre’s voice that gave Serena occasion for pause. She studied her friend closely, then said in a gentle tone, “Your stepfather, for instance?”

  “Perhaps. Children see everything in black and white. I never tried to understand his position. And now it’s too late. I know that he wasn’t happy, either with us or without us. But oh, how I loved him! No, I am not ready to forgive him yet. Not yet. Now,” said Deirdre on a brighter note, “tell me about you and yours.”

  It was Armand who pushed for their removal to Belmont. Deirdre would have been happy to delay their departure indefinitely. Once the decision was taken, however, she resigned herself to her unhappy fate, but she saw no reason why Armand should share it. To every persuasion of his sister that he go home to Marcliff, however, Armand was adamantly opposed. He said that he was done with acting the fool, that he had given his guardian his word to follow his wishes to the letter, and that was the end of it. As they set out for Warwickshire in one of Serena’s well-sprung carriages with borrowed coachmen, Deirdre wondered if Armand’s newly acquired docility had anything to do with Lady Caro’s being in residence at Belmont. She hoped that it had not, but feared the worst.

  It was pitch black when the coach pulled up a little ways from the dimly lit entrance to Belmont, and it was evident that they were not expected. Few lights shone from the forbidding dark walls, and the massive carved doors stood bolted against them. Deirdre and Armand descended from the carriage and, telling the coachmen to wait, crossed over a narrow cobbled bridge.

  “You did send word that we were arriving today?” asked Armand as he looked doubtfully at the huge scarred doors which barred their entrance.

  “Naturally,” responded Deirdre. “Serena sent off one of her grooms with my letter the day before yesterday. This welcome must be deliberate. There’s no love lost, as I hear, between Rathbourne and his mother. No doubt, she lumps me with him.”

  Armand patted Deirdre on the cheek with brotherly affection. “Too bad that old battle-ax doesn’t know that she is dealing with a veteran of Waterloo. I can almost feel sorry for her.”

  “Break the door down, Armand,” said Deirdre dryly, and she calmly stripped the kid gloves from her fingers.

  Armand obligingly banged the knocker on the door, and after an interval, it swung open. Deirdre sailed past a sleepy night porter and entered a dark tunnel which gave onto an immense grassy courtyard.

  “Good God!” said Armand at Deirdre’s elbow. “I think it’s a castle, or some such thing. That little bridge we crossed must have been over a moat. Poor Dee! You didn’t know, did you?”

  “Of course I didn’t,” she snapped irritably, “and if Rathbourne thinks I am going to make my home in a fortress, he’d best think again.”

  They pressed the reluctant night porter into service and, after some delay, were ushered across the courtyard to another set of doors which led into the great stone-flagged hall of the Castle of Belmont.

  “Ad altiora tendo—I aim for higher things, the Rathbourne motto,” said Armand by way of explanation as he examined the Rathbourne shield and crest above the ornately carved oak fireplace which could, thought Deirdre, quite easily have roasted a couple of oxen at one go.

  “Can you imagine this place in winter?” she asked with unfeigned horror as she took in the vast interior with several suits of armor displayed in various corners.

  “Is that a horse?” she said in awe, and moved to a huge window alcove where a stuffed destrier with full battle regalia, including silver breastplate and headpiece with black plumes, stood poised as if ready to charge.

  “This place must be the armory.” Armand spoke with mingled admiration and amusement as he took in the blackened armor and antiquated weapons which adorned the stone walls. “What a collection!”

  “This isn’t a home, it’s a museum,” said Deirdre, and sniffed her displeasure.

  “Now mind your manners, Dee, or you’ll find yourself confined to the dungeons. I say, I wonder where they are? What fun we shall have here.”

  Before they could speculate further, however, Guy Landron came down the stairs, his face a picture of consternation.

  “Lady Rathbourne! Welcome to Belmont,” he said, and using his cane, deftly crossed the space between them. He took both Deirdre’s hands in his. Armand’s presence he acknowledged with a curt nod of the head but an affably uttered, “St. Jean, good to see you again.”

  As they mounted the great staircase to the upstairs library, Landron gave lackeys terse instructions to find and lead the coach into the courtyard, and dispose of the baggage in appropriate bedrooms which had been made ready weeks before. The housekeeper, a slight nonentity of a woman who looked as if she might be frightened of her own shadow, went off muttering under her breath to procure a pot of tea and a cold collation for the weary travelers.

  As Landron ushered brother and sister into the library he asked, “Why didn’t you send word that you were arriving today?”

  They entered a charmingly appointed saloon.

  “I thought
I did,” said Deirdre mildly.

  Her feet sank into the plush pile of a luxurious Axminster carpet, and she noted with approval that the stone walls were generously hung with various tapestries. Of books there was nary a sign.

  “What a charming and unusual library,” she intoned politely.

  A small movement drew her eyes to two ladies who reclined in Jacobean armchairs flanking the cavernous grate. The younger laid aside her embroidery and rose to her feet. Her golden gaze alighted on Deirdre briefly, then locked on the darkly handsome young man at her back. It was Deirdre who broke the charged silence.

  She ignored Lady Caro and addressed herself to her mother-in-law. “Mother Rathbourne, how good of you to wait up for me!” She swept into the room and kissed the Dowager Countess on both cheeks. A pair of astute amber eyes gave her a level look, neither overt hostility nor friendliness revealed in their tawny depths.

  “So you’re the girl Rathbourne finally settled on,” said the Dowager, her quick eyes taking in Deirdre from the tip of her disheveled bonnet which had lost its feather to the scuffed half boots which covered Deirdre’s travel dusty feet. “You’re not in his usual style, are you? Oh, don’t look daggers at me! I assure you, I’ve paid you a compliment. I don’t know what I expected, but I’m more relieved than I can say to find that you’re a lady. You wouldn’t believe the trollops he’s tried to palm off on me…”

  Landron coughed and made as if to interrupt her ladyship’s diatribe. She rounded on him.

  “Oh, don’t get your bowels in an uproar, Guy. I shan’t eat the girl. And as for you two children,” she went on caustically, riveting Armand and Caro in turn with a piercing look, “you can stop making sheep’s eyes at each other behind my back. If you want my opinion, Rathbourne wants his head examined having you both under the same roof. I warned him at the outset that all the Cavanaughs were sensualists, but when did he ever listen to a word I had to say?”

  Armand’s shoulders shook, and Lady Caro said, “Mama,” in a strangled undertone.

  For the next half hour or so, the Dowager Countess rattled on in the same vein as the late arrivals availed themselves of the leftovers of what had evidently been an atrocious dinner. It did not surprise Deirdre that the dishes were generously heaped. The food was inedible.

  Mr. Landron tried without much success to break into Lady Rathbourne’s long litany of complaints, but Deirdre waved him to silence and heard them out with as much interest as patience. When she had finally satisfied the pangs of hunger and dabbed her lips delicately with the linen napkin, she said commiseratingly, “I don’t doubt that Rathbourne has much to answer for. He never listens to me either. As for the servants, now that there are two Lady Rathbournes to direct them, I’m perfectly sure that we can make them toe the line, and if not, then we shall simply get rid of them.”

  “Get rid of them? Don’t think I wouldn’t like to make a clean sweep of the lot of them. I only put up with them at Rathbourne’s express command. I have no authority, as you’ll soon find out.”

  “Nonsense,” said Deirdre briskly. “We act first, and ask Rathbourne’s permission afterward.”

  A slight coughing at the door brought all heads round. An old man with bald pate and bent shoulders stood on the threshold. In his frail hands, which shook alarmingly, he held a tarnished silver tray with one solitary letter upon it. It took a minute for it to register on Deirdre’s mind that the threadbare rags on his back were the livery of the House of Rathbourne.

  “Yes, Beecham, what is it?” asked Lady Rathbourne at the top of her lungs, and waved him in with a frantic gesture.

  Beecham entered and tendered the tray to his mistress.

  Deirdre recognized the writing on the note and said, “Don’t trouble to read it. I know the contents. It’s the letter I sent by special courier informing you that Armand and I should arrive this evening. I wonder why it was delayed?” She looked questioningly at the butler.

  “No good asking Beecham. He’s as deaf as a doornail. You see how it is.”

  “Then we shall have to get by with lip reading,” said Deirdre with awful finality, “or Beecham will have to go.” She looked the old retainer straight in the eyes and said very softly, “Thank you, Beecham. That will be all.”

  He stood hesitating for a long, uncertain moment, then bowed and shuffled out of the room. Armand dissolved into fits of laughter.

  Deirdre bent a quelling look on her brother and rose to her feet in one graceful movement. “Lady Rathbourne, would you be so kind as to give me your arm and show me to my rooms? Guy, I leave you in charge of the children. Give them five minutes alone then conduct them to their respective chambers. I think we owe them that much,” she said quickly before Rathbourne’s mother could voice a protest. “And Guy, I trust that their quarters are in different wings of the house? If not, perhaps you could have one of the servants see to it? It’s no good looking at me like that, children. I quite agree with my goodmother. Rathbourne’s wits must have gone abegging when he permitted you two to live under the same roof.”

  The Dowager Countess looked with new respect at Deirdre. “Do you know, gooddaughter, I have the happy presentiment that you are the best thing that has happened to the House of Cavanaugh since Charles the Second elevated the fifth baron to the earldom.”

  “Thank you,” said Deirdre. “I hope you are of the same mind in a month or so when I have turned Belmont inside out. Oh, by the way, Guy, I should like to meet with all the servants in the Great Hall tomorrow morning, particularly cook and Beecham. Would you see to it for me? Shall we say eight o’clock? And of course, Mother Rathbourne, I shall want you by my side. We shall begin as we mean to go on.”

  Guy Landron looked appreciatively at the new mistress of Belmont. The running of Rathbourne’s house had always been the domain of the Earl’s mother, and so the old housekeeper had told him, she had done well enough until the estrangement with her son. After that, the servants had taken advantage like naughty children playing one parent off against the other. Rathbourne’s five-year stint with the army had only aggravated matters, and Lady Rathbourne had all but resigned herself to the shoddy service which had become the mark of her servants. Landron thought that it looked to be an interesting week or two before his employer returned home.

  He shut the door to the library very softly, and began a slow tour of the gallery which overlooked the Great Hall. He too wondered at Rathbourne’s logic in having St. Jean at Belmont when anyone could see how his presence affected Lady Caro. Young they might be, but there was nothing childish about the looks they gave each other. He hoped Deirdre could handle her brother, for he didn’t much like the thought of playing nursemaid to two naughty children until their guardian should take charge.

  On the other side of the library door, Lady Caro had just turned on a brilliant smile with which she hoped to dazzle Armand. “You’re cross with me,” she said pettishly when she saw that he was not susceptible to her lures.

  Armand negligently crossed one booted foot over the other and brought his fingertips to drum absently against each other. “You’re damned right I’m cross with you. D’you realize how nearly your brother came to murdering me? What the devil possessed you to perpetrate that lie? There was no secret betrothal between us, and you know it.”

  “Well, what do you call it when a gentleman kisses a girl passionately, yes, and other things as well which I shan’t mention, and tells her that he loves her to distraction?”

  “I call it damned stupid!” He jumped to his feet and came to tower over her. He was struck, as he had been the first time he had ever set eyes on her, by the glorious tawny coloring. She looked like a young leopardess who had just caught a whiff of danger. Her eyes slanted up at him, watchful and wary. His voice gentled. “How could you possibly have thought that I had made you pregnant? Caro, I hardly touched you.”

  “It’s all very well saying that now,” she answered crossly, “but how was I to know? No one ever told me that that was how a man go
t a woman with child. To be frank, I don’t think I want babies, no, not even yours.”

  “I could make you change your mind very easily,” he drawled with a suggestive smile, then suddenly recalling himself, “but that’s not the point. Your brother was convinced that I’d ruined you! He could have killed me! How on earth could you have been so careless as to let your mother get hold of that letter?”

  “I had nothing to do with it. I gave it to Tony, and he left it lying around. Mama recognized the writing, and the rest you can imagine. She sent him off to Brussels, and I was incarcerated here at Belmont to await my brother’s pleasure. Oh, don’t look so stricken. Gareth never could gainsay me anything I wanted. He’ll come round in time.”

  He shook his head as if he could not believe that anyone could be so obtuse. “How can I make you understand? I told you then as I tell you now, Rathbourne will never consent to our marriage.”

  “Did you ask him?”

  “Of course I didn’t ask him! I’m not stupid. What have I got to offer a girl in your position? I must have been mad to reply to your letters. Tony should never have agreed to act as our go-between. How did you get him to do it?”

  Caro made no response to his question but put out one hand and caught him by the sleeve. “Armand, it’s no good taking on so.” She pulled herself to her feet and stood gazing up at him, her eyes tear-bright and darkening to sable. Her hands moved to his shoulders. “My dear, I mean to have you, and that’s all there is to it,” she said simply.

  “And what about your betrothal?” He was weakening and damn if that languorous smile on her lips didn’t prove that she knew it.

  “What betrothal?” she asked huskily.

  “Tony said that you were on the point of accepting one of your many offers.”

  “No, dear, Mama was on the point of accepting one of my many offers. That’s why I made up the story about our prior engagement. Were you jealous?” She flicked back a dark lock of hair that had fallen across his forehead.