Celia had been cringing with guilt, prepared to grovel at his feet and beg his forgiveness, but that riled her. She crawled over to the edge of the loft and glared down at him. “I know about men like you. You seduce innocent girls, force them to your will, then blame them.” He was no different from Francis Featherbrain, only older and not fictional. And probably taller. And not stupid.
“I beg to inform you, madam,” he sputtered, “that I have never forced a woman, neither have I seduced an innocent, in my entire life. And I certainly wouldn’t have seduced you—and I beg leave to dispute that I was the seducer—had I not believed us to be betrothed.” He put his hand on his hips. “Why did you do it? To trap me into marriage? Well, madam, you fail. I refuse to fall victim to your scheme.”
Celia wanted to scratch his eyes out. Tarquin Compton had returned just as supercilious and nasty as he’d ever been. What a fool she was to believe him different, to fancy herself in love. The man she’d fallen for, Terence Fish, had never existed.
“Your arrogance is overweening,” she said, low and deadly. “How could any woman want to live with a man like you? I’d sooner starve than marry you.”
He raised his hands in clawed supplication to some higher power. “Then why in the name of all that’s holy did you claim we were engaged?”
“Because I needed your help getting away from my kidnapper.”
“And you didn’t think I’d give it unless you made up your farrago of nonsense?”
“No,” she said bluntly. “You never seemed like the kind of man who would help a stranger.”
“An outrageous conclusion to make about a gentleman.” His eyes narrowed. “And why choose such a ludicrous name for me? That, madam, has the odor of spite.”
“Well, Mr. Tarquin High-and-Mighty Lord-of-All-He-Surveys Compton. Maybe it was spite and maybe it was fair recompense. You never remembered my name, not once in all the times we were introduced in London. Not even when you destroyed my prospects and doomed me to a life of drudgery as a governess.”
“What nonsense! You became a governess because your uncle failed to change his will. Unless you lied about that too.”
“I would have married Mr. Jocelyn if it wasn’t for you.”
“John Jocelyn? He’s a pompous fool. No one would want to marry him.”
“Mr. Jocelyn,” she said with a complete disregard for truth, “is a man of good sense and character and I would have been proud to be his wife. But he never offered because you told him I looked like a cauliflower.”
“You did look like a cauliflower and you still do.”
That was enough! Celia let out a squeal of rage and would have stalked out of the barn, except she was perched on the edge of the hayloft.
She gritted her teeth and prepared to drop. “I’m coming down. Get out of the way.”
But instead of moving, he held up his arms, caught her, and lowered her gently to the ground. For a moment he was Terence again, strong, gentle, and chivalrous. But Terence was dead and Tarquin was only strong. The touch that made her chest thump and her skin tingle was devoid of inner softness: his heart was as hard as his muscles. Once she was safe on the floor he released her and folded his arms over his chest.
“I’m leaving,” she said, gathering up her blanket and heading for the exit without bothering to say thank you.
“You have nowhere to go.”
“I’ll find Mrs. Stewart on my own. Or I’ll return to Joe. He appreciated me.”
She pushed open the door and was greeted by a howling gale and sheets of rain. So intent had she been on their quarrel she’d ignored the thunderstorm that raged without.
“Don’t be a fool. You can’t go out in this weather. Besides, what about the kidnapper and his cohort? There’s no reason to think they’ve given up the pursuit.”
Undecided, she stood and let the rain blow in and wet her shift.
“I am not the kind of man who abandons a woman to her fate, even if she is a stranger.”
“I don’t want to marry you.” She continued to stare out at the sodden landscape.
“I don’t want to marry you, and I won’t,” he said. “Unless you are enceinte. Did you even consider that outcome? But I’m not leaving you until you find your father’s friend. That would be the act of a scoundrel.”
She should, she supposed, be glad he was prepared to stand by her if she was with child. Any impulse to gratitude was quashed by the condescension of the offer. Both offers. They were inspired by pride and the need to do right in the eyes of others. For the opinion of the ton was what mattered most to a dandy and Tarquin Compton was the consummate dandy. He’d do nothing—father a child out of wedlock or leave a helpless woman—that would expose him to worldly censure.
Much as she’d like to spit in his eye, she had to be sensible. “Thank you. I accept.”
“Good. Now that nonsense is out of the way, shut the rain out.”
The crude planks were heavy and the door had blown wide open until it banged against the stone wall of the barn. Already wet, she didn’t hesitate to step out, but the wind was too strong. She couldn’t move it.
“Get inside,” he yelled over the storm. “I’ll do it.”
She continued to tug but her fingers kept slipping on the wooden latch. He came out to help and they stood, each naked from mid-thigh and below, as water soaked through the linen of her shift and his smock.
He wasn’t helping her. Instead he gazed out at the hills, rain plastering his hair flat and making his forehead gleam. She yelled something and he came to his senses. Together they backed into the barn, dragging the door with them. It slammed shut to leave them in eerie quiet.
A sweep of hands over his head wiped the water from his short hair. Hers hung in wet matted hanks. At least the powdery dust would have washed out. Her blanket, luckily, she’d dropped on her way out and it was only a little damp. She wrapped it around her like a shawl and shivered. She’d been stupid to attempt to leave. Not only were they stranded in a barn together, barely on speaking terms, they were also likely to catch a chill. Yet Mr. Compton looked less angry than he had since regaining his memory, and also less human. She wasn’t sure how he managed it, something about the way he held his head at a slight angle, his chin tilted upward and his eyes peering down his aquiline nose at her. Mr. Tarquin Compton, the terror of the ton, was back.
“I know where we are,” he said, the ice in his voice matching that in his eyes. “I recognize the landscape. We’re on my land, less than a mile from my house at Revesby.”
“Joe said Stonewick was near Revesby.”
“Three miles away. As soon as it stops raining we’ll go home and I shall take you to your friend by carriage. I shall remain in the neighborhood until you know whether you are with child.”
She understood the unspoken corollary: if she wasn’t he’d never willingly see her again.
His valet stropped the razor to a fine edge and applied it to Tarquin’s face, warm and softened from his bath. With deft passes over lathered cheeks and jaw, upper lip and chin, his three-day shadow was scraped away. As each stroke of the blade left a path of smooth skin, Tarquin felt Terence Fish recede into history. The man who had walked barefoot, tickled for trout, brawled with a yokel, and fallen in love with an impertinent governess disappeared with his beard. By the time the servant rubbed a soothing tonic into his skin, all that remained of him was black bristles wiped onto a white towel.
A clean shirt of finest linen lay soft and crisp against his skin, so different from the crude homespun smock. Taking the strip of starched muslin draped over the valet’s arm, Tarquin began the practiced ritual. As he wound it twice about his neck and tied the elaborate knot, arranging the folds so they framed his clean chin in frothy precision, a pang of regret assailed him, a fleeting dread that he returned to prison and the neck cloth was a chained collar.
He shook off the fanciful illusion. “Waistcoat,” he said.
And with each garment and layer he felt more him
self until Tarquin Compton, the best-dressed man in England, stood before the cheval glass in all his tastefully restrained magnificence. One last twitch to the cravat, an adjustment of his cuff, and he was ready. Once he left the room, confident in the perfection of his dress, he wouldn’t give it another thought. Man and appearance were united in aesthetic harmony.
Chapter 14
You cannot always rely on the kindness of strangers.
“Forgive me, Miss Seaton,” he said, “for conveying you in a closed carriage. It isn’t quite proper.”
Celia took a sidelong glance to see if he was joking. The words were the first he’d spoken to her since leaving the barn that weren’t necessary to the practicalities of consigning her to the care of his housekeeper and finding her something to wear. Her bath had been blissful and she should be grateful. But he probably wouldn’t have let her have it, she thought darkly, except that he wouldn’t wish to share a carriage with a woman who reeked of sweat and sheep. Then she thought of presenting herself at a strange lady’s house in her state of dirt and managed to scrape up a little gratitude, mostly to the servant who’d carried the cans of hot water upstairs.
In contrast to the elderly carriage, exhumed from the Revesby stables and still bearing traces of cobwebs around the windows, he was impeccably dressed in buff trousers, glossy Hessian boots, and a blue coat that fit his powerful shoulders like a glove. Beneath his high crowned hat his face, shaved of every trace of bristle, seemed harsh, almost ascetic.
Mr. Compton did not appear to appreciate the irony of his remarks. Since arriving at Revesby Hall he’d been very much Mr. Compton. Not Tarquin and most certainly not Terence. “Your dress is somewhat eccentric and your situation irregular. It would be better if you were not seen in my company.”
“Compared to the eccentricity of my dress and irregularity of my situation in the past three days, I would call myself a model of decorum.”
“I am thinking of your reputation. I believe I can trust the discretion of my staff. My valet I can vouch for and the Wardles have been with my family for decades and they are the only servants in residence at Revesby. Luckily Yorkshire folk do not in general care for gossip.”
Celia would have liked to make a joke about Joe, but he looked so forbidding. She stiffened her spine and resisted intimidation. She had seen this man in the most undignified circumstances. She’d rather not think about how he looked in the grip of ecstasy; that incident needed to be forgotten. But she did think about him standing in the stream with his tiddly little pillock. He didn’t have to be so superior.
Yes, she’d behaved badly. But it was clear to her now that Tarquin Compton was just as unpleasant as she’d always believed. It mitigated her guilt and made her deeply thankful that she’d most likely never have to see him again.
Please, please, she prayed. Let Mrs. Stewart be home and still willing to offer her assistance.
Mr. Compton perhaps shared her thoughts. “Tell me about Mrs. Stewart,” he said. “I know you have never met the lady, but how much do you know of her?”
“Until two months ago I was unaware of her existence. I received a letter from her offering me a home. She claimed to be the widow of an old friend of my father’s from India who had learned of my misfortunes.”
“Did your father have many friends you never met?”
Celia chose her words carefully. “We lived in a small place with few English, and my father traveled on business a good deal. So yes, I imagine he must have. I was a trifle surprised he’d never mentioned Mr. Stewart, but it’s not impossible and I might have forgotten.”
“Why did you refuse? Not,” he said grimly, “because you had just become betrothed to Terence Fish.”
“No,” she said, hiding her trepidation at revealing one of those little facts she’d kept to herself. “But I was engaged to my employer, Mr. Baldwin.”
She turned her head away and spoke so softly Tarquin wasn’t sure he’d heard her. “What did you say?”
“I was engaged to Mr. Baldwin.”
Of course, he thought. Another surprise courtesy of Celia Seaton, and something told him it wouldn’t be the last. The girl was proving to be a congenital liar. “No wonder he was upset at finding a man in your room.”
“There’s no need to be disagreeable. It’s not as though I let him in.” Since she wore no bonnet, he saw indignation possess her features. “My goodness! You don’t believe me. I told you the truth about that. Constantine was not my lover.”
He knew that. He knew she’d been a virgin. His responsibility for the loss of her maidenhead hung heavy on his conscience, however often he told himself it was as much her fault as his.
“Did you love him? Mr. Baldwin?”
“No. He only offered because he had four sons and I was the first governess who could manage them. He didn’t want to lose me. His sister, however, hated me. She persuaded him I was guilty.”
Why he should be glad she hadn’t loved her betrothed, he wasn’t sure. Why should he even care? Yet he wondered what the man looked like, and whether she’d ever kissed him.
She continued her story. “I wrote to thank Mrs. Stewart for her kindness and told her of my good fortune and she replied with her felicitations. Her letter was stolen with the rest of my belongings, but I remember the address. Moorland House, Stonewick.”
“Let’s hope she’s still living there.”
She wasn’t. Moorland House, a respectable stone house on the High Street, was empty. Inquiry at the inn quickly revealed that the most recent tenant had taken a year’s lease, but stayed only a month or two before leaving with no forwarding address. Yes, said the publican. Mrs. Stewart was her name. He thought it just about two months ago she left.
Another strange occurrence related to Celia Seaton and not, Tarquin would wager good money, a coincidence.
Chapter 15
A lady should never leave her chamber improperly dressed.
He finally got rid of his land agent, who had joined him at the breakfast table. Tarquin didn’t want Truman to know of the existence of Celia, let alone that she’d spent the night under his roof.
The man had been worried when Tarquin went missing. But instead of instituting discreet inquiries, Truman had gone too far. Learning the Duke and Duchess of Amesbury were in residence at Castle Hartley, some ten miles away, he’d sent Tarquin’s uncle a message.
It wasn’t the duke so much as the duchess. Tarquin shuddered to think what she’d do if she got wind of this escapade. Finding a solution to the problem of Celia was now urgent.
The only thing he could think of was to throw himself on the mercy of Lady Iverley, his best friend’s new bride. Diana was kindness itself and Tarquin didn’t think she’d refuse to help. His head ached a little. He found he still had some gaps in his memory, mostly relating to recent, and he hoped relatively trivial, matters. One of these was the exact location of the Iverleys. Sebastian’s family seat was in Northumberland but they also owned a house in Kent. He’d better send letters to both places right away.
He got up to pour himself more tea and found the pot almost cold. He preferred coffee in the morning, but Mrs. Wardle’s notion of the beverage was undrinkable. He’d wait and order a fresh pot when Celia appeared. His unwelcome guest was in a spare bedroom, presumably enjoying a prolonged sleep, though not that of the innocent. His own rest, despite exhaustion and the joy of a feather bed, had been disturbed by the dozen difficulties she presented. Her lack of suitable clothing, for instance. The girl had nothing, not a thread to her name aside from that tattered shift. His mother’s twenty-year-old ball gowns, the only feminine garments in the house, fit her well enough, but she couldn’t be seen abroad in them. The throb in his brain intensified.
The previous day’s storm had abated the heat only for a few hours and the sunshine brightened the dining room. Like most of the seventeenth-century house, with the exception of a fine wood carved mantelpiece in the drawing room, the decoration was plain but well executed: white
painted paneling setting off bad ancestral portraits and agreeable landscapes, and solid, unpretentious furniture. As a child he’d often eaten here since his parents liked to share the morning meal with their children.
The sounds of birdsong through the open windows were interrupted by the crunch of carriage wheels on the gravel. Rising to look, a quick glance identified the crest on the carriage door and the passengers within. Much to his disgust, the duchess had accompanied her husband.
With Wardle away from the house on an errand and Mrs. Wardle in the kitchen quarters, there was no one to answer the door and Tarquin had no intention of doing it himself. But that wouldn’t keep the duchess out for long. Sure enough, he heard her harrumphing her way through the hall, opening and slamming the doors of empty rooms while her mild-mannered husband offered unheeded demurs. All too soon she made her way to the dining room.
As a child Tarquin had been terrified of her. She reminded him of a parrot belonging to a friend of his mother’s: sharp and beaky with clashing plumage, ready to peck a boy’s eyes out when disgruntled. Considering his aunt’s ghastly taste in clothes, Tarquin never understood why she was the one person in the world who made him feel like a scrubby schoolboy. Perhaps because when he’d first come to live with her at Amesbury House, the ducal mansion in London, that’s what he’d been.
“So you’re here,” she snapped without preamble. “That fool of a man of yours said you were missing.”
Tarquin rose politely at her entrance. He’d given up offering her verbal defiance when he discovered she reveled in the excuse to retaliate. She’d hadn’t owned the right to chastise him for many years, but his flawless demeanor always irked her, along with the power and respect it had won him among her peers.
And he never traduced her. Her dress sense, for example, would be an easy target for his wit. If he wanted he could have all of London repeating a bon mot about the imperial taste in color that matched her nature. She knew it, too, and must wonder why he never attacked her. He was rarely tempted anymore. His disdain and loathing were too great. A playful epithet on her person would be like fighting a tiger with a chicken skin fan.
The Amorous Education of Celia Seaton (Burgundy Club) Page 10