by Amanda Scott
He was still determined, if not to overcome his feelings, to control them until such time as he believed it necessary to make her aware of them. It certainly was not necessary now when she had had so little opportunity to find the hero of her dreams. He knew he was not that man. He did not so much as own a white charger, nor did he wish to pursue a career of rescuing damsels in distress. His wife, when he found her, would be content to love him, would perhaps enjoy a hand of cards of an evening or a game of backgammon or chess, if there were no more amusing entertainment at hand, and perhaps would not object to travel, for he certainly intended to visit China again. But she would not, he trusted, have the unsettling impact upon his emotions that Miss Hardy presently seemed to have.
These thoughts passed through his mind in the brief time it took them to reach the door to the library, and by then he had himself in hand again. He paused there, his hand on the door handle, and said quietly, “I am in something of a hurry. Did you wish to speak to me?”
She stared at him, clearly shaken out of her own thoughts. “I … I thought you would want an explanation. I know you were jesting when you suggested an elopement, but you must have wondered why Brandon was carrying me.”
“I supposed he was helping you to keep your feet dry,” he said. “You would both have done better, of course, to have considered how such a scene might have appeared to the servants or to anyone else who might have observed it.”
“Not to you, however,” she said, the tension in her voice making it clear that her temper was on a short rein.
“No, not I,” he said, ignoring an urge to draw her into the library and tell her precisely what he thought. “Is that all?”
“You don’t want to know where we were going?”
“That is not necessary.”
“Not necessary!”
“You didn’t go,” he said matter-of-factly. “Now, if you don’t mind, I was on my way to the stables when I saw you and only came back for a book I promised to take to Sir Percival Melvin, with whom I am dining tonight. He is also a collector and wants my advice regarding some articles he is thinking of selling. In any case, you must be longing to take off your cloak. The smell of damp wool does not become you.”
A moment later, Carolyn found herself alone, glaring at the library door, which had closed rather abruptly behind Sydney.
“Is something wrong, Miss Carolyn?” It was the footman Abel, and he drew back in haste when she whirled abruptly, without altering her expression.
Seeing his reaction, she strove to compose her countenance, and said in a tolerably mild tone, “No, nothing. You may go.”
Why, she wondered as she turned toward the stairs, had she thought Sydney was angry with her? And why, thinking him angry, had she not been distressed, but rather stimulated instead? And why was she angry now, rather than relieved to discover that he was not angry? Having set herself to flirt with him, behaving as foolishly as ever Miss Laura Lovelace or any other of her ilk had done, she had compounded her error when she had turned her wiles upon the royal brothers in order to show him she could manage any man. Then, when she had failed dismally at that venture, was it any wonder that she had expected him to be vexed? But he had scarcely noticed her activities or cared much when he did.
And that, she thought shrewdly as she made her way up the second stairs, was most likely what had cut her to the quick, that added to the sad fact that he had not so much as commented upon her exemplary behavior since their return from Oatlands. It was not, she assured herself, that she had any particular need or desire for his approval. It was just that he might have said something to show that he was at least aware of her efforts.
These thoughts did nothing to pacify her temper, nor did the fact that he had not seemed to care in the slightest when he found her practically being carried off by Mr. Manningford. Indeed, that last thought acted upon her in such a way that by the time she reached her bedchamber door, she was seething, and determined by fair means or foul to make Sydney react in a more predictably male fashion. It was not until she saw Ching Ho moving down the corridor, the hat and coat he carried indicating his immediate intention of going out, that she had any idea of what she meant to do, but that sight affected her in precisely the same way that years before at Swainswick, on holiday from school, she had been affected by the knowledge that Sydney’s bedchamber, an arena ripe for mischief, was empty and waiting.
On the thought, she sped down the corridor, pausing only long enough at Sydney’s door to listen for any sound that might mean another servant was still within. There was none.
Cautiously opening the door, she saw at once that the room was empty and tiptoed swiftly to the doorway into the adjoining dressing room. It too was vacant. Pausing, she glanced first around the larger room and then the smaller, wondering what she might do that could not fail to stir him, either to merriment or to fury. At that moment, all emotions were as one to her.
Her gaze came to rest at last upon the dressing-room commode cabinet, and she remembered his admission, only weeks before, of his vexation that night years ago when, as a mischievous child, she had pasted his slippers to the floor. If that prank had vexed him, she reflected, perhaps something of a like nature would distress him even more.
Unlatching the little front door of the cabinet, she opened it and gazed with profound satisfaction at the floral-patterned Sevres chamber pot that resided there. She had no need to lift the lid to know that the pot would be empty and shining clean, for even if the chambermaid had been remiss in her early-morning duties, Ching Ho would never have allowed his master’s commode to go untended for long.
Before her mischief could be accomplished, however, it was necessary for her to go to her own room to throw off her damp cloak and fetch the glue that Maggie had used to repair her hat, but once she had found the glue and returned, it was but a few minutes work to achieve her purpose.
At last, with a final glance around the dressing room to assure herself that she had left behind no sign of her visit (other than a slight, lingering scent of damp wool which she trusted would soon dissipate), she slipped into the corridor again, closing the door behind her. Stifling an incipient bubble of laughter, she told herself as she hurried back to her own room that he would surely be unable to ignore what she had done this time. The thought that he might come to her bedchamber in the middle of the night did not distress her in the least, even though it also occurred to her that if he should so exert himself it might be for the sole purpose of wringing her neck.
Sydney had not returned from his dinner engagement before she retired, and throughout the night, each time she awoke thinking she heard a noise in her room, she was visited by a sense of mixed fear and anticipation. But by the time she had broken her fast the following, gray morning and learned from Abel that Sydney had ridden out earlier and had not seemed the least out of sorts or disturbed, her feelings changed from a surge of exasperation to the dismal belief that he didn’t simply care what she did. From that point it was but a small step to the restive awareness that she had allowed herself to be carried away by an impulsive, childish desire for revenge, and the belief that he must now despise her all the more for behaving so stupidly.
She would have been surprised to learn that Sydney, while not despising her in the least, had certainly been thinking about her and had ridden out early that morning for the sole purpose of avoiding a confrontation. The discovery during the small hours of the night that not only had the lid been glued to his chamber pot but that the pot itself had been glued to the shelf upon which it rested had very nearly overcome his careful patience.
As he had made his way to the commode closet at the end of the dark, chilly corridor, he had seriously considered visiting Carolyn in her bedchamber to express his displeasure. Only the knowledge that such a late-night visit to a chaste young woman living under his protection could not, under any circumstances, be justified had dissuaded him.
He had made no effort that morning to conceal what she had
done, either from the chambermaid whose duty it was to empty the pot, or from his valet, when that worthy entered to set out his clothes for the day. Ching Ho had observed dispassionately that it would be difficult to preserve the shelf and impossible to preserve the chamber pot but that he would attend at once to the matter of replacing the latter, an attitude that had succeeded in exasperating his sorely tried master.
By the time Sydney finished his ride, his disposition was fairly tranquil again, and he returned to the stables safe in the knowledge that he could now meet Carolyn without affording her the satisfaction of knowing her prank had vexed him. It was a distinct annoyance, therefore, to learn that the carriage had been ordered out a bare half hour before his return to carry his mother and Miss Carolyn into town to visit the Pump Room.
Frustrated, Sydney went directly to a room behind the stables, where he knew Ching Ho might be found at such an hour. Ching was there, wearing a loose cotton tunic and baggy pantaloons and seated cross-legged on one of several large mats that lay on the floor, his hands resting lightly upon his knees, his eyes narrowed to slits. It was a moment before he responded to his master’s presence, but when he did, he rose smoothly to his feet and made a slight bow.
“You wish to take your exercise so early, my master?”
“I’m in no mood for duty this morning,” Sydney said casually. “I had thought we might have a go at the new way we devised for defending against an attacker with a weapon.”
Nodding, Ching Ho helped him change into garb similar to his own, but as he moved to hang up his master’s buckskins and coat on the rod provided for them, he said over his shoulder, “Do we practice for a particular assailant, my master?”
Sydney grimaced. “The only one assailing me at the moment is unarmed, Ching, though I cannot say she has no weapons. I just wish that a few hours of practicing Wu Shu on a mat could teach me the right way to deal with her.”
“Yes, my master.”
“What the devil does that mean—yes, my master?” Sydney demanded, taking his place opposite him. “Sometimes, I swear, talking to you is like talking to myself, which—now I come to ponder the matter—is no doubt why I talk to you at all about such personal stuff as this. It is not generally my nature to gabble, you know.” He bowed.
“No, sir.” Ching Ho returned his bow and watched critically as he began a series of stretching and limbering movements, speaking only once to suggest that Sydney lunge a little more to the left in order to center his body.
Straightening a moment later, Sydney said, “I wish you may tell me why I allow that young woman to exasperate me so.”
Holding his hands out at waist level, Ching Ho moved toward him. “Knife sharpens on stone,” he said. “Man sharpens on man.”
“I’m talking about a woman,” Sydney said testily, moving to his left without taking his eyes from Ching. “’Tis an altogether different matter.”
“I do not know that, sir.” Ching Ho likewise began to move, keeping the same pace, his gaze fixed upon his master’s eyes. Feinting with his right hand, he countered with his left when Sydney responded. The brief flurry of hand movement that followed did not alter their steady, circling pace. When their hands were still again, Ching Ho said, “I think perhaps it is not only the lady’s mischief that disturbs your senses, my master.”
“No?”
“No.”
The pacing continued as Sydney said grimly, “I damned nearly lost my senses altogether because of her flirting at Oatlands. When I saw that devil Cumberland with his hands on her, I wanted to kill him. Daresay that disappoints you after all you’ve taught me about self-control, but it was damned fortunate for him the pool was there. A fine thing it would have been, killing a royal duke right in front of the Regent. Oof!” This last remark came as he went down hard on his back, on the mat. As he drew a long breath to regain his wind, he glared up at Ching Ho.
Reaching out a hand to assist him up again, Ching said gently but with a twinkle in his eyes, “A man should not allow himself to feel hate or to seek revenge when evil is done to him, my master, but neither should he isolate himself from all feeling lest when passion comes, it should overwhelm him and thus prevent his observing that which it is necessary for him to see.”
“You are absolutely right,” Sydney said as he got to his feet and faced him again.
The edge in his voice brought a glint of wariness to Ching’s eyes as he feinted again and said softly, “A man must be grateful for all experience, my master. Without bad people and bad relationships, how can we appreciate fully the good peo—” His voice broke off with a cry when, like twin streaks of lightning, Sydney’s right hand and foot flashed out, simultaneously catching his wrist and his knee. An instant later, the Chinese servant lay as his master had lain before him.
Sydney looked down at him and said in a measured tone, “I don’t believe I have yet reached that state of blessedness wherein I can properly appreciate the good Cumberland has done me, Ching. Shall we try that move again?”
Although Sydney had put little force behind the blows, Ching Ho was a little slow to rise, and conversation between them after that confined itself to the exercise. Sydney emerged from the session refreshed and calm of mind, and when he met Carolyn later in the day, he was able to treat her in the politely affectionate manner that had become habitual with him. Noting, throughout the evening that followed, that she cast him a number of speculative looks, he decided that being left to wonder what he was thinking was doing her a great deal of good. Knowing that his behavior was frustrating her and hoping the lesson would prove to be a salutary one, he yet guarded his flank, lest she resort to behavior even more outrageous than before.
This state of affairs lasted but two days. On the third, while sorting through his morning post, which had been delivered to him in his library, Sydney discovered a letter bearing what appeared to be the royal seal. Opening it, he read a flowery announcement of the Regent’s intent to arrive at Bathwick Hill House the day after Christmas for a visit of undetermined length. Sydney stared at the missive for a long moment before he grinned appreciatively and rang for Ching Ho.
Showing him the letter, Sydney said with amusement, “The lady surpasses herself.”
Ching scanned it quickly and said, “This is not genuine?”
Sydney laughed. “Prinny coming here? I wish I may see the day. He detests Bath. When he desires my advice, he sends for me, as you very well know. ’Tis a good trick, but that wench wants a lesson, and I believe I am the man to teach her one. We are expected to spend Christmas at Swainswick with Skipton’s family, and I doubt my sweet Nemesis has realized that I shall be unable to escort them if I must cater to Prinny’s whims. No doubt she meant only to throw me into a dither by this little prank, but I’ll show her the error of her ways.”
Thus prepared, he bided his time for the rest of the day and joined the family at the supper table, anticipating sweet revenge. He had no intention of mentioning the matter too soon, knowing Carolyn must be wondering how he had taken the news of the royal visit, so he waited until someone else brought up the subject of Christmas. Not much to his surprise, it was Carolyn herself who did so, saying she hoped the intermittent, drizzling rain would cease before they left for Swainswick.
Seizing the opportunity, Sydney said casually, “I shan’t be able to go with you, I fear.” He watched Carolyn’s face, but all he saw was a shadow of surprise, perhaps even disappointment.
Before she could say anything, the dowager said, “I cannot think what could be important enough to prevent you from escorting us, Sydney, but if you believe that the journey will inconvenience you, there is really no reason for us to go at all. ’Twas only the fact that you have always joined the family there in the past that decided me to put myself to the trouble of going this year. But I believe it will suit us better to invite Skipton to bring Matilda and the children here instead. I shall write to him directly after supper.”
“What!” Sydney’s aplomb evaporated wit
hout warning, and he turned from gazing pensively at Carolyn to stare at his mother in shock. “You cannot mean to invite them all here!”
She lifted her lorgnette to peer at him. “And why not, may I ask? He is your brother, after all, and while I do not approve of Matilda, I must suppose that she has every right to accompany him. What is more, I believe the children will be delighted to have this opportunity to see all your little treasures.”
“I am persuaded, ma’am,” he said, paling at the thought, “that you have lost your mind. What can you be thinking of even to consider inviting such an invasion of this house?”
Although Carolyn stared to see him so unsettled, the dowager was made of sterner stuff. She straightened ominously and, without even resorting to her lorgnette, looked down her nose at him with such an expression as would have withered a lesser man, and said, “You will surely not be so selfish as to attempt to prevent their coming here.”
He was silenced, but he took the first opportunity after the covers were removed to demand a few words with Carolyn.
“In the library,” he said, making it clear by his tone that he would brook no argument.
She went with him without speaking, but when he had shut the door, she said at once, “Whatever is the matter, Sydney? I believe your mother was only awaiting an excuse to invite them here, you know, for it will be a great deal easier for her to bear with Matilda in this house than in the one that used to be her own. And, truly, you will not mind—”
“Not another word,” he said, adding with grim determination, “Basil and his brats are not coming to this house if you can help me prevent it, my lass. ’Tis the least you can do after precipitating this whole mess.”
“Me!” She stared at him. “Whatever do you mean?”
“Enough, Caro. I know the letter I received this morning was only one of your pranks. When I said I wasn’t going to Swainswick, it was to teach you a lesson. I don’t want Basil and his family running roughshod over this house, but I’ve no wish to betray you to Mama either, so we must think of a plan.”