by M C Beaton
“You are sure?”
“Yes. The lady who lives at Corby Hall is a Yorkshire woman of most unpleasant manners. She delighted in telling me that no Paxton had ever lived there, and Paxton is the name on the reference.”
“I refuse to believe ill of Miss Cottingham,” said the viscount half to himself. He twirled his glass and sent a little wave of port up the sides. “No doubt there will be some explanation.”
“Oh, yes,” said Yvonne, looking at him in dawning dismay. “There will!”
“Explain yourself.”
Yvonne turned a clear gaze on her guardian. In a startling imitation of Patricia’s voice, she said, “I was driven to lie, my lord. Please forgive me. You, who have so much, do not know what it is to be poor and friendless. I had never had to work before. What I told you about my family, that was true, but, alas, how could I obtain a good post without references? Have I done anything to show myself unworthy of that post? And you will say—”
“Enough, you wretched little actress,” snapped the viscount. “How did you know she had told me of her family and that they were poor?”
“It stands to reason that they must have been, or are in straitened circumstances, or she would never have had to work,” pointed out Yvonne, “and any employer would ask about family and background.”
“If she does ask me whether she has done anything to show herself unworthy of her post,” said the viscount, “then I shall be forced to tell her the truth—to admit she is a lady I am proud to have in my home.”
“And in your heart?”
“What do you know of hearts—you, who are barely out of the schoolroom?”
“You are so English.” Yvonne sighed. “And yet your friend Mr. Leamon did not see me as a little girl. Neither will many men. He pressed my foot so warmly.…”
“I cannot believe any man would do such a thing with his wife present. You made a mistake.”
“Pooh, fiddlesticks, and fustian!”
“Furthermore, to ride off on your own to Penryn, to hire a broken-down carriage and a drunken driver to go in search of ammunition to fire at your poor governess was not the action of a mature woman. Had Miss Cottingham been cruel to you or neglectful of her duties, then I might have understood it. As it is, you have caused me discomfort and embarrassment—”
“Since you obviously find the care of me so weighty,” interrupted Yvonne, “perhaps you should be looking out for a suitable gentleman for me.”
“I do not know any gentleman who would beat you as you deserve.”
“La! How fierce you are! Do you advocate wife-beating?”
“In your case, yes.”
“You are drinking a great deal of wine. It is the port that is beginning to talk.”
“I can hold my wine very well, miss. But you may have the right of it—I should be looking for a husband for you. Perhaps I might give a ball. It is time I entertained the local county.”
“But where? There is no ballroom in the castle.”
“If the weather is fine, we can erect marquees on the lawns. If not, that chain of dreary saloons and drawing rooms on the first floor will suffice. They will need to be decorated.”
Yvonne clasped her hands, her large eyes sparkling. “I can see it now… all the grand people of the county.…”
“And many not so grand. At a country ball, one has to invite everyone from the village as well.”
“I have a beautiful ball gown,” said Yvonne, “but no jewelry.”
“There are the Anselm diamonds.”
“Which I shall wear!” cried Yvonne.
“Which you have no right to wear. Traditionally, they will be worn only by my wife.”
“But you have no wife and so—”
“And so they will stay right where they are until I do have one. It is not fashionable in this country for young unmarried misses to deck themselves out like a shop window.”
“Pooh!” said Yvonne. “If I listen to you much longer, I shall begin to believe it is not fashionable to have any fun at all. I like wearing pretty things. I like flirting.”
“Nonsense. You cannot have had much experience of flirting at your age.”
Yvonne looked amused. “I was very strictly chaperoned. But there was always church on Sundays. The little glance, the dropped handkerchief, the sighs, the secret notes—”
“Enough! I think you had better go to bed or you might demoralize me completely.”
Yvonne rose to her feet and he pushed back his chair and got up at the same time, looking down at her from his great height.
“I shall kiss you good night, my stern guardian,” said Yvonne.
She looked so young and so very pretty that he smiled and offered his cheek. “Very well,” he said.
Yvonne stood on tiptoe, wound her arms tightly about his neck, and kissed him full on the mouth.
He felt his senses reeling; he felt such an aching surge of passion that for one delirious moment he forgot he held his ward in his arms. Then he pushed her roughly away and moved behind his chair, hanging on to the back and breathing heavily.
“Get out of here, you jade,” he grated.
Yvonne kissed the tips of her fingers to him and tripped from the room.
But once she had closed the door behind her, she leaned her back against it and prayed he would call her back. But there was nothing but silence from inside the parlor.
With a disappointed little sigh, she went slowly along to her room.
The viscount sat down abruptly as if his legs had given way.
The sooner Yvonne de la Falaise was married, the better!
CHAPTER SIX
Yvonne should have fallen asleep immediately, exhausted as she was from her long walk. But she had forgotten to draw the curtains at the window or the curtains around her bed, and bright moonlight flooded the room.
She twisted and turned restlessly against the pillows, longing to hear the rumble of thunder. Another storm would mean the roads would still be too bad on the morrow for them to journey home. That way she would have her guardian all to herself for one more precious day.
“I shall never sleep unless I pull the curtains,” she murmured, climbing down from the high bed. But instead of drawing the curtains, she opened the window and looked out. The air was sweet and cool, and moonlight flooded the inn courtyard.
Yvonne twisted her neck and looked up at the sky. Not a cloud in sight. She was about to close the window again when she saw a tall figure glide across the entrance to the courtyard.
There was something in the graceful movement, something in the turn of the head that made Yvonne catch her breath and exclaim, “Patricia!”
As she watched, the woman she was sure was Patricia was joined by two darker, squatter figures, both men. Patricia, if it was she, said something, and then three faces, white disks in the moonlight, turned and looked at the inn.
Yvonne drew back, suddenly afraid. She ran from her room to that of her guardian, which was next door, and plunged on top of his sleeping figure, shaking him by his naked shoulders to wake him.
The rush light beside the bed, burning in its pierced cannister, revealed to the viscount that his ward was wearing an even more frivolous nightgown than the one he had seen her wearing before.
“I am afraid,” said Yvonne, her accent becoming more markedly French in her agitation. “The governess—Patricia—she is watching the inn.”
“Fustian.”
Yvonne crawled forward on the bed and tugged at his hand. “No! I speak the truth. Come. I will show you.”
The viscount jerked his hand free and then pulled the blankets, which had slid to his waist, up about his neck and stared angrily at his ward, who retreated to the foot of the bed.
“If this is one of your games… Turn your back, girl, while I find my dressing gown.”
Yvonne did not turn her back. Instead, she covered her eyes with her hands until he told her curtly that he had put on his dressing gown.
“Now, show me,”
he commanded.
Yvonne opened the window. He pressed close behind her, and she could feel the warmth of his body through the thin cambric of her nightgown.
The yard was empty. Bright moonlight silvered the cobbles.
“Well?” he demanded. “Are you sure you are not beginning to imagine Patricia’s villainy on every occasion?”
Yvonne was shaken, shaken as much by his physical nearness as by the fear she had been imagining that tall figure in the courtyard.
“I did see her… or someone who looked very like her,” she insisted.
The viscount sighed impatiently. “Go to bed, Yvonne,” he said. “And next time something frightens you, do not come bursting into my bedchamber. I have no wish to be compromised.”
“You! Compromised!” Yvonne gasped with outrage. “Let me tell you I would not marry you were you the last man on earth.”
“Trite, but possibly true,” he said equably. “Nonetheless, had any member of the local county seen you entering my bedchamber, then I would most certainly have had to marry you.”
Yvonne could hardly understand her own great hurt, her own sharp and bitter feeling of rejection. He had returned her kiss. She had not imagined that!
Did he not realize all she wanted from him was recognition and attention, not to be treated as one of his servants or dependents?
“Good night, my lord,” she said stiffly. “I shall not trouble you again.”
“Oh, I am sure you shall,” he said bitterly. “Trouble is your name, Yvonne de la Falaise.”
She pushed past him, wrenching open the door of his room and slamming it behind her with enough force to bring a volley of oaths from the other guests at the inn resounding along the corridor.
It was a silent journey back to the castle the next morning. The earl had hired a carriage and was driving it himself, sitting up on the box with Yvonne beside him.
The nightmarish weather of the day before might never have happened. The landscape smiled under a warm sun, and a thin mist gave the stunted moorland trees and the small round moorland hills the beauty of a Chinese painting.
Yvonne glanced sideways at the viscount’s stern face. He was still wearing the ill-fitting clothes his friend Mr. Leamon had found for him. But he still managed to look elegant and beautiful. It was odd to think of a man being beautiful, reflected Yvonne, but the viscount’s sculptured, classical features reminded her of a Greek god.
She comforted herself by telling herself severely that he was autocratic and overbearing and had not one ounce of sensibility in his whole body. His body! As the team of horses raced along the bumpy road, the viscount braced his feet against the splashboard, and she could see the long line of muscle rippling along his thighs, which were encased in tight leather breeches. Yvonne blushed and turned her head away. The viscount was beginning to disturb her physically, and her body did not feel like her own. It refused to obey the stern lectures it was receiving from her brain and leaned toward him like a plant toward the sun with every jolt and sway of the carriage.
The viscount was a very worried man. He had never reacted in the whole of his life to any woman’s kiss the way he had reacted to the one given him by Yvonne de la Falaise.
It was all the fault of a long period of celibacy, combined with his increasing years, he thought gloomily. Imagine a man beginning to lust after his own ward, and she barely out of the schoolroom!
He longed to escape back into the routine of the castle life, where competent Patricia would once again take over the education of Yvonne.
As the ugly bulk of Trewent Castle loomed into view, Yvonne broke into speech. “Why is it you live in such a horrible place?”
“You have been mercifully silent for the past few hours,” snapped the viscount. “Please continue to remain so.”
Gustave was waiting in the courtyard to berate his mistress.
Yvonne, not knowing the viscount understood French very well—after all, explaining Mrs. Leamon’s broken French had only required a smattering of the language combined with common sense—answered back, her face blazing with fury.
With all the familiarity of an old servant, Gustave was accusing Yvonne of extreme folly in riding off without him, blaming her for an overactive imagination. Yvonne tore back at him, telling him he would surely have lost his job at the castle had he been found to have aided her.
The earl at last interrupted this interesting scene by curtly ordering Gustave back to the stables and commanding Yvonne to follow him into the castle.
He asked Fairbairn to tell Miss Cottingham to attend them in the library.
“Now we shall see,” he said grimly. He went to the desk and took out Patricia’s references and laid them on a table in front of him.
Patricia came in, immediately voicing her concern over Yvonne’s disappearance from the castle and her relief that all was now well. Then her eye fell on the two references and then rose to survey the viscount’s stony face and her voice faltered into silence.
“One of your references, Miss Cottingham,” said the viscount, “states you were employed by a Mrs. Paxton of Truro. It has been brought to my attention there is no such person.”
Patricia glanced sadly and reproachfully at Yvonne before turning away to look out of the window.
“I lied, my lord,” she said. “I confess I lied. But I was left penniless. I had to find work. You would not have employed me without references.”
She swung around and faced the viscount, tears glittering in her eyes. Yvonne caught her breath. Patricia looked like a tragic heroine. Her face was pale, and the tears in her eyes enhanced their brilliance.
Patricia spread her hands in a pathetic pleading movement. “I know it is hard for you, my lord, to understand how poor and desperate I was. But have I done anything since my arrival to show myself unworthy of the post?”
Her hands fell limply to her sides as she looked at the viscount’s bleak face. “Ah, I see it is of no use. Never fear. I shall leave without fuss.”
“No,” said the viscount, although his expression did not change. “I shall dismiss you only when I find you cannot do the job for which you were engaged. We will say no more about this matter. Do not lie to me again.”
Patricia dropped gracefully to her knees and knelt before him. She raised tear-washed eyes to his face in humble gratitude.
“Oh, my lord,” she whispered, “how can I ever thank you?”
The viscount’s face softened as he looked down at her.
“Please rise, Miss Cottingham,” he said gently. “The matter is at an end. Go about your duties.”
Patricia rose, murmuring her thanks, and quietly left the room.
As the door closed behind her, Yvonne applauded softly. “Bravo!” she said.
“Are you applauding me or Miss Cottingham?” demanded the viscount.
“Why, Miss Cottingham, of course. What a performance! I confess she nearly had me in tears. Who would have thought that such a Siddons could blossom in this rural backwater!”
“You force me to remind you that that lady has been twice—twice—responsible for saving your life.”
“As to that,” said Yvonne, leaning forward, “I have a theory.…”
The viscount looked at her, appalled. “So now you are going to say she did not really rescue you. It was the Cornish fairies after all. Oh, go away, Yvonne. You weary me.”
“Bad cess to you, you bad-mannered lout,” raged Yvonne, cut to the quick. “I told you what she would say, and she did. But nothing will change your stupid mind about your precious Miss Cottingham, you… you great oaf!”
She flew at him in a passion as he rose to his feet. In a black rage, he slapped her across the face. It was a light slap with no force behind it. Yvonne stood stock-still, her face as white as paper. The viscount looked at his own hand as if he could not believe his eyes.
“I am sorry,” he said, looking at her in amazement. “But you drive me mad.”
“Oh, my lord,” said Yvonne, imi
tating Patricia’s voice to perfection. “How can I ever thank you?” She strode to the door and then looked back at him, her black eyes snapping. “Do not worry, my dear guardian. I shall most certainly think of something.”
After she had left, the viscount sank into a chair and, seizing his golden curls, tugged his hair hard. “What on earth came over me?” he wondered. All of his female charges had, in the past, proved to be more infuriating in their behavior than Yvonne. But he would never have struck any of them. Never!
He would need to apologize sincerely and humbly to Yvonne. But she asked for it, he told himself savagely. He had hoped, he realized, that all his old respect and admiration for Patricia would have been rekindled when he saw her again, would have driven out the increasing attraction Yvonne was beginning to hold for him. And it would have been reanimated, he thought, had not Yvonne so cleverly anticipated how Patricia would behave and what she would say.