Practice to Deceive

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Practice to Deceive Page 15

by Patricia Veryan


  Despite his throbbing arm, a bubble of mirth rose in Quentin’s throat. The strumpet! She really fancied that no man could fail to lust after her! He had begun to hope his noble renunciation would have so irked her she would demand he leave Highview at once. Now, however, another and even more tantalizing notion tickled his fancy. His eyes began to dance, and he bent lower. She lay against him, her eyes half-closed, her smiling lips parted invitingly, and that fantastic bosom surging against the slight restraint of her gown.

  ‘It would,’ thought Quentin, ‘be such a pity to let it all go to waste.…’

  * * *

  It was almost half-past two o’clock before the carriage came into view, moving at a leisurely rate along the drivepath to disappear momentarily around the jutting side of the house.

  Penelope, who had been sitting at the window of ‘Sir John’s’ room, called a tremendously relieved, “They’re coming!” The Corporal and Daffy left their cards and ran to join her, and all three peered anxiously as the carriage came into sight once more.

  “So long they’ve been gone,” murmured Daffy.

  Penelope said a worried, “Poor Major Chandler must be quite exhausted. I only pray he has not made some dreadful blunder. My aunt is very shrewd in some ways.”

  Having formed a fairly accurate opinion of my lady’s character, the Corporal’s thoughts had taken a different direction, but he said nothing.

  The guest bedchamber faced west and thus the carriage came to a stop almost directly beneath the windows. The groom sprang down and opened the door. He did not let down the steps but, having glanced inside, stood back and waited in a patient, wooden-faced way. The fear in Penelope’s heart deepened. Why did they not get out? Was Quentin so ill he could not walk? She was on the brink of running into the hall when the steps were put down and Quentin descended to hand my lady down. Sybil leaned to him and they wandered slowly up the steps together, she clinging to his arm and gazing up at him in what Penelope thought a disgracefully bold way.

  ‘Wretched woman,’ she thought, hurrying into the hall. ‘She thinks to enslave every man who comes within her orbit!’

  By the time she reached the lower flight of steps, the travellers were in the front hall. My lady’s little hands were on the old gentleman’s chest, and he clasped them tightly, though whether to support her or keep himself from falling would have been hard to say.

  Seething, Penelope trilled sweetly, “Did you have a nice drive?”

  They both jerked around to face her. She thought that Quentin looked positively haggard, yet his eyes glinted brightly. My lady Sybil wore an expression in which surprise and another emotion seemed to struggle for supremacy. Penelope could neither identify that emotion, nor did she very much care. Running down the last few stairs, she cried, “My goodness! Such a long drive has been too much for you, Uncle John! I trust you have not made yourself ill.”

  Quentin uttered a mumbling jumble of refutation, but my lady gave a little rippling laugh. “’Twould take considerably more than a long drive to tire this … magnificent gentleman,” she said huskily. “Nonetheless, I think we both should rest, dear Sir John.” She smiled up into Quentin’s face with that same expression that Penelope now recognized as a sort of awed admiration. “We’d a silly little accident,” Sybil rushed on, having seen Sir John’s gaze slant with some apprehension to her niece. “I was so clumsy as to fall, and your great-uncle was so gallant as to catch me, but I fear it has been rather a—er, strain on him.”

  “Not at all,” murmured Quentin.

  “Small wonder you are so wearied, sir,” said Penelope in rather a brittle voice. “May I help you to your room?”

  Sir John thanked her and said jauntily that he was not so decrepit he could not manage to negotiate a few stairs. My lady leaned to his ear and whispered something that so amused him he tripped, and Penelope slipped a supporting arm about his waist.

  “Sweet child,” he murmured. “Damme if I ain’t developing a liking for all this pampering.”

  When they reached the second-floor landing, my lady clasped Sir John’s hand and promised she would have luncheon brought to his chamber. “You must have a nice long nap,” she urged, “for we cannot be deprived of your exhilarating presence at the dinner table. Until seven, then.…” She withdrew her clasp, smiled dreamily at him and murmured a soft and caressing, “Adieu, dear … cousin.…”

  “What a revolting performance!” snarled Penelope the moment Sybil was out of earshot.

  Quentin darted a startled glance at her.

  “That horrid, horrid woman,” she went on. “Only look how exhausted you are. Quentin—why ever did you let her keep you out so long?”

  “She is—something hard to withstand,” he asserted, studiously avoiding her indignant eyes.

  “Especially when she wants to captivate some hapless gentleman! Did she really fall?”

  “Oh, she fell, right enough.”

  Quite aware of that betraying quirkish grin, Penelope said scornfully, “Very revealingly, I’ve no doubt. Faith, but she’s a—” She cut off the sentence in the nick of time, and finished, “I suppose you hurt your arm?”

  Leaning against the wall as she opened the door, Quentin said, “Not to speak of. And—I could not very well let her just—crash down, now could I?”

  He could not, of course, Penelope acknowledged as she relinquished him to the Corporal’s care and went to her own bedchamber. But—oh, how she wished he had! It was very apparent that Lady Sybil was completely captivated, in which case it would take all Quentin’s diplomacy to escape the lady’s clutches before Lord Joseph returned. She sighed. At least he would be able to rest for a little while. From the look of him just now, he was likely fast asleep at this very moment.

  She was quite mistaken. Far from sleeping, Quentin lay on the bed, convulsed, his mirth so hilarious that Corporal Rob, grinning broadly, was finally obliged to put a pillow over his face.

  * * *

  Penelope’s best mourning gown was of black velvet, trimmed with white lace, having a square-cut neckline and rounded hoops, the great back Watteau pleats swooping into a small train. It was a charming dress, but Penelope had not worn it since she had been included in a small dinner party at Sir Thomas Beasley’s house the previous Christmas. She gasped for mercy when Daffy tugged relentlessly at her stay laces, but when the dress was fitted to her trim waist she was quite pleased with the effect.

  Daffy brought out Lady Margaret’s pearls but, having slipped them about Penelope’s slender white throat, whisked them out of sight again. “Too fast, by far,” she decreed primly. “It’s bad enough that milady cavorts in her bright colours only nine months after dear Master Geoffrey’s passing aloft. We want no tongues wagging about you, Miss Penny.”

  Penny agreed at once, feeling wretchedly disloyal to dear Geoff’s memory. “But”—she touched the hair which Daffy had dressed so severely that it caused her eyebrows to feel stretched to the crown of her head—“do you not think I might curl and—and powder my hair? Just for—”

  “Heavenly whiskers, miss!” Much shocked, Daffy cried, “Whatever next? We must go slowly. I dast not think what my lady will say when she sees you looking so prettily in this gown. Slow and careful, Miss Penny. Like a tortoise with the ague.” She sprayed a discreet puff of Spring Morning behind the ear of the reluctant tortoise. High heels clicked in the hall at that instant and, turning to her maid in dismay, Penelope received Spring Morning in her face instead. She sneezed violently just as my lady entered the room with a rustle of satin and laces.

  All dainty femininity from the top of her high powdered wig to the tip of her tiny begemmed slipper, Sybil raised a lace-edged handkerchief to her little nose and surveyed her niece uneasily. “Lud, girl—have you that horrid cold, still? Heaven knows you’ve lain about doing nothing long enough that I’d fancied you were over it.”

  “So I am, ma’am. Though I thank you for your concern.”

  Penelope’s irony went right over Sy
bil’s pretty head. “You do not look almost well. You look horrid. Wherever did you find that antiquated gown? I vow it makes you look older than Sir John. Go and sit over there and try to breathe in the other direction. Saffy—or whatever your name is—fetch a chair for me, and then you may go.”

  Daffy pulled the chair to the point at which my lady felt relatively safe from any of Penelope’s lingering germs. It was as well, thought Daffy, yearning to tug the chair a foot or two to the rear as my lady settled herself upon it, that she’d not allowed poor miss to wear her mama’s pearls, for they certainly would have drawn attention to her flawless complexion. And had she piled up and powdered her curls…! She suppressed a shudder. Not that Miss Penny was a beauty, nor ever would be. But there was something about her … something that drew all the gentlemen’s eyes. And my lady knew it!

  She slanted an encouraging glance at Penelope, bobbed a curtsey and took herself to the door, wondering what Lady Tickle-Me-Quick—as she’d long ago apostrophized Sybil—wanted here. She certainly looked a dasher in that pink gown, the bodice cut so low it almost reached her waist, and enough to make any man’s head swim. Daffy closed the door, her heart heavy. She longed to arrange Penelope’s luxuriant hair into a more becoming style, to dress her in the pretty gowns that had looked so well on her tall, slender person, to busy herself with rouge and powder. Instead of which, obedient to the Major’s orders, she’d done all she might to render the dear girl as unattractive as possible. There’d been nothing she could do about the gown of course. Short of tearing it “accidental” which might have made her mistress suspicious. And it would be cruel to get her hopes up, when Major Chandler might not be able to pull off his scheme.

  Penelope said, as the door closed, “You look very well, ma’am. Are you expecting Uncle Joseph home?”

  Lady Sybil levelled a cold stare at her. “Do not be impertinent. You know very well he would not like me to put off my blacks. Indeed, I would never have done so had not your great-uncle been so sadly in need of cheering up. He seems most depressed, poor old fellow.”

  This intelligence surprised Penelope, but she said nothing.

  My lady slanted an oblique glance at her and began to flutter her fan. “It seems strange,” she observed idly, “that no one in the family has spoken of him before this.”

  With a twinge of nervousness, Penelope said, “I doubt anyone has even thought of the gentleman for years. There was some—er, scandal, I believe. I don’t know what. The Somervilles are related in a distant way to my mama.”

  “So the old gentleman said. He has … never married…?”

  “I really could not say.”

  “How odd.”

  “Odd?” echoed Penelope, frightened.

  “One might suppose so exceeding attractive a man would have been snapped up long ago.” Watching her niece, Sybil murmured, “He is old now, of course, but—exactly how old is he?”

  Desperate, Penelope stammered, “I do not know. Near seventy, I would think, to look at him.”

  “What rubbish!” Irked, Sybil contradicted, “In his early sixties at most. And even at that…” She broke off, staring at the empty grate, then went on in a softer voice, “It is remarkable that he should be so amazingly…”

  Penelope said, intrigued, “Amazingly—what, ma’am?”

  “Eh?” Sybil turned dreaming eyes on her niece, recollected herself, and stood, smoothing down her satin. “Nothing you are ever likely to understand, poor creature,” she said unkindly. “I shall ask my husband, since you appear to be so sadly uninformed as to your dear mama’s relations. Lord Joseph has ever been vastly proud of her side of the family.” She opened the door and said over her shoulder, “I have told Cook that we will dine at eight. There is no need for you to come down until then.” And she was gone, leaving behind the heavy fragrance of her perfume.

  Penelope, who had politely risen, gazed with considerable anxiety at the closed door. Sybil had come here only to try to get information about ‘Sir John.’ He had properly bewitched her, which had been most unwise. She gave a rueful sigh. As if he could help himself. It was as natural for him to attract the ladies as it was for she herself to fail to attract him. “There is no need for you to come down until then.…” She took up her fan and began to ply it abstractedly, although it was chilly in the room. My lady wanted to be alone with her fascinating guest.…

  IX

  “I make it a practice,” Quentin murmured into the warm curve of Sybil’s throat, “never to answer questions when there are better things to be done.”

  She offered only a breathless little giggle by way of resistance, and he kissed her long and thoroughly. They sat on the sofa in a cosy saloon that was rich with crimson and gold. Because of the coolness of the evening, a fire burned in the marble hearth, the air was warm and scented, and Quentin had seen to it that my lady’s glass was always filled. Sybil responded to him with a dismaying ardour, and he proceeded as he knew she wished, taking more and more liberties until Sybil was moaning faintly, her eyes closed, her head thrown back in eager submission.

  “Go on,” she gasped blissfully. “My darling … my superb lover … why do you stop?”

  Shaken, he lifted his head from her fragrant bosom. “I am—a mere man, lovely one.”

  Soft with passion, her eyes opened. “You are magnificent,” she said, her voice just above a husky sigh. “Never have I been loved with such fire … and virility.”

  “For an old fellow I do not so badly, eh?” he asked, his eyes twinkling.

  She took his hand and pressed it to her lips. “You are wondrous—even for a young man! Indeed”—she smiled coyly—“when my husband returns he will be hard put to it to—”

  It was the chance he’d waited for. With an exclamation of repugnance, he put her from him and sprang to his feet. “Do not so reproach me!” he cried dramatically. “Oh, do not!”

  “Eh?” said Sybil, sitting up and blinking at him. “How should I reproach you?”

  “How should you not?” he cried, beginning to stride up and down and wave his arms about. “Coming here … accepting of my kinsman’s hospitality. And—and in return, seducing his wife! Oh!” Up went one arm in a wild gesture that caused my lady to draw back uneasily. “Wickedness, thy name is Somerville!”

  “Good gracious!” exclaimed Sybil, not overpleased by this new side of Sir John. “You are very hard on yourself, I think.”

  His arm lowered with slow drama. He sighed, “They will be harder … in the monastery.”

  Her jaw fell. “M—monastery?”

  He hung his head. “I take the vows … next week.”

  “You … do?” gasped Sybil, failing but single-minded. “What a dreadful waste!”

  Vastly amused, Quentin could almost have liked the wretched woman. She was wholly immoral, cruel, and without a vestige of faithfulness, but at least she did not feign either reluctance or repentance. With difficulty he responded heavily, “My entire life has been a waste.”

  “Surely not, dear sir? You have spent it in the service of your King and country, after all, and—”

  “And—sinned excessively, alas.” His shoulders slumped. “Even now, I sin. On this—my last mission. I had hoped to end my career with a fine coup. But having reached here—instead of tending to business—” He sighed again.

  Sybil had tensed and now said keenly, “But I understood you to say you chanced to be travelling this way.”

  “Did I say that?” He averted his face, then said forcefully, “It will not do, ma’am! Do you not see? You are not to be blamed. I took advantage of you. I was bewitched by your beauty, alas!”

  She had been a little alarmed, but at his last words she relaxed a little, smiling.

  “I cannot enter the Order with such a flagrant abuse of hospitality on my overburdened conscience,” he said with resolution. Watching her reflection in the mirrored sconce above the mantel, he added, “I shall have to confess.”

  She was growing bored, and her irritat
ion showed when she said pettishly, “Oh, I do not know why you must make such a piece of work of it.”

  “When will your husband return?” he asked, turning to her, solemn-faced.

  Sybil brightened. “Never fear, my love, I do not expect him until tomorrow at the very earliest.”

  “Ah. That decides it then. I shall wait and try to find words that will mitigate my offence.”

  “What?” Whitening, Sybil sprang to her feet. “You never mean to confess to Joseph?”

  He spread his hands. “To whom else, dear lady?”

  “My God!”

  “Oh, yes. To Him, certainly.”

  “No, no! What I mean is— I had fancied you meant to confess to the—the High Priest, or whomever—”

  “The Abbot,” he inserted gently, grateful that her knowledge of such matters was even less than his own. “But that would be a cowardly evasion, my lady. If your husband wishes to reproach me—”

  “Reproach you?” she squeaked, a hand pressed to her heaving bosom. “He will rend you limb from limb!”

  Under the circumstances, Quentin thought this would be a quite logical reaction on Lord Joseph’s part. Trying not to grin, he said with saintly humility, “I should deserve it, I fear.” He groaned and put a hand over his eyes. “I must have been mad!”

  It came to Sybil that this was an eccentric old gentleman, after all. She was very frightened but, before she could respond, the door opened. “Oh, come in, come in,” she said crossly.

  Penelope obeyed, flashing a quick glance from her aunt’s petulant frown to the dramatic pose of Sir John Macauley Somerville. A little glow of mirth crept into her eyes. Now what was he up to? She dropped him a curtsey and said demurely that she hoped he was rested.

  Quentin frowned at her. He had distinctly told Daffy to attire Penny as unattractively as possible, instead of which here she was looking as fresh and sweet as a flower by comparison with Lady Sybil’s paint and posturing. “My soul cannot rest,” he said mournfully. “Not until I have words with your Uncle Joseph.”

 

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