Lavender Lady
Page 22
“There was a man in her chamber.” Hester was shaking now. “She is a . . . a Cyprian, a woman of the town. Jamie, how could I have been so blind?”
Her brother crimsoned and looked at his feet. “I guessed,” he admitted. “Well, I was not sure, but she often had visitors on Sunday evenings when you went out. Only I did not know how to tell you or what to do. If only I were not such a coward!” he cried despairingly.
“Hush, my dear.” She put her arms around his thin shoulders and kissed his cheek. “I can imagine how difficult it must have been, how you shrank from such embarrassment. Do not reproach yourself. I am sure I am much to blame myself for always taking in any waifs and strays without enquiry as to their antecedents.” She essayed a smile.
“You need a man to protect you,” said Jamie, a new determination in his voice. “I think I had better—”
Before he could disclose his intentions, Florabel swept down the stairs in her least indiscreet gown and all her jewellery, a pair of orange ostrich feathers nodding in her brassy curls. She had not abandoned her pose of outraged innocence.
“Mai dearest cousin,” she wailed, raising a lace handkerchief to her eyes, “yew are too harsh, too unforgiving. How can yew torment me so? Ai am all alone in the crule world with no ‘and—hand—stretched forth to my assistance but yours. Do not withdraw your gracious bene . . . bene . . . kindness from me, or Ai am lost!” Having managed to force a few genuine tears, she lowered the handkerchief and allowed them to roll down her rouged cheeks, with unfortunate effects.
Jamie’s determination apparently did not stretch to sheltering his sister from this onslaught. With a strangled “I’ll see that Rob is all right,” he disappeared.
“I shall not change my mind,” said Hester steadily. “I’m sure you do not expect it. I take it you are not really my cousin, by the way?”
“Oh no, ducks. It was that Rathwycke put me up to it. Free rent, ‘e says, and ‘e paid me ‘andsome too. Just a little joke, like, ‘e says. ‘E’s a wicked one, ‘e is. I knowed ‘e were up to mischief. But don’t you worry, dearie. I told all my gentlemen as ‘ow you was innercent as newborn babe. ‘Don’t know the time of day,’ I says, ‘or I’d be out on me ear quick as winkin’.”
“I suppose I must thank you for that at least,” sighed Hester. Her head was aching, and she longed for news of Alice and Lord Alton. “Now will you please go? You can send someone for your belongings in the morning.”
Florabel, it seemed had abandoned her role only temporarily.
“Alas, Ai am undone!” she declaimed, striking a pose. Hester was beginning to think she did it merely to display her Thespian talents. “Is there no charity left in this wicked, wicked world? Oh, Ebenezer, how—”
A peremptory knocking on the door silenced her. Lord Alton walked in.
In a last dramatic outburst, Florabel threw herself at him, buried her face in his shoulder and sobbed noisily. For the second time that evening, his lordship was forced to disentangle himself from a damp feminine embrace.
This time, he simply shoved his assailant out of the front door, closed it, and threw the bolts. He looked down sadly at his riding jacket, where to the ravages of Alice’s weeping had been added the devastation of Florabel’s rouge.
Hester had not moved a muscle since he entered.
“Alice?” she asked with painful anxiety as he approached.
“I left her enjoying dinner in Hemel Hempstead. Collingwood will bring her here for the night.”
“And Rathwycke? I was afraid—”
“That we might fight? No need, my dear. The man is only brave where defenceless females are concerned. He will worry us no longer. You are very pale; come and sit down.”
His supporting arm about her waist, he led her into the parlour and made her sit by the window. In the last lingering light, her eyes seemed huge as she looked up at him.
“I’ve not been coping very well, have I?” she asked shyly.
He knelt beside her and took her hand in his.
“Hester, marry me.”
The tender passion in his voice startled her. Even as she answered, she knew her resistance was only token. Still, she must be sure.
“But what about the children?”
“I’ll be happy to take them on, too, and Grandpa Stevens if necessary.”
“It is too much . . .”
“Hester, I want to take care of you for the rest of my life, even if I have to take care of the rest of the world to get you. I love you.”
Exhausted, overwhelmed, and dazed with happiness, she threw her arms around his neck and burst into tears on his still miraculously immaculate cravat. Kissing her damp eyelids, he found he didn’t mind a bit.
Copyright © 1983 by Carola Dunn
Originally published by Walker
Electronically published in 2004 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.