Regency Rumours/A Scandalous Mistress/Dishonour And Desire

by Juliet Landon

  Promptly, before Amelie could reply, Stephen stood up, addressing himself pointedly to Lord Elyot. ‘Indeed she has. Much more. Under duress too, I believe. And if Lady Chester had accepted my protection with the same promptness she was obliged to accept yours, my lord, then none of this would—’

  ‘Stephen!’ cried Amelie, jumping to her feet. ‘Please say no more. You are overwrought, and I think we should talk about this again in the morning. This conversation is getting out of hand, and I am not to be discussed as if I were a commodity. We shall all regret saying things when we’re so tired.’

  ‘Then I shall have the last word,’ said Lord Elyot, ‘so that Mr Chester goes to his bed knowing exactly where he stands on the subject of protection. Lady Chester is engaged to me, sir. Let that be quite clear to you. The promptness of her acceptance has nothing to do with you or with anyone else, nor is there any possibility of you taking my place either now or in the future, just in case you had any ambitions in that direction.’

  ‘My lord!’ said Stephen.

  ‘I am aware of the help you have given to Lady Chester in the past, and I understand the reasons for it, but she has agreed to be my wife, and that is what she will be. Your doubts, if you have them, do not concern me. Now, it’s time we took our leave of my lady. Where are you putting up, sir?’

  There was a noticeable pause as Stephen exhaled, noisily and tight-lipped. ‘At the White Hart, my lord. My luggage is already there.’

  ‘Then I believe one carriage may do for all three of us, for that is where my brother and I shall be staying. Will you share it with us?’

  Stony-faced, Stephen nodded, curtly. ‘Thank you.’

  A few uncomfortable minutes later, as two of the men filed downstairs, Lord Elyot slipped a hand beneath Amelie’s arm to hold her back, searching past the ravages of worry on her face to find a hint of warmth. ‘I know you’re angry,’ he said, softly, ‘but we can discuss all this in the days ahead. You heard what I said just now. Whatever he is to you, whatever he has been, it is me you will marry. So if you had any thoughts about taking flight again, alone or with him, forget it. I shall find you and bring you back, Amelie.’

  ‘I have no such plans,’ she replied. ‘But you are wrong. I cannot marry you. This was a temporary arrangement, and that is how it will have to stay. Now, you can safely go to the White Hart, my lord. You are only right about having some talking to do. To be more exact, you do.’

  ‘So do you, wench.’

  ‘Why did you come, you and your brother? Was it Hurst’s letter?’

  ‘No!’ A smile and a tip of the handsome head dismissed that idea in one second. ‘I came to take the waters. Why else does one come to Bath?’

  When her hopes had been at their lowest that day, a good night kiss from the one she hungered for would have been on her list of miracles. But now his lips sought hers just as hungrily, warm, like his arms hard around her shoulders, holding her upright as she sagged like a doll against him. Dizzy with emotional tiredness, she tasted the wine on his mouth and knew without asking that this was not the kind of kiss he shared with others.

  ‘I seem to be having a problem making myself understood tonight,’ he whispered, ‘and you usually so sharp-witted. Let me say it again, my lady. Whatever clever scheme you have hatched between you for Chester’s journey down to Bath, you will not be allowed to marry him. Have I made myself clear, or is there something I’ve missed out?’

  The obvious and angry retort was suppressed, for now she heard the unexpected overtones of jealousy in his assumption that Stephen had come to Bath at her request rather than in response to Caterina’s letter. That’s how it would look. She fled from Richmond. Stephen joined her to provide an escape from a hopeless situation. How convenient. She could have reassured him, but chose not to.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘You’re the only woman I’ve ever chased after, Amelie, and, by heaven, I’ll chase you to the ends of the earth, if I have to. Shall I have to?’

  ‘No,’ she whispered, clasped within the hardness of his arms. ‘You won’t.’

  ‘Then I shall come to you tomorrow, though I shall be delayed. I’m going to call on Dorna first. What number Sydney Place is she?’

  ‘Four.’

  He kissed her again, more gently, but she held his arm as he turned to go downstairs. ‘My lord … please … don’t hit Tam, will you?’

  His laugh was more like a bark. ‘Hah! I’d like to do more than hit him, but I won’t. I shall take Chester to see him. He can hit him if he wants to.’

  ‘Oh, dear.’

  ‘Go to bed, sweetheart. You look all in.’

  Waiting until the door had closed upon her visitors, she went upstairs, where the relief of seeing Caterina peacefully asleep settled upon her like an eiderdown. ‘Go and take your supper,’ she said to the two maids. ‘I’ll stay here.’

  She sat by Caterina’s bed and laid a hand upon hers, feeling the searing pity of a mother for her child’s suffering, more so because she was herself caught up in the same kind of net. Lord Rayne, she thought, had obviously intended to assist his brother by partnering Caterina without realising the devastating effect he would have on an untouched seventeen-year-old heart. But she was not the kind of woman he wanted and inevitably it had showed, causing her more anguish than she had ever experienced before. Nor was he the kind of man to tell her sweet lies or to take pleasure from her adoration. She would have to be told the truth of the matter, and the pain would be terrible without laudanum to dull it. ‘My poor brave little lass,’ she whispered. ‘Knowing will be unbearable. I should never have allowed it to happen.’

  Taking it in turns with Lise, Millie and Mrs Braithwaite to stay with Caterina throughout the night, Amelie used the empty hours to view her own unsettled situation in which every negative thought was silenced by the fact that he had come to find her, angry, determined, possessive, and resentful of Stephen. If this latter element gave her no pleasure, it added at least a gram or two of weight to her dwindling confidence. It served him right. Perhaps she should not put his mind at rest too soon. Stephen would find her attention soothing after that very forthright and quite undeserved put-down just now.

  Creeping back to her own bed in the early hours, she fell asleep to the memory of her lover’s voice and the hard pressure of his arms across her back. By heaven, I’ll chase you to the ends of the earth, if I have to. Would she now be obliged to tell him the reason why she could not marry him? And if Caterina was taken back to Buxton, where would that leave her?

  With so many questions to be answered, it was only to be expected that the meeting at Sydney Place the next morning would be an acrimonious and heated one from which even Dorna did not escape unscathed. Amelie heard some details from Lord Elyot, though not as many as she would have liked, when he found her in the rain-lashed garden at the back of the house with a trug full of seed-heads in one hand and scissors in the other.

  ‘What in the devil’s name are you doing out here in this wind?’ he called, dodging the hair-grabbing tendrils hanging from the pergola.

  ‘Good morning to you too, my lord,’ she said. ‘No need to ask how the meeting with your sister went, then? Are you the only one remaining standing?’

  The gale-force wind whipped the shawl off her shoulder like a spinnaker, and thunder cracked across the distant hills, echoing eerily round the valley. ‘Come inside,’ he said, ‘and offer me some tea like a civilised woman.’ His eyes supported his criticism, for she looked ravishing with her hair everywhere and her gown clinging damply to her body, a far cry from the drawing-room image.

  ‘Heaven forbid that I should be thought uncivilised,’ she murmured, leading the way back to the house. In the parlour, a fire burned in an iron grate surrounded by a polished oak chimneypiece, and the warm apricot-and-white walls and furnishings, the oak floor, and Amelie’s peach, cream and mauve gown and shawl made it appear that she had dressed on purpose to match the room. Again, she had the pleasure of seeing how he reacted to
her taste, how his appraisal of the sparkling glass, silver and paintings held his eyes and stayed his tongue. ‘Well, my lord,’ she said, giving a tug of the bell-rope. ‘Will you be seated, or are you in pacing mode?’

  ‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘How is the patient? Recovering?’

  ‘Very much so,’ she said. ‘She slept well, had a good breakfast in bed and is now playing the piano upstairs. Subdued, of course, but not upset.’

  ‘So she’s none the worse for her escapade?’

  ‘Worse, my lord? Well, she’s certainly worse for something, though I’m more inclined to put that down to a bruised heart than anything else. I feel very sad and guilty that she felt obliged to take the wrong remedy for it.’

  ‘Is there one?’ he said.

  To avoid his face, she looked out into the storm-ravaged garden. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I suppose there is, but it’s not one Caterina will have access to, unfortunately. She will have to make use of time as a healer.’

  Mr Killigrew knocked and entered.

  ‘Some tea for Lord Elyot,’ Amelie said, ‘and chocolate for me, if you please, and some muffins. I think we have need of muffins.’

  Mr Killigrew bowed and disappeared.

  ‘Please do sit down, my lord, and tell me what happened. Did Tam have an explanation to offer?’

  ‘I’m afraid our definitions of that word are very much at odds. He offered the excuse that all his friends take laudanum, he’s been taking it for over a year, apparently; he didn’t think it would do Miss Chester any harm, and so on. He seems to have no conception of the damage it can do to young people, females in particular. He’s the most irresponsible niff-naff I’ve ever come across. I suppose there has to be at least one in every family, but personally I think he should be made to wear a warning round his neck.’ He sat down at last, flipping up the tails of his grey coat and crossing his long, strong legs with a grace that was quite unstudied. His hands drooped over the rounded chair-arms while, with his middle finger, he caressed the grooves in the carved wood. ‘And before you ask,’ he continued, ‘I’ve packed him off home to his father, who ought never to have foisted him upon Dorna in the first place. He agreed to send him away for a while, but he didn’t tell me it was to be with my sister. Dorna has enough to do with two children of her own.’

  ‘So you don’t believe Tam set out to harm Caterina, to get back at Seton?’

  ‘That kind of revenge would be beyond young Elwick. He doesn’t have the brains to think along those lines.’

  ‘Stephen thinks so.’

  ‘He doesn’t know the lad as I do. Anyway, that’s a father’s reaction. I would probably kill any man who harmed a child of mine.’

  ‘Would you, my lord?’

  ‘Certainly I would. Don’t forget that Chester’s been through something similar before when his brother died in his arms. In the circumstances, I think he showed great restraint towards Tam. More than Seton did.’

  ‘What did Stephen say to him?’

  ‘Quite a lot. If Dorna and Hannah had not been there, he would probably have said much more.’

  ‘So has Hannah gone back home with her brother?’

  ‘No, she refused. The problem was not hers.’

  Amelie blinked in surprise. ‘She’ll want to stay with the children.’

  ‘Ye … es,’ said Lord Elyot, unconvinced. ‘I suppose so. So why did you come to Bath? To escape?’ From beneath lowered brows, his look was severe, but not enough to daunt Amelie.

  ‘Last night you were determined to think so, despite my telling you about Caterina’s singing engagement. Following the maestro to Bath was the obvious thing to do, but if you prefer to think we came for some other purpose, don’t let me deter you. After all, we can both rush off whenever we feel like it without a word of explanation, can we not? Guessing each other’s whereabouts is so interesting.’

  ‘Amelie, you were asleep. I was not going to wake you when I’d hardly allowed you to sleep all night.’

  She blushed, but would not let it go. ‘Ah, I see. So you didn’t know you were going until that moment. And you could not have left a note.’

  ‘Something came up at the ball. Unexpected.’

  ‘Yes, I saw them. They were unexpected for me, too. Did you enjoy yourselves in London?’

  ‘I didn’t go for enjoyment, I went to see my parents as a matter of some urgency. No one else. After that night we spent together, how could you possibly think otherwise? Have I made you feel so insecure, Amelie?’

  Something trembled in her chest, catching at her lungs as a word fell out, headlong. ‘Yes.’ She shook, waiting for her breathing to catch up. ‘And don’t try to put me in the wrong, my lord. What am I supposed to think when there is so much unsaid between us? We cannot go on like this.’

  Leaning forward, he touched her hand with one forefinger. ‘I went to make some enquiries into your background,’ he said, softly. ‘That’s all.’

  She leapt to her feet as if she had been scalded. ‘Hurst!’ she said, going to stand behind her chair. ‘You saw his letter, didn’t you? Your brother … he …?’

  ‘Yes, he brought news of it to me in London, but my investigations had nothing to do with Hurst’s letter. I didn’t even go to see him. If we leave him alone, he’ll have enough rope to hang himself eventually, and I have more important matters to attend to than the silly ravings of that lunatic. Did you think I’d swallow it, sweetheart?’

  ‘Your brother probably did.’

  ‘Well, I’ve explained it to him, and now he understands.’

  ‘So you don’t believe what the letter said?’

  ‘Sit down.’ He led her back to her chair, easing her into it. ‘Of course I didn’t. I know full well he’s never been your lover.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  Passing a hand over his eyes, he groaned. ‘Heaven help me, woman. Give me some credit, I beg you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There are ways of telling.’

  ‘What ways?’

  ‘Another time. Tell me why your brother-in-law came to Bath.’

  ‘Didn’t you ask him?’

  ‘I did, but he told me to mind my own business. I suspect he’d been waiting for the chance to say that.’

  ‘Then I don’t see how I can tell you either. I shall suggest returning to Richmond with him and Caterina either tomorrow or the day after.’

  ‘You’ll do no such thing.’

  ‘She can’t stay in Bath with Lord Rayne here. That would be too unkind. And I’m not sending them away on their own.’

  ‘Nor would you wish to sacrifice Mr Chester’s company by sending him back to Derbshire after his long gallop to see you. No, I can quite understand that. There must be an alternative.’

  The impending argument was curtailed by the arrival of Mr Killigrew and a tray of refreshments, the distribution of which gave them time to cool down while they munched hot muffins and caught dripping butter off their chins like ravenous children.

  Lord Elyot spoke with his mouth full. ‘In fact, there is a perfectly good alternative. Seton wants to talk to her. He believes, as I do, that it would be best to explain matters to her. She’s a woman, and she deserves to be treated like one. Seton will soon be joining his regiment and he may be away for years. He would still like them to be friends, but—’

  ‘But she’s too young for him and not his type. Wouldn’t the truth do just as well?’

  Wiping his mouth with the napkin, he took issue with her unhelpful sarcasm. ‘Amelie, would you prefer it if Seton just went back home without a word, or allowed her to go? Would you not give her the chance to see him, alone, to make her own decision? Or are you so set on making all the Chesters’ decisions for them?’

  ‘Making …? What on earth do you mean by that, pray? Stephen put Caterina in my charge with that intention. He’s not complained about my decision-making, has he?’

  ‘Not to me. But now he’s here, by some marvellous coincidence, so you can safely le
ave it to him, can’t you? And he believes that Seton should be allowed to speak to her, too. May I have some more tea, please?’

  ‘I don’t want him to upset her.’

  ‘He won’t. And even if she is upset, she still has a right to know.’

  ‘The right to know. Yes. Then perhaps you could tell me about the investigations into my background you made in London, if you please.’ She was unable to tell from his infuriating calmness whether he’d been about to refuse or tell her, for as she handed him a second cup of tea, the door opened to admit Mr Stephen Chester looking more wind-blown than ever and trying to smooth the wayward strands of hair.

  Amelie caught Mr Killigrew’s enquiring eye and nodded. ‘Stephen! You’ll take some tea and muffins, won’t you? Good.’

  Having been a widower for several years and somewhat out of the habit of consulting anyone about anything much, least of all on topics of conversation, Stephen Chester launched into a detailed account of the toils and tribulations of the last two days, showing them both quite clearly that his plumage had been considerably ruffled by more than the gale outside. He was today more petulant than Amelie had ever seen him.

  There was more to it than he was saying. For one thing, he had not expected Lord Elyot to be so conspicuously and unfairly good looking, or younger than him, or so outspoken in his claim to Amelie. That had come as something of a shock. Nor had he been prepared for the concern shown to himself and Caterina by Lord Elyot and his brother, or for the fury at young Tam Elwick’s behaviour. He would have preferred to find Caterina himself, after all his efforts, and now he felt redundant and unwanted even by Amelie, whom he had not expected to find eating muffins and cosily chatting to one of the most notorious rakes in the country.

  As if that was not enough, Lord Rayne was now asking to speak with his daughter, forcing Stephen to see her for the first time as an intelligent and sensitive young woman rather than as a silly mixed-up girl, as he had been doing. It was a pity, he thought, that the young blade didn’t want to make an offer for her.