“I wish you will not treat it with such levity, Mr. Garret!” protested the agitated voice of Mr. Bailey. “It is my opinion the Constable should be summoned. You might well have—”
“Stuff! Where’s my riding crop?” Euphemia threw a hand to her mouth, her heart thundering as she heard the clatter of articles moved by impatient hands. “Dammitall, Bailey! I collect I’ve left it in the stables. My head is full of windmills these days!”
Sure that he would next look in the dressing room, Euphemia hove a sigh of relief as he grumbled on, with Bailey making small placating remarks. It was probably a brief respite at best, however, and she would positively die of mortification if he discovered them in here! A grinding sound brought her startled gaze downward. Sampson was single-mindedly devouring his prize, while Kent, kneeling beside him, watched his efforts with admiration. It was doubtful that the crop could be wrested away without considerable commotion, and she dared not risk latching the door. Retreat was the only answer. She glanced swiftly around the dressing room. A tall mahogany chest held a clutter of male articles, several letters, and a miniature of a dark-haired woman with a sensitive mouth, and eyes of the same clear grey as those of Hawkhurst, his mother, beyond doubting. There was a full-length standing mirror and a recessed area with a long clothes-rod, on which were hung the garments he would probably wear for luncheon. A hunting gun was propped against the side of the chest, and a dark blue quilted satin dressing gown was tossed carelessly over a straight-backed chair. Her eyes flickered swiftly over these items and flew to the door at the rear of the small room. She tiptoed to try the latch and could have wept with chagrin. It was locked, and there was no visible key.
“… might be down in the stables,” Hawkhurst was calling. “Oh, and be a good fellow, tell Dr. Archer I’ll ride back with him.” Bailey’s distant voice raised an immediate protest, and Hawkhurst responded, “Devil, I will! Tell him!”
The door was closed, and she gripped her hands in relief. If he intended to ride again he was not likely to change clothes now. But that revolting dog was grinding like a full-fledged grist mill!
Hawkhurst muttered a vexed, “What the … hell!”
He must have seen the fallen candelabra and clock. With a flutter of the heart, Euphemia knew that, if he next found dog hairs upon his pillow, they would be undone, for he would certainly initiate a search for the culprit.
Kent tugged at her skirts and peered up at her, his small face anxious. Poor child, she must not frighten him. She forced her pale lips into a smile and bent to whisper, “I do not wish Mr. Hawkhurst to be cross with Sampson, dear, so we shall play a little game of hide and seek. Try to keep him quiet.” Intrigued by the game, he nodded, and she draped the large dressing gown over the crouching boy and the busy dog. Sampson raised no protest, and Euphemia’s hopes escalated as she heard Hawkhurst stride across the room and open the door. Thank heaven! She eased the dressing room door open and peeped between the curtains.
“Fillman!” he bellowed, then grumbled, “Why don’t you answer the bell, damn your ears?” He slammed the door. The draft sent the curtains billowing outward, and, sure she would be seen, Euphemia jumped back. Her elbow struck the door causing it to swing wide and crash against the wall. She barely had time to gasp with fright before two strong hands wrenched the curtains apart.
Hawkhurst towered over her, his face grim and deadly. She could have sunk but stood her ground, her knees shaking and her reeling brain searching frantically for the convincing explanation that did not exist.
Hawkhurst, on the other hand, quite literally sprang back, so obviously flabbergasted that she knew a nervous need to giggle.
“Wh-What…” he gulped. “What … in the name of…?”
Her mouth very dry and her face very red, Euphemia said feebly, “I—I was … er—lost.”
“Lost?” he echoed, recovering somewhat, although he was pale with shock. “I have encountered many ‘lost’ people on my estates. But never, I must admit, in my bedchamber!”
“Well, I can understand that would … er … be so,” she stammered, tottering valiantly into the bedchamber. “But … I did not quite know … that is…” She floundered helplessly. What on earth could she say to the man?
His eyes, chips of ice now, slanted from the fallen candelabra and clock to the curtains behind her. “What have you been about?” he demanded suspiciously. “I have been a slowtop again, is that it? And this whole damnable thing was a badly managed scheme to—”
“To do—what?” she countered, indignation banishing fear. “Steal that Rembrandt you have in the gallery? Make off with your twenty-foot tapestry from the dining room? But, of course! I have ’em both. One tucked in my ear and the other up my sleeve! Would you wish to inspect, perhaps…?” And she leaned to him, pulling out her ear lobe in angry mockery.
Her slight movement was accelerated as his hands clamped onto her shoulders and pulled her to him. She was crushed against his chest, and he was bending to her mouth. She did not scream but, even as she struggled, knew that this was scarce to be wondered at. What must he think of her? And he was so terribly strong, she could not break free. Her heart began to leap erratically. His lips were a breath away. A new light was in his eyes, a look of such tenderness that her anger was transformed into a sudden and hitherto unknown terror. Gone was her famed calm in time of crisis, gone the cool courage that had always enabled her to meet whatever Fate flung at her. Out of this debilitating panic came a strangled sob, and, jerking her head from his questing lips, she gasped, “I have none but myself to blame for this crude assault. God knows, I should have had more sense than to investigate a strange sound—in the bedchamber of the most notorious libertine in England!”
For an instant he stood very still. Then he straightened and stepped back, bowing slightly, a twisted smile bringing no trace of mirth to eyes over which the lids once more drooped cynically.
She felt drowned by remorse and reached out to him in an intense need to make amends, but before she could speak a sound penetrated the silence, a sound as of grist being ground between heavy millstones.
Hawkhurst’s gaze flashed to the dressing room. “Strange sound, indeed!” he breathed, and sprinted for the curtains. And in that same instant, as though a capricious Fate decreed it, Sampson elected to gallop for freedom, the remnants of the crop carried triumphantly between his jaws, a piece of mother-of-pearl shining atop his muzzle. He caromed into the advancing man, and, caught off balance, Hawkhurst reeled into the wall. Sampson plunged for the door. Quite undismayed to find it shut, he diverted himself by tearing three times around the room, sending rugs, a chair, and a lamp tumbling. He then bounded onto the bed and crouched, panting happily, perfectly ready to participate in whatever game was next offered him. Hawkhurst, less amiably inclined, gave a howl of rage. “Get off my bed! Down, you damnable imp of Satan! Blast your fleas! What’s he got there…? My whip? By God! But this is too much!” He made a dive for the dressing room, and emerged, gun in hands and murder in his eyes.
Euphemia, however, had seized her opportunity. The door stood ajar, and the echoing thump of four large paws, punctuated by an occasional crash, drifted to them.
“Out of my way, woman!” raged Hawkhurst. “How in the devil did that worthless mongrel get in here? By thunder, I’ll murder the—”
“Be still!” she admonished sharply. “The child is here.”
Infuriated, he swung around to discover Kent, who had crept out from under the dressing gown, and now stood white-faced in the doorway to the dressing room. “Did you let that miserable hound in here?” Hawkhurst demanded. “What in the deuce are—” And he broke off, fury fading into consternation.
Kent, his face twitching, shaking his head pleadingly, was shrinking back. Frowning, Hawkhurst started towards him. Euphemia ran to snatch the gun from his hand. He cast her an irked look and strode for the boy. “Kent, now you must certainly—”
But the child, sobbing in his pathetic, soundless fashion,
was stumbling ever backward across the dressing room, until the locked door barred his way, until his fumbling hands, pressing frenziedly at the wall, could find no escape. And, accepting the inevitability of his fate, he cringed there, arms flung upward to protect his face, his slender body crouched and shuddering in anticipation of the beating that must follow.
Hawkhurst stared down at him in stark horror. Forgotten now was the dog or the whip that had been his father’s. Forgotten, even, the girl and her scorn that had seared him. The years rolled back, and he himself stood thus before the raging tutor, terror making him sweat, and the cane whistling down at him … He fell to one knee and adjured softly, “Kent, never do that. Not to me, boy.”
The voice held a caress, and, reacting to it at once, the child peeped between his shielding arms and found the dark face magically transformed. The mouth curved to a kindly smile, the harsh lines had vanished, and the anger in the cold eyes was replaced by a gentleness such as made the threat of savage reprisal a thing impossible. Daring to breathe again, Kent lowered his arms. Hawkhurst reached out. For a moment the boy stared wonderingly, then with a thankful gasp, threw himself into those strong arms, to be enfolded and held firm and safe against a corduroy-clad shoulder.
Blinded by tears, Euphemia crept away and left them together. And, running to her room, for one of the few times in her life, she lay on her bed and wept with total abandonment. When at last the paroxysm ended, she lay there limp and exhausted, breathing in great shuddering gasps, and bewildered by her own hysteria. She sniffed, sat up, and, drying her tears, took herself firmly in hand. How ridiculous to behave in this missish way. There was no reason to tremble so, nor to feel so frightened and lost. Whatever was the matter with her? Hawkhurst would understand now why she had ventured into his bedchamber. He surely would not take her for the wanton he had evidently assumed her to be when first he found her there. He would soon apologize for having seized her so brutally … so tenderly …
Unaccountably, her eyes grew dim again, her throat tightened painfully, and with the memory of his stricken eyes tormenting her, she thought achingly, Oh, I wish I had not spoken so!
NINE
MRS. GRAHAM would not be comforted. In a highly agitated state, the little lady gestured dramatically all along the upstairs corridor. Her sister-in-law, she mourned, would be furious, and there was not a bit of use to pretend innocence, for she never had been any good at dissembling, and Carlotta would know in a trice that she had been aware of the scheme.
“But, you were innocent, Dora,” Euphemia smiled. “Now pray do not worry so. Hawk—hurst must like his new sister. And if he likes her, Lady Bryce will not dare to scold you.”
Apparently unaware of that swiftly corrected slip, Dora merely heaved an apprehensive sigh. In an attempt to change the subject, Euphemia commented on what a fine young man Coleridge appeared to be and asked if his cousin really meant to force him into the army.
They had by this time come to the Great Hall and started toward the gold lounge where the family had lately formed the habit of meeting before luncheon. “I doubt he would force Colley to go,” said Mrs. Graham. “But, he would like him to buy a pair of colours, for he is afraid, I think, that…”
“That his own reputation may ruin Coleridge?” asked Euphemia.
“Why, how well you have come to know us in these few days, my dear.” Dora made a convulsive grab at her tumbling crocheted shawl, and then paused to try and disentangle it from the holly branches in the great Chinese urn beside the music room. “Yes, partly that. And partly—well, Hawk was in the military, and—”
The rest of her words were lost upon Euphemia, who could almost hear a sneering voice say, “how those military rattles dazzle the ladies…” Why on earth would he make so contemptuous a remark if he himself had worn a scarlet coat? Baffled, she said, “He was? Why, I’d no idea. What was his regiment?”
“Oh, my … Now, was it the 52nd? Or was that poor Harry Redmond? No, I think it was the 43rd. Or was that Colborne?”
“Redmond was a Light Bob, ma’am. And had Mr. Hawkhurst served with John Colborne, I would have met him, I do believe—or heard tell of him.”
“Oh, but this was several years ago, child. Gary fought in a battle, I know. Bustle or hustle, something or other. It was soon after his wife and son were … er— And so he bought a pair of colours and went. I was sure he would be killed, as he hoped to be, the poor soul.”
A pang pierced Euphemia. “You must mean Bussaco,” she said in a shaken voice. “Goodness, but you are trapped. Allow me to help. Was he wounded?”
“No. Is it not always the way? His friends said he was in the very thickest of the fighting, but not so much as a scratch. Such a disappointment it must have been! But then he was needed here, and the Admiral demanded he come home. He has often spoken of how splendid his comrades were, and I think that is why he wants Colley to join up. He hopes it will make a man of him.”
“Lord Bryce is a man,” frowned Euphemia, finally extricating the shawl. “We cannot all be the same type you know, dear ma’am. Nor have the same interests. Your nephew should really—”
“No more an accident than Prinny is a postulant! I tell you, Buck, it was a deliberate attempt at murder!”
The familiar male voice held Euphemia rigid with astonishment.
Dora clapped her hands. “Thank goodness! We have more company. Carlotta will be happy! Ah, you have freed me, my dear!” She flung her shawl exuberantly about her, then, pulling down the end that had whipped about her mouth, cried, “‘Free as nature first made man, ere laws of…’ Now how does that go? ‘Ere laws of serving people’—or something, ‘began.’” And, with a whimsical giggle, she trotted and tripped her way into the lounge.
Following, Euphemia saw two young men standing beside the fire. One was Simon, and at the sight of the other her heart gave a leap of joy. “Leith!” She moved swiftly to greet this good friend, and with a glad cry he strode to take her outstretched hands, press each to his lips, and scan her, eyes bright with adoration. “What a very great pleasure to find you here, Mia!”
“A pleasure shared,” she said warmly and, tugging at the unfamiliar blue of his sleeve, asked, “A promotion? Are you now one of the great man’s ‘family’?”
“He’s deserted for a confounded staff officer!” laughed Buchanan. “Dreadful!”
“I think it splendid! And indeed Wellington could have done no better! But—how surprised I am to see you here. Are you acquainted with Hawkhurst, Tris?”
“Scandalous, ain’t it?” drawled a cynical voice.
Euphemia glanced to the side and could have sunk, as Hawkhurst, who had been sprawled in a wing chair by the window, stood lazily.
Leith’s shrewd eyes flashed from one to the other. Euphemia’s cheeks were scarlet. He had seldom seen her off-stride, but now her customary poise, her ability to smooth over the most awkward of moments, seemed to have deserted her. Inwardly troubled, he bowed in his gallant way over Dora’s hand, then dropped a kiss upon her cheek in the manner of a very old friend, answering her eager questions with the regretful news that he could stay a very short time. He’d come with despatches to the Horse Guards, must return to France in the morning, and had detoured here for only a very brief visit.
“And will not tell us any news,” fretted Buchanan, “until we are all at luncheon!”
“Savage!” Euphemia chastised, making an outward recover, although her heart still pounded unevenly. “Tell us only this—have we lost any good friends?”
She had expected that he would at once set her fears at rest, but momentarily he looked grim, and she exchanged a swift glance with her brother. More welcoming cries interrupted their discussion, as Bryce and his mother entered. Leith seized the young man’s hand in a firm grip, pounded briefly at his shoulder, then whirled the Lady Carlotta off her little feet and planted a healthy kiss on one warmly blushing cheek. “Rogue!” she laughed happily. “Oh, how very glad I am to see you again! And looking spl
endidly, as usual, though I think you would do better to stay with your red uniform my dear, much more dashing than that dull blue! Do you overnight?”
“Just a hasty drop-in, I’m afraid,” he said fondly, flashing an amused glance at Buchanan’s hilarity as he set her down. “And never,” his dark eyes turned to Euphemia, “more pleased than to find the lady I mean to make my wife visiting you also.”
Bryce looked surprised. Euphemia blushed and felt a surge of irritation. Dora shot a troubled look at Hawkhurst’s still face, and Carlotta, her eyes frankly dubious, scanned the tall girl without appreciable rapture and murmured, “Dear me … another surprise.”
“A magnificent one!” Coleridge said with real enthusiasm.
“Well, you crusty old misogynist?” grinned Leith. “What have you to say to that?”
Hawkhurst had wandered over to the window and stood with his back to them, but he turned with a bored smile and shrugged, “I wish you happy, of course. And for myself, I wish my lunch. Can we go in? Or are we all—? Ah, I see that my sister is not yet—” And he broke off, staring at the girl who had come shyly through the door to pause on the threshold.
Stephanie’s pale hair that had been bland in those thick braids had come to life, and the glow of the firelight danced among the short curls clustering about her ears. The fullness of those curls broke and softened the rather long line of her face. Her pale brows and lashes had been very subtly darkened, and the eyes that had been so nondescript as to elude notice, had gained new depth and brilliance. She would never be a Toast, but Euphemia had spoken truly: her light was no longer hidden under a bushel. However shyly, Stephanie glowed, the added colour in her cheeks, the pale golden gown, and the amber velvet riband about her hair, transforming a somewhat insipid girl into a most attractive young lady.
“Good … God…!” gasped Bryce.
“By Jove!” Leith exclaimed in delight. “Euphemia, my beautiful, have a care! Do you not set the date, you’re liable to find me in the toils of this enchantress!”
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