Lord of Misrule

by Sally Wentworth

  ‘Perhaps I ought to have my car checked over before we go, though,’ Verity remarked as they discussed it over dinner one day. ‘I don’t want it to break down again.’

  ‘Why don’t you go by train?’ Maggie suggested. ‘It would be less tiring for both of you. There’s a very good express service from Melford. And Sebastian could run you to the station and pick you up.’

  ‘I think the train’s a good idea,’ Verity agreed. ‘But we can quite easily take a taxi. There’s no need for Sebastian to bother.’

  He was sitting at the end of the table to her left and gave her a look of amused irony. ‘It’s really no trouble. And we certainly don’t want Paula standing around in the cold waiting for a taxi to turn up, now do we?’

  Verity bit her lip, recognising the challenge in his tone, but refusing to meet it. Since the trip to Melford there had been restraint between them and they had lost the growing friendliness. That it was her fault Verity knew, but somehow she couldn’t get the idea of Sebastian with the girl in the park out of her mind. Her feelings about him were so mixed up; from a terrible start of fear and suspicion she had quickly gone to liking him very much, and added to that liking was a growing sexual attraction that she found hard to resist. But it had been a shock to find that Sebastian was so fallible, that he could be seduced by such an obvious and flashy sex-kitten. It had lowered him in her estimation—and yet she still felt attracted to him, which made her angry with herself and so with him.

  Maggie was a bridge fanatic; she played regularly twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays, at the homes of various neighbours, and often had friends round for a game at the weekend. She had been delighted to find that the girls knew how to play the game, although their standard was far below hers, and they often played for an hour or so in the evenings. She suggested a game that evening, and they sat round the card-table, Verity opposite Sebastian, whom she’d drawn as a partner. He was a good player and never got angry if his partner made a mistake, willing to point out where they’d gone wrong if asked, but not one of those players who found it necessary to hold an inquest after every hand. Which was just as well, because Verity didn’t play at all well that night.

  The card-table was an antique, and rather smaller than the standard size. Both she and Sebastian were tall and, being a man, he liked to stretch out his legs. They had been playing only a short while when Verity unthinkingly crossed her legs under the table and they brushed against his. She quickly drew back, but her colour heightened, and when she looked at Sebastian under her lashes she saw a look of mocking amusement in his eyes. This only made her even more aware of him, and she found it almost impossible to concentrate when she had to look at him, meet his eyes, talk to him, in the course of the game.

  ‘You seem quite preoccupied tonight, Verity,’ Maggie remarked. ‘You just trumped Sebastian’s ace.’

  ‘Oh! Did I? Sorry.’ The apology was addressed to Sebastian, but she didn’t look at him, instead putting down her cards, thankful that the rubber was over. ‘I think I need some fresh air. If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go for a walk.’

  After going upstairs to fetch her coat, Verity let herself out of the front door and walked slowly through the garden, her hands thrust into her pockets. It was a beautiful night, the stars clear and bright in the crisp coolness of the sky. Without making any conscious decision, she began to walk past the house and along the track leading to the bridge. The river was fascinating and mysterious in the moonlight, bubbling like molten silver over rocks and swirling into dark, secret pools under overhanging trees. She stood there, leaning against the rail, letting her thoughts flow with the river.

  The footsteps sounded quite clearly in the still night, coming towards her along the track from the direction of the house, and she instinctively knew that it was Sebastian. She turned to face him, her hand on the rail, and he stopped in a patch of moonlight, a couple of yards away. ‘Just so that you realise it’s me and don’t start hollering blue murder,’ he said wryly.

  ‘I’ve already admitted I was wrong about that.’

  He came nearer. ‘But it hasn’t stopped you from jumping to conclusions a second time, has it?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Yes, you do. You saw that girl who spoke to me in the park and immediately put a completely wrong interpretation on it. Thai’s why you’ve been avoiding me ever since.’

  ‘I haven’t been avoiding you,’ Verity said defensively. ‘How could I avoid you when we’re living in the same house?’

  ‘With difficulty—but you’ve had a darn good try.’ He gave an impatient gesture. ‘Look, you’ve been wrong about mc once; didn’t it occur to you that you might be wrong again?’ She was silent and he said harshly, ‘Didn’t you have any reservations?’

  ‘It all seemed so—obvious.’ Verity turned her head away. ‘The way that girl looked at you, spoke to you, and—and touched you.’

  ‘Maybe that was because it was meant to look obvious.’

  She turned, puzzled. ‘I don’t understand/

  Sebastian gave an angry sigh. ‘Sometimes people have enemies. She’s one of ours.’

  ‘Ours?’

  ‘Mine, then.’ He waited for her to speak, but when she didn’t, said, ‘Don’t you want to know why?’

  Stiffly, Verity said, ‘It’s really none of my business. I don’t have the right to ask.’

  “Then damn well give yourself the right,’ Sebastian said in sudden anger.

  ‘How?’ She faced up to him, her own feelings rising.

  ‘I can’t just‘

  ‘Yes, you can! Like this.’ And, stepping forward, he pulled her roughly into his arms and kissed her.

  As first kisses went, it wasn’t exactly romantic. There was no soft gentleness, no tender emotions growing into desire. Sebastian’s lips were hard and overbearing. He held her imprisoned in his arms and bent her back under the force of his mouth, taking everything and giving nothing. But when he finally let her go and stepped back she definitely knew that she’d been kissed. ‘Now,’ he said, his voice unsteady. ‘Now you have the right.’

  But Verity couldn’t find anything to say. Her heart was hammering in her chest and her throat felt too tight, too constricted for any words to come out. Her knees felt weak and she leaned back against the rail, but Sebastian quickly put his hand out to grab her arm.

  ‘I don’t want you going over the rail again.’

  Huskily she said, ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘No.’ He looked into her face for a moment, then kissed her again, and it was far better this time. Verity even got a chance to put her arms round his neck.

  ‘So who is that girl?’ she asked when he eventually let her go.

  Sebastian grinned. ‘I see you get your priorities right. She used to work here some years ago, but she was—a troublemaker, and we had to get rid of her. But I’m afraid she still bears a grudge against us. Unfortunately her people still live near here and, although she’s away most of the time, she occasionally comes back and tries to annoy us.’

  ‘Can’t you stop her?’

  He shrugged and bent to lean on the rail. ‘Ignoring her is by far the best method.’ He glanced at her. ‘That way she’s unable to give people the wrong impression.’

  Verity caught the sardonic note in his voice and said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me straight off?’

  ‘I prefer to forget her. But I would have done if I’d known the effect it was going to have on you.’

  ‘It didn’t have any effect on me,’ Verity protested.

  Sebastian laughed and straightened up. ‘If you say so, of course. But I must admit that I was hoping you were just a tiny bit jealous.’

  ‘Certainly not.’ But then she smiled. ‘Not jealous, that wasn’t how I felt.’

  ‘No?’ But he didn’t question her further, instead kissing her again before putting an arm across her shoulders as they began to walk back to the house. ‘Did you mention anything about the girl to Paula?’ he
asked a few moments later.

  Verity nodded. ‘Yes, I did. Does it matter?’

  ‘Not really, I suppose. I just thought that it might be better to keep anything at all unpleasant from her at the moment. We don’t want her to take an irrational dislike to the place, do we? Women can do that, I understand, when they’re pregnant.’

  ‘No, we don’t,’ Verity agreed. ‘I’m sorry I told her now.’

  ‘What woman could resist?’ he said teasingly. ‘But perhaps you could play it down if she asks. You can even let her go on thinking that the girl is an old flame of mine, if you like. That is what you told her, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Verity admitted. ‘But I don’t think I want her to go on thinking that.’

  Sebastian stopped and turned her to him. ‘Good.’ He ran his lips in light kisses along her throat, sending her pulses racing. ‘Tell her the truth then, but tell her the girl has gone away.’

  ‘And has she?’

  ‘I neither know nor care,’ Sebastian said thickly as he took her in his arms yet again.

  And neither did Verity as she lifted her lips to meet his and let herself drown in the strength of his embrace.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Sebastian drove Verity and Paula to the station in Melford at eight-thirty the following Monday morning. The day was damp and misty and the roads busy with traffic. The train, too, was crowded with commuters, but Sebastian had reserved seats for them in a first-class carriage. He saw them into it, then took a parcel from his briefcase which he put into Verity’s hands. ‘A present for you.’ His eyes met hers briefly in a warm, intimate smile that was for her alone, but then he turned to Paula. “And one for you.’

  The guard’s whistle blew and Sebastian quickly left the carriage and shut the door, standing on the platform to wave as the train pulled out. Verity managed to resist the temptation to stand at the window, but looked out of it until the station was out of sight, now almost wishing that she hadn’t agreed to go up to London with Paula. Since that night when he’d kissed her there had been no opportunity for them to be alone. Sebastian had been invited to spend the weekend with a friend, a long-standing engagement that he couldn’t break. He had left on Friday afternoon and not returned until Sunday night, and now they were going away for two days. To Verity the days gone by and the two ahead seemed endless; she wanted to see him, be with him, talk to him— and, of course, be held in his arms and kissed again. Her pulses started to race every time she thought of those kisses out in the moonlit garden. She remembered the hard strength of Sebastian’s body against hers, the possessiveness of his mouth. ‘Aren’t you going to open your present?’ Paula’s voice was an unwelcome intrusion into her thoughts, but she smiled and said, ‘Yes, of course. What was in yours?’

  ‘The latest Laura Ashley book on design.’ Paula held it out for Verity to see. ‘Wasn’t that thoughtful of him?’

  ‘Yes. Oh!’ Verity had unwrapped her parcel and found inside a beautiful woollen shawl, almost identical to the one she had lost in the river, but of a far better quality. ‘Good heavens, I wonder how he managed to match it so well.’

  ‘He evidently went to quite some trouble.’ Paula leaned forward to look.

  ‘I’m surprised that he even knew the colour when the shawl’s stuck in the sluice and soaking wet.’

  ‘It isn’t there now—in the sluice, I mean. I took a walk up that way yesterday and remember noticing that it had disappeared.’ ‘Washed away, do you mean?’ Verity asked. Paula smiled. ‘That’s possible, of course, but if Sebastian managed to match it so exactly then I rather think he must have climbed down and fished it out, don’t you?’

  Verity sat back in her seat, looking at the shawl with deep pleasure. ‘Yes, I suppose he must have done,’ she agreed, and then shivered as she remembered the dangerous teeth of the sluice. ‘He shouldn’t have done it.’

  But Paula misunderstood. ‘Well, as he was responsible for your losing the old one, I don’t see why he shouldn’t replace it.’

  ‘This is much better than mine; it’s cashmere,’ Verity murmured, holding the softness of the shawl against her cheek. ‘It must have cost the earth.’

  ‘Well, I shouldn’t worry, Sebastian can afford it.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Verity demanded.

  Paula laughed. ‘I knew that would get to you. I asked Maggie, of course. She said that Sebastian is a partner in a development company.’

  ‘And is it successful?’

  ‘It would appear so. Maggie let fall that they’ve undertaken some fairly large projects in the past and have even bigger ones on the drawing-board.’

  ‘So that’s why he doesn’t draw a salary from the estate.’

  ‘And it also explains why he’s always going away on business.’ Paula gave Verity a speculative look. ‘Does accepting that present mean that you’re not mad at Sebastian any longer?’

  ‘I wasn’t mad at him,’ Verity protested.

  ‘Yes, you were; at least, you were certainly off him because of that girl.’

  ‘As a matter of fact he explained all about her,’ Verity said airily.

  ‘He did?’ It was Paula’s turn to be intrigued. ‘Well, what did he say?’

  Verity teased her for a few minutes until Paula threatened lo throw her book at her, and then Verity capitulated and said, ‘It seems that she wasn’t an old flame of Sebastian’s, after all. He said that she worked at Layton House years ago and—and that’s how she knew him,’ Verity finished, remembering in time jiot to say anything about the girl being a troublemaker.

  ‘But you said she called him “sweetie”,’ Paula was quick to remind her.

  ‘So she did; but maybe she calls everyone that.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad. I never really thought Sebastian was the type to go for that kind of girl,’ Paula said with some satisfaction.

  They both fell silent, but Verity couldn’t help wondering if Paula, too, found Sebastian attractive. Not that it mattered, because she had been the girl that he had kissed, and she was sure that it was just the beginning; as soon as she got back lo Layton House Sebastian would ask her for a date so that they could really be alone again.

  The two days in London went by almost as quickly as Verity could wish. They did a little shopping before Paula went off to have lunch with her ex-boss, Piers Fielding, and Verity went to her house, then they met up again for another couple of hours in the West End before having a meal and taking in a film. Paula slept in late the next morning while Verity quietly cleaned the house and went through her mail, but by noon they were going round the baby and maternity departments in several big stores and spending a small fortune on clothes for Paula and fittings for the nursery.

  ‘Are you sure you can afford all this?’ Verity demurred.

  ‘Quite sure,’ Paula said with a laugh. ‘Don’t worry, it’s my money, not part of the estate’s.’

  Paula always had liked shopping, for other people as much as herself, and she was in her element choosing clothes, and things for the baby. Her eyes sparkled and she was happy again, able to use her excellent taste and not having to worry about lack of money. She was born to be pampered like this, Verity thought, as she watched her friend try on a beautiful evening maternity dress. She was glad that Paula was recovering from her grief, but also felt a little sad; Paula looked so lovely in the dress that she knew it wouldn’t be long before men began to interest her again and she would eventually choose one to marry. It wasn’t that Paula was mercenary, and anyway she had inherited enough money from Simon to be independent if she chose, it was rather that she needed the security and admiration that only a man could give her, and would, practically, choose the most suitable candidate.

  And what about me? Verity asked herself. Don’t I need that, too? Yes, but only from one particular man, a man I would want to go on loving however little he had. And if I lost him I wouldn’t even want to look at anyone else for a long, long time. Immediately following on that thought a picture of Sebastian came
into her mind and brought her up short. Was he to be the man in her life? she wondered, her heart quickening. That he intrigued her was undeniable, and she was certainly attracted to him. But love? So soon? Verity pushed the thought to the back of her mind, knowing that she would think about it again when she was alone, when she had time, and instead gave all her attention to Paula as she was asked her opinion of the dress.

  They left London at four-thirty before the worst of the rush hour, and Sebastian was waiting on the platform as they pulled into Melford Station a couple of hours later. ‘I had an idea you might have a few parcels with you,’ he said with a grin as he saw their shopping piled up on the seats.

  ‘This is nothing,’ Verity told him. ‘You wait and sec what Paula’s having delivered.’

  He took her hand to help her out and held it for a moment as he smiled at her. Verity wanted to go to him and kiss him, to show how much she’d missed him, but it was too soon for that. She could only return his smile and hope that her eyes said all she wanted to say.

  Maggie had gone out to play bridge when they got back to the house. The girls went up to their rooms to change and unpack some of their parcels, and when they came down Sebastian was waiting in the drawing-room, ready to pour them pre-dinner drinks. ‘I take it you had a good couple of days,’ he said, as he handed them each a sherry.

  ‘Well, I certainly did,’ Paula admitted. She smiled at Sebastian. ‘But it’s nice to be back here.’

  ‘Really? I’m pleased to hear it. And how about you, Verity?’

  ‘Oh, I managed to buy a few things, too.’

  His lips twitched. ‘No, I meant, are you glad to be back,too?’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ She flushed a little and raised her eyes to meet his. ‘Yes,’ she said softly, ‘I’m glad to be back.’

  Their eyes held for a second, and then Sebastian turned to talk to Paula, but after about ten minutes he stood up. ‘Mrs Chivers has left dinner all ready for us. If you’ll go into the dining-room I’ll bring it in.’

  Verity got quickly to her feet. ‘It’s OK. I’ll do it.’