“I insist,” he interrupted firmly, closing his hand about hers, the money still in her fist. “In truth, this is a mere pittance considering all that you have done for me, and for Christabel. I wish I could give you far more.” His blue eyes glittered with warmth, and something more than warmth, as they locked with hers.
Suddenly, Frederica found it difficult to breathe. She was very much aware of his hand on hers, of the warmth and strength of his long fingers. Desperately, not knowing what she meant to say, she parted her lips to speak.
Without warning, the Earl tightened his grip on her hand, drawing her to him. His other arm went around her and he lowered his head to hers, blocking with his lips whatever words she might have summoned. Frederica clung to him, reveling once again in the hot, spicy taste of his mouth, the masculine firmness of his body against hers. Unsuspected longings sprang up, frightening in their intensity.
Probing deeper with his tongue, the Earl ran his hands down her shoulders, caressing her through the thin silk of the dress. Frederica felt that she was drowning in him, but had no wish to save herself. Shamelessly, she moulded her body to his. His hands grew more insistent, touching the bare flesh at her throat, the soft upper curve of her breast.
She knew she should protest, but his touch excited her beyond reason, beyond caring. Her will would not answer to her conscience. Instead, she threw back her head as he rained kisses down the length of her throat, following the path of his hands.
With one hand, he fumbled with the buttons at her back, while the other continued to caress, sliding inside the suddenly loosened neckline of her gown. One thumb grazed the tip of her breast as the nipple rose to greet his touch.
With a muffled cry of dismay, Frederica suddenly pulled away as the enormity of what they were doing penetrated her frenzied brain. After only the briefest attempt to restrain her, Lord Seabrooke released her, his expression startled.
“Cherry, I—”
“No, my lord, don’t!” She cut him off in a high, shaky voice. “I—I’ll bid you good-night.” She took refuge in trite, familiar words. “Pray enjoy the remainder of your evening. It was most kind in you to invite me.” Still clutching the fifty pounds, which she had completely forgotten, Frederica turned and ran up the stairs without a backward glance.
Gavin did not try to stop her. He was too overcome by the incredible surge of passion that had swept over him during that moment of madness. He knew now, without doubt, that his feelings for Cherry went far beyond mere friendship. And he knew that they were reciprocated, if only in small measure. Certainly he had not imagined her response.
He should follow her he knew, to apologize for his conduct, but he was afraid to. Afraid that if he followed her to her room, he would say things, do things, that would be impossible to retract. No, better to wait for morning, when both of them would have had time to think. With one last, wistful glance at the empty staircase, he reluctantly descended to the ballroom and a celebration that now seemed more hollow than ever.
* * *
Frederica was still shaking when she reached her room. How could she have allowed that to happen? How could he? Unclenching her fingers, she suddenly became aware of the money that she held and grew hot all over.
So that was it! Unlikely as it seemed, especially given her drab disguise, that must be it. She was slated to become his next mistress, conveniently placed in his own house to carry out their intrigues under his unsuspecting bride’s nose! For a moment she was nearly blinded by anger that he would callously intend to betray her so. Then, almost immediately, she was suffused by shame that he would think her willing to participate in such a betrayal.
Abruptly, she recalled Milly’s words: “If you are not careful, you will end up being jealous of yourself.” Was that it? Was she jealous? After a moment’s thought, she had to admit that she was. Jealous as Miss Cherrystone that he would go ahead with this marriage for money; and jealous as Miss Chesterton that he would pursue an affair with Christabel’s nanny while he was betrothed to her. The situation was patently absurd, but she could find no humor in it. Not now.
She remembered again those few delicious moments in his arms. She knew that she had shamelessly revealed her feelings to him, had allowed him liberties that amply justified his assumptions. And she still tingled at the memory of her response to the touch of his lips, his hands, upon her. How was she to face him in the morning?
She couldn’t. Now that her body had betrayed her a second time, she dared not stay. Nor was she bold enough to go through with her intended confession. No, she would leave the house now, tonight, get away from his influence, and then make new plans. Spurred by the thought, she began to pack.
It took her no time at all to bestow her few belongings in the small trunk she had brought. Changing out of the dress she had worn to the party, she again donned the plain grey gown she had arrived in—was it only two weeks ago?
Pulling out pen and paper, she wrote a brief note accounting for her departure, one that anyone might read, though she knew that Lord Seabrooke would divine her real reason. Not until a tear fell onto the sheet before her and smudged her signature did she realize that she was crying. The fifty pounds she left in the top drawer of the dressing-table as repudiation of his offer.
Tiptoeing into the nursery, Frederica gazed down at Christabel in her little bed, serene in sleep, and envied her unsullied innocence. The thought of leaving her tore at her heart. Leaning down, she softly kissed the child’s velvet cheek, fervently hoping that the Earl might somehow make her understand why she had to leave.
Tears streaming down her face, Frederica left the nursery, closing the door silently behind her. She picked up her trunk and stole softly down the back staircase and out of Seabrooke House, into the night.
CHAPTER 14
In spite of his late night, Gavin awoke early, feeling remarkably refreshed. For a moment he could not understand his pervading sense of well-being, but then he remembered the passionate kiss he had shared with Cherry. He had a vague memory of dreams, pleasant dreams, that had centered upon her, as well.
In that moment, as he lay smiling up at the ceiling, his plans for the future crystallized. He could never be happy with anyone but Cherry as his wife. Somehow he must persuade Miss Chesterton to call off the betrothal. He would call on Sir Thomas that very morning to discover just how set on the match she really was. Then, once that matter was taken care of, he could lay his heart before Cherry.
His mind clearer than it had been in weeks, Gavin fairly leapt out of bed, ready to execute his plans. He had just finished shaving when Metzger made his appearance, obviously startled to find the Earl already awake and alert.
“Good morning, m’lord. Would you like me to... Oh, I see you’ve already shaved. Mrs. Abbott has asked to speak to you at once. I told her you wouldn’t likely be down for an hour or more, but—”
“Thank you, Metzger, I’ll be down directly. You may tell her to wait in the library,” replied the Earl cheerily. His valet helped him to shrug into his coat, then went to report to the housekeeper while Gavin tied his cravat. Even the complicated en cascade gave him no trouble today.
Humming merrily, he descended to the library to ascertain what Mrs. Abbott wanted. Doubtless something pertaining to last night’s gathering. At the sight of the housekeeper’s distraught face, however, he stopped humming.
“You wished to speak with me, Abby?” he asked at once, his manner slightly more subdued. Mrs. Abbott was not easily upset, he knew; only something very much out of the ordinary could account for it.
“Oh, my lord! I don’t know what to do, and that’s the truth. She’s gone!” His normally sedate housekeeper was actually wringing her hands.
“Gone?” he echoed. “Who is gone? Christabel?” Sudden alarm surged through him.
“No, my lord, ’tis Miss Cherrystone. Miss Christabel discovered her gone this morning and came to find Lucy. She left in the night, seemingly, and took all her things with her! All she left b
ehind was this.”
Gavin snatched the proffered sheet of paper from her hand, his alarm increasing to dread. He read through the brief, polite note, in which Miss Cherrystone apologized for leaving without notice and hoped that he would convey her affection and best wishes to Christabel.
In short, it told him nothing. He knew at once, though, why she had gone. What must she have thought when he had all but ravished her, then let her go without a word of apology? She knew that he was engaged to be married. With her elevated principles, it must have seemed to her that the only thing she could honorably do was to leave before they could do anything they might regret. But damn her principles. He wanted—needed—her back!
Belatedly, he became aware of Mrs. Abbott still regarding him anxiously. “Doubtless she has gone to her friend’s house here in London,” he said reassuringly. “I shall find her.”
“Pray do, my lord. Miss Christabel is most upset, and will be even more so if she learns Miss Cherrystone doesn’t mean to return. The child needs her—and so do you, if you’ll pardon my saying so.” Mrs. Abbott actually patted him on the shoulder as she rose to go. She had obviously not missed Gavin’s anguish at the unexpected news.
“I believe you are right,” he said with a rueful smile at the unwitting echo of his own thoughts. “Do reassure Christabel while I make enquiries.”
* * *
Finding Miss Cherrystone did not prove so simple a matter as Gavin had predicted. By late that afternoon, he was growing increasingly frustrated—and anxious, as well.
He had known, of course, that many of Cherry’s references had been false. As their friendship deepened, he had more than once thought that she was on the verge of telling him the truth about her background, but she had never done so. Now he discovered that not one of her impressive list of referrals could help him to locate her. In fact, none of the people he queried discreetly through Jeffries had so much as heard of a Miss Cherrystone. It was as though his jesting words to her yesterday about being an angel were true, that she had materialized on his doorstep out of thin air, and had so returned.
When Jeffries delivered a polite negative to his fifth enquiry, he swore in exasperation. “Blast it, she must have worked somewhere before coming here! What of her friend, the one she visited on her half days?”
But Jeffries responded with a helpless shrug, spurring the Earl to go out to the mews himself to speak to his coachmen. There, however, he discovered that Cherry had never availed herself of their services, always hailing a hackney when she left the house.
“I don’t suppose anyone happened to notice which one?” he asked without much hope. They had not.
Frustration now warring with despair, he returned to the house. There, after a moment’s thought, he mounted the steps to the fourth floor. Perhaps he could find something in her room to give him a clue.
Unfortunately, it seemed that Mrs. Abbott had been quite correct. The only thing he saw was the borrowed dress Cherry had worn to the party the previous night. At the sight of it, laid neatly across the narrow bed, Gavin’s precarious control began to crumble. He felt closer to crying than he had since his sister’s death.
A slight noise from behind him served to pull him from his painful reverie. He turned to see Christabel standing in the doorway to the nursery, regarding him with big, serious eyes.
“She’s not coming back, is she, Uncle Gavin?” she asked softly. One crystal tear trickled down her cheek.
Swiftly, Gavin knelt to take her in his arms. “I don’t know, Sunshine,” he said huskily. “I hope she will.” They clung together for a few moments, comforting each other for their mutual loss.
Finally Christabel stirred and looked up at him. “Perhaps Cherry was really a good fairy who came to help us. Perhaps she thought her work was done here, and she went away to help someone else.”
“Perhaps,” he replied, though the child’s guess, so similar to his earlier thoughts, shook him badly. In truth, it seemed as plausible an explanation as any he had been able to devise.
Gavin remained with Christabel until her bedtime, playing with the pet mice—Cherry had left these for Christabel, she’d said in her note, along with the peacock—and sitting at the table with her while she ate her dinner. The child seemed to draw some measure of comfort from his presence as, he had to admit, he did from hers.
Once the child was asleep, he methodically examined Cherry’s room. Nothing remained in the clothes-press, he quickly discovered, so turned his attention to the dressing-table. Pulling open the top drawer, he saw the roll of pound notes he had given her last night and froze. Suddenly, blindingly, he understood. What must she have thought when he kissed her, caressed her so intimately, only moments after pressing the money into her hand?
As he realized what conclusion she must have drawn, Gavin closed his eyes in horror and self-loathing. How could he have been so stupid? And now she was gone, hiding somewhere in the vastness of London, without a farthing, so far as he knew. She had not even received her regular wages as yet.
He opened the other drawers, but found nothing else. Finally he gave it up and went down to the dining-room, where his own dinner awaited him. Though he had no appetite, he spent a long time picking at the excellent meal before him, unwilling to go into the library, where so many memories of Cherry lurked. Finally, he had his customary port brought to him at the table.
Swirling the wine in his glass, he stared into the ruby depths and reviewed what he had accomplished that day. Surely he could have done more, perhaps question the other servants in the homes in which Cherry had claimed previous employment.
At that thought, he sat up straighter. Of course! What a dolt he was. Here he sat, one of the War Office’s best agents for ferreting out information, sending formally worded notes about Town through his footman. If ever his skills and experience in military intelligence could prove useful, surely it was now.
Instantly translating thought into action, he rose from the table and called for his coat and gloves. Major Alexander was ready for the field again.
* * *
Upon leaving Seabrooke House, Frederica had at once attempted to hail a hackney. Depositing her awkward trunk beside her on the curb, she had looked up and down Upper Brook Street without seeing one. Some short distance away, a group of young men were laughing and singing together, their arms linked. Frederica had never before been on the streets of London so late at night, and she wondered nervously if her decision to leave, which had seemed so inarguable when she made it, had in fact been wise.
The rowdy group was heading slowly in her direction, hampered by occasional stumbles and lurches. Just as she was considering the advisability of swallowing her pride and returning to the house, she saw a hackney coming up the street from the opposite direction. Praying that it might be empty, she waved her hand.
Mercifully, the hackney stopped and the driver was obliging enough to help her with the trunk. “Where to, miss?” he asked cheerily, once it was safely stowed.
Frederica gave him the direction of the house where Thomas had taken lodgings and they moved on just as the band of young bucks reached the spot where she had been standing.
Her brother was just returning from Seabrooke’s assembly as the hackney drew up in front of his lodgings.
“Thomas!” cried Frederica out of the window, causing him to stop and stare.
“Freddie? What the devil—”
“I’ll explain in a moment. Do help me with this trunk, there’s a dear,” she said briskly, her spirits reviving now that she no longer had to fear being locked out, which disturbing thought had occurred to her during the short drive.
A few minutes later, the jarvey had been paid and Frederica and her trunk were safely ensconced in Thomas’s rooms on the third floor.
“Now, suppose you tell me what necessitated your coming here in the dead of night rather than waiting till tomorrow, when I shall have the keys to the house on Audley Square. I shan’t have to call Seabrooke out, shall
I?” Thomas’s tone was teasing, but Frederica could see the wariness in his eyes.
“Of course not!” she exclaimed quickly, horrified at the idea of Thomas and Lord Seabrooke fighting. Now that it came to it, she found that she had no desire at all to tell her brother the truth—especially after his last remark. “It was just that during the...the assembly tonight, I realized how odd my position was and decided to leave before any more damage was done. Suppose any of the people I met there should recognize me when I enter Society?”
To her relief, Thomas seemed to consider that explanation plausible enough. “Well, I suppose you can stay the night. I was going to go out again—stop into a new club down on Jermyn Street—but I suppose that can wait. You take the bedroom and I shall camp out here on the sofa.”
Frederica gave him a quick hug. “Thank you, Thomas. And this way, I shall be able to oversee the process of moving into the house you have let. I am most eager to see it!” she lied, determinedly keeping her tone cheerful. “Tomorrow I’ll send a note round to Milly, and she can join us at Audley Square. She has promised to play chaperone for a few weeks.”
“I shall leave all that in your hands, Freddie. You will know what to do better than I.” He gave her a crooked but genuine smile and went to find an extra blanket for the sofa.
The next morning, Frederica rose somewhat later than she was accustomed to doing and discovered her brother still soundly asleep. Rather than wake him, she went back to her room to prepare herself for the day ahead.
A small mirror hung on the wall above the wash-stand, and she glanced into it, automatically straightening the brown wig, which, out of habit and fatigue, she had worn to bed. Then she stopped.
Miss Cherrystone no longer existed, she suddenly realized. From this moment on, she must again be Miss Frederica Chesterton of Maple Hill. She pulled off the wig and regarded it wistfully for a moment before carefully placing it in her trunk, along with the glasses. She was going to miss “Cherry.” She had a sudden vision of Lord Seabrooke’s face, and Christabel’s, and her eyes misted over. Fiercely, she shook her head. That phase of her life was over and done.
Daring Deception Page 14