by Dorothy Mack
The earl held up a hand. “Enough said. John Cornelis is worse than an old woman for gossip. He happens to be correct this time, however. I am engaged, though no announcement’s been made yet. It just happened this week.”
Major Peters sprang out of his chair and surged forward to pump the hand of his friend. “Let me be the first to felicitate you, dear fellow. Who is the lucky girl?”
“Didn’t Corny tell you that too?”
“You tell me,” said Major Peters gently.
“I met her in Vienna last winter. Her name is Pamela Tremayne, Lady Tremayne, and she is a widow, though not a designing one.” Under his lordship’s baleful glare, the insouciant major preserved an innocent countenance and uttered soothing noises. Satisfied, the earl continued. “The boot is on the other foot entirely. She is constantly surrounded by admiring suitors, and deservedly so. Ivor, she is the most glorious creature! It isn’t just that she is beautiful, she has more wit and charm and just sheer presence than any woman has a right to possess. I had to beat my way through the pack to get near her. I still can’t believe my incredible luck that she should prefer me to all the others who pay court to her.”
Major Peters, indulgently observing that his friend had fallen into a rapt contemplation of his good fortune, had no difficulty at all in believing that an impecunious widow (information he owed to the maligned Corny) would prefer Dominic to many another suitor. Even before the embellishments of title and fortune had been added at his father’s demise two years previously, the tall, handsome figure of Colonel Norcross had caused flutters in many a feminine dovecote. His pleasant manners, allied to a genuinely kind nature, made him a universal favourite with the ladies, while his male acquaintance respected his courage and integrity. The really astonishing thing was that he had escaped the lures cast out to him by numerous pretty daughters with knowledgeable mothers behind them until the advanced age of nine-and-twenty. Had he not been actively engaged with the army since Cambridge days, and generally under conditions unconducive to conducting a courtship, most likely he would have succumbed before now. These reflections Major Peters kept to himself, saying merely, when his host’s attention returned from Utopia, that he looked forward to the pleasure of meeting Lady Tremayne.
“She is in Brussels at present? She doesn’t reside in Vienna?”
“Oh, no. She has been accompanying her brother, Sir Ralph Morrison, and acting as his hostess. They arrived in Brussels a couple of weeks ago.” At the flicker of some passing emotion on his friend’s face, Lord Creighton laughed dryly. “I see Sir Ralph is not entirely unknown to you?”
Major Peters denied this. “I’ve never set eyes on the fellow personally, but I’m acquainted with someone who had … dealings with him in London last year, if it is the same person. Bit of a mushroom, what?”
“If that were all! Bit of a loose screw, rather. He’s a gambler who doesn’t confine his activities to the track and the tables. Always involved in some moneymaking scheme or other, mostly unsuccessful, I’m told, leaving investors wiser but poorer. Pamela, needless to say, has no idea of her brother’s unsavoury reputation. I’ll be much relieved when I can remove her from his sphere.”
“Er, yes, quite so. You say the betrothal’s not been made public yet?”
“No. I’ve been planning to announce it at a small dinner party next week — to which, by the by, you are hereby invited — but my dear mother has just considerably complicated my life.”
“Has Lady Creighton decided after all to descend on Brussels, Bonaparte or no Bonaparte?”
“Much worse than that. She’s just landed me with the responsibility for an orphaned family.”
Major Peters blinked. “Your mother is an intelligent, charming, and very enterprising woman, but I must confess that it is not immediately apparent to my meagre intellect how she, situated outside Brighton, can have embroiled you, here in Brussels, in the affairs of another family, orphaned or otherwise.”
The earl released a snort of exasperated laughter. “If you can say that, Ivor, then you don’t half-know what Mama is capable of, especially when her compassion has been aroused. Distance means nothing to her at all. In this instance, however, it is precisely her distance that is my undoing. I was reading a letter from her when you were announced. It arrived yesterday, but I had so little time to dress last night for the Duke’s affair that I put it aside to read this morning. As best I grasped the matter, it seems that a cousin for whom Mama had a great fondness in her youth, and whom I seem to recall hearing my father describe as the black sheep of the family, upped and died some months ago here in Brussels, leaving three orphaned children. His wife was French and has been dead for several years. The children have been in the care of another family connection until now. This woman has written to Mama detailing the plight of the family and requesting her assistance in getting the children over to England. Mama, of course, with her penchant for lame ducks, is determined to take them under her wing and has commanded me to make their travel arrangements. I am quite willing to undertake this commission, you understand, but in the meantime, what am I to do with three half-French brats?”
“Nothing at all, your lordship, because the half-French brats hereby decline to accept your protection!”
Neither man had heard the door open, but the frosty feminine voice brought their heads spinning around in unison to stare toward the entrance to the room where Moulton, the butler, his posture rigid with disapproval, stood just behind a slightly built young girl with flashing eyes under a bonnet tied a bit askew, who was fairly quivering with animosity, though her voice had been coldly controlled. The earl and his guest straggled mechanically to their feet as Moulton defended his lapse.
“I told the young lady that I would inquire whether you could receive her, my lord, but she followed me into the room.”
“It’s all right, Moulton, you may go.” Lord Creighton gestured in dismissal, though his eyes never left the girl’s face. “I’ll see Miss … Miss…”
“My name is Adrienne Castle,” supplied the girl with her chin at a dangerous elevation.
“I’ll see Miss Castle now. Won’t you be seated, Miss Castle?”
The girl’s expression of frozen disdain did not alter by a degree at this display of smiling courtesy on the part of her host. “No, thank you, my lord. I shan’t be here long enough to sit. I have come today solely to request that you convey my thanks to your mother for her kind offer of assistance, while you explain to her that it is not at all needed or desired. I will be grateful if you will say all that is proper from me to Lady Creighton in declining her offer. Good day, my lord.”
The girl sketched a curtsy and headed directly for the door through which the butler had vanished just seconds before. In her haste she knocked against a side table, sending a meerschaum pipe which had been reposing there crashing to the parquet floor. A quick glance to ensure that there was no breakage, a quicker apology, and she was through the door in a whirl of skirts.
“Wait, Miss Castle! Come back!”
But Miss Castle did not wait and she did not return.
The earl bolted after her but was back in seconds to find Major Peters in the act of replacing the pipe on the table. He shook his head as his friend’s eyebrows rose questioningly. “She had already made her escape. I could scarcely chase after her down a public street in broad daylight.”
Major Peters’ eyes gleamed with amusement. “Not yelling ‘Stop, thief!’ at any rate, and somehow ‘Stop, pipe breaker!’ does not have quite the same ring to it.”
“Is the pipe broken?” asked the earl indifferently.
His friend nodded. “The bowl is cracked. If, as I gathered, Miss Castle is one of your orphans, she seems to have solved your problem for you quite expeditiously by declining your aid.”
The earl’s brows met in a straight line. “Solved it? If the other two are in the same mould as that hoyden, I should say my problems are just beginning.”
“You cannot very well forc
e assistance on people against their will,” observed Major Peters.
“Can I not indeed?” scoffed the earl. “You don’t imagine I shall leave a child like that on the loose in Brussels, do you? I’ll be paying a little visit to the Castles in due —” He broke off as his friend murmured a comment. “What did you say?”
“I said Miss Castle didn’t strike me as being a child,” responded the other mildly.
“Of course she is!” His lordship’s voice rang with impatience. “A mere schoolroom miss, or should be! And will be brought to heel in good time, but at the moment —” glancing at his watch — “I must show my face at headquarters. Care to accompany me, Ivor? Gordon should be there, and Somerset too.”
Major Peters signified his agreement with this course and the two left the earl’s residence to stroll around the park to army headquarters on the Rue Royale.
CHAPTER 4
Indignation carried Adrienne out of Lord Creighton’s house at an impressive speed, which she might have maintained all the way back to the dingy street where their lodgings were located, had she not been compelled to slow down by a severe stitch in her side. Glancing around for the first time at narrow houses leaning crookedly against each other, she realized she had put considerable physical distance between herself and Lord Creighton in the past fifteen minutes. A vertical pleat between her brows was the outward sign that she had been less successful in attaining comparable mental distance.
Becky thought her impetuous and full of foolish pride for dashing off this morning, but it had struck her as vital to prevent Lord Creighton from discovering their circumstances. She would not permit any member of her father’s family to sit in judgment on Matthew Castle! It had been her intention to decline any offer of assistance in a dignified formal manner, complete with punctilious expressions of gratitude designed to convince Lord Creighton that pecuniary assistance was both unnecessary and unwelcome. She had carefully rehearsed her little speech during the half-hour it took to reach the large stone residence facing the park. The impressive facade and the even more impressive individual who opened the door to her knocking had the effect of robbing her of some of her composure without in any way impairing her determination to complete her mission, so that when the lofty butler had run his arctic eye over her unimpressive person and desired her to remain in the hall while he ascertained whether his lordship was at home, she had followed him impulsively, fearing that an unfavourable report to his master would result in Lord Creighton’s refusal to see her. In proof of the old adage that eavesdroppers never hear good of themselves, she had arrived just in time for the phrase “three half-French brats” to assail her ears, with the result that punctilio, dignity, and even basic good manners had fled before the roaring fury that accompanied her humiliation.
Adrienne’s steps slowed even more noticeably and the scowl deepened as she reviewed the scene in Lord Creighton’s house. The only thing she could be thankful for was the fact that Becky had not been present, for she would have expired of mortification at her former nurseling’s lack of civility. In her own defence, it must be acknowledged that the provocation had been great. The taunting description had flicked her on the raw, but it was her first sight of Lord Creighton that had completed her undoing, for to her horror, the man addressed by the butler was the officious individual who had come to her rescue last week outside Madame Mireille’s gambling establishment. She could only hope she had not betrayed her recognition of him. The need to master a sudden breathlessness so she might say her piece and make her escape had driven her to the brink of rudeness. It was no good telling herself that Lord Creighton’s slighting reference absolved her from any duty to preserve the rules of civility. The shameful realization that she had behaved like a badly brought-up child took a firmer hold on her spirits as she increased her distance from the earl’s residence.
Adrienne was so engrossed with recalling the scene just enacted that she bumped into a stout woman with her arms full of vegetables.
“Je vous demande pardon, madame,” she murmured, restoring a couple of turnips to the indignant woman before hurrying on.
She would take her oath that Lord Creighton had not recognized her. An irrepressible chuckle bubbled up as a picture of the two men she had recently left flashed across her mind. They had worn identical expressions of startled consternation at her unheralded appearance, but after she identified Lord Creighton, all her attention had been focused on him. She would not recognize the second man were she to meet him around the next corner, but, unhappily, the earl’s handsome features were stamped on her memory. When she recalled his stubborn insistence on escorting her home on that other occasion, her heart spiralled down into her shoes and her feet dragged accordingly. A nagging fear persisted that she might have been twice as rude and still not have succeeded in diverting him from what he considered to be his duty.
A solid thump from behind brought Adrienne back to a sense of her surroundings. She apologized sweetly to the irate, gesticulating Bruxellois who had walked into her when she stopped dead. His dark eyes warming with unmistakable interest as he took a second look at her acted as a spur to set her quickly on her way again. Her ruddy hair seemed to hold a fascination for Belgian gentlemen, and she had learned to take evasive action at the first sign of interest.
Miss Beckworth was in a state of nervous agitation when Adrienne arrived back at their lodgings, but she found the girl’s answers to her many questions strangely bland and unsatisfactory. Yes, Adrienne had succeeded in obtaining an interview with Lord Creighton. What had she said to him? Why, just what Becky must have known she would say. She had declined to accept any financial assistance, and yes, naturally she had expressed their deep sense of gratitude to Lady Creighton for her kind intentions. When it came to relating Lord Creighton’s reaction to this turn of events or describing the man himself, Adrienne’s replies became still more vague, until Miss Beckworth, under the influence of a sudden attack of intuition, decided that perhaps she’d rather not press for more detailed responses after all. The heightened colour of Adrienne’s normally pale clear skin had not escaped her notice, nor, during the rest of the day, did the girl’s heightened awareness go unobserved. She appeared to suspend breathing while each new sound from beyond their entrance door was identified. Miss Beckworth bided her time and forbore to comment on this strange behaviour, her instincts having informed her that the issue of acceptance of assistance from Lady Creighton had still perhaps to be resolved to the satisfaction of all parties.
Fortunately for the wear and tear on both ladies’ nerves, this state of unresolved tension was not destined to be long-lasting. The women were already at their sewing the next morning and Luc was seated at the table working on his Latin grammar when a knock at the door signalled an end to the waiting. Anyone wishing to beat Luc to the door would have to be quick off the mark indeed, for the reluctant scholar welcomed any and all interruptions to his studies. Today he had no competition for the privilege of being first to greet a caller, since neither lady showed any inclination to bestir herself. Miss Beckworth’s fingers continued their rhythmic motions, but a glance from under her lashes informed her that Adrienne’s efforts had ceased and her complexion was drained of natural colour as an authoritative masculine voice declared:
“I am seeking Miss Beckworth. Is this her residence?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Would you ask her if it is convenient to receive me? I am Colonel Lord Creighton.”
Luc’s eyes were popping as he accepted the colonel’s card while throwing wide the door. “Yes, s-sir! She’s right here. Becky!”
Watched by the silent, apprehensive girl, Miss Beckworth put aside the shirt she was hemming and rose gracefully from her chair to greet the tall man who entered after tucking the cocked hat of a staff officer under his left arm.
Pride and humiliation expunged all signs of animation from Adrienne’s features as she saw the swift glance their caller cast round the shabby apartment before concentrat
ing his polite attention on the woman advancing to meet him. She thought she detected a flicker of relief in his eyes before the polite social mask was back in place. The conviction that Becky’s air of quiet good breeding came as a welcome surprise after her own unconventional eruption into his life yesterday did nothing to assuage her sore spirit, but her chin lifted in mute defiance.
“Lord Creighton, I am Anthea Beckworth,” Becky was saying in her pleasant voice. “How do you do?”
Lord Creighton took the hand she offered in a warm clasp as he examined the slim attractive woman looking at him from clear hazel eyes containing an appraisal as frank as his own. He judged her to be a year or two under forty, and liked what he saw. She was good-looking with regular features and fine-grained, unlined skin, and was dressed with neatness and propriety. A lace-trimmed cap framed thick blond hair, and she wore her simple morning dress of dark blue cotton with an air of distinction. He gave her a wholehearted smile that was endearingly boyish.
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Miss Beckworth. My mother informs me that since their father died, my young cousins have been in your care.”
“Cousins?” Luc raised startled eyes to Lord Creighton’s. “Are we cousins?”
“We have been in Becky’s care since birth,” Adrienne corrected haughtily.
“Adrienne, my dear, if you would clear those shirts off that chair so we might offer Lord Creighton a seat?”
Carrying out Becky’s practical suggestion gave Adrienne a chance to let her heated cheeks cool. Her runaway tongue was like to earn her a scold when his lordship departed.
While the small party was disposing itself more comfortably, Luc simmered with impatience and finally burst out, “Are we really your cousins, sir? I did not know we had any relations — none that owned us, at all events.”
“We are distantly related to Lord Creighton,” his sister cut in before the gentleman addressed could speak for himself.
His lordship, however, was not content to have it so. “Despite your sister’s reluctance to acknowledge me, we are quite nearly related,” he said, smiling in a friendly fashion at the eager youth. “Our parents were first cousins.” He turned the smile on Miss Beckworth. “I believe you and I meet somewhere on the family tree also, ma’am.”