Amanda Scott - [Dangerous 03]

by Dangerous Illusions

  Daintry was accustomed to such attention in town, but though in previous years she had basked in it, wanting to see which of her many potential suitors would intrigue her most, this year, she found herself starting alertly each time Medrose entered the drawing room to announce a caller’s name. Then, with an unusual sense of disappointment, she would exert herself to greet the new arrival, and to make pleasant small talk until they had gone.

  She knew Jervaulx was in town and had taken his seat in the Lords, for she had heard his name mentioned more than once, but she heard nothing of Deverill and did not ask. Nor did she hear from her sister until shortly before the first subscription ball at Almack’s Assembly Rooms, which auspicious occasion marked the true beginning of the London Season.

  Since Lady St. Merryn had begun to fret about Susan’s continued absence, it was just as well, Daintry thought, that Susan sent a note at last to say she and Geoffrey had arrived at their house in Brook Street. It would have been better had they called in person, however, and when yet another day passed without further word, Daintry took her courage firmly in hand and decided to visit her sister.

  Susan greeted her warmly when she was shown into the drawing room of the elegant little house, and said apologetically, “I had meant to call at once, but there just has not been an hour to spare. We were so late arriving, and there is so much to do before we shall be fit to be seen. I wonder where Geoffrey can be. He will pop in to say hello before you go, I am sure.”

  Reassured that her sister appeared to be in excellent if rather fidgety spirits and that Lady Catherine Chauncey appeared nowhere at all, Daintry was nonetheless glad that Geoffrey did not pop in during her visit. She had no wish to see him and had not the least notion of how she would manage to speak two words to him without succumbing to strong hysterics. Knowing she would have to face him sooner or later, and well aware that to create a scene when she did would be to call down remonstrations upon her own head rather than upon his, she tried to imagine a way to deal with the incident when it should arise.

  The exercise was not particularly successful, for she was well aware that Geoffrey would not behave according to plan. Thus, as she dressed for the opening of Almack’s the following Wednesday night, she found herself hoping that he, like her father, would elect to remain at home. Her hopes were not high, although Susan had declined an invitation to dine that evening with the family before going on to Almack’s together.

  Ready at last, she joined her great-aunt and Davina in the hall to wait for Lady St. Merryn, who had said there was no good reason for her to miss the opening of Almack’s, since she would be expected to do no more than sit and watch the dancing with the other mamas, or perhaps take a hand of whist in the card room.

  The assembly rooms in King Street looked the same as they had every other year Daintry had visited them, neither grand nor elegant. The refreshments, she knew, would be mediocre; however, to be denied entrance was to be shunned by the first circle of London society, a fate considered worse than death by any ambitious young lady or gentleman. The balls were governed by a group of patronesses, who bestowed vouchers upon the few persons they considered eligible to purchase tickets. Their word was law, and they had ordained that no one, not even a royal duke, might be admitted after eleven, and that gentlemen must wear knee breeches, white cravats, and carry chapeaux-bras.

  Daintry and the others were welcomed at the door by Mr. Willis, who owned the assembly rooms, and soon afterward, the orchestra, directed by Mr. Colnet as it had been for many years, struck up for the grand march. The London Season had begun.

  Daintry kept her eye on the entrance to the ballroom, telling herself it was in hopes of seeing her sister, but when the Seacourts arrived just as the opening set of country dances came to an end and her partner moved to return her to her mother’s side, she experienced a strong reluctance to go.

  From across the room Geoffrey smiled at her as if nothing had ever happened, and she froze, certain that any words she might try to speak to him would choke her. When Lord Alton stepped up to her, asking if he might have the next dance, she turned to him in relief, congratulating herself on thus deftly avoiding a sordid confrontation. Therefore it came as a shock to her, when the dance was over, to find Geoffrey at her side.

  “I will escort my sister-in-law back to her mama,” he said.

  Alton bowed and turned on his heel.

  “How dare you, Geoffrey!” she said in a low voice.

  “I want to talk to you,” he said, smiling in a perfectly normal fashion. “Come with me to that anteroom yonder.”

  “I won’t. You must be out of your wits.”

  “I want to apologize, Daintry, and I’ll be damned if I’ll try to do it in a sea of people trying to make up new sets.”

  Looking at him, she thought he looked sincere, and knowing that if good relations were ever to be restored, she must at least hear him out, she allowed him to escort her to the little room but insisted that he leave the door ajar.

  “Anything you like,” he said. “I do want to apologize, for I was over the mark with brandy and I behaved like a pig.”

  “If you are hoping for instant forgiveness,” she said, “you will not receive it. I shall do my best to forget what you did, Geoffrey, but that is the best you can hope for now.” Moving to pass him, she stiffened in alarm when he caught her arm and swung her back to face him. “Let me go, Geoffrey.”

  “Wait, Daintry, you don’t understand what I’m—”

  “Release her.”

  Despite Seacourt’s grasp, Daintry turned at once, her eyes aglow with pleasure.

  Deverill stood in the open doorway, looking grim.

  Seacourt said, “Get out of here, damn you. This is a family affair and no business of yours.”

  Stepping into the room, Deverill said curtly, “Release her now, or answer to me, Seacourt.”

  “Gentlemen, please,” Daintry said. She did not want this.

  Seacourt shoved her behind him and confronted Deverill. “I am ready any time you are, by God,” he said, jutting out his chin and putting up his fists. In the blink of an eye, with a crack of bone on bone, he dropped to the floor at Daintry’s feet.

  Deverill grasped her by an arm and moved her away from the unconscious man, saying anxiously, “Are you all right?”

  Pulling her arm free, she said, “Of course, I am. Good God, Deverill, what have you done? He was attempting to apologize to me, and although he was not making a very good job of it, and was annoying me instead, I am perfectly capable of dealing with that sort of thing myself. There was no reason to knock him down.” Hearing Geoffrey groan, she added quickly, “Go away at once. If you are still here when he comes to his senses, there will be a brawl, and it will not be either of you who suffers for that, I can promise you. Did you consider that before you struck him? No, not in the least!”

  “Wait just a minute. What the devil do you want me to think he was apologizing for? I saw how he had hold of you, and I saw your face and his. He was threatening you, and you were afraid of him. And you were glad to see me, so if you think—”

  “Oh, go away before I lose patience with you,” she snapped. “Perhaps I was glad to see you at first, but you seem to believe that every female needs an overprotective male to fight her battles for her. Well, I do not. Now, for heaven’s sake, go away and let me deal with him before someone comes through that door you so stupidly left ajar. Nothing can happen a dozen feet from hundreds of dancers that I cannot handle!”

  “Handle this,” he said angrily, pulling her into his arms and kissing her as if he had been starving for the very taste of her. When she tried to free herself, he stopped at once. Then, looking stern, he said, “There are many things in life that you can’t handle alone, sweetheart, not because you’re a woman but because you refuse to recognize your limitations. I’ll go, but you have certainly not seen the last of me.” And he was gone.

  Daintry stood for a moment, staring after him, until a groan reminded her
of Geoffrey’s presence. Moving quickly, she took the flowers from a bowl on a side table and dashed the water over his head. “Get up, Geoffrey.” As he struggled to a sitting position, she added grimly, “Your lip is split and your hair is wet. That door yonder leads to the gallery, and you can get to the street from there. I will make your excuses to the others.”

  He glared at her but did not speak, and she left him, making her way as quickly as possible toward the others, searching the crowd for Deverill and trying to sort out her feelings. He had grabbed her against her will, and she had resisted, but odd though it seemed now in view of her terrifying experience with Seacourt, she had not been afraid, and if the truth were told, she was glad he had kissed her. She knew she had overreacted to his confrontation with Seacourt, that although her anger had been genuine, it had manifested itself against the wrong man.

  Gideon left Almack’s with a strong sense of ill-usage, but he was even angrier with himself than with Daintry. She had been right to berate him for striking Seacourt, and though he could not really regret it, he was not by any means certain why he had done it. He had seen her go into the anteroom with the man, and knowing she did not like him, had wondered if Seacourt had forced her. Then, coming upon the scene, he had been certain Seacourt had, and had reacted instantly and without the slightest thought. Such behavior was unlike him. He was better trained than that.

  As he strode west along King Street to the walkway leading to St. James’s Street, he remembered her fury and smiled. Other young women of his acquaintance would at least have pretended to be grateful for being rescued, but not that one. She had been furious. Her eyes had sparkled, and her breasts had filled out her muslin gown magnificently. Shaking his head at himself, he saw that the torches lighting the alleyway ahead had gone out, making it unnaturally dark. As the thought crossed his mind, three figures loomed out of the black shadow, cudgels raised.

  Deverill fought hard, but he was outnumbered, and though he knocked down two of the villains, the third got in a single, decisive blow with his club. The last thing Deverill heard before losing consciousness was a chorus of angry shouts from the King Street end of the walkway.

  He came to slowly, feeling hands lightly slapping his face and chafing his hands. A flask was held to his lips and tilted. Choking on a mouthful of raw, fiery brandy, he tried to push the flask away and opened his eyes. The torches had been relighted, and he found himself staring into an anxious, freckled face that he had never again expected to see.

  “Thought you were a goner for sure,” Viscount Penthorpe said cheerfully. “Dashed glad you ain’t.”

  Eighteen

  ONE OF PENTHORPE’S COMPANIONS hailed a hackney coach in St. James’s Street, and Penthorpe climbed in beside Gideon, bidding his friends good night. Gideon, leaning his aching head against the squabs and feeling a little sick, nonetheless could not contain his curiosity a moment longer. “Where the devil did you spring from? I thought you were dead.”

  Penthorpe chuckled, but before he replied, he put down the window and shouted, “Hey, there, jarvey, there’s no need to rattle us along at such a pace. Take it slow, man.”

  The rocking of the coach eased somewhat, and Gideon let out a breath of relief. “Thank you, Andy. Now, answer my question.”

  “No use giving me orders anymore, old son. You’ve sold out, if I haven’t, and I needn’t listen to ’em anymore. What’s more, you’re sick as a horse, so you’d best keep mum till we reach Jervaulx House if you don’t want to disgrace yourself all over this coach. Not,” he added with a fastidious sniff, “that anyone would notice much difference if you did.”

  “But I saw you on the field,” Gideon murmured. “I found the miniature and saw your red hair.” The memory of what else he had seen nearly undid him, and for a moment his attention was fixed upon calming his stomach. Penthorpe’s chuckle sounded heartless.

  “Not mine, you didn’t,” he said. “Some other poor stiff it must have been. Can’t tell you what a turn it gave me to learn I was supposed to be dead. A friend had the Times, all the way from London, and there it was that I’d fallen at Waterloo. Had to look in the glass and pinch myself to be sure it wasn’t true.”

  “But your uncle put that in months ago! How the—”

  “Not now. Take a damper, will you, till we get you home and I can have a good look at that lump on your head. Daresay you ought to have a bloodsucker to take a look as well.”

  “Not necessary,” Gideon muttered. “I don’t need a doctor.”

  But when they reached the huge mansion on the banks of the Thames that had been the London home of the Marquesses of Jervaulx for two hundred years, it was Jervaulx himself who decreed that a doctor should be fetched, and Gideon, whose head was aching more by the minute, did not argue. But when he had been helped to his bedchamber, and Penthorpe would have left him there, he said with a grim note in his voice, “Don’t you dare stir a foot out of this room until you have explained yourself to me, Andy, or by heaven, when I get up—”

  “Oh, very well, don’t distress yourself,” Penthorpe said, grinning at him. “I’ll stay if your father don’t throw me out.”

  Jervaulx, who had accompanied them upstairs, said, “You must do as you please, of course,” and left them alone.

  “Still a dashed cold fish, I see,” Penthorpe said when the door was safely shut. “Talks like a book. Never known anyone like him. Don’t mind telling you, he frightens me to death.”

  “Speaking of your death,” Gideon said, ignoring his pounding head in his determination to get the story, “what the devil—”

  “Oh, very well, I daresay the sawbones won’t get here for a good while yet. Like as not your father’s man will have to roust him out of bed at this hour. Fact is, I wasn’t killed.”

  “I can see that, damn you. What happened?”

  “Horse fell on me,” Penthorpe said. “Had a ball in my shoulder, too, but the horse was much worse, and the devil of it was that I couldn’t get free. Cannonballs flying all around me, and a lot of screaming and yelling that seemed to go on for hours, but I couldn’t see a thing. Could scarcely breathe, for that matter. Someone fell on top of me—on the horse, that is—and I was in the deuce of a lot of pain. I must have blacked out, for the next thing I knew it was morning, and much more quiet. Not that I could hear birds, or anything pleasant like that, mind you. Just a lot of moaning and more screams, though nothing like before. Then I heard a female’s voice, calling for someone named Jean-Paul, and I remember wishing I were Jean-Paul and someone would come and get me. My brain must not have been working because it was the devil of a time before it occurred to me to shout to the wench to get the damned horse off me, but I did it at last, and she got someone with a wagon to help.”

  “Who was she? A Frenchie?”

  “No, Belgian woman, name of Marie de Larrey, looking for her husband. Found him, too, if you can believe that. Wounded, like me, but still alive and kicking. She got us both into the wagon and rattled us home to her village. Worst ride of my life, I can tell you, for I had a broken rib, I think, and the damned ball in my shoulder. I picked up some infection or other afterward, so it was a good long while before I was fit, but here I am.”

  “It’s been months, Andy,” Gideon said sternly.

  “Well, I was delirious for a time, you know—didn’t even know I wasn’t in England. And later, well, the village was a pleasant place, and the people very friendly, and no one seemed in any hurry for me to leave. Didn’t see that dashed paper until January—no season for travel then, of course—and I kept meaning to write to someone here, but …” He shrugged ruefully. “You know how I am about that sort of thing, Gideon.”

  “None better,” Gideon said sourly. “Why come back now?”

  “It was spring, and I got restless,” Penthorpe said simply. “I ask you, Gideon, would you like to be stuck in a Belgian village when you might be in London for the Season?”

  “Your reappearance is going to shock a good many people, I
should think. Does Tattersall know yet?”

  “Well, he’s in town, I think, but I haven’t quite got round to seeing him yet. I’ll do it tomorrow, of course. Have to arrange to sell out properly, too, I suppose. Just got here late this afternoon, you see, and straightaway went looking for you. Went to the clubs—to Brooks’s and White’s, at least—before someone chanced to mention that it was opening night at Almack’s. Not dressed for it but came round anyway, hoping to get a message in to you if you were there. Just pure dumb luck I came along in time to be of any help. Didn’t even know it was you at first. Wouldn’t have expected you to escape the place so early.”

  Gideon gave him a look. “Your betrothed told me to leave.”

  “My betrothed?” Penthorpe’s expression altered rapidly from bewilderment to a blank look. “I’d hoped … that is, I’d feared that was all off by now. Didn’t you tell her I was dead?”

  “Yes, but since you are not, and since no other arrangement has been made for her, I have a feeling her father is going to welcome you back with open arms. Not that you seem so delighted, Andy. Did Mrs. de Larrey have a pretty little sister?”

  Penthorpe shook his head. “No, no, not at all. I ain’t such a paltry fellow as all that, dash it, though I did get to thinking what a good thing it was that I hadn’t got married before Waterloo—and left a grieving widow, don’t you know?”

  Gideon started to nod, remembered his headache, and said, “I do know, but you’ll have to keep your vow, you know.”

  “Well, of course, I will. Good God, what else can I do? If I’d realized—What’s she like, Gideon?”

  “As beautiful as her picture,” Gideon said. “She has a mind of her own though, just as you were told.”

  Penthorpe eyed him uneasily. “What do you mean, exactly?”

  “She holds a sadly unfavorable opinion of our sex, Andy.”