The Reluctant Heiress

by Evelyn Richardson

  Chapter Thirteen

  There was not much opportunity for further conversation. Lord Tredington, who had sought out Alistair to question him about his mount—”Stunning animal, get him at Tatt’s?”-rattled on at length about London, its clubs, and the endless games of chance he had won or lost, mostly lost, there. It was a rather one-sided exchange, and the earl, not being called upon to respond except with an occasional “Oh, really?” was free to observe the rest of the party.

  As usual, Rosalind was commanding the attention of the most attractive man, and the rest of the group, with the exception of Lady Edgecumbe, who was taking careful notes of crops and livestock, was watching Rosalind and the chevalier. But oddly enough, this appeared to be bringing Rosalind little pleasure. Ordinarily, the marchioness would have been all smiles and fluttering eyelashes to a gallant as practiced and charming as the chevalier, who appeared to be hanging on her every word.

  Instead, she seemed to be concentrating more upon the passing scenery than on the gentleman. It was a curious thing, most curious indeed, and the earl, his instincts heightened wherever the chevalier was concerned, resolved to keep a weather eye on both the chevalier and the lady on whom he was lavishing attention.

  The earl was quite correct in his assumptions. Rosalind was not enjoying herself. In fact, she was as uncomfortable as she ever remembered being when the chevalier, leaning close to the carriage so that only she could hear him, murmured, “I suggest that you speak to your husband about the news brought by today’s dispatch rider before we have our promenade in the garden.”

  “I shall,” the marchioness snapped. Her dark eyes flashed dangerously, but their rebelliousness was belied by the unhappy pout of the full red lips. Rosalind was caught in an impossible situation and she knew it. There was nothing she could do, no one to whom she could appeal without disgracing herself. A quick glance at the chevalier’s implacable countenance was enough to convince her that he would remain merciless in his pursuit of information. A barely detectable sigh escaped her as she patently avoided his eyes fixed so intently on her, and she turned to survey the lush green fields and burgeoning hedgerows on either side of the carriage.

  As instructed by the chevalier, Rosalind sought out her husband almost immediately upon the party’s return to Cranleigh. The marquess was in the library, seated at his desk, frowning heavily at some papers in front of him. If he had been a perspicacious man, or even one who was ordinarily aware of others than himself, he would have been surprised at his wife’s intrusion, for the marchioness tried to spend as little time with him as was humanly possible. But Harold was too distracted by the matters at hand even to notice such a thing.

  It was an opportune moment for Rosalind. “More dispatches from London, my lord?” she inquired brightly.

  “Mmmm.”

  “It is a great deal too bad that you are forced to spend your time on them instead of enjoying the day.”

  “One cannot indulge in frivolity when the fate of the nation is at stake, my lady. I leave such pleasure to others,” the marquess replied with a gravity of demeanor calculated to make the observer think that the future of the entire kingdom rested upon his shoulders.

  Privately, Rosalind thought that if the affairs of the nation were truly in her husband’s hands. Napoleon would have added England to his vast empire long ago, but even she, bored as she was by politics, had more faith in England’s leaders than to believe they would allow the Marquess of Cranleigh anything but the most harmless minor role in the true workings of the government. “You are very diligent, my lord, but surely nothing can be that urgent?” Rosalind inquired encouragingly.

  At last her husband looked up. “Now there you are wrong, madam,” he began ponderously. “Why, just this morning I have received notice of the imminent departure of troops for the Peninsula.”

  “Truly?” Rosalind was awed. “I do hope they are not any of the regiments in which we have acquaintances. Sir Reginald Farquhar is in, is in ...”

  “The Royal Horse Guards. No, they have not been sent, only the Thirteenth Light Dragoons, a battalion of the First Foot, a battalion of the Coldstreams, and one from the Third Foot.” Harold paused for a moment, a frown of concentration wrinkling his brow. “Oh yes, a battalion from the Royal Scots and one from the First Staffordshire,” he concluded triumphantly. There, that should prove to his wife that she was not the only clever one in the household. It was quite a feat of memory to recall all of those regiments from a dispatch that was so secret Lord Edgecumbe had allowed him only the briefest of glimpses at it.

  “Oh my.” Rosalind acted suitably impressed, but her brain was feverishly committing these particulars to memory. For the moment, she remembered them all, but if she did not write them down soon, she would quickly forget. “You are busy.” Rosalind tried to sound impressed. Harold beamed in a superior fashion. “But do not work too hard. Surely, you will join us for some refreshment. It is such a beautiful day we shall be out on the terrace. I myself am going to put on something more suitable.” With that she hastily made her exit to go in search of pen and paper before changing her costume into something even more flattering than the carriage dress she now wore.

  The other members of the party had also retired. Most of the ladies, except Sarah, who had returned to Ashworth, had repaired to their chambers to refresh themselves, and the gentlemen had either continued on with their exercise or gone to get out of their riding clothes. The earl was one of the latter group, and it was some time later as he was toweling himself off after a refreshing splash of cold water that he happened to glance out of the window to the gardens below, where he caught a glimpse of Rosalind hurrying to meet the chevalier, who was seated on one of the stone benches, idly swinging his quizzing glass.

  That seemed odd. Given the lady’s apparent lack of relish for the gentleman’s company earlier that afternoon, it was strange that she would now agree to an assignation. However, it did not appear to be much of one, for after the briefest and coldest of exchanges, she thrust a piece of paper into the chevalier’s hand and hurried off. How very strange.

  Until this moment Lord Farringdon had been observing Rosalind and the chevalier with the idle curiosity of one who was amused by the machinations of two people expert in the art of dalliance, but now he straightened, frowned, and slowly began to pace the floor of his bedchamber. This meeting had taken on the complexion of something far more serious than a mild flirtation, and the more he considered it, the more Alistair began to wonder if the ever so gallant chevalier was perhaps blackmailing the lovely marchioness. And if he was blackmailing her, what was he blackmailing her for? Were they political or personal secrets he was dealing in? Rosalind with her desperate need to be a leader in the ton would be vulnerable on both counts, what with the fashionable world’s horror of scandal.

  The situation demanded careful observation. Though he had long ago broken off with the beautiful mistress of Cranleigh, the earl bore her no ill will. In any case, he did not wish to see her hurt. However, it was the political rather than the personal that truly interested Lord Farringdon, and since Rosalind’s husband, obtuse though he might be, was connected with powerful men in the government, and since Cranleigh was so close to the Kentish coast, it was a perfect environment for a French agent to operate in, and thus bore looking into. The earl smiled grimly to himself as he completed his toilette. Things were working out just as he had suspected they might.

  Alistair kept a close eye on Rosalind and the chevalier for the rest of the afternoon and evening, but learned nothing further. The chevalier was as punctilious as ever, offering flattering compliments to the Edgecumbe girls, running to retrieve the Duchess of Coltishall’s shawl when she left it on the terrace, complimenting Harold on his magnificent estate and efficient staff, in short, making himself as agreeable as possible to all and sundry.

  Rosalind was a slightly different matter, however. She flirted gaily with Lord Edgecumbe, dimpled charmingly at the Duke of Coltishall, and engaged
Alistair in a witty conversation about their mutual acquaintances in town. To all intents and purposes she was her usual vivacious self, but the earl sensed that she was putting a great deal of effort into appearing carefree. To a close observer, and one who knew her as well as Lord Farringdon did, the lines of strain around the luscious mouth and a hint of worry in the dark eyes all indicated that the Marchioness of Cranleigh was perturbed about something. Alistair also noticed that her eyes followed the chevalier everywhere he went in a manner quite unlike the coquettish Rosalind, who was more accustomed to being watched by everyone else rather than the other way around.

  Yes, the earl concluded to himself as he leaned against the mantel in the drawing room that evening, there was definitely something going on between the Chevalier d’Evron and the Marchioness of Cranleigh, and it was not of a romantic nature.

  Lord Farringdon barely had time to register this thought when his attention was attracted to another part of the room where Sarah, at the request of her brother, who liked to show off his sister in what was, according to his opinion, the one socially accepted role in which she could shine, was seated at the pianoforte. The earl had been vaguely aware of the strains of country airs emanating from that part of the room, but now he heard a Mozart sonata being executed with such skill and depth of feeling that he broke off a rather desultory discussion with the Duke of Coltishall, who had approached him to debate the merits of the various horses running at Newmarket, in order to concentrate his attention on Sarah’s performance.

  Alistair had already accepted the notion that Lady Sarah Melford was an unusual female. In fact, she was an unusual person, and he was ready to acknowledge that she appeared to be as intelligent as anyone he had ever run across. Now it seemed that she was something of an artist as well, for the technique of her performance and her interpretation of the music easily rivaled what he had heard from professional musicians.

  No one else in the room was paying the least attention to her playing. All of them, busy with gossip or flirtation, or both, were too intent upon trivialities to allow themselves to be swept up in the power of the music. Only Sarah, her blond hair gleaming in the candlelight as she bent intently over the keyboard, seemed to be the least bit aware of its beauty. She was completely caught up in it, her entire body reflecting the ebb and flow of her playing. Other women had been taught above all to look decorative at their instruments, the musical execution being only secondary to the picture they presented. Not Sarah. She was too wrapped up in the melody to be aware of anything.

  Intrigued, the earl nodded in a genial manner to the duke and made his way unobtrusively to the other end of the drawing room. Propping one broad shoulder against a convenient pilaster, he watched with interest as her hands flew over the keys. The smooth white forehead was furrowed in concentration, her cheeks were flushed with the exhilaration of producing such exquisite sound, and she was so totally absorbed in the music that she was completely oblivious to the hum of conversation around her or the presence of an interested observer.

  Thinking it over, Alistair realized that he had never seen quite that look on any woman’s face, and in his vast experience he had certainly witnessed a panoply of feminine expressions from coquetry to lust, from anger to coyness. However, he had never encountered a woman so truly unself-conscious, so intense, so caught up in something that she had no thought for her surroundings. Lord Farringdon found this oddly compelling, attractive even. Surely, a woman capable of such single-minded passion in one endeavor was capable of it in many others.

  It was strange how many woman, with their fluttering eyelashes, alluring smiles, and lascivious glances did their best to hint at such depths of passion, but how few of them actually seemed to feel anything of the kind once they had attracted a man’s attention with their ploys.

  This brought to mind the Marchioness of Cranleigh in particular. Rosalind was a woman whose every move was carefully calculated to drive a man wild with desire, but when she finally allowed herself to be embraced, she remained curiously unaffected by the ardor she inspired. Alistair could still remember the scent of her, the feel of her soft curves under his hands as he had kissed her in the gardens at Tredington several summers ago. He had rained kisses along the soft white neck and the delicious hollow at the base of her throat only to discover that her pulse was beating no faster, her breathing coming no harder than if she were seated by the fire, reading a book.

  In fact, as he had emerged breathless from the embrace, she had smiled absently and carefully patted her coiffure to ascertain if anything had been disarranged. It was lack of emotion, more than his distaste for matrimony or her brother’s ruinous propensities, that had kept Lord Farringdon from making Rosalind Countess of Burnleigh. From that point on, he had taken rather cynical notice of the promise of coquetry in a woman’s eye in relation to her subsequent actions and had come to the conclusion that whether they were opera dancers or highborn ladies, they rarely felt the desire implied by their flirtatious looks. On the contrary, these looks were far more likely to have been motivated by a calculated wish to trap him into a relationship that would benefit them socially or monetarily, or both, than they were inspired by any physical longing.

  Now, however, the earl was beginning to wonder. Perhaps there did exist a woman who could experience the depths of passion that he had hoped for. If any could, he was willing to bet that Lady Sarah Melford might be just such a woman. It would certainly be most intriguing to find out. And with that, almost as though she had divined his thoughts, Sarah glanced up from her music to discover the earl’s eyes fixed upon her.

  The intensity of his gaze was somewhat unnerving, yet at the same time it seemed to be questioning her. Well, let him look as much as he liked, she would not be put out of countenance. Sarah’s hands paused over the keys and she stared back at him steadily, unblinking, until Lord Farringdon, a wry grin tugging at the corners of his mouth, strolled over to the pianoforte. “I beg your pardon, Lady Sarah. I did not mean to be impertinent, but I could not help admiring your playing.”

  Her cool smile expressed such patent disbelief at his words that he felt like the rawest youth. Damnation! “Truly, I had not thought to hear such a performance outside the concert halls of London.” Worse and worse. He sounded like the veriest coxcomb. Her delicately arched eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch, and the green eyes glinted scornfully.

  “I know you suspect me of offering you Spanish coin, but I am not.” Alistair paused, then smiled ruefully. “Believe me, I would never do such a thing to you. After all, it would not do me the slightest bit of good.” There, he could see the faintest beginnings of an answering smile hovering around her tips. “I am particularly fond of Mozart, who, I believe, has depths and complexities that are often overlooked by less skilled musicians and audiences.”

  That was unanticipated. Sarah had not expected someone like the earl to notice her playing, much less identify her repertoire. She looked at him with some surprise.

  “I am not a totally useless fellow, you know.” Despite his best efforts, Alistair could not help sounding piqued. Why should he not be just as cultured as she was, after all? Did he look like such a barbarian? Too often she made him feel rather like one. Lord Farringdon shook his head. More and more he was determined that she know the real man behind his public facade.

  Sarah continued to study him, her expression slowly changing from one of purest skepticism to one of dawning curiosity. The man did seem to be in earnest—not that Sarah was well versed in the ways of rakes and libertines, but she fancied herself a good enough judge of human character to recognize true interest when she saw it. “Perhaps you are not,” she conceded cautiously, “but you must know that your reputation is not one that would encourage a person to take you seriously.”

  Alistair remained thoughtful for a moment. “True. But then I do not wish for most people to think that they can take me seriously.” The gray eyes did not waver from hers as he gazed down at her, willing her to believe him.<
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  Suddenly, Sarah felt slightly breathless, almost giddy. It was the oddest sensation. She had never experienced such a weakness before. Perhaps it was the closeness of the room, but no, the French doors on the other side of the fireplace were open, and she could see the flames of the candles flicker slightly as the gentle breeze wafted in.

  “I hope you will take me seriously when I say I admire your skill,” Alistair continued. “You must have had a very fine teacher.”

  “I did.” The moment was past. Sarah took a deep breath, steadied herself, and began to describe her good fortune in receiving instruction from a court musician who had barely escaped France with his life when the Revolution came. Soon she was talking easily, and the conversation turned to safer channels: her study of music, composers in general. They discovered their tastes in music to be quite similar, and a most stimulating discussion ensued, so much so that they quite forgot their surroundings.

  However, such happy obliviousness was not enjoyed by another member of the group. Rosalind, while appearing to hang on Lord Edgecumbe’s every word, was stealing suspicious glances at her sister-in-law and Lord Farringdon. Almost imperceptibly her eyes narrowed and her lips tightened. It was not that she feared in the least any competition from someone as unfashionable as Sarah—oh no—but she did not like to have the attention of the most attractive man in the room fixed on anyone but herself. It was high time she did something about it. That little tête-à-tête had been going on far too long.

  Excusing herself from Lord Edgecumbe, who was deep in an elaborate description of a recent parliamentary debate in which he had distinguished himself, the marchioness glided toward the pianoforte. “Now, my lord”—Rosalind shook a playful finger at Lord Farringdon—”you must not distract our fair performer. You are depriving her listeners. Besides, Sarah confines her mind to higher topics than mere gossip.”

  The first part of the marchioness’s remark was demonstrably untrue. Not a single person in the room, with the exception of Rosalind, had even noticed Sarah’s music, much less her silence.