Anita Mills (8 page)

The woman looked at the money before capitulating. “All I have are black cloth slippers, and I’d have to have extra for them. Five shillings, I think. As for the petticoat—”

“Twenty pounds is it,” Bertie insisted.

“Could we
see
the dress first?” Anne repeated.

“Told you—it don’t matter!” For once in his life, Bertie felt assertive. Taking hold of Anne’s coat sleeve, he propelled her forcefully to the door, leaning close enough to whisper for her ears alone, “Dash it, but I ain’t having Dominick angered ’cause you wanted to gape! Go on. Tell him I’m coming as soon as Miss Porter bundles the dress.” Pushing the remaining money into her hand, he said, “Here—for the coach fare and food.”

“Is aught amiss?” the seamstress inquired suspiciously.

“Lud no! M’brother ain’t been around females enough to know as what they’d like,” Bertie explained, turning back to her. “Ain’t a man of the world like me.”

As Anne climbed back into the carriage and leaned once more into the now-familiar squabs, Dominick Deveraux lifted one eyebrow quizzically. “Am I mistaken, or are you out of reason cross, my dear?” Then, his eyebrow moving even higher, he observed, “I don’t see any boxes, Miss Morland.”

“I have been sent out like the veriest schoolboy,” she retorted. Looking through the window once more at Miss Porter’s, she added acidly, “You behold a female about to be outfitted according to Mr. Bascombe’s taste.”

“Egad.”

“Yes.” Passing a weary hand over her aching brow, she forced a rueful smile. “I shall appear a shocking fright on the mails—I know it.” A resigned sigh escaped her. “But ’twill be all of a piece anyway, won’t it? ‘Fugitive murderess taken in taffeta,’ or some such, I suppose.”

“Taffeta?”

“ ’Tis all the woman has. With my continuing good fortune, I shall be riding the common stage in a country ball gown.” Her gaze dropped to the wrinkled bundle on the floor, and she could not quite keep the regret from her voice. “At least my own dress, however poor it must seem to you, could be worn almost anywhere.”

They did not have long to wait. Albert Bascombe emerged triumphantly from the shop carrying a box crammed so hastily that a pink satin ribbon trailed from it. As he tossed it into the carriage, it fell open to reveal Miss Porter’s best imitation of a French evening gown. As Anne stared at it in dismay, Dominick lifted it, holding it up. The pink taffeta swished as the slender skirt unfolded from beneath a decidedly low bodice. There was more material in the tiny ruffled sleeves than in the top, which seemed to rely on strategically placed satin rosettes to cover the wearer’s bosom.

“Definitely not the thing for the mail coach, my dear,” Dominick murmured.

“Egad. I didn’t look at the demned thing—place was deuced dark. Well, I ain’t taking it back,” Bertie declared. “The woman’s too nosy by half—had a devil of a time describing m’mother to her whilst she was wrapping the thing.”

Anne looked to the money she still held. “Perhaps if I purchased a shawl,” she said doubtfully.

“No.” Dominick refolded the gown and stuffed it into the box. “There is no help for it, I’m afraid—you’ll have to come to the Haven with me.”

“Oh, but I could not.”

“Dash it, but she cannot go barging in on a sick woman, Deveraux!” Bertie protested. “It ain’t done!”

“Do you have a better notion?”

Nonplussed, the younger man looked from Anne to Dominick. “No,” he admitted. “Made a devil of a mull again, I guess.”

“Not at all,” Dominick murmured, his mouth twitching. “If Miss Morland ever wishes to attend a party, she has but to add a bit of modesty to the top, and she is ready for it.”

Bertie brightened visibly. “Well, daresay she could do that.” Then, as the full import of Dominick Deveraux’s words sank in, he sighed. “But I guess you do not go to many parties, do you, Annie?”

“Not often.” Nonetheless, she felt for him. Impulsively she reached to touch his arm. “The dress is quite lovely—truly it is,” she lied. “I shall cherish it.”

“Almost forgot.” He fished in his pocket and produced a thin paper wrapped packet and a spool of thread. “Here—I bought the needles you asked for. Made Miss Porter throw ’em into the bargain.”

“Mr. Bascombe—Bertie—I could kiss you,” she declared thankfully.

Reddening, Bertie shrank back. “I pray you won’t—ruin everything if you was to do that.”

“A figure of speech merely, I suspect,” Dominick said soothingly. His eyes met Anne’s briefly. “I doubt she is any more like to kiss you than me, which is not at all—am I right, Annie?”

It was her turn to color. “Actually, I am not in the habit of kissing anyone. You are quite safe in my presence, both of you. Having no expectations, I do not engage in dangerous games.”

“More’s the pity, my dear.”

She carefully unwrapped the square of paper and drew out one of the needles. “At least I shall be able to wear my own gown until something else can be contrived.”

Bertie eyed the rumpled taffeta on the floor doubtfully. “I dunno. Have to say you was in an accident if you was to wear that.” He looked across at Dominick. “And what about a maid? Dash it, but we cannot take her into your mama’s without an abigail. It ain’t done.”

“I assure you that I look hagged enough to be taken for an ape-leader,” Anne declared flatly. “If Mr. Deveraux thought me five-and-twenty yesterday, I must surely appear thirty today.”

“Miss Porter thought you was a schoolboy,” Bertie reminded her.

“Miss Porter is half-blind,” she shot back.

“When we get to the Haven, I will procure a spinster’s cap for you, if you wish,” Dominick promised.

“Ought to do the trick.” Bertie shifted his weight and leaned against the side panel. “Though why we are racketing about the country with
any
female ain’t going to be easy to explain to m’father.”

Anne stared soberly out her window. Somehow the thought of wearing a spinster’s cap in the presence of Dominick Deveraux was more lowering than Bascombe’s breeches or her own torn, soiled gown.

The atmosphere was decidedly subdued within as the carriage rolled up the drive through the Haven’s park. The giant oaks on either side twined their bared limbs above, creating a lattice of shadows on the road below. In the distance, high on a hill, stood a monolithic mansion of gray stone. Staring dispiritedly out of the coach window, Anne thought it not unlike the setting of a gothic novel. All it needed was a rocky, precipitous coast above crashing waves, which, being in the Midlands, it did not have.

She had no business going home with Dominick Deveraux, and she knew it. But she was more than one hundred twenty miles from London, and whether she wished to admit it or not, she quite literally had nowhere else to go. Except jail. Still, she felt a very real sense of unease, not because; she feared the self-styled rogue across from her, but rather because she found herself quite drawn to him. And sensible females of no means knew better than to cast lures at any man, for the result was destined to be disastrous.

Glancing surreptitiously at him, she wondered what he was thinking. He was a strange and moody man, she mused to herself, one whose acts of kindness seemed determinedly offset by a certain derisiveness, as though much of what happened around him was but life’s bitter jest. Asleep he looked even younger than his twenty-seven years. Awake he looked older, more weary, more worldly-wise. Just now, the small wry smile was missing, and he appeared almost haunted.

His eyes were fixed on the house ahead, and his face was set. He’d been a fool to come, a fool to trade his safety for a woman who begrudged him his Very life. Why had he done it? Guilt? Duty? He could not answer. If she yet lived, he did not even know what he would say to her. He was, by her own account, the greatest disappointment in her bitter, unfulfilled life. And it did not help that the Almighty had seen fit to create him in his father’s image rather than hers. For that alone she’d damned him.

“Dashed big place—thought Trent had the family seat,” Albert Bascombe observed finally.

Dominick continued to stare out the window. “He does. My mother brought the Haven with her on her marriage.”

Bertie hesitated, then blurted out, “I been thinking—maybe men Annie ought to go on as soon as she’s got rigged up right. I can put her on the coach bound for London, you know. Draw a bank draft in Nottingham.”

“I was under the impression you were without identification.”

“Egad—hadn’t thought of that. But you can vouch …” Bertie stopped guiltily. “Oh, guess you cannot, can you?”

“No.”

“Guess we are still in the basket, ain’t we?”

“Yes.”

“Somehow it does not seem quite right to present ourselves as guests,” Anne said. “And I tend to agree with Mr. Bascombe. In your mother’s condition, perhaps we ought to go on. I still have passage money left from Miss Porter’s.” She looked down at her sadly mended and much-creased dress. Her fingers scratched at a bit of dried mud. “I can think of something to tell my fellow passengers. Really, there is no need to impose further on your kindness.”

“As my father’s heir, the house is mine, Miss Morland, and I am free to bring home whomever I choose.” He was silent for a moment, watching the road as the carriage made the last turn. “ ’Tis misnamed, you know,” he said finally, his voice so low she had to strain to hear it. “Of all the things it is, ’tis scarce a haven.” Tensing suddenly, he muttered, “Damn,” under his breath.

Curious, Anne tried to follow his gaze, and saw a tall black-haired man emerge from the house. As the coach rolled to a halt before the large portico, the gentleman looked up, and she was struck by his resemblance to Dominick Deveraux.

“Your brother?”

“Trent. My only brother died some years back.”

“I’m sorry—I did not know.” So that was the notorious marquess. She didn’t know what she’d expected, but he did not appear nearly as old as she’d imagined him. “There is a family resemblance between you.”

He laughed harshly. “Not anymore, I’m afraid. Since he wed, Trent fancies himself the pattern-card of respectability.” Sucking in his breath, then exhaling fully, much in the manner of one girding himself against something unpleasant, he reached for the door handle, ordering tersely, “Wait here, both of you.”

Bertie exchanged a nervous glance with Anne. “If I’d known he was here, I’d have stayed in Nottingham. Trent,” he pronounced solemnly, “is said to be demned disagreeable. Worse than Rotherfield, if half the stories can be believed.”

“I suppose it comes from being a Deveraux.”

“Eh? Not like that, it don’t. Don’t know him well, but even I can tell you Dominick’s a hothead. But Trent—Trent’s downright
cold. Everybody
says so, you know.”

Her eyes still on the two men outside, she ventured slowly, “I shouldn’t think that. I mean, he did marry Ellen Marling, and everyone said ’twas a love match, despite the fact that she had been wed to Lord Brockhaven.”

“Humph!” Bertie snorted. “
On-dit
behind the hands was that he scared the baron witless to get her an annulment. When Trent wants something, he gets it.”

“You seem to know the marquess rather well.”

“Me? Don’t know him at all—and don’t want to neither. Know
of
him, that’s all. Uh-oh.”

She could not help hearing bits of the angry exchange on the portico steps. The marquess flung words like “young fool” and “damned hothead” at Dominick, while the younger man answered defiantly, “If you did not want me to come, you should not have written!” Then their voices lowered, and she watched nervously as they obviously discussed her and Albert Bascombe. No doubt Dominick was trying to explain how he’d come to bring them home with him at such a time.

Finally he returned, his face grim. Opening the door, he reached for Anne. “Brace yourself,” he muttered. “It appears as though I’ve brought you to a damnable reunion.”

She glanced at his scowling cousin and started to demur. “Really, I cannot feel right intruding.”

But he caught her at the waist and lifted her out. Leaning close, he said low, “No, you don’t, my girl. If I am to be surrounded by my relations, I’d as lief have a friendly face in the place. Come on, Bascombe.”

As the marquess’s cold blue eyes took in her dirty, hastily repaired gown, Anne wanted to sink from sight. But Dominick’s hand on her arm propelled he forward.

“Miss Morland, may I present my cousin Trent? Alex, Miss Morland.”

The black head bent over her hand politely. “Dom tells me you were in an accident.”

“Fell from the carriage,” Bertie said, speaking up quickly.

For the briefest moment the marquess’s fingers tightened over hers. “Really? I was under the impression that the mishap occurred on some stairs.”

For a moment Bertie was nonplussed; then he blinked. “Er … ’twas the carriage steps—fell right into a puddle, didn’t you, Miss Morland? See, mud’s all over her dress.”

“So I see. Well, Miss Morland, once you are rested, bathed, and in a fresh gown, no doubt you will feel more the thing,” Trent murmured. Releasing her hand, he stepped back.

“Uh …” Remembering the pink taffeta, she glanced up at Dominick in dismay. “Really, but I cannot stay, my lord. I … uh …”

“Nonsense,” Dominick declared flatly. “You are most welcome.” The way he said it, it was as though he dared his cousin to dispute it.

“She ain’t got no clothes,” Bertie reminded him. Then, perceiving that the marquess’s gaze had shifted to him, he colored uncomfortably. “Lost ’em.”

“Lost them?”

“Trunk fell open into the mud also. Couldn’t save anything but an evening gown.” He looked to Dominick for aid and found none. “Had to leave the rest—fit for nothing but the trash heap,” he decided. “Ain’t that so, Deveraux?”

“Precisely.”

“I see. Well, perhaps Miss Mitford will be able to supply the lack. No doubt she will welcome the company, in fact,” Trent said dryly.

Dominick’s eyebrow rose. “Miss Mitford’s here? Whatever for?”

The marquess favored him with a pained expression. “I would think the reason obvious, Dom, but Aunt Charlotte insists ’tis that she needs a companion. Given Miss Mitford’s singular lack of spine, I cannot think the association is a happy one. If the girl has any conversation, I’ve not heard it.”

“Lud, no. Mama plays the cat over the mouse with her.” The younger man shifted his weight uneasily, as though he feared to put a question to the touch. Speaking almost casually, he managed to ask, “I collect Mama must be recovering if she can still bullock Margaret?”

Trent’s mouth curved downward, again reminding Anne of his cousin. “The physicians said it was a brain seizure, and when I wrote you of it, she was affected by a loss of speech and movement. Now she is merely angered with the world.”

“Poor Miss Mitford—and Ellie also, of course,” Dominick added politely.

“I did not bring Ellen. And if any good can be said for your arrival, ’tis that I may go home ere she is brought to bed with the child.” Once again Trent’s eyes rested on Anne. “Perhaps you ought to take Miss Morland inside, Dom, for she looks worn to the nub. Her maid can discover something from Miss Mitford, I should think.”

Bertie looked to Dominick, and when the other man said nothing, he uttered, “Oh, she ain’t got an abigail! That is … well … had to leave the maid behind. No room, you know.” When Trent’s eyebrow rose incredulously, Bertie explained defensively, “Well, there was the dashed dress box, after all.”

“I see,” the marquess murmured, his face suddenly quite bland. “After you have delivered Miss Morland to Miss Mitford, Dom, no doubt you will wish to see your mother.”

Dominick hesitated. He didn’t know what he’d expected. Perhaps it had been but the hope for a final understanding between them, but if his mother’s temperament was worse … A wave of defeat washed over him. If he were more the coward, he’d head straightaway back to Lyons. Schooling his face into indifference, he reached again for Anne Morland, taking her elbow.

“Buck up, Annie,” he muttered grimly. “At least Miss Mitford will have something you can wear, for you are nearly of a size. Though if you can get her to say much of anything to you, ’tis more than I have ever had of her. Trent’s right on that head, at least.”

It was not until they were at the door that she dared to ask, “I collect Miss Mitford is your mama’s companion?”

“My mother’s goddaughter.” He turned back briefly. “Coming, Bascombe?”

“Bascombe and I will share a glass of port,” Trent answered. “Later Wilkins will show him upstairs to a chamber.”

“You cannot leave Bertie with him,” Anne whispered. “There’s no telling what he will say.”

“At this point, my dear, I am beyond caring. I do not mean to stay above one night anyway.”

Having bathed and redressed in her ruined gown, Anne sat on the edge of a tapestry-covered chair in the elegant bedchamber, watching as Margaret Mitford held up the first of several dresses. Had she not been quite so pale or quite so slender, the fair-haired girl would have been passably pretty. As for her lack of speech, Anne certainly did not notice it. To her, it seemed Miss Mitford rattled on far too eagerly.

The girl shook the folds from a blue-checked gingham gown almost apologetically. “ ’Tis not very fashionable, I am afraid, but I like it.”

“If it is your favorite, I’d not wear it,” Anne demurred.

“Oh, no! That is to say, I do not mind in the least. ’Tis enough that you are come to the Haven, Miss Morland. I vow I shall like it excessively that there is another young female here.” Laying aside the gingham, she lifted a pink figured muslin. “This one does not become me at all, I assure you. But if you do not like it, there is the green twilled cotton that Aunt Charlotte ordered from London.”

“Miss Mitford, I would not borrow something that is a gift. ’Tis enough if you have anything I may wear on the mails.”

“Oh, I daresay she will not even note it, for I am quite certain that she has forgotten it already. Since the … since she has been ill, Aunt Charlotte’s memory is not the best.”

“Still …” Anne eyed the green dress longingly. “No, I cannot. ’Tis too lovely.”

“Well, if ’tis your preference, take it. And when we have contrived to get you something of your own, you can give it back, if you wish.”

“But I will not be staying that long, Miss Mitford. Perhaps the gingham would be best, after all.”

The girl’s face fell, betraying her dismay. Oh, but you must! That is, I should like having someone besides Aunt Charlotte to talk with,” she said wistfully. “She does naught but complain, you know.”

“Mrs. Deveraux is your aunt also?”

“Oh, no—did I say that? No, she is merely my godmother, but she insists I call her Aunt.” Margaret sighed. “Why, I am sure I do not know, for we do not deal well together. Were it not for her hopes of me, she would not like me in the least. Indeed, but I should like to go home,” she confided artlessly. “Alas, Papa will not hear of it.”

Anne rose to inspect the gingham more closely. “Why not?”

“Because he is possessed of five daughters to fire off, and I am the eldest,” she answered simply. “We are not well-fixed, I am afraid.”

Anne nodded sympathetically. “And so he expects you to earn your own way, and you find yourself employed by Mrs. Deveraux. Believe me, Miss Mitford, but I quite understand.”

“I would it very only that,” the girl declared fervently. “But Papa and Aunt Charlotte have quite settled between them that Mr. Deveraux will wed me when his salad days are over.” She put the figured muslin on a chair and picked up the green cotton. “Here …” Holding it up to Anne’s shoulders, she decided, “ ’Twill most likely fit, for we are of a height, I think. Actually, as you are not as thin as I am, ’twill probably look better on you than me, for it positively hangs on me.”

“ ’Tis lovely.”

“Yes, it definitely becomes you better than me.”

Looking from the mirror to the pale girl beside her, Anne could not help asking, “Then you and Mr. Deveraux have an understanding?”

“Oh, no! Indeed, I should be mortified if he knew why I am here!”

“He’s an exceedingly handsome man,” Anne pointed out judiciously. “And one cannot always judge another by his reputation, after all.”