Amanda Scott (53 page)

“That you’ll not. His lordship said—”

“His lordship is not my master,” Gwenyth retorted. “I have no intention of dancing in the streets, but neither will I stay cooped up in this hot room. It will be cooler downstairs in the library or in the morning room, and I will be quite content to lie on a sofa all day.”

Knowing of old that it would do no good to argue with her mistress in this mood, Annie capitulated rapidly, insisting only that Gwenyth remain where she was until she had fortified herself with chocolate and toast. Perfectly content to obey, now that she had won her own way in the matter, Gwenyth even allowed her abigail to order a full breakfast and took her time afterward about dressing. Only when she swayed on her feet, attempting to walk without assistance, did Annie remonstrate with her.

“You’ll let me send for a pair of footmen to help you down them stairs, Miss Gwenyth, or I’ll send for his lordship and we’ll just see who’s master and who’s not.”

Gwenyth agreed, not because she feared that Lyford would force her to stay in her room, but because she feared he would carry her downstairs himself. Agreeably as the fancy struck her, she could not allow him to do such a thing. Nor would she allow the footmen to form a chair for her with their arms, as Annie suggested when they arrived. Providing herself with a book that promised to be far more interesting than the one Lyford had read to her the night before, and with a footman on each side to lend her an arm, she managed to walk downstairs, her dignity intact. She was grateful, however, that although her aunt and Lady Lyford were in the morning room when she entered it, Lyford was not.

Lady Cadogan exclaimed in annoyance, “Gwenyth, you were told to remain in bed!”

“I decided, however, that I should prefer to sit down here, ma’am,” Gwenyth said, settling herself on the sofa with her book. “My room is very hot and uncomfortable.”

She had to repeat that argument when Pamela entered and again when her brother Davy, having been informed of her injuries in a note from Lady Cadogan, paid a morning call to determine their extent for himself. He was still sitting with her when Lyford entered the room, attired in riding dress.

Davy leapt to his feet. “This is a dreadful thing, sir! I have just been telling Gwen that she ought to be tucked up safely in her bed, but she will pay me no heed.”

Lyford gazed at her searchingly for a long moment, while she stared defiantly back at him. Then, raising one eyebrow, he said, “Hot upstairs?”

Releasing the breath she had been holding, she smiled at him. “Very hot.”

“Then you were no doubt wise to come down. Does your head still ache?”

“Only a little.”

“I trust you will have the good sense to rest, then.” He shifted his gaze to the book resting in her lap. “Reading cannot be good for the headache.”

The countess snapped, “Let the girl alone, for pity’s sake. All this fussing and fretting over no more than a bump on the head is what I have no patience with.”

Lyford turned toward her and said gently, “Let us not discuss patience, ma’am. I have been exerting mine till it is stretched rather thin, and I would prefer—”

“You would prefer, you would prefer!” She banged her cane on the floor, but since it was carpeted, the thump was scarcely satisfactory to her outraged feelings. “I suppose you think you may call the tune whenever you like.”

“Well, yes,” he said, “in my own house, I do.” His tone was still gentle, but Gwenyth saw a muscle tighten high up on his cheek and knew he was controlling his temper with difficulty.

Lady Lyford’s lips had thinned into a straight line, but although she said nothing for a moment, she did not look away. Finally she muttered, “Things have come to a pretty pass when a young man may speak to his elders in such a fashion.”

Lyford was silent, but his expression was grim.

The countess tilted her chin. “I expect you are vexed because we came to town without a by-your-leave from you, my lord.” She laid unnecessary emphasis on the last two words.

“I have every right to be vexed.”

“Fiddle faddle. I am old enough to do as I please.”

“But Pamela is not. And don’t tell me you only thought of bringing her at the last minute. You had to order your theater tickets, after all.”

A sudden movement from behind him recalled the earl to Davy’s presence in the room. Turning toward him ruefully, he said, “I forgot you were here. Hope you’ll—” He broke off, staring at the younger man, who had flushed deeply. “What’s this? You look as guilty as Judas, man.”

Davy’s color deepened, and he looked wretchedly at Lady Lyford, then helplessly at Gwenyth.

Her lips twitched. When Lyford looked at her, his brow knitting, she could see that he was thinking swiftly, and she nodded. “Davy bought the theater tickets for us, sir.”

Lyford turned back to the younger man. “Not your fault,” he said. “You couldn’t have stopped my grandmother.”

“By Jupiter, sir, that’s decent of you.” Davy pushed a hand through his hair. “I’ve been kicking myself, I can tell you, for having had anything to do with the matter, what with Gwen getting hurt and all, but when we first arrived in town and arranged for the tickets, of course we could not know how bad things would get. There is word now that they mean to close the theater.”

Lady Lyford stood up, arranging her skirts and leaning a little on her cane. “I have calls to make, so I shall leave you now. Try to learn to control that temper of yours, Marcus. It don’t behoove a man in your position to let the world see his emotions so clearly. Lend me your arm to my carriage, young Traherne, and I shall set you down wherever you like. Bond Street, I’ll be bound.”

The only sound in the room when they had gone was the click of Lady Cadogan’s needles, until Pamela said defiantly, “I hope you do not mean to scold me, Marcus. You must see now that none of it was my doing.”

He said abruptly, “You would do better to keep silent. I had every right to expect you to obey me. My grandmother may certainly do as she pleases, but you, my girl, must answer to me for your conduct.”

Gwenyth said calmly, “Perhaps you would prefer to await a more private moment for this discussion, Lyford.”

He turned on her, his temper snapping visibly. “You will have the goodness to keep out of this! I should have thought your injuries enough to prove how foolish you were to visit that theater last evening, knowing how dangerous it was—”

“But—”

“Dangerous!” he shouted. “You were a damned fool, and look what it got you. Bad enough that you should encourage Pamela to flout my authority, as you have, but to endanger yourself—”

Gwenyth threw her book at him.

T
HE BOOK GLANCED OFF
Lyford’s shoulder, effectively stopping his tirade mid-sentence. He leaned down to pick it up, then straightened and looked hard at Gwenyth.

Her own temper seething at the fact that he had dared to reprimand her in front of the others for something that had been none of her doing in the first place, she glared back at him, her lips folded tightly together in order to prevent the words that had leapt to her tongue from escaping them.

He bowed, handing her the book. “Impulsive, too, m’lady?”

She replied carefully, “I’ll not apologize, Lyford. ’Tis you who ought to do so. You cannot have meant the things you said to me just now.”

He straightened, his countenance harder than ever. “I meant them, all right. I trusted you to look after Pamela, and while I might have known my grandmother would play me false, I never thought you would do so.” And with that, he turned on his heel and left the room, leaving her speechless, her bosom heaving, her emotions in a ferment. Her throat hurt, and she wanted to scream at him and cry at the same time. But she could not even speak.

When the door had shut behind Lyford with a decided snap, Pamela said explosively, “That man! He had no right to call any of us to account. We have done nothing wrong! How, I ask you, were we to know that there would be a riot? Had there been riots before? No, there had not! And even if he were in the right of it, he had no occasion to rebuke you, Gwen. None at all!”

Gwenyth scarcely heard her, for her own feelings were threatening to overwhelm her, and she feared to expose them to the others. Never before could she recall responding to anyone’s reprimands in such a way. She had felt resentment and fury before, certainly, but never such deep hurt as was mixed in with those emotions now, never such a strong desire to run after the one who had scolded her, in an attempt to make him see that she had done nothing so dreadful as he seemed to think, to coax him to behave tenderly toward her again.

After a pregnant silence it was Lady Cadogan who spoke. “Lyford,” she said calmly, “has had much to bear from his grandmother, and something else is preying upon his mind too. I wonder if he did not find something sadly amiss in Bristol. Jared ought to have gone, of course, but I think Lyford learned something from Sir Antony that caused him to go instead, and with Sir Antony involved, the matter may be a serious one.”

Since at that moment neither Gwenyth nor Pamela cared one whit about the earl’s business in Bristol, neither was able to respond satisfactorily. Gwenyth soon picked up her book and opened it, effectively ending conversation, and Pamela, after gazing at her for a moment or two, announced that she had cards to write. “Not,” she added with a grimace, “that I shall know what to tell anyone, now that Marcus seems determined to put an end to our pleasure and drag us all back to Berkshire.”

“I should think,” Lady Cadogan said matter-of-factly, “that you must refuse with regret any invitation you have received. To allow yourself to pretend that Lyford will change his mind at this point would be singularly foolish.”

Pamela left the room with a near-flounce, and when the door had shut behind her, Lady Cadogan added in a gentler tone, “I hope you do not mean to sulk, Gwenyth. It don’t become you.”

Gwenyth, who had decided that she was refining entirely too much upon the earl’s display of temper, looked over the top of her book with a sigh. “I won’t sulk, ma’am, but I mean to explain certain things to that man and have an apology out of him before we leave London. He will soon discover that he cannot take me so unfairly to task without admitting his error.”

But despite her best intentions, when the party was finally settled in the Lyford traveling carriage on Friday morning, she still had received no apology from the earl. Her failure was not for lack of effort, however, for she had made it clear to him upon more than one occasion that she expected one from him. When he came to assist her down the front steps into the carriage, and she found herself alone with him for several moments before she joined the others, she came very near to wheedling.

“Come now, sir,” she said, smiling up at him, “you know you were in the wrong to scold me. Can you not bring yourself to admit as much now that your temper has cooled?”

His manner had been pleasant until that moment, but her words acted upon him in precisely the opposite manner from that which she had hoped. His countenance hardened, and his eyes frosted over as she watched, his manner becoming not only cool but also remote. The distance between them widened in seconds to the point where it was suddenly as though she beheld a stranger, and she felt chilled to the bone as he handed her into the carriage without speaking and turned away again to mount his horse.

Lady Lyford had made no more objection to accompanying them once she discovered that Lady Cadogan would not remain in London while Gwenyth was at the abbey. Indeed, the countess appeared entirely reconciled to the journey and made no complaint other than declaring that men in London were thoughtless, and observing a number of times that Lyford was very like his grandfather in that he considered no one’s wishes other than his own.

The journey was hot, dusty, and unpleasant. By the time they reached High Wycombe and the Crown, Gwenyth was exhausted and aching, but she would no more have admitted her discomfort than she would have walked naked in the street. Nor would she admit that she envied Lyford his freedom to ride instead of remaining cooped up in the closed carriage. Only once had she asked to have the windows let down, but discovering that the resulting dust storm inside made it impossible to breathe, let alone to be comfortable, they had quickly put them up again.

The following day was no better. Though they were away from the smells of the city, which must always be a benefit, the weather was even more oppressive, for the whole of England was suffering from a bout of the worst heat in years. Even traveling near the river made little difference, and everyone was glad to reach Molesford Abbey at last. Just seeing the thick green trees surrounding the house made the air seem cooler, but Gwenyth had scarcely settled into her bedchamber with its windows thrown wide when Pamela swept in, her face the picture of annoyance.

“I must have another room,” she declared without ceremony.

Gwenyth stared at her for a moment, then realized what the trouble must be. “The courtyard?”

Pamela gave an abrupt nod and took her seat in the chair by the open window. “I cannot think why the stables have not been moved to a point more distant from the house,” she said. “You cannot know how lucky you are to have a room overlooking the river. I might as well be in an oven. And the smell! You cannot imagine. Just come experience it for yourself.”

“No, thank you,” Gwenyth said with a grin, shifting in her chair. Her bruises were, if anything, more troublesome today, after two days of traveling. “I believe you. Ring for the housekeeper and tell her you wish to move. No one will care, and I daresay there are any number of rooms you might have instead.”

Pamela followed this excellent advice and was soon settled in the room next door to Gwenyth’s own. It was not so large as the one she had occupied before, nor so well-appointed, but it was well enough, and its air, as she told Gwenyth when she returned to report her success, was as fresh as a nosegay.

It was soon time for supper, and Gwenyth exerted herself to go downstairs despite her aunt’s suggestion that ordering a tray sent to her bedchamber would offend no one. She was glad she had made the effort, however, for Sir Spenser Newton had done them the honor of agreeing to sup with them. She soon discovered that the countess had sent for him at once to tell him they were again in residence and to plead with him to call.