Dangerous Escapade (5 page)

“Anthony, it
is exceedingly hot in here. Would you take me out into the garden for a few
moments?”

“Certainly, if
you are sure you will not take cold.”

“Oh no, it is
very mild tonight.”

He bowed his
complaisance and, having punctiliously wrapped his betrothed in a handsome silk
shawl, he led her out into the moonlight. As they strolled among the
sweet-smelling arbours, Lord Debenham found his betrothed more affectionate than
she had ever been before. Her slender hand, tucked into the crook of my Lord's
arm, gave confiding little squeezes as she gazed, misty with admiration, into
the cool grey eyes above her. Suddenly, she stumbled and, as she fell, Debenham
caught her in his arms. She turned her lovely face up to his, and his lips met
hers.

Lord Debenham had
never previously been invited to bestow any but the most chaste salute upon his
bride-to-be and, as he released her, he understood why. She had stood
unyielding in his arms, neither repulsing him nor returning his kiss. It was
enough, she seemed to feel, that he was allowed to touch her.

He raised his
handsome head and regarded her with a quizzical look that masked his
disappointment.

“You must not be
over-enthusiastic, my love,'' he drawled.

“I take it you
would not wish your wife to display vulgar emotion, Anthony. Surely we are
above that?”

“Are we?” he
sighed. “Perhaps you are right, my dear Amelia. I think perhaps we have been
too long absent from the ballroom; permit me to escort you back to your mama.”
She took his arm with a satisfied air and permitted him to lead her back to the
candle-lit ballroom. He perceived that their brief embrace had had no great
effect upon her. He was dismayed. The reserve that had seemed so eminently
desirable in the chatelaine of his household appeared considerably less so when
she lay unyielding in his arms.

He sought out
his hostess, murmured a few compliments on the success of her party, and left
without attempting to speak to his betrothed again. His horses were fresh, and
the moon was at the full; but, even so, it was past midnight when he finally
clattered into the silent courtyard.

A sleepy groom
emerged yawning from the stables and took charge of the horses. My Lord entered
the house through a side door left open for his convenience by John, who had been
given permission not to wait up for his master. Taking the candle, John had
left upon a small table, Lord Debenham made his way across the great hall
towards the main staircase. As he did so, he noticed a light glimmering under
the door of the library, and he turned aside to investigate this phenomenon.

Quietly, he
opened the door, and there, not altogether to his surprise, sat Kit fast asleep
with his head resting upon his arms, his face still blotched and swollen with
tears. The Earl extinguished the lamp, very gently slipped his arms under the
inert form of Master Clareville and lifted the light young body into his arms.

As the boy's
head fell back to reveal the delicate lines of the throat, the long curls brushing
the Earl's fingers, realization came to him, recognition of something he felt
he had known for a very long time.

The slender form
he held clasped in his arms did not belong to a child or a boy. It was that of
a woman; a very lovely and desirable woman.

Now that he knew
the truth, everything about her confirmed it. He noticed for the first time how
delicate were the bones of her wrists in their covering of lace, how tiny was
her waist, how shapely the leg in the tight black satin breeches. As the lace
of her cravat rose and fell with her breath, he noted the swelling of gently
rounded breasts beneath the constricting waistcoat.

His mind went
back to that first evening when she had fought so bravely at his side. He could
not have believed that such courage existed in so slight and feminine a frame.
Then he remembered, with a reminiscent smile, her embarrassment when she had
been kissed by naughty little Mary on board the Dover Packet. As though conscious
of his regard, she stirred a little and opened drowsy eyes, blinking at him
like a sleeping cat.

“Oh, it's you,
Sir,” she murmured and, smiling, she snuggled her cheek into his shoulder.

Debenham
carried his burden up the winding staircase and laid her upon the white pillows
in her bedchamber. He decided ruefully that she would have to sleep in her
clothes, for the thought of attempting to remove even her coat raised visions
of hideous complications in his imagination. How he was ever to tell her that he
had discovered her secret he had no conception. Had she disguised herself in
fear of him or was she always attired thus? Would she be willing to stay with
him when she discovered that he knew the truth?

Suddenly, Debenham
realized that, rather than lose his ward, he would allow this masquerade to
continue indefinitely. And when he asked himself why, there could be only one
answer: in spite of the difference in their ages, in spite of her dubious birth,
and in spite of the fact that he was betrothed to another woman, the Earl of
Debenham had fallen in love for the first time in his life
—
and with a nameless chit of a girl half his age.

Four

Lord Debenham slept
badly that night. Tossing and turning restlessly in the disordered bed, his
powerful mind grappled with the tangle confronting him. He could find no
solution. He had fallen deeply in love with his ward, yet he was plighted to
Lady Amelia. As a gentleman, it was not possible for him to draw back from the
engagement; to attempt to do so would be to offer Lady Amelia an unpardonable
insult. She was not to be blamed if the cold and loveless match envisaged by Debenham
no longer satisfied him, nor did she deserve to be exposed to the ridicule of
their small world.

He arose
unrefreshed that morning with his mind made up. Kit, or Kitty as he supposed he
must become accustomed to thinking of her, must be allowed to reveal the truth
in her own time. He, therefore, should remove himself from her vicinity, lest the
strain of the situation should force an ill-timed disclosure from him.

Kitty was
already seated at the breakfast table when he entered the sunny dining room.
She was dressed for riding in immaculately cut breeches and a fine lawn shirt
of unsullied purity. All signs of grief had left the lovely countenance, and
she greeted Debenham with composure.

 
“Forgive me, Sir. I fear I put you to the trouble
of carrying me to my bed last night. I am exceedingly sorry.”

“Not at all,
Kit,” replied the Earl politely. “In truth, you weigh remarkably little for a
growing boy.”

There was a silence,
then: “I have been ill, Sir” she stammered.

“Indeed?” said
Debenham with a sardonic smile. “Then we really must feed you up a little, must
we not, Kit? Unfortunately, I shall be unable to supervise your diet myself as
I shall be leaving shortly, but my housekeeper will, I am sure, be delighted to
accept the task.”

“You are not
going away, Sir?” she questioned, a note of regret in her voice.

“I am sorry,
but I am afraid I must, Kit. My betrothed is entitled to my support during the preparations
for our marriage. I have been too long absent from her side already.”

“Yes, indeed,
you must go,” she agreed with a little sigh. “But what shall I do with myself
while you are gone?”

Lord Debenham
smiled. “I fear you may not approve of my plans for you, my young friend. I
propose to continue your education, which, although excellent in some areas, appears
to be somewhat lacking on the academic side. When I reach London, I shall
endeavour to engage masters for you who will be able to instruct you in the
rudiments of Latin, Greek, History, and so forth.”

To his
surprise, this suggestion found instant favour. Kitty bestowed a dazzling smile
upon her benefactor and exclaimed, “How kind you are, dear Sir! If only you
knew how often I have felt my ignorance and longed to improve myself!”

“I am glad!” Debenham
found that he was gazing straight into limpid blue eyes and, with some
difficulty, withdrew his own.

He would have
left her then but, with a word, she detained him. She stood before him, slim
and straight in her severe boy's garb.

“Sir, before
you go, there is something I must say to you.” For one moment, he thought she
was going to trust him with the truth and hardly knew whether to be glad or
sorry when her next words dispelled that hope.

“I want to
tell you, Sir, how very grateful I am to you for taking me. And for bringing me
to this lovely place. I fear that I was not very polite to you when we first
met, but I want you to know that I am happy to be here and that I intend to do
my best to make you proud of me.”

“I am already
proud of you, Kit,” he answered and was taken aback when she suddenly took his
hand and pressed it to her lips.

“Goodbye, dear
Sir,” she cried and fled from the room. Later, she sat dry-eyed at her chamber window
and watched Debenham ride away on his long-tailed bay, thinking as he rode out
of view that there went the only friend she had in the whole of this strange
land. She wondered when she would see him again and, briefly, she allowed her
imagination to dwell on the scene, which must inevitably come, when she
disclosed to the unsuspecting Earl that his ward was not quite what she
appeared.

There was
nothing romantic in these speculations. Kitty had been wearing her boy's
clothes for so long now that she had ceased to think of herself as a girl at all.
It had begun seven years ago when Mr Clareville, having mislaid his wife after
a rather unpleasant little incident with the authorities in Budapest, had found
himself in sole charge of a little girl who appeared to have grown at a quite
alarming rate and who, at the age of twelve, was already attracting the attention
of the unsavoury characters with whom her father surrounded himself. It had
seemed to the careless yet affectionate father that his solution of the problem
was ideal. Kitty might remain with him in perfect safety and eventually would
become his companion and fellow adventurer. To this end, he taught her all he
knew, which was considerable, of the art of duello, of card play, and
dissimulation
—
in fact, all the tricks of his trade.
They roamed the capitals of Europe, sometimes rich, more often not, yet always
accepting their lot with charm and wit. This had been her life for five
carefree years until, with uncharacteristic earnestness, Mr Clareville had taken
up the cause of the unhappy prince, whose defeat had brought his followers to
the gallows.

As she sat now
at the window of an English country house, gazing across the gentle English
countryside, Kitty felt that she was an intruder in this peaceful land. Her
past life ceased to appear carefree and romantic and seemed to her merely
shoddy. She resolved with all her heart to become more worthy of her new home and
of her guardian.

It was
unfortunate for these good resolutions that boredom very soon drove her to seek
out some form of entertainment that afternoon, and one of the first persons she
encountered upon leaving her chamber was the shy young footman whose
acquaintance she had made the previous day. Two hours later, she was richer by
the footman's wages and had succeeded in demoralizing the rest of the household
to such an extent that Mrs Goulding, the fat housekeeper, declared that Master
had taken a viper to his bosom. Conscience-stricken, Kitty returned her victim's
wages with interest and, in reparation, offered to teach him the tricks whereby
she had deprived him of them.

With some
difficulty, she succeeded in inveigling her way back into the good graces of
the household and was soon seated happily in the homely kitchen, relating
stories of her past adventures, between mouthfuls of Mrs Goulding's famous
pastries.

That good lady
was quite shocked at what Kitty, in the most innocent manner, related of her
life with her father.

“But what
about your mother, child?” she asked. “Do not tell me that she did not try to
bring you up better than that.”

“Indeed she
did,” replied Kit readily. “But, you see, we lost her when I was only twelve
years old.”
 

“Poor dear
child, to lose a mother so young. You must think of her in Heaven watching over
you, as I'll be bound she does.”

“I should not think
so, Ma'am,” answered Kit, considering the matter. “When last we heard, she was
in Vienna.”

“I thought you
said she died when you were small,” objected a lounging footman at this point.

“No, what I
said was that we lost her,” reminded Kitty with a mischievous look, “and that
is quite true.”

“What was she
like, Master Kit?” inquired the second-footman, on whom the romance of Kit's
narration was having an unsettling effect.

Kitty thought
for a moment. “Well, she was very handsome and I remember that she always smelled
sweetly.” Kitty’s voice was just a little wistful as she described her lost mother,
and Mrs Goulding silenced the rest of the servants with a frown, sending them
about their business. With a sigh, Kitty returned to the colder, if more
magnificent, regions above stairs, where she found solace in exploring the Earl's
excellent library until dinner time.

She dined in
solitary state, rather enjoying the unaccustomed sensation. But it was dull work
when all was said and done, and it was with relief that she retired to her chamber
that night hopeful that the morrow would bring company in the form of the
masters the Earl had promised her.

Kitty arose
betimes the next morning to take a refreshing gallop before breakfast. The
beautiful mare of Debenham's providing was fresh and playful and as eager for the
exercise as her mistress. Clad in an excellently tailored coat of claret
broadcloth, her tricorne perched at a jaunty angle over one eye, she looked the
very picture of a dashing young gentleman, and knowing it, she revelled in the
freedom her imposture gave her. The morning sunshine bathed the meadows in a
hazy golden glow as she rode briskly out of the park and down the narrow lanes,
which, she had learned from a groom, led onto long grassy stretches where she
could allow the mare her head.