Dangerous Escapade (7 page)

Never had the
competent Earl been so wholly at a loss. He cradled her in his arms, distractedly
calling her name until he saw with relief that the colour was returning to her
livid cheeks, and the long lashes fluttered open.

“Thank God,” he
murmured devoutly, smoothing back the tangled curls that had fallen across her brow.
“My poor darling, thank God, I feared I had killed you.”

“No, no, it
was all my fault,” she whispered tearfully clutching at his coat with a convulsive
hand, “but, what did you call me?”

“My darling,” he
murmured again, holding her yet closer, his cheek pressed against her damp
curls.

She moved then
in his arms, so violently that she wrenched her injured shoulder and cried out in
pain. Restored to sanity by this, Debenham looked rather rueful, “Pray allow me
to do what I can for that shoulder, I am a very tolerable nurse I believe.”

Kitty, however,
was not concerned about her wound, which was indeed nothing more than a
scratch. She was staring in horror at the Earl. “So, you did know, all the
time. It is true.”

Lord Debenham frowned,
“What is true, Kit, I do not understand you.”

“You knew that
I was a girl all along, just as he said,” she hurled at him. “What did you plan
for me, my Lord Earl, was I to be honoured with marriage, or was I simply to
disappear? After all, you killed my father. One cannot expect that you would be
over-nice about me.”

Lord Debenham
was very pale. “I do not know what you are talking about,” he said curtly, “but
whatever it is, explanations can wait until that shoulder is seen to. Come here.”

“I shall not,”
she cried defiantly.

“Do not be a
fool. Come here, or I shall be obliged to compel you.”

“You could not!”

 
Lord Debenham moved slowly towards his ward. He
looked appallingly grim as he glared down at her. Then he smiled, a twisted
little smile that made him look suddenly much younger. “I cannot, of course,
compel you, but please believe me when I say that, at the moment, my only
desire is to help you.”

Her blue eyes
filled with tears. “Indeed, Sir, I do believe you,” she said.

The tension in
the small room relaxed. Lord Debenham assisted Kitty out of the brave claret-coloured
coat, which she noted with gloom was quite ruined. Without hesitation, he
ripped open the fine lawn shirt to lay bare a long scratch in the hollow of her
left shoulder, which was already drying to a rusty brown. He took a pitcher of
water from beside the bed and carefully washed the wound. Then, from his pocket,
he produced a flask of cognac, some of which he poured over the scratch, the
rest being tilted, despite her tearful protest, into his ward's mouth. He then
rummaged through a drawer, finally producing a cambric shirt, which, although very
much too large, was at least of use in preserving the decencies.

Lastly, he
lifted the slight figure onto the bed and seated himself beside her, saying, “Now,
perhaps you will tell me what all this is about.”

It made, thought
Kitty, a particularly silly tale when disclosed to this urbane guardian of
hers, whom she had so readily cast as the villain of the piece. She could not
tell what he was thinking as she stumbled haltingly through her account of her meeting
with the stranger. She only knew that, with every fresh disclosure, he seemed
to grow more remote from her. She could not have believed that it was the same
man who, not so many minutes ago, had held her in his arms and called her his
darling. At last, the shame-faced recital came to an end. The Earl began to
speak and, as he talked, she felt herself growing smaller and more foolish by
the moment.

“So, my ward,”
he began, “you were willing to take the word of a chance-met and plausible
stranger, and to believe me to be the vilest of men.” He laughed, but not as
though he was amused. “Do you know, my dear, I really believe I was beginning
to grow rather fond of you. I imagined that I had found what I had come to
believe did not exist
—
a woman of courage,
honour, and strength, all the qualities in which your sex is so conspicuously
lacking. Instead, I am relieved to find that you are as stupid, heartless, and untrustworthy
as the rest of your endearing sisters. I think that, after all, I prefer my
betrothed to any of you. She at least never pretends to feel or to have a
heart. Yes, I am very well satisfied after all.”

Kitty was
crying quietly, her head bowed. She had no answer to make to the insults he
heaped upon her. She supposed that she deserved them. She had been wrong, of
course, blindly, stupidly wrong, but there had been some justification. She
remembered now that he had known that she was masquerading. Why had he said
nothing? Timidly, she put the question.

“Because, Kit,
I believed that you would be frightened and embarrassed if you discovered I
knew the truth while we were still comparatively recent acquaintances. It was,
I am sure, foolish of me, but I had no desire to cause you any distress.”

“How did you
find out, Sir?” she questioned humbly.

 
“When I carried you to your room the night we
learned of your father’s death. It was not the first time that I have held a woman
in my arms. I assure you it is a very different experience than that of
carrying an adolescent boy.”

She could not but
acknowledge the reasonableness of this and cursed herself for a fool for not having
realized that it must be so. She wished almost that he would go on being
furious with her, but instead he had withdrawn from her totally and was
regarding the whole situation with a detached amusement that hurt her even
more.

She ventured
another question. “My Lord, why should that man have told me these things. Who can
he have been?”

He answered
readily. It would be as well that she should be on her guard. “I have reason to
believe, from your description and from my own knowledge of the man, that it
was a certain Mr Wellbeloved. He is an unpleasant creature, and dangerous. Be
careful, my child. If you ever see that gentleman again, tell me immediately,
send word if need be, and take great care.”

“I will, Sir,”
she answered fervently, “but what can have been his object? Do you know?”

“I shall be
very much surprised if his object were not that same piece of paper he sent you
to recover. If, as he says, it is all the proof we need to have you named heiress
to the Brabington estate, then he presumably had some nefarious use for it. What
that might be, I fully admit, I cannot imagine.”

Five

It was on the
twentieth day of June in the year of seventeen forty seven that Lady Horatia
Willoughby, Marchioness of Chinley, took up her pen to resume her regular
correspondence with her dear friend Madame de Longueville, at present residing
in Paris.

“My dear, no doubt you are wondering at my long
silence, but, my sweet creature, when you hear my excuses, I flatter myself
that I shall be forgiven. In my last lengthy epistle, I fear that my ennui
could not but communicate itself to you, try as I might to dissemble. But now,
my love, that is quite at an end, for I have the most enchanting occupation imaginable.
You will recollect that I informed you of my nephew's betrothal to that disagreeable
Henshawe chit. Lord, why will the men be such fools? But I digress. Well, about
three months since, when I swear I was about to perish with boredom, my dearest
Anthony appeared upon my doorstep. He said he wanted my help and, as you know,
I have ever had a kindness for my darling brother's boy, and so, of course, I
promised to do my all. It appeared that he had been left the charge of a young
girl; do not ask me how, for he clammed up whenever I ventured an inquiry on
that subject. However, I vow it is the most delightful mystery, for the child,
he told me, had been used to dress and behave like a boy, and had no more idea
how to go on in petticoats than Anthony himself. This was the heart of the matter.
I was to go down to Debenham, which I vow I have been longing to do this age, and
there take the girl in hand and make her fit to be seen.

“It appears, my love, that my sweetest Kitty
is an heiress; she is the most delicious creature beside. I swear she will
break hearts, but I get before myself. Anthony described her to me in the coolest
terms, but upon hearing that she was dark, with the bluest eyes I have ever
seen, though to be sure I did not know that then, for Anthony would only say
that he rather thought they were not brown, I instantly sent to Celine and ordered
a great many gowns in pink, and blue
—
but not green or yellow, for, as you know,
such colours cannot flatter a blue eye. When I saw her, I knew instantly that she
would appear divine in white, so I commissioned Anthony to send us some pretty
petticoats.

“You can imagine how my curiosity was
whetted. I could scarce contain myself until I reached Debenham, although that
could not be for another week, for I had dearest Louisa Malpert's Drum to
attend. However I did at last arrive
—
and what a surprise was in store! I was
greeted, my dear, by the most beautiful young man you can conceive of. Indeed, I
was in a fair way to being in love with him 'til I discovered that 'twas my
dearest Kitty, and no man at all. However, she greeted me with greatest
politeness and said that she was truly grateful to me for helping her.

Well, the very first thing was to get her
out of those dreadful clothes, though, to be sure, they became her
prodigiously. I had had two of the loveliest gowns made up, one in a pretty pink
damask, and an entrancing chintz saque in blue and white, which I had a mind to
keep for myself until I saw how well it would become Kitty. We retired to her
chamber, and then and there I divested her of those outrageous garments and,
with the help of my faithful Sarah, arrayed her in the blue. My dear, I could
have wept.

She put me much in mind of yourself, Marguerite,
at the same age. Such black hair, and the whitest skin! Her figure is perhaps a
shade too muscular but, with tight lacing, nothing is left to be desired. She
will make a prodigious sensation when she appears. I wish I had the power to
describe to you that child's face when she saw herself thus. She was radiant, I
give you my word. Even I was surprised. As a boy, she had been handsome; but,
if you will not think me extravagant, I must say that I consider Kitty to be
the loveliest girl I have ever beheld. There, from another woman you cannot
doubt that it is so.

And so, my sweet, for these three months past,
I have been teaching Kitty everything I know, which is not inconsiderable, of
the art of being a female. We began with such basics as deportment, curtsies,
holding the fan, etc., and have progressed apace, to dancing and dalliance. Even
after all my work, I cannot say that my sweet charge is truly womanly yet, for
she has no notion of flirtation, nor of the vapours, and is painfully outspoken,
which I cannot persuade her is a fault; but, even so, I predict that when we
appear in Bath, which is to be next month, she will achieve a remarkable
success.

My dearest Anthony has not been near us all
this time. But we expect him today, and I am consumed with curiosity about
them, for, between us two, I think 'twould be the prettiest thing imaginable if
they were to wed. Yet there is the Henshawe girl in the way.

Touching the matter of the M. Clareville, of
whom you requested news, I regret that I must inform you that the gentleman
died in Newgate some time ago. I hope that he was not a close acquaintance, for
he was dangerous to know. Oh, by the by, I have not told you my Kitty's name,
have I? Well, if you should read in your journal of a Mistress Katherine
Brabington, then you will know to whom they refer.

Yr. loving friend, etc., etc.

Lady Horatia laid
down her pen with a sigh of satisfaction. She was a kind-hearted and generous
soul, and she had great pleasure in communicating to her friend all the delight
she herself felt in this intriguing romance into which she had been drawn. In
her youth, Lady Horatia had been a great beauty and had married for love the
man of her father's choice, now unfortunately deceased. She therefore felt no
envy of the young or the lovely, merely hoping that they would achieve
happiness as perfect as her own had been. She was sincerely attached to her
nephew and, although she made light of the matter to Marguerite, she had been
distressed beyond measure to learn of his betrothal. She considered Amelia
Henshawe to be a cold and insipid woman, but worse than that, she had watched
her closely and was quite convinced that she felt nothing for his lordship and
that, had she been uninfluenced by ambition, she would very much rather have
married one Captain Markham, a dashing but impecunious officer, in whose
company she had shown some faint sparks of animation.

No happiness
could be expected of a match where there was affection on neither side, but in a
marriage in which both parties were in love with someone else, there could only
be misery. That my Lord was in love with his ward was an idea that had dawned slowly
in listening to Kitty talk of him. He certainly seemed to have treated her with
more consideration than she could remember any lady having enjoyed previously.

The Marchioness
was musing thus when a sudden stir out of doors informed her that the object of
her meditations had arrived.

She arose
gracefully, her skirts over their enormous hoops billowing around her. She
swept into the hall, where her dignity deserted her abruptly at the sight of her
favourite nephew, and she threw her arms around him in an embrace that was
returned as heartily.

“My dearest Aunt,
how delightful you look,” smiled Debenham, as he held his aunt at arm's length
to take in the full glories of her apple-green taffeta petenlair, much
beruffled and worn with an exquisitely embroidered petticoat in palest gold.