Gayle Buck (22 page)

Without thinking over her response, Michele said quickly, “Oh, no, I do not wish to share you with anyone.” Lord Randol burst out laughing, and she reddened. She punched him lightly. “Do not make fun of me, Anthony. I do not intend to sound indelicate, but it is true. I do not wish to share you with society, not when I have longed to be with you so very much.”

He crushed her to him and his lips again found her willing. After a tender moment he set her away from him, but retained hold of one of her hands. He gently swung their clasped hands back and forth. Michele’s breath caught in her throat, for his eyes held the devilish carefree light that she remembered from long ago. “I believe that you have hit on the most admirable of schemes, mademoiselle. After the ceremony we shall hide ourselves away at my country estate, and society be damned.”

“It will create something of a stir, my lord,” Michele said happily.

Lord Randol raised her hand quickly to his lips. “What matter? Come, it is time that we returned to the others.”

When Lord Randol and Michele returned to the drawing room, their clasped hands and general demeanor of contentment immediately communicated to the party that something of moment had occurred. Lydia sprang up, her eyes brightening. “Michele! Is everything at last as it should be?”

Michele laughed happily. She left Lord Randol’s side to hug her cousin. “Very much so, dearest Lydia.”

Lydia fervently returned her embrace. Tears sprang to her eyes. “I am so very glad. I knew when you first told me about Lord Randol that you still cared for him. That was why I threw you together as often as I could contrive it.”

“Thank you a thousand times, cousin,” Michele said softly.

Lydia turned to hold out her hand to Lord Randol. She dimpled at him. “I am far better off without you, my lord.”

Lord Randol smiled, not at all offended. He kissed her fingers lightly. “I would have made you the very devil of a husband,” he agreed.

Lady Basinberry and Mr. Davenport had been listening in various degrees of amazement and shock. Lady Basinberry found her voice. “Am I to understand that Lydia’s engagement to Lord Randol was dissolved over Michele?” she demanded in freezing accents.

Lydia rounded on her aunt. “On the contrary. Aunt Beatrice! I had never accepted Lord Randol’s most flattering suit. And once it became known to me that his lordship was previously affianced to my cousin, I could not in good conscience have ever accepted his offer.”

Mr. Davenport sat down abruptly. His eyes were fairly staring from his head. “Michele affianced to Lord Randol! That is impossible! Why, that was done with long ago.”

“Nevertheless, it is true, sir. I hold myself entirely responsible for the confusion of these past weeks. I should have withdrawn my suit for Miss Davenport’s hand immediately upon learning of Mademoiselle du Bois’s presence in your household,” said Lord Randol. “It was ill-done of me not to do so. My only excuse must be that I was laboring under an old misunderstanding between myself and your niece that blinded me to my duty and my honor.”

“I do not understand any of this,” complained Mr. Davenport, bewildered by the turn of events.

“Pray do not act such a fool, Edwin. It is as plain as a pikestaff that Michele has stolen his lordship right from under poor Lydia’s nose. And
she
has not the wit to see it!” Lady Basinberry said, twin spots of angry color staining her high cheekbones.

“It is no such thing!” Lydia exclaimed indignantly. “Michele and Lord Randol pledged themselves to one another on the eve of Waterloo. They did not even know of my existence then. Tell them, Michele!”

Lady Basinberry snorted her patent disbelief. “I am sure it is a vastly romantic tale concocted for just such shatter-brains as yourself, Lydia.”

Michele sat down on the settee beside her aunt, whose stiff disapproving posture did not encourage such proximity. She said gently, “However, it is the truth. Dear ma’am, you cannot be any more shocked at this turn of events than I am. When I walked into the drawing room with Lydia that first day, I could scarcely believe the evidence of my eyes. I had thought Lord Randol to be dead. Indeed, I was told most definitely that he had died.” She looked across at Lord Randol, at the scar that slashed his face, and a smile curved her lips. “I was never more glad of anything in my life to discover that I had been deceived.”

“Deceived? What do you mean?” Lady Basinberry asked sharply.

Michele hesitated, unwilling to open up to scrutiny the pain and humiliation of the past. But Lord Randol chose to step into the breach. “Just that, ma’am. It seems that a mutual friend, for reasons of his own, chose to lie to us both in an effort to keep Michele and me apart. Michele was told that I had died, whereas I was persuaded in a most convincing manner that Michele renounced her claims on me because she could not abide any sort of disfigurement.’’ He gestured toward his face with the odd shortened movement of his right arm that had become characteristic of him.

Lord Randol’s explanation was met by profound astonishment. “What rot!” Lady Basinberry exclaimed.

“Diabolical!” said Mr. Davenport, marveling and horrified. “But what man in his right mind would conceive of such a thing?”

Lydia’s fertile mind leapt intuitively to the truth. “Sir Lionel!” She saw the swift exchange of glances between her cousin and Lord Randol and said in amazement, “I am right. It is written all over your faces. But why? Sir Lionel is such a perfect gentleman. And anyone can see that he positively dotes on Michele.”

Lady Basinberry had also seen the quick look pass between her niece and his lordship. It was that, more than anything that could have been said, that convinced her of the validity of what she had heard. “I suspect that you have hit it exactly right, Lydia.” She turned an interrogating gaze on Michele, her own sharp memory at work. “Did you not once turn down Sir Lionel’s offer for your hand?”

Michele nodded unhappily. “I bungled it horribly. He ... he proposed an instant after informing me of Lord Randol’s death, and I was not gentle in my rejection. Afterward I felt badly. He seemed so downcast and horribly wounded. I wrote him a letter ...” Her voice faltered and she appealed to Lord Randol with a helpless gesture.

“A letter which Sir Lionel used to convince me of his assertion that Michele no longer cared for me,” Lord Randol said in a hard voice. There was a cold look in his eyes that made Lydia shiver.

“My word,” Mr. Davenport said inadequately.

“In that case, I am most sorry that I have encouraged Sir Lionel’s attentions toward you, Michele. I hope that you will accept my profound apology for adding to an uncomfortable situation,” Lady Basinberry said.

Michele smiled mistily at her, hearing the softened tone of her aunt’s voice for the first time directed toward her. “It is of no moment, my lady. I have been able to fend off Sir Lionel’s pursuit with Lydia’s help. He is a very tenacious gentleman, however.”

A martial light appeared in Lady Basinberry’s faded blue eyes. “I shall have something of consequence to say to the gentleman when next I have occasion to see him,” she said grimly.

Michele placed her hand on the elder lady’s thin arm. “My lady, I believe that must be my place,” she said quietly.

Lady Basinberry met her steady gaze for a long moment before she slowly nodded. “Very well, it will be as you wish. You have more courage than I would have had at your age.’’

Michele laughed. “I find that difficult to believe, dear ma’am.”

Lydia gently tugged at her father’s sleeve. “Come, Papa, you cannot remain sitting there when there is a toast to be made.”

Mr. Davenport heaved himself out of his chair with the usual creaking of stays. “Quite right, Lydia. I was so flabbergasted by the moment that I forgot my manners. We must certainly toast the happy couple.”

Wineglasses were filled and handed around the circle. Mr. Davenport looked at the small assemblage as he lifted his glass. “To his lordship and Michele, who have found one another again despite incredible odds,” he said.

“Hear, hear,” said Lord Randol. He slipped an arm about Michele’s waist. Lady Basinberry lifted her brows at his lordship’s shocking display of familiarity, but she said not a word.

After the toast was drunk, Michele slipped free of Lord Randol’s embrace, laughingly scolding him for his lack of proper decorum. She had seen her aunt’s glance and she had a wish to satisfy that lady’s stiff code of etiquette. Lord Randol allowed her to go. His eyes reflected the devilish light that had attracted her from the beginning and promised her retribution. He turned courteously to Lady Basinberry and Lydia when Michele approached her uncle, Michele said quietly, “Do you mind too awfully much that it is I rather than Lydia who will wed Lord Randol?”

Mr. Davenport smiled at his niece. “I admit to a small twinge of regret at losing a title for my daughter. I suppose the title was never meant to be Lydia’s at all, and I have a shrewd notion that Lydia remains blind to everyone but her soldier. If the truth be known, I am reluctantly admiring of her steadfastness. In the end I shall probably resign myself to a daughter who insists upon following the drum. But do not tell her that I said so.” He winked at Michele, and she smiled, glad that at last the clouds over her cousin’s life seemed to be lifting.

But Lydia had heard her father, and she whirled, exclaiming, “Oh, Papa, do you mean it? May I see Bernard again?”

Mr. Davenport rolled his eyes and sighed his resignation. “Aye, my dear. I cannot remain hard against you forever. Captain Hughes has my permission to pay court to you. You may tell him so for me. I shall await his formal call on me.”

“Thank you. Papa,” Lydia said rapturously. She smothered her father in a fierce hug, from which he emerged somewhat bemused.

“Edwin, I believe you have finally let your mind go begging,” said Lady Basinberry. “What has been the point of this Season if you will allow Lydia to bestow her hand on that young soldier after all?”

“True, the fine hopes that we cherished are quite dashed. But I am not altogether displeased, Beatrice,” Mr. Davenport said as he regarded not only the light in his niece’s eyes as she gazed up at Lord Randol but also his daughter’s transparent happiness.

Lady Basinberry opened her mouth to deliver a cutting remark, but she found that she could not do so. She was not so unaffected by the shameless sentimentality of the moment as she thought she should be.

The following morning, Lydia rushed into the library, where Michele was engaged in writing the most important letter of her life to her parents. “Michele, it is too horrible for words!” she exclaimed. “I have just seen Bernard and I have asked him to be my escort to Vauxhall. What do you think? His domino is purple!
Purple!
And it is far too late to have another done up.” She threw herself into a chair, and a profound look of gloom settled on her countenance.

Turned slightly away from the desk, Michele laughed at her. “My dear cousin, surely there is nothing in that to cause such distress.”

Lydia straightened abruptly. “How can you say so, Michele? My domino is rose pink! Why, we will clash hideously. I simply cannot abide the thought. Everything must be perfect now that we are to be together again.”

“Then I shall propose a solution. You shall wear my domino and I shall wear your rose domino. We are of a height and may easily switch.”

“Thank you, cousin!” Lydia said fervently. “I shall send a note round to Bernard directly to let him know that he need not scour London for another domino after all.” She danced out of the library, once more serenely happy.

Michele returned to her letter. She chewed on the pen thoughtfully as she scanned what she had already written. She dipped the quill into the inkwell and added a few more words. Satisfied, she sanded the sheet dry. A smile curved her mouth. She imagined that it would come as a surprise to her parents to learn of her approaching nuptials, but the greatest surprise to them would be to read the name of her intended. Her loving parents had packed her off to England to forget Lord Anthony Randol, and instead, she had found him again. The irony made her laugh aloud in an unclouded peal of merriment.

Chapter Twenty-one

Lord Randol had looked for an opportunity to bring Sir Lionel to book for his betrayal. But he did not want to create a scene in society because he did not want Michele involved in any way. He finally ran Sir Lionel to ground at Tattersall’s, amongst the purely male social circle of sporting gentlemen. He knew that Sir Lionel prided himself on his ability to spot prime hunting mounts. Deliberately Lord Randol set himself to goad the man into issuing a challenge by derisively and quite publicly questioning Sir Lionel’s expertise in judging horseflesh.

Sir Lionel was of a temperament quick to take affront at any dispersions cast on his judgment, and Lord Randol’s insulting remarks cut him to the bone. But though anger clouded Sir Lionel’s eyes, it did not completely haze his intellect, and he refused to be drawn. “I am not such a fool, my lord. What would be said of me if I challenged a cripple?” He nodded in a condescending fashion toward his antagonist’s stiff shoulder.

Lord Randol smiled. His eyes were bright hard agate. “Sir, you are a coward.” With a flick of his wrist he cut his riding crop lightly once, twice, across Sir Lionel’s face. There was a gasp from among the onlookers that had gathered about them. Two thin lines of blood beaded up across Sir Lionel’s spare bronzed cheek.

Sir Lionel stood with fists clenched tight at his sides. The skin of his face had purpled. “You shall name your seconds, my lord!” he ground out from between gritted teeth.

“Done,” Lord Randol said promptly. He named two gentlemen from the group of onlookers, who nodded their acceptance. The viscount looked blandly at Sir Lionel. “I believe it is my choice of weapons. It shall be pistols.”

“My seconds will call on yours to determine the time and the place,” Sir Lionel said gratingly. He turned on his heel and thrust his way through the exclaiming crowd.

Lord Randol watched Sir Lionel stalk away, a faint cold smile playing about his lips. His arm was grabbed by a friend who had witnessed the extraordinary exchange.