Her Ladyship's Companion (12 page)

“So that a grown man can hardly open it? At the very moment a fire breaks out?”

“If there were no evil coincidences in the world, there would be no tragic accidents. For Lord’s sake, girl, use some of the intelligence I assume you have.”

Melissa called up all her self-restraint. She said levelly, “The key.”

“Miss Rivenwood, innocence in Robbie is expected. It may even persist for another year or two. In you it is refreshing. The schoolroom is empty three mornings a week when Robbie takes Latin with the vicar. Servants come in both the usual sexes with the usual proclivities. The key was available to anyone. Do I need to go into detail? So you see, no mystery, no plot.”

“Yes, but ...”

Giles waited patiently.

“Look at the facts. There
was
a fire. Nobody knows who started it. Then Miss Coburn died. We were held up by men with guns this very morning. There can be just one too many unfortunate coincidences, Mr. Tarsin. It couldn’t hurt to ask some questions.”

Giles looked very tired, rubbing his forehead with the back of his hand. He made an obvious effort to speak calmly. “It could hurt a great deal, Miss Rivenwood. More than you realize.”

“How?” Melissa asked baldly.

His gaze was steady on her face. Some weighing process was going on behind his eyes, chilling because it was so detached, so coolly calculating. When he spoke, his voice was indifferent. “The memories in this part of the country are long ones. All we could achieve by publishing such a story is to make Robbie a laughingstock. Also, I don’t want this to come to Lady Dorothy’s ears. I won’t have her worried.” Melissa had the feeling that these were excuses picked almost at random. Why did she think he was concealing the truth?

“It might do some good for Robbie,” Melissa objected. “He’s upstairs right now thinking you don’t trust him to tell the truth. He’s frightened, Mr. Tarsin. When I left him, he locked the door after me. Doesn’t that show you he’s deadly serious?” She gripped the arms of the chair tightly to control her temper. “He thinks somebody wants to kill him. How do you suppose that feels?”

Giles looked her over enigmatically. “He locked his door, did he?” he said in a considering manner. “I see.”

“What are you going to do, Mr. Tarsin?”

“My dear Miss Rivenwood, I think I’ve already made that clear, I’m not going to do anything at all, except possibly congratulate the boy for locking his door. At least that shows some sense. I’m sorry he’s frightened. But there’s nothing I can honestly say to him to make him less frightened.”

“Then that’s all there is to it?” she asked incredulously.

“One last thing. I told Robbie not to talk about this. He disobeyed my instructions. Now I’m giving you the same order. Don’t spread this story any further. I expect you to obey me in this matter.”

Melissa swallowed. He had the right to give her orders; she had no right to be angry. “Yes, sir,” she said. She stood up to leave. She was wasting her time here.

“Miss Rivenwood.” He stepped forward and blocked her path. “Don’t think harshly of me. I’m trying to deal with this the best way I can.”

“I would not presume to criticize you,” Melissa snapped. Her eyes were sparkling with anger. Her color was high beneath translucent skin. She brushed past him.

“Wait just a minute,” Giles ordered harshly, grabbing her arm and spinning her around to face him. Her flushed, animated face was only inches from his own.

When he leaned forward and kissed her full on the lips, it was quite unpremeditated. Nonetheless, it was pleasurable. He felt her stiffen with outrage, then begin to struggle. He pulled her closer, tightening his arms around her so she couldn’t push him away. He was going to pay for this soon; he’d savor the moment while he could.

Shock as well as the edges of some other emotion held Melissa still. Then she heard a sound behind her and tore away from Giles with a convulsive movement.

“I’ve finished the fourth page of these notes,” Edgar said, rounding the banister that marked off the office alcove. He glanced up from the papers in his hand and saw Melissa and Giles. “Oh, Miss Rivenwood. Sorry. I thought you’d left,” he said shyly.

Giles snorted in annoyance. Edgar glanced from one to the other uncertainly. Then he decided to withdraw with good speed. He mumbled something under his breath and ducked back into the stacks.

“Melissa ...” Giles began.

“You have something to say to me?” Melissa hissed, backing away.

“Yes, I do, actually.”

Across the room, the door to the library opened. Sir Adrian walked in. “Good news for you, Giles,” he announced brightly. The electric tension between Giles and Melissa struck him then, and he smiled benignly from one to the other. “Have I walked in on the middle of a quarrel?”

“Not at all,” Melissa said with dangerously controlled sweetness. “I was just leaving.”

She turned her back on Giles and slammed the door behind her as she left the room.

Out in the wide dim hall Melissa went a few paces and then stopped and hid her face against the plaster walls. She was shaking with anger. How could he have behaved that way? What could she possibly have done to make him think he could get away with— Oh, it was a little thing for him, no doubt, the impulse of the moment, nothing to worry about. He’d already dismissed it from his mind.

But there was the end of their easy dealing. Now she’d have to dig a wide trench of formality between them, make it a point never to be alone in his company. She had thought better of him.

Somebody touched her shoulder.

It was Anna, just coming out of the housekeeper’s room. “I want to talk to you, Miss Rivenwood,” she said.

Melissa slowly exhaled. “You startled me, Anna,” she said. She thought things over for a minute, then added, “What are you doing in Mrs. Ballantyne’s office?”

If Melissa had forgotten momentarily that the comings and goings of a Miss Merringham were of no concern to a hired companion, Anna hadn’t. She haughtily ignored the question.

“I want to talk to you,” Anna repeated determinedly. Since Anna always studiously ignored Melissa when she wasn’t being rude, Melissa braced herself. “I thought, just as a friend, that I ought to warn you.” Despite her honeyed tones, Anna’s voice was not friendly.

Melissa slipped her hands into the pockets of her skirt and strolled up the hall calmly. She was glad her dress was old-fashioned enough to have pockets; not only were they useful for carrying things, but they gave her something to do with her hands.

“What do you want to warn me of?” she asked, not much interested.

“For someone in a, shall we say, inferior position, there’s always the danger of being the least little bit ridiculous, making a fool of oneself over the gentlemen of the household. It’s very common, in every meaning of the word. Comes from sour spinsterhood. At home I never had a governess who wasn’t head over heels in love with my father.” Anna gave a little tittering laugh. “But it wouldn’t do for you to make that sort of spectacle of yourself here at Vinton over Cousin Giles.”

“Is that so? You give me a very odd impression of your former governesses, Anna. I assure you, it isn’t the common run of things for that sort of improper behavior to be tolerated.” Melissa returned a bland stare. Inside, she felt a little sick.

“I’m just telling you for your own good, Miss Rivenwood. Believe me, it’s not at all becoming the way you throw yourself in Giles’s path. Everyone’s been remarking on it. I just wanted to drop a little word in your ear.”

A maid came down the hall with a pile of laundry. Anna had to fall silent until she passed. Melissa returned a soft answer. She couldn’t afford to antagonize the girl. “You’ve mistaken the matter, Anna. I’m not attracted in any way to Mr. Tarsin. If he weren’t my employer, I’d have nothing to do with him. And since I spend nearly all my waking hours in Lady Dorothy’s company, I can hardly be said to be throwing myself in anybody’s path.”

“You always have an answer to everything, don’t you? Oh, yes, Miss Rivenwood is always so neat and prim. Miss Rivenwood is just the blushingly proper modern heroine, isn’t she? Pretending to be so very, very concerned about that brat Robbie! I hope Giles was properly impressed with your little show, protecting him from the big bad robber. But you needn’t think it’ll get you anywhere.”

“This may come as a surprise to you, Anna, but I’m not trying to get anywhere.”

“Aunt Dorothy may be completely amoral, but even she won’t stand for Giles’s mounting a mistress under her roof.”

“Miss Merringham, if you’re planning to annoy Lady Dorothy with these ravings, please remember the state of her health.”

“I’m not so stupid as that.” Anna tossed her blond head and pursed her lips. “It’s nothing to
me
if you choose to accept …
advances
from Cousin Giles. I only hope you’re not expecting anything more permanent.”

Anna was a precocious little beast, but Melissa couldn’t believe she was nearly as airily sophisticated as she pretended. “I’m not looking for any sort of arrangement,” she insisted wearily. “I’m here as companion to your aunt. That’s all.”

Anna snickered. It was not one of her more attractive sounds. “That isn’t what it sounded like in the library just now.”

“You listened!” And this little twit had the nerve to call Lady Dorothy amoral.
“That’s
what you were doing in the housekeeper’s room. You were sticking your ear next to the wall and eavesdropping,”

“I was not,” Anna squabbled, her face reddening. “I was just getting some drops out of the medicine cabinet and the window was open. I happened to overhear you. That’s not eavesdropping.”

Melissa shrugged. “If you say so.”

“At least I don’t go making up ridiculous stories, practically accusing people of murder and enacting dramatic scenes all over the barouche. If this is your crude method of trying to intrigue Giles—”

“I’m not trying to intrigue anybody, least of all your cousin.”

But Anna wasn’t listening. “All those evenings over the dinner table, pretending to be so interested in what he said, spending your time languishing after him.”

“I do not languish, Miss Merringham, and if I did, it would not be after my employer.”

“But Giles isn’t a safe man to play these tricks with, Miss Rivenwood. He has a reputation for being ruthless.” Then, in exasperation, “You’d better listen to me.”

“Anna, with the best will in the world, I can do no other unless you moderate your voice.”

“I’m willing to believe you’re still honest,” Anna conceded handsomely. “So I’ll warn you. Even if your birth were respectable, Giles would have none of you. A Tarsin
can look as high as he likes for a bride. He has a responsibility.”

“What do you mean, even if my birth were respectable?” Melissa demanded. That was something Anna had no business knowing.

“I mean to say... That is ...” Anna hesitated. “It happens I’ve overheard things in the library before.” She had the grace to drop her eyes before Melissa and look ashamed. “You can’t complain about it. I have a perfect right to be in the housekeeper’s room if I want.”

“Anna, very much more of this, and the next attempted murder in this house will be yours, not Robbie’s.” Melissa made haste up the stairs. Now she was behaving as badly as Anna, and she hadn’t the excuse of being seventeen.

Anna hurried after her. “I only meant it for your own good. You’ve been making a fool of yourself,” she said loudly.

Melissa said nothing, striding angrily down the hall.

“It’s plain speaking maybe.” Anna skittered along after her. “But somebody had to tell you. Women get stupid fancies when they get old.”

Melissa stopped and took a deep breath for a blasting retort. Then she saw the corrosive misery in the girl’s eyes. Whatever wounding words Anna spoke, she felt more suffering than she inflicted.

“I’m not precisely senile, Anna.”

“And there’s no need for you to go tattling to Aunt Dorothy either,” Anna blustered. “She shouldn’t be bothered by complaints from you, and besides, I’d deny everything.”

“Anna, Anna.” Weariness was rising in Melissa even over anger, and with it a sort of wry amusement. “It’s not my province to judge your behavior or to report it to Lady Dorothy. I merely point out to you, very gently, that eavesdropping is frowned upon in the best circles. It’s also a minor social trespass to accuse your aunt’s companion of licentiousness.”

She was nearly at the sanctuary of her bedroom, Melissa saw with relief. The sooner she ended this interview, the better pleased she’d be.

“This is where I leave you, Anna,” Melissa said. “Thank you for the warning. There’s nothing like a little plain speaking to clear the air, is there?” Melissa shut the door firmly behind her, placing Anna’s face, and any further remarks, on the other side of solid oak.

Alone, she ran across the room and threw herself down on the bed, her eyes filling with tears. She laid her head in her arms, hiding her face. Plain speaking, indeed. Sour spinsterhood.
Had
she been languishing after Giles? Was that why he felt she would welcome his casual kisses?

But she hadn’t done anything. She was sure of it. Her behavior had been irreproachable.

Melissa rolled over on her back and stared up at the ceiling. Whom was she trying to fool? If even Anna knew, what hope was there of hiding it from anybody else? In fact, the only one in the house who wouldn’t admit that her ladyship’s companion had fallen in love with Giles Tarsin was Melissa herself.

She beat the counterpane angrily. What a blind fool, what a stupid blind little fool she’d been.

Chapter 11

...
more worried about my own hypocrisy. How can I complain that a man like Giles Tarsin bestows a casual embrace? In my
own mind I’ve wished for far worse.

Excerpt from the journal of Melissa Rivenwood, August 1, 1818

In novels, and Melissa was passionately fond of romantic novels, the heroine always has the leisure to collapse gracefully on a chaise longue and cry her eyes out when her world collapses. Passion in the ruined abbey is followed inevitably by a period of calm reflection in the rose garden. In real life, Melissa found, private misery is followed almost immediately by a maid’s summons to dinner and the necessity of hastily disguising the ravages of unrestrained emotion.