Lisbon (14 page)

“Very well, Semple. I will require a basin of water to wash my face and hands.”

Semple did not move. Her expression was suspicious. “There is no need for you to bring it yourself, Semple. ” Charlotte sighed. “Wend can bring it. Wend!” she called loudly over Semple’s shoulder, hoping the girl was within earshot. “Wend, bring a basin of water to my bedchamber —at once!”

She hoped too, as she preceded Semple up the stairs like an animal being herded, that Wend would not take offense at her peremptory tone, which had been intended only to impress Semple, and sulk in the kitchen and send Ivy instead—for the carrying of the water would indeed have been Ivy’s job and not Wend s. To her enormous relief, Wend appeared shortly with a pitcher of water that 
she slopped angrily into the porcelain washbowl in Charlotte’s bedchamber.

“Semple,” said Charlotte sharply, “bring me a cake of soap—you’ll find the one I want in the chest right over there.” And when Semple’s back was turned she reached out and caught hold of Wend's skirt as the girl was about to leave and pulled her back. Wend turned with an angry look and Charlotte put a finger to her lips.

Wend caught on at once. She leaned closer.

“Find Tom, he’s on the way to Carlisle.” Charlotte’s whisper was a mere breath in Wend's ear. “They’re marrying me off to Lord Pimmerston to ‘cleanse’ him of the gallant’s disease, and Semple’s here to guard me lest I try to escape.”

Wend gave her a shocked look, and as Semple rummaged about for the nonexistent soap, Charlotte complained petulantly about the water being too cold.

“I’ll get some more water,” promised Wend, about to scurry from the room.

“No, there isn’t time.” Charlotte’s voice followed her. “I must hurry, so I’ll use it as it is. We are leaving for Castle Stroud in ten minutes. Well, don’t stand there, Wend. Be off with you. I’m sure Cook must have need of your services in the kitchen.”

Wend was off with alacrity—but not to the kitchen. She hurried out the garden door and was off on the run along the lake path, looking for Tom. Later, when Lord Pimmer-ston’s party, which now included Charlotte, passed her, she hid in the bushes.

Rowan Keynes, upon learning that Charlotte was afraid of horses and had never learned to ride, suggested that it was a pity that she must bounce all the way to Castle Stroud on a cart. He offered to take her up before him on his beautiful chestnut horse, and before Charlotte could refuse, her uncle accepted for her—doubtless, Charlotte thought bitterly, to prevent her from leaping from the cart at some likely spot and trying to escape.

With her uncle giving her protesting body a boost, she found herself taken up before Rowan Keynes, her back brushing the dark cloth of his smart riding coat with its stiffened skirts slit at back and sides, the better to fit to the saddle. As the party moved off toward Castle Stroud, Charlotte found herself leaning back against his hard masculine figure to avoid the occasional brushing against her breasts of his arm that held the reins, although sometimes when the way was rough the horse s step threw her forward against his arm or hand. She also found herself brought into intimate contact with his muscular thighs. She felt embarrassed and tried to move about to get into a less intimate position, but that only made matters worse. She felt his arm steady her, tighten suddenly, and behind her his breathing seemed to change, grow heavier.

"Have you always lived here in the north country?” he asked as his horse, which had been dancing sideways to Charlotte s discomfiture, for it tipped her this way and that in his arms, changed pace and moved along sedately behind her uncle and Lord Pimmerston and Bodine, who rode in a little cluster ahead.

"No, I am from St. Marys.” Charlotte was a little breathless.

"In the Scillies? A flower of the south, then. ”

"And I wish I were back there,” added Charlotte bitterly.

"You do not like the cold winters?” he hazarded. "I must admit I am not fond of them either. I spend most of my time in London, where I have a house, but I am fond of the Continent—particularly Portugal in winter.”

Charlotte did not care where he spent his winters—or his summers either, for that matter. Between bouts of trying not to sit so close to this disturbing stranger, she was desperately hoping that Wend would find Tom. He would find a way to rescue her, of that she had no doubt. She was scarcely aware of her surroundings as the impressive gray battlements of Castle Stroud loomed up before them.

"From Pimmerston’s description, I hadn’t expected the place to be so beautiful,” murmured Rowan appreciatively.

“It’s too far from town for him to appreciate it!” was her tart response.

“No doubt.” He had detected that protective note in her voice when she spoke of it. “Do you know the castle well?”

“Very well—and I think Lord Pimmerston is right, he doesn’t belong here!”

“Oh, I doubt Pimmerston ever plans to live here,” was Rowan’s murmured comment.

Just wed here!
was Charlotte’s unspoken rejoinder.

Although the servants had done wonders in the short time they had been there, Castle Stroud could not really be said to have been “opened.” True, the dining room had been rendered habitable, with fresh white linen cloths and polished silver. And a cook and her helpers had hastily prepared quite a creditable dinner. But the dinner was late, and dusk was upon them when at last they sat down at the long board.

To Charlotte it seemed interminable. All she could think of was Tom, and whether Wend, sprinting up the lakeshore toward Carlisle, had been able to reach him. She gave disjointed answers when spoken to, and sometimes no answer at all.

After being roundly snubbed by her at Aldershot Grange, Lord Pimmerston had chosen not to seat Charlotte beside him, but instead sat with Russ on his right and Bodine on his left. Down the table Charlotte sat across from Rowan Keynes, who watched her with sympathetic eyes.

As the endless dinner progressed from course to course, a sprinkling of guests—alerted along the route of his lordship’s impending visit—began to arrive, and Charlotte was duly introduced to them. She realized that for the county this was a great event, the arrival of Lord Pimmerston at his northern estate, and homage was considered due. Her mind in turmoil, Charlotte managed to acknowledge their 
greetings, but she did not really hear what they had to 
say.

Due to the lateness of the hour, the few ladies did not withdraw to the withdrawing room, but his lordship announced that there would presently be dancing in the great chamber above, for he had brought with him musicians from Sheffield.

There was a delighted flurry among the ladies at that announcement, for there was not one among them who had ever danced a measure at Castle Stroud. Then Charlotte’s uncle spoke quickly to Lord Pimmerston, who ordered everybody’s wineglass to be refilled —Charlotte thought her uncle was about to propose a toast to their host, when to her horror he made the ringing announcement that his ward was to be joined in marriage to their host and the banns would be cried on Sunday next—which brought forth a clamor of voices over which her uncle’s voice rose in a bellow:

“Let us drink to the health of the happy couple!’’

The happy couple!
Charlotte choked and dropped her glass with a small crash. Some of the wine spilled on her dress, and she dabbed at it with a linen napkin.

As they left the table, a flurry of well-wishers surrounded her. Charlotte felt suddenly that she might faint. On the pretext that she must wash out the wine stain, she burst out of the group and headed blindly toward the door. Her uncle saw that and sprinted across the room to head her off into the cushioned alcove where heavy velvet hangings would muffle their voices. He caught hold of her and half-dragged her there.

Charlotte had lost all sense of diplomacy. “How dared you make such an announcement?’’ she panted. “And without asking me my feelings in the matter?’’

He looked thunderstruck. “I’d no need to ask your permission! You’ll do as I think best. ” His grip on her arm tightened cruelly.

“You are hurting my arm!” She struggled with him, feeling her feet slide across the floor under his urging. “And there is no point in your dragging me about. I will 
never marry that diseased popinjay!’’ White with fury, she was speaking through her teeth.

Her uncle gave her arm a cruel twist and almost threw her into the alcove.

“You’ll marry him or I’ll be ruined,” he snarled. “And unless you want to be tied to a stone and sunk in the Derwent Water, you’ll marry him with a smile on your face!”

Charlotte’s arm ached from this manhandling, and pain laced her voice with desperation. “You mean you’ve spent all of my mother’s money as well as your own?” she shot at him bitterly. “I don’t doubt there are magistrates about who’d be interested in that!”

Her uncle turned on her such a look of menace that she felt chilled, as if touched by a cold metal blade. “Keep a civil tongue in your head,” he warned, “or I’ll stripe that dainty back of yours where it won’t show!”

“Lord Pimmerston will object to your ruining my beauty!” she said sarcastically.

He glowered at her. “I’ve no doubt he’ll stripe it himself,” he said softly. “On your wedding night, like as not!” He turned to Semple, who had witnessed this display and now loomed over them both like a giant shadow of a woman against the candlelight.

“Semple, keep an eye on this wench,” he instructed sharply. “Do as Bodine told you—use whatever force you must, but do not let her out of your sight except when she is with one of us.” A remark which both Charlotte and Semple understood to include Rowan Keynes.

He turned on his heel and left them, Charlotte leaning against the wall to catch an angry breath, Semple hovering watchfully nearby.

Across the room Rowan Keynes too had noticed this display. With a frown he quickly detached himself from the pack and made for Charlotte and the alcove. On the way to the alcove he encountered Lord Pimmerston, who at sight of Charlotte’s violent reaction to the betrothal announcement had spilled wine on his cravat and had returned to his guests wearing a miraculous creation decorated with tasseled beads.

“Oh, very nice, Pimmerston," Rowan complimented his lordship's taste in a bored voice.

Lord Pimmerston ignored Charlotte, glowering in the alcove, and touched his elegant neckwear caressingly. “I had left the one I wanted in Sheffield," he rumbled in a regretful tone. “I’ve a mind to cane Crouch for his oversight in leaving it."

A picture of slender elegant Pimmerston caning Crouch, his lordship’s burly valet, fleetingly crossed Rowan’s mind. If Crouch took a notion to, he might turn on his employer and break his effete lordship in half.

“Your betrothed looks lonely across the room, Pimmerston,’’ he commented. “Now that the music’s started, d’you object if I claim the first dance with her?"

“For all of me, you may claim the first dance and all the others. I’ve no intention of leading her out."

Rowan Keynes quirked an expressive eyebrow at Lord Pimmerston. “Don’t tell me you have fallen out of love already?"

“Love?" Lord Pimmerston snorted and snapped open his green-enameled gold snuffbox and took a delicate pinch of snuff. “There’s no question of love here, as well you know. ’’

Rowan’s gaze passed over Charlotte, with perhaps a trace of pity, as she leaned against the wall of the alcove.

“Favor, then? Don’t tell me such a beauty could fall out of favor?" he rallied.

Lord Pimmerston had been simmering under Charlotte’s slights ever since he had met her this afternoon. At the moment he was in no mood even to concede that she was beautiful.

“Beauty? I hadn’t noticed. Headstrong, yes." Across his ancestral hall he gave the recalcitrant Charlotte a lowering look. “Yes, dance attendance on her, by all means, Keynes. Keep her out of trouble. " There was a vicious note in his lordship’s rumbling voice. “I’ll tame her at my leisure. 
After
the ceremony."

“I don’t doubt you will," agreed Rowan Keynes easily. His smiling gaze rested on Lord Pimmerston almost with fondness.

In the alcove, the pain in Charlotte’s arm had lessened now, and she stirred. Hovering almost over her, Semple seemed to tense.

“Well, come along, Semple.” Charlotte cast an angry look up at Semple’s iron jawline. “Make yourself useful. See if you can find me a fan—I forgot to bring mine. ”

Semple stood fixed in place, towering over the shorter Charlotte. “I can’t leave you,” she stated flatly. “Except in the company of one of the four men who brought me here.”

“Well, leave me with this one then!” Charlotte indicated Rowan Keynes, who was walking purposefully toward them. “And go find me a fan. ”

In the minstrel’s gallery above—for this had once been a medieval fortress—a trio of musicians began to play stringed instruments. As their music floated down, Rowan Keynes asked Charlotte if he might lead her out for the first measure.

“I do not know the new steps,” Charlotte warned him. Now that Semple was temporarily out of the way, she was looking about for an escape route.