Lord Deverill's Heir (35 page)

He felt a moment of surprise to see Lady Talgarth follow her daughter out of the carriage. It had stopped raining, although Lady Talgarth was eyeing the sky with some disfavor. She obviously didn’t trust the weather. Neither did he.

The earl said to his wife, “I wonder. Do you believe that Lady Talgarth has decided to forgive Ann for marrying Paul? I had rather hoped she would hold firm. I have always had an affinity for gossiping biddies. I dislike having to revise my opinions.”

She laughed. Together they walked forward to greet their guests. He left his wife so that he could clasp the lovely Suzanne’s gloved hand and give her a formal bow. “Why, Miss Talgarth, how very brave of you to venture forth in such bad weather. Although it has stopped raining—just for your visit—I do fear for the immediate future. You bring no ill news, I trust.” Suzanne dimpled, shot an amused glance at Arabella, and said, “No, my lord, Mama and I are here with a bit of grand news. Aren’t we, Mama?” Lady Talgarth looked like she’d swallowed a caterpillar. She managed to smile, but it fell away when Ann came into the room. Civil greetings were managed, just barely. “Ah,” she said, “here is tea. However, I do not see any lemon seed cake.”

“I will send Crupper to see if there is any left,” Lady Ann said, smiling behind her hand.

Suzanne said, “Mama, I just told the earl that we bring no ill tidings.

In fact,” she added, now looking at Arabella, “we are here to issue an invitation.”

Lady Talgarth choked on her tea. Ann gently thumped her broad back, which was covered with a bright purple brocade.

“Yes,” Suzanne said, “an invitation.”

“That sounds interesting, an invitation, you say, Miss Talgarth? Come, I am certain that neither Arabella nor I would think of disobliging you.

Well, perhaps Arabella might. She wants only my company, you know, but perhaps if you are very kind and very persuasive, she might consent to this invitation of yours.”

“So, it’s like that, is it?”

The earl disliked that gleam in Suzanne Talgarth’s lovely eyes. The minx wasn’t a dolt, not at all. “Yes,” he said, flicking a piece of lint from his sleeve, “it is. Behold a reformed man. As for my wife, who can possibly say? I daresay it will be a mystery that will tantalize me for the remainder of my days. Now, what is your invitation?”

“Such a pity that I did not meet you first, my lord.”

“Suzanne,” Arabella said, “I will cosh you into the carpet if you don’t get to the point. Just look at your dear mama. She wants to issue an invitation yet you won’t stop talking long enough to let her.”

“I have always believed you were a baggage, Miss Talgarth,” the earl said.

Lady Talgarth cleared her throat. Her massive bosom trembled. “We are here,” she said in a ringing voice, “to invite you to a card party tonight, with dancing naturally for the young people. Even though you and Arabella are married, you must still be considered young, so I imagine that you would enjoy dancing. As for you, my dear Ann, I suppose that you must come also. Dr. Branyon as well. He is my husband’s physician, as you know. Hector thinks highly of him. Yes, he must attend as well, there is no hope for it, no matter what one would wish. However, there is no call for you to dance, since you are a mother of a grown woman and a fairly recent widow.”

“No indeed,” Lady Ann said without hesitation. “What a wonderful idea.

Why, I do believe, dear Aurelia, that you can give me advice on my wedding trousseau.”

“I would know nothing of such things.”

“Mama, of course you would. Did you not wed Papa before you birthed me?”

“Suzanne! Mind your tongue or I will tell your father!”

“Do tell him in front of Lord Graybourn, all right? Please, Mama?” When the earl led Lady Talgarth to the carriage, Arabella tugged at Suzanne’s sleeve. “However did you bring your mother around?”

“Well, it wasn’t difficult at all, Bella. Papa and Dr. Branyon have been friends for too many years to allow such silliness to sour their acquaintance. Of course, I slipped in that Dr. Branyon was, after all, her doctor as well. ‘Why, Mama,’ I said, ‘whatever would happen if you became ill? Why, there would be no one about to prescribe for you. After all, you could not expect Dr. Branyon to want to see you fit and well if you insulted his lady wife, now would you?’ She quite came around at that point. Am I not a veritable Socrates? Or do I want to be a Solomon? It is difficult, these sorts of decisions. And these were men, after all. What could they possibly know?”

Arabella just stared at her lifelong friend. “You terrify me, Suzanne.

That was just excellent.”

“Well, Mama doesn’t want to be ostracized, you know. She isn’t stupid.

She will come around completely once Lady Ann does the deed.” Then it struck her. A card party with dancing would be perfect. It was the comte’s last evening here. What better way to keep him from Elsbeth?

Suzanne kissed Arabella quickly on the cheek, then turned to the earl.

She smiled at him pertly, then held out her hand.

The earl looked faintly amused. He took her hand and carried it to his lips. He said, “Do not wed Lord Graybourn, Miss Talgarth. You would send the poor fellow stuttering off a cliff. No, you need a gentleman who will beat you daily and tell you jests. You must also remember that Arabella is as fierce as a tiger. If you continue with your outrageous remarks, she just might challenge you to a duel. She is very accomplished, Miss Talgarth. I am a caring fellow. I warn you for your own good.” Suzanne tossed her blond curls and smiled impishly at Arabella. “Oh, Bella is far too certain of her own accomplishments to ever be concerned about mine. She would never hurt me, she would see no need. She would just laugh and tell me to hie myself off to buy a new pair of gloves.” Suzanne gave a trill of laughter and moved with Arabella to the door. She confided in a carrying voice, “Do you know that Mama absolutely refused to allow poor Lord Graybourn to accompany us this morning? As I said, she isn’t stupid. She knows that he is taken with Elsbeth.” A look of rather morbid satisfaction crossed her face. “I daresay it would serve her right. First you catch an earl, and now Elsbeth seduces my eligible suitor from right under my nose.”

“As if you cared,” the earl said as he gave Miss Talgarth a salute, then turned away. It amused him to realize that Lady Talgarth was the one to provide him with the perfect solution, a final test of the comte’s greed.

This was Gervaise’s last chance and the earl knew he would take it. He met Arabella’s eyes. She knew it as well.

It was over luncheon that the earl informed the others of the invitation.

“I was pleased,” Lady Ann said, waving her fork at him. “I never believed she would come around. But it is pleasant, is it not, to have neighbors to care for you?”

“Ann,” the earl said, “you are too gullible, too forgiving. It frightens me.”

“No,” she said easily, spearing a thin sliced piece of ham on her fork,

“not at all. The old witch knows what is what. She has had to swallow her ridiculous antiquated notions, and it quite makes me want to laugh.”

“Mama, you astound me. You really said that, didn’t you? And you look so very sweet.”

“Yes, dear, I know.” She ate another piece of ham and smiled at all of them impartially.

Arabella saw a series of rather mixed emotions flit across Elsbeth’s face and wondered what her sister was thinking. While Arabella was looking at Elsbeth, the earl’s eyes were upon Gervaise’s finely chiseled features.

He was certain that he saw a momentary darkening in the young man’s eyes, then a slight smile of satisfaction about his mouth.

Yes, you bastard, the earl was thinking. You make your plans for tonight.

Then I’ll have you. The expression was gone in the next instant, and Gervaise’s face was wreathed in smiles of innocent anticipation for a simple evening’s pleasure.

After the ladies discussed at some length the appropriate gowns to be worn for the evening, the earl sat back in his chair and said easily, his face filled with bonhomie, “We are now blessed with the sun. Since it is the comte’s last day with us, why don’t you ladies take him for a final outing around the countryside?”

Elsbeth felt a tug of surprise. Arabella patted her hand and said, “That is an excellent idea. Indeed, I believe we shall stop by Talgarth Hall and invite Suzanne and perhaps Lord Graybourn to accompany us. What do you think, Gervaise?”

“I only ask that you keep your distance from the old abbey ruins,” Lady Ann said, waving her fork at her daughter.

“I have promised, Mama,” Arabella said. “No more ruins for me.” She smiled toward her husband.

Lady Ann blinked. Thank God, she thought, thank God. They had worked things out. Justin no longer believed that the comte was her lover. But who was? Or had he been utterly deluded? She chanced to look at Elsbeth.

She very nearly dropped her fork. Her stepdaughter was looking at Gervaise with her heart in her eyes. Oh dear, Lady Ann thought. Oh dear.

It couldn’t be true, could it? But then she realized that it had to be true.

And both Arabella and Justin knew. What was she to do? She wished Paul was here right now, right at this very instant.

With only the slightest of hesitation Gervaise replied gallantly, “I would be most delighted to be in the company of three such lovely ladies.

And you, my lord? Will you also accompany us?”

“Unfortunately,” the earl said as he swirled the deep red wine about in its crystal glass, “I must remain here. The carpenters are here again to see to those loose floorboards in the master suite.” Without pause, Gervaise said, “It is I who will have the enjoyable afternoon, my lord.”

“I trust so,” the earl replied pleasantly. “Since you are leaving on the morrow.”

The estate carpenter thought it rather odd to spend his afternoon pounding useless nails into the solid floor of the earl’s bedchamber, but he said nothing.

When the earl entered his bedchamber near to teatime, ostensibly to inspect the carpenter’s work, he cheerfully praised the now overly secure floorboards.

“Actually, my lord,” Turpin said, scuffing the toe of his boot on one of the over-nailed boards, “there was very little to be done. Of course, what there was to be done, I did an excellent job, as you would expect, as I would expect from myself.”

The earl smiled at him. “I agree, Turpin. Here is a guinea for your labor.”

Turpin accepted the undeserved piece of gold, gathered his tools, and made his way after the earl from the grand suite. He would never understand the Quality, never.

Lady Ann tracked the earl down in the estate room. “Justin, I would speak to you, if you don’t mind.”

He set down the ledger, giving her a guilty grin. “Please, Ann, do come in and speak all you want. I admit that I have read this page three times now and still have not gathered together a correct total. I miss Arabella. I can see clearly that she will save my wits in the future.”

“I just realized at luncheon that you and Arabella have come together. I am more pleased than I can say. It was also evident that both of you have guessed then that it is the comte and Elsbeth, not the comte and my daughter.”

He gently laid his quill down on the desk. “I would have spoken to you, Ann. Your daughter has forgiven me my stupidity, my blindness. She has told me that since I am her other half that not to forgive me would be the same as not forgiving herself. It is a logic that isn’t all that logical to me, but since I am the beneficiary of the logic, then I readily accept it.

“I love your daughter, Ann. I would give my life for her. I will spend the remainder of my days on this earth making up for my mistake.” His smile widened. “I doubt not that Arabella will see that my nose is often rubbed in the dirt.”

“Tell me how you came to believe that she deceived you in the first place.”

And he did. All of it, not sparing himself. “I was a fool, yet I was so very certain because of what I had seen.”

“Did Arabella tell you that she has what I called her private place in the barn? She would go there even when she was a young child when she was unhappy, when she was furious with her father or with me, when she was uncertain what to do. She obviously went there the day before your wedding because she wanted to think about how her life would change.

“It is a pity that you were there and saw her. It is more a pity, indeed it is a tragedy that Elsbeth is Gervaise’s lover. I don’t know what to do about that, Justin. Obviously you and Arabella have discussed it.”

“Yes, but neither of us is really thinking about it until, well, until after the comte leaves.”

“Why did Gervaise come here, Justin?”

“You know more than you are telling, don’t you, Ann?”

“Oh no. It’s just that there are so many mysteries, so many unanswered questions, indeed, so many questions that have never been asked. I don’t trust Gervaise. I would like to know why you have allowed him to remain.” But the earl just shook his head. He wasn’t about to tell Ann that he and Arabella wanted the comte to make his move tonight. He didn’t want to worry her. Also, he didn’t want her to take matters into her own small white hands. He didn’t know if the mother was possibly as unpredictable as the daughter. No, he wouldn’t take the chance. “You and I can discuss it perhaps tomorrow, Ann. When Paul is here. Is that all right?”

“You’re lying to me,” she said, sighing. She rose, shaking out her primrose skirts. “I am pleased that you and Arabella have mended your fences. As to the rest of it, well, I will speak to Paul, you may be certain of that. If he comes after you tonight at the Talgarths’, you will know what he wants, Justin.”

“Yes, I’ll know,” the earl said.

When everyone arrived back late in the afternoon from their explorations, Arabella immediately excused herself and went to the earl’s suite. She eyed the floorboards and grinned. While Grace was fetching her bath, Arabella restlessly paced her room. Where was her husband?

He strode into the huge bedchamber while she was singing a high G at the top of her lungs in her bathtub.

“If I weren’t looking at you, I would believe that I had a screeching magpie in my bedchamber. Goodness, Arabella, did you not have voice lessons?”