Rushed to the Altar (37 page)

Luke hesitated, then he turned to the gatekeeper’s house and banged on the door with his whip. It opened promptly and the man looked at him in surprise. “Why, Master Astley, we wasn’t expecting you.”

“I see no reason why you should be,” Luke declared. “My movements are hardly the business of a gatekeeper. I’m going up to the house. Open the gates.”

The man retreated into his house and returned with the great brass key. He unlocked the heavy gates and pushed them open, standing to one side as Luke rode through them.

Luke dismounted at the front door and banged the knocker. It was opened by a footman, who stared at him first in surprise, then in hope. “Master Astley, sir? Is there news of Mistress Clarissa?”

“What do you mean, news?” Luke, his story well prepared,
looked astonished. “Is she not here? She and her brother?”

The man shook his head. “No, sir. Mistress Clarissa disappeared some weeks ago, and we haven’t seen Master Francis since you took him away.”

“But that can’t be. I saw them off myself, just two days past. In a hired postchaise. They were coming here.”

The footman shook his head again. “We haven’t seen hide nor hair of them, sir.” He stepped back. “Will you be coming in, sir?”

Luke frowned. “If they’re not here, there’s no point. I’ll see if Master Danforth knows anything. This is very worrying.” He turned back to his horse.

He rode back into the village and stopped at the lawyer’s house, which was also his place of business. A substantial house on the outskirts of the village, it sat in a well-tended garden. It was a gray, overcast morning, and welcoming lights showed in the windows. Luke rode up the path and dismounted. He tethered his horse to the hitching post conveniently situated to the side of the door and banged the knocker.

A plump, rosy-cheeked maidservant opened the door and bobbed a curtsy. “Good mornin’, sir. Are you here to see Master Danforth on business?”

“I am.”

“Who shall I say, sir?”

“Master Astley. It is a matter of some urgency.” Luke stepped past her into a square hall.

“He has a client with him at present, sir. Will you wait in the parlor?”

“No, I’ll wait here. Go at once and tell him I am here on a matter of grave importance.” Luke flicked his whip against his boot, as if to underscore the urgency of his errand.

The girl scurried to a door to the right of the hall and knocked. On invitation, she popped her head around the door. “I beg pardon, Master Danforth, for disturbin’ you, but there’s a gentleman to see you, says ’tis very urgent . . . name of Master Astley, sir.”

Danforth himself came out into the hall, his expression wreathed in anxiety. “Master Astley, has something happened?”

Luke looked worried. “Indeed, sir, I don’t know how to answer you. I was hoping you would have news of Clarissa and her brother. They left by postchaise two days ago to come home for a while. Francis was homesick and I thought it necessary for his health that he spend a week here with his sister.” He looked around as if expecting them to materialize from the paneled walls. “They are not up at the manor. Are they here?”

Dismayed, the lawyer shook his head. “Indeed, no, sir. I had assumed they were still with you, or with the tutor in Bath. I own I am surprised Clarissa has not written—it’s so unlike her—but I assumed that her life in London was so full of amusements that like so many young people these days, she forgot her old friends. Doctor Alsop is very troubled.”

Luke looked very grave, even as his mind raced. He had hoped that the man would have some news, some clue as to Clarissa’s whereabouts, but clearly he was as ignorant as Luke himself. Which left him squarely back where he’d started from.

“A hired chaise, you said.” Danforth was pacing the hall, pulling at his chin. “Well, it should be easy enough to trace. They would have taken the London road to Sevenoaks, so they would have changed horses probably at the Rose and Crown at Orpington. How did you come? Horse or carriage?”

“I rode.” Luke didn’t want this energetic gentleman to take action on his own. “I’ll ride back at once and make inquiries at the coaching inns along the London road.” He turned back to the door. “I’ll send word when I have news.”

“Do, m’dear fellow. Please do. Alsop and I will be in a fever of anxiety until they’re found. The whole village has been concerned ever since Clarissa left home without so much as a word.” The lawyer followed him outside and waited as he mounted his horse. “Godspeed, sir. Godspeed.”

Luke raised a hand in farewell and rode fast until he was out of sight, then he reined in his horse to a more gentle trot. There was no need for a breakneck speed, since there was no need to make inquiries at the coaching inns about a nonexistent postchaise. Where were they? Where to look next?

Lady Mondrain was delighted to receive Lord Blackwater and Mistress Ordway. She had been as curious as everyone else about the elegant, beautiful young woman in the earl’s box at the theatre, and when inquiries had produced the information that the lady in question was in residence in the earl’s house on Half Moon Street, she happily drew the universal conclusion. Jasper had set up a new mistress.

“How delightful of you to bring Mistress Ordway to visit me, my lord.” She smiled at Clarissa, putting up her quizzing glass. “Your gown is exquisite, Mistress Ordway. It has the look of Hortense.”

Clarissa, who had been brought up to think such personal comments and such calculating scrutiny to be the height of vulgarity, hid her surprise with a demure curtsy and a cool smile. “Indeed, Lady Mondrain, I hadn’t realized that her designs are so easily identified. Thank you for pointing it out to me. I believe I must in future look for a dressmaker a little out of the common way.”

Jasper bit back a reluctant grin as her ladyship’s eyebrows crawled into her scalp. Meg Mondrain prided herself on speaking her mind and didn’t give twopence whom she offended. The eldest daughter of a duke, she considered herself well above the mundane social constraints of lesser mortals. But her self-consequence was mitigated by a rich sense of humor that could as easily be directed at herself as at others.

“Well, when you find her, my dear, I daresay she will quickly cease to be out of the common way,” she said, continuing to examine Clarissa through her quizzing glass. “Anyone who dresses you will immediately find a following.” She dropped her glass and turned back to Jasper. “She’s quite charming, Jasper.”

“You are too kind, ma’am.” Clarissa spoke with an edge to her voice. She didn’t care for either the quizzing glass or a conversation about her that excluded her.

Lady Mondrain turned back to her. “Oh, dear, now I have offended you. Forgive me.” She held out her hands to Clarissa with a warm but rueful smile. “I do like to speak my mind.”

Clarissa took her hands with her own smile. “I have something of the same failing, my lady. So I should be the last to take offense.”

Jasper gave a shout of laughter. “Meg, my dear, I think you might have met your match.”

“Indeed, maybe I have.” Meg laughed and put an arm around Clarissa’s waist, urging her to a chair by the fire. “Come, you shall tell me all about yourself. Jasper, go and play piquet with Mondrain. He’s moping in the library.”

Jasper bowed and promptly took his congé. Clarissa had proved she could look after herself.

“So, you are residing on Half Moon Street, I understand?” Her ladyship rang the little handbell at her side. “How do you like it? A pleasant part of town, I always find . . . ah, Bateman, champagne, if you please.” She
gave Clarissa a smile. “I do find a glass of champagne in the afternoon to be most invigorating, almost as much so as a little nap. I am most partial to napping in the afternoon.”

“Indeed, ma’am.” Clarissa could think of no other comment.

Meg laughed. “You, of course, have far too much energy to find that appealing. You are very young, my dear.”

“I am ten months shy of my majority, ma’am. Not so very young.”

Meg gave her a shrewd look. “That rather depends on the life you’ve led hitherto . . . ah, thank you, Bateman.” She took the glass of champagne offered by the butler. “To you, my dear.” She raised the glass and sipped.

Clarissa took a sip of her own, wondering if Jasper had been wrong and she was now about to be subjected to a barrage of questions about her history. But her hostess began to talk of the concerts at Vauxhall Gardens and she relaxed somewhat, listening attentively, prepared to pick up whatever useful nuggets of information about society life that were dropped.

Their tête-à-tête was interrupted after half an hour by the arrival of an elderly dowager and her two daughters. Clarissa had an instant’s panic. Would they know she was Blackwater’s mistress? Not every lady would be as broad-minded as her hostess. She curtsied as she was introduced to Lady Morecombe and the ladies Eleanor and Emily.

“You’re new to town,” Lady Morecombe declared, waving away the offer of champagne. “No . . . no, I’ll take tea. Ordway . . . don’t know the name. Where’s your family from?”

“The Ordways are from Bedfordshire,” Clarissa responded. “A small village some way outside Bedford.” She silently prayed she wouldn’t be asked to name the village in question as she didn’t know any.

She needn’t have worried. Lady Morecombe sniffed and waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, a small village. Country folk, I daresay.” She turned her attention to her hostess, who was listening with a half smile that had just a hint of malice. Lady Morecombe was a stickler for convention and if she realized that not only was she chatting amiably with Lord Blackwater’s mistress, she had placed her daughters in close proximity to the debauched creature, she would have fainted dead away.

“Lady Mondrain, I most particularly wanted to ask you to support the effort to save those poor carthorses. The brewers drive them into the ground, and then sell them to those dreadful knackers’ yards for pennies. It’s a disgrace. I am collecting funds to establish a nice pasture where they can end their days in peace.” She nodded her head with complacent satisfaction.

Clarissa wondered how many chimney sweeps’ boys had been sent up her ladyship’s chimneys, fires lit behind them to keep them moving through the bewildering, soot-choked network of black passages barely wide enough for a starved child to negotiate. Presumably her
ladyship thought her chimneys swept themselves. She sipped her champagne and wished Jasper would come and rescue her.

He did come eventually. His gaze took in the scene, the look of barely suppressed boredom on his mistress’s countenance, a look that was matched almost exactly by her hostess. He controlled his laughter and bowed solemnly to Lady Morecombe and her daughters.

“My lady . . . Lady Eleanor, Lady Emily . . . your servant.”

“Blackwater, I need your support for my poor carthorses.” Her ladyship launched instantly into a repeat of her diatribe.

Jasper listened in silence, and when she had fallen silent, said with a bow, “They have my sympathies, Lady Morecombe, but there are neglected children, wounded soldiers, and cast-off girls roaming the streets without a roof over their heads, a coat to their backs, or a crust for their bellies. I believe they deserve my sympathies more.” He extended a hand to Clarissa. “If you are ready to leave, Mistress Ordway, I have asked for my carriage and will escort you home.”

She rose, astounded at his speech, but her radiant expression told him exactly how she felt. She made her farewells with a demure curtsy and, as soon as they were out in the hall, laid a hand on his arm. “Oh, bravo, Jasper. I didn’t think you’d even be aware of such dreadful misfortunes. That woman is odious. I hope I never find myself in the same room with her again.”

“That, my dear girl, is a fond hope. The Morecombes are to be found everywhere.” He was as surprised at his own earlier speech as he was at the deep pleasure he felt at Clarissa’s approbation. He hadn’t spoken to please her, or he didn’t think he had. But then, perhaps he had. He handed her into the coach and followed her in.

She turned instantly into his embrace, reaching up to stroke his face as he kissed her in the swaying gloom of the vehicle. “Do we have to go out again this evening?” she murmured against his mouth.

“We are not going to leave the bedchamber before morning,” he declared, pulling her sideways onto his lap, sliding a hand beneath her cloak, slipping his fingers into her décolletage to caress her breasts. He loved how responsive they were to the slightest brush of a touch, the nipples rising hard against his fingers, the silken skin warming against his hand.

“But we might be hungry,” she whispered, turning her body so that her hip pressed against his erection, pushing against his britches.

“Fear not, sweetheart, we shall satisfy all our appetites.” He slid a hand up beneath her skirts, smoothing over her calves, her thighs, up into the deep cleft between them. She shuddered against him.

“No . . . Jasper . . . not here . . . you know what happens when you do that.”

It was a faint protest and he chuckled, continuing his knowing exploration, relishing how quickly he could bring her to ecstasy, topple her over into insensate joy
whenever or wherever he wished. It gave him a sense of pure masculine power that he’d never before been interested in wielding. But perhaps it was because this woman was so different from others, so private, so composed, so full of her own secrets. By compelling her to an open, honest response with no defenses he felt less diminished by those secrets.