Sally James (4 page)

For what seemed like hours the noise of laughter came from the room below and then, when she was almost dropping off to sleep, she heard footsteps on the stairs. She strained to listen and heard someone go into Julian’s room next to her own. A moment later whoever it was emerged and she heard footsteps going back down the stairs. They came again, another room was entered briefly, and left, finally a third door opened and closed and there was silence. Susannah surmised that Lord Chalford, older and therefore better able to carry his drink than either of the others, had brought them up to bed. She found herself wondering whether the preposterous bet had been accepted and if so what had been the result, then turned over angrily and tried to recapture the sleepiness which appeared to have utterly deserted her.

Heavy eyed, she woke early the next morning and hastily washed with the icy cold water in her jug. She dragged on her habit and emerged from the bedroom into a silent house.

She paused for a moment outside Julian’s room, but decided she needed some hot and restorative coffee before she could face him to give him her opinion of his servants and behaviour and so she continued to the kitchen.

Swale, his head in his hands, was seated at the big table in the centre of the kitchen and started to his feet nervously when she spoke to him.

‘Why, Miss Susannah, what are you doing here so early?’ he asked, wincing and putting his hand to his head.

‘I’ve been here since yesterday,’ she informed him coldly. ‘If you have a sore head I’m sure it’s no more than you deserve!’

He began to make maudlin excuses and apologize for his lapse the previous day, but she cut him short and suggested they would both be better off for some food and strong coffee.

‘Fill the kettle while I stir the fire,’ she commanded briskly and, while she coaxed the fire into renewed life, he dragged himself to do her bidding. Swale fetched ham and cheese, a loaf of bread and a crock of butter from the larder and soon they were both nursing large cups of fragrant, steaming coffee.

After eating Susannah was restored to her normal self and told Swale briefly what had occurred, brushing aside his apologies with the remark that it was done now and the sooner it was forgotten the better for everyone.

‘I suppose my brother is still asleep?’ she asked. ‘Well, he won’t remain asleep for long. I must see him before I go and I do not intend to wait for him to rouse himself.’

So saying she smiled grimly and returned to Julian’s room. He lay on the bed, fully dressed, with a coverlet pulled over him. She eyed him scornfully and then shook him, but it was useless, he merely groaned and turned over. Susannah went to lift the water jug and unhesitatingly poured its icy cold contents over his head and stood back to observe with detached interest his shuddering return to consciousness.

It took several minutes before he was fully awake and then he spent several more minutes complaining bitterly about his throbbing head and her lack of sympathy, and predicting he would now most likely contract an inflammation of the lungs.

‘Not if you rouse yourself and dress,’ she informed him brusquely. ‘I do not expect thanks for last night, but the next time you invite your despicable friends to your dreadful house, where you cannot prevent your servants from following your example and soaking themselves in drunken stupors, I shall leave you to cook your own dinner!’

‘Oh, my God!’ he exclaimed, memory dimly reviving. ‘You cooked the dinner and served at table. Susannah, what can I say? I should not have permitted it.’

‘You were in no case to permit anything. And your odious friends were in little better state, though I suppose Lord Chalford carried you to bed, so he at least cannot have been totally incapable! No doubt he has had more practice!’

‘Everard! Where is he now?’ Julian demanded, his memory improving, and glancing guiltily at Susannah.

‘I neither know, nor do I care. I do not wish to hear anything about him. I came merely to say that I desire to start for London on Monday and will expect you early in the morning. If you do not come I shall go by myself.’

She turned and left the room, ignoring his faint cry to her to wait, and went out to the stables, relieved to find that the outdoor servants seemed to have escaped the demoralization which had gripped those indoors. Within a few moments she was cantering towards the lodge, where she stopped to thank Mrs Skinner and reassure her that the night had passed peacefully before riding towards The Hall, revelling in what was an unexpectedly mild and sunny day for the time of year.

She was a couple of miles from home when the mare cast a shoe, and since Susannah had to pass through the village on her way to The Hall, she stopped at the smithy to leave the horse. Too restless to wait, she said she would send one of the grooms to fetch it, and set off to walk the rest of the way home.

While she had been riding she had resolutely refused to think of the events of the previous night, but now she found herself unable to prevent the memory of Lord Chalford’s handsome face, his fascinating smile, his intense gaze and the moments when he had held her closely to him from filling her thoughts. She wondered what she could have done, whether she ought to have announced her identity to him then, but decided it was probably better that she had managed to play her part, for it would have reflected on Julian had his guests discovered who she was, and might have ruined her own reputation before she even reached London. Also, she thought hopefully, she might never meet either of them again, for had not Julian said Mr Tempest rarely went to London? She suppressed the thought that Lord Chalfont would inevitably go there and firmly told herself he had been too drunk to remember what had happened, and even if he did he would never recognize her again or connect her with a maid in her brother’s house.

She was so deep in her thoughts she paid no attention to the occasional rider or vehicle which passed her and it was with some surprise that she looked up to find a pair of beautifully matched greys drawing an elegant curricle halting beside her. She turned round and gasped in dismay, for descending from the curricle, a curious smile on his lips, was Lord Chalford.

‘So you thought to escape me, did you, my beauty?’ he queried as he leapt down to stand beside her.

She frowned and he laughed down into her eyes.

‘I’m not so easy to trick as that, my dear. What did you do, steal a habit and a horse? Did it throw you, that I find you on foot?’

Susannah gasped indignantly.

‘The mare cast a shoe!’ she returned. ‘I was - ‘

‘Of course. I had not imagined you could have walked so far already. Have you no baggage? Were you fleeing from me with no possessions? Never mind, I will provide you with all you might need. Come, let us waste no further time. I want to get home today.’

‘What can you mean?’ Susannah demanded. ‘You were going to Sir William’s.’

He laughed. ‘I’ll visit my uncle when I have nought better to do, my dear. For the moment Monkswood will suit us better.’

Without warning he picked her up and flung her into the curricle, leaping up after her and setting the equipage in motion before she had recovered her balance.

‘How dare you? Stop and put me down at once!’

‘What a pity that would be, my lovely one, when I won you from your master last night. You are mine now, and mine you shall remain!’

Chapter Three

Susannah gasped, staring at him, momentarily speechless. Lord Chalford observed her appreciatively, a smile playing on his lips.

‘I cannot imagine why Julian permitted it,’ he commented and Susannah, her fury finding expression at last in speech, replied heatedly.

‘He is a drunken sot! A fool!’

‘To let you go, yes.’

‘He does not - did not - have any right to make such a bet! I am no chattel of his to be sold to his friends!’

‘He appeared to think so, though mighty reluctant he was this morning to recall the bet. He undoubtedly appreciates you.’

‘And you are no better,’ she flashed at him angrily. ‘It is monstrous! I demand that you set me down immediately, or there will be serious trouble for both you and Julian. My father will not stand by and allow such infamous conduct.’

‘So it is Julian, eh? Then you were on terms of intimacy with him?’ Lord Chalfont drawled. ‘This pose of innocent indignation cannot be maintained if you call him Julian, my dear.’

‘I - ‘ Susannah began and then realized the imprudence of revealing her identity to this shameless man. Undoubtedly he would spread the story and it would rebound on Julian, making both her and him objects of curiosity. Lord Chalfont mistook her hesitation.

‘And who is your father to object? Why have scruples about me when he must have accepted your association with Julian? Come, my dear, you will not find me a difficult man to please, and I can promise you will not be cast off penniless when we have ceased to find enjoyment together.’

Fuming, Susannah breathed deeply to control her desire to flay him with bitter words and shook her head slightly. Not daring to meet his eyes for fear he would read in them her anger, she forced herself to speak normally.

‘You mistake the matter, my lord. Ju - Lord Horder was too far gone last night to understand what he did. I do not work for him, as you assume, but for his sister, Miss Susannah Rendlesham. I am her maid. I was at Horder Grange yesterday because there was sickness in the house, and Lord Horder asked his sister for help, as most of the servants had been sent to London. I am on my way back to The Hall, where Miss Susannah is staying. She lent me a mount, knowing I could ride, to save anyone having to drive me there.’

He eyed her speculatively.

‘It sounds plausible, my dear, but I do not believe a word of it. Julian could have explained this morning if what you say is the truth.’

‘He is too much of a poltroon!’ Susannah snapped unthinkingly.

‘Young, merely. But consider, my dear, even if it is true, would you not prefer to enjoy what I can offer rather than pandering to the whims of a spoilt society miss? Do you really enjoy caring for another woman’s clothes when you could have similar ones yourself? Do you like waiting up for your mistress to come home from balls when you yourself could be at those balls?’

‘I would like to see you try and foist your light of love on the ton!’ Susannah said scornfully, again forgetting her role.

He laughed and halted the curricle, then turned slightly to face her, his eyebrows raised and a gleam of merriment in his eyes.

‘Shall we do that, my love? I’ll swear you have the style to carry it off, and if you had the clothes and jewels too, no one would ever guess. What say you? Join me in this jest on the ton? It would alleviate some of the tedium I find in dancing attendances on insipid misses just out of the schoolroom, and doubtless you would enjoy it too. Besides, you’re devilish enticing!’

Before she could escape him he pulled her into his arms and ruthlessly kissed her. His lips were hard and demanding so that she was flushed and breathless when he released her and, holding her closely still, laughed down into her eyes.

Susannah unthinkingly put her hand to her bruised lips and stared back at him, speechless.

Her thoughts were in a turmoil. She hated him for the bet with her brother and despised him for what he was offering and yet, for an incredible moment, while his lips were on hers, she had wanted to abandon all else and have that kiss last for ever.

‘Well, my beauty?’ he said and laughed in triumph as he put the horses in motion again. That laugh brought Susannah to her senses, for he had sounded too odiously confident. She thought desperately for a way out of her predicament. Her eyes suddenly lighting up, she put her hand to her throat and cried out to him to stop. He glanced at her suspiciously.

‘What is it?’

‘My locket!’ she cried. ‘Oh, please stop! My mother gave it to me, and it is all I have of her. She is dead, you see. There are curls of her hair inside. It must have fallen off when you kissed me. Pray let me go back and look for it.’

He had halted the curricle again. They were only a hundred yards or so further on and the road was narrow, too close to a bend to make turning the vehicle practicable.

‘I beg of you. If I can find my locket, I promise you I will come with you. Please, it means so much to me!’ And indeed it did, she thought somewhat guiltily.

He eyed her closely, then shrugged his shoulders. To her relief he drew the curricle into the side of the road and jumped down, securing the reins to a convenient gatepost.

‘I will look for it,’ he said curtly. ‘Don’t think to run away, for I can easily catch you!’

With that warning he strode back along the road. Susannah leaned cautiously from the curricle, thanking her good fortune that she could reach the gatepost without having to descend from the curricle, and untied the reins. When, glancing over her shoulder, she saw Lord Chalfont halt and begin to search the ground, she called back to him that he could recover the curricle at the Black Swan and quickly guided the horses back onto the road and urged them into a canter. She risked a glance backwards and laughed to see the astonished fury in Lord Chalford’s face as he started after the curricle and then realized the futility of attempting to catch it.

Almost immediately the bend in the road hid him from view and Susannah, alternating between anger at Julian for daring to use her as a gambling prize and amusement at Lord Chalford’s baffled chagrin at having been tricked, drove home to The Hall in fine style. The greys were superb animals, with delicate mouths and a beautiful action, and she impetuously decided she would buy just such a pair for herself when she was in London, if she could find anything that came up to the same standards.

It was not until she was within the gates of The Hall and the greys were trotting along the fine drive which curved round the ornamental lake before the house that she considered how she would explain her arrival in such a turnout. Trusting she could not be seen from the house, she branched off along a path which led to the stables and on arriving there announced airily to the groom who ran to the horse’s heads that she had borrowed the curricle from a friend and had promised to have it sent back to the Black Swan.