The Apple Blossom Bower (Historical Romance Novella) (10 page)

Beaming down at her from an immense height, he said, “I well know how people of your country greet one another.” He captured her chin in long, strong fingers and poked his head under her hat brim to kiss each of her cheeks. Then, very lightly, he brushed his lips against her mouth.

Who
was
this madman?

Evidently sensing her desire to bolt, he captured her forearms with strong hands. Lavinia, now thoroughly alarmed and incapable of speech, helplessly stared up at him. His grin was so infectious that for a moment she knew a mad desire to smile back—before her senses returned and she shook him off.

When he stepped toward her again she glared fiercely and edged away. His chairmen snickered.

Her surly hackney driver let out a braying laugh and called, “Catch her and buss her again, guv’nor!”

Before the stranger could repeat his assault, Lavinia raced for the front door.

As impudent as he was handsome, she fumed, face flaming after her very public mortification. He’d been making sport of her. No man so exquisitely and richly dressed—and so amazingly good-looking—could be sincere in his admiration. At first glance he’d surely realized she was a provincial, despite her modish finery, and had mocked her most cruelly. Not all Englishmen, it seemed, were coldly reserved and stiffly correct in their behavior.

“He’s a devil, that one,” Polly grumbled, struggling with the cumbersome box.

A most dashing devil, thought Lavinia.

As they entered the narrow brick dwelling, the servant warned, “He’s up to no good, m’lady. Prob’ly he’s payin’ back Widow Bruce for playin’ him false.” With a derisive sniff she added, “This mornin’ I saw her other lover creepin’ up to her door again. In broad daylight!”

Lavinia had also witnessed the comings and goings of her neighbor’s most regular caller—older, shorter, and fatter than the fair-haired libertine. Taking her box from Polly, she carried it into the parlor, eager to show off her latest and most splendid acquisition. To her surprise, her father was not alone.

“Here’s my daughter now,” he told the visitor, which indicated that she’d been the topic of discussion. “Lavinia, this is Attorney Webb.”

A swarthy man wearing a black suit and a wig stood up in polite acknowledgment. Keen, dark eyes assessed her face and form. Impossible to tell whether he admired them as much as the brazen fellow who had accosted her in the street.

“Honored to meet you.” Mr. Webb frowned when she placed her burden on the sofa, saying reproachfully, “Lord Ballacraine, you’ll need to curtail your daughter’s shopping expeditions.”

“I’ve resolved to limit my own purchases,” the earl replied. “But I cannot be parsimonious where Lavinia is concerned. That would be false economy.”

The attorney looked skeptical. “In that case, you should accept a loan from our mutual acquaintance Mr. Solomon.”

The earl shook his head so violently that his queue whipped back and forth. “He charges too much interest.” When Lavinia’s tortoiseshell cat leaped onto his lap, he permitted her to stay. “I’ve been waiting for my Liverpool bankers to forward additional monies, but there has been a delay. I own a woolen mill, you see, and my inaugural shipment of cloth was refused by Customs officials and therefore cannot be sold. A dispute arose about the legality of importing Manx goods in a raw state, and I don’t know when the issue will be resolved. I am thus entirely dependent upon my daughter for financial relief.”

“I don’t comprehend.”

“Marriage settlements,” Lord Ballacraine replied succinctly.

“She’s engaged?”

“Not yet. But I’m confident that she’ll quickly find a husband, and a rich one.”

His frankness brought a hot flush of shame to Lavinia’s face. Bad enough knowing she was a fortune hunter, without hearing the embarassing truth spoken aloud.

“My estate is large by the standards of our island,” her father continued. “But a succession of bad harvests has beggared my tenants, whose rents come in at irregular intervals. My late father left me no capital to speak of. My son Lord Garvain, will inherit still less. Our ancestral home is in a ruinous state.”

That stark assessment was all too accurate. While the two men continued their discourse in low, grave tones, Lavinia recalled the discomforts and inconveniences of Castle Cashin. For the greater part of the year it was so cold and drafty that her family habitually wore their heaviest garments indoors as well as out. The only marginally cozy chamber was their
thie mooar,
where a turf fire burned perpetually. Like the humble crofters, the noble Cashins ate their meals in the kitchen and spent most evenings gathered around the
chiollagh,
the open hearth of the great stone fireplace.

Her parent stroked the somnolent cat, slowly passing his hand from her round head to the tailless rump. “The merchant Onslow extended credit to me without question. But when I chanced to mention that I reside in the Isle of Man, notorious as a refuge for debtors, he demanded instant payment. And he was most insulting after I explained why the money was not immediately forthcoming.”

“Many tradesmen,” Webb interjected, “suffer from the tricks of unscrupulous imposters and have grown wary.”

“Can he make trouble?”

“I shall endeavor to find out, my lord.”

The attorney took his leave, assuring Lord Ballacraine that he would return for further consultation when time permitted.

After the visitor was gone, Lavinia said to her parent, “I didn’t realize our situation was serious enough to require legal assistance.”

“That meddling moneylender, Solomon, sent Webb to counsel me.” With forced cheer, he added, “Fret not, Lhondhoo. All will be well.”

The pet name bestowed in her childhood took her back to a distant time when bills and bank accounts had been adult problems, discussed behind closed doors.

“Let’s have a look at your new gown.” He persisted in using the bright, false voice that told her he was very worried indeed.

She lifted the rustling mass of ivory silk and lacy gauze from the nest of tissue and held it up for inspection. “I’ve never seen anything so pretty as these lace butterflies—look, they’re sewn all round the overskirt.”

“You’ll be very grand wearing this—and with the Ballacraine rubies.”

Together they fingered the materials and admired the workmanship, agreeing that such an exquisite creation could not fail to attract the rich and generous man who could rescue the Cashins from impending financial disaster.

The footman who received Lord Garrick Armitage grinned slyly, saying, “The mistress is laying down.”

“Is she at home to visitors?”

“Gentleman visitors,” the youth answered impertinently. “She’s in bed, so your lordship might as well go up.”

Jenny Bruce, clad in a semi-transparent chemise, generously granted Garrick a tantalizing glimpse of pink flesh before coyly covering herself with the sheet. Her disheveled golden tresses and wildly disordered bedclothes surprised him. He supposed she must be an active, restless sleeper, although the trait was more common to men.

“Garry,” she purred, “what a surprise to see you again, and so early in the day.”

“It’s two hours past noon, Jenny.”

“Really?”

He refrained from pointing out that a clock occupied a prominent place on the bureau. “I’ve come to deliver this.”

“Oh,” she gasped when he presented the miniature leather box. “For me?”

His smile was calculated to charm. “You demanded a token of my esteem. I hope this will suffice.”

When she opened his offering, she gave a rapturous sigh. “They’re magnificent!” Letting the sheet fall from her scantily covered bosom, she inserted the earrings into her lobes. “Hand me the mirror—I must see them!”

He watched her admire herself in the glass, tipping her head from side to side and making the large, pear-shaped pendants dance. Quality diamonds, perfectly faceted and extremely valuable. “Are you pleased?” he asked, never doubting it.

“Of course I am!” Her blue eyes darted from her reflection back to Garrick. “But I hope you won’t insist that I—that we—” She shook her golden head. “Not now. For I’m—I’m feeling most unwell.”

“Then we must wait till you’re better,” he answered, accepting her postponement of the inevitable. “I trust your recovery will be complete by the time I return from Newmarket. I leave tomorrow, to watch one of my racehorses run for a cup.” He seated himself on the bed and claimed her hand. “There’s a different sort of favor I need from you, Jenny.”

“Anything,” she promised, fluttering her lashes.

“I mean to celebrate my return from Italy with a card party. Would arrange it for me and serve as my hostess?”

“There’s nothing I’d like better,” she said eagerly. “Who should I invite?”

“All our mutual friends. The Anspachs. Albinia Buckinghamshire. Prawn Parfitt—he’s as fond of cards and pretty ladies as I am.”

Flushing, Jenny said, “I wish you wouldn’t use that silly name, it makes him sound like an
entrée
at a banquet.”

“And our guest list must also include Lord Everdon. For some time I’ve aspired to meet him.”

“No one else does, his reputation is so foul. He used to be quite the rake, you know, seducing blushing virgins and bored noblewomen from one end of the Continent to the other. So they say.”

Garrick was well aware of Everdon’s history of debauchery. The woman he’d loved best and most selflessly had been one of the baron’s victims.

Jenny went on, “He left Paris after King Louis was executed and we began warring with France. He hasn’t received a very warm welcome in London.”

“Quite the gamester, Everdon. I admit, I’d like to test his skill at cards. What’s his game, or does he prefer dicing?”

“How should I know?”

In a casual tone that belied his great interest, he said, “I thought he was your son’s guardian.”

“Yes. But I don’t want him here,” she stated flatly. “He’s quite the most disagreeable person I know, the plague of my life, and is always poking his horrid long nose into my affairs. I’m a careless parent, he says, because I once took Bobby with me when I visited Brighton in the company of my—of a gentleman I know. My late husband boasted that his cousin Everdon was one of Marie Antoinette’s lovers, but I’ll never believe it. Those cruel, dark eyes!” She shuddered.

“Nearly every foreign nobleman who visited the French court was identified as the French queen’s
galante,”
Garrick informed her.

“Well, I can’t imagine anyone fancying Everdon.”

“Do you know his wife?”

“Susanne? She’s a Frenchwoman and her father was a banker. The baron married her for her fortune after he spent most of his own.” Jenny fingered one of the earrings. “If you insist, I shall ask them. To please you.”

Garrick decided to push his luck still further. “Perhaps you might send a card to that new neighbor of yours. I met her just now, out in the street—black hair, white skin, rather shy. Who is she?”

“The daughter of a foreign nobleman,” Jenny reported absently, entranced by her reflection.

Convent-bred, Garrick surmised, which would account for her horrified reaction to his kisses. He regretted committing himself to a more expedient liaison with Jenny, for he would have liked to introduce that beautiful young
contessa
to the pleasures of the flesh.

“They came here from some island,” she added.

“Sicily?”

Jenny shook her head. “I don’t think that was it. For the past fortnight silk merchants and milliners and tailors have waited upon her. Whoever he is, her father must be extremely rich.”

“Then we defnitely want them to appear at our little assembly. A pair of titled, fashionable Continentals would lend a certain
cachet,
don’t you agree?”

“Oh, yes.” Swayed by his shamelessly self-serving observation, she said, “I shall call on them tomorrow.”

By the time Garrick climbed into his sedan chair, he was beaming his satisfaction. The bearers hoisted their poles, grunting with the effort. As he was carried away, it wasn’t Jenny Bruce’s house that he stared at, but the identical one beside it.

The forceful knock at the front door made Lavinia jump. Hot tea washed over the edge of her cup, staining her white gown.

“Open up!” a gruff, masculine voice demanded.

“In the name of the law!” cried another.

She blotted her skirt with her napkin, then looked up at her father. His wild eyes and fearful expression alarmed her even more than the insistent thumping.

Rising swiftly, she said, “I’ll tell Polly to send them away.”

But it was too late for that. Heavy footsteps were coming down the passage.

“Here’s his lordship,” the housemaid said in her quavering treble.

“What a simpleton you are, girl,” said the first intruder. He held a parchment decorated with a red wax seal and a dangling ribbon.

The other man, holding a stout cudgel, lingered at the door. “You’ve been taken in by a most cunning swindler.”

Polly, mouth gaping, she hurried out of the parlor.

Referring to his document, the first man asked, “Would you be John Cashin, who calls himself the Earl of Ballacraine?”

“I am.”

“We hereby place you under arrest for an unsecured debt to one Frederick Onslow, silk merchant of the city of Westminster. Will you come peaceably?”

“My father has broken no law,” Lavinia declared.

“Is that so? Well he’s about to be charged with insolvency in Court of King’s Bench.”

“Keep quiet, lovey,” said the man with the stick. “We’re bailiffs, we are, and have to carry out our duty.”

“You mustn’t address her ladyship in that fashion,” the earl protested.

“She’s got no more title than Ned or me,” the other bailiff retorted. “I dunno know ’bout where you come from, but here in London we don’t stand for folk passing themselves off as nobs when they ain’t. Come along now.”

“Father, you needn’t go with them,” Lavinia said urgently. “Mr. Onslow seeks to frighten you into paying him.”

The officer called Ned snorted derisively. “If he’s taken matters this far, he means to have his money—or his revenge. You’ll be held to bail, Cashin, and if you don’t pay, you’ll be imprisoned and brought to trial.”