The Housemaid's Scandalous Secret (17 page)

When Blackstock had left, Lisette hesitantly broke the news to Ross of Araminta’s assignation with Lord Bennington. As he listened she observed his reaction, saw his jaw clench so tightly that a muscle began to throb in his cheek. Gradually his face became so outraged that fearing he might lash out at her she took a step back.

‘And you say she went alone—without even a groom in attendance?’

‘Yes,’ Lisette whispered.

Ross stared at her, his eyes boring into her. In frigid silence he accused her of complicity and treachery. He swallowed the oath that sprang to his lips, swallowed the wave of anger at the thought that Lisette had allowed Araminta to go galloping off alone to who knew where for a liaison with Antony Bennington.

His temper, a true Montague temper, was never a wise thing to stir. Right now it was prowling, a hungry wolf seeking blood. If anyone had harmed his sister, that equated to an act of aggression against him, and the experienced soldier concealed beneath the veneer of an elegant gentleman reacted and responded appropriately.

His eyes narrowed to dark blue shards. Lisette lowered her head. ‘Look at me, damn it! Where did they arrange to meet?’

‘At the Dog and Partridge Inn on the Manchester Road.’

Unable to quell the cauldron of emotions that were seething inside him, his fury escaped him—it vibrated around her. ‘This is insane!’ His anger scorched her. ‘You knew what she intended and yet you let her go?’

‘No,’ she cried as he began tearing off his jacket. ‘I tried to stop her—I begged her not to go, truly, but her head was set. She refused to listen to reason.’

‘You do not have the slightest concept of the importance of appropriate behaviour. If you had you would have tried harder to dissuade her or come to me.
I
would have talked her out of it,’ he flared, stalking to his dressing room and returning with the first riding jacket he could lay his hands on. Thrusting his arms in the sleeves he dragged on his boots over his evening trousers. ‘I
knew
she was up to something yesterday. That girl hasn’t a grain of sense or propriety, jaunting all over the countryside in this weather. I swear I’ll strangle young Bennington with my bare hands if any harm has come to her.’

Lisette went with him to the door. ‘Is there anything I can do, anything...?’

‘I think you’ve done enough,’ he snapped. Suddenly he turned and faced her. ‘Does anyone else know about this?’

‘Just the young groom who rode to Glebe Hall to deliver the note to Lord Bennington.’

‘What was his name?’

‘Jacob.’

‘I’ll speak to him.’ He walked on. ‘Instruct Lumsden to offer my apologies to Aunt Wilhelmina for our absence at dinner and say that we have made other arrangements.’

‘What will you do?’

Turning to look at her, his expression became more forbidding than before. ‘Find her, and when I do she will feel the full force of my displeasure. That I promise you. My compliments to you, Miss Napier,’ he reprimanded contemptuously, ‘on your duplicity, your deceit and your disloyalty.’

Lisette’s heart wrenched with pain at the unfairness of the accusations he flung at her. ‘Colonel, please,’ she implored, taking a few hesitant steps towards him. ‘Your sister deeply regrets separating herself from Lord Bennington and desperately wants to make amends.’

Ross started towards her, his expression threatening. ‘If Araminta wanted to see him, then she should have approached me. I would have dealt with the matter myself and paid young Bennington a visit, which would have been the appropriate action to take. What she has done goes way beyond the bounds of propriety,’ he uttered scathingly.

Lisette began talking faster as she automatically backed away. ‘But you must try to see it from her perspective—’

‘Must?’ he interrupted scathingly, his eyes hard and contemptuous. ‘I think you are getting above yourself, Miss Napier. If you are wise,’ he said in a soft, blood-chilling voice, ‘in the future you will avoid me very carefully, and if you collude with my sister in anything as outrageous as this again, then you will find yourself looking for another position. Is that clear?’

In stunned silence Lisette watched him stride swiftly along the landing and bound down the stairs. She felt frozen inside, her mind blank. Upon her soul, she had never been spoken to in such a harsh and brutal way. Unable to form any coherent thought she left the colonel’s room, too dazed, too numb to think or feel, but she could hear over and over again, the words Colonel Montague had so cruelly flung at her—
duplicity, deceit and disloyalty...
and dismissal.

Like a moth blundering in the lamplight, she stumbled her way through the maze of the house’s many corridors, her only instinct guiding her to the refuge of her own bedchamber. Once inside the privacy of her room, she closed the door behind her and clamped her hands over her ears, but it was a futile gesture. She could still hear the colonel’s words ringing in her ears, muted only by her own sobs as her heart fractured into tiny pieces.

* * *

Thunder clouds, dark grey and menacing, raced across the sky and a leaden curtain of drenching rain descended on Ross. Shrouded in his greatcoat and gritting his teeth, by the time the family sat down to dinner at Castonbury Park, he was heading in the direction of the Manchester Road, his horse’s hooves pounding the muddied ground.

It was dark when he returned with a remorseful Araminta. Waiting in the basement hall, her back against one of the columns, having pulled herself together but with a vestige of pain still lingering, Lisette watched them enter. Colonel Montague was wearing a caped greatcoat and the wind had ruffled his hair. With the light behind him he was a dark silhouette made even larger by the capes of his coat spread wide by his broad shoulders. Shrugging it off he handed it to a footman.

Not until she moved did Ross notice Lisette. His voice was as cold as his eyes. ‘Take my sister to her room. She is to stay there until further notice.’

Without a word Lisette turned from him and accompanied her distraught mistress down the length of the hall. Colonel Montague’s voice suddenly halted her.

‘Miss Napier, wait.’ Araminta went on ahead. Lisette turned back to face him. He came close and stood looking down at her. ‘I trust you are aware of the seriousness of this and that you will not utter one word to anyone about Araminta’s transgression.’

Deeply offended and angered that he thought she would, Lisette stiffened. ‘I will not.’

‘In the meantime,’ Ross said, with cold practicality, ‘Araminta must socialise and act as usual—as if nothing untoward has happened. It is my hope that everyone will be blessedly unaware of this day’s debacle and that lurid versions of her activities are not already spreading like wildfire from Derbyshire to London. If the story of the episode at the Dog and Partridge is circulated, she will be ruined.’

‘All that sounds rather harsh and unfair to me—that society can be so judgmental,’ Lisette uttered tightly.

Her ignorance of English protocol and the behaviour of society brought a mocking smile to Ross’s lips. ‘You have lived too long in India, Miss Napier. If a scandal ensues, in the eyes of the
ton
Araminta will be seen as a shameless wanton, soiled and used and unfit company for unsullied young ladies, gullible young heirs and polite society in general. But as things stand, love him or hate him, Araminta will marry Antony Bennington. I insist on it. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Perfectly, Colonel.’ Lisette was too tired to argue or protest further. Colonel Montague’s actions were what one would expect if a man had compromised his sister. ‘Now if you will excuse me I will go and attend to her.’ Dipping a stiff curtsey and lowering her eyes lest he saw the anger there, she turned and left him.

Lisette chafed at his harsh reprimand. She could hardly believe he was the same man she had met in India, the same relentless, predatory seducer who had taken advantage of her, who had held her clasped to him while his hungry mouth devoured hers. It was as if he were two people, one she could like and one she feared and mistrusted—with excellent reason since he had threatened to dismiss her.

On reaching the landing Lisette met Phaedra coming from the drawing room where she had been taking coffee with her aunt Wilhelmina.

‘Good heavens,’ she said, ‘was that Araminta who just scooted past me? She’s extremely wet,’ she remarked in sympathy. ‘We wondered why she wasn’t at dinner. One of the grooms said she’d been gone all afternoon. Don’t say she was lost in the rain all that time.’

‘No, she—she came upon a shelter in the woods and stayed there until the rain let up a little while ago.’ It seemed the wisest thing to say. Since no one knew of Araminta’s assignation with Lord Bennington, Lisette had every wish to avoid a scandal, which would surely ensue should anyone find out. ‘Excuse me, Lady Phaedra. I must go and prepare Miss Araminta a bath.’

On entering her mistress’s rooms, Lisette searched her strained face. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked concernedly, proceeding to help her out of her damp clothes.

Araminta nodded, pulling her arms out of her sleeves. ‘Yes, Lisette. Although Ross was extremely angry.’

‘I expect he was.’

‘You told him where to find me.’ Her words were more of a statement than a question. Lisette was relieved there was no hint of accusation.

‘When you didn’t come home I feared you might have had an accident. I had to do something.’

‘It’s all right. I really should have listened to you. Still, it’s done now. The most important thing is that Antony still loves me and assures me that everything will be all right. Ross insists we marry as soon as it can be arranged. I think he’s afraid my indiscretion will get out and create a scandal.’

‘Which I imagine would be most unwelcome for the Montagues after everything that has happened.’

* * *

Lisette did not see Colonel Montague again for two weeks—whether it was by chance or his own choosing she had no idea, but she strongly suspected it to be the latter.

Alone, she was carefully laying out the dress Araminta would change into for the afternoon when she came in. Colonel Montague was behind her, carrying some small packages. They’d taken the carriage into Castonbury to do some shopping. With a bottle of lotion in her hands, Lisette stopped what she was doing, watching as Colonel Montague placed the packages on the bed. When he turned to face her he studied her with the casual interest a man might assume when he meets for the first time a woman he does not consider particularly attractive and therefore hardly worthy of his attention.

Lisette wanted to leave, but she knew she was trapped. His tall, powerful frame barred her way to the door, and his expression was like granite and as forbidding as it had been since that fateful day of Araminta’s fall from grace. She had no choice but to remain. Her pulse pounded as she looked at him.
Their gazes locked—a tremble ran the entire length of her body.

‘Miss Napier! I trust you have not been colluding with my sister in any more undesirable escapades.’ His voice was sharp, without any hint that his attitude had softened towards her.

‘Ross,’ Araminta chided, coming quickly to her maid’s defence. ‘Lisette had nothing to do what happened between me and Antony, so will you please refrain from being horrid to her. I will have nothing said against her, do you hear? None of it was her fault.’

Ross cocked a mocking, amused brow at Lisette. ‘You are asking me to be nice to someone who not only colluded in what you did but also encouraged it.’

The unfairness of his accusation brought Lisette’s head up and, on meeting his, her eyes flared. ‘I most certainly did not. I tried extremely hard to dissuade her. Miss Araminta will testify to that,’ she said, keeping the anger and hurt boiling inside her tightly shut down. If he expected her to squirm beneath his anger and contempt he would be disappointed. She was not going to weep or run begging for forgiveness—not that she had done anything that warranted forgiveness. She would not let herself be bullied. She was learning not to let her face show her feelings.

‘Lisette is quite right,’ Araminta retorted. ‘You are being unkind to me and discourteous to Lisette. What I did was wrong. But I do love Antony and that cannot be wrong—and what do you think, Lisette?’ Araminta said, almost bubbling over with excitement. ‘Ross has given his permission for Antony and me to marry as soon as it can be arranged—here at Castonbury, in the chapel. Isn’t that wonderful?’

Lisette smiled at her. ‘I’m so pleased for you—truly. I hope you and Lord Bennington will be very happy together.’

‘We will be. How could we not? Since our betrothal was of many months’ standing before I foolishly broke it off, Ross sees no reason for us to wait—and then he can go back to India. Is that not so, Ross?’

‘It is, but not until there’s word from Harry,’ her brother replied. ‘Hopefully when he contacts Giles he will have news about Jamie.’

‘Good news, I hope,’ his sister said, beginning to tear open the packages to inspect the items she had bought in Castonbury village. ‘Poor Uncle Crispin. It must truly be awful not knowing if your son is dead or alive. And then there’s the woman who claims to be Jamie’s wife... What a muddle it all is.’

‘And nothing for you to worry your head about, Araminta. You have quite enough to occupy your mind with your forthcoming betrothal party. You might like to go into Buxton for a new ball gown or wedding gown or something.’

Araminta’s eyes lit up and she reached up and kissed his cheek affectionately. ‘You are so good to me, Ross—the best brother in the whole world. Oh, how I shall miss you when you go back to India. Now, Lisette. I have not forgotten that it’s your afternoon off so run along now. If I need help to dress I’ll get one of the other maids to help me.’

‘If you’re sure.’ Placing the bottle of lotion on the dresser, Lisette went towards the door. Colonel Montague was standing in her way. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ she said tightly.

He raised enigmatic eyebrows as his eyes met hers and he stepped aside, polite, incurious, totally indifferent to her as a female, he would have her believe, but in his eyes there was a shadow that did not quite conceal his innermost thoughts and his secret emotions.