Valerie King (15 page)

Yet he knew the man to be a gentleman in the truest sense of the word and he knew the earl would never hurt Lucy, so why was he so angry by having witnessed a simple kiss on the cheek? Except that it was Lucy’s cheek and Valmaston was an uncommonly engaging man. He was perhaps five and forty, but what did that matter where the feminine heart was concerned?

“Is your business with him concluded?” he asked.

Lucy nodded.

“We leave in the morning.”

“Of course.”

He turned away and moved, as one in the grip of a nightmare, into the drawing room.

Lucy did not know what was the matter with Robert. He seemed so strange, almost as though he had suddenly been taken ill. Certainly his complexion was rather pale, and there had been the oddest light in his eye when he spoke to her, as though he had seen a ghost.

Lifting her skirts, she moved slowly up the stairs. She tried to determine if he was angry, but the expression she had just witnessed was not his usual demeanor when he was overset. No, he seemed different somehow, but she could not quite determine in precisely what way. However, his words were straightforward and to the point. Perhaps he was anxious to return to Hampshire.

Arriving at the entrance to the drawing room, she found him reading a volume of poetry, a clear indication he was no longer interested in conversation. She excused herself, saying she was rather fatigued and would lie down before dinner. He did not look at her but nodded, his gaze fixed to the pages of his book. She turned away but turned quickly back and once more glanced at his book. She realized it was upside-down. She almost teased him about it but something warned her not to do so.

Instead, she shrugged and gave herself to her bed for the next two hours.

The return journey to Hampshire proved unexpectedly pleasant. Whatever had been weighing on Robert’s mind the entire evening prior no longer seemed to be affecting him. He had instead become a quite enjoyable traveling companion, not only tending to her needs and desires at each posting house, but sustaining a rather personal conversation throughout the journey.

At first she had been rather skeptical about his questions, for he wished to know about her life in Somerset, about her interests, her hopes for the future. In the end, however, she had opened her budget because in her innermost heart she trusted Robert, however critical he might be of her in other ways. She remembered, too, what Mr. Frome had said of Robert, that he was concerned about being too restrained with her.

“Were you never in love, Robert?” she asked. She still did not believe that Mr. Frome was correct in saying that he thought Robert had once been disappointed in love. After all, she had never heard a whisper among the family that any particular lady had ever attached him to her side. Still, she found herself intrigued to hear his response.

“Yes,” he stated simply.

She stared at him for several seconds, for she was greatly shocked. How could she not be? “You were?”

He laughed. “Why does that seem so impossible to you?”

She shook her head. “Because no one ever spoke of it, not even Hetty. I also wonder how I could not have known, since I visited at Aldershaw so often.”

He smiled suddenly in that manner of his that always warmed her heart. “By my calculations, I was in the throes of a very painful calf-love when you were but thirteen.”

“Well, that was a very long time ago, indeed! Calf-love, you say? It was not more serious?”

He shrugged. The coach hit a rut and she bounced in her seat. “As to that,” he said mockingly, “
I
was certainly serious about loving her. Devilishly serious. I believed one day I would make her my wife, but I was quite young at the time and, as it proved, rather foolish in my hopes and expectations.”

Lucy smiled and would have teased him, but there was just such a look of hurt in his eye that made her stop. “What was her name?” she asked instead.

“Amelia Damerham, and, no, I do not believe you ever knew her. She is long since married to a Major Eastleigh and resides in Norfolk, the last I heard of her.”

Lucy turned this information over in her mind. She had a strong sense that there was a great deal he was not saying. “How long ago did she wed Major Eastleigh?”

“Again, you were but thirteen.”

“I see.” She thought of John Goodworth. “Miss Amelia was an unreliable sort?”

“She broke no vows. We were not betrothed.” Yet he sighed.

Here was love, indeed, that he would speak words of such tolerance when she could see that he was still troubled by the memories.

“Well, I dislike her immensely,” she stated.

He chuckled. “You make no sense at all. You never knew her. How could you dislike her if you never even set eyes on her.”

“I do not need to know her to understand that she possessed your heart but chose another. You may be forbearing with her, but I can think as ill of her as I please!” She had meant the words to be flippant and full of a dark sort of cheerfulness. Instead, she found she was rather irritated that Miss Amelia had used Robert so ill, particularly when he had been of a tender age. He would have been but two and twenty.

She remembered him as a young man, so upright and responsible, always striving to do what was right and good. He would have courted Miss Damerham quite properly and decorously.

“I should have kissed her,” he murmured, more to himself, his brows parted by a heavy frown.

“I beg your pardon?”

He shook his head. “It hardly signifies.”

Robert glanced at Lucy and saw that she was regarding him quizzically, trying to make him out, no doubt.
I should have kissed Amelia
. He had kissed Lucy, more than once. He had kissed her quite passionately. He had kissed her when he should not have. He had kissed her without the smallest intention of wedding her. What if he had kissed Amelia? What if he had spoken his heart with poetic words of love and obsession? Would she have married him then?

The coach halted at The George in Bickfield.

“Robert, would you mind if I went into Hart’s? I should like to buy a few presents for the children.”

“How could I refuse such a request?” he said, smiling.

Lucy spent fifteen minutes searching the local shop for just the right items for Eugenia, Hyacinth, William, and Violet. By the time she returned to the coach, a fresh team had been harnessed and the final portion of the journey commenced.

With but five miles to go the coach wheels ate up the distance to Aldershaw quickly, and within little more than half an hour the manor was in sight. Turning down the long avenue, Lucy marveled, as she did quite often, at what great speeds could be achieved by a proper traveling vehicle and four good horses.

“I must say, Lucy,” Robert said, his gaze fixed out the window, “that the gardens have improved tremendously. I would not have thought so much could be accomplished in so little time. It has only been a month, has it not?”

“Perhaps a little more, but then Mr. Quarley was fully prepared with scores of plants, large and small, just awaiting the orders to put each and every one in the ground. You ought to extend your praise to him. I know he would be grateful for it.”

“You do that often, you know,” he said, glancing at her.

“What?” she asked, surprised yet curious.

“You give me little hints about just how to manage things at Aldershaw.”

She groaned. “You must forgive me, you know. It comes from having been Papa’s housekeeper for so many years. I fear I am used to seeing things done a certain way. I am sorry.”

“You need not apologize. I have in this moment realized that, though I am loath to admit as much, I have come to rely on you.”

She saw that he was being very genuine and she did not wish to ruin the moment, but since they were getting along quite well she felt obliged to make her confession. “I am so very happy to hear you say so.” How her heart began to race. “But there is something you should know.”

“L-u-c-y,” he said slowly. “What have you done? Does it involve Valmaston?”

She nodded and wrinkled up her nose. “I fear it does,” she said hurriedly, “but not just him—Anne, Alice, and your stepmother as well. I know it was very wrong of me, but I have invited Valmaston to come to Aldershaw and reside here for,” she calculated the time from Thursday next to the day after the twin’s come-out ball, “three weeks.”

“
Three weeks!
” he shouted.

She nodded, clasping her hands together tightly in front of her.

“How? When? With what permission did you dare—?”

She winced and closed her eyes.

“Look at me,” he stated firmly.

Her eyes popped open at his command.

“You are no longer a child to be shutting your eyes like that. What the devil were you thinking?”

He was right, of course. “I had only one purpose, to persuade Lady Sandifort to permit Anne and Alice to go to the assemblies in Bickfield.”

“This makes no sense whatsoever,” he said, throwing his hands wide. “Of what are you speaking? Why would Valmaston persuade her to do anything?”

How was she to explain to him her reasoning? “I wanted to distract Lady Sandifort. She seems so completely intent on wounding Anne and Alice and I thought, based primarily on her own expressions of interest in Valmaston, that were he here he could keep her, that is, he could distract her from your sisters and from trying to do them injury, which I must say, Robert, seems to be one of her principle enjoyments in life. I should dearly like to know just what hold she has over them, over you, that she is allowed to be so vicious?”

“You have turned the subject quite neatly,” he stated, as one injured.

“But, Robert, it is to the point,” she cried.

“Do lower your voice.” By now the coach had reached the house.

“Yes, of course.” More quietly, she continued, “Only pray tell me why Lady Sandifort is able to rule as she does at Aldershaw?”

As the horses came to a stop, he scowled deeply. She could see that he was debating the question in his mind. He regarded her intently and finally said, but also in an exceedingly low voice, “Very well, I shall tell you, but first I wish you to be aware that there are only three others who know of this: Lady Sandifort, Henry, and Hetty. I trust, therefore, that you will keep our present conversation in the strictest confidence.”

Lucy’s heart had begun pounding. For the nearly six weeks she had been residing in Robert’s home, she had come to believe something was wretchedly amiss at Aldershaw. Robert had just confirmed her deepest suspicions and it would seem she was now to learn what all the trouble was about. “I promise you that I will say nothing of this.”

“Very well,” he said gravely. “As it happens, my father left a provision in his will that Lady Sandifort would have charge of Anne and Alice in every social matter, even to the arranging of their marriages, until each was safely wed.”

Lucy had never been more shocked. All this time she had thought something else was the cause of the difficulty between Lady Sandifort and Robert. “Good God,” she murmured.

“Just so.” He leaned back as the footman opened the door and let down the steps.

Lucy was horrified by what she had just learned. As she descended the coach, she understood finally the terrible nature of the hold Lady Sandifort had over Robert as well as the twins. She glanced at Robert, thinking that she had wronged him in her own thoughts of his character. She had been persuaded that he lacked fortitude in his dealings with Celeste Sandifort, but now she saw that in every way he tried to protect his sisters, for to cross Lady Sandifort’s will was to do injury to the twins.

The youngest of the Sandiforts, apparently having seen the coach arrive from one of the upstairs windows, came racing out the front door. Violet trailed the others, her new doll clutched in the crook of her arm. “You came back!” she cried. “You came back!”

The next moment she was in Lucy’s arms. Lucy held her tightly and at the same time met Robert’s gaze. He smiled, if but a little sadly, and took his youngest half sister from her arms. “Is there not a kiss for your eldest brother?”

Violet kissed each of his cheeks in turn while Lucy attended to Eugenia and Hyacinth. William hung back a little, perhaps feeling both his years and his pride. He was after all six, almost seven.

“I brought gifts,” she said, meeting William’s gaze. His smile was worth a hundred times more than the scant fifteen minutes she had spent at Hart’s searching for something for each of them.

 

 

Over the next few days, in preparation for Valmaston’s arrival, Lucy vowed she had never seen Lady Sandifort so happy in the many weeks she had been at Aldershaw. Having learned that the earl was coming in but a sennight, she fairly floated from room to room and was in such good spirits that she was almost pleasant.

The house settled into a routine in which Lucy engaged contentedly, a flow of daily tasks and events that found her in company with one or another member of the family throughout each day. After breakfast she would go to the schoolroom and visit with Miss Gunville and her four charges. Hetty had command of her next, in which together they would review any housekeeping duties with the housekeeper. Afterward she would take these concerns as well as a tray of hot chocolate, apricot tarts, and the sweetest fruit to be found that day in the home garden to Lady Sandifort’s dressing room, where she spent at least an hour in her company.

Early in her stay at Aldershaw she had learned that the best way of managing Lady Sandifort was to keep her very close and to offer at least half a dozen compliments on her beauty and fashion before noon. In such a way, the smoothing of her vanity seemed to create a store of cheerfulness from which she drew until she retired that evening.

“You must have slept wonderfully,” Lucy said, “for I vow you have awakened prettier than yesterday.”

“Oh, Lucy, how good you are to me.” She reclined in bed and held a looking glass to admire her features. “My complexion is almost perfection, if I do say so myself.”

“Nothing less.” Lucy prepared her a cup of chocolate and brought it to her.

Lady Sandifort took it gratefully. “How glad I am that you have come to Aldershaw. You have been the greatest comfort to me.”

“And I am happy you think so.” She smiled and sat in a chair by the bedside, waiting patiently while she took several sips of chocolate. She said, “I noticed yesterday that you wore the yellow sprigged muslin and I kept thinking how well it became your figure. Indeed, ma’am, I have never known a lady so perfectly proportioned.”

“And you never will,” she stated. “Oh, yes, I suppose I should demur and titter my disbelief, but to what purpose?” She sighed again as she lifted her looking glass.

“To what purpose, indeed!” Lucy regarded her wonderingly not for the first time. There was something so childlike about Celeste Sandifort. She had noted it more than once, as though something had occurred to keep her mind in an almost infant state, for she never thought of anyone but herself. “How do you intend to have your maid fashion your hair today?”

“Well, since I have decided to wear the new lavender gown, I thought I would wear the Grecian bands.”

Lucy nodded and chuckled. “I dare say you could wear your hair dangling to your waist and even uncombed and you would still be the loveliest woman in the room.”

“Now you go too far in your compliments.”

“Do I?”

Lady Sandifort trilled her laughter.

Lucy offered two more compliments, one on the delicate size of her hands and another on the lovely cadence of her speech. Lady Sandifort appeared absolutely serene in her pleasure. Only then did she bring forward the decisions that would need to be made about the household linens, the meals, any squabbles between servants, the children’s menus, everything over which she insisted on having command but did not truly have the smallest interest. Lucy finished her list with a query as to which chamber Valmaston would be placed during his stay.