Vixen (23 page)

“I’ve come to buy Maid Marion,” Chloe informed him.
“I told Crispin I couldn’t accept her as a gift, but I’d like to purchase her.”

Jasper put his hands on her shoulders and moved her out of his way. He walked slowly down the steps to Hugo. Chloe followed, not a whit put out by being ignored.

Crispin came around from the side of the house, and she called out to him. “Good morning, Crispin. We came to buy Maid Marion, and I thought you might like to know how the owl is recovering. The splint is holding nicely.” Her smile embraced the three men with an ingenuous confidence that fooled none of them.

Hugo’s eye caught hers in acceptance of the scene she was setting. “Stop prattling, Chloe,” he said with feigned exasperation as he dismounted. “Jasper, how much do you want for the mare?”

“I’m not sure she’s for sale,” Jasper said.

“Oh, but she must be!” Chloe cried. “You were going to give Her to me, so you can’t say you want to keep her. And I so enjoyed riding her yesterday. I couldn’t bear to give her up.” She turned the brilliance of her smile on Crispin. “It was such a pity we weren’t able to have our picnic, Crispin, but I became caught up in the crowds going into the city for the Reform Meeting, and I couldn’t turn back.”

Crispin put a hand to his throat. A starched cravat hid the finger bruises from his audience, but the involuntary gesture spoke for itself to Hugo and Jasper.

Jasper’s eyes narrowed to slits as he looked between his stepson and Hugo Lattimer. “It’s to be regretted you missed your picnic, little sister,” he said blandly, “Crispin had gone to a great deal of trouble to ensure your pleasure.”

“Yes, I was aware,” she replied. “I was desolated to spoil his efforts.” Hugo decided that it was time he joined the fencing
match. Chloe seemed to be running away with herself. “Chloe, I asked you to stop prattling. Jasper, do you have a price for the mare?”

“Three thousand pounds” was the prompt response. “Since my sister won’t accept the gift, then I’d be a fool not to ask a fair price.”

“A fair price!” Chloe squeaked. “Three thousand—”

“Hold your tongue!” Hugo put a heavy hand on her shoulder. “This immoderate behavior is most unbecoming.”

“Yes, but—”

“Quiet!”

Chloe subsided, glaring at her half brother. His cold eyes slid over her, and for the first time she read menace as well as the usual dislike in their depths. Then he turned to Hugo, a sardonic smile on his thin lips.

“Three thousand pounds. Since I now find myself short by such a sum …”

“Quite,” Hugo said in perfect understanding. He had stopped Elizabeth’s payments to Jasper and was now being required to make up for it. Chloe’s slender shoulder was rigid beneath his hand, and he could feel the currents of tension running through her. Clearly she, too, understood what her brother was demanding. But if he expected her to rush into ill-considered speech at this realization, he was mistaken.

“We have to see the dam,” she said as calmly now as she’d been fervent before. “I know Sherrif, but I’d like to inspect Red Queen.”

Jasper inclined his head in acknowledgment. “Crispin, take Chloe to the stables and show her the Queen. I’m sure she’ll be satisfied.” He turned back to Hugo. “Shall we conclude this business in my book room, Lat-timer?”

“I doubt it’s a business to be so easily concluded,”
Hugo commented with an oblique smile. “But by all means let’s discuss terms. However, you’ll understand if I don’t accept your hospitality. Since I don’t extend my own, it would be a trifle hypocritical, wouldn’t you say?”

He turned to his ward, who’d made no move to accompany Crispin to the stables. “Chloe, if you intend to inspect the dam, I suggest you do so.”

He and Jasper waited until Chloe and Crispin had disappeared around the side of the house.

“She always was an ill-mannered brat,” Jasper said with clear venom.

Hugo raised an eyebrow and said quietly, “Too ill-mannered to make a suitable wife for your stepson, Jasper? Or would her fortune compensate adequately for any faults in character?”

Jasper’s florid complexion deepened, but his eyes were almost opaque as they skidded away from Hugo’s direct gaze. “Are you trying to say something, Lattimer?”

Hugo shook his head. “What would I be trying to say, Jasper?”

Jasper smiled his thin smile again and observed with soft insult, “Something seems to have sobered you up, Hugo. I wonder how long it’ll last.”

“Long enough to see you in hell,” Hugo responded pleasantly. He turned his back and remounted his horse. “I’m not interested in the mare at any price. I’m not interested in
any
dealings with you, Jasper … unless you should be foolish enough to meddle again in my bailiwick.”

Jasper’s tongue flickered over his lips. “You are mistaken, Hugo. It’s you who are meddling in
my
bailiwick. You did it once before, and I’ll be doubly avenged, make no mistake.”

Hugo nodded. “So we understand each other. It’s always as well to be certain of that.”

Chloe and Crispin reappeared, and he called her sharply.

She hurried over. “Are we leaving?”

“Yes, but without the mare.” He held down his hand. “Up you come. Put your foot on my boot.”

Chloe showed neither surprise nor disappointment at this abrupt, unexpected conclusion to the negotiations. She took his hand, put her foot on his, and sprang upward as he pulled her. She settled on the saddle in front of him.

“Good day, Jasper … Crispin.” She smiled down at them with such friendliness, one would believe only pleasantries could ever take place between them. “Thank you for lending me Maid Marion … and for showing me Red Queen. She’s beautiful.”

“And to think your brother called you an ill-mannered brat,” Hugo remarked with a dry smile as they rode off. “When it suits you, you can be impeccably polite.”

Chloe chuckled. “I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of thinking I was disappointed. I’m sorry about Maid Marion, but I certainly wouldn’t have paid three thousand for her.”

“I’m relieved to hear it, since I had no intention of doing so.”

“Would he not negotiate?” A hint of wistfulness crept into her voice.

“I didn’t attempt it.”

“Oh. I suppose you had your reasons.”

“I did, lass. But we’ll buy you a horse this afternoon. Squire Gillingham has a good stud in Edgecombe. I’m sure he’ll have something suitable.”

His arm encircled her lightly as he held the reins, and she leaned back against him, fitting herself into his shoulder as naturally as if she always rode in such fashion. The seeming artlessness of her proximity produced
a riot of confused and confusing responses in both mind and body, and Hugo had the unnerving suspicion that Chloe was quite aware of her effect. Every time he persuaded himself she had to be protected as an ingenuous young innocent on the verge of womanhood, she did or said something that proved beyond doubt that in all important matters she had crossed the line long since.

Samuel came out to the courtyard as they rode in. “Took me by surprise, you did,” he said gruffly. “I didn’t know Sir ’Ugo ’ad said you could go along wi’ him.”

“I hadn’t,” Hugo said, dismounting. He reached up to swing Chloe down from her perch.

“He didn’t say I
could
go with him, Samuel,” Chloe explained with a sunny smile. “But he didn’t say I couldn’t either.”

Samuel stared at her in bemusement, shaking his head like a dog with a flea in his ear, his mouth ajar as he looked for words.

“Don’t even try, Samuel,” Hugo said with a wry grin. “When it comes to logic-chopping, the lass can produce the finest examples since Eve ate the apple.”

H
ugo was playing the pianoforte before dinner that evening when Chloe came hesitantly into the library. He turned as the door opened, offered her a smile of greeting, and continued with his playing. It had been a long time since he’d played simply for the pleasure of it … a long time since he’d been sufficiently at peace to enjoy the musk for its own sake.

Chloe curled into the big wing chair by the window, where she could watch his face as she listened. She was enthralled by the play of emotions flitting across his face as the long, slender fingers drew deep feeling from the notes, bringing the music alive in the room. Dusk encroached as the sun left the last corners of the library,
and his face fell into shadow, but she could still see the mobile mouth, relaxed and half smiling, the long lock of hair flopping over his wide brow.

It occurred to her that there was more than one Hugo contained in that powerful frame. She’d enjoyed the easygoing, humorous companion; she’d felt the sting of the authoritarian commander; and once she’d known the man of passion. Now there was Hugo the musician. Perhaps it was in this form that all the others came together and found expression.

Hugo stopped playing and turned toward her, resting one forearm on the top of the instrument. “Did they teach you to play at that seminary?”

“Oh, yes. I have all the accomplishments,” she assured him earnestly.

Hugo stifled his smile. “Well, let me hear you.” He stood up and gestured to the bench.

“But I couldn’t play that piece,” she said, rising with great reluctance.

“I wouldn’t expect you to. It’s my own composition.” He struck tinder and flint and lit the branched candlestick, then moved it so it would fall over the keyboard. “I’ll find you something simpler.” He riffled through a pile of sheet music and selected a familiar folk song with a pretty lilting melody. “Try this.”

Chloe sat down, feeling as if she were on trial as he placed the music on the stand. She flexed her fingers. “I haven’t practiced in ages.”

“It doesn’t matter. Relax and do the best you can.” He sat in the chair she’d vacated and closed his eyes, prepared to listen. He opened them very rapidly after the first few bars and his expression became inscrutable.

Chloe finished with a flourish and turned to face him with a smile of triumph. It had been easier than she’d expected.

“Mmm,” he said. “That was a slapdash performance, lass.”

“It was perfectly correct,” she protested. “I know I didn’t play a wrong note.”

“Oh, no, you were note perfect,” he agreed. “Your ability to sight-read is not at issue.”

“Then what was wrong with it?” She sounded both hurt and aggrieved.

“Couldn’t you tell? You raced through it as if the only thing on your mind was to get it over with as soon as possible.”

Chloe chewed her lip. She was not enjoying this, but honesty required that she admit the criticism. “I suppose it’s because at the seminary we had to practice until we got a particular piece right. Then we could stop.”

Hugo pulled a disgusted face. “So practicing was punishment for failure. Good God, what a criminal way to teach.” He stood up. “Your mother was a most accomplished musician…. Move up.”

“Was she?” Chloe shifted along the bench as he sat beside her. “I never heard her play.” His thigh was hard and warm against the thin muslin of her gown, and she kept her leg very still, knowing that the minute he became aware of their proximity he would move away. And that was the last thing she wanted.

The laudanum must have killed the artist as effectively as it killed the mother, he thought sadly, too engrossed in music and his train of thought to be aware for once of the slight, fragrant body so close to his. “She was a harpist as well as a pianist, and she sang like an angel.”

“
I
can sing,” Chloe said, as if this might compensate for her lamentable performance at the keyboard.

“Can you?” He couldn’t help smiling at this anxious interjection. “In a minute, you may sing for me, but now we’re going to improve on your rendering of ‘Larkrise.’
Listen to this.” He played the opening bars. “There’s a bird in there … not a herd of rogue elephants. Try it.”

Chloe produced a faithful rendition of his pauses and tones as he took her through the piece stave by stave. “There’s nothing wrong with your ear,” he commented at the end. “We’ll just have to cure the laziness.”

“I am not lazy,” Chloe protested. “But no one taught me properly, you said so.” Her expression was one of half-laughing indignation as she turned her face toward him in the candlelight. “You can teach me.”

His breath caught. Such heart-stopping beauty didn’t seem possible. She shifted on the bench and her thigh pressed against his, sending a jolt of arousal through his loins.

“Stand up,” he commanded sharply. “You can’t sing sitting down.”

Chloe didn’t move for a second, and her eyes were filled with awareness as they searched his expression. A smile quivered on her lips … a smile of pure sensual invitation.

“Stand up, Chloe,” he repeated, but evenly this time.

She did so slowly, still smiling, her skirt brushing across his knees, her hand resting lightly on his shoulder as if in support. “What shall I sing?”

“ ‘Larkrise,’” he said, clearing his throat. “The tune will be familiar. You can read the words as I play.”

Her voice was true but untrained, lacking Elizabeth’s power and intensity, and she still had a tendency to rush. He wondered as the last note died whether it would be interesting to see how he could improve on what nature had given her.

“There, I told you I can sing,” she declared. “Wasn’t that pretty?”

“My child, you lack discrimination,” he said, embracing the role of mentor and tutor with relief. It gave him much-needed distance. “There’s nothing wrong with
your pitch, but your voice is weak because you don’t breathe properly. Why were you in such a hurry?”

Chloe looked somewhat crestfallen and, as he’d intended, the sensual invitation was quite vanished from both face and posture. “I didn’t think I was.”

“Well, you were. But we can do something about it if you’d like to.”

“You would teach me?” A speculative look was in her eye, but she was looking down at the music and he didn’t see it. She was thinking that music lessons would of necessity involve more of this closeness; and the closer they became, the sooner she would be able to overcome his inconvenient sober prudery.

“If you’d like me to,” he repeated. “You have to do it because you want to. And that means practicing because you want to and not because I tell you you must.”