Vixen (36 page)

There was an awkward silence, then young Lord Bentham said, “Fact is, sir, m’sister was to have accompanied us, but she developed a scratchy throat this morning, and it wasn’t thought wise for her to go out in the cold.”

“No, I quite understand that,” Hugo said. “And I’m sure you’ll understand if I ask you to excuse us for a few moments while I have a little talk with my ward.”

Without waiting for a response, he swept Chloe into the library and closed the door on her three escorts.

“You’re going to be stuffy,” Chloe stated.

“It won’t do,” he said firmly. “I’m sorry, I know you think it ridiculous, and so to a certain extent do I, but you may not racket around the town in the company of a gaggle of young men. Why don’t you persuade one of your girlfriends to join you?”

“It’s not so amusing,” Chloe said with disarming candor.

Hugo was betrayed into a half-smile. He guessed that after ten years in the unrelieved company of her own sex, his ward was finding the devoted attentions of the male thoroughly diverting.

“So I may go?” she said, seeing his expression soften and drawing the wrong conclusion.

“No, you may not.”

“Dante needs the exercise,” she tried with a hopeful smile.

“Then you’ll have to endure my dull company, lass.”

“You aren’t dull,” she said. “But …”

“But I’m not three young men making sheeps’ eyes at
you.” He shook his head. “Go and give your swains their tickets of leave and then come back. There’s something I have to discuss with you.”

Disappointed but resigned, Chloe did as she was told and came back to the library.

“How would you like to be a duchess?” Hugo asked.

“Not at all,” she replied promptly. “Alresford?”

He nodded. “Consider for a minute, Chloe. Apart from the title, he’s young, good-looking, rich. Alresford Castle is one of the stateliest homes in the land. The mansion in Berkeley Square—”

“But I don’t want to marry him.” Chloe interrupted the catalogue of her suitor’s virtues with the simple statement.

Hugo sighed. “And you don’t want to marry Viscount Bartlett, or Charles Knightley, or the Earl of Ridgefield.”

“No,” Chloe agreed.

“I don’t think you realize, lass, that when you have practically every eligible bachelor in the ton at your feet, you have an obligation to accept one of their offers.”

“I don’t see why.”

“Because that’s the way Society works,” he said, losing patience. “You insisted on having a come-out so you could find a suitable husband, and now you reject anyone who has the temerity to offer for you. What do you want?”

You.
Chloe shook her head. “I’ll know when I find it.”

Hugo massaged his temples. “And in the meantime, you risk ruining your reputation with hoydenish excursions in the company of lads who have more money than sense.”

“At least they don’t pester me to marry them,” she said. “They’re not interested in marrying yet. And I’m enjoying myself. You told me I was to do so.”

“Don’t chop logic with me, young Chloe. These un-chaperoned expeditions have got to stop.”

“But you can’t expect Lady Smallwood to accompany me. She couldn’t possibly keep up.”

“I expect you to engage in the kind of activities at which your chaperone
can
keep up,” he declared. “I am very serious, Chloe.”

“Oh, very well,” she said. “May I go now? They’re waiting for me in the drawing room. We’re going to play charades, since we mayn’t go out.”

Hugo waved her away, shaking his head in defeat. At least a game of charades, however rowdy, could be supervised by his cousin.

But what of Denis DeLacy? The latest recruit to the ever-widening circle of admirers.

Taking his hat and cane, he left the house, walking briskly as he mulled over the situation. If DeLacy knew of the duel, then it was conceivable that he would tell Chloe. But why should he? There was no reason he should bear Hugo any grudge and nothing to be gained by such a revelation. He must have been a child of four or five at the time of Stephen’s death.

But what if he did tell Chloe?

Hugo walked faster down Bond Street. It was unthinkable that Chloe should hear from a stranger the story of her father’s death at the hands of her guardian … her lover. He had her absolute trust, and he would lose that—how could he help but lose it?

So should he tell her himself? Forestall any possibility of her hearing it from someone else? But he couldn’t endure the thought of laying bare such a story. He would have to tell her of the crypt … of the hideous ugliness of his early life. He couldn’t possibly sully her innocence with such a tale.

So how great was the danger she might hear it from someone else?

Jasper might tell her. Yes, he could imagine Jasper taking great pleasure in sowing such dissension and destroying
all trust between his young sister and the guardian he resented so deeply. But he could outmaneuver Jasper. There was no way Chloe was going to have anything to do with either her brother or his stepson.

Frowning, Hugo decided that a few well-placed questions should give him some idea of what young DeLacy knew. If he felt there was any danger, then he’d have to remove Chloe from the young man’s orbit.

That settled, he went through the doors into Jackson’s Saloon. Gentleman Jackson was supervising a couple of young bloods sparring, but left them and came over to greet the new arrival.

“Practice, Sir Hugo? Or do you fancy a bout?”

“If you’ll give me a couple of rounds, Jackson.”

“With pleasure, sir.”

Hugo went into the changing room, well aware of the honor done him by Jackson, who sparred only with those of his clients he considered sufficiently skilled.

Marcus Devlin wandered over to watch the bout. No mean exponent of the sport himself, he was impressed by Hugo Lattimer, who managed to score several hits on the master.

“How’s the beautiful philanthropist?” Marcus asked as they went together into the changing room afterward.

“Indomitable,” Hugo said. “But at the moment she’s making me feel old and tired. When I left, my house was filled with slavering young men playing charades.”

“No suitors in the offing?”

“She won’t have any of them,” he said ruefully, toweling his head.

“Come to Berkeley Square and share a bottle of burgundy,” Marcus suggested as they left the boxing saloon. “My wife might be able to suggest some stratagem to encourage Miss Gresham to the altar. She’s really taken to Chloe. That unconventional streak rather
strikes a chord.” He chuckled, remembering how Judith and her brother had cut a gleeful swath through the convention-ridden world of Society on both sides of the Channel. She’d certainly turned himself, a thoroughgoing stick-in-the-mud, away from the paths of strict righteousness.

Hugo accepted the invitation readily. Lady Carrington had stood a good friend to Chloe and, he suspected, was instrumental in smoothing the ruffled feathers of the highest sticklers when her unconventional ways drew censure.

To his surprise, he found Chloe and Lady Smallwood in Judith’s drawing room. True, she was surrounded by a circle of swains, including the three he’d left in his house, but there was nothing to take exception to. He greeted his ward with a brief smile and bent to kiss his hostess’s hand.

Judith smiled warmly at him and patted the seat beside her. There was something about him that she found immensely attractive. It was the little lines around his eyes, she thought, and the slight world-weariness of his countenance, as if he’d seen everything and done everything and found it all wanting.

Chloe watched Hugo covertly. He and Lady Carrington were engaged in the most blatant flirtation. She glanced up at the marquis, who seemed completely untroubled by the rapport between his wife and Sir Hugo, indeed was laughing with them over some scandalous on-dit that Judith had whispered into Hugo’s ear.

Chloe bit her lip, suddenly finding the conversation around her reduced to the inane chatter of a schoolroom. How could she ever hope to capture and keep Hugo’s attention when such a chasm of experience divided them? Of course he would find Judith Devlin irresistible. Several of Judith’s friends had joined the trio on the sofa, and to Chloe’s jaundiced eyes and ears, they
seemed to be enjoying themselves twice as well as the younger party around her.

She stood up abruptly and addressed her chaperone. “Are you ready to leave, ma’am?”

“Goodness me.” Lady Smallwood had been having a most interesting chat with Lady Isobel Henley over a plate of honey cakes and was startled at this abrupt question. “Do you wish to leave?”

“I should return to the house and see how Peg is,” she said, searching desperately for something that would make her abrupt departure less discourteous. “The baby’s due any day now, and I don’t believe Mrs. Herridge is an experienced midwife.”

“And you are, Miss Gresham?” inquired Marcus with a half-smile.

“Well, as to that, I’ve never delivered a human baby,” Chloe said, distracted from her discomfiture by this interesting issue. “But I’ve helped to deliver a calf and a foal and a litter of puppies, and of course Beatrice had six kittens, so—” She stopped, aware that the senior half of the room was in fits of laughter while the younger members of the group were staring in total disbelief.

“Why is it funny?”

Hugo took pity on her. “It’s not so much that it’s funny, lass,” he said. “It’s just rather unusual.”

“Oh, I see. Well, I must say good-bye, Lady Carrington. Thank you for the tea.” She bowed to her hostess, wondering if Hugo would decide to come back with her. But apart from rising courteously as she made her farewells, he made no move to take his own leave, although her circle of admirers leapt to their feet and made their own farewells to their hostess.

Judith accompanied her to the door. “Let me know if I can be of any help with your protégée, Chloe,” she said, kissing her cheek. “And don’t take any notice of their
laughter. They’re just overawed by your knowledge and don’t know how else to react.”

“I doubt that, ma’am, but I thank you for the kindness,” Chloe said with a half-smile of comprehension. She left in the company of her attendants and Lady Smallwood.

“She’s nowhere near as naive as she sometimes appears,” Judith observed softly, sitting beside Hugo again. “But I daresay you’ve noticed that.”

“I have,” he agreed with a dry smile. “It’s something she seems to be able to put on at will. The lass is very good at getting her own way without it seeming as if that’s what she’s doing.”

Chloe, if she’d heard this conversation, would have profoundly disagreed with Hugo. It didn’t seem as if in the only thing that mattered she was any closer to getting her own way. Hugo seemed to be his usual self, and yet increasingly he wasn’t. Something indefinable was missing from his manner toward her. That very particular attention she had come to expect and to rely upon was blunted, if not completely absent.

She tried various means to regain his attention. She flirted outrageously with all and sundry and drew only laughing approval. She went out alone and bought herself the most dashing and sophisticated walking dress she could find. Hugo had simply laughed and challenged her to wear it in Hyde Park during the fashionable hour of the promenade.

Laughter, she found, was a much more potent weapon than opposition. The dress remained in the armoire.

The only area in which she sensed his close attention was in her friendship with Denis DeLacy. It wasn’t obvious, but his eyes sharpened when Denis was in the house, and whenever she danced with him she could feel Hugo watching her. Was it that he realized she
found Denis more appealing than her other playful suitors? Did he sense another dimension to the relationship? It was certainly there; Denis was infinitely more amusing to be with—much more entertaining and sophisticated than the other cheerful young men at her feet.

Perhaps Hugo was disturbed by that extra dimension. Perhaps, despite his behavior, he was jealous. Of course he wouldn’t admit it … to her or to himself … but perhaps that was the explanation.

If it was, then all was not lost. With great deliberation she began to single Denis out for ever more marked partiality.

Hugo watched the growing intimacy closely and after a while decided that Denis couldn’t know the truth. If he did, he would have behaved differently in Hugo’s company. Instead of his habitual open, straightforward manner, he would surely have shown some deviousness, some shiftiness. He was far too young and inexperienced to be able to keep such a secret under Hugo’s skillful probing.

Having reached that conclusion, Hugo decided he had nothing to fear from the friendship, yet for some reason he remained uneasy.

“Y
OU ALWAYS SAID
you didn’t care for Almack’s,” Chloe said at the luncheon table when Hugo announced his intention of accompanying her to the Subscription Ball that evening.

“Oh, I don’t mind,” he said, carving a wafer-thin slice of ham. “Curiously, my memories of insipidity strike me as false. Perhaps my advanced years have softened me.” He smiled down the table at her. Chloe lowered her eyes to her plate and toyed with a morsel of chicken.