Vixen (42 page)

“Persephone! Dear
God in heaven! What kind of a name is that for Some poor little bastard from the city stews?” Hugo exclaimed, immediately diverted from contemplation of Denis DeLacy’s reaction to adoptive parenthood.

Chloe’s mouth took a familiar stubborn turn. “I fail to
see why a bastard from the stews shouldn’t have a pretty name.”

“Hugo!” Lady Smallwood squeaked. “Oh, goodness me, whatever will she say next? If anyone should hear … oh, my poor heart, such palpitations.” She sank onto a chair, fumbling in her reticule for her smelling salts.

Unfortunately, Hugo caught Chloe’s eye, brimful of wicked merriment. Over her shoulder Samuel was grinning with unabashed amusement. Hugo developed a violent coughing fit as the only recourse.

“Well, I’ll go and fetch Persephone,” Chloe declared, regarding her convulsed guardian with feigned concern. “That is the most dreadful cough, Hugo.”

He pulled himself together. “Must it be Persephone?”

“Yes,” Chloe said simply, turning to the door. “And while I’m in the mews, I thought, perhaps, since it’s such a miserable night and he’ll be cold and lonely—”

“No,” Hugo said.

“But I promise I’ll keep him on the leash; he’s very good about it. And I’ll only let him in here. He and Dante like to play together and they can lie by the fire.”

“No.”

“Oh, Hugo, please.”

“Is she talking about that wild animal?” Lady Smallwood recovered from one set of palpitations and prepared for the next. “I will not … absolutely not stay under the same roof as a wild beast.”

“Oh, ma’am, he’ll only be in the library,” Chloe said. “There’s no reason why you should even see him.” She turned dark purple eyes on Hugo. “Demosthenes hasn’t been able to play with Dante all day because of the snow. And he’ll be so lonely.”

It was true that the massive brindle mongrel and the bear cub had developed some kind of rapport. It was
also true that the pair of them could reduce a room to ruin before a man could blink.

“No,” Hugo repeated.

“But I promise I’ll keep him on the leash. And if he won’t be quiet, then I’ll take him straight back to the stables.” Tearstains still tracked down the damask cheeks, her eyes were still tear-washed, that lovely soft mouth quivered in appeal.

Hugo wondered absently why he even bothered to begin a battle that experience told him he couldn’t possibly win. He’d forbidden the bear the house on innumerable occasions, but it didn’t seem to make the slightest difference. Demosthenes still came in.

Shaking his head in defeat, he bent to throw another log on the fire.

“Hugo, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that young DeLacy,” Lady Smallwood said, abruptly recovering from her palpitations as the door closed on a triumphant Chloe. “His attentions are most particular.”

“I had noticed.” Hugo turned to face his cousin. “And as far as I can gather, so has everyone else.”

“Chloe doesn’t appear to hold him in dislike,” his cousin said.

“That, if I may say so, is the understatement of the season, ma’am.”

“It’s a perfectly good match … not brilliant of course, and with that beauty and such a fortune, one would have hoped—”

“But as we both know, ma’am, Chloe refused the brilliant offers made her.”

“Yes.” Lady Smallwood touched her smelling salts to her nose. “It’s past time she settled down. All this nonsense with wild animals and waifs and strays … it really won’t do. It’s amazing that Society has tolerated her oddities this far. But I’m convinced that once she has
a husband and a house and a family of her own, then shell leave this willfulness behind.”

“I wouldn’t call it willfulness,” Hugo demurred. “But I take your point. What are you suggesting, Dolly?”.

“That you should ask DeLacy what his intentions are,” she said. “He must be brought to the point. The flirtation has gone on quite long enough, and Chloe has too little experience to know how to encourage the young man to speak up.”

If you only knew.
Hugo steepled his fingers and painted an expression of alert concentration on his face. “You think he needs a push?”

“Most certainly. I wouldn’t be doing my duty as chaperone if I didn’t give you my opinion. The child is very high-spirited and sometimes it leads her into … well, we won’t say anything about that … and one can’t help loving her nevertheless. I really would like to see her happily settled, and if this match is something she wants, then I think we must do all possible to promote it.”

“Your advice is as always most valuable, Dolly.”

The door burst open. Dante leapt excitedly into the room, sending the Turkey carpet skewing across the floor. He danced backward, barking in greeting as Demosthenes galloped at the end of his leash, hauling Chloe, a laughing but totally inadequate counterweight, behind him.

Lady Smallwood gave vent to a faint gasp and fled the room. Hugo sank onto the sofa and covered his head with a cushion. There was nothing like a quiet evening at home.

And when Chloe was happily married to Denis DeLacy, he’d never have to endure another.

“I
T’S NOT A VERY
pleasant day for a carriage ride, Denis.” Chloe’s nose wrinkled as she looked out of the drawing room window onto the slushy street.

“The sun’s shining,” he pointed out.

“After a fashion,” Chloe agreed. “But it’s so dirty.”

“Oh, come on, Chloe, it’s not like you to let a little mud stand in your way,” he cajoled. “We’ve all been captive within doors for three days because of the snowstorm, and now it’s clearing up so nicely, I feel I have to breathe some fresh air. We’ll go to Finchley Common and you can take the ribbons if you’d like.”

Chloe looked down at the equipage in the street. Denis was driving a pair of high-stepping grays. It was tempting, but if the truth were told, Denis was beginning to pall on her. He had a streak of sullenness that showed through his bonhomie and, while he was quick to agree when she commented on some sorry street scene or the plight of the poor, she sensed impatience beneath the smooth appearance of empathy. She was well aware that the act was to impress her and was beginning to feel guilty that she had led him on to believe in a partiality that she didn’t feel in the least. Oh, he was certainly more interesting company than most of the men of his age. He had more conversation, he had little time for the exuberant silliness of his peers, and she had never seen him the worse for drink; He viewed the drunken pranks of the others with a faint contempt with which she was completely in sympathy. Nevertheless, since their flirtation was having no effect on Hugo,
there seemed little point to it. But then, there seemed little point to anything these days, and moping around the house wouldn’t improve things.

“Very well,” she said listlessly. “But I have to change my dress.”

“Of course. I’ll wait for you.” Denis bowed, trying to conceal the flash of relief in his eyes. There had been a moment there when he thought she was going to refuse. And he had no wish to turn up empty-handed on Finchley Common. Sir Jasper was not a person to present with failure.

Hugo was coming up the stairs from the hall as Chloe came out of the drawing room. “Is that DeLacy’s curricle at the door?” He asked the question with the casual curiosity he’d managed to perfect.

Chloe flushed slightly. “Yes, he’s in the drawing room. We’re going for a drive, so I have to change my dress.”

“I see.” Hugo frowned, remembering his cousin’s advice. “You might wish to inform the young man that I expect him to request my permission before paying his addresses to my ward.”

“Why should you imagine he’s doing that?” Her flush deepened.

Hugo decided it was time to take the bull by the horns. “If he is not, lass, then I would certainly like to know what the devil’s going on,” he said sharply. “Either you bring DeLacy to the point, or I must. This shilly-shallying cannot continue … not if you intend to remain a member of Society. There’s too much talk already, and I’ll not stand by while you compromise your reputation with an intense flirtation that is going nowhere. Is that understood?”

He really wanted her to marry Denis DeLacy.
It had never been said so openly before, but there was no way of misconstruing such an ultimatum. She’d hung on to the belief that Hugo loved her although he wouldn’t
acknowledge it because of his irrelevant scruples. She’d thought she could overcome the scruples as she’d overcome everything else. Now the fight went out of her.

“I imagine Denis will wish to speak with you after our drive,” she said with careful deliberation.

“I see. Well, you may assure him he won’t meet with undue opposition, lass.”

He pinched her cheek and offered an affectionate smile before continuing on his way along the corridor, his heart heavy. But at least the long agony of this frustrating love affair was about to come to a close. He’d have only a few more months of endurance until he walked her up the aisle and handed her over to a man of her own kind with whom she’d live and love and have babies. …

Chloe stifled a sob of frustration and misery and ran up the stairs to her bedchamber. How could Hugo not feel the way she did?

But she knew how. She was too young and she was his ward. And now that even their constrained lovemaking had ceased, he had no occasion to see her in any other light. He didn’t care for her in that way anymore, and without that, what was there to build on?

Why had she ever insisted on this insane London scheme? Blinking back tears, she changed into her driving dress, then splashed cold water on her face from the ewer on the dresser. But she hadn’t known she was in love with Hugo Lattimer then. She’d been so immersed in her plans for the future and the excitement of the present that she hadn’t stopped to analyze her feelings. And now it was all dust and ashes.

So she would marry Denis DeLacy. It would be no worse a fate than any other, since she couldn’t have the only future that mattered.

She crammed a velvet bonnet on her head and adjusted the plume. It was not a hat she liked—it was too
small and insignificant—but Hugo had selected it with customary firmness. Soon he’d have no say in her wardrobe, or any other aspect of her life. She swallowed, trying vainly to dislodge the lump in her throat.

She went back to the drawing room. Denis was so relieved at getting her out of the house and into the curricle that he failed to observe her unusual pallor or her absentminded responses to his attempts at conversation.

He drove fast through the fashionable streets. Absorbed in her unhappy thoughts, Chloe didn’t notice at first how intently he was driving, or how he was pushing his horses. Only when they narrowly missed an oncoming coach on the approach to Primrose Hill did she jerk back to full awareness.

“Your horses are sweating,” she said in surprise. It was a cardinal sin for any halfway competent whip. She glanced at him and saw the set of his jaw, the tightness of his mouth.

“What’s the matter?”

He looked fully at her, and there was a light in his eye that sent a shiver of alarm through her. “Nothing, why should there be? Aren’t you enjoying the drive?”

“It’s colder than I thought it would be,” she said, trying to sound her usual self. “It’s very bad for your horses to push them so hard.”

“They’re my horses. I’ll be the judge,” he said coldly. One of the pair stumbled in a pothole. His whip curled and snapped, catching the animal’s ear.

“Don’t do that!” Chloe exclaimed even while she was trying to recover from the extraordinary coldness of his tone. “It wasn’t his fault. If you drove with more care, he wouldn’t have stumbled.”

Suddenly she knew that something was very wrong. But for the life of her she couldn’t imagine what. Except that Denis didn’t look like the man she thought she
knew and that strange, predatory light was in his eye again.

“Stop the curricle,” she demanded. “I want to get out.” They were almost on Finchley Common and there was little traffic on the filthy road and no pedestrians, but she knew with absolute certainty that she didn’t want to travel another inch in Denis DeLacy’s curricle.

He didn’t respond, except to crack the whip again so his horses surged forward onto the common with a final spurt.

The wind whipped across the snowy heath, bending the gnarled, leaf-bare trees and whistling through the sere brown bracken. The rutted road wound ahead, ice glittering in the hard, dry ridges, cracking under the pounding hooves.

Chloe shivered, dreadful apprehension prickling her scalp, lifting the fine hair on her arms. Then she saw the post-chaise up ahead, pulled to the side of the road under a stand of trees. A postilion, muffled to the ears in his cloak, stood beside the leaders.

The last time she’d seen a post-chaise waiting in such sinister fashion had been on the road to Manchester with Crispin. But on that occasion she’d been riding a swift horse and had her escape in her own hands.

“What’s happening?” Her voice was barely a whisper as the nameless dread crept up her spine. “Hell and the devil, Denis, what’s happening?”

Without answering, he drew rein as the curricle came abreast of the chaise. The horses panted and wheezed, sweat glistening on their glossy necks. Denis leapt down just as the postilion jumped into the curricle in his place.