Virtuous Cyprian Page 11

  ‘I must have been seven sorts of idiot not to have seen it from the first.’ The Earl of Seagrave frowned moodily down at his mud-spattered boots. He was sprawled in an armchair on one side of the fireplace, his long legs stretched out in front of him, whilst his brother, who had joined him at the Court a few days previously, had taken the chair opposite. It was almost full dark outside. Inside the room the lamps burned, turning the brandy in the balloon-shaped glasses to a rich amber glow.

  Peter Seagrave looked up from the draughtsboard. He had already won two games that evening, a circumstance which only occurred when the Earl was deeply preoccupied. Now, he sat back in his chair and viewed Seagrave with amusement.

  ‘You could scarcely be expected to have to contend with twins!’ he said, mildly.

  Seagrave looked up, impatiently pushing a hand through his disordered dark hair. ‘No, but it only needed a little thought! Josselyn had told me at the outset that there were two daughters—I just didn’t realise…’ He was shaking his head in patent disbelief. ‘And if you had met her, Peter—’ His eyes met those of his brother. ‘An innocent abroad! Devil take it, how could I have been such a fool! She was like a little girl dressed up in her big sister’s clothes—and her sister’s personality! She kept forgetting her part: good God, she knew who Bucephalus was; she was even reading Waverley!’ He finished on a note of total incredulity.

  Peter took a mouthful of brandy, savouring the taste. ‘The Cyprian and the bluestocking!’ he said thoughtfully. ‘So whilst Susanna Kellaway has been making a notorious living in London, her twin has been quietly teaching schoolgirls in Oakham! It’s an extraordinary idea! But can a woman who lends herself to such a masquerade be the innocent you seem to think her, Nick? Maybe she is really of the same stamp as Susanna Kellaway!’

  That went straight to the crux of the matter. Peter saw a flash of expression in his brother’s eyes, too quick to be read, before Seagrave said expressionlessly, ‘I think not, Peter. Miss Kellaway may be deceitful, but she is not experienced. I may have been taken in on all other matters, but on that I am convinced.’

  Peter raised his eyebrows. He considered Seagrave’s judgment to be sound, this latest incident notwithstanding. And he knew his brother well enough to suspect that he was not entirely indifferent to Miss Lucille Kellaway, which was very interesting. Why else this determination to believe her virtuous when all the evidence suggested, at the very least, a rather adaptable attitude towards right and wrong?

  ‘You seem very sure,’ he said coolly.

  ‘I am.’ Seagrave met his eyes directly. ‘I offered her carte blanche, Peter!’

  His brother almost choked. This was even more interesting! For Seagrave to have been so attracted to the woman he thought was Susanna Kellaway was remarkable! And since she had been proved to be no Cyprian, what now?

  ‘She refused you, I infer?’ he said, when he had recovered himself.

  ‘She did,’ Seagrave said, a little grimly. ‘In no uncertain terms! Miss Lucille Kellaway cannot be bought at any price!’

  ‘Then I wonder why she is playing such a trick,’ Peter mused quietly. ‘Do you intend to challenge her about it, Nick?’

  Seagrave shook his head slowly. There was a wicked glint in his eyes. ‘Not just yet! No, I shall play along with this masquerade and see what I can learn! Miss Kellaway deserves to be taught a lesson, Peter!’ He reached for his glass and raised it in silent toast. ‘It should provide some sport!’

  Chapter Five

  ‘You cannot really refuse to see him,’ Mrs Appleton said, in an agitated whisper. Her arms were full of hothouse flowers as she hovered in the bedroom doorway. Lucille stared at her, completely at a loss, her headache all but forgotten.

  ‘But Mrs Appleton, he cannot possibly expect to come up to my bedroom—’

  ‘When I told him that you had a sick headache and were resting, he assured me that he knew just the cure, and I do not imagine that he was referring to Dr James’ Antimonial Powders!’ the housekeeper said, grimly. ‘Now we are undone, Miss Kellaway! If the Earl of Seagrave is intent on setting you up as his mistress—’

  ‘I must get up at once,’ Lucille said, throwing back the covers only to dive back under them again in horror, as she heard the sound of footsteps on the stair. Her horrified gaze met Mrs Appleton’s. ‘Oh no, he would not—’ she began, breaking off as the Earl of Seagrave himself strolled casually into the bedroom as though he was accustomed to being there every day. He perched on the end of the bed, one booted foot swinging, and viewed Mrs Appleton’s outraged consternation with amusement.

  ‘Go and put those flowers in water, ma’am, and leave me to cure Miss Kellaway! I know you are reputed to be a dragon of respectability, but Miss Kellaway is, after all, accustomed to receiving gentlemen in her bedchamber and does not need your chaperonage!’ The wicked dark gaze swung back to Lucille, who was shrinking as far beneath the bedclothes as she was able. ‘Come, my dear! Such modesty! I am persuaded that you will soon be much more comfortable with me when we are intimate together!’

  ‘My lord!’ Mrs Appleton was doing her best. ‘Miss Kellaway really is very unwell today! Perhaps it would be better—’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Seagrave said bracingly, his assessing gaze resting warmly on Lucille’s flushed face. ‘A fit of the blue devils, that is all! Perhaps I could take you for a drive later, Miss Kellaway—the fresh air will do you good! But first, we have a small matter to discuss, do we not?’

  ‘I do not understand your lordship.’ Lucille’s voice, very small, came muffled from even further beneath the blankets. ‘It was my belief that we had no more to say to each other and I would be obliged if you would leave immediately!’

  ‘A lovers’ tiff, perhaps!’ Seagrave shrugged casually. He gave Mrs Appleton a conspiratorial smile. ‘The necklace was a little paltry, I’ll own, but it was the best that a provincial jeweller could muster! Miss Kellaway was quite right to draw my attention to its deficiencies!’ He turned back to Lucille. ‘I will make up for it, I swear!’

  There was an outraged squeak from beneath the covers. Seagrave’s smile grew. He got up and strolled towards the window, admiring the view across the orchards to the open country beyond. ‘This is a charming house, and most conveniently placed for our liaison,’ he observed thoughtfully. He turned to consider the room. ‘The bed is perhaps a trifle small, but we shall see!’ He raised his eyebrows questioningly as Lucille’s red, outraged face appeared.

  ‘I wish that you would go and leave me alone! At once!’ Lucille had abandoned finesse in her anxiety to be rid of him. She was thoroughly confused by this ludicrously out-of-character behaviour on Seagrave’s part, this burlesque, but she was so much at a disadvantage that all she wanted to do was make him go away. Now was not the moment to challenge him on his behaviour, when she was half-naked and he had that particularly mischievous look in his eye.

  Surely, she thought in horrified disbelief, he could not have misread their encounter of the previous day so profoundly as to believe that it was an attempt on her part to exact a higher price from him? He was far too astute to believe that! But Seagrave was sitting back down on the bed, far too close for comfort, and Lucille abandoned her attempt to puzzle out his motives given the overwhelming need to preserve her own modesty.

  ‘I feel sick,’ she said plaintively. ‘No!’ It came out as a small shriek as she realised that Mrs Appleton was about to hurry off to fetch a bowl. ‘Do not leave me, dear ma’am! I shall be quite better directly!’

  ‘That’s the spirit!’ Seagrave said approvingly, patting her thigh through the blankets. ‘I have been thinking,’ he added reflectively, ‘that it might be a good idea for you to invite your sister to spend some time with you here! It might improve your humour and also give her the opportunity of a change of scene. What do you think, Susanna?’

  Lucille did not know what to think. She had never seen him in so carefree a mood. And for him to suggest that she should invite herself to visit Cookes…Sh
e gave a faint moan. Seagrave took her hand comfortingly.

  ‘Well, perhaps not. If we are to be spending a great deal of time together it would not be convenient…and no doubt she is one of those tiresomely puritanical and dry spinsters who thinks of nothing but her books!’ He stood up, stretching with a lithe movement that drew Lucille’s attention to his rippling muscles. She looked hastily away, the colour flooding her face again.

  ‘I will leave you to recover,’ Seagrave was saying, the devils dancing in his eyes. ‘But do not keep me waiting long to taste your delights, Susanna!’ He leant forward and placed a lingering kiss on Lucille’s round, outraged mouth. ‘That cambric nightgown will have to go,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘It is far too concealing!’

  ‘He knows the truth!’ Lucille averred, her face no longer red with affront but ashen pale. As soon as her unwanted visitor had left she had thrown back the covers and leapt out of bed, her headache quite forgotten. She paced the room in her reviled nightdress, thankful only that it was as all-concealing as Seagrave had said.

  Mrs Appleton put down the flowers she was still clutching and sat down on the end of the bed.

  ‘I agree it was most singular behaviour,’ she said worriedly. ‘Are you sure that there was nothing in your conversation yesterday, Miss Kellaway, that might have led him to believe—?’

  Lucille shook her head stubbornly, wrapping her arms about her for comfort. ‘At first I wondered, but as an explanation it will not serve. No, he has somehow divined the truth and is intent on making me suffer! I know it!’ she finished fiercely. ‘Seagrave would never normally behave thus! It was a parody, a caricature! Oh, that I had never started this! I must go away at once!’

  She stared blindly out of the window. As soon as the idea that Seagrave might know the truth had taken hold, Lucille was convinced that it was the right one. Not only did it explain his ridiculous behaviour, but some deeper instinct told her that he knew; that he was making a game of her as small recompense for what she had done.

  The idea threw her into a panic. What would his next step be? To attempt wholesale seduction, perhaps, still pretending that he thought she was Susanna? And she had only two alternatives—to play along with the charade, or to tell him the truth. Three alternatives, she corrected herself. She had been intending to leave on the morrow—why not now instead? She started to pull her half-filled trunk from under the bed, only to be stayed by Mrs Appleton’s calm voice.

  ‘Forgive me, Miss Kellaway, but is this hasty departure really the best thing to do? In the first place, Seagrave is quite capable of stopping you if he really wanted to, and John has the wheel off the carriage, as he did not think you would be going until tomorrow!’

  Seeing Lucille’s look of despair, she came across and laid a comforting hand on her arm. ‘Do nothing precipitate,’ she counselled in kindly fashion. ‘Think about whether you wish to tell him the truth, and if you decide that you cannot, go tomorrow, as you had intended.’

  Lucille nodded slowly. Her emotions were so jumbled that all she could think of was her overwhelming need to escape. ‘But it must be tomorrow,’ she said miserably. ‘I have to go! Nothing must stop me!’

  A sudden and violent summer storm kept Lucille indoors that afternoon, and she tried to while away the hours with a copy of Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa Harlowe, which she had found on one of her father’s bookshelves. It had proved quite impossible to concentrate, for her mind was occupied solely by the thought of the Earl, and fruitless speculation on how he could have realised her impersonation, and what he intended to do about it. She felt as though her customary good sense had completely deserted her, leaving her feeling hopelessly vulnerable.

  The late morning had brought another huge bunch of flowers, this time from Charles Farrant, and a note expressing the hope that he might call upon her the following day. As Lucille planned to start her journey back to Oakham at first light, she knew this was not possible and felt a vague regret. She would have liked to have had the opportunity to thank him properly for his assistance. Charles Farrant had none of Seagrave’s dash and brilliance, but he also lacked the Earl’s arrogance and was, Lucille told herself severely, a very pleasant gentleman. Unfortunately, that seemed to weigh little with her. Lucille gave a little despairing sigh.

  The thunder was retreating by the time four o’clock struck, and Mrs Appleton had just brought in some afternoon tea and cakes, when there was the sound of carriage wheels on the gravel outside, and a sudden and imperative knock on the front door. Lucille put her book down quickly, wondering if Susanna could have chosen this moment to return at last, but a moment later she heard a man’s voice, followed swiftly by an exclamation from Mrs Appleton. Lucille hurried across to the drawing-room door and out into the hall.

  The scene that met her gaze was a startling one. The gentleman in the hall was sufficiently like the Earl of Seagrave to make identification immediate, and to make Lucille’s heart turn over, but he was more slender than his brother and had an open, youthful, boyish look that was very appealing. He carried in his arms a very slight young lady who appeared to have fainted. Her face was very pale and her soaking wet curls just brushed his chin as he held her with her head resting against his shoulder. Her clothing, the demure sprigged muslin gown of a schoolroom miss under her cloak, was also drenched and dripping onto the floor. She did not stir at all. In complete astonishment, Lucille recognised her to be Henrietta Markham, her adoptive sister.

  ‘Hetty! Good God!’ Lucille forgot her own preoccupations and hurried forward. ‘Whatever can have happened?’

  Mrs Appleton turned to her. ‘This gentleman—the Honourable Peter Seagrave—says that he found the young lady on the road from Woodbridge, madam. She must have been caught in the thunderstorm. Shall I prepare a bedroom, ma’am? She looks as though she may have taken a chill!’

  ‘We will put her in my room, I think, Mrs Appleton.’ Lucille touched Hetty’s cold cheek tentatively. ‘Could you prepare a hot posset whilst I show this gentleman the way? Oh, and please bring some smelling salts if you can find any!’ Lucille turned to Peter Seagrave. ‘If you would be so good as to carry her upstairs, sir? I will show you to the room.’

  Peter carried Hetty up Cookes’s sweeping stairway and put her down very gently on Lucille’s bed. He stood back, looking down at her with an anxiety that drew Lucille’s attention even though her main concern was to try to rouse her sister. She sat down on the side of the bed and took Hetty’s cold hands in hers.

  ‘Hetty? Wake up, my love! You are quite safe!’ She looked up at Peter. ‘She was not injured when you found her, was she, sir?’

  He heard the fear in her voice and was quick to reassure her.

  ‘No, ma’am. Miss Markham was wet and tired, and I believe she had not eaten for some time, but she was not injured.’

  At the sound of his voice, Hetty stirred. Her eyelids fluttered, then lifted.

  ‘Lucille! Oh, thank goodness!’ Her voice was a thread of a whisper and it caught on a sob. ‘I was so afraid that I was wrong and I would not find you here…’ Her gaze went past Lucille to Peter Seagrave and a little colour came into her cheeks. She struggled to sit up. Lucille pressed her back firmly against the pillows.

  ‘You had better rest now, my love. Mrs Appleton will come up to help you. Can you manage a little food?’ Then, seeing that Hetty’s gaze was still riveted on Peter, she said: ‘I will say all that is proper to Mr Seagrave. Perhaps, sir—’

  Peter Seagrave took the hint. ‘I will wait for you downstairs, Miss Kellaway.’ The smile he gave Hetty had so much tenderness in it that Lucille blinked in shock. ‘I shall hope to see you again soon and in better health, Miss Markham,’ he said, and reluctantly made for the door.

  Thirty minutes later, Hetty had been washed, fed and put to bed wearing one of Lucille’s nightdresses. Lucille went slowly back downstairs to find Peter Seagrave standing by the drawing-room window, his hands deep in his pockets as he gazed out across the wilderness garden. He tu
rned swiftly at her entrance.

  ‘Miss Kellaway! Will Miss Markham be all right?’

  Lucille smiled reassuringly. ‘With a little rest and some care I am sure she will be perfectly all right, sir! And I have not yet had a chance to thank you for bringing her to us—I cannot bear to think what might have happened had you not rescued her!’

  She took a seat, and gestured to him to do the same. ‘Did Hetty explain how she came to be wandering so far from home? I did not like to press her just now, but I am rather concerned…’

  Peter Seagrave’s warm brown eyes rested on her thoughtfully. ‘I cannot throw much light on the circumstances, I fear, ma’am! I found Miss Markham on the Dillingham road just outside Woodbridge. At first she would not consent to speak to me…’ a reminiscent smile touched his lips ‘…for she claimed she had no need of help from strange gentlemen, although a more bedraggled and woebegone sight would have been difficult to find! Eventually I persuaded her to let me take her up, and she unbent sufficiently to confide that she had run away from home and was seeking out a relative with whom she hoped to find shelter.’

  Peter got to his feet again restlessly, moving back to the window. ‘Miss Kellaway, there is no easy way for me to say this. When Miss Markham told me that she was seeking Miss Kellaway of Cookes, I was horrified. I was convinced she must be mistaken, but she was adamant. Good God, an innocent like Miss Markham asking to be escorted to the house of a notorious Cyprian! At first I thought I had mistaken Miss Markham’s quality, but it only takes one look to ascertain that she is a schoolroom miss!’ He turned back to look at her, a deep frown on his brow. ‘I knew Miss Markham’s reputation was compromised the moment she was over this threshold, but I had no choice! I could not take her to Dillingham Court with only myself and my brother there and I did not know of anyone else nearby who could give her shelter. But devil take it, I cannot stand by and see her ruined by association with—’ He broke off. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said with constraint.