The Virtuous Cyprian Read online

  Lucille was silent, thinking of the bleak future she had mapped out for herself by comparison. It seemed that her release would come sooner than she had realised. ‘I am so very glad for Hetty,’ she said sincerely, deploring the self-pity she could not help feeling.

  ‘And what about you, Miss Kellaway?’ Seagrave asked softly. ‘What plans do you have?’

  He was too quick, Lucille thought resentfully. Perhaps having the Earl of Seagrave’s undivided attention was not such a good thing after all.

  ‘Now that I know Hetty is settled suitably I shall go back to Oakham,’ Lucille said, expressionlessly. ‘Once I am back at the school I shall have time to decide what to do in the future.’

  ‘The school, yes…’ Seagrave sounded thoughtful. ‘How different can two sisters be, I wonder? You are evidently both well-read and enthusiastic about learning, and whilst I can claim only the barest acquaintance with Susanna, I do remember hearing her say she would rather die than read a book, an over-exaggeration which no doubt accounts for why I remember it!’ He turned sideways to look at Lucille, whose clear profile was etched against the darker sky. ‘Miss Kellaway, when you were pretending to be your sister, how much of what you said was true?’

  Lucille hesitated. Though he had spoken casually, she sensed somehow that this was a very important question. Her impersonation of Susanna had never been mentioned between them since the day the Dowager Countess had come to Dillingham. On Lucille’s part this was because she had no wish to expose herself to Seagrave’s scorn and denunciation once again, and she had assumed that he had not spoken to her of it because he deplored the whole episode. It was an uncomfortable issue which lay between them, only partially resolved, and added to the barriers which kept him remote and her unhappy. But now he was actually asking her…

  She fidgeted with the edge of the rug, unable to meet his eyes. ‘Oh, most of it was nonsense, my lord! I do not know Susanna well enough to know what her opinions would be on most things, so I made them up! I imagine that I was in danger of creating a most ridiculous caricature! And…’ her voice took on a desperate edge ‘…the deeper I got, the more guilty I felt. I was on the point of abandoning the whole sorry charade and going back to Oakham on the very day that Hetty arrived and put a spoke in my wheel!’

  ‘Your assumptions about Susanna’s opinions were quite accurate, I believe,’ Seagrave said. It was too dark to see his expression, or tell what he had made of her words. ‘But it must have been difficult, when your own thoughts and tastes are so well established.’ His voice took on a reflective quality. ‘I cannot believe that it took me so long to realise! I knew Susanna hated reading, yet you left your novels lying about the place, and a fine variety of them there were too! I knew she hated walking and travelled everywhere in her carriage, yet I found you out walking on more than one occasion! And when we talked you would step out of your part every so often when you forgot yourself! You do not even really look like Susanna, since you evidently refused to lard yourself with cosmetics, or drench yourself in chypre!’

  ‘No,’ Lucille said slowly. ‘I would have expected that anyone who knew Susanna really well would quickly see through the masquerade for the sham it was! That was why I was so grateful that you got rid of the Comte De Vigny so quickly, my lord! That, and—’ She stopped, colouring up.

  ‘That and his distressing inclination to refer to your sister’s undoubted talents between the sheets!’ Seagrave finished drily. ‘Yes, you were most shaken by that, were you not, Miss Kellaway! The penalty for deception?’

  ‘If that were the only penalty, then I would consider myself to have been let off lightly, sir,’ Lucille said, subdued. ‘To lose—or never gain—the good opinion of those one respects—that is of more serious consequence!’

  ‘If you value such things, that must be true,’ Seagrave agreed, pensively. ‘Not everyone would believe that it mattered. But how important is that to you, Miss Kellaway?’

  Lucille felt as though she were suffocating. There seemed to be a great lump wedged in her throat. She had said nothing of any stronger feelings—she knew she could never have his love. But just to know that he liked her a little, respected her even…would that not be enough?

  ‘It means a very great deal to me, my lord.’ In her desperation she dared more than she would have thought possible. ‘Through my own folly I have forfeited the right to your respect, and when this whole sorry episode is just a memory that knowledge will stay with me forever!’

  There was a silence.

  ‘It must have been difficult for you to remain at Dillingham for Miss Markham’s sake, when all you must have wanted to do was escape,’ Seagrave observed. Lucille cursed the darkness and his own inscrutability, which made it impossible for her to judge his response to her words.

  ‘It was.’ Lucille knew there was still a raw edge to her voice and suddenly wished she had never started this painful soul-baring. It was too humiliating. If he were to say something cutting after all she had revealed, she would probably run away down the hill in tears.

  ‘You explained to me at the time what had prompted your actions,’ Seagrave said, still in that same contemplative tone. ‘Let me tell you something, Miss Kellaway. I was never proud of some of the things I had to do whilst on campaign with Wellington. I saw some hideous atrocities, and was obliged to take some actions which would haunt any man. Such experiences change people, and when I was invalided out I was profoundly glad.

  ‘Imagine, then, my horror on discovering that I could not simply adapt back to civilian life! I missed the uncertainty, the challenge, the excitement of the army. I was deeply bored.’

  He shifted slightly. ‘I ran through every pleasure that life in Town had to offer! Women, gambling, any dangerous sport, and the more hazardous the better! I was a fool, and I was able to indulge that folly because I had the means to do it.’

  His voice took on the same bitterness that Lucille had heard that evening in the churchyard. ‘Poor Harry Marchnight is pilloried for one youthful indiscretion, and yet I revelled in every kind of reckless behaviour and it was all forgiven me because I was a supposed hero! The more I tried to tarnish the image, the more people indulged me. And after a year of foolishness, during which I lost more money and trifled with more women than I care to remember, I was challenged to a duel by one outraged husband, and let him shoot me because I could not be bothered to defend myself and knew in my heart that I deserved it! Such madness eclipses anything that your boredom could ever have driven you to, Miss Kellaway, so let us hear no more of that!

  ‘And the worst of it is,’ Seagrave finished savagely, ‘that when this temporary madness had gone, I found I still cared little, felt nothing! Oh, I care for my family, perhaps, for I owe them a great deal, but my estates, my responsibilities, the lady to whom I was betrothed…they meant nothing to me! I am still uncertain whether anything ever will!’

  Lucille was silent. All words seemed inadequate, platitudes he must have heard from well-meaning friends a hundred times. She remembered Polly confiding in her how much the War had changed Seagrave, and how Henry Marchnight had said how sorry his friends were to see this remoteness in him.

  Instinctively, impulsively, prompted only by the love and concern she felt, she reached out a hand and touched the back of his in a gesture of comfort. She was about to draw back, appalled at her own effrontery, when his fingers closed over hers, warm and reassuringly alive after all that he had said.

  ‘The stars are coming out, Miss Kellaway,’ Seagrave said a little huskily, pulling her closer.

  It was true. Engrossed in their conversation, Lucille had not realised that the sky had turned a deep velvet blue and that the first stars were shining far above them. The sky was clear but for a few scattered clouds, and the new sickle moon swooped low over the wood. The owls were calling again. It was a beautiful night.

  She got to her feet a little stiffly, helped by Seagrave’s hand under her elbow. He was standing very close to her.

&nbs
p; ‘Where is this comet to be found, Miss Kellaway?’

  ‘In the constellation of Cassiopeia, sir,’ Lucille said, as briskly as she could. ‘There…above the point of the central star. Why, I can see it even without the aid of the telescope! How beautiful!’ She raised the telescope to study that smudgy pinpoint of light. ‘Why, it has a tail rather like one of your tropical fish, my lord! Only look—’

  Excitedly she passed him the telescope and waited whilst Seagrave focused on the heavens. After a while he sighed. ‘It is…quite awesome, is it not, Miss Kellaway? And all those stars—how very humbling!’

  The breeze rustled in the woods behind them. Some small creature of the night scattered away through the undergrowth. Lucille shivered. There was a strange timeless quality about the night as though it were not really happening.

  ‘Are you cold, Miss Kellaway?’ Seagrave turned to her. ‘Would you like to go back?’

  ‘No!’ Lucille saw him smile in the moonlight and added hastily, ‘That is, it is such a beautiful night, my lord, that I did not wish to go back inside immediately, but—’

  ‘But you must not get cold,’ Seagrave observed. ‘Here, take my coat!’

  He draped it around her shoulders. It smelled of the fresh air and a faint cologne, and whatever that indefinable smell was that was the essence of Nicholas Seagrave himself. Lucille breathed it in and felt herself go weak at the knees.

  ‘Oh, no!’ She realised how husky her voice sounded. ‘You will be cold yourself, my lord! Please—I have my coat—’

  ‘And I have my jacket, Miss Kellaway, and will do very well with that.’ Seagrave stooped to pick up the rug and the basket. ‘Come, I will show you the lake in the moonlight. It should look very pretty.’

  They went slowly down the hill to the stile. As Lucille stepped over the top bar, Seagrave picked her up as he had before, but this time he did not swing her down to the ground, but let her slide slowly down against him. When her feet touched the ground he did not let her go. Lucille’s heart started to hammer. A most delicious, terrifying anticipation was causing butterflies in her stomach.

  ‘I have tried,’ Seagrave said, with a note of exasperation in his voice, ‘God knows, I really have tried to behave with circumspection, Miss Kellaway! But it is impossible—’ He put a hand under her chin and turned her face up to his. ‘Lucille,’ he said softly, consideringly. His fingers traced the line of her jaw with the gentlest of touches before he bent his head to kiss her.

  The flash flood of desire swept through Lucille immediately, as though it had only been waiting for this moment and all her attempts to deny it had been in vain. She could feel the heat of Seagrave’s body, feel the racing of his heart against her hand, where her palm rested against his shirt. She slid her arms around him, and heard him groan against her mouth.

  ‘Lucille…’ he said again, gently, caressingly, his breath stirring her hair. ‘Who would have thought…?’

  Lucille’s senses were full of the scent of his skin. She ran her fingers into the thick dark hair at the nape of his neck, and drew his mouth back down to hers. His arms tightened about her. Then she remembered their encounter in the wood, her heated response to him, the danger she was in from her own wayward senses, and she drew back slightly.

  ‘Don’t be afraid…’ Seagrave murmured, his lips touching the hollow at the base of her throat.

  ‘Last time…’ Lucille said, uncertainly.

  ‘I know.’ He sounded as though he really did understand. ‘But this is different, Lucille. It will never be like that again, I promise.’

  ‘Oh…’ It was more a sigh than a word, and Lucille heard the betraying note of disappointment in her own voice. So did Seagrave. He laughed softly.

  ‘Unless, perhaps, that is what you want. But that wasn’t what you meant, was it, Lucille?’

  It was so difficult to concentrate, Lucille found, when the brush of his lips against the tender skin of her neck was making her shiver from head to toe. Shiver, but with a consuming heat that burned into her soul.

  ‘I know you meant only to punish me.’

  ‘To start with there was something of that in it,’ Seagrave agreed softly, thoughtfully, ‘but I wanted you, Lucille. From the very first moment I saw you, I wanted you…’ His lips returned to hers again with a searching insistence that robbed her of all thought.

  Neither of them heard the approaching footsteps until the stranger was almost upon them in the darkness, and then the effect on Seagrave was electric. He pulled Lucille further back into the shadows, held hard against him, but this time it was his hand across her mouth that silenced her.

  ‘My lord! Are you there?’ The quiet whisper barely reached them. Swearing under his breath, Seagrave let Lucille go.

  ‘The devil! Jem, you scared me half to death!’

  ‘Sorry, sir.’ The man came out into the moonlight, and Lucille recognised him as one of the grooms at the Court. ‘But it’s past the time we said we’d meet, and there’s trouble over at Cookes, sir. Evening, ma’am,’ he added to Lucille, showing not the least surprise that she was there.

  The change in Seagrave was remarkable. Lucille was still in a dazed and dreamlike trance, but he had snapped back to reality without appearing to draw breath in between. ‘Right, Jem.’ His voice was hard and incisive. ‘You get back to Cookes and stay with Will—I’ll join you as soon as I’ve escorted Miss Kellaway back to the Court—’

  ‘Too late, sir!’ Jem turned to point to the hill behind them. ‘They’re coming this way. About twenty men, my lord, armed with pitchforks and scythes in the main, but in an ugly mood! Walter Mutch kept the weapons at Cookes—’

  Lucille woke up. ‘Cookes! But how—?’

  ‘There’s no time!’ Seagrave took her arm tightly. ‘Jem, get over to Martock Farm and warn them. I’d heard word that they would be heading that way sometime soon. Take the fastest horse—and don’t let them see you. I’ll send someone to call out the yeomanry and follow you over there. Now, Miss Kellaway—’

  ‘Sir!’ Jem’s urgent whisper cut across his words. ‘Look, there!’

  There were torches flaring at the top of the hill. The mob were making no secret of their approach. The tramp of feet echoed through the still night, a ragged rhythm with an undertone of violence. Voices were raised in angry clamour. Lucille saw with a shock that their faces were blackened, emphasising the bright, atavistic excitement in their eyes. She shrank back into the enveloping thickness of the bushes, pulled close against Seagrave’s body. The warmth and strength of his arms was reassuring, but she was still trembling with fear.

  The mob passed over the hill and the torchlight flickered and died behind them, the roar of voices fading away. The bushes rustled beside them and Jem was gone. Lucille and Seagrave stepped out onto the path. The moonlight was as bright but the night had lost all its magic. Lucille shivered convulsively in the cold breeze and folded her arms tight against her.

  ‘The Fen Tigers!’ she said in a choked whisper. ‘And you knew that they were connected with Cookes—’

  ‘I will tell you everything later, Lucille,’ Seagrave said in a tone which brooked no opposition. He had set off for the house at a fast pace, obliging her to run to keep up. ‘For now, you will oblige me by going back to the Court and not stirring a foot outside until I return!’

  Lucille clutched his arm. ‘You will not go to Martock Farm alone? The danger—’

  She saw Seagrave grin in the darkness. ‘Never fear for me! I have faced far worse than this!’ He gave her a brief, hard kiss and was gone.

  Chapter Eleven

  Lucille did not even try to read, but sat by the window in her room, looking out over the darkened gardens. Her mind was split; half of it was marvelling over the magical evening that she had spent with Seagrave and the precious, fragile rapport that seemed to be building between them, and the other was wrenched with fear for him. Every moment she spent with him only served to make her fall deeper in love, but Lucille had long given up trying
to explain her feelings to herself or to dismiss them. She knew now that the life she led at Miss Pym’s school, which had already begin to pall when she had come to Dillingham, could never be fulfilling again. She did not know if there was an alternative.

  A diversion to her thoughts was caused by the return of the rest of the family from Westwardene. Hetty knocked on the door on her way to bed, and regaled Lucille with a highly amusing account of the card party. Both Miss Ditton and Miss Elliott had been as mad as wet hens, she said, to discover that Seagrave was not of the party, and the odious Mr Ditton had declared himself desolated at Lucille’s absence. Yawning, Hetty had kissed her sister and gone off to bed, having extracted a promise from Lucille that she would join them on their visit to the ruins at Allingham Castle the following day.

  The minutes ticked past and Lucille dozed in her chair. She was just wondering whether Seagrave would wait until the morning to acquaint her with the events at Martock Farm, when there was a knock at the door. She opened it to find an impassive footman on the landing.

  ‘His lordship’s compliments, ma’am, and would you join him in the drawing-room.’

  There were no concessions to politeness: if she would be so good, if she were not too tired…A prickle of apprehension ran down Lucille’s spine. She looked at the man’s face, but he appeared quite blank. It seemed that none of Seagrave’s staff were going to question their master’s right to peremptorily summon one of his guests in the middle of the night.

  Her first view of Seagrave did nothing to allay her fears. He was standing before the fireplace, his arm stretched along the mantelpiece and one booted foot resting on the fender. There was a moody scowl on his face which even the dim, shadowed room could not disguise. It was almost impossible to equate this man with the one who had held her so tenderly in his arms only a few hours earlier. Lucille’s heart sank.

  ‘Sit down, Miss Kellaway.’ His tone was curt. ‘There are a couple of matters I wish to discuss with you. I regret that they cannot wait until the morning!’