The Virtuous Cyprian Read online

  Lucille’s conscience, originally troubled by the impersonation of Susanna, had grown quiescent as nobody disturbed her peace. The memory of that dreadful night in the inn at Felixstowe had faded away. She now thought it quite possible that she had misheard the snatches of conversation that had led her to believe that the Earl of Seagrave would be in Dillingham, and mistakenly believed him to be the gentleman who had offered her his help. Certainly she had seen neither hide nor hair of him since her arrival.

  The other legacy of that evening had been the slow realisation of what an impersonation of Susanna might mean—the memory of the landlady’s prurient scorn and Sir Edwin’s lustful advances still made her shiver. That someone might think she was Susanna, and as such was fair game for such treatment, made her feel ill. In her innocence she had not even considered it before—ignorance, not innocence, she now chided herself bitterly. But while nobody called and she had no wish to go out, it was a matter that could be put to one side, if not ignored.

  The warm, southern aspect of Cookes’s drawing-room, with its delightful views across the lawn to the fishpond, had lulled Lucille into a sleepy state of relaxation that afternoon. Her copy of Walter Scott’s Waverley had slid from her hand as her head rested against the panelling and her eyes closed irresistibly in the sunshine. She had removed her reading glasses, which rested on the window-seat beside her, and had drifted into a light doze.

  The voice spoke again, this time with an inflection of impatience.

  ‘Miss Kellaway?’

  Lucille opened her eyes slowly, and thought that she was probably still dreaming. Eyes of the darkest bitter chocolate flecked with gold were about three inches away from her own. His face was all planes and angles, she thought, bemused, except for his mouth which, though firm, was sensuously curved and quite delicious…Her gaze lingered, transfixed, and then one of the pins holding her unaccustomed Grecian knot dug into her head painfully, and she realised she was awake.

  With growing horror, Lucille removed her gaze hastily from the man’s mouth and met the distinctly speculative look in those dark eyes. They were not friendly but piercingly appraising. He had been leaning on the seat beside her and now straightened up, moving away from her, and Lucille found to her relief that she could breathe again. She struggled upright, aware that the charming gown of rose pink crêpe—one of Susanna’s more restrained dresses—had slipped off her shoulder as she dozed, and was revealing the upper curves of her breasts in a manner to which she was completely unaccustomed. The gentleman, on the other hand, was clearly the sort of man who was used to seeing women in déshabillé. Certainly he was not in the least embarrassed by her obvious discomposure and his gaze lingered with blatant consideration in a way she found completely disconcerting.

  ‘Miss Kellaway?’ he said for a third time, with the same deceptive gentleness. ‘We have met before, but may I perhaps remind you? I am Nicholas, Earl of Seagrave and as such—’ his voice became heavily ironic ‘—your landlord.’

  Lucille already knew. She had recognised him almost at once. He was just as she remembered, only more so. He had a tall, athletic figure, immaculately clad in buff pantaloons and a coat of blue superfine, and the sort of brooding dark good looks that immediately made her feel completely out of her depth. It was the same voice that she remembered, mellow and distinctive. Fortunately he did not appear to have recognised her, but then, he thought she was her sister…Lucille jumped visibly. Oh Lord, Seagrave thought she was Susanna! The scorching heat which had suffused her body when she had first seen him faded abruptly to leave her feeling cold and shaken. She had to tell him at once! For a moment she wavered, within an inch of revealing her true identity. But he looked so authoritative, so forbidding, that her courage failed her. Surely, if she could just get rid of him quickly, he would not call again…

  She sat up straighter with what she hoped was a fair imitation of her sister’s elegance and tried to pull herself together. No doubt he already thought her a lackwit, first staring, then silent!

  ‘Lord Seagrave! Excuse me, I was not attending! How kind of you to call, sir. May I offer you some refreshment, perhaps? A glass of wine?’ Her attempt at Susanna’s husky drawl came out a little strangely. She sounded as though she had a sore throat.

  Seagrave’s gaze, coolly assessing, remained focused on her with disconcerting intentness. ‘No, thank you. This is not a social call, Miss Kellaway.’ He strode over to the fireplace and turned back to face her, awesomely in control.

  ‘When I first heard that you had moved into Dillingham I thought my informant must be in jest,’ he said conversationally. ‘You are hardly renowned for your interest in country living, are you, Miss Kellaway? I cannot see what conceivable attraction a house like this could hold for you. Why, it is not as though you even own it! Your position is tenuous, to say the least! You know, of course, that I can terminate the lease at any time?’

  Lucille did not know. Susanna’s brief instructions to her sister had not included any information on the lease on Cookes. Marshalling her scattered thoughts in the face of this sudden and unwelcome attack, Lucille tried desperately to work out how Susanna would deal with this situation. She plumped for a certainty.

  ‘Lud, is that so?’ She managed to sound quite careless. ‘You’ll understand, my lord, that I leave such matters to my man of business. But surely you are not about to evict me?’ She attempted a melting look at him through her eyelashes. Seagrave seemed totally unmoved. Evidently, Lucille thought, the business of flirtation was more difficult than she had imagined.

  ‘I prefer,’ Seagrave said, with scrupulous politeness, ‘that you see the error of your ways of your own accord, Miss Kellaway. I feel sure that when you have considered the matter, you will see that the country is not really the place for you. This house can hardly be to your taste, and the village…well, you will find it an uncomfortable place to live.’ There was no hint of a threat in his tone, but Lucille felt a shiver go through her. She knew he was trying to intimidate her. There was something powerfully compelling about that tall figure dominating her shabby drawing-room.

  She arched her eyebrows in delicate enquiry. ‘Whatever can you mean, my lord?’ Her tone was provocatively innocent. ‘This house is delightful and Dillingham appears to be a charming village!’

  Seagrave’s dark eyes narrowed momentarily. He had betrayed no temper or even irritation during their exchange, yet Lucille had the unnerving feeling that that was only because he was holding himself on a tight rein. Now he thrust his hands into his jacket pockets as if to restrain himself further, but his voice remained level.

  ‘It is indeed a delightful place, Miss Kellaway, but I doubt that you will find it so. Like many villages it can be insular and intolerant. You will find that the arrival of such a gaudy bird of paradise as yourself amongst the sparrows is not welcomed warmly.’ He frowned. ‘It puzzles me why you wish to bury yourself in the country in the first place. Are you escaping your creditors, perhaps? Or…’ his tone took on a sarcastic edge ‘…perhaps you have some quarry in your sights and feel that absence will make the heart grow fonder?’

  Susanna would almost certainly have used the opportunity to make a push to engage his interest. Lucille, however, momentarily forgot the part she was supposed to be playing and forgot to be afraid of him. How dare he treat her with such contemptuous disdain! ‘I’m sure you do not expect me to answer that, sir,’ she snapped, and almost immediately realised she had betrayed herself as his gaze sharpened on her with acute interest. He was too quick. She would have to be much more careful. Her gaze suddenly fell on the copy of Waverley, lying carelessly on the window-seat. Susanna would never even have had a book in the house, let alone appeared to read one. Would Seagrave know that? Would it be better to attempt to hide it, or just to ignore it? She suddenly realised that the Earl had asked her something else, and was waiting politely for her response. Her colour rose at his steady regard with its edge of scorn. She gave him Susanna’s dazzling smile.

/>   ‘I beg your pardon, sir?’

  ‘I said that you did not strike me as a lady who would enjoy social ostracism, Miss Kellaway,’ Seagrave was saying, with weary patience. ‘No one will call on you, everyone will cut you dead…Do you really want that? Do not tell me that you do not regard it, for I shall not believe you!’

  There was so much repressed violence in his tone that Lucille was suddenly frightened. He was taut with tension. Surely there was more to this than a simple desire to remove her from Cookes? But she was supposed to be Susanna, who would probably be less sensitive to the atmosphere and would no doubt have tried to flirt her way out of trouble. She tried a light, petulant shrug.

  ‘Lud, my lord, you’re monstrous serious! What does one small house matter to you? Or perhaps—’ she gave him a saucy look over her shoulder ‘—you have a more personal reason for wishing me off your property?’

  It was a shot in the dark but its effect was electric. Seagrave spun round and caught her wrist in a grip that hurt. Lucille looked up at him. His face was expressionless but there was a look in his eyes which chilled her.

  ‘I do, madam, and you know why! Oh, I have no opinion of how you choose to earn a living—I make no judgments. But I do not like you.’ He spoke through his teeth. ‘You had already brought enough trouble on my family before this latest escapade single-handedly sabotaged my betrothal! You are like a bird of ill omen rather than a bird of paradise!’

  Lucille felt her lips twitch at this colourful metaphor. She did not understand his allusion to Susanna’s previous entanglement with his family, but could see that he might be justifiably angry that her actions had resulted in a broken engagement. She tried to free her wrist and found herself held fast.

  ‘I am sorry to have unwittingly caused you trouble, sir—’

  ‘Unwittingly!’ For a moment his fingers tightened even more cruelly before he dropped her wrist as though he could not bear to touch her. His tone was savage. ‘There was nothing unwitting about your decision to claim this house, madam! Well, hear this! I shall do everything in my power to drive you out of Dillingham! You will be scorned and reviled at every turn! You will wish you had never come here!’

  The slamming of the front door behind him echoed through Lucille’s head, causing it to ache again. She rested it in her hands in despair. Oh, why had she not told him the truth when she had had the opportunity? To try to deceive such a man was a piece of complete folly! He was both too acute to be fooled for long, and too forceful to be manipulated with feminine wiles. Feminine wiles! Lucille grimaced. What did she know of such coquetry? Her attempt to impersonate Susanna had been hopeless and she detested the blend of sexual appraisal and contempt with which Seagrave, and no doubt many other men, contemplated her sister. Lucille groaned aloud.

  Seagrave…The blood was still singing through her veins from his touch, which was a singularly unhelpful reaction to him, she told herself sternly. It seemed that his slightest glance addled her wits, which was the last thing she needed when she had to have those wits about her! There was no accounting for it. No scientific theory could explain the peculiar mixture of breathlessness and excitement which possessed her in his presence. She had read about romance, of course, but had considered it to be ephemeral and often painful, not something she wished to experience. Then there was physical love, of course—she shuddered, remembering Sir Edwin’s licentious gaze and questing hands.

  Lucille sighed. She thought of the uncharacteristic excitement with which she had hurried to ask Miss Pym for leave from the school, and her pleased surprise when that good lady had cautiously agreed. Her anticipation at visiting Cookes had reached fever pitch by the time Susanna’s summons had arrived. On the day after the meeting at Felixstowe Lucille had rolled into Dillingham village in Susanna’s carriage. A bevy of small children had run alongside the coach, chattering and laughing, but their elders had stood silently on the roadside, watching as she passed by. In her ignorance, Lucille had not considered that significant until this day.

  But now…she was wearing borrowed plumes and impersonating a notorious woman who, if Seagrave was to be believed, was not at all welcome in the rural tranquillity of Dillingham. She did not doubt that Seagrave had meant every word he had said when he had threatened to drive her out of the village. Lucille sighed again. Why had she given into the cowardly impulse to play along with the masquerade when it would have been so much more sensible to tell him the truth? Now she really was starting to weave a tangled web through her deception!

  There was a tap at the door and Mrs Appleton stuck her head around it. Felicity Appleton had accompanied Susanna to Dillingham when she first claimed Cookes, in the hope, Mrs Appleton had said with a wry smile, that the presence of a reputable older woman might reassure the good villagers of Susanna’s own respectability. It had been an unsuccessful attempt. The small resident staff at Cookes had walked out in a spirit of righteous indignation as soon as their new employer had arrived, and from then onwards Mrs Appleton had had to run the house single-handedly.

  ‘I do apologise, Miss Kellaway,’ Mrs Appleton said now, her plump, motherly face creased with anxiety. ‘I tried to tell his lordship that you were not receiving, but he would not be gainsaid!’

  Lucille laughed at the thought of Mrs Appleton trying to deter the Earl from his visit. Nicholas Seagrave had hardly struck her as the sort of man to brook any opposition.

  ‘Pray do not concern yourself, Mrs Appleton! His lordship is very forceful, is he not!’

  ‘A man used to command,’ Mrs Appleton agreed with a twinkle in her eye. ‘I saw him a few times when I was on campaign in the Peninsula with my husband’s regiment. He was one of Wellington’s brightest officers, you know, and an inspirational leader of men!’

  Lucille already knew that Mrs Appleton was the widow of an army sergeant killed at Vittoria, though how this pillar of rectitude had fallen in with Susanna was another matter. Lucille had not pried into their connection, and was only grateful that she had both Mrs Appleton’s calm good sense and knowledge of fashion to call upon. The housekeeper had advised her on matters of dress and hairstyle with a patience which Susanna would never have shown, and the result had been surprising. Although Lucille would never achieve the high fashion of her sister, the simple elegance of her new appearance gave her an absurd pleasure that astonished her. She had never been concerned with her dress before, but then, she had not met the Earl of Seagrave before…She shook her head to drive the thought away.

  ‘Well, would that Seagrave had left his military manners behind in Spain!’ she said crossly, still smarting from the Earl’s arrogant attitude. ‘The man is overbearing to a fault!’

  Mrs Appleton laughed. ‘But prodigious attractive!’ she said shrewdly, and did not miss Lucille’s telltale blush. Her smile faded a little. ‘I must own myself vastly surprised to see him,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Your sister may have told you, Miss Kellaway, that Seagrave never spends time on his estates! I can only assume that the furore caused by Miss Susanna’s arrival here has brought him from London! She will be most disappointed to have missed him!’

  ‘A sorry business then, since I had no wish to meet him at all!’ Lucille said, with a sigh. It was a half-truth, for whilst Seagrave held a mysteriously strong attraction for her, she certainly had no wish for him to think her Susanna. ‘I realise now that I have been very naive about the whole situation!’ She continued wryly, ‘I truly believed that I would not need to meet anyone during my time here, and that Susanna would only be away a week or two.’

  Her worried blue eyes met Mrs Appleton’s kind brown ones. ‘You must have wondered, ma’am, how I could ever have lent myself to such a deception! I agreed on impulse, you see, wanting a change from a routine that was becoming irksome, and now I am well served for my folly! I do not mind admitting that I almost confessed the whole to Lord Seagrave, and would have done so had he not appeared so terrifying!’

  Mrs Appleton sat down, wiping her floury hands carefully o
n her apron. ‘Miss Susanna explained to me her concerns about the lease, and that she had persuaded you to come here to represent her interests whilst she was away.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘She told me that you were a…’ she hesitated, then smiled in a kindly fashion ‘…forgive me, a bluestocking, was her description of you! She said that you were looking for a rural idyll in which to walk and read! I must confess, Miss Kellaway, that I thought it a foolish scheme from the outset! How Miss Susanna ever thought that you could impersonate a courtesan, I cannot imagine! You may have had no notion of having to meet people here in Dillingham, but she has no excuse! She must always have known that there was a chance someone would seek her—you—out!’

  Lucille raised a hand in rueful protest. ‘Please do not exonerate me of blame entirely, Mrs Appleton! My conscience is happier if I admit to some responsibility! I may not be worldly, but I am not stupid. I should have guessed what might happen! Indeed,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘deep down I probably knew the risk I was taking, but I wanted to escape the school so much that I was prepared to do it!’

  There was a silence whilst both of them contemplated the situation. After a moment, Mrs Appleton spoke a little tentatively. ‘I suppose the Earl wants us out of Dillingham? I thought as much, for he has already begun a war of attrition! They will not serve me in the shops, Miss Kellaway, and some most unpleasant things are being said! I would counsel you not to go out into the village. Feeling is running very high!’

  Lucille stared at her in growing disbelief. Until that morning it had not occurred to her that the inhabitants of Dillingham would react so badly to her presence among them, but this was all far worse than she could have imagined. She knew that the local gentry would not have condescended to acknowledge Susanna, but that had not worried her as she had had no interest in mixing in rural society. This malicious campaign, though, was another matter again. To be starved out of the village seemed a horrid fate. Mrs Appleton, somewhat shamefacedly, was retrieving something from her apron pocket.