The Passionate Prude

by Elizabeth Thornton

  “And Armand’s affair with your sister had nothing to do with your decision to let him enlist?”

  His face darkened, but he said easily enough, “So that’s what you thought! It never ceases to amaze me how swift you are to think the worst. No. And the decision to enlist was his, not mine. You may defile me as you will for my attempt to blackmail you. That I deserve. But acquit me at least of wishing your brother ill.”

  She looked slightly shamefaced, and he continued more gently, “Good God, Deirdre, I think I have some excuse for doing everything in my power to give you the protection of my name. You, I know, will say I was only doing what suited me. Think again. No man wishes to be tied to a woman who hates him, or worse, is indifferent to him. I was thinking of your happiness as much as my own. Perhaps I was high-handed. Very well, I admit I was, if you say so. But only because the obstacles to overcoming your objections to me were as ridiculous as they were immovable. I knew that you loved me five years ago before I went to Spain. You look surprised. I assure you Deirdre, I knew. No woman ever responded to my kisses with such unpracticed though unwilling ardor. It inflamed me; captivated me; enslaved me. I thought I could easily overcome your resistance. But I didn’t understand the nature of the barriers between us.” He stretched and rose to his feet with feline grace, then went to stand at the open dormer window with his back to her. Deirdre remained on her knees, drinking in his lean muscled form and the glints of gold in his hair where the sun touched it.

  “Love is awful, isn’t it? When I first found you, I thought I was the luckiest man alive. But you, even loving me, thought I was like the dirt beneath your feet. So—I was a womanizer and a gambler, and all the other things you called me. What of it? It had nothing to do with us. Do you suppose I was happy with that sort of life? I was as miserable as hell! And lonely too, for all my boon companions.” He turned to look at her, and her eyes dropped under the blaze of his. “Your love could have made all the difference in the world to me, but you withheld it, for no damn good reason! And I, God help me, let you. When I found you again, things were exactly the same between us. I knew then that I would be a fool to let you go a second time. Your aunt explained something of your background to me. And I quizzed your friend, Serena. I knew that you would not be persuaded by logic or by your own heart. So, I stooped to other means—cheating, abduction, blackmail. Not very gentlemanly, I grant you, but I make no apology for what I did.”

  She heard the soft tread of his boots as he crossed the floor to her. He knelt down beside her and his long fingers clasped her chin and brought her head up. She raised her eyes to his and saw the bright laughter mocking her.

  “No, I make no apologies,” he repeated softly. “For you, my love, are very, very pregnant, and I am the happiest man in the world.”

  She tried to snatch his hand away, but he held her securely. A faint blush colored her complexion. “I am not very, very pregnant,” she protested. “Only two months. And I don’t see how you can tell. And furthermore, I don’t want to know how you can tell either,” she concluded hurriedly when she saw the devilish glint in his eyes.

  “Are you happy, love?”

  Something in his voice gave her pause. There was no change in either his expression or his posture, but there was a tension there that betrayed he was hanging on her words.

  “More than I deserve,” she said, and was rewarded for her honesty by being tumbled into his arms and pressed backward into the soft bed of hay.

  “Is that all you can think about?” she asked weakly when he began to disrobe her.

  He made no answer, but as very soon afterward it was all that Deirdre could think about as well, she decided wisely that the question had become irrelevant and did not press him for an answer.

  Dinner was not the unqualified success that Deirdre had hoped it would be. The undercurrents that eddied back and forth between various family members put a definite dampener on what ought to have been a joyful homecoming. Lady Caro and Armand had obviously had a falling-out and pointedly ignored each other. Armand and her husband exchanged wary glances like two dogs circling each other before a fight, and the Dowager and Rathbourne were at loggerheads within minutes of the first course being served. The burden of conversation fell on Deirdre and Guy Landron.

  The meal itself, as well as the service, was excellent, however, and Rathbourne commented on it.

  “Did you finally get rid of Mrs. Petrie?” he asked Deirdre as he savored a mouthful of baked turbot smothered in a smooth lobster sauce.

  “No. We are merely the beneficiaries of her attempts to persuade me that there is no need to hire a chef from London for our Tenants’ and Servants’ Ball.”

  Beecham entered with two footmen, and Rathbourne watched with veiled interest as they served the next course with a precision which was as welcome to him as it was unfamiliar.

  When the servants withdrew, Rathbourne looked down the length of the table at Deirdre and drawled, “I think I’ve divined your strategy. A Tenants’ and Servants’ Ball, you say? Doesn’t that come close to corrupting the innocent? And who, may I ask, is going to pay the shot for this Bacchanalian revelry? Dee, I’m shocked at your deviousness.”

  Mistaking the nature of this gentle cajolery, the Dowager interrupted her flow of small talk with Mr. Landron and, turning on her son, said in withering accents, “Hold your tongue, sir, if you cannot find anything good to say of the girl. You’ve been so much in petticoat company that your address begins to smack of the gutter. In the month that she has been here, Deirdre has done wonders at Belmont, and everyone knows it. If you had been home, as you ought to have been, instead of gallivanting all over Europe with those disreputable friends of yours, things might never have come to this sorry pass. Why, my gooddaughter has done more to see to my comfort and peace of mind than my own flesh and blood.”

  Visibly smarting under his mother’s staggering tirade, Rathbourne bristled, but his voice, when he spoke, betrayed no emotion. “Thank you. And now that you have vented your spleen on my character and comrades, perhaps you would be so kind as to tell me why a mere slip of a girl should accomplish in one month what you could not do in five years?”

  Deirdre and Armand exchanged a quick glance. His face showed only mild amusement, but his sister was deeply embarrassed. She felt like an eavesdropper and wished only to escape from a quarrel that would have been better conducted in private. She stole a quick glance at Landron and Caro. Both were pretending an inordinate interest in the food on the plate in front of them. She opened her mouth to make a comment, any comment about the dinner, the room, the weather, but the Dowager was before her.

  She sniffed and said in a voice that was tremulous with emotion. “The servants never paid me any mind. Why should they, when my own son made it very plain that I was only in his house on sufferance? I had no authority, and everyone knew it, from the girl who cleans out the grates to old Beecham, who never liked me even when your father was alive. Your instructions to me were that none of the older retainers were to be let go unless you authorized it. How could you authorize it when you were not here? Perhaps I was not as clever as Deirdre. I admit it. But I was here as seldom as possible. After I lost Andrew, I could not bear all the memories of the happier times we shared in Belmont.”

  As the Dowager spoke, a pall descended on the table, each person uncomfortably aware that he was intruding upon a private grief. It was Deirdre who broke the protracted silence.

  “Well, I hope you will recall those happier times, goodmother,” she said prosaically, “and share them with your grandchildren. It’s very likely that another Andrew will be running around this fortress in a year of two.” Then she added very gently, “You will be depriving him of his birthright if you deny him your memories, especially those of his namesake. Memories can be very comforting if you cherish the happy ones. And now,” she continued with forced brightness as her eyes traveled the arrested faces of the guests at her board, “shall we repair to the tapestry room to have coffee
and brandy? I refuse to relinquish my husband to the obligatory port on his first night home.”

  “Do you mean the library?” asked Rathbourne as he offered Deirdre his arm.

  “No, I mean the tapestry room. You’ll soon get the hang of it, Rathbourne. The servants did, and it’s made life so much easier. The library is the room with books in it; the tapestry room has tapestries hanging on the walls; the dining room—”

  “Don’t tell me. It’s the room where we dine.”

  “You’ve got it. Simple, isn’t it? It was so confusing to ask the servants to serve coffee in the library and have them deliver trays to the new library which used to be the old dining room, and if you said that you would see someone in the drawing room, Beecham might or might not show them into the tapestry room when you meant the blue saloon, and—”

  “Yes,” he interrupted with a laugh, “I get your drift. We Cavanaughs, from one generation to another, have changed rooms around to suit our own convenience. Somehow the old names stuck. I see how the servants might have taken advantage.”

  “Oh, not ‘might,’ Gareth. Did, unashamedly and invariably,” she responded with a twinkle.

  He smiled at her with a tenderness which made her heart constrict. “Do you know, I love your proprietary air? I am beginning to feel that I really belong to you at last. Now tell me what you think of Belmont.”

  As they slowly mounted the Great Hall staircase in retinue, Deirdre surreptitiously ran her fingers over the balustrade and was glad to note that not a trace of dust adhered to her fingers. Rathbourne’s keen eyes missed nothing. He grinned.

  “Well?” he demanded.

  “I found Belmont a bit daunting at first, like its master,” she confided archly. “But I intend to lick them both into shape.”

  “I hope you mean that literally,” he said in an undertone. “At least with respect to the master.” Deirdre colored and turned on him wrathfully. “I know,” he interposed. “Male crudity again. Better get used to it, Dee. I shall be as crude as I please.” He flicked her mischievously on her upturned nose. “You make the temptation irresistible, you know.”

  The remainder of the evening began only marginally more comfortably. Deirdre, now alert to the barbs which flew between mother and son, contrived to deflect each thrust before any irreparable damage could be done. She felt like a governess presiding over the nursery, and longed to knock their heads together. It was not in her power, however, and she was forced to resort to diplomacy, never one of her strong suits.

  She recognized the similarity of temperament and that unbending will which was common to both and which inevitably led to confrontation. Their history of bad feelings and cruel words, she knew, could not be easily overcome or forgiven. Roderick Ogilvie had told her that the estrangement had begun when Andrew, the younger son, had lost his life in the climbing accident in Scotland, but she could not believe that Rathbourne and his mother had ever been on terms of intimacy. It seemed to her, as she observed the thrust and parry of their verbal exchanges, that what was needed were some happy memories that they could both look back on with pleasure. She hoped she could find a way to provide some.

  Her eyes shifted to Lady Caro, and her heart sank. The chit was unashamedly flirting with Guy Landron. Nor was that provoking gentleman averse to playing her game. Armand’s dark eyes smoldered and his lips were set in a thin line.

  Deirdre went into action. She opened the card table and retrieved a pack of cards from a drawer. No sooner had she begun to shuffle them than she was joined, as she knew she would be, by her husband and her brother.

  “Sit down, Rathbourne,” she commanded. “These are cards I brought with me from Brussels. I’d like to see what you can do when everything is above board. Armand can look out for my interests and keep tally.”

  He chuckled and slid into the seat next to hers. “I could beat you blindfolded,” he challenged outrageously. Something caught his eye and his hand closed over the back of her wrist. He turned her arm over and his eyes traveled the ugly red scar which ran from elbow to armpit.

  “How did this come about?” he asked, and his eyes became alert when Deirdre and Armand exchanged wary glances.

  “It’s only a scratch,” she answered, and tried to pull her arm away.

  “Who did the embroidery?” His tone was casual—too casual by half for Deirdre’s comfort.

  To evade a straight answer was one thing, but Deirdre had no wish to begin her married life on lies and subterfuge. He would be angry, but she could weather that. “One of the army doctors at Waterloo. I forget his name. It’s a long story. I’ll tell you later when we are alone,” she said quietly.

  He let her go and picked up the cards she had dealt him. “What stakes do we play for?”

  Deirdre breathed more easily. “No stakes. The loser pays a forfeit. It’s more fun that way.”

  “What kind of forfeit?”

  “Heavens, I don’t know. Armand, what kind of forfeits did we pay when we were children?”

  “Horrid ones,” he said, and a grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. “You once made me kiss Farmer Sykes’s prize sow. For that peccadillo I got a beating from Papa.”

  “Nonsense!” said Deirdre unsympathetically. “You got the beating for rolling about in the pigsty in your Sunday best.”

  “Well, she wouldn’t hold still!”

  The game commenced and before very long the hilarity at the card table attracted the other members of the party. Soon everyone had joined in. The forfeits for the losers were chosen with a view to making them appear as ridiculous as possible. Deirdre and Mr. Landron, who were both known to be indifferent musicians, were made to sing one verse of “Greensleeves” in harmony, a labor which set everyone to groaning and covering their ears with their hands. Armand and Lady Caro, at Deirdre’s instigation, and with much prompting, were compelled to recite “The Lovesick Frog,” a ditty which lent itself to the substitution of the names of persons present, a circumstance which the young couple used to good effect, roasting everyone in turn. And the Dowager, who foolishly owned to lapsing into a childish lisp when she became excited, was made to twist her tongue around some piece of nonsense having to do with silly servants shining silver shoes in Simon’s sunny solarium. It brought the house down. Only Rathbourne, as the unbeaten champion, stood aloof from the absurd antics of his companions. It was Armand who remarked upon it with a look which Rathbourne immediately distrusted.

  “When we were children,” Armand reminded Deirdre, flicking a malevolent glance at his brother-in-law, “the winner was made to stand on the roof of the outside privy and shout, ‘I’m the king of the castle,’ and the losers had to bow down and chant ‘Amen! Amen! Amen!’”

  “Not a chance,” Rathbourne interjected, and he shifted uneasily under the hard stares of five pairs of interested eyes.

  “It’s Deirdre’s game, Gareth,” said his mother on her dignity. “She should decide what’s to become of you.”

  Everyone looked to Deirdre for direction. She walked slowly in a circle round the Earl as if deep in thought.

  “He can choose his own forfeit,” she said finally, and silenced the derisive hoots with a slight movement of her hand. “After all, when we were children, who didn’t want to stand on top of the privy and be king of the castle? Show us then, my Lord Rathbourne, what you are made of. Take your seats, ladies and gentlemen. And Gareth,” she added softly, “this had better be good.”

  They took their places, and all eyes turned expectantly upon the Earl. “Caro, ring for Beecham if you would be so kind,” he drawled, and negligently adjusted the lace at his sleeve. “Ah, Beecham, a glass of Drambuie, if you please.”

  Within minutes, a small crystal goblet filled to the brim with the amber liquid was tendered to the Earl on a spotless silver tray. He removed a linen handkerchief from his coat pocket and wrapped it round the stem of the glass. Beecham then lit a taper from one of the candles and brought it to his master. Rathbourne put the taper to the goblet,
and the heated Drambuie burst into flame. He put the fiery liquid to his lips and drank it back in one gulp, emptying the glass. He replaced the empty goblet on the tray and said affably, “Thank you, Beecham. That will be all.”

  He turned his saturnine countenance full face toward his open-mouthed audience. “It’s nothing, really,” he said with a deprecatory shrug of his broad shoulders. “I learned the trick at Oxford when I joined the Holy Grail Society, now defunct of course.”

  No one moved and he felt impelled to add, “It’s one of the initiation rites.”

  As the door closed on the departing butler, Landron got to his feet and raised his glass in a toast. “For he’s the king of the castle,” he intoned solemnly, and five awestruck voices chanted, “Amen! Amen! Amen!”

  Deirdre had little hope that her husband would forget about the scar on her arm, nor did he. They were undressing for bed when he asked her again to explain the cause of the injury she had suffered. Deirdre, though determined to make a clean breast of everything, began to describe the horror of the battle and its aftermath with an understatement which made the whole sorry episode sound ludicrous even to her own ears. It did not fool him for an instant. He asked a few terse questions which she answered evasively. When he pressed her, however, she concealed nothing. He was at first thunderstruck, and then he exploded with a white hot anger.

  “It was you who was seen going to Armand’s aid when he was attacked by lancers, wasn’t it?” he demanded furiously.

  She tried to placate him, but her calm assurances seemed only to invite him to a greater wrath.

  “Do you think I will permit my wife to endanger her life in that wanton fashion? You flaunted my express wishes! How dared you expose yourself to such peril? Of course, Armand! That explains everything!” He grabbed her by the arms and shook her roughly. “When are you going to allow that brother of yours to stand on his own two feet?” He threw her from him, and she fell against the bed. She made no move to rise, but remained on her knees, meekly accepting the chastisement she felt in some sort she had deserved.