Vixen v-2

by Jane Feather

  And where had Jasper been throughout all this? Had he made no attempt to involve himself in his baby half sister's future?

  "What about your brother?"

  "Jasper? Do you know him? I suppose you must, since you knew Mama." She frowned. "He never came to the dower house. I remember going up to the big house to play with Crispin, but that all stopped when I went to school. I haven't seen them for a long time. They weren't at Mama's funeral."

  Jasper's stepson, Crispin, was four years older than Chloe, Hugo remembered. He could understand, after what Jasper and his father had done to Elizabeth, why she would strive to keep her daughter away from the Gresham family. But he still wondered how she had managed it. What power had Elizabeth, a broken recluse, discovered? Could he have helped her? If he hadn't accepted her edict, could he have weaned her from the laudanum dependency that had been fairly well established at Stephen's death? Stephen had used the opiate to control his wife, and Elizabeth's hold on reality had been tenuous at best.

  The violent memories, the old questions, the eternal self-disgust, rose again, bitter and invincible. He closed his eyes, the smell of the crypt in his nostrils; a parade of disheveled women, wild-eyed with drink and excitement, crossed his internal vision. He felt again his own excitement, saw it again reflected in the eyes of his fellow players. It had been his life-this single-minded pursuit of the ultimate sensual pleasure. His life and that of the others, joined by blood and oath in a dissolute quest that destroyed all decency. Until Stephen Gresham and his son had entered a realm of pure evil…

  Chloe, watching his face, instinctively stepped backward toward the door. His face was a mask of anger, carved and immobile. He opened his eyes and she shuddered at their expression. They were the haunted eyes of a man who looked into hell.

  And then abruptly it was gone. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, then ran his hands through his hair, pushing it off his forehead. "So, why have you left the Misses Trent?"

  "They didn't want me there anymore."

  "Oh?" He raised his eyebrows in interrogation. She seemed to find the question uncomfortable, judging by her suddenly shifting feet.

  Chloe dug the other letter out of her pocket. "It was all because of Miss Anne's nephew," she said. "On top of the curate. I don't think it was my fault, but they seemed to think I'd led them on." This last was pronounced in accents that he assumed were an imitation of the Miss Trent in question. "Although I don't know how they could think such a thing," she said, aggrieved. "Anyway, I expect it's all in here." She thrust the letter at him.

  He was aware of her anxious scrutiny as he scanned the closely penned sheet. When he'd finished, he scrunched it up into a ball and tossed it toward the fireplace. "What a pretty picture. Reading between the lines of that poison, lass, one can only assume you're a Jezebel of the first water. A deceitful, designing, lying little flirt from whom no innocent young man is safe."

  Chloe flushed. "That's so unfair. I couldn't help it if the curate made moon eyes at me and dropped his cake on the floor and forgot his sermon in church."

  "No," Hugo agreed. "I'm sure you couldn't. However, again reading between the lines, I suspect the real mischief lies with Miss Anne's nephew."

  Chloe's expression changed to one of deep disgust. "That smarmy toad," she declared. "His hands were always wet and he had these horrible loose lips, and he tried to kiss me, as if I were a kitchen maid. He wanted to marry me! Can you imagine?"

  "Quite easily," Hugo murmured. "And how did Miss Anne view his suit." "She favored it," Chloe declared. Hardly surprising, Hugo thought. What aunt wouldn't want a fortune of eighty thousand pounds for her nephew?

  "But when I told her what I thought of Mr. Cedric Trent," Chloe continued, "she… well… she was horrid. Then she and Miss Emily said I was a bad influence on the other girls and they really couldnlt keep me any longer, although, of course, they were very sorry to send me away, as I'd only just been made an orphan, but I had to go for the good of the seminary. So they wrote to you, and since Miss Anstey was traveling in a post-chaise that Lady Colshot had paid for, it seemed convenient that she should bring me on her way to London." "I see." Poor brat. It was a story that revealed much more than the girl realized-a dark stretch of a lonely and unloved existence. Would it have been different if her father had not died in that crypt…?

  He thrust the thought from him and flung off the sheet, swinging his legs to the floor with an unusual surge of energy.

  The girl's eyes widened; with a violent oath, he grabbed the sheet again. "Get out!"

  Chloe fled.

  Hauling the sheet around his waist, Hugo strode out of the room, bellowing for Samuel, who appeared at the end of the corridor.

  "Get that idiot Scranton out here. Send the boy with the message. I want him here by dinnertime."

  "Right you are, Sir 'Ugo." Samuel, imperturbable, disappeared.

  Hugo stalked back to his room and flung on his clothes. The girl couldn't stay here-not even for a night. A bachelor household was a completely inappropriate environment, as that lunatic piece of carelessness had just demonstrated. However heedless of convention he might be, there were limits.

  Chapter 3

  Chloe recovered her composure in the undemanding, accepting company of her animals. The one-legged parrot swore softly at her from the windowsill, where he preened himself in the sun, and Dante lay with his head in her lap as she sat on the floor beside the hat box, watching the nursing mother.

  Animals had always been her chief companions. She had a sure touch with the sick, wounded, or abandoned and an unfailing nose for finding them. Her acquisitions had not been popular with the Misses Trent any more than had her frequent embarrassing confrontations with neglectful or abusive owners. However, Chloe was not easily turned from a course of action, and when her anger and pity were aroused, it would have taken much more than the combined efforts of Miss Anne and Miss Emily to dissuade her.

  Now she stroked Dante's head with a soothing rhythm until her flush died down and she could imagine facing her guardian again. Until he'd thrown aside the bedclothes, she hadn't thought twice about his nakedness beneath the sheet. She hadn't thought twice about being in a man's bedroom-a virtual stranger's bedroom -conducting such a long and relatively intimate conversation. She had little experience to go on, but it did not seem as if that had been a most unusual circumstance. In fact, everything about this business was unusual. Here she was, orphaned and alone, thrust into the clearly unwelcoming arms of a stranger who lived in a decaying Tudor manor house on the Lancashire moors with only a servant for company. And not an ordinary servant either.

  Dante stood up and went to the door, whining. He needed to go out, and presumably the cat would need to as well. And they had to be fed. The thought of food made her realize that she was starving, and the need to do something practical for her menagerie chased away any lingering embarrassment about the morning's interview.

  She picked up the cat, who mewed at her sleeping kittens but was not reluctant to be carried away. Dante pranced ahead of her as she hurried down the corridor, hoping she wouldn't meet Sir Hugo with her arms full of feline. She dashed across the hall and out into the sunny courtyard, where the cat dug herself a tidy hole under a bush and Dante went off, tail flying, to investigate the stables.

  She was halfway across the hall, returning mother to babes, when chaos broke out in the courtyard. The air was split with the frenzied barking of what sounded like half a dozen maddened dogs. The cat leapt from her arms with a high-pitched yowl and belted for the stairs.

  "What the devil's going on?" Hugo emerged from the kitchen, wiping his mouth on a checkered table napkin. The cat streaked past him and the cacophony from outside grew to new proportions.

  "Beatrice… Beatrice, come here. For heaven's sake, it's only Dante." Chloe ran after the frantic cat, now racing up the stairs.

  "Beatrice/" Hugo exclaimed. "What sort of a name is that'" Then he shook his head impatiently. "Stupid questio
n. What else would you call her?" He grabbed Chloe's arm, halting her pursuit. "Leave the cat. If that damn dog of yours is causing trouble out there, lass, you will sort it out."

  "Oh, dear… yes, I suppose so," Chloe said, staring distractedly after the cat. "I suppose Beatrice will find her way back to her kittens… mother's instinct. Don't you think?"

  "I don't know the first thing about cats and I don't give a tinker's damn. But I want that noise stopped now."

  Chloe flung up her hands in defeat and ran back outside. It was hard to distinguish one dog from another in the whirling ball of fur in the courtyard. "Dante!" she yelled, running down the steps.

  "Don't get in the middle of them!" Hugo called in sudden panic as she raced to the snapping, growling, barking ball of fur.

  Chloe stopped dead. "I'm not a fool! What do you take me for?" Her tone was considerably less than polite. Without waiting for an answer, she ran to the pump in the corner of the courtyard, filled two leather buckets, and lugged them toward the fray.

  Hugo watched the diminutive figure struggle with the heavy buckets, but he was still smarting from that flash of insolent impatience and made no attempt to help her.

  She heaved the contents of the first bucket over the snarling animals, who immediately sprang away from one another. The second bucketful sent Dante's two opponents whimpering toward the stables. Dante, in apparent indifference, shook himself heartily and trotted over to his mistress.

  Chloe bent down to the dog. Hugo couldn't hear what she said, but Dante's head hung, his tail drooped, and he slunk off into the far corner of the courtyard.

  Chloe straightened, throwing her hair back over her shoulders. She hadn't replaited it, and its radiance seemed to throw back the sunlight like a halo. She looked at Hugo, her expression uncertain, and he returned the look grimly. With a visible stiffening of her shoulders she crossed the yard toward him.

  "I'm sorry if I was rude," she said abruptly. "But I know perfectly well how to deal with a dogfight."

  "I assume you've had plenty of experience with that ill-bred, ill-disciplined beast," he stated. "He's to be tied up in the stables. I'll not have him causing trouble with my hounds."

  "But that's so unjust!" she exclaimed in vigorous defense. "How can you possibly know that Dante started it? It was two against one, I'll have you know." She glared at him, all apologetic conciliation vanished. "And he's not ill-disciplined. Look how downcast he is because I scolded him."

  Hugo had an urge to laugh at this passionate defense of her maligned pet. She reminded him of a Lilliputian. He relented slightly. "If there's any more trouble, he's to be tied up." He turned back to the house and his neglected breakfast. "And I will not have him in the house."

  Chloe knew that keeping Dante permanently out of the house would be beyond even such a hardened dog-disliker as Hugo Lattimer, so she was not unduly perturbed by the prohibition. Everyone yielded to Dante in the end. For the moment, though, she left him in disgrace and went in search of Beatrice, who had found her brood without the least difficulty and was once again ensconced in the hat box.

  "And now I'll have to find you some food," Chloe murmured, frowning. Her stomach growled, asserting its own claims.

  Sir Hugo had clearly been eating his breakfast in the kitchen-another odd circumstance. But with any luck, he would have finished by now and be out of the way. Samuel would be easier to manage.

  Unfortunately, her guardian was still very much in evidence when she entered the kitchen. He was leaning back in a chair at the table, one booted leg negligently swinging over the arm, a tankard of ale in his hand. Samuel was clearing away dirty plates. They both turned to the door as she came in. "I'm rather hungry," she said, feeling awkward.

  "Then Samuel will find you some breakfast," Hugo responded, looking at her over his shoulder.

  "I had breakfast in Bolton at five o'clock this morning," Chloe pointed out, casting a rapid glance toward the open pantry door. She could see a milk chum, which would be a start for Beatrice, but not much comfort to Dante.

  "Then he will find you a nuncheon," Hugo said, still observing her. "Now, what are you looking for? Or is it at again?"

  Chloe's cheeks warmed. "Nothing."

  Hugo regarded her thoughtfully. He didn't think Chloe Gresham was a very proficient prevaricator. "Don't fib," he advised. "It makes you go very pink." Not that that delicate blush did anything more than enhance her beauty.

  Dear God, what was he thinking of? Quite apart from whose child she was, she was indecently young for a man in his thirty-fifth year to slaver over.

  He thumped his tankard on the table and said crisply, "If you want something, lass, I suggest you come right out and ask."

  "Well, I do usually," she replied, wandering toward the pantry in a rather roundabout fashion, as if to disguise her destination. "It usually saves a deal of time, but I don't think you're going to be sympathetic."

  "Imagine you're lookin' for summat to give that cat of your'n," Samuel remarked as Chloe peered into the pantry.

  "And just where is the cat'" demanded Hugo.

  "In my room."

  "Your room?" His eyebrows vanished into his scalp.

  "Samuel told me to choose which I liked," she said, turning back to the kitchen. "I hope that was all right. It's a corner room, but there aren't any sheets on the bed. I was going to ask Samuel where I could find some."

  Hugo closed his eyes. Things seemed to be getting out of hand. "You aren't staying here, Chloe."

  "But where else am I to go?" The deep blue eyes took on a purplish hue, and he didn't like what he read in them. She was expecting something hurtful.

  "I have to discuss it with Scranton," he said.

  "Why does no one ever want me?" she said so softly he barely caught the words.

  He swung his leg off the chair arm, stirred despite himself. "Don't be silly," he said, going over to her. "That's not it at all. You can't stay here because I don't have an appropriate household… you must see that, lass." He caught her chin, lifting it. Her eyes still had that purplish hue, but the soft mouth was set.

  "I don't see why," she said. "I could keep house for you. Someone needs to."

  "Not an heiress with a fortune of eighty thousand pounds," he said, smiling at this absurdity. "And Samuel keeps house for me."

  "Not very well," she stated. "It's so dirty everywhere."

  "Got enough to do, wi'out wonyin' over a peck o' dust," Samuel grumbled. "If you want to eat, miss, ye'd best come to the table. I can't spend all day in the kitchen."

  "I have to feed Beatrice first," Chloe demurred. "She's suckling all those kittens."

  Hugo seized the change of subject with relief. He had little to lose by accommodating her in this area. By this evening Chloe Gresham and her dependents would be respectably installed elsewhere. Scranton was bound to have some further information that would provide a solution. "I suppose she can stay upstairs for the time being. But the dog is not to come inside."

  "I don't see why it should matter. The house is already so dirty, Dante isn't going to make it worse."

  "Has nobody ever told you that it's extremely impolite to criticize one's hospitality?" Hugo demanded, good resolutions forgotten in the face of this intransigent refusal to accept the compromise. "Particularly when one is an uninvited guest."

  "That's not my fault. If you bothered to read your letters-" she fired back. "Anyway, why don't you?"

  "Because there is never anything of the slightest interest in them… if it's any of your business, miss," he snapped, stalking to the door. "I suggest you stop making a nuisance of yourself and eat your nuncheon." The door banged on his departure.

  Why didn't he bother to open his mail? Hugo pondered the question as he went into the library, wondering also why he'd allowed himself to be drawn into a pointless squabble with an argumentative and irritating schoolgirl. No wonder the Misses Trent had been so ready to see the back of her. Ten years of that would try the patience of Job.

 
; He picked up the pile of letters and glanced through them. The truth, of course, was that he didn't want any reminders of the past. He didn't want to hear news of the people he had once known so well. He didn't want anything to do with the world he had once inhabited. The memories of the past were so hideous, and he couldn't summon a spark of interest for the future. He hadn't been able to since the war ended, and he'd returned to his sadly deteriorated family home and the recognition that apart from Denholm Manor and an equally dilapidated house in London, he was without financial resources. What fortune he'd had he'd run through in those two years with the Congregation of

  Eden before the duel. It hadn't been more than a competency, anyway, but with careful management he could have kept a wife, set up his nursery, maintained the estate, and even taken his wife to London for the Season. But one is not wise at eighteen, and his trustees had exerted no control over the willful, dissolute youth in their charge.

  After the duel, in a frenzy of guilt and misery, he had ridden to Liverpool and taken the king's shilling aboard the frigate Hotspur. One year before the mast had stripped all vestige of privilege, of youthful excess, from him. It had honed and hardened him. At twenty-one he was promoted from the ranks to midshipman and, as the war took its toll, he moved rapidly upward. Within three years he was commanding his own ship of the line.

  During those years he was able to forget… except at night, when the nightmares came a-visiting. They were relentless and as far as possible he chose not to sleep during the hours of darkness.

  But with Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo had come peace. He'd taken his conge of the king's service and here he was, whiling away his days on the Lancashire moors and his nights in the Manchester stews.

  And he was not interested in his mail.

  He flung the letters down on the table and picked up a bottle from the sideboard. Its dusty coating indicated vintage rather than poor housekeeping. He glanced at the clock. Half past noon. A bit early for the first brandy of the day, but what did it matter? What did anything matter?