"They won't. The doctor and Mr. Stone won't let them, I'm sure."
Vanessa smoothed her coiffure once more and took a last look in the mirror to reassure herself she looked as decent as she could given the circumstances.
Then, accepting Mary's offer to help her downstairs, she took her arm.
She should have known one of her companions would be hovering anxiously.
"Are you all right?" Clifford asked, hurriedly offering her his own arm.
"Yes, fine, just a but muzzy-headed from sleep." She gave him a small smile. "You look more ill than I feel. I take it you're becoming better acquainted with my cousins."
"Yes, more's the pity. You can't possibly be considering going there after--"
"Clifford, I do appreciate your concern, but they are my family after all. People might think it odd me preferring to stay with your friends to my own kin, now wouldn't they?"
He nodded reluctantly.
"So if you truly do want to keep this all completely above board in the eyes of the world, we need to put up a united front against them. Otherwise my aunt will have me over there in a trice and I shall never escape from the maze they've all constructed against me."
She shivered as she said the last words, and paled so suddenly that Clifford was about to swing her up in his arms and take her back to bed when Henry came bounding up to help her down.
"I say, are you all right? You look as though you've just seen a ghost. It's an old house, right enough. What if there were a spirit or two, eh? What larks."
"Henry!" Clifford said repressively.
"Oh, er, yes, sorry. Ladies, delicate constitutions, do you know. I do apologize."
He took her other hand and together the two handsome brothers led her to the drawing room.
Vanessa told herself to stop being so silly. She was perfectly safe. It was broad daylight, and there was no such thing as ghosts. Though her dreams were certainly being haunted by something, she had to admit. Each time she had them, she was able to see a little bit more. That last time had certainly been most vivid.
"Are you sure you're all right?" Clifford asked quietly, his lips seductively close to her ear.
"Fine. They're my family, after all. What could possibly go wrong?"
When she entered the drawing room she saw the three darkly clad figures arrayed around the teapot like the witches upon the heath in Macbeth. Only these figures looked even more terrifying.
Peter stepped forward and took her hand from Clifford's in a manner that was belligerent to say the least. Her aunt began to hover around her, offering Vanessa her vinaigrette and insisting she take the seat she had been in.
Had she done so, it would have effectively sandwiched her in between her two glowering cousins.
"I think I shall sit up close to the fire, if you don't mind. It's rather damp today, is it not? I wonder at you taking the trouble to come out in such weather, Aunt Helen. Your rheumatism--"
"Nonsense, child," the silver-haired woman with eyes as black as sloes said, patting her hand. "What matter my health when you have been so sadly stricken. Now you are to come home with us at once and-"
"Thank you for the offer, Aunt, but I think I would be best off staying put here. Dr. Gold has been most kind and is monitoring my condition most carefully."
"But it is not his place to!" Peter interjected forcefully.
"Pardon me? He is a doctor, after all. Who would have more of a place than he to do so?" Vanessa inquired calmly.
"I'm astonished that you should not send for us at once, Cousin. Why did you not send a message around at once informing us of your condition?"
"Condition? You make it sound like something positively indecent," she could not help observing. "It was merely a bad oyster, nothing more."
His thin, sharp features grew even more pointed. If he had sprouted pointed ears and a long bushy tail she would not have been surprised. Even his waistcoat, a deep rust color, was reminiscent of a fox. Well, it might steal hens away from their houses, but she was no chicken.
Peter looked around the room and then let his eyes rest on Clifford, who was attending upon her with tea and crumpets.
"Forgive Vanessa if she does not speak too much," he said smoothly. "Her throat is still sore from her own self-purging, and she needs to eat."
"Vanessa?" Peter said softly, oozing disapproval from every pore.
"Indeed. Soon to be my wife. I can't think why you would object to my using her Christian name if she doesn't."
Toby spoke up at last. "We object to everything about this situation! Our cousin staying at a bachelor's establishment. You laying claim to her hand after that disgraceful card game the other night."
"Which neither of you had any qualms about participating in."
"That was different! She is our cousin."
"Indeed. All the more reason why you should have protected her before, rather than after the fact."
Toby's eyes darkened, and Peter let out a low growl. "How dare you--"
He stood as straight and tall as an oak, refusing to be cowed. "I dare because you did nothing to stop the game even though it was in your own house. The interests and safety of your cousin should have been paramount compared to the spurious excuse that you did not wish to, what, appear bad hosts to the guests attending you ball?"
Clifford could not quite keep the disapproval from his tone with his last nine words.
Peter visibly bristled. "I ought to call you out--"
"There is to be no duel!" Vanessa protested. "This is impossible--"
"If Mr. Stone allows you to return with us we can consider the matter over and the debt of honor paid."
"But what of mine?" she asked.
"Yours?" Peter frowned, as if so far as he was concerned she had none.
"Yes, mine. I have given my word of honor that I shall marry him. And even beyond that, Gerald took the money which Clifford gave him--"
"We can, er, make restitution to him once you are in possession of your fortune. I promise you, you shall recover your situation and--"
"Recover it?" Vanessa glared. "I am not the one who lost it. The three people I should have been able to trust most in the world did so." She gave him a meaning look. "Clifford was merely helping a damsel in distress. Yet now he is being treated as though he did something wrong."
"Well he did, did he not?" her aunt said sharply. "Gambling for a wife. Disgraceful. How can you possibly think to marry this young buck when your two cousins--"
"Lost at the card game, but yet are still so eager to get their hands on my money," Vanessa supplied in honeyed tones.
"And Clifford isn't?" Toby fired back.
She gazed over at him. "No, he isn't." She gave him a fond smile.
"Stuff and nonsense, girl," her aunt exclaimed impatiently. "You hardly know the man. You would rather trust your person and property to a stranger than come live within the bosom of your family?"
"The family that certainly didn't want me when my mother died. Or my father," Vanessa accused.
Her aunt faltered at little at that, while her two cousins looked decidedly uncomfortable. "You know my health has always been frail."
"I know that my cousins tormented me, made a mockery of me, all except Paul. There has never been any love lost between us, now has there, Peter?"
"Now, Vanessa, there's no need to dredge up--"
She handed her plate of crumpets to Clifford, all pretence at trying to eat at an end. The very sight of her greedy cousins made her stomach churn. "Oh, I think there is. If that is the sort of treatment I can except from family, I shall take strangers any day."
Toby opened his mouth to protest, but she clinked down her cup and saucer and glared at him. "I have no intention of wasting my time recounting to your aunt all the times you mocked me, called me mad. Played tricks upon me to terrify me. I was young, innocent, and you both used your power to intimidate me. Well, you're not going to get the chance again, do you hear me?"
"But Vanessa,
what will you do?" her aunt asked, her eyes both pleading and sly. "You cannot possibly stay here after what Gerald has done. It would be so lovely to have a daughter at last--"
"I had one very wonderful mother, and a marvelous aunt who took care of me better than I ever could have hoped for. I am of age now, Aunt. My solicitors Mason and Rogers will help me see to my affairs. And continue to look after my interests once I am married."
"But Vanessa, think! Clifford Stone of all people," Peter declared with a look of disgust which she couldn't even begin to comprehend.
Clifford bristled visibly at her side.
Vanessa cast her cousin a baleful glare. "He's still in the room. Manners, please. If you have anything of substance to say against him, I dare you to say it to his face. Accuse him directly if you dare."
Both her cousins clamped their lips shut.
"There, you've had your chance. If you are not prepared to say anything to his face, then please remain silent about him hereafter. I shall judge Clifford's character for myself, not allow idle gossip to determine the whole course of my future."
Peter glared at her mulishly, livid at being bested by this chit of a girl. "But--"
Clifford took a step forward. "Yes, Stephens, do tell? Just what is it you are accusing me of?"
"Cowardice for one. Shirking your responsibility in the war."
A vein began to throb in Clifford's temple. "You dare say that to me?"
"Ignore him, Clifford, please," she urged quickly, reaching up to take his hand in her own. "It's a parcel of nonsense. As if you went off yourself, Peter? Or Toby? What of your cowardice then?"
Her cousins both looked daggers at her.
"In any case, a man of Clifford's wealth and upbringing, and a first son, well, even serving one day was a huge undertaking that attests to his character."
"And the women--" Peter muttered under his breath.
She quirked one brow. "You and Toby are both virgins, are you?"
"Vanessa!" her aunt gasped, her hand coming up to her heaving bosom.
Vanessa waved her free hand in front of her, and squeezed Clifford's fingers reassuringly. "Bah, all of you fashionable young men about town goad each other to make so called conquests, as if it were on a par with hunting a fox. I don't care what Clifford has done in his past. None of us is lily-white. Every one of us has things we would not like to have to own up to in public.
"Whatever he may or may not have done prior to being engaged to me is no one's business but his own. It's the future that counts. I can't imagine any of you giving up your pleasures once you secured my fortune for yourselves. In fact, quite the opposite. I think my fortune would pay for your ever increasing excesses."
"How can you accuse your own cousins of being so mercenary?"
"Very easily, Aunt," Vanessa said, shrugging. "They would no more ask me my opinion on the war or crops than they would your prize Berkshire boar. And that would be precisely what I would be treated like if I were to marry either one of you. I would be a piece of property. There would be no respect, no regard."
"And you're going to get all this respect you wish for from a man who gambled you like a cravat pin?"
"He didn't gamble me. Gerald did. Clifford merely won me."
"Aye, and now that I have, I'm not letting her go," Clifford said firmly, taking her delicate hand in both her own now. "I hate to see ill feeling between family members, but you're all as transparent as glass. And you, Madame, should have offered to come her to chaperone her if you felt so concerned about her welfare, rather than insist upon dragging her back with you to live under the same roof with three unmarried young men. Even if she did succeed in holding out against you, her reputation would be in tatters in no time. Vanessa is a thinking feeling human being, not an African slave."
"How d-d-dare you--" Toby began to sputter.
"So if you've said all you've come to say, I think you'd better leave."
"We're not finished. Not at all," her aunt said in a tone so frosty it would have chilled the Devil himself.
"Oh?" Clifford said, sounding bored.
Her piggy little eyes positively gleamed with malice as she said coolly, "It only takes two signatures from a family member to commit someone to an asylum. Strictly for her own good, you understand."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Vanessa blindly clung to Clifford's warm, strong hand, clinging to him in terror as her aunt's threat to have her committed to a mental asylum hung over the room like a funeral pall.
God, it was just like her nightmare... She thought she had awoken from it. Now she was sure it was just beginning.
"All right," Clifford said with a weary air of resignation.
"No, Clifford, no--" Vanessa gasped, sure he was going to turn her over for her own good rather than risk seeing her committed.
"How much? How much do you need to get yourselves out of the River Tick?" Clifford demanded, looking fron one to the other.
Peter and Toby peeped furtively at each other. Aunt Helen almost licked her lips.
Vanessa's eyes widened even further now, as she realised he had assessed the situation correctly. "Clifford, no, you can't. It's not fair--"
"I can. It will be far better than have them hounding you constantly. I'm sorry, pet, that you had to find out what they were really like in such an appalling manner, but--"
"Now wait a minute," Peter protested. "We only want what's best for her--"
"And Bedlam is it, is it?" Clifford sneered.
"Everyone knows she isn't well in the--"
Clifford dropped Vanessa's hand and stepped towards her eldest cousin. "If you value your teeth, don't say it. In fact, get the hell out, right now, the three of you. That's what's best for her. To stay as far away from you scheming and manipulation as possible."
Vanessa's eyes glistened with tears. All the fight had gone out of her like a sail suddenly emptied of wind.
Clifford turned to look at his bride to be. He had never seen anyone look so stunned and defeated. He held her close around the shoulders, earning himself scowls of outraged disapproval from their three guests.
"I ought to call you out, Peter. I think at this moment in time I would take the greatest satisfaction in putting a bullet in you. Not to kill, mind, but just to maim you enough to make your life a miserable hell.
"Have you seen see any of the men coming back from the war with groin injuries? Not a pretty sight. Ah well, you would have no use for any woman you married anyway other than for her money, now would you, Peter?"
He leapt from his seat and moved forward menacingly. "Damn you, Stone, I'll--"
Aunt Helen began to flutter an ostentatiously large lace hankie. "Heavens, I think I'm going to faint--"
"Then pray do it on the other side of the front door, Madame. Vanessa and I bid you good day."
He swung on his heel and got her out of there as rapidly as possible.
"Damn it, Stone, we're not finished here!" Peter bellowed.
He paused at the doorway. "Collect up all the bills owing, and send them to me. If they are genuine, I will pay them. But don't ever darken this door again, or that of any other roof Vanessa is under."
Toby's eager voice piped up behind him, "Do you give your word as a gentleman?"
"Yes," he called down the corridor, "So long as I find out that they are legitimate. I shall hand them over to my solicitor. If I find out you have played me false, it'll be Newgate for you, and transportation if you're lucky. Good day."
He led Vanessa into the doctor's study, startling the poor man at his books.
"Good God, what has happened?" he exclaimed, rushing for his medical bag when he saw Vanessa's paper white face.
"We can talk about it later," Clifford said curtly. "I just thought the Stephenses wouldn't dare continue to badger her in here."
"Damn it, I knew I should never have allowed--"
"How could they?" she whispered.
Clifford hugged her close about the waist. "Greed is a deadl
y sin."
"And they really would have--" She turned her stricken eyes up to him, unable to complete the sentence.
"They will never have a say in your life ever again," he promised. "Once we are married, we will be family, and Henry and I will never let you come to harm. So come on, now, love, dry your eyes and drink your cordial, there's a good girl."
He pressed a small glass into her fingers, and began to dab at her cheeks gently with his own spotless pocket handkerchief.
The Rakehell Regency Romance Series Boxed Set 1 Page 21
