My Lady Deceiver

by Freda Lightfoot

  Tucked away in the conservatory, two figures were engaged in a heated conversation. ‘Was that true what you said in there just now? Have you really “helped yourself” to Rose? Did you take her – seduce her – while you were both out of the room? Tell me!’ Gwenna was so distressed she was almost spitting with fury, quite unlike her usual giddy, careless self. Jago sat on a wrought iron chair with his head in his hands, nursing his bruised ego as much as anything else.

  At length, in his own good time, he raised his head to gaze upon her with contempt. ‘And what if I did? What has that to do with you?’

  Gwenna slapped his face. Never had she done such a thing in her entire life before, wouldn’t have dared to do so now had she not been out of her mind with rage and jealousy. ‘You know full well what it has to do with me. Haven’t you been bedding me for months now? Taking me in the orchard, on the beach, on your desk, wherever you fancy. And aren’t I now carrying your child as a result?’

  He looked at her, shock registering on his face, although only momentarily before it changed to its usual expression of sneering indifference. ‘And what the hell do you expect me to do about that? You surely don’t think for a moment that I would marry you?’

  Gwenna sank to her knees before him, putting her hands to her mouth in shock. The next instant she flew at him, her small fists beating furiously on his chest. ‘But you promised! You promised me most faithfully.’

  Taking hold of her wrists he flung her off. ‘I never did any such thing. You’re a stupid, naive girl, if rather generous with your charms, but I see no ring on your finger. There has been no announcement in The Times. Not that I’m aware of. I’ll admit I did consider the possibility of marrying you at one time, as your fortune is not unsatisfactory. The fact is, I can do better, do you see?’ He got to his feet, towering over her as he so liked to do. ‘I’m sorry, but that’s how it is. Whatever you can offer doesn’t bear comparison with the fortune I gain by marrying Rose.’

  ‘She’ll never agree to marry you,’ Gwenna spat.

  ‘I’ll make damn sure that she does,’ came the cold response. ‘I mean to have her, and when have I ever failed to get what I want?’

  Gwenna seemed to visibly shrink before him, her voice now a pitiful murmur, hands clasped together almost in supplication. ‘Please, I beg you, don’t do this to me, Jago. You can’t just abandon me. You said you loved me.’

  His gaze was mocking, his tone cold as ice. ‘Love is one thing, marriage quite another entirely. You must appreciate that I cannot possibly risk losing Penver Court. That would be unthinkable.’

  ‘But my reputation will be destroyed, my dreams shattered. I’ll be a fallen woman! No one will marry me now. I shall be ruined!’

  Jago gave a careless shrug. ‘The choice was yours, darling.’

  ‘I had no choice, you f–forced me. When I said n–no, you just carried on.’ She leapt to her feet, clawing at his face, and again Jago heartlessly thrust her away, so that she fell against a huge earthenware pot to fall sobbing on to the tiled floor.

  ‘Control yourself, woman, you’re growing hysterical.’

  He turned to leave but she made a grab for his ankle, sprawled in a most unladylike fashion at his feet, still begging and pleading through her tears. ‘Don’t leave me. I love you, Jago. I’ll be a good wife to you, I swear you won’t ever regret marrying me. You promised you would marry me once the period of mourning for Sir Ralph was over.’

  He kicked out at her, as if she were no more than an irritating puppy, then pinched one small plump cheek between his fingers and laughed in her face. ‘You were a willing – nay, an eager – participant, my sweet, however your addled imagination might pretend otherwise. If your dreams and reputation are shattered as a result of my need to keep Penver Court in the family, then so be it. It can’t be helped. There is always a little collateral damage in any war, and that is most definitely what this is.’

  Lydia was waiting for him in the lobby, stepping out from behind a palm as he came through the door. ‘So, was it true, what you hinted at so boldly to your brother? Did you have your wicked way with dearest Rose? Is the deed done?’

  Jago sighed. ‘Not exactly, Mama. Sadly, things didn’t quite go according to plan.’

  ‘You surprise me. It is not like you to fail in a mission.’

  ‘It was but a temporary setback, and Bryce doesn’t know that I failed. Not after that fracas in the casino.’

  ‘That was all rather vulgar, darling,’ Lydia declared, kissing him on the cheek. ‘Try to do better next time, will you? I would like your engagement announced before we leave Biarritz. And I really don’t care how you achieve that. Now I must retire. It has really been rather a tiring evening, one way or another. Apart from anything else, the dice were definitely not rolling my way.’ She was about to leave but his next words gave her pause.

  ‘We have a problem.’

  ‘Oh?’

  He told her bluntly about Gwenna. ‘The girl insists the child is mine.’

  The sudden spurt of anger in his mother’s pale-blue eyes chilled him to the core. No one could make him quake quite as much as Lydia. ‘You fool! Didn’t I tell you to leave the girl alone? I’d even found her a likely husband, the second son of an Irish lord, would you believe? Quite a catch. He won’t look at her now, of course. What an idiot you are! I will not have Gwenna ruined. She may be somewhat stupid, but she doesn’t deserve to have her reputation quite done in. How very annoying. Now I shall have to find some other solution. In future, you’d do well to follow my advice, instead of giving in to the urgent pangs in your breeches.’

  The answer came to her as she sipped her morning chocolate, and Lydia wasted no time in sending for her younger son. Bryce came to stand before her, clearly expecting a dressing-down for his behaviour in the casino the previous evening. What his mother had to say, however, left him completely stunned.

  ‘I beg your pardon? Say that again.’

  Lydia sighed, and moving to her dressing stool began to smooth cream on to her face. She was ever rigorous in such matters, determined to cling on to her beauty for as long as possible. It had brought her a fortune thus far and may well earn her more in the future. Several gentlemen of means had shown interest in her already during the short time they’d been in Biarritz. ‘I’m afraid Gwenna requires a husband, rather urgently, and I can think of no better person for the role than you.’

  ‘You jest, of course. This must be some kind of joke.’

  ‘I was never more serious.’ She turned to smile up at him, hairbrush in hand as she teased the dark curls falling upon her shoulders. This was a task usually carried out by her maid, but, with this interview in mind, Lydia had temporarily dismissed the girl. ‘I’m aware of the affection you feel for Rose. I’ve watched it grow between you in recent months, and thought it no bad thing. But on further consideration I have decided that it is only right and proper that your brother should take precedence. He is the elder, after all, and it is essential – vital, in fact – that we keep Penver Court and Sir Ralph’s fortune within the family. I’m sure you understand how it is.

  ‘Besides, you’re quite fond of Gwenna, so it should be no great hardship being married to her. She’s rather pretty, if a little too plump, but enormous fun. And if she lacks excitement in the bed department, you can always take a mistress.’ She set down the brush with a sharp click. ‘I shall make the announcement before we leave for England.’

  ‘You will do no such thing.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Mother, I am not a child, no longer some slip of a boy whose life you can order to suit your bidding. I well recall how you packed me off to boarding school the moment I left the nursery, leaving me there for the long holidays too, on many occasions. Nor were my feelings or needs ever taken into account whenever you took it into your head to remarry for the umpteenth time. As a child I had no choice but to cope with your neglect and selfish lack of consideration, but I’ll be damned if you’ll org
anise my life now.’

  ‘I can’t believe what I’m hearing.’ Tears welled in her eyes as she gazed up at him in stunned disbelief, although whether they were real or of the crocodile variety, Bryce didn’t care to judge.

  ‘Then allow me to repeat myself, Mama. I’m sorry to hear about Gwenna’s little problem, but I can do nothing to assist her to resolve it.’

  ‘Little problem! Is that what you call it? It’s far more than that.’

  ‘But it is not my problem. I suggest you place the blame for her condition squarely in the correct quarter. You certainly have no right to demand that I mop up my brother’s leavings.’

  ‘Jago will marry Rose, for the sake of the family and his inheritance.’ Her tone now was unyielding, hissing the words at him, the tears quite dried up. ‘So what is poor Gwenna to do then? The poor girl will be ruined.’

  ‘Tell that to Jago, not me.’

  At that moment the bedroom door burst open and Jago himself strode in. ‘Do you know what the dratted girl has done now? She’s only gone and drowned herself.’

  Gwenna, it seemed, had resolved the problem.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Tregowans were back home at Penver Court, their winter holiday cut short as they attempted to come to terms with Gwenna’s shocking fate, still analysing what had gone so terribly wrong. It had become clear that she’d walked right out as far as the headland and thrown herself off the rocks.

  ‘Why on earth would she do such a thing?’ Rose asked, not for the first time.

  ‘Because she had ruined herself.’ Lydia let out an irritable sigh as she poured tea for the two of them in the small parlour, clearly bored with the subject. The absence of Gwenna from this daily ceremony was, to Rose at least, quite distressing. But, as with her own husband’s death, Lydia showed not a trace of grief or regret for the loss of a girl for whom she had acted as mother. ‘Her reputation was in ribbons. With no hope of an offer of marriage, she had nothing left to live for.’

  Rose was outraged. ‘That can’t be right. This isn’t the eighteenth century, or even the nineteenth. Surely in today’s modern world people wouldn’t cast a girl off simply because she makes one mistake.’

  Lydia calmly selected a petit four. ‘Not everyone possesses morals as lax as yourself, child.’

  Rose stifled an irritated sigh. ‘Maybe I have greater faith in the goodness of people than Gwenna. Besides, she could have gone away to have the child in secret, isn’t that how things are done? She could have had it adopted.’

  ‘You are familiar with such matters, I dare say.’ Pale eyes glittered at her from above the rim of her cup.

  ‘Of course not, but there are always solutions.’

  ‘You resolved your own dilemma, of course, by finding yourself a rich husband, and in the nick of time. Most girls are not so fortunate, and these situations are not always easy to hush up.’

  Furious that Lydia took every opportunity to attack her, Rose steeled herself not to react or rush to her own defence. She had learnt to her cost that this was always a bad mistake, as Bryce had once explained. ‘What about the man responsible for her fall from grace? Why should he get off scot-free?’

  ‘Men are weak creatures, ruled by their passions. It is the role of women to set the moral tone. Something you would do well to consider with care.’

  ‘But why would he not marry her? Gwenna was pretty, and not without a dowry. Do you know who he was? Was it Jago? Gwenna told me they were about to become engaged.’ Rose persisted, and then wished she hadn’t as Lydia slammed down her cup, nearly cracking it by the force with which it met the saucer.

  ‘They were not. Absolute nonsense! You shouldn’t believe everything that silly girl told you. Now I really must go as I have a funeral to arrange.’ And off she strode in a lather of fury, as if Gwenna had killed herself simply in order to deliberately inconvenience Lydia.

  ‘It’s the way of the world,’ Tilly said, when Rose asked her the same question. ‘Don’t men always get away with it?’

  ‘But who do you think he was, the father of her child?’ There was just the smallest worry at the back of Rose’s mind that it might be Bryce. He’d always seemed rather fond of Gwenna, had enjoyed a close relationship with his cousin. She didn’t dare risk asking him such a question outright, as he would no doubt be angry with her for not trusting him. And she did trust him, really she did, Rose told herself, not too convincingly.

  The problem was that the feelings between them had blossomed only in the last few weeks, in the heady atmosphere of Biarritz, his declaration of love even more recent, and not repeated. She wasn’t even certain he’d meant it, or that she’d heard correctly. What if Bryce had learnt of the girl’s condition, and that was the reason he had suddenly turned to her, perhaps by way of escape. A horrible thought!

  ‘It was most likely Jago,’ Tilly calmly remarked as she handed over little Robbie, all newly changed and sweet-smelling, to Rose. ‘He chases every bit of skirt he sees.’

  Rose rocked the baby in her lap, letting out a small sigh of relief. ‘That’s true.’ She was about to say that he’d once chased after her, but changed her mind, instead asking Tilly if she too had suffered at Jago’s hand.

  ‘Goodness, yes,’ Tilly answered in a matter-of-fact way as she tidied away towels and dirty napkins. ‘There isn’t a maid in the house who hasn’t been propositioned, or worse, by Jago. Not that anyone dares complain. He’s the master, after all.’

  ‘Not anymore, he isn’t,’ Rose said, kissing the baby’s head. ‘I wish I could find some way to get that important fact across to him.’

  The funeral was a small private affair, for close family only, as Gwenna was too young to have made many acquaintances in the world. Far too young to be having a funeral at all. They should by rights be celebrating her wedding, but her two unsuccessful seasons in London had not brought forth the necessary proposal to answer her dreams, and now never would.

  ‘It is so very sad,’ Rose kept murmuring as the mournful little ceremony dragged on.

  ‘A tragedy,’ Bryce agreed. ‘She was such a happy girl as a child. Pretty, and friendly, and always great fun, if a bit scatterbrained. Jago would tease her mercilessly, but she never complained. She absolutely adored him, then and now, and see what it has cost her.’

  ‘Do you think he was responsible, and then rejected her?’ Rose tentatively asked.

  ‘I’m quite certain of it.’ Bryce glanced at her, gently lowering her prayer book so that he could see her face properly. ‘You surely didn’t think for one moment it was me.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ Rose lied, her cheeks growing pink with guilt.

  ‘Hmm, I rather hoped you’d have a better opinion of me than that.’

  ‘Are you saying you would have offered to marry her, if it had been you?’

  ‘I’m saying I would never ruin a young girl’s reputation. A widow’s neither,’ he finished with a wicked smile. ‘Much as I might be tempted to try.’ For a moment Rose was at a loss to understand who he was referring to, before it dawned on her that the widow in question was herself, which flustered her for an entirely different reason.

  The day following the service and interment, they took a walk together up to the headland, breathing in the thin warmth of winter sunshine. Bright-red berries clustered the holly bushes as they climbed the path through the copse, making Rose think of Christmas, which was almost upon them.

  When they finally reached the top, they strolled along the cliff path, the sea like a sheet of chilled glass below, devoid of summer blue today, reflecting a bright, wintry sky. It still brought a shiver to her spine as Rose recalled the day Jago had risked little Robbie’s life, as if he were of no account. A man without any morals, or sensitivity, so unlike his brother.

  ‘Are you cold?’ Noticing her shudder, he pulled her into his arms, wrapping her within the folds of his jacket. Pressed against his chest she felt warm and secure, safe from all her fears and worries.

  ‘No,
I was thinking how besotted Gwenna was with Jago.’ Rose resolutely pushed the memory of that day from her mind, as she had no wish to tell Bryce about the incident, thereby risking further friction between the two brothers. ‘I always thought Jago was fond of her too. So why would he refuse to marry her, if they were so close?’

  She felt the tension in his body, and glancing up saw how his jaw tightened in that familiar way Bryce had, yet he didn’t answer her question. Instead he issued a warning. ‘Do not attempt to challenge my brother on this matter. Don’t ever ask him outright if he was the one responsible, or why he refused to make an honest woman of her.’

  She turned in his arms to look at him askance. ‘I would never dream of doing so.’

  ‘Good. He’s not a man who likes to be questioned on his actions. Nor does he take kindly to criticism.’

  ‘I’ve learnt that lesson already when I crossed him over the eviction notice for the Carwyn family.’

  ‘On that occasion you won. It wouldn’t always be the case, and certainly not on an issue as sensitive as this one. As a matter of fact, I’d recommend you let the matter drop completely. My mother won’t take kindly to being reminded of the scandal either, which does nothing for the Tregowan family reputation.’

  ‘Scandal? Tregowan family reputation? Is that all she cares about?’ Rose never ceased to be amazed by the woman. ‘Isn’t the loss of a young woman’s life far more important?’

  ‘Of course it is.’ He tenderly hooked a curl behind her ear. ‘But you have to understand that my mother views things rather differently. Family honour is all important to her, as are possessions. The same goes for my brother, whereas I much prefer people.’ He stroked her cheek with one finger, slipping it under her chin to tilt up her face for a kiss.

  ‘Is that people in general, or one in particular?’ she teased, feeling weak at the knees as she always did when Bryce kissed her.