The Society Catch (Harlequin Historical)

by Allen, Louise

  Chapter Fourteen

  Giles reckoned without an unexpected flair for the dramatic on Joanna’s part. From the moment they wearily dismounted in the yard of the Grey Horse in St Neots, she began nagging gently with the air of someone speaking more out of habit than real anger.

  ‘I told you we should have taken the carriage, Giles, now here I am without a hairbrush to my name. What Great-aunt is going to say when we arrive on her doorstep with you looking like a scarecrow, and me hardly any better… Thank you, my man. Where is the landlady to be found, if you please? Giles, stop scowling, you need to see an apothecary with that head, I do not care what you say.

  ‘Ah! Mrs…? Mrs Henderson, good evening to you. Now, tell me at once, do you have two bedchambers for my brother and myself? You do? Excellent. Giles! Let the groom help you down, I really think you should go to bed immediately. Perhaps you should be bled as well, but doubtless the apothecary…’

  The landlady blinked at the relentless, soft onslaught as Joanna walked firmly into the inn. ‘This seems very pleasant, Mrs Henderson. I will see the rooms directly. Can someone go for the apothecary at once, if you please? My poor brother—such a fall, and of course, a large man like that falls harder—he is my half-brother, as you have no doubt guessed, Mrs Henderson—did you say something, Giles? Ah, this room will be admirable for you, dear, in you go and lie down until the apothecary arrives.

  ‘Now, Mrs Henderson, you are saying to yourself, what are these two people doing descending upon my inn without servant or luggage to their name? You may well ask. Our name is Pontefract, Miss and Mr Pontefract, and we are on our way to visit our great Aunt Julia in Sandy. Well, I say our great-aunt, but actually she is my half-brother’s great-aunt…’

  Joanna’s voice continued its penetrating prattle, clearly audible to Giles through the wall from the bedchamber beyond. He lay down on the bed and gave way to barely suppressed laughter. He was still gasping gently and mopping his eyes when Joanna peered around the door, then came in, eyeing him disapprovingly.

  ‘What are you about, Giles? Do pull yourself together. Mrs Henderson is an admirable woman and has entirely believed our story. Oh, stop it, you will set me off! She has sent for the apothecary, and the maid has gone round to knock up Mr Watkins at the haberdashery shop. Apparently he can provide such necessities as hairbrushes, tooth powder and, she gives me to understand, nightgowns. I do hope you have enough money. We must pay Mr Watkins, and our shot here, and the apothecary, and I will have to tip the maid I have engaged.’

  Giles sat up against the pillows, sobered at last. ‘You have engaged a maid? To sleep in your room?’

  ‘Yes. I hope you do not mind, but it seemed just the sort of thing I should do, and I can’t for a moment think Mrs Henderson will suspect anything untoward with me insisting on a girl to sleep on a truckle bed. I have assured her I never sleep alone, but always with my maid, and she appeared to think that showed a refined respectability.’

  ‘Excellent. But why should I mind?’

  ‘Well—’ Joanna broke off and blushed. ‘I thought you might think I did not trust you.’

  ‘But you do?’

  ‘Of course! Now quiet, here comes the apothecary, if I am not much mistaken. I am afraid you will have to endure my interference, for I am sure Miss Pontefract would want to supervise everything.’

  Fortunately the apothecary showed no inclination to bleed Giles, and politely turned his ‘sister’ out of the room before cleaning up the cut, inserting two stitches and rebandaging it.

  To Joanna’s indignation, Giles called for supper to be eaten in a private parlour and then sent her up to bed before settling down with a London news sheet and a bottle of the Grey Horse’s excellent brandy.

  Despite her indignation and the presence in the truckle bed of Polly the maid, Joanna fell into a deep sleep almost immediately.

  When she woke with a start it was pitch dark and Polly was snoring loudly in her corner. Muttering, Joanna turned over and pulled a pillow tight around her ears, but the rasping penetrated the goose feathers with an infuriatingly regular rhythm. She found she was lying there listening, counting the seconds until the next predictable snore.

  Gradually she became aware of other sounds: the building cooling and settling for the night, the distant sound of a baby crying, a restless sleeper near at hand tossing and turning. It was difficult to orientate herself in the dark, but Joanna realised that it was coming from the room next door and that the sleeper in question was Giles.

  Was he just dreaming or had he developed a fever from the blow to his head? Perhaps the cut was inflamed. For perhaps fifteen minutes Joanna lay undecided in the dark, expecting at any moment for the restless sounds to die away as Giles fell into a deep sleep, but they did not. Eventually she slipped out of bed and tiptoed out of the room. Behind her Polly’s snores continued unabated, muffled as she cautiously closed the door and cracked open the one to the next room.

  The shutter was open, admitting just enough moonlight for her to discern Giles laying on the narrow bed, the sheets tossed and rumpled, one pillow half on the floor. He was muttering; as Joanna hesitated in the doorway, he turned restlessly, flinging out an arm. Despite the nightshirt provided by the shopkeeper, he appeared to be naked under the twisted bed linen.

  She should not be there, she knew, and certainly she should not be standing there letting her eyes stray over the muscular planes of his chest as though caressing him with her gaze.

  There were so many reasons why she should not be there and only one possible excuse for her presence—that Giles was ill. Joanna inched across the floor, bit back a cry of pain as her bare toes stubbed against a stool leg, and finally reached Giles’s bed. She laid the back of one hand on his brow and to her surprise it was as cool as her own, with no hint of fever.

  Puzzled, but relieved, Joanna reached down to pull the sheet over the distractingly bare chest and found her wrist gripped suddenly.

  ‘Darling,’ Giles said clearly and drew her down on to the bed on top of himself. ‘My love.’

  For one startled, wonderful moment Joanna thought he was awake and knew her, then she realised he was still deeply asleep, obviously in the toils of a dream into which her fleeting touch had intruded. And it did not take much imagination to guess that Giles was dreaming of Suzanne as his arm tightened around Joanna and his free hand drifted across her breast in a lingering, sensual caress.

  Joanna gasped and lay still, her entire body tingling with a surge of heat. His hand flattened against the soft curves of her left breast, stroking until his fingers found the nipple which tautened in response, sending an aching arc of pleasure through her. Her entire body seemed to cry out for his touch as the drifting fingers conjured up sensations not only in her captive breast but, shockingly, down through her belly to her thighs.

  Her entire body wanted to move under his hands, stretch itself along the length of his, savour the touch of his bare skin against hers, yet she knew she could not, must not move or she would wake him.

  Giles’s face was buried in the sweet curve of her neck, his lips tasting the warm skin with tiny kisses, his tongue flickering lines of desire across the pounding pulse at her throat.

  Joanna forced back a groan of desire and tried to push back the clamouring demands of her body long enough to think before it was too late. If she stayed where she was, it could only be a matter of moments before she lost all will-power, all self-control and simply allowed herself to be swept along on the tide of sensation his hands and mouth were orchestrating within her inexperienced body.

  If she woke him, Giles would be appalled at having compromised her beyond redemption. Somehow she had to free herself from his arms, get away from the bed without rousing him. She caught his roving hand in hers and raised it to her lips, nibbling the fingertips while she slipped from the mattress. Giles reached for her blindly, but she placed his hand lightly on the rumpled sheet and almost ran to the door.

  Safely outside, she leant ba
ck against the panels and drew a long shuddering breath, willing the cool of the draughty corridor to steady her quivering limbs, calm her ragged breathing. That it could be like that! That she could feel so transported, so utterly possessed when all he had done was to caress her breast, kiss her neck. Why had nobody warned her? Her sister and Hebe both obviously enjoyed the marriage bed, that much was discreetly obvious in the warmth of exchanged looks with their husbands, the fleeting caress in passing. But this! What would it be like to make love to completion, to be joined utterly to his strength, to know Giles’s as intimately as it was possible to know another human being?

  Then the heated fervour began to fade, leaving her shivering and bereft in the bare corridor. She would never know what that ultimate experience was like because all she had done was to steal his kisses and caresses from another woman, one who was so close to him that she haunted his dreams and racked his nights with desire.

  On the other side of the panelled door Giles turned his head restlessly on the pillow and murmured, ‘Joanna?’ then lay still as the dream faded and was gone.

  The next morning the landlady was concerned to see that her guests appeared to have slept badly, a worrying matter for a woman who prided herself that her feather beds were the best of any of the town’s hostelries.

  Giles, who had experienced a torrid night of powerfully erotic dreams, managed to produce a smile and the assurance that it was only the remains of his headache that had disturbed his sleep. Joanna, equally heavy-eyed and subdued, confessed that she had found the church clock disturbing as she was unused to having one so close.

  It was true enough. She had lain awake, her mind endlessly recreating those moments in Giles’s arms until her body roused into restless desire again and she was forced to get out of bed and pace up and down the room in the chilly dawn light, willing the chiming hours to move faster and release her from the prison of her memory.

  Nor did the fresh air and stimulus of being mounted and on the road again appear to lighten their mood. Giles assumed that Joanna was anxious about the journey and her reception when she reached the Tasboroughs, she that he was missing Suzy. Yesterday’s camaraderie had quite vanished and they rode almost as two strangers, forced together by circumstances and awkwardly having to make the best of it.

  Joanna let her glance flicker across to Giles, to be met by a guarded look in his grey eyes. He is tired of having to look after me, she thought miserably. He is worried about his father and missing Lady Suzanne. I should never have run from Georgy’s house. I should never have entered his bedchamber last night.

  Oh, but her body still vibrated from his touch in the strangest way. Once, she had tried the harp, thinking that she should improve her musical performance, and she could still recall the humming vibration of a plucked string taut under her fingertips. Her body felt like that all through. And worse, she seemed to ache deep inside as though something was missing…

  Joanna did not glance at Giles again unless he spoke to her and tried to focus instead on what she could possibly do with her life when the summer was over. Could she face another Season?

  After what seemed like an hour of silence Giles said abruptly, ‘We can make it to Tasborough by this evening if you feel up to it. I would prefer not to risk another night on the road.’

  ‘I would prefer it, too,’ Joanna agreed fervently. She was determined to ride until she dropped if there was the chance that they could spend the night somewhere where they did not have to pretend, watch every word and action. And somewhere where she could sleep in a chamber far from Giles.

  ‘Colonel, sir, and Miss Joanna, good evening.’ Starling greeted the pair of them calmly as they stood on the threshold of Tasborough Hall, apparently unconcerned by the unheralded arrival of his lordship’s best friend and her ladyship’s cousin at ten of the clock, without baggage or attendants and distinctly travel-stained.

  ‘You were expecting us, Starling?’

  ‘Indeed we were, Colonel, although upon which day or time we were not certain. I will inform her ladyship of your arrival immediately, she was about to retire. His lordship is out, but is expected back shortly. Mrs Fitton will show Miss Joanna to her room.’

  Joanna was old friends with the housekeeper, who showed not the slightest surprise at her arrival with Giles as she ushered her to her usual chamber. ‘There is hot water on its way, Miss Joanna, then I hope you will go down to her ladyship directly. She’s been that anxious about you and I have no doubt will not go up to bed as she should until she has seen you with her own eyes.’

  ‘How is her ladyship?’ Joanna asked, not a little anxious of the effect her disappearance and the subsequent hue and cry might have had upon a lady so close to her confinement.

  ‘Blooming!’ The housekeeper clapped her hands together in barely suppressed excitement. ‘Blooming! She says it might be twins, and you only have to look at her to think she might be right.’ A cough from the maid bringing the hot water recalled her to the fact that she was speaking to an unmarried girl. ‘She’s in the Panelled Parlour, Miss.’

  Joanna hurried down, not realising, until she pushed open the door and saw her cousin, how much in need of some feminine support and comfort she was. ‘Oh, Hebe!’ And then she was clasped in her arms on the sofa, being kissed and patted. For almost a minute the two of them clung together, both fighting back tears, then Joanna sat back and managed to produce a watery smile.

  ‘Are you well, Hebe? And Alex and little Hugh?’ Reassured on these points, she asked, ‘Have you heard from Mama or Papa?’

  ‘At length, dearest, they sound… Oh Giles, how well you look!’ She held out her arms as Giles strode into the room and bent to kiss her, then added, half-seriously, ‘And if you say one word to Alex about twins I will never speak to you again. He has been intolerable ever since you suggested the possibility to him; I have been fussed to death and it is all your fault, you wretch. But I forgive you everything for rescuing Joanna.’

  She glanced at Joanna, taken aback by the bleak look in her cousin’s eyes. ‘Oh, my dear, I am sorry, I was telling you about what your parents said and now you are worried. There is no need, they sound positively forgiving. Yes, I know, I was surprised too, but Aunt Emily has sent all your best clothes over and has begged me to keep you for as long as I wish. All she asks is for me to write the moment you arrive. There is a note for you, and one for Giles. There, on that little table.’

  Joanna took the folded paper and regarded it dubiously. That she had been so easily forgiven seemed highly unlikely; no doubt Mama had not wished to sound too angry in her letter to Hebe so as not to worry her. ‘I will read it in my room,’ she said. ‘We must not keep you from your bed, Hebe.’

  ‘No, nor I from yours.’ She allowed Giles to help her to her feet and tucked Joanna’s hand under her arm as they walked from the room. ‘Goodnight, Giles dear.’ When they were out of his hearing she remarked rallyingly, ‘I have to tell you, Joanna, that not only do you look extremely tired, you are positively brown from the sun. I can see all our cucumber frames being stripped before we can restore your complexion.’ This sally produced nothing but a faint smile and she turned to catch her cousin by her forearms, holding her so she could study her face properly. ‘Go to bed, Joanna darling, and sleep well. In the morning I can see we are going to have to have a long talk.’

  Joanna climbed wearily into bed, the soft imprint of Hebe’s kiss on her cheek both a comfort and a reproach. Hebe was obviously concerned for her and would want to help. Yet how could she begin to tell her anything of the truth behind her scandalous escape or Giles’s capture of her?

  Chapter Fifteen

  Joanna slept so deeply that when she finally roused it was several moments before she could recall where she was. When she finally realised that she was safely at Tasborough, she lay rubbing her eyes and watching the play of sunlight through the gap in the drawn curtains. Images and memories of the past few days ran dreamily through her mind. Eventually she roused herself
sufficiently to tug the bell-pull beside the bed.

  The maid who usually looked after her when she stayed at Tasborough popped her head around the door with a speed that made it obvious that she had been waiting in the dressing room.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Joanna.’ She threw back the curtains with both hands, letting in a flood of light and a view across the beech woods towards the Vale. ‘I’ll have the hot water brought up, miss. The hip bath is all set out in the dressing room. The Colonel said you would be wanting a hot, deep bath.’ She whisked out again as rapidly as she had entered, leaving Joanna staring after her.

  ‘Giles said I would want a hot bath? Why on earth…ouch!’ She struggled to sit up against the pillows, every muscle and joint complaining. ‘My word, I am stiff,’ she said to Polly as the maid came back, holding out a pale cream wrapper. ‘I had forgotten just how far we rode yesterday. What a pretty wrapper, Polly. Is it one of her ladyship’s?’

  ‘No, miss. It is one of the new things Mrs Fulgrave sent over for you,’ the maid explained, leaning over the bath to check the temperature of the water. ‘There are some lovely gowns, Miss Joanna, and a parasol and all sorts.’

  New clothes? Joanna’s brow furrowed as she shed her nightgown and climbed into the steaming, herb-scented water. She must be well and truly forgiven if Mama had sent what sounded like a complete new wardrobe. The gift itself was wonderful, but she was far more thankful for the forgiveness: being at odds with her family had been one of the hardest things to bear about the entire situation.

  ‘What time is it, Polly?’

  ‘Nine o’clock, miss. Her ladyship said, would you care to take breakfast with her in her room? She usually has it at half past the hour.’

  ‘Please will you send to say I would love to join her. Does anyone go down to the town with post in the morning? I really must write to my parents.’