The Wicked Guardian

by Vanessa Gray

  8.

  The drink was too strong—she realized that now. The drink had been laced with alcohol, and she would be lucky to get away. She had no hope of escape.

  Harry Rowse’s arm now moved downward from her shoulders to her waist, and his clasp was as one of iron. She should have been suspicious, said a scolding voice in her mind. Any lady of any countenance would never have allowed herself to stroll even in broad daylight with such a one as Harry Rowse.

  The liquor exerted a paralyzing influence upon her. She knew vaguely she should struggle, but there seemed to be a great gap between the wish and the deed. The world reduced itself to Harry—his hold on her, his hand caressing her throat...

  “Pray do not, Mr. Rowse!” she managed to say at last. “Only think of the consequence—”

  “The consequence, my kitten, will be an unalloyed delight.” Harry chuckled deep in his throat. “For me ... even if you disagree. But I have been thinking of naught else since I first saw you. And—”

  “And I was stupid enough—”

  His lips on hers muffled any further protest. She could not breathe. She felt strangely as if a part of her had left her body and looked on from a place somewhere above her left shoulder, with exceedingly great displeasure, but a torpor spread throughout her limbs.

  And suddenly she was released. Harry’s arm was snatched away, and she nearly fell backward on the bench. The drink was beginning to wear off, she realized with gratitude, for she could move again, and her legs obeyed her. To a point; they would not allow her, yet, to flee.

  But Harry was not able just now to return to his original design. He was standing on the gravel path, face to face with a man who clearly had come to Clare’s rescue, in the nick of time, she had no doubt.

  She was wild with relief, and even welcomed her rescuer—Lord Choate. She was grateful beyond measure, but still she could have wished it were someone else who had found her.

  Wishfully, a complete stranger!

  Choate was seething with fury. He had hurled Rowse away from Clare, and now stood in the gravel walk, artfully between Clare and her attacker, lightly dusting his fingers. “I wonder whether I shall feel clean again?” he said thoughtfully, looking at his hands. “Probably by tomorrow. But I confess to a bit of curiosity, Rowse. How did you think you would come out of this with credit?”

  “I imagine,” said Harry, drawling, “that you will give me all the credit I shall need on this.”

  “I fail to see your reasoning,” said Benedict. The flambeau nearest them flickered—or else it was the tiny muscle along the end of Benedict’s jaw that tightened—and then gave every sign of dying. Neither man on the walk so much as noticed.

  “Surely,” Benedict added, “if this story got abroad, you would find it difficult to so much as speak to any respectable female. And then, of course, you would probably find it more comfortable to sojourn abroad.”

  “Now, I wonder why you would think that,” commented Harry. “When I doubt that you will find much credit yourself, were you to tell the story abroad.”

  A little silence greeted this remark. Clare was on her feet by this time, and was fully occupied in overcoming her dizziness.

  Harry laughed softly. “I wonder why you took such interest in the lady. Surely you have no reason to follow her through the paths of this most enchanting and seductive garden? Or have you? Perhaps a certain lady of our acquaintance would be well-advised to look to her affairs, lest her rightful interests be infringed upon.”

  “I should call you out for that,” said Benedict with a studied air of carelessness. “Too bad that dueling has lost its ton.” Then, with a savage intensity he added, “But I warn you, Rowse, one more word from you and I will deal with you, swords, pistols, whatever your choice. Although my own choice runs more along the lines of horsewhipping.”

  Harry Rowse was shaken. He had no wish to confront Benedict Choate at the opposite end of a dueling ground, no matter what the weapon. He had lost the game this time, he reflected, but it was not the end of things. As with many another man, failure meant only determined pursuance, and while he had lost this round, there would be another time. And perhaps, another time, he could deal a double blow.

  For he wanted Clare—not to set her up in any kind of establishment. For one thing, he didn’t have the money, and for another thing, his fancy was very soon diverted. But want her he did. And perhaps, if he played his cards right, and luck was with him, he could in that same ambition deal with Lord Choate as well. He would have to give it thought.

  Just now, he declined any offer of a duel with Choate. “For I think the quarrel is not worth such an effort,” said Rowse carefully. “And a duel could not but reflect upon your motives, my dear Choate. And if I am right—and I’m not usually mistaken about this kind of thing, you know—you would not come out of the affair scot-free, either.”

  So saying, he stepped around his adversary on the walk and vanished in the direction of Carlton House, leaving Benedict, a prey of mixed emotions, alone with Clare.

  Clare had mastered her undependable knees, and was reduced to a small trembling that she could not stop. She looked up at Benedict, and began to speak, but could not utter a sound.

  It was as well, for Choate was not in the mood to hear anything she said. Turning on her, now that Rowse was out of sight, he said, “You idiot!”

  She drew in a quick breath. She knew she had been an idiot, but she didn’t relish hearing it from anyone else.

  “I cannot think what possessed you to allow yourself to take three steps in public with Harry Rowse. Surely you knew what he was? ... You don’t answer? Well, at least you know what he is now.” He peered at her. “Don’t you?”

  Suddenly her spirit returned to her. “Well, since you ask,” she said in a rush, “yes, I do. But at least he was amiable.”

  It was an unfortunate choice of words. “Amiable! Is that your term for it? Does that mean that anyone who smiles at you is going to lead you down a dark path and—”

  “No!” she exclaimed sharply. “But you are always such a great scold, and I confess I am weary of hearing about my faults. You came to rescue me as though I were a stray puppy on the street.”

  “I came because you had left my protection—”

  “Your protection!”

  “And,” he pursued darkly, “I think you must agree that my protection is not to be scorned? What would you have done?”

  The question was one that Clare herself was beginning to consider. It did not help that it came from Benedict at this moment. She could not answer.

  “So I thought,” he said.

  His anger was holding at its high pitch. He had a few items on his mind, and, so far from being an urbane man with complete control over his baser instincts, he simply gave his tongue loose rein.

  “While you feel that any escape from a dull escort—such as I gather you consider me—is justified, let me tell you that in society it is not the thing. A well-brought-up lady stays with her dancing partner, or her escort, until she is restored to the chaperon with whom she came. She also says, as prettily as she can manage, thank you to the gentleman who partnered her. And—should the occasion arise, as, I am sure you need not be told, does not happen often—she says thank you to her rescuer as well. Perhaps you think it would be exciting to have two men duel over you? Let me tell you, it is not. I should feel soiled were I to duel with Harry Rowse, and if I did call him out, it would not be over you.”

  Clare mustered her dignity. “Then why, my dear sir, did you follow me out here?”

  “Because you haven’t the sense that a goose has!”

  “Indeed?” Clare quaked inwardly, but she knew instinctively that if she meekly allowed Benedict to read the riot act over her, she would collapse, and—probably—die on the spot. While it might prove embarrassing for Benedict were this to happen, yet she did not feel it wise. “And I suppose that no lady ever found herself weary of your company in such a degree that any escape would serve?�
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  The flambeau guttered and gave out at that moment, but not soon enough so that she missed the glitter in his eyes as he leaned toward her. At that moment she was almost afraid of him. But still, she thought, she would welcome whatever happened next.

  Nothing happened. “My firm belief,” he said, ignoring her outrageous remark, “is that you ought to be kept close—preferably in a cloistered convent—until you get some sense.”

  She already repented of her provocative outburst, but she would not apologize. She was suddenly infinitely weary of this whole evening—of Harry Rowse, of Benedict Choate, of Alexander Ferguson, of London itself.

  Without a word she turned and started back toward Carlton House. Benedict’s footsteps sounded on the gravel behind her, and soon he had caught up to her. He offered her his arm, but she pretended not to see it. He took her, at last, to a door different from the one she had come out of. It opened onto a smaller room, which at the moment was not occupied.

  They crossed the room in silence, to the door opposite, which led onto the grand octagonal entrance hall with the great double staircase leading to upper rooms.

  “Go upstairs,” he told her, not quite roughly, “and straighten your attire. I will make your excuses to Lady Thane.”

  Without a word she did as she was bid. Across the room and up the stairs. Halfway up, she turned and looked back. Benedict was standing where she had left him, seeing that she was safe as far as he could.

  He had saved her from a fate she did not want to think about. She managed a wan smile, and then continued up the stairs.

  Benedict’s conscience smote him. He had been too rough on her, he believed. It would have been enough to send that scoundrel on his way, and then let the child cry herself back to normal. Why had he gone after her, hammer and tongs? Something Harry had said—that Marianna Morton might be jealous—came to him, and with it the reflection that he knew too well that lady’s capacity for lacerated feelings.

  It was a ridiculous affair, of course, and he for one would never breathe a word of what had just transpired. Harry was wide of the mark, of course. Benedict had not the slightest interest in a schoolgirl. Or even this maddening female just out of the schoolroom.

  And yet, as he remembered her stricken look just now as she ascended the stairs, a queer misgiving passed over his mind. And her look of forlorn loneliness stayed with him as he moved through the crowd to find Lady Thane.

  9.

  In the meantime, Clare, unaware of how powerfully her appearance had worked upon her distant kinsman, entered the retiring room, a delightful confection in the French fashion of a decade or so before, in gold and white.

  Hardly noticing her surroundings, she longed above all to lay her head down so that the room would not swim so distractingly. The outer room held half a dozen modishly gowned women, including the severe Lady Hertford, whose taste, it was said, had commanded the prince’s purse in furnishing Carlton House. Lady Hertford, tall, blond, and possessed of unmoved poise, glanced at Clare, and Clare felt that that powerful woman could read her thoughts.

  She passed on into the next room, one of several that opened from the little gilt salon. A little bergere chair stood near an open window, and Clare sank into it gratefully. Her head swam alarmingly, and for a few moments she feared she was about to be disgracefully sick. She was the victim of more than the emotional aftermath of that dreadful scene in the garden. The liquor that Harry Rowse had poured—with a free hand!—into her drink addled her wits and churned her stomach. She was, she realized with horror, half-foxed! She closed her eyes in despair.

  But her thoughts, while her head rested upon the back of the chair, swam quite as much as her head. She had made a mull of the whole thing—all of Grandmama’s hopes for her had come to naught. She was distressed to believe that Benedict had been right: she was too young to go on in London. Everything was new and exciting, and she had lacked the balance necessary to deal with what was after all a very tempting life.

  She finally believed that she had two choices. Fortunately, Benedict had rescued her—twice, as it happened, in recent days—and she had no very great disaster to overcome. She could go home to Penryck Abbey, and come back—if Lady Thane could be persuaded—next year. And having a taste of London, she thought she could spend the intervening months with profit, preparing for a life she knew better now.

  Or, she thought, closing her eyes, she could marry Sir Alexander. If Lady Thane were right—and she usually had a very fine sense of social nuances—then Sir Alexander would be offering for her very soon. And Clare, disgracefully, was not ready to give an answer.

  She was not sure whether the advantages of her own establishment, with ample funds in hand, would outweigh the disadvantage of listening everlastingly to Sir Alexander’s constant flow of untimely information.

  I wish I had not come! she thought fiercely.

  But at least Harry Rowse’s attempt would not be common knowledge. She could count on Benedict to keep such an incident to himself.

  Almost as though her mind spoke aloud, the words came to her. “But Benedict is so disgusted with the brat—that’s what he calls her, you know, the Penryck brat...”

  An eavesdropper never hears good of herself! But Clare could not have pulled herself away, or made her presence known, for half of Dorset.

  A murmur from the unseen listener was indistinguishable, but the nearer voice spoke again, and this time Clare recognized it. Marianna Morton was holding forth, and Clare realized that the ladies were in the small room next door, with the window open, so that Marianna’s words came out one window and could be clearly heard through the next.

  “Well, my dear,” said Marianna to her unseen audience, “it is a privilege of family, you know. Benedict has some remote connection, so remote he hasn’t thought of it for years, with the Penrycks. But of course, with the child underfoot in London everywhere you go, he can’t help but be aware of her.”

  Underfoot! Clare squirmed in her chair but could not muster enough character to leave.

  “One can’t blame her, I suppose,” continued Marianna, “in hanging out for a rich husband. She has the kind of beauty, you know, that fades quickly. One season, or at best two, and she’ll begin to show signs of wear. These blonds, you know, always look faded...”

  Clare finally summoned enough anger to get to her feet ready to leave. But she did not leave quite soon enough, for Marianna had one more word to say, and that proved to be the worst.

  “Choate told me about an incident in Oxford Street, where the foolish child caused a dreadful scene. It is too bad she hasn’t learned a little decorum. Benedict was so disgusted—and I must say I agreed with him when we discussed what is best to do. Just ignore her, I told him. But he said, and I confess I must agree with that too, that he would never know what dreadful thing she will next do. I trust I am not around—and yet Benedict finds such release in talking to me that it is selfish of me...”

  Clare’s feet were released from their paralysis on that last word. So Benedict had discussed Clare in detail with the raven-haired beauty he was to wed. And Clare had thought him the soul of honor, a man who could and would keep his own counsel, and not spread her missteps abroad. Well, if he had made much of the Oxford Street incident, then how much more would he need consolation from his Marianna when the Harry Rowse incident was aired between them?

  But one more word came through the window. Marianna said, with a certain vindictive edge to her carrying voice, “I wish I had the rule of that brat for a month!”

  And for the first time the listener spoke intelligibly. “I wonder whether I detect a bit of jealousy in you?”

  Clare did not wait for an answer. Suddenly fearing that the speakers would emerge and catch sight of her, Clare fairly flew across the small salon and down the stairs. Surely, if Marianna Morton had her way, no one would ever forget Clare Penryck’s disastrous first season. Clare herself had thought her escapades were unfortunate, but certainly not scandalous, yet,
with Marianna’s peculiar twist to them, Clare would never be able again to show her face in London.

  She paused halfway down the staircase. The ballroom below was, to her great surprise, still full. It was almost as though no time at all had elapsed, or as though the participants had remained frozen for an hour, until Clare came to set them in motion again.

  But she realized that it was only that she had not been gone long. She glanced over the crowd, searching for a face that she might know. The only one she saw at first was Benedict, who caught her eye fleetingly before clearly looking away. So, she would not avoid him this time, since the last time she had been sadly ill-advised. But she would not ask his escort to Lady Thane, either. In fact, all she wanted in this world was not to see Lord Benedict Choate, ever again.

  She reached the bottom of the stair, to find Ned Fenton at hand. “Good evening,” he said with a warm smile. “I feared I had missed you in the squeeze. The regent certainly knows how to entertain, doesn’t he? Are you enjoying yourself?”

  He reached his hand out to help her down the last step. She faltered some kind of response, and he added, “Choate told me you were here.”

  So Benedict did not confide in Marianna alone! Here was his good friend, Ned Fenton, and Benedict had obviously (thought Clare) told him all that had transpired in the garden.

  “Indeed?” said Clare stiffly. She dared not follow her instinct and rail at Ned. Not just because he had always been kind to her—her state of mind was too riotous to consider such niceties—but simply because if she did not hold tight rein on her tongue, she would fall into disaster. “He couldn’t wait to confide in you, could he?”

  Ned looked bewildered. “I don’t know exactly what you mean,” he said, puzzled, “but I assure you, he said nothing untoward.”

  Clare flushed. Perhaps she had been wrong, and Benedict had not told Ned. Yet. But she surely judged that Benedict was a rattle instead of the man of integrity she had thought him. And if he had not told Ned already, then it was only a matter of time until he did so.