“You and Susan missed a dashed good time in Brighton,” Charles Tarrant said, laughing.
He was a man of middle height with a sportsman’s muscular body and the dress sense of a dandy. His chestnut locks were brushed in the windswept style made popular by Beau Brummell, his snowy cravat was stiffly starched, and his shirt points were a good deal too high for any comfort of motion.
Holding Daintry in the curve of one arm, he raised his gold-rimmed quizzing-glass to peer at Deverill, and said, “By God, you must be Penthorpe. Here, Daintry, let a fellow go, so he can do the proper. Dashed glad to meet you, Penthorpe. My father has been telling us how glad … that is, he has been saying—Oh, good God, I shall put my foot in it if I say any more, shan’t I?” Grinning broadly, he thrust out his right hand. “Pleased to meet you. There, no one can cavil at that.”
Deverill shook his hand, but if he had intended to reveal his true identity, he had no opportunity to do so, for reaching out rather wildly to catch hold of the slender, darkhaired lady who had accompanied him into the room, Charles said, “Davina, allow me to present Penthorpe. Oh, and there are Geoffrey and Lady Catherine. Come and meet Penthorpe. Papa, I have stolen your thunder, by Jupiter. Hello, Mama … Cousin Ethelinda. Good God, it’s a dashed family reunion, that’s what it is! If we don’t take care, we shall have the children underfoot next.”
“I am here, Papa,” Charley cried, hopping up and down on one foot beside him. “Wait until I show you the new tricks we have taught Victor while you were away! What did you bring me?”
“Bring you?” Charles looked dismayed. “What did you want me to bring you? Davina, did we bring her anything?”
Davina said sternly, “It is very bad manners to demand a present the minute your parents walk in the door, Charlotte.”
“You promised,” Charley cried. “I didn’t ask for anything. You said when you left that you would bring me a lovely present to make it up to me for being away so long. You know you did.”
Behind them, Sir Geoffrey Seacourt, a tall, slender, fair-haired man, said, “We have presents for you and Melissa both, Charlotte, so stop screeching like a banshee and come kiss your favorite uncle. But where are Melissa and your Aunt Susan?”
“They are coming, Uncle Geoffrey,” Charley said, recovering her dignity instantly and responding to his demand for a kiss with a demure peck on his cheek. When he hugged her, she freed herself with a quick, twisting motion and said, “You know I do not like to be mauled about, sir, though I do thank you very kindly for my presents. Where are they? And who is that lady?”
“Forgive me, everyone,” Sir Geoffrey said with a boyish grin. “I’d forgotten you do not know Catherine. This is a sort of cousin of mine, Lady Catherine Chauncey of Yorkshire, who was most unfortunately widowed last year. We met her in Brighton and she consented to let us carry her back with us to see the county of Cornwall. Catherine, this disheveled young lady is my wife’s niece, Charlotte. Charlotte, do pull up your stockings. You look like a shag bag, and do not,” he added, laughing as he tousled her hair, “ask me what a shag bag is.”
“I know what it is,” Charley said scornfully. “It is the bag one keeps a fighting cock in, and if that is not something I ought to know, then you and Papa and Grandpapa ought not to use the term so often. Lady Catherine is pretty,” she added, making a swift curtsy without bothering to hitch up her stockings. “There is Aunt Susan, now, sir. And Melissa, too.”
Sir Geoffrey turned quickly, saying, “My dearest love, I do hope you are quite well again. You missed a delicious treat by not accompanying us to Brighton. And,” he added, catching her and kissing her hard on the mouth, “I missed you very much. You, too, my darling Melissa,” he added, releasing his wife and catching up the fairylike child in her place.
Melissa put her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek, and still holding her, he called to Medrose to bring in the parcels he had brought with him. “All of them, Medrose.”
Daintry had taken advantage of the distraction to catch Charley and pull her a little to one side. “Do pull up your stockings, darling, and stop dancing about. Grandpapa has been watching you, and so has Aunt Ophelia, so if you do not want to suffer a severe scold later, do as I say right now.”
As the child bent to obey her, Daintry glanced at Deverill, and saw that he was watching the others with a somewhat bemused look on his face. Her father moved to greet him with a beaming smile, and Daintry wondered when Deverill would reveal his true identity. That he had not done so at once could not surprise her, for he would have had to shout to make himself heard, and with all the chatter, it would have taken a good deal of exertion even then to make himself understood. The matter could be set right in a trice once the others quieted down.
Charley tugged on her sleeve. “May I go and open my presents, Aunt Daintry?”
“Yes, darling, and be sure to thank your uncle and your mama and papa for being so kind as to bring them to you.”
“Well, I shall thank Uncle Geoffrey, of course, for I believe he did remember them, but I shall not thank Mama or Papa, for I am just as certain that they did not.”
Daintry, too, was certain of that, but she said firmly, “Thank them nonetheless, Charley. Your good manners must never be dependent upon those of anyone else.”
“Very well, I will.” She was dancing again with impatience, so Daintry shooed her off to open her presents. Then, seeing that Davina and Charles had moved away from the others to sit on a sofa while Sir Geoffrey passed out his gifts, and that St. Merryn had engaged Deverill in conversation near the window, she dutifully turned her attention to the stranger in their midst.
Lady Catherine, who was, as Charley had noted, very pretty indeed, was a buxom, golden-haired beauty with sapphire-blue eyes and a complexion of peaches and cream. She stood quietly near Sir Geoffrey, and Daintry, remembering that Susan had come in after the introductions and seeing how she kept glancing at the woman while she opened her gift, feared that Sir Geoffrey had neglected to present Lady Catherine to his wife.
Susan took a pair of dazzling diamond earrings from a black velvet box, and her eyes began to shine. “Oh, Geoffrey, thank you. I want to wear them now. Will you help me put them on?”
He turned with a grin to do so, and Daintry, regretting the sudden suspicion that had leapt to her mind, said politely to Lady Catherine, “Do come over here and sit down. You must be dismayed by all the uproar, but it is always the same when the whole family gets together like this. Do you mean to stay long in Cornwall? Have you other friends in the county?”
As they moved to join Davina and Charles, Lady Catherine smiled, showing pearly white teeth and full, sensuous lips, and said, “I do have friends at St. Ives. Cousin Geoffrey, the knave, led me to believe it was quite nearby, but I have come to understand during our journey—thanks to your extremely charming brother—that St. Ives is really quite some distance from here.”
“Oh, yes. Cornwall is not so tall, but it is very wide, and St. Ives is much nearer to Land’s End than it is to Devon. We are less than twenty miles from the river Tamar, which forms the boundary, you know, between Devon and Cornwall. That was too bad of Sir Geoffrey to mislead you.”
“Well, he is determined that I shall make a long stay at—”
“What?” St. Merryn’s roar drowned her out, and the rest of the room fell instantly silent, so that his next words, spoken in a menacing growl, carried all too clearly. “What the devil do you mean, you are not Penthorpe?”
Six
IT SEEMED TO DAINTRY as if someone had created a tableau vivant. Charley, holding the new blue Paisley silk scarf she had unwrapped, sat with her mouth agape, her eyes wide and focused on her grandfather. Melissa, caught in the motion of slipping a gold bangle on her thin wrist, was utterly still. Sir Geoffrey and Susan stared at St. Merryn; and Charles and Davina had frozen so that the former’s smile and the latter’s look of polite welcome as Daintry led Lady Catherine toward them, had become as fixed as if the expressions had
been painted on their faces.
Lady St. Merryn, reaching for her salts bottle, was the first to move, and Cousin Ethelinda, ever vigilant, leapt to spare her even that small exertion.
Awakened from his own shock by their movement, St. Merryn snapped, “Damme, I won’t have it! You must be Penthorpe!”
Lady Ophelia said, “Pray moderate your tone, St. Merryn. There are children and ladies present.”
“I never raise my voice,” he snarled, “and you keep your nose out of this, Ophelia. I won’t tolerate any more of your damned meddling. Only look where it has got us now!”
“I quite fail to see how this imbroglio relates to me,” she retorted. “It was your own impulsive assumption that began it, you know. Had you waited, as any reasonable man would have done, to allow the young man to give his name—or indeed, his calling card—to your footman, as I have not the least doubt he meant to do before you snatched the moment to yourself, as so frequently is your habit and indeed, the habit of most men—”
“Spout me no more infernal nonsense about the imperfections of men,” St. Merryn shouted at her. “Men are the superior sex because we are superior, and that is all there is about it.”
Charley said matter-of-factly, “Men are superior only in matters of muscle, Grandpapa. It has been proven, you know—or at least, it has been written,” she added conscientiously, “that the female brain is quite as capable of logical th—”
“Go to your room, you unnatural child!” St. Merryn roared, rounding on her with frenzy in his eyes.
“But—”
Daintry, recognizing that the earl’s love for his granddaughter was presently outmatched by his driving need of a quarry upon whom to wreak vengeance, snapped over her shoulder, “Charles, I will deal with this,” as she strode forward, snatched Charley up from the floor by one arm and hustled her out of the room, pulling the door shut behind them on her father’s outraged declaration, “But, damme, you must be Penthorpe!”
In the blessed near-silence of the corridor, Charley said with an air of dignity at odds with Daintry’s firm hold on her arm, “I am dreadfully sorry, but he was wrong, you know.”
Giving her a shake, Daintry retorted, “I don’t care if he was, young lady. You have no business to talk to him that way, particularly when others are about. You will be fortunate if your papa does not thrash you soundly for such bad manners.”
“He won’t,” Charley said forlornly. “He never does.”
Worried about Deverill but caught off guard by a sudden bubble of laughter in her throat, Daintry released her, saying, “Your grandfather was right, you know; you are unnatural. Do you expect me to believe that you want your papa to spank you?”
“No, of course not.” The child grimaced. “I do not approve of violence, and most certainly not when it is directed toward me. But Papa pays me no heed at all. I heard you tell him you would deal with me, but he had not begun to move, you know, so there was not the least need for you to speak to him.”
“Your grandpapa had begun to move.”
Charley shuddered. “I know. Honestly, Aunt Daintry, I spoke without thinking, but it was nonsense that he was speaking. Aunt Ophelia says—”
“Sometimes,” Daintry said with a sigh, “I think Aunt Ophelia would have done better to interest us in needlework, like Cousin Ethelinda. Independence for women is an excellent notion, but in reality …” She strained her ears to make sense of what seemed to be an unceasing low roar from the drawing room.
Taking advantage of the pause, Charley said, “I’d rather teach Victor to come to me when I want him than learn to sew, and I’d much rather read history than learn to run a great house like Mama says I must, but”—she sighed—“Grandpapa once said that a female who argues facts of history might as well have a beard.”
“At least he didn’t quote Samuel Johnson to you, darling. Johnson believed the only virtuous woman is a silent one.”
Charley giggled. “Even Grandpapa would know better than to expect me to be silent.”
“Perhaps,” Daintry agreed, “but you may be sure he will not want to see your face again soon. Go upstairs now, and try after this to behave like a lady of quality.”
“If that man is truly not Lord Penthorpe, then who—?”
Daintry pointed toward the stairs. “Go, Charlotte.”
Charley went without another word, and shaking her head, Daintry turned back to the drawing room, pausing a moment to draw a deep breath before opening the door. The first person she saw was Deverill, and when his gaze met hers, she saw both amusement and frustration in his eyes. The amusement disappeared when Sir Geoffrey said loudly over the rest, “But damme, I say again, if he is not Penthorpe, then who the devil is he?”
Astonished that the point had not yet been clarified, Daintry caught Deverill’s gaze again. His rueful shrug coupled with the din that greeted Sir Geoffrey’s question informed her that he simply had not yet attempted to make himself heard.
St. Merryn snapped, “Damme, I don’t care who he is if he ain’t Penthorpe, for it’s Penthorpe I want to see. Where the devil is the fellow, I ask you? Stands to reason since he’s sent this fellow in his stead”—he glared at Deverill—“that the young whippersnapper means to delay his visit indefinitely or to turn tail altogether. Well, I won’t have it! He’s betrothed to my daughter, and by God, he will marry her. I have put my foot down, and there is no more to be said about it.”
“Stuff and nonsense,” Lady Ophelia said.
When the earl turned indignantly to glare at her, Deverill said calmly, “I am afraid there is more to be said, sir. Penthorpe is dead. He fell at Waterloo.”
“What? Upon my soul, what did the fellow go and do a thing like that for? Are you sure?”
“Perfectly sure. I saw his body. In point of fact, he had a premonition beforehand and asked me to bring the news to you if he fell. When you mistook me for him, I was dumbfounded, sir, and I behaved badly. I am entirely at fault and can do no more than beg forgiveness, undeserving though I am to receive it.”
“Never mind that now,” St. Merryn said testily. “What I want to know is, who is going to marry my daughter? I’ve got a surfeit of women in this house, as you see, and here I thought the whole business was settled and I could get rid of one of them. Now I’ve got to begin all over again. I say,” he added with a speculative look, “you ain’t a married man, are you, lad?”
“No, sir, I have not that honor.”
“Honor be damned, it’s the one thing the Almighty did that I’d like to call Him to account for. To declare it a man’s duty to marry when he’d never done it himself was a curst bad thing!”
Lady St. Merryn gasped, “Blasphemy! Oh, how can you say such a thing? Where is my handkerchief, Ethelinda? Ring for some hartshorn at once. I feel quite faint.”
As Cousin Ethelinda rushed to obey, St. Merryn snorted and said to Deverill, “There, you see, lad. Too damned many women in this house, and now your friend Penthorpe has left Daintry on my hands. Damme, but perhaps all is not lost. Who the devil are you, lad? If you’re eligible, by God, you may have her!”
Seacourt laughed, but Charles exclaimed, “Father, really!”
Daintry saw Deverill frown and, holding her breath, looked quickly at her great-aunt, whose eyes were alight with expectant laughter. Daintry could see nothing funny in the situation.
St. Merryn, hands on his hips, was waiting for Deverill to speak. The others, too, were silent, waiting.
Looking from one to another, Deverill straightened, and for the first time Daintry thought he looked like a marquess’s son. His very size was intimidating, for he was taller than any of the other men, and broader, and much better looking.
“I am Deverill,” he said with quiet dignity.
There was a different quality to the silence now, as if the room held its breath, and suddenly she became aware of Catherine Chauncey, not only as a stranger in their midst but because the woman looked utterly fascinated by the scene she was witnessing.
The thought passed through her mind in the split second before St. Merryn, nearly choking on the word, repeated, “Deverill?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Jervaulx’s son?”
“Yes, sir, his younger son. I’ve been abroad since leaving Oxford, with Wellington. I was a brigade major under Uxbridge at Waterloo. Penthorpe was my best friend, sir.”
“Don’t mention him to me again,” St. Merryn growled. “What the devil are you doing in my house?”
“I explained that. Penthorpe asked me—”
“Damme, I won’t have a Deverill in my house! Get out!”
Daintry, seeing that Deverill was about to obey the unjust command, said quickly, “Papa, he does not even know about the feud. That is to say, he knows, but he does not know what caused it, and nor do I, or—”
“Upon my soul, girl, it is not necessary for you to understand anything. Such matters are the business of men, and such business they will remain. If you have nothing of more interest to contribute to this conversation, keep silent.”
“But I have a great deal to say,” she insisted. “You cannot throw him out merely because of some outdated squabble between our grandfathers. That makes no sense at all.”
“Silence,” St. Merryn snapped. “You know nothing about it. We Tarrants have had nothing to do with Deverills for more than sixty years, and I do not propose to alter that fact today. Leave my property at once, sir, and never dare cross onto it again.”
Daintry, furious now, cried, “You are unjust, Papa! Even if the cause of the feud was something dreadful, Deverill had nothing to do with it, and if Lord Jervaulx never even thought the finer points important enough to pass on to him, there can be nothing to warrant such enmity now.”
“Deverill only recently became the heir,” St. Merryn said. “Stands to reason he don’t know everything yet. Jervaulx ain’t had time to tell him.”
Turning on her brother, Daintry said, “Do you know the facts, Charles? Has Papa told you? Well, has he?”
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