“I made that,” Sam said. “I lived here for a few months in 1809. I was recovering from diphtheria,” he added.
“Diphtheria! Chicken pox! The place is a positive plague house!” Paris snapped. She glared at him. “There is some plum jam, too, from the trees in the orchard. Did you make that as well?”
“No,” Sam said.
Conversation faltered. Over at the stove, Edna hummed softly as she stirred the broth. Sam felt warm and ran a finger around the inside of his collar. He watched Paris out of the corner of his eyes, as though she were some unpredictable animal. She was looking at him with a calculating expression that gave him deep misgivings.
“Can you make bread?” she asked suddenly. “Neither Edna nor I know how to do it.”
“No,” Sam said.
“You’re useless,” Paris said disagreeably, turned on her heel and stalked out of the room.
Edna sighed. “I am sorry,” she said. “The spots make my lady very bad-tempered.”
“I don’t think it’s just the spots,” Sam said. He looked at the slaughtered chicken lying hopelessly on its slab.
“Do you wish me to chop any more wood before I go?” he asked.
Edna shook her head. “We have plenty. My lady has done it herself.”
The thought of Paris with an ax in her hand made Sam feel quite queasy with fright.
“Stay for some broth,” Edna said. “Don’t mind her.” She jerked her head toward the parlor. “You get used to it.”
Sam sighed. He went into the parlor, where Paris was sitting huddled by the fire. There was a book on the table, a pile of embroidery and a stack of playing cards. Paris glanced up when he came in but said nothing.
“Edna has asked me to stay to eat,” Sam said.
Paris hunched her shoulders even more. “Do what you like.”
Sam threw another log on the fire. “Is there anything else you need me to do for you?” he asked.
Paris shook her head. “No.”
“Is that your embroidery?”
Paris gave him a scornful look. “Is that likely?”
Sam looked at her. She stared straight back.
“Right,” he said. “I will be back tomorrow.”
Paris frowned. “That is not necessary.”
“Nevertheless—”
“I forbid it.”
It was not often that Sam lost his temper. When they had been children, Gideon had sought to provoke him on many an occasion and received such a bland response that he had taunted his brother for being simple. Not even that had roused Sam’s anger. But now, looking on Paris’s pretty, sulky, spotty face, he felt his temper stir.
“Paris,” he said, “I will be coming back tomorrow.” He saw her open her mouth and carried straight on. “I don’t want to come here,” he said. “I don’t like you, I don’t want to help you, and I would far rather spend my time doing something more congenial. In fact, if it comes to that, I never have liked you. You are spoilt and rude and not even a very nice person. But I promised Ben I would do this so I will.”
He turned on his heel and made for the door. “Until tomorrow.”
“Sam.” Paris had waited until he was almost out of the room before she spoke. He turned. She did not look in the least apologetic. She was holding the pack of cards in her hand.
“Yes?” he said.
“There is something that you can do for me,” Paris said. “You can play piquet with me. We will play for pennies.”
Sam paused. This was the moment, he knew, when he should just tell her to go to hell. She had made no attempt to apologize. She did not even look particularly bothered whether he stayed or not. He suspected that sorry was, for Paris, the hardest word to say.
After a moment he sat down opposite her. Paris dealt. Sam picked up his cards and set about fleecing her.
TWO FULL DAYS AFTER CATHERINE had issued the challenge, she was still waiting for Ben to name his seconds for the duel. It infuriated her. He infuriated her. Catherine knew he had deliberately failed to react in order to see what she would do. He was testing her, raising the stakes. And she knew she had to respond because she simply would not give him the upper hand.
A half hour after breakfast, Catherine was in her father’s study, trying to decide what to do. The house was quiet. Maggie and the children had been gone a couple of days and Sir Alfred had not left his room since the night of the terrible confrontation with his wife. He was sober now but had contracted a fever, which the doctor had told Catherine had been brought on by excessive alcohol and a disorder of the nerves. In the meantime, Algernon Withers had neither written nor appeared in person in answer to Catherine’s letter. It was as though he had simply vanished. And although Catherine found this most satisfactory, she still felt sick at the thought of eventually confronting him. His casual cruelty, his blatant debauchery, the way he had used poor, broken Maggie for his own ends…The thought made her blindingly angry.
Catherine poured herself another cup of coffee from the cooling pot and rested her chin on her palm as she tried to think. She needed to know precisely how matters stood in regard of her business affairs. She was not sure how to achieve that given that one of her trustees was dead, a second was ill and a third had disappeared.
And she needed to bring Ben Hawksmoor to heel. This unsatisfactory state of affairs could not continue. She would go to St. James’s and oblige him to name his seconds for the duel.
She was halfway to the door, intending to go upstairs to dress to go out, when the door knocker fell sharply and she heard Tench make his way across the floor to answer. Callers were rare in Guilford Street these days, for with Maggie absent they could neither entertain nor go out. Lily St. Clare had been the only caller the previous day, visiting in answer to Catherine’s plea that she act as one of her seconds in the forthcoming duel. Catherine thought that Tench had dealt very well with an accredited courtesan calling at the house; not by a twitch of a muscle had he expressed any emotion whatsoever except pure courtesy. He was, Catherine thought, a gem among butlers.
Now, however, it sounded as though Tench was dealing with a very different kind of caller. Catherine opened the door a crack and heard an imperious feminine voice.
“Perch, Plaice, Tench, whatever your name is, tell Sir Alfred that Lady Russell wishes to see him!”
There was a pause as Tench replied that Sir Alfred was indisposed.
“Indisposed?” the voice said incredulously. “Arrant nonsense! You mean that he is foxed?”
Catherine rushed out into the hall. “Aunt Agatha! Oh, Aunt Agatha, I am so pleased to see you!”
The elderly vision removing her hat in the hall paused with the pins in her hand. A smile creased her face, which was as brown and wrinkled as a walnut. She was small and round and clad in a startlingly scarlet cloak.
“Kate, my dear!” she cried. “Well, at least one member of the household seems still to have her wits about her. I came as soon as I heard. I thought you might need me.”
Catherine slipped her arm through her godmother’s and drew her toward the library. She glanced back at the butler who was turning Lady Russell’s strangely shaped bonnet around in his hands as though he was not quite sure what to do with it.
“Tench,” Catherine said, “may we please have some refreshment served? Thank you.” She turned back to Lady Russell. “You mentioned that you had heard of my father’s indisposition, ma’am? Is it then common knowledge?”
“All over town,” Lady Russell confirmed gloomily, subsiding in a chair with a heavy sigh. “Heard all about it at Grillons Hotel and you know what a dashed respectable place that is! Did your father not tell you that I was back from Samarkand?”
“No,” Catherine said. She wondered why Sir Alfred had seen fit to keep the news from her. Perhaps it was because he knew she would immediately enrol Lady Russell on her side in her attempts to discover what had happened to the trust fund. And Lady Russell was a dangerous adversary. Just to have her godmother by her side now
made Catherine feel inordinately more cheerful.
“I hope that you enjoyed your trip,” she said. She looked at her godmother, tiny, wrinkled as a prune and resplendent in a vivid gold-and-scarlet gown. “You are looking very well indeed, Aunt Agatha,” she added. “Positively radiant.”
Lady Russell beamed. “Travel agrees with me. But I will tell you about that later. First, I need to know what is going on. Seems to me there is some devilish coil here, Kate, and you are all caught up in it.”
As well as being Catherine’s godmother, Lady Russell was an old acquaintance of her grandfather’s and widow of a fellow nabob. The shared past of the Russells and McNaishes in distant lands had seemed to the young Catherine to be as richly furnished as a fairy story. Lady Russell’s presence in Catherine’s life had been fitful given her predilection for travel overseas, the more exotic and far-flung the destination the better. After her husband had died, she had followed the trade routes of Asia and India in some sort of final pilgrimage, and Catherine had not seen her for several years. But now she was back and Catherine was delighted to see her. She sat down opposite her.
“It seems that you have already heard that Papa has taken to the bottle,” she said. “He has a fever at present. And Maggie is sick with the laudanum and has gone to her parents and I have broken my betrothal to Algernon Withers.”
Lady Russell made a disgusted noise that sounded like a camel snorting. “Withers! That wastrel! Well done, my dear! I knew his father, of course, and his younger brother. Both very bad Ton!”
“He is still one of my trustees,” Catherine said.
“Appointed at your father’s instigation,” Lady Russell said, nodding ominously. “And then there is that curious matter of James Mather’s death. The whole matter smells as strong as the fish market to me, Kate. I will ask my lawyer to make inquiries if you will, and see if we might find out what is at the bottom of this.”
Catherine nodded. “Thank you, Aunt Agatha. I have asked Papa before but it gets me nowhere. I am certain that Withers has some hold over him.”
There was a pause while Tench came in and distributed pastries and tea.
“So,” Lady Russell said, head turned to one side as she viewed her goddaughter, “your papa is a broken reed, Maggie is sick and you have dismissed your betrothed…. Is there aught else that I have missed whilst I have been away, Kate?”
“A little,” Catherine said cautiously. “I have rejected a proposal of marriage from a gentleman who threatens to ruin my reputation and…” She gulped. “I have challenged him to a duel!”
She waited but Lady Russell merely observed her with a distinctly shrewd expression.
“Well,” her godmother said after a moment. “A young gel should be permitted to put a bullet through a man if she don’t like him. I remember once back in India there was a fella in the company who insulted me and I called him out.” She shook her head regretfully. “The fool was too much of a coward to meet me! He called off!”
“Well, Lord Hawksmoor has agreed to meet me,” Catherine said. “At the very least he is not a coward.”
Lady Russell tilted her head thoughtfully. “Hawksmoor, you say? The chap who was in the Peninsular? I met him once. Shocking scoundrel, very dangerous.” She was smiling. “Fatally attractive, of course. That type always is.”
Catherine blushed. “What was he doing at the time you met him?” she asked. “Seducing all the local beauties?”
“No,” Lady Russell said, eyes twinkling, “he was rescuing a comrade from behind enemy lines. Plenty of courage, that boy.”
Catherine frowned. “What were you doing behind enemy lines, Aunt Agatha?”
For the first time in their acquaintance, she thought that Lady Russell looked shifty. “Ah,” her godmother said, “best not to ask.” She cleared her throat. “So he compromised you, did he?”
“I compromised myself,” Catherine said a little bleakly. Although Lady Russell was famous for her tolerance, Catherine did not intend to tell her godmother just how thoroughly she had ruined herself.
“Lord Hawksmoor, realizing that I was an heiress, decided that I should be forced into marriage with him,” she explained. “I refused and when he threatened to tell everyone, I responded by challenging him to a duel.”
Lady Russell nodded slowly. “Seems reasonable to me. Not the required behavior for a young gel, of course, but needs must. Have you named your seconds?”
“I have asked Lily St. Clare to act for me,” Catherine said. “You remember Lily, Aunt Agatha?”
Lady Russell nodded. “Sweet gel,” she said. “You were at school with her as I recall. How does she do these days?”
Catherine swallowed hard. “She is…um…She was obliged…That is, she is a courtesan.”
She saw Lady Russell’s eyes bulge slightly. “Good God,” she said faintly. “I have been away a long time. London is gone to rack and ruin!”
“It was dreadful,” Catherine said. “Lily’s husband was a cad and used to beat her and when she turned to a lover, he betrayed her…. Poor Lily, she is in the most desperate straits. She is not happy.”
“Don’t know what society is coming to,” Lady Russell said gruffly, selecting another scone with a look of relish. “There are some good men out there but where are they when you need ’em?” She fixed Catherine with a gimlet gaze. “Left us all at the mercy of rakes and wastrels! Best be sure Ben Hawksmoor is not a good man before you put a bullet through him, miss.”
“I won’t kill him,” Catherine said, “but I do feel most strongly that he deserves to be taught a lesson.”
She paused, drumming her fingers thoughtfully on the arm of the chair. Was Ben Hawksmoor a good man? Conventional judgment said not, and yet he had been a war hero. People spoke of his courage. And she herself had seen the loyalty he had for Ned Clarencieux. She sighed.
“I know it is not at all appropriate to ask you, Aunt Agatha, but do you think you might act for me as well? I realize that the whole matter is most unconventional—”
Lady Russell beamed. “Thought you’d never ask, Kate. I’d be delighted. Need a bit of excitement in my old age. Thought London was going to be dashed dull after Samarkand. Seems I was wrong.”
Catherine breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh good. Well, thank you, Aunt.” She glanced at the clock. “In point of fact, I was about to call on Lord Hawksmoor when you arrived. He has refused to name his seconds, you see, and I know he does it just to taunt me. I am determined to make him meet my challenge.”
Lady Russell put down her teacup. “Then by all means let us call upon him, my dear.”
They took a hack. The snow had been swept from the main thoroughfares now, but it was still slow going.
“There have been the most dreadful accidents out in the country, you know,” Lady Russell confided. “They say that coaches have been overturned in the snowdrifts and an entire company of soldiers frozen to death near Shrewsbury!”
Catherine shivered. “I hope that Maggie and the children reached Kent in safety. We had not had word, but with the weather being as it has…”
“Difficult conditions under which to fight a duel,” Lady Russell observed.
“I will find a way,” Catherine said.
At number forty-three St. James’s Place, they found the same discreet-looking butler who had admitted Catherine the night of the masquerade and subsequently found her a hack to take her to Covent Garden. Catherine felt slightly embarrassed but the manservant gave no sign of recognizing her at all.
“His lordship is at home,” he confirmed, “but he is currently occupied. If you will wait in the drawing room, ladies, I will let him know that you are here.”
Catherine stood before the fireplace, fidgeting with her gloves. She felt very on edge and irritated to find herself feeling that way. In the two days since she had issued her challenge to Ben, the blinding fury that she had felt at his blackmail had not abated. It had hardened into a fierce determination to teach him a lesson for his arro
gance.
“Once he knows I am here, he will creep out the back door, or tell the butler not to admit us, or pretend that he is occupied,” she said fiercely. “I know he does it only to annoy me.”
“It seems to be working,” Lady Russell commented. She opened the door and peered out into the corridor. “I can see that close-looking fellow in the doorway of a room at the end of the hall,” she said.
“The ballroom,” Catherine said, without thinking, and saw her godmother’s eyebrows shoot up into her hair.
“I see,” Lady Russell said. “You have been here before.”
Catherine cleared her throat. “Oh, I am going in there. I cannot be doing with all this waiting about.”
She marched down the corridor before her godmother could protest. The door of the ballroom was ajar and she could hear the butler within, speaking to someone—presumably Ben—who was out of sight.
“…I have asked the ladies to wait in the drawing room but if your lordship prefers not to see them this morning I will explain—”
“Oh no, you won’t,” Catherine said, pushing the door wide. “Lord Hawksmoor…” She stopped.
At one end of the ballroom was an easel set up by the long windows. An artist was painting quickly, almost feverishly. Some distance away, on a small stage, stood Ben Hawksmoor. He was naked but for a diaphanous union flag draped low around his hips.
Catherine stared, blushed and felt a wave of heat consume her entire body. She was mortified. How could she feel aroused by the sight of Ben Hawksmoor, here, in full daylight, in his own ballroom, with her chaperone in attendance? And yet…aroused was precisely what she felt. Hot and disturbed and stirred up—and very, very angry.
“Benjamin Hawksmoor!” Lady Russell said loudly from behind her. “Yes, I recognize you!”
Catherine wondered which bit of Ben her godmother could possibly be recognizing.
“Catherine!” Lady Russell snapped. “Avert your eyes.”
Catherine frowned. It was difficult to know where to avert them. She looked away, only to catch a glimpse of the curve of one of Ben’s buttocks as he dropped the flag and reached for his robe. The painter sighed querulously.
Lord of Scandal Page 19
