A Chance Encounter: A rash decision changes their lives forever.

by Buck, Gayle

  “But . . . Oh, Edward, how could you?” wailed the countess, covering her face with one trembling hand.

  Lord Humphrey swiftly knelt beside the overwrought countess. He took her free hand between his own. “Mama, pray—”

  Lady Dewesbury dropped her hand from her face, revealing suddenly flashing eyes. She pulled free of her son’s grasp with a show of revulsion. “How dared you, Edward? I demand that you apologize at once. At once, do you hear?’’

  A nerve jumped in the viscount’s jaw. “Indeed, Mama? For taking my destiny into my own hands at the ninth hour?” He rose to his feet. As he looked down into his mother’s face, he gave a twisted smile. Softly, he said, “I have been the dutiful son and heir. I have done all that has ever been asked of me. Neither you nor my father has ever had cause to be disappointed in me. Perhaps I made a grave error in never giving you such cause.” He turned on his heel and aligned himself beside Joan’s chair. So close together, she seated gracefully in her chair with his lordship standing beside her and his hand laid on the back of the chair, they presented a picture of complete unity.

  Lady Dewesbury stared speechlessly at her son, as much stricken by what he had said as his obvious determination to support the usurping Miss Chadwick.

  At Lord Humphrey’s declaration, Lord Ratcliffe’s heavy brows rose in astonished comprehension. He stared hard at the viscount, as though seeing him for the first time, and a long-buried thought turned over in his mind. He said something under his breath.

  “Rubbish,” snapped Lady Ratcliffe. She shook off her husband’s warning hand. Trembling, she said, “Fine talk, my lord! No, I shall not be quiet! Someone must speak for our poor daughter. You, sir. You have betrayed my innocent’s hopes and expectations. When the announcement was discovered in this morning’s edition, she was positively shattered. She could not be brought to believe it.”

  “Did the girl fall into the fits?” Lady Cassandra asked with polite interest.

  Lady Ratcliffe glared at her ladyship. Lord Ratcliffe looked meditatively at the ceiling. “She drummed her heels on the floor, actually,” he murmured.

  “Gad, I am glad I was not here to hear it,” Lord Humphrey said fervently.

  Lady Cassandra gave a cackling crow of amusement.

  Lady Ratcliffe rounded on her husband, raining a furious fusillade of words upon his head. Lord Ratcliffe merely shrugged. “Facts are facts, my dear heart,” he told his lady.

  She was not mollified, but jumped to her feet and with barely controlled venom, she said, “I shall not remain another moment in the same room with those who are completely abhorrent in my sight. Between the pair of them, they have made my baby miserable. I shall never forgive any of you, but most particularly you, my lord, never!” She ran from the drawing room.

  Lord Ratcliffe was slow to follow his wife. He looked shrewdly at the viscount, who met his reflective gaze with an air of stiff defiance. “I have thought for years that Augusta was too heavy-handed with you.” With that surprising comment, he, too, left the drawing room.

  “Just see what you have done by your churlishness, Edward,” exclaimed Lady Dewesbury. “There is dear Aurelia completely overset. Oh, I do not know what is to be done now. Poor Augusta was calmed only after a liberal dose of laudanum. Such a fragile girl—I had no notion! And now there is Aurelia! The Ratcliffes are fixed here for weeks. I do not know how I shall be able to bear the mortification.’’

  “Put a damper on it, daughter,” Lady Cassandra said crushingly. “I do not think I have ever seen a Cheltenham tragedy acted better.”

  The countess turned an outraged gaze on Lady Cassandra. “How can you berate me so, Mama? I can see that it pleases you to champion Edward’s cause, though how even you could be so unfeeling, so utterly insensible, I cannot fathom.”

  She had gotten to her feet as she spoke and now she whisked herself about to the door. She glanced over her shoulder at her son, who had stationed himself behind his fiancée’s chair and now rested a hand upon the unknown girl’s rigid shoulder. “You may as well know, Edward: your father has gone out for birds.” With that triumphant shot, she exited the drawing room, letting the door fall shut behind her with a loud bang.

  “Birds?” Lady Cassandra repeated, intrigued. She cocked an inquiring brow in the viscount’s direction.

  Lord Humphrey smiled grimly. “My father detests shooting birds. According to him, they are puling sport and not worth the effort. Actually, of course, it is because he is such an abominable shot. He only takes out his fowling piece when he is in an ungovernable temper. It is the worst sign.”

  “How utterly charming,” Lady Cassandra said. “I actually had no notion.”

  “I think that I shall be ill,” Joan whispered, still tingling from the explosive scene. She had never been exposed to such shocking uproar before, and she was shaking in reaction.

  “Don’t be missish, Miss Chadwick. Edward, make her drink that wine at once. It will settle her nerves,’’ said Lady Cassandra. She watched while the viscount solicitously bent over the white-faced girl with a half-filled glass.

  Joan shook her head quickly, but after a moment of listening to Lord Humphrey’s persuasions, she dared to sip at the wine. The color began returning slowly to her face. She smiled fleetingly at the viscount. “I am better. Thank you, my lord. It was just all so horrible!”

  Lady Cassandra nodded in satisfaction. “Good. I have rarely seen a good wine fail. Miss Chadwick, you are obviously suffering under a misapprehension. Contrary to what you may believe, and considering everything, the first hurdle has been gotten over surprisingly well.”

  Joan stared at her ladyship in open disbelief. “My lady, you cannot be serious. Everyone was at daggers’ points. As for my own reception . . . why, I would scarcely have lasted five seconds alive saving the viscount’s and your own presence.”

  “Joan, my grandmother is right. It went somewhat better than I expected. After all, Miss Ratcliffe was not present to contribute full-blown hysterics,” Lord Humphrey said. He smiled down at her appalled expression. “You may breathe more freely now. I suspect the worst to be over, my lady.”

  “Do you indeed? How young you are still, Edward,’’ Lady Cassandra said cheerfully. She lifted her wineglass and drained it with relish.

  Joan felt a sinking feeling. “Just what are you saying, my lady?”

  “Only that I’d wager that there will be a few more uncomfortable moments to be gotten through,” Lady Cassandra said. “You have yet to meet Lord Dewesbury, as well as the score of others that I would have expected Lady Dewesbury would have invited in honor of the wonderful news of my grandson’s nuptials.”

  “Oh, Lord,” groaned Lord Humphrey. “I had not thought. Mama undoubtedly invited a houseful of family and friends who were to have celebrated the happy ties between myself and Miss Ratcliffe. It was the reason I originally meant to come down only for the weekend. I had no desire to play the proud fiancé for a crowd of mistaken well-wishers.”

  “My daughter has always been an excellent and meticulous hostess. It is one of her few redeeming qualities,” Lady Cassandra said musingly.

  Joan paid not the least bit of attention to her ladyship. The picture conjured up by the viscount’s words was too horrible to contemplate. “I do not think that I can go through with it,” she said with a shudder.

  “Nor I. I’d as lief be gone within the hour,” Lord Humphrey said. “Joan will you come with me?”

  “Gladly, my lord,” Joan said fervently.

  “Pudding hearts, the both of you,” said Lady Cassandra roundly.

  “I beg your pardon,” the viscount said stiffly.

  “What will you do once you leave?” asked Lady Cassandra, ignoring her grandson’s affront. “There is still the matter of your hasty marriage, or have you forgotten, Edward? You shall have to make a full confession. Or will you play the coward and leave the earl and your poor mother to suffer under the painful delusion that you have taken Miss Chadwick away to her r
uin?”

  “It is all one and the same at this juncture, my lady,” Joan said with a spurt of temper. “The situation is intolerable as it stands.”

  Lady Cassandra smiled slightly. “Is it, my dear? I suspect that my grandson realizes differently.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Joan looked up quickly at the gentleman standing beside her chair. Lord Humphrey was scowling. “My lord?” she questioned.

  He looked at her, the expression in his frowning eyes inscrutable. When he spoke, it was grimly, reluctantly. “She is right, dash it! We shall have to go on with it. We’ve gone too far now to cry craven.”

  “Indeed, I rather think that running away now would make matters even more difficult later,” Lady Cassandra said. She added delicately, “Especially if you were to wait until you were forced to impart the news of an impending event.”

  Lord Humphrey glanced sharply at his grandmother. He had not given thought to that particular possibility before, and the implications stunned him. It was going to be uphill work to introduce into the family a betrothed who was not Miss Ratcliffe. His mind fairly boggled at the notion of presenting a wife, who had never been accepted, with a babe in arms. No, decidedly he would not wish to go through that.

  The initial responsibility that he had shouldered for an unknown young woman’s reputation was now assuming such proportions that he felt he carried a massive weight.

  Joan was wrapped in her own unhappy reflections and she did not gather the import of what had been said. “I had prepared myself for opposition and discomfort. I never dreamed it would be so perfectly ghastly.”

  Lord Humphrey felt suddenly suffocated. He forcefully slapped his palm against the top of the wing chair. “It is a damnable business! I wish that I had never embarked upon it.”

  His outburst touched spark to Joan’s own insecurities. She shot out of the chair, startling him.

  She was trembling when she faced him, and her hands were clenched into fists at her sides. “And I also! Do you think that I actually enjoyed that horrid scene? And when I think that I am expected to sit through more of the same, I positively shiver with dread and revulsion. I wish you had simply left me in that ditch, my lord. It would have been infinitely preferable.”

  His expression was shocked. “Joan—”

  She suddenly could not bear to look at his face for a second longer and she turned her back on him.

  “There is still the alternative of annulment.”

  Lady Cassandra’s crisp voice rasped raw against Joan’s stretched nerves. She raised her head, her eyes closing tight for the brief instant that it took for her to draw a shuddering breath. It was all she could do not to round on the insensitive woman.

  Lord Humphrey crossed the distance to his wife. It was strange how he thought of her that way. Nothing had ever passed between them but the exchange of vows, and he could not fathom what there was in that to place her in his thoughts so firmly. He placed his hands on her shoulders and under them felt her violent start of surprise. “I do not wish an annulment. I pledged my vows in all sincerity and honor.”

  Joan turned under his hands and looked up to search his face.

  Lord Humphrey said quietly, “I told you this once before, my lady. I shall not regret taking you for my wife.” Their eyes locked and an unnamable expression flitted across the viscount’s face.

  Joan felt the most curious sensation. She held herself very still. His hands tightened on her shoulders.

  “Very prettily said, Edward.”

  Lady Cassandra’s acid tone recalled the couple unpleasantly to their surroundings. The viscount dropped his hands from Joan’s shoulders. He turned toward his grandmother, and as much for Lady Cassandra’s benefit as for his lady, he said, “I apologize for my hasty words. They were borne out of frustration. I could only wish an easier time of it for Joan’s sake.”

  Lady Cassandra shrugged in a bored fashion. “You have made your bed between you. It is a pity that the sheets are not smooth enough for your mistress’s taste.”

  Hot color surged into Joan’s face.

  The viscount exclaimed angrily, “You shall not speak in that fashion to my wife!”

  “Your wife, Edward!” Lady Cassandra’s voice dripped ice. Her eyes were equally cold as she stared at her grandson. “Pray recall that you have entered upon a delicate masquerade. Miss Chadwick is your betrothed, Edward. And Miss Chadwick should be prepared for just such talk, though not again from myself.” She made a gesture of contempt. “I grow weary with this farce. I shall leave you alone to digest what I have said. I hope that you may come to a reasonable acceptance of the reality that you have created, but after your poor performance just now I do not place any confidence in it. I doubt that you shall be able to attain the happy outcome that you desire, Edward.”

  Lady Cassandra left the drawing room.

  There was a long silence while the viscount and Joan stared at each other. The temper in his eyes was not for her, she knew. She lifted her hand in an inadequate gesture. “I was mistaken, my lord. Lady Cassandra can indeed be a dragon,” she said.

  “Yes, and one with a razor-edged tongue,” said Lord Humphrey, still smarting from his grandmother’s scathing disparagement.

  “Yet, I do believe that she has your best interests at heart.’’

  “She has a damnable way of showing it,” Lord Humphrey said.

  “But nevertheless her ladyship is correct in her estimation. We are fools, the both of us, for believing that we might spare your family some measure of suffering,” Joan said. She made a short turn about the room, pausing to touch a figurine here, a vase there.

  Lord Humphrey watched her. He was aware of her distress, but he was powerless to remedy the situation, and that angered him further. “What would you have me do, my lady? I am not a wizard that I might magically set all aright. I have done as my honor has led me. Am I to be condemned for that, and by you? You forget yourself, my lady. I do not forget that it is you who stands to profit the most by this rotten coil.”

  Joan rounded on him then, her own eyes snapping in anger. “I do not expect magic, Edward. As for profit, if it was not for me or some other poor idiot, you would be firmly leg-shackled to a lady whom you hold in utter revulsion.”

  Lord Humphrey’s smile twisted unpleasantly. His gray eyes were wintry. “One leg-shackle is much like another, my dear.”

  Joan whitened. She appeared stricken as she stared across the room at him. Then her face altered, taking on a distant expression that he had never seen before.

  “There is nothing more to be said, my lord.” She swept around and pulled open the drawing-room door. Blindly, for the tears had already started to her eyes, she fled.

  Lord Humphrey stood irresolute, at once angered and ashamed. He did not know why he had cut up so harshly at her. He felt impelled to go after her, but his pride held him in check.

  Joan had no goal in mind except to flee the viscount’s presence. She scarcely saw the lady approaching the drawing room until she had precipitously collided with her,

  “Miss Chadwick!” Lady Dewesbury was scandalized by the young woman’s ill manners. Then she saw that the girl was in grave distress, fighting back tears and making quick, ineffectual wipes at her eyes. The countess’s natural compassion asserted itself and softened her voice. “My dear! Whatever has upset you so?”

  “Forgive me, my lady. I—”

  “Joan!”

  At the viscount’s harsh voice, Joan’s head snapped around. Her eyes went wide with dismay when she saw that his lordship had come through the door of the drawing room after her. She would not talk to him then, she thought, she simply could not! She would almost certainly humiliate herself by bursting into inexplicable tears.

  Lady Dewesbury was astonished at the look almost of panic on the young woman’s face. She threw a forbidding glance in her son’s direction as she firmly took the girl’s arm. “Come, Miss Chadwick. You are fatigued, and little wonder. I was just coming to tell you
and Lord Humphrey that we dine late this evening, so that if you wish to do so you may indulge in a little rest after tea. Allow me to show you up to your bedroom. Your trunks have already been carried up, of course.”

  Lady Dewesbury spirited away the viscount’s prey, for she was not a stupid woman and she had instantly perceived that her son was in a freakish temper. That his displeasure had something to do with Miss Chadwick, she also knew, and she was resolved to discover the root of it.

  The countess led her uninvited guest upstairs and opened the door to a charming bedroom. She ushered Miss Chadwick in, keeping up a prattle to cover up her interest in the young woman. “Here we are, my dear. I hope that you will be comfortable. As I told you, here are your trunks. Ah, this must be your abigail. How do you do? I am Lady Dewesbury. I trust that you are finding everything to your mistress’s satisfaction?”

  The abigail was astonished to find herself so addressed. She bobbed a quick curtsy. “Yes, my lady.” She folded her hands over her apron, waiting uncertainly for what would next be required of her.

  Lady Dewesbury did not waste a moment. “I should like to visit with your mistress alone for a few moments.”

  Joan had stepped away from the countess as though to admire the room, but in reality it was to enable herself to wipe away the remaining evidence of her stupid tears. At the countess’s words, however, she turned back. Alarm and dismay were writ openly on her countenance. She thought wildly how she could possibly clue her abigail that she did not want to be left to the countess’s tender mercies. Joan tried to catch the abigail’s eyes, but to no avail.

  The abigail understood the countess instantly and perfectly. She bobbed another curtsy. “I shall just be in the closet room when you might require me, miss,” she said, withdrawing at once.

  Lady Dewesbury regarded her guest somberly. “Miss Chadwick, you are overwrought. I saw it at once. I hope that you will not consider me prying, but I must ask. What has my son done?”

  Joan swallowed before attempting to smile. “Done, my lady?”