Scandal's Daughter

by Christine Wells

  Sebastian quirked an eyebrow. “Shall we turn around and sneak off in the opposite direction?”

  She was tempted, and not just because she wished to avoid the tedious company of her neighbour. She could not compound her rudeness by playing truant, however. Stolid and condescending he might be, but he did not deserve such cavalier treatment.

  Gemma urged Tealeaf forwards. “Of course not. I have had enough riding for today, though. We shall ask him in for tea.”

  They emerged from the arbour and rode past the parterre garden filled with bright annuals laid out in geometrical patterns and bordered by clipped box-tree hedges.

  “Is he enamoured of your expectations, do you think?” Sebastian still gazed after Talbot’s distant figure.

  She made a face. “What a vulgar thing to say! And scarcely complimentary to me.”

  “On the contrary. I simply don’t credit him with such discernment.”

  “Yes, I believe I am what is called an acquired taste,” she said dryly. “Thank you so much for pointing it out.”

  Gemma spurred her mare forward, leaving Sebastian to follow at a walk. As she neared the house, she heard the crunch of wheels on the crushed seashells that formed the carriage drive and turned her head to see who approached.

  She did not recognise the carriage that bowled around the chestnut-lined bend towards her. And she rather thought she would have recognised it if she had seen it before.

  Drawn by a team of glossy, black Thoroughbreds, the body of the chaise was an improbable turquoise, trimmed in gleaming ebony. The bright panels were innocent of a crest and thick curtains at the windows remained closed against prying eyes, but the carriage was clearly the property of someone wealthy and eccentric. In addition to the liveried coachman and postilions, three outriders and two Dalmatians made up the entourage.

  As the chaise slowed and swept into the forecourt, Gemma wrinkled her brow. The colour of that carriage seemed familiar.

  She knew she had never seen such a vehicle, but the unusual shade reminded her of something. As she rode on to meet their unexpected guest, she searched her memory.

  The chaise halted outside the front door and it came to her, with a shocking inevitability that made her wish she had not been so quick and curious, that she had indeed turned around and galloped in the other direction as Sebastian had proposed.

  Because the panels of that celestial chariot exactly matched Sybil Maitland’s eyes.

  With a queer clench in her stomach, Gemma dismounted and handed Tealeaf’s reins to a waiting groom. Vaguely, she was aware that John Talbot loomed above her on his chestnut gelding. She passed by him without a glance. She could not deal with John now.

  “Darling!” Her mother glided—there was no other word for the way she moved—down the carriage steps and drew Gemma into her arms.

  Bemused, Gemma suffered the warm, scented embrace and fought the sudden urge to weep. What had come over her? She usually bore her mother’s lightning visits with a calm sense of tolerant amusement. This time, she felt fragile as glass, and equally transparent.

  “Mama.”

  Sybil stepped back, hands sliding down to draw Gemma’s arms outwards. “Let me look at you. Ah, but you are charming, my dear!”

  It was hardly the truth. Gemma knew she appeared a perfect romp, yet somehow one always trusted the sincerity in those fascinating eyes. But then Sybil Maitland could convince the sun that night was day.

  “Now, here is a sight to gladden a man’s heart.” Sebastian’s lazy drawl sounded behind them. “Two matched beauties together.” He dismounted and bowed. “Your servant ma’am.”

  Sybil swept a dignified curtsey. “My lord.”

  “You are acquainted, then?” Gemma looked from one to the other. “How can that be?”

  Sebastian answered. “We met once, in London. I did not expect to have a place in your memory, ma’am.”

  “Did you not?” Sybil’s gaze ran over him and a slow smile curved her lips. “But how could I forget my daughter’s dearest friend?”

  She turned away and flourished an elegant hand, beckoning to one of the horsemen.

  Gemma had assumed he was an outrider in the employ of whatever besotted unfortunate owned that outrageous vehicle, but upon closer inspection, she noticed he was dressed like a gentleman. The quick, confident surveillance of his surrounds as he approached proclaimed he was no servant.

  Sybil beamed. “My lord, my dear, may I present Charles Bellamy, who has been so kind as to escort me. Charles, the Earl of Carleton and my daughter, Miss Maitland.”

  Something about the set of his shoulders spoke of a sudden unease, but the impression was fleeting. The gentleman bowed and murmured greetings in a low, pleasing tone.

  Gemma watched him and wondered if he could be real. Bellamy was almost tragically beautiful, if such a word could be applied to a man. Thick chestnut hair curled beneath his hat. Large, soft hazel eyes with long black eyelashes gazed limpidly from under its brim. His mouth formed a red slash across his sun-tanned face. A strong, angular jaw and a well set up physique saved him from appearing girlish.

  Gemma did not admire that particular cast of masculine countenance, but as her mother watched Bellamy with rapt approval, it became shockingly clear that Sybil Maitland did.

  Good God, what did Mama mean by bringing her youthful lover to the Hall? The scandal of it would be enough to send Aunt Matilda screeching to Bedlam and back.

  A loud cough reminded Gemma that John Talbot still lingered, and she quickly drew him into the circle and made introductions. Under the cover of polite conversation, she threw Sebastian a look of entreaty.

  He quirked an eyebrow, clearly intrigued by this new development, but when she frowned at him, he grimaced and took the hint. “Bellamy, Talbot, Sir Hugo is indisposed and unable to come down to greet you as he would wish, but I believe I know the way to the drinks cabinet. Shall we?”

  “Capital idea!” An appreciative grin split Bellamy’s face and Gemma wondered how she had ever thought his looks tragic. He bowed, with a special smile for Sybil. “Ladies.”

  Talbot hesitated, but Sebastian took his elbow. “Best not get involved, old man. Leave the ladies for a bit.”

  Gemma watched them go, then turned to see her mother regard her escort’s retreating back with a doting smile.

  “Have you run mad, Mama?”

  “Mad?” Sybil considered. “I do not believe so. Or no more than usual, at any rate.” Her eyes crinkled at the corners and she patted Gemma’s cheek. “Come! We will go up to my sitting room for a comfortable coze.”

  Just as if it had been a week and not a year since they had last seen each other.

  Reeves admitted them and they crossed the great hall and climbed the winding staircase to the apartments set aside for Sybil’s sporadic use.

  Sybil took off her bonnet and tossed it on the counterpane, smoothing her copper hair. “And Hugo. Is he well?”

  Gemma sighed. “His gout pains him, I think, though he insists he is spry as ever. Grandpapa resents my interference on the estate, but truly, he is past being bothered with such things.” She paused. “Perhaps with the warmer weather his health will improve.”

  Sybil cast her a quick, acute glance but said merely, “I shall see him when I have restored myself a little. We have much to discuss, your grandfather and I.”

  That sounded ominous. Gemma waited hopefully for an explanation, but Sybil’s conversation skipped off in another direction, to the Allied victory and the exile of Bonaparte to Elba. She twisted a stick of scent and dabbed at her wrists. “My dear, I cannot fathom how the French tolerated such a dirty little man. The creature changes his linen but once a month, only fancy!”

  As if toilette were the only criterion on which a leader of nations should be judged. Upon reflection, Gemma admitted her mama had a point.

  Gemma listened to her mother’s tales of abroad with a touch of wistfulness. She had always secretly envied Sybil’s freedom. When she was a gir
l, she had dreamed of flying with her mother to distant lands on a magic carpet, but alone she had never got up the gumption to venture more than a few miles from Ware. The real world had always seemed enormous and hostile, yet Sybil made foreign travel seem tediously commonplace and wildly exotic at the same time. The short journey to Laidley that had so daunted Gemma only that morning paled in comparison with travels to Brazil, the Indies, and the Levant.

  She watched her mother drift around the boudoir, rearranging cushions and spindle-legged furniture, tracing a fingertip over the blue-and-gold damask counterpane on her enormous tent bed. There was an air of suppressed excitement, a restless energy about her that made Gemma think it would not be long before she left for some new and distant corner of the earth.

  “Where will you go next?”

  A brilliant smile lit Sybil’s features and Gemma caught her breath. No wonder men bought Mama carriages to match her eyes. Even Gemma felt the power of her beauty.

  “Next?” Sybil picked up a Meissen figure and turned it to the light as if to study it, but Gemma sensed her mind was not on porcelain. “Oh, I have done with my wanderings.”

  Hope surged in Gemma’s chest. She could not mean it! She was coming home?

  But Gemma had suffered cruel disappointment on her mother’s account so very many times before. Ruthlessly, she tamped down her excitement until it tightened in a thick band around her ribs. She clasped her hands together in her lap and waited.

  Sybil moved to the window that overlooked the shrubbery and the patchwork of fields beyond. In full light, her hair flamed to life, a fiery sunset, a glorious dawn.

  “I have bought a pretty little house in Kensington. It is out of the way—deeply unfashionable, in fact—and I shall trouble no one there.”

  Her gaze flicked to Gemma and down to the worked cloth on a small round table by the window. She fingered the linen with wonder, as if it were the finest silk. “When one has been away so long, one begins to appreciate the comforts of home.”

  Then come home! Gemma wanted to shout. Why settle in England and not be at Ware?

  But suddenly, she knew the reason. Charles Bellamy. Her mother could not carry on a liaison with him under Hugo’s roof—not with Gemma and Aunt Matilda there. And Gemma realised there could be no other reason for this about-face, for her mother’s unprecedented wish to settle quietly in her native land.

  After all this time, Sybil Maitland had fallen in love with an Englishman—an Englishman half her age.

  The pain of it took her breath away. Bellamy’s love could keep Sybil by his side when Gemma’s own love never had. Tendrils of jealousy curled around her heart.

  Yes, Sybil wanted Charles Bellamy. If Gemma knew her mother, neither Society’s disapproval nor any sense of propriety or dignity would prevent her grasping what she wanted with both hands.

  In a strange way, Gemma envied her this, too. Sybil had shrugged off the shackles of duty and ignored the standards of her class to pursue love, not once in her life, but twice. Perhaps many times. Gemma doubted she would ever experience a love like that. And even if she did, she would never find the same courage to pursue it.

  She was not her mother’s daughter, after all.

  Without warning, the door opened and Matilda popped her head around it. “May I come in?” She simpered, belatedly tapping a crooked knuckle on an oak panel.

  Sybil’s dreamy expression vanished like chalk wiped from a slate. A dazzling smile in which she seemed to show every one of her even, white teeth took its place. Sleek and bright and deadly, she regarded Matilda like a tigress contemplating her dinner.

  Shocked at this sudden transformation, Gemma’s instinct was to protect her great-aunt, who reminded her of nothing so much as a scrawny nanny-goat tied to a stake. But after a moment of fearful confusion, a gleam of pure cunning stole into Matilda’s eyes. Seeing it, Gemma remembered that Matilda’s weapons of choice, though less direct, were no less effective than Sybil’s.

  She would not interfere, but she could not be at ease. Sybil and Matilda had never dealt well together, but this was something else. This was no prelude to witty set-downs, polite sniping, or severe homilies. Animosity, almost primal in its naked, raw force, thickened the air of the elegant boudoir.

  Nerves taut, Gemma rose and made an effort to avert whatever crisis was upon them. “I must go down to our other guests. Won’t you join us for tea, Aunt Matilda? Mama?”

  Sybil tilted her head back and viewed Matilda through half-closed eyes. Turquoise deepened to green.

  “No, darling,” she purred. “You run along. Aunt Matilda and I need to have a little talk.”

  Six

  GEMMA tracked the gentlemen to the billiards room and found Sebastian playing a stroke with deft precision. Bellamy looked on, propping his chin on the top of his cue.

  “Where is John?” she demanded as the balls clacked together.

  “We got rid of him for you.” Sebastian spoke over his shoulder as he moved around the table.

  She frowned. “What?”

  “We thought it was time he left.” Bellamy’s face was grave, but his golden eyes twinkled.

  How dared he even speak to her, much less tease her in that familiar way? Gemma favoured Bellamy with a blank stare, then turned to Sebastian. “Scovy, what did you do?”

  “Do? I? Nothing.”

  Sebastian bent over the table to line up his shot. A wavy lock of hair dropped over his eyes. “Oh, did you want him to stay?” he asked innocently, looking up at her through his flopping fringe. He made the shot with a fluid stroke of his cue, missed the carom by the merest whisper, and straightened.

  Gemma could not help giving him a satisfied smirk, but when he rounded the table and made as if to hand her his cue, she backed away, warding him off with her palms. “I do not wish to play.”

  “No?” Sebastian slid a glance at Charles. “Bellamy, I believe Miss Maitland is a chicken-heart.”

  When had these two become bosom-bows? Gemma scowled and put her hands on her hips. “Stop trying to distract me. What did you say to make John leave?”

  “Sadly, he has not left the premises, only this room. He has gone to pay a call on your grandfather. Most probably wangling an invitation to dine.” Sebastian took her hand and closed it around the cue. “Now play.”

  Sullenly, Gemma obeyed.

  At least bending her mind to the game kept her from speculating about the battle of wills proceeding without her upstairs, or torturing herself over Sybil’s plans for the future. She could even hide a smile as Sebastian goaded the younger man into making all sorts of preposterous wagers, backing himself against her.

  She shrugged off a momentary qualm. She should not feel sorry for Bellamy. His confidence might be well placed.

  As it turned out, she and Bellamy were fairly evenly matched as far as skill went. But Gemma ruthlessly exploited her superior knowledge of her grandfather’s table and its peculiar quirks. Soon, she drew ahead.

  “The wood is a trifle warped just there,” she pointed out, repressing a triumphant grin when Bellamy’s carefully placed shot spun away at a crazy tangent.

  His handsome jaw tensed and he appeared to redouble his efforts. As he learned the table, he made fewer mistakes, and Gemma did not doubt that he would equal or even beat her in time.

  However, that time was not yet upon them. She finished ahead by two games. Bellamy scribbled a vowel for Sebastian and handed it to him, laughing with easy good nature at his downfall, and this made Gemma like him in spite of herself. But when he held out his hand to her, as if he would shake it like a man’s, she remembered abruptly that she did not like him, and that to encourage any familiarity would be to place her own reputation in jeopardy. She snatched back the hand that had moved automatically towards his.

  Bellamy flushed, but pretended not to notice the slight.

  Sebastian looked on with lazy amusement, as if he were watching the tantrum of a favourite child. Gemma ignored him. She would make no scenes,
but he could not expect her to go beyond the merest civility to her mother’s lover. Sybil should never have put her in such an awkward position.

  Then Gemma remembered the scene upstairs. She shivered, wondering what the outcome of that discussion would be. For the first time in her life, she wished her mother gone. Ware was far more comfortable without her.

  WHAT EVER had occurred in Sybil’s bedchamber, no trace of discord appeared between Matilda and Sybil at dinner. In the drawing room afterwards, Gemma dispensed tea and the others played whist while Sybil and Bellamy sang duets at the pianoforte. Their voices blended superbly, a glorious whole that transcended the mere sum of soprano and tenor. All ballads and love songs, of course.

  Gemma glowered at Bellamy as he tra-la-la’ed away. He stood entirely too close to her mother, one hand resting on the back of her chair, the other on the pianoforte, poised to turn the pages of her music. Gemma plonked a full cup down by his hand and the steaming tea slopped in its saucer. Only sorry she had not scalded his sun-bronzed fingers, she stalked back to the silver tea urn.

  Sebastian’s gaze, alight with laughter, caught hers. When no one else was looking, he waggled his eyebrows, as if he were still a naughty schoolboy trying to make her giggle in church.

  Despite her efforts to maintain it, Gemma’s frosty glare slipped. Splaying his hand of cards like a fan, Sebastian fluttered his dark eyelashes and sent her a message using the language of the fan: You are cruel.

  She turned away to fight a chuckle. Sybil had taught Gemma the flirtatious signals the belles of her day used to communicate with their beaux at balls and parties. Not an indiscreet word need be spoken aloud if one had command of this silent language of the fan.

  Gemma had thought it a great joke and taught Sebastian in turn. How had he remembered, after all these years? Had he used the coded language with his ladies? The idea made her grip falter and slip on the teapot handle. She gasped and snatched her hand back as the heat burned her knuckles.

  She looked up, but it seemed no one noticed the clatter of the pot on the tray. Composing herself, Gemma distributed more tea to the card players.