Even more surprising had been Alyssa’s obvious shock and outrage when he had offered her a carte blanche. But she had recovered quickly, veiling her emotion with sarcasm.
But most puzzling of all had been their kiss. When it had ended, he had seen in her emerald eyes the startled, questioning look of an innocent given her first hint of love’s pleasures. Not that that old curmudgeon, Lord Eliot, had likely given her much pleasure.
Carlyle’s thick, dark brows knit together in a puzzled frown. Yes, she gave every indication of being a virtuous, sheltered, well-bred young lady instead of a greedy lightskirt who had sold herself to a man old enough to be her grandfather. What a very clever woman she was.
But not clever enough.
Chapter 11
Alyssa confronted her mother as soon as the older woman arose the following day. “Mama, why did you deliberately seek out the Duke of Carlyle at Vauxhall and tell him that I was betrothed to his son? You knew I wanted it kept a secret from him.”
Mrs Raff, who was still in a bright red wrapper with a nightcap covering her hair, exploded into a torrent of sputtering, semi-articulate words. Her eyes blazed with mingled anger and fear. The colour of her face darkened to that of her wrapper. She concluded her tirade by crying, “You must break off with that vile man’s Son immediately!”
Knowing how desperately her mother yearned for any connection at all with the nobility or even the gentry, Alyssa could scarcely believe her ears. Clearly whatever Carlyle had told her, it had frightened and intimidated her brass-faced mother more than her daughter would have thought possible. “Even though the vile man is a duke, Mama?”
“I would not care if he were the king!” Mrs Raff snapped.
“What did he say to you, Mama?”
But no amount of cajoling by Alyssa could induce Mrs Raff to divulge that, and the daughter was left to speculate. She had never seen her determined, manipulative mother cowed before, and she rather wished that she could have witnessed the scene.
That afternoon, Jeremy accompanied Alyssa to the Bradens’. When Letty appeared, the astonished look on Jeremy’s face told Alyssa how amazed he was at the young lady that Letty had become in the two years since he had last seen her.
“Why, you are positively beautiful,” he exclaimed with such surprise in his voice that Letty burst out laughing. The two were soon happily recalling their many childhood adventures together.
After that Alyssa saw to it that she and Jeremy called on the Bradens every day on one pretext or another. She was using Letty as a foil to highlight her own suddenly shrewish behaviour toward Jeremy.
Whenever Alyssa addressed him, it was in a condescending, overbearing manner, much reminiscent of those odious fathers of whom he had once complained to her. He could say nothing that she did not either contradict, criticise, or correct in a patronising manner that made him visibly seethe. She detested acting so hatefully toward him, but she was doing it for his sake. Not only would it be much less painful for him to conclude himself that she was not the woman for him, but he would be more cautious the next time he thought himself in love.
Often Alyssa left Letty and Jeremy alone together while she sought out Lady Braden. Since that night at the Hagars’, Alyssa had developed an insatiable curiosity about the Duke of Carlyle, and she pumped both his son and Lady Braden constantly about him. Alyssa told herself that she did so to 'know thine enemy’, but deep in her heart she knew this was not the reason.
Jeremy’s tales of his father and the boisterous life at Beauchamp were so charming that they made Alyssa wistful. How much fun the boy and his young aunts and uncles had had growing up there. Not at all like her own austere childhood under her grandfather’s stern eye.
Although Lady Braden offered a more detached view of Carlyle, Alyssa was surprised at how highly she regarded him.
From Her Ladyship, Alyssa learned that at Jeremy’s age Carlyle, having buried his own father and his wife, had been the head of the House of Carstair and steward of vast estates and fortune, with all the heavy responsibilities these entailed. In addition, he had been father to his own two motherless babies, one of them an invalid, and to eight younger brothers and sisters. It had been a daunting burden for one so young, but he had borne it successfully.
Between the duke, who was devoted to all his young charges, and his dear, charming mama, they had created as happy a family circle as Lady Braden had ever been privileged to see. Beauchamp had been a joyful, boisterous place. It was quieter there now. The brothers and sisters were all married, with the exception of Lord Sidney, and had homes and families of their own.
“A special glow must have vanished from Beauchamp when the dowager duchess died a year ago,” Lady Braden said. “But neither Jeremy not Ellen can ask for a more devoted father. Ellen, poor dear, is the sweetest little thing. She was born with a hip deformity that has rendered her a lifelong invalid. For all the duke’s notorious reputation, he takes his obligations, especially to his family, very seriously. He was quite wonderful with all of the children. I wish my own husband had been as good. Admirable though Sir John was, he was a stern father, and he never established the rapport with his children that the duke did.”
Alyssa remembered how easily and skilfully his Grace had handled the children in the park. To cover her roiling emotions, she said lightly, “Apparently, he is as successful with children as with women.”
A troubled frown creased Lady Braden’s forehead. “I have often wondered if His Grace’s reputation were not exaggerated. He spends most of his time at Beauchamp, and whatever his activities when he is in London, his conduct at Beauchamp cannot be faulted. Not once has he ever introduced an inamorata or even a flirt there.”
“What was his wife like?”
“I never met her. Unlike her husband, who was always friendly, she thought herself too far above her neighbours to condescend to be introduced to them.” Lady Braden sighed. “But what I heard of her I did not like. There was a good deal of gossip about her that I will not repeat because I do not know for a certainty that it was true. I do know, however, that theirs was not a happy marriage.”
Details of a long forgotten conversation between Lord Eliot and two aristocratic French émigrés, who had visited at Ormandy Park after fleeing the Revolution, drifted back to Alyssa. They had been reminiscing about the Bourbons, and the princess had come up. A mistress of romantic conquest, her outrageous behaviour had shocked even the licentious French court. Both visitors had been lavish in praise of her vivacity, wit, and charm. She had been Louis XV’s favourite grandchild, and he had indulged her every whim, while making no secret of his distaste for the grandson who would one day be Louis XVI. The princess and her cousin, the future king, grew up despising each other. She insulted him and his young wife with her rapier tongue at every opportunity. When Louis XVI came to the throne, he was determined to be rid of her and hit upon a marriage for her with English royalty as a way of accomplishing this.
“But despite her huge dowry,” one of the émigrés, the Comte de Luc, had said, “your pious King George, although wishing to accommodate our king in the interests of good relations, had no desire to shackle one of his own Sons to such a notoriously immoral woman. He fobbed her off, instead, on his cousin’s young son. Poor boy. I understand he was no more than sixteen.”
“Waste no pity on him!” Lord Eliot had snorted. “His morals were no better than hers. He was as flagrantly unfaithful to her as she was to him.”
The Comte de Luc had shrugged. “Is it not the way with arranged marriages?”
As the days passed, Jeremy grew so increasingly disenchanted with Alyssa that she was certain it would only be a matter of days instead of weeks until he cried off the betrothal.
The sooner the better. The more she learned about Carlyle and how devoted a father he was, the more forgiving she was of his conduct toward her at the Hagars’. He reminded her of a mother bear protecting her cubs. Knowing how vulgar and obnoxious Mrs Raff could be, Alyssa shudde
red at what must have occurred between them at Vauxhall. That, together with the circumstances of Alyssa’s apparent betrothal to his son, made her more sympathetic with his furious reaction even though her pride was still sorely wounded by his insulting assessment of her. With each day her regret grew that she had given in to her temper and allowed herself to appear even lower than she already seemed to him.
Since the Hagars’ party, Alyssa had not ridden again in the park for fear that she might meet the duke there. She could not bear to face him again until he knew the truth. Would he forgive her then, or would he continue to despise her for her deception?
Meanwhile, life with her mother was becoming more intolerable. Since Mrs Raff’s meeting with Carlyle, she had been sullen, evil-tempered, and increasingly more hateful toward her elder daughter, making it very clear that she wanted Alyssa gone from her house. But until Lord Eliot relented, Alyssa had nowhere to go. Charlotte or Lady Braden might take her in, but it could be months before her grandfather let her return to Ormandy Park, and she could not impose upon her friends’ hospitality for so long. The only answer, Alyssa decided, was to find a position as a governess or a teacher at a girls’ seminary. She had been reading the newspaper advertisements carefully the past few days, but no positions had been offered.
Sometimes when Alyssa and Jeremy were visiting Letty and her mother, they would be joined by George Braden.
Poor George was in the depths of despair. His suit for Sarah Turner seemed hopeless. Her uncle had flatly rejected George’s offer, saying that he would, under no circumstances, reconsider this decision. Sir Egbert Turner’s stubbornness stemmed, of course, from Thomas Stokes’s having offered him a handsome recompense for Sarah’s hand. If George’s poor darling were forced to marry Stokes, whom she despised and feared, she would fall into a deep decline that would be the end of her.
Sarah’s uncle had tried to keep George from seeing his beloved, but the Turner family never arose before noon, and the young lovers managed to meet each morning in the park while the rest of the family was still abed. George lived for that stolen hour in the morning, then moped the remainder of the day.
Jeremy’s romantic nature was particularly affronted by his friend’s situation, and he went so far as to pour out George’s sad story to his father at breakfast one morning ten days after the party at the Hagars’.
Carlyle, who was aware both of Stokes’s cruel history with wives and Sir Egbert Turner’s greed, privately thought that if George Braden had any gumption at all, he would elope with Sarah. It was the only thing to be done in their case. Once they were married, the duke knew that her uncle would be reluctant to try to have the union annulled, thereby calling public attention and disgust to the forced marriage that he had arranged for her. Carlyle, however, kept these sentiments to himself. He dared not mention the fatal word elopement to Jeremy in any context, for he wanted to put no ideas in the boy’s head.
But he quickly discovered that they were already there when Jeremy, clearly remembering the lecture he had received from his father on the subject, asked timidly, “Do you think there might ever be circumstances under which an elopement is permissible?”
“Never!” the duke answered emphatically, perjuring himself in the higher good of preserving his son from Miss Raff’s evil coils.
Jeremy looked so unhappy that his father studied him with worried eyes. Carlyle had subtly interrogated his son daily to find out where matters stood between him and Miss Raff, but what the duke gleaned only confused him. If she were enticing the boy to Gretna Green, Jeremy betrayed no indication of it. But, of course, the jade would have cautioned him against betraying their plans to his father. Carlyle was determined to have another talk with Miss Raff.
The following day Jeremy was once again at the Bradens’ with Alyssa. The inexplicable change in his beloved’s manner toward him both angered and baffled him. Several times he had remonstrated privately with her about how strongly he objected to the overbearing, condescending way that she was treating him, but she professed a total ignorance as to what he could be talking about and chastised him for being a peagoose, adding to his vexation.
At the moment, however, Jeremy was too excited to be out of humour with anyone. That very morning his father had presented him with a spirited bay gelding that he had coveted, and he was expounding upon its virtues in great detail to Letty, who was as fond of horses as he was. So proud was he of his new acquisition that on the way to the Bradens’ he had stopped at the stables to show it to Alyssa, but to his acute disappointment, she had professed to be unimpressed.
Now as he told Letty about his acquisition, Alyssa interrupted him in a querulous tone that sounded disconcertingly like her mama’s whining voice. “Jeremy, you are quite overstating the poor nag’s merits.”
Since Jeremy was convinced that it was impossible to overstate them, he understandably bridled and would have launched into a spirited defence, but Alyssa again cut him off, saying, “I am persuaded that his paces, if indeed he has any, will be dreadfully uneven, and his disposition is clearly cowish.”
“Cowish!” Jeremy ejaculated in disbelief, preparing to do verbal battle.
“Oh, I am sure it cannot be so,” Letty interceded. “You must be mistaken, Alyssa, for I know Jeremy’s papa, who prides himself on his horses, would never permit a cowish animal in his stables.”
“Of course he would not,” Jeremy seconded sharply, flashing Letty a grateful look. “And Papa says I have as good an eye for horseflesh as he himself has.”
“Of course you do,” Letty agreed loyally, and tried to turn the conversation to a less controversial subject. “Is your coat new? I particularly like the colour on you.”
Alyssa cast a critical eye on the superbly tailored pine-green frock coat and slandered Jeremy’s jacket
quite as badly as she had his gelding. “Surely you do not think so, Letty, dear. The colour is rather dreary, and the tailoring seems quite shabby to me.”
“Dreary!” Letty exclaimed.
“Shabby!” Jeremy protested simultaneously, indignation flushing his face to the colour of claret. “Why,
Papa had Weston himself make it for me.”
“Oh, and a very beautiful jacket it is,” Letty exclaimed, as bewildered as Jeremy by Alyssa’s spurious complaint.
“I cannot agree.” Alyssa sniffed with such supercilious disapproval that she drew dagger looks from Jeremy. As her young companions stared at her in disbelief, she suddenly stood up. “Please excuse me; I wish to tell Lady Braden something.”
When Alyssa left the room, Letty tried to soothe the young marquess’s lacerated feelings. “Truly, Jeremy, your jacket is very beautiful. I am certain that your horse must be, too.”
Jeremy was mollified. Growing up in such close proximity to Letty, he had been rather inclined to take V her for granted. But now he had come to appreciate her sense of humour, which was as lively as Alyssa’s, but Letty never turned that humour or an unjustly critical eye upon him as Alyssa was increasingly wont to do. Jeremy was about to invite Letty to ride with him the following day when he remembered that he had already asked Alyssa at his father’s request.
Upon presenting Jeremy with the gelding, the duke had said casually, “Now that you have an extra horse, would you like to invite Miss Raff to ride with you in the park tomorrow morning?”
At the time it had seemed like an excellent idea to Jeremy, who had been anxious to show off his new prize to her. But her maligning of the gelding had considerably dampened his enthusiasm for the outing. How unhappy he had become with Alyssa. Her shrewish behaviour had killed his love for her, and he was not about to be shackled to such a termagant as she had revealed herself to be. He would have to cry off their betrothal. He gave heartfelt thanks that it was still a secret, so she would not be publicly embarrassed by its termination.
But how on earth was he to tell her? And when? He had two commitments with her on the morrow: the ride in the morning and the theatre in the evening with
the Hagars. It would be excessively awkward to cry off until after that performance.
Chapter 12
Lord Sidney Carstair, having been in the Duke of Carlyle’s black books for the past ten days, was uncharacteristically quiet as he and his elder brother cantered in the park the following day. Never had His Grace, usually the most understanding and tolerant of brothers, given Sidney such a trimming, and all because he had innocently introduced Jeremy to the Oliver Hagars’ house.
In vain had Lord Sidney tried to explain to the furious duke that he had done so with the sole and laudable intention of cheering up his nephew. After Carlyle had left the boy in London to return to the ailing Ellen at Beauchamp, he had been in a fit of the dismals. The Hagars’ home was always lively and amusing. While it was true that one met some unusual people there, they were always entertaining, and none of them, to Lord Sidney’s knowledge, had been actually disreputable. So he had been shocked to learn that Miss Raff, who had struck him as a high-bred lady and a pattern of propriety was, in fact, a fallen woman who had ensnared his naïve nephew. By now, Lord Sidney heartily wished that he had never met Oliver Hagar.
Longing to restore himself to his brother’s good graces, Lord Sidney had eagerly acquiesced when Carlyle had requested his help in diverting Jeremy, who was riding with Miss Raff, so that the duke would be left alone with her. His Lordship, stealing a nervous glance at his brother’s scowling face, decided that he had never seen him in such a black temper.
It would have eased Lord Sidney had he known that the duke’s humour stemmed not from anger at his hapless brother but at himself for his inexplicable eagerness to see Miss Alyssa Raff again. He had ridden each morning in the park, hoping to meet her. But not once since their meeting at the Hagars’ had she been there, and he knew that she was avoiding him.
Each day he had returned disappointed to Grosvenor Square
to find his son going off to spend the day with her, and an irrational irritation that was uncomfortably like jealousy had gnawed at him. Not in twenty years had a woman so plagued him. He told himself it was concern for his son, but he knew that it was more than that. He was intrigued by her. The contradiction between what she appeared to be and what she was confounded him. Her direct gaze and frank tongue made her seem without guile. There had been no artifice in her concern for Eustice when he lay unconscious. Yet she would entrap a naïve, sweet-natured boy for whom she cared not the slightest into a disastrous marriage that would be the ruination of him.
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