Piercing hazel-green eyes met Vangie’s, accompanied by a curt nod.
She nearly danced a jig. She’d gotten a name right the first time.
“I’m content to leave the arrangements as they are. Please, use your discretion, and place me in whatever chamber you deem most appropriate. Lord Warrick suggested a temporary chamber for me, and he may have other preferences he’s yet to make known.”
A flicker of approval entered the housekeeper’s eyes. She angled her head, though Vangie wasn’t certain if the movement indicated her concurrence or irritation that she’d voiced an opinion.
“I’ll prepare a chamber for you at once, my lady.” With that, the formidable woman departed the room, hauling the reluctant butler with her. She claimed she required his assistance in directing the footman.
Vangie sincerely doubted the capable Mrs. Tanssen needed anyone’s assistance with anything—ever.
Chapter 20
No sooner had Vangie finished the thought than Ian entered the drawing room. Silent panther feet. She was fast becoming accustomed to them—to him. He’d changed into more casual attire.
“Vangie, I have to be off. Charlotte has eloped. She’s underage, and I must try to stop them. I know little of Trevor Monroe, other than he’s the nephew of our neighbors, the Landthrops.”
Vangie stood, sensing his urgency. “Of course you must go. I shall be fine.”
Ian began pulling on his gloves. “I may be gone for a fortnight or more. Gretna Green is several days ride from here. They may not travel directly there.”
Two or more weeks? Dismay wrenched her, though she hid it from him. She knew no one in this vicinity, in this house, for that matter. She’d yet to meet all the servants. Her new mother-in-law had made her feelings regarding Vangie, and her marriage to Ian, perfectly clear.
She attempted a brave smile. “It will provide me an opportunity to get acquainted with the staff and to learn how to manage an estate of this magnitude.”
Ian paused in pulling on his second glove. “I wanted to introduce you to Somersfield myself, but Charlotte is impetuous and not altogether logical, even when at her best. I’d never forgive myself if she marries Monroe on a whim, making a mistake she’ll live to regret for the rest of her life.”
His tone was brusque.
Silence greeted his words. How did one respond to that? Marriage . . . a mistake one lived to regret for the rest of one’s life?
Was he speaking of his sister or himself?
“Ian, I thought you’d left already. Do you care nothing for your sister?” The Dowager Viscountess Warrick’s grating voice disturbed the silence. She glared at Vangie.
“Dear Charlotte’s the only family you have left.”
He stepped away from Vangie. “I’m just going.”
The obstinate woman refused to leave, allowing Vangie a moment’s privacy with her husband. The dowager stood impatiently tapping her toe, her vexation tangible.
Ian cast a shuttered glance in his stepmother’s direction. His baritone voice hushed, he said, “If you have need of anything, you’ve only to ask Jasper or Tanny—Mrs. Tanssen.”
“Yes, I will.”
Vangie stared at him, memorizing his face. She wanted to trace the almost healed scratch on his jaw, but he’d returned to his cold, unemotional facade. Perhaps worry about his sister was the reason. She daren’t contemplate on what else may have caused his sudden coolness.
“You’ll be careful?”
The encounter with the bandits last night continued to plague her.
“Always.”
Searching his eyes, Vangie whispered a Romani blessing. “Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa. Go with God and in good health.”
Ian half bowed, saying, “Thank you,” then strode to the door. He stopped before her ladyship. “See my viscountess is treated as she deserves. And please, do make the arrangements we discussed at once.”
An unspoken message passed between the two of them before her ladyship turned her hooded gaze to Vangie.
What arrangements, and why was his stepmother looking at her like that? Like a cat that has a canary? The dowager’s icy stare sent the hairs rising along Vangie’s skin. She wrapped her arms protectively about herself and shivered.
Faith and good Lord. That woman’s eyes could freeze the scorching flames of hell with one glance.
Her ladyship answered smoothly, “Of course, Ian.” She drifted into the room, trailing a finger across a table. Her compliant gaze met his once more. “Rest assured, your wife will be treated with the respect and consideration a woman of her station deserves.”
Jasper entered the room announcing, “Pericles is saddled and waiting, sir.”
“Thank you, Jasper.” Ian gave Vangie one last, lingering look, then passed through the doorway. He met Mrs. Tanssen just outside. Pausing, he spoke to her quietly.
She darted a fierce glower at the dowager before answering him.
Vangie couldn’t hear the exchange, nor could his stepmother if her annoyed scowl was any indication. When Vangie again glanced in his direction, he was gone. The ache his leaving caused took her by surprise. She’d known him barely a week. How could she be so affected by him?
With a sigh, Mrs. Tanssen’s prickly mask descended once more. All brusque business, she marched into the drawing room. “Lady Warrick—”
Vangie and Lucinda both turned to her.
Oh dear. This was discomfiting. The dowager wasn’t ready to relinquish the position of Viscountess Warrick.
It seemed impossible to Vangie, but Mrs. Tannsen pulled her rigid spine straighter, then looked directly at Vangie. “My lady, your chamber is readied.”
“Put her in the south tower.”
At the crash of a teacup shattering, Vangie’s gaze flew to Jasper. He remained stooped over the service, slack-jawed, gawking at the Dowager Viscountess Warrick in utter disbelief.
“I beg your pardon?” croaked Mrs. Tanssen, her eyes wide as dinner plates.
A shiver stole over Vangie. Something was too smoky by far. Was there something wrong with the south tower?
“You heard me. Lock her in the south tower.”
Though softly spoken, the dowager’s tone was jubilant.
Appalled, Vangie gaped at Lucinda. Lock me in the tower? Vangie mentally shook her head. She’d heard wrong. The woman couldn’t mean to imprison her.
Jasper drew himself up, indignation written across his noble face. “Madam, you overstep your bounds.”
“Do I?” she mocked. “Who’s here to say otherwise? You heard Lord Warrick yourself. Did he not ask me to make the arrangements we’d discussed at once?”
Ian told her to lock me in the tower?
Confident of her position and authority, the dowagers expression was smug.
Jasper straightened, outrage emanating from every pore.
With an arrogant angle of her graying head, she said, “Just what do you think he was referring to?”
“I’m sure I wouldn’t know, my lady.”
Jasper adjusted his waistcoat and leveled her with a lethal glare. “But I doubt it was relegating his bride to the tower as a prisoner.”
Vangie felt the glimmer of hope she’d tenderly nourished, sputter and die.
“She’s the lady of the manor now, not you.” Mrs. Tanssen stood with her mouth turned into a mutinous frown. “I won’t do it.”
She folded her arms and glared at the dowager.
“Won’t you?” The Dowager Viscountess Warrick inspected the black lace on her sleeve and shrugged nonchalantly. “Fine. You’re terminated then.”
She raised gloating eyes, an unpleasant smile distorting her thin lips.
Mrs. Tanssen exhaled sharply. “I’ve been in residence at Somersfield far l
onger than you, my lady.”
She pointed at the dowager. “You don’t have the authority to dismiss me without a character. Only Lord Warrick can give me my congé.”
“Mrs. Tanssen is correct, and I answer to Lord Warrick, and only his lordship,” Jasper said, a challenge in his eyes.
“Shall I send for the magistrate? I’m sure he’d be willing to escort two trespassers from the premises.” The dowager’s gaze, her eyes cold and hollow, shifted between the majordomo and housekeeper.
Vangie’s stomach roiled at the vengeance in the dowager’s eyes.
“I’ll go,” Vangie said, with a great deal more calm composure than she was feeling.
Everyone’s gazes whipped to her. She almost smiled at the disappointed expression that flashed across the dowager viscountess’s face. Vangie didn’t suppose she’d expected her to acquiesce easily. In fact, she suspected, the woman had hoped she would have to be hauled, bound and gagged, to the tower.
With poise she was far from feeling, she started for the drawing room’s doors. She paused after a few steps, sweeping Mrs. Tannsen and Jasper with her gaze. “I’ll not have you lose your positions . . . or have you forcibly removed on my account.”
Vangie was quite sure the dowager didn’t have the authority to dismiss the housekeeper or butler, but she could have them barred from the premises until Ian returned.
“It’s only for a fortnight,” she reminded them stoically. Meeting the dowager’s wintry eyes Vangie angled her chin, challenging her.
“When Ian returns, things will be put aright.”
Though, if the Dowager Viscountess Warrick spoke the truth, how Vangie would overcome this latest wounding to her soul, she knew not. Turning her back on her mother-in-law, she closed her eyes, fighting the urge to burst into tears. She willed herself to be strong.
Please God, let her be lying.
A lying tongue lasts only a moment, tikna, but truthful lips endure forever.
Again Puri Daj’s wise words brought a degree of solace to Vangie. The prospect of at least two weeks locked within a chamber caused her no small amount of trepidation. Uncle Percival had locked her in her room for two days once. The inactivity and boredom had been nearly intolerable.
She looked over her shoulder, scrutinizing her ladyship, trying to gauge the truthfulness of her words. Did she expect Vangie to bolt from the premises without so much as a glance behind her? Did she think to frighten Vangie off by threatening weeks of confinement?
A spark of defiance flickered in her core, then surged forth. She squared her shoulders and tilted her chin. She’d not cower and beg. Nor would she flee. She would hear the words from Ian’s mouth before she passed judgment. Truth be known, though, the scales didn’t weigh in his favor at present.
Mrs. Tannsen came alongside her and slipped an arm through Vangie’s. Her voice low, she said, “We’ve been brought to point non plus, my lady, with no other recourse but to do her bidding.
With the merest movement of her head, Mrs. Tanssen indicated the dowager. “She can have us removed, though Master Ian would promptly reinstate us upon his return.”
She gave Vangie’s arm a small, reassuring squeeze. “We need to be here, though. It’s the best way to protect you.”
Jasper moved to her other side. “We can’t shield you from her if we’re banned from the premises.”
“Stop your twattling, and get her out of my sight.”
He turned and bestowed a withering glare on the crow in black. The butler started to speak, but Vangie gripped his arm.
Shaking her head, she said beneath her breath, “Don’t anger her further. I need you.” She turned her gaze on Mrs. Tannsen.
“Both of you.”
Even as she spoke the words, Vangie realized they were true. Her mother-in-law wasn’t just being spiteful. She was evil and, Vangie feared, dangerous if crossed.
And what of Ian? She earnestly wanted to believe he’d not subject her to such humiliation. But whatever was the dowager referring to then, when she’d mentioned the arrangements he insisted upon? Vangie grudgingly acknowledged she’d already seen her husband’s darker side.
“Oh, and Mrs. Tanssen—”
The housekeeper turned hostile eyes to the dowager.
“Do bring me the tower key upon securing our guest.” A gloating smile on her lips, her ladyship finished with sarcastic triumph.
Jasper’s breath hissed through clenched teeth. Vangie distinctly heard him call the dowager a, “Dicked in the nob witch.”
Wordlessly, Mrs. Tanssen turned on her heel, her mouth firmed into a grim line of indignation. The trio swept from the room.
Once out of earshot Vangie asked, “Would she really have sent for the magistrate?”
Jasper’s gaze meshed with Mrs. Tanssen’s. The housekeeper looked over her shoulder, then taking Vangie by the elbow, hustled her first down one corridor, and then another. He puffed along beside them.
Finally slowing her pace Mrs. Tannsen answered Vangie’s question. “Undoubtedly, my lady.”
“Sir Doyle, he’s the magistrate, is deep into the dowager’s pockets,” Jasper murmured swinging his head this way and that, as if afraid of being overheard.
Vangie glanced at the portraits in their ornate frames balanced on the wall. She could only imagine what Ian’s ancestors had seen and heard over the decades.
“Gossip has it, not that Mrs. Tanssen or I ever indulge in such prattle.” Jasper peered around a corner and beckoned the women to follow. “Sir Doyle was her, ah. . .”
His face grew bright red.
“Amour, before she married the previous Lord Warrick,” Mrs. Tannsen finished for him. She nodded knowingly. “And their current association is somewhat less than proper.”
“A great deal less,” Jasper agreed, still red about his ears.
Mrs. Tannsen clicked her tongue. “I fear they’re a dangerous pair.”
Chapter 21
It took over a week for Ian to track his sister to Gretna Green, only to find the giddy twosome had never been there. They’d sent decoys in their places.
It was almost ten days later—after inquiring at every parish, village, township, and hamlet on the way—before he finally caught up with the newlyweds. They were merry as grigs, ensconced in a quaint inn in Edinburgh.
He should have known his sister would send him on a false trail. Edinburgh was just across the border from Northumberland. It was only logical Charlotte and Monroe would fly there, not Gretna Green.
She’d made a May game of Ian, yet she was miffed with him for thinking she was genuinely interested in Pickering.
“Really, Ian, Lord Pickering is such a clod-pate. You, of all people, should have found it unfathomable I would have any interest in that buffle-headed coxcomb.”
Her mouth formed into a moue. “For pity’s sake, he’s more hair than wit.”
Frowning at him, she declared puckishly, “I’m offended, truly I am. That you’d think I’d make a cake of myself over the likes of Pickering—” She huffed and folded her arms. “Well, it’s beyond the pale.”
Ian was incredulous; not only at Charlotte’s selfish and calculating behavior, but at the gammon she’d pitched him and her mother. And they’d believed her. He remained obstinately silent, lost in his own recriminations.
He was an idiot.
After harrumphing a bit more, she dimpled. “I’m so happy. I simply cannot stay annoyed with you, dear brother, and I suppose I do owe you an apology.”
“Indeed you do, and not only me, but Miss Caruthers.”
He narrowed his eyes and made no attempt to keep the anger from his voice. “You intentionally tarnished her good name, all as part of a hoax? I never would have thought you capable of such calculated cruelty.”
He’
d always hoped she’d be a more honorable and kind woman than her mother.
Charlotte blinked at him, opening and closing her mouth like a gasping trout. Finally, she sputtered, “I was but play acting.”
Recalling her most convincing histrionics and her hourly flood of tears, Ian said dryly, “Even your mother believed you to be enamored with the earl.”
Looking taken aback, a shadow flitted across Charlotte’s features. Casting an adoring glance at her husband, she conceded Ian’s point.
“Well, yes, but it was necessary lest Mother suspect my true affections lay elsewhere. And she was acting odd. Talking to herself, wandering about the woods in the wee hours, gathering all sorts of weeds and such—”
She paused, frowning. “Ian, she really was most peculiar, especially after Papa’s and Geoff’s deaths.”
Ian allowed there was some substance to that; a great deal of substance, truth to tell.
Charlotte’s doe-like brown eyes filled with tears. “After they died, I couldn’t bear to lose Trevor too.”
She snuffled into her handkerchief. “I simply couldn’t.”
“Why did you drag Miss Caruthers into your Cheltenham tragedy?” Ian was genuinely curious. Why had she involved Vangie in her theatrics?
“Well, as to that, brother dearest, one has only to meet Miss Caruthers to know she’s not any of those horrid things Mother and I alluded to. You’re so perceptive. I knew I could rely on you to fudge out the truth regarding her moral character straightaway.”
Angling her head, Charlotte studied him. “You didn’t seriously attempt to ruin, the sweet girl, did you?” For the first time, she appeared truly chagrined, concerned for someone other than herself.
“I married her.”
Charlotte’s reaction wasn’t at all what he expected. She squealed and clapped her hands before launching herself at him, and covering his face with kisses.
The Viscount's Vow (A Regency Romance) Page 17
