Chapter Eleven
It had been several seconds before the dancers still inside the ballroom noticed the lack of musical accompaniment. Once awareness set in they halted suddenly in the center of the floor and Tansy reluctantly made to move away, but Avanoll’s grip tightened and he drew her still closer. She could see the question in his blue eyes as his head slowly moved toward her. (Somewhere his grandfather was smiling.)
Avanoll halted in his move for a moment, giving Tansy time to back away, but she was too startled to take heed of his chivalry. Her eyelids briefly widened, then fluttered and closed as his lips covered hers in a soft, tentative kiss.
All too soon he lifted his head to stare at her as if he had suddenly discovered a stranger in his arms. He released her only to bring his hands up to cup her face and whisper, “I must be mad!” then kiss her again, this time not at all tentatively.
At first Tansy was stunned, but then a sudden weakness invaded her limbs and she clutched at Avanoll’s lapels to keep herself from falling. She heard his muttered exclamation and silently agreed: they must both be quite mad. His second kiss succeeded in banishing this and all thought but one, the conclusion that being kissed knocked anything else she had ever experienced all to sticks. A convulsive shiver ran down her spine, and she could feel an answering tremor in Avanoll’s body as her hands encountered his muscular, silk-clad chest.
Then, suddenly, it was over, and she was roughly pushed backwards and would have fallen but for her convulsive clutching of the Duke’s lapels.
Avanoll’s countenance was a study in conflicting emotions as he ran his eyes over Tansy’s features: her mouth, moist and trembling; her cheeks, slightly flushed; her eyes, misty and a bit dazzled-looking. Tansy, in her turn, could see the disbelief, indignation, and what a more experienced woman would recognize as a rising desire, registering on his face in their turn.
Indignation finally won. He raised his hands and brusquely disengaged hers from his coat. “I shall have a hard time explaining my crushed appearance to Farnley,” he said stiffly, if a bit shakily. “I am at a loss to understand my total lapse in propriety. I can only say I regret it, and beg humbly for your forgiveness.”
Tansy was shaken to her core and felt an overweening desire to burst into loud, raucous tears. To prevent such a humiliating occurrence she took refuge in anger.
“I do not know how you arrived at your conclusion, but I have the distinct impression you believe me the instigator of this touching little scene. As I would have had to stand on tiptoe and forcibly yank you down to my level by your ears in order to so compromise your honor, however, I fail to see any such guilt resting with me. Furthermore, I seriously doubt I could have lured you into my arms, as Emily has only had time for one short lesson in flirting and that to do with making calves-eyes at gentlemen overtop a fluttering fan.”
As a slow, red flush rose in his grace’s cheeks, she added in a terrible voice, “Uppermost, I greatly resent your weak-kneed apology. You speak of our, er, it—as if it were a distasteful interlude best erased from your memory. Well, I am not of the same mind for, frankly, I enjoyed it more than a little bit! I shall regard it as my first lesson in romance—given, no doubt, by a master.” As the Duke tried to get a word in, she further informed him, “And do not fear I shall cry rope to your grandmother and force you to wed me, perish the very thought.” At last her voice showed signs of cracking under the press of her injured feelings, “For I shouldn’t have you if you were served up to me on a platter of gold with... with a dressed duck hanging from your mouth!”
Avanoll reached out and grabbed Tansy’s shoulders, wishing only to shake her into listening to reason. Why did this infernal female always take his words and twist them around to make him sound either a cold, callous brute or a mindless, blithering idiot?
He didn’t mean he regretted kissing her, dammit, in fact, it ranked as quite the most enjoyable kiss in his memory. He only wanted to save her embarrassment when she had time to recall that she had, instead of resisting or even fainting, as any female might, in actual fact, kissed him back with unschooled but extremely unmaidenly ardor. He knew she was past hearing his explanation but gave it a try anyway.
“You are quite wrong, Tansy, my dear,” he contented himself with saying, as Tansy’s tirade seemed spent. “I far from regret our, er, recent closer acquaintance. I also quite enjoyed it, actually,” he informed her in an only slightly amused voice. Tansy’s wavering smile allowed him to think he was forgiven.
Deeper pondering of this incident would come easier at his Club, with a glass or two of port to hand. For now he contented himself by simply dipping his head quickly and kissing the tip of her nose before making for the door, leaving a bemused Tansy staring at his retreating back—one hand absently touching her lips.
Avanoll turned just after he pulled open the door and—in celebration of his startling discovery of a new and vastly intriguing side of his cousin, not to mention his superior handling of a sticky situation the girl could have mushroomed into an ugly tale of compromise if not for his quick talking—jauntily saluted her.
Be good to give the girl a little romance to dream about, he congratulated himself. The incident wouldn’t be repeated, for that could lead to problems, but now that she had had a taste of womanhood, perhaps she would join Emily in her husband-hunting and he would be rid of her. Strangely, that thought destroyed some of his good mood, but he refused to let it ruin his day.
As he made to turn away again Tansy suddenly called out his name but he merely smiled, letting her know that although romantic dalliance had its place, it was time now for other pursuits. He shook his head in the negative and wagged a finger at her that meant “Naughty puss, I must be off,” and turned once more for the door, the hero making his exit, and with one step turned his hoped-for dramatic exit into a circus stunt as he tripped over Horatio and went sprawling head-first onto the black and white tiles of the foyer.
As he fell, one outstretched hand struck up a passing acquaintance with a bust of Homer perched atop a pedestal, and both objects immediately joined him in making a closer acquaintance with the rapidly-rising floor. After the resounding crash—which deprived that noted poet of one of his finely sculpted marble ears and the tip of his majestic nose—there was a brief, succinct utterance describing, in a high degree of color, the Duke’s conclusion as to Horatio’s base character and an unnecessary pointing out of his mother’s sex.
Naturally, Horatio took exception to this vulgar abuse, not to mention the insult of a booted toe being stubbed mightily into his slumbering form. He immediately took up a menacing stance at the head of his fallen foe, and with barks and growls and bared teeth gave back as good as he had got.
The Duke, picturing his face in peril of being disfigured in much the same way as the head slowly rocking to and fro nearby—be it by way of canine teeth rather than a hard floor—made haste to remove his head (indeed his entire body) from said canine’s proximity. But upon attempting to rise a stabbing pain in his right ankle brought yet another string of unmentionable words past his lips, and he had to content himself with an ignominious slithering retreat across the tiles on his hindquarters to put any distance between himself and his attacker.
By this time Tansy was kneeling at his side and trying desperately to hold the enraged Horatio in check. “Oh, my dear Ashley,” she inquired breathlessly, “are you all right? I did try to warn you.”
He favored her with a speaking glance and spat, “Am I all right, she asks? I go flying to the floor, landing heavily I might add, am nearly concussed by an avalanche of marble, suffer what will surely prove to be no less than a broken ankle, am threatened by a mad dog, and she asks if I’m all right. Oh, I’m just fine, Miss Tamerlane, right as a trivet,” he informed her sarcastically. “Ah, you smile. How wonderful. I live only to please you, you know. Perhaps you wish me to feed my hand to your vicious brute here as a reward for nearly killing me—but not the left one, I implore you, for it is only ju
st healed from my last encounter with the bloody beast.”
“‘Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.’ Proverbs,” came a voice from behind and above the fallen hero.
Avanoll ignored the voice. He had more than enough on his plate without encouraging Lucinda to expound more fully on this last uncalled for and grossly undeserved observation on a probable reason for his having been so badly used.
Aside from his aunt, the noise of the accident had roused nearly all the family and staff so that by the time of the Duke’s little speech the dowager, Emily, Dunstan, Farnley, three footmen, two chambermaids, and a tweeny who had yet to learn better, had all converged on the foyer to make up a not insignificant audience.
“Dunstan,” Tansy ordered, “kindly remove Horatio before the master goes into a taking. Have Leo rub some liniment into his back where he was kicked, and perhaps Cook will give him a nice bone to soothe his feelings.”
Turning to the Duke she queried politely, “Perhaps a soup bone to gnaw on will help your disposition as well, your grace, or would you rather a vinaigrette or some feathers burnt under your nose? I do fear you are suffering from shock and hysterics.”
A titter running through the onlookers brought a thunderous look from the Duke, and the servants quickly melted away.
What an unusual household thought the tweeny, fresh from the country. First they come home all wet and evil-smelling, and then they roll about on the floor talking about soup bones. Queer in the attic, she surmised, and wished she could write so she could tell her mum of the frightful goings on in London Town.
The dowager stood looking down at the pair on the floor, glaring hotly at each other with angry words fairly bursting to be uttered, and her hopes came down a peg or two. Surely any progress made by their seeming enjoyment of each other during the waltz had evaporated, thanks once again to that mangy, ill-favored cur Tansy set so much store by.
Actually, the dowager was only half right. Both Avanoll and Tansy were on their high ropes about their conflicting opinions on the worth of Horatio’s presence on this Earth, but neither could entirely dismiss from their minds the events preceding Avanoll’s latest mishap. Tansy felt pity, and not a little guilt, as she tried vainly to assist her cousin to his feet. Her hand, as she grasped his, tingled, and her heart did a nasty flip-flop in her breast.
As Avanoll’s larger hand closed around Tansy’s, his fingers touched her wrist, and he could feel the increased tempo of her pulse. He felt a momentary gladness because her touch did much the same to him. But then sanity took over.
“Unhand me you—you nemesis! Your assistance is not needed, not now, and not ever,” he blustered in self-defense. “Since your advent in my life, I have walked around with a thundercloud over my head and a stream of cold rain constantly running down the back of my neck. I haven’t had a peaceful moment since we met. Unless I seek an early grave—or at the least, permanent disability—I intend to give you a very wide berth in the future. You may remain under my roof until Emily is bracketed, and then I will settle an allowance on you to keep you from endangering any other poor souls who would be so unfortunate as to employ you. But from now on, madam, we are as strangers. Kindly remove yourself from my presence whilst I endeavor to haul what is left of my body upstairs to my chamber.”
And so Ashley waved away Tansy’s helping hand and tried to rise, only to fall back down once more.
“‘Not easily do they rise whose powers are hindered by straitened circumstances.’ Juvenal,” his aunt pointed out, causing her nephew to utter some few phrases of his own that the woman barely understood, let alone ventured to commit to memory. Which was extremely fortunate, as they were more earthy than profound.
It was a white-faced Tansy who wrung her hands helplessly as she watched the Duke crawl to the newel post, haul himself upright, and hop ungainly up the long staircase. Not even the dowager’s attempt at mimicking Lucinda by calling out after her grandson, “‘He that lies with the dogs, riseth with fleas.’ Herbert,” was able to lift her spirits for more than a moment.
Emily went to Tansy and started to speak, then thought better of it, simply kissed Tansy’s cheek, and went quietly away. The dowager tried for some minutes to alternately joke, cajole, or lecture Tansy into a better humor, but in the end she too simply patted Tansy’s ashen cheek. Then she was off to instruct Dunstan to summon the doctor to look at his grace’s ankle.
Lucinda walked over and gave it her best shot: “‘There’s no cause for despair.’ Horace.”
“Where have you been these last minutes, Aunt? On the moon? Of course there is cause for despair. I am in disgrace—again—and the Duke cannot stand the sight of me.”
Lucinda kissed Tansy’s cheek. “‘To have been acceptable to the great is not the last of praises. It is not every man’s lot to gain Corinth.’ Horace,” she said bracingly before wandering off to the library, there to reread her Horace and find out just who this man Corinth was for the poet to speak of him so highly.
All alone now in the foyer, Tansy hung her head in shame. Her disgrace had been too public, too profound, to leave her able to see even one silver lining in the dark clouds overhead. She deserved nothing more than to pack her portmanteau and slink off to a damp hole in the ground and expire, but she had only two pounds and sixpence to her name—and no references. She simply had no choice but to stay in this house where the servants might worship her as a savior, where Emily and the dowager and even Aunt Lucinda might feel some slight affection for her, but the master of the house chose to pretend she didn’t exist.
And what was worse—as if anything more could be added and still be borne!—was her revelation in the middle of Avanoll’s scathing denunciation that he was the one person in the house who held the power to make her happy ever again. And he hated her, really hated her. Only a complete idiot could fail to realize that.
Well, she told herself philosophically, she had opened her heart to at least the beginnings of something that may have grown into love in the space of an afternoon. Surely it could take no more than a few days to restore herself to her previous heart-whole state.
Tansy squared her shoulders and marched purposefully up the stairs to her room. But before she reached the door her shoulders had slumped, and once the door closed behind her the proud chin quivered and the pent-up tears fell like silent rain.
Maybe she should give herself more time. Perhaps a fortnight, or a year, or a lifetime.
The Tenacious Miss Tamerlane Page 11
