“I’ll go,” Helen agreed reluctantly, but he kept half an eye on her progress as he approached Serena.
“You again,” Serena said happily as he swept her into the waltz.
“In the flesh.” He loved the feel of her soft, lithe body moving in his arms. The sense of pleasure, frustration and anticipation was unique. He smiled. “I think you and Kate may congratulate yourselves on a most successful party.”
“Do you know, I think we may,” she said complacently. “I’m certainly enjoying it.”
“So am I, though of course I enjoy anything that allows me to hold you. Serena, I think I’m going to leave now. There’s a man looking for me—”
“Rivers,” she said at once.
“Well, no, but—”
“Rivers,” she repeated. “He’s coming toward us.”
Tamar spun her around so that he could see what she had, and sure enough, Rivers was actually approaching among the guests.
“I’ll draw him away,” Tamar said curtly, releasing her.
But she clung to his hand determinedly. “We shall draw him away,” she corrected. “It would look most singular if you left me in the middle of the dance.”
“Serena—”
“A gentle stroll, for I have danced too much,” she insisted.
He gave in, for the moment, and as they walked a little way apart from the dancers, Rivers swerved and followed them. Tamar’s plan was to avoid him until the waltz ended, then part from Serena, and hasten back along the beach, drawing Rivers and, hopefully Rivers’ friend, with him. Somehow, he’d try and find a way to deal with the accusations quietly. He didn’t want Serena touched by them, and he was damned sure Braithwaite wouldn’t.
But Serena took him surprise, walking all over his plan at the outset by tugging him toward the bailiff.
“Serena,” he warned, low. “This is not the best way.”
“On the contrary, it’s the only way,” she said with unexpected grimness. “It’s time this ended.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
By then, Rivers had come to a halt directly in front of them and stood, smirking. “What now, my lord? Prepared to pay up? Or will I explain our business to the lady and all her friends?”
“We have no business,” Tamar said coldly. “And you were not invited. Good evening.”
“Invited or not, I’ll say what needs to be said!” Rivers gloated.
“Go ahead,” Serena invited. She even stood aside, gesturing with her hand toward the guests. Both Tamar and Rivers blinked at her, stunned.
“Go ahead,” she repeated. “Make your silly allegations to Lord Tamar’s friends. If they don’t laugh at you, they’ll call the Watch.”
“It is I who have called the Watch!” Rivers blustered.
“For what purpose?” Serena asked. She sounded more amused than frightened. “You think to have Lord Tamar, a peer of the realm, clapped up and put on trial? By his peers? Who include my brother, by the by, soon to be Lord Tamar’s brother-in-law. He has taken his seat and already has much influence, I believe.”
This clearly, was news to Rivers, who blinked rapidly, as though trying to assimilate this unexpected information.
Serena’s face betrayed nothing but contempt. “Do you seriously imagine that any jury of his peers would condemn Lord Tamar for what he did to such a vile creature who had assaulted his orphaned sisters in their own home? Fool, it’s you who’d hang for conspiracy in such a crime, and for trying to profit from it. Begone, or my people will remove you.”
And with that, she turned on her heel. Since her hand was still in his arm, Tamar swung around with her, his gaze fixed to her face in awe. Not just for how she’d defended him and dealt with Rivers, but for seeing quite suddenly what had always been in front of his face.
There were privileges to his title and birth, advantages beyond being able to escape debtors’ prison, and even charges of murder. It was all a little vague yet, but he had a seat in the House of the Lords, in the parliament of the realm. There were ways for him to make a difference.
All this buzzed in the back of his mind as he gazed at Serena in total admiration.
She glanced up at him, and emitted a shaky laugh. “Well, it had to be said. And you are too eaten by guilt to see it.”
“Then you believe it to be true?”
“Of course it is true. And Rivers knows it.”
Tamar began to smile. “What a truly magnificent being you are. I wish I knew why you loved me.”
“It must be your modesty. Or your flattery.”
“Shall we return to our waltz?” he suggested, taking her into his arms just a little too early.
Only as he spun her around did he see Rivers’s friend, almost right beside them. He looked like the roughest of sailors crammed into a respectable suit.
“Lord Tamar?” this individual said sternly.
“Oh God,” Serena said at almost the same time, though her gaze was not on Rivers’s friend but on the foot of the cliff path, where stood a formidable matron with a rigid back and a younger, handsome man with a face like thunder. The suspicion had only begun to form in Tamar’s brain before Serena said tragically. “Oh no. It’s my mother. And Braithwaite.”
Chapter Sixteen
Serena, who was happy to face up to any number of spies, bullies, blackmailers, and murderers, was not yet ready to meet her mother. Or even Gervaise. Caught on the wrong foot, in direct contravention of their instructions when they sent her out of London, she was all but hosting a moonlight party beneath their home and waltzing in the arms of an eccentric artist who was probably also a rake. Moreover, her sisters were present.
And there was no chance of keeping the last fact quiet, for they ran at their brother with great enthusiasm. “Gervaise! Mama! We didn’t know you were coming!”
That must have been only too glaringly obvious.
“Chin up,” Tamar breathed. “Allow me to escort you to them.”
Well, perhaps Tamar would be one too many blows and reduce them to silence. She clutched his arm gratefully.
As they hurried through the dancers, Serena saw Mrs. Winslow approach her mother and brother, much as she had every other guest coming from the cliff path. Her greeting must have included an explanation of some kind, absolving Serena of actually hosting the event, for a faintly mollified look entered Braithwaite’s face at least.
“Our letters can only just have reached London,” Tamar said quietly. “This isn’t in response. They must have crossed with them on the road.”
“Then they don’t know,” Serena said, in craven relief that she could at least leave that until tomorrow.
“No,” Tamar agreed, with a quick glance over his shoulder at the man who’d accosted him just as she’d glimpsed her mother. He was following them.
Please, God, don’t let him be some kind of constable or Bow Street Runner…
“Mama, what a wonderful surprise,” she said, embracing her mother’s rigid person before turning to her brother. “Gervaise. Allow me to present you to Lord Tamar. My lord, may I present my mother, the Dowager Countess of Braithwaite, and my brother the earl. Mama, this is Lord Tamar, who—”
She got no further.
“You are Lord Tamar,” pronounced the strange man who’d accosted him a few moments ago. Insinuating himself in front of Tamar, he produced from his shoulder bag a large bundle tied in a piece of cloth. “From Captain Alban. Payment in full, he says.” He dumped the bundle in Tamar’s bewildered arms, ripping off the string that tied it to reveal a heap of coins, jewels, watches, enamel boxes, and silver picture frames.
The man grinned, tugged his forelock, and effaced himself.
Tamar began to laugh, a soft, helpless sound that in any other circumstances would have had her joining in. As it was, she couldn’t help demanding, “Why is Captain Alban sending you…treasure?”
“Because I called him a damned pirate—I beg your pardon, a dashed pirate. Trust me, it’s a good joke, although
I’ll allow his timing could be better.” It certainly couldn’t have been worse. He was meeting her mother and brother for the first time, in possession of what looked alarmingly like stolen goods.
“You’d best bring it up to the castle,” Serena said, aware of many curious eyes on the treasure and on the somewhat strained family reunion.
“It is somewhat late for visitors, Serena,” her mother said forbiddingly, and turned on her heels.
“Nevertheless,” Tamar said, “I hope you’ll forgive my taking one minute of your time before I leave.”
The countess didn’t turn back, and Miss Grey led her charges silently after her. All three girls glanced at Tamar and Serena as they passed. Helen even mouthed a silent, Good luck.
“Why?” Braithwaite asked, meeting Tamar’s gaze.
Serena held her breath.
“Because I wish to marry Lady Serena,” Tamar said boldly.
Frowning, as if trying to dredge up from his memory exactly who Lord Tamar was, Braithwaite waved him and Serena ahead of himself.
*
Without a word to Serena, Braithwaite threw open a door off the main hall. “If you please, sir,” he invited Tamar.
Serena cast him an anxious glance. About to bear, no doubt, all the fury of her mother’s verbal assault, she cared more, clearly, for the result of his interview with Braithwaite. And Tamar could see no way that was going to go well. His best hope, for now, was to avoid outright refusal and prevent Braithwaite hating him.
With a murmur of thanks, he walked past the earl, who couldn’t have been more than four of five years older than Tamar, and into a study.
Braithwaite did not invite him to sit. “Forgive me, I couldn’t quite place the name when my sister introduced you. Now that I have, I am even more surprised to receive your offer. I do you the honor of assuming it to be a serious offer.”
“For Lady Serena? I have never been more serious in my life.”
“Again, forgive me, this question is inspired largely by hearsay, but do you have the means to support my sister? Do you even have a home?”
“I have a large home with a few rooms that are still livable. I earn a little money from painting and have reason to believe that could increase consid—”
“Painting?” Braithwaite interrupted with utmost scorn. His gaze all but lashed the bundle hanging at Tamar’s side.
“Painting,” Tamar repeated. “This is payment for such, albeit jocular—”
“From Captain Alban. So I heard. A man whose wealth is hardly above reproach. And I believe you have dependents?”
He was hammering it home, damn him. The outright refusal would not be long in coming. Perhaps he should have left Serena to speak to him first, but that wouldn’t have sat well with Tamar.
“One of my sisters is married. I have another and two brothers. I would also point out that my name and my title are among the oldest and highest in the country.”
Braithwaite scowled. “If it weren’t for your rank, sir, I would not even have done you the courtesy of this interview. In effect, you offer my sister nothing, and I would be failing in my duties as her guardian if I listened further. I must decline your offer and insist you break off all contact with my sister. I bid you good night.”
A surge of temper fought with the knowledge that Braithwaite was right in all his assessments. He had nothing, except Serena’s love, and if her own brother could not see the importance of that… But there was nothing else for it tonight, but to leave.
So, keeping the rage and humiliation from his face, he merely bowed and walked out of the room. Paton, with the faintest look of sympathy, was waiting to see him out.
He thought, briefly, of returning to the party on the beach and getting blind drunk. But in truth, this would hardly help his cause, and whatever Braithwaite thought at this moment, Tamar had no intention of giving up. Since he suspected Braithwaite was watching him from the study window, he walked toward the main drive with as much dignity as he could muster.
*
Serena followed her mother upstairs with reluctance. What she really wished to do was listen at the study door. Or at least follow her younger sisters and Miss Grey to their rooms.
“Serena, I have no words,” the countess said with blatant untruth as she closed the door of the small drawing room and turned to face her. “I am appalled! My last instructions to you were to live in quiet isolation, without visiting or receiving. And the first things I see when I come home—and ironically, I came especially to relax those conditions—is a party on the castle doorstep with you at the center, capering around the beach with some ill-dressed stranger! Worse, you dragged your young sisters into the vulgar escapade.”
“Vulgar? Oh, Mama, no, it was truly quite unexceptionable! You must have seen that. Mrs. Winslow and Mrs. Grant arranged everything, and all the most respectable people were there, even the vicar. In truth, it was arranged to cheer poor Catherine who has had an unpleasant disappointment—”
“That may be.” The countess sank heavily into her favorite armchair. “But I had thought better of Kate Grant than to encourage your attendance before she had even received my permission!”
“To be sure, she did not encourage me,” Serena said at once. “She has merely looked after me.”
“Looked after you? With some down-at-heel nobody having the insolence to ask for your hand before he has even stepped over the door? And I have to say, I’m shocked to see your sisters on terms of intimacy with him—”
“Mama, he is not nobody.” Impetuously, Serena came to stand before her mother. “He is the Marquis of Tamar and so ranks above us if you care for such things!”
“I don’t,” the countess retorted. “Not with that name and that history. You can be sure Braithwaite will send him about his business. More importantly, since I doubt this offer sprang out of nowhere, I must suppose this is not the first party you have attended since your return.”
“Well, no,” Serena admitted. “You know about the Assembly Room ball.”
“And when I question the servants—as you may be sure I shall—will I discover that this man has called on you here?”
Serena met her gaze with difficulty. “He has been here,” she said cautiously. “To paint the girls—fully chaperoned by Miss Grey and Mrs. Grant.”
Her mother’s eyes showed an alarming tendency to pop. Her fist clenched on the arm of her chair. “I had thought better of Kate Crowmore. She was always wild, but I imagined there was a saving sweetness in her. I never cut her. I always defended her. Why she should now repay me by ruining my family—”
“Mama, you’re being ridiculous!” Serena interrupted, swirling away to throw herself into the chair opposite. “There is more, here, as I wrote to you—or perhaps it was to Gervaise. At any rate, you must both have left London before the letter reached you. We were obliged to look after Lord Tamar when he was shot defending us from French spies!”
The door opened in time for her brother to hear this announcement as he strode in and shoved the door closed again behind him. “For God’s sake, Serena, no more stories! You know you were in the wrong—”
“To care for a man who was shot in front of home? Defending it, defending my sisters and me, from the enemy? Even you, even Mama, would have given him a bed and sent for the doctor! Which is exactly what I did! And the very next day, when I was abducted by Valère—who pretended to be an emigre nobleman but was in fact a Bonapartist spy and the man who disappointed Catherine besides—when I was taken by him to let him blow up the Black Fort and free the prisoners-of-war, it was Tamar who saved me! The debt of gratitude we all bear him is boundless!”
“You’re talking nonsense, Serena,” her mother said coldly.
“I understand you wish to excuse yourself from ill behavior—” Braithwaite began.
“Ask Mr. Winslow,” Serena interrupted. “Ask Major Doverton. Ask the servants, Miss Grey, my sisters, since everyone else’s word clearly counts above mine.”
At
least their sudden pause gave her a certain furious satisfaction.
“You know such things exist here,” she said contemptuously. “Spies tried to take Gillie during our spring ball if you recall, and if Wickenden hadn’t been there, who knows what might have happened to her? My safety, on the other hand, is obviously of less importance than the fact that my savior is poor!”
They both stared at her.
“You mean this is true?” the countess blurted.
“Were you hurt?” Braithwaite demanded.
“Not to speak of, though my courage did quail until I saw Tamar had brought Jem and the others—”
Braithwaite dragged his hand through his hair, frowning direly. He sank onto the sofa. “This is…outrageous. Be sure I will extend all gratitude and…” He trailed off, then lifted his frowning gaze to Serena’s. “But still, you must admit that you do not know who he is! The chances of him actually being the marquis are remote. No one has seen any of the family in decades, not since the old marquis died. He could be any flim flam man—”
“He is Tamar,” Serena interrupted unwarily. “Lord Daxton knows him. They were at school together.”
In retrospect, Daxton’s was the wrong name to mention.
“Daxton,” the countess repeated with loathing.
“I wondered when his name would come up,” Brathwaite said bitterly. “Last month you were in love with him and this month you expect us to believe—”
Serena wanted to scream. “I was never remotely in love with Lord Daxton! Which is fortunate, because he is certainly not in love with me! I danced with him. Tamar is…different.”
Braithwaite looked maddeningly superior. “And you seriously believe you love him? After an acquaintance of what, two weeks? Three?”
“It makes no difference,” she said simply. “If you don’t like him, I’m sorry for it. But I can’t live without him and I won’t.”
“Go to your room, Serena,” the countess said, clearly revolted.
*
It was only just light and there was a faint frost on the ground as Serena crept out of the side-door and hurried across to the orchard. She hadn’t slept much during the night, anger and outrage on Tamar’s behalf, alternating with sadness and frustration and sheer longing.
Blackhaven Brides (Books 5–8) Page 19
