The Squire shook his head. “Not yet, but as my ward she’ll do as I say.”
“But if she doesn’t know...” demurred the Captain.
“ ’Twill all be settled by Twelfth Night, I promise you. I give you my word on it, Tony. You may consider it done.”
They shook hands upon it and Captain Warburton, draining another glass, told himself it was what he wanted: happiness—for Ned and Constance. But the wine that had gone down so smoothly a moment before had now a bitter taste and he cursed himself for having advanced his brother’s suit and not his own.
He could speak up, of course. He could say, I've been thinking over what you said to me, Clifford, that you wished I’d ask for the girl myself. I’ve decided to do it.
He could do it, Ned be damned. he could not. All his life the boy had looked up to him, idolized him. And Ned’s affections were locked in as firmly as his own, the Captain thought grimly. He could not break the boy’s heart.
“I’ll honor my promise on Warwood,” he heard himself say. “Ned shall have Warwood when I die. I’ll write it down for you.”
“I know you will, Tony.” The Squire inclined his head. “No need to write anything down, your word is good enough. And besides,” he added on a jovial note, “they’ll both be living at Warwood to remind you!”
That brought the Captain up short. Living at Warwood... Constance would be living at Warwood. Every day he would see her, every day he would want her. Her beauty would tear at him, he would feel cursed by it as he yearned to tear her from Ned’s arms.
“They’ll have the place to themselves most of the time,” he heard himself say. “For I don’t doubt I’ll be away to the wars soon enough.”
“No need to die on some foreign field, Tony,” the Squire told him bluntly. “From things I’m hearing, blood may run in the West Country when Charles dies and James comes to the throne.”
Captain Warburton shrugged his broad shoulders. At the moment politics and the death Of kings or their successors could not move him. His mind was fixed on a certain pair of haunting violet eyes, a certain winsome smile. “Charles may survive us both, Clifford,” he said pensively.
“Aye, there’s that possibility,” agreed the Squire. “But if he does not...”
“If he does not, we’ll meet it then.” His guest could be equally blunt.
The Captain downed the rest of his wine without tasting it and silently held out his goblet to be refilled. “Yes,” he repeated. “Ned will be overjoyed.” He turned as Constance came into the room.
“Oh, I didn’t know you had company,” she said in confusion. She swept the tall Captain a deep curtsy.
The Squire flashed his friend a warning look that said he and he alone must break the news to Constance. If he noticed that Constance had gone rather pale, he put it down to a very natural excitement over what must be the Captain’s mission here—to arrange a match between her and Ned.
“Mistress Constance, you look lovely today.” Captain Warburton made a graceful leg to the lady. “But then you always do....”
A slight flush spread over Constance’s pale cheeks. Her eyes were deep and dark, violet, velvety. She felt pinned by that steady gray gaze. Oh, what was he thinking behind that calm mask of a face? Could he see through her to her wildly beating heart? Could he guess how the blood was rushing to her head, making her dizzy at the very sight of him?
She turned to the Squire. “I came down to see you, sir,” she began—and of a sudden realized that she had forgotten entirely why she had come. Inspiration seized her—a way to strike back at the calm pressure of that gaze that made her feel as if her head might melt. “I wondered if Chesney Pell might spend the night with us,” she said, lifting her chin at Captain Warburton. “After all, it’s snowing, he is a stranger and does not know the roads hereabout. Indeed he missed the entrance to Hawley Grange the other day.”
“Any man who can miss the entrance to Hawley Grange should certainly not be out on the roads,” murmured the Captain ironically.
Constance flung him an irritable look. “And I am sure Cart Rawlings would welcome the opportunity to spend the night at Hawley Grange—which he will assuredly do if Chesney does not return with the sleigh!”
“I thought Pell left some time ago,” protested the Squire.
“I think I can still catch him.” Constance flashed a smile of disarming sweetness at Tony Warburton.
There was something going on between these two, thought the Squire uneasily. Some sharpening of swords. “Pell is more than welcome to stay,” he assured Constance.
Constance knew there was no chance of catching Chesney Pell—indeed she did not even intend to try. She was simply pointing out her preference for Chesney over Ned, whom she had not asked to stay, to Tony Warburton. “I take it we are to have another guest for dinner?” She cast an inquiring look at the Captain.
The Squire nodded. “And to spend the night as well,” And as his tall guest, who had taken Constance’s words to heart, started to demur, “Come now, Tony, if you’re to lead a pack of sleighs to Warwood tomorrow, ye may as well start from here. ’Twill save ye a long tiresome ride. Besides Ned can marshal the servants and take care of the readying up for your party tomorrow night. It will be good practice for him.”
The Captain shrugged and gave Constance a sardonic look. “I see I am overpowered,” he murmured.
Constance frowned at him. “I must try to catch Chesney!” she said and hurried out.
Both men watched her swaying progress into the hall. But only one of them felt her light slippers had walked across his heart and left footprints there....
Supper that night was agonizing for Constance, who felt the Captain’s light gaze upon her all through the meal—felt it as if his fingers were delicately touching her face, caressing her slender throat, trailing fierily down across her bosom. She answered in monosyllables and poured out her heart in song after supper, leaning against the delicate rosewood harpsichord and letting her dusky voice wail out all the sorrows of the world.
The room was silent for a few moments after her song had ended, for there were tears in her own eyes and every note had gone right through her audience. Those notes had torn Tony Warburton’s heart asunder and it was all he could do to keep from advancing upon the girl in purple velvet, seize her around her supple waist, pull out his sword and, daring anyone to stop him, carry her away!
Suffering, he watched as Constance sighed deeply and acknowledged their tribute with a small curtsy.
Pamela, excruciatingly attired in mountains of rose pink taffeta that totally disguised her lovely figure, her golden curls bouncing as she brought her fingers down upon the ivory keyboard in a last chord, studied Constance with perplexity. She should be happy, for Captain Warburton was here—and had not once taken his eyes from her lovely face! It was difficult to understand Constance, she thought. Here was a complex nature.
For herself the whole day had been irritating—save for that one moment of triumph when she had seen shock in Tom Thornton’s eyes when he had caught her kissing Dick Peacham. Still brimming with malice, she had managed to seem to lean languorously against Dick in the big warm stables after Tom had brought the limping stallion in. But Tom had seemed not to notice, all his attention was fixed upon the horse. Grooms had leaped forward but he had insisted on tending Satan’s injured leg himself, testing it carefully, bathing it, rubbing it with unguents. Pamela would have done as much for Angel had she hurt her leg, but somehow to be so totally ignored infuriated her. Normally she would have knelt down to assist Tom, but now she did not, instead she engaged Dick Peacham in a barrage of bright conversation, hardly giving him time to answer her sallies—and leaning so close to him that she could see his cheeks begin to redden.
Dick’s arm had begun to steal around her when Tom suddenly looked up.
“I’ll just borrow a horse if I may and be on my way,” he said, a trifle grimly, observing Pamela to be almost in Peacham’s arms again. “I’ll be over tom
orrow to see how Satan fares.”
“Oh, Satan can stay here as long as he likes,” said Pamela blithely. For that would mean that Tom, who was so fond of the big black beast, would be over every day to see him! It annoyed her that Tom should be leaving so fast. “Won’t you stay to supper?” she asked. “You could ride back by moonlight.”
Tom was well aware that he could ride back by moonlight. Faith, he did not need moonlight, he could find his way to Huntlands in the dark! But he was damned if he was going to watch Pamela flirt in the sunlight and continue flirting by candlelight with that fool of a Peacham. It would be a miracle if the fellow didn’t trip over his own feet, getting back to the house! He rose lithely to his feet and gave Pamela a grim look.
“Thanks, but I’ve things to do.” He swung up on the saddled brown horse that a groom had just fetched and rode away with a curt bow.
Pamela’s lovely white teeth ground slightly.
“Why don’t we go back to the house?” she suggested, pulling abruptly away from Peacham.
Dick Peacham blinked. All the way to the house she kept her distance. From having been almost leaning against him in the stable, she now jumped away if her skirts so much as grazed his boots!
Women, he thought gloomily, were a fickle lot. From moment to moment you never knew how you stood with them!
His depression persisted all through dinner as Pamela neglected him while she chatted with anyone else who would listen. The Squire put Peacham’s sulky demeanor down to the desperate yearning of a youth to consummate what he had already started. His daughter certainly seemed happy enough, laughing gaily and a shade too loud and on occasion flirting unmercifully with Peacham, who would rouse himself for a second and then sink back, telling himself that she was waxing hot only so she could wax cold again!
Watching, the Squire felt regretfully certain that his daughter fancied the fellow—especially when he saw her seize Peacham’s hand to hold him back as they went into the drawing room. Pamela was but trying to give Constance a chance to walk in beside Captain Warburton because she sensed how matters stood between them, but the Squire did not know that and assigned another reason to his daughter’s behavior.
And after Constance had poured out her heart in song and brought tears to eyes that were unaccustomed to tears, Pamela promptly leaped up from the stool before the harpsichord and sought out Peacham, bringing him over to her father and engaging him in bright conversation. This too was to give Constance, at the end of her heartbreaking song, a chance to have a few words in private with Captain Warburton, but the Squire took it as an indication that his daughter wished him to get to know Peacham better, and earnestly endeavored to sound the lad out.
Still caught by the spell of Constance’s heartrending song, Tony Warburton spirited her into the hall on the pretext of asking her if one of the family portraits had not really been painted against a backdrop of the old ash trees at Warwood and not here among the oaks of Axeleigh. It was a discussion they had been having desultorily all through dinner, the Captain maintaining that the artist must have been staying at Warwood and had his subject come to him, the Squire good-naturedly insisting that no such thing had happened, the artist had come to Axeleigh and painted everyone there while he was in residence and then moved on.
“Of course, you could both be right, you know,” mused Constance, looking up at the great gilt-framed portrait in the hall. “The artist could have seen the trees at Warwood and remembered them—and painted them from memory into this portrait.” She was uncomfortably aware of the Captain’s tall presence as he crowded beside her, viewing the portrait near the stairs.
“I think you may have the answer,” his rich voice answered her. “And since ’tis Christmas, a kiss beneath the mistletoe!”
Abruptly his long arm shot out, encircled her velvet waist, and even as she drew back, swooped her irresistibly beneath the mistletoe that hung suspended from the hall’s central chandelier. She flung back her head to protest but before she could speak she was in his arms, his whipcord-lean body was crushing her soft breasts and hips, his mouth was feverishly exploring her startled parted lips.
And Constance—woman of tinder that she was—found it all too much. She melted against him with a sobbing breath and let her warm yielding lips and her lissome body in its sinuous velvet express all that was in her heart. It was a long, long kiss and Constance was almost swooning when the Captain let her go.
Margaret, was her first stabbing thought as she fell dizzily away from him. Oh, Margaret, I have betrayed you!
He was standing before her now, the tall Captain. He was looking intently down into her face and studying her.
“Constance,” he murmured gravely. “What are we to do? About us?”
I dare not love him, she thought over the triphammer beating of her heart. It would kill Margaret. And anyway, he Was false to Margaret—he would be false to me too!
And now that he was at arm’s length, now that his compelling presence was not so breathlessly close that she trembled, now that the pressure of his demanding lips no longer stopped her heart, Constance knew what to do. She had thought about it so long that her reaction was automatic— and immediate.
“Do?” she demanded on a note of contempt. “About a kiss beneath the mistletoe?” Her face was pale but somehow she kept it calm, betraying no sign of the raging turmoil within her. “Why, you know what we are to do, Captain Warburton! We are to forget this ever happened!”
“Yes,” he said pensively, thinking of Ned. “For a moment there I had forgot....”
“Indeed you had,” she told him sharply and swept on past him into the drawing room, leaving just a hint of the scent of violets behind her. The Squire had not even noticed her departure.
Tony Warburton stood staring after her departing form hungrily with a kind of desperation beading droplets of perspiration upon his forehead, although the hall was cold. She was right, of course, he told himself dully. He had indeed forgotten something when he had taken Ned’s intended into his arms. He had forgot his honor.
He would not do so again.
Quietly he followed Constance in and joined the company around the fire. But he was very silent through the remainder of the evening.
“Well,” Pamela asked brightly, when they were at last upstairs and she had dragged Constance into her bedchamber where Tabitha was helping her out of the elaborate rose pink taffeta creation with which she had stunned everyone at dinner. “What happened? I saw you go into the hall with Captain Warburton! Did he kiss you under the mistletoe?”
“Nothing happened,” said Constance in a dull voice. She felt as if her life had ended.
“You mean he didn’t declare himself? Oh, do get out from underfoot, Puss,” she cried at the cat. “I almost stepped on your paw! Tabby, what’s wrong with that hook? Why won’t it come undone?”
Tabitha’s fingers fluttered back to the hook. They had been stilled for a moment at Pamela’s words, for she was very interested in all the affairs of the manor and particularly Constance’s and Pamela’s involvements of the heart!
“Of course he did not declare himself!” cried Constance. “How can you suggest that he would? Good night!” She stormed out of the bedchamber, afraid that if she stayed she would burst into tears.
And Pamela, still half-hooked and trying not to crush Puss’s paws as she moved, turned to look in amazement at Tabby. “Whatever do you think brought that on?” she wondered. “She sounded so furious!”
“She’s in love,” said Tabby indifferently. “People act like that when they’re in love—demented, sort of.” She gave her young mistress a wicked smile, for she too, from one of the windows, had been witness to the charade that Pamela had played out today for Tom’s benefit. “She’s not the only one who’s in love,” she added slyly.
“No, of course she isn’t,” mused Pamela, taking that to mean not herself but the tall Captain. “There’s Captain Warburton to consider too....”
Tabby barely manag
ed to control a snort. “Get out of the way. Puss,” she said, nudging the cat aside with her foot as she pulled Pamela’s rustling gown over her head. “Or else you’ll have to fight your way out of ten yards of taffety!” The cat, handsomely displaying the black furry backs of his striped legs, beat a hasty retreat and with a spring plumped himself into the middle of the big feather bed.
Where they’d all like to be! thought Tabby derisively. Only they won’t admit who with!
The Cheddar Gorge, Somerset,
The Fifth Day of Christmas 1684
Chapter 24
The young crowd who arrived at Axeleigh next day for the sleighride to Warwood thought the Squire looked excessively grim. Indeed he had not slept much the night before. He had left the blackmail money in the same hollow tree as before and sincerely hoped that it would be the last he’d ever hear of the blackmailer. A future spent filling hollow trees with gold coins did not appear very inviting. Neither did the prospect of having Dick Peacham for a son-in-law.
In fact, of all the suitors for either Pamela’s or Constance’s hand, he liked Pell and Peacham least. They would both, he thought unhappily, prove themselves inept in time of crisis—and before the morning was out Chesney at least had proved his point.
It seemed at first glance that half the young people of the county had descended on Axeleigh for the sleighing party—and more sleighs would be picked up on the way. Bells tinkled and horses blew clouds of steam into the cold air and there were happy shrieks as flannel-or fur-cloaked girls waved muffs at one another and tried to keep their hair tucked into fur-trimmed hoods or their wide-brimmed plumed hats from blowing off across the snow.
Ned Warburton had arrived in a small sleigh, a two-seater, expecting Constance to go with him, but she gave him a wave and a bright smile and quickly slipped in beside Chesney, whose pleased expression puffed out his red cheeks until he looked for all the world like Santa Claus-junior grade.
Lovely Lying Lips Page 32
