Amanda Scott (16 page)

Without taking his eyes from Seacourt, he said, “I have the honor to be one of them, ma’am.”

“A good chap, Ulcombe, as men go. Are you much like him?”

Nick smiled at her then. “Not much, I’m afraid, but I will be delighted to extend your compliments to him.”

“No need for that. What are you doing with my niece?”

“Handing her over to someone who can protect her from her father, I hope,” Nick said, echoing her bluntness.

“Indeed?” She raised her eyebrows, but Nick saw that she glanced speculatively at Seacourt. “What has her father been doing that she requires protection from him?”

He, too, looked back at Seacourt as he said, “Beating her, for one thing. Attempting to sell her into matrimony against her will, for another.”

The look Lady Ophelia shot at Seacourt then ought, Nick thought, to have incinerated him on the spot. “Up to your old tricks, are you?” she said. “No, don’t bother to deny it. I can see the bruise on her cheek for myself. And don’t bother explaining to me how it is your God-given right as a man to beat the women in your family, for I won’t listen to you. You are a brute, Geoffrey, for all your charming ways, and it is of no use whatsoever to look at me as if I were merely a feeble old woman who don’t have her wits about her. I am neither feeble nor demented, and I shall still be able to deal effectively with you in the five short minutes before they shovel me underground. You are a fool, and I am not. That’s the long and the short of it. You represent the worst and weakest of your sex, sir, which is saying quite a lot.”

“And you represent the best and strongest of yours, ma’am,” Seacourt said instantly, his temper apparently unruffled. “However, since Vexford is returning Melissa to her family, she will go with me to Brook Street, and there is nothing you or anyone else can do to prevent it. That is not a God-given right but one granted by good English law. In fact, I want to know just what Vexford has been doing with her since he removed her from our inn at Newmarket,” he added with a challenging look at Nick.

Nick did not reply at once. He had listened with interest to the verbal sparring, and recognized the pair as adversaries of long standing. Though he did not care a fig for Seacourt, the old woman fascinated him. He thought her remarkably well preserved for eighty-six. Although a stout blackthorn cane leaned handily against the near arm of her sofa, she wore no spectacles. The gray hair beneath her plain white cap was pulled ruthlessly into a bun at the nape of her neck. Her gown was also gray, but the material of the latter was a fashionable Levantine, trimmed with expensive lace, and the cut and style became her well despite a figure that, if not exactly stout, was solid and square. Her pale blue eyes were clear, their expression intelligent, even shrewd.

She was looking at him, obviously waiting to hear what he would say. Ignoring Seacourt, he said to her, “I brought your niece to London, ma’am, to my parents’ house. I won’t pretend that I entrusted her to their care, for as it happens they were in Hampshire, at Owlcastle, though they are expected to return today. Nonetheless, Miss Seacourt has her maid with her, and our servants looked after her as if she were one of the family. She was quite safe at Barrington House.” Taking care not to look at Melissa, he hoped she would have the good sense not to contradict him. He did not fear Seacourt’s revealing the true worth of her so-called maid, since he had, after all, hired Mag himself.

Melissa was silent.

Lady Ophelia, glancing at her and then at Seacourt, said, “Well, what have you got to say to that, Geoffrey?”

He shrugged. “I’ll accept Vexford’s word as that of a gentleman, and thank him for looking after Melissa, but there is no longer any reason for him to do so, regardless of what tale they tell. We can go now, Melissa,” he added, standing again. “It is more than time that you became acquainted with our Brook Street house, I believe.”

Seeing Melissa stiffen, Nick said, “I believe I’ve purchased the right to have a say in where she goes, Seacourt. I daresay she will prefer to remain right here.”

Lady Ophelia said brusquely, “She is welcome to stay with me, certainly.”

“As to that,” Seacourt said with a superior smile, “I—”

“Lissa, you
are
here! Buxton said you were, and of course Uncle Geoffrey all but accused us earlier of concealing you, so I knew you were up to some mischief or other, but—Goodness, who are
you?”

Melissa, facing the doorway, was half out of her chair before Nick turned to see the newcomer. When he did, he found himself staring at an extraordinarily beautiful young woman. Her black hair was as glossy as if she had polished each strand with the finest pomatum, and her blue eyes were so dark they looked black beneath long, curling ebony lashes. Though she regarded him briefly with open curiosity, she quickly forgot her demand to know his identity, and hastened to hug Melissa. Her movements were graceful and confident, her figure exquisite, and her personality so imposing that it was with surprise that Nick saw, when the two young women embraced, that she was not as tall as Melissa.

Melissa cried, “Charley! Oh, how happy I am to see you!”

“How you’ve grown! I’m a mere Lilliputian beside you.”

“Never! Oh, how I’ve missed you.”

“Very affecting,” Lady Ophelia said dryly, “but I was under the distinct impression, Charlotte, that you had retired to your bedchamber.”

“What you mean, ma’am, is that you sent me there in disgrace as punishment for my bad manners,” she retorted with disarming candor and a twinkling look at the old woman. “You may scold me mercilessly when our visitors have departed but you simply cannot have expected me to stay upstairs once I discovered that Lissa had arrived.” She looked again at Nick, who had risen politely but without undue haste, and said, “But, pray, is no one going to make this gentleman known to me?”

Obligingly, Lady Ophelia said, “May I present Lord Vexford, Charlotte, who has been kind enough to bring Melissa to us. Miss Tarrant is Melissa’s cousin, sir, and has not seen her in some years. Hence, her unbridled enthusiasm.”

“How do you do, sir,” Miss Tarrant said, dropping a slight curtsy, “but ought I to know you? I don’t believe we have met before.”

Taken aback by such direct questioning from a young woman scarcely out of her teens, even one who clearly boasted an acquaintance with
Gulliver’s Travels,
Nick said, “An oversight on my account, Miss Tarrant. You must forgive me.”

“Oh, don’t talk fustian,” she said. “It cannot be any fault of yours that we have not previously encountered each other. I have no patience with such drivel. I merely wondered if your title ought to be familiar to me.”

Seacourt said with an edge to his voice, “You see what comes of allowing girls too much freedom of expression, Vexford. My niece has been allowed to speak her mind and run free, right from the cradle. She spends too much time with her horses and not nearly enough learning the manners expected of a young woman of quality. The lack derives from having too-sociable parents and a too-generous and doting great-grandaunt, and that is precisely why I will not allow Melissa to take up residence in this house.”

“Uncle Geoffrey, really, what a thing to say about Papa and Mama when you’ve scarcely exchanged a civil word with either one of them in nine years! Of course, Lissa will stay here. She certainly doesn’t want to go anywhere with you!”

“Hush, Charlotte!”

“Oh, Charley, please, don’t!”

“Charlotte, hold your tongue,” Seacourt commanded, adding sternly, “you have even less to say about Melissa’s future than Lady Ophelia or Vexford has. The plain fact is that by law I am still Melissa’s father, and by law she must obey me.

“The law,” said Charley, undaunted, “is a nonsensical lot of poppycock made up by men to suit themselves, with no consideration whatsoever for the rest of the world. No matter what anyone else says about it, I say the law is merely a way for men to keep everything of value in this world for themselves.”

Perfectly true, my dear,” Lady Ophelia said, “but we cannot indulge ourselves just now in reciting a litany of legal injustices. Geoffrey, there is one bit of information that you left out earlier, and Vexford has said nothing to make the point clear to me. Though you said that Melissa had run away from you in Newmarket, both my hearing and my memory are acute, and I’m certain I heard Vexford say something just before Charlotte came in about having
purchased
the right to have a say in Melissa’s future. I should like you to explain to me just what he meant by that.”

Seacourt looked disconcerted, but Nick, taking his cue yet again from Miss Tarrant and Lady Ophelia, said bluntly, “I purchased Miss Seacourt at auction in a gaming hell, ma’am. Her father, having abducted her from Scotland, presented her to Lord Yarborne in payment of a large gaming debt. Yarborne, not putting much confidence in Seacourt’s assurance that she is a considerable heiress, put her up for auction to recover his money. I had the honor to outbid the others.”

Lady Ophelia gasped. “Merciful heavens! And here I’d been led to think Yarborne a gentleman, almost as generous to the poor and helpless as Ulcombe is.”

Even the indomitable Miss Tarrant seemed to have been stricken speechless.

Seacourt shrugged, shook his head, and said with a twisted smile, “You need not look so shocked, either of you. Yarborne is exactly the man you thought him to be, ma’am. It was merely a matter of business between gentlemen and not anything one expects mere females to understand. Vexford may have been fool enough to purchase Melissa at that sham auction, thus paying my debt to Yarborne for me, but he has clearly relinquished any claim by bringing her here. He would have to do so, in any event, even if the purchase itself were not utterly without standing in any court of law, which, of course, is precisely the case. England does not recognize slavery, after all.”

“Oh, yes, England does,” Charley snapped. “Women all over this country are trapped in a state of
sexual
slavery that’s been virtually unchanged since the dawn of our
man-
made civilization!”

Seacourt said testily, “Don’t be stupid, Charlotte. You don’t know what the devil you are saying, and it’s got nothing to do with Melissa, who is leaving this house with me right now. English law may not be to your liking, but it does recognize a father’s authority over a minor daughter. That authority cannot be superseded by anyone.”

Silenced, Charley shot a pleading look at Lady Ophelia, but Nick knew that the old woman would not be able to stop Seacourt if he was determined to take his daughter. Looking at Melissa, he saw that, although her father had turned toward her with the obvious intention of removing her forcibly if she did not go with him willingly, she was looking not at him but at Nick.

“Come along, Melissa,” Seacourt said, taking her arm and giving Charley a look that dared her to deny his right.

Melissa licked her lips, watching Nick determinedly.

Surprising himself, Nick said, “One moment.”

Seacourt glared at him. “What now?”

“There is, in fact, someone in a woman’s life whose authority does supersede that of her father.”

Seacourt chuckled. “There is always God, of course.”

“I am speaking of a husband’s authority over his wife.”

“Oh, famous,” Charley exclaimed, clapping her hands.

Melissa’s gaze remained fixed on Nick, but Seacourt only laughed and said, “Damnation, Vexford, you can’t have married her, and I’ll wager you haven’t got the least intention of doing so. I’ve learned a great deal about you since we met, sir, and the one thing everyone agrees on is that you are
not
hanging out for a wife.”

“But I do intend to marry her,” Nick said with a steadiness that surprised himself as much as it must have surprised the others. “I brought her here because I’d learned that Lady Ophelia was in town. I realized it was far more suitable for Miss … for Melissa to stay here with her than at Barrington House until I can procure a special license and make other necessary arrangements.”

“Ah, but you did not know that I was in town as well,” Seacourt said. “It must be even more suitable for her to remain under her father’s roof until she marries.”

“I disagree,” Nick said, “and while you may quibble over whether my purchase gives me any legal right to make such a decision, you cannot say that our betrothal gives me no such right.”

“But I do not agree that a betrothal exists,” Seacourt said, still calm. “I am her father, after all, and I certainly have not agreed to one.”

Lady Ophelia said with annoyance, “Don’t be absurd, Geoffrey. If selling her—auctioning her; whatever it was you did—don’t amount to agreeing to her betrothal, I don’t know what would. I should still like to know what you were about to promise Yarborne that Melissa is a great heiress. If she is to inherit anything from anyone other than myself—and you, of course—I am unaware of it. Were you expecting me to be so obliging as to pop off my hook merely so that you could pay your gambling debts?”

“No, of course not,” he retorted. “Vexford has exaggerated what occurred in Newmarket, I assure you. His description is outrageous and must be utterly incredible to anyone of common sense.”

Nick said nothing. Nor did he try to avoid the penetrating gaze directed at him. Lady Ophelia snorted in a most unladylike way and said, “We must certainly hope that others will think it incredible if rumors begin to fly, but if you think, Geoffrey, that I’ll take your word over his just because you are in some small way connected to me, you very much mistake the matter. Melissa will stay here for the present.”

“I don’t think so. He cannot marry her at once, after all.”

“Yes, I can,” Nick said. “I will go from here straight to Doctor’s Commons, and the moment I have the special license, we can go to St. George’s Chapel. The rector there is a friend of my father’s, and will be happy to marry us at once.”

“No,” Lady Ophelia said flatly.

Having expected her support in his mad gesture, Nick looked at her in disbelief.

“But, Aunt Ophelia,” Charley and Melissa began in one and the same breath, only to fall silent when she glared at them and went on in her decided fashion, “No niece of mine will be married in such a scrambling way.”