Amanda Scott - [Dangerous 02] (36 page)

“I hope her parents will agree with you when she returns to Paris.”

“They will. Look here, I’ve learned something I want to discuss with you. Gabriel has heard rumors of a plot to capture Wellington when he arrives at Fowey.”

“Good mercy!” The news diverted her thoughts instantly. “How?”

“He doesn’t know, but he believes French smugglers are at the heart of it.” He paused, looking at her with an odd expression in his eyes, then added dryly, “Gabriel says they may be led by a chap called Lee Renardo.”

Charley stared at him.
“Le Renardeau?
You’re joking.”

“I wish I were. It is not the first rumor that has surfaced recently about him either, or the first that suggests he is in Cornwall. I just wish I knew the source. In any case, if you have any creative notions about this latest wrinkle …”

“But if there is a plot, surely you must have heard of it.”

“Not a whisper. They are always plotting amongst themselves, of course, but I have heard nothing to suggest so massive an undertaking. Still, I must treat it as fact and plan accordingly, so if you can think of anything that might help …”

“I’ll do my best,” she promised.

They did not catch up with Letty before she reached the house, but as Charley went upstairs to change after presenting Bess to Aggie, she met Letty coming down. Jeremiah, perched on the child’s shoulder and apparently searching for treats in her hair, paused in his search long enough to chatter a greeting at Charley.

Letty said with a grin, “He liked the story of the footpad’s monkey, Cousin Charley. I wonder if we could train him to do something like that?”

“Letty, for shame!”

“I just wondered,” the little girl said.

“Just keep him out of mischief,” Charley said sternly.

“I will.”

As she changed her clothes, Charley thought about the smugglers and forgot about Letty and Jeremiah, but when she went downstairs again, she was quickly reminded. Approaching the drawing room, she heard raucous squeals and shrieks, then a crash accompanied by the unmistakable sound of shattering china.

T
HE FIRST THING CHARLEY
saw when she entered the drawing room was what seemed like a thousand pieces of Sevres porcelain scattered across the floor, some of them still moving. Letty stood amidst them, looking in dismay at the wreckage. Striding angrily toward the child, vaguely aware of Jeremiah leaping from the mantel to the top of the nearest curtains, Charley grabbed Letty and gave her a shake.

“Didn’t I tell you to be careful?” she scolded, both hands now on the child’s shoulders as she punctuated her words with more shakes. “How could you be so careless? That was Sevres china, young lady, Cousin Melissa’s favorite vase!” Her voice increased in volume, and Letty’s eyes widened with alarm. Charley shouted, “You deserve to be severely punished for such carelessness, Letitia, and by heaven—”

“Charlotte!”
Antony stood in the doorway. He said more calmly, “I want you, please. Letty will excuse you.”

Charley scarcely looked at him. “Not now. Letty and Jeremiah just smashed Melissa’s vase into a thousand—” Unaware that he had moved, she broke off with a shriek when he scooped her up and pulled her hand from Letty’s arm. “Put me down!” she cried, pounding him with her fists. “Damn you, Antony, put me down at once!”

Holding her with one arm around her waist, he clapped the other hand over her mouth. In the same tone he had used before, he said, “Ring for a maid to clean up the mess, Letty, then catch Jeremiah and calm him down. I’ll look after your cousin.”

“She’s dreadfully angry,” Letty said, still wide-eyed. “I have never seen her so angry.” She looked down. “She did tell me to be careful. I’m sorry about the vase.”

“The vase doesn’t matter a whit,” Antony said. “We will get Cousin Melissa another one, and you may choose it for her yourself. Now, go and do as I told you.”

He removed his hand from Charley’s mouth but made no reply when she began to rant again, merely hefting her up under his arm and carrying her from the room. Struggling to free herself, she called him every evil name she could think of, paying no heed to where he was taking her, even when he carried her outside, until suddenly she was airborne. Before she had drawn breath to scream, she heard the panicked quacking of ducks and the chilly waters of the horse pond closed over her head.

She came up sputtering, madder than ever, wanting nothing less than to see Antony dead at her feet. Splashing through waist-deep water to the edge of the pond, she scrambled out and, shoes squishing water with every step, advanced on him with fire in her eyes. “How dare you do such a thing to me! Letty deserved to be scolded, and you had absolutely no right to—
Antony, no!”

He threw her in again.

This time she swallowed a large mouthful of water, and came up coughing, but she did not pause. Sputtering and gasping for air, she stormed back toward him.

Antony stood at the edge of the pond, hands on his hips, watching her. “Do not speak until you can compose yourself unless you want to go right back into that pond,” he warned her, “because that is precisely what will happen, as many times as it must, until you can speak with a civil tongue. I will tolerate nothing less, and the sooner you learn that the better it will be for you.”

“How dare you!” Angrily, she plowed her way toward the edge of the pond.

He straightened, waiting for her to step out of the water.

Recognizing his intent, she stopped a few feet away in hip-deep water and swallowed hard. “Very well, I’ll apologize, but you made me angry, and lately, when I get angry, I seem to lose every vestige of control over my temper. I c-can’t help it,” she added curtly when a sudden, unexpected ache in her throat made it hard to speak.

He stood looking silently down at her until she felt almost compelled to beg his pardon, to promise him she would behave better in the future. Biting back the impulse, she watched him warily, knowing she looked a mess but knowing, as well, that the way she looked was not what made her squirm before that uncompromising gaze.

He offered her a hand but said in the same quiet way as before, “I don’t think much of your apology, but since you have not had much practice in making them, I suppose it will have to do.”

Unexpected tears welled into her eyes. “That’s an awful thing to say—as if I were a child, or an idiot.”

“If you were a child,” he said in carefully measured tones, “and I were your father, I’d have put you across my knee right there in front of Letty and spanked you until you could not sit comfortably for a week. But you are not a child, Charlotte, and I am not your father.”

“No, you are not,” she snapped.
“My father and mother are dead!”
Bursting into deep, racking sobs that shuddered through her body, she felt her knees give way beneath her. But she did not fall, for Antony was there.

Murmuring, “At last,” he picked her up again, gently this time, like a child, and carried her into the hedged garden at the back of the house, where he found a bench in the sun. There he sat down with her on his lap, and let her cry until she could cry no more. He said nothing. He just held her very tight.

For long moments after the last wrenching sob, she remained still, her face pressed against his chest, shivering in her wet clothes one moment, soaking up the warmth of the sun and of Antony’s body the next.

When she shivered again, he said, “We had better both go inside and get out of these wet clothes before we catch our deaths.”

“Not yet,” she said. “Please?”

“Very well. I’m not as wet as you are.”

She was silent for a moment, collecting herself. She felt utterly wrung out, but she wanted to make her peace with him while they were still alone.

“Antony?”

“Yes?”

“I-I’m truly sorry. I behaved dreadfully. I just don’t know what came over me. It was exactly like the day I ripped up at Elizabeth, and the day Rockland told me you had known about his prank. I can’t seem to stop. It’s almost as if some other Charley takes over and starts shouting. Y-you don’t think I’m losing my mind, do you?”

He chuckled, and she felt more warmed by that sound than by the sunlight. He said, “You are not losing your mind, angel. I didn’t realize what was wrong, or I’d have made you let off some of the steam you’ve collected under your lid long before now.”

“What steam?”

“We had a cook when I was still in the army,” he said, his voice soothing, calm, and musical to her ears. “He made a stew one night in a heavy pot over a quick fire. The gravy bubbled up around the lid and baked tight, sealing the pot shut. All of a sudden, without the least warning, the lid blew right off that pot and nearly took a young soldier’s head with it. The steam inside could not escape, you see, and it built up so much pressure that the lid finally blew.”

“Is that what has been happening to me?”

“I don’t think it will happen again,” he said, “but yes, in a way, I think that is what has been happening. What with trying to look after Letty and manage everything after your parents and grandfather died, you allowed yourself no time to grieve.”

“But I never felt like grieving until just now,” she protested. “Then it just washed over me like a huge, unexpected flood.”

“You didn’t allow it to happen before. I’ve watched you, angel. You like to be in control of your world, and you’ve rarely had to submit to anyone else’s authority. It was the thought of having to submit to Alfred, remember, that made you look first to Rockland as a possible husband, and then to accept my bargain as your last hope of escape. Correct?”

“You know it is.”

“Then how could you allow yourself to submit to mere emotions? If you cannot control them, how can you control anything or anyone else?”

“I don’t try to control people!”

“Don’t you?”

Much as she wanted to deny it, she hesitated.

“What about Rockland?” Antony prompted.

“That’s not control,” she said scornfully. “The man cannot make the simplest decision on his own. If I didn’t tell him what to do, he’d never do anything.”

“He did at least one thing on his own,” Antony reminded her with a smile.

“That was an aberration,” she said, squirming to get off his lap. “I’m beginning to get cold now. There’s clouds drifting across the sun. We’d better go inside.”

“Very well,” he said, helping her stand up, then getting up himself. He retained a light grasp on her arm, however, and when she would have turned away toward the house, he restrained her, adding gently, “Don’t get the idea that I’m through with you yet, because I’m not. Not by a long chalk.”

“But why? I’ve apologized, haven’t I?”

“I am not the one who deserves your apology.”

Her gaze met his, and although she expected to see sternness, what she saw was understanding. Looking away, she sighed. “You mean I’ve got to apologize to Letty.”

“Do you think you need not?”

“It’s humbling to think that I must, that’s all.”

Once you have cleaned up and are feeling more the thing, you will manage it well enough,” he said.

Glancing at him again, she wondered why she did not resent his insistence upon such an apology. Instead, she felt steadied, and more sure of herself than she had felt for some time. She managed a watery smile. “I won’t wait. You are quite right. She deserves an apology, and I mustn’t put it off. Will you come with me?”

“Oh, yes,” he said. “Didn’t I say I’m not through with you yet?”

“But you can’t mean to scold me any more! Not when I’ve already admitted my fault and apologized for it.”

“No,” he said, putting an arm around her and urging her toward the house, “I won’t scold, but we are going to talk about your parents and your grandfather. And don’t bristle like a hedgehog,” he added when she frowned, “because it won’t do you any good. I found early on in my interesting career that the worst thing a man can do if a friend falls in battle is not talk about him. The Irish hold wakes where they drink and carouse and generally celebrate the deceased person’s life and memory, and that, my angel, is what we are going to do as soon as we’ve got you all cleaned up.”

Charley did not reply. It was not the thought of talking about her parents and grandfather that silenced her, however. It was the casual way Antony assumed—if she had not misunderstood him—that he was going to help clean her up.

Inside the house, he said to the footman, “Have a bath prepared for Lady Foxearth in her bedchamber, John, and be sure someone builds a blazing fire to go with it. She took a tumble into the pond, and we don’t want her to take a chill.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where is Lady Letitia?” Charley asked, trying to maintain at least a semblance of her dignity, despite the fact that the footman was taking great care not to look at her.

“She is still in the drawing room, my lady.”

“Thank you.” Conscious of her squishing shoes, and of Antony’s presence behind her, Charley went to the drawing room, where she found Letty curled up on the window seat with Jeremiah, staring out at dark clouds gathering over the Channel.

The little girl turned at once when they entered and got quickly to her feet, leaving the monkey on the seat. Speaking rapidly, she said, “We’ve got it all cleaned up, Cousin Charley, and I’m very sorry that I broke it, and I’ve written a note to Cousin Melissa to tell her that it was all my fault and that I’m very sorry, and—”

“Letty darling, hush, it’s all right,” Charley said. “Come here and tell me you can forgive me for being such a horrid shrew.” She held out her arms, and Letty rushed into them, only to jump back again with a gasp.

“You’re soaked to the skin!”

“Sir Antony thought I needed to cool my temper.”

“He did?” Uncertainly, Letty looked from one to the other.

Glancing at Antony, Charley saw that he was smiling at her. Though Letty clearly was bursting with curiosity, Charley knew Antony would reveal no more than she did herself. Without further hesitation, she said, “Letty, I-I must apologize for shouting at you like I did, and even more for shaking you. You did not deserve that.”

“But I wasn’t careful, and I did break the vase,” Letty said. “It wasn’t Jeremiah at all. I was reaching to catch him, and I knocked it over.”