An Escapade and an Engagement (17 page)

‘So soon? Well, whichever one it is, I must say I admire the
way you’ve gone about the task I set you. No shilly-shallying.’

Well, that was hardly to his credit. He hadn’t cared much who
he might end up married to when he’d first accepted that his duty was clear. It
had only been after Lady Jayne burst into his life like… Well, as he’d told her,
just like one of Congreve’s rockets, that he’d discovered there was only one
woman with whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life.

‘Miss Beresford, is it?’ Lord Lavenham leaned back in his own
seat and twirled his brandy round in its glass. ‘Out of all the girls you’ve
brought down here she is the one I can see making you the most comfortable sort
of wife. You get on well with the brother, at least. Can be devilishly
uncomfortable if you don’t get on with the extended family.’

‘No, not Miss Beresford. I intend to ask Lady Jayne to be my
wife.’

Lord Lavenham looked up at him sharply.

‘Lady Jayne Chilcott?’ He shook his head. ‘Richard, I can quite
see why you considered her, given the qualities I urged you to look for in a
bride. Highly born, and with a substantial fortune to bring to the table. And a
good seat. Yes, I liked the way she handled Mischief this morning, and that’s a
fact. But you must have noticed how cold she can be?’

‘Her manner may be cool, sometimes, but she is not cold at
heart.’

‘I have noticed that there is a distinct thaw in her attitude
towards
you.
But I have to tell you, after spending
half an hour in her company this afternoon I had to come in here and call for
Watkins to light the fire.’

He shivered.

‘Only met one person before with the capacity to freeze the
blood in m’veins with one look, and that was her father. He was a cold-hearted
blackguard, was the Marquis of Tunstall. Could be downright nasty if you got on
the wrong side of him. Before your time, so you wouldn’t know, so it’s my duty
to warn you, boy, to think very carefully before getting yourself hitched to any
child of his.’

Richard sat forward, his hands clasped between his knees.

‘I think I know what you mean, sir. I have watched her retreat
within herself when she is upset or offended. But I find her dignified
withdrawal far preferable to the behaviour of girls who lash out in anger when
they are crossed. Or make spiteful remarks behind an unsuspecting victim’s
back.’

‘Like Lady Susan.’ His grandfather nodded. ‘I am inclined to
agree with you there.’

Well, that was something.

‘If I can persuade Lady Jayne to accept me, I am confident that
she will do her best to make me happy.’

Lord Lavenham frowned.

‘So long as you have no sentimental expectations regarding a
match with one of the Chilcotts, I suppose it might answer. And you don’t strike
me as being the sentimental sort, so… No, I suppose I cannot raise any
objections.’

Expectations? No, he had no expectations. Expecting a woman to
love him was not the same as hoping that one day she might feel something
stronger than fondness towards him.

‘When I set out to find a wife, you must know, sir, that
sentimentality had nothing to do with it.’

‘Indeed,’ said the earl thoughtfully. Then he sighed. ‘Well,
whomever you marry, I cannot believe you could do worse than your own father, or
either of your brothers.’ His expression soured. ‘They all disappointed me.
Whereas you—’ he looked at him squarely from beneath his beetling brows ‘—you
never have. I have followed your career with great interest.’

‘You have?’ Why was this the first he’d heard of it? As far as
he knew, his grandfather was only interested in his horses and his hounds.

‘Yes. Upon several occasions your gallantry has brought
distinction upon the name of Cathcart. Been proud of the way you earned your
promotions. In short, I am not at all sorry that you will be the one to take up
the reins when I am gone.’

At one time Richard would have given anything to know that one
of his family was watching his military career. His father had acted as though
he’d done him an immense favour by purchasing him a commission for his sixteenth
birthday, but he’d always assumed the fact that it was in a regiment serving
overseas had been a deliberate attempt to deal with the problem of the middle
son for whom he could feel neither love nor hate. And he’d never, not once in
his life, received a letter from his own mother—not once he’d left home. And he
wasn’t talking about his military service. She’d washed her hands of him the
moment he’d gone away to school.

But his grandfather had followed his career? How he wished he
had known that when it might have meant something. Now it was…not something that
affected him as much as he would have expected.

When he’d vowed to do his duty by his family, in resigning his
commission and marrying a woman worthy of raising the next generation of
Cathcarts, he realized he’d done it because it was in his nature to do his
best—not to win anyone’s approval.

‘Now, tomorrow,’ said Lord Lavenham, ‘I thought it would be a
good idea to take ’em all out to The Workings.’

‘A good idea,’ replied Richard, relieved that his grandfather
was moving the conversation away from the personal to the practical.

‘Chaperones in carriages. The rest of you on horseback. A
pretty spot, some nice views, and you young things can all picnic. Play cricket
in the afternoon if it is fine. Parlour games if not.’

Richard nodded. The Workings was an ideal location for an
afternoon’s entertainment during unsettled weather. Some twenty-five years
previously his grandfather, this crusty old man who had such trouble talking
about emotion of any sort, had built his own wife a substantial pavilion on the
brow of a hill from which she could watch the progress of the canal which was
being cut along one of the farthest-flung borders of the estate. It had been his
way, Richard supposed, of showing her that he loved the woman his own parents
had arranged for him to marry, since she’d become inexplicably fascinated with
everything to do with the workings in the valley.

He’d even had the estate carpenter make her ladyship a working
model of a lock staircase, though there was not one along this stretch of the
canal. As a boy, Richard had loved going down to The Workings with a jug of
water and navigating twigs, leaves or anything he could find that floated,
through the series of locks. If the contraption still worked, it was just the
sort of thing to keep all his guests amused for ages.

He left his grandfather’s study wondering how, amidst all the
bustle of the proposed activities, he would be able to draw Milly to one side
and put a stop to her mischief-making.

Or, better yet, get Lady Jayne in some secluded spot where he
might be able to coax her into letting him kiss her again.

Only this time it wasn’t going to be a brief touch of lips. No,
this time he was going to make sure she knew she’d been well and truly kissed.
He was going to make such a thorough job of it that she wouldn’t even be able to
remember Lieutenant Kendell’s name, never mind what he looked like.

* * *

He might have known she wouldn’t make it easy for him.
In fact, the day which he’d hoped would accomplish so much had been one of
unmitigated torture.

Surrounded by chaperones, grooms, footmen with tables and
chairs and boxes of other sundry equipment, maids with hampers of food, not to
mention the other house guests all intent on getting a piece of him, Lady Jayne
had had no trouble whatsoever avoiding him completely. To round things off
nicely, now, when he’d rung for Fred, it had been Mortimer’s valet who had
answered his summons, with the intelligence that, so far as anyone knew, Fred
had ‘absconded to the nearest hostelry, in search of liquid refreshment.’

In one way, that news had come as no surprise. Fred had seemed
ill at ease, if not downright morose, when he’d shaved him that morning.

For a moment he felt half inclined to go after him, so that
they could drown their sorrows together.

Instead he dismissed Jenkins, deciding he would rather put
himself to bed than endure his mealy mouthed ministrations.

But he got no further than pulling off his evening shoes,
stockings and neckcloth before he sat down on the edge of the bed and buried his
face in his hands.

Deciding to marry Lady Jayne was one thing. Telling his
grandfather he was going to propose to her, no matter what he thought, was
another. But actually saying the words to
her…
when
like as not she would reject him…was turning out to be a great deal harder than
he could possibly have imagined. How the hell did a man persuade a woman who was
still recovering from a broken heart to look favourably on him? Last night it
had sounded easy. Just kiss her and tell her he loved her. Or tell her he loved
her, then kiss her and…

And that was the thing. He couldn’t get the image of her
struggling with Kendell, when he’d forced a kiss on her, out of his head. And
she had loved
him
enough to agree to a secret
assignation with him.

This kind of courting was damned complicated. He’d never been
all that bothered about how the women he’d taken a fancy to might feel about
him. A soldier took his pleasure where he could find it. But if he made one
wrong move where Lady Jayne was concerned, and destroyed what goodwill she did
appear to have for him, he did not know how he would bear it.

He shot to his feet, wrenching his shirt from his waistband and
tearing open the neck, though the action gave him scant outlet for his
frustration. He could not risk taking any course of action that might alienate
her altogether. But if he sat about doing nothing she might still slip right
through his fingers. He was going to have to—

What was that? He’d heard a most peculiar noise—a kind of
rattling as of hailstones against the window, though there was not a cloud in
the sky. It made the hairs on the nape of his neck stand on end, just as they
always did when he scented danger.

Another, sharper sound, as of a bullet striking the masonry,
had him flinging himself to the floor in a move so instinctive he was face to
face with his chamber pot before he rightly knew what he was doing.

Who the devil could be taking potshots at him through a
first-floor window, of all things? He swarmed on elbows and knees to his
dresser, reached up and pulled his pistol from the top drawer, whilst wondering
what kind of enemy would have waited until now to fire upon him, when he had
been strolling about the park all day, a much easier target—especially when he
had stood on the brow of the hill….

Well, he was not going to make it easy for him to put a period
to his existence. He loaded his weapon, crawled to the window, sat up next to it
and took a cautious peek over the edge of the sill.

* * *

Lady Jayne had been growing more and more miserable all
day, waiting for Richard to propose to Milly.

But Milly still seemed to be under the impression he was angry
with her, and had been keeping well out of his way.

Just as assiduously as she’d been avoiding Milly.

She should have gone straight to Milly yesterday and told her
what Richard planned. But every time she braced herself to go through with it,
and formed the words in her head, other words came welling up from deep, deep
within.
Not you. He loves her, not you.

And after the pain had come the shame that, instead of wanting
Milly to be able to find happiness with Richard, she was all twisted up with
jealousy inside. It was a rotten thing to do—fall in love with a man your friend
wanted to marry.

It was no use telling herself she hadn’t meant to do it. She
had
done it. And it made her feel like a
traitor.

All day long everyone concerned had been utterly miserable.

She sighed.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow, if Richard had not managed it himself, she
would
tell Milly what she knew, and at least the
two of them could be happy.

Only…

It sounded as though Milly was as unable to sleep as she, for
some time now, had heard her moving about the room as though she was pacing up
and down in agitation. In the end, though part of her wanted to pull the covers
up over her ears and blot everything out, she pushed her own selfish desires
aside, along with the bedcovers, got out of her bed, crossed the sitting room
and tapped gently on Milly’s bedroom door.

And stopped still on the threshold.

Clothes were strewn everywhere, as if somebody had got in and
ransacked the room. But it must have been Milly who’d made all the mess. For she
was standing amidst the wreckage, a small valise clutched in one hand, a bonnet
in the other, and a mulish expression on her mouth.

And she was wearing a coat.

‘Milly…’

Lady Jayne had been about to ask her what she was doing, but it
was so obvious she intended to leave she would have felt foolish voicing the
question.

‘Milly,’ she began again. ‘Please don’t leave. Not now, just
when Richard—’

‘This has nothing to do with him!’ Milly’s face hardened. She
tossed the valise onto the bed and placed the bonnet on her head.

‘Of course it has. Milly, I can see you must have given up hope
to say such a thing, but—’

‘There was
never
any hope for me
with him,’ she said as she yanked the ribbons into a bow under her chin. ‘But at
least now I’ve met a man who does see me as a woman. Tom’s waiting for me right
now. In the lane that goes up to The Workings. In his curricle…’

‘Not… You don’t mean Lord Halstead?’

‘Why not Lord Halstead?’

‘Well, because I…I can’t believe he loves you. Not if he has
asked you to run away with him like this.’ She’d learned that much from her
relationship with Harry. ‘Besides, if you run off with another man it will break
Richard’s heart.’