Anne Barbour (28 page)

His words were so uncharacteristic that Hilary glanced up quickly, and immediately wished she hadn’t. His chocolate-brown gaze held a spark of something in their depths that she dared not try to identify. She felt the heat rise to her cheeks and strove for a light answer.

“Be careful, sir. You know what happens to mortals who dally with the deity of the hunt.”

“Do you plan to transform me into a bear and toss me into the skies?”

“Sirrah, does the deity discuss her plans with a mere mortal?” she asked playfully, aware that her own eyes must be giving away her feelings.

“Ah, but I am not a mere mortal. I am Lear, mighty king, and father of three impossible daughters.”

“Nonsense. Even such as you are dust beneath the feet of Diana, Ruler of the Moon and Stars.”

James smiled, and, to her dazed senses, it seemed a smile of such tenderness that she almost gasped with the surge of longing that swept through her. When the music stopped, she stepped back abruptly, as though fleeing from her own emotions. She gazed distractedly about the room and became aware of a strange figure lurking and bobbing on the perimeter of the dance floor.

“Who in the world is that odd little man?” she asked, pointing discreetly.

James turned to observe a personage, as wide as he was tall, whose face was almost totally obliterated by a bushy wig and a truly astonishing beard. He appeared to be garbed as King Arthur, for on the wig teetered a large crown of what looked like iron, and around his neck hung a heavy, brazen torque in the Celtic style. His costume consisted of layered perceptions of Arthurian fashion. A woolen tunic drooped over fur leggings, the whole covered by a swirling cloak. Atop this lay—a wolf skin, for God’s sake?

“Good Lord, I have no idea,” James replied. “Although he seems slightly familiar. Could it be the vicar, trying to outdo last year’s performance as a shock of wheat?”

“Oh, no Reverend Thomlinson is much taller. See, I believe that is he over there—dressed as Friar Tuck.”

When the dance concluded, Hilary’s hand was immediately solicited for a country set and James watched her whirl away on the arm of an American frontiersman. He wondered if she would indulge him later in a stroll on the terrace. By now the earlier mutter of thunder had progressed to an ominous rumbling, but James envisioned the methods in which he might protect his lissome companion from the elements. Hastily, he expunged them from his mind. He merely, he assured himself, wished for some quiet conversation with Hilary.

His gaze swept the room, but she had disappeared. He supposed he should ask someone else to dance. That’s what one usually did at these functions, wasn’t it? On the far side of the room, Robert had joined in the country dance, animal skins flying and chains clanking with abandon. James smiled. At least someone was fulfilling his social duties.

James glanced again about the great ballroom, looking for Rufus, but did not see him, either. At last sight, the warrior had been having a very good time. Too good, perhaps. He had obviously been imbibing rather heavily, for he gesticulated expansively and weaved as he made his way about the room. Lord, thought James, he hoped Rufus wasn’t making himself sick.

As if in answer to his concern, a footman materialized at his elbow.

“Sir, Lady Hilary wished to convey to you the intelligence that, er, Rufus has been taken ill.”

“Oh Lord,” exclaimed James. “Is he all right? Where is he?”

“He has been taken to the Tapestry Bedchamber, and Lady Hilary requests that you join her there. If you will follow me, sir?”

The servant turned and led James into the corridor and to a nearby wing. Here they came upon a heavy wooden door. The footman gestured James inside, then bowed before closing the door again behind him.

James found himself in an ornate bedchamber, hung with rich tapestries and featuring a huge, tester bed. Upon this structure, like a slain warlord, reposed Rufus, obviously completely unconscious and breathing stertorously. At the side of the bed, Hilary vainly tried to undo the lacings that held Rufus’ armor together. Behind her, through me window, thunder sounded close, and intermittent flashes of lightning rendered the scene somewhat macabre. Rain could be heard spattering against the panes.

“James!” Hilary cried, looking up. “I’m so glad you have come. I cannot rouse him, but I don’t know if that’s due to his overindulgence or whether he’s seriously ill. Do you think he is all right? I’ve sent for the doctor. He’s a guest here tonight, you know.”

“Mm. I think I saw him earlier, dressed as—Moses, I think it was. I believe Rufus is suffering merely from plunging too enthusiastically into the blushful Hippocrene. Lord, I should have known better than to let him loose in a room full of flowing wine.”

James completed the task of removing Rufus’ armor and covered the old soldier with a quilt. The doctor, when he arrived a few moments later, confirmed James’s diagnosis, merely advising that Rufus be allowed to sleep it off
.

“I don’t think he should be left alone, do you?” asked Hilary anxiously. “I’ll stay here for a while.”

“I think we should both stay,” James averred. “He might be hard to handle when he awakes.” He left unsaid the fact that if Hilary were not among the dancers below, he had no desire to join them. He turned once more to Rufus.

“His breathing seems a little easier, but he is still very pale.”

Rufus stirred uneasily and Hilary bent over him.

“Oh dear,” she murmured as he began to thrash about on the bed. His eyes remained closed, but he was in obvious distress. “Now what? Do you think—?”

“I think you’d better get a jug,” said James tersely. “He’s about to cast up his accounts.”

Hilary’s gaze swept the room, and she grabbed a delicate porcelain basin from the washstand. As James slipped his arm under Rufus’ shoulders to lift him, she thrust it under the warrior’s chin in the nick of time, for the next moment he unburdened himself of the seemingly endless quantity of wine he had consumed earlier.

At length he lay back against his pillows, still unconscious, his face as white as his bed.

“Well,” said James prosaically, “that ought to make him feel better.”

“Ugh!” Hilary moved again to the washstand, this time to dip a towel into a water-filled pitcher. Returning to the bed, she wiped Rufus’ mouth gently. “Poor old fellow. The one time he gets out to enjoy himself, he puts himself out of commission. Goodness, how are we going to get him home?”

“Oh, he should come around before too long, though it might be a good idea to help the process along.”

He bent over Rufus and applied the damp towel to his forehead and cheeks, tapping him lightly as he did so.

“Come on, old fellow. Time to return to the land of the living.”

Rufus groaned and his eyelids fluttered, but he did not awaken.

“I think he could probably stand some hot coffee.” James reached for the bellpull nearby, encountering Hilary’s fingers on their way to the same mission. He hadn’t realized they were standing so close, and the sudden awareness of her proximity in this intimate circumstance made his heart race.

Rufus was momentarily forgotten as the two gazed for a long moment into each other’s eyes. Hilary knew a deep trembling within her as James reached to adjust her headband. His fingers brushed warmly against her temple.

“We can’t have the moon goddess wandering about with her crescent askew,” he whispered unsteadily.

“N-no.”

He was going to kiss her! Somewhere beyond me pounding of her heart, the thought drifted across her consciousness that James picked the oddest times to become amorous. A man lay in a drunken stupor not two feet away, and the smell of his unpleasant upheaval still lingered in the room. None of this seemed to matter, though, as everything in her prepared to participate in this most welcome of gentle assaults. She raised her face as James bent his head to hers.

It was at this supremely inopportune moment that the bedchamber door opened abruptly. Hilary and James sprang apart from one another to behold an inordinately large group of costumed guests, their eyes wide with various expressions of shock and satisfaction. It was a moment before Hilary was able to discern the individual components of the assembled horde. Prominent among them was Lord Clarendon. At his shoulder stood the doctor, the doctor’s wife. Squire Beddoes, Mrs. Strindham, and Mrs. Thomlinson. In the rear, bobbing about in an effort to view the proceedings, was the plump, bewigged, and bearded little stranger they had observed earlier.

“Hilary!” gasped me earl, rushing into the room to enfold his daughter in an embrace. “Are we to wish you happy at last?”

“How marvelous!” chimed Mrs. Thomlinson, her hands clasped to her bosom. “I
knew
the rumor of your imminent betrothal was true!”

Lifting her head, Hilary glanced wildly at James, only to intercept an angry spark of darkest suspicion in his eyes.

Chapter Twenty-four

For an instant, Hilary held James’s gaze in a horrified realization. Her father spoke again.

“W-what?” stammered Hilary, feeling as though she had just stumbled into a nightmare.

The earl spoke in a tone of unwonted sternness. “You are alone in a bedchamber with a man. I can come to no other conclusion.”

“Oh! But—” cried Hilary, unable to utter a coherent protest.

James spoke in a voice she had never heard before.

“My lord, you are vastly in error. There will be no wishing anyone happy, for there is to be no betrothal. I am sorry to disappoint you, but the scene that you chose to interrupt so erroneously is completely without significance. Lady Hilary and I are merely giving aid and comfort to our friend. He is a stranger in a strange land and we did not wish to leave him alone in his distress.”

Lord Clarendon turned to dismiss the crowd of curious guests from the room, and when only he and James and herself remained, Hilary tried to step forward. She seemed unable to move, however, frozen in a fog of humiliation and disbelief. She stared in anguish at James, whose contemptuous gaze swept over her like a cold wind. Dear God, he thought she had taken advantage of Rufus’ indisposition to lure him into the Tapestry Room with the express purpose of compromising him!

“No—” she whispered blindly, but her father continued.

“I’m afraid, my dear,” he said gravely, “the fact that the professor is unconscious makes the situation all the more perilous to your reputation. To be caught by such a large number of persons with a man not your husband, in a bedchamber whose only other occupant is another male—dead to the world ... There is only one satisfactory interpretation. The rumors have been spreading for some time now of Mr. Wincanon’s interest in you. I had thought them false, but now—well, they will serve to allay any hint of scandal.”

James stared at the earl, disbelieving and sick. He glanced again at Hilary. She looked sick, too, as well she might. She was not even trying to dispute the earl’s words. Dear God, he had been utterly duped. A slim gamine with eyes of copper and hair like fire and the mind of a scholar had not only pierced his defenses, but had stolen the heart he had thought inviolate. She had taken the very breath from his body, leaving him stunned and helpless.

And empty.

For, as he had known from the beginning, it was all a sham. Her erudition was real, but the soul that lay beneath it was fool’s gold. The brandy-colored eyes that gazed so luminously into his lied like those of a courtesan.

“You may interpret the situation as you choose, my lord,” declared James, his face pale and set. “I have not asked your daughter to marry me, nor do I intend to. Now, if you will excuse me, I believe it is time I took my leave.”

Lord Clarendon made no attempt to stay his daughter, as she moved to follow James, but said to James, “We will speak later, sir.”

In the corridor, Hilary turned to James, a desperate prayer in her heart. She must make him understand!

“I am so sorry about this, James,” she said in a rush, and now that she had found her tongue, the words tumbled out. “I don’t know what possessed Father to troop upstairs with half our guests in his wake, but his inference is utter nonsense. Evidently,” she noted bitterly, “everyone has just been waiting for us to make a declaration. Our absence from the ballroom must have served as some sort of signal to them. Please, believe me, I shall make it clear that you are in no way obliged to marry me, nor have I any intention of allowing him to announce our betrothal.”

“I am pleased to hear you say so. Lady Hilary.” His voice was like ice in a winter sea, and Hilary shivered. “I, too, have been wondering how he happened to pay a visit to the Tapestry Room at that particular moment. And now, if you will excuse me, I believe it’s time I took my leave.”

Hilary bit her lip. James obviously believed she had engineered the whole scene. Lord, did he think she had enticed him into the embrace she was sure he had intended? At the very least, he believed she had made sure her father and several guests would happen upon them.

James swung away from her and strode toward the stairs. Hilary followed, suppressing the tide of sickness that welled up within her.

Listening to her faint footfalls behind him, James thought he had never known such a sense of betrayal and humiliation. By God, he’d been right about Hilary from the first. The realization struck him like a blow.

How could he have been so stupid as to allow himself to trust her? After the years it had taken him to craft a wall around his heart, he had behaved like the veriest moonling, falling under the spell of fiery curls and eyes like golden pools.

Well, thank God he had come to his senses in time. If my lady thought she had him trapped, she had quite another think coming.

They had by now reached the hall, and Hilary turned to him.

“I will return to Rufus,” she whispered through dry lips, “and I’ll see that someone stays with him through the night.”

“Thank you.” James kept his tone cool and distant. “I shall return tomorrow morning to collect him.”

Desperately, Hilary grasped for a measure of insouciance.