Bewitched (Bantam Series No. 16) (14 page)

Then he was kissing her again, kissing her until she could no longer think, only feel that she was a part of him and that there was no gulf between them.

The Marquis would have kept her with him much longer, but Saviya insisted that he must rest because of what he had to do the following day. Finally he gave in to her insistence, climbed into the small caravan and went to bed.

He slept peacefully without dreaming, but with a sense of happiness which lingered with him when he awoke.

Saviya had already lit the fire, before Hobley arrived with fresh eggs, newly baked bread and a pat of golden butter from the Marquis’s own dairy.

He helped the Marquis to dress while Saviya cooked the eggs and brewed the coffee.

As the Marquis came down the steps of the caravan he saw there was a faint flush on her cheeks from the heat of the fire. In her pretty Gypsy clothes, she looked like the heroine of a theatrical melodrama and far too glamorous to be practical.

Yet the eggs were cooked perfectly and, because she had added a few special herbs to the dish, the Marquis thought it tasted better than any breakfast he had ever eaten at Ruckley House.

“Tell me, Hobley,” he said as Saviya poured him a second cup of coffee, “has Mr. Jethro any plans for this morning?”

“I ascertained, M’Lord, that he is rising late,” Hobley replied.

“Was he drinking deep last night?” the Marquis enquired.

“He was, M’Lord. Two of his friends left after midnight and a third was posting back to London the very moment that I myself left the House.”

“Then Mr. Jethro will be alone?”

“Yes, M’Lord.”

“That is what I wanted to know,” the Marquis said. “You have ordered the horses?”

“They followed me here,” Hobley said. “I left them about fifty yards away, M’Lord. I thought it best for the grooms not to see the caravan.”

“Quite right,” the Marquis approved. “And now, Hobley—be off with you! Collect the Chief Constable and bring him to the House. We will meet you there in an hour. Will that give you enough time?”

“Plenty of time, M’Lord.”

Hobley turned to go and then said:

“Good luck, M’Lord! It will be a pleasure to have you back again.”

“Thank you, Hobley.”

The Valet disappeared and the Marquis resumed his breakfast, eating everything that Saviya offered him with a calmness which bespoke an iron control over his emotions.

“You will be careful?” she said suddenly, as if they had been talking instead of eating in silence.

“I will be careful for your sake,” the Marquis replied. “But after all, what can Jethro do? He has announced to the whole world that I am dead and that you are my murderer ... When I return very much alive with you beside me, it will be difficult for his lies to be treated with anything but contempt.”

“All the same, he is like a snake or a rat,” Saviya said. “I do not believe that he will give in so easily.”

“I have decided,” the Marquis told her, “to give him a choice. Either I will bring charges against him for attempted murder, or he leaves the country.”

He paused and added:

“I would of course prefer the latter course. It would be unfortunate from the family point of view that there should be a scandal, or for anyone who bears our name to be accused of intent to murder.”

“I wish you had taken my advice and asked Charles Collington to be with us this morning,” Saviya sighed.

“I am not proud of the manner in which my cousin has behaved,” the Marquis answered, “and the fewer people who know what has occurred, the better.”

“I can understand that,” Saviya murmured.

“There have been few scandals in our family over the centuries, very few. My father and my grand-father were respected here in the county and in the House of Lords where they each played their part. When I die, I hope that men will also speak well of me.”

It was only as he said the words that the Marquis saw the expression in Saviya’s face and knew perceptively that she was thinking that it would not add to his prestige to associate with her.

He put out his hand and caught her wrist as she turned away.

“Do not look like that, my darling,” he said. “My private life is my own and no man shall interfere with it. In public we will be very circumspect.”

Even as he spoke he realised how difficult it would be to have Saviya living at Ruckley House without everyone being aware of it.

He knew too that he could never insult her by keeping her as he had kept his previous mistresses, in a small house in the less fashionable part of Mayfair where he could visit her at his convenience.

There were, he knew, very many obstacles ahead, but for the moment he thought it best to take one fence at a time.

When he had disposed of Jethro, then he and Saviya could go abroad, and when they returned in the Autumn, they could face the other problems concerning their association.

He tried to draw Saviya to him but she slipped away.

“You have to get ready,” she said. “We must be leaving in a few moments and you must think now of what you have to say to your cousin. But watch him! Please, My Lord, watch him carefully!”

There was a little sob in her voice, but the Marquis ignored it.

“I have said before, you must trust me,” he replied. “I have been a soldier, Saviya, and I have learnt never to underestimate the enemy.”

The horses that Hobley had brought for them were the best in the Marquis’s stables and as he lifted Saviya into the saddle he said softly:

“I have always wanted to see you ride.”

He knew by the sudden light in her eyes that she too was excited by the magnificence of the horse-flesh, and the fact that she held the reins in her hands.

The two grooms who had brought the horses were astonished at seeing the Marquis, and when he greeted them there was no mistaking that they were sincerely pleased to see that he was, contrary to what they had believed, alive!

They had their own horses, and as the Marquis mounted they followed him.

It was, Saviya thought, quite a cavalcade that set off through the woods to emerge finally into the Park.

Ruckley House was looking exquisite in the sunshine, its red bricks warm against the flashing diamond-paned windows, the curling chimney stacks silhouetted against the blue sky.

As Saviya raised her eyes to the gabled roofs of Ruckley House, she saw that the flag was flying.

The Marquis saw it too. His lips tightened and his eyes were angry.

It was only when the owner was in residence that the flag flew from the mast on top of the house. That Jethro had ordered it to be flown indicated that he already considered himself the new Marquis of Ruckley.

They moved across the Park, scattering the deer who were clustered under the trees, and moved without undue haste towards the court-yard in front of the main entrance.

‘Never,’ the Marquis thought, ‘has my house looked more beautiful.’

The lilacs had come into bloom since he had last seen it, purple and white; their blossoms as lovely as the showers of golden laburnum and the pink and white petals of the almond trees.

The daffodils were over, but now the rhododendrons were crimson, pink and purple beside the sweet-smelling yellow azaleas.

‘It is worth fighting for,’ the Marquis thought to himself.

He knew he would struggle with every breath in his body to prevent Jethro and his dissolute, drunken friends from ruining the peace and beauty that was Ruckley.

Saviya was looking over her shoulder as they drew their horses to a standstill outside the front door.

“There is no sign of Hobley,” she said. “We must wait for him.”

“I am waiting for no-one,” the Marquis replied, and there was a note in his voice which told her he was very angry.

It was as if seeing the house again had brought home to him all too forcefully what he might have lost. Now the calmness with which he had started the day had changed to a deep fury.

He dismounted, and lifted Saviya to the ground.

She wanted to beg him to wait a little longer for the Chief Constable. But knowing that nothing she could say would make any difference, she moved silently beside the Marquis as he strode up the steps towards the front door.

It was opened immediately and, while the footmen in their livery stared in astonishment, Bush gave an exclamation of joy.

“Your Lordship! You are alive!”

“Very much alive!” the Marquis replied.

“We were all sure, quite sure, M’Lord, that you could not have died as they said, but we were afraid, sore afraid when you did not return.”

“I am back,” the Marquis said. “Where is Mr. Jethro?”

“In the Salon, M’Lord. He has just finished breakfast.”

The Marquis strode across the Hall and Saviya followed him.

A footman hurried to open the door of the Salon.

Jethro was standing at the far end of the room in front of the fireplace and the expression on his face made Saviya tremble.

He looked exactly as she had seen him the first time, when she had read the Marquis’s fortune and known that he was in danger.

Dark-haired, with a long nose, Jethro Ruck could have been good-looking had it not been for his dissolute way of life and an expression on his face which was so shifty, so sinister, that it made people instinctively shrink from contact with him.

His eyes, under heavy eyebrows, were too close together, but it was his mouth, twisted and cynical and perpetually sneering which made him appear so intolerable.

“So you have returned!” he said in a harsh voice before the Marquis could speak. “I saw you coming across the Park and I am therefore ready to welcome you, dear cousin.”

The Marquis advanced further into the room.

“How dare you behave in such a manner!” he said slowly his voice completely under control. “Three times you have tried to kill me, Jethro, and three times you have failed. Now I have had enough!”

“You were born under a lucky star,” Jethro Ruck replied and somehow he made it an insult. “Any other man would have died as you should have done by the accidents I contrived, but you have survived.”

“Yes, I have survived,” the Marquis said, “and now we will have no more of them.”

“So you think to prevent me inheriting?” Jethro Ruck asked. “But I am not defeated, Cousin Fabius—not yet!”

“I am afraid your plots, ingenious though they may be,” the Marquis said scathingly, “have become too insupportable for me to tolerate them any longer. I therefore intend, Jethro, to give you an ultimatum.”

His cousin laughed and it was an unpleasant sound.

“And what are you suggesting?” he jeered. “That you hang me from a gibbet or incarcerate me in the dungeons?”

“Neither,” the Marquis said. “You will either stand trial for attempted murder and perjury, or you will go into self-imposed exile on the Continent. I will support you generously, Jethro, so long as you never again set foot in England.”

Again Jethro Ruck laughed.

“Well thought out, Fabius!” he said, “a typical ‘gentleman’s compromise.’ You hope I will choose the latter course because it will involve no scandal for the family.”

“For once we are in agreement,” the Marquis said.

“And do you really think,” Jethro Ruck asked, and now his voice was smooth and silky and all the more sinister, “that I intend to go abroad and leave you in possession here with your Gypsy mistress?”

The Marquis stiffened.

“You will leave Saviya’s name out of our discussions, Jethro,” he said sharply. “You have defamed her enough already.”

“You really imagine that I, a Ruck, could defame a Gypsy?”

“I have already said,” the Marquis remarked, “we will not discuss Saviya. Let us concern ourselves with your movements.”

Saviya was watching Jethro Ruck, and she realised that as he stood almost as if he was at attention facing the Marquis, with his hands behind his back, he had a kind of courage that was a part of his heritage.

She had known that he would not bow to circumstances; that he would not acknowledge defeat; that he would fight, even as the Marquis would fight, to the last ditch.

Vile and wicked though Jethro might be, there was good blood in his veins and whatever happened, he was no coward.

“I want your answer,” the Marquis insisted.

Now there was steel in his tone as if he was coming to the end of his patience.

“I will give you my answer,” Jethro Ruck replied, “and I will give it very clearly, Cousin Fabius, so that there will be no mistake. You have always despised me. You have always looked down at me, you have always believed I was of little consequence, but now, at last, I have the whip hand!”

The Marquis merely raised his eye-brows to show he did not understand what his cousin was saying, and Jethro Ruck went on: “You are going to die, Fabius, as I have meant you to do all along. It is better that it should be at this moment, because it will appear, at least to the world, as honourable and in the family tradition.”