Claire Thornton (20 page)

‘You are very kind,’ said the Earl, his tone unintentionally cold. ‘But I’m afraid I must disappoint you. Angelica and I are returning to town immediately.’

‘Nonsense!’ Sir William exclaimed forcefully. ‘You’ve only just arrived. Besides, I’m sure you’ll want to talk to
Adam. Get the news straight from the horse’s mouth as it were! I wonder what Faulkener’s got in mind? It’s a pity Adam’s so badly knocked up or they could have tackled it together.’

The Earl hesitated. He still felt extremely hostile to Benoît, and he was fiercely anxious to return to the security and familiarity of his own home. On the other hand, there was something unaccountably pleasant about the magistrate’s explosive company. Apart from anything else, he still retained his remarkable ability to supply both sides of the conversation.

Besides, it was becoming glaringly apparent to the Earl that Sir William was almost as much in the dark about recent events as he was.

The magistrate believed that Adam Kennett—whoever the devil he was—had brought James Corbett’s letter to England. Whereas Lord Ellewood knew for a fact that that was not the case—so who was Kennett? And why had he apparently been injured by the French?

The Earl’s hunting instincts were aroused. If Angelica wouldn’t tell him the truth—he blocked out the thought that he hadn’t given her much opportunity to do so—he would find it out for himself. They would see there was life in the blind old dog yet.

‘I’d hate to disappoint an old friend,’ he said, tacitly accepting Sir William’s invitation.

‘Good man!’ Sir William bounded to his feet, landing an exuberant buffet on the Earl’s shoulder.

‘I’ll have them prepare your gear at once. By heaven! This will be a day to remember!’

‘I believe it will,’ Lord Ellewood said, smiling for the first time in several days.

For the past eighteen months everyone he’d met had treated him as if he was not only blind, but also extremely frail. Sir William’s thoughtless ebullience was oddly gratifying.

‘Papa! How could you?’
Angelica burst into the library.

Her cheeks were burning with colour, her eyes blazing with fierce, uncompromising anger.

‘Angelica?’ Lord Ellewood hauled himself instinctively to his feet.

‘How
could
you dismiss Martha?’ she demanded, her voice throbbing with furious indignation. ‘How
could
you stoop to such a thing? To punish her for her
loyalty!
This morning you dismissed Mr Hargreaves for his
disloyalty!
’

‘She has shown no loyalty to me,’ said Lord Ellewood gratingly.

‘She’s
my
maid!’ Angelica explained passionately. ‘Would you have had any respect for her if she’d betrayed
my
trust?’

‘Respect?’ the Earl snarled. ‘She’s a damned servant! As long as I pay her wages she’ll obey my will! I will not tolerate defiance in
any
member of my household.’

Angelica stared at him, her chest rising and falling in quick, angry breaths. She could sense her father’s volcanic temper was about to erupt, but she no longer cared. His treatment of Martha had goaded her beyond caution. The
small spark of revolt she had suppressed earlier had now been fanned into blazing flames of rebellion by what she’d just discovered.

She and Benoît had returned to the house to find that Sir William was sitting with the Earl. Angelica had immediately decided to delay speaking to her father until he was alone. Benoît had agreed, and she’d seized the opportunity to go up to her bedchamber for a few moments of quiet reflection.

But Martha had been waiting for her, and one glance at her maid’s face had been enough to tell Angelica that things were badly wrong.

Lord Ellewood had arrived at Holly House in the early hours of the morning, and he’d instantly had Martha hauled out of bed and dragged before him. He’d subjected her to an even worse ordeal than Angelica had suffered later—and it had culminated in the maid’s dismissal.

As far as Angelica could tell, Martha had remained stoically loyal to her mistress throughout, refusing to reveal more than the barest minimum of information. Angelica was bitterly aware of how much anxiety she had caused Martha, and she couldn’t forgive herself for putting the maid in such an impossible situation.

But nor could she forgive the Earl for venting his fury on such a powerless victim.

‘Then you may soon have no household left,’ she said bleakly, the white heat of her anger dying as she confronted her father across the library floor. ‘I understand you dismissed your valet before you left London. Today you have
discharged Mr Hargreaves and Martha. You told me once I should judge a man’s character on the way he is viewed by his servants not his peers.’

She paused.

There was no sound in the room except Lord Ellewood’s rasping breath and the soft, measured tick of the clock. His head was flung up, his sightless eyes turned towards Angelica, but he did not speak. Though she did not know it, her words had struck a wounding blow. The Earl was already ashamed of his treatment of Martha, but he was far too angry to admit it.

Lord Ellewood had been alone when Angelica had thrown open the library door, but now she was dimly aware that there were people standing behind her. She ignored them. All her attention was concentrated on her father.

‘I’m sorry I left London without telling you,’ she said steadily. ‘I’m sorry I exposed Mr Hargreaves and Martha to your wrath. I won’t forgive myself for that. But, Papa, if I’d thought you would listen or understand, I would have
told
you why I had to deliver your letter myself—and if you’d told me what you must have known about Benoît I wouldn’t have needed to.’

‘Told me?’
the Earl said harshly. ‘Who the
devil
do you think you’re talking to, girl?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Angelica flatly. ‘Certainly not the father I remember. Goodbye, Papa.’

‘What do you mean?’ Lord Ellewood’s expression darkened. He was breathing heavily.

‘I mean I will not be returning to London with you,’ she said, with wintry finality. ‘You will have to find someone else to sit in the dark and read to you while the rest of the world goes dancing by.’

She turned on her heel and walked out of the library without waiting for his reply. Benoît stepped crisply aside to let her pass. Sir William simply stared at her in open-mouthed astonishment.

‘Angelica!’
Lord Ellewood roared.

She put her foot on the first tread of the stairs and began to walk slowly upwards.

‘Angelica!’

She didn’t pause, or even look around. There was no colour left in her cheeks, but her lips were pressed resolutely together. She had made her decision and she would not be swayed—certainly not by Lord Ellewood’s unreasoning anger.

‘She will not come for such a summons,’ said Benoît quietly.

He closed the library door and turned to study the Earl thoughtfully. Sir William was still standing silently, staring from one to the other with a mixture of bewilderment and appalled disbelief on his face.

‘This is your doing!’ Lord Ellewood accused Benoît savagely. ‘You’ve polluted her mind with your insidious—’

‘I’ve never been called insidious before,’ Benoît interrupted coldly. ‘If you believe I’ve turned Angelica against you, then you are mistaken. You seem to be doing very well without my help!’

‘I’ll
never
consent to her marrying you!’ Lord Ellewood ground out.

He was shaking with fury, his hands clenched convulsively, but he had himself rigidly under control. He had no intention of humiliating himself again. He didn’t risk taking even a single step towards Benoît.

‘We don’t need your consent,’ said Benoît equably. ‘Angelica is twenty-three years old. She can make up her own mind.’

‘I’ll disown her!’ said Lord Ellewood wildly. ‘She’ll get nothing from me. Not a single penny.’

‘She doesn’t need your money,’ said Benoît coldly. ‘I am quite capable of supporting a wife. Your respect is much more important to her. Whatever she’s done, she did out of love for you and Lord Lennard—but you’ve treated her worse than you did an insolent smugglers’ whelp who held you at gunpoint!’

‘Don’t lecture me, sir!’ the Earl blared. ‘I will not leave Angelica in this house with you. Where’s Hopwood?’

‘H-here.’ Sir William stumbled over his answer, too shocked to be coherent.

Lord Ellewood dragged in a deep, searing breath and then he hesitated. The library was filled with his fierce tension as he stood stock-still, battling with his powerful emotions.

He’d intended to order the magistrate to fetch Angelica back. He’d intended to drag her, kicking and screaming if need be, away from Holly House.

But he didn’t.

He lifted his ravaged, scarred head like a proud old lion, and said with frozen dignity, ‘It seems that my daughter will not be accompanying us to the Manor, William. I believe there is no longer any need to delay our departure.’

Sir William swallowed. He was still trying to catch up with events. He looked desperately from Lord Ellewood’s rigid face to Benoît’s wolf-wary, watchful expression.

‘I’ll see if the carriage is ready,’ he said hastily. For once in his life he had no stomach for taking part in a melodramatic scene.

‘You’re still there,’ Lord Ellewood stated flatly, as the door closed behind the magistrate.

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘Yes,’ the Earl repeated, the single word dropping into the silence of the library like a stone.

Lord Ellewood listened with all his might, but even so he could hear no indication of Benoît’s presence—not even his breathing. He might have been talking to a shadow—or fighting a shadow. No man could defeat a shadow.

‘If I could still see, you would never get away with this!’ he said savagely.

‘If you could still see, you would
nevertheless
have asked for my help to rescue Lord Lennard,’ said Benoît coolly, ‘because I have connections which are not available to most men. But, if you could still see, you would not be so eaten up with frustration and envy that you’re blind to the practical good sense of what you’ve done. Harry will be safe with me, my lord. So will Angelica—and you know it.’

‘I have the promise of a smuggling cur for that?’ the Earl jeered sarcastically.

‘You have
my
promise,’ Benoît said, a note of steely assurance underpinning his unemphatic reply.

‘I believe your carriage is waiting.
Au revoir,
my lord. I am sure we will meet again.’

A
ngelica and Benoît were married the following afternoon by Special Licence. Angelica wore the same ivory satin gown she had worn to dinner at Holly House three nights before. She stood in a shaft of sunlight from the altar window of a small London church, her golden hair framing her face like a halo, and made her vows in a firm, confident voice.

There were no friends or relatives in attendance. But it didn’t matter because, as Martha pointed out when she was dressing Angelica, the only person a bride really needs to be present at her wedding is the groom.

‘You followed me all the way from London to deliver these letters?’ the Earl demanded gratingly.

‘Yes, my lord.’ Benoît’s messenger stood tiredly in front of Lord Ellewood. ‘Captain Faulkener bade me deliver them directly into your own hand—but I was waylaid near Epsom.’

‘Attacked?’ said Lord Ellewood sharply.

‘Yes, my lord.’

Simpson held his right arm stiffly, and there was a rough bandage around his head. The Earl could not see the man’s hurts, but he could hear the cracked strain in his voice.

‘What happened?’

‘They knocked me cold and took my horse. I don’t remember much, but I was told they were searching me when they were frightened off. Otherwise I expect they would have taken the letters.’

Simpson fell silent. He was bone-weary and ached in every fibre of his being. He had discharged his duty, and now he longed for nothing more than a chance to lie down and sleep.

‘And when you were fit to ride you carried on to London,’ said Sir William, involving himself in the conversation for the first time, ‘and when Lord Ellewood wasn’t there you followed him back to Sussex, and then from Holly House to here. When you discovered his destination, didn’t it occur to you that there was no longer any need to deliver the letters?’

‘No, sir.’ Simpson straightened his shoulders. ‘The Captain gave me strict instructions. He would not expect me to fail in carrying out his orders.’

‘Thank you,’ said Lord Ellewood distantly. ‘Your dedication to duty is commendable.’

He held the two letters between his fingers. They were creased and dirty, but the seals were still unbroken. He wondered if he had the courage to ask Sir William to read them to him. He put them in his pocket, fumbling a little as he did so.

‘You poor fellow! You must be exhausted!’ Sir William sprang to his feet as Simpson’s shoulders slumped lower. ‘Come with me.’ He clapped the seaman on the back, making him stagger. ‘You must have a good meal and a long rest before you go back to Holly House. Your master’s not there at present, so there’s no hurry. Your devotion deserves a fat reward. Be sure I’ll tell him so when I see him.’

‘Oh, no,’ said Simpson, his speech a trifle slurred. ‘The Captain knows I don’t serve him for reward. We’ve been halfway round the world together. I’d never—’

His legs buckled under him, and he would have fallen if Sir William hadn’t seized him.

Lord Ellewood sat quietly, listening to the magistrate bellow for his servants to bustle about and take care of Benoît’s exhausted messenger. He was thinking of Angelica’s bitter reminder that he had once told her the truest judge of a man’s character was his own servant.

Angelica spent her wedding night at a coaching inn just south of London. Benoît normally stayed with his partner, Josiah Crabtree, when he visited the City, but he had too much tact to suggest such an arrangement on this occasion.

The busy inn suited Angelica perfectly. She was fascinated by the teeming life all around them. She stood at the window of their bedchamber, watching the lamplit arrival of a private coach in the yard below, delighted to be at the heart of so much activity.

She felt Benoît come up behind her. He slipped one arm
around her waist and pulled the curtain closed with his other hand.

‘Ma chère femme—’
he kissed the graceful curve of her neck and shoulder ‘—you are supposed to save your attention for your husband on your wedding night—not a crowd of noisy strangers!’ There was an unmistakable note of amusement in his deep voice.

Angelica caught her breath, relief as well as sensuous pleasure filling her at the touch of his lips on her soft skin. He had escorted her to London with such formal correctness she’d been afraid he’d been annoyed with her for forcing him into such a hasty marriage.

That hadn’t been her intention when she’d walked out of the library the previous day. She hadn’t thought any further than the fact that she could no longer allow her father to dominate her life. Lord Ellewood’s cruelty to Martha had been the last straw.

It had been Benoît who had insisted they be married immediately. Angelica was aware that his decision had been prompted by a desire to protect her from scandal, but they had barely discussed the matter. She had been a preoccupied travelling companion, and he had been scrupulously punctilious in his dealings with her since they’d left Holly House.

She lent back against him, grateful to be enfolded once more in his embrace.

‘Are you thinking about Lord Ellewood?’ he asked softly, brushing her hair with his lips.

‘Yes,’ she admitted.

Her sentiments towards her father were confused. She felt angry, resentful, betrayed, sad, guilty—and liberated.

‘When we go back to Sussex we’ll call upon him at the Manor,’ Benoît promised. ‘I’m sure the breach between you is not irreparable.’

‘No,’ said Angelica flatly.

‘Angelica—!’

‘No,’ she repeated uncompromisingly, slipping out of his arms and turning to look at him.

He returned her gaze, a hint of a frown in his dark eyes.

‘What do you mean?’ he asked quietly.

‘I mean I will not go crawling back to him, begging his forgiveness, when it is he who should be apologising for his behaviour,’ Angelica said stonily.

‘I’m not in the habit of crawling anywhere,’ Benoît replied dryly, ‘and I certainly wasn’t suggesting my wife should do so, but—’

‘But what?’ Angelica snapped. She hadn’t realised how sensitive she was about the situation with her father until Benoît had broached the subject. ‘Nothing’s changed except we’re married. If Papa was prepared to disown me rather than let me marry you, do you think he’s going to be any more forgiving now I’m your
wife?
’

‘I think that now he’s had time for reflection, he may be more reasonable,’ Benoît replied. He spoke mildly, although there was an underlying tension in his tone. ‘I doubt—’

‘That’s what you said yesterday!’ Angelica interrupted forcefully. ‘And then it turned out that he’d dismissed
Martha. He’s not going to get any more reasonable—he’s
not!
’ Her voice cracked and she turned away to rest an unsteady hand on the mantelpiece, staring down into the fireplace with unseeing eyes.

The rift with Lord Ellewood was more painful for her than she was prepared to admit, even to herself.

‘Lord Ellewood dismissed Martha in the middle of the night—before you’d returned to Holly House,’ Benoît reminded her sharply. ‘You only found out about it
after
you’d already had one argument with him—and then you used it as a pretext to leave him.’

Angelica spun round to face Benoît, consternation in her fine blue eyes.

‘Are you
blaming
me for what I did?’ she demanded fiercely.

‘No,
mon aimée,
’ Benoît said equably. ‘But I do want you to see things clearly—and I don’t want this temporary estrangement between you and your father to become permanent.

‘Lord Ellewood may already have been regretting his treatment of Martha, or he may not have been. We don’t know, because when you confronted him in such a rage you forced his hand—just as he had forced yours earlier. You are both proud people. But I won’t let you become locked in a spiral of anger which can only lead to increasing bitterness and pain for everyone. We will go back and see him.’

Angelica stared at him, doubt and disbelief in her wide blue eyes. She could hear the undercurrent of steel in Benoît’s cool voice, and she knew he meant every word he said. She was far too overwrought by all the emotional upheav
als of the past few days to give any rational consideration to his motives for saying it.

Her first, horrified reaction was that he was taking the Earl’s side against her. Why was he so determined not to lose Lord Ellewood’s favour?

‘Why are you so anxious I make peace with Papa?’ she demanded wildly, fear and suspicion in her eyes. ‘Are you afraid he will indeed disown me? A penniless, disinherited wife would be a dreadful burden for an ambitious, but nameless, man—wouldn’t she?’

The moment the words left her mouth she regretted them. She pressed her hands against her face, appalled at what she’d just said, her huge eyes locked on Benoît’s rigid expression.

His jaw was set like a rock; a muscle twitched in his cheek and his eyes were narrow and dangerous.

‘I should have left you with the Earl,’ he said harshly. ‘You clearly deserve each other. You could have traded insults to your hearts’ content.’

‘I’m
s-sorry!
’ Angelica whispered, a stricken expression in her eyes as she reached out to him imploringly.

‘Why did you marry me?’ Benoît asked implacably, his eyes granite-hard as they locked with hers. He ignored both her outstretched hands and her pleading look. ‘Why did you stay in Sussex an extra day?’

‘What?’ Angelica stared at him uncomprehendingly. She felt dazed and bruised. ‘You know why.’

‘Because you didn’t
trust
me!’ Benoît flung at her, with
brutal irony. ‘No,
ma douce amie,
that isn’t good enough! You must have known you could trust me or you wouldn’t have gone jaunting unchaperoned around the countryside with me.
Why did you stay after you’d delivered the letter?
’

He took two strides towards her as he spoke and seized her by the shoulders.

‘Why?’
He shook her, the strength of his grip making her wince, although she was not aware of feeling any pain.

‘Because I c-couldn’t bear to go back to London!’ Angelica stammered, dismayed by the glazing anger and suspicion she could see in his eyes.

She could feel the fierce, ruthlessly controlled rage which coursed through his whipcord body. He’d relaxed his grasp on her shoulders the moment she’d flinched, but his fury was no less disturbing because she knew he hadn’t deliberately hurt her.

‘That’s it, isn’t it?’ He released her suddenly, as if she’d burnt him.

He turned on his heel and took a couple of hasty strides across the room, his hands clenched into fists. Angelica watched him, numb with shock.

‘
Ma douce séductrice
indeed!’ he snarled savagely over his shoulder. ‘You knew the impact you’d made on me from the first and you decided to take advantage of it. I dare say it would have suited you better if I’d been a gentleman born and bred—but you were so desperate to escape an unbearable life that any halfway respectable man would have done!’

‘No!’ Angelica protested.

‘No?’ he taunted her bitterly. ‘I’ve known experienced harlots pursue their quarry with more…hesitation…than you’ve used to entrap me.
My God!
What a fool I’ve been!’

He was still standing with his back to Angelica. He lifted an unsteady hand to run his fingers through his black hair. Then he leant his forearm against the bedpost and rested his forehead against it. His other arm hung by his side, his hand clenched into a fist. It was the first time Angelica had ever see him lose his composure so completely.

Her own hasty temper had been thoroughly roused by his unfair accusations. Her blue eyes blazed with indignation. She opened her mouth to hurl a scalding rejoinder at him. But the bitter words died on her lips.

Her eyes were riveted on Benoît’s rigid shoulders. Her anger drained away, to be replaced by a cold, hollow fear. She drew in a deep, shaky breath. They had been married only a few hours, yet already they were locked in a bitter dispute. Was this marriage a dreadful mistake?

For a few seconds she was overwhelmed by a desperate desire to escape: but then her shocked mind began to function again.

Benoît loved her.

She knew that with deep, wordless, instinctive certainty. The ferocity of his anger was a measure of how much he cared for her—and how much her cruel suggestion had hurt him.

In her own pain and confusion she had accused him of
being a social-climbing fortune-hunter; and then she had inadvertently confirmed his apprehension that she’d simply used him to get away from the Earl. Perhaps he even suspected that her decision to marry the brickmaker’s grandson was part of her revenge on the autocratic Lord Ellewood.

Benoît didn’t lack self-confidence, but even he wasn’t armoured against such a wounding slight from the woman he loved.

And he did love her. Angelica had never been so sure of it as she was when she gazed at his rigidly held shoulders and listened to his harshly controlled breathing. He was a guarded, cautious man, who had revealed more of his feelings to her than she suspected he had ever revealed to anyone before. She could not betray his trust.

‘I stayed because I could not bear to leave
you,
’ she said clearly, her heart pounding with quick anxiety as she tried to make amends for her unthinking, damaging accusation.

She walked over to him and reached out almost tentatively to touch his unresponsive back.

‘I didn’t know that—I didn’t admit it to myself,’ she continued, trying to speak steadily, although a pulse beating in her throat threatened to rob her of her voice. ‘I told myself I was doing it for Harry’s sake, because I didn’t know if a smuggler could be trusted to rescue him. But it was for my sake I stayed, because I’d found…’ She faltered and paused, trying to compose herself.

Beneath her hand she felt Benoît’s tense muscles slowly relax, but he did not alter his position.

‘I remember my first Season,’ she said softly, gaining confidence. ‘I had such high hopes, Ben. I thought I was going to find love and life—and perhaps even adventure—in the fashionable drawing-rooms and ballrooms of London.’ She sighed, lost briefly in the past.