Duel of Hearts (3 page)

And the here-and-now meant a twenty-seventh birthday and a little lace cap. Facing herself squarely in the dressing-table mirror, she asked aloud, “Shall I wear it?”

“It's time,” her reflection seemed to say.

Decisively, she pulled the cap over her hair. “There!” she said bravely. “That wasn't so bad, was it?”

“Bad enough,” her image admitted.

Sarah stuck out her tongue at her reflection. Then she stood up and executed a deep curtsey. “How do you do, ma'am?” she murmured to the mirror with formal politeness. “I'd like you to meet the new Miss Sarah Stanborough.”

The face in the mirror corrected her. “Miss Sarah Stanborough,
spinster
,” it retorted with a mocking grin.

Chapter One

A
HEAVY AND
steady rain streamed down on the Lincolnshire hills, but the inclement weather had evidently not daunted the young girl who was running down the muddy road leading out of Daynwood Park. She wore nothing to protect herself from the elements except a rather thin pelisse, and although she held up the front of her gown with one hand (a crushed and rain-soaked letter was clenched in the other), the back of her dress was becoming sadly begrimed as it trailed wetly behind her.

She soon left the road, crossed a wide field, climbed with tomboyish agility over a stile, circled a small wood, and in a very few minutes was dashing up the drive of a neat, square-shaped country house whose weathered stone edifice seemed remarkably indifferent to the onslaught of the rain. The girl scampered up the wide stone steps, tossed a dripping strand of hair back from her forehead and hammered at the front door. As she waited for a response, she shifted her weight impatiently from one foot to the other. After a few moments, the door was opened by an elderly man in a butler's coat who gaped at her, uttered a shocked exclamation and stepped hastily aside to let her in. “Miss
Cory
!” he scolded. “Ye
never
ran all this way dressed so … in such a downpour!”

“Never mind that, Chapham,” the girl answered, brushing by him and hurrying across the wide hall. “Is the Squire in the library?”

“No, Miss, he ain't. He's gone to the stables.”

“Oh,
blast!
” She stopped in her tracks, momentarily nonplussed. The thought of going out into the rain again was not pleasant.

“I'll send Robbie to fetch 'im, if ye like,” the butler offered.

“No, no. I'll run over there myself,” the girl said.

“No, ye'll not.” The butler had known Corianne Lindsay since her childhood and didn't stand on ceremony with her. “Ye'll seat yerself by the fire and dry off.”

Corianne found his lack of deference extremely provoking. “Really, Chapham,” she said with irritable hauteur, “can't you learn to mind your saucy tongue? I'm not a child, you know. I'm in the devil of a hurry, so I'll use the back door,
if
you don't mind.” Without waiting for what was bound to be a disapproving reply, she ran to the back stairs, dashed down to the lower floor, swept through the large kitchens (blundering into but ignoring the shocked scullery maid who happened to cross her path), flew out the rear door and across the kitchen gardens to the stables.

She pushed the wide doors open just enough to squeeze through. As soon as her eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, she saw, directly opposite her, two men kneeling before a huge black stallion. One man wore a striped dust-jacket, and the other was in his shirt-sleeves. Both were completely absorbed in applying a poultice to the horse's left foreleg. “Well,
there
you are, Edward,” the girl said breathlessly.

The man in shirtsleeves looked up in surprise. “Corianne! Good lord, girl, you're soaked through!” He jumped up and crossed to her in three quick strides. “Is something amiss?”

“No, nothing. But I had to see you. Can we go somewhere to talk?”

“Yes, of course. But I think we'd better dry you off first. Hand me one of those towels, will you, Martin?”

“Aye, I will,” the groom replied, tossing it to him. “And ye'll be needin' a blanket, too, I'd say.”

“If you think I'd let you wrap me in one of those filthy horse-blankets,” the girl objected haughtily, “you're fair and far off.”

“
Filthy!
” Martin exclaimed in outrage. “They're as clean as the ones on yer bed!”

“Just so,” Edward agreed with a grin. “Therefore, my girl, you can dispense with your missish ways. Take this towel to your hair, and when you've rubbed it dry enough, you can wrap this blanket round your shoulders like a sensible little chit. You don't want to come down with a lung infection, do you?”

Corianne knew better than to argue with Squire Edward Middleton when it came to matters of her health. Ever since she could remember, he'd treated her with the concern of an elder brother or an uncle. Although her friend Belinda often claimed that Corianne could twist poor Edward round her little finger, Corianne knew that the claim wasn't strictly true. He was a dear, and he found it hard to refuse her anything, but refuse he did if he thought it was for her good. There was something immovable about Edward when he thought he was right. Therefore she must handle him especially carefully today. She couldn't afford to annoy him now, not if she wanted him to agree to the enormous favor she was about to ask of him. So she meekly took the shabby towel he handed her and rubbed her hair.

Edward removed the wet pelisse from her shoulders and put the blanket over her. “Well, Martin,” he said to the groom, “I'll leave you to finish with the fomentation. Just keep the leg bound, and we'll take another look at it in the morning.”

“Is there something seriously wrong with Bolingbroke?” Corianne asked in sympathetic concern. The black horse was Edward's favorite.

“Nothing nearly as wrong as there'll be with you, if we don't get you near a warm fire,” Edward answered lightly, steering her out of the stable. In short order, he established her comfortably before the hearth of the large stone fireplace in his library, gave her pelisse to Chapham to dry and press, and ordered the butler to bring her a glass of hot milk laced with honey. “Now, my foolish child, you can tell me what brought you out in this weather so inadequately protected,” he said to her, taking a seat in the wing chair opposite her and lighting a pipe.

“It was this,” she said, leaning forward to hand him the letter she had clung to all this while.

He unfolded the soggy missive, now almost unreadable, and strained to make out the words. “What is
this?
An invitation from your Aunt Laurelia?”

“Yes, isn't it
wonderful?
She asks me to come for a nice, long stay.”

Edward cocked an eyebrow at her suspiciously. “Strange, isn't it, that she should have written after all this time?”

“Strange?” Corianne lifted her chin belligerently. “Why is it strange to receive an invitation from one's very own aunt?”

“You haven't had a word from her since your presentation, have you?”

“Well, no, but—”

“That was
two years
ago, wasn't it?”

The girl tried to stare him down. “Yes, but what has
that
to say to anything?”

“Come now, Cory, don't take me for a flat.”

“I don't know what you mean,” she persisted, but her eyes wavered.

“Yes, you do.” He tossed the letter onto her lap, leaned back in his chair and put his booted feet up on the hearth. “Your aunt probably hasn't given you a passing thought in all this time.
You
wrote and
asked
her for this invitation, didn't you?”

Corianne was about to phrase a heated denial, but she thought better of it. “Well, what if I
did?
” she demanded defensively. “I see nothing so very terrible in that.”

Edward stared into the flames, frowning. “Don't you? I should have thought—Well, never mind. It's not my place to lecture you.”

“Don't look like that, Edward,” Corianne pleaded, leaning forward and looking at him with worried eyes. “You
know
how much I want to go back to London. It's the only thing I've ever really wanted.”

He sighed. “Yes, I know.”

“Then say you're glad for me.”

He tossed her a quick glance. “I don't see why I should. In fact, I don't see why this news should have brought you rushing over here in the first place. What's behind all this?”

“Nothing. Really! I was just so excited that I had to come and tell you—”

“Nonsense. You know perfectly well that I'm expected at Daynwood this evening to play chess with your father. You could have told me then.”

“I couldn't wait!”

He shook his head. “I've never known you to be so eager to bring me news that you'd run out into the rain and spoil your coiffure. It's not like you, my girl.”

She put her hand to her hair which was hanging in limp tendrils about her face. “I
did
spoil my coiffure, didn't I! I must look a
sight
.”

He didn't bother to reassure her. If Corianne was aware of anything, she was aware of her beauty. She had heard it praised since she was a dewy-eyed, dimpled infant. She was one of the few fortunate females who had never gone through an awkward phase. Even in her adolescence she'd been breathtaking. Her hair was of a gold color which was deeper and richer than ordinary blond. Her eyes were of a blue just bordering on violet. Her complexion was the envy of all her friends, so unblemished and creamy that it put other skin to shame. She had a tantalizingly full mouth and fascinating dimples that appeared just before she smiled. And now that she was fully grown, her shapely form had reached the perfection that her face had always had.

There was scarcely a man or boy in the county who had not been captivated by her appearance. Edward was no exception, but he would never tell her so. He disliked to see her so self-satisfied and spoiled, and he had no intention of adding to her rapidly developing sense of power over men. Because her beauty had brought easy gratification of all her desires, she was showing signs of setting too great store by appearances and of neglecting the more important facets of character and intellect. It troubled him that her personality was being adversely affected by her outward appearance, but, in truth, her maturation and development were not his affair. She might think of him as an elder brother, but he was no relation to her at all.

This London madness troubled him, too. Ever since her come-out, the girl had been wild to return to the scene of her triumph. That first London season had been a spectacular success. She had certainly made a mark. Why, there were several of her London admirers who
still
made their way to Lincolnshire to gape at her. They would appear without warning on the doorstep of Daynwood on the pretext of “being in the neighborhood.” Corianne very much enjoyed these surprise visits, although Edward could notice no young man of whom she seemed especially fond. He couldn't help wondering if perhaps she'd met one
particular
young man in London—one who had not come to Lincolnshire—whom she wished to see again.

He hoped it wasn't merely jealousy that made him dislike the idea of her returning to London. Although he had long ago realized how deeply he cared for the girl, he knew that he could never have her. He was thirty-five years old—fifteen years her senior—and she'd never looked at him with other than sisterly affection. The dearth of society in this secluded area, and his close friendship with her father, had brought them much in each other's company and had given them the habit of easy companionship, but he'd trained himself to control his feelings and to treat her always with no more than brotherly interest. He was sure that no one but her father guessed the extent of his emotional involvement.

But his objection to this eagerly anticipated London trip had deeper foundations than jealousy. He had met her Aunt Laurelia only briefly (when he'd gone down to London for Corianne's presentation ball), but he'd received the definite impression that Laurelia Stanborough would not be a stabilizing influence on the girl. She had seemed to him to be a woman of shallow intellect and flighty interests—the very sort who would encourage Corianne's already dangerous propensities for self-indulgent vanity. And the only other member of the Stanborough household was Laurelia's daughter. He had no recollection of Miss Sarah Stanborough, but he'd heard she was standoffish and reclusive. No, Stanborough House was not a place which he would like Corianne to visit for a protracted stay.

“I
do
look a sight, don't I?” Corianne asked again, interrupting his brooding thoughts.

“Like a drowned kitten,” he said heartlessly. “But let us not stray from the point, Cory. I want to know what you've come to say. You'll have to broach the matter sooner or later, won't you? So out with it, girl.”

Corianne made a face at him. “You're the most irritating know-it-all, Edward! Yes, I do have something to discuss with you, but if you're going to frown at me in that disapproving way, I shan't say another word.”

“I am doing no such thing. Why should I be disapproving?”

Corianne shrugged. “I know you don't want me to go to London. I'm not such a fool that I can't tell
that
.”

“Whether or not I want you to go has nothing to do with this. You didn't come all this way in the rain just to ask my approval, did you?”

“Well, yes … in a way.”

He looked at her keenly. “But whatever for? It's your
father
you should be talking to.”

“I've already done so. He's
refused
me,” she admitted in sepulchral tones.

Edward sat back in his chair and puffed at his pipe in considerable relief. “Did he? Good for him. Now I understand the whole. You want me to intercede for you. Well, you've spoilt your hair for nothing, my little one, for I have not the least intention of trying to persuade him to let you do what I myself would disapprove of, if I were he.”