Just Deserts (27 page)

For the first time, she ignored the claims of her horse to
her attention and instead tethered him to the railings by the area
steps, and, running inside, instructed a footman to attend to him
and have him returned to the Rossendale stables. Fearful of
breaking down before the servant, she flew up the stairs, and,
flinging into her chamber, she threw herself down on the newly
made-up bed and wept bitterly into the mound of pillows.

Here Penelope found her some ten minutes later, the sound
of her lamentations having roused her from sleep in her own
bedchamber next door.

‘
Seph, Seph, what is it?’ she cried, rushing to
the bed to clasp her arms tenderly about the shaking shoulders.
‘Dearest,
tell
me, I pray you.’

Persephone raised her tear-stained face from the
pillows.

‘
Ch-Chid
h-hates
me, and—and I
am h-heartily
glad
of it,’ she announced in heartbroken
accents.

‘
Hates
you?’
echoed Penelope horrified. ‘Oh, Seph, he cannot.’

‘
He
does
!
And he does not w-want to m-marry me
in the very
l-least.
And I am glad of that, too,’
Persephone wailed.

‘
But—but, Seph, you don’t want to marry him,’ Penelope
protested. ‘And you told me positively that you hated him,
too.’

‘
I
know
.
I
do
.
I mean, I
don’t
.’

Penelope’s lips quivered uncontrollably. ‘Make up your
mind, Seph.’

Persephone sat up, sniffing dolefully. ‘My
mind
is
made up and I wish I were
dead!’

Her sister tried to keep her countenance, but her dancing
eyes gave her away.

‘
It is not
funny,’
Persephone
protested as her twin went off into one of her fits of
laughter.

‘
Oh, Seph, you are so droll. I do not mean to laugh at you,
dearest, but if you will contradict yourself so absurdly. What has
occurred? I suppose you have quarrelled with him again?’

‘
Yes, I have, and the devil of it is that the
hateful wretch is right. It is all my fault,’ Persephone cried,
dissolving into tears again, ‘and
n-no one
in their
right m-mind would want to marry me, let alone
Ch-Chid,
who
has every reason in the
world
to despise me.
Oh,
Pen
!’

Penelope received her in a comforting embrace, petting and
crooning with automatic gentleness until her sister was quiet, her
brain furiously buzzing meanwhile.

Leaving Persephone resting drowsily on her bed, she went
back to her own room to write a hasty note and then rang for the
maid she shared with her twin.

‘
Send one of the footmen to deliver this immediately, if you
please, and then come back quickly and help me to
dress.’

The recipient of her note was still abed when it was
delivered in South Street, and the butler was disinclined to wake
his master.

‘
Begging your pardon,’ said the footman, ‘but I was told as
how I was to make certain sure it got into his lordship’s hands
before I departed.’

‘
You’ll have a long wait, then,’ the butler told him
loftily.

Fortunately, the valet, passing through the hall on his way
to his master’s dressing-room, took it upon himself to enquire
where the footman had come from. The answer caused him to override
the butler and carry the note instantly upstairs.

‘
What the devil ails you, Weeke?’ his master demanded
wrathfully when he discovered the time of day to be barely
nine.

‘
This note arrived, my lord, and I fancied your lordship
would wish to see it without delay.’ He looked non-committally the
other way as he held out the silver salver. ‘The footman, my lord,
is of the Winsford household.’

‘
Eh? Give it to me at once,’ his lordship said, snatching
the letter and instantly breaking the seal.

‘
Dear Fitz
,’
the missive
ran,
‘forgive this
unconventionality, which you must set at the door of my
Indian manners,
but I
need
you. Seph is in
a dreadful way and your dratted Chiddingly is the cause, of course.
We must Do Something
at
once.
Please, please
come.
In hope and haste—
Pen
.’

Fitz flung off his covers. ‘Weeke, my shaving water! My
clothes! Hurry, man! And find me a pen and some paper.’

Hardly had Penelope received his scribbled response that he
would wait upon her within the hour, when Fitz himself arrived,
looking as elegant as if he had spent the usual lengthy time at his
toilette, and was ushered at once into the large saloon. Penelope,
who had been rustling agitatedly about the room in her undress
chemise gown, came to him with her hands held out.

‘
Oh, thank you for coming so quickly.’

Fitz bowed over her
hands, kissing them each in turn.

‘
Your word is my command, Pen.’

She blushed a little and twinkled. ‘Truly?’

‘
I am entirely at your service, now and always,’ he said
lightly, but his eyes held an expression that made her catch her
breath. ‘Now, what have our ill-tempered couple been doing to alarm
you so?’

‘
I found Seph in great distress,’ Penelope told him, sitting
on a sofa and invitingly patting the place beside her. ‘She had met
Chiddingly out riding, I gather, and they quarrelled.’

‘
And what is so unusual in that?’ Fitz asked as he took his
seat.

‘
Nothing, only that this time Seph was not raging at all,
but weeping her heart out,’ she disclosed with a tragic
air.

‘
Upon my soul, I wish she had done so in Chid’s presence,
then, for I am sure nothing could more easily bring them to an
understanding.’

‘
Yes, but she is so proud she would scorn to show her hurt.
He seems to have been uncommonly cruel, for she says he hates her
and has no wish to marry her.’

Fitz frowned. ‘Did he say so?’

‘
Why—why, I do not know,’ Penelope said slowly. ‘He must
have said something of the sort, I suppose.’

‘
Well, for my part, I am convinced that Chid is far more
tender of your sister than he is yet aware of,’ Fitz
declared.

Penelope gaped at him. ‘How can you say so? When
he is always so violent towards her. As is she to him, I must—’ She
broke off, her eyes popping as a thought occurred to her. ‘Great
heavens! You do not think
she
is—it is not
possible.’

Fitz grinned at her. ‘Dear Pen, if
you
were in question, I must agree. But we are talking of Seph.
Between her conduct and that of her affianced husband I can descry
not the difference of a hair. I have always thought them remarkably
well suited, if they would but take the trouble to step back and
look at each other instead of fighting all the
time.’

Under her very fetching mob-cap, Penelope’s brow wrinkled.
‘It might be so, I suppose. But then what is to be done? I mean,
how are they to find it out?’

Fitz smiled. ‘I fancy Chid is already in a way to do so.
Only he does not yet realise that his sentiments are
reciprocated.’

‘
Well, I cannot blame him there,’ Penelope uttered
unguardedly, but she was not thinking of Chiddingly and her sister.
‘How in the world
is
one to know if—I mean, that—that—?’
Flushing, she stopped and fell to studying her fingers where they
lay twisting around each other in her lap.

Fitz’s hand reached out to cover and quiet them.

‘
Some men, Pen, take an inordinately long time to know their
own minds.’

Her blushes increased as she looked up wonderingly and
found his eyes upon her with so much meaning in them that her heart
leapt. But as he smiled, he removed his hand and reverted to the
subject under discussion.

‘
There is only one thing for it. Chid must set about it like
a sensible man and woo the woman.’

‘
I doubt he is capable of it,’ Penelope said, disappointment
lending her voice a sharpness she had not intended.

‘
At least he may have a chance with your sister if he begins
with the one thing they have in common.’

Directly as a result of this conference Persephone found
herself, some two days later, aboard Chiddingly’s phaeton and being
driven down to Faversham to visit his stud and, incidentally, his
home since the expanse of stables was situated on his
estate.

The invitation had reached her by letter, couched in stiff
and formal terms, to which she had sent her acceptance written in
similar vein.

‘
Miss Winsford thanks Lord Chiddingly for his
kind invitation which she will be pleased to accept,’
she had written curtly, for nothing
would have induced her to reveal the transports of delight with
which she had read his words, not only at the treat in store which
could not but appeal, but at the thought that she would see him
again before their betrothal party scheduled for the day following
the excursion. She had toyed with the idea of sending for him, only
to shy away from a meeting brought about for the sole purpose of
offering the apology she had vowed not to make. This way, she might
find a chance to introduce the subject without deliberately setting
about it.

But so self-conscious was she, so embarrassed with the
shame of her past actions, that the instant she set eyes on him she
was stricken to tense silence. As a result, she affected a stiff
manner, speaking in a cold voice that in no way expressed her true
feelings.

Chiddingly, equally tongue-tied, behaved in much the same
way, so that conversation on the journey was conducted in a
desultory fashion that would have led anyone to believe that the
dislike so often expressed the one for the other was in no way
exaggerated.

Small chance, Chiddingly reflected, that his friend Fitz’s
suggestion would be found to prove efficacious.

‘
Chid, you must make an effort to come to some
kind of understanding,’ Fitz had told him, ‘preferably
before
the wedding. Else you will soon find yourselves so
estranged that you cannot begin to bridge the
gap.’

It was not a prospect Chiddingly could view with anything
but dismay. Things were bad enough. The last thing he wanted was to
drive a deeper wedge between himself and Persephone.

‘
I do not know how to approach her, Fitz,’ he had said in a
despairing way. ‘We cannot meet, it seems, without rubbing against
one another.’

‘
There is one thing on which you may readily agree,’ Fitz
had said smilingly. ‘Why do you not begin there?’

‘
Horseflesh? Yes, but how?’

‘
Take her to see your stock, man. You could not more surely
engage her interest.’

Chiddingly’s blue eyes had lit for an instant, and then
dulled again. ‘She will deny herself, if she thinks she must spend
a whole day by my side.’

Fitz had laughed. ‘I should be very much surprised if she
can resist.’

He was found to be right, for the paralysis that seemed to
afflict them both disappeared like magic as soon as they arrived at
Chiddingly’s estate and Persephone at once saw a line of nags out
at exercise on the turf beside the carriage drive.

‘
Oh, they are splendid,’ she cried, stiffness melting away.
‘How many horses do you have?’

‘
If you count all the foals, between twenty-five and thirty.
But that does not include my working horses, such as this team and
those I hack in town,’ Chiddingly told her, his own manner
lightening considerably. ‘And the farm cattle, of
course.’

‘
You farm, too?’

‘
Enough only to keep the stock well fed. I meant the horses
I lease to the farm tenants. For they will never buy a second nag
until they have worked the one they already own to
death.’

‘
Oh, abominable. You could not tolerate that.’

‘
Do you care to go directly to the stables, or would you
like to refresh yourself first? I sent word to my
housekeeper.’

‘
No, no, I cannot wait. Please let us go to the stables at
once,’ she begged, with a warmer smile than she had yet shown
him.

The stud stables were situated some way from the house,
surrounded by several paddocks on land studded with hedges and
trees, together with a training track. The land abutted acres of
common, along which a worn path meandered down to the distant dunes
and beaches of the Swale, an inlet from the sea.