Karla Darcy - [Sweet Deception Regency 04] (8 page)

"I'm sorry, Manji," Leslie said between chattering teeth.

Used to the light of joy always reflected in her face, Manji was immediately aware that something had dimmed her spirit. Her entire face had a sunken look as though she had sustained an injury.

"Are you hurt, Daffadar?" he asked. This time his voice was soft with concern.

For one moment, the young girl's face looked haggard. Then she raised her head and Manji could see little expression on the surface. She opened her mouth to speak, but snapped it closed, shaking her head instead.

"Come."

Manji pulled Leslie beneath the shelter of his arm and she sagged against him in exhaustion. His huge hand pulled the side door open and he pushed her inside where she drooped against the corridor wall. Jacko, his gnomelike body bristling with anger and worry, descended on the disheveled girl. Manji blew out the lantern, muttering darkly in several languages. In the light from the wall sconces, Leslie felt a weary smile touch her face as she surveyed her friends.

The two men stood, arms akimbo. Despite their disparity in height, they looked similar, wearing identical expressions of deep disapproval. They both opened their mouths to speak, but the little Englishman was quicker on the mark.

"And where was she? Jauntering around outside in the middle of a storm!" Jacko shook his head at the absolute idiocy of the idea.

"She was down by lake," Manji answered briefly.

"Up to no good by the look of it." Jacko sniffed in disgust.

"There was no one about. She was alone."

"There's many that will have sore heads by morning with all the drinking that's going on. Dangerous out there on her own," Jacko said. "Could have knocked me to pieces when I brought up some pastries from Cook. Bed not slept in and the candle wax cold." Then as though tired of conducting the conversation without including the main culprit in the controversy, Jacko glowered at his charge. "Well, Leslie? What be your excuse for this behavior?"

"Where do you go in this weather?" Manji demanded.

"Chup!" Leslie said, reverting to her childhood language. As the older men snapped to an obedient silence, she continued, "I will hear no more of this tonight. Tomorrow will be time enough for explanations."

She spun on her heel and stalked toward the servants' staircase . Jacko followed after the girl, snapping at her heels like an angry terrier. "No wonder my hair's turned white, with what I have to put up with taking care of you. Can't even be trusted to stay in your room. Gallivanting around on a night like this."

The rain had stopped, the sound of thunder only a dull tremor on the night air. Strains of music floated up from the ballroom. They managed to gain Leslie's rooms without discovery. Jacko, his face a mask of concern, bustled around gathering towels and blankets, muttering a litany of her past sins.

"You'll be down with a fever this sennight, or I'm not a God fearin' born Englishman."

Jacko turned his back as Leslie stripped off her clothes. While the old man savagely poked the fire to life, she toweled her body briskly, snuggling gratefully in the warm blankets. Wearily, she sank down on the bed. Her head was bowed and she stared at her bare toes peeking out from under the blankets. Only now that she was quiet did she feel the pain in her feet where they had been cut in her wild flight to safety. Her feet would heal.

She supposed the rest of her would heal eventually too. Her heart was surely shattered, but Leslie refused to think about Pax and her love for him.

"I'll get your nightgown, and then it's off to bed with you."

Jacko's gravelly voice broke through Leslie's somber thoughts. When he returned, she accepted the nightshirt docilely, refusing to meet his eyes. Her lips were closed tightly, and she nodded a silent good night to the old man. Jacko left, the slammed door a fair indication of his displeasure. Despite her momentary victory, Leslie knew she had only delayed the lecture until morning. She dropped the blanket and pulled the nightshirt over her head, creeping wearily beneath the covers of the bed.

Alone in the huge fourposter, Leslie knew despair for she would certainly have to leave Windhaven. She could not fool herself to think life could go on as it always had. It was time to grow up; she was no longer a child building castles of make believe. After what she had discovered in the gazebo, there was nothing for her here.

For five years she, Jacko and Manji had saved for the time when they would disappear from Windhaven. She would tell them they needed that money now to escape and find a place to hide for the two years until she was twenty-one. Then she could claim her father's estate and make a new life for herself and her loyal friends. Leslie felt a moment of panic wondering if Jacko and Manji would come with her. In her heart, she knew their devotion would permit nothing else. She would make it up to them, she promised fiercely.

Pax's face floated up out of the darkness. Why hadn't she realized that she was in love with him? This morning, when she was a child, she had felt only a brotherly fondness for him. But tonight, when he had kissed her into womanhood, she realized he was the reason she had remained at Windhaven. She had stayed because without Pax, she had no life. He was her center, the core of her existence.

But it was not to be, Leslie acknowledged heart-brokenly. Pax saw her only as his young ward. They fished together, played chess and talked into the late hours. They were good friends and companions. He would be horrified and embarrassed to discover that the boy, he had taken in, was really a young girl deeply in love with him. In humiliation, Leslie writhed in the darkness.

Eyes heavy with exhaustion, she fell into a restless sleep, dreaming of storms, gazebos and Pax. When she woke to the bright sunlight, she felt a desolation for all she had lost.

Chapter Five

The morning sunlight poured through the outside doors, framing the plump motherly figure standing in the foyer. "Why, Aunt Nell! How splendid to see you." Hurrying forward in greeting, Pax's face broke into a genuine welcoming grin.

Winters, his face stoically in place, assisted in the removal of a violent-pink mantle with a wide collar of floppy white egret feathers, which bobbed and weaved in a macabre attempt at flight. In awe, Pax watched Winters, two footmen and Lady Titwiliver's own abigail Druscilla divest the little woman of pink gloves, a matching muff of white feathers, a box of chocolates, a painted fan and a hat reminiscent of Prinny's menagerie at feeding time. Finally, with a throaty chuckle of thanks, the white haired lady shrugged free of her perspiring assistants and toddled on tiny pink satin slippers into Pax's warm embrace.

"Well, Aunt Nell, I can see you've descended on my household fully prepared for a lengthy visit," he said dryly, eyeing the mountain of luggage cluttering the marble hallway.

"What an atrocious boy you are, nevvie. Nell, indeed! You know how I loathe that name. Ain't proper for a woman of my years and consequence," she argued as Pax shepherded her into the salon. Looking around in obvious disapproval, she plumped herself down in a cushiony satin chair. "Told you years ago you should have done this room over. It's just plain fusty, my boy. You've got to move along with the times."

Recalling that Lady Titwiliver's own salon was done in an excruciating collection of artifacts from the Orient, Pax shuddered in relief as his eyes took in the graceful antiques, glowing with warm wood tones and soft restful colors. Not for his salon, zebra skins and Chinese porcelains. Quickly, he turned the subject.

"You should have told me you were coming. Not that I'm not delighted, but we're very dull here. I would have thought London would have feted your return from abroad."

"Well, that's as it should be. But there were matters to take care of here."

Nell spoke briskly, not meeting Pax's eye. She fidgeted with the lay of gaily-printed muslin on her lap as her nephew raised an eyebrow in surprise. It was unlike the older woman to cavil at plainspoken language, but apparently the subject was difficult to broach. As Winters ushered in a footman bearing tea, Pax walked to the sideboard for a brandy. Peering over the rim of the snifter, his black eyes were warm with affection for the fussy little woman pouring tea.

Lady Helen Titwiliver, or Aunt Nell as he much preferred, had stood as his mother on many occasions when he was growing up. His own mother had not been much interested in child raising, preferring instead the glamour of London and the seasonal influx of the
ton
. At sixty-eight, Nell was five feet of bustling energy with a penchant for foreign travel, the latest and usually most bizarre fashions and a string of male admirers who trooped after her with the devotion of geese for the goose herder. During his lifetime, the Earl Titwiliver, older than Nell by twenty years, had kept her penned up in a lovely old Tudor estate not far from Windhaven. Gratefully widowed at fifty, she had immediately moved to London and a never-ending round of entertainment. Glutting herself on the wonders of high society, she then packed up her entourage of hangers-on and traveled abroad, impervious to Napoleon's armies which she considered only a temporary inconvenience.

"Well, nephew, I see that despite my prognostications, you have neither been hung for a highwayman nor come to an early death due to drink." Nell stared through her lorgnette at the young man leaning casually against the mantel. However, his relaxed pose not withstanding, there was a weary droop to his shoulders. "Look a bit worn, Pax. Too much late nighting."

"We had a masquerade ball here last night. Sorry you missed it. It was extremely entertaining."

The older woman was intrigued by the introspective look of her nephew. A flighty young gel, no doubt. Men rarely got that sort of smug-wistful look over a new stallion in the paddock. "Personally, I'm delighted. Never could abide masked balls."

"Maybe you can convince my ward that he didn't miss anything last night. I told him he couldn't attend, and he hasn't forgiven me. When I met him at breakfast this morning, Leslie only mumbled into his toast and then raced from the room as though I had the plague."

"Didn't know you had a ward?" came the surprised response. "But then you have hardly inundated me with letters of your activities."

"For that, I stand shamefaced, Nell. I should have written you about the boy. Leslie's fifteen. A lively lad. You'll meet him later, and I know you'll get on." Pax grinned at the anticipated meeting. "After all, just see how well I turned out under your guidance."

 Nell sniffed as he raised his brandy in salute. "Just remember, Paxton, I used to change your nappies."

"Never say, auntie dear. As I remember it, you bustled me off with Nanny any time I even looked a little damp."

"Perhaps. But I could have done," she mumbled huffily. Then patting the arm of the chair beside hers, she continued, "Come and sit down. We have plenty of time before dinner for a comfortable cose."

Feeling rather like he were back in the schoolroom, Pax crossed the room wishing he had brought the decanter instead of a single glass of brandy. Usually when Nell wanted information, she was as tenacious as a ferret at a rabbit hole. Wondering what the subject might be, Pax examined his conscience, wondering which rumor of his behavior had chanced to cross Lady Titwiliver's antennaed ears. No matter. Whatever it was, he was bound to be guilty; Nell had a sixth sense for discerning fact from mere gossip.

"It's been five, no six, years since I've seen you. Thirty years old if my mind hasn't turned to pudding. You have the look of your father." She leaned forward, touching his hand with her own soft one. The normally cheerful brown eyes were sad in the pinkly lined face. "It was a blow when your father died, Pax. I loved him dearly."

"You were always his favorite sister."

"That's only because I doted on him so," Nell said with asperity. "You've his charm and good looks. Hopefully some of his sense. He married early. Perhaps it wasn't the best of choices, but your mother did her duty by the line."

Pax shifted uncomfortably in his chair realizing the purpose of Nell's visit. Inwardly he groaned, wondering if she planned to badger him into proposing to the first girl on the scene. He hoped she didn't have any candidates of her own. He had met enough matchmaking mamas in London to feel a strong distaste for having the choice of a wife taken out of his hands. Feeling the despair of a cornered fox, he valiantly attempted to change the subject.

"Have you just returned from abroad?" he asked nonchalantly.

"Why, yes. Vienna." Nell smiled smugly and Pax's heart sank. Unwittingly, he had stumbled on the exact topic she was waiting to explore. "So many people were at the Congress. Like wolves tearing at a bloodied carcass. Poor France."

"From what I hear via the foreign office, Tallyrand will wrest victory from the victors," Pax commented dryly.

"It was good to see so many familiar faces." Nell was not to be sidetracked by a discussion of politics. Bowing to the inevitable, Pax relaxed in his chair, waiting for the ax to fall. "Lady Juste-Morland was there. Fat as ever, and wearing the most scandalous gowns. Shouldn't think at her age she'd want to show so much drooping bosom. We had our come out together, you know."

"When was that?" Pax asked, eyes wide with innocence.

"Don't be cheeky, nephew. I'm still in my prime. I was a late bloomer," she laughed.

Pax leaned over to pour her another cup of tea, his eyes sparkling with amusement. There was no impatience in his movements. Nell enjoyed the cat and mouse game. He suspected that if the British had used her in the war to interrogate prisoners, the fighting would have ended years earlier.

"Lydia looks surprisingly well, despite her weight. Had a limp-wristed man-milliner fluttering around her. Must be plumper in the pocket than I thought. I hear she's quite the London hostess. Regaled us all with tales of the Earl of Ho-hum and the Viscount of Fribble. Quite high in the instep." Nell sipped her tea slowly, sighing contentedly. "Said she hadn't seen much of you. One or two parties."