Parfit Knight (12 page)

She shook her
head. ‘No. It isn’t. Not when you’ve been so kind and never once …
‘

‘Hush.’ His
fingers tightened on hers as he resisted the impulse to put his
arms around her. ‘You’ve said you didn’t mean it. That’s
enough.’

For Rosalind,
it was one of those moments when the scales of disadvantage weighed
heavily. She sensed his scrutiny and, because she couldn’t return
it, knew a strong urge to hide her face – preferably against his
shoulder. Instead, she managed a crooked smile and said huskily, ‘I
shall miss you.’

‘And I you.’ An
odd expression lit the grey-green eyes and then, prompted by he
knew not what, Amberley heard himself say, ‘Goodbye is such a very
final word and I don’t greatly care for it. I think that I would
rather say
au revoir
.’

Her breath
caught and the blood returned to her skin.

‘You mean that
you … you’ll come back?’

‘Not that,
perhaps.’ The pleasant voice was curiously remote. ‘But I promise
that we will meet again. One day.’ And, bending his head over her
hands, he kissed each of them in turn as if sealing a bond.

*

He was half-way
to Amberley before he even began to suspect what had made him offer
that rash promise and the explanation, when it finally dawned on
him, was so startling that he momentarily let his hands drop and
almost put the chaise in the ditch. He recovered in a flash but his
mind continued to dwell on things far removed from his driving and,
by the time he swung his team in at his own gates, he had arrived
at one inescapable conclusion. If he were not to send himself mad
by thinking round and round in circles, he had to talk to someone
and, for once, seek advice. And there was really only one possible
candidate.

He entered his
house like a whirlwind and emitted a
feu de joie
of orders
that successfully set it by the ears. Chard was to be put to bed;
Saunders was to unpack only the small valise and see the rest of
his baggage transferred to the curricle; Henshaw was to be summoned
to the library and told that his lordship would see both him and
his papers within the hour. Then the Marquis mortally offended his
housekeeper by refusing all offers of sustenance and strode briskly
off to the hot-house to give certain explicit instructions to his
gardener.

Mr Henshaw
waited his turn with gloomy resignation and had his forebodings
swiftly realised. His lordship was brief and to the point.

‘I apologise
for my belated arrival and hope it hasn’t seriously inconvenienced
you. The reasons for it were beyond my control – but I’m afraid
that I’m now going to compound the fault of my own volition.’ He
smiled a little and went smoothly on. ‘I can give you what remains
of today and tomorrow morning – and then I must leave again. So I
suggest we deal with the most urgent business first and anything
that requires my signature. The rest must either be postponed until
I can return or left to your discretion – whichever you think best.
You don’t need to be told that I have the fullest confidence in
your abilities’

‘No, my lord,’
agreed the agent dryly. ‘And
you
do not need to be told
that, though I’m honoured by your trust, it’s not what I want of
you.’

‘Quite,’
replied Amberley pleasantly. ‘But be of good cheer. I’m not going
to France this time.’

‘I am glad to
hear it, my lord. May I ask where you
are
going?’

‘Certainly.’
His lordship shrugged, faintly amused. ‘I’m going to Richmond.’

‘Dominique,
mon cher
– I thought you were still at Amberley.’ Small,
silver-blonde and eternally elegant, Eloise Ballantyne, Dowager
Marchioness of Amberley clasped her son’s hands and raised her
cheek for his kiss. ‘Or is it that you haven’t yet been there, bad
one?’

‘You malign
me,’ complained his lordship calmly. He led her back to the fire
and then turned away, stretching out his fingers to the blaze. ‘Of
course I’ve been.’

‘Ah. But for
how long?’

‘Approximately
twenty-four hours.’

Eloise threw up
her hands. ‘
Vaurien
! Henshaw will have a fit, I know it! And
me, I shall have a fit also if he writes to me any more of things I
know nothing. All winter long he has done so and it is enough,
enfin
! You are home now and nothing more will I do.’ She sat
down and fixed a thoughtful green gaze on her son’s back. ‘However
… I think perhaps I am a little glad that you did not, after all,
go last week for the snow was truly terrible. You would have been
stranded
en route
.’

The Marquis
dropped one arm to his side and rested the other against the carved
mantel.

‘I was.’

‘
Plait-il
?’

One booted foot
moved restlessly along the fender. ‘I set out the day after I saw
you last but didn’t reach Amberley till yesterday. I was held up
just north of Ware.’

‘Of where?’ she
asked, puzzled. ‘It is not grammatical and I do not know unless you
tell me. Also – held up by what?
La neige
?’

‘No – by
highwaymen. And -- ‘

Eloise sat up.
‘Highwaymen?
Vraiment
? But that is exciting, no?’

‘You would
inevitably think so,’ he said, reflecting how typical her response
was. ‘But no, it wasn’t particularly exciting. Chard was shot and I
was forced to seek shelter for him. Then the snow came.’

For the first
time since he had arrived, Eloise saw his face in full light and
was alarmed by it. She said, ‘You stayed at an
auberge
?’

‘No. There was
none to hand. We stayed at a house – Oakleigh Manor. Until
yesterday.’

‘And Chard,
le pauvre
? How is he?’

‘I left him at
Amberley to complete his recovery. He’ll be as good as new in a few
weeks.’ The Marquis sat down, frowning abstractedly at his hands.
Then he said abruptly, ‘
Maman
–I’ve fallen in love and I
don’t know what to do for I don’t think I can ever tell her.’

‘Ah.’ The
Dowager drew a long breath and her wide, clear gaze became suddenly
very focussed. ‘Why can you not?’

‘Because she’s
blind,’ came the blunt reply in a voice that cracked. ‘She’s been
blind for twelve years and it’s my fault.’

There was a
long silence and Eloise sat, straight-backed, staring into haunted
grey-green eyes so like her own. She said, ‘I think,
mon
fils
, that you had better tell me it all from the
beginning.’

He nodded
wearily. ‘It’s a long story.’

‘No matter. We
have time. And it’s what you came for,
n’est-ce-pas
?’

So the tale was
told in a tone that was level and empty of expression but with
occasional pauses that were their own betrayal. Carefully,
meticulously, his lordship went through it all, missing nothing;
and finally he came to the thought that had struck him so forcibly
on the way to the estate the previous day.

‘We had grown
so close without even noticing it and she was always so unaffected
that I just assumed it was only I who felt more than friendship.
And while I thought that, it seemed best to leave her – hard though
it was. Only now I’m not so sure any more. I can’t help wondering
if she has not come to … care more than she yet knows.’

Not
unnaturally, looking at her handsome, charming son, Eloise thought
that this was more than likely but she considered it quite
unnecessary to say so. Instead, she asked lightly, ‘Is she
pretty?’

‘She’s
beautiful – but that’s not it. She’s intelligent and brave and
vital … and something more that I can’t explain.’ He smiled, almost
in the usual way and then said simply, ‘I only know that she
touches my heart in a way I didn’t believe possible.’

The Dowager’s
eyes had become very bright. She said gently, ‘A week is a very
short time, Dominique. And you know, do you not, how important it
is that you are sure? Less, I think for your own sake, than for
hers. Everything you have said tells me how vulnerable she is.’

The Marquis
dropped on one knee beside her chair and folded her thin, shapely
hands in his. ‘I know – and I was never more sure of anything in my
life. If you could meet her, you would understand.’

She shook her
head. ‘It is not necessary. You are not a child – and
certainement
you are no fool. So if you have truly thought,
then I am satisfied.’

‘
Vraiment
?’

‘
Vraiment
,’ nodded Eloise, smiling a little. ‘But this does
not solve the matter. It is necessary to be practical – so you may
begin by pouring us both a glass of port while I think what is best
to be done.’ Silently, she watched him do as she asked, her brow
creased in thought. ‘She must be very lonely,
la petite
. And
more so now, perhaps – now you have shown her a little of what she
is missing. Me, I do not think she should be left alone.’

‘She might as
well be walled up,’ remarked his lordship savagely as he handed her
the glass. ‘And since her fool of a brother can’t see it for
himself, I’ve a good mind to tell him so.’

‘Yes. I think
that you should – but not,
mon cher
, in those exact words,’
replied Eloise slowly. ‘Since already you have antagonised him, you
will need to be
très
diplomatique
if you are not to
make things worse. No one likes to have their family duty pointed
out by a stranger and really, Dominique, it was a stupidity to
upset him in the first place.’

‘I realise that
now,’ sighed his lordship ruefully. ‘But I promise to try very hard
to be charm personified in future.’

‘
Bien
.
It will do you so much good,’ she said flatly. ‘You are too much
inclined to let the world think what it will and there are times
when it is a very great
bêtise
. This Lord Philippe does not
know you and I do not think he can be blamed for thinking what it
is he thinks. So you must show him his mistake. You will have to be
very
polite.’

‘I’m always
polite,’ said the Marquis, hurt.

The Dowager’s
eyes twinkled. ‘Yes – but you laugh and it is not always
well-received. Me, I know for you are laughing now. And that is not
the way to persuade Milord Philippe to bring his sister to
London.’

The grey-green
eyes widened a little, ‘Bravo,
maman
. Now why didn’t I think
of that?’

‘Because you
are not a woman.’

He grinned.
‘God be praised. Very well. And if I do so persuade him?’

‘Then
la
petite
will gain a little experience and meet other gentlemen
besides yourself. And when she has had time to do this, you will
have to decide what it is you do.
Quant a ça
, I cannot
advise you – but this I will say. If she is all you think and
if
she loves you, then she will not allow anything – no
matter how dreadful – to come between you. She will only care that
you love her. If she lets what you have to tell her matter, it is
because she does not care for you enough. And this you must
understand and be prepared to accept.
D’accord
?’

There was a
long silence and then, ‘
D’accord
,’ he replied with a wry
smile. ‘And – as always – I am glad that I came.’

*

At about the
time that the Marquis took his leave of his mother to drive to
London, Captain Lord Philip Vernon had just sat down to breakfast
in his house in Jermyn Street and was sifting idly through his
correspondence in between mouthfuls of ham. It did not, at first
glance, appear very interesting; the usual selection of bills,
including his tailor’s modest demand for a totally immodest sum; a
number of gilt-edged invitation cards to a variety of functions
from a Venetian breakfast to a masked ball; two requests to
subscribe to charity … and a letter.

Philip eyed
this last with mild surprise and, since he had not the remotest
idea who it was from, pushed the rest aside and opened it. When he
saw Lady Warriston’s signature he very nearly threw it in the fire
unread – but some latent instinct for disaster warned against this
and, sighing, he began the by no means simple task of deciphering
her ladyship’s tightly cramped script.

Half a dozen
lines down the page he was rapidly coming to the conclusion that
the woman had written either under an uncommon degree of agitation
or whilst drunk – and that she was as tedious on paper as she was
in person. Certainly her protestations of having no wish to
interfere but knowing her Christian duty were entirely wasted on
Philip. But the hub of the matter, when he came to it, changed all
that and, caught unawares with a tankard of ale at his lips, Philip
choked, spluttered and dissolved into a fit of coughing just as
Robert Dacre strolled unceremoniously into the room.

The Honourable
Robert regarded him dispassionately and remarked, by way of
greeting, that bills always struck in his gullet too – which was
why he never read them over a meal.

‘Not a bill,’
croaked Philip, rather flushed and gasping for air. ‘It’s a damned
silly letter!’

‘Oh.’ Robert
was not demonstrably interested. ‘Well never mind that now, Ver. I
came to see if you’d care to drive out with me. There’s a curricle
and pair I’d thought to buy.’

‘No,’ said
Philip tersely. ‘If I go anywhere today, it will be to Oakleigh to
find out what the devil’s going on there.’ He dropped the letter on
the table and gave it a derisive flick. ‘Either Emily Warriston has
lost her wits or for the past week my sister has been cosily
closeted with the Marquis of Amberley.’

Mr Dacre was
suddenly all ears. ‘
Amberley
? How come?’

His lordship
shrugged impatiently. ‘I don’t know – some farrago about a corpse
and six feet of snow. She says, if you please, that she and her
daughter called at Oakleigh on Friday and found Rose and Amberley
“on terms of the plainest intimacy” – which, even if it’s true –
and knowing that bloody woman, I doubt it is – is a damned
impertinence.’