Playing to Win (36 page)

Simmons stepped out of the shadows and
held open the front door. A blast of icy wind slapped her. She
halted, shivering, and cast an imploring glance at Mr. Whitlatch.
"Perhaps we ought not to go."

A spasm of emotion crossed Trevor’s
features. "We must!" he barked, as if goaded. "Let’s get it over
with."

Dawson was directly outside, peering
gloomily at them over the folds of a gigantic muffler. He was
well-wrapped against the cold, and held the head of an enormous and
powerful carriage horse. Clarissa had seen this animal before. She
knew it for a placid beast. The fact that the horse seemed nervous,
tossing his head and blowing, caused her to shrink back
again.

"But what if this weather continues? We
will not be able to get home tonight."

"We’ll get home," said Trevor
grimly.

It sounded like a vow. He was evidently
looking forward to this evening with even less enthusiasm than she.
Clarissa said nothing more, but allowed him to lead her to the
closed carriage and help her in. Hot bricks and lap robes were
waiting in the narrow confines of the coach, but the vehicle itself
was old, small and ill-made. Dawson shut the door on them with
difficulty. Cold wind whistled and whined through cracks around the
door and, it seemed, from beneath her feet. Clarissa looked round
her dubiously.

"Is this conveyance yours, sir? I do
not recall seeing it before."

"No, it isn’t."

She waited expectantly, but apparently
that was all he was going to say. She pulled the lap robe a little
higher, crossed her arms for warmth, and turned to stare pointedly
out the window. If Trevor wished to sulk, let him sulk!

Their progress was slow. Silence
stretched between Clarissa and Trevor, and she soon felt sorrow
burning the back of her throat. What had become of the friendship
she had treasured? Not so many days ago, she and Trevor had
conversed with affection and shared easy laughter. The man who sat
across from her, so distant and forbidding, seemed a complete
stranger.

Her bleak musings were interrupted by
the coach coming to a complete halt. Trevor muttered some smothered
oath, and they both turned their eyes to the door. Dawson’s brisk
knock soon sounded, and the door opened. His eyes were apologetic
over the top of the muffler.

"Well, what is it?" said Trevor
testily.

"Beg pardon, sir, but there’s a tree
down."

"A tree? Why the devil are we stopping
for a tree?"

"It’s lying across the road, sir. Shall
we turn round and try the cart-track? We can’t go forward here,
that’s for certain."

A muscle jumped in Trevor’s jaw. "Damn.
Isn’t the cart-track likely to be worse?"

"Well, sir, it might," said Dawson
cautiously. "But it’s hard to see how. I wouldn’t take a coach down
it in clear weather, for the ruts and all, but one lane’s as good
as another on a day like this. And it runs through the fields, sir,
so there won’t be trees down at any rate."

"Very well, we’ll try it."

Clarissa’s eyes dilated with alarm. She
tugged on Trevor’s sleeve. "Oh, sir,
pray
do not! What if we
get stuck there, out of sight of the road? What will we
do?"

He shook off her hand impatiently.
"Let’s go," he snapped. "And shut the door, for God’s sake! There’s
snow blowing in."

On the third slam, Dawson succeeded in
closing the door. There followed an alarming series of jolts and
slides while he struggled to turn the coach in the icy lane.
Clarissa clutched the seat in fright.

"He’ll ditch us!" she
gasped.

Trevor shrugged indifferently. "I
daresay. Dawson is an excellent groom, but an indifferent
driver."

"Oh, this is madness! Why are we even
making the attempt? Pray ask him to take us home!"

"We are going to the
vicarage,"
said Trevor, with such barely-suppressed violence that Clarissa
almost jumped. "We are going to have a pleasant dinner, after which
our host’s son will announce that you have accepted his offer of
marriage. Exclamations of delight will fill the room, we will raise
our glasses in a toast to you and Mr. Henry, and I daresay dancing
will follow. I mean to smile, and drink your health, and shake that
sheep-faced blighter’s hand. And then I mean to go home with all
possible speed and get royally drunk."

Clarissa pressed her shaking palms
together. "Why do you say such things to me? I don’t know what
upsets me more—your constant disparagement of Mr. Henry, or the
prospect of returning to Morecroft Cottage with a man who plans to
get drunk!"

"It is not a habit of mine," he
replied, still speaking through gritted teeth. "But there are
occasions in life that call for it."

A protesting neigh sounded outside the
coach, which began, in fits and starts, to back. Then came a
muffled shout of exasperation or alarm. It seemed to proceed from
the vicinity of the neigh, which indicated that Dawson had gone to
the horse’s head. The vehicle executed a swift backwards glide,
jolted to an abrupt stop, then tipped slightly to one side, forcing
its occupants to brace themselves against the off-side wall. It
stayed that way for an alarming length of time. Just as Mr.
Whitlatch appeared ready to climb out the door himself to discover
what was toward, the coach gave a creaking shudder and righted
itself. Presently another knock came, this one not so brisk and
not, apparently, on the door.

"What now?" shouted Mr.
Whitlatch.

The door did not open. Dawson’s voice,
sounding much harassed and a trifle distant, called, "Sorry, sir,
but you’re stuck fast in a snowbank—and the traces have
broken!"

Mr. Whitlatch covered his eyes with one
hand and groaned.

Clarissa looked anxiously at him. "What
does it mean?"

"It means, among other things, that we
won’t arrive at the vicarage anytime soon! But I am not so easily
defeated." He raised his voice to a shout. "Dawson! I’m coming out
to help."

"No, sir, no point in’t! For one thing,
you’re not dressed for the weather, and for another, there’s
nothing to be done. A shovel’s what we need, and mayhap another
horse or two. I’ll take Dobbin and fetch help from the village.
We’re almost there now, sir, so it won’t take long."

Trevor glanced ruefully down at his
finery. He seemed to debate with himself for a minute, then
surrender to the inevitable. "Very well, Dawson, be as quick as you
can."

They waited in awkward silence while
Dawson ponderously unhitched Dobbin and called a reassuring
farewell. The horse’s hooves made no sound as they departed, so
thick was the snow on the ground.

Solitude then closed in on the
occupants of the stranded coach, wrapping them in a dark blanket of
cold and isolation. Clarissa had never felt more alone than sitting
here so close to Trevor. This stiff and unnatural muteness, where
once there had been effortless camaraderie, formed the loudest and
most miserable silence she had ever known.

And she was freezing in her silk gown
and thin slippers. Her nose and toes were completely numb. She
reached up and cupped her hands around her face, breathing into her
gloved palms.

"What are you doing?"

"My nose is cold."

The silence fell again. Trevor had
crossed his arms across his chest and was frowning at the window.
Since it was covered in frost or steam, there was nothing to see.
Clarissa realized he was simply looking anywhere but at her, and
thought her heart would break.

Seconds ticked by, then minutes. It
grew colder and colder. Clarissa tried pulling her cloak more
tightly around her, but when the satin lining touched her skin it
was like ice. A violent shiver seized her.

A shattering oath split the air. She
looked up, startled, and saw Trevor’s face gone suddenly haggard.
He reached across the space between them and pulled her roughly
into his arms.

Clarissa uttered a faint protest, but
he overruled it, dragging her onto his lap. "You’ll catch your
death of cold. Do you think I want that on my conscience? Come here
and be still."

She was ashamed of her own weakness,
but could not resist snuggling gratefully against him. Whatever his
reasons, it was heavenly to feel his arms around her again. She was
glad to have such an excellent excuse. He tucked both lap robes
around them with swift efficiency and cradled her close, sharing
his warmth with her.

Quiet descended again, but now the
silence was charged with electricity. Words, unspoken, vibrated in
the air all around them. Her head pressed against Trevor’s broad
chest, Clarissa closed her eyes and listened to his breath going
gradually more ragged, to his heart pounding. She waited, in a kind
of trance, for whatever would come next. It was not possible for a
silence this charged, this eloquent, to continue
unbroken.

So connected were they, she felt his
words gathering, felt them run through him before he
spoke.

"Clarissa," he whispered hoarsely.
"Kiss me goodbye."

Aching, wondering, she raised her head
and looked into his eyes. They were filled with torment. She
reached up, with the languid movement of a sleepwalker, to touch
his face with one hand.
So dear,
she thought.
So dear to
me.

"Goodbye," she whispered.

A rush of emotion shook her to the core
of her being. No further thought was possible. She tilted her chin,
arched her neck, and touched her lips to his. They clung there
sweetly, light as breath. He kissed her back, his movements as
soft, as delicate as hers, the essence of tenderness. Their
farewell kiss was full of longing, sweet and dangerous.

It was impossible to tell how the kiss
changed, whose impulse was stronger, or who began it. Clarissa
sobbed and Trevor groaned, and each swept the other into a fierce
embrace.

His hands slipped inside her cloak and
slid round her waist, his palms hot and intimate against the thin
silk of her gown. Shaking, she pressed herself closer against him,
then instinctively shifted to give his hands more access. They
immediately ran hungrily up and around her, in a primitive dance of
greed and possession that made her senses swim. Her hands fluttered
frantically against him, clutching his shoulders, his arms, his
back. She could not hold him tightly enough. She wanted to feel
every part of him at once. Maddened, she moaned and struggled
against him, arching her back.

The coach door suddenly banged open,
flooding the interior with daylight and a blast of cold air. For
one frenzied moment, Clarissa did not even notice. Then the shock
of their discovery struck her like a blow. She tore her mouth away
from Trevor’s and blinked dazedly at the horrified faces framed in
the open doorway.

"Well!"
uttered the vicar, in a
voice of outrage.

Clarissa gave a strangled sort of
scream, and buried her face in Trevor’s shoulder. It was an
instinctive, unreasoning, attempt to hide. Had there been as much
as a rabbit burrow handy, she felt she would have tried to crawl
into it. Dear Heaven! If only it were possible to
disappear!

Trevor’s arms tightened protectively
round her. He neither shrank nor cried out. His voice sounded over
her head, and she marveled, terrified, at its utter lack of
contrition. "Well?" he said coldly.

The vicar’s voice throbbed with
revulsion. "What is the meaning of this—this
spectacle?"

"It did not become a spectacle,
Reverend, until an audience arrived. Kindly remove yourself from
that doorway!"

Clarissa gasped, and emerged from the
depths of Trevor’s greatcoat to stare disbelievingly at him. His
dark eyes, fixed on the vicar, were blazing with anger and
contempt. She would never have dared to speak so to a man of the
cloth! For Mr. Whitlatch to
bark
at the vicar, after being
caught in such grievous wrongdoing, and with Clarissa still
actually
in his arms,
was the most amazing display of
impertinence she had ever witnessed! And yet it was so like him. So
exactly like him. To her dismay, she felt a foolish smile wavering
across her face.

Mr. Whitlatch’s gimlet gaze was
transferring to Dawson. "And what the devil do you mean by sneaking
up on me? Why did you bring the vicar along, of all
people?"

Dawson, unlike the Rev. Mr. Henry,
seemed properly cowed by Trevor’s fury. "Sir, I never!" he gasped.
"I never sneaked! ‘Twas the snow, sir! And the vicarage was the
first house I come to—and the vicar already mounted, and all—so I
brung him!"

The vicar swelled with righteous wrath.
"Do not seek to shift the blame for this regrettable incident onto
the shoulders of your servant, sir! I spy the hand of Providence at
work!"

Mr. Whitlatch seemed startled.
"Providence?"

"Yes, sir, Providence! Providence, I
say! It was ordained that Dawson should come upon me, and bring me
to this spot, to witness what might otherwise have gone
undetected!" The vicar’s voice had taken on the ringing tones of
the pulpit, and his face was scarlet with anger. "I have heard
rumors, sir, of your past—tales of your conduct with females—tales
that I would blush to repeat! I refrained, in Christian charity,
from judging this girl, of whom nothing was known, but I suspected
from the start that she was more to you than a
ward!
Verily
is it written that, ‘wickedness proceedeth from the
wicked!’"