Regency Rumours/A Scandalous Mistress/Dishonour And Desire (32 page)

Her heart-shaped face was held up to the light, showing him the full opulence of her loveliness, the luxuriant waving chestnut hair touching the silken-sheened skin, amazing golden-brown eyes framed by sweeping lashes, a straight nose and wide lips full of sensuous beauty. Her eyes blazed with the kind of passion that would respond instantly and without inhibition to any situation, and Sir Chase doubted very much that she would have obeyed her father if she had not already decided to do so. Perhaps she wanted him to see her as submissive, but he could see in her eyes, in her very bearing, that it was not so. This one would do as she pleased.

Mischievously, he incensed her further by allowing his eyes to roam briefly inside the frilled collar of her habit-shirt and then over her firm high breasts. ‘But I have already told you, Miss Chester,’ he said, unsmiling, ‘it was your brother who challenged me, not the other way round. So if you understand honour as well as you say you do, you’ll not need any further explanation, will you?’

Though she sensed there was more to be said on the subject, there was a limit to the time she wished to
spend in the company of this arrogant man, so she took her hand away from the door and waited for him to turn the knob. When he did not, she looked up to find him regarding her from between half-closed eyes that were difficult to read, and it was being made to wait until he was ready that made her realise he was telling her something about her manner. When he
did
open it, very … very … slowly, she was not allowed to whirl out as she had whirled in.

Out in the hall, she found that her heart was beating a hollow thud between her shoulder-blades, and the desire to sweep his accessories off the table on to the floor was only curbed by the sound of a high-pitched infant tantrum. With a sigh, she turned and went upstairs.

The same sound reached Stephen Chester’s ears before the door closed behind his daughter, making him look up, ruefully. ‘Sorry about that,’ he murmured.

Assuming he meant the noise, Sir Chase took the seat opposite, sampling his glass of brandy while looking round him at the beautiful Wedgwood-blue room overlooking a large garden at the back of the house. A well-executed painting of a ship under sail against a background of some distant harbour hung on the wall behind Mr Chester’s desk. Through the new green of the trees, he could see the distant sparkle of the River Thames, alive with wherries and their passengers. There were no signs of poverty to be seen, but the discrepancy in the ages of his host’s family was intriguing, and obviously a cause of expense. And although Sir Chase had not come here intending to negotiate, there was now a new factor in the equation that had not been there when he arrived: Miss Caterina Chester.

‘You have an interesting family, Mr Chester,’ he said,
replacing his glass on the table. He rested one boot across his knee and held it there. ‘I understand Mrs Chester is your second wife.’

Stephen smoothed a hand over his thinning dark red hair from the back of his head to the front, nodding. ‘My wife is one of the Elwicks of Mortlake,’ he said. ‘You will probably know them. Been married almost six years.’

Sir Chase’s dark brows moved. ‘Oh, indeed I do, sir. Near neighbours of my parents. I believe the eldest son died a couple of years ago.’

‘Mrs Chester’s brother Chad. Yes. I lost the first Mrs Chester ten years ago, and with three grown children of my own I didn’t quite expect so large a second family so soon. If I’d known there were going to be nine of us instead of five, I’d not have moved from Buxton. My Derbyshire home is a good deal larger than this one, plenty of rooms, woodland and paddocks, and orchards. But my wife is a Surrey woman, and Caterina and her sister wanted to stay near London.’ He smiled at last, softening with fatherly pride. ‘Caterina lived here with her aunt, Lady Elyot, who was still Lady Chester at that time. It was perfect for the two of them then.’

‘Ah, your daughter. May I ask her age, sir?’

‘Twenty-three, Sir Chase.’ Suddenly, Stephen’s hand slapped the table as he stood up, shimmering the remaining brandy in his glass. ‘Twenty bloody three, and not married. And not likely to be, if she can’t be more agreeable than that.’ He strode to the window, staring out into the distance. ‘I hope you’ll excuse her forthright manner, sir,’ he said, more quietly. ‘She can be quite difficult to handle at times, but we’ve all been under a bit of a strain, one way or another, and unfortunately Caterina has a mind of her own. My other
daughter,’ he said, lightening his tone, ‘Sara, is just the opp—’

‘Tell me, if you will, about Miss Caterina Chester, sir.’

‘Eh?’ Startled, he turned to look. ‘I thought you’d have heard by now.’

Sir Chase smiled, but made no reply.

Stephen sauntered to the table, studied the remaining brandy and gulped it down in one go. Then, moving from one piece of furniture to the next and sliding his fingertips over the surfaces, he hopped through what he saw as the main events of Caterina’s twenty-three years in a verbal hotchpotch that reflected his own needs more than hers. ‘Well, I allowed her to come down here from Derbyshire to live with my brother’s widow. Caterina and her aunt are very close. She lives up at Sheen Court now, since she became Lady Elyot.’

‘Yes, I know Lord and Lady Elyot and his brother Lord Rayne well.’

‘Oh, of course. Well, Caterina was seventeen when she came out. Made quite a stir at the time. Very much sought after. You can imagine.’

‘I can indeed, sir. Offers of marriage?’

‘Oh, Lord, yes. Plenty. She accepted the Earl of Loddon first.’

‘Then what?’

‘She cried off at the last minute, the minx. Heaven knows what the real cause was. And what a fuss that provoked!’ He stroked his hair again. ‘Second engagement to Viscount Hadstoke. We told her she was fortunate to have an offer after that, title, wealth, big … er … well, anyway, she ducked out of that one with just two days to go. I was sure that would be the end of her chances. High risk, you know. A non-starter. She didn’t seem to care, but I did, and so did her sister.’

‘Why is that, sir?’

Stephen stopped pacing to spread his hands, helplessly, though he did not answer the question regarding Sara. ‘Well, how does it
look,
I ask you? Talk … gossip … plenty of offers of
carte blanche,
but no more offers of marriage after that. Well, that’s not quite correct. The Earl of St Helen’s offered for her last week, but she won’t even look at him. It’s her last chance. I’ve told her so, but she refuses to set her cap at any man, and that’s that. An
earl!
’ He glared at the ceiling.

‘I see. And she doesn’t give you any particular reason?’

With a snort of derision, Stephen’s retort was predictable. ‘Oh, girlish dreams of love and all that silly stuff. No doubt her reasons make sense to her, but really, Sir Chase, who can afford to pass up offers of that sort? Her sister is ready for marriage right now, but until Caterina is off my hands she’ll be disappointed. No self-respecting father would allow the younger one to marry before the elder one. That’s the way round it should be. That’s the way it’s always been.’

‘I’ve known it to happen.’

‘Maybe. But not in my family.’

‘Then the pressure on Miss Chester to marry must be quite intense.’

‘It is. Well … er … what I mean is … yes. To be quite fair, I don’t suppose I’ve helped much by filling the house with four squalling bairns. Don’t get me wrong, Sir Chase, I’m fond of my family, all of them, but four infants in a house this size is enough to put any young woman off unless she’s the motherly sort. And I don’t think that Caterina is. She wants to practise her piano and her singing. Did I tell you she has a fine voice?’ Not stopping to notice the expression on his guest’s face, he
continued. ‘Oh, yes, she’s invited to sing in all the great houses, you know. Takes it very seriously. Yes, indeed.’

‘And your son, Harry? You mentioned he’d returned to Liverpool.’

‘This morning on the early mail, back to his uncle. He’s learning banking. My late brother’s business, you know. Lady Elyot’s first husband.’

‘That’s not quite what he told me when we met in London, sir.’

Stephen Chester’s expression sharpened, his eyes suddenly wary. ‘Oh? What did he tell you?’ he said, coughing between sips of brandy.

‘That he owned two banks in Liverpool. Money no object.’

Stephen stopped his pacing and slammed down his glass. ‘Wait till I get my hands on him,’ he muttered. ‘He’s determined to see me on the rocks. As if I didn’t have problems enough.’

There was an uncomfortable silence during which both men saw these problems from rather different angles, Sir Chase concentrating more on Caterina than on her siblings. She kept rejecting totally unsuitable marriage proposals, yet was desperate to regain the peace she had once known in which she could develop her talents. This was no place for a woman of her sort.

Her father, in his blinkered state, had done less than justice to her talents by not explaining how, in her years of living in Richmond, her voice had been trained by the finest singing teacher in the country, the Italian Signor Rauzzini, until his death last year. That had been a terrible blow to Caterina, for he had nurtured her voice, proclaiming it to be the finest mezzo-soprano he’d heard in one so young. She still had singing lessons and was greatly in demand, but the pressure of having to find a
husband to please her parents and sister was having a noticeable effect on her. Her Aunt Amelie had offered to lend her the prized phaeton so that Caterina could escape more often from the domestic pandemonium.

Sir Chase Boston doubted very much that young Harry Chester would be the ruin of his father, but he did not intend to let Chester off the hook when the debt was so substantial, for debt-collecting was what he had come for, not to offer sympathy. The father would deal with his son as he thought fit and the fright of it might help to knock some sense into both their heads. But he himself was beginning to see that there was perhaps more to be gained from Chester’s misfortune than twenty thousand guineas plus the price of the phaeton and pair. ‘Well, then, sir,’ he said, glancing at the inferior brandy, ‘shall we do a few sums to begin with? For the carriage, I would say about …’

‘Er …’ Stephen Chester put out a hand as if to ward off the sound of debt ‘… do you think … er?’

Impassively, Sir Chase waited. He had learned how to be patient, how not to show his hand too soon, as this man did.

‘Er … that there might be another way? An alternative?’ It was as if he was talking to himself. ‘I simply don’t have that kind of blunt, any more than my bird-witted son does. The Buxton house would not sell for anything like enough. To be honest, it’s far more than I would have
believed.
’ He looked around him, anxiously chewing at the side of his finger. ‘And I’m not sure what I can do about it. Let me think. The dowry, Caterina’s dowry. Well, it looks as if that may not be needed after all, although I shall need something for Sara—but then, if the dowry is reduced, her chances will be even less, won’t they? In fact, they may even disappear altogether,’ he added, habitually accepting the darker side.

‘This dowry. Is it substantial, sir?’

‘Hah! Anything
but
substantial,’ said Mr Chester, gloomily. ‘So far, Caterina’s face and family have been her fortune, but that won’t always be the case, will it? I’d say
her
chances have all but slipped away unless she finds somebody to fit her exacting requirements.’ There was more than a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

‘And you would not consider making an exception by allowing your younger daughter to marry first, simply to take the cost of her off your hands? You must admit, sir, it would make a difference.’

‘No, Sir Chase. I could not do that. It would not be proper. Besides, it would acknowledge that I have given up hope of marrying the elder one off, wouldn’t it? She’d be well and truly stuck on the shelf
then.
’

‘At twenty-three, sir? Surely not.’

‘At twenty-three, my first wife had a family of three,’ he replied, sharply. ‘No, if Caterina is going to be so difficult to please, I may be obliged to make up her mind for her. She could do worse than accept St Helen’s, if he’s still interested. But he may not be, without a dowry, and I can hardly bear to think what Caterina herself would have to say about it, though I might be able to hazard a guess. She might be persuaded to see it as her duty, but I dare say it would go ill with her to see her sister marry a man of her choice when
she
was not allowed to. Still …’ he sighed ‘… a duty is a duty, though that won’t find me all of twenty thousand guineas, will it? Do you know, I could
kill
that son of mine. He must know that a man cannot turn his back on a gambling debt. His tailor is a different kettle of fish, but never a man who wins his wager.’ Then he rallied. ‘Oh, do forgive me. I should not be talking to you like this, Sir Chase. Not the done thing at all, is it?’

‘And would your wife’s family not—?’

‘Help?’ Mr Chester yelped. ‘Good grief, man, no! I would never let Mrs Chester hear a
whisper
about all this, or I’d never hear the last of it. Besides, she has enough troubles with four of her own bairns. Absolutely not!’

‘So Miss Chester would not tell her?’

‘That my son has got me under the hatches and cleared off to Liverpool?’ Stephen Chester looked at Sir Chase as if he’d taken leave of his senses. ‘I should think not. His stepmother has little enough good opinion of him as it is. And I can’t say I blame her. This would only add fuel to her sentiment that he should have been packed off into the navy.’

‘There are liabilities in every family, sir.’

‘Hum! Glad to hear it. However, the problem is mine and I must be left to deal with it as best I may. Leave it with me, Sir Chase, if you will be so good. I shall call on you tomorrow with my proposals. Are you staying at Mortlake?’

‘I wonder …’ said Sir Chase, glancing out of the window.

‘Eh?’

‘I wonder if you would care to hear my suggestion, sir.’

‘If it’s about borrowing from some cent-per-cent you know, forget it. I never borrow anything.’