The Hermit's Daughter (21 page)

Sally tried nobly to swallow her smile and look  offended, but her trembling lips gave her away. “May I smell my flowers?”

“By all means, but I don’t want to hear of their going beneath your pillow, or into a book to be pressed. And if you try to stick one in my lapel, I shall throttle the breath out of your white marble throat.”

“Just how great an effort are you really making to behave, Monstuart?”

“About as great an effort as I think will please you. None at all, in other words. We have endured one boringly civil evening at Ashford. I must congratulate you on your performance. You nearly convinced me you were a proper bride for Heppleworth. Why the devil did you do it?”

“To deprive you of an excuse to prevent the wedding due to my impropriety.”

“It had quite the opposite effect. I had decided to permit the wedding and only withheld Derwent’s money so you would have to continue seeing me.”

“Monster!”

“Now the gloves are off. Let us get down to some serious blows. What did you mean by calling me a Bluebeard last night?
I
didn’t find my chin shadowed when I got home.”

“No, and didn’t bother checking to see if it was, either.”

“I did! I’m a little vain of my appearance when I’m courting. But of course you were alluding to that other gent, the one who killed all his wives and locked their bodies in a room. A singularly foolish method of disposal. Like Bluebeard, I will be happy to entrust the keys of my house to you. And unlike Bluebeard’s Fatima, you may open any door you wish. My life is an open book. Not a dull one, either.”

“I didn’t assume it was, when you required my father’s services on a delicate matter.”

He shot a quick, sharp glance at her. “I sued a neighbor who decided he wanted to put a fence down the middle of my pasture.”

“Papa did not deal in trifles.”

“It wasn’t a trifling fence—six miles long and ten yards inside my boundary. And not for a trifling fee either, I might add. I figure in twenty or so years I’ll recoup what I paid the Hermit for the job. It served me right. I was green enough at the time to want the prestige of saying the Hermit was handling my affairs, and he was crafty enough to dowse me.”

“I see no particular delicacy in a misplaced fence.”

“You are your father’s daughter. How does an elephant’s memory fit inside a panther’s head? I said my life was an open book, and I’ll read you that unedifying chapter in toto, if you wish. I was—
ah—negotiating with my neighbor at the time for his daughter, not in marriage, and he decided to see how far he could up the price. So I decided to show him.”

Sally sniffed in displeasure. “The Hermit’s daughter is plagued with another doubt. How does a neighbor who apparently owns some considerable lands dispose of his daughter,
not
in marriage?”
Lady Willowby looked up at hearing the word Hermit.

Monstuart glanced at the mother but continued speaking in a normal voice. “When she has made herself a byword with her behavior, he is sometimes inclined to do so. I wouldn’t want to give you the notion I am in the habit of ruining maidens.”

“What a charming neighborhood yours is, to be sure. This chapter makes lively reading. The protagonists promise delightful company for your wife.”
The word “wife”
caused another glance from Lady Willowby. Again Monstuart ignored the warning sign.

“He moved away. So did the daughter. An elderly couple bought the house.”

“Such tediously respectable neighbors explain your lengthy holiday with Lady Dennison.”

“I have told you about that.”

Sally glanced at him from the corner of her eyes. “Is it true that politics makes strange bedfellows?”

“Probably, but in this case it has made no bedfellows that I am aware of. Now have you any chapters to read me?”

“We’re not finished with the last case yet. The aforesaid daughter for whom you were negotiating—was the transaction completed?”

Monstuart brushed an invisible speck from his jacket shoulder. “It was, and so were a few others. I’m not a saint.”

“Nor even a very faithful sinner, it would seem!”

He twitched impatiently. “It is my intention to be a faithful husband, and it is an intention that will pave no roads to hell—one I intend to keep, in other words.”

“Surely that much is implicit in the word ‘intention.’
"

“Strange, I feel I’ve had this conversation before, with your father. He put many probing questions to me regarding my intentions in the aforesaid negotiation. There were redeeming features in the case. I mentioned, I believe, that I was a green and callow youth at the time.”

“Many years ago,”
she slid in mischievously. “Would you say your book has taken a turn for the duller since then?”

“No, but I say with no fear or doubt that it will take a turn toward propriety if you will marry me. My wild oats are all sown.”
Monstuart regarded her steadfastly.

Lady Willowby was hanging on every word now. How did he dare to propose in a public room? Sally looked at her mother, then back at Monstuart, with an angry question in her eyes.

“I’m flattered, quite beside myself at your enthusiasm,”
he offered.

“You should be happy I don’t beat you over the head with an andiron. How
dare
you propose in such a public place?”
she hissed.

“It is the only place I dared to reveal my scarlet past to you, here, where I am safe from your claws—
for the time being. I know your temper is not stable. I have found in the past that after the first burst of violence is over, you subside back into docility rather quickly. I am the same myself, and with the two of us falling into a fit of passion—angry passion, that is—simultaneously, God only knows what havoc we might create. You with your andiron and I with my strength and virility. Nothing would remain but hair and claws. There, I see your temper is subsiding already. What do you say to my offer?”

“What offer?”

Lady Willowby shuffled along the sofa, closer to them.

“Dear elephant, your father would despair of you. You missed the most important bit. Amid all that jungle of verbiage there was a definite statement of intent. The less legal-minded call it an offer of marriage. There should have been a profession of undying love and devotion as well, I expect. Pray consider it said.”

Sally took a deep breath. “Lord Monstuart, if you think to escape the banalities entirely, you misjudge your quarry.”

“Oh, excellent, Sal! You never disappoint me. What a predatory, hunting interpretation you put on my decent offer.”

“I expect you would like to hang a panther’s head on your trophy wall, to boast to the world of your prowess, but if you think to get it with that offhand offer, you are mistaken. Derwent tells Mellie he adores her ten times a day, and what do I get? A box of bonbons I am not to eat, flowers I cannot press, and a casual remark that I may consider myself courted. Well, you, sir, may consider yourself turned off.”

Monstuart listened with a bored expression. “So there,”
he said when she stopped to draw a breath. “Now I am turned off. I make a dash to find a new mistress on whose bosom I drown my sorrows. You become fiendishly jealous and have a go at some unsuspecting gent—Peacock, perhaps—no, you wouldn’t like him with his daylights darkened. Better stick with the invalid. We are both desolate and realize--after, say, a week’s remorse—that we have made a wretched but fortunately not irreparable mistake.”

Sally turned and flounced across the room. Lady Willowby received a commanding look from her daughter. She picked up her netting and hurried out the door to tell Mellie and Derwent the news.

Monstuart strolled nonchalantly after Sally and continued speaking over her shoulder. “I come crawling back with my tail firmly tucked between my legs. We meet by careful chance on the street. I offer to carry home your fish. You accept—coldly, of course--but you deign to accept. At the door, I hint I could do with a drink. Your coolness begins to thaw. You relent and ask me in. Where would you like to hear your second proposal? Let’s make it right here, since you have cleared the way for privacy.”

Sally rounded on him. “I didn’t ask her to leave!”

Monstuart grabbed her hands, tilted his head in an attitude of disbelief, but didn’t contradict her. “Miss Hermitage, I realize I have offended you by my cavalier behavior in the past. Dare I hope—Oh, good, you’re smiling.”

Her lips trembled open in a smile. “You’re incorrigible!”

His hands slid up her arms. “Insensitive, inconsiderate, incoherent, insane, in love.”
His harsh face softened to something resembling gentleness. A lambent gleam glowed in his dark eyes, and when he spoke, his voice was husky. “What do you say, Sal?”

“I’ll consider your offer,”
she said primly, her eyes dancing with mischief.

Monstuart nodded blandly. “I’ll meet you on the strut tomorrow to tote home the fish. Don’t make it a whale, to teach me a lesson, will you? Shall we say—elevenish?
A
demain.”
He bowed and walked into the hallway.

Sally stood, unable to believe he had actually left. She ran into the hall after him and was pulled into his arms. “I couldn’t wait either,”
he said. “I have been wanting to do this since I first laid eyes on you.”

He crushed her against his chest and lowered his lips to hers. Her eyelids fluttered, and beneath the lashes he saw a gleam of uncertainty that thrilled him more than passion. His kiss was gentle, till he had calmed her alarm. When she began to warm to his embrace, it firmed to demand. Soon she was being mauled in a most satisfactory manner. During a brief hiatus in their embrace, Sally pulled away and looked at him from eyes glazed with love.

“I bet you haven’t even spoken to Papa—Sir Darrow, I mean.”

“I’ll stop in at his office and tell him. I have a ring I meant to bring along as well, but I forgot.”

“Monty!”

With a laugh, he pulled a large diamond ring from his pocket and slid it on her finger. “Consider this as a set of manacles.”

“Mellie got a tiara, too. You only had Derwent buy it in order to squander Mama’s money, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did. How else was I to get power over you?”

“I knew it!”

“You read me uncommonly well, Sally.”

She put her arm through his and led him off to tell her mother the news. “Bear in mind, milord. Between my mind-reading and my short temper, you shan’t get away with a thing.”

“I’m under the panther’s paw now.”

He looked remarkably pleased with this perilous position, and so did Miss Hermitage.

Copyright © 1989 by Joan Smith

Originally published by Fawcett Crest (ISBN 0449215881)

Electronically published in 2014 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads

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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.