The Wicked Guardian (17 page)

“Well, after all,” said Clare, gratified at the sight of her goal attained, “his country house is not very far from here, is it?”

“In Kent, you know. But of course he does have properties everywhere.” Sir Alexander nodded wisely. “A great landowner, and when Miss Morton’s land and his are joined, there will be few wealthier men in England.”

As they watched, the curricle began to turn, and suddenly veered in their direction. Bringing his horses to a precise halt before her, Benedict touched his hat and nodded to Alex. “I had not expected to see you here in Bath, Miss Penryck,” said Benedict calmly. “I must speak to Austin about diluting my instructions.”

“I had heard nothing from
you
, Lord Choate,’
⁵
said Clare innocently, “and I felt that I must have misunderstood Mr. Austin’s letter, even though I am persuaded he quoted you exactly.”

Benedict held his impatient horses easily—more easily, in truth, than he held his temper. But all he said was, “Ferguson, I would be much obliged to you if you escorted my ward back to her lodgings in Milsom Street. I must see Lady Thane settled, and then, believe me”—he glared at Clare—“I shall wait upon you directly.”

Lady Thane’s carriage was already out of sight. But Benedict backed his horses in the narrow way, and turning them precisely, drove into the side street and was soon also out of sight.

“Well,” said Sir Alex heavily, “I must hasten to put myself in the right with him. I do not think he will object when I explain that Lady Courtenay has seen that all was proper, and certainly you have your maid with you at all times.” He began to escort her back to the Peek apartment. “No, I fancy that even such a stickler as Choate will find nothing amiss.”

Clare, once upstairs with the Misses Peek, was not nearly so sanguine as Alex had been. “He’s here!” she announced to her hostesses. When they sorted it out, at last, from Clare’s alternate fits of dread and anticipation, and they realized that Lord Choate was indeed coming to call on Clare in this apartment
within the hour
, in moments the sisters had donned their shawls and their bonnets, and, armed with an ostentatious shopping list, scuttled down the steps in a flurry, leaving only Budge to succor her mistress and support her in the coming ordeal.

Miss Peek’s last words were, “Now, you know that Lord Choate is an exceedingly fine gentleman, and your guardian. There is naught amiss in your receiving him alone. But ... I do wish we had gone back to Penryck Abbey when Mr. Austin told us that was the thing to do. I fear Lord Choate will be much exercised!”

After she was left alone, Clare agreed. She had no regrets about staying here in Bath, for she had at last gained Lord Choate’s attention. She sat down on the edge of a chair to await the outcome of what she considered would be a very painful interview.

Budge at last announced him. “Lord Choate!” she said, barely staying in the room long enough to pronounce the name.

And Clare, holding to the arms of the chair with white-knuckled hands, found that the famed Penryck resolution had basely and incontinently fled.

1
9
.

Benedict entered as the maid scuttled away. He stood in the center of the room, looking around him at the shabby furniture, the threadbare rug, and began to draw off his gloves.

He turned at last to her and lifted an eyebrow. “Well, no greeting? I must confess,” he said, with every appearance of amiability, “that I had thought you not quite so juvenile as to sit gaping at me as though I were a dragon.”

Somewhat encouraged by his easy words, Clare felt her self-assurance creeping back. “I do wonder at your coming to Bath,” she said ingenuously, “for I had not thought you one to dose yourself.”

“I am not,” he said steadily. “Nor do I intend to take the waters. I rode over to Penryck Abbey three days ago, expecting to find you there.”

“But you know about the ceiling, sir?”

“I do,” he said, and for the first time a touch of grimness crept into his voice. “You will be relieved to know that it is entirely repaired. But Austin agreed with me that his letter to you must have gone astray. Or else,” he said deliberately, “you would have returned to Dorset.” She sat silently, looking down at the hands folded in her lap. She waited for the storm to break over her head, for already she knew Choate well enough to understand that when he was most amiable, a swift change for the worse in his mood could be expected.

“I did not think it mattered,” she said, with an appearance of innocence, “whether I went one day or another. There was nothing in Dorset that needed me, after all.”

“Whereas I suppose the Pump Room here did?” he said with a rising inflection. “But let me tell you this—I do not like what I have been hearing about you. A fast life is not proper when you are in mourning. Even someone more hen-witted than you would know that.”

“But, sir, I have not been feeling well. And anyone can take the waters for one’s health, mourning or not.”

“So”—he glared at her—“that is your excuse. Very well, gossip may be wrong in what it spreads all over England. But I fail to see what contribution meeting with known rakes has to do with restoring your health.”

Harry Rowse’s meeting had indeed provided the spur that brought Benedict here to Bath. She was hard put to hide her satisfaction. But now that Benedict was here—what then? She had no plan for the next step.

“Known rakes,” she said. “How can gossip have exaggerated so much? Unless, of course, they mean Sir Alexander Ferguson? I did not know he had such a reputation, sir, or I should not have walked with him.”

“You know I don’t mean Ferguson.” He took a turn around the tiny room, seeming surprised at coming abruptly to a table before he knew it. Then he said in an altered tone, “I am glad to see that the waters have been of assistance. You appear to me to be quite recovered.”

“Bath,” she said demurely, “has done me a world of good.”

He watched her uncertainly for a moment. He had come to Bath in a high flight of anger, overborne Lady Thane’s objections to traveling this far, and posted down to Bath to scoop up his ward and put her in her place. He had dark suspicions about her motives, and found that he was not quite sure how to deal with her.

Blast the Penryck lawyer who had gotten him into such a fix! And he could wish that Primula had not been quite so
married
, so that she could have taken the girl off his hands.

His eyes glinted under the black bars of brows as he said, “You will be pleased to learn that the parlor ceiling at Penryck Abbey has been replastered, and new carpets have been installed on the upper floor.”

“Thank you.” She raised her head then and opened her eyes at him. “But you did not take Mr. Austin’s word...”

“Not precisely. As I said, I went to Penryck Abbey myself to inspect the repairs and see whether all was suitable for your return.”

“You did?” She faltered.

“I do take my duties seriously,” he said. He pulled out a chair and set it down facing her. “Now, then, if I could just persuade you that my intentions are better than you think, I should consider myself a success.”

“I had no thought that you were not a responsible guardian,” she said, once more in charity with him. “To think that you would have taken the trouble! But you expected to find me there? How I wish I had been!”

“No doubt,” he said wryly. “But you may rely upon my careful attention to your welfare. Whether I am here in Bath or in London.”

“But ... you will escort me back to Penryck Abbey, will you not?”

“Certainly not.”

“But ... anything can happen, sir. We might be beset by footpads—”

“Not on the highway,” he said quellingly. “Footpads are in London. Along with child thieves, purse snatchers, and other manner of criminals. On the highway, on your way back to Dorset, you might meet only highwaymen.”

“And you would not protect me from them?” It was a small little cry.

“My child,” he said, “I would have the strongest sympathy for the highwayman. Lest you think me captious, I must tell you that while I was at Penryck Abbey, I made a discovery.”

“What was that, sir?”

“I discovered that I was right, all the time. I cannot trust you. I do not understand what you hope to gain, but certainly I must keep a much stronger guard upon you than I had at first expected to do.”

Her heart sinking, she managed to moisten her lips and say, “I do not understand.”

“If you are determined upon a wayward life, I must recommend that you take better care in dealing with your accomplices. For you must know that you have been sadly mistaken if you think that Tom Swann would not talk.”

Truly bewildered, she shook her head. “You speak in riddles, Lord Choate.”

‘Tom confessed all. I found the pole, you know. The pole with which you loosened the ceiling plaster. Ah, I am gratified to see that you do understand me now. But you should have removed the traces of plaster before you turned the disposal of the ... the weapon, I should say, I suppose, over to your stablehand. He utterly broke down when I asked him how the plaster came to be loosened so far from the source of the water.”

“But it was darker there!” she protested hotly.

“Ah, but it was an older stain, and not fresh.” He grinned with satisfaction. She was dismayed. She had given herself away with her protest, instead of denying the entire episode. She had wondered whether anyone had seen her. Now she had the answer. Tom must have been watching through the window all the while she worked at the ceiling, once where it was truly wet, and the other mistakenly.

“I should fire Tom if I were you,” he said conversationally, “for if he is faithless in little, he will be faithless in much.”

“That is an odious platitude,” she said with returning spirit. “He was not an accomplice. You must know that I should never put such a burden on a servant. I confess that I did the loosening of the plaster. But I did it alone.”

“I am glad to hear it. It is always injudicious to put yourself in the hands of another. Especially a servant. He did say that he had watched you, and you did not know he was there.”

“You tricked me!”

“Indeed I did,” he said evenly. “You must learn to be wary of traps, if we are to deal together.”

“You admit that you will set traps for me in the future?”

“It will not be necessary,” he said calmly. “I am sure you have gained your goal, to stay here in Bath, and while I do not like it, I am not prepared to learn to what lengths you would go to thwart my instructions.” He gazed at her thoughtfully. “I confess you have managed to surprise me.”

She pounced upon one word he had said. “Stay here in Bath? What do you mean, sir? Am I not to go back to Penryck Abbey?”

“I fear that if you did, I might find the entire place burned down, and since I am responsible for keeping your assets intact, I should not like to be criticized for allowing you sufficient rein, So I have decided to let you stay here in Bath.”

“Do you mean it? Oh, you are so good, sir!” she said, jumping up and reaching for his hand.

“Not at all,” he said. “I simply want to be reasonably sure that you will get into no more mischief.”

“But Miss Peek will see that I’m all right.”

“That reminds me,” he said gravely. “I fear that I have reposed too much confidence in Miss Peek’s influence over you. So I shall remove you from her charge.”

Her eyes, fixed upon him, filled with tears. She could not see the hesitation that flitted over his face, but it lasted only a moment. He moved as though to say something to her, his hand outstretched to her, but he changed his mind and reverted abruptly to the chilly note that she knew well but which had so far been absent from this conversation. “I have made arrangements for you to lodge elsewhere in town.” He glanced around him with scarcely veiled distaste at the small shabby rooms. “With Lady Thane,” he said. “She has come down at my request and taken a house in Laura Place. So you will find yourself much more comfortable with her, I know.”

She could not stop the tears that slipped rapidly down her cheeks.

“If you turn into a watering pot,” he said repressively, “I shall regret my leniency.”

“No, no,” she said over the lump in her throat. “I shall not cry.” The tears slipping down her cheeks were signs of helpless anger, and not of gratitude, as he seemed to think. “So I am to be placed with Lady Thane? And what does my godmother say to that? Or did you give her any choice?”

He surveyed her critically. “I do not know where your misunderstanding arises, but I assure you that I have no influence over what Lady Thane does.”

“Whereas you have every power over me,” said Clare.

“As you say.”

“But what then of your plans?” Clare resumed after a small brimming silence. “Are you staying in Bath?”

“I am not. I ... have things to do in Kent.”

“Oh, yes,” said Clare, nodding her head wisely. “For your marriage. I thought it must have already taken place, from the expectations I understood you to have?”

“As you see, it has not. But Miss Morton is planning a great fete at her mother’s home in Essex, and I am expected to be in attendance.”

“But you do not wish to?”

He grimaced slightly. Then, recollecting himself, he once more donned the impassive mask that was almost a part of him. “It is my duty, so I am told, to assist.”

It was not what she expected to say, but Clare’s next words surprised her. “You’re full of duty,” she flung at him. “That’s the only word I’ve ever heard of substance from you. Duty!”

“You are quite right,” he said, adding outrageously, “I must commend it to you. Duty, properly carried out, is most satisfying. I am sure, if you thought well upon the matter, you would discover certain duties that come to your hand. Such as obedience!”

Thoroughly angry now, she flared, “And it is your duty, I collect, to watch my every move?”

“No,” he said with a smile she could only consider gothic, “I must deprive myself of that duty.” Bowing, he took his leave, and she heard him passing down the steps. But she herself buried her face in her hands and let the tears flow as they would.