The Fugitive Heiress (15 page)

“He isn’t home so it doesn’t signify. This place is like a tomb. Have you any more candles?”

“No, only the one.”

“Then we’ll make do. I’ll put the jug here on the nightstand, and we’ll share the mug. Mary wouldn’t have understood my wanting two—or might have understood too well. I fear she already believes me an unnatural trencherwoman.”

Teddy laughed. “Oh, Miss Westering, what a complete hand you are!”

“I think I must be,” she grinned, “for I have contrived this very neatly, have I not? Set that tray on the bed,” she added, pouring milk into the blue mug. “That way you may recline on your side in the manner of a Roman emperor while you eat. You will not want a chair.”

“I shall very likely never want a chair again!” he exclaimed. Following her instructions, he moved gingerly, as much to avoid oversetting the tray as for his own comfort.

“It will pass,” she said sympathetically. “I have vast experience of such matters. Do make yourself a sandwich of that bread and meat, Teddy.”

He stared at her while she pulled up a chair. “Vast experience, Miss Westering?”

“Indeed, and I wish you will call me Catheryn.” She paused. “Or perhaps you will prefer to call me Cathy. Grandpapa always did so, except when he was in a temper, and no one else does. I miss it.”

“I’d like that. Was he often in a temper? Like Richard?”

Ignoring the rider, she smiled reminiscently. “Grandpapa was very strict in his notions of behavior for well-brought-up females. I believe it is often so with gentlemen, even those who are lax in their own affairs. I’m afraid I was not always well-behaved.” She sighed. “Sometimes our man, Bert Ditchling, was able to bring me off before the tale reached Grandpapa’s ears, but when he could not …” She spread her hands expressively.

“But you must have hated your grandfather!”

“Do you hate Richard, Teddy?”

The question brought him up short, and he did not answer immediately, taking a large bite of his sandwich instead and munching slowly. Catheryn kept silent She offered him the mug, but he shook his head and swallowed.

“He’s not exactly first oars with me at the moment,” he answered reflectively, “but I don’t s’pose I hate him.”

“Well, of course you don’t. I think, if the truth be told, you have a great fondness for him.”

“I don’t know about that I think I
could
like him a great deal, but I’m not very well acquainted with him yet, you know. Mostly, when I do see him, he’s vexed with me. I wish we could be friends, but I daresay I’m too young.”

“Oh, Teddy!” Her heart was wrung. Seventeen years was a wide gulf for friendship to bridge, but surely the brothers could deal together better than this. She let the silence lengthen while she considered how to gain his confidence, then reached for an apple. Though she had brought nothing with which to peel it, Catheryn had not been brought up so nicely as to blush for the omission; however, she discovered another oversight when she took a large bite and juice dribbled down her chin. “Good gracious, Teddy, I forgot the napkins!”

“Use your sleeve,” he chuckled. She wrinkled her nose at him. “Oh, very well. There is a cloth on the wash-stand over there.” He pointed and she went to fetch it, groping in the dark corner. By the time she returned, he had begun on a chicken leg. “This is a jolly good meal, Cathy.”

“I’m glad you’re enjoying it I rather thought you might be hungry. I used to hate above all things to be sent to bed without supper.”

“More than a whipping?”

“Oh, much! Whippings were always quickly over and done, but it seemed to take forever to get through a night without supper. I enjoy food too much, I expect.”

“Well, I should much prefer going to bed without supper to one of Richard’s thrashings, if I had a choice between the two.” He paused, but Catheryn made no comment. “Has he said what he means to do now?” he asked in a small voice.

“No, but he’s really had no chance. There were guests for dinner and then a ball, you know.”

“A ball! But it’s so early. Didn’t you go?”

So Catheryn told him about the ball. Certain that the earl would disapprove if she repeated the whole sordid tale, she left out the choicest details and merely said Lady Caroline had been taken suddenly ill. She quickly found she had underestimated the astuteness of a young man lately home from Eton.

“Staging one of her freaks for Bryon, you mean.” He nodded wisely. “I bet you’ve left out all the good bits, too.”

“And just how do you know so much about Lady Caroline, Master Sly Boots?”

“Oh, Rags tells me all the best stories.”

“Rags?”

“He’s my best friend at Eton. A bang-up fellow! In fact, he’s the one….” His gaze slid momentarily from her face to the tray, but he picked up the wedge of cake and went on with studied nonchalance. “We call him Rags ’cause he thinks he’s such a beau. Anyways, he’s connected with the Melbournes one way or another and always has new bits to tell us about Crazy Caro. Like when she visited Bryon at his lodgings dressed like a page boy with red pantaloons and a plume in her cap. Bryon didn’t know what to do!”

But Catheryn had not missed the pause or the heightened color, visible even in the dim candlelight, and refused to be diverted. “Tell me something, dear,” she said gently, watching him closely. “Is Rags smaller than you are?” He shot her a quick look but seemed hesitant to meet her steady gaze and looked away again. “Is he the one you fought with, Teddy?” The boy went very still. “He is, isn’t he?” she persisted. “You staged the whole performance between you, didn’t you. Oh, Teddy!” The last was said with great sympathy and he looked at her again, but the color had drained from his face.

“You won’t tell him, will you?” It was barely a whisper. She had no doubt to whom he referred.

“No. Not now, in any case. I hope one day you will be able to tell him yourself.”

“I couldn’t!” His eyes widened with dismay and he shook his head. “He would—oh gosh!—I don’t know what he would do, but I can’t tell him. Not ever! And you mustn’t, Cathy.”

“I can’t promise that, Teddy, but I do promise never to mention it without discussing it with you first.” The boy looked skeptical. “I can’t be fairer than that. I don’t make promises easily, dear, but I do keep the ones I make. Will you trust me?”

“I think so.”

“Good enough. Will you tell me just why you cooked up such a scheme? I hope Rags wasn’t really hurt.”

“Course not,” he retorted with boyish scorn. “Only, we didn’t think we’d have to do it but the one time though. I’d already been to Keate for fighting. A couple of times actually,” he admitted with a lurking twinkle. “But I didn’t start the others. They just sort of happened.”

“I see.”

“Well, you probably don’t. I’ve discovered that females don’t, as a rule, understand that sort of thing above half. Anyways, Keate said not to let it happen again or he’d send me off home. So we did, and he did, and here I am.”

“Right where you want to be, restricted to your bedchamber with an aching backside,” Catheryn mocked.

Teddy chuckled. “Well, I did want to come home and, sore or not, I’m here. The others all talk about their families, and I hardly know mine. I only wish Richard didn’t hate me.”

“Oh, Teddy, don’t be nonsensical! Dambroke doesn’t hate you. To be sure, he is angry with you, but that’s a very different thing, believe me. It wouldn’t be possible for him to achieve such wrath if he didn’t care about you.”

“Well,” Teddy confided, rubbing his backside with a grimace, “if I am to know how much he cares by how angry he gets, he must care
prodigiously!
”

At that, Catheryn laughed out loud. Teddy watched her, grinning as she tried to control herself. But when she hiccoughed, he, too, began to laugh, sending her off again into fresh paroxysms.

“And
what
, may I ask, is the meaning of this?”

The laughter ceased abruptly as two guilty faces turned toward the grim figure in the doorway. Dambroke shut the door and moved into the circle of candlelight. “Mr. Ashley’s rest is hard-earned,” he said harshly. “There is no need to disturb him.” Catheryn swallowed uncomfortably, waiting for him to continue. Teddy seemed to realize that his lounging position would not meet with approval and slid off the bed to stand beside her. “Have you lost your tongues?” the earl demanded angrily. They looked at one another, but neither spoke. “Very well. Perhaps I was not plain enough.” He looked directly at Catheryn. “What are you doing here, Miss Westering? I gave specific orders that Edward was not to be disturbed.”

“You said Teddy must keep to his bedchamber until breakfast,” she replied bravely. “He has not left it.”

Dambroke’s jaw was rigid, his eyes icy. “I do not wish to quibble, Miss Westering, but I said he was to be left alone and not mollycoddled.”

“Until morning, my lord. It is past midnight, I promise you. I should not have dreamed of coming before,” she added sweetly. His face relaxed slightly, and she sought to press her advantage. “Why did you come, sir?”

“To find you. Your door was clicking off the latch. When there was no answer to my knock, I looked in.” He grimaced. “I knew you were not downstairs, since the lights have been extinguished, so it took no great mental effort to conclude that you had chosen to defy my orders. And don’t try my patience by insisting that you have not done so.”

“Perhaps I have not precisely followed your orders,” she admitted. “I do think you were a little severe, but we needn’t discuss that now. It is not my business to dispute your notions of discipline, after all.”

“Certainly not!”

“No, sir. But perhaps, since you are here, you might relieve Teddy’s mind a bit. Have you decided what you mean to do next?” The boy stiffened beside her.

“I have. I’ve arranged for a tutor, a very strict one,” he added with a stern look at his brother.

But Teddy relaxed. “Then I may stay in London. Must I begin lessons at once?”

“Of course. You’re not on holiday. I met Lord Elman from across the square tonight I think you know his sons.”

Teddy made a face. “Them!” Encountering a warning glint from Dambroke’s eye, he went on more civilly, “I know them, sir. Philip is eight, and Clarence is a year or two older than I am.” Catheryn noted with amusement that his expression still indicated a poor opinion of both.

“You will share their tutor, Mr. Appleby,” the earl said. “It will be good for you. They say the older boy has the makings of quite a scholar.”

“He’s a bloody prig.” The words, muttered low, did not, Catheryn realized gratefully, reach Dambroke’s ears. Hastily, she pointed out that Teddy would enjoy having friends nearby. He looked doubtful. “I s’pose so, Cathy. I just hope old Appleby ain’t too strict.”

“How did you call Miss Westering, Edward? Surely, I misheard you!”

“It’s quite all right, my lord,” Catheryn interposed calmly, though Teddy colored up to his ears. “I gave him leave to address me by my nickname.”

Dambroke cocked his head with an ironic and reminiscent smile. “Did you now? It must be that, once again, my sense of propriety intrudes. I cannot approve this young rattle’s addressing a lady of your years in such a style.”

“A lady of my years! You make me sound a positive antidote, my lord!”

“Not precisely an antidote, my dear,” he replied with a faint smile. Catheryn’s brows rose comically.

“If we are to discuss the proper way to address a lady!”

“We shall discuss it no further tonight Teddy may call you Cousin Cathy, if you like, but now I think we must all get some sleep.” Dambroke did not speak again as he accompanied her downstairs to her bedchamber, but she was amazed and a little frightened when he followed her inside and shut the door. “You need not fear for your honor,” he said. “It would take Gabriel’s horn to wake Tiffany, but my mother is a tolerably light sleeper and will hear you if you scream. I’ve something to say to you.”

“I do not fear you, sir,” she muttered, but she braced herself so obviously that his smile mocked her.

“You deserve a scold, Catheryn,” he said sternly. “Your interference has not improved a very trying day, and you needn’t poker up like that. It won’t help. What the boy did is inexcusable, and you said yourself that it is not your business to dispute my notions of discipline. Yet, by your actions, that is precisely what you have done!”

“Well, I do dispute them, then!” she retorted hotly. “I think you were much too severe. That boy needs love and understanding. He needs your guidance, my lord, but guidance with a light hand on the rein, not a heavy whiphand!” She was astonished to feel tears springing to her eyes and turned away abruptly that he might not see them. Blinking rapidly and striving for control, she waited for him to go on, certain that she had put him in a rage. But his voice was calm.

“Catheryn, I truly had not meant to scold. Perhaps I was too severe with the boy. I’ll admit he puts me in a rage. And tonight, after the melodramatics at the Heathcote affair … would you believe Caro slashed her wrists after you left?”

“Merciful heavens!” Her own emotions forgotten, she turned to face him again. “She must be demented!”

“You’ll get no argument from me. Some poor fool gave her a glass of water. She smashed it and cut herself with the shards.” He spread his hands. “Perhaps you understand why I was angry at finding you with Teddy after that.”

“Oh, I understand, my lord.” She thought she understood him better than he understood himself. It is sometimes difficult for a man to recognize his own pride, and Dambroke was a proud man. His mother accused him of arrogance. His sister said he took his own authority too seriously. But, however it was described, Catheryn knew he was proud of his name, his rank, and his position. Teddy had dared to embarrass him, and she had flouted his authority. No wonder he had been angry! She kept her opinions to herself for once, saying only, “I still think you should talk with Teddy instead of shouting at him. He knows he has misbehaved and is truly sorry, you know.”

“If he’s not, he’s got a tougher hide than I ever had.”

“Was your father very strict?” she asked, willing to change the subject.

“He had the Devil’s own temper. And take that impertinent look off your face, miss. I know I’ve inherited it.” He smiled at her, relaxing a bit. “Papa wasn’t much interested in us. Too busy developing some of the finest succession houses in the country. I climbed one of his prize pear trees once and sampled several green pears before I got sick. I thought I was dying and shouted for the head gardener, who immediately sent for Papa. I had scarred the bark with my boots and broken off two of the lower branches. Dear Papa stood over me, ostentatiously cutting a switch from one of them until I finished being sick. There was also the time I took a shortcut through his rose garden on horseback. I remember both occasions vividly. I was sorry then, just as Teddy is sorry now.”