A Strange Likeness (20 page)

‘Big bruiser, aren't you?' Knaresborough was judicial. ‘Spar with Ralf, I hear. I should like to see that.'

‘I am not his equal, m'lord.' Alan smiled, avoiding Eleanor's eye—he always seemed to be doing that these days. He wondered what she made of the man—and why he was here.

‘Don't serve me gammon,' said Knaresborough roughly. ‘Deceive others, if you please, but not me. Servants talk, you know. I hear you buy mills and cozen Rothschild's—or so Hart tells me. What convict sired you, sir? I should like to meet him.'

He was so superb that it was impossible to take offence.

‘My father is anyone's equal, m'lord.'

‘So I should suppose. You bought Outhwaite's after you bammed him, and won those shops in Brinkley by drinking and wrestling. My agent told me that story.'

‘You didn't tell me about Brinkley, Alan,' said Sir Hart reproachfully.

‘Close-mouthed, too,' said Knaresborough. He stared hard at Alan. ‘I heard that you looked like Ned. God knows why anyone should think so. It's Sir Beauchamp, here, that you're the image of. I remember him, just. Oh, you have his look, boy—now how did you get that? No, don't answer me. I don't want to know—yet. Except that if you
are
like Sir Beauchamp, God help us all. You shoot, sir?'

‘Yes,' said Alan, fascinated. This time he looked at Eleanor, who was smiling at him. The smile said, He likes you.

‘Then you shall shoot with me and tell me of your wickednesses in London.'

‘I have to return there fairly soon, m'lord.'

‘None of that, boy. You must come to Castle Ashcourt.
London will not go away and the world does not need your guiding hand on it all the time. Let fools have their folly for a little… You laugh, sir?' he added, seeing Alan begin to smile at this bravado. ‘Pour me some tea, young man; I'm tired of brandy—and where is Ned? At the prize-fight, I suppose. Why are you not there, young man?'

‘Work called, I fear.'

‘And you answered. Tell me of Sydney. I had a friend there once, Lachlan Macquarie. You have heard of him?'

‘He was my father's friend.'

The heavy brows rose. ‘He would be, I'll be bound.' He rounded on Eleanor. ‘Do we bore you, young lady?'

She smiled up at him, nothing daunted. ‘No, indeed, m'lord. Not one of the three of you bores me—I have much to learn from you.'

‘Well said.' He rounded on Alan again, and began to question him about Sydney and his home. He was indecently well-informed, but wore his learning lightly. Something about his frank manner seemed familiar, tweaked at Alan's consciousness.

Personal matters over, Knaresborough began to talk politics. ‘I'm glad I'm not in the Cabinet now,' he told them largely, pouring fresh tea for himself. ‘And so should you be, Hart. No true gentlemen left.'

He swung on Alan. ‘By gentlemen, young man, I mean those with a proper feeling for their country, be they Earls, mill-owners—or adventurers like yourself.'

Eleanor laughed and Alan smiled.

‘I am not an adventurer, m'lord.'

‘If you are not, I never saw one. There are too few like you left here. England will fail without them. Enough for now. I suppose that I have my usual room, Hart? I will see you at dinner, young man, and you, too, Miss Eleanor,
where we shall talk nonsense before the ladies retire. Afterwards we shall drink glass for glass, Master Alan, and see who is the better man.'

He bowed to Sir Hart and strode from the Gallery.

‘Well said.' Sir Hart smiled, amused at Alan's expression.

‘Very well,' returned Alan. ‘Is he always like that?'

‘Always.'

‘Does he really expect me to drink with him? I am not usually a drinking man.'

‘You must. His head is as hard as his heart—but he is a
nonpareil
. Do not be surprised if he asks you to spar with Ralf for him.'

‘Not after a night's drinking, I hope.'

Eleanor laughed ruefully at that. Like Alan, she could see that Sir Hart was tired. She rose, and said gently, ‘Grandfather, if you are to endure Knaresborough at dinner, you must rest for a little. With your permission, Alan and I will leave you. ‘

He waved them away. On the stairs, Alan said abruptly to Eleanor, ‘Do you like him?'

‘Knaresborough?' She considered. ‘I don't think liking comes into it. He's always kind to me—and to mother—but he is usually abominable to Ned. He and our father were enemies, I think. It's odd, he frightens many people, but he doesn't frighten me.'

Later, in his room, pondering over the meeting with the Belted Earl, and what Eleanor had said to him afterwards, he wondered whether Eleanor knew, without knowing, as it were, that Knaresborough was not her suitor but her father.

 

Later that night, after the women had left, the men sat drinking as Knaresborough had promised. Midnight came
and went, and the cloth was covered with dead men—empty bottles left by their carousal. Stacy had collapsed long ago, his head on the table, sleeping happily. The two local landowners who were also guests were upright still, but glassy-eyed. Sir Hart, excused from drinking by virtue of his age, sat there watching them.

Knaresborough, steady still, had his eyes on Alan, who was lying back in his chair, his face ashen, his eyes glittering, upright only by an effort of will, but refusing to satisfy the monstrous Knaresborough by collapsing before he did.

M'lord, smiling grimly, pushed the bottle over to him again.

‘Another,' he ordered, watching the elaborate care with which Alan poured the liquid into his empty glass. The door opened and Robert Harshaw entered, Ned hanging on his arm.

‘He would come in,' said Robert ruefully. ‘There was no gainsaying him. We have made a day of it,' he added unnecessarily.

Ned lifted his head and stared at the littered table and the ruined company. He was still conscious, just. The ride home through the night had revived him a little.

‘Well, well,' he said, nastily for him, pointing at Alan. ‘So, the paragon is drunk, I see. The bottle is not kept from him. Tell me, Grandfather, what should I do to be so favoured?'

‘Holding your tongue might help,' answered Knaresborough calmly before Sir Hart could speak.

Ned's laugh was short and ugly. ‘You have my face, Alan, and you take my place, I see. Where is your reprimand for what I have been doing, Alan? Is Sir Beauchamp not with us tonight?'

‘Leave it, Ned,' said Alan, his articulation over-perfect.

‘No, I will not. Why did I bring you here?'

‘Leave it,' said Alan again. ‘It was your wish—and you will be sorry for what you have said in the morning.'

‘He will not remember in the morning,' prophesied Knaresborough. ‘I know him.'

Ned swayed away from Robert. ‘Oh, you play God, too, Knaresborough. What ill wind brought you here?'

‘I might have wished to see your face on another more worthy of it,' said Knaresborough, never loath to stir the pot. Sir Hart winced, and Alan closed his eyes at the sight of Ned's face, a mask of agony as all his shortcomings rose before him to reproach him.

‘I did not have his advantages,' he said hoarsely, pointing at Alan. ‘No harsh father. Nor his either,' he added, pointing at the sleeping Stacy. ‘I have no brains, and no steadiness either.'

His mood changed suddenly, he was careless Ned again. ‘I am sorry that you did not come with us, Alan. It was a good fight and the Brinkley boy beat the London bruiser—and I won good money on it.'

‘Come, Ned,' urged Robert. ‘To bed, old fellow. I am tired myself,' he said apologetically to the table.

‘No,' said Ned, ‘I shall be comfortable here.' He sat by Stacy, put his head on the table and fell asleep on the instant.

‘We must all go to bed,' said Knaresborough suddenly, looking at Alan's sad face. ‘For the cub has spoilt the party. I shall let you off, sir,' he said to Alan. ‘You do not deserve my mock as well as his.'

He walked Alan to his room, where an anxious Gurney helped him to bed. Ned and Stacy remained sleeping at the table below.

Knaresborough was right. Ned did not remember in the morning, but Alan would have left for London had not
Sir Hart begged him to stay. Because of Eleanor he agreed, although with a heavy heart: a heart which grew no lighter for although Ned's manner to him was as cheerful and friendly as ever, he knew that beneath it, hidden from Ned when he was sober, lay black resentment.

O
n the morning after the drinking bout Eleanor took Alan for a walk on the moor immediately outside the grounds of Temple Hatton. She was troubled because she had overheard one of the servants talking about Ned's reproaches to Alan the night before. She was also angry because she knew that Knaresborough had coerced Alan into the drinking bout which had preceded it.

These days she was becoming more and more aware of the undercurrents in the world in which she lived. Consequently she said nothing to Alan about either event, but he was immediately aware that something was troubling her.

Their walk ended on a wide plateau at the edge of a cliff which gave them a superb view across that part of Yorkshire. Eleanor stopped beside a flat-topped boulder and invited him to sit beside her.

She thought that he looked tired and sad, but Alan's first words showed that he had lost nothing of his acute understanding of her.

‘What is worrying you, Eleanor?' he asked.

‘Nothing and everything,' she told him, giving him an
odd little smile and an answer which he might have made himself to a difficult question.

He took her hand. ‘I know that it's wrong of me to be curious, but…'

‘No,' she said, interrupting him. ‘I will give you a straight answer. It's Lord Knaresborough. I think that he brings trouble with him. He's not like Sir Hart…although Sir Hart values him. He uses people, I think, although he can be kind. He's always been kind to me,' she added a trifle inconsequentially.

Alan thought that he knew the reason why Knaresborough was kind to her—but that was not a story for him to tell.

‘I admire him,' he said, ‘but that does not mean that I like him. He would be a good friend, but a dreadful enemy. He likes to test people.'

He began to stroke her hand. ‘You are not to worry about him—or me. I can look after myself.'

She then said something which he was to remember later. ‘Where he is concerned, no one is safe. Be careful, Alan.'

He kissed the hand he held, and then leaned over a little to kiss her cheek. The scent of her roused him; it was so sweet that he was again in danger of forgetting himself. She turned willingly into his arms, and there, alone, overlooking the wild beauty below them, he made gentle love to her, kissing and stroking her so that she might feel pleasure but not be frightened.

It was sweet torment for both of them, until he was the one to break away. Eleanor, in the first throes of active love, was unable to deny him anything, and the time for them to progress beyond nursery matters was not yet.

Soon, he told himself when they walked back, hand in hand, I shall ask for her hand in marriage—but he knew
that before he could there were mysteries to be solved, and ghosts from the past to be laid.

Eleanor was right: Knaresborough
was
dangerous. Two mornings later Alan found himself fighting Ralf, not sparring with him. Knaresborough had said that he wished to see a real bout, so he engineered one by deceiving Ralf when he met him in the stables after he had watched him sparring with Alan.

‘I hear that the Australian boy is your master,' he said, jeering at him a little, ‘and spares you when you spar with him.'

Now this was true, but Alan had said nothing of it to anyone. Wounded to the quick, Ralf denied the accusation fiercely.

Knaresborough shook his head at him. ‘Easy to prove it,' he said. ‘I'll give you good money if you can persuade him to engage in a real fight with you tomorrow morning. And if you beat him fair and square I'll treble your reward.'

‘Fair and square, then. I'll tell him I want a real fight,' said Ralf, and so he informed Alan—to have Alan refuse him until he understood that he would have to agree in order to soothe Ralf's feelings, so casually plundered by Knaresborough.

He said nothing to anyone of his dismay. He knew that once in a real fight he would be unable to restrain himself, and would go for Ralf with all his strength and all his cunning—which was why he only ever sparred. But there was no way in which he could gainsay either Ralf or Knaresborough, so the next day he dressed himself for the fight and went to the moor beyond the House—to discover an eager crowd was waiting for him.

Besides the estate workers and the servants from the House there were gentlemen and labourers from Brinkley
and other local villages come to see the fun—but the news had been kept from the women, he later found.

Everything was to be done in proper form: Knaresborough had seen to that. It was he who had arranged for the crowd to be present, and for betting to be organised.

Alan knew, even before the bout began, that, however much he had promised himself to spare Ralf, once he was in the ring with him he would have only one idea in his head—to win it. Quite early on he knew that Ralf was his for the taking—he was older and slow; his fine edge had gone. Alan also knew that the pugilist who had taught him in Sydney had been right—he possessed the hard malevolence needed to be a champion, as well as the strength and the skill.

But when he turned Ralf for the last time, readying him for the final knock-out blow, Knaresborough's face came into view, and he saw that Knaresborough knew it, too, and could scarcely wait for the final blow which would defeat and humiliate Ralf—and complete his pleasure.

The killing rage against Ralf which he had built up during the bout was in an instant directed against himself and Knaresborough. He would not be manipulated in order to provide a Roman holiday for an unprincipled patrician by humiliating Ralf, whose last remaining and only pride was in his skill.

Coldly and deliberately he turned the rage on himself, and so that no one should suspect that he was throwing the fight he changed it, so that he was exposed to Ralf's most punishing blows.

Suddenly he was lying, half-fuddled, on the ground, supported by someone's strong arms which did not belong to either Ned or Stacy, his seconds. The same strong arms were lifting him on to a bench and were beginning
to sponge his face. His senses steadied and he knew that it was Knaresborough who was ministering to him and holding the others back.

‘No,' said Alan feebly, trying to push him away, but failing. ‘No, not you. I don't want you.'

‘Yes,' retorted Knaresborough, his voice low, so that the others surrounding them should not hear. ‘I know what you did, if no one else does. You will not be managed, I see. You are Sir Beauchamp's best. Be still, that I may help you.'

‘No,' said Alan, turning his head away from him. ‘Not you nor any man shall pull my strings. Ralf is not a toy for me to maul and break for your pleasure. Fight him yourself—or leave him alone. I'll not do your dirty work for you.'

‘He has not addled your wits, I see,' said Knaresborough, still sponging Alan's face. ‘And you are right to try to shame me. Must I apologise to you, then?'

‘Apologise to Ralf, not to me.'

‘Oh, Ralf does not need apologies. He will be well rewarded now that you have thrown the fight.'

The killing rage swept through Alan again, despite his weakness.

‘That is a vile thing to say. Mind me. When I recover I shall strike you down for that, Earl though you are.'

Knaresborough stared at him. ‘I believe you would. I will tell him that I was wrong to pit you at one another—not to escape your blows but because I see that Ralf is a man, too, in your mind. Let me help you up.'

Despite himself weakness had him taking Knaresborough's arm to rise. He found he was facing Ralf.

Ralf glared at Knaresborough, his face set. ‘I shall not take your money, m'lord. I did not win the fight—he gave it to me most cunningly. Why, I don't know, only that
he did. Until then he had me for the asking. He was never mine to beat, not now, nor when I was in my prime.'

‘Do not say so,' returned Alan. ‘You won fair and square and I shall spar with you when I am fit again. No, do not argue with me. I was wrong to agree to fight you. Take his money—as much as you can get of it. He owes you more than that.'

‘Yes,' said Knaresborough, ‘and I was wrong to set you at each other for my pleasure. Had I asked you both straight that would have been different, but I did not. I ask your pardon, Ralf.'

‘That is nobly said, m'lord,' said Ralf.

Knaresborough put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a purse of guineas. ‘You shall get drunk for both of us, Ralf. Now let us get him to the House.'

 

Alan did not come down from his room until the afternoon. By then the news of the fight was known to everyone. Eleanor met him in the garden and exclaimed at his black eye, swollen face, split lip and damaged hands.

‘Oh, Alan, I was angry when we missed our ride this morning. You told me once that you could not equal Ralf in a fight, so why did you try?'

They had been riding together the previous day and they had made gentle love again. Each time the power of what they were doing struck Eleanor anew, and each time it was stronger. Being in love was hard, not easy, she found. She had a curious desire to
be
Alan. She wanted to be lost in him, but did not know how, only that after a time mere kissing became unsatisfactory—more than that was needed, but the possible nature of the more frightened her.

‘You will not be fit to ride with me tomorrow,' she said sorrowfully.

Alan tried to smile at her, but smiling hurt, so he stopped. ‘Never mind,' he said. ‘It will not be long before I am fit again.'

Since nothing else was possible, he allowed his eyes to caress her to make up for his hands not being available. Knaresborough, watching them together—the party was assembling for tea on the lawn—said to Sir Hart, ‘So that is why he came here—against his better judgement, no doubt. For he must suspect the meaning of the likeness.'

‘Yes,' said Sir Hart painfully. ‘I am sure that, but for Eleanor, he would never have visited Temple Hatton. Now, with Ned's hidden resentment revealed, he stays only for her. And me, a little, I think.'

‘The sooner you tell him the truth, the better. My care is for Eleanor, as well as for him, as you must know. She deserves him, and must not lose him to his sense of honour—which is strong.'

‘Yes—but you must understand that I have asked him nothing of his origins, and until then all must be supposition. I fear that he might tell me nothing. I also fear that he may believe Eleanor to be his cousin—with all the consequences which might flow from that.'

‘In that case I shall smoke him out for you, since matters must not remain as they are. He must know the truth about Eleanor's parentage, as well.'

When Sir Hart began to protest he said gently, with none of his usual brutal panache, ‘No, trust me. I shall use no bravado. The young man is of a metal which deserves our respect. He is gold through and through—Sir Beauchamp with a heart that feels for others. What could be stronger than that?'

Eleanor persuaded Stacy to rescue Alan from the un
wanted attentions of the rest of the party, particularly Jane's mother. He took Alan to the upstairs drawing room, ostensibly to show him something he had found in the library that morning. Eleanor, joining them a little later, came in to find him sound asleep on the yellow brocade sofa. Stacy, quietly reading opposite to him, put his finger to his lips when he saw her.

Knaresborough had come to her at the end of the tea party and had walked her through the rose garden, chatting of this and that, until she had said, quite calmly, ‘Tell me, m'lord. Is it true that you were responsible for setting Mr Dilhorne and Ralf at one another?'

‘So,' he had said, equally calm, ‘the gossip has reached you already. Yes, I must confess to that.'

Surprised at her own daring, for he had always seemed like a capricious God to her, someone so powerful and mighty that he was not to be questioned or criticised, she had said, ‘The other day I told him to be careful, that you were dangerous. I did not think that you would prove me correct so soon. It was not well done, m'lord.'

‘Oh, I quite agree with you, Miss Eleanor. It was not. I am delighted to discover that you have such a fund of good sense as to appreciate that.'

At first she had thought he was mocking her, but when he saw her anxious face, he'd added, ‘The same good sense that has made you choose him from all the shallow fools who have courted you here and in London. I can only trust that he has the good sense to offer for you soon, and so I have told Sir Hart. Now may we talk nonsense—which is all that men and women are supposed to do, sense being usually employed only with one's own sex?'

This was so truly Knaresborough that Eleanor had begun to laugh. She wondered how often he ever made confession of a fault, and decided that it was rare. She
was thinking of this when Alan woke up and put out a hand for her to hold. Stacy, seeing that he was awake, began to read to them until it was time to dress for dinner.

 

Alan and Knaresborough were playing piquet. Knaresborough was naughty, and cheated wildly. He had warned Alan that he would before the game began, since they would be playing for counters, not money.

‘No holds barred, Master Alan. Anything goes for both of us when we're not playing for money.'

Alan's face was almost healed. That afternoon he had ridden out on the moors with Eleanor. For the first time he had unbuttoned her riding habit to reveal the silk beneath it. He had kissed her neck and shoulders and stroked her breasts through the silk. She had shivered her delight while he did so.

Eleanor had not known what to do with her hands, but she had caressed his face, running them down his strong jaw. Her body had been on fire, and her eyes had questioned him.

Alan had contained himself with difficulty, saying inwardly, A seasoned man has only so much self-restraint; there must be no more than this until I offer. He had imagined Knaresborough's grin if he had heard him.