An Affair of Honor (29 page)

“Excellent advice, sir,” Talcott agreed. “I shall send Coltrain and the others to keep an eye on things without showing themselves. But if you’ve no objection, I’d like to ride at least partway back to town with you.” He paused, then went on with a rueful smile. “Her ladyship may be able to give me some valuable information about their plans for tonight. She deserves to have a strip torn off her for this business,” he added glibly, quite as though he had said not a word to her himself, “and I’ve no doubt you’d like to attend to that as soon as may be, but this is of truly great importance.”

“As you please,” Huntley replied, his voice suddenly—and to Nell’s relief—touched with amusement. “You’ll prefer to ride on ahead of us, I daresay.”

The major agreed, and a moment later, the grooms and Jeremy falling behind, Nell found herself, to all intents and purposes, alone with his lordship. Despite that brief flash of amusement, she braced herself. But he said nothing, and the silence grew until she was nearly squirming in her saddle.

“Are you very angry, Philip?” she asked at last. She wished she could see his face, but all she could make out was the shape of him.

He sighed. “I’m not angry. At least, not at the moment, though it may come in time.” The sound of his voice so near to her was like a warm caress. Oddly comforted by it, she straightened a little in her saddle. He spoke again. “I suppose I ought to be grateful that you sent for me and didn’t try to handle the thing entirely by yourself.”

“Jeremy offered to fetch her back,” she admitted. “As it happened, he might well have been able to manage it.”

“Perhaps, although his charming cousin was none too cheerful about releasing Aurora. Unfortunately, I think she hasn’t the least notion of the danger she was in.”

“She said they promised not to harm her.”

“They are rogues, Nell. Would you have believed that felon at the clifftop could be trusted to keep his word?” Unable to answer in the affirmative, she held her tongue. “Just so. And Jeremy’s cousin is just such another. I’ve a good notion that my pistol carried more weight with him than Jeremy’s pleas would have done. It will be saying a good deal if that lad gets out of this with a whole skin.”

“Jeremy?”

“Yes, Jeremy. The others won’t take kindly to his having informed on them, you know. He seems to think he can trust his cousin, but that other lout, though he never actually saw the lad, might still be bright enough to figure out how Aurora came by her information.”

Nell swallowed carefully. “He certainly ought never to have discussed this business with her. I-I expect you will want to have a few words in private with her when we return, will you not?”

“I most certainly will not,” he muttered, and Nell could have sworn she heard that note of amusement in his voice again.

“Sir?”

“My dear girl, I doubt if anything I say now or a hundred years from now would ever convince that child that she has been in any danger. She will only accuse me of being fusty again. I sometimes think she has no common sense whatsoever. You, on the other hand—”

“I had to come, sir,” Nell cut in quickly. “I could not simply sit at home wondering if Jeremy had found you, wondering if you had found Rory. She is my responsibility, and I could not—”

“You could not trust anyone else to manage the thing,” he finished on a slightly bitter note. “Is that not it, Nell?”

She opened her mouth to deny it, but honesty intervened. “Perhaps there is some truth in what you say, sir. I have not had anyone else upon whom I might depend for some years now, you know.”

“You can trust me, Nell.”

The words were spoken low, but she heard them clearly enough, and they sent a small thrill of pleasure through her. She rather thought that she could depend upon him if she ever needed to do so again. And perhaps, now that it seemed it might be possible, after all, to end the absurd betrothal, her own affairs and Huntley’s might be in a way to being—But the pleasant thought ceased abruptly, for she remembered what had started everything moving tonight. She glanced at Huntley. He must be told.

“My lord,” she began cautiously, “I should tell you that my mother received an urgent letter from Parkhurst tonight. My aunt is very ill and not expected to recover. When I left, Mama was writing the news to my sister.”

“Well, if Lady Agatha dies, I should be sorry, of course, but even if she should do so immediately, it would merely mean a year’s delay, and you will not deny that it might be a good idea for Aurora to wait a year or so before being wed.”

“My sister will not agree with you, sir,” Nell said, repressing sudden exasperation. His damned honor! Why could he not at least suggest the possibility of arranging an end to the betrothal before everything ended in a tangle. Surely, he could see as well as she could that Talcott was head over heels in love with Rory. The man was not blind. And, after that afternoon on the Downs, Huntley surely had every reason to suspect Nell’s feelings, even as she was becoming more certain of his. It was merely his wretched sense of honor constantly getting in the way. She fought down her irritation, determined to make him understand their plight, for whatever good it might do. “You have heard my mother on the subject of our family’s bad luck,” she said evenly, “and I can assure you Clarissa feels just as strongly as Mama does. She will be convinced that if Rory is not married at once, she will follow in my footsteps.”

“Your footsteps?”

“We had six deaths in the family in as many years, sir, or have you forgotten?” Nell gritted her teeth. Was the man being purposely dense? “Clarissa will drag Rory to the altar herself in order to avoid such a fate for her.”

“I doubt that such a thing could happen twice in the same family, Nell,” he responded with a slight smile.

“Your belief carries no weight in this case, my lord,” she retorted with some asperity. “You just wait until Clarissa and Crossways descend upon us, and see if I have not judged the matter correctly.”

His brows knitted, but he said nothing, and since he seemed to be so clearly disinclined to agree with her, Nell let the subject drop. As usual, she would have to take matters into her own hands. They maintained their easy pace in silence, and a few moments later, as she watched the couple riding ahead, the faintest glimmer of an idea began to stir.

B
Y THE TIME SHE
reached her bed that evening, Nell was exhausted and convinced that sleep would come the moment her head touched the pillow, but nothing could have been farther from the truth. Instead, she found herself thinking back over the events of the evening, the sudden fear when she realized where Rory had gone, and the odd sense of excitement she had felt at Huntley’s timely arrival. She remembered, too, Major Talcott’s anxious words when they met and the relief in his voice when he discovered that Rory was safe. Any doubts she may have entertained as to his feelings for her niece had vanished in those brief moments.

Talcott had taken his leave of them at Bedford Street, but Huntley had seen them to the stables, it having been decided that the safest way for them to return to the house was the same way by which they had left it. There had been a fearful moment or two before the two young women were safely inside Rory’s bedchamber, but Sadie had been waiting to let them in the garden door, and although she said that Lady Agnes and Sir Henry were playing piquet in the drawing room, they managed to get up the back stairs without incident. Despite the fact that Rory made no move to dismiss her maidservant, it was clear that she expected a severe scold for her actions, but beyond telling her she had been a goose and warning her never to do such a thing again, Nell had said little. Instead, she observed that, as for herself, she had felt perfectly safe once the cavalry arrived on the scene.

“Oh, yes,” Rory agreed. “Was it not kind of them to come to rescue me? Only I do hope Jeb and the other man escaped. I could not reconcile it with my conscience if Jeremy’s cousin was to end up in prison on my account.”

“Oh, I daresay even if Major Talcott found them where Huntley left them, he could do very little. After all, they had done nothing precisely illegal beyond holding you against your will, and I doubt that either his lordship or the major would wish to make anyone else a gift of that information, you know.”

“Then they will be safe,” said Rory, comforted once more, “for Jeremy said that no power on earth would cause them to signal the boat after all that had transpired. I explained that to Gideon, so he will not be in very great expectation of capturing the others.” She sighed a little. “I must say, if they must be caught, I’d prefer for Gideon to do the catching.”

Nell let the subject rest, but her niece’s use of the major’s given name had not escaped her notice. The idea that had been a mere embryo on the Kemp Town Road began to mature in her fertile imagination, and once she had retired to the privacy of her own bed, there was nothing to still the thoughts dancing so freely through her head.

All the ramifications of her Aunt Agatha’s pending demise were making themselves clearer, one by one. In the excitement of the hours following the courier’s arrival, she had considered only the effect his news would have upon her niece’s future and Huntley’s. She had not given much thought to her own. But a sudden vision of what it would be like to spend yet another year as a spinster in mourning beneath her mother’s roof struck her now most forcibly. Lying there in her comfortable bed, Nell realized her teeth were grinding together audibly as the unwelcome vision passed before her mind’s eye. It was bad enough that once Crossways and Clarissa heard the news of Aunt Agatha’s rapidly failing health, they would wish their beloved daughter safely married to the Earl of Huntley as quickly as it might be arranged, and that they would not even wish to discuss the possible suitability of a marriage to Major Talcott, no matter how handsome or dashing he might be. But worse than that—far worse—was the thought of her own future as a spinster.

In another year she would be six-and-twenty, which was as near to thirty as made no difference, particularly in a world where an unwed young lady of nineteen was thought to have at least one foot upon the shelf already. And lonely spinster-hood seemed suddenly a dreadful fate, indeed. No longer did she have the slightest wish to remain at home, a comfort to her mama. Least of all if Philip was unhappily married to her undeserving niece.

The last thought slid under her guard, but though she had strenuously avoided dwelling on the matter, she had long since realized that she was less than indifferent to the Earl of Huntley. And now, with matters rapidly reaching a critical point, it was necessary to give a good deal of thought to their relationship. It was clear, too, that she could no longer afford the luxury of allowing things to move at a snail’s pace.

For a time, she had insisted to herself that it was primarily a matter of helping two people who could not or would not help themselves, that she could postpone thinking about her own part of the business until the betrothal was at an end. First she had wanted to show Rory that wealth and position were not everything, and to help Huntley free himself of the obligation to which he was bound by his strong sense of honor. And if her thoughts had a disarming tendency to return to the episode in the elm grove, well, that was something she could not help. But now the time had come to consider the matter carefully and in detail, to admit, if only to herself, that she had fallen in love with the man who was expected by everyone else to marry her niece.

She knew he cared for her. From time to time she had wondered unhappily if perhaps he looked upon those memorable moments in the elm grove as little more than an agreeable diversion. She had even told herself once or twice that, had she had other such experiences with other gentlemen, that one would not stand so vividly in her memory. But then she would intercept a look of more than ordinary warmth from him, and she would know her own feelings were not misleading her. At other times she would see pain in his eyes and know it to be reflected in her own. Although, thanks to his wretched sense of honor, he had said nothing to give her certain knowledge that he would offer for her if he were free of his betrothal, all things considered, it seemed to her that he would most likely do so.

The greatest obstacle, as she saw it now, was her sister’s very probable determination to see her daughter wed without delay. And since Clarissa would fear another series of family deaths, Nell doubted that any argument she or Rory could produce would convince her to allow the betrothal to be broken. Even though Rory herself might balk, Nell was persuaded that Clarissa could convince her of its advisability. After all, even if Lady Agatha died before the wedding, it would still be possible for Rory to marry Huntley quietly after a brief period of deep mourning. But if she did not marry him, a death in the family would mean her withdrawal from the social scene. She would have no acceptable way to meet anyone else. And try as she might, Nell could not believe Clarissa would entertain the notion of a marriage to Major Talcott for as long as it would take to suggest it.

Briefly she considered the wisdom of consulting further with his lordship, but she quickly dismissed the notion. Drastic action would be necessary if things were to be brought to a successful conclusion, and he would no doubt express firm disapproval of the plan Nell was now considering. Perhaps in time she might be able to talk him around, but lately he had shown that he was made of sterner stuff than she had first thought. Moreover, if there were sufficient time in which to maneuver, drastic action would not be necessary.

There were several snags in her plan, not the least of which was a possible lack of cooperation from at least one of the parties concerned. There was also the problem of keeping Huntley from discovering what she meant to do, but Sir Henry Sinclair’s announcement the following afternoon that his lordship had left for London on urgent business eased Nell’s mind with regard to that difficulty at least. In fact, Sir Henry’s news came as such a relief that it never occurred to her to wonder what the urgent business might be or why his lordship had made Sir Henry privy to his intention even though he had not seen fit to stop in at Upper Rock Gardens before leaving town.