Double Deception (3 page)

"Athena is not like that at all," his son retorted, spots of color appearing in his white cheeks. "I cannot tell you how many times she refused my offer before I convinced her that my intentions were indeed honorable. She insisted that I was too young for marriage, if you must know the truth."

Lord St. Aubyn gazed upon his son pityingly. "How touching," he drawled sarcastically. "And how much blunt have you dropped on this pious paragon of yours?"

Peregrine bristled. "Nothing to speak of, Father, so you are off the mark if you imagine Athena is out to fleece me." "How much?"

"Not above fifty pounds, I would say," his son answered hesitantly. "To tell the truth, Father, I did not regard it. I never imagined children could be such fun. Penelope was delighted with any little thing I purchased for her."

The earl's lips curled contemptuously. "And the widow?" "Athena would accept nothing at all until we became betrothed. Father. And then a paltry length of silk or two." "No expensive baubles?"

"Oh, no, sir." Peregrine assayed a small smile. 'To tell the truth, Father, I had always believed females to be insatiably frivolous, but Athena is quite embarrassingly frugal. I thought that would please you," he added with such naivete that the earl felt his anger waver.

"How convenient," he replied, with deliberate cynicism. "I shall not have to spend a fortune to buy her off and send her back to London."

"Buy her off?" Peregrine looked puzzled, and his clear blue eyes clouded as he gazed quizzically at his father.

Lord St. Aubyn winced at his son's innocence. He had no wish to cause Peregrine any more pain than he had to, but there was no way he would allow his only son to fall into the clutches of a female who was obviously an adventuress of the craftiest sort.

He shrugged. "Yes," he replied quietly. "Pay the lady for the excellent job she had done in hoodwinking you into making an offer. She must be very good, although there is no denying you are not quite up to snuff where the petticoat company is concerned, Perry. Just let me handle your Mrs. Standish, lad. I can guarantee you will be free of her in no time."

The earl knew he was in for an argument when he saw Peregrine's chin go up and his eyes turn stormy.

"You have misunderstood the matter entirely, Father," his son said quietly. "I have no wish to be free of Athena. On the contrary, I wish to spend the rest of my life with her. I had hoped you would welcome her here to the Castle, but if necessary, we will remove to London."

An uncomfortable silence followed this piece of plain speaking, and for the first time, Lord St. Aubyn felt a glimmer of apprehension.

"And how would you support a wife and child?" he asked softly, quelling his rising impatience at his son's foolhardiness.

"My allowance will hardly be sufficient, of course," Peregrine said innocently. "But I understand it is to be increased upon my marriage."

"Upon my sole discretion," the earl replied bluntly, hating himself for dispelling the expectant light from his son's eyes.

"I have a much better suggestion, Perry," he continued swiftly, wishing that a certain captivating widow had not brought out this unsuspected chivalrous streak in his son. "If I were you, I would install Mrs. Standish in London in a style befitting her station." He carefully kept any hint of irony from his voice and forced his lips into a smile. "A female in her situation, with a seven-year-old daughter to care for, will jump at the chance of having a young and wealthy protector. And to sweeten the transaction, I will pay the rent myself and double your allowance so that you can keep her in gewgaws and gowns and all the fripperies so dear to a female's heart."

The shocked look in his son's eyes made the earl pause. This approach was not going to work, he realized, sensing that he had not played his cards as carefully as he should have.

"Look, Peregrine," he said brusquely, "let us face the truth. Gentlemen like you and I do not marry penniless widows of dubious pedigree, however charming they may be. Set up this Mrs. Standish as your mistress and I will frank you generously. But understand one thing, Peregrine, and understand it clearly. I will not countenance any marriage between you."

Lord St. Aubyn regretted the words instantly, but it was already too late to withdraw them. Peregrine's handsome face— so like his mother's that the earl's heart ached at the sight of him-—took on the stubborn expression Adrienne's always had when she was irrevocably set upon something. It was rare for father and son to argue, but the earl recognized the grim set of Peregrine's mouth and the pugnacious glint in his blue eyes. He sighed.

"I am sorry to hear that, Father," Peregrine said stiffly. "I was sure that you, of all people, would understand. Were you not barely twenty yourself when you met my mother? Was she not your elder by several years? Was her family not in dire straits?"

Lord St. Aubyn felt as though he had been suddenly and violently deprived of air. "How
dare
you mention your mother in the same breath as this ... this
widow
you wish to thrust into the family?" he roared, frustration at his son's callousness exacerbating the ache in his heart, still tender five years after the loss of his beloved Adrienne. "Your mother was a lady, the daughter of a marquess," he continued, making a valiant attempt to control his temper. "And if she was two-and-twenty to my twenty, it was no great matter. Adrienne was always a girl at heart." He stopped abruptly, quite unable to say another word about the wife he had loved so much and lost.

"And how much did grandfather have to pay to salvage Mother's family from ruin?" Peregrine insisted quietly. "He paid it gladly because you loved her, did he not? Mother told me the tale many times. An enormous sum, she always said. She did not tell me the exact amount, of course, but I shall never forget how her eyes would shine when she spoke of you."

The earl turned away to stare out of the window at the gathering dusk. His son's words had touched him deeply, bringing back memories twenty years buried in his heart. Memories of Adrienne as he had first seen her, radiant in pale blue muslin that matched her eyes, her golden ringlets dancing as she laughed at something one of her cousins whispered in her ear. He had seen his future in that instant, stretching out before him with Lady Adrienne at his side, almost as though he had already lived it. There had never been any other female for him after that first dazzling glance. He had never wanted another.

Peregrine's voice, strangely gentle now, brought the earl back from his nostalgic journey into the past.

"I meant no disrespect to Mama, you must know that, Father. I grieve for her, too, just as you do. But the Castle needs a mistress again, and if you have no wish to—"

"Your Great-Aunt Sarah is all the hostess I need," the earl cut in brusquely, his voice harsh with emotion.

"I love Aunt Sarah dearly, Father, but it is time for me to bring a bride of my own to the Castle."

"A bride worthy of our name, perhaps," the earl insisted. "You might look as high as you pleased for a suitable wife, Perry. Why settle for a widow with a seven-year-old daughter? I cannot like it. How can you be sure she is not an adventuress?"

He winced at the sudden besotted grin that spread over his son's face.

"When you meet her, you will see that for yourself, Father."

"I have no desire to meet her," the earl retorted. His words sounded peevish even to his own ears, and he watched the brief joy fade from his son's eyes.

"Then I shall escort Athena back to London in the morning, sir," Peregrine said with a quiet dignity that sat oddly on his boyish face.

As his son turned to go, Lord St. Aubyn stopped him. "Wait," he said flatly, the fear of losing his son as well as his wife curling up inside him. "If you are set on this freakish start, Perry, I shall talk to the woman tomorrow. If she is what I suspect she is, I will not countenance her presence as a guest at the Castle, much less as your wife." He paused for a moment wondering how far he could bend Peregrine to his will. "If I find she is a fortune hunter, you will abide by my decision and send her packing immediately. If not..." He shrugged. There was not much chance of the widow being anything else, of course, but he dared not cut off all hope if he wished to convince Peregrine to accept his conditions.

"If she is not a fortune hunter, I shall reconsider the issue. Do you agree, Peregrine?"

The light of hope had reappeared in his son's eyes, and the earl felt quite the villain for inflicting pain, however necessary, on his only offspring.

"Is that a promise, Father?"

"Of course."

"And you will be fair, will you not?"

"Of course."

Peregrine's face broke into a delighted grin. "Thank you, sir. I know that once you see her, you cannot fail to love her as I do. And now, if you will excuse me, sir, I must go to her. I do not scruple to tell you, Father, that Athena has been anxious for your approval."

Fairness had little or nothing to do with the matter, Lord St.Aubyn mused as the door closed behind his son after that artless speech. And he could well believe that the mysterious Athena—the name suggested precisely the aggressive kind of female the earl deplored—had been anxious about her reception at the Castle.

She had every reason to be, he though grimly.

***

The following morning, Athena was awakened by the sparrows chirping happily in the plane trees outside her window. Her night had not been entirely restful, partly because her arrival at St. Aubyn Castle had been every bit as awkward as she had feared.

Her reception by Lady Sarah Steele, Perry's great-aunt, had been cool to say the least, although her ladyship had shown genuine warmth at the sight of her great-nephew. When Perry had presented his affianced bride, Lady Sarah's steel-blue eyes had turned several shades cooler, and Athena had endured a rapier-sharp stare that seemed to dissect her to the very bone.

"Standish?" her ladyship had repeated sharply, as soon as the guests were seated in the imposing Blue Dragon Saloon. "Are you perchance related to the Dorset Standishes?"

Athena breathed a small sigh of relief and confirmed that yes, she was indeed related to the Earl of Wentworth by marriage. "My late husband, Major John Standish, was the late earl's youngest son, my lady," she added, hoping that connection would be illustrious enough to satisfy this terrifying dragon dressed in a plum satin gown of a design fashionable fifty years in the past.

"And how many sons did Wentworth have?" Lady Sarah demanded. "Four or five, as far as I remember."

"Four, my lady," Athena replied, resigning herself to what appeared to be an exhaustive examination of her pedigree. "Three after John was lost in the battle of Talavera two years ago."

"I can count very well, thank you, young lady," came the snappish reply. "So you make your home at Standish Park, do you?"

"No," Athena said coolly, hoping she could avoid going into the details of her banishment from her husband's family home. "I have lived with my aunt, Mrs. Easton, in London since John's death."

"Easton?" Lady Sarah pounced upon the name disdainfully, without so much as a glance in Aunt Mary's direction. "Easton? I do not seem to recall anyone by that name. Your mother's family, I presume?" 

"Yes, my lady," Athena responded as civilly as she was able. She cast a speaking glance at Peregrine, who had remained silent since his effusive reception by Lady Sarah.

"Not in
Trade
were they, I sincerely trust?" The tone of her ladyship's voice conveyed more clearly than words the offensive nature of such a connection, the mere suggestion of which made her aristocratic lips curl. Athena glanced nervously at her Aunt Mary, and her heart withered in her breast at the prospect of having to inform Lady Sarah that a tradesman's daughter was at that very moment seated in her drawing room, drinking tea from a porcelain cup bearing the impressive and doubtless ancient crest of St. Aubyn.

"Athena's maternal grandfather was the vicar of Marksbury, near Bath," Peregrine offered, a grin flickering briefly on his handsome face.

"When I wish for your enlightening comments, I shall ask for them, Peregrine," her ladyship remarked with dampening effect on her female guests, although Perry appeared unimpressed.

His grin widened. He winked at Athena and rose to his feet. "In that case, I shall beg to be excused, Aunt Sarah, and leave you in the company of these lovely ladies. I must speak to Father."

Before Athena had gathered her wits, the rascal had bowed and escaped, leaving an oppressive silence behind him.

Lady Sarah uttered a noise astonishingly like a snort and turned her gimlet gaze upon the unfortunate Mrs. Easton, who had been too intimidated to do anything but perch, like some terrified sparrow, on the edge of her chair, her crested tea-cup clutched precariously in her trembling fingers.

Athena had little recollection of what transpired after Peregrine had so cavalierly abandoned them to the dragon, but she must not have said anything too disgraceful, for there had been no summons from Lady Sarah to have them ejected from St. Aubyn.

Dinner had been a trying affair, punctuated by Lady Sarah's endless questions about friends and acquaintances of hers in London whom-—as she put it—anyone of any consequence whatsoever must definitely have encountered at the height of the Season. Since the vast majority of these personages were unknown to Athena, it fell to Peregrine to keep his aunt at bay with the latest
on-dits
and crim.-con. stories concerning members of the
haut monde
.

The Earl of St. Aubyn was noticeably absent from the dinner table: the second reason why her first night under his roof had been less than refreshing. After dinner, as Peregrine escorted the ladies into the drawing room, having instructed Jackson to serve his port with the tea-tray, Athena discovered that her premonitions regarding her welcome at St. Aubyn Castle had been painfully accurate. Reluctantly, Peregrine had confessed that his father was less than delighted to discover that his only son was betrothed.

"But I thought you had written to him to ask his permission, Perry," she had chided in a low voice as Lady Sarah launched   -into a recital of her connections with all the prominent families in Dorset.