Intrigue (Daughters of Mannerling 2) (7 page)

He put down the stone and propped the scythe against the wall. ‘Yes, so I hear, Miss Jessica.’

‘So Mr Harry has not yet rejoined his regiment?’

‘No, miss. They had a big party for him the other day. Some of his army friends had come over. They had planned to have a fête in the gardens, but because of the bad weather it had to be held in the house.’

‘How odd that we were not invited,’ said Jessica. ‘But surely an oversight. Are you sure of this?’

‘Yes, the vicar was talking about it the other day. He and his daughter, Mrs Judd, were among the guests.’

Jessica coloured with mortification. ‘Mrs Devers cannot be as high in the instep as she pretends to be if that sorry couple were invited.

‘As you know, Mrs Judd does have encroaching ways.’

I should not be talking like this with a servant, thought Jessica, but I must know more.

She tried to introduce a light, indifferent note into her voice as she asked, ‘Is Mr Harry being pursued by all the ladies of the county?’

Barry did not want to tell her, but surely Miss Trumble, say, would point out that it was only for the girl’s good. She had to know sometime.

‘I think they have all given up hope,’ he said, not looking at her.

‘And why is that?’

‘They do say he has set his cap at Miss Habard.’

‘The heiress,’ said Jessica, half to herself. ‘The rich Miss Habard.’

‘The same.’

Jessica tried to rally. ‘How people will gossip. It is probably a mere flirtation.’

‘Report has it that they are much taken with each other.’

‘Report, report,’ jeered Jessica. ‘The vicar’s daughter again?’

‘No, miss, it was Mrs Devers herself.’

‘Now I know you are hamming me! Mrs Devers talk to
you
!’

‘No, of course not. I overheard her in the town, in Hedgefield. She was with that Mr Sommerville, and she was telling him loudly about it and saying for all to hear that it was a suitable match.’

‘It is cold here,’ said Jessica with a little shiver. ‘Good day to you, Barry.’

He watched her go sadly and then picked up the stone again and began to sharpen the blade of the scythe, this time with savage strokes.

Miss Trumble looked up in surprise when Jessica re-entered the schoolroom. ‘Why, Jessica,’ she said, ‘you do look rather pale. I thought you would lie down until your headache passed.’

‘I think I will feel better if I resume my studies,’ said Jessica, avoiding the scrutiny of her sisters. She wanted to bury herself in learning and never, ever think of Mannerling again.

But when the lessons were over, there was no escape. Her sisters followed her into the room. ‘What has gone wrong?’ demanded Belinda. ‘Where did you go? I am sure you did not have the headache.’

Jessica slumped down in an armchair and stared bleakly at the rain running down the window.

‘I went to talk to Barry,’ she said.

‘We have been told not to gossip to the servants,’ said Lizzie primly.

‘How else was I to find out why he had not called?’ asked Jessica.

‘So what did he say?’ demanded Abigail.

Jessica told them in a flat voice of what she had learned. ‘You see what this means?’ she demanded. ‘We have no dowries to speak of. We are not even considered good enough to be invited to Mannerling any more, while such as Mary Judd is. I am sorry I have failed you, but there is nothing I can do. Mannerling is lost to us.’

Miss Trumble reflected that surely no governess had ever had such dutiful charges. In the days succeeding Barry’s bad news, the sisters, who had moved on to studying Latin and Greek, applied themselves so diligently to their work that Miss Trumble began to worry about them. When the weather turned fine again, she applied for permission from Lady Beverley to take them for walks and picnics. Lady Beverley gave that permission. She spent most of her days on a chaise longue in the parlour, doing nothing at all. Jessica’s failure, of which she had been told, had seemed to make her mother lose interest in life itself.

Gradually fresh air and exercise and a desire to forget all about Mannerling improved the sisters’ spirits. They became easier and friendlier. They even began to romp around with Lizzie, playing endless games of battledore and shuttlecock.

And that is how Robert Sommerville found them. He had gone back to his own home after his last confrontation with Jessica. But somehow he felt himself being drawn back to Mannerling. He had expected to see her with her family at the fête, but when he asked Mrs Devers about the absence of the Beverleys, she had said haughtily that as Harry would shortly be betrothed to Miss Habard, she did not want any penniless beauty such as Jessica Beverley spoiling things.

In the hope that this latest snub had brought Jessica to her senses, he had ridden over. He dismounted and stood for a few moments watching the happy scene on the lawn. Jessica, animated and flushed and with her auburn hair tousled, was laughing as she darted here and there after the flying shuttlecock.

Miss Trumble was the first to see him. She thought again with a pang that he looked so strong and handsome compared to the feckless Harry. He was wearing breeches and top-boots and Miss Trumble gave a sentimental little sigh. His legs were excellent. The girls saw him. Jessica put her hand up to her tumbled hair and then took it away again, her face hardening. Had it been Harry, she would have rushed into the house to arrange her hair and change out of the old gown she was wearing. But Robert did not deserve such trouble.

Miss Trumble advanced, smiling a welcome. ‘How good to see you, Mr Sommerville. Lady Beverley is resting.’

The girls all curtsied, cold looks on their faces. They had all heard Jessica’s speculation that Robert had turned Harry against her.

But when they were all gathered round the table under the cedar tree, the very fact that they had given up hopes of Mannerling made them realize that Robert was a charming man. He talked easily of his own home and the improvements he planned to make and then he asked if Jessica would walk with him for a little. Miss Trumble gave her permission and Jessica rose and went with him, wishing now she were wearing something prettier.

‘I wished to speak to you in private,’ he said. ‘My behaviour when I last saw you was not that of a gentleman. Pray accept my humble apology.’

Jessica nodded. ‘You are forgiven. We were both overset, I think.’

He said awkwardly, ‘I am afraid that Harry is shortly to be betrothed to Miss Habard.’

She gave a little sigh. ‘Fortune is so important in this day and age, is it not?’

‘It is, and particularly among the richest families. I suppose that is why families like the Deverses are so rich. They always marry well. It can bring a great deal of sadness, young girls married to old men, or married to brutal husbands. Are you very disappointed?’

‘No, it brought me to my senses. You must have noticed how happy we are now that we have no hopes of Mannerling. I shall never think of Mannerling again.’

And in such a way, thought Robert sadly, he had heard hardened gamblers vow, ‘I will never play cards again,’ only to find them back at the tables the following week. He sent up a little prayer that Harry
would
marry Miss Habard, and as soon as possible.

Harry was at that moment leading Miss Habard towards the rose garden. She was not Jessica Beverley, he reflected, but a shapely little thing for all that, and with a roguish twinkle in her eyes that he liked. She had a profusion of glossy brown curls under a chip-straw bonnet and wore a thin muslin gown, which showed a great deal of her plump figure. The amount of white brandy he had consumed during the day was swimming pleasurably around his senses. He had brought Miss Habard to the rose garden to propose. He had called earlier that day on her parents and gained their permission. He knew they were above stairs in the drawing room with
his
parents, eagerly awaiting the happy announcement.

It seemed ages since he had had a woman, however, and his eyes gleamed with a feral look as Miss Habard dimpled up at him.

‘You are a little charmer,’ he said. ‘Did I ever tell you that?’

‘Oh, sir,’ said Miss Habard, blushing adorably, or so he thought.

Time to go into action. Get the proposal over with and then sample the wares.

He felt he should get down on one knee, but the fresh air was making him feel more tipsy and he didn’t want to find out that he could not get up again. So he turned to face her and said huskily, ‘Do you know why I have brought you out here?’

Again that blush. She whispered, ‘Papa told me that you wish to marry me.’

‘Yes, my sweet.’

‘Oh, Mr Devers, you make me the happiest of women.’

‘Thought I might,’ said Harry. ‘Yes, and I’ve decided to sell out.’

‘Papa told me you had said so, and he has chosen a tidy property for us quite nearby. It is the most darling house . . .’

‘Wait a bit,’ said Harry angrily. ‘I will decide where we live, and we’ll live here.’

Miss Habard’s slightly protuberant brown eyes looked up into his own with a stubborn expression. ‘Live at Mannerling, with your parents? It would not answer.’

‘I’ll ask ’em to move out.’

Her lip trembled. She took his arm and said coaxingly, ‘But you don’t want to live in a great big place like this, do you?’

Her soft breast pressed against his arm. He could feel the heat from her body.

He said thickly, ‘Forget the house. We’ve got more enjoyable things to do.’

He seized her in his arms and his mouth bore down on hers. His hands groped over delicious mounds of plump body, breasts, buttocks, and waist. His senses reeled and the rose garden swam away in a red mist, and then through that mist he heard her crying and pleading, felt her hands hammering at his shoulders. A window above opened and his mother’s voice shouted out, sharp with alarm, ‘Harry!’

He released her and swore loudly and viciously. She backed away from him, hot tears running down her face. Then she turned and ran, stumbling in her haste, from the rose garden.

He stood alone among the roses. He needed a drink. He was not going upstairs to get a jaw-me-dead. He went up to his room by the back stairs and poured himself a glass of brandy from the bottle beside the bed. Gradually he began to relax. He was a prime catch and Mannerling was the prize. Who could turn down Mannerling?

At last, feeling he had not really done anything wrong, he sauntered down to the drawing room. His mother and father were grim-faced. ‘The Habards have left,’ said his mother. ‘What are we to do with you, Harry? There is no question now of a betrothal. Did you have to paw that girl and frighten her to death?’

‘You had better rejoin your regiment,’ said his father.

Harry walked to the window and looked out across the lawns and flowers to the ornamental lake. He would never leave.

‘Forget it,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘I’m not going back. And I’ve already written to my colonel to tell him so.’

‘I think this place has a curse on it,’ wailed his mother.

Harry went back to the brandy bottle.

Lady Beverley was waiting for Robert and Jessica in the garden when they returned. Jessica was talking animatedly about Miss Trumble’s efforts to teach them Greek and Latin; her hair was still tousled and her gown displayed, thought Lady Beverley, an unseemly amount of ankle.

‘Jessica,’ she said sharply, ‘go indoors this minute and change into a more respectable gown and comb your hair. Mr Sommerville, pray join me. Tea? Wine?’

‘Neither, I thank you.’ He sat down beside her. She was alone; Miss Trumble and the girls were in the house.

‘And how go things at Mannerling?’ Lady Beverley leaned back in her chair and turned her pale face up to the sun.

‘Great excitement today. Harry is to propose to Miss Habard.’

She looked for a moment as if he had struck her and then she said faintly, ‘So all is lost.’ She had hoped against hope that the gossip should prove to be wrong.

He pretended not to have heard. ‘Your daughters appear extremely happy here.’

She rallied with an obvious effort. ‘I suppose so. They are young and forget easily.’

He was not a man usually given to impulse, but he found himself saying, ‘I should consider myself highly honoured if you and your family would be my guests at Tarrant Hall.’

‘What is Tarrant Hall?’

‘My home.’

‘I do not know . . . You are extremely kind. Ah, here is the excellent Miss Trumble.’

‘I have just suggested to Lady Beverley,’ said Robert, ‘that she and her daughters and you, of course, Miss Trumble, might care to visit my home.’

‘An excellent idea,’ said Miss Trumble, and then added diplomatically, ‘Of course it is up to Lady Beverley to decide whether we go or not.’

‘I do not think so,’ said Lady Beverley, her brain scrambling this way and that to find any little hope of reclaiming Mannerling. How could she find that hope if they went away?

Barry Wort appeared and said to Miss Trumble, ‘A moment of your time, madam. Cook seeks your advice.’

Only Miss Trumble knew that it was very strange for Barry to interrupt a conversation with a guest for any reason. She rose to her feet and went off with him.

‘What is it, Barry?’ she asked when they were out of earshot.

‘I am friendly with one of the stable lads at Mannerling. I am afraid he is a sad gossip. He rode over from Mannerling a few moments ago, alive with news. Mr Harry has been spurned by Miss Habard.’

‘Oh, dear,’ said Miss Trumble. ‘They must not learn of this. Mr Sommerville invited them to stay at his home and I thought it would be marvellous to get them all away from here, and now it is more important than ever that I do. A rejected Harry Devers might come calling. But Lady Beverley will not be moved.’

‘If I may make a suggestion, ma’am?’

Despite her worry, Miss Trumble smiled. ‘Do tell me, Barry, for I am at my wits’ end.’

‘You might suggest to my lady that a stay at Mr Sommerville’s would save considerably on bills. It don’t be my place to say so, but my lady do be cautious with the pennies.’

‘You are a genius!’ exclaimed Miss Trumble. ‘Oh, I must step into the kitchen to maintain the fiction of advising the cook.’