Just Deserts (14 page)

‘
Why in the name of Satan could you not have asked me like
an honest woman?’

‘
Nothing would have induced me to do so. And don’t dare to
pretend you would have permitted it, even if I had.’

‘
So instead you take a course liable to land you in the
suds, together with your family,’ he said, ignoring the obvious
truth of her remark.

‘
Thank you, you have said enough on that head,’ she
flashed.

He bit his lip on a sharp retort, remembering both the
groom on his perch behind them, and the previous appalling
consequences of driving this madcap female to go her desperate
length.

‘
And am I to have the benefit of your
doubtless
expert
opinion on the stallion?’ he said
instead, with a sarcastic inflexion.

‘
Since you clearly do not value it in the least,’ Persephone
snapped back, ‘I shall hold my peace.’

‘
No, I beg of you, Miss Winsford,’ he said with exaggerated
courtesy, ‘I should count myself honoured to be favoured with your
thoughts, even though they were formed clandestinely.’

‘
I will suffer myself to be whipped at the cart’s tail
before I utter a syllable of your devilish horse!’

‘
An apt punishment for your misdeeds.’

Persephone was so much infuriated to have fallen into a pit
of her own digging that she clamped her lips on further speech and
turned her face away.

Chiddingly gave a short scornful laugh, but refrained from
further comment.

In spite of herself, Persephone found her thoughts running
on the trial, and she recreated in her mind’s eye the picture of
that magnificent animal flying across the turf like some great
velvet bird. In the keen brightness of the sun labouring behind a
bank of cloud, his inky black coat had reminded her of something
that at the time had eluded her memory. Now it floated into her
mind.

‘
Indigo,’ she said aloud.

‘
I beg your pardon?’

Her quarrel with Chiddingly was forgotten. On impulse she
turned, the grey eyes warm. ‘Indigo. It is a plant used in India to
make a dark dye. A blue-black with a velvety appearance. They use
it for ink. Here, too, perhaps. I dare say it is imported from
there.’

Chiddingly blinked. ‘So, and what of it?’

‘
Your horse,’ she cried, as if it must be obvious.
‘That is his colour.
Indigo.’

He stared at her, plainly
at a loss.

‘
There is no need to gape at me like a dolt.’

‘
Yes, but—out of nowhere—!’ He broke off and a sudden grin
lightened his features. ‘You are the most unaccountable
girl.’

‘
Thank you, I have had my fill of your opinion of me,’
Persephone said, hostility returning.

He was silent, and she said no more until he deposited her
on the doorstep of her home in Hanover Square.

‘
I shall not thank you, my lord, for I consider your actions
unpardonable. What is more, I know very well that you have but one
reason for having rescued me from my own folly.’

‘
At least you have the grace to acknowledge your
fault.’

‘
I acknowledge nothing,’ she snapped, firing up at once.
‘But mark this. You are wasting your time.’

His brows rose. ‘I have not the remotest conjecture as to
your meaning.’

‘
Have you not?’ Her lip curled. ‘Well, then, you can have no
objection to hearing that your quarry is even now enjoying an
outing with your friend Fitzwarren.’

***

Chiddingly drove back to his lodgings in a mood of deep
chagrin. The intelligence that his friend had left him immediately
after the trial, with the flimsiest of excuses, only to return to
London to steal a march on him with Penelope, was less than
welcome.

Almost from the moment of discovering that the Miss
Winsford whom he had thought volatile beyond belief was in reality
two people, he had been toying seriously with the idea of trying
for Penelope’s hand. That Persephone had divined his purpose
annoyed him. That she recognised his motive, as he could not doubt,
infuriated him. She would throw a rub in his way if she
could.

Yet was he quite wise, he wondered, to contemplate a
marriage which would saddle him with a sister-in-law whose
activities were to be counted upon to sour his existence? Today had
shown him how unbridled were her passions. Could a man be
comfortable closely tied to a female who had proved herself a
candidate for Bedlam?

A memory crept into his mind unbidden. That whimsical idea
of hers about indigo dye. Really, when she was not baying like a
hound in full cry, there was something quite taking about her. And
he had to confess a sneaking admiration for her courage.

He caught himself up. Fiend seize it! It
was
Penelope
who concerned him. Not Persephone. To
hell with that troublesome wench! No, he must think of Penelope and
the perfidy of his friend Fitz.

When Fitz returned to his house later that day, he found
Chiddingly awaiting him.

‘
Why, Chid, you are back betimes,’ Fitz said, the
good-humour in his face leaving Chiddingly in no doubt of the
success of his engagement.

‘
I had expected you would remain all day at Derby’s
place.’

‘
Ha!’ exclaimed Chiddingly on a bitter note, the evils of
this morning rising forcibly to his mind. ‘I did not get within
Derby’s doors.’

Fitz’s brows rose and he smiled quizzically as he stripped
off his gloves and threw them, together with his beaver hat, on a
convenient table in his library.

‘
Now what has occurred to put you all on end, dear
boy?’

‘
Never mind that,’ Chiddingly said, driven to impatience by
his friend’s cheery manner. ‘I shall tell you presently. At this
moment, I have something of more importance to discuss with
you.’

‘
I am entirely at your service, my dear Chid. Let me but
request that fool of a butler to bring us some refreshment and I
shall be with you. Why he could not think of serving you himself, I
do not know.’

So saying, he stepped out into the hall and gave an
instruction to someone outside the baron’s line of vision. Coming
back into the library, he flung himself down in a comfortable
armchair and bade his friend do likewise.

Chiddingly took a chair opposite and regarded Fitzwarren in
frowning solemnity. ‘Fitz, I would not do this if we were not such
old friends, for it is not an easy question to ask a man. But I
must know. Have you any serious intentions towards Miss
Winsford?’

Fitz sat very still for a moment, but something of his
teasing gleam was in his eye. ‘Which one?’ he asked
softy.

‘
Don’t be a nodcock. Penelope, of course.’

There was a short silence. Fitzwarren, having inspected his
friend’s compelling stare without any apparent change in his own
expression, fell to contemplation of the toe of one shining top
boot.

‘
Now that is a question which demands some thought,’ he
said. ‘No doubt a glass of wine will aid concentration, if only the
man will bestir himself.’ He looked up again. ‘I might ask, have
you?’

‘
Yes,’ Chiddingly said baldly. ‘But though I would scorn to
consider Leopold or Rossendale, I would not for the world tread on
your toes, Fitz.’

His friend smiled. ‘I thank you.’

He rose as the butler brought in a tray with a decanter and
two glasses which on the viscount’s signal he left on a table.
Pouring Madeira, Fitz tried to put his thoughts in order. Until
Chiddingly had put it to him so bluntly, he had not thought about
matrimony.

Years of agreeably untrammelled bachelorhood had rendered
him unused to considering the question. Unlike the baron, he was
neither in need of funds, nor was he the last of his name. There
were brothers and nephews enough to succeed to his dignities. And
while he might flirt, he had long perfected the trick of remaining
sufficiently aloof not to raise expectations which he had no
intention of fulfilling.

But Penelope Winsford, he was now forced to realise, had
seriously disturbed his habitual egotism. Her spontaneity, her zest
and sparkle, had enchanted him, together with that
unconventionality which so amused him. When he had hurt her that
day at the docks, the dimming of her lustre had cost him a lasting
pang of conscience.

But then, so too had Persephone touched him. They were a
unique pair, not only in the undoubted attraction of their
identical appearance, but in their refreshing lack of
artifice.

‘
To tell you the truth, Chid,’ he said, with a
self-conscious laugh, ‘I have not the least idea. I dare say I
shall never marry. And at this present, though I will admit the
charm of Penelope’s society is vastly appealing, I am not
contemplating spending the rest of my life basking
therein.’

Chiddingly heaved a sigh of relief and tossed off his wine.
‘So you have no objection to my pursuit of her.’

‘
None whatsoever, dear boy,’ Fitz said, with determined
cheerfulness, ignoring an uncomfortable sensation at the pit of his
stomach. ‘Heaven speed your wooing!’ His eye gleamed mischief. ‘You
will allow me to suggest, however, that you would suit far better
with Persephone.’

‘
Persephone be damned!’ Chiddingly exploded, shooting from
his seat as if the thought of her touched off a firework inside
him. ‘I would not marry that girl if you were to put a pistol to my
head. Do you know what the infernal little fiend did
today?’

Fitzwarren grinned at him. ‘No, tell me.’

Chiddingly told him. The recital took all of fifteen
minutes and the consumption of two more glasses of Madeira,
embellished as it was with his lordship’s freely expressed opinion
of Persephone’s conduct and general character.

Fitz shouted with laughter. ‘I tell you what, Chid. You may
marry Pen and do away with this tiresome Seph and so come off with
twice the fortune.’

‘
There is not the slightest necessity to do away with her,’
Chiddingly said scornfully. ‘I have no doubt at all that she will
break her own silly neck without any assistance from
me.’

***

Unaware of the fate thus prophesied for her, Persephone was
at this moment relating her own highly coloured version of her
adventures to her sister, with quite as venomous a tongue as
Chiddingly himself. It was the true version on this occasion, for
she had been obliged to concoct a tale to account for the injury to
her shoulder that would satisfy her parents.

Fortunately, they were so well used to her wild ways that
neither was surprised that she had come to grief, as she told them,
over the head of one of Rossendale’s raw hunters. She said she had
been rescued by a kind couple passing by, whom to save
investigation she had designated of humble origin. This fictitious
pair had insisted on bringing her back to their modest
establishment to rest before sending her home in a hackney, which
accounted for the lateness of her return.

Both parents exclaimed at the mishap, and a surgeon was
sent for. He confirmed Chiddingly’s diagnosis, applied some
liniment to the inflamed shoulder, fashioned a sling for her arm
and bade her lie up for a day or two.

‘
At least I shall be spared appearing at these horrid
parties,’ Persephone said, sitting up in bed where her mother had
led her, and leaning comfortably against a bank of
pillows.

‘
I think you must have taken leave of your senses, Seph,’
said Penelope, dazed. ‘You might have been killed!’

‘
Do not you begin,’ Persephone begged. ‘I have had quite
enough scolding from that boor of a Chiddingly. Which reminds me,’
she added, frowning direfully at her sister, ‘if you accept an
offer from him, I shall never speak to you again as long as I
live.’

Penelope’s mouth fell open. ‘Accept an offer
from
Chiddingly
? I think
you must indeed have taken some sort of knock on the head, Seph,
which has driven your wits quite out of it.’

‘
I thought as much,’ said her twin on a note of
satisfaction. ‘I told him so, too.’

‘
Do you say he told you he intends to make me an
offer?’

‘
He did not admit as much, but I guessed at the outset. He
is bent on enriching himself out of Papa’s coffers. I dare say
those horses of his are costing him a pretty penny.’

‘
Seph! Never tell me you were so lost to all sense
of decorum as to discuss the subject with the man. You are quite
incorrigible. As well ask Fitz if
he
—
I
mean—’

Her sister eyed the flushing cheeks with interest. ‘I
shall, if you wish it. I have no missish scruples.’

‘
Seph!’ gasped Penelope, bouncing up and down in
agitation where she sat on the edge of the bed. ‘You would
not!
Promise
me you will not. I should
die
of mortification.’