My Pleasure (27 page)

“Yes, yes,” she was saying to her cronies as she accepted the cup of punch she had sent Helena to fetch, “of course I knew Mr. Munro was coming. Aren’t his grandfather and I old friends?”

Not that Helena had ever heard.

Lady Tilpot must have caught a glimpse of Helena’s thoughts in her sardonic expression. She disliked being caught out. “Helena,” she snapped, “Flora is sitting with the marquis by the door leading to the garden. She is a sweet, innocent, but essentially silly girl who will be boring the dear marquis to tears.”

Ah, such warm commendation. No wonder Flora had eloped at the first opportunity.

“Do go over and relieve him of her company.”

“Of course.”

“Now, as I was saying, Ramsey shall be attending next week’s soiree, of course, and then…”

True to Lady Tilpot’s words, Helena found Flora seated in one of the small settees placed about the perimeter of the room for the relief of the dancers. Her gown shimmered under the lights of thousands of candles, reflecting back the gems adorning the little bodice. She looked like a piece of woven glass, glittering and brilliant.

The marquis sat in his own chair next to hers. He looked far from bored. He looked steely-eyed, grim, and, yes, a touch disconcerted, but definitely not bored. She hurried over, trying to imagine what Flora—sweet, unassuming Flora—could have said to provoke him.

“But of course you are! You are attempting a rapprochement with your grandson,” Flora was saying softly, tears shimmering in her eyes. “I find it frightfully noble!”

Oh, Flora! Helena enjoined the girl silently. She knew better than to make grossly personal comments like this! But pregnancy had addled her senses. She’d always been sentimental. Now she’d become bold and maudlin, a horrifying combination.

“Flora, dear,” Helena said easily, coming up to her side. “You look flushed, and the gardens are only a few feet away. Wouldn’t you like a nice bit of cool night air?”

“No, thank you, Helena,” Flora said with only the quickest glance at her, then her limpid gaze reattached itself to the marquis. She looked like she might reach over any minute and pat his hand.

Please, Flora, don’t pat him.

The old man’s gaze flickered over Flora, and for a second Helena was convinced he was about to give Flora the blistering set-down she unfortunately deserved. Helena delved into her pocket for a handkerchief, preparing to stem the anticipated tidal wave of tears. But then, amazingly, the marquis relaxed.

“Young people today,” he said. “Have you no sense of decorum? No capacity for self-containment?”

“I think Mr. Munro excessively self-contained,” Flora said, looking across the room at the marquis’s polished grandson.

The marquis followed the direction of her gaze. “Yes. He is. Which I find most praiseworthy.” His telling gaze rested on Flora. But Flora didn’t catch his meaning.

“How sweet!” she said, delighted.

“Sweet.” The marquis sounded as if he might choke on the word.

“Yes!” Flora clasped her hands together in front of her chin. “To find each other after such a long, arduous search!” She sniffed, her eyes awash in tears, and Helena knew she was not thinking of Ramsey and the marquis’s separation but hers and Oswald’s.

“It is so…won-wonderful!” With a supreme effort she blinked back her tears. “And having found him, to then realize that you find much of value and worthiness in him! You must be very gratified.”

“It really doesn’t matter whether I am or not. Any feelings I have for Ramsey are entirely moot.”

“Why is that?” Helena blurted out before she could stop herself.

The marquis, who had been ignoring her as a lady to whom he’d not been introduced, now turned that inimical gaze on her. “And you are?”

“Oh!” Flora said, aghast. “I hadn’t realized…That is…This is Miss Helena Nash, Marquis. Helena, Ignatio Farr, the marquis of Cottrell.”

“Milord.” Helena bobbed a curtsey.

The marquis’s gaze settled on her with awakening interest. “Ah. The beautiful companion. And my grandson’s charge. Pray sit, girl.”

How did he know that? Helena wondered as she took a seat beside Flora.

He spoke as if she had voiced her thoughts. “Do you think for an instant I would allow the marquisate to fall into the hands of a stranger, Miss Nash? I am not a romantic. Not by inclination, not by desire. I have had every aspect of Ramsey’s life thoroughly investigated. I doubt there is much I do not know about Ramsey Munro”—his lids fell over his light eyes—“or those who are important to him.”

Heat climbed into Helena’s cheeks, and she was uncomfortably aware of Flora regarding her with a very interested expression. Oh, no. She did not think she could bear to be questioned about Ramsey by Flora, who would make the most absurd leaps of logic.

The marquis turned back to Flora. “As to finding Ramsey, Miss Tilpot, I had never lost him. Oh, I might have displaced him for a year here and there, but for the most part, I have known where he has been most all of his life.”

“But…then why did you go so long without acknowledging him?” Flora looked confused. The romantic gleam had dried in her eye, and she seemed to be coming to the slow realization that she was facing a man without a single ort of sentiment in his veins. Such a creature was as alien to Flora as a hobgoblin.

“I have nonplussed your young friend, Miss Nash. But not you,” the marquis said consideringly. “Hm.”

“As for your question, miss,” he returned his gaze to Flora. “You deserve no answer for such impertinence, but I choose to indulge your curiosity, anyway.” He glanced sideways toward Helena, and she had the uncanny notion he was speaking to her, not Flora.

“You assume that I did not acknowledge Ramsey, when it was quite the reverse. Ever since his return from France, I have sought some means by which to convince him to let me make public those documents that prove he is my legitimate heir. It is Ramsey who has refused me.”

Why? Helena wondered, but then, hard on that thought came another. And why had he agreed now?

“Marquis.” Helena, lost in thought, hadn’t heard Ram’s approach. Now she looked up to find him standing over her, his hands clasped lightly behind his back. He did not look at her. Instead, he regarded the marquis mildly. “You are monopolizing two young ladies when the room is awash with unhappy young men who are too afraid to approach.”

The marquis gave Ram a flat look of disbelief. “No need for the company manners, Ramsey. It is not necessary to charm me. We know each other too well to be deceived.”

“Perhaps it is not you I am trying to charm, sir.” Ram smiled.

“Or deceive?” The marquis smiled.

Dear Lord, Helena thought in exasperation, being with these two was like flinging oneself in the midst of a fencing bout, all sharp words and verbal feints, little cuts and bloodletting flicks. “Flora, dear. You really are flushed, and the air is growing ever so much more heated. Would you care to take that walk now?”

Flora, who’d been regarding Ram and the marquis in bewilderment, cruelty always having a way of passing straight over her head, rose. At once, the marquis stood up.

“Gentlemen,” Helena said sweetly, and, nodding to them, linked her arm through Flora’s and led her through the door into the garden.

“A stop hit,” Ram murmured behind her.

“Indeed. Impressive,” she heard the marquis agree.

SIMPLE:

an attack or riposte that involves no feints or blade play

THE GARDEN WAS QUIET except for a servant collecting punch glasses and a pair of smooth-faced old matriarchs inspecting the herbaceous border at the far end of the yard. Paper lanterns bobbed gently overhead, strung along the paths that meandered among the perfectly manicured beds. Flora turned eagerly to Helena as soon as they stepped onto the grass walk. “Have you had a note from Ossie?”

“Ossie? No.” Helena shook her head. “I am sorry, Flora.”

Flora’s lovely little face crumpled. “Oh. I thought when you insisted that I join you out here, you had news.”

“No, I just wanted to get you out of the vicinity of those gentlemen.”

“Oh, you needn’t have worried, Helena. I was handling the old marquis splendidly well, and as for the notorious Ramsey Munro”—she gave a little shiver—“I am glad to have made his acquaintance.”

Helena regarded her curiously. “You are? And why is that, pray tell?”

“Well, he is reputed to be one of the most dashing men in London, not to mention the most handsome. So, it is really a rather good thing to have met him because it tested my love for Ossie.”

“It did?” In her frankness, Flora reminded her so much of Charlotte, or rather the young lady Charlotte would have been had she had the same advantages Flora benefited from. But had Flora benefited? Yes, Flora was sweet, charming, completely devoted, and numbingly naïve. And as such, completely unfit for any sort of life other than the one she currently led. Charlotte, Helena thought for the first time, well, Charlotte would not merely endure, she would triumph.

“Yes,” Flora prattled on earnestly. “Because now I can say with utter conviction that having met the most dashing, handsome, notorious gentleman in London, I felt not one flutter of attraction.”

“Come, Flora, that’s doing it a bit brown,” Helena said.

“All right,” Flora conceded, “but only in the most academic fashion. Like viewing a handsome picture, say, one of Mr. Turner’s more tumultuous seascapes. Yes, it’s all very exciting and dark, but one wouldn’t want to be in the painting, would one?” she asked seriously.

“No.”

Flora nodded sagely. “Mr. Munro—” She paused, “Is there a courtesy title attached to the marquisate, do you imagine?”

“I don’t have any idea. Pray continue, Flora.”

“Oh. Mr. Munro is simply too dangerous, too deuced awake on every suit, for a girl to ever feel comfortable with him.”

Yes. He is canny and knowing and dangerous, which is precisely why a girl would feel comfortable with him. At least, why she did.

At the far end of the garden, Helena heard a sudden heavy rustling in the shrubbery. She looked up curiously but saw only the same two elderly ladies, now pitched into a heated debate about aphids. She turned back to Flora. “Mr. Goodwin will be transported to know he has no rival in Ramsey Munro.”

At the mention of her beloved’s name, the animation fled Flora’s face. “I would that I could tell him myself,” she said wistfully. “Oh, Helena, what am I to do? Soon it shall become apparent that I am breeding, and then Aunt Alfreda will send me off to some terrible place like…like…like Ipswich!” Her voice lowered dramatically. “I shall die in Ipswich.”

“No, you won’t die in Ipswich. Besides, Mr. Goodwin is probably figuring out some terribly clever way to amass a fortune and reunite with you, even as we speak.”

Flora eyed her as if suspecting irony, which, of course, she had every right to do as Helena was, in fact, being ironic, but she didn’t want Flora to know that. So she smiled. More rustles and snapping and popping came from further up the hedge, as though something was making a slow and painful progress through the dense underbrush. Had Mrs. Winebarger’s cat, Princess, escaped her mistress for a bit of a hunt?

“Truly, Flora,” Helena continued in a distracted voice. It sounded too big to be a cat and was definitely coming closer. Surely not DeMarc? She had seen him not five minutes ago, speaking to the vicar. “I am certain Mr. Goodwin desires to see you as much as you do him, but finds it impossible. You simply must have patience, my dear. Take care of yourself and your unborn child. Be brave for his sake.”

She could have made no better appeal. Resolutely Flora lifted her quivering little chin. “I will be brave. And now, I suppose I best go back in to Aunt Alfreda,” she said. “She doubtless has a line of ‘eminently eligible young men’ to whom she has promised my dances. Are you coming?”

“No, dear. You hurry along.” Flora, biddable as ever, headed for the door until, as an afterthought, Helena called out to her. “Flora?”

“Yes?”

“I have to know. What with all the young men being thrown in your way and your beauty and sweetness and, well—excuse me for being vulgar, but—wealth, however have you kept them from asking Lady Tilpot for your hand?”

Flora, blushing while Helena listed her qualities, dimpled with a trace of shy pertness. “Oh, that’s easy,” she said. “If ever a gentleman gets a little too warm in his attentions, I simply tell him that I could not possibly consider living in a household that did not include Aunt Alfreda.”

“I see,” Helena said admiringly and Flora, seeing her aunt waving at her through the doors, hurried away.

Perhaps Flora, too, would triumph—

Beside Helena, a shrub emitted a low groan of despair. “Florrrra!”

Dear God, Helena knew that moan! It was Ossie. The bush started to shake and leaves began dropping in a shower as the boy struggled to break free and follow his beloved.

“No!” Helena hissed, jumping up. Her gaze darted to the two old ladies who’d paused in their debate to see what was going on. “Mrs. Winebarger’s cat,” she explained loudly, “seems to have gotten caught.”

They sniffed and went back to their conversation.

“Stay where you are, Mr. Goodwin,” Helena implored. “If those ladies see a man come out of the shrubbery, they will scream down the rafters, and either you will be pursued as a thief or, worse, my follower! Then Lady Tilpot will dismiss me!”

“Ohhhhhh.”

“There now, puss-puss,” Helena crooned loudly, covering Oswald’s voice, then hissed in a fierce whisper,“Do be quiet!”

“But to be so close,” whispered the quaking shrub. “And for her not to know. She looks well. No, she looks beautiful,” he whispered. “Perhaps she is better off without me.”

“Doubtless, yes. But your child might think differently.”

“She looks like an angel of—” The shrub went still. “Child?”

“Yes, you—Yes. Flora is breeding.”

“Ah!”

“Careful! Don’t you dare fall out of that bush.”

“But…how?”

“Clearly, you have a better idea of that than I. But I would suggest the usual method,” Helena said, amazed at herself. “Now tell me quickly: How goes this plan you had contrived when we last met?”