Patricia Veryan - [Sanguinet Saga 09] - Logic Of The Heart (7 page)

"Ah, but one must have change, eh,
mon ami
?
Do you go now to your so charming trespasser? I shall wish you good
hunting with the bewitching widow."

It was the closest approach to enthusiasm that Montclair had
ever seen in this man, and his dark brows lifted. "That's not how my
uncle describes her, monsieur."

"Me, I am more in agreement with your cousin's impression of
her, but you will judge for yourself. And when I return, my dear sir, I
shall hope to persuade you to let me buy the cottage. You may change
your mind, if I make a more substantial offer,
n'est-ce pas
?"

"No. Goodbye, monsieur."

"Ah, but that is much too final. I say instead
au
revoir
, for we shall meet again."

Valentine acknowledged Monteil's bow with a short nod, gave a
sigh of relief as the ill-assorted pair strolled from the room, and
muttered, "Not if I can help it!"

Having no desire to be caught up in the involved and formal
farewells that Lady Trent appeared to find indispensable, he left the
house by way of the conservatory, detoured around the kitchen gardens
and lodge gates, and walked into the stable block. The head groom, a
sturdy little Welshman on the light side of forty, was looking up at a
disgruntled-seeming individual mounted on a grey horse, with a worn
valise tied to the pommel.

"A sorry fool ye are," the Welshman said in his pleasant
singsong voice, "to let yerself be pushed out of a steady situation by
a dumb beast!"

The rider started away, but turned in the saddle to call,
"Maybe I am. But I ain't so big a fool as you, Charlie Purvis, to stay
and be chewed by the brute. I come here to work wi' horses—not be
attacked by a bloody great wolf!" He drew level with Montclair, fixed
him with a resentful eye, but touched his hat and muttered, "Goodbye,
sir," before he rode on.

Purvis, short, dark, and with an impish look in his blue eyes,
hastened to Montclair's side.

"Doesn't like my cousin's hound, is that it?" asked Montclair.

Purvis had been head groom at Longhills for twenty years, and
did not feel it necessary to guard his words. "We none of us like the
dog, sir, but it took a special dislike to Jim, I'll not deny. Bit him
three weeks ago and again today. I will not say as I blame him fer
going away, since we are not allowed to strike the creature."

"Devil you aren't! No man in my brother's service is expected
to stand for being savaged by that hound and do nothing about it! I
broke a stick on Soldier when he came at me last year, and he's kept
his distance since. He's just a bully, and has to be put in his place."

"Like his master," said Purvis under his breath.

"What's that?"

"Er, I said he's a bastard," said the Welshman, round-eyed and
innocent. "And ye're one of the family, Mr. Valentine. 'Tis a different
matter fer ye, if I may be so bold as ter say so."

"You don't seem to lack for that quality," said Montclair, who
had a good pair of ears.

Purvis looked chastened, but a different expression came into
his face as he watched the younger man stride briskly out of the yard.
He turned his glance to the great house, frowned, and spat at the
cobblestones. "Past time you come home, Lord Geoffrey Montclair," he
muttered. "Long past time!"

Comfortably stretched out on the shabby sofa in the spacious
withdrawing room of Highperch Cottage, Andrew Hartley Lyddford turned
the page of the novel he was reading and gave an amused snort.

His sister peeped into the room to see if he was sleeping,
heard the snort, and—because she had selected his reading material—was
somewhat puzzled. She walked over to him. "What are you giggling about?"

He closed the volume hurriedly, having first put a finger
between the pages to mark his place. "Oh, it is this stupid book." His
grey eyes widened as he looked up at her, and before she could comment,
he asked laughingly, "What the deuce are you about, Sue? Be dashed if
you don't look a fright! Whatever shall you do if Lady Selby Trent
comes calling?"

Susan had been helping Mrs. Starr and Martha Reedham with the
unending task of cleaning this funny old house, and was clad in her
oldest gown, a grubby apron tied about her shapely middle, and an old
mob-cap containing her luxuriant hair. "Swoon," she replied with a
grin. "But never fear, that odious woman will not set foot in this
house—unless it is with a constable to eject the brazen Widow Henley.
However, if any of that horrid Montclair contingent
should
come, my lad—"

"I am four and twenty, and one year your senior, Madam Sauce.
Do not be addressing me as if I were a mere snip of a child."

"—you will at once be packed off to your bed again," Susan
went on, unperturbed. "We want no more pitched battles, and I cannot
have you prancing about after taking such a nasty whack on the head."

She had mothered him since 1805, when their beautiful but
frail mama had begun to grieve herself into an early grave. Lieutenant
Hartley Lyddford had been one of Lord Nelson's most able upcoming
officers, a wellborn man in whom the good looks of the Lyddfords had
been allied to a winning manner and a keen mind that remained cool and
collected however fierce the action. The admiral had prophesied a
brilliant career for Lyddford, but at the height of the Battle of
Trafalgar a mizzen-topgallant mast was shot through and, falling, had
written finis to that career before Lyddford reached his thirty-sixth
birthday. The lieutenant had accompanied the commander he worshipped on
a voyage into the hereafter, and his widow, lacking either the will or
the courage to face life's struggles without him, had followed him
within a year of his death.

Susan had seen her father as an heroic, beautiful, and godlike
creature, and had adored him. Now, scanning the handsome features that
were so very like those of her papa, she thought Andrew looked pale and
rather drawn despite his cheerful grin. She also became aware that her
neat bandage was missing from his dark curls, and her eyes sparked
indignantly.

Not for nothing had Lyddford shared the same roof with this
dauntless young woman for most of his four-and-twenty years. "My
particular form of concussion," he declared hurriedly, "will manifest
itself in tearing limb from limb any female who dares wrap another
piece of sheet around my noble brow and turn me into a figure of fun
for anyone chancing to pass by!"

Susan bent a thoughtful look on him and walked over to the
window. The sky was acquiring a few clouds and a whitish look, and the
treetops were tossing restlessly. She ran one slim fingertip down a
leaded pane, sighed, and turned about.

"Now what has you in a pucker?" asked Lyddford curiously.

"I was looking for passers-by. There are none. Rest there, if
you please, while I go in search of a
male
to
wrap a bandage around your noble brow, since it would appear that only
females are denied that glorious opportunity." He laughed, and she
added more soberly, "No, but you really must be good, Andy. If you
cavort about and fall again I shall be obliged to send Angelo to find a
proper physician."

"He wouldn't be able to pronounce it—much less find one. And
besides, if all I hear is truth, physicians are far from proper!"

He had forgotten to keep the book facedown. Susan gave a small
outraged cry and pounced to snatch it from his hand.

"What's this?" She read the title aloud. "
Santo
Sebastiano or the Young Protector
by
Mrs.
Cuthbertson
?" Unable to keep the amusement from her voice,
she said in pseudo-shocked condemnation, "Andrew—Hartley— Lyddford!
This is not the book I gave you! Whatever would Grandpapa have said?"

"Likely that he'd read it, and it's a jolly good book. At any
rate, it's better than that awful thing
you
selected!
The Dairyman's Daughter
, indeed! If
ever I read such stuff!"

"It is elevating to the mind," she said primly, holding the
substitution out of his reach. "They say it has already sold over a
million copies!"

"Then there are over a million Britons who are bored to
distraction, and likely mobbing the bookshops demanding their money
back! No really, Susan, if the people in that wretched tale aren't
dying, that widgeon of a heroine is busily converting 'em! Do you know,
the chit converts everyone in sight, including her sister? And the
sister dies anyway! In the end,
she
dies!
Jupiter! It's enough to give a man the moulding miseries!"

She laughed and waved the book at him. "Well, in
this
one everybody swoons!"

"So you've read it, you little varmint."

"Yes." She sank to her knees beside him. "Did you keep count
of all the bodies thudding to the boards? I thought it so diverting.
Even Lord St. Orville swoons!"

"True. Still, it's a ripping good tale for all that. I
especially liked—" He stopped, a faint frown tugging at his dark brows
as his sister glanced again to the window. She was not one to fret for
nothing. He tugged gently at a strand of glossy hair that had escaped
the mob-cap. "What are you worrying at? I've my pistol loaded and ready
in case those clods should come back. And when we have our day in court
we'll send Montclair to the rightabout soon enough."

"I'm sure we will," she said. But she spoke absently, and her
troubled gaze was still on the window.

Lyddford watched her, his eyes sobering. If ever a girl
deserved the good things of life, it was his Susan. No man could wish
for a better sister; nor, he thought loyally, a lovelier one. But poor
Sue's path through life had been far from easy. With the best will in
the world to provide for his family, Papa had been a younger son with
no expectations other than what his Navy pay and the possibility of
prize money would bring him. After his death they'd been all but
destitute, existing on the begrudging charity of Papa's brother, Sir
John Lyddford, surely the worst piece of clutch-fisted snobbery ever
created. Grandpapa Tate, as different an article to mama as could have
been imagined, had left the merchantman he'd commanded for the East
India Company, and come home to, as he put it, steer his daughter's
children "through the shoals to the Isle of Dreams." It was Grandpapa
who had moved them into decent lodgings and seen to it that they were
able to enter the fringes, at least, of Polite Society. It was
Grandpapa who'd presented Burke Henley to Susan, and had said he was a
"fine young gentleman with a comfortable fortune behind him."

Lyddford had never really known whether Sue married the
dashing Henley because she loved him, or for the security a wealthy
young man could offer. Wherever their 'Isle of Dreams' was, however,
Burke Henley had not possessed the chart to it. Good-natured and easy
going, deeply in love with his bride, always full of fun and high
spirits, he had willingly paid his brother-in-law's University expenses
for two years. But in the third year of his marriage he had come home
from sea and been stationed at the Navy Board in London, with easy
access to the clubs and theatres he'd patronized before entering upon a
naval career. It hadn't taken long for him to fall in with some old
friends. When Grandpapa had pointed out that they were now part of a
very fast crowd, Henley had only laughed at the old gentleman for his
"sanctimonious preaching."

Not his wife nor any member of his family could make Henley
listen to reason. After Grandpapa's death, he had been even less
restrained, and had very soon whistled his fortune down the wind.
Perhaps it was guilt that had made him turn to drink, or perhaps that
weakness had always been there too. At all events, bad had led to
worse, and now poor Henley's honour was clouded and he was dead this
year and more. Susan was disgraced and rejected by the
haut
ton
, and they were reduced to living in a neglected rundown
old barn of a house, miles from anywhere.

Lyddford followed his sister's gaze to the window and
observed, "Weather on the way, I wouldn't be surprised. Is that what
bothers you? The Bo'sun knows what he's about, never fear."

She nodded, then stood. "But Priscilla doesn't."

"The deuce! Has she gone wandering off again? That little
minx! Well, she'll stay away from the river, at least, after the
whipping I gave her yesterday morning."

Susan glanced at him and suppressed a smile. He was exceeding
fond of his small niece, and the fear for her safety that had led him
to actually deposit one halfhearted spank on her little bottom had left
him pale and stricken. Priscilla had been devastated, and for a while
Susan had scarce known whom to comfort first. She had no doubt that her
daughter would not go near the crumbling riverbank again, which was a
weight off her mind. Still…

"I cannot have her roaming like this," she muttered. "Angelo
has gone to try and find her. I thought he'd be back by now."

"Oh, I think there is no cause for alarm. We're miles from the
village, and very few people use the lane. I fancy she took Wolfgang
with her, and Angelo's probably gone on with them. She'll be all right."

But after his sister had gone back upstairs to help Mrs. Starr
in the linen room, Lyddford detached his tall figure from the sofa and
made his way to the window. The river was a pale silver snake winding
through a peaceful green and gold patchwork. It was true that they were
isolated here, but one never knew where evil would rear its ugly head,
and a man who would send two bullies to terrorize a helpless woman was
capable of anything.

He darted a quick look at the door, then raised the window,
climbed through, and started around the side of the house and southward
towards the woods.

Montclair crossed the park, paying little heed to the
mischievous wind that tossed his hair about, or to the great billowing
sails of the cloud ships that were beginning to gather high above him.
Normally, he would have been appreciative of his surroundings, for he
loved this beautiful part of Britain, with its rolling hills and
verdant meadows, its darkly mysterious woodland, the ever changing
voice of the mighty River Severn, the timeless serenity of the proud
old estate that had been his birthplace. But serenity had gone. For six
years and more Longhills had been under siege, with Geoffrey—a pox on
his irresponsible self!—cavorting about all over the globe because he
couldn't abide the Trents, and not even coming home now that he was of
an age to end his uncle's administration of the estates. Montclair
scowled, hoping there was nothing wrong with the madcap brother he
loved dearly. He'd tried to keep things in good case for Geoff, Lord
knows. Now, Dr. Sheswell was insisting that he must rest more. But how
the hell could he—