Playing to Win (35 page)

Sure enough, the very next afternoon he
found himself face to face with Clarissa’s youthful admirer. They
were closeted in Trevor’s study, and the moment of truth had
arrived. But Trevor would see Eustace in hell rather than make it
easy for him! Let the blighter tell him out loud what he wanted. If
he dared. So Trevor waited, silent, his face a mask.

It was really rather fascinating,
watching Mr. Henry’s color fluctuate. His youthful countenance
flushed scarlet, then paled, then blushed again. "I—I suppose you
will have guessed my errand, sir," he finally managed to
utter.

"Yes," said Trevor. His tone was not
encouraging. His fingers absently turned a quill pen, end over end,
gently tapping the blotter on the desk before him.

Mr. Henry appeared to be suffering the
agonies of the damned. The room was cool, but sweat dewed his brow.
He was perched on the extreme edge of his chair, as if poised for
instant flight. And Mr. Whitlatch supposed that Eustace would be
extremely sorry, later, when he perceived how he had mangled his
hat. In the uncomfortable silence that had fallen, he was twisting
it convulsively in his hands.

Now Mr. Henry launched into a
breathless recitation of his circumstances. As if that mattered!
Trevor waited, his expression growing more and more sour, as
Eustace rattled off every conceivable point in his favor, every
hope he had for his boring little future. Trevor soon felt he could
not listen to another sentence of it, and interrupted. He still had
one card to play, and was impatient to see if it took the
trick.

"Never mind all that! I am sure your
prospects are excellent, Mr. Henry. I congratulate you! But what is
your point?"

"My—my point, sir?" Eustace gulped, and
stared at his irascible host with the eyes of a startled fawn.
"Why, I—I wish to—I wish to marry your ward!"

"But you haven’t asked me what
her
circumstances are!"

Mr. Henry goggled at him in unfeigned
astonishment. It had obviously not occurred to this unworldly idiot
that Clarissa’s circumstances mattered one whit.

"Well, sir, I—I had not thought about
that. One hardly takes such a thing into consideration, does
one?"

Mr. Whitlatch felt a stab of
irritation. "You don’t care what her prospects may be?"

A light of fanaticism suddenly burned
in Mr. Henry’s eyes. He drew himself up proudly. "No, sir, I do
not! It would not matter to me if Miss Feeney were the veriest
pauper!"

"Well, she is," said Mr. Whitlatch
bluntly. He had the satisfaction of seeing the air abruptly leave
Eustace’s sails. Mr. Henry blinked foolishly at him for a moment,
then flushed scarlet again. He looked both chagrined and
apprehensive, and Trevor guessed at once that Eustace’s parents had
already impressed upon their heir that they did not share his noble
unconcern regarding his prospective bride’s finances.

A short bark of laughter escaped Mr.
Whitlatch. "Just so!" he said cordially. "Clarissa has no dowry, so
you will have to support her from the outset. But I daresay your
parents will be delighted to house you both at the
vicarage."

Mr. Henry paled, and further crushed
his hat. Trevor watched in unholy amusement as Eustace pondered
these distressing tidings. His visitor rose shakily and crossed to
the narrow window, where he stared, unseeing, through the panes of
glass.

By God, he might trump Eustace’s ace
yet. He kept his voice deceptively bland. "She has no dowry because
she has no family. It is a fortunate circumstance that you care
nothing for such things. Most men would consider Miss Feeney
completely unmarriageable."

Trevor waited expectantly. Eustace’s
gaze did return to him, but he appeared somewhat dazed.

"Wh-what? Unmarriageable?
Why?"

Trevor smiled politely. "Oh, didn’t you
know? Her parents weren’t married."

He watched with interest as this
bombshell dropped on poor Mr. Henry. Eustace’s shock was palpable.
His jaw slackened, and he blanched to the color of new cheese.
Trevor could almost find it within himself to feel sorry for the
luckless Mr. Henry. One could hardly blame Clarissa for failing to
confide this tidbit of information to her suitor, but really, such
news was bound to come as something of a facer to an idealistic
lad.

Trevor transferred his gaze to the
quill in his hand and began pulling it rhythmically through his
fingers. "Or, perhaps I should say, her father was married. But not
to her mother."

Mr. Henry uttered a strangled sound
that might have been, "Good God!"

Something like glee was building in
Trevor. He could almost feel Clarissa, pushed out of range by the
attentions of this upstart puppy, coming within his sights
again.

He coughed, grinned, and spread his
hands deprecatingly. "So you see, many men—perhaps most men—would
turn their eyes elsewhere when seeking a bride."

Mr. Henry sat, with suspicious
suddenness, on a spindle-legged chair by the window. Trevor hoped
the poor sod wasn’t going to faint. The mangled hat slid from
Eustace’s nerveless fingers and dropped, unnoticed, on the floor.
He voiced something between a moan and a sob, and buried his face
in his hands.

Trevor donned a demeanor suitable for a
kindly uncle, and tried to inject a little sympathy into his voice.
"Come now, it isn’t as bad as that. You haven’t taken any
irretrievable step. Why don’t you go home and think about it calmly
for a day or two? One mustn’t make a decision like this hastily.
Talk it over with your parents! Then, if you’re still of the same
mind in, say, a month from now—"

"I shall always be of the same mind!"
uttered Mr. Henry. His voice, although passionate, was muffled in
his hands. He appeared to be choking on tears. "But they will never
let me do it! Not now! I shan’t be able to have her at the
vicarage—I shall have to wait until—oh, the devil!"

He raised a haggard face and gazed
bleakly at his host. "It doesn’t matter," said Eustace, in tones of
desperation. "Nothing matters. Nothing but her."

Despite himself, Trevor found the lad’s
devotion oddly touching. A sentimental young man in the throes of
his first calf-love was a rare and fragile thing. Was I ever that
young? wondered Trevor. It seemed unlikely.

"Sir," Eustace asked abruptly, "have
you ever been in love?"

Mr. Whitlatch’s brows flew upward, then
snapped fiercely down to hood his eyes. "No," he said shortly. "I
can’t say that I have."

Obsession, maybe. Lately he was
uncomfortably aware that he knew what it was to be obsessed.
Thoughts of Clarissa hounded him day and night, making life a
living hell. The only relief he experienced was when he gave into
his obsession, dropped whatever else he was doing, and headed for
Bond Street.

Now Mr. Henry’s countenance blazed with
emotion, transforming him. He no longer appeared nervous or gawky.
He looked exalted, strong and eager. "I tell you, sir, that once in
a man’s lifetime there appears a girl who is—The One!"

Trevor stared blankly at him. "The one
what?"

Mr. Henry rose to his feet, completing
the ruination of his hat by inadvertently trampling it. He clasped
his hands ardently before him. "Miss Feeney is everything, simply
everything,
I ever dreamed of! So charming, so modest, so
womanly, so—so
sweet!"

Mr. Whitlatch’s lips twisted wryly.
"And so pretty!" he suggested.

But irony was lost on Mr. Henry. "Yes!"
he agreed rapturously. He returned to stand before Mr. Whitlatch,
and gazed with limpid eyes at Trevor’s forbidding face. "Miss
Feeney possesses every virtue. Worldly concerns simply cannot
intrude in such a case."

Trevor snorted impatiently, but Mr.
Henry continued, his voice soft with conviction. "Her price is far
above rubies."

Trevor suddenly stilled. His dark eyes
widened, startled. "What?"

Eustace offered him a shy, slightly
apologetic smile. "It’s out of Scripture, you know, sir. The book
of Proverbs."

"What is?"

"The verse, of course." Mr. Henry
appeared mildly surprised by Mr. Whitlatch’s sudden theological
digression, but quoted dutifully. "‘Who can find a virtuous woman?
For her price is far above rubies.’"

Rubies. What an odd coincidence. Trevor
felt an unsettling shiver of gooseflesh. But Mr. Henry, in the grip
of his own fervor, continued to speak.

"If only they knew her, I feel quite
sure my parents would come to love her as I do."

"Really? How awkward!"

Mr. Whitlatch’s sarcasm was, again,
wasted on Eustace Henry. The cowlike eyes lost none of their glow.
"So I had a—a sort of an idea, you know, that I might invite Miss
Feeney to a dinner my mother is planning for Christmas Eve. And
you, too, sir, of course!" he added hastily.

Mr. Whitlatch bowed ironically. "I am
glad to see you are not entirely lost to propriety, Mr.
Henry."

"No, sir, certainly not!" Mr. Henry
appeared shocked at the very idea. "I would like to keep everything
perfectly on the up-and-up, you know. But it so happens I will
attain my majority on that date. And—and I would very much like to
announce—" He gulped, his cheeks turning scarlet.

Seeing that Eustace was foundering in a
morass of delicate emotion, Trevor politely finished his sentence
for him. "Your betrothal?"

"Yes, sir," said Mr. Henry
gratefully.

Trevor leaned back in his chair,
frowning blackly. If he were a different sort of man, he thought
resentfully, he would put a stop to this nonsense. If he were a
different sort of man, he would boot this moonling out of his study
and tell him not to come back until he’d grown some sense. That
ought to send him away for the next decade or so.

Damn the fellow. He was everything
Clarissa had described as her ideal. What was it she had told him,
not so long ago? She dreamed of a kind man. A reader of books. A
vicar’s son! Well, here he stood, as if conjured out of her very
imaginings.

It availed Trevor nothing to scowl and
growl and sneer. He had lost, and this milk-faced bleater had
won.

He made one last-ditch effort. "You
seem very certain."

"Yes, sir."

"And yet you have only known Clarissa a
short time."

The fanatical light returned to
Eustace’s eyes. "The instant I saw Miss Feeney—within five minutes
of making her acquaintance—I
knew!"

Trevor’s lip curled sardonically. He
understood the effect Clarissa had on an unwary male. None better!
But an older, wiser man would never mistake that impact for undying
love. An older, wiser man would keep his wits about him. Consider
the consequences. Look before he leapt.

And give Clarissa up to a man who was
young and foolish.

Rage and pain suddenly stabbed at
Trevor’s heart. He knew it was idiotic to envy Eustace Henry his
youth and inexperience, but for an instant he wished, almost
savagely, that he himself cared nothing for Clarissa’s birth. He
rubbed his eyes wearily.

"Very well, Mr. Henry. If Miss Feeney
wishes to accept your offer, I will raise no objection."

Chapter 24

On the morning of December 23rd, the
sky darkened ominously. Shortly after midday, it began to spit
snow. Sporadically at first, then thicker and thicker, the flakes
fell. By nightfall the world was blanketed in white.

Clarissa rose on the morning of the
24th and pulled back the curtains of her bedroom window. It’s an
omen, she thought despairingly. Snow had evidently fallen steadily
through the night, and an arctic wind was blowing, tossing drifts
against the walls of the cottage and the stableyard across from her
window.

The snow stopped halfway through the
morning, and the sun struggled to show itself. Clarissa began to
think the sky would clear, but then the clouds closed in again and
the snow turned sleety. Mr. Whitlatch announced that they must
leave early for the vicarage; if they tarried, the roads might
prove completely impassable. Clarissa listlessly agreed, and went
upstairs to change her raiment. It was difficult to look forward to
the Christmas Eve dinner at the vicarage with any degree of
pleasure. She had seldom felt less inclined for
merriment.

Bess helped her don the jonquil silk,
which she had never before worn. The gown was elegant, yet chaste.
It was also very becoming. Clarissa hoped, rather apathetically, it
would do justice to the occasion. Bess seemed much more excited
about Clarissa’s invitation to the vicarage than Clarissa was; she
supposed the entire staff must be expecting the announcement of her
engagement to Eustace. It was impossible to keep such things
secret.

In honor of Christmas, she decided to
wear an evening cloak of cherry-red velvet. It was a gift from Mr.
Whitlatch. Of course. Clarissa stroked the soft folds lovingly for
a moment before slipping on her gloves, and sighed. For a girl who
was about to achieve a lifelong dream, she felt unaccountably
depressed.

Trevor was waiting for her in the hall.
She had never seen him so impeccably dressed. He must have had
assistance, something he usually scorned. No man could wedge
himself into such form-fitting apparel without the aid of a valet.
He looked massive, gorgeous, and extremely intimidating. Her heart
sank with hurt when he scarcely glanced at her but held his hand
out silently, his expression remote and impassive. She took his
arm, her gloved hand trembling slightly.