Prelude to Love (21 page)

"I was only gone down to demand some service," Miss Simons said. "I rang and rang the bell for a quarter of an hour, and no one came to tend me, so I went downstairs to give them a piece of my mind. When I returned, the place was a shambles. Landon had rummaged through my most personal items," she added, stiff with disapproval. "The whole affair is his fault, and
I
for one am happy to see him rewarded as he deserves. He was
beating
poor Mr. Carlisle again, Nessa." .

"No, it was
our
fault," Vanessa told her. "If we had done as Father asked, none of this would have happened. It was stopping at the assembly hall that did the damage."

"Well, then it is Henry's fault for sending us in the first place. Was I to make a trip without a vinaigrette? I am sure
I
have done nothing but what I thought for the best."

"No one is blaming you," Vanessa said.

"You
just did! You may be sure Henry will try to dump the whole in my dish as well. My vinaigrette—I must have it before I swoon away from nervous exhaustion."

"It would be best to take the lady to another room," one of the officials suggested, with an impatient look at the jabbering lady.

"An excellent idea! I do not mean to share a bed with a man who is bleeding all over the pillows," Miss Simons replied, between sniffs from her vinaigrette. "We shall go to your room, Nessa."

Vanessa lingered by the bedside, disliking to leave. "Take her along. It is for the best," he advised.

"I am not leaving Colonel Landon," she announced, her firm manner making it clear she was not going to be balked.

Landon's eyes fluttered open. "Don’t kill him," he said. She thought he was delirious. "Don't let them kill Carlisle."

"I hope they do!"

"I want to question him," he said, his voice weak, then he closed his eyes again, giving a good impression of a dead man. Even half dead, he was planning. She shook her head with a rueful smile.

"Did you hear him?" she asked the closest official.

"Yes, I'd best run along and see they do as he says. There'll be the almighty devil to pay if he's disobeyed."

"How did you all get here so early?" she asked the one remaining. "I hurried straight from London as fast as I could. I made sure I would be the first to arrive."

"We rode our mounts, ma'am. The colonel thought it would be faster, as it was, of course, though I must say it was a hard gallop."

"I'm surprised they let him into the inn. He—caused a little commotion last time he was here."

"He often does." The man laughed. "I fancy that is why he went straight from the stable to the balcony. I wondered at the time, but I figured he'd done his reconnaissance in advance, and he don't like to be pestered with questions when he is busy. ‘We'll check out the stable to see if Carlisle's or the woman's rig is here, and if it is, I'll go in by the window,' he told us. He changed his mind and used the door, in the end. It's awkward going in by the window unless the room's empty, you see. It gives the other a chance to have at you while you're off balance."

"He cannot have spent long at Whitehall."

"Just long enough to tell his story and make sure they knew what to do on the coast—in case he didn't come back, you know."

"He would think of that. He thinks of everything."

"He did not think
you
would be coming here," the man said with a quizzing smile. "He sent a brace of Guards over to Belgrave Square to look after you when he learned you'd scampered down to the stage stop without telling him. He feared Carlisle might have spotted you there and followed you to your aunt's home. Well, I guess you had given the Euston woman your address in any case. You must have left already by the time they got there."

"Yes. I dread to think what my aunt will think when the Guards land in. She will make sure they plan to take me to the Tower for beheading. I would have done better to stay put."

"One is generally better off to do exactly as the colonel says," he agreed. "I took the notion, from little things he said, that you were not at all anxious to come up against Carlisle again. Funny he would have misunderstood your intention. He don't usually, but then, he more usually deals with men. They don't change their minds," he added simply.

"One hesitates to utter a word of criticism, but I believe he has something to learn in the handling of ladies."

"He's learning fast. Hounding the poor mortal to death in London. It's because of his being a hero and all."

"Why doesn't that doctor come?" she scolded, finding she did not care at all for the official gentleman.

"He'll live, ma'am. It will take more than a scratch to stop him."

The doctor arrived very soon after, at which time Vanessa was told politely to wait in the next room.

Chapter Eighteen

When she went to the other room, she found her aunt had been preparing a list of sins against her over the past day. She lay stretched out on the bed, with the vinaigrette at the ready in her hand, a handkerchief in the other and a very wounded expression on her face. She launched into a sea of complaints.

"I should like to know, miss, why you went sneaking off on me in the middle of the night, without so much as a note left to inform me of your whereabouts. Have you
any idea
what my day has been like? Finding you gone, I went to call on Carlisle, to find he also had fled. Kiley the same. I even ventured to tap on
his
door. I made sure you had eloped to Scotland with Harvey, for you remember we had spoken of it. I particularly cautioned against it. I sent our carriage off to the north, looking for you, which left
me
stranded here alone, without even a carriage, and with a constable asking all manner of impertinent questions I could not answer. Why had Carlisle left, after calling him in the middle of the night? Where was Kiley? What was
our
relationship with the pair of them? I was never so humiliated in my life. You must
not
breathe a word of it to Henry."

There was a good deal more of the same, a whole litany of grievances. She could not like to walk on the streets of a strange town unaccompanied, the servants at the inn were insolent, she had the choice of eating alone in her room or rubbing elbows with cits and commoners belowstairs. "And furthermore," she finished in a final burst of anger, "you broke my good traveling clock before you left."

"Are you not curious to hear why I left so suddenly?" Vanessa asked, when she could get a word in edgewise.

"Have I not been
asking
you for the past half hour?"

"No, Auntie, you have been telling me how unpleasant your day was, with no carriage and no company. Mine was much worse, I assure you."

"You lost Henry's letter?" she asked, relegating it in importance several degrees below her own trying day.

"Its contents have been delivered to London."

"You evaded Kiley, then, did you? That troubled me as much as all the rest, worrying he had got hold of you."

"He did get hold of me. It was Colonel Landon's idea to take it to London instead of Ipswich. I agreed with him."

"Colonel Landon!" she spat out, then had recourse to a long draw from her vinaigrette. Her eyes watered from the pungent vapors of the smelling salts contained within. "I declare, these salts are years old. There is not a bit of power left in them. It is Landon who is to blame for the whole of our miseries."

"Did you not listen to what was said in the other room? It is Carlisle who is the spy."

"One is as bad as the other. It was not civil of Carlisle to enter my room when I was not there. He left the window open as well, to fill the room with that unhealthy night air. Whatever you have endured this day, Vanessa, it cannot hold a candle to my woes."

"If you would have preferred being kidnapped, drugged, stripped and tied up a prisoner to being without a carriage, then I wish we might have changed places."

"Stripped?" she asked, rising to a bolt upright position on her bed. "Which of the bounders did it? He must marry you."

"I don't know that it was done by a man at all. It might very well have been Mrs. Euston."

"Pray do not confuse me with any more names. If you were stripped by anyone but Mrs. Euston, the man must certainly marry you, and I hope you are not going to tell me it was Kiley. He'll beat you regularly."

"Colonel Landon is his name."

"So it
was
him. I might have known. If you are forced to marry that blackamoor, Vanessa, pray do not tell me you mean to make your home at Levenhurst, or I shall move direct to London."

"I am afraid you will be seeing Colonel Landon whether I marry him or not. He is replacing Forrester as the commanding officer at the local garrison."

"We are losing that nice Colonel Forrester? Oh, this is too much. And you never even got to stand up with him at the ball. I should not be the least surprised to learn Miss Pischer got an offer from him."

"I hope she did," Vanessa said, as the lady spoken of was a prime piece of competition.

"I knew how it would be when we had to miss the ball."

"There will be other balls."

"Not with Forrester at them. Well, Nessie, it seems to me you have done a poor job of accounting for yourself. Why did you leave me here all alone to deal with those scoundrels?"

The story was told, with many interruptions and animadversions from Miss Simons that the girl was not only ruined but depraved to have allowed herself to be used so poorly.

"The upshot of it is that you must marry one of them, to save your name from disgrace," she concluded.

"Marrying aspy would not do me much credit."

"I do not count on Landon to do the proper thing. He will try to squeak out of it by blaming it on Carlisle."

"Landon always does the proper thing," Vanessa answered hotly.

"Calling himself Kiley—is that your notion of proper, to be changing your name?"

"His name is Stanier Landon."

"Stanier? You never mentioned
that
before. Would he be one of the Dorchester Staniers?" she asked, swinging her legs over the side of the bed.

"Stanier is his Christian name, not the family name."

"Stanier is not a Christian name in the least. In fact, I believe it is French. You may rest assured it is his mama's family name. He is some kin to Jessica Stanier, certainly. He has a look of her about the eyes, now I come to think of it."

"He has very nice eyes," Vanessa said, in a pensive way.

"Yes, if you have a taste for gypsies."

"Who is Jessica Stanier?"

"Viscount Dorval's eldest daughter. Very good ton. She made her bows the year I did in London. She got picked off early in the season."

"Did she marry someone called Landon?"

"She must have," was the foolish answer. "If the colonel is Jessica Stanier's son, he is at least well bred. There must be some fortune there; Jessica had a good dot, whatever about the husband's fortune."

"It is not clear he is Jessica's son."

"Rubbish. Who else could he possible be? Stanier is not a common name. And he is coming home to take over command of the garrison there, you say?"

"Yes, but he will be delayed due to his injury. I hope it is not serious."

"Run along to his room and see what the doctor has to say. Go at once, goose, before some other chit snatches him away from you. Wait till I tell Mrs. Fischer. She'll be green with envy. Forester to be fired, and Landon taking over in his stead. He is young to be a colonel, too. Henry was not promoted till he was fifty. Run along, before he changes his mind."

With a deep sense of alarm at this peculiar warning, Vanessa ran toward the door.

"Wait, come back, Nessie. You must not let him see you like that. You look a perfect nightmare. Your trunk is halfway to Scotland by now, but your small valise is still here. Why did you not take it with you? We shall try if we can make you half presentable, at least. There is no point thinking to attach Colonel Landon, looking like a witch."

The dame's migraine was forgotten. They got out the small valise, to repair the ravages of the day. Hot water was ordered for a bath, the hair was brushed and arranged, a russet sarsenet gown selected, appropriate jewelry discussed.

"Pearls are good for an invalid's room," Miss Simons said, cocking her head to one side to ponder her own pronouncement. "They have a
calming
quality, don't you think? I never wear a sparkling gem in a sickroom. It shows a lack of consideration."

Even this absurdity was accepted. "I shall go with you," Miss Simons declared, her face set in lines of concentration for the polite puzzle she was considering. "Ten minutes," she said, after due deliberation. "Ten minutes will be the proper duration of my visit. You may stay twenty—ten with me, ten alone with the colonel. As he is wounded, there can be no vice in it. He must have an opportunity to do the proper thing. Now, be sure you don't let him off the hook, Nessie."

"He is not on the hook," she answered, gliding to the mirror to assess the bait. The excitement lent a sparkle to her eyes. Oh her cheeks rode two rose spots that looked unnatural, but attractively so. She looked
different
somehow, in a subtle way she could not pinpoint. It was the expression of resolution that accounted for it, perhaps. She looked like a lady with a mission, one she did not intend to fail. That dreamy, irresolute, pouting face so admired by Forrester had taken on the first impression of character.

"Now, stop making faces in the mirror and
go,"
Elleri ordered. "If he does not consider himself caught, I shall just put a little bug in his ear."

"No! You mustn't.
He
didn't do anything wrong. He owes me nothing." Her blush heightened to recall certain parts of her story not told to Elleri. She had not said to what lengths Landon had gone in looking for the letter.

"Does he not? I should like to know why you are as pink as a rose, then," Miss Simons said sagely, and strode into the hallway.

The doctor had applied a plaster over Landon's left brow. It sat at an insouciant angle above the eye, giving him a quizzical air. His face was pale, but his eyes alert. He lay propped up in Miss Simons' bed, giving orders to the two stalwart officials. As the ladies entered, his eyes flew to Vanessa. He smiled, but the knowing Miss Simons did not find on him the smile of a lover. There was something of stiffness, constraint, that was far removed from a man on the verge of an offer. After debating with herself, she had found it possible to give Henry's tentative approval to the match.