Slightly Wicked (7 page)

He went back downstairs and came face to face with both the innkeeper and his wife, the one staring at him with apparent sympathy, the other with compressed lips and angry glare.

“I suppose,” Rannulf said, “she has gone on the stagecoach.”

“Skittish,” the landlord said. “A new wife, see. Some of them are like that, until they are properly broken in.”

“Wives are not horses,” his wife said severely. “I suppose you quarreled, and I suppose you said some nasty things. I just hope you did not hit her.” Her eyes narrowed.

“I did not strike her,” Rannulf said, hardly believing that he would stoop to defend himself to servants.

“Then you had better ride after the coach and eat some humble pie,” she advised. “Don’t you scold her, mind. You tell her you are sorry and you will speak gentle to her for the rest of your natural-born life.”

“I will do that,” he said, feeling remarkably foolish—and furiously angry deep down. She had not had the decency . . .

“She left a note for you,” the landlord said, tossing his head in the direction of the counter.

Rannulf turned his head to see a folded piece of paper lying there on the bare wood. He strode across the taproom, picked it up, and unfolded the paper.

“I cannot go with you,” the note read. “I am sorry I do not have the courage to say so in person. There
is
someone else, you see. Respectfully yours, Claire.” She had underlined the one word three times.

So he had been bedding and making merry with someone else’s mistress, had he? He nodded his head a couple of times, a mocking smile playing about his lips. He supposed it
had
been naive of him to believe that a woman of her looks and profession was without the protection of some wealthy man. He crumpled the note in one hand and stuffed it into a pocket of his coat.

“You will be wanting your horse, sir,” the innkeeper informed him. “To go after her.”

Dammit all, he wanted his
breakfast
.

“Yes,” he said. “I will.”

“It is all ready,” the man informed him. “I took the liberty after your good lady left of—”

“Yes, yes,” Rannulf said. “Give me your bill and I will be on my way.”

“And her a new bride just two nights ago,” the landlord’s wife said. “I changed the bedding, sir, as you may have noticed. You did not want to be laying on bloody sheets last night, did you, now?”

Rannulf was facing the counter, opening his purse, his back to her. For a moment he froze.

Bloody sheets?

“Yes, I did notice,” he said, pulling out the required sum plus a generous vail. “Thank you.”

He recited every obscenity, every profanity he could think of as he rode away from the inn a few minutes later, supposedly in pursuit of his skittish, high-strung wife.

“Bugger it,” he said aloud at last. “She was a damned
virgin
.”

W
hen Judith was set down in the village of Kennon in Leicestershire during the afternoon, it was to the unsurprising discovery that no gig or cart or servant from Harewood Grange was awaiting her. The house was three miles away, she was informed, and no, there was no safe place to leave her portmanteau. She must take it with her.

Tired, hungry, and heartsick, Judith trudged the three miles, taking frequent stops to set her portmanteau down and switch hands. She had brought very little with her—there was not a great deal to bring—but it was amazing how heavy a few dresses and shoes and nightgowns and brushes could be. The sun beat down on her from a cloudless sky. Soon thirst became even more pressing than hunger.

The driveway up to the house seemed interminably long, winding as it did beneath dark overhanging trees, which at least provided some welcome shade. The house itself, she could see when it finally came into sight, was something of a mansion, but then she had expected it to be. Uncle Effingham was enormously wealthy. It was why Aunt Effingham had married him—or so Mama had once said when cross over a letter she had perceived as condescending.

A servant answered Judith’s knock at the front door, looked at her down the length of his nose as if she were a slug the rain had brought out, showed her into a salon leading off the high, marbled hall, and shut the door. She waited there for well over an hour, but no one came or even brought her any refreshments. She desperately wished to open the door and ask for a glass of water, but she was foolishly awed by the size of the house and the signs of wealth all around her.

Finally Aunt Effingham came, tall and thin, with improbable black curls framing the underside of the brim of her bonnet. She looked very little different than she had eight years ago, when Judith had last seen her.

“Ah, it is you, is it, Judith?” she said, approaching close enough to kiss the air next to her niece’s cheek. “You have certainly taken your time. I was hoping for Hilary since she is the youngest of you and would probably be the most biddable. But you will have to do instead. How is my brother?”

“He is well, thank you, Aunt Louisa,” Judith said. “Mama sends her—”

“Gracious heaven, child, your hair!” her aunt exclaimed suddenly. “It is quite as gaudy as I remember it being. What a dreadful affliction and what a trial for my brother, who has always been the soul of propriety and respectability. What was your mama thinking of to buy you that bonnet when it merely draws attention to your hair? I will have to find you another. Did you bring caps to wear indoors? I shall find you some.”

“I do have—” Judith began, but her aunt’s gaze had moved below the offending bonnet and hair to her niece’s cloak, which had been opened back for some coolness. Her eyebrows snapped into a horrified frown.

“What,”
she exclaimed, “was my sister-in-law thinking of to send you to me dressed like
that
?”

Beneath her cloak Judith was wearing her plain muslin dress with its modest neckline and fashionably high waist. She glanced down at herself in some unease.

“That dress,”
her aunt said in thunderous tones, “is
indecent
. You look like a
trollop
.”

Judith could feel herself flushing. For two nights and the day in between she had been made to feel both beautiful and desirable, but her aunt’s words brought her crashing back to reality. She was ugly—embarrassingly ugly, as Papa had always made clear to her though he had never used words quite as cruel as Aunt Effingham’s. But perhaps she really
did
look like a trollop. Perhaps that was why Ralph Bedard had found her desirable. It was an excruciatingly painful thought.

“I will have to inspect your clothes,” Aunt Effingham said. “If they are all like this, I will have to have them taken out at the seams and somehow made more modest. I hope Effingham is not going to be forced to pay for new dresses for you. Not this year, at least, when he has already been put to the expense of Julianne’s presentation to the queen and come-out Season, and we fully expect the additional expenses of a wedding and bride clothes for her.”

Julianne was Judith’s eighteen-year-old cousin, whom she had also not seen for eight years.

“How is Grandmama?” Judith asked.

Her grandmother lived with Aunt Effingham. Judith had not seen her since she was a child. She had only vague memories of a gaudily clad, jewel-bedecked lady, who had talked a great deal, laughed loudly, hugged her grandchildren at every excuse, and told them stories and listened to their prattle. Judith had adored her until it had become obvious to her that her mama and papa found Grandmama a trial and something of an embarrassment.

“With a large number of houseguests expected here within the next few days you will be able to make yourself useful keeping her company,” Aunt Effingham said briskly. “You will not have much else to do since you have never been brought out or introduced to fashionable society and would feel uncomfortable joining in the activities of the house party. And you will, of course, wish to do all in your power to show your gratitude to Effingham for offering you a home here.”

Judith had hardly needed the reminder that she had been brought to Harewood as a poor relation to serve the family in whatever capacity they decided upon. She was to be her grandmother’s companion, it seemed. She smiled and thought she would surely faint soon if she did not have something to eat or drink. But how could she ask even for a glass of water?

“You may come up and pay your respects to her,” Aunt Effingham said. “She has already had her tea in her own rooms since Julianne and I were out paying calls. We were all expecting you to arrive days before this, though we were hoping for Hilary, of course. I cannot imagine why my brother delayed so long in sending you and thus releasing himself from one financial burden.”

“The stagecoach I was on overturned in the mud two days ago,” Judith explained. “I was then delayed by the rain.”

“Well, it has been very inconvenient not to have you here just when you could have been making yourself most useful,” her aunt said.

The door opened again before her aunt had reached it, and a very pretty young girl came into the room. Eight years had transformed Julianne from a pale, rather uninteresting child to a small, slender but shapely young lady with a heart-shaped face, large blue eyes, and soft blond curls.

“Which one is it?” she asked, looking her cousin over from head to toe. “Oh, you are Judith, the one with carroty hair. I was hoping Uncle would send Hilary. We expected you days ago. Mama was dreadfully annoyed because Tom had been sent into the village to fetch you and did not return home for all of four hours. Mama accused him of drinking inside the inn but he denied it quite vehemently. Mama, I want my tea. Are you
never
going to come? One of the servants can take Judith up to Grandmama.”

I am happy to see you too, Julianne,
Judith thought silently. It was also evident to her that she was not being included in the plans for tea.

Her new life, it seemed, was going to be very much as she had pictured it.

         R
annulf had stopped for breakfast and again for luncheon. It was during the latter meal that his baggage coach and his valet finally caught up with him. It was late afternoon by the time he rode through the gates of Grandmaison Park, past the empty dower house just inside, and along the straight, wide driveway to the main house. He was shown up to his grandmother’s private sitting room. She got to her feet and looked him over as he strode into the room, still in his riding clothes.

“Well,” she said, “and about time too, Rannulf. Your hair needs cutting. Give me a hug.” She held her arms open.

“I was held up for two days by the infernal rain,” he informed her. “My hair grew four inches in the damp air while I waited. Are you sure I will not crush every bone in your body?”

He wrapped his arms about her tiny waist, lifted her off her feet, and kissed her cheek with a loud smack before setting her back down.

“Impudent boy,” she said, straightening her dress. “Are you dying of hunger and thirst? I have given instructions that food and drink are to be brought up within five minutes of your arrival.”

“Hungry as a bear,” he told her. “And I could drink the sea dry, though not, I hope, even a single cup of tea.” He rubbed his hands together and looked her over. As usual she was looking as neat as a pin. She seemed smaller, though, and more slender than ever. Her hair, in its elegant coiffure, was as white as her lace cap.

“And how,” she asked him, “are your brothers and sisters? I have been informed that Aidan has married a coal miner’s daughter.”

Rannulf grinned. “But even if you were to look ever so closely, Grandmama, with the aid of a lorgnette,” he said, “you would not be able to detect one speck of coal dust beneath her fingernails. She was raised and educated as a lady.”

“And Bewcastle?” she asked. “Does he show any sign of taking
anybody’s
daughter to the altar?”

“Wulf?” he said, “Not him. And pity help the woman he decided to offer for. He would freeze her between the bedsheets.”

“Ha!” his grandmother said. “That is all
you
know of the appeal of men like Wulfric, Rannulf. And is Freyja still pining for that viscount?”

“Ravensberg? Kit?” he said. “She socked me in the jaw when I suggested that she was, but that was a year ago, when his betrothal to Miss Edgeworth was new, before he married her. Kit and his viscountess are in expectation of an interesting event within the next few months, which may or may not be a painful thing for Freyja. But she does not wear her heart on her sleeve.”

“And how is Alleyne?” she asked. “As handsome as ever?”

“The ladies seem to think so,” he said, grinning.

“And Morgan? Wulfric will be having her brought out soon?”

“Next year when she is eighteen,” he said. “Though she declares she would rather die first.”

“Foolish girl,” she said and paused while a maid carried a tray into the room, curtsied, and withdrew.

The drink was
not
tea, Rannulf saw with some satisfaction. He helped himself and resumed his seat after his grandmother with one raised hand indicated that she would neither eat nor drink. Ah, the moment of truth had come, he thought with an inward sigh of resignation, sensing that the preliminary courtesies were at an end and she was about to get down to business.

“Aidan is the wise one,” she said, “even if he
has
chosen a coal miner’s daughter. He must be thirty years old, and it is high time he started setting up his nursery. And you are eight and twenty, Rannulf.”

“A mere fledgling, Grandmama.” He grinned at her.

“I have found someone very eligible for you,” she said. “Her papa is only a baronet, it is true, but it is an old, respected family and there is no shortage of money there. She is as pretty as the day is long and has just been presented this past spring. She is ready to make an advantageous match.”

“Just been presented?” Rannulf frowned. “How old is she?”

“Eighteen,” his grandmother said. “Just the right age for you, Rannulf. She is young enough to be easily molded to your will, and she has most of her breeding years ahead of her.”