The Poor Relation (11 page)

Then in one slick move, Guyot released Chloe and reached for Mrs. Palmer’s hand holding on to Camden’s arm.  Slipping it through his own arm, he said as he led her away, “Madame Palmer, you must spare me a few minutes of your time,
s’il vous plaît
.”  

Judith had little chance to protest, though her voice carried back to Chloe, “Spinsters are such pitiable creatures, do you not agree,
Monsieur?”

Before Chloe could react, Camden, too
k her elbow, turned her in the opposite direction and began to stroll.  “Pay her no mind, Miss Woodforde.  For all her looks, the widow can be a very jealous woman.”

Thinking it preposterous to assume the widow’s rudeness was due to jealously over her, Chloe remained silent.
  As she strolled with Camden, the little terrier capered about the Viscount’s legs.  Shortening the leash to control the Yorky, Chloe admonished, “Do stop, Caro.  You are muddying his lordship’s boots.”

Camden did not seem to notice as he asked, “You seem to enjoy a great deal of Pierre Guyot’s company.
Heed me well, Miss Woodforde, for your own safety, stay away from the émigré.”

She could not stop herself from asking, “Was he the one in the garden that night?”

“No, he wasn’t,” he growled.  “Are you so desperate for a husband that you’d allow a wastrel like him to pay you court?”

She felt the angry blush color her cheeks and made to pull away, but he reached for her hand and threaded it
through the crook of his arm.

“You insult me, my lord,” Chloe returned with feeling.  “I have no interest in hi
m or any other.”

“Come now, Miss Woodforde, you are no young debutant
e.  And despite our earlier discussion, you will never convince me you’re not setting out lures.”

“You make me sound like some old hen at her last prayers.”
She kept her tone light, fearing he’d detect her interest in him.

“Hardly, but neither are you a schoolroom miss,” he replied ungraciously while his eyes raked her person from head to toe.

“I am four and twenty, on the shelf perhaps, but far from being so long in the tooth as to be beyond all hope.  Besides which, there is not a gentleman here that strikes me as proper husband material,” she said with feeling.

He laughed derisively.  “Just what is your definition of a matrimonial prize?  Remembering that you can’t afford to be too picky, have you considered Pearson?  His ancestry is reputed to include two ancient kings?
”

She wrinkled her brow as if in thought.  “I think not, for I fear his waistcoats would put most of my gowns to shame.”

Camden’s low chuckle sent shivers down her spine.  “Then might you consider Sir Clarence Reaves, for he is amiable enough?”

“True, excep
t that his doting mama sits in his pockets,” she answered, drawing another appreciative chuckle from Camden.

“Perhaps Monsieur Guyot?” Camden continued.  “Though his pockets are to let, he is, nonetheless, well received among the
ton
.”

She shook her head.  “My French is merely passable.”

“Ah.”  He leaned his head towards hers and smiled.  “There is myself.  I am accorded to being excessively well-heeled.”

“You
flatter yourself, my lord.  If you were as rich as Croesus, it would hardly compensate for your hazardous nocturnal occupation of roaming the countryside.”

With a hard look, o
ne dark eyebrow rose speculatively.  “Been spying on me, Miss Woodforde?”

“I refer to the numerous times we have met wh
en I have been out with Lady Caro, nothing more.”

“
It
is
coincidental the way I keep bumping into you.  Tell me, am I the lucky swell you’ve set your cap for?”

“You are too absurd, my lord.  Surely you have not taken into account the opportunity I let slip through my fingers the night you found me unconscious.”

“True, and there have been other times as well, and still you’ve made no move to leg shackle me.  But maybe you’re smart enough to recognize me for the cad that I am.  I would not marry you, or any woman for that matter, just because we’d been caught in an indiscrete situation.”  His dark gaze never left her face.

“I know,” Chloe replied to his callous confession.  She lowered her lashe
s, least he see the pain his words had inflicted on her heart.  After an uncomfortable moment with his eyes still fixed on her, she excused herself.  “Lady Milbanke should be up by now.”  She scooped up Lady Caro in her arms and immediately regretted her impulsive action.  Surely she looked a fool with the little dog’s muddy paw prints covering her gown.

She hurried back to the house, resisting the urge to glance over her shoulder to see if he watched her.  There really was no point.  Hadn’t he just confirmed everything Judith Palmer had told her that day in town?
 

***  Chapter 9  ***

The rest of the day passed uneventfully.  Chloe entertained her aunt, listening
to the baroness’s tongue wag on about her aging cronies and helping her to tally her winnings playing whist with Lady Reaves, Sir Morley and Leslie Pearson. Chloe couldn’t believe the killing Lady Sophia made at the card tables over the past two days.  Dawdling over their toilettes, she and Lady Sophia still presented themselves in the drawing room well before time.  But it seemed everyone else was equally bored with the forced confinement and inactivity and consequently were already gathered for dinner.

On the surface everything appeared normal, yet Chloe sensed something strange going on, an undercurrent that existed among
certain guests.  By now, she’d had her full of the whole lot of them.  Guyot kept casting sly looks her way as though he expected to catch her out, doing what she did not know.  Before dinner, he’d drawn her aside and once again interrogated her on the Viscount’s background of which, of course, she could relate nothing.

“Really, M
onsieur Guyot,” she finally blurted out irritably, “why are you forever questioning me?”

His penetrating brown eyes bore into hers.  “
Your
belle tête
, er, beautiful head, must know that not everyone is as he appears,
oui
?”

”That may be, but I have nothing to hide from anyone.”

“Then for misunderstanding’s sake, mademoiselle, you should perhaps be for careful of the company you keep.” He dropped his voice to a near whisper.  “It would be a pity if any harm were to come to you.”

“You cannot be serious?
” she retorted.  “There is no reason for anyone here to hurt me.”  But the memory of that frightful moment in the woods surfaced when someone had clobbered her from behind, and she wondered just what this obnoxious man knew of it.

“
Au contraire
, these are not silly games we are about, but one that will be played to the death.”

He lowered his eyes, but Chloe had seen the malevolence in them.  A chill as cold as his words ran through her.  “Whose death?” She was surprised by her own boldness.

Guyot must have realized that he’d said too much, for he quickly turned away and walked over to where Lady Sarah stood with her mother and Sir Clarence.  Chloe pondered telling the Viscount about the Frenchman’s threat, then reconsidered.  More likely, he would think she was being fanciful.  Besides, she doubted Napoleon’s army could form a wedge between Camden and Mrs. Palmer.  The beautiful widow clutched Camden’s sleeve tightly enough to ensure he couldn’t move six inches without dragging her with him.

To further agitate her, when they entered the dining room, Leslie Pearson manipulated the seating arrangements so that she was placed next to him.  It didn’t take long for Chloe to divine his purpose. 

“Your aunt is an unusual woman,” he began, once the asparagus soup was served.

Chloe innocently took the gambit.
  “In what way, sir?”

“She has the most exceptional luck at cards, does she not?”

The tinkling laughter that escaped her was unforgivable, but she could not help it.  She realized that the dandy’s purse was one of the unfortunate ones made lighter by her Captain Shark of a great aunt over the past few days.

“I do beg your pardon, sir,” she apologized for her rudeness.  “But you
have the right of it.  Lady Milbanke has an uncanny knack with the pasteboards.”

“Rather strange, too, considering her age and how much the old, er, her ladyship like
s her drink,” he said with a sneering smile.

“You mistake the matter, sir.”  Chloe bristled over the none
-too-subtle charge that her aunt was guilty of cheating.  “If you were more observant, you would see that Lady Milbanke only games for paltry sums, yet pays prodigious attention to every card played.  It is hardly luck, Mr. Pearson.  Skill is what accounts for her winning.”

“I never meant to imply otherwise,” answered Pearson, taken aback by Chloe’s vehement defense of the old baroness.  “Your aunt didn’t fleece me, at any rate.”

Far too upset to accept this half-hearted apology, Chloe turned her back on the dandy and addressed Sir Albert, who had overheard a good bit of their conversation.

“You’ve had a difficult time of it today, my dear.  After dinner, if you like, why don’t you retire.  I’ll keep a vigilant eye on that rambunctious aunt of yours.”  With a mischievous twinkle behind his wire rimmed spectacles, he said, “Maybe between the two of us, we can finish picking the gentleman’s pockets clean tonight.”  To this sally, Chloe joined the elderly gentleman in a merry chuckle.

So an hour later Chloe found herself at loose ends, standing in the middle of her beautiful bedchamber.  It was far too early to prepare for bed.  The headache she’d pleaded after dinner when the ladies had adjourned to the drawing room would surely have developed into a reality if she’d been forced to watch Judith Palmer hang all over the Viscount for the rest of the evening.  Why that bothered her so, Chloe preferred not to probe for an answer.  Nor did she want to be subjected to that spiteful cat’s malevolent glances half the night any more than she wanted to stay cooped up in her room.  Looking out the window and ascertaining that the rain hadn’t returned, Chloe threw a woolen shawl over her shoulders to ward off the dampness and went to fetch Lady Caro.

The sky was beginning to clear, allowing the moon to peek out from behind the scudding clouds, and with the house all aglow, there was plenty of light
to see her way around the gardens.  Deciding to take a different route, she rounded the corner of the mansion, emerging on the west side of the grounds.  Here the landscaping conformed to the natural terrain, which was more heavily treed.  There were fewer paths winding among the oaks, beeches and elms.  Relishing in the natural beauty of the lush shrubs and colorful clusters of wild flowers, Chloe started along one such path.  A freshly scented breeze tugged at her shawl and played with the loose curls framing her face, but she hardly noticed.  As the canopy of leaves rustled overhead, she became preoccupied with her troubled thoughts.

By his very reputation, Chloe knew better than to expect
the Viscount to develop a
tendre
for her.  Undoubtedly, there was some truth to Judith Palmer’s claim that an argument existed between Camden and the widow.  Why else would he allow the woman to fawn all over him unless Mrs. Palmer was his paramour, a notion that made her inwardly wince.  She was worldly enough to know that men kept mistresses, some even after they were married. 

Why did she have to
fall for this one particular man? Because that’s what had happened--she had fallen in love. Did he even care for her a little?  Oh, if only she were able to control the yearnings of her heart, she mused.  She’d known other men who were far more handsome than the Viscount, but his large muscular physique attracted her like no other.  No, there was something about the man himself that she found irresistible.

Coming upon a particularly dark area under a stand of oaks on the other side of a large hedge, she heard male voices, low pitched almost to a whisper.  She thought about turning back, but upon following the path around the tall yew, she encountered the large looming figure of the Viscount.  Standing beside him was a smaller man, dressed in dark clothes, who raised a hand to pull on his knit cap, bringing it down lower
, further obscuring his facial features.

“Good evening, Miss Woodforde.”  Camden sounded none too pleased at seeing her.

“Good evening, my lord,” she replied, tugging on the Yorkshire’s leash to stop the traitorous canine from joyously jumping up on the nobleman and, consequently, ruining his immaculate black trousers with muddy paw prints.  “Come, Lady Caro,” she commanded and practically dragged the irritating little beast away.

“One moment
if you please, Miss Woodforde,” Camden called out, then turned to exchange a few words meant for the other man’s ears alone.  As the Viscount came toward her, she watched his friend step back and melt into the shadows.  Fascinated by the man’s disappearing act before her very eyes, she would have waited to listen for movement or a sound, but Camden took her elbow, turned her about, and began walking her back to the house.