VIscount Besieged (17 page)

‘
Ah,
good-day to you, Miss Alvescot,’ Syderstone greeted her.

‘
I
missed you at the stables,’ Roborough said, and then frowned as the
expression on her face hit him.

It was almost
like a physical blow. He had never experienced such a look. He did
not know how to describe it—something between horror and hate. And
although it vanished an instant later its imprint stayed indelibly
in his mind—and heart. Good God, he felt hurt! What in the name of
all the gods had he done to deserve a look like that from Isadora?
After yesterday, too, when they had seemed to be going along with
much greater ease.

She was
responding to Syderstone’s query about whether she had slept well
as she took a seat. She did not look as if she had slept well, for
all her inane and polite response.

‘
Very
well indeed, I thank you, Mr Syderstone. And you?’

Roborough did
not hear the answer. He brought his cup of coffee to his lips,
regarding Isadora frowningly over the rim.

Aware of his
scrutiny, Isadora kept her gaze firmly on her plate as Hampole
served her. But the baked eggs brought her stomach up to choke her
and she pushed the plate away, shaking her head at the
butler.

‘
Not
this morning, Hampole. Just coffee, and perhaps some bread and
butter.’

Hampole withdrew
the platter, but his perplexity was evident to the viscount.
Clearly Isadora usually had a hearty appetite. What had caused her
to lose it?

‘
You
are sure you are well, Miss Alvescot?’ Syderstone asked
solicitously, apparently also having noticed the butler’s puzzled
look.

Conscious of
Roborough’s gaze, Isadora answered, ‘I have the headache a
little.’

‘
Ah,
I thought as much. Too much sun, I dare say,’ pronounced
Syderstone.

‘
Too
much of something, certainly,’ muttered Roborough.

‘
I
beg your pardon, my dear fellow?’

‘
Nothing.’ He looked across the table at Syderstone. ‘Do you
intend to come out with me today?’

‘
I am
afraid not, my dear fellow.’ He added playfully, ‘No, no, do not
mistake me. No suspicion, I protest, of your serving me another
such trick as you did yesterday has even crossed my mind. I have
letters to write.’ He smiled at Isadora. ‘So you need not fear to
leave Miss Alvescot alone with me.’

Isadora glanced
up quickly. They were not back to that, were they? Great heavens,
how could he suppose that she might participate once more in his
stupid pretence of flirtation after what he had told her? The man
was as much a hypocrite as Roborough. And she was in no case to
deal with this sort of thing.

Pushing back her
chair, she rose quickly. ‘If you will excuse me…’

Both gentlemen
stood up at once, but although Syderstone bowed as Isadora hastily
left the room, the viscount watched her in some perplexity. He
turned instantly to Syderstone as the man resumed his
seat.

‘
What
has occurred between you?’ he demanded abruptly, forgetting the
presence of the servants.

The other man
merely raised his brows in surprise. ‘My dear fellow, I do not take
your meaning. Miss Alvescot has the headache. No doubt she found
that she could not face food. I know how she feels. Often is the
time—’

‘
Nonsense! Something has distressed her.’ He moved purposefully
to the door. ‘And I intend to find out what it is.’

Isadora was
already halfway down the stairs when he called her name. Oh no, she
could not speak to him. Not now. Affecting not to have heard, she
hurried on down, heading towards her little parlour.

It availed her
nothing. Roborough caught her up in the passage just as she passed
the library. ‘Isadora, I must and will speak to you.’

She swung round.
‘Well, I don’t wish to speak to you. Leave me alone!’

‘
Not
until you explain that look you gave me.’

‘
What
look? I don’t know what you are talking about.’

‘
Don’t lie to me!’

‘
How
dare you?’ flashed Isadora. ‘It is not I who am the liar
here.’

Even in the
dimness of the corridor she could see the light eyes take fire. His
voice was dangerously calm. ‘Just what is that supposed to
mean?’

It was on the
tip of Isadora’s tongue to fling her accusation at his head. But
something—she could not tell what—held her back. She tried to edge
away.

Roborough
grasped her arm. ‘No, you don’t.’

‘
Let
me go!’

‘
Not
until you answer me. What did you mean by that remark?’

‘
Nothing! I meant nothing
.
I have the headache. Leave me
alone!’

He was silent
for a moment, but she could hear his unsteady breathing and
wondered at it. Why should he be so angry—it was anger, was it
not?—when it was he who had done enough to set the whole family
against him, let alone herself?

‘
Isadora,’ he said, his rigid control evident, ‘you are
concealing something from me that has upset you very much. If it
has something to do with me—and you need not waste your breath
denying it—I have the right to hear it.’

Oh yes, and the
right of denial too, Isadora thought. She must keep silent. For he
would deny it, of course he would. And, she suddenly realised, with
a lurch in her chest that she did not comprehend at all, she did
not want to hear him lying again.

‘
I do
not wish to discuss the matter,’ she said in a voice now
suspiciously husky, and tried to pull her arm from his
hold.

The grip
tightened. ‘You may not wish to but you are going to discuss
it.’

The tone was
peremptory and the odd desire to weep vanished in a surge of fury.
‘Oh no, I am not! You may keep your secrets but I must divulge all
my private thoughts? I do not think so, Roborough.’

Wrenching out of
his hold, she darted to the door of her parlour. His hand slammed
against it, holding it fast as she tried to turn the
handle.

‘
Will
you let me alone? This is my own parlour and I
demand that you allow me to enter it.’

‘
Very
well,’ he said.

He released his
hold on the door, but as she opened it he grabbed its edge, went
into the room and, pulling her in after him, slammed it shut and
leaned against it.

‘
You
have entered your parlour.’

Isadora glared
at him. ‘How dare you do this? Leave this instant!’

In the brighter
light that came in at the window she saw him shake his head. She
almost stamped her foot. His iniquity was forgotten in sheer rage
at his audacity in manhandling her into this situation. A sudden
vision of Harriet barring the door the other day came to her. Why
must people always be standing in her way? She was surrounded by
barriers. Great heavens, all she wanted to do was to
act!

Overwhelmed all
at once by the tensions of the last hours, she sagged, sitting down
abruptly in the nearest chair and sinking her head in her
hands.

‘
That
will avail you nothing,’ came Roborough’s cynical tones. ‘You need
not play-act with me.’

Isadora glanced
up, her brow creased as if she was indeed suffering from the
headache. She spoke wearily.

‘
I am
not play-acting. If you knew me better, you would know that I never
do so in life.’

There was a
pause. Then Roborough said, in a softer tone, ‘Then what is it that
is troubling you?’

It was Isadora’s
turn to shake her head. It did not seem worthwhile reiterating that
she did not wish to discuss it. She had almost forgotten the whole
matter anyway. She certainly no longer felt that rage and disgust
that had plagued her all night. She must just be too tired and numb
to feel any longer, she concluded.

‘
I do
not know why I have allowed myself to be so moved,’ she said,
almost to herself. ‘At the end of it all, what difference will it
make to me?’

‘
You
are talking in riddles,’ Roborough told her snappily. ‘Make sense,
do.’

Isadora reared
her head up as a spark of life lit inside her again. How this man
had the power to rouse her—in every way.

‘
It
was not I who sought this interview. You may take me as you find me
or not at all.’

To her
annoyance, he gave a light laugh. ‘I don’t appear to have much
choice. Short of throttling you— which I don’t mind telling you has
more than once occurred to me—there is little I can do about you,
Isadora.’

She was up at
once, confronting him. ‘No one has asked you to do anything about
me. Nor do I wish you to do anything. I would not accept anything
you did for me. And what is more—’

‘
As
if that were not enough!’

‘—
I
do not need anything you might do for me,’ she finished, riding
over him as if he had not spoken. ‘I don’t need anyone
.
I am
going to fend for myself.’

Roborough eyed her with interest. ‘Oh, indeed?
How?’

‘
By becoming an actress, of course,’ said Isadora
without thinking.

He blinked. ‘I
beg your pardon?’

Abruptly
realising what she had said, Isadora froze. Oh dear heaven, it was
out. She had not meant him to know. Now he might find a way to
prevent her. He would almost certainly forbid her.

Not that she
cared for that. Especially now that she knew the truth—the kind of
man he really was. But she must brace herself for argument. She was
certainly not going to back down.

‘
I
said,’ she repeated defiantly, ‘that I am going to be an actress. A
real actress. On the boards. Like Mrs Siddons.’

‘
I
see,’ Roborough said calmly.

There was a long
pause. Isadora, waiting for an explosion that did not come, began
to frown, in a good deal of perplexity. Nothing was to be read
behind the viscount’s steady gaze. He appeared to be studying her
face intently.

‘
Well?’ she prompted at last, goaded. ‘Have you nothing else to
say?’

Roborough looked
away from her, glancing about the room. His eye alighted on the
outside door. ‘Ah. Shall we go outside? It is remarkably close in
here, don’t you find?’

He was at the
door in a moment, undoing the bolts and dragging it open. Stepping
outside, he paused, holding the door and gesturing for Isadora to
come through.

A trifle dazed
at this extraordinary reaction, she obediently walked past him on
to the grass and watched him shut the parlour door behind them. As
he began to walk across the lawn, he spoke in the most natural way
in the world.

‘
Do
you suppose you could keep yourself on the money you would make as
an actress?’

Isadora, quite
taken aback, fell in beside him. ‘I—don’t know.’

‘
Do
you know how much an actress is paid?’

‘
No,’
replied Isadora, not without a touch of defiance.

‘
Nor
do I,’Roborough said calmly. ‘I imagine it would cap a governess,
though, don’t you? Of course, you would be obliged to pay for your
lodgings and food. But then I dare say when you were famous enough
you might merit a benefit night.’

Never having
considered this aspect of the matter, except in a vague way that
merely assumed vast sums accruing to the latest tragedienne who
would naturally be feted and rewarded by Society, Isadora found
this prosaic prospect daunting. And extremely irritating. If it was
not just like Roborough to try to spoil her dream.

‘
I
should not care what I earned,’ she snapped.

‘
Of
course not,’ he agreed. ‘You will be suffering for your art—is not
that the correct term?’

‘
I
have no idea,’ Isadora said shortly. ‘Why are you taking up this
attitude?’

‘
My
dear Isadora, I am merely trying to enter into your sentiments.
Believe me, I have every sympathy with your ambitions. Indeed, I
dare say I might be able to do something to help you on your way. I
am, after all, a viscount. I imagine if I gave you a letter of
introduction to present to one of the Kembles it would not be
ignored.’

Isadora hardly
knew whether to believe him serious. She had never looked at the
practicalities of achieving her aim. But one thing she did not want
was a letter of patronage from Roborough.

‘
I
thank you, but you cannot possibly recommend me. I will not become
an actress under my own name.’

‘
Oh,
you’ve thought of that?’ he said, turning to her with a look of
surprise.

‘
Of
course I have thought of it. I am not entirely stupid. I know that
I would have to be incognito.’

‘
It
is a pity, then, that Syderstone has met you. For he would be bound
to recognise you, and if he should speak of it you would be quite
undone.’

They had
reached, Isadora saw, the rose garden, which was enclosed by a
brick wall with several openings, leading either back to the front
lawns or on around them to the flowering gardens. She had been
walking aimlessly, but she paused now, hardly hearing what he said
as she took in that Roborough, while he spoke, was behaving rather
oddly.