Amanda Scott (13 page)

“Then you get yourself something hot to eat and drink, Seth, and don’t you dare start back until this storm has lifted. I’ll speak to my brother, so that will be all right.”

“Do you want I should ring the bell, m’lady?”

“No, for we mustn’t keep the horses standing.” As she spoke, she jumped down, nearly falling when her legs refused to hold her. Steadying herself with one hand on the high rear wheel, she grinned up into the lad’s anxious face. “Don’t trouble your head about me,” she said. “I’ll do. Go.”

Nothing loath, he clucked to the team and drove off. Sybilla, her legs steadier now, hurried through the powdery snow and up the steps to the door, but it opened before she reached it, and she saw her brother’s tall butler framed in the doorway.

“Madam?” he said, peering at her through the whirling flakes of snow. “Good gracious, my lady, come in, come in! You must be frozen to the bone.”

“Hello, Ross, is Mr. Manningford at home?”

“To be sure, he is, m’lady, and the mistress as well, but you’ll be wanting to change your dress before they receive you.”

“Oh, yes,” Sybilla said, then gasped as she realized she had no dress to change into. Not once had she considered her portmanteau, still tied to the phaeton when she had made her plan, but delivered to her bedchamber while she ate her meal. “Perhaps you will order a hot bath in my bedchamber, Ross, and ask your mistress to attend me there.”

“Certainly, m’lady, at once.”

Sybilla followed a liveried footman up the broad carpeted stairs to the second-floor bedchamber that was hers to use whenever she chose to visit Westerleigh Hall. Inside the room, the footman moved swiftly to light the ready-laid fire.

“Won’t be a moment, ma’am, before the room warms a bit. I’ll send a chambermaid to assist you and see your things are brought up.”

“Thank you, but I have no things to bring up. They will follow later. No doubt the maid or your mistress can find something for me to wear in the meantime.”

“Yes, m’lady.”

No sooner had he departed than the door was flung wide again and an expensively garbed, rather stout young woman with light brown hair, a Roman nose, and large round eyes entered, the expression on her face far from welcoming.

“Good Lord, Sybilla, what are you doing here? I know we were not expecting you.”

“Good afternoon, Clarissa. Don’t overwhelm me with hospitality. The fact is that I have come from Charfield where Brandon was injured. He is recovering nicely, but Ramsbury was with me, and I decided to come ahead without him.”

Clarissa sniffed. “I daresay that makes sense to you if not to me, but I must tell you that you have picked a poor time to visit. Both of my little girls have got putrid sore throats.”

“Then you ought to welcome assistance. I am never ill myself, and I have nursed my brothers and Mally through everything imaginable. I know precisely what to do.”

“No doubt, but my nursery people also know what to do. Have your bath and come down to see Charles. He is in the library, and no doubt he will be suitably pleased to see you. Do we expect Ramsbury as well?”

Sybilla controlled her internal reaction to that question with an effort and even managed to smile. A more astute hostess than Clarissa might still have noticed that the smile was false, but Clarissa accepted it at face value and seemed to find nothing amiss with Sybilla’s casual admission that Ramsbury would certainly follow after her.

“There were some things he wished to attend to first,” she added glibly. “Oh, and Clarissa, I very foolishly left my portmanteau with him. This weather, you know—I thought only about the road. Do you have a frock I might borrow until my things arrive?”

“Yes, of course, though anything of mine will be a trifle large, I expect, and not what you will wish to be seen in downstairs.”

“Well, I want to talk to Charlie, but he won’t mind what I wear. I daresay he won’t even notice.”

Clarissa shrugged. “As you like.”

The garment she produced was a lovely soft blue wool robe with a fleecy lining. Not only did it drip with lace, but Sybilla saw at once that the belt would make it possible to wrap it tightly and fasten it in place. She would have no need to blush for her attire. Having dried her chemise by the fire while she bathed, she put that on first and drew the robe on over it. Then, discovering that the satin slippers Clarissa’s maid brought her were too small, she slipped her half-boots on over her bare feet and went in search of her brother.

She found him in his library, but he was not alone. Ramsbury stood by the fireplace, and the formidable look on his face when he saw Sybilla stopped her in her tracks.

C
HARLES MANNINGFORD, AN AMIABLE
-looking young man with gray eyes and curling fair hair, attired in the casual manner of a country squire, laughed when he saw his sister and said, “What a start, Sybby! Here you are, no doubt drenched to the skin, when you might just as well have ridden with Ramsbury and let someone else drive your damned phaeton. You never change, do you.”

She looked at him, bewildered, and Ramsbury said gently, “I told you it would come on to snow, that you would do better to ride in the closed carriage with me, but you must always see for yourself how it will be. You made very good time though. We lost sight of you almost immediately in that mist, but then of course, Jem didn’t know the road as well as your man does.”

Charles laughed. “ ’Tis just like you, Sybby, to insist upon driving yourself, and just like Ramsbury to give you your head in order to prove you wrong.”

Sybilla relaxed and said casually to the earl, “My only foolishness lies in the fact that I let you carry my portmanteau, sir. I had to borrow this robe from Clarissa.”

“Poor Clarissa,” Charles said, frowning. “The children are both ill, you know, as I have just been telling Ramsbury, and one of the nursery maids as well, so Clarissa has had much of the care of the little girls thrown to her.”

“She seems to be bearing up well, as usual,” Sybilla said, moving to sit in a chair near her brother and avoiding the earl’s gaze. “I will help all I can, of course, now that I am here.”

“Oh, to be sure, for you must know precisely what to do in such a case; however, I …” Charles looked a bit hunted. “I think she prefers to look after them herself, you know. She’s their mother, after all, and she’s equal to anything, Clarissa is. Not that we don’t appreciate your offering, Sybby, but—”

Ramsbury cut in again, saying mildly, “Sybilla cannot be of much assistance to you, in any case, I’m afraid, since we will be traveling back to Bath tomorrow.”

“Oh, no, we won’t,” Sybilla retorted. “You cannot think I would leave poor Clarissa in the lurch like that. Of course, we will stay—or I will, at least. You may do as you please.”

Ramsbury chuckled and said to Charles, who was looking rather anxious, “She’s burnt to the socket now, but she never cries quit. Been looking after Brandon, as I told you, then exposing herself to this weather as she did. Always thinking of her family, of course, of hastening to their aid, but I think the sooner I get her safely back to Bath, the better it will be.” His gaze met hers, and despite the lightness of his tone, she saw steel in his expression. Still watching her, he added, “I’ve ordered our things sent up to your room. You will no doubt wish to change into a proper gown before we sit down to supper.”

“No! That is,” she added hastily, meeting her brother’s look of astonishment, “you know I never sleep well after traveling, Ned. You would do much better to take the room next to mine so that you at least can get a good night’s sleep.”

To her dismay, he stood up and held out a hand to her, saying amiably, “You may be right. Suppose we go upstairs now and discuss it. We’ll see you at supper, Manningford.”

Charles jumped to his feet and escorted them to the door of the library. “Yes, do run along,” he said cheerfully. “No need to stand on ceremony with me, you know. I’ll just go and find Clarissa and tell her you’re only able to stay the one night. She’ll be so … so disappointed that you cannot stay longer. I say, Sybilla,” he added with a grin, “why didn’t you tell us you and Ramsbury were together again? Your own brother oughtn’t to have to find out such things by guess and by happenstance.”

“We are not—” But she bit her words off, deciding she had no wish to try to explain the tangle to her brother with Ramsbury standing right beside her, so clearly determined to put obstacles in her path wherever he might do so. She glared at him.

He said smoothly, “Things are not altogether settled between us yet, so we have not said anything to anyone. You will understand, I’m sure, that we’ve no wish to set the tattlemongers to prating of our affairs any more than they do already.”

“No, no, to be sure,” Charles agreed.

Sybilla found herself being whisked up the stairs before she could say another word, and by the time they reached her bedchamber, several emotions were tumbling over one another in her mind. She was furious with the earl, grateful to him for not saying more to Charles, and not a little afraid of him in this seemingly unpredictable mood.

Letting anger carry the day, she turned on him the moment she heard the door snap to. “How dare you tell him we are back together! And how dare you have the nerve to send your things to my bedchamber! Not that that, at least, cannot be remedied.” She whirled to pull the bell, but no sooner had she gripped its satin cord than she found her wrist clamped in a vise of iron.

“Let it go,” he said grimly.

“I won’t!”

“Then pull it, and when the maidservant comes, I will send her away and tell her not to come back until I send for her. Do you think she will not obey me, Sybilla?”

She released the cord but glared at him and said fiercely, “You are not going to sleep in my bed, Ramsbury, so you needn’t think it.”

He smiled, but there was little humor in the expression. “Are you trying to delay the reckoning, my love?”

A shiver raced up her spine, but she tried to ignore it as she demanded, “What reckoning? You’ll not dare to touch me in my brother’s house.” Even as she spoke the words, she knew they were untrue. There was a look about him that she had not seen before, a dangerous look, and when he stepped away from her, she knew he did so because he did not trust himself to stay near.

His voice was low in his throat, but she heard him clearly. “You have an odd notion of what I will or won’t dare,” he said. “In view of your behavior today, you would do well to reconsider. Even had you not made difficulties for me by telling your simpleminded chambermaid that I had abducted you, I warned you how it would be if you forced me to follow you.”

“But that was before we left Bath! I never thought … That … that had nothing to do with my leaving Nibley!”

He looked at her.

Another tremor of fear shot up her spine, and she straightened immediately, squaring her shoulders so that he might not know he had frightened her. Lifting her chin, she faced him defiantly and said, “So what will you do, my lord, beat me at last?”

“I think not.” To her astonishment, his eyes began to twinkle. “Sometimes I wonder, you little vixen, if you wouldn’t welcome a heavier hand. You would know then what to expect, would you not? But this time I know a better punishment. My things, and I, will remain in this room.” He turned toward the window, leaving her to stare at him in speechless fury.

When she found her voice at last, she said, “Ned, you can’t. You mustn’t. I-I won’t let you!”

He turned. “I can, and you have naught to say about it. What? Do you think you can apply to the languid Charles? Or perhaps Clarissa will leap to your aid. Do you know, of the two of them, I’d much rather have Clarissa in my corner than Charles. She has an air of capability that he lacks, poor fellow. Never had a chance, did he, growing up as he did in the shadow of so masterful a sister, with a father who didn’t give a damn. I thought my father a rum touch, but Sir Mortimer tops him easily. At least mine took the time to introduce me to his clubs and see that I had the right education and met the right people.”

“Charlie went to Eton and Cambridge, as you know very well,” she said tightly.

“Yes, though he was at Cambridge for less than a year, as I recall, before he gave it up as a waste of time and money. He knows any number of the right people, too, I’ll be bound, but his greatest asset is his wife. People said it was a mistake for him to marry at eighteen, but in my opinion, it was the wisest thing he could have done.”

“Clarissa is …” But there was nothing she could say about Clarissa that would not sound petty, if not downright rude, so she bit her tongue.

Ramsbury smiled at her, but there was compassion in his eyes. “Clarissa is wise enough to let her husband think he is master in his home, even when he is not. Hers may be the guiding hand, but she—”

“Oh, she is a paragon,” snapped Sybilla. “I suppose you are saying that you would prefer me to let you pretend to such nonsense, too, even when you know perfectly well that you are wrong about something and I am right.”

He shook his head. “I would never be so foolish as to expect you to keep silent, Syb. I doubt you would know how.” He moved toward her again, coming to stand directly in front of her. “You ought not to despise Clarissa, you know. You ought to thank her for taking one worry from your shoulders. She means you no harm, love. She wants only to protect what’s hers.”

She knew suddenly that he was right, that her resentment of Clarissa was unwarranted, but the knowledge did nothing to assuage her desire to snap his head off. Her eyes flashed, and her chin came up, but when she encountered his steady gaze and saw not anger or mockery but understanding, she swallowed her words and turned away, wondering what on earth had brought the sudden lump in her throat.

She went still when his hand cupped her chin and he turned her head back toward him. His gentle touch sent shock waves through her, and when his other hand moved to her shoulder to turn her the rest of the way, what little resistance she had left crumbled. She gazed up at him, vaguely aware of a burning sensation in her eyes. Her heart begin to thump.

He did not move for a long moment, letting the electricity build between them before he lowered his lips to hers. His kiss was light, gentle, but nonetheless possessive. However, when she responded, pressing toward him and parting her lips invitingly, he raised his head, and his eyes began to twinkle again. “I believe you’ve missed me after all,” he said.