Amanda Scott (17 page)

“You may have the pin,” Sybilla said calmly, ignoring her companion’s small indignant growl. “Throw it to them, Sydney.”

She watched obliquely while he unfastened the jeweled pin in his cravat. Then, as he tossed it toward the men, she flicked her whip neatly so that the tip of it caught the spokesman near his eye just as he opened his mouth to tell one of his companions to pick up the pin.

He cried out, clapping his free hand to the injured eye. As he did so, Sybilla flicked her whip again, wrapping the end of it around the pistol, snatching it from his grip, and flinging it into the bushes. His cohorts, shocked by the sudden turn of events, both turned toward him, but Sybilla gave them no chance to act. She dropped her hands, calling urgently to Newton as she did so, and drove straight at the three men, scattering them as she flashed by with Newton clinging to the side like a monkey.

Fortunately he managed to scramble to his perch, and they emerged from the thicket without further incident, at which time Sybilla eased the headlong pace and noted for the first time that Sydney was laughing. She glanced at him, shook her head, and called over her shoulder, “You safe, Newton?”

“Aye, m’lady,” came the gruff reply, “and a neat piece o’ work it were, if I may be so bold as to say so. So smooth did you manage it that I didn’t even lose my hat.”

Another chuckle from Sydney caused her to frown at him. “You laugh, sir? You certainly were not much help to me.”

His amusement was still evident in his voice when he said, “Did you want me to help? I thought you managed very well on your own. I told you, my dear, I do only what is necessary. Do you perhaps wish for me to drive now, so that you can rest?”

“Don’t be nonsensical.” She flashed him a mocking glance. “I doubt you can drive.”

He vouchsafed no reply to that, and silence fell between them again. It was nearer nine o’clock than eight when they passed through Kensington turnpike, to be briefly welcomed by the dim lights of the charity school on the left and the much brighter ones from the row of inns and taverns on their right, before, they reached the vast darkness to the left that was Hyde Park. Some minutes later they passed through the final turnpike into Piccadilly and almost immediately after that, Sybilla turned into Park Lane and drew up in front of Ramsbury House.

Sydney said, “I’ll find a hack. You’ll be wanting to get a hot meal and a warm bed, I’ve no doubt.”

She stared at him. “Good God, Sydney, you cannot have forgotten Mally. You are coming inside with me to change into proper evening dress, and then we are going to at least one party, if not a good many more, before this night is done!”

A
LTHOUGH SYDNEY ADVANCED MORE
than one argument against going into Ramsbury House with Sybilla, she was in no mood to listen to him, insisting that with servants awaiting her, there could be nothing improper about his presence. Since she punctuated her arguments with orders to Newton to take the phaeton around to the mews and order out her town carriage, Sydney was left with little choice but to obey her.

Inside the high-ceilinged entrance hall, Sybilla dismissed one of the footmen with orders to find her a maidservant to help her change her clothes, and sent another hurrying to Symonds House to discover where Mally had gone for the evening. She then hurried to a side table, where she rummaged hastily through a silver-gilt basket full of calling cards and invitations.

“Really, Sybilla,” Sydney expostulated, watching this procedure, “you cannot think that on the eve of her elopement Lady Symonds will have gone to a party! She will be safe in her own house doing whatever it is a young woman does to prepare for a rapid journey. Why did you not tell your man to discover if it is convenient for us to call upon her at home?”

Sybilla, feeling her head begin to pound again shot him a look of irritation and muttered as she returned to her task, “If you think Mally will be sitting home on this or any night, you’d best think again. Ah, here is just the thing. Lady Heatherington is always one of the first. She is so fussy, you know, that although the Lords don’t sit till February, she must be here betimes to set all in order for the Season, but once she is here, she cannot bear to be without company. If Mally is not at her dinner party, she must certainly be found at Emily Rosecourt’s card party. We will go to Lady Heatherington first, Sydney.”

“But, look here, Sybilla,” Sydney said, clearly unsettled for once. “We cannot simply appear at a dinner party. I have not received an invitation, and even if I had—”

“Oh, don’t quibble,” Sybilla snapped, putting a hand to her temple in a futile effort to stop the dull thudding. “At this time of year, one is glad to see any civilized person who appears at one’s door, and I simply must find Mally, Sydney, before she does this terrible thing. Now, please, go with Fraser,” she said, indicating another hovering footman. “He will show you where your things have been put. And do hurry!”

Instead of promptly following the footman, as she expected him to do, Sydney looked at her until Sybilla felt warmth creep into her cheeks and had to look away from him. When the silence lengthened, she said uncomfortably, “What a beast I am! I have no business to be ordering you about like this, and particularly after you have been so good. You don’t even like London, and will probably have to put up at a hotel—”

“I have lodgings in Bolton Street,” he said quietly. “I do not come to town often, but I’ve an excellent couple to look after me when I do. Go and change your clothes, Sybilla, if you are determined to go out. I think you are making a mistake, because you do not look at all well, but I’ll not try to stop you.”

She did not say any more but hurried up to her bedchamber, where a maidservant awaited her. She changed quickly into an elegant but simple dress of her favorite apple-green crepe, boasting an Egyptian border of matted gold embroidery and tiny bronze and gold beads, took her gloves and a small beaded reticule from the maid, and hurried downstairs to find Sydney awaiting her. Since the footman had returned from Symonds House with the information she had expected, that young Lady Symonds had intended to call at several houses that evening but had not bothered to inform her people of her exact whereabouts, they set out at once for Heatherington House.

Although the entire party had adjourned to the drawing room by the time they arrived, Lady Heatherington exclaimed her pleasure at seeing them. But it was not their hostess who drew Sybilla’s eye, for seated beside her, looking as cool as ice in a scandalously low-cut sea-green gown that matched her eyes, her pale blond hair swept smoothly back from a central part and confined at the nape in a diamond-dusted net, was Frances, Lady Mandeville. And the gentleman who had been leaning solicitously over her shoulder when they entered, and who looked up in apparent shock when Sybilla’s name was announced, was none other than the Earl of Ramsbury.

Feeling suddenly hot and dizzy in the overheated room, Sybilla clutched blindly at Sydney’s forearm.

He responded gallantly, lowering his quizzing glass to inquire softly, “Do you suppose his view was worth the bending?”

She nearly laughed aloud, and the bolt of fury that had shot through her subsided at once. When her gaze met Ramsbury’s, she was able to maintain at least an outward appearance of calm, and for the next few moments, she was occupied in greeting friends and renewing acquaintances. There were easily twenty other persons in the room, but she saw at once that her sister was not among them and began to wonder how quickly they might, without giving offense, effect their departure for Lady Rosecourt’s.

She had no time to deliberate, however, for suddenly her arm was grasped none too gently and Ramsbury muttered in her ear, “I do hope you did not travel all this way in your phaeton, my dear.” He spoke calmly, and although she discerned an undertone of steel, she decided rather recklessly to ignore it.

“Well, of course, I did,” she retorted, turning to face him and lifting her chin. “I always drive myself. You know that. And you will be glad to know also,” she added hastily when she saw his eyes narrow, “that dearest Sydney very kindly came along to protect me from the dangers of the road.”

Ramsbury did not appear to be relieved to learn that Sydney had accompanied her, but he turned to that gentleman and said with brusque civility, “Very kind of you. My wife was no doubt grateful for your protection.”

Sydney took snuff with the singular grace that was his alone, eyeing Ramsbury with undisguised amusement as he did so. “As to that,” he drawled, “boot was on the other foot. When a trio of footpads had the dashed impertinence to attack us, ’twas her ladyship protected me, though she tossed away a dashed fine cravat pin in the doing. M’ favorite one, in point of fact.”

There were exclamations from a number of people at his words, and several demanded in nearly one voice to know all the details. Obligingly, Sydney said, “Oh, she didn’t blink an eye—merely engaged them in conversation to draw them off their guard, then flicked their leader in the eye with her whip, disarmed him with the same, drove gallantly over the three, and arrived in London with her spirits sufficiently composed to attend this delightful party. Nothing to it.”

Amidst the exclamations of delight that greeted his tale, Lady Mandeville said with saccharine sweetness, “How very brave of you, Sybilla. I should have been terrified, but then I never travel without outriders. It is so much safer, I think, to have a host of big strong men to protect one—like Ned here.” Turning to Ramsbury, she smiled and put a slim, ungloved hand on his arm as she added, “You are very strong indeed, are you not, sir?”

Smiling back at her in a way that made Sybilla long to smack him, Ramsbury said, “In my opinion, a woman with her wits about her and her whip hand disengaged is a match for three men any day in the year.” Then, gently removing her hand from his arm, he turned back to Sybilla, who was regarding him now with astonishment. “May I have a word with you, my dear?”

He had not released her, and since she was still feeling hot and dizzy, and had been caught off her guard by his response to Lady Mandeville, having expected him either to agree with the woman or otherwise to have made a fool of himself, Sybilla found herself being drawn away from the others and into a small, unoccupied anteroom before she had collected her wits. The door snapped shut, and he twisted her sharply about.

“What the devil do you mean by driving all that way with only that pusillanimous puppy to protect you?” he demanded harshly, giving her a rough shake. “And footpads! Are you daft? What can you have been thinking about to have defied them as you did? You might have been killed!”

Her head pounded harder than ever, and she closed her eyes, shrinking away from his anger. “Well, I wasn’t,” she muttered, “and you may go away, Ned. I don’t wish to talk to you.”

“Oh, no, you won’t get off that easily, my pet. I have reason to know that Sir Mortimer left orders forbidding you to drive that damned phaeton in this weather. Leaving aside the footpads, what do you suppose would have happened if it had come on to snow? And what do you suppose they will be saying about the fact that that fribble Saint-Denis was perched up beside you for all the world to see, not to mention sharing an inn, if not a bedchamber, with you somewhere along the way?”

“Don’t be absurd!” She yanked her arm free and turned away from him, grating the next words out between clenched teeth. “It didn’t snow, and as for Sydney, all Papa said was that I wasn’t to travel alone, so I didn’t, and I don’t care a fig what people say. What could have happened? We shared no bedchamber, no inn. Indeed, we made the journey in a single day. We didn’t—”

“You what?”

She faced him, drawing a long breath in hopes that it would steady her, would make the walls stop spinning around her. Her voice, though she strove to make it forceful, sounded weak to her own ears, but she made herself go on, gathering strength as her anger increased. “You heard me, Ned. Do stop shouting at me. We did not spend a night on the road, together or otherwise. And how you can dare to say such things to me when I find you here fawning over that frostbitten stick of a woman—”

“I wasn’t fawning! She asked me a question just before you entered and I don’t hear properly with the others all talking. Not that it matters. You know perfectly well that your father—”

“Never mind pretending those orders came from Papa, Ned,” she cut in. “I know perfectly well the order was yours, but you have no right, or at least perhaps you do have the right, only I don’t wish you to tell … Oh, what is the matter with me?” she cried, clutching at her forehead as another wave of dizziness hit her. “I cannot think, and I know I am speaking nonsense. I have to find Mally, and I do wish you would go away!”

“Your wishes do not concern me, Sybilla,” he said, still in that harsh tone. “Nor am I interested in finding your sister, or in allowing you to distract me with this other drivel. You have been allowed to have your head for far too long, and it is time someone tightened your rein. If your father cannot or will not do it, then—Good God! What’s wrong? Sybilla!”

She heard him calling her, but it was as though he were a thousand miles away, and although he had been standing there, solid and angry before her, he seemed now, to be no more than a dark shadow floating above her. Then every thing went black.

The next thing she heard was the murmur of masculine voices, a sort of distant hum at first, but then, slowly, she began to notice individual words and to recognize one of the voices as Ramsbury’s. For a moment just before that, she had experienced a disoriented feeling and a brief surge of fear—or perhaps it was only embarrassment—when she realized she was lying down, but the sound of his voice soothed her.

She stirred, thinking she must have fainted and expecting to feel carpeting or the hard floor beneath her, but the surface was soft, and she realized that she was covered, that she was, in fact, in bed. The voices had stopped briefly when she moved.

“I think she’s coming out of it now, my lord.”

She didn’t recognize that one, and when she tried to respond to it, the blackness closed in around her again. The next time she was awakened by voices, she recognized them both.