Amanda Scott (21 page)

“No, of course not. Why was he ‘prosing’ at you?”

Brandon shrugged. “He always cuts up stiff if one asks him for money. My losses had gone a bit over the line, and I touched him for a loan. Told him my pockets would be lined again today and I’d pay him back, and that’s when he came over prosy. Should have known better, I suppose, though one never knows what to expect from him and it ain’t as though he’s never forked over the ready upon demand before. He generally does in the end.”

Sybilla said carefully, “You say you will have money today to pay your debts? You lost again last night?”

“One frequently does lose at Brooks’s. Or at White’s, or Boodle’s, or any number of other places. Emily Rosecourt’s, come to that. Lord, what of it? Surely you ain’t going to start lecturing
me
when the problem lies with a pair of dashed whimsical dice. Dammit, Sybilla, a fellow’s got to play!”

“Not if he cannot pay his debts, he hasn’t,” she said tartly, only to fall silent again when Fraser returned with his coffee. When the footman had gone, she said faintly, “What have you done, Brandon?”

He put several lumps of sugar into his cup before answering. Then he said casually, “I wasn’t going to tell you, for knew you wouldn’t like it, what with things the way they are between you and Ned, but it is still all in the family, ain’t it?”

“All in the family!” She was sure now that she was right in what she had begun to believe, and the thought made her feel sick. “Have you no notion of the wrong you have done me?”

Brandon threw his toast down and got hastily, albeit unsteadily, to his feet. “Dash it all, Sybilla, you put me off my feed. I won’t sit here listening to your nonsense. You talk as though I were a child who’s done you a mischief, and you’ve naught to do with it at all. One’s debts are important, and one must pay them. Perhaps I ought not to have taken money—”

“You know you ought not to have done so,” she said furiously. “I should not to have to tell you. Merciful heavens, what are we to do now?”

“Don’t trouble your head about it,” he snapped. “I will pay him back. Indeed, I shall have the money—”

“Him?” She heard nothing beyond that one pronoun. “You will pay whom back, Brandon?”

“Why, Ramsbury, of course. Who did you think?”

A rush of relief surged through her. “Ramsbury! I thought you said he would not lend the money, that you would get it—”

“I said”—he put careful emphasis on his words—“that he cut up stiff, like he always does. That’s what I said. He was right there at Brooks’s when I lost, so it was only natural to appeal to him. He was dashed unpleasant about it, as usual, but I’m his brother-in-law, after all. He could scarcely refuse. And, like I said, I’ll pay him back. If all goes well—”

“Oh, I am so glad,” Sybilla said, jumping up to hug him.

“Here, don’t do that! You’ll muss my coat. And don’t say anything else to me. You ain’t making a lot of sense, and though I know you’ve been ill, that’s no excuse.”

“No, you are perfectly right. It is no excuse whatever.” She dared not tell him what she had thought, so she said the first thing that came into her head. “What will you do today?”

“I’m meeting Sitwell. We’ve got errands to attend to, because we are going out of town for a day or two.”

“Out of town! But I am sure you never said a word—”

“Didn’t know. And don’t ask me any questions. You never like the answers, and I’ve no intention of standing about while you make my headache worse with your reproaches.”

“But if you think I’ll reproach you—”

“No, Sybilla, you won’t, because I ain’t going to be here.”

And with those words he slipped out the door and shut it behind him, leaving her to stare after him and wonder what on earth he was up to now. She was relieved to know she had been wrong to think him capable of taking money from the marchioness, but his attitude disturbed her nonetheless, for he seemed to think of no one but himself. It was as though her worries were of no concern to him, nothing more than petty distractions that he did not wish to discuss.

She remembered what an engaging little boy he had been, a scamp, always into mischief. He had been her special charge. She had adored him, and he had idolized her. It was hard, now, to see that same engaging child in the self-centered young man who had just left her, and not really surprising that she had been able to think him capable of duping the marchioness.

With her suspicions eased, it was with pleasant anticipation that she head her mother-in-law’s name announced several hours later. “Our plan must have gone off,” Sybilla said as she hugged her, “for I received no message from your Mr. Grimthorpe.”

Lady Axbridge put a hand to her plump bosom. “I have been on needles and pins all the morning long. Indeed, I nearly wished I had told the wretched man to come to me last night, despite Axbridge, who went to White’s, for all that he insists he is worn to the bone. But it would not have answered, for I went to a card party at Emily Rosecourt’s, but the stakes were shockingly high, so Lady Leveson and I went on from there to see the new pantomime at the Lyceum. I do so adore the theater, you know, and I have not been to a good play this age. I think that when Axbridge leaves, as he begins to talk of doing, I will accept Lucretia’s invitation to visit her in Bath to see that odd young man do his Romeo. But how are you feeling, my dear?”

“Perfectly stout, ma’am. ’Tis as though I was never ill. I scarcely ever take so much as a cold, but you must know that Ned and I visited Charlie and Clarissa, and the girls were ill.”

“Yes, Edmond told me,” the marchioness said, “and I had a letter from Lucretia as well, before I came to town. She keeps me tolerably well informed about some things.”

Sybilla chuckled. “If anyone could have put our marriage back together, I am certain it would have been Lady Lucretia, for no one has been busier on our behalf. I never see her but what she asks after him, and he told me he receives letters from her demanding to know why he does not take his rightful place at my side. If you want to know what I think about her interference—”

“I am sure I know already,” Lady Axbridge told her, laughing, “but you cannot blame us for meddling, my dear. You are the very best thing that ever happened to my son, and I believe he is the best thing that ever happened to you.”

Sybilla felt warmth entering her cheeks, but she shook her head. “I did think so at one time, but later, you know, when I knew why he married me—”

The marchioness said gently, “He might have let Axbridge push him up to scratch, my dear, but he does not bend without wanting to, even to his father. Edmond cares for you. He would not otherwise become so angry when you displease him.”

“He thinks of me as a possession,” Sybilla said. “Lady Mandeville would have done as well as a wife.”

“Never say so,” the marchioness said vehemently. “That female! I wouldn’t have her as a daughter-in-law, for she has no more notion of the proper way to behave than … than a cat. No, that is wrong, for that idiotish tom that Lucretia says has adopted her has better manners than that Mandeville woman has. That fool husband of hers ought to lock her in a closet. Then, if only he were not too old and weak to do so, he might yank her out once a week and beat her senseless!”

“Ma’am!” Sybilla stared, shocked to hear her express herself so forcefully.

“Well, he ought to. She only married him for his title and his money, though he cannot have much of that left, I daresay, after the way I’m told she spends it. I should be distressed to learn that any daughter of mine had behaved as Fanny Mandeville does—if I had any daughters, which I am thankful I do not, for their father would have driven them all to run off with footmen or worse before they were old enough to make their curtsy at court, and that’s a fact.”

Sybilla burst into laughter. “Oh, ma’am, I should think any daughters of yours would be delightful people to know. ’Tis a pity you never had but the one son.”

“It was a great sorrow to me,” the marchioness said in a more subdued tone. “It would have done Edmond good, too, I think, to have had brothers. Or sisters, for that matter. He was a lonely child, I think, even after he went away to school. Ah, but here is Grimthorpe now, on time to the minute.”

Sybilla would have liked to continue their conversation or at least to have had a moment or two to think over the marchioness’s words, for she had never before thought of Ned as a lonely person. If he was, she had done little to change that.

But the marchioness gave her no time to think. “What news, Grimthorpe?” she demanded at once. “Who is the villain?”

The thin, elderly man whom the butler had taken it upon himself to show into the drawing room bowed gracefully, but waited until the butler had withdrawn again before he answered gravely, “As to that, ma’am, I cannot say.”

“What! What can you mean? Surely, you were able to arrange the meeting! Here, sit down. This is my daughter-in-law, Lady Ramsbury. Forgive me, Sybilla, I know it is your house, but I am all impatience. I cannot wait for amenities.”

“It is perfectly all right, ma’am,” Sybilla said, nodding pleasantly to Mr. Grimthorpe and echoing the marchioness’s suggestion that he sit down.

“Thank you, m’lady. In answer to your question, ma’am, I did certainly arrange a meeting, this very morning, and the young man who came to see me was quite interested in hearing more about an allowance for—as I was to suppose—Lady Ramsbury.”

“Young man!” Sybilla and the marchioness exclaimed together.

Grimthorpe nodded. “Indeed. He told me he was cousin to Lady Ramsbury, meeting with me on her behalf.”

Sybilla, her suspicions rushing back to haunt her, said weakly. “Tell me, sir, what did this gentleman look like?” She held her breath.

“Medium height, I think, and slim, with lightish hair and eyes of a sort of a greenish color.”

“Never mind what he looked like,” declared the marchioness, clearly taking no notice of Sybilla’s sudden pallor. “Where is he and what has he to do with all of this? Surely, he must have known you would never give money to a stranger!”

“He thought precisely that.” Mr. Grimthorpe pushed his spectacles higher onto his nose as he added, “Expected me to advance him a generous portion of the allowance out of hand and then to send regular amounts to ‘her ladyship’ at a particular address each month. I showed him into an office and asked him to wait while I drew up the papers, but I am afraid I most foolishly suggested that an account at Child’s Bank would be me usual thing, and he must have smelled a rat, for before I could hail a constable, he escaped out a window.”

The marchioness said tartly, “No doubt he simply came to his senses and realized that as my agent, you could ask any number of questions he would not be able to answer. Sybilla, this is someone with a great deal of effrontery but very little sense.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Sybilla said no more, but her emotions were threatening to overwhelm her.

Mr. Grimthorpe appeared to believe that no more would be heard from the villain and that they might all rest easy. Lady Axbridge did not entirely agree with him, but she was clearly more concerned by then with getting him off the premises before her son returned from his club to dress for dinner than with discussing the matter any further. Thus it was that, ten minutes later, she bade the solicitor farewell with undisguised relief.

When he was well away, she said to Sybilla, “How very perplexing. Who can that young man have been, do you think?”

Having no wish to tell her that she thought it must have been Brandon, Sybilla responded glibly that she did not know. The marchioness was willing to discuss the matter at length, but although Sybilla was not spared that ordeal altogether, it was curtailed without any conclusions being drawn by the arrival of Ramsbury twenty minutes later.

“You are looking very fine, Mama,” he said, striding forward to kiss her. “What have you found in town to amuse you?”

She looked slightly taken aback at this direct question, and for a moment Sybilla feared she would blurt out something a little too near the truth, but the marchioness recovered quickly and said she had been to the theater the previous night.

“Vastly entertaining it was, too,” she said. “Have you had a pleasant day, Edmond?”

“Very pleasant,” he replied, but he was looking at Sybilla and beginning to frown. “You look burnt to the socket, my girl,” he said bluntly. “Been going the pace a trifle hard, I think, so no doubt bed is the best place for you.”

“I don’t want to go to bed,” she said. “Don’t cosset me, Ned, or play the tyrant, either. There is nothing amiss with me now that cannot be cured by activity. I have been moped to death here. Indeed, I’m so bored that I am beginning to think fondly of all the things I might be doing at home, and Mrs. Hammersmyth has written twice, wondering when I mean to return to Bath.”

She saw the muscles in his jaw tighten, and his lips pressed tightly together for a long moment before he said carefully, “This is your home.”

“Not really.” But she said the words gently and was conscious of a certain sadness in her heart as she added, “You know what I mean. I do not come to London to stay in bed, or to do fancy needlework. The servants here are accustomed to seeing to their work without supervision, so I must look to other things to occupy my time. No one called today except Mally and Sydney, and your mama, of course. I begin to fear that my
cicisbei
have all deserted me.” She was glad to see him smile.

“That cannot be true,” he said, smiling. “No doubt they have heard there is a husband living here these days and fear to annoy him. If you are truly on the mend, however, there is no reason for me to stay. Mama would probably thank me for moving back to Axbridge House, now that she has come to town.”

“Well, you’re out, if that’s what you think,” his mother told him. “You will only come to cuffs with your father, for he has been tired and crotchety of late, and that is not what I like at all. You ought to stay here, where you belong.”

When Ramsbury said calmly that she was mistaken, Sybilla suddenly, and without precisely knowing how it came about, found herself interrupting him. “You can stay if you like,” she said.