An Affair of the Heart (3 page)

“No, are you though?”
Rex asked with interest, as the fumes rose to his head. “Know where she lives? Sussex. That’s where she lives. Sussex.”

“Papa
owns
Sussex,” Clay told his friend sagely.

“Don’t say. I didn’t know that. Never told me nothing about it. Bought it, did he? Be trying to buy up Surrey next thing you know. Be planting his old dendrons from Brazil, cluttering the place up with trees and flowers. Well, he won’t get the Abbey. Been in the family forever, ever since Henry the Eighth stole it from the Papists anyway. Devilish long time.”

“You a Papist? I didn’t know that.

“No such a thing!
You
a Papist, Clay?”

“Nope. Miss Wanda a Papist?”

“No, no. Know what, Clay? I think she’ll have you. Devilish sly girl. Shell throw Hibbard overboard and snatch your title.”

“Course she’ll have me. Marquis of Claymore. Twenty thousand a year. Course she’ll have me, old goat.”

“No, really! Not a goat at all. Pretty little puss, but mind she’s got claws.”

“Not
her.
Him.”

“Oh,
him.”
Rex tipped the bottle and stared blankly as two drops fell onto the linen tablecloth. “All gone, Clay. This bottle is empty.”

“All gone,” Clay agreed, shaking his head in misery.

“Know what, Clay?”

“What?”

“Let’s go and see Miss Wanderley.”

“That’s a good idea, Rex. Let’s go and see Miss Wanderley.”

They lurched to their feet, and ordered a worried footman to have their mounts brought around. “I don’t have a hack here,” Clay reminded his friend.

“What, no hack?
Deuce take it, Clay. What did you do with all your cattle?”

Clay looked puzzled, but the matter defied memory. “You got a hack to spare, Rex?”

“Stable full of horses. Take your pick, old friend.
I
can’t mount my best friend, what the devil’s the world coming to? Take your pick, Clay.”

But it was their grooms who carefully chose two ancient nags for them, upon hearing of their condition, and assured each other the buckoes would be lucky to get beyond the gates on these glue pots.

“You call this a horse?” Clay asked, insulted to be presented with such a sack of bones. “Ready for the tanning factory, ‘pon my word. Wouldn’t have believed you kept such nags.”

“Gone downhill something dreadful,” Rex said sadly, shaking his head. “I’ll speak to Papa. Oughtn’t to offer an earl a nag like this.”

“
Marquis,
Rex,” his friend reminded him in a tone that tried to be haughty.

“By Jove, that’s right. Marquis of Claymore.”

“Yessir, Marquis of Claymore. Going to buy a girl. Prettiest girl in the whole damned countryside. Miss Wanda Wander-er-er-erley.”

“Who?”

“
Her,
you know.”

“She might have you, Clay. She just might have you.”

“Where does she live?”

“Sussex. This way,”
Rex replied, turning his dispirited nag down the road to the Wanderley home.

“Is it far to Sussex?”

“Not far, if Adam didn’t move it. Wouldn’t put it past him, the clunch. Devilish loose screw. Know what he did? Bought Sussex. Somebody told me.”

“Must be a nabob. Wonder if he’ll sell Wanda.”

“Wouldn’t be surprised. He’ll be wanting to get a toe into the next county. Need the money. Might very well sell her, but it won’t be for no old song. You’ll have to come down heavy.”

They meandered down the road, sometimes talking, sometimes singing in loud, carrying voices, till they came to the entrance to the Wanderley house. It was an old brick home, and presented a charming view in the daylight, but at night it formed a dark hulk of a shadow on the hill, and looked eerie in the moonlight, for by the time the gentlemen reached their destination it was after eleven, and the family had retired.

“Ain’t nobody home,” Rex said.

“What, after we’ve come all the way from Surrey! I call that shabby treatment. I don’t like it, Rex.”

“Something damned smokey here. Why ain’t they home? Never told me nothing about leaving home. Out buying up Hampshire or Kent, no doubt.”

“Which room is hers?” Clay asked, scanning the windows that glinted white and ghostly in the moonlight.

“Dash it, how would I know? I don’t go creeping in her window. Don’t like Wanda above half. Told you so. Ellie now...”

“I have the gift,
I ever tell you that?” Clay asked in a voice laden with meaning.

“Eh? What gift is that then? You didn’t say nothing about buying a gift.”

“
The
gift You know. I can tell things. Strange, supernatural things. A spirit will tell me where abides my love.”

“Tiburn Road. We both know that.”

“Hah! Not her. I’m speaking of Miss Wanda. It’s that room,” and he pointed to a window no different from any other, except that it was open six inches at the bottom.

“That one, eh? Well, she ain’t there. There ain’t nobody home. They’ve all slipped off to buy up Kent.”

“The spirit tells me she’s home. See, she has her window open to welcome me.”

“Ought to warn her to close that window, old fellow. Take her death of cold.”

They dismounted, tethered their nags to a tree, and walked softly, so as not to disturb the empty house.

“I’m going in,” Clay announced firmly.

“Can’t do that. They ain’t home.”

“She’s home. I can hear her heart calling me across the miles.”

“What miles?”
Rex demanded sharply. “She ain’t ten yards away, if she
is
home.” They were now directly under the window designated by his lordship as being
hers.

At his words the window was raised another foot, and a head peeped out. In the dim moonlight only an oval of white was visible, with a cloud of a dark hair billowing about it. “Rex, is that you?” a lady’s voice asked in a lowered voice.

“Damme, now see what you’ve done,” Rex complained to his buddy.

“Give me a lift up,” Clay demanded.

“You can’t go in there! ‘Pon my word. Not the thing, to be sneaking into a lady’s chamber in the dead of night. Adam’d have your skin.”

“What is going on?” the voice asked. “Rex, are you drunk? Is that Abel with you?”

Executing an elegant if slightly wobbly bow, the Marquis of Claymore made himself known. His introduction was acknowledged with a nervous giggle. “You
are
drunk, both of you,” the voice chided. “Go away, Rex, and take your friend with you.”

It was only the Marquis who went away, while Homberly remained behind to inform the lady they were both as sober as judges. Within minutes Claymore was back with a ladder, which he had espied on the ground on his way in. He leaned it against the house, and proceeded to climb it, till he was as close as he could manage to get to the face that leaned toward him. It was, however, a short ladder, one that had been used that afternoon to retrieve Pudding, a foolish kitten, from a tree, and it did not reach milady’s chamber window. By balancing himself on the second rung from the top, Claymore could nearly reach her. He thought he could even reach her lips if she would lean over farther.

“I am come to make you an offer in form, Miss Wanderley,” the Marquis said, with hardly a slur in his voice at all. Miss Wanderley looked down into his face, and thought she had never seen anyone so dashing and handsome in her life. It was all so dreadfully exciting and romantic, and the fear that Mama might at any moment come in and discover her, and very likely kill her, made it the more piquant.

“Oh, my lord, you are
foxed.”
She laughed tremulously.

“Drunk with love for you, my pretty,” he returned gallantly, and jiggled so precariously that she feared he might fall at any moment and break his leg. She involuntarily reached down her two hands and grabbed his shoulders, and as she did so, the upper part of her body was projected out the window, revealing a pair of shapely arms, and the outlines of an equally entrancing bosom beneath her nightdress.

“Do pray get down, before you kill yourself,” she implored. Claymore looked up into her worried little face, then allowed his eyes to travel down to her body, and he made no motion to get down.

“I am going in and closing this window,” she said severely. Then she let go of his shoulders, but did not pull her head in, for she had never so enjoyed herself in her entire sheltered life.

“Not till you accept my offer.”

“Go away,” she implored. Looking out, she addressed herself to Homberly. “Do take him home, Rex, before he takes a tumble and hurts himself.”

“I am a marquis, with twenty thousand pounds a year,” Clay boasted.

“You are drunk,” she said, and she regretfully pulled her head inside, and finally closed the window. Sound was not entirely eliminated, however, as she kept her ear to the glass. She heard quite distinctly the scrape of the ladder against the side of the house, and the thud as the Marquis hit the ground. She put her fingers to her mouth, and giggled softly into the darkness. So handsome, she thought, and never even remembered his title, nor the exact sum of his fortune.

Picking himself up, Claymore brushed himself off and said to his friend, “I told you it was her room. I told you I heard her calling me. Gad, but she’s a beauty, Rex.”

“Well, if you ain’t a gudgeon, Clay. That wasn’t Wanda at all. It was only Ellie.”

Chapter Three

Somehow the gentlemen managed to get safely to the Abbey. They even found their chambers, and were in bed before the return of the Homberlys from their evening out. They did not, however, arise early after their libations and nocturnal ramblings. The sun was midway across the sky before they sat down to a steak and ale, which gave Mrs. Homberly (informed of their arrival by her servants) time to get Missie decked out in her best sprigged muslin gown and herself time to wonder and wonder again
why
he was come.
He,
of course, was not her beloved son, but his guest. Missie might be only sixteen, but she was large for her age, and with the Marquis not a day over twenty-five, if that, there was no saying...

As soon as her son told her they were off to the Wanderleys, though, her hopes plunged. Not only had that wretch of a Wanda nabbed the squire’s son, now here was Ellie about to snap up this very eligible parti. At least that would be the last of the Wanderley girls to worry about. Thank God they had finally had a son, so that they might quit breeding those damned beautiful girls every few years.

The gentlemen were a good deal more circumspect in their selection of horses in the daytime than they had been the night before, and made a decent showing on the bays they rode on this occasion. This was their first chance for private discourse since their evening’s orgy, and it was Clay who raised the subject

“Do you happen to recall, Rex, did we do something foolish last night?”

“Not
we, you.”

“I rather feared it might be me. I have a devilish sore arm this morning. All bruised.”

“That’d be from falling off the ladder.”

“On a ladder, was I? Dear me. What could I have been doing there?”

“Trying
get into Miss Wanda’s room.”

“I didn’t make it, did I?” Clay asked, with a worried frown.

“Nope, you fell off.”

“Good. Did I like Wanda?”

“Didn’t see her. Got the wrong room.”

“Good again. Whose room did I get?”

“Only Ellie’s. It don’t matter. She won’t cut up.”

“I hope she won’t tell Wanda.”

“Shouldn’t think so. Funny little creature, the shy one of the family. Didn’t tell a soul when I accidentally broke her mama’s Sevres vase, throwing it at Abel.”

“Accidentally?”

“Accidentally picked up a good one. Thought it was only a cheap one. He went and told Wanda I’d been seeing Millie Winters.”

“You were dangling after Wanda yourself, I take it.
That why you dislike her now, because she jilted you?”

“Didn’t jilt me. Never cared for her except for about two weeks when I was fourteen or so. Too conceited. Well, you know the way pretty girls are. Not like Ellie at all.”

They crossed the border from Surrey into Sussex, without either of them recalling who was purported to have bought up the county, and before long were cantering up the road to the Wanderley house. It was now early afternoon, and the brick house was revealed as a picturesque home, three stories high, with a slate roof and a general appearance of prosperity, in spite of Adam’s squandering of his money on flowers. They were admitted by the butler, and Mrs. Wanderley came into the drawing room, bringing with her her youngest daughter, Miss Wanda.

The girl was quickly judged by the Marquis, and decided to be beauty enough to pit against Miss Golden. She had fine raven hair, blue eyes, a suitably modest expression, and a figure that would not show to disadvantage beside the Rose. She conversed agreeably, and before ten minutes were up, Claymore was picturing her in her bridal gown, and also in various ball gowns, trailing on his arm, and turning every head in the room by her stunning appearance.

Wine and biscuits were served. Rex, divining his duty, drew Mrs. Wanderley aside to discuss local matters, leaving Clay free to further his suit with Miss Wanda. Mrs. Wanderley was only minimally interested to hear Rex’s mother had been to dinner at Ashton Manor, having heard it already from his mother, yet she was not loath to give the other two young people a moment to become acquainted. Quite the contrary, she led Rex on with a million questions he could not answer, and even favored him with a recital of her sister’s daughter’s friend’s latest romance. He had never received such condescension from her before.

Claymore smiled inwardly as he absorbed the charms of his new beloved. The very one to set the Rose down a peg, and to refute the foolish rumors that were no doubt going the rounds about his being all cut to shreds by her rejection.

“I understand your first Season was cut short by an unfortunate accident,” Clay said.

“Yes, so foolish of me. I took a tumble from my horse at a fence. She was frightened by a mole, else it would never have happened.”

“It was London’s loss,” he told her gallantly, while remembering quite distinctly Rex’s comment that she had fallen from a tree. Beauties were notoriously proud, of course, and naturally she would not own up to such conduct as climbing trees. What puzzled him slightly was
where
she had been climbing a tree in London. While these thoughts flashed through his mind, he continued with his conversation. “I hope we may have the pleasure of your company for the Little Season.”