Sattler, Veronica (29 page)

The
two women cantered off in the direction he'd indicated, and Brett sat and
watched them go. His turquoise eyes fastened on the gleaming mass of raven
curls the wind whipped about Ashleigh's slender back and shoulders, even as he
reminded himself that this was the second decade of the nineteenth century, and
rational men no longer believed in witchcraft.

* * * * *

Margaret
Westmont's face was livid as she confronted her goddaughter amid the shambles
the latter had made of her guest chamber at Ravensford Hall. Her blue eyes
bored into those of the younger woman, who stood with outthrust, quivering
lower lip beside a broken looking glass, but still Margaret did not speak; it
was imperative that she assume control over the emotions that raged inside her,
for if she did not, if she succumbed even one iota, like the creature who stood
before her, all could be lost, and Margaret had no intention of losing... not
ever, ever again.

"Well,
you needn't look at me like that," Elizabeth told her in a querulous
voice. "I—I had my reasons for—for this." She made a small gesture to
indicate the broken bits of china, overturned chairs and other debris that gave
mute testimony to the temper tantrum she'd indulged in during the past hour or
so. She stepped forward a pace and began to wring her hands, adding. "Oh,
for God's sake,
say
something, will you? You remind me of—of
him,
your—your
brother. He used to gaze at me that way, even when I was a child and it was
clear he didn't like me, and—
stop it,
I tell you! I am no child to be
peered at in such a forbidding manner!"

"Then
I suggest you cease behaving like one," came the barely controlled reply.
Finding she could deal with the situation now, Margaret advanced farther into
the room from the position she'd been maintaining near the door. She eyed the
perfume-stained, disheveled pink satin dressing gown Elizabeth wore and made a
grimace of distaste. "You look a sight. Where is your abigail?"

Elizabeth
pouted. "I sent her away."

"Well,
summon her back. We've work to do, and there isn't much time. Any moment now, a
virtual horde of guests will be pulling up in—"

"Guests!
Auntie Meg, how can you be talking of guests when I have been so sorely put
upon? You just don't
know
what's happened! Your grandnephew—oh, I could
kill
him! You cannot realize—"

"Of
course, I realize!" snapped Margaret, her anger threatening to return in
full force. "The
whole house realizes,
you little idiot! And if you
and I don't take steps to amend the damage, in a few moments all of London will
begin to be privy to your indiscretion. Think on that, why don't you, but think
on it while you complete your toilette and prepare to make a presentable
appearance downstairs as the future duchess of Ravensford!"

Elizabeth
appeared to shrink at the force of her words. "Auntie, surely you can't
expect me to—"

With
irate strides, Margaret closed the distance between them and seized her arm.
"I can and I
do!"
She leaned forward until her face was just a
few inches from Elizabeth's. "Now, you listen to me, you little fool! In
just a few moments some of the most prestigious members of society will be
filling the drawing room downstairs. How will it look if that little
guttersnipe is the one to greet them at the door while their host's betrothed
sits cowering in an upstairs chamber? Hadn't we agreed that the only way to
demolish the effect of Brett's demented whim regarding that girl was to install
you here at the Hall, so that your presence would overwhelm hers and perhaps
even send her packing? Pull yourself together! In fifteen minutes I expect to
see you dressed and downstairs."

"Fifteen
minutes! Oh, Auntie, how
can
you be so hateful? I don't
want
to
go downstairs! Have you seen the way he looks at her? Why, last night at
dinner, he hardly took his eyes off her! How will
that
appear when
others view it in—in my presence? I'd be humiliated beyond—"

"Silence!
Sit
down at that dressing table and begin repairing your face," ordered
Margaret. "I shall call for your abigail." She hastened to the door
and Elizabeth could hear her murmuring a few words to the footman who stood in
the hallway. Then Margaret returned to her goddaughter, who had reluctantly
seated herself at the dressing table.

"As
for your worries about Brett's attentions to that little whore," Margaret
told her quietly, "I have only one thing to say to you, and then I shall
have to leave and play interim hostess myself, no matter what Brett and his bit
of muslin say."

She
was standing behind Elizabeth now and addressed her in the looking glass that
hung wildly askew on the wall above the dressing table. "Most marriages,
including those of most of the people soon to be arriving here, are never
expected to be love matches. It has always been thus among our class, and I
expect you to know this and remember it. It therefore follows that when a
nobleman's eye wanders, it is accepted as quite the done thing. He did not
marry for love, so he must be expected to have his
little things
on the
side from time to time.

"To
the guests downstairs, this Ashleigh Sinclair will, if you are capable of
carrying off your part as I think you are, appear to be just one of those
little
things,
no more. And no one will think twice on it. So His Grace's eye
roams... so what? Was it not always so? Would a betrothal make any difference
with a man like him? They'll hardly think so.

"Moreover,
I think you'll find there are advantages to having a husband who slakes his
lustful appetites elsewhere. Aside from the times your duty will necessitate
your sharing the marriage bed to produce heirs, you will be largely freed from
that obligation. That should, in the long run, be a welcome relief."

Margaret
paused and tilted her head, sending a shrewd, assessing glance at the
reflection in the mirror. "I have observed you closely in the years since
you matured to womanhood, Elizabeth. You do not strike me as the sort who
hungers for the pleasures of the flesh. Tell me... am I wrong in this?"

Elizabeth
gazed at the blue eyes that were riveted to hers in the glass. Then her mind
flitted briefly over the few times she'd been alone with someone of the
opposite sex. She remembered the horrid, sweaty hands of Sir Peter Halifax, who
tried to embrace her at a garden party last spring; she recalled the disgusting
wetness of George Mowbry's lips as he stole a kiss at her last birthday ball;
she thought of the nasty male scents of snuff and horses that she'd encountered
on dozens of men she'd chatted or danced with in recent months, and her flesh
began to feel as if it were suddenly crawling with vermin.

Resolutely
returning her godmother's gaze, Elizabeth answered, "No, you are not
wrong."

Margaret's
smile oozed satisfaction, and she nodded knowingly. "I thought so. So, why
the alarm over a husband-to-be and his wandering eye? Certainly, after what
I've told you of our set, it cannot be from pride?

"You're
young, Elizabeth, and perhaps, despite your successful season, you've lived in
the country too long. Look around you today. See if you can't find evidence among
our guests that what I speak is the truth. And go downstairs and hold your head
proudly erect and act the aristocrat you are. You
must!"
Here
Margaret's voice lowered and she peered more intently at the reflection in the
mirror. "Need I remind you that everything we've planned depends on
it?"

Elizabeth
heard the hard edge of steel in her voice and shivered, then solemnly nodded.

"Good.
Ah, that must be your abigail. I'll let her in and wait for you
downstairs." She walked toward the door, then turned.

"And
Elizabeth?"

"Yes?"

"Do
not fail me."

With
a glass of sherry in his hand, Brett stood at the huge mantel in the drawing
room and smiled wryly, his turquoise eyes roaming casually over the two-dozen
guests who sat or stood in clusters here and there about the room.
"Darnley," he said to the blond, heavyset young man standing near
him, "the next time I'm fool enough to mention publicly I've a birthday
coming up, stifle me with my own cravat, will you?"

Bruce
Darnley chuckled. "Surprised you, did we, old chap? But, see here, surely
you're not turned out over this? I mean, what are birthdays for, if not to have
a few friends pop in to celebrate... you know, bend an elbow a bit, that sort
of thing... nothing too elaborate."

Brett
suppressed a guffaw. "Oh, no, nothing elaborate! Only a couple dozen men
and women, dressed to the hilt and bent on several days' worth of mischief,
I'll warrant. Nothing elaborate at all!"

"Now,
Brett, dear," said a striking brunette with dark, almond-shaped eyes as she
overheard their conversation. "You must know Pamela wasn't going to allow
your birthday to pass without making some kind of a to-do! Why, it was just the
other day when she said, 'I'll wager His Grace is going slinking off down to
the country without allowing us to give him a proper send-off, and it's his
birthday on the sixteenth, too! Why, we simply mustn't allow him to celebrate
it alone!' And before you knew it, half of us at Lord Edgemont's dinner party
recalled your leaving an open invitation to come down and visit you here in
Kent, and everyone began to make plans to go. After all, Your Grace," she
simpered, "being in mourning shouldn't signify that one stops living
himself, should it?"

"Hmm,"
replied Brett absently. He was eyeing the graceful, elegant form of an
amber-eyed, honey-haired woman in green as she nodded and laughed at some
remarks made by her two gentlemen companions on the sofa across the room. So,
this was Pamela's idea after all. He might have known she wouldn't give up that
easily.
Damn!
Now he'd have to spend the next several days being polite
to her while not allowing one jot of encouragement to shade his behavior! How
in hell was he going to manage
that?

Just
then, he saw several heads turn, and following their gaze, beheld Ashleigh
Sinclair entering the room with a footman at her heels bearing a tray of light
refreshments. She was an absolute vision in a filmy aquamarine cotton day gown
with matching ribbons woven into the lustrous curls that were arranged atop her
head. She paused for a moment and caught his eye; at the same time her face
broke into an enchanting smile, revealing the single dimple in her left cheek,
and suddenly Brett knew exactly how he was going to manage the difficult
business of curbing Lady Pamela Marlowe!

"Egad!"
exclaimed Bruce Darnley, his eyes fixed on Ashleigh. "Where, in all of
Heaven, did you find
that?
Brett, old man, who
is
she?"

But
Brett didn't reply, for he was busy making his way across the room to connect
with his hired hostess, a smile of anticipation curving his mouth.

"Why,
haven't you heard?" the almond-eyed brunette asked young Lord Darnley.
"Brett has a new... ward. All of London's abuzz over it. Surely the gossip
cannot have gotten past you?"

"New...
ward?" Darnley looked bemused for a moment. "Egad, Vanessa, you don't
mean to say—"

"Oh,
no, no! Nothing like that," Vanessa quickly assured him. It was possible,
the brunette surmised, that the situation could, after all, be innocent—the
girl could indeed be his ward and nothing more—and if this were so, she had no
wish to be the one on whom blame was cast, should His Grace learn of unsavory
gossip; Brett Westmont was known for his fierce temper, and Vanessa had no wish
to incur his wrath!

"But
you must agree," she continued to Lord Darnley, "the girl is a
beauty, and, well, you know how His Grace attracts beautiful women."

Suddenly
Vanessa's eyes searched the room for Pamela Marlowe. Finding her intensely
absorbed in the scene of greeting that was taking place between the duke and
his ward, Vanessa allowed a catty smile to curve her lips. "Oh, this is
going to be too good," she purred, remembering all too well a series of
insults she'd suffered at Lady Pamela's hands over the years. "Pamela is
about to meet her comeuppance, Bruce dear, and we have a front-row seat!"

Ashleigh
had watched Brett approach with a tremor of anticipation; he was being so kind
to her since his return, she could scarcely believe it. Indeed, the man who now
bent over her hand in courteous greeting was so far removed from the demon
she'd first encountered, she half expected him to revert to his old form at any
moment, and each time he smiled and spoke gently to her, as now, she found
herself both relieved and warmed by the encounter.

"You're
lovelier each time I see you, sweet," Brett was saying.

Ashleigh
dimpled. "I'm sure it's just because my... 'setting' has been
changed."

Brett
shook his head. "There is a roomful of beautiful women here today, and not
one of them can hold a candle to you, no matter what you might be wearing."

Feeling
the heat rise to her cheeks, Ashleigh sought to change the subject. "I
hope I wasn't overly late. I tried to hurry as much as I could, but Megan was
ever so stubborn about making me sit still for a 'proper coiffure,' and—"