The Wicked Guardian (11 page)

He had a gnawing suspicion that the weapons he had found effective in the past in dealing with the ladies of his family or of his acquaintance might not serve him here.

A good soldier knows when it is time to advance. And when to retreat. Benedict, although no great student of military tactics, yet found that he did know when to pull back. This was certainly the time.

“I find you astonishingly juvenile,” he said cuttingly, “for one who was ambitious enough to attempt a London season. I had thought to deal with you as though with a reasonable individual. Now, I see, I have only a hysterical female to deal with.”

It was unfair, for she was far from hysterical. But in a few moments, she thought darkly, she could well be.

“I bid you good day,” he said with punctiliousness. “Pray give the matter some thought. I trust that in the morning I shall find you more amenable to reason.”

“I doubt it,” she told him.

He drove off down the drive, and it seemed to her that even the set of his shoulders spoke of his unbridled anger. It was the first time that he had been defied, as far as
he could
remember, and she suspected that she would be hard put to come out of this encounter with any kind of credit.

Her eyes filmed over, and she could no longer see her guardian. She brushed past Lady Melvin in the hall, as though she weren’t there, and hurried up the stairs. She barely reached the haven of her own room, bolting the door behind her against interruption, before she burst into racking sobs.

1
3
.

Although Benedict was out of sight down the drive, he was far from forgotten. Clare’s sinking feeling did not lighten with her guardian’s absence. Rather, it grew stronger the more she thought about the great fix her grandmother had left her in.

Uncle Horsham might have been a stuffy old man, but he would never have been as odious, as repellently
odious
as Benedict Choate!

What was she to
do
?

Lady Melvin followed her up the stairs. She tried in vain to lighten her spirits, touching unerringly upon the very things that most lacerated Clare’s feelings. “How very handsome he is, to be sure! And such elegance of demeanor. I vow, Clare dear, that you could not find, I am positive, another such gentleman in England!”

Clare nodded vigorous agreement, and bit back the words on the tip of her tongue.
Fortunately for England.

“How much wiser Lady Penryck was to give you a guardian who is up to snuff—now, where did I learn that vulgar phrase?—in all details. Your affairs will march very well with him in charge. I recommend to you that you thank God every night on your knees for such a fortunate delivery!”

Since Clare’s thoughts ran along entirely different lines, and since she could share them with no one—not even in her prayers—she allowed Lady Melvin’s rhapsodies to float past her, unheeded, and Lady Melvin, secure in the belief that she had given Clare a good deal of sensible advice, left her.

But Clare was not comforted. Even that night, her sleep was not so much broken as nonexistent. She gazed out onto the sleeping landscape, her thoughts darker than the night. The hours passed, the moon’s rays moved across the window, and still she could not sleep. Was ever anyone in such a fix?

She knew that Benedict was right. He was powerful in himself, of course, and by sheer force of his intimidating character he could bend her to his will. But in addition to that, he had the entire force of the law behind him. He was truly her legal guardian, and his authority over her was limitless.

He could shut her up in a cloister, he could provide her with so little pocket money that she could not buy a ribbon without his consent. And this was what Lady Penryck had thought was best for her granddaughter!

Clare’s thoughts moved on, then, to turn over and over the plans that Benedict had already made. To bring his sister’s companion-governess to live at Penryck Abbey, without so much as a word to Clare, was intolerable. Clare believed she had scotched that plan of his, but she knew Benedict well enough to know that he would prevail in the long run.

And the devil of it was, he was right! She could not live alone here. Such a plan was totally ineligible. But if Benedict had schemes afoot, Clare decided, he would not be alone. She herself was as determined as he was, and it was her entire life at stake.

Benedict could simply wave a hand—so he thought—and people would spring to do his bidding, and he could then hasten back to London and the arms of Marianna, leaving Clare to manage whatever was left to her—a companion, a lowering series of instruction on whatever Benedict thought she lacked.

One thing, she decided, she did not lack, and that was a determination not to let Benedict dictate to her. To arrange her affairs in a lordly fashion and then forget about her—that was outside of enough! Clare came to the conclusion that the one thing she could be sure of in the days ahead was that Benedict would not be allowed to forget her existence.

Surprisingly, she found great comfort in her decision. She left the window and climbed into her bed, and drifted off to sleep, a satisfied smile still lingering on her lips.

The next day, when Benedict returned, he found her in a surprisingly amiable mood. He himself had mastered his anger overnight, and greeted her with great civility.

“Will you take coffee?” she offered. “Perhaps some chocolate? I am not quite sure what kind of refreshment you take in the morning, but you have only to command me.”

For a second, surprise showed in his face, but it was gone at once. “Nothing, I thank you,” he said. “The landlady has given me an excellent breakfast.”

“Then I imagine you would like to take a tour of the grounds?”

“It is not at all necessary,” he began, but she was already moving through the open door onto the terrace that faced south.

“I am sure you will wish to understand the properties with which you will be dealing,” Clare said, turning innocent eyes to him. “You are not a person, I collect, who turns over his duty to an underling.”

Since Benedict had precisely that in mind, he did not reply. He followed her onto the bricked terrace. “My father had this terrace built,” she said. “He said it was to give the local brickmakers employment, but I believe it was more likely to have been designed to provide a comfortable spot for an afternoon nap, in the shade of the beech trees.”

She moved across the lawn, toward a pergola in the Italian fashion, embellished by a rose vine bursting into red bloom at the top. Talking over her shoulder to him as she went, she pointed out the herb garden beyond the low hedge, and, to the left below the crest of the hill, the stables.

“Poor Papa would have hated to see the stables in such disrepair, and sadly empty. But I am sure you will put all in order before you leave. I must make Purvis known to you.”

“Purvis?”

“Our farm manager—I should not say
our
, of course.
Your
farm manager.”

“I make no claim to Purvis,” said Benedict, ruffled. His hard-won aplomb sat uneasily. “I imagine that your Mr. Austin will tell Purvis how to go on.”

“Oh, do you think so?” asked Clare, looking up at him seriously. “I had not thought he would know anything about farming. But surely, as my guardian, you must see that my income is assured? And since it all comes from the land...” She left the thought dangling, and turned again to lead the way toward the service buildings.

Purvis was at hand, as she knew he would be, and she presented him to Lord Choate. Benedict, making the best of it, engaged Purvis in conversation, which soon turned more technical than Clare could understand. Choate was surprisingly knowledgeable about agriculture and
livestock, and
Clare stood amazed until she remembered that he had vast lands of his own, and he was not a man to overlook necessary duties.

When at length they left Purvis and walked again to the house, Clare felt her spirits soaring. It would turn out better than she had at first expected, she thought, and she was almost in charity with her guardian by the time they reached the small morning room again.

“Purvis is a good man,” pronounced Choate. “You may safely leave your farm management to him. I have promised to put my own man in touch with him. There is a possibility, Purvis thinks, of improving your strain of sheep, and it would be well to look into it.”

Benedict, too, was pleased with his morning. It looked to him as though his ward had come to her senses, after all, and decided not to kick against the pricks of fortune. In a year or two, he would see about a suitable marriage for her, and then she would be off his hands. So he devoutly hoped. And misled by his sanguine prospects, and by his ward’s demure charm, he blundered.

“I have written the letter I spoke of yesterday,” he announced, almost with geniality.

“The letter? I don’t remember that we spoke of a letter,” said Clare, feeling a tightening in her throat. He could not mean what she thought.

But it seems he did indeed. “The letter to Mrs. Duff, my sister’s old companion. She will, I am sure, come to you at once.”

Clare’s hands clenched and unclenched before she spoke again. What could she do? The morning had been a rainbow dream, and all was as it had been at first—ruined.

“I believed we had settled that, had we not? I will not receive her.”

“You must.”

“If I must, I must,” Clare said in a dangerously quiet voice. Panic swept over her. She fought down the tide of anger that threatened to overwhelm her, and added in a voice that didn’t sound like her own, “But I promise you, she will not stay.”

“But ... you cannot live here alone!”

“My Uncle Horsham would not have treated me so!”

“I quite agree,” said .Benedict smoothly. “However, your Uncle Horsham was never unlucky enough to be charged with the responsibility of a badly spoiled, totally irresponsible child. For my sins, I find myself in the unenviable position of having to decide what is best.”

“And you, of course, know what is best for everyone in the world!”

“Let us not exaggerate wildly,” said Benedict, seething. He was quite as angry as she was, but being more experienced, had more control over his emotions. But this child had tried him far more excessively than anyone else in his recent life, and he was hard put to hold a tight rein on his tongue.

“Very well,” she said after a long moment. “I bow to your authority. For the moment. But I cannot like this scheme. To set a woman over me, one I do not know, and one I am sure I will dislike—it is infamous!”

Her lower lip quivered in spite of all her efforts, and Benedict was quick to notice. With a laborious attempt at fairness he said, “What, then? You have not informed me what you wish to do, that is true. And perhaps I was wrong not to consult your wishes first.” He came to where she stood at the window. “Tell me what you wish.”

His sudden gentleness left her without the support of the anger that she had been leaning on. She had no answer for him.

“Perhaps you would go to stay with my sister? It might be just the thing.”

Clare said, “Certainly I would not wish to be an added burden on her. Nor especially since she is so newly wed.”

Benedict agreed. And indeed he was glad she refused the suggestion, for while he had every confidence in his sister’s generosity, yet to burden her with a total stranger for some months was not the thing.

“Well, then,” said Benedict, “pray tell me if you wish to go back to Lady Thane in London. I believe I could persuade your godmother to accept you into her household.”

Clare reflected. Nothing he suggested recommended itself to her. Nor could she think of anything she truly wanted of her own. She was sadly torn, not knowing what she wanted, only knowing what she didn’t want And the latter category embraced a wide variety.

If she went to Lady Thane, she would hear more and more strictures upon her behavior, and she was quite sure that nothing she could do would quite meet with that lady’s approval. And an obscure part of Clare longed, quite strongly, for at least one word of approval, for a word that denied that she was a spoiled brat, that she was overly ambitious, overweening in her impudence...

“I cannot go back to London,” she said sadly. “You must see that, Lord Choate. I could not show my face in society again, after that last evening there. You of all people should know that!”

“I do know that,” he said. He found that her sad little voice worked powerfully on him, and of all things, he knew he could not afford to have pity on her. She was a legal obligation, and that was the only way he could handle her. If he gave in once to her, he felt strongly that he would continue to give ground on the most reasonable of excuses.

The determination to do what was best for her turned him grim. Every way he turned, she put an obstacle in his path, and he was not accustomed to such rebellion. For although her demeanor was demure, yet she was inwardly defiant. She had not fooled him at all, he told himself, and it was time to put an end to any pretensions she may have had.

“But,” he said, returning to the attack, “I think that I know how it can be carried off. You were worried about your grandmother, and such commendable anxiety led you into an emotional excess.”

She opened her eyes wide. “But I didn’t know about Grandmama until I got home that night.”

Nettled, he said sharply, “You would do well to go along with my suggestion.”

She sensed her advantage. Quickly she smiled. “I should indeed be glad to do so, Lord Choate. How kind you are to arrange all for me! But I am such an addlepate that I cannot promise not to let the truth slip out. And then ... I am persuaded I would not do you credit!”

“No matter,” he said. “I had quite forgot you are in mourning. I confess it does not show in your demeanor, but it would be wrong to appear in London.”

“You are quite right. But then, all will think I am too young, just a nuisance,” she said hotly. “I would no doubt cast disgrace on the family name, wouldn’t I?” Warming to a sense of her wrongs, she continued, “I wonder that you would consider letting me loose in London—I think that is the term, is it not? You must refresh my memory!”

“I don’t know what you are talking about!”

“Oh, you must know! For I have been the subject of many a conversation where you have calmly torn apart my character, and done all you can to cast me down. You cannot deny it!”

“I do deny it! And where you got these nonsensical notions, I do not know! It is quite illogical of you to remember that, more than once, to my own discomfort, I extracted you from one mess after another, and then tell me I have wronged you.”

If she were to speak, she thought darkly, she would quite simply burst into tears. And that, she vowed, she would not do—not where Benedict could see.