VIscount Besieged (10 page)

But the family,
confronted with Isadora’s plan to rescue them from Roborough’s
plot, greeted it with an discouraging silence.

‘
But
what in the world is the matter with you all?’ demanded Isadora,
standing arms akimbo in the middle of the drawing-room, flanked on
one side by Harriet. Her glance went from one to the other. They
had not looked like this when she had told them of Roborough’s
scheme to sell.

Mrs Alvescot,
ensconced in her usual chair, seemed vaguely apprehensive, lines of
worry creasing her countenance. But Cousin Matty’s frankly
disapproving gaze and Fanny’s superior smirk were quite
unwarranted. Only Rowland, a slight frown marring his chubby
features, appeared to be giving Isadora’s idea
consideration.

‘
Anyone would suppose you had rather trust to a stranger than
your own flesh and blood,’ Isadora pursued, a little hurt in her
voice.

‘
Dear
me, no, my love,’ said her mother at once. ‘It is not
that.’

‘
It
is when the flesh and blood is Dora,’ put in Fanny with devastating
candour.

‘
Fanny!’ reproved Harriet, forgetting her own condemnation of
Isadora’s plans. ‘That is a horrid thing to say.’

‘
Don’t mind it, Harriet,’ Isadora said drily. ‘I am quite used
to hearing that sort of thing from Fanny.’

‘
Fanny, that was uncalled for,’ Cousin Matty told her daughter
sternly, throwing a minatory glace at her but returning her gaze
almost immediately to Isadora’s face. ‘However, I cannot help but
feel that—in this instance—there is much to be said for trusting in
Roborough rather than a chancy scheme like yours, Dora.’

Isadora bridled.
‘Chancy? You do not believe me capable, then, of becoming a
successful tragedienne?’

‘
Even
if you did,’ broke in Harriet, ‘bringing the family into it with
you is quite ineligible.’

‘
Exactly,’ said Fanny. ‘You may choose to tread the boards if
you wish; there is no need to drag the rest of us into
it.’

‘
I’m
with you, Dora,’ chimed in Rowland. ‘Perhaps I could get a position
in the theatre where you’re acting. Maybe I could lift the scenery
on and off.’

‘
Yes,
and drop it on the actors’ heads,’ sneered his sister
unkindly.

‘
Don’t be foolish, Rowland, ’said his mother irritably. ‘You
will be going to school.’

‘
Yes,
but if I was working in the theatre with Dora I need not go to
school, and—’

‘
That
will do,’ said Cousin Matty firmly. ‘Dora is not going to work in
the theatre.’

‘
Am I
not?’ said Isadora dangerously.

‘
Certainly not. I hold to it that the whole notion is
ridiculous, and I am sure Cousin Roborough will put a stop to it on
the instant.’

‘
Oh,
Matty, pray,’ pleaded Mrs Alvescot feebly, glancing at her
daughter’s face as if she thought to see storm clouds gathering
there.

Her intervention
was in vain. Eyes snapping, Isadora said bitingly,
‘Cousin
Roborough will put a stop to us all doing anything but what he
chooses if he is allowed to sell this house. Is that what you
want?’

‘
But
Dora, my love,’ came plaintively from her mama, ‘we are in any
event obliged to do what Roborough chooses. And if he is planning
to sell the house I am quite sure he has already decided where we
are to live. He only wants us to be comfortable,
dearest.’

‘
Comfortable? Where are we to be comfortable? In any event, I
may make you just as comfortable when I am able to afford a house,
Mama.’

‘
Yes,
my love, but Society will be closed to us if you are an actress,
and so we should have no need of your house. We had as well live in
a cottage.’

Isadora was
silenced. She had not seriously expected any of them to acquiesce
in her designs, but she had thought at the least that they might be
moved on hearing that the estate was to be sold. But Roborough had
so bewitched them all that the wretch could do no wrong.

‘
You
are all besotted,’ she said in a defeated tone. ‘I only hope you
may not be in line for a rude awakening.’

‘
Even
if they are, Dora,’ Harriet said persuasively, ‘and Lord Roborough
proves not to be as good as his word, you must see that even this
unknown future is safer than the certain scandal you would bring
down upon their heads with this actress scheme of
yours.’

‘
It
is well for you to take everyone else’s part,’ Isadora retorted
crossly. ‘I dare say you will not be so complacent when you find
that Roborough is pressing Edmund to marry me.’

‘
What
?’ gasped Cousin Matty, and Mrs Alvescot looked
startled.

Harriet grimaced
at them, saying apologetically, ‘She has taken it into her head,
only from a word or two she overheard, that Lord Roborough plans to
marry her off.’

‘
He
did say so,’ Isadora insisted.

‘
Oh
dear,’ fluttered Mrs Alvescot in her helpless sort of way, but she
added sensibly, ‘Only Dora, my love, what else is he to do with
you?’

‘
Very
true,’ agreed Cousin Matty. ‘Although it’s my belief Dora has
misinterpreted the whole thing.’

‘
That
is what I think too,’ Harriet chimed in. ‘In any event, I know you
will never marry Edmund, Dora.’

‘
I’ll
marry Edmund,’ piped up Fanny eagerly. ‘That will save the family
just as well as Dora’s silly scheme.’

‘
Pooh!’ scoffed her brother. ‘As if Edmund would marry you when
he is head over heels for Dora. Even I can see that—’

‘
What
I want to know,’ interrupted Harriet, ‘is whether Lord Roborough is
married.’

‘
Don’t we all!’ said Fanny despairingly.

‘
Because it seems to me—’

‘
Harriet!’ cut in Isadora warningly.

Cousin Matty and
Mrs Alvescot caught the meaning at exactly the same
moment.

‘
You
don’t mean Dora and Roborough?’

‘
Oh,
dear me. Dora and Roborough?’

At this precise
instant, the door opened to admit the viscount himself, Thornbury
in close attendance.

Chapter Four

Dead silence
greeted this inopportune entrance. Roborough glanced from one
guilt-ridden or embarrassed face to another. Now what?
Automatically his eyes went to Isadora. The colour in her cheeks
was heightened, but she met his gaze full-on. What in the name of
all the gods had he done to deserve that look? The brown eyes were
positive daggers.

It was Thornbury
who saved the day, stepping forward to present Harriet to the
viscount. ‘I believe you have not met Miss Witheridge, my
lord.’

Roborough smiled
as he greeted this strange new countenance. A pretty girl.
Witheridge? Ah yes. The name of the local suitor Thornbury had
given him. This must be a sister. Good God, if the boy bore any
resemblance to her in feature, Isadora must surely be smitten.
Though Thornbury had seemed doubtful.

There was no
time to pursue this thought, for the lawyer was once more seeking
his attention. ‘My lord, you would wish me to return after
luncheon?’

His response was
forestalled by Cousin Matty, who had recovered her wits.

‘
Oh,
but if you still have business with his lordship, Mr Thornbury, you
must stay and eat luncheon with us. Must he not, Ellen?’

‘
Oh,
dear me, yes. Forgive me, Thornbury,’ apologised Mrs Alvescot.
‘Matty is so much better than I at these arrangements.’

Isadora hardly
heard this little interchange for, after that one killing glance at
the viscount, she had retired to the windows, where she was joined
in a moment by Harriet.

‘
You
must be mad,’ whispered her friend in a stunned tone.

‘
What
do you mean?’

‘
Roborough, of course.’

‘
What
about him?’

‘
Dora, he is practically ideal
.
Why in the world can
none of you find out if the man is married?’

Before Isadora
had an opportunity to respond to this, the scathing words were
halted on her tongue by the opening, yet again, of the drawing-room
door. Hampole, the butler, barely standing on his unsteady legs,
peered about out of short-sighted eyes for his mistress. Seeing her
at last, he stood aside, revealing a stranger waiting in the
aperture.

‘
Mr
Syderstone, ma’am,’ Hampole announced.

There entered a
man of middle age, with a mottled countenance, a portly bearing,
and even more fashionably attired than the new master of the house.
His prune-coloured broadcloth coat, buff breeches and gaily striped
waistcoat could not help but form a startling contrast to the
almost unrelieved black in the room. He had evidently followed the
direction of the butler’s look, for he addressed himself at once to
Mrs Alvescot.

‘
Forgive this intrusion, ma’am, I beg. I am come in search of
Lord Roborough.’

‘
Oh!’
exclaimed the lady, bewilderment in her voice.

Isadora’s eyes
went instantly to Roborough’s face. He was looking both astonished
and, if she was any judge, none too pleased. Yet as he stepped
forward he spoke with all his usual calm.

‘
You
have found me, Syderstone.’

‘
So I
see, my dear fellow,’ said the other man in a hearty tone. ‘And
delighted I am to have done so.’

‘
No
doubt,’ the viscount responded on a dry note. His voice hardened
slightly as he added, ‘Perhaps you will oblige me by telling me
just how you knew where to look.’

Mr Syderstone
smiled. A rather cynical smile, Isadora thought. Cynical, and
even—sinister?

‘
Ah,
my dear fellow, it does not take a genius to discover that. I have
been at Barton Stacey, you must know. Lady Roborough was kind
enough to furnish me with your direction.’

‘
Was
she indeed?’ returned the viscount smoothly.

Isadora, intent
on trying to read the thoughts behind Roborough’s words—for there
was something odd in his manner, so unlike him—noticed only in the
background of her mind the pricking up of several ears about the
room.

But it was
outspoken Fanny who put these separate thoughts into words. ‘Lady
Roborough? Does he mean your wife?’

Preoccupied, the
viscount barely glanced at her as he answered, ‘No, my mother. I am
unmarried.’

Isadora heard
this statement with the oddest sensation—as of a leaping of the
heart in her chest. Well, she knew what that meant, she decided,
over the subsequent flurry of her pulse. Apprehension. For now they
would give her no peace.

Her flicking
glance confirmed this. Yes, there were Mama and Cousin Matty,
exchanging looks that Isadora found no difficulty in interpreting.
Fanny and Rowland, too, whispering. It needed only Harriet’s
knowing dig at her ribs and the expectant look she met as she
turned to her friend to set the seal on her instant determination.
These designs she would thwart with even more energy than that she
was reserving for the viscount himself.

Oh, dear heaven!
Had he caught the immediate wild glances between her family upon
learning of his bachelorhood? Her eyes went to his face, that
apprehensive heartbeat accelerating again. No, for his attention
was all for the newcomer. The relief was intense. For all she might
resist any attempts of her family and Harriet to drive her into
Roborough’s marital orbit, nothing could be worse than to have him
recognise their object.

By this time Mrs
Alvescot had risen to greet Mr Syderstone, and was proceeding to
present him to the assembled company.

‘
Any
friend of Lord Roborough is welcome here,’ she was saying in
response to the gentleman’s renewed apologies for arriving
uninvited.

But Isadora,
whose eyes were still on Roborough, saw a slight curl twist his lip
instead of the usual smile. A friend? She did not think so. An
acquaintance perhaps. One, what was more, whose coming was both
disagreeable and inconvenient to him. She saw the viscount turn to
say something to Thornbury, who glanced at Syderstone—now
exchanging inane how-do-you-dos with Fanny and Rowland—and
nodded.

Then the
stranger was moving in Isadora’s direction and she was obliged to
give him her attention. She noted, as she greeted him politely,
that his eyes strayed rather to Harriet, softening with evident
admiration. They were intelligent eyes, oddly vivid in a rather
heavy setting. For Syderstone’s features were weighty, puffing
unattractively under the eyes and between the graven lines running
from nose to mouth.

Age or
dissipation? It was difficult to tell. He wore his own dark hair,
shorn even closer than Roborough’s and greying a little at the
temples. What attractions he might once have had were certainly
hidden. Not that it appeared to deter him from flirtation, for
Harriet was now being subjected to the sort of regard that invited
response.