VIscount Besieged (22 page)

Taking in these
signs of cold, Isadora straight away forgot their previous meeting
and came up to pull him towards the fire.

‘
Great heavens, Edmund, do you wish to catch a cold like poor
Harriet? Sit down here at once.’

Pushing him on
to the stool before the fire that she had just vacated, she drew up
one of the chairs for herself and sat down as he held his hands
towards the small blaze.

‘
My
thanks, Dora,’ he said, adding shyly as he cast a deprecating
glance at her, ‘Though I would not have expected you to behave so
kindly towards me.’

‘
Not
have expected—?’ echoed Isadora, widening her eyes at him. Then she
remembered. ‘Oh, I see.’

Edmund turned on
the stool. ‘Dora, forgive me! I behaved badly, I know.’

‘
Do
not give the matter a thought,’ Isadora said, smiling kindly at
him. ‘I have not held it against you, be sure.’

He frowned a
little. ‘But are you not angry with me?’

Isadora laughed.
‘My dear Edmund, I have had so much since to plague me that I had
quite forgot the matter.’

This did not
appear to find great favour with her young suitor. His frown
deepened, and he sounded a good deal put out. ‘I had not realised
it was of so little account to you.’

‘
Edmund, pray don’t take an affront into your head. Anyone
would suppose you wished me to harbour a grudge against
you.’

‘
Not
that, no, but I should have expected you at least to understand the
serious nature of my feelings.’

Isadora
perceived, with an inward groan, that it must now be her task to
pacify him because she had not taken his offence seriously. Were it
not for the long-standing affection she had always felt for him, in
spite of this absurd
tendre
he had lately conceived, she
would certainly not have wasted her time. But Edmund was Harriet’s
brother. And Harriet was her friend. She had to have some regard
for his wounded feelings.

‘
Edmund, I was extremely angry,’ she offered, and saw that he
brightened at once. ‘You behaved very badly. But since there was no
possibility of my accepting your offer I could make allowances
for—’

‘
But
why is there no possibility of your accepting it?’ he interrupted.
He reached out and grasped her hands tightly. ‘Dora, I could make
you happy. I know I could.’

‘
What
do you expect me to say to that, Edmund?’ she asked, trying to pull
her hands away. ‘How could either of us be happy when there is no
mutual regard?’

‘
But
there is! At least, I love you. And your situation here is now so
uncertain that I would think you must welcome the chance to be
rescued.’

Isadora got up,
wrenching her hands out of his as she spoke. ‘Once and for all,
Edmund, I am not in need of rescue. How many times are we to go
through this absurdity?’

‘
But
it’s not absurd,’ Edmund protested, rising also and putting out a
hand as if he would catch at her shoulder.

Isadora evaded
him, uttering warningly, ‘Edmund!’

‘
Marry me, Dora! I swear I will do everything in my power to
make you happy!’

‘
I am
sure you think you mean it, but—’

‘
I do
mean it. Why should you not marry me, Dora?’

‘
Because I don’t choose to.’ She saw argument in his eye.
Driven to the last ditch, she added quickly, ‘And even if I did,
you may take it that Roborough would never permit me to marry
you.’

He was silenced.
Frowning deeply, he said in an accusing sort of voice, ‘He is your
guardian, I suppose.’

He was nothing
of the sort. But it was evidently going to prove useful for Edmund
to believe that he was. She had flung the excuse out in sheer
desperation. Clearly, though, Edmund was far more inclined to
accept prohibition from the viscount
in loco parentis
than
her own disinclination. But she could not quite bring herself to
acknowledge him as her guardian.

‘
He
will not allow me to marry you,’ she repeated.

It was not quite
a lie, for had he not said he would have her placed under restraint
if she showed any disposition to wish to marry Edmund? He had been
joking, of course. A pang smote her but she thrust it away. Must
she now acknowledge a loss to herself in the withdrawal of
Roborough’s stupid jokes? Fudge!

Edmund was
chewing his lower lip, apparently turning over in his mind this
introduction of a new element into the debate. Before he could
speak again, the door opened and his sister Harriet walked
in.

‘
I
knew it!’ she said crossly. ‘Dora, I beg your pardon. I told him
not to come, and if I had not been abed these many
days—’

‘
Harriet, what are you doing driving over in this rain?’
demanded Isadora, sweeping over to her friend and seizing her by
the hands. ‘Edmund got wet enough. Great heavens, Harriet, you must
be mad!’

‘
Don’t fuss, Dora,’ Harriet said impatiently, and Isadora noted
she was in fact warmly clad in a woollen cloak over a pink
seersucker gown made high to the throat. There was only a trace of
her cold remaining in her slightly thickened voice. ‘I am very well
now, and I had the intention of coming over in any event.’ She eyed
her brother suspiciously. ‘Have you been importuning Dora again,
Edmund?’

‘
If
by that you mean have I offered again—’

‘
Never mind it, Harriet.’

‘
I do
mind it. Edmund, stop making a cake of yourself and go
home!’

Her brother drew
himself up. ‘I shall do so,’ he said with an attempt at dignity. ‘I
know when I am not wanted.’

‘
Good,’ was all his sister had to say to this.

But Isadora,
feeling quite sorry for the poor boy, gave him her hand and urged
him to hurry before the drizzle turned into a real downpour. He
appeared a little mollified and, although he cast his sister a
glance of dislike, said nothing further to disturb either
female.

Shutting the
door behind him, Isadora came across to Harriet, murmuring,
low-toned, ‘As it chances, I think I have convinced him that it
will not do.’

Harriet tutted,
throwing off her cloak. ‘Have no fear, Dora. I have arranged with
Joseph that he will take him off with him when he goes back home in
a few days. On the pretext of getting in a little shooting on his
estates, you understand. Edmund will not be able to resist that.
And it will take his mind off you.’

Isadora smiled.
‘That is thoughtful of you, Harriet. Much more and I should
certainly have been driven demented.’

‘
You
don’t think I was going to allow my silly brother to drive a spoke
in your wheel, do you? I have quite made up my mind that you
will
marry Roborough, Dora.’

To her own
astonishment as much as to her friend’s, Isadora burst into
tears.

‘
Dora! What in the world is the matter?’ cried Harriet, rushing
to put a comforting arm around her.

‘
Don’t talk to me of…R-Roborough,’ Isadora managed between
gasping sobs. ‘I cannot
bear
R-Roborough!’

Harriet promptly
pushed her into the one little sofa that the room contained and,
taking her place beside Isadora, drew her into a close
embrace.

‘
Dearest Dora, what has happened? I know you said Roborough had
left here, but—’

‘
Oh, Harriet, we had the most
dreadful
quarrel,’ I
sadora
confessed, raising her head and groping in her sleeve for a pocket
handkerchief.

Harriet patted
her soothingly as she blew her nose, tutting and fussing. But as
soon as Isadora was a little recovered she demanded instant
enlightenment.

‘
It
was all on account of Syderstone,’ Isadora told her, drying her
eyes. ‘Because Cousin Matty twitted Roborough on thinking of me
for a wife, and—’

‘
She
didn’t!’

‘—
of
course he told her he would die rather. At least, not that, but it
is what he meant
.
For when,’ she went on, dissolving into
tears again, ‘I t-tackled him on the subject of his wishing me to
marry Syderstone, he s-said he would not blame him if he thought I
was not even worth that wretched debt.’

Harriet patted
her again as she gulped on the rising sobs, but said in a
bewildered tone, ‘I don’t think I quite understand, Dora. What has
Syderstone to do with it?’

Isadora turned
to her, her brown eyes brimming. ‘Harriet, he
does
owe
Syderstone that money. And it
is
a g-gambling debt. Oh, my
God, I hate him so much.’

‘
But
how do you know? I thought you said—’

‘
He
told me,’ Isadora wailed. ‘He said it was all
true
.
’

‘
Roborough said it was true? He admitted it?’

‘
Yes,
I tell you,’ Isadora said, once more applying the damp handkerchief
to her ravaged features.

Harriet gazed at
her, looking quite appalled. Faintly, she muttered, ‘There must be
some mistake.’

‘
There is no mistake,’ Isadora said in a stronger voice,
sniffing at the residue of her tears. ‘He is as heartless and
selfish as I had at first supposed and there is n-nothing to be
d-done about it.’

But this time
she managed to control the threatening sobs. Why she should be
behaving like a watering-pot all for the sake of Roborough’s
wretched debt she had not the least idea in the world. It must be
relief at finally sharing with someone else the truth of what she
had discovered. Certainly, the bout of tears had done something to
release the tensions of the past few days.

As if she read
her thoughts, Harriet said in a tone of interest, ‘How is it that
you are so cast down about the affair, Dora?’

Isadora sniffed
again, and thrust the sodden handkerchief back into her sleeve. ‘I
am not cast down at all, but only furious. If I am cast down, it is
only natural that I should be so to find my family at the mercy of
one who is clearly an inveterate gambler, and in all probability a
libertine to boot.’

‘
For
shame, Dora. You have no evidence of any kind to support a
supposition that the poor man might be a libertine.’

‘
Well, the two usually go hand in hand,’ Isadora said
defiantly. All she needed was to discover that Roborough had a
string of mistresses in his train. That would set the seal on her
total condemnation.

But her friend
would have none of it. ‘Nonsense. You are just trying to find more
ammunition to fuel your dislike of Roborough. A dislike which, I
strongly suspect, you are manufacturing at this very
moment.’

Isadora jumped
up off the sofa. ‘Of all the stupid things you have ever said,
Harriet, that takes precedence. Great heavens, is it not manifestly
apparent that I utterly despise and loathe and—and—? Oh, I cannot
talk to you!’

Harriet regarded
her as she swished up and down the little parlour. ‘In any event,
you will concede that he has had the grace not to compound his
fault by lying to you when you accused him of it.’

Isadora halted,
turning on Harriet. ‘No, because he does not consider it worth his
while to attempt to beguile me any further. Why should he, when he
must know that it is clear to me why he intends to sell this
house?’

‘
You
mean to pay the debt to Syderstone?’

‘
Yes,
to pay the debt. And also, I don’t doubt, to replenish his pockets
so that he may gamble it all away again. The best we have to hope
for is that he will find no one willing to purchase this horribly
ugly house— which I warned him would be found to be the
case.’

But when Harriet
and she at length went up to the drawing-room—for Isadora would by
no means allow her to brave the elements again without being
fortified by a luncheon—they discovered Mr Thornbury to have
arrived, with extremely unwelcome tidings.

Mrs Alvescot
surged out of her chair at the sight of her daughter and almost
fell upon her neck.

‘
Dora, my love, I had not believed it could happen, but it is
all too true.’

‘
Mama, dearest, what is it? What has happened?’

Cousin Matty,
who, along with her two children, was looking stunned and shocked,
came forward. Isadora’s erstwhile unpopularity was apparently
forgotten in the face of a fresh disaster.

‘
Dora,’ she said gravely, ‘we must all confront the future
bravely. Mr Thornbury tells us that there are purchasers coming to
look at the house.’

Chapter Eight

It was evident that no one in the family besides
Isadora had ever seriously considered it would come to this.
Clearly they had so lost their common sense in admiration of the
viscount that they had supposed he would somehow take care of them
all without resorting to this extreme. But if Mr Thornbury’s
attempts to allay their alarm succeeded, Isadora thought cynically,
Roborough would very quickly recover his lost prestige.