VIscount Besieged (35 page)

‘
Roborough, you don’t understand. I know you think I have
behaved—’

‘
In a
manner that reflects upon your sanity,’ he cut in
swiftly.

‘
In a
way that must seem as if I have tricked you,’ she finished. Then
she realised what he had said. ‘What do you mean, reflects upon my
sanity? It was a carefully thought out plot.’

‘
That
is just what I mean. No one but a madwoman would devise such a
plot. And do you know what lacerates my feelings the most? That you
should so underrate my intelligence. How dared you, Isadora,
suppose that I might take on trust all that utter nonsense you
wrote to me?’

‘
It
was not nonsense. At least, I did not tell you quite all my
intentions, of course, but how dare you doubt my purpose after all
I said?’

‘
I
can’t believe I’m hearing this. If I believed for one moment that
you meant what you said in that foolish note—’

‘
Why
shouldn’t I mean it?’

‘
Don’t try me too far, Isadora.’ He moved a few steps closer.
‘If you knew what I itch to do to you!’

Isadora shifted
back involuntarily. ‘Are you daring to threaten me?’

‘
Yes,
I am threatening you, and with good reason.’

‘
Oh!
You hateful man! You had much better have gone for Syderstone and
threatened him.’

Roborough
uttered a short laugh. ‘You don’t imagine I would waste my time
chasing after Syderstone, do you? I know you a little too well, my
girl. Your letter reeked of some idiotic plan afoot.’

‘
It
was not idiotic at all,’ protested Isadora indignantly. ‘It was a
very clever plan.’

‘
It
was an extremely stupid plan—besides containing a gross
miscalculation.’

Isadora stared
at him blankly. ‘How so?’

He seized her
shoulders and shook her. ‘You little fool! Syderstone had never any
intention of marrying you. He had his own axe to grind.
Unfortunately for him, he is not as well acquainted with you as I
am, or he would have seen through your game and anticipated this.’
Releasing her, he made an airy gesture as if to encompass her
escape.

The tiny doubts
that had beset Isadora at the outset came hurtling back, in full
flower. She had not convinced Syderstone. But why had he agreed to
elope with her, then? And how was it that Roborough knew all this?
He meant, of course, that he had seen through her game. But not all
of it.

‘
Even
you could not have known that I would disguise myself as a man,’
she told him, with a resurgence of her usual defiance.

‘
I
should have thought of it,’ he said grimly. ‘I guessed you would
give Syderstone the slip. Oh, it was not difficult to fathom that,’
he added, seeing the frown of annoyance descend upon her brow. ‘You
told me, Isadora. I was not to concern myself over your future. You
would be doing what you always wanted. There could be only one
interpretation.’

She had not
fooled him at all. He had outwitted her again
.
Disgruntled,
she said, ‘Well, how should I know you would read so much between
the lines?’

‘
That
is exactly what I complain of,’ he returned drily. ‘But I dare say
it is too much to expect your lunatic mind to encompass that I
might add two and two to make four.’

‘
But
how was it that you tracked me here?’

‘
It
wasn’t difficult. Since I knew your purse could not possibly run to
hiring a coach, or even a horse, the stagecoach was the obvious
solution. London, given your ambitions, had to be your objective. I
had only to check at each stage of the route. Fortune favoured me,
however, for my coach must have passed you on the road. I arrived
here ahead of you, and was thus able to search for you among the
passengers as they alighted.’ A slight quirk of his lips signalled,
for the first time today, a smile. ‘I confess I had not quite
bargained for the sight that met my eyes.’

Isadora was
silent for a moment or two, thinking it all out. She paced about
the room, barely conscious of the viscount’s gaze. She did not know
whether to be glad or sorry that her plan had been foiled. But a
sneaking pleasure grew in her that he had cared enough to come
after her. Not that she could set much store by that. He had made
his views on her ambition to become an actress very clear
indeed.

His voice
recalled her. ‘Why did you do it, Isadora?’

He was no longer
angry. There was a touch of that gentleness in his tone that she
knew so well now. It caused her heart to swell and tears to prick
at her eyes.

‘
I
told you in my note,’ she said gruffly.

‘
And
I told you,’ he said in a harder tone, ‘that I do not believe your
sacrificial faradiddles about getting Syderstone off my back. Tell
me the truth!’

The truth? Great
heavens, how could she? Indeed, how could she get out of answering
him on this head at all? Then his mention of Syderstone brought
back to mind what he had said of him.

‘
What
did you mean when you said Syderstone had no intention of marrying
me? How can you know what he intended if you have not even seen
him?’

The viscount’s
jaw tightened. ‘I am indebted to Syderstone himself for the
information. I received two notes, Isadora.’

‘
He
wrote to you?’

‘
I
don’t know what you said to him, but he allowed you to believe you
had won him over, and then—’

He broke off
and, coming up to her, took her by the shoulders again, gently this
time. ‘Isadora, I had hoped to spare you this. The fact is that
Syderstone wrote that he would ruin you if I did not follow. He
meant it literally, for he used a low term which I shall not
distress you by repeating. I was to catch up with you both, and
write an undertaking to pay him his money from the proceeds of the
Pusay house.’

Isadora stared
up at him in mounting puzzlement. She saw that the anger was back
in his eyes, but she recognised that this time it was not directed
at her. Only she could not understand Syderstone’s
reasoning.

‘
He
must have been mad. How could he suppose you would agree to that?
You would catch him up, of course you would. But surely you would
call him out? Any man would.’

‘
Very
true, but he had thought of that.’ Roborough released her, his
voice taking on an edge. He moved a little away, looking at some
vision in his mind rather than at Isadora’s face. ‘He had, he said,
no intention of making the matter public. It was enough that I
should know what he had done to you. He knew perfectly well I would
pay. Either that or I would have had to kill him.’

Isadora stared.
He spoke with an intensity that astonished her. ‘I don’t
understand.’

The viscount
turned to look at her. There was a look in his eyes that she did
not recognise.

‘
Don’t you? Let me see if I can make it clearer. It appears
that Syderstone saw which way the wind was blowing even before I
did myself. That is why, I surmise, he set up a mock-rivalry
between us for your favours, and told you of the debt.’

‘
Are
you saying he set out deliberately to make mischief between
us?’

‘
Exactly. I do not suggest he had it in mind even then to elope
with you. I think he was rather testing my reaction to check his
own judgement. Unfortunately, this time, he must have been certain
of it—as who could not be?—and you, Isadora, played right into his
hands.’

She scarcely
heard the last. Testing what? Certain of it? Could he
mean…?

‘
Roborough, don’t trifle with me,’ she burst out. ‘Syderstone
was right about what?’

The expression
in his eyes was compound of entreaty and some species of
pain.

‘
Can’t you yet guess? Oh, Isadora, what is the use of
concealment? If I distress you by this, I beg your pardon. The
truth is that Syderstone guessed that I am in love with
you.’

Isadora’s knees
almost buckled under her. It
was
what he meant. She had
hardly dared to give room to the burgeoning thought. But now—! Her
heart leapt. Her pulse throbbed painfully and her throat ached over
a rising lump.

‘
Distress me?’ she said huskily. ‘I have never been so happy in
my life!’

Then, as his
features broke into a radiant grin, she flung herself across the
room and burst into tears on his chest. She was clutched so tightly
she scarce had room to gulp in her breath on the sobs that rose up
to choke her.

Suddenly the
hold relaxed, and her face was seized between two firm
hands.

‘
I
had not dared to hope. You can’t imagine what I’ve been through,
you wicked little devil!’ He kissed her hard. ‘I could willingly
slaughter you!’

But his lips
were again at her mouth as he dragged her back into his embrace.
Isadora’s tears were arrested. She was unable to utter anything at
all beyond a hungry groan, and, conscious only of warmth sweeping
through her, she gave herself up to the violence of Roborough’s
passion.

It was some time
before he could abandon his repeated assaults upon her lips,
punctuated with the most gratifying statements of his emotions
towards her. At length he did stop kissing her, but only so that he
might look down into her wondering features.

‘
But
what about Lady Ursula?’ was the first thing Isadora managed to
say.

The viscount,
playing with her loosened tresses and smiling at her in a manner
both foolish and endearing, merely uttered vaguely, ‘What about
Ursula?’

Isadora brought
her hands up to grasp the lapels of his coat. ‘Roborough, don’t you
see? She is the reason I conceived my plot.’

‘
Are
you mad, Isadora?’

Her voice began
to shake. ‘I thought—I believed you were in love with her
,
and I couldn’t b-bear to remain to watch you making love to her
and—and marrying her when her mourning was over.’

His expression
altered and his fingers closed over hers. ‘Marry Ursula? You are
joking!’

‘
I am
not. Even your mother seems to think you might do so. And—and
Cousin Matty is convinced that Lady Ursula is already your
mistress.’

‘
And
you believed it?’

An unmistakably
astonished laugh shook him. Nothing could more surely have
convinced Isadora of the folly of her belief. The glistening tears
receded.

‘
Now
I see what you were driving at the other day.’ Drawing her fingers
up to his mouth, he kissed them, saying lovingly, ‘You little
idiot.’

Isadora heaved a
sigh, protesting nevertheless, ‘I don’t see why you should call me
an idiot. How should I have known? You certainly greeted her in a
highly suggestive manner.’

‘
Ursula is a dear friend, Isadora, as was her husband. When my
father was alive, their house was my second home—the only place I
felt truly comfortable.’ He cupped her face with one hand. ‘I am
extremely fond of Ursula, but I don’t love her.’

‘
Don’t you?’ she asked rather wistfully.

‘
No,
I love you. I want you, not Ursula. She would positively stare at
the notion of becoming intimate with me. Besides, although she
shows a laughing face to the world, she was broken by Stivichall’s
death, and mourns for him still.’ He grinned. ‘In any event, if you
must know, she has spent the last few days carping at me for
hesitating to tell you how I feel about you.’

‘
She—what?’

‘
Yes,
I tell you. She guessed the state of my heart within minutes and I
have been subjected to all manner of scolds. Although she was quite
unable to discover, which she said she tried to do, what your
sentiments were.’

So that was it.
All those silly questions, which Isadora had been unable to
understand, about the sort of man the viscount ought to marry her
to. That was what Lady Ursula had meant.

Then the
thoughts flew out of her head, for Roborough drew her back within
the circle of his arm, his fingers pushing up her chin so that he
might look deep into her eyes.

‘
Speaking of your sentiments,’ he said softly, ‘am I to assume
that they are what your recent conduct in this room seems to
indicate?’

Isadora gazed
balefully up at him. ‘If you mean what do I think of you,
Roborough, let me tell you that you are a hateful wretch. In fact,
you are the most abominable man in the world—and I love you to
distraction!’

‘
Thank God for that,’ he said, relieved, as he claimed her lips
once more. He added, as he released her mouth, ‘Because, you see, I
am about to order you to marry me.’

Isadora giggled.
‘What, now?’

‘
Not
now, you little monster, but in the shortest possible order. You
need not imagine I have any intention of waiting for our mutual
mourning to be over. I swear I could not tolerate many more rides
with you without abandoning all claim to be called a
gentleman.’

Isadora blushed,
but said shyly, ‘Nor I prevent you from doing so, to be truthful
with you.’