Wedding Night Revenge (26 page)

Abruptly he released his brother's neck as he noticed Jason's complexion turning puce. He backed off, offered two broad palms in conciliation. 'Just be careful, Jason, what you say. That's all.'

Jason massaged his crushed windpipe. He gulped a nervous laugh. 'Steady, Con,' he wheezed. 'I only said it to rile you. For all our sakes, get it done, will you? Reinstate the blasted betrothal; it's what you want and she's not now so silly as to reject an earl at her age.'

The depleted decanter shattering into pieces in the vacant grate let Jason know that possibly his stepbrother had a different perspective on things.

'I'll never ever get engaged again,' Connor told him with a smile that scintillated devilishly.

Jason retreated circumspectly from the frustrated man barely a yard away. In his white linen shirt, cuffs shoved, back to display sinewy brown forearms, and with his raven locks long, unkempt, framing dark savage features, Connor looked as perilous as a Barbary pirate fired with blood-lust.

Jason shrugged carelessly. He put a hand to check his cravat and an end of cloth came loose in his hand.

'Sorry,' Connor condoled. 'It must have taken you some time to perfect that work of art.'

Jason, unwound it slowly. 'Too damned hot for it anyhow.' He grinned, shoving the luxurious bandage in to a pocket. 'Pax, then?'

Connor grimaced wry agreement.

'Fancy a night at Mrs Crawford's? I'll forgo the Palm House until I've a bit more blunt.'

'Sure, why go with a little when you can take your whole allowance and lose the lot,' Connor remarked drily on turning to the large casement window. It was gripped at with tense long-fingered hands and he stared sightlessly over his gardens.

'Don't lecture, Con. You're in no position. When I think what fantastic tales I've heard about you at eighteen! God! You were a veritable bandit!' Jason said in awe and admiration.

'True...but you're not eighteen, Jason. You're twenty-six, by my reckoning.'

'I'm just off to see Cornwallis,' Jason hastily said, unsettled by that fact. 'He reckons he's got a sweet nag running on Epsom Heath tomorrow at two o'clock.' He slipped out of the study door, shaking his head, his handsome countenance creased in disgust. Love! He swore effusively beneath his breath. He'd sooner gamble his life away! At least you stood a chance of winning...

He stalked the marble hallway, his footsteps echoing eerily. He'd find Cornwallis, and a way of pawning him back his silver ice pails. A snip at two hundred pounds...

'How are you settling in here at Beaulieu Gardens, Sam?'

'Well enough, m'm, thank you.'

From her position seated at the small escritoire by the window, Rachel looked at the young man she had summoned to the morning room. He stood before her politely, respectfully. 'You have found the work environment ...

harmonious?'

'Yes, m'm. Noreen...er...Miss Shaughnessy is very fair with the chores.'

Rachel watched, interestedly, as a ruddiness stained the youth's cheeks. 'And your sister Annie is happy?'

'She likes it here very much, m'm. She and Noreen... er... she and Miss Shaughnessy get along right well.'

'Noreen has already said Annie works very conscientiously and that she has some aptitude for sewing. Noreen's sister also is an accomplished needle-worker.'

'Noreen's mighty proud of Mary's lace work. Be all accounts it's better'n what some fancy Frenchie can do,' Sam boldly recounted on a wide smile.

He grew quiet on noticing his mistress's amused surprise.

'Noreen has cause to be very proud of Mary. I think she's probably justified in her comments, too,' Rachel said, realising the overweening Madame Bouillon's handiwork had obviously come under her maid's critical eye.

Of course, it was heartening to know that her rather cool maidservant was warming to her new colleagues enough to divulge some of her family background. A trenchant look settled on Sam. He was quite a strapping lad and, if a little immature of countenance, still quite appealing. Perhaps Noreen thought so too... Quickly she reigned in her galloping thoughts. 'You are not missing your last position in Berkeley Square, then?'

'Not as much as I thought I would, m'm.'

'If I recall correctly...were you not driving a dray when first I saw you? I believe your vehicle locked wheels with a hackney cab near Charing Cross?'

'The jarvey's rig caught on to my uncle's wagon,' Sam bluntly corrected. 'He were trying to push ahead; wouldn't wait his turn in the queue. You told him so. I thought you were right brave to speak up to that slimy...to his worship Arthur Goodwin.'

Rachel was aware of the antipathetic sneer in his tone as he referred to the magistrate. She gave a little smile. 'Well, that answers my next question. I was just about to enquire whether you recalled the incident.'

'Oh, I do,' Sam said, nodding significantly. 'I ain't ever going to forget it.'

'It has made such an impression, I suppose, because you met Lord Devane there. Afterwards, did you seek him out to employ you and Annie?'

'I did,' Sam admitted proudly. 'I make no bones about saying that I hoped I'd see him again. I reckoned him a particular gentleman that day for helping.

So when I spotted him coming out of a posh house...' Sam hesitated, remembering the fancy piece who'd been hanging on to his neck that night.

He cleared his throat. 'I saw him and said as we'd be honoured and glad to serve him. I knew Annie 'ud be safe and happy with such a master. Then he put us off...' A spontaneous look of disappointment corrugated his features but he continued jauntily, 'And I was grateful he took the trouble to place us with such a fine lady as yourself.'

Rachel inclined her blonde head in gracious acceptance of the compliment, feeling churlish, for she'd certainly not wanted them here at first. Mainly she was pondering on how she could steer the conversation to what she really wanted to discover about the
particular gentleman.
'You must have become used to a steady routine in such a grand house.'

'Yes, m'm.'

Rachel smiled, took a golden ringlet soft on her cheek and twirled it about her finger. 'The master... Lord Devane... probably kept you to a routine... to coincide with his own. Did he dine at home most evenings?' she asked with a casual look about.

'Yes, m'm, I think...'

'But you're not sure?' Not really...'

'And is he usually to be found at home, for a while, after dinner?'

'Most evenings, I think... Well, not Wednesday. I know he would regular go out quite early on a Wednesday, with his brother, Mr Davenport, in that flash curricle.'

'Wednesday... Today's Wednesday,' Rachel remarked faintly.

'It is, m'm,' Sam concurred, with a searching look that transformed into a frown.

Rachel recognised his burgeoning conjecture. 'Good, I'm glad you are settled here,' she briskly said. 'Although I'm not able to definitely offer you a permanent position in Hertfordshire—that will need to be agreed with my father—if it comes about, it seems we will deal well together.' With a small smile and a nod she lowered her eyes. 'Thank, you, Sam. You may return to your duties.'

As Rachel heard the door close she squeezed shut her eyes. Today! If she was to do it at all, she
must
do it today! Or wait a week. She could not! She must return home. June's wedding day would soon be upon them. Her mother would be wondering what on earth she was about to stay away at such a vital time.

Connor had had her consent to spend the night with him, but she had yet to receive an answer as to where to go and when. She imagined such clandestine affairs were conducted at isolated spots out of town: possibly a hunting lodge, or a cottage or a country inn—for obviously they could not cohabit at either of their residences. She now knew he'd had improper liaisons, so he would be experienced in arranging discreet trysts. She was confident he would think her submission genuine.
You want Windrush more
than anything, don't you?
he had mocked her. And she had readily agreed.

He thought he had her bested. It would be seen who was bested when the game was done! And it seemed it would be done tonight.

She knew the layout of his house now; she knew exactly how to find his drawing room, his library, his study from the hallway. She knew exactly where the deeds were kept: in a desk, in a drawer, opened with a key that had a rather pretty Sevres inkstand as a repository.

She knew his butler too. Joseph Walsh knew her and had seen the Earl pay her particular attention. Whatever the man thought of that privately, publicly he now treated her with the deference due to one of his master's close acquaintances. And the fact that Lord Devane
had
paid her such particular attention at the Pembertons'
musicale
and again at his own soiree, must lend a certain authenticity to her story.

When she returned home with the deeds to Windrush and a tale that her former fiance had taken pity on her and presented her with her inheritance as a parting gift before he went overseas, who would deem it utterly implausible or incredible? Many distinguished, respectable people had witnessed him seek her out and stay with her—including his parents. He had voiced to her aunt Phyllis his intention to be back in Ireland very soon; disposing of Windrush quickly and effortlessly before he went might not seem such odd behaviour in the circumstances. Parting with it in such a magnanimous, if eccentric, way might not either. He was rich, he had no use for it, and as everyone was wont to impress on her, from serving lads to her own papa, he was an honourable generous man...
'And so say all of us,'
she found herself quietly, hysterically chanting in morbid glee. It might be a simple scheme, but she couldn't see a problem with it being a success...

'Sweet Jesus! Tell me again exactly what she said,' Noreen whispered, gazing up anxiously into Sam's face. She drew him to one side in the kitchen, away from where Vera was rolling pastry on a floury table. The woman was stone deaf, but Noreen knew it was vital to prevent this news being overheard or spread about.

She had never imagined just how important it would prove to be, tarrying to pick up one of the little lad's soldiers from the floor in the hallway on the day Mrs Saunders came for tea with the mistress. At first she'd wished she'd never overheard one word. Now she was grateful she'd been intrigued enough after a moment or two to snoop long enough to hear it all.

'Be still,' Sam ordered Noreen, who was jigging agitatedly on the spot. His callused fingertips soothingly abraded her forearm. 'Miss Meredith wanted to know when Lord Devane is likely to be gone from home. 'Course she didn't say it quite like that. She tried to make out she was more likely to want to catch him in. As if she might drop by and visit him, like...'

'She wants him
out
of the house, is what I'm thinking-' „

I could have snatched it up and fled. 1 swear he wanted me to. Just so he
could thwart me in it...
The words reverberated in Noreen's suspicious mind.

Miss Rachel wanted Himself elsewhere so he
couldn't
thwart her in it! 'Can I trust you?' Her anxious eyes scoured Sam's face. No man in her twenty-five years had ever treated her the way he did, with a desire and a deference that made her feel at the same time fragile as glass yet strong as an ox.

'If you need to ask, perhaps you can't,' he returned shortly.

'There's things you don't know about the mistress and that blackhearted divil.'

'Don't say so about him. He's a good man...'

'There's things you don't know! Isn't it meself's heard the truth about him from Miss Rachel's own lips?' she hissed. She threw a chary look at the old woman still making a pie. 'So, before I tell you all about it, what I'm after finding out—
are
you man enough for me, Sam Smith? Will you trust
me
when I tell you God's own truth? Will you do what I'm wanting you to do?

For if she's planning what I think she's planning and it goes wrong... Mother Mary! It'll ruin things as will never be put right. Not for her...not for her sisters. And Miss June soon to be a bride!'

The silence seemed long, too long. Noreen's pleading eyes fell from the strength of consideration in his. She gathered her uniform in her trembling fists and made to sweep proudly past.

His answer came in one unconditional word. 'Yes.'

'Miss Meredith!'

As the elegantly attired blonde woman smiled at him and inclined her lovely head in greeting, Joseph Walsh immediately ushered her into the hallway.

He'd taken a ticking off last time from his master for not showing this woman liberal hospitality and he didn't intend repeating his mistake by keeping her waiting any longer on the doorstep.

After that bizarre incident when she'd arrived looking oddly dishevelled and belligerent, he had made it• his discreet business to discover a little about Miss Meredith. Now he knew that this lady and Connor Flinte had once been betrothed, and from the way the man acted when she was about, Joseph wouldn't at all be surprised to soon see them as a couple once more. Thus he refused to ponder on whether the lady thought it wise to test her appeal or her reputation by again arriving alone and unexpected at her admirer's residence.

'Lord Devane desires my company,' Miss Meredith brightly, nonchalantly declared, thus reinstating the butler's nonplussed expression. 'Are my friends, Mr and Mrs Saunders, yet arrived?' she added to Joseph's amazement.

The butler coughed, struggled admirably for composure. 'Why, no, Miss Meredith. As far as I'm aware they're
not...expected!'
he ventured. 'Lord Devane is not.. .er... presently at home...' he told her with a finger at his lips and a deepening frown, as though fretting that he must have mistaken or forgotten some instruction from his employer. A sudden idea occurred to him, causing an abrupt elevation of his peppery eyebrows: perhaps the fault lay with Lord Devane. A prior arrangement might have slipped his lordship's mind. He might have succumbed to routine—or pressure from his stepbrother—and gone carousing as was customary on Wednesday. That thought was given tenability by the fact that, unusually, both gentlemen, not just the younger, were inebriated by six of the clock when they had quit the house and sped away in that racing curricle.