Lady Silence (16 page)

Damon assessed the rest of the room, seeking
those to whom he had not yet spoken. His gaze passed a large beefy
man of vaguely familiar countenance, moved on. Returned. Why was he
staring at his mother and Katy with a mighty frown that twisted his
features into the grotesque shape of a gargoyle? He’d met the man
somewhere. Titled . . . Oxley, that was it. Baron Oxley. The family
had attended the ill-fated tea party. The wife was a friend of
Drucilla’s. Ah, yes . . . now it came back. The events of the last
few days must have addled his wits. The man was father to Miss
Hardcastle, the sharp-eyed female who had looked him over with the
avidity of a hawk assessing prey. And some sort of connection to
the petite blond who bore such a remarkable resemblance to Katy
Snow. The one with the winsome face and knowing eyes. Eyes as
green, but far more bold than his Katy’s.

The baron was turning away, moving off toward
the inevitable cluster of gentlemen forming in one end of the room,
leaving the ladies at the other. Another oddity, that strange look.
Damon filed it away for future analysis. There was something going
on . . . flitting just outside his grasp. One more item in the host
of problems he must confront.

But this one concerned Katy, of that he was
nearly certain. Therefore, it was important. The clever little minx
had wormed her way into his life, like a barbed hook that refused
to budge. Either he lived with her insidious itch or he cut her
out. And, for some reason, the latter idea had no appeal at
all.

“
My dear boy.” An elderly great-aunt
tottered up, grasping his hand in both of hers. Damon managed a wan
smile while frantically searching his memory for her name. He
failed. If only Katy had made a list . . .

Much later, when all the guests had gone home
and the house was quiet, the younger dowager countess of Moretaine
descended the stairs, supported by two stalwart footmen. She
allowed them to settle her black-clad figure into a wingchair in
the library. Holding a handkerchief edged in black lace to her
nose, she sniffed, rather dramatically Katy thought from her place
beside the elder dowager. Drucilla then bowed her head, the very
portrait of distraught widowhood.

There were no surprises. Ashby Farr’s
Will was as well constructed and formally conservative as his life.
His widow’s jointure was generous, as befitted his wealth. Drucilla
would be able to live more than comfortably in whatever dwelling
she desired, short of the extravagance of the Carlton House set.
The bequests to servants and the church also reflected the late
earl’s rank, wealth, and fine sense of
noblesse oblige
.

Joseph Benchley—the late earl’s solicitor,
down from London for the occasion—cleared his throat, allowing a
moment of silence to emphasize the importance of the next portion
of the Will. In lieu of an heir of the earl’s own body, he
pronounced in clear and ringing tones, the bulk of the estate—the
late earl’s money in the funds, his speculative investments, his
cash-on-hand—was left, along with the entailed properties and the
family jewels, to his younger brother, Damon Wythorne Farr.

Drucilla shrieked. “The jewels are mine,” she
wailed as every eye in the room stared at her in amazement.

“
Lady Moretaine,” said Mr. Benchley a
trifle sternly, “there may be certain pieces that the earl—the late
earl—bought solely for you, but you must be aware that it is
customary for family jewels to stay with the title.”

“
They are mine!” Drucilla cried. “I
will not give them up. Ashby said I should have them. He
promised!”

Damon signaled Rankin, who stood just within
the doorway. The two footmen appeared almost on the instant. “Your
grief does you credit, my lady,” Damon said cooly. “When you are
feeling more the thing, we will discuss this matter further.” He
nodded, and the two footmen scooped up the countess and led her
from the room, her sobs rending the air until Rankin shut the heavy
oak door firmly behind her.

Serena Moretaine did not bother to disguise
her snort of disgust. Later, in the privacy of her sitting room,
she announced to her son, with Katy listening as usual with her
ears a-twitch, “If I could give up my magnificent jewels to That
Awful Woman, then she can most certainly give them up to the next
Lady Moretaine.”

“
And that may be when hell freezes
over,” Damon growled. “Beg pardon, mama, but this is a day I do not
wish to relive. Marriage is the last thing on my mind at the
moment.”

“
The jewels remain with the estate,”
Serena declared fiercely, “whether you are married or
no.”

All he wanted was to get away. Meet Fox
and Thayne in the library, have Rankin mix punch with rum, brandy,
and a myriad spices, talk about old times—anything but the
present—and get roaringly foxed.
Foxed.
An old joke among the three of them. Foxy
Foxbourne, foxed again.

Away.
Now!
Damon didn’t even sneak a last lingering
look at Katy Snow, as he so often did. After the briefest of
farewells, he fled.

~ * ~

“
A female who don’t talk,” mused Major
Foxbourne, a man noted for his ability to catch ladies’ eyes with
his classic good looks, sharp hazel eyes, and sophisticated polish.
At the moment he was sprawled in a brown leather wingchair, his
booted feet supported by a matching footstool. “Now there’s a
phe–phe-
nom
-e-non worthy of
another toast. “Still able to lift an arm, Thayne? Pour me another,
dear boy.”

Obligingly, Captain Thayne picked up a bottle
from the low table set before the three men in the earl’s library,
managing to pour brandy into his friend’s glass with only a few
drops spilled. With a long-drawn sigh he settled back into his
chair. The captain was more addicted to humor than to brandy, his
round face and mischievous blue eyes seemingly untouched by what he
had seen and done in the war. “Astonishing,” he murmured. “A woman
who can’t tell tales.”

“
Writes a fine hand,” Colonel Farr
drawled.

Arthur
1
Foxbourne clasped his hands around
his snifter and gazed hazily into the fire that was nearly burned
down because none of the three had felt inspired to abandon either
their reminiscences or the brandy bottle long enough to replenish
it. “A female secretary . . . ain’t that a contradiction in terms?”
he remarked. “No such thing. Daresay she serves well in other ways
though, don’t she?”

The somnolent atmosphere in Castle
Moretaine’s library suddenly crackled with the intensity of a
thunderstorm. The colonel’s strong hands gripped the arms of his
chair, his snifter teetering dangerously. He started to get up,
thought better of it. The brandy seemed to have turned his legs to
blancmange. It had been a long day, a long nasty day. “She serves
well as my mother’s companion,” he said coldly. “As she serves me
well as my secretary.”

“
Don’t be an ass,” the major growled.
“We are all friends here. You don’t use a female who looks like
that for nothing but writing your letters. Tell us what she’s like.
Don’t credit that prim and proper exterior one whit. There’s a
great deal more, now ain’t there? Come, man, don’t be so
noble.”

Damon—who, like the others, had drunk far
more than he should—tossed off the last of his brandy, plunked his
glass onto the table. “Very well. She’s a minx, a veritable minx.
With a piquant sense of humor, even a mischief that bubbles up and
over at the most unexpected moments. She drives me mad when she
leans over my desk. Climbing the bookroom ladder is worse, with her
ankles showing and her bum wiggling—”

The colonel broke off, with a groan. “She’s
also my mama’s pet and the darling of my household staff. Which
means if I touch her, I’ll likely find an emetic in my soup, if not
arsenic or ground glass.”

“
Poor sod,” Chet Thayne murmured,
appalled.

“
You can’t mean she’s willing but you
ain’t,” Fox exclaimed, if a bit muzzily.

Damon swore. “Didn’t say that. She’s . . .
enticing. Doesn’t work at it.”

“
Said she waggles her—”

“
Quiet!”

“
So you ain’t bedding her, but you’d
like to,” pronounced Captain Thayne judiciously after several
seconds of silence broken only by the soft hissing of the
fire.

Damon reached for the brandy bottle, found it
empty. How fortunate he’d had the foresight to have Rankin place
two extra bottles beside the decanter on the table before seeking
his bed, for Damon doubted he could cross the room to find another
bottle, let alone negotiate the precipitous stone steps down to the
wine cellar. Alas, they were now down to the last bottle. In spite
of being almost as foxed as the night the three of them had
celebrated his leaving the regiment, he made short work of opening
the brandy. He poured, sniffed . . . discovered his nose was well
past savoring even the finest French brandy. Odd that the English
had such a taste for the enemy’s brew.

He drank. “Demmed female,” the colonel
grumbled. “All I wanted was quiet. Time to be alone. And there she
is, day after day, cutting up my peace. Even in Ashby’s last days,
when he was cramming my head with barley and sheep and drainage and
God only knows what else, I could see her hovering, right there in
his bedchamber, haunting me. At a time like that!” Mournfully,
guiltily, the colonel refilled his snifter.

“
Only one thing to do,” Fox declared.
“Must have her, dear boy. Only cure. So she tells your mama. Set
the chit up in a cottage. Teach her all the right tricks. You’d be
doing her a favor. Girl’s far better off as a courtesan. All that
beauty’s going to waste here in the country. The best of everything
awaits her in the city. She’ll have all the fine gentl’men nosin’
about. Fascinating concept, a female who don’t talk.”

Why wasn’t he grabbing Fox up? Damon
wondered. Planting him a facer? Why was he sitting here, actually
listening to this oaf, mouthing . . . offal.

An oaf mouthing offal.
Amusing, Farr, most amusing
. Perhaps he should set up
a group of players for the next church fair.

Horrified, that’s what he should be. Yet the
picture Fox was painting was simply too tempting. It wasn’t as if
he hadn’t had similar thoughts himself, but his last remnants of
honor had prevailed.

Yet what was honor to a girl who was nobody?
What right did she have to expect the treatment due a young lady of
good family?

She’d earned it.

Hell!

He should be telling old Foxy what he could
do with his advice. And with his salacious projections for Katy
Snow’s future. Yet he continued to sit, silent and glum, knowing
that in some twisted way his friend was right. Katy was the light
trapped under a bushel, the country beauty confined by convention
into a role that did not suit her. Oh, yes, Fox was right. Katy
Snow had too much spirit to spend the rest of her days as a
companion.

Not as companion to a
female
. Damon smirked.

The brandy fumes rose in his brain,
circulating with insidious thoroughness until honor be damned, only
the battle-hardened soldier, reacting to the urge to save himself,
was left. Hadn’t Wellington himself rewarded his troops with a day
or two of sampling the cities they’d fought so hard to conquer?

“
A test,” Damon proposed. “Let us
devise a test.”

His fellow officers raised their heads, as
befuddled by their colonel’s words as they were by drink.

“
You, dear sirs,” said Damon, “may have
the privilege of discovering how the chit reacts to a bit of
flirtation. Let her choose her own fate. Track her down wherever
she is to be found and do your worst. You may, I believe, even find
her in the woods in the early morning, as my brother granted her a
mount.”

A slow, if lop-sided, smile spread across
Major Foxbourne’s handsome face. “By jove, Farr, but that’s good of
you.”

“
Not
this
morning,” said Captain Thayne, for I
believe it’s morning already and I swear I’d have to be poured into
the saddle.”

“
Wouldn’t be the first time,” said his
colonel.

“
No, but if I’m to accost a female, I’d
like to be capable of enjoying it.”

“
Capable,” Fox mumbled. “That’s it . .
. must be
capable
.”

In the end, not surprisingly, the three
military gentlemen fell asleep in their chairs, where they remained
until Rankin aroused them in time to set themselves to rights
before nuncheon.

Katy, atop the lovely chestnut mare
Lord Moretaine had said she might ride, scowled at a perfectly
innocent rowan tree, whose red berries were as yet unfaded by the
advent of fall.
Damon could not be
Moretaine! Surely, life could not be so
cruel
.

But, of course, it was. Had she not learned
that at an early age?

Katy urged her horse to a gallop,
sweeping down a narrow track that meandered along a stream that
marked the boundary of a field of knee-high hay.
Ah!
The wind buffeted her heated
thoughts, while threatening to dislodge the cavalry blue shako that
matched her elegant new riding habit, resplendent with white braid.
She leaned forward in the saddle, savoring these few moments of
freedom after all the sorrow, almost as if she feared they might
not come her way again. She reveled in pounding hooves, the
freshness of the air, the rush of the small stream, the scent of
rich earth, the closeness of life all around her—plants, animals,
insects . . .