Carola Dunn (17 page)

“True, but nor can I stop them courting me.”

“You can discourage them.”

“I don’t know how. As you must be well aware,” she continued, her lip curling in scorn, “the only way to deter the sort of men who pursue actresses is frankness of a kind which would be certain to give offence to honourable gentlemen. And you cannot teach me, since I am sure you have never been the recipient of polite discouragement. Your success--with actresses--is notorious, is it not?”

“‘A hit! A hit! A palpable hit!’“ Miles muttered as she swept from the room.

* * * *

Effie’s voice reverberated through the small back parlour. “Aubrey and Sophie took Courtenay and the girl to call on our neighbours.”

Her denunciation brought a shocked silence.

Anticipating an enjoyable time, Sir Barnabas settled himself on a china cabinet. He would not for the world have missed this meeting of his abominable relatives.

Jane Philpott stared at her son in horror. “Aubrey, how could you! To lend that creature your countenance when I have specifically refused to take her about! You will ruin us.”

“She is a credit to the family,” said Aubrey sulkily, with a contemptuous glance around the drabs and dowdies crowded around him in the small back parlour. “Nothing tawdry, complete to a shade. And her behaviour was perfectly decorous, too,” he added as an afterthought.

“This is your fault, Jane,” Effie accused. “If you had only agreed to let me tell everyone she is an actress, no one would have received her. I shall have to disclose it now.”

“No-oo!” Jane bleated. “Think of the disgrace if people knew my son had introduced an actress into their homes!”

“You will keep a still tongue, Euphemia,” said Sir Neville, for once supporting his wife, “if you want to live at the manor when I come into my rightful inheritance. No one must find out we have an actress in the family.”

“That being so,” Raymond put in, “if she never meets anyone, how can she be discredited?”

“You cannot persuade me Aubrey thought of that.” Effie’s furious face was an excellent match for her purple gown. “Let alone Sophie. She is a snake in the grass, whom I have nurtured in my bosom all these years.”

Sir Barnabas sniggered. The bosom in question was large enough to provide every comfort, but Sophie had never rested easy there. He was glad she was not there to be tongue-lashed, and glad she had stolen a march on her sister even if she had thereby outflanked him, too.

So Nerissa had won her spurs, the clever chit. Still, the battle was yet to come and Raymond was right, unless she met the enemy she could not be defeated. Sooner or later without fail she’d show her true colours.

He was irritated when Effie agreed with him. “No matter,” she said, calming down, “Nerissa was bound to meet people in the end and with her upbringing she will soon come to grief without our intervention. Let us concentrate on Miles Courtenay for the moment.”

“I don’t see what we can do about Courtenay,” Neville grumbled. “You can’t force a man to seduce a wench.”

“We could invite an opera dancer to seduce him,” Effie suggested outrageously, “since Nerissa is playing the prude.”

“Do you know any?” Raymond asked with an interest most unbecoming to his cloth.

“No doubt such creatures can be bought. Oh, stop wringing your hands, Jane. I know you will not allow it, though I am certain it would work. He has been celibate for nearly two months now.”

Matilda came in just then, in a muddy riding habit as usual. “Nerissa’s in high dudgeon with Miles,” she announced.

“How do you know?”

“I asked where he was just now when I met her in the hall, and she stuck her nose in the air and said she neither knew nor cared.”

Neville gloomed. “No hope of her succumbing to Courtenay’s charms, then.”

“Don’t be a lobcock, Neville,” said Effie, “it won’t last long. And you are forgetting the other condition in Barnabas’s ridiculous Will. Miles has also been deprived of the excitement of gambling for two months. If he sees us wagering real money on a game of cards, instead of playing for fish as we usually do, he will be unable to resist joining in.”

Matilda shrugged. “I shan’t play. I don’t know the first thing about cards and I’m going up early anyway. There’s a meet tomorrow.”

“As a man of the church, I cannot condone gambling,” Raymond said sanctimoniously.

“Fustian! If you prefer, you may be the one to fetch Harwood once Miles is on the hook, but we shall not place real wagers. We shall agree to return all stakes after we have lured him into placing his.”

“Suppose we lose to him?” Aubrey protested. “He will never agree to return his winnings.”

“Wantwit,” Effie snapped, “what does losing a few shillings matter when you stand to win Addlescombe and a fortune?”

About time they recollected the gambling clause, Sir Barnabas thought. Effie’s notion made sense, though, blast the woman. After a few weeks deprivation Miles must be all the more likely to succumb.

Under normal circumstances, Sir Barnabas wouldn’t put it past his granddaughter to warn Miles away from the cards even though she stood to gain all he would lose. However, since she was miffed at him, he’d have nothing to distract him from the fatal fascination of the game.

Chapter 12

Miles was surprised at how bereft he felt. The peagoose was still in a pet with him, and all over a few words of friendly advice. Seated at the other end of the dinner table, she studiously avoided his eye--and glowered if she chanced to catch it.

Toying with food which had lost its savour, he signalled to Snodgrass to refill his wine glass. The ruby claret was the same colour as her gown, and how well it suited her!

Maybe he had phrased his advice badly, leading her to believe he thought Digby’s and Firston’s only interest in her was her money. Nothing could be further from the truth. She was a deuced pretty girl--though not to his taste, he hastily reminded himself--and her artless manner of looking up at a man was enough to win any heart.

If only the rest of her devilish family would go away, he’d sort things out with her in no time. Instead, she rose and led the ladies out, leaving him with her grandfather’s excellent port and no congenial company in which to enjoy it, since Harwood was abed with a cold.

How was he to explain to her that he had only been flirting harmlessly with Miss Anna and the Firston girls, without implying she had a right to an explanation?

Three glasses of port, on top of the wine and very little to eat, made everything seem easy. All he had to do was reassure her that she had charms enough to make her fortune irrelevant. Then they could spend a comfortable evening together, discussing plays, or the estate, or, like Miranda and Ferdinand, playing chess, the one game not associated with gambling.

Somewhat surprised to discover that Sir Neville, Aubrey, and Raymond had departed unnoticed while he brooded over his glass, Miles made his way through to the drawing room. Nerissa was not there.

At the near end of the room a card table had been set up for the usual game of quadrille or cassino, played for ivory fish. Miles had never been able to summon up any enthusiasm for either game, nor for the winning of worthless counters from inexpert players.

By the farther fireplace, Lady Philpott was occupied with her endless embroidery. Opposite her, Miss Sophie wielded a netting shuttle, her plump little hands remarkably nimble and dextrous. She smiled at Miles. If Mrs Chidwell had read her a scold on account of their outing, she did not seem to have taken it to heart.

Beside her sat Reece, reading aloud in a monotone from what sounded alarmingly like a collection of sermons. Miles glanced back at the card table, where the parson was generally to be found of an evening, with Sir Neville, Aubrey, and Mrs Chidwell. The other three were there, an empty chair in Reece’s place. Mrs Chidwell was dealing for vingt-un, her hands as nimble and dextrous with the cards as her sister’s with the netting shuttle.

Miles felt a stir of interest. He had always been lucky at vingt-un. Perhaps, since Nerissa had deserted him, he should try his skill against Mrs Chidwell, though a deft dealer was not necessarily a proficient player.

As he moved towards the table, Sir Neville and Aubrey each placed their bets, and the stakes were not fish but shillings. A faint thrill raced through Miles’s veins.

He reached for the back of the empty chair.

“Miles?” Nerissa’s soft, hesitant voice came from behind him.

The spell broke. That innocuous game meant not the possible loss of a few shillings but the certain loss of Addlescombe.

Wild with relief, he swung round and sped to meet her, both hands held out. As she clasped one, her other holding a book, he blurted out, “I’m not going to marry Anna Pettigrew, nor either of the Firston girls. I’m not going to marry anyone, or not for years and years, at least.”

She smiled. “And I’m not going to marry Dr Firston, who gave me a very strong hint that he is already promised elsewhere, nor Clive Digby.”

“You don’t care for Digby? Don’t worry, I’ll find you others more to your liking.”

Nerissa did not appear to find his offer inspiriting. She ignored it in favour of answering his question. “Mr Digby has absolutely nothing on his mind but dace and bream, and I do not care to be wooed with fish.”

“Fish!” The word struck Miles as exquisitely funny. “There’s no harm in fish. It’s shillings are the danger.”

“So you were about to play. I feared it.”

He drew her to a confidante midway between the two groups. “I was tempted, I confess.” His head was clearing. At the card-table, he saw, the three players were muttering together, their expressions disgruntled. “Do you know, I suspect they made a deliberate attempt to entice me. Not that they invited me to join them or even looked at me, or I might have guessed. But I have never seen them play for money before, and since neither you nor Harwood was here to restrain me...”

“I went to fetch my book.” She held it up, and he read the title: The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. “I fell asleep in the middle of a story last night. Miles, do you want to play cards with me? I don’t know many games, but I am quite good at picquet.”

“Picquet! That’s a gamester’s game if any is. Look, having failed to hook me, they are pocketing their shillings and bringing out the fish.”

She glanced round. “Oh dear, it does seem they were trying to trick you into gambling. How underhanded!”

“Did you play picquet for money?”

“No, only for fun because it was a revolving game, backstage. Whoever was offstage for long enough would play for a while and then give up his hand to the next. I used to play in between helping people change costumes and mending rents.”

Miles laughed. “A test of concentration indeed. But I wouldn’t dream of playing for money with you, even if there was no chance of anyone catching me, and it’s dull work playing for fish.”

“Oh, not fish! I thought we might play for imaginary riches.” Her eyes sparkling, she held up her book. “Carnelian and sardonyx, jacinth and spinel, gold-broidered brocade, Damascene nenuphars--whatever they are--and even talking dogs and flying horses.”

“Good Lord!” Startled, he reached for the book, flipped it open at random, and skimmed a page. “Why be so modest? I wager ‘a palace of Sumaki marble with pillars of alabaster and mosaics of lapis lazuli and gold’ that I can pique, repique, and capot you. What is a nenuphar?”

“I don’t know, but is it not a splendid word? I have been meaning to look it up in Sir Barnabas’s dictionary. Shall we play?”

“Yes, but you must lend me the book or you’ll have the advantage of me in knowing what stakes are available.”

“This is the second volume. I’ll show you where the first is, in the library. Or we could read aloud to each other,” she suggested shyly. “I cannot remember half the exotic treasures, and I shall not mind starting at the beginning again.”

“A splendid notion. Neither of us could possibly read as badly as your cousin.” He nodded towards the parson, who was still droning on, his face sour. No doubt he had been involved in the failed plot, too.

“Raymond is reading a shockingly dull sermon, which is part of the reason I went to fetch my book.”

Miles did not enquire as to the other part of her reason, being fairly sure she had simply wanted an excuse to continue avoiding him. Only her concern for him, to stop him ruining himself, had made her relent.

He smiled at her. “Most fortunate, or you might not have thought of such magnificent stakes. We shall keep a list of treasures, roughly sorted by value so we don’t find ourselves wagering marble palaces against mere pearls.”

“In that case, you had best read whilst I write. I have seen your hand and I doubt there is enough paper in the house.”

“My writing does tend to sprawl a bit,” he admitted with a grin. “Let’s go and find the first volume.”

When, having discovered that nenuphars were mere water-lilies, they returned from the library, Miss Sophie wanted to talk to them. With a defiant air, she insisted she was eager to take them next day to visit two or three more families living at a somewhat greater distance from Addlescombe.

“Effie may say what she pleases,” she said stubbornly, “if she and Jane will not introduce you, then I am determined to do so. It is my duty and my pleasure, though it was a great help to have Aubrey with us today, was it not?”

Nerissa pressed her hand. “I was happier to have you beside me, Cousin Sophie, but I daresay Miles and I might contrive without you if we must. I don’t wish to cause you trouble with your sister. “

“Oh no, pray do not regard it. You are such a comfort to me, Nerissa dear. I feel quite bold now that you are here, I vow. To tell the truth,” she added in a puzzled voice, “though Effie was vexed because I had gone against her wishes, she did not seem disturbed by your having met people. She did not forbid me to present you to the rest of our neighbours.”

“How odd!” Nerissa said with a smile. “Cousin Euphemia is so accustomed to laying down the law, I am surprised she missed such an excellent opportunity.”

“So we shall go tomorrow?”