Clarissa and the Poor Relations (12 page)

M. Le Duc, though, kept his fulminating black eyes on Oriana.

Juliana meanwhile felt shy but much more at her ease than in London. No one expected her to shine in conversation and she had not the leading remarks of her matchmaking (but very loving) mama to put her to the blush. Whenever the banter left her out a little, she would soon find Mr Booth at her side; talking to her in the easiest way, fetching her shawl if she was a little chilly and listening to her tell tales (that must have bored him, she thought) about her parents and her beloved home.

It was after about two weeks of going along in this way that Grandiston, Booth and Thorne joined the ladies in a walk after luncheon, as usual.  Juliana fell behind a little, as she had to stoop and take a stone from her slipper. She was sitting on a tree stump replacing it when Charles came back for her.

‘Are you quite well, Miss Sowersby?’ said Charles in his bluff way; ‘Can I help?’

Juliana blushed and covered her ankles quickly, ‘No, indeed, sir,’ she said, ‘Just a tiresome pebble. I am quite ready to set off again.’

The others were ahead of them, in plain sight. Mr Thorne was boring Oriana whilst Grandiston entertained Clarissa. They did not rush to join them but ambled on companionably together. Charles looked a little troubled and when Juliana mentioned it, he found himself telling her of a letter from his father sardonically applauding his conversion to country life and reminding him that he was heir to an estate quite as rural as his present address. Soon, with a little gentle prodding, he found himself confiding to her the long standing resentment and guilt that characterized their relationship. Finally, sitting on a style, he admitted, ‘He thinks I’m a fool, of course. And why shouldn’t he? I’ve behaved like one so often. I’m not the son he hoped for.’

He looked so much like a lost boy, with his hair shaggily hanging over his bowed head that Juliana touched his arm with one little kid gloved hand. ‘Oh no,’ she said softly and simply, ‘How could that be? I expect you are very alike and he loves you just as much as I can see that you love him.’

Charles gazed down at her gentle grey eyes as she spoke to him and fell into them headlong. She was very different from any girl he had ever known. Her shyness did not conceal silliness like so many others, just a soft yielding nature and a kindness that he had noted again and again. At first he had simply been aware of the protective instinct she aroused in him to fill in for her inability to put herself forward. She was pretty in a quieter way than Oriana’s beauty or Clarissa’s expressive face but when she smiled as she did now, she stopped his heart.

‘Oh, Juliana.’ he breathed, drawing her into his arms. She fell into them yieldingly and their lips met with a trembling promise of the fire that had sprung between them.

As she pulled away, Juliana breathed, ‘Oriana. Don’t you love her?’

Charles chuckled, his arms still about her waist, and ‘Apparently not,’ he said ruefully, ‘like every other man in London, I thought I did. The lovely Miss Petersham has never cared a button for me. Nor I for her, now I know what love is. It’s so… so comfortable isn’t it?’ His eyes were grave for a second, unsure whether she really understood but she nodded, her eyes shining into his. ‘When can I speak to you father, my love?’

Juliana recalled herself to sense. ‘Let me go Mr Booth…Charles…we must catch up with the others.’

With glad hearts they resumed their walk. Whatever Juliana said to the contrary, Charles was determined to begin his travels to her parents’ home that day to ask her father for his daughter’s hand. ‘I shouldn’t have kissed you till its settled, old girl. So I shall make amends by leaving as quickly as possible.’

Juliana was a little concerned that Mr Booth, whilst heir to a tidy estate and a respectable title was not the great prospect that her mother had schemed for: but when she looked at Charles she was too much in love to suppose that they could fail be overwhelmed by his magnificence.

The air of joy was too palpable to be ignored by any but the self-centred Mr Thorne. Later, in Juliana’s bedroom all could be told in heart-wrenching detail to the whoops of delight of the young ladies.

‘Well.’ remarked Clarissa eventually, ‘Whilst Oriana and I have been doing all the talking in the morning room, it is you that has been getting her man. How sly.’

Juliana threw her pillow at her.

Clarissa and Oriana were overjoyed by the good news of their friend, but they both had their own problems to face.

Clarissa was becoming more and more exasperated with her brother’s presence and she was feeling a certain invisible curtain between her and her Miss Petersham.

Oriana’s spirits, on the other hand, were becoming abraded by the repeated visits of her beaux.  A few of the more out and out fortune hunters had driven from London only to be sent on their way by the redoubtable Miss Micklethwaite and her henchman, Sullivan, but still more arrived and had to be admitted on the grounds of good manners. Many were acquaintances from London or self-declared friends of her father. To suffer the gentle flattery (nothing too outrageous might be said in front of her chaperones) was bad enough, but occasionally she had to suffer it under the sardonic eye of Grandiston. He came to pay punctilious court to Clarissa within the beaming gaze of Mr Thorne and even though Oriana knew the game in this, she could not but be lowered by the sight of her friends enjoying each other’s company. For whatever they were doing, Oriana could see that Clarissa really made his eyes light up with laughter, just as they had used to smile on her.

She could not draw him to her because she was still very angry with him. How
could
he think she had become engaged in that dreadfully self-serving way and then been unable to go through with it? He did not know her at all if that is what he thought. So she smiled and was passably friendly to him but she kept herself from him, though she longed to roam the grounds, ride, jest and fight with him as she had in the old days.

After a dreadful set of morning visits yesterday, when Staines had brought his chair oppressively close to her and tried to engage her in conversation about her odious brother whilst Grandiston met her eyes with a gleam in his that only made her more furious, she decided that she would avoid the visits today. To that end she escaped the house in her riding dress and sent a boy to have her horse brought around to the side entrance.

As luck would have it, M. le Duc de Montaigne was riding from that direction and could see her standing in her pale blue velvet habit as her horse arrived. She mounted her horse as he rode up.

‘Ah, Mademoiselle, I am so happy to meet you at your exercise. May I not join you?’

Oriana was annoyed but there seemed to be nothing for it but to agree. She did not trust the Duc, but he was a man of more address than his fellows and he had known better than to press his suit too strongly. As they rode off together he began to talk of their London acquaintance in so unexceptional a way that she began to relax. Her withered nerves began to sooth and she even laughed at his tale of Lord Sutcliffe’s creaking corset at the last soiree at Almack’s.

‘Ah, you are so lovely when you smile.’ he said, his accent thickening and his eyes smouldering.

It was a mistake. Oriana lost her smile and gave thanks that they had not gone too far from the house.

‘I believe I shall canter before returning. I am rather tired.’

He quickened his pace along with her, but then he gave a cry and without warning his horse bolted, deserting the avenue for the woods, with the Duc looking as though he might be thrown at any moment.

Oriana pulled up sharply, perplexed. She had always considered that the Frenchman had a good seat, but she had no time to reflect but merely gave chase into the woods as fast as she could. Her horse was one of the late Viscount’s finest hunters and she soon caught up with the Duc’s hired horse, leaning forward perilously to grasp the reins. The horse stopped, the Duc seemed to lose his seat entirely and tumbled to the ground. For a few seconds, all Oriana could do was attend to the horses, but when she looked, the Duc was lying still on the ground, handsome face turned towards her.

She jumped with unmaidenly agility from her horse, secured them both and ran towards the prone figure. She knelt and put one gloved hand to his brow and was startled to feel his fingers close around her wrist in a vice-like grip.

‘Miss Petersham.’ he breathed in a thickened voice, ‘Ma belle. Mon
ange
.’ suddenly he was on his feet, pulling her to him. She gave a squeal before his lips closed on hers, his arms enveloping her.

Her mind was working furiously; no one could hear her. No doubt he was counting on that. Perhaps, he thought that his kisses would move her. More likely that shame would make her his. She struggled, then went limp. His arms relaxed a little and he took his lips from her to murmur, ‘Darling.’

This gave her the opportunity she needed to free her whip hand. She brought it with all her force upon his face. It did not draw blood, but he sprung back, uttering a number of French expletives that Oriana was glad she did not know.

As he sprang forward towards her with a quite different look in her eye, a large horse came bursting through the shrubbery and caused them both to turn. Grandiston, riding towards the main house had seen the incident from a distance and had followed them into the woods, guided by Oriana’s call.

The Frenchman’s handsome countenance lost all colour whilst Grandiston’s face, seeing the stripe of his cheek, became a hard shell. He did not dismount but rode forward and quite deliberately added a second stripe to his face. This one did bleed, and the Frenchman snarled.

‘Go.’ ordered the Earl, ‘And if I ever hear that you have breathed this lady’s name you may find that your welcome in England has run out.’

M. Le Duc picked up his hat and mounted his horse, his anger inflamed but his sense of danger keeping him quiet. Grandiston was a friend of the Regent and a return to France was not so safe for him in these times. He rode off without a word.

Grandiston dismounted. Oriana, who had stood without flinching throughout this exchange, began now, unaccountably, to shake. She turned shining eyes towards him, quite forgetting that he was to be guarded against.

‘It’s silly,’ she said looking at him, ‘I can’t seem to stop.’

He lifted her off her feet and into his arms.

‘But…’ she protested feebly.

As he felt her trembling with shock his heart gave way and he pulled her tighter, ‘Little Pigeon.’

‘Ah, don’t.’ She said looking up at him, ‘Don’t call me that.’ Her eyes began to swim; she felt her weakened defences crumble at the use of his old name for her, and her heart reach out for him.

And then he swung her on to his horse and swung up beside her.

‘But Beauty…’ she protested

‘…will eat grass until the stable boy fetches him. Now we’ll get you home.’

She had no protests left. She thought that she was well enough to ride, but the strange shaking had not yet abated and it was easier by far to slip into the comfort of Grandiston’s broad chest and to ignore the question that ran around her head and the feeling that swelled in her chest. She was safe. Grandiston was here. She closed her eyes.

He rode towards the house slowly; aware of the heaviness of her head against him, of her little gloved hand clutching his shirt. The desire to kiss her was outweighed by the desire only to protect her and to kill The Duc de Montaigne. His feelings surprised him; tenderness was an ache in his chest. Still she shook from the attack and though his body was alight with the feel of her, not for a second would he have moved to make her feel uncomfortable at this time.

He rode to the back of the house to avoid uproar. Entering the kitchen, he began to bark orders whilst the servants ran to his commands.

In a few moments, Sullivan was bending over Miss Micklethwaite’s ear and she excused herself from the company of Lady Staines and her son, Mr Thorne, Sir Piers and the other ladies.

Grandiston surrendered his charge, saying merely, ‘Miss Petersham has had a severe shock.’

He had laid her on her pink silk coverlet and she reached a hand for him as he took his leave, ‘Thank you.’ she breathed.

He touched it briefly and said, ‘Lie still now. It is all over.’ With a smile he was gone.

Miss Micklethwaite watched her eyes follow him and an empty, frightened look appear as he left. She sat on the bed and before she could speak Oriana sat up and threw herself onto her friend’s large bosom, sobbing wildly. She cried for her fear, for her weakness for the final crumbling of the wall that she had built around herself since her father’s death. She cried for love (why hadn’t she known it before?) of Grandiston and not knowing what to do about it.

The older woman wisely said nothing, but held on whilst Oriana’s innumerable worries and fears, held in check for so long , spilled out in wracking sobs for a long time.

Eventually, she laid her in her bed and left her to sleep the deep unconscious sleep of the emotionally exhausted.

The morning callers, for the most part disappointed by Miss Petersham’s absence, took their leave and it was left to Mr Thorne to entertain the ladies. Miss Micklethwaite entered again unnoticed as he took his position before the fire, grasping his lapels in the way that foretold a speech.

‘I must say Clarissa that though I did not like this notion of you setting up here, and indeed it is a foolish notion for a young lady to imagine she can run a great estate, your stay here has had some benefits.’

Clarissa, whose face had flushed at this beginning, opened her mouth to reply, when Miss Appleby’s gentle voice interceded, ‘How silly of me. Clarissa, dear, could you retrieve my blue silk, it has fallen at your feet.’ As she returned the thread to the lady who sat so peacefully at her embroidery, she was surprised by a little gesture of a finger to her lips. She remembered her promise to Grandiston and managed to smile slightly at her brother.

‘Yes indeed, my dear girl. The company that has seen fit to call has been, well
, elevated
if I may say so. I wrote as much to my dear Cornelia the other day and I had a letter from her this morning.’ He looked at his sister as one about to give a great surprise, ‘she agrees with me that it is impossible to try to break the Dower House contract for the moment. She means to pay a visit to Ashcroft
herself
in the next two weeks. Well. How is
that
my dear sister?’

‘Oh dear.’ thought Clarissa, but she said everything that was polite.

‘You will be pleased to have such an old friend here, will you not my dear Miss Sowersby?’ he added, turning to Juliana.

She had never been an intimate of Mrs Thorne, thinking her a rather pushy woman, but there was little Juliana could say but, ‘Delighted.’

‘Indeed, indeed.’ said Mr Thorne, ‘I believe that My Lord Grandiston has expressed a heartfelt wish to meet with my wife. Imagine his happiness at this news.’

‘Imagine.’ said Clarissa dryly.

Miss Micklethwaite shot her a warning look. ‘Well, John, you should write her a letter expressing Clarissa’s joy at the news as quickly as may be. No need to delay her,’ she said bracingly.

‘Yes, indeed.’ said Mr Thorne, leaving the room and beaming.

When he had gone, Clarissa turned to Miss Appleby, ‘Thank you so much, dear lady. I almost opened my mouth and I know that I must not. But really, John is
so
infuriating – he told Mr Elfoy that he needn’t meet with me anymore -
he
would deal with any business that arose. Can you equal his gall?’

‘Well, my dear,’ began Miss Appleby, ‘I knew you might be betrayed into heated discourse - I was just such an impetuous young lady as you at one time…’ Clarissa raised astonished eyes to the little lady, ‘but I found it would never do. I caused my dear papa such shame with my quick tongue…’

‘How did you…’ said Clarissa with genuine interest.

‘Never mind that.’ said Miss Micklethwaite testily, ‘Oriana is in bed, Clarissa, I believe you should go to her.’

At the other ladies’ exclamations she said very little, but bustled Clarissa from the room.

It was a measure of the change in Oriana that she poured out the entire morning’s adventures into her friend’s ears within five minutes.

‘How could I have been so taken in?’ she said, her eyes swimming in tears and her cheeks hot with humiliation. ‘I have seen him ride many times; I should have guessed his purpose. But his manner before that was not at all urgent…’ she put her hand over her eyes.

Clarissa pulled them away. ‘It is his behaviour that is at fault, not yours. None of us would have guessed his intentions. He thought he was dealing with a weaker willed woman than you, Oriana. He will not be able to show his face in town with those marks on him for a sennight.’ She looked at her friend’s distress with a mixture of sympathy and an explosive rage that men could act in this way. Petersham, Thorne, du Montaigne, she thought; all the same. Using their power to achieve their own ends with no thought of us.

‘It is not like you to blame yourself, Oriana,’ said Clarissa. ‘Get angry with M. le Duc, not yourself.’

Oriana’s lovely face looked raw with emotion. ‘Oh, I know,’ she said, brokenly, ‘it is just that Grandiston must have thought…’

Clarissa was puzzled. ‘Grandiston has shown him to be too much our friend to think meanly of you…he saw you attack the Duc…he has been
your
friend for such a long time…’ As she watched her friend wipe her streaming eyes with an inadequate lace handkerchief, she stilled suddenly. ‘Oriana, why have you let Grandiston continue to believe that you consented to that ludicrous engagement?’