Undesirable Liaison (27 page)

‘But I—’

‘Don’t argue,
for my mind is made up.’

Seizing her
sister’s arm, she propelled her along the corridor, away from the
appalling discovery to be made in her own room. Belinda continued
to protest, but Flo’s determination grew with the subsiding panic,
which lessened with every step she took in the direction of
safety.

While her
tongue continued to respond, her mind was busy with the fearful
consequences of her rashness. She must have taken leave of her
senses. To throw her own life into jeopardy was bad enough. To put
her young sister in danger of discovering her depravity was
disastrous. It was shaming to recognise how easily her resolve had
been broken, how ready she had been to allow Jerome to drag her
back into this sinful liaison.

So much for her
sister’s rosy prognostications of tenderness and marriage. She was
nothing but a wanton. So lost had she become she had been more
concerned with secrecy than ending the liaison altogether.

Resolving to
speak her mind to Jerome, she escorted Belinda inexorably back to
her chamber and tucked her up again. A trying task as Bel attempted
to prolong the process of bidding her goodnight.

‘Pray bring me
a glass of water from the jug, Flo… my sheets are so crushed with
tossing and turning, help me to straighten them… it is so stuffy,
pray open the window before you go.’

Florence
contained her soul with what patience she could muster, driven into
acquiescence by a horrid feeling of guilt. When she was at length
able to withdraw, she returned with an increasingly leaden heart
towards her bedchamber, trying to think of arguments to persuade
Jerome of the necessity to call a halt before this amour proved her
undoing.

Arrived at her
bedchamber, she hesitated before the door, unhappily aware of her
own weakness. Jerome would not easily let her go. How was she to
fight him, when everything in her yearned to give in to him? Even
now, awaiting her return, she could picture his eagerness to
embrace her once more. It occurred to her forcibly that Jerome
would expect to remain in her bed all night.

The thought
caused a resurgence of blood rushing through her veins, and she was
obliged to crush down upon awakening desire before opening the
door.

But one glance
served to show her the bed-curtains were once more drawn back, and
the four-poster was empty of its erstwhile inhabitant.

***

While his
mother uttered spurious words of welcome, Jerome eyed his cousin’s
profile with dislike. How could he feel other than resentful of an
arrival that had blasted apart his cherished illusion of secrecy?
What price Flo keeping her sister at bay, when his own valet had
discovered him almost
in flagrante delicto
?

The knock at
Florence’s door had been accompanied by a deferential cough, and
Digmoor’s apologetic tones.

‘My lord, I
must speak with you.’

Shock had
ripped through Jerome like a douche of cold water. Belinda had been
bad enough. But his valet? The sheer impossibility of it had
prompted him to fling aside the bed-curtains and leap out,
dishevelled as he was, to confront the man. Wrenching open the
door, he had let fly without pause for thought.

‘What the devil
do you mean by interrupting me? How in Hades did you know I was in
here? Good God, man, are you insane?’

Digmoor had
visibly blenched, but he had stood his ground. ‘I beg your
lordship’s pardon.’

‘You may well.
But I’m in no mood to give it, you may be assured.’

The valet had
swallowed, casting a furtive glance about, and lowered his
voice.

‘If your
lordship will allow me to speak?’

‘Make it
fast—before I send you to pack your bags.’

But that had
stiffened the fellow’s backbone, Jerome recalled with a touch of
admiration.

‘That is as
your lordship pleases, but it will not prevent me from doing my
duty.’

At the time, it
served to fan the flames.

‘You conceive
it to be your duty to embarrass me, and put Miss Petrie’s
reputation in jeopardy, do you?’

At that,
Digmoor’s glance swept down, reminding Jerome of his his unkempt
state. Cursing, he seized the fellow’s arm and yanked him into the
room, slamming the door.

‘You have
precisely two minutes to explain yourself,’ he snapped, tucking in
his shirt and adjusting his clothing as best he could with fingers
as unwieldy as thumbs.

To his further
chagrin, the valet scurried about, taking to himself the task of
gathering up the creased waistcoat and a mangled cravat.

Jerome snatched
the cravat out of the fellow’s hands.

‘Speak,
damnation take you!’

‘I would not
have disturbed you, my lord, had I not seen Miss Petrie retreating
along the corridor with her young sister,’ began Digmoor, as Jerome
threw the cravat carelessly about his neck, tying it in a loose
knot.

‘That doesn’t
explain how you guessed I was in this room.’

The valet
coughed, helping his master into the waistcoat.

‘It was not a
conjecture, my lord. I saw you enter the room more than an hour
since.’

Jerome paused
in the act of buttoning the waistcoat.

‘Hell and
damnation! Did anyone else see me? Who knows of this?’

‘None other, my
lord, I assure you.’

Digmoor held
open the coat and Jerome turned, allowing the valet to assist him
to shrug himself into it.

‘I would not
dream of mentioning the matter to another soul. Indeed, I have this
half hour past done my utmost to deflect all enquiry as to your
whereabouts.’

‘Enquiry?’ A
cold feeling swept through Jerome, and his fury began to evaporate.
‘Who has been enquiring for me?’

A further cough
was forthcoming.

‘Mr Sheinton
has arrived, my lord.’

‘The devil! At
this time of day?’

‘He apologised
for the lateness of the hour, my lord,’ said the valet, producing
Jerome’s shoes from somewhere and gesturing for his master to sit.
‘He had hoped to arrive in time for dinner, but had been delayed.
He arrived, I heard from Mr Fewston, not ten minutes after you and
her ladyship had left the table.’

Jerome had
heard no sounds betokening an arrival. Not that he had been in any
condition to notice, he was bound to admit as he thrust his feet
into his shoes. Intent upon waylaying his quarry, he had excused
himself the moment his mother rose to leave the dining room.

‘Where is he
now?’

‘In the
billiard room. Mr Fewston is arranging for a cold collation to be
taken to the anteroom there while a bedchamber is prepared.’ Tying
the shoestrings, the valet once more preceded his remarks with an
apologetic cough. ‘Mr Sheinton having first checked the library,
and then expressed a desire to go in search of you, my lord, I
judged it prudent to suggest that you had gone for a walk.’

Jerome
simmered. ‘Yes, but what possessed you to come to me here?’

The valet rose,
his tone becoming more deferential.

‘I believed it
would be impolitic if your true whereabouts were to be
inadvertently discovered—by another party.’

‘You mean you
intended to lie in wait so you could warn me my cousin was in the
house?’

‘Just so, my
lord.’

In silence,
Jerome rose, absently allowing Digmoor to do what he might to prink
and straighten his costume.

The first shock
over, he found his attention turning upon Theo’s inopportune
arrival. His cousin was nothing if not sharp—of eye and wit both.
Let him get but a whiff of his interest in Florence and the
wretched fellow would swiftly put two and two together. Why the
devil he must needs turn up precisely at this moment was a matter
passing Jerome’s comprehension.

Sighing at the
clear necessity to walk away from a night that had promised
unutterable pleasure, he discovered Digmoor looking with jaundiced
eye upon the ruin of his neckcloth.

‘I fear your
cravat will not pass muster, my lord.’

Indeed. No hope
Theo would not notice. He would have to pretend he had been
drinking. Or why pretend anything at all? Jerome made up his
mind.

‘Go and tell
Fewston to inform my cousin I am not out for a walk, but have
instead retired to my private apartments with a book, and have
given orders I am not to be disturbed.’

The valet
bowed. ‘Certainly, my lord. I venture to say not even Mr Sheinton
would care to go against such orders.’

‘Nor anyone
else in this house, thank the Lord! Let Fewston and Brumby see to
his comfort. Now check if the coast is clear, will you?’

Digmoor went to
the door, and peered carefully out. Popping his head back in, he
nodded, and Jerome signed to him to leave.

He dared not
wait for Florence. He was glad Belinda had detained her, for he
dreaded her reaction to this fresh disaster. If his valet had seen
him, who was to say others had not? He would have to find an
opportunity to explain his defection. Tomorrow, when he’d had a
chance to think things through—if he could shake off his damned
cousin.

But his
cogitations served to whip up resentment at Sheinton’s unwitting
interference. Jerome was glad of his mother’s presence when he met
Theo in the breakfast parlour upon the following morning, which
forced him to refrain from blistering the fellow for showing his
face in Bedfont. An urge he had no means to justify.

‘My dear Cousin
Avice,’ Sheinton was saying with his peculiarly charmless suavity,
‘I don’t know when I’ve seen you looking so well. You are
positively blooming.’

A faint flush
stained Lady Langriville’s cheek. ‘Am I, Theo?’

‘Positively,
ma’am. You look delightfully. I am at a loss to guess what can have
happened to effect so great an improvement.’

‘Oh, that is
Belinda,’ came airily from the dowager.

‘Belinda?’

Jerome gave an
inward groan as he addressed a plateful of cold beef. Theo’s green
eyes were already kindling with interest. From Belinda to Florence
could be no great step.

‘Belinda
Petrie,’ his mother explained. ‘She lives here now.’

Hovering on the
brink of offering an explanation he did not wish to make, Jerome
hesitated too long.

His cousin’s
puzzled expression cleared as he began upon a baked egg.

‘Oh, you mean
your new companion.’

An inexplicable
glance came Jerome’s way, alarming him a trifle. Distracted, he was
too slow to cut in before his mother spoke again.

‘No, no,
Belinda is not my companion—more’s the pity. She is Miss Petrie’s
sister, and a more comfortable companion I could not wish for, if I
were permitted to employ her. Still, she is allowed to be with me
in the afternoons, and she dines with us now, so we are able to
enjoy each other’s company there as well. I am excessively fond of
her, you must know, and would dearly like to adopt her, only Miss
Petrie—’

‘That will do,
ma’am.’ Aware of the snap in his voice, and the startled look on
Theo’s face as his mother turned reproachful eyes upon him, Jerome
added, ‘It is not a matter of interest to my cousin, ma’am.’

‘On the
contrary,’ said Sheinton, much to Jerome’s annoyance, ‘I am deeply
interested. How old is this Belinda, if she is of an age to be
adopted?’

‘She is
fifteen,’ stated Lady Langriville, ‘and the more I think of it, the
more I would like to—’

‘You say so,
ma’am, because you want to keep her by you,’ Jerome put in.

‘Exactly so,’
agreed his mother, laying down the soft white whig she had been
eating. She turned again to his cousin. ‘I have begun to teach her
how to behave in a ladylike fashion, you know, for there is no
denying her manners are rough. I like it, for I find her easy and
unaffected, which is no bad thing. But I know what people expect,
and she must learn correct ways if she is to go into society.’

‘But is she to
go into society?’ queried Theo, looking for all the world as if it
had been suggested a giraffe might do so.

Feeling himself
poker up, Jerome bit down on a stinging reply. He held no brief for
Belinda, but the suggestive tone that impugned her was, by
implication, attached to Florence—which was intolerable. However,
he had no wish to become embroiled in explanations he could not
make, which effectively prevented him from flying to her
defence.

‘When she is
old enough to go out as a companion, she may well do so,’ he said
instead. ‘It will be well for her to know how to behave in polite
circles, and my mother has expressed a willingness to teach
her.’

‘It is no
hardship to me, Jerome.’

Well aware of
it, he said nothing. Theo had helped himself to a slice of bread
and was lathering it with fresh butter. Turning the subject, Jerome
asked him how London was faring without him.

Theo laughed.
‘As it chances, I have been absent from the metropolis for the best
part of a week. Indeed, I believe I left soon after you returned
here, coz.’

An odd note
caught Jerome’s attention, and he thought his cousin gave him
another fleeting look. Or was he being over-sensitive? It occurred
to him Sheinton might have his mind on the matter that had taken
him to town. Jerome had hardly given it a thought, except insofar
as Letty impinged upon his relations with Florence. But his lawyer
had been in touch.

‘Frizington is
having difficulty with the authorities,’ he said, ‘which is why
you’ve heard nothing from me regarding the proposed interment.’

His mother’s
face dropped, falling into the look of melancholia she had
habitually worn prior to Belinda’s eruption into the household.

‘I wish you
will not make a business of it, Jerome. Can we not do it privately?
To have all the neighbours nosing about again is more than I can
endure.’