Anita Mills (14 page)

Ellen turned around and made her way into the bedchamber to find that everything indeed had been prepared. Another fire was laid in another marble-faced fireplace and it gave the entire room a very pleasant glow. Again, there was the thick floral rug, the silk-covered walls, the gilt-trimmed ceiling, and a sense of overwhelming elegance. This time, the furniture was of highly polished cherry wood and consisted of a four-poster bed covered with a rose satin coverlet and pillows, a small settee upholstered in cut velvet, two chairs, and several small tables. Bookcases flanked double French windows that opened above a small garden turning brown with autumn, and twin mirrors hung over a pier table across from the bed. And as Mrs. Biddle had said, the bed had been turned back to reveal ivory linen sheets edged in lace.

Ellen looked around the room as she finished her buttons and then moved back to the dressing room, where she removed and hung up her gown in one of the two large chifferobes. She finished undressing and put on the gown and wrapper. A faint odor of cedar permeated the garments, indicating that they had been stored and probably had belonged to his lordship’s mother. She must have been a tall woman, since both the gown and the wrapper were long enough for Ellen. If so, it was no wonder that Trent and his brother were so tall.

A timid knock sounded at the door, followed by the entrance of a girl bearing a tray with steaming milk and a piece of cake of the sort served with afternoon tea. The girl set down the tray on a table by the fire and dipped a slight curtsy.

“Thank you, Marie.”

“Anything else, Miss Ellen?” The girl seemed to want to linger, but did not know how to go about it without Ellen’s permission. Finally, she blurted out, “Are you going to be our lady, miss?”

“What?”

The girl flushed and looked at her feet. “I’m sorry, miss, but there was betting belowstairs, and I was told to ask.”

“I see. No, I am merely visiting.”

“Oh. Well, you are the first lady his lordship has ever allowed to visit, so some of us thought …” Her voice trailed off in uncertainty.

“No, I …” Ellen started to say she was already married before she thought and then realized how it would sound. Besides, married or not, she was definitely not in his lordship’s style, anyway. “I am afraid I am just visiting for a little while.”

Belowstairs, in the library, Gerald was speculating in much the same vein over his brandy. He refilled his glass and Trent’s and carried it to where Trent lounged easily before the fire. He handed one over to his brother and took a chair opposite. They both stared into the flickering flames in silence for a while until Gerry set his glass aside and leaned forward to stare at Trent.

“What are you going to do with her, Alex?” he asked quietly.

“I don’t know,” Trent answered slowly. “Believe it or not, I have given it a lot of thought, but I don’t even know what I want to do. I do know that I have promised her that she will not be returned to Brockhaven.”

“Why?”

“Have you seen him?” Trent asked in disgust. “A fat pig—an
old
fat pig—he has no business with a girl like Ellen.”

“But she married him,” Gerald reminded him.

“She had no choice! Marling starved his daughter, Gerry, and then threatened to give Brockhaven her sister, a child not yet out of the schoolroom, unless she agreed to marry the old roue.” Trent stared absently into his glass, swirling the brandy in it, before shaking his head. “She never even had a Season, if you can believe it, so what chance did she have? Her father was too clutch-fisted to put her out on the Marriage Mart, where she would have been snatched up in weeks by a better prospect if Marling had been but smart enough to know it. She’s a head above the rest of ’em, I swear.”

It was so unlike Trent to express any admiration for a respectable female that Gerald’s curiosity was whetted. He reached for the decanter and refilled both glasses again. “Tell me about her, Alex.”

“What is there to tell that I have not already said? She is different, that’s all.” He sipped his wine thoughtfully, his eyes still fixed on the fire. “No, do not ask me, I don’t know what it is. She could be pretty if she had decent clothes and a good lady’s maid, but there is more to her than that. Despite the way I found her, there is nothing even remotely fast about her. You can just look at her and tell she’s Quality, but she’s not empty-headed and selfish like the rest of ’em. She’s calm and resourceful and honest.” He looked up and met his brother’s skeptical eyes. “Believe it or not, she’s not hanging out for a man’s purse, Gerry. She worried about what I spent on her. Look at this!” He held up his hand to show the narrow band of rubies and diamonds that circled his little finger. “She paid me with her wedding ring.”

“You sound almost besotted.”

“Do I?” Trent appeared surprised and then nodded. “Aye—maybe I am.”

“And if Brockhaven divorces her, are you prepared to marry her?”

“I’m not a marrying man, Gerry. I’d be a poor bargain for her when she wants a respectable, worthy husband. No. I mean to protect her, that’s all.”

“If it gets out that she has stayed here, one of us might be compelled to offer for her to avert the scandal of the divorce.”

“Gerry”—there was a note of warning in Trent’s voice—“don’t even think it. She’s no more up to your weight than mine. She deserves better than either of us.”

“Oh, I don’t know. If she’s such a paragon, I might not mind making the sacrifice. Save me the time and trouble of going to the damned balls and routs, you know,” he teased lightly.

“I forbid any flirtation—
any
flirtation, Gerry, and I mean it. She’s a green girl in spite of what she’s been through, and I won’t see her hurt by your
or
me.”

“Coming the puritan a bit strong, aren’t you?”

“I mean it, Gerry.”

“All right, Alex, but what are-we to do with her? Two bachelors—two very disreputable bachelors, in fact—and a young female of Quality? ’Twill give the tattlemongers a month of gossip if it gets out. Devil of a scandal, brother.”

“I mean to give it out that she’s Ellen Deveraux, Mademoiselle Deveraux, to be exact, sent to us from the French Deveraux, since her family fell upon death and misfortune in Napoleon’s late wars. Well”—he looked across at Gerald—“what do you think? Can we pull it off?”

“The truth? I think ’twill be a difficult tale to tell—I mean, the French Deveraux are dreadfully loose living, but they aren’t such loose screws that they’d send an innocent female to live with us. For one thing, they’re Catholic—they’d send her to a convent.”

“We know that, but does anyone else? But if you have a better idea on the subject, I am all attention.”

“Put that way—no. Does this mean she’s going to stay?”

“It does. I owe her my life, Gerry, and I will not stand idly by and see her returned to Brockhaven. Here at least I can keep her safe.”

“For how long? Days? Months? Years?”

“I don’t know … until something happens.”

“All right,” Gerald sighed, “I can see your mind is set. You know, Alex, this is the first time I have ever seen you go to so much trouble for anybody. Maybe your fever addled your brain.”

Above them, Ellen tossed in the four-poster bed, her mind in turmoil over what she would do. She could not stay dependent on Trent’s generosity indefinitely, no matter what he said, and yet she quite literally had nowhere to go. While he might think he owed her some sort of pension for saving his life, she could not accept it. She simply could not live in the same house with him, not just because of the danger of scandal, but because she recognized that she was in love with him. She already was in danger of wearing her heart on her sleeve. It was becoming impossible to hide the fact that she was irresistibly drawn to those very blue eyes, the ruffled black hair, the perfect patrician countenance, and the man behind it. There was no way she could see him come and go, hear of his latest mistresses, and stand it. Yet she would miss him unbearably.

When she finally did manage to sleep, she lapsed into restless dreams where Basil Brockhaven’s pudgy fingers squeezed her flesh and his wet lips smacked against her throat. Bone-weary still, she was nevertheless grateful when Marie wakened her in the morning to tell her that her bath was drawn.

After the maid left, she bathed, luxuriating in the lavender-scented water, and then dressed in the other gown that Trent had procured for her in York. It was little better than the first and certainly unsophisticated, a high-waisted schoolgirl frock of lavender sprigged muslin, trimmed around the modest neckline in ecru cotton lace, with leg-of-mutton sleeves that came demurely down to her wrists. As she sat before the
poudre
table and brushed out her thick hair, she reflected wryly that everything Trent had seen her in was either too daring or too childish. Resolutely, she twisted her hair and knotted it on her crown: at least today she would not wear it down like a chit in the schoolroom. By the time she descended to breakfast, she was moderately satisfied.

“Hallo, Ellen.”

Below her, Gerald Deveraux flashed a friendly smile and waited. By the light of day, his resemblance to Trent was even more pronounced than she’d thought. He drew her arm through his as she came off the last step and indicated the rows of portraits that flanked the staircase on either side of the hall.

“Quite a bunch of fellows, aren’t they? Our ancestors— and each one of them believed he owned the world, by the looks of ’em. That last one is my father as Sir Thomas Lawrence painted him. Quite a good likeness, really—you can tell just by looking that there was a bit of the devil in him, can’t you? Quite a shocking profligate until he met my mother.” He turned her to look at the companion portrait across from it. “Lady Caroline—also done by Lawrence—and you can quite see why he risked everything for her, I think.”

Ellen looked up at the tall paintings and nodded. It was obvious that the Deveraux brothers got most of their handsomeness from the late marquess, a tall, imposing figure in satin coat and kneebreeches who seemed to be looking down on her with a faintly mocking smile. Aye, he looked the dangerous man, with his dark hair merely tied back without the conventional powder of the time, and his hand resting suggestively on the dress sword at his side. She turned to study Trent’s mother, a breathtakingly beautiful girl when she’d been painted, as fair as her husband was dark, with intelligent eyes and a lovely smile.

“They’re beautiful—both of them.”

“Aye. I’ve looked at them often hanging there, for I can barely remember either of ’em, but Alex says they were a prime pair. There was a devil of a scandal at the time. She was betrothed to a worthy gentleman, but he just carried her off straight out of her parents’ house like Scott’s Lochinvar. I often wondered if Scott got the idea from the scandal, you know—not that Papa actually rode his horse into the house or anything like that. Still, it set the
ton
on its ears. Married her out of hand at Gretna and did not come home until Alex was on the way.”

“How romantic,” Ellen sighed as she looked again at the two beautiful people above her. “Did her parents ever forgive them?”

“Alas, no,” he admitted, “but I doubt they cared. By all accounts, they were deliriously happy until Mama died of a fever when Alex was eight and I was four. Papa died soon after in a riding accident.”

“I see. I’m sorry.”

“It was harder on Alex than me, for he was old enough to know what had happened. He came into the title then and was much spoiled, although Button tried to dampen his sense of self-consequence. But,” Gerald changed the subject abruptly, “we tarry when you must be famished, my dear.” He stood back at the dining-room door and waited for her to pass in. “I’m told that ladies take chocolate in the morning, but we don’t have any as yet. Biddle is sending to London for some, though, and I expect you’ll have it by the end of the week.” He held out a chair for her and then seated her before taking the place across the table.

“Tea is fine, Captain Deveraux. Indeed, I will take anything.” She placed the napkin on her lap and smiled. “You will find me given to picking at what I am offered, sir, for it is better than what I am used to. My father is rather clutch-fisted and once ordered Cook to save the tea leaves and use them twice.”

“Now that is a pinchfarthing,” he murmured sympathetically.

“Yes, well, Papa will die a rich man because he cannot be brought to part with a groat once it touches his hands. He even made Brockhaven pay for the wedding.”

“Shhhhh. Make no mention of the baron here. We have given it out that you are our French cousin come to live with us.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Well, you can speak French, can’t you?”

“Of course, but—”

“Just sprinkle it into your conversation from time to time, my dear, and no one here will be any the wiser.”

“Captain—” She tried hard to keep a straight face. “He cannot be serious. I speak French with an English accent.”

“We’ll tell everyone you are from one of the provinces, then.”

“I thought Lord Trent said you did not have any female relatives, sir.”

“We don’t, but who’s to know what’s over there in France? I mean, what with Boney cutting up a dust all those years, there’s not been that much discourse between us. Besides, here at the Meadows, people will believe whatever Alex chooses to tell them.” He leaned across the table and lowered his voice, hissing, “Shhhh—there’s Edward.”

The footman appeared with a silver teapot and poured for each of them. Moving the sugar and creamer closer to her, he asked her pleasure for breakfast.

“Sausage and porridge, if you have it, please.”

“Of course, miss. And you, Captain?”

“I haven’t had porridge since Button stuffed it down me,” he admitted, “so I might as well see if it has improved. I’ll have the same.”

“I heard about Button.”

“And I suppose Trent told you I was her favorite? A hum if there ever was one, but we used to fight over it. I know now that she loved us both equally.” He spooned a dollop of heavy cream into his tea and leaned back to look at her. “Trent tells me you are an Original.”