Anne Barbour (23 page)

“What?” asked Amanda, astonished. “Of course! He has loved her all his life, and why do you call her a vixen?”

“Because I’m too much of a lady to call her a bitch, of course.”

Amanda gasped. “I don’t understand.”

The countess looked at her for a long moment. “I’m not saying Ash does not
think
he is in love with Lianne, and I’m not even saying that Lianne does not harbor some tender sentiment for Ashindon, but—oh well, actually,” said the dowager grudgingly, “I suppose she’s not all that bad. She made a dreadful bargain in Grant, but once she wed him, even after she realized the mistake she’d made, she took it in good part and remained faithful to him. Although,” she added dryly, “if Ashindon had remained on the scene, I’m not so sure she would have maintained her virtue.”

“But wasn’t she virtually forced to marry Grant?”

“Pho! Lianne was never forced into anything she did not wish to do. She said she loved Ash, and she would have married him, I suppose, but when she had the opportunity to attach Grant, the title holder and heir to Ashindon Park, wild horses could not have kept her from him. She made a big to-do about family obligations, but it’s my opinion that it was her own self-interest that prompted her to abandon Ashindon and accept Grant’s suit.”

“I cannot believe this,” murmured Amanda. Surely, she thought, the old lady was speaking from her own antipathy toward Lianne.

“My advice to you,” concluded the dowager, “is to try very hard to believe it. Lianne Bonner, given half a chance, will snatch Ashindon from beneath your nose—whether you’re married to him or not.”

Amanda stared disbelievingly at the dowager. “Are you saying—”

“All I’m saying is that if you’re not careful, your papa will be paying for Lianne’s upkeep. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind that— God knows how young people disport themselves these days, but I believe I am not wrong in assuming such a connection would displease you.”

Grudgingly, Amanda nodded. She opened her mouth to speak again, but was forestalled by the entrance of Miss Emily Wexford, Lady Ashindon’s companion. Amanda rose to greet her, but the spinster gestured that she should not arise.

“I hope you and Grandmama have been having a nice chat,” she said a little breathlessly.

“Oh, yes,” said the dowager dryly, “it quite brightened up my dull life.”

Amanda bit back a laugh as Miss Wexford attempted an embarrassed dispute. After a few moments of light chatter, she rose to leave, with the promise that she would visit the dowager again. “For,” she said, smiling rather painfully, “our conversation has been most instructive.”

Chapter Sixteen

At about this time, Ash had just come to the same conclusion regarding a visit he made that morning to James’s lodgings in Duke Street. It was not his habit to discuss his personal crises with others, but after his discourse with Lianne the previous evening and the shattering kiss with Amanda a few moments later, he felt in need of his friend’s good sense and clear-sightedness.

“Mm, yes,” said James as Ash began his tale. “I thought I saw you sneaking into that little salon, and—”

“I was not sneaking,” interposed Ash with great dignity. “I merely—”

“Sneaking,” continued James as though Ash had not spoken, “in company with the lovely Lianne, who subsequently exited the room looking as though she’d just bitten into a green persimmon. A rift in the lute, Will?” His words were spoken lightly, but his gaze was sharp as he surveyed his friend.

Ash stiffened. “I’ve told you repeatedly, Jamie, that there is no lute. Not anymore, that is. Oh, the devil,” he concluded. “All right, you were correct, just as you usually are, damn you. Lianne told me that she still loves me. She—she demonstrated the depth of her feeling for me in a manner that was profoundly touching. I—”

“Offered to become your mistress, did she?” asked James coolly, and Ash felt his jaw drop in response.

“How the devil did you know that?” he demanded.

“Because it was the next logical step in her campaign.”

“Campaign! What are you talking about?”

James shifted in his chair. “Look, Ash. You were a boy when you fell in love with Lianne. Then you went away and did not see her again for years. It’s my opinion that sometime between your boyhood and the time you became a man you dropped your torch, but you were so used to carrying it you just never noticed.”

“That’s preposterous! My love for her has—”

“Your love for her was based, as love usually is, on an illusion.” James leaned forward. “It was an illusion carefully fostered by the lady herself, if you ask me.” He continued hurriedly before Ash could voice the protest that welled in him. “You thought of Lianne as loving and giving, and as dedicated to her family and her sense of duty as you were yourself.”

“Well, of course—”

“Did it ever occur to you that Lianne is simply a normal female, concerned primarily with her own interests?”

“James, I don’t think I care to listen any further.” Ash made as though to rise, but James reached out to stay him.

“You’re the one who initiated this conversation, my lad. For some time now, I’ve wanted to have this chat with you, but Lianne had you wrapped so firmly around her finger, I knew I couldn’t get through to you. Now just listen for a moment. Did it ever occur to you that it was Lianne’s desire to make as good a match for herself as possible, rather than her concern for her papa’s feelings and her mama’s nonexistent heart condition that prompted her to accept Grant’s offer? No, of course it didn’t.

“Nor did you consider that Lianne is living on a shoestring right now, a situation extremely displeasing to her. It cannot have taken her long to realize that her erstwhile lover would become a very wealthy man on his marriage to Amanda Bridge, and being the mistress of a wealthy man would be much better than becoming the bride of an impoverished peer.”

“My God, James. I cannot believe what you are suggesting. Lianne loves me, and—”

“I’m sure she does—in her fashion. I’m not saying she’s a bad person—she’s merely a realist, as most women must be. They are totally dependent for their survival on men, and it behooves them to make the best bargains of which they are capable.”

Ash knew a moment of disgust, both at his friend for his coldblooded appraisal of what was the grand passion of his life, and at himself for the burgeoning, albeit unwilling, acknowledgement of the truth of James’s assessment.

Was it true? wondered Ash. Had Lianne simply been using him? Had his own feelings for her changed without his knowledge? Despite himself, he was aware that what James had said made good sense. Whether he would be able to accept his friend’s cynical pronouncements was another matter.

Feeling oddly empty, he sighed heavily. “I cannot accept what you’re saying, Jamie. Lianne would never—”

“Did you take her up on her offer?” interrupted James.

“Her—Oh. No, of course not. It took just about everything in me to refuse,” said Ash, somewhat less than truthfully. “I know what it must have cost her to make it, but, my God, I’m betrothed. I know I’m unfashionable, but I plan to be faithful to my wife.”

James grinned crookedly. “What laudable sentiments. Are you sure they do not spring from disinterest in the lovely Lianne rather than your exalted sense of duty? And what of your bride? Surely you do not expect her to keep her vows. The notion of fidelity is quite alien to the female nature, particularly when the female in question is as beautiful as Miss Bridge and is entered in a marriage of convenience.”

Ash felt his stomach tighten. “We will not discuss Amanda, James. While I value your advice, I think I do not wish to hear just now your jaundiced view of the female character.”

James smiled. “A view formed over a lifetime of experience, my boy. Very well, then.” He rose lazily. “Shall we toddle over to Gentleman Jackson’s? Young Fisham has been issuing challenges to all comers, and needs taking down a peg, I believe.”

Ash had no desire at the moment to try the mettle of young striplings, but feeling that a bout with the ex-champion Jackson might be just what was needed to relieve his scrambled sensibilities, he agreed willingly, and in a moment the two left the house in amity, walking sticks swinging.

* * * *

A few days later, an impressive party made its way through the green vales of Wiltshire. The Bridges rode in their own coach, and in another, the dowager countess made a stately progression in company with Emily Wexford, Amanda, and Lianne, whom the dowager, for reasons of her own, had insisted be included in the party. Amanda could tell nothing from Ash’s shuttered expression, but she assumed he must have seconded the dowager’s wishes. Lianne was obviously pleased to have been invited. Two more vehicles containing luggage and a retinue of servants lumbered behind. Ash rode his own mount.

In consideration for the dowager’s advanced age, the journey had been a leisurely one. Today, conversation had been sporadic among the ladies, Emily being the quiet sort and Lianne perhaps weary of the dowager’s acid responses to her comments. Amanda, too, after three days of travel, found herself disinclined to chatter. She gazed, fascinated, at her first sight of the English countryside. Lord, it was beautiful, dotted with spinneys and villages. Why did anyone live in London? At her side. the dowager dozed fitfully.

Suddenly, Lianne straightened. “Oh, look!” she cried, pointing. “There is the turnoff to Fairwinds. Oh, how I long to see Papa and Mama again, even though it has only been a few weeks since I left home.”

“Then we must be nearing Ashindon Park.” Amanda glanced out the carriage window to where Ash rode beside them. Even after a long, tiring journey, observed Amanda, Ash sat tall and straight in the saddle, and he looked, as always, the complete aristocrat, exuding a male assurance that called to something elemental within her. As she watched, he gestured and pointed ahead with his riding crop. “We’re nearly there!” he called.

A few minutes later, the procession turned from the highway and passed through a gate guarded by stone pillars. A lodge house stood uninhabited, its windows staring emptily at them as they passed. Amanda noted missing roof tiles and areas of crumbling brickwork. They drove for some time through unkempt parkland, and glancing surreptitiously at Ash, she saw his distress in the clench of his jaw and the stiffening of his shoulders.

“There!” cried Lianne as they rounded a long curve. “There is Ashindon Park.”

Amanda looked, and felt something stir within her. a deep welling of helpless yearning that nearly overcame her. The house was not large, compared to the pictures of places such as Blenheim and Woburn she had seen, but it was surely older than either of those. Constructed of some sort of golden stone, it lay against a broad, green hill in a jumble of wings and courtyards. It looked as though it had grown there, nourished by the rain and sunlight of centuries, and Amanda felt as though the place reached out to cast a spell on her. It said “home” to her as had no other dwelling she had ever lived in. She ached to explore it, to know its nooks and crannies, to sleep within its walls and to raise children in its shelter.

Amanda stared, enthralled, as they approached the manor house, and nearly gasped with pain as the evidence of neglect became apparent. Turrets crumbled and chimneys leaned drunkenly. A tangle of overgrown ivy covered windows and cornices, reminding Amanda of a tattered shawl worn to hide the blemishes of an aging Beauty.

When the carriage halted before a stained, weather-beaten entrance, Amanda nearly fell out of the vehicle in her haste. She ran toward the stairs as to a waiting lover, but was halted by Ash’s hand on her arm.

“We won’t be going in just yet. We will go straight on to the dower house. I merely wanted you to see the place.” He nodded briefly to Jeremiah, who was clambering down from the Bridge carriage.

“Looks as though you should pull the whole place down before it falls about our ears,” he grumbled.

“No!” cried Amanda, and as the others swung to her in surprise she mumbled, “that is, I’m sure it’s not as bad as it looks.”

“You are quite right,” responded Ash. “The repairs needed are extensive, but there is life in the old place yet. It will see many more generations of Ashindons.”

As they reentered their carriages and began moving once again, Amanda cast a last glance at the house through the rear window. She suppressed a surge of anguish at the knowledge that it would not be she who would be assisting in producing those generations.

* * * *

“Well,” said Jeremiah a week or so later over breakfast, “I begin to think you were right, missy. It will cost a fortune, but I believe the old place can be made liveable again.”

“What a magnificent edifice!” exclaimed Serena. “You will be able to entertain the entire county, I daresay, and all your London friends when they come to visit. Oh, my dear,” she said ecstatically to Amanda, “you will be the reigning hostess for miles around.”

“What’s that to say to anything?” snorted the dowager countess, who presided over one end of the table in the dower house dining room. “There ain’t nothing for miles around except shabby-genteel squires and pig farmers.”

“Oh, no, surely not!” replied Serena, scandalized. “Why, just next door are the Bonners. Not perhaps the first style of elegance, but perfectly respectable, and Lord and Lady Binstaff live not five miles away. In addition,” she continued defensively, “as I said, I’m sure Lord Ashindon will wish to entertain members of the
ton
residing in London.”

The dowager cackled. “Does that include you and your husband?”

Jeremiah, who had immersed himself in
The Times,
betrayed by only a slight quiver of his paper that he had attended this remark, but Amanda, who had a partial view of her father, noted the telltale crimson that flooded his heavy cheeks.

Serena twittered distressfully, but made no response.

Amanda sank back in her chair, sipping from the cup of coffee she had been nursing for some minutes. Ash was not staying at the dower house, but occupied one of the few remaining bedchambers in the manor house to provide any degree of comfort. Over the last several days, she had explored the house with him from scullery to attics, usually accompanied by one or both of her parents. Wandering through the empty, shadowed rooms in the wake of a silent and rigid Ash, she had fallen completely under the spell of the place. She should have been depressed as she traversed through the empty, shadowed rooms. Holland covers shrouded the furniture, and what could be seen of the interior was hardly promising. The deterioration was still relatively imperceptible, but one had to walk carefully to avoid the rotten places in the ancient wooden flooring. Rain pouring through holes in the roof had caused extensive staining of walls, carpeting, and furnishings. The linenfold paneling in the state dining room almost crumbled to the touch. Filthy crystal chandeliers, missing lustres clanked disconsolately in the breezes that drifted unimpeded through sagging doors and windows. Over all lay a pall of dust and grime that seemed to have been accumulating for centuries. Through it all, Amanda had fallen even more deeply in love with the house.