Elisabeth Kidd (23 page)

Cedric looked blank for an instant, realizing that his pretty little fiction had fallen apart, but not quite certain how it had happened. Lyle had been adamant that his name be left out of it, and Cedric was positive he had been discreet on this point at least. Had he perhaps puffed up his own role somewhat? Good Lord—could he have been
boasting
?

“Well, yes—all right,” he confessed. “I was there, but I had nothing to do but watch, you know, Sydney. Whole thing was—well, not my doing, anyway.’’

“Whose, then?”

Cedric was well and truly cornered now. It had been a simple enough thing to memorize a part beforehand, but unlike Sydney, he was no natural actor, and nothing came to him extempore except a slight stammer and a great deal of shifting from one foot to the other and, finally, the admission that it had all been Lyle’s idea.

Sydney’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “And how did my lord guardian find out about it? “

“Er—well, he said he got the notion when he ran into D’Arcy at Manton’s, but I expect there must have been more to it than that. He ran me down outside the doctor’s surgery, so he found out about that somehow too, and made me go along to help him—not that I wasn’t happy to see him by then, because I was blessed if I knew what to do next. Lyle did, though.”

“What?”

“Stopped the duel, of course.”

“How?”

“It’s all right now, Sydney, really. No need to get yourself in a state.”

“Does Lyle really know everything?” she asked in a small voice. “All about—about the play, I mean?”

“Well, I suppose he might. I didn’t tell him myself—at least, I don’t think I did.” Cedric looked a little guilty, but went on bravely, “I didn’t mean to give you away, Sydney, give you my word—but Lyle’s awake on all suits, you know. I must have said something, unintended, that gave him the clue.”

Cedric was then suddenly startled out of his comforting, brotherly attitude by Sydney’s twisting herself around and throwing her arms around his neck, saying, “Oh, Cedric, dearest! I know you only wanted to help—please forgive me for not confiding in you before, but I thought—oh, dear!’’

She then burst into tears, a circumstance that effectively stayed Cedric from pushing her away or attempting to explain yet again that he hadn’t done anything at all—he had been up all night, hadn’t he, chasing that prancing fool D’Arcy from one end of London to the other, and getting stiff from sitting around in the night air?

Instead, he put his arms the rest of the way around Sydney, and the heady sensation of holding a warm, feminine, and—he realized suddenly—not quite fully dressed body close to his own quickly overcame his intention of comforting his charge in a respectable tutorish manner. Miss Archer’s unruly black curls looked even more adorable close up, and her tear-stained eyes seemed bluer than ever, almost—but not quite—stunning him into silence.

“Sydney, I—well, I only did it for you. It was a cork-brained thing for you to get everybody into, you know, but I guess you couldn’t help it. And you were awfully good in the Shakespeare.”

Sydney smiled through her tears, adding that weapon to her already overpowering arsenal.

“Oh, Cedric, you are such a kind person, and I love you dearly.’’

Cedric, much against his intention but not entirely against his will, surrendered to superior forces. “Do you really, Sydney? What about—? I mean, would you?”

“Would I what, dearest?”

“Marry me.”

He stared intently at her, and for an instant Sydney seemed taken aback. A light frown fluttered across her forehead, but then disappeared again in an instant.

“Yes,” she said, drawing a deep, determined breath. “I would be proud to marry you, Cedric.’’

“That looks like Sylvie’s carriage,” said Lady Romney, shading her eyes against the afternoon sun sparkling on the Thames. The Marquess of Lyle frowned, but said nothing.

“I expect I should go back to the house,” Vanessa added, looking speculatively at Lyle, who stood beside the landing pier, admiring the prospect across the river from Lady Romney’s residence. Taking advantage of the particularly fine day to offer her guest a stroll around the grounds, she had thought thereby to relieve him of some of the tension that had caused him to pace up and down her drawing room almost continuously for the two days since he had paused at Chiswick in his flight back to Long Hill. He had stayed long enough now to regret having left London, but not yet long enough to make up his mind to go back. Vanessa, who had been surprised, but gratified, to receive him, was now bending her effort to keep him.

She seemed to have succeeded only too well, for Lyle showed great reluctance to bestir himself, and stopped in his tracks every few yards to stare contemplatively at the scenery.

“Do you remember,” he had asked her at one point, “that day—the winter you bought this house—when your carriage lost a wheel in the snow, and we had to walk the last mile here?”

Vanessa did, but would have preferred to forget it. “Yes—and it was blowing a gale as well! I was wretchedly cold, and no doubt looked very wild indeed by the time we got to the door.”

Lyle smiled. “As a matter of fact, I thought you looked charming, with your hair all blown about and your cheeks pink as a child’s. Didn’t you find the storm exhilarating?”

Vanessa had privately thought Lyle to have an odd notion of excitement, but she smiled back and told him she would be sure to invite him to Chiswick again next time there was a storm brewing.

“Sylvie will like someone to meet her,” she said, as the carriage could be heard coming into the drive.

Lyle turned to look, but made no move. “Do you mind terribly if I don’t accompany you, my dear? Judging by the speed Sylvie’s coachman has been urging his cattle to, I suppose her to have some particularly juicy tidbit of gossip to regale you with, which I fear I am not up to hearing at first hand. You go, and give me a suitably expurgated version later.’’

“Very well, Drew, but I think you do Sylvie an injustice. I daresay she has come only because the company in Town has become terribly flat, and if that is the case, I am certain she will wish to talk with you as well.’’

“We shall meet at dinner.’’

Vanessa smiled and turned to go. Lyle gazed admiringly after her tall, slim figure, draped in a becoming but uncharacteristically sunny shade of yellow. As if she were aware of his gaze, Vanessa squared her shoulders slightly and walked with her head held high. For a moment, Lyle felt a certain sympathy for the stubborn pride that held that backbone so erect; but then he realized that it was the characteristic he admired, and not this woman in particular.

He admired her unvarying consideration to him also, but could not help thinking it was becoming a little too predictable, even monotonous. He tried to imagine Vanessa with Sydney Archer’s kind of stubbornness, and the jumble of contradictory qualities that made his ward so delightful and so exasperating at the same time. His imagination balked at such an absurdity.

He considered following Vanessa into the house after all and doing his duty by Sylvie de Lamartine, but then thought better of it. Instead, he took off his coat, folded it into a neat pillow, and lay down on the grass with it under his head. The sun warmed his face pleasantly and he smiled to himself as he remembered a similar occasion when he and Owen Archer had lain down on the banks of the Guadiana near Badajoz and drunk port wine out of a goatskin bag. Lyle closed his eyes so that he did not have to see that Owen was no longer beside him. For a little time, he drifted back into memory.

He was awakened by a trilling laugh not far away, and sat up abruptly. The sun had moved closer to the line of trees along the silvery Thames, but was as yet bright enough to show him all too clearly against the horizon—too late to make an escape, he thought uncharitably—Vanessa and Sylvie, carrying a silly lace parasol and waving gaily at him with her free hand, approaching him with every appearance of capturing him for the remainder of the afternoon.

Vanessa seemed oddly distracted, but this may only have been in contrast to Sylvie, who laughed again and kissed Lyle lightly on the cheek, enveloping him in the cloying scent she always wore.

“My dear Lyle!” she exclaimed, in an equally cloying voice. “I simply
had
to congratulate you personally on your achievement! I wonder you are not in Town to crow of it at this moment!”

“Sylvie, really—” Vanessa began. Lyle made a gesture to stop her.

“All right, Sylvie, I’ll rise to your bait,” he said, admitting to himself some curiosity as to which particular on-dit Sylvie had got hold of. “What is it that I am to be congratulated on? From the ever-so-faint scowl on your charming brow, I imagine it must be something that does not quite meet with your approval.”

The line on Mrs. de Lamartine’s powdered forehead erased itself, but her eyes remained narrowed in speculation. “Why, I am sure I have no objection, although I imagine Janine may be a little disappointed—as will, no doubt, most of the season’s belles and their mamas, including Prue Whitlatch, who was most reluctant to tell me about it. I suppose she still had hopes for little Susan in that direction. After all, next to yourself, Lyle, I am sure there is not a more desirable parti to be had.”

“Than whom?’’ Lyle enquired patiently.

“Why, Cedric Maitland, to be sure! Who would have imagined he would ever be caught? I’m sure I never did—nor any other mother. Well, I wish them very happy, for your sake, Lyle, but—”

The Marquess glanced over the top of Sylvie’s unnaturally red head at Vanessa, but she still wore that odd expression, and did not meet his eyes. A sensation of being somewhere else entirely came over Lyle, and when he spoke he had to restrain himself from looking around to see who it was asking Sylvie, quite calmly, “Whom precisely is Cedric supposed to have been caught by?”

“Why, by your delightful little ward, of course!” Sylvie finally told him, a distinct note of triumph mixed with the honey in her voice.

Lyle’s other self was aware that Sylvie must have insisted to Vanessa that she be allowed to reveal this staggering news to him personally, in order to observe his reaction, and doubtless to report it to anyone—which was to say everyone—who would listen to the tale. He did not care in the slightest if she reported that he had stormed and shouted all over Vanessa’s carefully manicured lawn, which his first instinct told him to do; but that other self saved him, if just barely, from making any such exhibition.

“I fear you have been misinformed,” he told Sylvie, in a humouring tone, as if she had told him she had read in the Gazette that the Duke of Clarence had married Lady Caro Lamb. “Miss Archer is indeed engaged to be married, but she has caught a bigger fish—as you will have it, my dear Sylvie—than a mere Mr. Maitland. Vanessa, if you will forgive me, I will return to Town immediately, to try to squelch this rumour before some other loose-tongued female begins to bruit it about.”

He kissed Vanessa’s hand in farewell, but although he pointedly ignored Mrs. de Lamartine’s, that lady could not resist calling after him as he strode across the grass towards the stables, “But, Lyle—who then is she—?”

“I suggest, Sylvie, that you memorize the name of the future Marchioness of Lyle, for I do not care to hear her again addressed as
she
!”

He resisted the temptation to look back then, but he could guess at the expression on Sylvie de Lamartine’s face. What he never knew was that Lady Romney turned to her friend and informed her in a furious whisper, “Sylvie, you are the greatest fool in nature!’’

Lyle was driving through Kensington village before the mists in his brain cleared and he was able to consider precisely how he was going to keep from making a liar of himself. Whatever made him imagine, even for an instant, that Sydney would have him? She had been right about him—he was arrogant and selfish and insensitive. Well, he thought with a wry smile, perhaps she would find the challenge of fashioning something worthwhile of such unpromising material sufficient compensation for becoming a marchioness.

Having lost track of the time, he turned to drive through the Park, only to discover himself in the midst of the daily afternoon parade of fashionables come to admire one another and comment behind raised hands upon how dowdy this lady dressed and how poorly that gentleman sat his horse. Hoping that Cedric and Sydney might be among the throng, Lyle joined it and was shortly rewarded by the sight of Cedric’s new phaeton making its way towards him. Both occupants saw him at once; Cedric’s countenance was struck by a panicked look, rather like a startled hare’s, but Sydney stared coolly at Lyle and put her hand possessively through Cedric’s arm—much to the detriment of Mr. Maitland’s driving ability.

“Good afternoon, Cedric,” Lyle said conversationally, pulling alongside them. “You should not purchase such outlandish vehicles if you are not able to control them, you know.”

“He was handling it perfectly well until you came too close, my lord!” Sydney said, entirely without justification but in admirable defense of her escort, who said nothing for himself. Lyle got down from his curricle, handed the reins to Cedric’s tiger for a moment, and walked around to Sydney’s side of the phaeton.

“Kindly get down, Miss Archer. I wish to speak with you.”

“Oh, look here, Drew,” Cedric said at last. “It’s me you should talk to.”

“Yes, I know. I will get to you later—in Grosvenor Square in half an hour, to be precise. Get down, Miss Archer, before we attract attention.’’

If he had thought about it for a moment, Lyle would have realized that Sydney’s cool manner was so foreign to her as to be a sure indication of extreme inner turmoil. She got down without another word and meekly allowed herself to be handed up into the Marquess’s curricle, sending a watery smile after Cedric as he turned to drive out of the Park again. Neither Sydney nor Lyle said anything until he had driven into a quiet, tree-lined pathway well away from the crowd, and stopped again. Handing Sydney down, he led her into a shaded grove and then, much to her astonishment, took her in his arms and kissed her.