“He does indeed appear to have taken little harm, sir. I did, of course, suggest that he keep to his bed with a little gruel to avert any excitation of the nervesâThat was wise, do you not think, Lady Collier? You have so much experience in these mattersâWill you take a glass of lemonade, my lord?” She turned to his lordship, a brittle smile on her lips, and encountered a look that brought the bright prattle to a full stop.
“No, I thank you,” he said icily. “I will, if I may, visit the patient. I am sure you ladies have much to discuss.” He bowed to the company in general, accorded Merrie a curt nod, and left the parlor.
Merrie had absolutely no idea where Rob was to be found, not in his bed with a bowl of gruel that was for sure. She wondered a little nervously if Rutherford would return to confront her with her lie. He had looked furious enough to be capable of anything, but surely he must realize she had had a particularly good reason for involving him in that exaggerated display of idiocy? Of course, if he thought she was just playing games with him again, their accord of last evening would be in some danger.
“Well, I will say, my dear, Lord Rutherford's taking an interest in your brothers must be most gratifying,” Patience declared, gathering up her reticule. “It may be a little unusual, but I see no harm in it. It is quite clear that he has no ulterior motives. You may rest assured that I will put all malicious rumors to rest.”
“Oh, Patience!” Meredith gazed in wide-eyed horror at her visitor. “Whatever can you mean? Ulterior motivesârumors. You could not be suggesting that people might think ... ? Oh, dear me, I feel quite faint.” Sinking onto the couch, she began fanning herself frantically with one hand. “Such a dreadful possibility had never crossed my mind.”
“You are such a sweet innocent, Meredith,” Patience bent solicitously over her. “It is because we know you to be so that we have your interests so much at heart. When poor Sir John passed away, Sir Algernon said that we must all take a care for the little widow. His very words.” She looked at her companions with a complacent nod. “Sir Algernon is such a sympathetic soul, and he always knows exactly what is to be done.”
“You are all so kind. I am quite overwhelmed,” Meredith murmured, wondering desperately whether a quick recovery would ensure their departure or whether she should feign a complete collapse and summon Seecombe to convey her to her bedchamber.
“Take heart, now, Lady Blake.” Lady Collier spoke briskly. “We must be thankful that Sir John made adequate provision for your brothers' schooling. It is a great deal more than many a gentleman would make for his wife's family, as my dear Sir Peter was saying only the other night. I dread to think what would have become of them had you been obliged to educate them at home. There would have been no steadying outside influence, no true discipline.” She gave Merrie a condescending smile. “We know you do your best, my dear Lady Blake, but a young woman, unsupported by the rock of a husband, cannot hope to influence children in the correct paths.”
Meredith pressed a handkerchief to her eyes. “My dear, dear husband was such a rock.” Her voice was choked. “Such a splendid example to the boys.” She dabbed at her nose and blinked rapidly. “Ladiesâdear friendsâI must ask you to excuse me.”
“Yes, of course. Do not trouble yourself to see us out, my dear.” Patience patted a limp hand again. “Have a good cry, now. It will make you feel much more the thing.”
“I hope to see you at Lavender Hill tomorrow evening, Lady Blake,” Mrs. Ansby said, drawing on her gloves. “Tea and cards, and a little music. Vicar and Mrs. Elsbury will be joining us. We shall play only for counters, of course, as it is Sunday. I do not think the vicar will object to that.” She conveyed the benediction of what its recipient supposed was a smile. “Come, Elizabeth.” Miss Ansby, in her turn, stroked the afflicted widow's shoulder, tutted sympathetically, and followed her mama.
It remained only for Lady Collier to pat Merrie's shoulder condescendingly and make her farewells; then Merrie was alone. With quiet deliberation, she picked up the empty pitcher and hurled it across the room where it smashed against the wainscot in a thoroughly satisfying cascade of glass.
“Bravo!” Lord Rutherford applauded softly from the door. “So the little widow shows her teeth.” He closed the door behind him and lounged against it with folded arms as the glasses, one by one, joined the shattered pitcher.
“It is insufferable!” Meredith raged, pacing the room in a manner that spoke more clearly than anything else the agitation of her spirits. “Adequate provision for the boys' education, indeed! A rock of support! A perfect example of manhood. Oh, there are times when I cannot bear the hypocrisy! Everyone is aware of the truth.”
“I fear, Lady Blake, that I am not. Will you not enlighten me?”
Meredith paused in her restless pacing and sighed. “What an abominable display of temper, sir. Pray accept my apologies.”
Rutherford chuckled. “No need. You forget that I have been on the receiving end of your tantrums before. At least
that
one didn't seem to be directed at me personally. I would like an explanation for it, though.”
She stood for a moment nibbling the tip of her thumb, deep frown lines between her eyebrows.
“Meredith,” Lord Rutherford said. “I am reluctant to appear importunate, but I must repeat, I would like an explanation.”
“Why?” Meredith demanded. “It is actually no business of yours, my lord. You are not of these parts. If you were, you would have no need of explanation.”
“And I am going to take my pampered aristocratic body back to London at the first sign of a mud puddle,” he said amiably. “You've said that so many times, it does not bear further repetition. Obviously, I must demonstrate why your business is to some extent mine also.”
He strolled forward, eyes glinting. Merrie backed away swiftly. A large cabinet prevented her from retreating further and, Rutherford coolly following, she found herself cornered. He stood in front of her, looking down into her face with a tiny smile. She could not take her gaze from his, could not hide the anticipation quivering in the purple depths of her eyes, could not control the strange spreading sensation starting in her belly and creeping down over her thighs as if sinew and muscle were losing all substance.
For a long moment, the charged silence continued, the suddenly his smile broadened. “You shall have your kiss, Merrie Trelawney, when you have told me what I wish to know. It does not seem a sensible tactic to reward obstinacy.”
“Why you pompous, complacent bastard!” Meredith yelped. “Leave my house this instant!”
“Do not be missish,” he advised gently, selecting an apple from the fruit bowl on the table, crunching into it with every appearance of pleasure. “I want to kiss you as much as you want to be kissed, and once we have disposed of this tedious procrastination of yours, we shall both be able to enjoy ourselves.”
“Do you make it a habit to offer insult to respectable widows, sir?” Meredith glared at him as she wondered if she would ever be in control of this encounter.
“Indeed not, ma'am!” he declared with every appearance of outraged horror. “Whatever could have given you such an idea?” His eyes twinkled. “Unless, of course, you consider yourself to be respectable, Merrie Trelawney. If so, I beg leave to inform you that you are the least respectable widow it has been my good fortune to meet.”
It was quite hopeless. She looked merely silly attempting to stand on a dignity that she did not have. Merrie sighed in frustration, making no attempt to refute the charge they both knew to be true. “I do wish you had not come into Cornwall. It is making everything most awkward.”
“You are wholly adorable,” Lord Rutherford declared, not a whit put out by this statement. “Except when you are playing a half-witted nincompoop,” he added. “Those displays arouse in me nothing more than the desire to shake you soundly.”
“You do not understand.” Merrie moved restlessly around the room, straightening ornaments and cushions with impatient fingers.
“Unless my memory fails me, I have been begging for enlightenment for the past half an hour,” Rutherford said.
“My neighbors called upon me this morning to express their shock and dismay at my boldnessâthe dreadful impropriety I showed in going to your house yesterday. I cannot even be seen talking to you in the public street, it would seem, without giving rise to malicious rumor. They had only my best interests at heart, you understand?” Her lips twisted in a sardonic travesty of a smile and her listener nodded without comment.
“I played the shocked innocent,” Merrie explained. “I was obliged toâuhâto tell some small untruths.” She gave him that guilty look again.
“Pray continue,” he prompted, keeping his face expressionless although his eyes danced.
“Well, I said that you had been kind enough to interest yourself in my brothers because you had told Rob you were in need of occupation after your experiences in the Peninsula.” The look she gave him this time was half rueful, half defiant. “I am sorry if you do not like it, sir, but I had to think of something. I did not mean to betray a confidence.”
“You are thoroughly unprincipled,” he said with mock severity. “But I will reserve my wrath since I feel sure you have not yet made a clean breast.”
“I was obliged to demonstrate, sir, that you could have no possible interest in me, thatâthat no sensible man could. And I said also that you were willing to advise Hugo where I could not in the matter of his taking orders.” This last was said in a rush as if only thus could the full disclosure be made.
“I am to advise Hugo onâOh, no, Meredith! That is the outside of enough! The rest I will go along with, will even allow that on the spur of the moment it was an understandable fabrication, but that is gilding the lily beyond what is permissible.”
“I beg your pardon, Lord Rutherford.” Meredith began to rub at a smudge on the sleeve of her print gown.
“I do not think you have ever been repentant in your life,” Damian pronounced, lifting her chin again. “What did those cats say to bring about that tantrum? Something to do with hypocrisy, as I recall.”
“It pleases this society to remember my late husband as a pillar of the community, a generous man who undertook to provide for his wife's orphaned brothers, who gave them wise counsel and exhibited all the qualities they should emulate. A man, in short, whose death was a tragedy for all who knew him.” Her voice was bitter, her eyes filled with cold distaste. “The truth, my lord, was far from that as they are all aware.”
“What was the truth?” He still held her chin but, when she pulled away, released it immediately.
Meredith sighed and went over to the open window. “It was my father's wish that I marry Sir John. Father knew he was dying, our mother had passed away some two years previously and we were none of us of age. The only possible guardian in Cornwall was an elderly relative of my mother's, but my father had never got on with the Merediths. I was not unduly averse to the idea. Sir John was personable enough, his Cornish lineage was almost as old as mine, he lived the life I was used to, and Father would die easy.” She shrugged but kept her back toward her audience.
Damian would have found nothing unusual in this story if it had been anyone but Merrie Trelawney telling it. This blind acceptance of a mediocre fate at the command of her father did not sit right with what he knew of the woman.
“My inheritance, and that of my brothers', was placed, as is customary, in the hands of my husband who was also the boys' guardian.” She swung round to face him, resting her hands on the window sill at her back. “It is not a pretty story, Lord Rutherford, but a sufficiently familiar one for you to be able to guess at its conclusion. Had my husband not died when he did, we would have been completely destitute. As it was, all furniture and possessions of any value, be they Blake, Meredith, or Trelawney, were sold, and the proceeds managed to cover the outstanding gaming debts. The house and estate are heavily mortgaged, but with stringent economies we are able to keep our independence.”
Rutherford frowned. It was not a pretty story, as she had said, and neither was it unusual except for the personality of one of the chief protagonists. “Forgive me, Merrie, but I do not think you married a man to whom you were basically indifferent just to please your father.”
Meredith decided that Lord Rutherford was a great deal too perspicacious for comfort. But then that was not an unexpected revelation. “No,” she agreed, in her customary forthright fashion. “But had I not done so, the boys would have been separated, sent to live with different relatives out of Cornwall, and it would have been quite dreadful for them. Besides, I daresay I should have been obliged to live with Aunt Mary in Helston.” She pulled a face. “If you had met my Aunt Mary, Lord Rutherford, you would understand why I chose as I did. She has an abominable little pug which must be walked three times a day, and she does not keep enough servants so someone must polish the silverware and do the mendingâ”
“Enough!” Rutherford gazed at her in undisguised horror. “I quite see that Aunt Mary's establishment would not do at all.”
“No, but had I been aware that my husband would run through my brothers' fortunes, I daresay I would have bowed to necessity,” she said grimly. “As it is, I must do what I can to ensure that they do not suffer too much from my mistaken decision.”
“And how do you propose doing that?” Rutherford asked with considerable interest. The statement had been made with such confidence, she must have a definite plan, he decided. Although what an impoverished widow could possibly do to repair such a catastrophe, he could not begin to imagine.