Spoiled (4 page)

‘Good evening, Mr Buckleigh,' replied the other gentleman, bowing in turn. ‘I am Robert Granby, and with me are my wife and daughter. I trust you do not mind our intruding upon your solitude, but there is no private room.'

‘Really, Papa,' exclaimed Miss Granby, her tone a little breathless. ‘Why should he? It is not his personal room after all.' With half an eye on Michael, she wandered over towards the window, ostensibly to look out at the rain and in so doing dropped her gloves. Buckleigh immediately bent down to pick them up and took them to her. She glanced towards the fire, where her father was absorbed in settling her mother down in a comfortable chair, and took the opportunity to hiss, ‘What on earth are you doing here?'

‘I might ask you the same,' he responded, also in a low tone.

‘Are you following me?' she said suspiciously. ‘Why are you pretending to be a clergyman?'

He was unable to answer this question because Mr Granby's attention was now turned in their direction, so instead he said more loudly, ‘Have you travelled far, Miss Granby?'

Miss Granby, with her back to the room, was not aware that her father was approaching them and said, ‘Don't be absurd.'

‘Evangeline?' questioned her father disapprovingly.

‘I beg pardon, Papa,' she said obediently, but Buckleigh could see that her eyes were blazing.

‘It is not my pardon that you should be begging,' said Mr Granby.

Michael intervened quickly. ‘No indeed, sir, it is not necessary. You heard Miss Granby's words, but did not see her expression. She was teasing me for forgetting that you had already told the landlord in this very room that you had come from Sheffield.'

Granby's expression lightened a little. ‘Indeed. Well, that is a different matter, although the teasing of a clergyman is perhaps not quite the thing.' He frowned briefly, for he could not remember saying anything about Sheffield. In his book, however, the contradicting of a clergyman was just as unsuitable as the teasing of one, so he did not dispute the matter. Besides, they had indeed come from Sheffield, and there was no other way that Mr Buckleigh could have known this unless he, Granby, had said as much. The entrance of the landlord turned his mind to other matters.

‘Rooms are ready now, sir and ladies, if you care to go up,' he said. ‘Dinner can be ready in an hour if that will suit.'

Granby turned to his wife who had been sitting with her eyes closed. ‘Our rooms are ready, my dear, if you would care to come upstairs and rest. Will you join us all for dinner, Mr Buckleigh?'

Michael had already resolved not to dine that evening and the presence of the bogus Miss Evans only confirmed his intention. ‘Thank you, sir, but I have just enjoyed a bowl of excellent soup,' he replied courteously.

Granby smiled. ‘You have a substantial frame, sir, and I doubt if a bowl of soup would fill more than a small corner of it. Give us your company, I beg.'

‘Papa, Mr Leigh has just said that he does not want any dinner,' Evangeline put in, with a sideways glance at the young man. ‘You must permit him to know his own mind.'

‘His name is Mr Buckleigh, Evangeline,' Granby reminded her gently.

‘Did I mispronounce it?' she asked, her tone all innocence. ‘I wonder what made me do that?'

Granby turned to the young clergyman. ‘Will you not change your mind, sir?' he said.

Had it not been for Evangeline's deliberate use of his assumed name, Michael would have stayed with his original intention, but, as she had spoken her last two speeches, there had been mischief in her eye and he
was bound to retaliate. ‘Since you are so pressing, I shall be glad to join you,' he said. Then, not wanting to be caught at fault, he followed father and daughter up the stairs in order to smarten himself up.

 

‘Elsie! Disaster!' exclaimed Evangeline, as soon as she had closed the door behind her.

‘Why, what is it, miss?' The little maid was just finishing setting out the clothes that her mistress was to change into for dinner. ‘Can't we stay after all? Have we got to go back out in that downpour?'

‘Worse!' Evangeline replied, allowing Elsie to make a start with unfastening her, then moving restlessly away before the job was done, obliging the girl to run after her.

‘Well?' prompted Elsie, when her mistress said no more.

Evangeline thought for a moment. Elsie was not always the most discreet of mortals, but the need to unburden herself was great, and anyway the girl already knew half the story. ‘You remember that … that blond buccaneer which whom I had my little adventure? The one in Sheffield?'

‘How could I forget, miss?' Elsie replied, taking advantage of the fact that her mistress was now standing still to finish unfastening her and help her out of her gown. ‘There I was, waiting for you as you said and some saucy lad wanders over and wants to exchange the time of day.'

‘Never mind that,' said Evangeline. ‘He's downstairs.'

‘What? Not that lad?' cried Elsie, looking delighted.

‘No! Not
your
gallant!
Mine
! And masquerading as a clergyman, would you believe!'

‘My life!' Elsie exclaimed, allowing the gown to fall to the floor. ‘What wickedness!'

‘I'm not at all sure that he can't be hanged for it,' Evangeline agreed. ‘So why is he here?'

‘He must have followed you, miss.'

‘Why would he do such a thing?' Evangeline protested. ‘I know I let him kiss me, but—'

‘You
what
, miss? Shame on you!'

‘Well, he is very handsome,' Evangeline answered, blushing, for she had not intended to tell Elsie about the kiss. ‘Come to think of it, he can't have followed me, because he was here first. It must be one of those dreadful coincidences.'

‘Lucky for you, miss, that he is pretending to be a clergyman,' Elsie responded, busying herself about her tasks now that she had recovered
from her earlier shock. ‘He can't tell what the two of you got up to, because if he does, you will be able to expose him for a fraud.'

‘Of course,' Evangeline responded slowly. ‘You're a genius, Elsie. If only I could have a word with him without Papa's being present, I could make sure that he knows that.'

‘Doubtless he'll guess it,' the maid replied. ‘These rogues are very quick thinking.'

‘Yes, and so must you be,' Evangeline retorted. ‘Elsie, if you so much as breathe a single word about what happened in Sheffield, then I will give that blue gown I promised you to … to Cassie the housemaid.' Elsie and Cassie were fierce rivals, especially where attracting the local menfolk was concerned.

‘Miss, you wouldn't!' Elsie exclaimed.

‘See you keep quiet and I won't have to.'

 

Evangeline was in no danger of being exposed by Michael. He was far too concerned about his own position. He had thought just to have a little harmless fling before learning his fate. No one knew better than he how damaging it would be if the story of his adventure got back to the bishop. What would be seen in a young gentleman as a piece of harmless if rather desperate flirtation would be condemned in a clergyman as behaviour unsuitable to a man of the cloth, especially if that clergyman had already blotted his copybook. There would be no escape from unfrocking on another occasion. He would simply have to rely on the fact that Evangeline's reputation would suffer as much as his.

He looked at himself in the mirror, remembered the moment when his mouth had sought hers, and smiled as he thought about the intoxicating taste of her kiss. Pull yourself together, Buckleigh, he told himself severely. He stood, gave his neck-cloth a last tweak, straightened the sleeves of his best evening coat and left his room to go downstairs.

 

The meal, which was served by the landlord on a table which had been laid by his wife in the taproom, was plain but excellent, consisting of a roast chicken and a beef pudding with cabbage and carrots, followed by baked apples, some jam tarts and bread and cheese.

Mr Granby made his wife's apologies before they sat down. ‘The journey has worn her out so she begs to be excused,' he said. ‘Following your recommendation, sir, she is having a bowl of soup in her room.'

Michael expressed his regrets. ‘I trust that a night's sleep will restore her,' he said politely. Both Michael and Evangeline approached the table
a little warily, for despite the decisions that each had made, neither really trusted the other not to make some embarrassing disclosure. Hunger soon took over from anxiety, however, and Michael, who did indeed have as healthy an appetite as might be found in a young man of twenty-eight, did full justice to his plateful. Evangeline also enjoyed her food and, although pride demanded that she should make unflattering contrasts between the fare on offer at The Pheasant and that which graced the tables of the
ton
, she ate some of everything that was put in front of her.

For a time, the conversation ranged around general subjects such as the meal, the state of the roads, the recent weather and the Derbyshire scene. Eventually, however, Mr Granby said, ‘Are you far from home, Mr Buckleigh? Do you come from this part of the world?'

‘I was born some fifty miles away from here,' he replied. ‘My stepfather still lives there with my sister. What of you, sir?'

‘Unlike yourself, we have a mere ten miles or so to travel to our destination, ' Granby replied. ‘We have been in Sheffield for a family wedding.'

‘I, too, have been in Sheffield,' Michael responded.

‘How strange it would have been had we caught sight of one another,' Evangeline remarked, as she picked up her glass of wine.

‘But we would not have known one another's identities,' Michael pointed out. For a moment, she looked at him over the rim and he was reminded most forcibly of the few moments before he kissed her. His gaze dropped to her lips, she coloured and her glance fell away.

‘Were you in Sheffield on business, Mr Buckleigh?' Granby asked.

‘In a manner of speaking. I was paying a visit to my bishop, and I am now travelling to take up a new curacy in this area.'

There was a clatter as Evangeline dropped her fork on to the floor. The landlord was not in the room, so Mr Granby, waving to Michael to sit down, stood up and went to the door to ask for a clean one.

‘How long are you going to keep up this masquerade?' Evangeline hissed.

‘What masquerade?' Michael whispered back.

‘This pretence of being a clergyman.'

‘It's no pretence: I am a clergyman.'

‘Then you should be ashamed of yourself,' she whispered.

‘I am not in the least ashamed of being a clergyman,' Michael responded.

‘What was that?' asked Mr Granby, who had just returned to the
table, and had therefore heard Michael's last sentence. ‘Ashamed of being a clergyman? I should think not. Whatever were you thinking of, Evangeline?'

‘I was only wondering whether in some circles Mr Buckleigh might find his calling … inconvenient.'

Michael laughed. ‘Inconvenient perhaps, but real none the less,' he replied.

‘Indeed,' said Granby nodding. ‘And where might your appointment be?'

‘I am to be the curate of Illingham,' Michael explained. ‘Do you know it? My vicar is Mr Lusty. Perhaps you have heard of him?'

Evangeline dropped her spoon this time, luckily only onto her dish. ‘Oh yes, we've heard of him,' she put in, her tone a little on the cynical side.

‘You know, this is quite extraordinary,' exclaimed Mr Granby. ‘We reside between Illingham and Ashbourne, and are members of your future congregation.'

This time, it was Michael's turn to drop his fork.

Mr Granby glanced from one to the other. ‘Really you young people are exceedingly careless with your cutlery this evening,' he remarked, then looked self-conscious as he realized that he was criticizing the clergyman as well as his daughter.

‘I beg your pardon,' said Michael, making a swift recovery. ‘I was simply astonished at my good fortune. You will be able to tell me all about my future appointment.'

‘That will probably take all of two minutes,' observed Miss Granby tartly. ‘It's the dullest place you ever did see and there's nothing whatsoever to do. Although I am sure that Mr Buckleigh will find plenty to absorb him.'

‘I am certain he will,' said her father.

After a little more conversation, Evangeline stood up. ‘I can see you are going to be talking about Illingham for ever, so I shall retire. Good night, Papa.'

The gentlemen stood up. ‘Good night, Miss Granby,' said Buckleigh, bowing.

Evangeline dropped a small curtsy and turned to go. ‘Evangeline,' Granby prompted.

Michael was half expecting her to say that she had already said good night and she wasn't going to say it again. Instead she said ‘Good night, Mr Buckleigh', before leaving the room, closing the door behind her.

Granby sighed. ‘I must apologize for my daughter,' he said wearily, as if it was something that he had either done or thought about doing many times before.

‘There is no need,' Buckleigh answered politely. Then when Granby's disbelieving gaze met his, he added, ‘A person of Miss Granby's age is surely old enough to make her own apology.'

‘I apologize because it is I who indulged her,' the other man admitted frankly. ‘My wife has always sought to check me, but, as perhaps you can see, she has never been strong. Evangeline is our only child and, because she was rather sickly when small, she became extra precious to us. Now, with years of hindsight to aid me, I see that I allowed this circumstance to make me foolishly fond and over-indulgent.'

‘I see,' Michael answered. He had become used to the fact that his position as a man of the cloth meant that many people chose to confide in him much more quickly than in any other stranger.