The Rambunctious Lady Royston (24 page)

He settled himself in his armchair and gave himself over to contemplation of his wife's behavior. True, she was a hoyden—but a harmless hoyden. Or at least, she had been until now. The introduction of a young man to her travels put, if he chose to lend credence to his former butler's opinion, a sinister light on her activities.

Had she sought out a younger man—a man more open in his manner, who would give his heart unstintingly instead of only taking what was offered him while still holding a part of himself back from a relationship that could prove personally painful?

Ah, pride! It was his besetting sin. Silently he acknowledged that there had been, even in their passion, a certain want of openness on his part. Mayhap it was time he bared his soul to his young wife: admitted once and for all that he was her slave unto eternity. Hadn't she done as much when she told him she loved him?

But she was so young, so inexperienced. How could she, a child actually, know for certain that what she felt for her husband was the very real, lasting love that he so craved from her?

He couldn't bear it if he confessed his love, only to have her repudiate it for some younger man who better fitted her immature image of true love. He banged his fist down on the table. Pride! His own damn fool pride. He was too afraid of losing face to give voice to his feelings.

"Oh, Sam," he moaned aloud. "You are an imp sent specially to torment me. When first we met I saw you as a diversion, a plaything. Who is whose puppet now, eh? Damn it!" he exploded, coming to himself with a start. "I was never any woman's tame cat, and I'll not start now."

Regardless of this show of independence, and even after half-convincing himself that the young man Carstairs had seen with Samantha had only be a chance acquaintance, Zachary was lost in a brown study when Samantha entered the room some time later. She had shed her breeches and donned a fetching blue shot-silk gown whose daring neckline showed (among other things), the Royston diamonds to great advantage.

She knew she was in looks tonight, her flushed cheeks the result of guilt at her deceit of the afternoon. But Royston wasn't to know that, was he, so she could not understand her uneasiness in his presence. Covering her nervousness with a show of bravado, she called out, "What ho, husband? Why are you hiding away in here alone? I had the devil's own time finding you, with the halls full of wandering footmen and Carstairs nowhere in sight."

The Earl roused himself sufficiently to appreciate his wife's dazzling appearance, and rose to kiss her outstretched fingertips. "Carstairs is gone, pet. I dismissed him," he told her, quite without emotion.

Samantha frowned for a moment, and then said the very last thing the Earl expected. "Old Carstairs has been rousted, has he? I wonder if he took the mice with him."

"Mice? What mice, dearest?" the Earl asked, his mind finally registering that Samantha had never been very enchanted with the Royston family butler.

Instantly regretting her verbal slip, Samantha threaded her arm through Zachary's and deftly changed the subject. "Look at my discovery, Zachary," she exclaimed, shoving a tiny enameled-gold box in his face. "I have decided to set a new style. I am going to start taking snuff. Yes, yes," she nodded, as St. John began to speak, "I know ladies have been taking snuff since before I was born. But only some women, Zachary. The practice has never become that widespread. By the time I‘m done—my collection of boxes and I and my dyed-and-scented snuff, that is—there shan't be a female in town not sniffing and sneezing in imitation of me."

St. John allowed his doubts of the afternoon to recede to the back of his mind, and decided to enjoy his wife while he yet had the right. "And you really think you wield that much control over Society? Your arrogance, my sweet, near overwhelms me—not to mention that your manners, if you really intend to go public with this distasteful habit, are deplorable."

Samantha made a face. "Oh, really, sir? And you, on the other hand, are the complete nobleman?" With a swish of her skirts, she turned and seated herself with a flourish to sit glaring up at him.

Seeing the militant gleam in her eye, Zachary decided that—after his travails of the afternoon, brought on by his wife's misbehavior—he was to be excused if he had himself a little sport at her expense and teased, "Has London's premiere Original and style-setter extraordinaire then, in her capriciousness, discarded parasols?"

Samantha arranged her skirts with some care. "La, yes, my lord," she cooed, playing her role of society queen to the hilt. "I have, in fact, become quite bored with the contraptions. All that putting up and taking down—quite fatiguing, I vow," she sighed, only to spoil her performance by ending with a giggle, "Can you just picture all the ladies' maids parading mornings in Green Park, with their mistresses' discarded lace parasols shading their self-satisfied noses."

St. John could not keep a straight face at this thought, and as he laughed, Samantha quipped, "There, Master Grump! I have lightened your mood. Now," she prodded, patting the space beside her, "since I have once again performed the task for which I was hired—that of entertaining you—I demand you show your appreciation by sitting with me and giving me some little instruction in the proper taking of snuff."

There followed a lesson on the proper grip (one-handed, as per Beau Brummell's own technique), pinching, and sniffing of snuff. After observing her husband for some minutes, Samantha felt herself ready to give it a try—an attempt that ended with her face turning beet-red, her eyes watering profusely, and her nose twitching uncontrollably until she gave out with a resounding sneeze that shook the ostrich plumes atop her head.

A prudent man would have refrained from laughter at his wife's discomfiture. Zachary St. John, however, threw back his head and roared, a tactical error he paid for immediately as Samantha held up the open snuffbox and, with one breath, succeeded in blowing up a huge cloud of the stuff that settled all over Zachary's head and shoulders.

One look at him—sitting there, looking like a real-to-life snowman—was enough to instill Samantha with a belated sense of self-preservation, and she quickly ran from the room, sure Zachary was hard on her heels. He would have been, too, had he not been otherwise occupied—doubled up as he was in a paroxysm of sneezing.

Samantha studiously avoided being alone with St. John that evening at the dinner party they attended with Isabella and Aunt Loretta. But she knew his revenge, when it came, would not be too unpleasant. He had, after all, been winking at her across the table all evening—as she strove unsuccessfully to keep a suitably solemn expression on her face while Lord Holland recited his agonies with the gout in great detail.

It was only after the ladies retired, leaving the gentlemen to their port and cigars, that Isabella could pigeonhole Samantha and pump her about her meeting with Robert.

Her sister's first impulse—to roast Isabella a bit about her glover swain—was stifled by the pair of wide-blue eyes gazing at her, full of trust and hope. "Marry him," Samantha found herself blurting out. "Elope with your Robert just as soon as you are able and leave the consequences to me.

"Marry him!" Isabella squeaked loudly, causing Aunt Loretta to look over at her nieces and lament yet again Samantha's regrettable influence on her elder sister. Really, raising her voice so shrilly while in company! What had the girl said? Marry? Who was to be married? Aunt Loretta drew her shawl more securely about her shoulders and shrugged carelessly. Her meal had left her too comfortably drowsy to encourage heavy thinking, which was not an easy task for her at the best of times.

Isabella, hand clasped to her mouth, nervously cast her eyes about the room to see if anyone else had heard her and, satisfied they had not, whispered hoarsely to Samantha, "Marry him, Sammy? How can you be so cruel? You know it is impossible."

Samantha took our her snuffbox and sniffed a prudently dainty pinch before answering blightingly, "Don't be so missish, Izzy. By the time I left Robert today, he had all but screwed himself up to the sticking point. But on rethinking the matter, I believe it best we bypass asking Papa's blessing and present him with an accomplished fact. Robert does really love you, you know. He's quite soppy about you, as a matter of fact. I could hardly keep a straight face at some of his outrageous avowals of your perfection."

Isabella blushed furiously. "Th-that is all very well, Sammy. But to elope? My head whirls at the thought."

The snuffbox snapped closed with a click. "Izzy," her sister warned, "if you're sincere, you must prove it to Robert. If you cannot make the least push—show you're willing to dare all for love, as it were—I may as well put an end to this foolishness and tell Papa what you are about. After all, it will save Robert further hurt if you are merely toying with his affections, with no real intention of marrying him."

As was to be expected, Isabella began to sniffle as Samantha's bluntness overset her fragile sensibilities. "I don't know if I am on my head or on my heels. I love Robert, but to elope—it is all so frightening. It is not that I am so hen-hearted that I hesitate. It's Robert I am worried about. How happy will he be if Papa refuses to know him?"

Unbeknownst to either of the earnestly conversing plotters, the men had entered the room. Zachary was even then moving to within earshot.

"Never fear for that," he heard Samantha aver confidently. "As a Countess, I wield no inconsiderable weight in Society. Once he is seen with me, he will be accepted. And if the thought of money worries you, Royston is so deep in the pocket that he'll never miss any funds I may choose to grant Robert until he can set himself up in some enterprise of his own."

What the deuce is the chit talking about? St. John wondered to himself. And who the hell was Robert? He edged closer and Samantha obligingly enlightened him.

"Robert may only be an assistant glover in a small shop on Conduit Street, but he is handsome enough to be a by-blow of a prince of the blood. With those haunting grey eyes and that coal-black hair, I vow Isabella, I can see why ..." The rest of Samantha's words were drowned out by Lady Harold's shriek of alarm as her trailing shawl fell victim to a hot ember from the fire, and the entire company laughed uproariously as Lord Harold stomped the blaze down with all the fervor of St. Patrick trampling down snakes.

But Royston had heard enough to put him in a deep melancholy for the rest of the evening—indeed, for the remainder of the week.

Samantha, in her turn, was at first angered, then dismayed by Zachary's seeming withdrawal of his affections. Not that he turned her from his bed. On the contrary, his lovemaking became even more intense, almost desperate, in fact. It was in their daytime relationship that she sensed him watching her covertly. Yet when she spoke to him, he did not always respond, as if his mind were miles away and concentrating on some weighty dilemma.

Now Samantha had two problems: Zachary's odd mood and Isabella's elopement, for she had finally seen things Samantha's way. Not to be mistaken for a person who readily succumbed to difficulty, she decided to get this business of Isabella and Robert behind her, leaving her mind free to devote all her energies to improving St. John's humor.

So thinking, she made several forays to Ardsley House and Conduit Street in the next week, gradually becoming aware that she was being followed each time she set foot outside Portman Square in the guise of Samuel Smythe-Wright. Perhaps Zachary was still nervous about her "little adventures" and—knowing it to be the height of folly to believe she had foregone her excursions at his request—he had decided to lend her the protection of one of his servants.

She was partially correct. St. John did have Samantha's well-being in mind, but he had an ulterior motive as well. He wanted to ascertain the identity of the unknown Robert who had somehow placed his wife in his debt, to the point that she would set up clandestine meetings with the man.

On the day Isabella and Robert had chosen for the elopement, Samantha left Portman Square as quietly as possible and then, fighting down serious qualms as to her actions, proceeded to lead Zachary's man a merry chase until at last she was sure she had lost him. She then doubled back to meet Isabella and her abigail in the park.

Once the young maid was sent off on some trumped-up errand, the two conspirators hailed a hackney that deposited them in Conduit Street.

Within moments of entering the glove shop, Robert whisked the pair of them up the stairs and was even then sitting close beside Isabella on the small threadbare Bratting settee—fondling her hand as she gazed adoringly up into his face, her eyes shining like carriage lamps.

Tearing his gaze reluctantly away from his beloved, he exclaimed, "Samuel, you are a genius!" to which Samantha waved a hand dismissively and returned modestly, "Pooh! I'm nothing of the sort."

"Too right," came a voice from the other room, before Jack Bratting joined the little group. "Robert, old friend, your Miss Isabella may be a fine lady, and your Mr. Smythe-Wright a great gun, but I see naught but disaster comin' from this day's work." Robert's friend and employer, a right dapper-looking older man, then shook his head sorrowfully and added, "And you not even sure you are free to wed the lass at all."

Isabella gasped and looked fearfully at Robert, who quickly protested, "I would know that, Jack. I would sense it, I'm sure of it!" and then set himself to comforting his suddenly tearful sweetheart.

Samantha looked about the room, taking in its shabby furnishings: the cooing lovebirds on the settee, and the glover—who was just now glowering at her—and could not help but feel uneasy. Perhaps she should have talked to Zachary before she took the action so firmly into her own hands.

While Samantha was pacing the small room, nervously chewing her lower lip, Zachary St. John was closeted with his spy, Rooker—a maggoty-looking fellow but (to St. John's mind) a necessary evil, employed as he was to keep the Earl abreast of Samantha's activities and to protect her from herself, if need be.

"Tried to gimme the slip, her did, yer worship, but Oi weren't buying it, ya ken," said the redoubtable Rooker with a gape-mouthed grin. "Oi jist doubled back to Conduit nice and tight, figgerin' her'd show up there by the by. Her always do, and sure 'nough, Oi seen 'em—her and that sis of hers a-sneakin' in the glover's shop." Rooker laughed. "Rumbled their lay proper, Oi did, them bein' amateurs an' all. Then Oi hot-footed it back 'ere, 'cause sure as check they's up ta somethin'. Wot do we do now, yer worship?"