The Viscount's Revenge (The Royal Ambition Series Book 4) (25 page)

He was determined to assemble all the facts and explanations in his head before he saw Lord Hawksborough.

He somehow had to explain that the highway robbery, which had seemed so reasonable, a sort of justified revenge, such a short time ago should now seem so wicked and childish. He was inhibited by the knowledge that Lord Hawksborough was in love with Amanda, a fact Richard found very strange. What such a man of the world could be doing falling for a chit like Amanda, thought Richard with affectionate brotherly contempt, was beyond his reasoning.

But what was even more inhibiting was his own feeling for Susan Fitzgerald. There was something about Susan that always brought out the knight-errant in Richard. From first thinking her a decent sort of a girl when he had pretended to Betty Barrington that he had only gone to the seminary because he was in love with Susan, Richard’s feelings had grown gradually warmer. Other girls were prettier, more feminine, but when Susan smiled, she seemed to light up the whole day. He had hoped shortly to ask her to wait for him, to wait until he finished his studies and found some position in life. Now all that was gone, and he had to fight not to feel bitter.

At last, after hours of walking, he decided the time had come to beard his lordship in his den. For the more he thought and worried about it, the more impossible the task seemed.

By the time he reached Berkeley Square, he was in a blue funk and could not help hoping Lord Hawksborough was not at home.

But his heart sank when the butler said his lordship was in the library and waiting for Mr. Colby. He had instructions to show Mr. Colby directly to his lordship the moment Richard arrived.

Richard slowly mounted the stairs, feeling as if he were mounting them on his knees.

Finally he was face to face with Lord Hawksborough. His lordship looked tired and grim. He was wearing an embroidered cambric shirt, leather breeches, and hessians. His shirt was open at the neck and somehow his casual dress made him appear less approachable than his usual impeccable formal wear.

His eyes were flat and cold and he raked Richard from head to toe with a contemptuous glance.

Richard broke the silence. “You found we took the jewels,” he said.

“Like your sister, you seem to have guessed from the look on my face,” said Lord Hawksborough. “Sit down!”

Richard sat down and laid his hat and cane on a nearby table. “I did not guess, my lord,” he said. “Amanda told me.”

“She told you! So
that’s
where she went!”

“Well, don’t you see, she felt she
had
to escape, to get away from you, because…” Richard quailed before the sudden blaze of fury in his lordship’s eyes.

“But of course she did,” said Lord Hawksborough sweetly. “Getting out of a locked room is as nothing to a girl who can hold up a coach.”

“I know we did a dreadful thing. And I know that to say we are sorry is not enough,” said Richard earnestly. “Hear me out… please.”

Lord Hawksborough leaned back in his chair and studied Richard’s face for a long moment, and then he nodded.

Richard took a deep breath and began. He talked for three-quarters of an hour and Lord Hawksborough did not interrupt him once.

Richard began with the death of their parents and with their upbringing by Aunt Matilda. He told him how they had lived on so little money that they had shunned social life, since social life would mean they had to buy clothes. He explained about the life he had led with Amanda, roaming the fields and woods, Amanda being more like a young brother than a girl.

Aunt Matilda, he said, had dinned into them the fact that the Colby’s were gentry and of a higher class than Mr. Brotherington or even the vicar. They had come to think of their elevated social position as something very special, until they had begun to think themselves outside the normal laws of the land.

“I never knew Amanda was leading the life of a household drudge and that her only entertainment was following me around the countryside,” Richard went on. “She never complained. She did not have any schooling, but that did not seem important, since she is only a girl. I never even thought of her marrying one day. I somehow thought we would always go on in the same way. Aunt Matilda did not give either of us much in the way of moral guidance.”

Then he described the assembly. Vividly he recalled his humiliation at the hands of Miss Devine, and vividly he recounted it. He described their desperation, their need to find money. Amanda’s description of what she thought was a great insult on the part of Lord Hawksborough had made them decide on the robbery.

It had seemed a game, said Richard. His voice sank as he told of their fear and shock when Amanda was nearly killed and of how they could not bear to look at the jewels. All they wanted to do was return them as soon as possible.

“Amanda is at Fox End,” he said. “She did not try to escape your punishment for herself. She did not want me to be sent away to sea and took the Oxford Mail so that she could rescue me. But I told her that I would face you and take my punishment. It is different for girls. They get frightened easily. Amanda was shaking so much I thought she was going to break.”

Lord Hawksborough half-turned his head away, and Richard said quickly, “I’m sorry, sir. I know you’re in love with her… Oh, lor’.”

“
How do you know?
” Lord Hawksborough stood up and looked down at Richard. The sun was behind him and his shadow fell across Richard’s face so that Richard could not read his expression.

“Oh…” faltered Richard. “A certain something in the air between the two of you, so strong it was almost tangible. I found it hard to believe. Of course, I could understand
you
being in love, but it seemed funny Amanda being so lost and spoony. She had been such a hoyden only such a short time ago. I suppose brothers are intolerant, but it is a bit upsetting to see one’s sister mooning around after another lady’s fiancé. That sounds rude, but what I meant was—Where are you going, my lord?”

“Fox End,” he said, striding to the door.

“But what about me? When would you like me to sign on?”

“Go back to Oxford, Colby.”

“But, my lord, I must take my punishment!”

“Your punishment, Colby, will be to have me as a brother-in-law.”

The door slammed. Richard, who had risen to his feet at Lord Hawksborough’s departure, sat down again and cried in a most unmanly way out of sheer relief.

He finally dried his eyes, and helped himself to a glass of wine.

The door opened and Susan stood on the threshold, angry color rushing into her face as she saw him.

“Thief!” she screamed. “How
dare
you set foot in this house again?”

Richard marched over and picked her up in his arms and kissed her soundly. Then he plumped her down in a chair and sat opposite her. “You are going to listen to a story,” he said, while Susan stared at him, her mouth hanging open. “It all began when our parents died.…”

Amanda sank down in a kitchen chair and gazed around at the lengthening shadows of evening. She had walked from the Mail to Fox End in the late afternoon, stopping at the vicarage to pick up the keys. She did not feel up to long explanations, and allowed Mrs. Jolly to think that her aunt and Richard were to follow by travelling carriage.

She had fed Bluebell, the donkey, and then Richard’s horse. She had walked about the garden, planning where she would plant all sorts of useful vegetables.

Then she had saddled up Bluebell and ridden to Hember Cross to buy groceries, trying to parry a hundred questions from the townspeople and shopkeepers, the main one being: what was Miss Colby doing back so soon when they had all heard she would be in London for the Season?

Amanda murmured replies that her visit was temporary. She had merely come home after hearing of Mr. Cartwright-Browne’s departure to make sure everything was in order. The townspeople had looked askance at her dusty dress and careworn appearance, but kept their dark thoughts to themselves.

Bluebell decided he wanted to go home as slowly as possible, stopping to look dreamily over hedges or crop grass, until Amanda dismounted and searched through a pannier of groceries to find the sugar loaves.

Once home, she had packed the groceries away and made herself a cold meal. The house seemed dark and silent.

Suddenly she felt nervous. The shadows began to seem threatening, and the once-familiar country noises, sinister.

She decided to light a fire in the morning room. As she crossed the hall, she nearly dropped her candle in fright as an owl hooted from the nearby woods.

Amanda lit the fire and sat back on her heels and watched the blaze.

So this is what her life was going to be like. Perhaps she would have to spend the rest of her days here alone, a shabby spinster, eating only what she could grow in the garden. Perhaps Aunt Matilda might learn after all of the robbery, and decide to stay forever with Mrs. Fitzgerald.

Amanda realized she had never lived alone before. She felt small and infinitely vulnerable. What if Mr. Brotherington should call and start to berate her?

Any thoughts of Lord Hawksborough had been kept at bay by the dash to Oxford and the return to Fox End. Now, all at once, she remembered the warmth and love in his eyes when he had said he would break his engagement.

Hot tears poured down Amanda’s face. There was a sick, gnawing ache inside her and a terrible feeling of loss and mourning.

The sudden hard thud of hooves on the road outside, approaching at a great rate, made her cock her head and listen anxiously. The sound of galloping hooves came nearer and nearer, and then slowed, and then stopped.

And then she heard the banshee wail of the iron gates leading into the drive of Fox End being opened.

Almost immediately afterwards there was a great hammering on the door and a voice crying, “Amanda!”

Amanda slowly got to her feet, and then she gave a great sigh. It must be Richard.

Richard come home to say good-bye.

She rushed and opened the door.

The tall cloaked figure of Lord Hawksborough stood on the step.

“Oh, God!” said Amanda, reeling back, a hand to her lips.

“‘My lord’ will do very well, Amanda,” he said, walking past her into the hall.

Amanda led the way into the morning room.

She stood with her hands behind her back.

“My lord,” she began, “I must try to explain—”

“Do not explain.” He smiled. “Show me.”

“Charles! You forgive me?”

“No, you must marry me as soon as possible.
That
is to be your punishment.”

Amanda ran into his arms and buried her head against his chest.

“And Richard?” came her muffled voice.

“Back at Oxford.”

“Oh, Charles, you are too good. I cannot marry you.”

“You must. I did not bring a carriage. You have no chaperone. You are a fallen woman.”

“You are only marrying me because you are sorry for me.”

“I am not sorry for you in the slightest, my sweeting,” said his lordship, pushing her chin up so that he could see her eyes. “I am sorry for myself. I cannot live without you.”

He bent his head and kissed her long and lingeringly with such tenderness and sweetness that Amanda began to cry again out of sheer happiness.

“I’ve never known such a watering pot,” he murmured. “Will you cry the whole time?”

“No, I shall stop. You must have some refreshment, Charles. You must be famished.”

“I am,” he said, pulling her back into his arms and kissing her again.

“I did not mean
that
precisely,” said Amanda when she could, giggling. “You make me feel quite
wanton.
”

“I can do more than that,” he said huskily, swinging off his cloak and throwing it over a chair. “Now,” he said, his arms about her again, “where is that mouth of yours? I adore it as much as you admire my leg.”

“Charles, how did you manage to forgive me?”

“Richard told me we were in love with each other.”

“
Richard
! Richard cannot see beyond the end of his nose.”

“What fond contempt you two have for each other! Oh,
Amanda
…”

He fell to kissing her again, at great length, and with such expertise that Amanda eventually broke a little away from him and whispered, “I do not mind if you stay the night, Charles.”

“I am going out to stable my horse and I have every intention of staying the night. But not in your bed. No more eccentricities or irregularities. We will do the proper thing and wait for our wedding night, which will be just as soon as I can arrange it. Now, kiss me again.”

Mr. Brotherington slowly backed away from the window of the morning room and went off home, shaking his head with gloomy satisfaction.