Vixen (22 page)

An idea glimmered and a spark of cheerfulness penetrated the bleakness of the day’s memories. “I wonder if that woman you had in the library the other night was in the crowd,” she remarked casually. “I hope she wasn’t hurt. She seemed very nice.”

Hugo drew breath sharply. She was looking at him with an imp of mischief dancing in her eyes and a wicked little curve to her mouth. His world tilted. Grimly, he brought it back on an even keel. He glared at her and said in soft warning, “I should be very careful if I were you, miss.”

Chloe put her head on one side as if considering the advice, then said in a puzzled tone, “But I only said I thought she was nice. Rather plump, of course, but some men like that, I believe. And she had a kind smile and seemed very cheerful.”

Samuel choked and Hugo realized just in time that by responding in any way at all to these outrageous remarks, he would fall into a pit of depthless indignity.

Ignoring her observation, he turned to Samuel with a comment on the afternoon’s mayhem.

Chloe nudged the mare’s flanks and took off down the road at a mad gallop, her hair flying out behind her, the warm air whistling past her ears. The speed seemed to clear her head of the day’s confusions, tensions, and agonies, and her body relaxed, moving fluidly with the roan’s long, graceful stride.

She had decided how to broach the citadel of Hugo Lattimer’s conscience. Constant provocation. She would keep him whirling with one challenge after another. She
knew
instinctively that he wanted to respond to her as he had done once. And since that one experience had aroused in her a vortex of curiosity and yearnings, she could see no bar to bringing about the satisfaction of their mutual interests. And once that was achieved, then she could set about arranging a future that would haul Hugo from his self-imposed renunciation of the world and put her well beyond her half brother’s reach.

W
HEN
C
HLOE CAME
down to the kitchen the following morning, Hugo was sitting at the table in buckskins and top boots, a white linen cravat tied neatly if without great artistry at his throat.

“Are you going to visit someone?” Chloe filled a beaker from the milk churn and drank deeply.

“Your half brother,” he said, pushing his plate away and leaning back in his chair. “To settle the matter of Maid Marion. You did say you wanted to keep her, didn’t you?”

“Oh, yes, of course.” She regarded him thoughtfully, and he caught himself thinking that her eyes were like gentians in the sun. “Will you be discussing anything else?”

Hugo shook his head. “I’ll play it by ear, but I hardly think it’ll be necessary to spell anything out, lass.”

“No, I suppose not,” she agreed, trawling her fingers through a bowl of gooseberries on the table until she found a particularly succulent one.

“Jasper’s not obtuse … although I’m not sure the same could be said of Crispin.” She popped a berry into her mouth and punctured the skin with her front teeth, closing her eyes in unconscious pleasure as the sharp juice squirted down her throat and the lush round fruit yielded its flesh. “Are you going alone?”

Hugo was for a minute riveted by the sheer sensuality of her expression and missed the careful deliberation of the question. How could such a vibrant creature so full of earthly hungers have grown in Elizabeth’s pure, pale
womb? But she’d also sprung from the loins of Stephen Gresham. The black thought came and went with surprising lack of pain.

He stood up. “I’ll only be a couple of hours. If you care to ride out with me this afternoon, lass, I have to do a long-overdue survey of the estate. It’ll give Dante a decent walk too.”

“That’ll be nice,” Chloe said somewhat absently. “Are you leaving now?”

“Shortly.” He strode to the door, “Samuel, I think it’s time young Billy got off his backside and cleaned up the courtyard. He’s been getting away with murder.”

“Right you are,” Samuel said. “I’ll tell ’im.” A pleased little smile lit up his creased countenance as Hugo left the kitchen, and he nodded to himself with secret satisfaction. “You want coddled eggs, lass?”

“Oh, no, thank you, Samuel.” Chloe was on her way out of the kitchen. “I don’t think I want any breakfast.” On which extraordinary statement, she whisked herself out of the door, closing it firmly on Dante, left inside.

“Lord love us,” Samuel muttered. “Now what’s she up to?”

In her room Chloe threw off her gown and hastily donned her riding habit. She flew down the stairs and waited in the hall until she heard Hugo ride out of the courtyard. Then she ran to the stable. “Billy, help me saddle the mare.”

The stable lad shrugged but offered a lethargic helping hand. Chloe led the horse to the mounting block and sprang into the saddle. “Tell Samuel that I’ve gone with Sir Hugo,” she instructed. “Tell him right away, Billy.”

She waited just long enough for the lad to round the corner to the kitchen door and then trotted Maid Marion down the drive. Samuel wouldn’t worry if he knew she was with Hugo.

On the road she encouraged the roan to a gallop toward Shipton. Hugo had perhaps ten minutes start, and he wouldn’t be making particular speed since she doubted he was in a hurry. She should catch up with him very soon.

Hugo heard the pounding hooves behind him and at first took no notice. It was a relatively busy highway. When they were almost beside him, he glanced incuriously over his shoulder.

Chloe beamed at him, drawing rein as she came up with him. “I thought you might like some company.”

“You thought what?” He was for a moment completely taken aback.

“I thought that you’d probably regret deciding to go alone,” she said, still beaming. “And there you’d be, riding along, feeling lonely, with no one to talk to. And I don’t mind at all bearing you company, so here I am.”

The bare-faced effrontery of this sunnily artless justification rendered him momentarily speechless. Chloe continued to chatter, commenting on the warm morning, the beauty of the hedgerows, a red squirrel.

“Quiet!” he demanded when he’d finally gathered his forces. “You have a very short memory, Miss Gresham. I told you only yesterday that I do not tolerate disobedience from those in my charge.”

“Oh, but I’m not disobeying,” she said earnestly. “I was most particularly careful not to ask you if I could accompany you, so you haven’t told me that I may not. If you remember, I only asked you if you intended to go alone.”

Hugo closed his eyes briefly. Of all the scheming little foxes!

“And then, as I said, it occurred to me that no one would truly wish to be alone on such a beautiful morning, and if you were regretting it, then—”

“I heard you the first time,” he snapped. “And it was no more convincing then than it is now.”

“When you’ve stopped being vexed, you’ll realize how much pleasanter it is to have my company,” she said with utter confidence, still smiling. “And I can’t come to any harm from Jasper and Crispin when you’re there to protect me. And I know exactly how we should behave. It’ll be most diverting. We’ll behave as if nothing happened yesterday … as if we don’t suspect anything. We’ll just say we’ve come to buy Maid Marion, and I’ll say that I was sure Crispin would like to know how Plato—”

“Plato?” He was betrayed into the interjection.

“The owl,” she said impatiently. “I’m sure Crispin will like to hear that he’s doing so well. Or at least, that’s what I’ll tell him. But I’m sure he doesn’t really give a damn.”

“You’re sure he doesn’t
what?”
He seemed to be reeling from one outrage to another. “Give a damn.”

“That’s what I thought you said. I refuse to believe the Misses Trent can have taught you such language.”

“Of course not,” she said cheerfully. “I expect I learned it from the poacher or the grooms at the livery stables.”

“Then you will oblige me by unlearning it immediately.”

“Oh, don’t be stuffy. You say it all the time.”
“You
will not.”

“Oh.” Her nose wrinkled at this, then she shrugged and said equably, “Very well. If you don’t wish it. But what do you think of my plan with Jasper and Crispin? I can’t wait to see Jasper’s face when we trot up to his door … all smiles and politeness.”

Hugo privately admitted that the scheme had a certain appeal. However, he was not going to give his manipulative
traveling companion any such satisfaction, and set about dampening her confident high spirits. “This is not a matter for childish games-playing, and your presence is as inappropriate as it’s unwelcome. My business with Jasper most emphatically does not need your input.”

“Oh.” Chloe seemed to consider this, then she said, “I suppose I could go back, but it’s quite a long way, and I know you don’t want me riding alone.”

“And just what, pray, were you doing to get here in the first place?”

The sarcasm ran off her like water on oiled leather. “But that was only a few minutes. I galloped like the wind to catch you up.”

Hugo gave up. He wasn’t going to send her back on her own. He could take her home, of course, but it would be a waste of a morning. He rode on, maintaining a severe silence.

Chloe seemed to feel it was her duty to entertain him. She filled his silence with a cheerful commentary on their surroundings, some reflections on the events of the previous day, and anything else that popped into her head.

He interrupted a minute description of all six of Beatrice’s kittens.
“Must
you talk so much?”

“Not if you don’t wish it,” she said, instantly accommodating. “I want to be exactly the companion you would wish, so if you prefer to be quiet, then I won’t say another word.”

A sound halfway between a strangled sob and a choke of laughter came from her companion.

“Have I amused you?” Her eyes were brimful of merriment as she looked at him.

“I am rarely amused by nuisances. If you value your skin, Miss Gresham, you will refrain from all conversational sallies until we get home,” he declared, managing to school his features with some difficulty.

When they turned up the driveway to Gresham Hall, Hugo wasn’t expecting his own reaction. It had been fourteen years since he’d set foot in this place, and Elizabeth, his unattainable love, had been young and alive. The ruined edifice of Shipton Abbey stood out against the summer sky in a clearing to the right of the driveway, halfway between the road and the house.

He averted his gaze, then forced himself to look at it, to see in his mind’s eye the steps that led to the crypt. The dank smell of corruption was suddenly vivid in the soft summer air, overlaying the rich scent of honeysuckle.

“What is it?” Chloe asked in a near whisper, all raillery and mischief gone from face and voice.

He wrenched his gaze from the scene of past evils. “Painted devils.”

“You said that once before. What are they?”

“None of your business, Miss Poke-nose. It’s time you developed some respect for other people’s privacy.”

“That’s unjust,” she said with quiet force. “And you know it is.”

It was. He sighed. “Since you’re bearing me company against my wishes, it would be tactful, not to say prudent, to intrude on my consciousness as little as possible.”

“Oh, pah,” Chloe said. “If you’re unhappy, then of course I’d try to help.”

“Of course you would,” he murmured. “I can’t think how I could have thought otherwise. However, you may set your mind at rest. I am not unhappy … merely annoyed with you.”

Chloe clearly didn’t think this worth a response. “I haven’t been here since Mama’s funeral,” she observed next. “Louise was very kind, but then Jasper and Crispin weren’t around, so she wasn’t afraid.”

Hugo turned sharply toward her. “Afraid?”

“Most people are afraid of Jasper,” she said matter-of-factly. “Or at least those people he has power over.”

“Are you afraid of him?” He looked at her closely.

Chloe wrinkled her nose in thought. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Or at least until yesterday I wasn’t. I just disliked him heartily. But since he doesn’t have any power over me, I don’t have any reason to fear him, do I?”

“It’s to be hoped not,” he said neutrally.

Chloe seemed to accept this and changed the subject. “Are we going up to the front door?”

“I don’t know how else one would approach when paying a social call.”

“I always went through the side door … because I’m a relative, I suppose.”

“Well, on this occasion you’ll do as I do.”

“Of course,” she said demurely as they trotted onto the gravel sweep in front of the house. “Shall I bang the knocker?”

“If you wish,” he said, giving up his attempt to maintain his severity. It was impossible to stay annoyed with her for more than a minute, and pretending was clearly as much a waste of effort as it was tedious.

Chloe slipped from her horse and ran up the steps, seizing the great brass knocker and banging it with gusto.

The door was opened by a footman in a baize apron. He blinked at the visitor.

“Good morning, Hector. Is Sir Jasper in?”

“Well, well, if it isn’t my little sister.” Jasper spoke from behind the footman. “That’ll be all, Hector.” He stepped into the doorway and looked down on Chloe, one eyebrow raised. “So what brings you?” His eye flickered over her head to where Hugo still sat his horse, impassive on the drive.