Part 8 (1/2)
He glanced at her as she strode purposefully at his side, throwing sticks for the dogs when they raced onto the lane in front of them. Once, as if aware of his glance, she looked sideways, and then returned her gaze to the lane ahead.
She was trying to persuade herself that if she didn't think about that kiss, and never referred to it, then maybe it would be as if it had never happened. Unfortunately she was never very accomplished at fooling herself.
They approached Lacey Court through a stand of trees beside the main driveway. Arabella stopped as the house came in sight. She sighed. ”I suppose I expected as much.”
Jack saw the carriage drawn up at the front steps. A woman in a gown stiff with stays and exaggerated side panniers was descending on the arm of a florid, bewigged gentleman decked out in burgundy velvet. ”I would hazard a guess that Lady Alsop and her husband have come to call,” he said.
”Precisely.” Arabella whistled the dogs to her side. ”If we stay in the trees, they'll go away again,” she suggested hopefully.
”I thought you were relis.h.i.+ng this encounter,” Jack said. ”You promised me some considerable amus.e.m.e.nt.”
”That was yesterday,” she said. ”The prospect seemed appealing but the reality I'm afraid is not.”
”Well, I for one am looking forward to meeting my fellow magistrate and his lady,” Jack stated. He ran his eyes over her, then shook his head slightly. ”Can you get into the house without being seen?”
”Yes,” she said, startled. ”But why would I?”
”My dear, you seem to have acquired pieces of straw, or perhaps it's hay, clinging to the back of your gown. And you have dog hair on the front. And your shoes are hardly suitable for receiving morning callers. And perhaps you might wish to do something with your hair.” He ran a flat palm over the top of her head as he recited the catalog of shortcomings.
Arabella recollected her time in the stable among the puppies. She brushed at the red hair on her skirt. ”Puppies shed.””Yes, they do.” Jack agreed. ”While you change, I'll greet Lady Alsop and her spouse.”Arabella considered. ”How are you going to explain matters?””I'm not sure I need explain anything,” he returned. Her eyes gleamed. ”If you are going to snub Lavinia Alsop, Jack, then I insist upon being there.”
He smiled a slow smile. ”Now, that's better.”She realized what she'd called him, but dismissed it with a mental shrug. ”I insist you wait for me before you meet Lavinia. Instruct Franklin to take refreshments into the drawing room and explain that we'll join them shortly.”
He bowed. ”I can give you twenty minutes.”
”I'll meet you in the library in fifteen.” Without a backward glance, she gathered up her skirts and ran through the trees parallel to the drive, towards the rear of the house. Jack paused long enough to adjust the set of his sword, dust off the skirts of his coat, and straighten the ruffles at neck and wrist, then walked casually up the driveway and around to the side door with the air of a man who owned everything he looked upon.
Chapter 7.
Jack entered the house through the side door and was immediately accosted by a hara.s.sed-looking Franklin.
”There are visitors, your grace. Lord and Lady Alsop. I tried to explain that you were not at home, but her ladys.h.i.+p . . .” He spread his hands wide.
”Is rather difficult to put off,” Jack finished for him. ”Yes, so I understand from Lady Arabella.” He offered the steward an easy smile. ”Lady Arabella has gone upstairs to change. When she comes down we'll greet them together. In the meantime, would you take them refreshment and explain that we've just returned to the house and will join them in a few minutes?”
”Certainly, your grace.” Franklin lost his air of hara.s.sment and went off on his errand with more cert.i.tude in his step.
Jack went into the library, where he poured himself a gla.s.s of madeira from the decanter on the sideboard and waited for Arabella. True to her word, she slipped into the room in less than twenty minutes.
He looked her over. She was wearing the apple-green silk morning gown again and her hair was confined beneath a pretty lace cap.
”Tidy enough for you, your grace?” she inquired with an ironic curtsy.
”You'll do,” he said. ”But I'd dearly like to have the dressing of you. You're a wasted opportunity stuck in this backwater.”
”Now, just what does that mean?” she demanded, unsure whether she'd been insulted or complimented in some roundabout fas.h.i.+on.
”It means, my dear, that with the right clothes and a good hairdresser, you could turn heads,” he said, setting down his gla.s.s. ”Oddly enough, I would like to see that happen. Come, let us beard the dragon lady.”
He opened the door, inviting her to precede him.
And just what did that mean? Arabella wondered, going ahead of him into the hall. Franklin was hovering by the closed double doors to the drawing room and as soon as he saw them, flung them wide.
”Thank you, Franklin,” Arabella said with a smile as she entered the room and dropped a curtsy. ”Lady Alsop, my lord, what a pleasant surprise. How kind of you to call.”
Lady Alsop rose from a damask upholstered side chair, one hand pressed to her bosom. Her double chins wobbled with indignation and she teetered slightly on her high heels. A stuffed dove nesting in her elaborately piled and powdered coiffure quivered on its perch.
”So it's true,” she said in palpitating accents. ”I could hardly credit it, Lady Arabella. You have a man under your roof in your brother's absence.”
”News travels fast,” Arabella said with a twisted smile. ”However, you're perhaps unaware, ma'am, that my brother . . . Lord Dunston . . . is deceased.” She gestured towards Jack, who stood quietly behind her. ”May I present his grace of St. Jules. My brother's heir.”
If the lady heard the introduction, she failed to respond to it. ”Dead,” she exclaimed. ”The earl, deceased. How could this be?” She turned on her husband. ”Alsop, how could this be? How could you not have heard?”
Behind Arabella, Jack took a delicate pinch of snuff, his gaze resting calmly on the visitors. The viscount was struggling to frame an answer to his wife's clearly unanswerable question.
”Who is this man?” Lavinia waved her fan at the duke. ”What is he doing here, Lady Arabella?”
”Forgive me, I thought I'd already made the introduction,” Arabella said without expression. ”Allow me to present my brother's heir, the new owner of Lacey Court.” Her eyes gleamed for an instant as she saw shock and speculation chase each other across Lavinia's startled gaze. Arabella repeated carefully, ”His grace, the duke of St. Jules.”
There was an instant of stunned silence into which Jack, having returned his snuffbox to his pocket, bowed. ”His grace . . .” muttered the lady. Dukes did not come often into her ken. ”The duke of St. Jules . . .” She reached up an unconscious hand and patted the dove as if to rea.s.sure herself that it was still on its perch. An ingratiating smile trembled on her lips.
”The very same, ma'am.” Jack bowed again.
”Well . . . to be sure . . . delighted, your grace. An honor. Alsop, make your bow to his grace.” She waved a hand at the hapless husband as she curtsied.
Alsop obediently bowed deeply, his hat clasped to his breast. ”Your grace.”
Jack's bow was more of a nod and his gray eyes were cool in an expressionless countenance.
Her ladys.h.i.+p fluttered her fan. ”I hadn't understood that his grace was related to the earl of Dunston. Of course, in the circ.u.mstances it's perfectly proper for Lady Arabella to reside under the roof of a relative. Isn't it, Alsop?” She nodded imperatively in her husband's direction.
”Well, yes, in such circ.u.mstances,” the viscount muttered, adding unwisely, ”I was unaware that there was any relations.h.i.+p between the two families.”
His lady looked sharply at Arabella. ”His grace is a relation, I trust, Lady Arabella.”
”Not in the slightest,” Jack said equably.
Lavinia showed signs of regaining her moral outrage. ”Then . . . then how could you possibly be his heir?”
”Is that any of your business, ma'am?” Jack inquired with a faint but chilly smile.
Lady Alsop flushed, the color mounting from her neck in a flood across her heavily rouged and powdered cheeks, moral outrage now at high tide. ”It is most certainly my business when the reputation of our little community is put at risk, one of our neighbors dishonored, disgraced, her reputation in ruins. Duke or not,” she added.
”Good G.o.d, ma'am, have I managed to achieve such wholesale destruction in a mere twenty-four hours?” Jack asked in astonishment. ”Lady Arabella, is this indeed the case?”