Babe (26 page)

When she heard a firm tread at the door, she turned anxiously, expecting a doctor. “Thank God you’ve come!” she said, then stopped, struck to silence.

Clivedon stood one pace within the room. He did not look angry, as she expected. His appearance was of a man who beheld a ghost, the sight of which froze him to the spot. One foot was extended, indicating a long stride, with an arm to balance, but he stood stock-still, staring at the scene before him. In a heartbeat he had resumed motion towards her. “Babe, what is it?”

Her first shock at seeing him was overcome by a wave of great relief. “Oh, Clivedon, help me! I think I’ve killed him,” she said, and pitched herself into his arms to heave two convulsive sobs before recovering her voice.

“Hush,” he said, in a low but commanding voice, bending his head to hers to conceal the word from the servants. She could perceive no point in trying to hide it, when the corpse lay before them all, but sensed some purpose in him, knew him well enough to trust him. How glad she was to let him take over her problems once again. The third sob was a sigh of relief. The idea came to her that she had reached a calm port after a stormy voyage. Weary and worried, she wished she could close out the world and stay forever in his arms.

Clivedon glanced at the prostrate and very pale body on the sofa, at the goggling servants, at the champagne bottle on the floor, its contents making a dark mark on the carpet, and formed an idea of what had happened. “We’ll handle this now, thank you,” he said to the servants. They stood on, staring, till he said more forcibly, “Go!” Then they straggled from the room, looking over their shoulders in fright.

“What happened?” he asked, releasing her and going to the sofa to lift a wrist and feel for a pulse. He put his head down to Romeo’s heart to listen for a beat, and exhaled a very relieved breath at what he felt and heard.

She babbled incoherently about kidnapping and drinking champagne from a slipper and accidents, mingled with animadversions on her own infamous conduct, but indeed she had not meant to hit him quite so hard.

“All right—self-defense at the very worst,” he assured her. “He kidnapped you and was forcing you to yield to him.”

“Yes—but not exactly forcing,” she corrected scrupulously. “I mean—I gave him the idea to get the carriage stopped before we had gone all the way past Chertsey, for I knew I would never get back in time for the ball if we went so far. Oh, how stupid it seems now, to have worried about missing a ball,” she said wistfully. “It’s like you once said, Clivedon, I got manners and morals all mixed up.”

She was interrupted by a low moan from the sofa, as Romeo’s hand came up, reaching for his head. Without more ado, Clivedon reached down for the champagne bottle and poured the remains of its contents over the abductor’s head. He sat up, spluttering. “You!” he said in a grim voice, looking at Clivedon with a black scowl. “You Nemesis!”

“Oh Romeo! Thank God you are alive!” Babe declared, and ran to take him in her arms.

His arms went around her possessively, while he looked at Clivedon over her shoulder. “My dear heart, forgive me,” he said. “What very bad form, for me to have got drunk. Champagne does not usually affect me so quickly. Pray go away, Clyesdon,” he added politely.

Babe opened her lips to correct Romeo, but received a warning stare from her guardian, who spoke up rapidly. “Very bad ton, to become drunk in mid-seduction, Romeo,” he said.

“I agree. It never happened to me before. Next time I shall be more careful. You can go now, Cliveston. I am taking Barbara home to meet my family.” To Barbara he added, in a voice nominally lowered, “I think we had better wait till after the wedding, my pet. I really do not feel at all the thing. I’m not up to it tonight.”

“Romeo, I am not marrying you,” she told him. “I never said I would. In fact, I have told you dozens of times I would not. I am going home with Clivedon.”

“You are disgusted with me,” he said simply. “I hardly blame you. A gentleman who makes such an appalling mess . . .” He stopped and examined her critically. “You have got a spot on your cheek now. That is three spots you have got tonight. I noticed one on your hand before, only I hesitated to harp on it as we were about to . . . If you are not planning to stay perfect, Barbara, I hope you will tell me.”

“I was never perfect, you ninny!” she pointed out.

“In the pulchritudinal desert of London you appeared so to my famished eyes. But with all those spots . . . and really, it was not nice for you to try to seduce me before the wedding, either. I was shocked, but so eager to have you that I gave in, and even tried to find excuses for it.”

“I was not seducing you, you silly twit. I was only trying to get away from you.”

“You called me your love, for the first time, tonight.”

“You called me your wife in front of the innkeeper, but it doesn’t mean I am. How could you be so stupid as to think I’d marry you, after you kidnapped me and tied me up—”

“With silken bands, verbena scented,” he reminded her. Then he picked up her Grecian wool blanket and sniffed it, with a satisfied sigh. “Lovely,” he told her.

Clivedon stood back, listening in amusement while they bickered. “It is that stupid old blanket you wrapped me up in that is causing these spots. I feel itchy all over to remember it.”

“It never gave any other girl spots,” he retorted. “And it is improper to call a blanket stupid. A transferred epithet, I think?” He looked to Clivedon for confirmation of this grammatical irrelevancy.

“I daresay Adele was so busy belching she hadn't time to grow a spot,” Barbara retaliated.

“Maybe I will marry you,” he reconsidered. “You are very beautiful when you are angry. Yes, I will. Clivesmore, you are a man of the world. Explain to Barbara why I had to kidnap her. It was only partly showing off that I am a man of action and resolution. I had to teach her, as well, that she is under my control, subject to obey my orders. I can’t have a wife who sets herself in opposition to me.”

“You’re carrying off the wrong girl, I can tell you,” Clivedon warned him.

“Obey you, you spouting popinjay. Whip you is more like it,” Barbara replied, incensed.

“I don’t want an intransigent wife. There is no record of the Sabine women being so unruly.”

“He meant to rape me, like the Sabine women,” Barbara said aside to Clivedon, with a wrathful eye.

“You may count yourself lucky you weren’t hammered into a wooden horse,” he informed her.

“Ah, the Trojan War—an apt analogy, Clivesmare. Excellent. Fair Helen, launching a thousand ships . . .” His eyes played over Lady Barbara, lingering on her lips. “I wonder if Helen was a dutiful wife.”

“You don’t want a wife. You want a caryatid or a demmed statue,” Barbara answered hotly.

“I don’t like to hear you use vulgar language, my dear.”

“You’ll hear language that will curl your
psychë
if you ever pester me again. Clivedon, please take me away, before I hit him again.”

“Did you hit me?” he asked, then smiled. “Ah, you can be a Fury, too, you Infinite Woman. But does this mean you have ceased to love me?”

“Love
you
? I love – I love
Ellingwood
better than I ever loved you.”

“Isn’t she glorious when she’s in a temper?” he asked of Clivedon.

“Resplendent, except for the spots,” he answered, surveying her critically.

“If I hear another word about spots!” she exclaimed angrily.

“I expect you’ll hear quite a few words about them before the night is over,” Clivedon said. “Ah, here is a caller—the doctor, I hope?”

The doctor stepped into the room, took one look at Lady Barbara, and diagnosed her instantly. “Measles,” he declared. “A good deal of it going around. Best get to bed, milady.”

“She has been trying to get there all evening, I understand,” Clivedon mentioned, with a rallying glance to the angry lady. “But there were a host of unforeseen difficulties.”

“Aye, I daresay you’ve been feeling poorly,” the doctor told her. “The worst of the fever and nausea are over once the spots are out. You’ll be feeling pulled for a day or two yet.”

“Perhaps you would be kind enough to have a look at this fellow while you are here,’” Clivedon suggested. “He—fell, and struck his head on a caryatid. We cannot remain long, and would like to know he is in no danger before leaving.”

“Did I fall, too?” Romeo asked, interested in his recent past. “That’s why my head aches so. I know how Zeus felt, before Pallas Athene popped out of his head, fully armored.”

Barbara cast a worried glance at him, fearing he had run quite mad at last. “More Greek stories,” Clivedon told her quietly aside.

The doctor examined Romeo’s bump, prescribed a paregoric draught and a good night’s sleep, and gave him permission to resume his trip in the morning.

“We’ll leave you, then,” Clivedon said, putting a hand on Barbara's elbow.

“About the Clitias vase, Clysedale . . .” Romeo mentioned vaguely.

“Thank you, no. The patched-up forgery will do well enough for me. I really don’t care so much for the Greek ideal as you do.”

“Extraordinary, that lack of discretion exhibited in your possessions. But then, there was always a streak of the barbarian in you. I attributed it to jealousy.”

“How very wise of you.”

“So I am to lose my little Barbarian,” Romeo said, with a touch of sadness. “Zeus does not bring all men’s plans to fulfillment, alas! Still, there is that ravishing wench at Taunton . . .”

“I pity her!” Barbara said, and, with an indignant look at her erstwhile suitor, she stalked off.

Chapter Twenty-Three 

“How do you feel?” Clivedon asked as he tucked Barbara into his greatcoat for the trip home.

“Better than I have all evening. I wanted to die earlier, at dinner, and when he kidnapped me. I daresay coming down with the measles didn’t help. Why have you kept yourself so scarce all day?”

“I called on you this afternoon, so you must refer to my missing Ellingwood this morning,”

“He was very angry with you.”

“Were you?”

“I was too sick to be angry with anyone, but where were you?”

“Hiding in my study with the door locked, to prevent having to either give him permission to propose to you or forbid it, till I had a chance to propose to you first myself. A slight unfair advantage, of course, but I felt, in all honesty, I had earned it. It was your refusing to see me that created this little contretemps.”

Barbara’s heart leapt in her chest at the words, but when she spoke, she did not acknowledge having heard them. In a high, nervous voice, she said, “I am in a worse pickle than ever, missing my own ball. Your sister will never forgive me. Just when I was trying so hard to be respectable.”

“And deaf,” he added, undeceived.

A nervous laugh escaped her. “Oh, you are joking, Clivedon. I am much too disreputable for you.”

“I used to think I thought so, once upon a dull time. Lately I have had to reconsider the matter. My
psychë
was not content with that old decision. In fact, I have lately found you much too nice in your notions to suit me. Not wanting to smoke a cigar! But your latest spree leads me to hope you are not totally converted to the acceptable mode.”

“But it was not my fault!”

“Oh no, it was mine. I all but begged Romeo to do it. I knew you didn’t care for him, and had to make you see Ellingwood was not your type at heart either. He is not pleased with you, Babe.”

“Pray tell me what you are talking about. How did you know Romeo would kidnap me?”

“By refusing him permission to marry you. His dramatic soul was bound to be incensed enough with that to lead him to an elopement. I had to finance it myself, but I shall enjoy to have the portrait. There will be one thing in my barbarian house of which he approves, at least. Maybe two—if he doesn’t win the female at Taunton, he will be falling in love with you again.”

“Why were you always after me to behave politely, then? It was you who nagged me into it.”

“Naturally I wanted some semblance of behavior in my wife, at least a token that she was—no, I daren’t use the word ‘biddable.’ You’ll hit me. For your own peace of mind . . . Wrong again. I shall take a leaf from your last suitor’s book and blurt out the unvarnished truth. I was making you over for me, not anyone else. I wanted you to treat me with respect, and didn’t give a damn how you acted towards the rest of the world.”

“Is it possible we are discussing Richmond Park, Clivedon?”

“Entirely possible. I have been angry for two years, being insufferably proud, and my anger perhaps grew a little out of proportion. Yes, I wanted some petty revenge, too. Lady Graham was a revenge, and a mistake of which I am greatly ashamed. For the rest of it, it was a necessity which happened to coincide with my own wishes. Your health was suffering with so many late nights, and your reputation with the association you had with Fannie’s raffish friends. The gowns, while ravishing, were too dashing for a spinster, and the nags, of course, a positive danger to the whole city.”

“How about my money? I think that’s the only thing you’ve left out.”

“Naturally I wanted your dowry intact! How can you ask? We’ll need every penny of it to bribe our way out of future scrapes.”

“Well, I think it was very petty of you to hold a grudge for two years, only for missing a date,” she said, reverting to the least heinous of her crimes. “You might have given me a chance to explain.”

“Was there an explanation?”

“Of course there was! I had to bring you to heel, to have you eating out of my hand like the others.”

“Let it be well understood, dear Aphrodite, I do not mean to eat of your fingers
like the others
. I am not a tame squirrel. I want no servility from you, nor will I give any. You will behave more or less as a lady should, and if—
when
you run amok,
I
wish to be the first to hear of it. It will not be necessary for you to tuck any more lace doilies down the front of your gowns, and in fact I had hoped to see that green outfit tonight. Why didn’t you wear it? Afraid Ellingwood would disapprove?”