Lily and the Lion (10 page)

Miss Clarke's eyes twinkled merrily. She sat back on her heels and concentrated on composing her mouth, which seemed inclined to tug the corners up into a smile. "I'm dreadfully sorry, my lord," she murmured unconvincingly.

"But not so sorry that you'd forget the plight of this slothful cat and instead employ your sympathies on my behalf, I suppose?"

"There can be no question that in this case, at least, the cat is more in need of my sympathy than you, Lord Ashton," she replied, then brimmed over with the laughter she had tried so hard to suppress.

Julian joined in her merriment with much unfashionable enthusiasm.

CHAPTER FIVE

As
WITH MOST DEVIATIONS
from a man's accustomed behaviour, in the harsh light of early morning Julian's folly of the night before was brought forcefully home to him. Sated by a full stomach, his blood diluted with rich wine and soothing firelight, and beguiled by the diverting conversation and sherry brown eyes of a pretty female, he'd behaved most unwisely. Despite Peter's amused enjoyment at finding his uncle host to a stray cat, Julian could not be glad of his impetuous agreement to escort Sebastian to Hampshire, there to burden his servants with such a worthless addition to their menagerie of domestic dependents.

And his friendly behaviour towards Miss Clarke might be misconstrued by the young lady. Green girls from the country were sometimes wont to believe themselves beloved when they were simply being flirted with. But, Julian acknowledged to himself ruefully, the zealous little Clarke was probably more interested in his spiritual salvation than his marital eligibility. Nevertheless, from then on, he would take care that she was properly chaperoned. This step was probably as much for his own safety as for hers. There had been a time last night when he'd actually been tempted to kiss the girl. That would never do!

The day was cold and cloudless, the storm having blown itself out during the wee hours of the morning. But the roads were dreadful and their progress was trudging at best, necessitating a closed-carriage intimacy with Miss Clarke for several hours. Julian's inclination of the night before to encourage Miss Clarke's refreshing conversation he ruthlessly stifled. He sat in his corner of the carriage as mum and aloof as could be, leaving Peter to claim full possession of his charming nurse's attentions. Despite the strangeness of his bed and surroundings, Peter had had a good night, and his tongue was running like a fiddlestick, with him talking mostly about what he'd do as soon as he was well.

Except for a puzzled look that morning when Julian had returned her bright smile with a barely discernible one of his own and a prim, formal, "Good morning," Miss Clarke seemed to accept his change of mood with equanimity. She chatted in a friendly, un-flirtatious manner with Peter, and, in the style of an excellent nurse, kept him comfortable and safe without offending him with excess cosseting. Though from
her,
perhaps Peter would not be as averse to excess.

As for Sebastian, he'd spent the first twenty minutes of the journey in Miss Clarke's lap, then suddenly switched his allegiance from his fair rescuer to Peter. After fixedly observing the animated invalid for the aforementioned twenty minutes, Sebastian slipped out of Miss Clarke's lap and onto the carriage floor, where he indulged in a leisurely stretch before jumping, in a trice, up onto Peter's seat. Julian was of a mind to remove the cat from his new snuggery behind the crook of his nephew's knees (Peter lay sideways on the carriage squabs with his legs slightly bent) but Peter claimed to be much flattered by Sebastian's favour and proceeded to encourage the cat's pretensions by scratching him between the ears.

Eyeing Sebastian, reclined so comfortably and with such a proprietary air about him, Julian again repined. "I hope he does not think to join you in your bed tonight, Peter," he remarked grimly. "That would essentially drive Pleshy out, you know, and Pleshy is not used to sleeping above the stables with the other servants. Alas, I've quite spoiled the fellow. I should be obliged to bespeak another room to accommodate my valet."

"Oh, that would never do!" Miss Clarke spoke up, horrified. "I would be quite miserable if I thought I'd caused you undue expense on this journey!" Her brow wrinkled and she added earnestly, "But then, you know, I cannot regret the saving of this animal from that horrid innkeep, either!"

"I'm sure you do not regret it, Miss Clarke," Julian replied equably, "but to be honest—you do like it when I'm honest, don't you?—/ regret it heartily."

Julian was sorry for this damping speech when he saw the effect of it on Miss Clarke. She seemed torn between her concern for the cat and her natural disinclination to be a bother to Julian and Pleshy, or to be the reason for the expense of another room. No doubt her papa had taught Miss Clarke the virtues of prudence and thrift.

"Don't fret, Miss Clarke," he was compelled to say in a much kinder voice than he'd intended, but wishing very much to remove the worried crease from between her brows. "Hiring one more room would not bring me all to pieces. I'm not exactly purse-pinched."

"I'll say not!" agreed Peter. "Uncle Julian's got money to spare, Lily!"

"But not to throw away on a cat," Julian said drily. "I don't suppose it has occurred to either of you that regardless of Sebastian's preference for a room-mate, we could easily exercise our superiority as the more dominant, intelligent species of animal and, er,
compel
Sebastian to sleep where
we
choose for him to sleep?"

"Oh, you mean lock him out of the room? Yes, I suppose we could do that, too," said Peter. He looked down at Sebastian, who was blissfully sleeping. "Besides, cats are fickle creatures. By nightfall, he'll have tired of me and will be traipsing about after Lily again." Peter grinned at Miss Clarke. "And who could blame him?"

Miss Clarke smiled slightly, but turned her head to look out of the window, commenting on how quickly the snow was melting away and how dreadfully muddy would be the roads. Julian approved of the young lady's tactful neutrality to Peter's flirtatious sallies. She repressed him without offending him. That was not an easy thing to do.

Lily was hardly aware of the scene upon which she'd bent her gaze. As well as to discourage Peter's compliments, she had begun looking out the window as a means of disengaging herself from her fellow travellers. Her mind was full of thoughts and images that one night's unrestful contemplation had not been long enough to sort through. And it did not seem particularly odd to her that she should be thinking of Lord Ashton when she could, instead, be looking at him now or conversing with him directly. It did not seem odd because the Lord Ashton she was thinking about, the one she'd shared dinner with last night, had seemed a different person entirely from the one with whom she presently shared a carriage.

She had watched this same man carry Peter into the inn, the sight of his strong arms cradling his nephew a study in manly tenderness she'd never forget. The friendly conversation they had engaged in during dinner had made him seem genuinely interested in her uneventful life. He had drawn her out to speak of things she'd not normally discuss with a stranger—for, indeed, he was a stranger to her, despite what Peter had told her about his uncle. But the information Peter had related had referred much to Lord Ashton's public persona, not to his private person. Lily slid a glance at Lord Ashton, whose sharp profile bespoke the implacable nature of the man. Perhaps he hid his private self even from his family.

But then there had been that ridiculous scene brought on by the appearance of the cat! The memory of the fat rodent caused Lily to shudder, and at the same time chastise herself for possessing such a silly, sorry weakness as her fear of one of the least fearsome of God's creatures. But so it had been since she was a child. She could never abide rodents. She remembered how Lord Ashton had laughed with her over the absurdity of the situation, his features relaxed and warm. Now he had turned back into a marble statue, so beautiful to behold, but so cold. It was a pity, a great pity, indeed.

"I had never before noticed that Pleshy was intolerant of cats," commented Peter, yawning behind his hand, already tired after an hour's travel and ready for a morning nap.

"As a rule, I do not keep them nearby," said Lord Ashton.

"But, true to form, Pleshy has employed his charms to captivate Janet, I see." Peter nestled his head against a pillow and closed his eyes. "Forgive me, Lily. I'd as lief talk to you as sleep, but I can't seem to keep my peepers open. Daresay I shall dream of you, and that's better than nothing."

Lily watched as Peter's breathing became deeper. Within a moment's time, he was sound asleep. "Silly boy," she whispered with a sigh. "I'm sure he's been in love at least two dozen times already in his lifetime, and shall be in love again two dozen more at least!"

"You are wise, Miss Clarke," said Lord Ashton with indolent approval. She felt his eyes upon her and she turned to look at him.

"Am I? Perhaps if I were truly wise I would not allow Janet to be closed up in a carriage with your valet for hours a day! I was not aware that he was a reputed libertine. Do you think he'll make advances on her?" Lily looked speculatively about the carriage, scooting closer to the door on her side. "I think there's plenty of room in here for Janet, don't you? She's not very large and I should not mind a little squeeze—"

"But
I
should mind it very much," Lord Ashton assured her. "If I had thought there was enough room to accommodate Janet in this coach, I should have arranged for that from the beginning. She's your chaperon, after all, and the most proper of arrangements would have included her
constant
attendance upon you."

Lily gave a startled little laugh. "I suppose that's true! But I can't seem to become accustomed to the idea of her being
my
chaperon! Rather I begin to perceive that she's more in need of a chaperon than I!"

"That was clear to me from the start," said Lord Ashton with a certain smugness.

"Oh, you don't really think Pleshy would seduce her, do you?"

"He might." At Lily's dismayed expression, he relented a little, saying, "Don't worry. I've already ordered Pleshy to ignore the girl's obvious infatuation with him."

Lily felt relief flood through her. "Oh, that was very good of you!"

Lord Ashton shot her a keen, sardonic look.
"Good
of me? Hardly! I only took what occurred to me as the most prudent course. I would not wish to put up with the girl's histrionics when Pleshy bid her farewell at Hampshire with not another idea in his head of ever clapping eyes upon her again."

"Well, perhaps you were saving yourself some inconvenience, my lord, but at the same time, you prevented the poor girl a great deal of painful self-recrimination and a broken heart."

Lord Ashton did not reply.

"She's already suffered so much in-her short life, the poor dear," said Lily.

She turned again to look out of the window and was surprised when, after a few moments of silence and in an almost belligerent voice, as if his sympathetic interest had been piqued but he was loath to admit it, Lord Ashton said, "How did she come to be at the vicarage? What has she suffered, Miss Clarke? I can see she's lost a leg to accident"

"Not an accident at all," said Lily hotly, always stirred to indignation by the recounting of wrongdoing in the case of Janet. "Janet was orphaned when she was but four years old. She had no relatives—at least none that would come forward and claim her when her impoverished parents died of fever—and she was naturally thrown on the parish. Not
our
parish, of course, for Papa would have dealt better by her, I'm sure, but she eventually ended up in a foundling home of the most wretched reputation! Papa learned of this home and the atrocities that took place there about a year ago, and paid a visit. By then, of course, Janet had become grown. She was working in the kitchen, tyrannized by a horrid woman who beat her and made her sleep in a corner of the pantry on a filthy bed of rushes not fit for a dog, much less a human being!"

Lily had to pause for a moment to calm herself. The contemplation of such ill-treatment towards a person made tears of anger smart in her eyes.

"What of her leg, Miss Clarke?" Lord Ashton prompted.

Lily had been visualizing that bed of rushes and imagining poor Janet shivering as she lay upon it all those cold winter nights. She blinked and focused her gaze on Lord Ashton, who was watching her intently. There was a concerned expression in the depths of those golden orbs that warmed her heart. Why could he not always be so kind, so "human?"

"She had contracted a disease as a child which affects the limbs. I daresay you've seen such afflictions amongst the beggars and poor of London?"

Lord Ashton's mouth compressed into a straight line. "Yes."

"The disease flourishes in the ragged ranks of those unfortunate people who have not the means to clothe themselves against the cold or to eat properly. Janet was chiefly affected in her right leg and it shriveled to skeletal proportions. Neglect brought on gangrene and the leg was amputated. Such would not have been the case had Janet been treated with respect and kindness.