Love's Tangle (11 page)

She was feeling sillier than ever but to her surprise, Gabriel grabbed her hand and pressed it tightly. “You were right about that at least. I hope you will make your home at Allingham.”

She shook her head vigorously. “I cannot do that.”

“You must. It will be some small recompense.”

“I have my recompense. You helped me find it tonight.”

“That is hardly sufficient. My uncle was a villain to seduce a young woman and leave her to her fate.”

“He tried to find her,” she protested, surprised at his vehemence.

“But not very hard. He should have had the courage to face up to his father and refuse to marry where he was told, but instead he chose the cowardly path.”

“Can you truly blame him? Your grandfather sounds a tyrant.”

“Tyrant or not, my uncle’s actions make him a blackguard.” The duke’s tone was unequivocal.

“Yet my mother painted him with love.” He shrugged his shoulders impatiently. Any mention of love appeared to irritate him.

“We will talk later,” he said, ushering her from the cellar. “Right now we must go from here before the household wakes.”

****

Dawn was breaking as she clambered wearily up the stairs to her room. She had found some of the missing pieces to the jigsaw that was her mother’s history. Incredible as it seemed, she appeared to be the illegitimate daughter of Charles Claremont, the 4
th
Duke of Allingham. She felt delirious from lack of sleep but also deeply sad. The pain her mother had suffered in giving up the man she loved to a woman he cared nothing for must have been immense, and made worse by the thorny path she had chosen to walk thereafter. No wonder she had never married any of her Bath admirers. It was not because she loved a dead husband too fiercely but because she loved a living, breathing man too much.

And where did this new knowledge leave her daughter? A heaviness descended as Elinor contemplated her future, mingling with and confusing the excitement she’d felt only minutes ago. It was impossible to continue as a dairymaid and equally impossible to make her home at Allingham as the duke had suggested. It was kind in him but if she were foolish enough to agree, he would be forced to acknowledge her birth, and what shame for the family, what gossip there would be in the surrounding countryside!

****

Gabriel spent what was left of the night pacing his bedroom floor. How could a secret such as this have been kept for so long? His own father must have known. He surely could not have been unaware of such momentous events in his brother’s life. But if he had known, that knowledge had died with him in Jamaica. So who else could have known? Charles’ wife? Never. His father? It was clear Charles had not braved that patriarch’s wrath. He’d made a half-hearted attempt to find his lover, and having failed, buried their secret forever. No doubt he’d burnt every incriminating document he could find, yet he had kept the locket which most clearly revealed his guilt. It seemed he could not bring himself to destroy the image painted by his lover. Perhaps Elinor was right in thinking them true sweethearts. Gabriel shook his head. That was mawkish and to his way of thinking, simply proved once again how disastrous love could be.

The discoveries of the night had left him with a monumental problem—what to do with Elinor. She was almost certainly his cousin. An illegitimate one it was true, but still his relative and he could not allow her to be cast into poverty nor to continue making his butter and cheese. She would have to live here in the house, he decided, and he would have to hire a chaperon. He must delay a little longer going to Brighton; everything must be done properly. It was clear that both she and her mother had suffered deeply and he did not want to make things worse by exposing her to loose gossip. He would consult his aunt on how best to go about things. Roland was an idiot, despicable too, but his mother was a hard headed woman whose pride in the Claremonts was second to none. She would know how to negotiate this tricky situation with the least scandal and as a woman, she could advise the best way to deal with a vulnerable girl.

He would need to remember that vulnerability for he had been tempted tonight, badly tempted. He had felt her within an inch of reaching out to him and his body had taken light. But thank God, he had stayed his hand. He could not use her so, and now he knew of their relationship, he must be ever more scrupulous in walking the right side of the line. The search for a chaperon was urgent.

An idea hit him in a blaze. It was simple but obvious—he would not hire a chaperon, he would persuade his aunt to take Elinor completely under her wing. The girl could live at the Dower House until her future was arranged. It was a clever solution. He would go and see his aunt tomorrow.

****

“Yer wanted up at the ’ouse.” Martha jerked a worn thumb in the direction of the sprawling pile.

“Do you know why?”

It was a foolish question but Elinor was apprehensive for she was still struggling to absorb last night’s momentous news and its likely repercussions. Gabriel must be feeling even more at sea. She at least had half suspected some mystery attached to her birth, while he’d had no such intimations about an uncle who had played the puritan.

“’ow would I know?” Martha was at her belligerent best. “P’raps it’s ’cause yer face ’as curdled the cream.”

Her quip drew no response for Elinor’s nerves were stretched tight. She almost wished she hadn’t pushed her search to its conclusion, for now she was caught in a web of her own weaving. When she’d embarked on her journey, she had thought to find an elderly gentleman of modest means who might welcome young companionship into his solitary life. But there was no elderly gentleman, no modest living. Instead there was a mansion of unimaginable proportions, a demesne so large it was only possible to cover it on horseback and a master who had known nothing of either her or her mother. A master who was young, rich and heedless.

That was the nub of the problem. Gabriel was too young and too fascinating. Even at a distance she had found herself unwisely attracted, so how much worse would it be if she came to live close to him? Last night she had come perilously near to inviting his kisses. It was a salutary warning, a warning that told her very clearly she should not stay at Allingham. The most sensible course of action was to leave immediately. There was only one difficulty; she had no idea where to go or how she would survive. And meanwhile an impatient duke commanded her attendance.

****

Thirty minutes later she was ushered into the duke’s study, the very same room in which he had surprised her holding the locket and precipitated this entire maelstrom. He was not alone and Elinor was disconcerted to see he was accompanied, not by Mr. Jarvis, which she might have expected, but by an unbending matron of some fifty years whom she had last seen on race day. The woman stared at her as she hovered in the doorway.

“Elinor, I bid you good morning.” Gabriel’s use of her full name made clear he intended openly to recognize their unusual relationship.

His voice sounded just a little too hearty as he beckoned her into the room. “Come, I would like you to meet my aunt, Lady Celia Frant.”

As if a servant at Allingham would not already know the woman, Elinor thought. But how determined the duke seemed that Nell the dairymaid should vanish as fleetingly as she had appeared.

“I think you have already made the acquaintance of Roland, Lady Frant’s son.”

Gabriel looked slowly from one guest to another and seemed perplexed how best to continue. He cleared his throat. He was nervous, Elinor thought. Gabriel nervous? What exactly was coming? It couldn’t be pleasant judging by his aunt’s hostile expression. He cleared his throat again and this time looked directly at her.

“Lady Frant has generously agreed to move from the Dower House to the Hall—for a time at least—so that you may have the necessary chaperon. I am shortly to travel to Brighton and from there will accompany the Regent when he returns to Carlton House. While I am absent, Lady Frant will guide you in the way you should go on.”

What was he saying? That while he disported himself in London, she must live at the Hall, idling her days away, her only company this dragon of a woman busily breathing fire with every stiff fibre of her body. He was mad to think she would agree to such a proposition.

Taken aback by the sudden turn of events, she stammered out the first words that came into her head. “And the dairy?”

He hardly seemed to register her bewilderment but continued with what appeared to be a prepared speech. “You will relinquish your post in the dairy as of now. A maid has already packed your belongings and moved them to a room which has been made ready for you. I thought the west tower? It has an excellent view of the lake and the woods beyond.”

Bewilderment turned to annoyance. His conduct was high-handed in the extreme. Without consulting her, he had decided on her future, and acted upon it.

“But…” she began to say when Celia Frant interrupted her brusquely. “You would do well, my dear, to banish from your mind the fact you have ever been a dairymaid.” There was a visible shudder. “And well to forget the unhappy circumstances of your birth. You are fortunate indeed that His Grace has decided to recognize you and treat you accordingly.”

Elinor could have struck the woman. Instead she said in a voice she had to fight to keep steady, “I am proud of my birth—at least on my mother’s side. I would not be so discourteous as to venture comment on the parent who abandoned her.”

If Celia Frant could be said to reel, she did so on hearing this undisguised heresy. She cast a look of anguish in the duke’s direction but he ignored her and once more spoke directly to Elinor. “Rehearsing old history is unhelpful in our present situation. It would seem you are partly a Claremont, Elinor, and as such you should be housed appropriately. I have decided it would be best for you to live at the Hall, at least until you have had time properly to consider your future.”

“It is certainly a more sensible idea than living at the Dower House.” Lady Frant had recovered sufficiently to interject this waspish comment.

So the duke had approached this disagreeable woman to house her in her own home, Elinor thought, and she has refused. But why would she prefer an illegitimate nobody to be living in ducal splendor? The answer to the question swiftly presented itself. The door of the study had been left open and the difficult conversation brought to a halt by the sound of sharply clicking boots.

Roland Frant appeared at the door and forgetting the polished manners of which he was so proud, spoke curtly. “What is this I’ve been hearing from Jarvis? That Nell Milford is a Claremont?”

“Always a little late, Roland,” the duke said sweetly, “but do come in.”

Since his cousin had already joined them, the comment was barbed. Roland, though, had been so thoroughly shaken by the news the butler had imparted, that the duke’s words had little effect.

“I don’t understand how a dairymaid has become our cousin.”

“Not a legitimate cousin.” His mother’s voice came as sharp as a newly honed knife.

“But still...”

“You do not need to understand, Roland,” the duke muttered irritably, “simply accept that such is the case. Nell Milford is no longer. Let me present Elinor Milford. She will be moving into the west tower as of today.”

But Roland would not be silenced, his face a study in shocked propriety. “Surely you cannot intend to house a young, single woman here. She would be better by far at the Dower House where my mother can act as chaperon.”

“That won’t be necessary.” His mother was swift to cut in. “I am to be Miss Milford’s chaperon but here at the Hall.”

“So you see, Roland, you need be anxious no longer.” Gabriel’s face wore its most saturnine expression.

“I am not happy with this arrangement, Mama.”

“It need not concern you,” his mother said repressively. “I shall bear Miss Milford company for the next few weeks—until she has had time to plan her future in the light of her changed circumstances.”

It was evident to Elinor that she was not to live at the Dower House for one reason alone. Celia Frant did not want her son under the same roof as an imposter. She must fear his forming a
tendre
for a woman she considered wholly ineligible. Obviously she entertained no similar fears for Gabriel and she was right. The duke’s taste in women seemed to run to more eye-catching beauties. Elinor knew herself to be passably good looking but she was no diamond of the first water. Her mouth was too generous and she was far too tall. Why, she could reach the duke’s chin if she were to come close to him. Which she would not do. Ever again.

As she stood there, a reluctant fourth player in a quarrelsome quartet, she felt indignation limp away and a great weariness take its place. She had spent most of the night in that miserable cellar, then at five had begun work in the dairy. She was still overwhelmed by the knowledge that had come to light and all she wanted was sleep. She presumed that as Miss Elinor Milford, relative of the Duke of Allingham, she would be allowed that luxury. She would sleep, she decided, and then consider what to do when her bemused brain could once more think rationally.

A maid was waiting outside the study to conduct her to the turret room, the same maid who had packed her belongings from the little attic, and the same who had shared the supper table with her in the servants’ hall the previous evening. What a long time ago that seemed. It was hardly surprising the girl was glancing at her curiously. Elinor supposed the servants’ quarters were abuzz with gossip, for nothing so outlandish could ever have happened at Allingham before.

****

Roland escorted his mother back to the Dower House to collect such belongings she deemed necessary for a prolonged stay at the Hall. His head was still reeling from what he’d learned that morning. He had suspected for a while that Elinor might originate from superior stock, perhaps from a family fallen on hard times—that wasn’t uncommon in the countryside—but he could never have envisaged she had Claremont blood running in her veins. For a long while he walked in silence beside his parent.