Patricia Veryan - [Sanguinet Saga 04] - Love's Duet (40 page)

"Of course not!" He limped to take her by the shoulders and shake
her, smiling slightly. "Stop ripping me up, you fiery little savage! I
know exactly what he would do. He would accept it—outwardly. He might
even pretend it did not upset him. Inside, he would be sickened. Now be
quiet, ma'am! You've had your say—allow me mine! You do not know him
very well as yet—you could not begin to know what the name 'Branden'
means to him! To see me hobbling about all over Town, to let his
friends, and his enemies, become aware that he had a—a crippled son…
would tear his heart out."

"That," she said fiercely, "is what your Mama told you, isn't it, Camille?"

"And my Grandmama and Grandpere—and what I have seen for myself. Do
you not remember Phinny's ball… and what he said? That in five hundred
years there have been no major blots on our family tree. No madness—no
cowardice… no deformities."

Sophia gave an impatient exclamation and pulled free.

"I cannot," Damon went on firmly, "I
will
not cause him humiliation. Nor give him cause to remember her—with anything but—Now, why do you look at me like that?"

"I am beginning to understand what Lord Ridgley meant when he said
all the Brandens are mad! Good God! What kind of family do I become
involved with?"

He smiled. "A very fine one, I dare to think." It was not the time
to speak, but he was afraid and, in a bid for happiness, reached to
take both her hands and say humbly, "Sophia—most adored of women. Will
you share this madness? May I ask Stephen for the honour of your hand
in marriage?"

It was the moment she had so longed for—and now wished had not come.
She could not find the words to answer him and looked away from his
worshipful gaze. Damon's heart plummeted, and the dreams he had dared
to build shivered into fragments. But because he was the man he was, he
at once drew back and said lightly, "I rush you, do I not? And, after
all, what young lady wishes to marry her uncle?"

"Or," she smiled, matching his effort, "accept a proposal in a bedchamber?"

He swung the door open for her and, bowing, said, "I must find a
more suitable location the next time." He watched her in a wistful
silence as she started down the corridor.

Sophia, the lump in her throat choking her, wondered if there would
be a "next time"—or if that terrifying Branden pride would forbid he
ever offer again.

Sophia retreated to her room, and it was perhaps as well that her
sorrowful reflections were interrupted by a request for her mediation
in a kitchen disturbance. Following Patience downstairs, she discovered
an infuriated Ariel, a mockingly scornful Nancy, and a troubled Mrs.
Hatters, who conveyed to her in a hoarse whisper that it was "that
there horrid Orpington what done it, no matter what Luke do say!"

Luke was of a different frame of mind. Horatio, he announced, had
attacked him for the last time! Horatio was due to become an early
Christmas dinner!

Nancy uttered a snort and tossed her pretty nose into the air.
Sophia's enquiries were answered by Ariel, who swung the flat of the
meat cleaver against his muscular thigh and, with a darkling glance at
his love, announced the feathered varmint had "tore me poor leg to
shreds!"

"I be a'going for to buy Luke a whip," volunteered Nancy acidly. "A big whip. So he can protect his poor feeble self."

Suppressing a smile, Sophia murmured, "He has a powerful beak, Nancy."

"Ye might say so, ma'am," the girl retaliated, regarding her betrothed with disdain. "Perhaps that there beard hides it!"

The fireboy's shriek of mirth was interrupted as Genevieve burst into the kitchen, her face taut with anxiety. "Sophia! Come!
Vite! Vite
!"

The angry voices were audible even as Sophia ran up the stairs with
Genevieve beside her, gasping out a garbled story of a messenger and a
box and of Vaille having flown into a towering rage. Upstairs,
Genevieve went to join a frightened Mrs. Gaffney, who waited farther
along the hall. Her heart pounding, Sophia knocked and, receiving no
answer, went inside and closed the door swiftly behind her.

Camille was sitting as she had found him earlier, the book open on
his knees. His eyes were fixed upon Vaille, who was thrusting a diamond
and ruby bracelet at an infuriated Ridgley.

"…to explain," rasped the Duke, "why it should be inscribed with
your
name—and dated six years after Ninon became my wife!"

The Earl said harshly, "It was her birthday, and there was no reason why I should not give her a small gift. What did
you
ever give her but grief and tears?"

"She was
my wife
!" Vaille countered, as icy in his wrath as
the Earl was blazing. "And the man who steals another man's wife—who
creeps and skulks and connives to win her away from her loving
husband—is
despicable
, sir!"

Ridgley's jaw tightened. With narrowed eyes, he stepped closer to
Vaille. Damon leaned forward and flung out an arm in desperate appeal.
"For God's sake! Don't say such bitter things! Why must you—"

"You lured her to her death!" Vaille overrode his son as if he had
not spoken. "Deny if you dare that she was running to you when she was
killed."

"She likely was," the Earl flashed. "For the poor dear soul was
heartbroken because of your insane obsession with perfection! Terrified
you'd—"

Vaille's face lost its hauteur and became dark with passion. "
Terrified
?" he thundered. "Of
me
? Now, by God, sir— you shall answer for that! It's past time for you and I to—"

"Stop it!" Damon sprang to his feet and, forgetting everything but
his need to keep them from the final confrontation, started forward. "I
won't let you—" He stopped. Vaille's horrified eyes were fixed upon his
foot. The moment of truth was upon him, and he stood paralyzed by that
awareness.

"
There's
your explanation!" roared the Earl with a wild gesture. "
That's
what drove her to her death! That—and your mania!"

For an instant, the quiet was so intense that Sophia felt her
heartbeat must deafen them all, and she clasped her hands to her
breast, watching Damon's face, so deathly white as he confronted his
father's stark horror.

"How… long?" breathed Vaille at last, "how… long was I—deceived?"

Damon wet dry lips and, meeting those glaring eyes somehow, answered, "Since I was four—sir."

The Duke's handsome features twisted in such anguish that the
trembling Sophia could not bear to watch, and she looked down. "Now, by
God!" he gasped.

"Is
that
all you can say?" Ridgley snarled. "Hasn't he—"

Sophia, glancing swiftly at Damon, saw his proud head go down, and a
searing rage drove fear away. "How dare you!" Her ringing voice cut
through Ridgley's fierce words. Pale with anger, her narrowed eyes
shooting from one to the other, she moved forward. "How
dare
you bring your stupid jealousies, your carefully nurtured hatreds into
this room? Shall you never rest until you have murdered each other? Or
destroyed him?"

"Ma'am," said Vaille in a tone he had never used toward her, "I appreciate—"

"Oh, no, your grace," she interrupted boldly, "you do not! Or you would certainly have more consideration for your son!"

Vaille flushed slightly and, slanting a frigid glare at Damon, said, "My—son, ma'am, is—"

"Your
son
, sir," she interrupted again, driven by fury
because of his brief hesitation, "is an invalid still! And far from
ready for such behaviour as has been exhibited here!"

Guilt-ridden, the Earl began to edge toward the door. Damon, not looking up, muttered, "Sophia, do not—"

"I shall leave at once," Vaille announced coldly.

"Thank you, sir," snapped Sophia. "And I beg you will return—both of
you—when you can come with consideration and love in your hearts."

Ridgley avoided her flaring gaze and crept miserably away.

Damon, daring to look up at last, searched his father's face and discovered only a cold disdain.

The Duke of Vaille stalked from the room without a word.

The ensuing days were peaceful, a calm settling over the old house
and its occupants that Sophia prayed was the calm after the storm, not
the calm before a hurricane. She wrote to Mrs. Adams at Singlebirch,
informing her that she would stay the month out, by which time she
believed Lord Damon's health would be completely restored. She pointed
out that she was well chaperoned since Lady Branden and the Viscount
stayed on also, even though Vaille had taken both Charlotte Hilby and a
rebellious Genevieve with him to visit the Earl of Harland at Hollow
Hill.

The Marquis made no further mention of marriage to the lady he loved
more deeply with each passing day. The humiliation of the encounter
with Vaille was a bruise on his spirit, deepened by the fact of
Sophia's having been present to witness it. He drew much consolation
from the fact that her tendre for him appeared undimmed despite her
refusal to respond to his declaration. She had been shocked, he told
himself. It had been too sudden for her. But she had not left him. If
he was patient, and if she loved him still, there was hope. Meanwhile,
each day became a gem to be treasured, and he hoarded his happiness,
driven by a subconscious fear that this pleasant interlude might cease
all too soon.

The Viscount had no intention of leaving without Sophia. The absence
of his chosen bride created a new and deep emptiness in his life, but
the vows of eternal devotion they had exchanged kept him from sinking
into a slough of despond. Secure in his love, his former buoyancy
returned. Having wrapped the gruff Feather about his little finger, he
became her constant companion, their mutual fondness for the Marquis,
horses, and dogs binding them in a deepening affection. The long, quiet
days, the relaxed camaraderie, were doing much to give back to Sophia
the cheerful young Corinthian her brother had once been.

On one count, Sophia was reprieved: Both Vaille and Ridgley had
forgiven her furious indictment of them. During the week following the
quarrel, two small boxes were delivered to her at the Priory. The first
contained a magnificent gold and emerald bracelet and a note from
Vaille apologizing in flowing terms for having been so crude as to lose
his temper before her and assuring her that he valued her friendship
and would look forward to the day when she and her fine brother would
visit him at Vaille House. The second box held a brooch, fashioned in
the shape of a harpsichord, with diamonds forming the keys and one deep
ruby centred above the keyboard. Ridgley's note was, like the man,
clumsy but endearing: "Forgive me. I lack the proper words to express
my remorse. I wish I could—" (this crossed out). "I am a fool. But ever
yrs to command. Ridgley."

At the end of the week, Whitthurst received an invitation to spend a
few days with the Earl at his estate near St. Albans, to be climaxed by
a trip to Tattersall's to see what they might have to offer in the way
of "bang-up bits of blood." He took himself off in high fettle, a very
different young man from the crushed semi-invalid who had so
dramatically arrived. Four days later, he returned, bubbling over with
news. Genevieve had been in Town with Miss Hilby, and he and Ridgley
had "happened to drop by" and been accorded a royal welcome. So royal,
in fact, that just to think of it sent him into a daze of rapture,
prompting an amused Damon to suggest they get him outside quickly where
he "might cool down a trifle."

This was accomplished by means of a picnic. It proved an unsuitable
day for "cooling" purposes, however, being very warm for the lateness
of the season. They settled down, all four, on the gentle slope of the
bank above the stream, shaded by a venerable old oak tree. The picnic
basket, having served nobly, was eventually set aside, taking with it
an interested wasp. Feather, finding it difficult to stay awake,
repaired to the house and the cooler comfort of her room. Damon
sprawled contentedly beside his love, a serviette across his eyes; and
Sophia and Whitthurst, their shoulders sharing the obliging trunk of
the oak, chattered drowsily.

"Never saw such a place, Chicky," he averred for the third time.
"I'd no idea Miss Hilby was so well set. That house! Gad! I do believe
it's even grander than Phinny's Hall, but more comfortable, thank the
Lord!"

"I wish them well of it." Sophia smiled. "Does Genevieve admire it?"

"No! And I could never keep her in
that
style! But I
do
think she will like Singlebirch. She's—" He checked and, reaching for
her hand, gave it a brief squeeze. Craning his neck around to grin at
her, he said, "All I do is talk of
my
journey and
my
plans and
my
lady… Not a word about you! Shall you mind living here when you and Cam are—"

"Who knows what the future holds?" she intervened, with a sidelong
glance at Damon. "What about Marcus? Did you discover how little
Douglas goes on?"

"Yes—by Gad, I forgot! Douglas is quite recovered and Esther happy
as a lark. Clay was appalled when I told him what had happened and says
he shall visit us when they come to Yolande Drummond's country ball."

"What splendid news! I shall so look forward to seeing them."

Whitthurst, watching the play of light and shadow across the
meadows, said quietly, "I had hoped to call upon the Duke, also, but he
was at Brighton with the Regent." A frown touched his face as he spoke.

Sophia said encouragingly, "He will not object, I'm sure, dear. He spoke of you most kindly."

"Perhaps it won't come to that, Chick. If… things go as people
think." He paused, looking even more troubled, and leaned closer to all
but whisper, "Deuced lot of nonsense, I hope. But there are some heavy
bets entered on the books. Ridgley said not a word, but men talk of
little else in the clubs. They are so evenly matched, it's said!"