Reckless Griselda (11 page)

“No, just a little tired,” she said. “He will join us presently.”

“Good. I wanted to ask his advice.”

“It would be too good for you,” she said, giving vent to her anger.

“I dare say,” Thorpe said after a moment. “That is why I value it so highly.”

“And he thinks the world of you,” said Griselda. “He cannot conceive that you could be capable of the things of which you are accused.”

“That is because he is not capable of them,” he said, sitting down.

“And you are?” she could not resist saying. He said nothing. “You do not answer. Perhaps you cannot.”

“It would be a forlorn hope to expect you to believe anything I say.”

“It would. I met Lord Wansford this morning.”

“What has he said to you?” he asked, instantly suspicious.

“That you have written love letters to Lady Mary.”

“And you believed him?”

“Why should I not?”

“Because the man is a…” He broke off. “Cannot you not see what he is? Your brother saw it at once. Come, tell me what else he said.”

“No, not if you speak like that to me,” said Griselda.

“This is not the time for missish manners,” said Thorpe. “I am in serious trouble here.”

“And you think I am going to help you out of it?” said Griselda, incredulously.

“Please tell me what he said to you,” he said. “I beg you.”

“Very well. He said that I was to tell Caroline not to have any hopes of marrying you, that it is all settled between you and Lady Mary. He said that he must protect his daughter’s happiness and see you get to the altar together.”

“And that did not strike you as odd?” he said. “That he should say such things to a perfect stranger?”

“He said he knew my father at Harrow.”

“Harrow be damned!” exclaimed Sir Thomas. “That means nothing. It was very wrong of him to speak to you of this and worse still to expect you to go tale-bearing for him! It is thoroughly typical, I am afraid to say, but that does not make it any the less disgusting. The impertinence of the man!”

“As liberties go,” remarked Griselda, “they seemed quite mild to me.”

“Griselda!” he exclaimed, with a pained expression that pleased her.

“It is quite true. Lord Wansford’s sins seem quite humble in the catalogue of male error that I seem to find myself compiling lately.”

“You speak so lightly – as if it meant nothing to you,” he said.

“No, I speak because it meant so much,” she answered sharply. “It was not done lightly.”

She saw him shake his head. He reached out and picked up one of her gloves from the table where she had left them.

“I am to be damned to misery because of you,” he said simply, looking at the glove and not her.

“No, you will not. You will either get a pretty heiress or my beautiful cousin. Most men do not disdain such prizes.”

“What if I said I didn’t want them any more?”

“Then you are as much a fool as I am,” she said. “An ungrateful fool.” He looked across at her, his blue eyes shining in the brown gloom of the parlour, and it made her tremble with anger. “Oh, why did you do it? Do you not love her?” she exclaimed. “Do you not love Caroline?”

“I don’t know any more,” he said, getting up so that he loomed over her. “I forgot her the moment I saw you. It is as simple and as complicated as that. The rest of the world ceased to exist. There was only you. May God forgive me for it, but that was how it was.” He put down her glove down again and stood looking intensely at her. “But perhaps I don’t really repent. Of all the rest, yes, I am sorry for that, but how can I regret something so real? I used to read the plays of Shakespeare and wonder if such love could exist – the love between Orlando and Rosalind, of Viola and Orsino. Those girls dressed up as boys had always piqued my fancy, and when I saw you, saw what you really were…” He picked up the glove again, and twisted it in his fingers. Then he looked at her. “I’ve had no sleep these last two nights for thinking of you.”

He advanced on her a step and, unable to know what to do any more, she remained in her seat. That same, other-worldly atmosphere of the inn seemed to have filled the room and she felt her resistance to be weaker than a stalk of barley in the wind. But she made an effort.

“Those are just words – fine words, yes, but just words. Lord Wansford told me you could turn a pretty phrase. I wonder what you said in your letters to Lady Mary.”

“There are no letters. I have never written a love letter in my life before.”

“Oh, how do you expect me to believe that?” Griselda said, throwing up her hands. “How?”

“I would write letters to you, though,” he said. “Heavens, I could fill a ream for you. But I have no pretty turns of phrase. You should ask my friends. They are lucky to get a line from me twice a year. Wansford was lying. If he produces these so-called letters of mine he will be a laughing stock. Tom Thorpe does not write letters except on business.”

“Some might say that writing love letters to an heiress was business,” Griselda retorted.

“You are determined to see me damned,” he said.

“Of course,” she said. “I know what you are.”

“And I know what you are. Remember that,” he said. “We are alike. And that you cannot deny. You may deny it to me but you cannot deny it to yourself. You are too intelligent to do that.”

“Might I have my glove back?” she said, getting up from her seat. The way he was turning it in his fingers disturbed her.

“I should much rather keep it,” he said.

She reached out to snatch it from him but he caught her hand, and would have pressed his lips to her open palm had she not clenched up her fist. So he kissed her knuckles instead, while all the time she tried to pull her hand away. But he had her strongly in his grip – his arm was suddenly clasped about her shoulders. She could not retreat. He was determined to kiss her – his lips were against hers but there was no gentleness in those kisses. There was a force of angry passion there that made her angry also. She felt he was determined to subdue her, to bring her to heel like some disobedient dog, to show her exactly who was master.

She found her strength and pushed him away.

“Oh, so you think I will forgive you everything just for a kiss? That I will be your slave?” she said, backing away from him. “Is that what you think I am like, Thomas Thorpe? Remember. I am a Farquarson of Glenmorval, sir, a gentleman’s daughter. Do not ever forget that again!”

“No, I should not dare,” he said, throwing down the glove on the table with something like disgust. “How could I when I was never so disillusioned in my life? I liked the brave creature with no name a great deal better.” He picked up his hat. “Give your excellent brother my compliments, Miss Farquarson.”

“Now, Thorpe, have you met Miss Farquarson yet?” Wansford said.

Griselda was sitting on the sofa next to Lady Mary. She was playing the innocent young lady once more, in a becoming silver-grey silk dress with green ribbons.

“I have had that pleasure,” said Tom, bowing to her.

He had not wanted to have dinner with his mother and the Wansfords, but it had been impossible to get out of it. And here was Griselda Farquarson, making her curtsey, all modesty and charm. The latter was unfortunately undeniable.

Even if he had said he did not like her in her incarnation as a gentleman’s daughter, he had not exactly meant it. If she had been desirable in her ragged breeches, she was even more so in the elegance of fashionable clothes. The low cut of her bodice hinted at the enchanting curve of her breasts and the soft silk of her skirts clung about her long, strong legs. Nothing she had said to him could alter the fact that he found her face and figure hypnotically interesting. Had he met her in conventional circumstances he felt sure she would have made a devastating impression on him. He would still want to kiss her, and worse still take liberties with her. He had never felt such urgent desire for Caroline nor for any woman of his own class before, not even the Countess.

His mother was presiding over this gaudy hired drawing room as if it were her own, although Lady Mary was the nominal hostess. “Dear Wansford,” as she always called him, was being slickly agreeable as he always was with strangers, and Tom was wondering what he was about, asking Griselda and Farquarson to dine with them. Probably the plan was that they would report back to the Ruffords on the strength of Lady Mary’s evident attachment to him. And of course Wansford pressed him to sit down with the young ladies.

“How are you finding Cromer, Lady Mary?” Griselda Farquarson inquired. “You have just arrived, I think?”

“Yes. It is delightful. I have never seen the sea before. I am very glad to be here.”

“There are some excellent drives round about,” Griselda went on. “Are there not, Sir Thomas? I believe there is a magnificent ruined abbey a mile or two inland. Do you love a ruin, Lady Mary?”

The question confused Lady Mary. It had her glancing at Tom for guidance, as if she were his wife already, a gesture that was obviously not wasted on Miss Farquarson.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Lady Mary. “I don’t think I’m clever enough to understand such things. I like to look at modern houses though,” she added as a rather daring afterthought, and giggled.

“Then you are a connoisseur of everything comfortable and practical,” Griselda said, “and you will make your husband very happy.”

“My husband, oh!” said Lady Mary. “But I don’t have one, Miss Farquarson.”

“But you will, I am sure,” said Griselda. “Very soon?”

“Perhaps,” said Lady Mary with another glance at Tom. This time she blushed, and Griselda smiled rather acidly and raised an eyebrow at him.

“I should like nothing more in the world than to be married,” Griselda continued. “How delightful to have the love and respect of a gentleman and take one’s proper place in the world as Lady So and So.”

“The man who marries Miss Farquarson will be fortunate,” Tom said, “for he will know that she appreciates all that he can give her.”

Griselda’s eyes flashed at him for a moment but she settled on a sweetly radiant if satirical smile.

“But a man should never be as grateful as his wife. For what is a woman without a husband?” she responded. “Nothing, nothing at all. He gives her a name, a place in the world, an occupation. She owes everything to him. But for a man, a wife is a comfort, an ornament and a valued distraction from the cares of his life.”

“You underestimate the benefits to men, Miss Farquarson,” he said. “Marriage is the making of many men.”

“Then they should take the greatest care for whom they offer,” she said tartly. “Don’t you think so, Lady Mary?”

Mary again looked bewildered, as she usually did when the conversation turned from the pattern of sleeves or the training of a pet dog. Tom at that moment would gratefully have turned the conversation to an equally harmless topic. Griselda in this mood made him feel a little as if he were fencing a maitre d’armes with only a broomstick. Then the image of her dressed in breeches, handling a foil and out to scar his face, swam into his mind and he was half sick with the craving to have her again.

Fortunately, at that moment the servant announced that dinner was served.

***

As on the previous evening, Griselda found herself seated next to Thorpe. This dining room was more intimate, the table smaller and she could not ignore him. Even though she had chosen to reject his kiss, the world had felt wintry since she pushed him away and no matter what she told herself, she found it painfully enjoyable to be so close to him. It was enough to destroy her appetite, and his too, apparently, for when she offered him the corner dishes, he declined them and she noticed the only thing he seemed to take in any quantity was the wine.

Lord Wansford began complaining loudly to the waiters about the indifferent food as the second remove was cleared away.

“This chef has not the least idea how to dress the simplest fricassée. I do apologise, Miss Farquarson,” he said turning to her with. “To ask you to dine, and then this…” He shook his head, as if it were the greatest matter in the world.

“Can a fricassée ever be simple, my lord?” she enquired. “Certainly we would never ask our cook at Glenmorval to attempt one.”

She noticed that Tom Thorpe smiled briefly at that.

“Then you are very wise, my dear,” said Wansford. “Such things are indeed beyond the province of mere cooks. But this establishment claims to have a French chef.”

“Then he is probably as French as you and I,” remarked Thorpe, refilling his glass. “And he would do himself a great service if he was not ashamed to cook like an Englishman. But French cooking is what the world demands, I suppose. We are victims of our own desire to be fashionable.”

“You need not match your mood to the cooking, Thorpe,” drawled Lady Thorpe.