Sandra Heath (10 page)

“Think nothing of it,” Marcus replied.

As the door closed, Amabel pursed her lips. “How distant you are now, Marcus” she murmured.

“No more distant than I was an hour or so ago, if you recall,” he replied quietly.

Specks of color touched her cheeks. “Maybe you didn’t finally succumb this time, but you will soon.”

“I regret giving in to the extent I did, but I will show you the door if you try to do anything like that again.”

Jane’s face lit up. The stiltedness at the breakfast table was explained. He’d resisted!

Amabel’s dark eyes were unfathomable. “I want you, Marcus.”

He smiled. “I doubt it. You always have an ulterior motive, and in this instance I fancy I know his name.”

Jane could have stamped her foot in frustration.
His?
Whose?

Amabel’s gaze was all hurt innocence. “He never meant anything to me. Why do you refuse to believe me?”

“Only a fool would believe you, Amabel,” he said softly.

“What if I tell Henrietta how odiously you’ve used me?”

At that he got up and leaned his knuckles on the table to hold her gaze. “Henrietta means nothing to me, but my reputation certainly does. If you breathe a word to my detriment, you can be certain that
I
will do some talking of my own when I get back to town, and by the time I’ve finished, you’ll be the laughingstock of society.” He inclined his head, and then left the room.

Amabel’s lips pressed thinly together and she clenched her fists. “No one threatens me and gets away with it, Marcus Fitzpaine,” she breathed.

Jane recoiled from the evil glittering in Amabel’s eyes, but then remembered her own plans. She caught Kit’s arm. “Quick, we must see that Marcus goes to Henrietta now.”

“Now? But—”

“Just come with me!”

Seizing control of the ring, Jane hastened away after Marcus, who had just reached the second-floor landing. He halted in astonishment as she caused the ring to fall right at his feet. “What the—?”

Jane eyed him determinedly. “Take it to Henrietta, you dunderhead!” she muttered, willing him to do just that.

Marcus recognized the ring as he picked it up. He glanced around, perplexed. How in God’s name had it just appeared like that? It was almost as if someone had thrown it, yet there was no one around. His fingers closed over it, and to Jane’s relief he turned toward Henrietta’s room.

The ghosts gathered at his shoulder as he knocked at the door. “Henrietta? It’s Marcus. May I come in?”

Chapter Ten

When Henrietta didn’t reply to Marcus’ knock, Jane quickly put Rowley down, then caught Kit’s hand to lead him through the wall into the adjoining room, and then through a further wall behind the screen which offered concealment. The ghosts peered cautiously around it, and were startled to find Henrietta not only out of bed, but dressed, and about to commence packing her things. She swayed just a little, because the first dose of laudanum was beginning to take effect, although she did not realize it.

She had donned a warm rose mohair gown. There was a thick knitted shawl around her shoulders and her hair had been pinned up rather untidily because her bandaged wrist made her awkward. Her traveling cloak was draped in readiness over the fireside chair and her gloves and ankle boots were warming in the hearth. She had just lifted a portmanteau onto the bed, and was looking uneasily toward the door, clearly hoping Marcus would think she was asleep.

He knocked again. “Henrietta, I’ve found your ring.”

Surprise caught her off guard. “My ring?”

He heard. “May I come in?” he asked again.

She put the portmanteau and cloak on the floor as quickly as she could, then pushed them beneath the bed with her foot, but as she sat in the fireside chair and put her shawl over her knees, she forgot the gloves and boots in the hearth. “Yes, please come in,” she called.

The door opened and Marcus entered. He was taken aback to see her sitting by the fire. “I was under the impression the doctor prescribed laudanum and a few days in bed,” he said, his shrewd glance taking in the traveling accessories warming in the hearth. He glanced back to the bed again and saw the handle of the portmanteau and the hem of the crumpled cloak peeping out beneath the counterpane

“I feel quite well,” she replied lightly, trying not to wince as a shaft of pain jabbed behind her eyes. “You, er, said you’ve found the ring?” she prompted.

“Yes.” He handed it to her.

He described what had happened. “And before you ask, I can offer no explanation. It hadn’t been lying there unnoticed all along, for I heard it fall. It came literally out of thin air,” he finished.

“Well, whatever the circumstances, I’m grateful to you for finding it.”

“Grateful? Believe me, you were better off without it, and if you had any sense left, you’d be rid of Sutherton as well.”

“I think you should leave now,” she replied coolly.

He smiled. “I rather thought
you
were the one intending to leave,” he said, pushing one of her gloves with his foot.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Oh, yes, you do. Don’t take me for a fool, Henrietta. The evidence is in the hearth and beneath the bed. You mean to quit Mulborough, don’t you?”

She didn’t deny it. “I think it best if I do.”

“Best?”

“Yes. I thought I could manage being under the same roof as you, but I can’t. I can leave with Uncle Courtenay, and that will be that. I’m sure Charlotte will understand.”

“I fear you’re too late. After satisfying himself that you were not at death’s door, your uncle left a little earlier. The call of Tattersall’s is evidently greater than the ties of family. Which is just as well, because in your present state, an arduous journey is out of the question.”

Henrietta rose to her feet in dismay. “Remaining here with you is equally out of the question.”

“I’m sure we can get along within the bounds of politeness.”

She turned her face away as tears stung. “I’ll warrant you haven’t told Russell how abominably you behaved in London, for you know you’d sink in his estimation,” she said.

“Maybe, but for the same reason I’d hazard a guess you haven’t fully confided in Charlotte either.”

She didn’t reply.

“I thought not,” he murmured.

A blush sprang to Henrietta’s cheeks, but not just from embarrassment. She had begun to feel very hot and weak, and too late realized the laudanum was taking a grip upon her. The room began to spin, gathering speed until she felt herself swaying. Marcus saw she was on the edge of fainting and quickly caught her. “When will you accept that you can’t possibly travel?” he said, and for the second time since arriving he lifted her into his arms.

“I hate you,” she whispered, the words running drowsily together.

He gave a thin smile. “Do you? Well, let us test that claim,” he murmured, and put his lips to hers, toying with her mouth in a way she’d only ever known with him. For a moment she was alive to him, returning the kiss with the passion that had sparked between them at the outset, but then her lips softened into stillness as she drifted further toward unconsciousness.

Behind the screen, an excited Jane caught Kit’s hand. “The odds begin to turn in our favor!”

“You may be right, sweeting, but these two are very stubborn, so it’s far from done,” he warned.

After placing Henrietta gently in the bed, Marcus drew the bedclothes snugly over her, and then sought a maid to sit with her. But as he left the room, Jane and Kit were dismayed to see Rowley follow him. They knew Marcus was psychic enough to hear the spaniel, so they hastened through the wall and then back into the passage, intent upon catching Rowley before his invisible presence was detected. But as Jane gathered her wayward pet close once more, Rowley gave a little whine.

Marcus turned, only to see nothing. He listened curiously. Damn it, he
knew
there was a dog here somewhere! But where? Was there a secret passage? Mulborough Abbey was just the sort of place that might possess such a thing. He went to the rich oak paneling lining the landing wall, but although he tapped it in various places, the dull sounds produced seemed only too solid. After a while he drew a mystified breath and told himself he must be imagining it all. Putting the strange business determinedly from his mind, he continued downstairs for the maid and to tell Charlotte and Russell about the reappearance of the ring.

Once called, the maid sat by the fire in Henrietta’s room with some darning, and hummed to herself as she stitched. Henrietta felt warm and drowsy, but at last the pain in her head was deadened. If only the pain in her heart could be deadened too, but it was as keen as ever. The maid’s humming became mixed up with her thoughts, and the present blended with the past, bringing memories of things more shockingly improper than anything she’d told Charlotte.

She was in the garden of her parents’ house in Grosvenor Square, and she was both wildly happy and stricken with guilt, because she knew her reputation would have counted for nothing at all if her recent behavior became known. Yet for days now she’d walked on air, and hummed as she gathered a basketful of the fragrant white roses that climbed all over the little summerhouse.

The displeased Edinburgh tones of the butler, Hanson, spoke suddenly behind her. “Begging your pardon, Miss Courtenay, but a Mr. Mark Paynson has called. He has found a riding glove in Hyde Park and believes it belongs to you. I told him he could leave it, but he insists upon seeing you in person.”

The thrill of helpless excitement that tingled through her was touched with unease, for suddenly the consequences of her misconduct were painted a little too clearly upon the hitherto rather hazy canvas of her foolishness. The butler was a spruce, rather bony man of about forty-five, with pale eyes set above a large hooked nose. He wore a plain brown coat and fawn breeches, and his receding red hair was hidden beneath a simple bag wig. A stickler for all the rules, he frowned upon a gentleman calling upon a woman at home alone, and sought by his supercilious manner to prompt Henrietta into merely sending a polite message of thanks. Thus the unwanted male caller could be smartly dismissed.

But in spite of her fears, Henrietta could not bring herself to let Mark be sent away. “Please show him out here, Hanson,” she instructed.

His eyes widened. “Out
here
, Miss Courtenay? That is most irregular.”

“If Mr. Paynson has taken the trouble to bring my glove, then the least I can do is take the same trouble to thank him in person,” she said.

“As you wish. Miss Courtenay.”

As the butler stalked away disapprovingly, she put the basket of roses down on the bench in the summerhouse, and then smoothed the sprigged muslin folds of her pink gown. Did she look well enough? Her hair . . . ! She patted the dark curls piled on her head, and her fingers shook as she removed a pin in order to push it in more firmly. Then she drew a long breath to steady herself. Hanson was right to disapprove, but she hadn’t been able to think clearly since that heartstopping moment at the masked ball when her eyes had met Mark’s behind their masks. From that second onward, common sense had taken flight with the four winds.

The French doors leading to the terrace were opened and closed, and then he was conducted toward her. How handsome he was in his claret coat and cream trousers, and how wonderfully the sun shone on his blond hair.

Hanson paused. “Mr. Paynson,” he announced stiffly.

Mark bowed to her. “Your servant, Miss Courtenay,” he murmured, his eyes caressing her with one brief glance. The smile on his lips was warm with the secret knowledge of their acquaintance.

“Thank you, Hanson, that will be all,” she said, marveling that her voice sounded so natural.

Almost on the point of stating his disfavor, Hanson walked away stiffly. He was still within hearing when Mark spoke to her. “I trust you’ll forgive my impudence in asking to speak with you like this, Miss Courtenay, but I confess to ...”

Her heart lurched, and her anxious gaze swung after the butler, whose steps had faltered noticeably.

Mark went on, “... an intense interest in the horse you were riding today.”

Hanson walked on, and her heart ceased to lurch. “M-my horse?”

“I have been seeking just such a mount for my sister, and I wondered if you would be prepared to sell?” The French doors closed, and Mark smiled. “There, that was not so difficult, was it?”

She gazed at him. “Maybe not, but you should not call here like this.”

“I know it, but I could not stay away.” He came closer and made to put his hand to her cheek.

She moved back as if his touch would burn. “Please ...”

“Would you have me deny what I feel? What we
both
feel?”

“No, it’s just...”

“Just?”

“What price my good name if this should get out? I should not have done any of the things I’ve done since meeting you.”

“We are both free to do as we please.”

“You may be, but I have my parents to consider. You know as well as I that no young lady of good family can abandon propriety and expect to survive with her reputation intact.”

“That is to assume that something will get out, or indeed that my intentions are anything but honorable.”

She lowered her eyes. “It could be argued that an honorable gentleman would not have persuaded me into folly.”

“Does the fact of your folly make you any less a creature than you were before? Are you now wicked, when previously you were good? Have your stolen moments with me led to the forfeit of your worth, principles, kindness, and charm?”

She colored. “My principles have indeed been forfeit,” she murmured.

“Why? Because of a kiss?”

She looked away. “Perhaps.”

He stepped closer suddenly and drew her into the sun-dappled shadows of the summerhouse. Then he made her face him and tilted her chin so that her eyes could only look directly into his. “My intentions toward you
are
honorable, Henrietta. Indeed if you only knew how much I love you, you would trust me implicitly.” For a moment it seemed his eyes were shadowed, but then he continued. “My thoughts are only of you, and of the happiness we could share together. I know that my approach has been unconventional, and that the pace I force is perhaps too swift, but when the heart dictates as it does now, what else can I do but strive with all my might to be with you? Do you honestly imagine I want anything less than to have you as my wife?”