The Conqueror's Dilemma (21 page)

She longed to
leave London and had never yearned more for the sea breeze and the salted air
to blow away the dismals, although she doubted if even these remembered balms
had power to assuage her present unhappiness.

She did not
blame Will. No, she must not call him that, even in thought. Too dangerous a
label, too intimate to be allowed. The Conqueror he was, and so he must remain.
He bore the sobriquet all too well, did he not? She had been conquered, and
without apparent effort on his part. At least, she had if hearts were in the
case.

Unbidden tears
seeped under her lashes and she was obliged to swallow hard upon the
threatening storm. It would not do to be found in evident distress, which she
could not justify. Bad enough to have endured Mrs Gosbeck’s searching looks and
whispered questions. Tiffany had done her best to ignore or evade them, for
tempting though it was to confide, she dared not trust a lady with so close a
connection to her duenna.

The thought of
Lady Drumbeg served to strengthen her mind. The fiasco at Astley’s Amphitheatre
was fresh and she shuddered at the memory of her chaperon’s barefaced
effrontery. To have accosted Lord Kilbride had provoked in Tiffany sufficient
agitation, but it had been as nothing to her subsequent humiliation.

During the
equestrian display, she had not failed to notice his lordship, who was looking
particularly unnerved and exasperated. Since three very young and vociferous
boys accompanied him, Tiffany took this for his reason. It was evident he was
not a man well versed in dealing with the demands of importunate youngsters,
for they ran rings round the poor man until she was feeling quite sorry for
him.

It could not
have helped to have been obliged to do the pretty to Lady Drumbeg in the midst
of the mayhem surrounding him as he tried to usher his charges out at the end
of the performance. But at the time, Tiffany’s only concern had been a fervid
apprehension that her chaperon would question Lord Kilbride about his friend
William Westerham. She had stayed back a little, while managing to keep her distance
from the loathed Sir Lambert who was standing with Mrs Gosbeck, so that his
lordship could not be forced into noticing her. She had never been presented to
the Conqueror’s friend in form and she had not forgotten her early lesson in
that matter from Mr Westerham himself.

Lord Kilbride at
first paid little heed to Eva’s comments and questions, his attention being
almost entirely taken up by the boys with him, who never ceased squabbling all
through the exchange. Just at the end, however, his lordship was clearly
brought up short, and in a manner peculiarly upsetting to Tiffany.

‘It is a pity Mr
Westerham had not accompanied you, my lord,’ Lady Drumbeg was saying, ‘for
there is a particular matter upon which I would value his advice.’

‘Oh yes?’ had
come absently from his lordship, as he made a spirited attempt to foil one boy
from landing a blow upon another. ‘Stop it at once, you two!’

‘Indeed,’ had
pursued Eva, lowering her voice, ‘for it concerns my charge, Tiffany Felton,
and Mr Westerham seemed well disposed towards her at one time.’

Lord Kilbride’s
gaze had veered round to his interlocutor. ‘Eh? What d’you mean?’

To Tiffany’s
intense embarrassment, his lordship’s eye had then swept past her chaperon and
fastened itself upon her. She had to strain to hear Eva’s words, for her
chaperon’s tone sank almost to a whisper, taking on a note of confidentiality.

‘I mean the
Conqueror was kind enough to notice her, and to offer his assistance. At your
sister’s house it was, Lord Kilbride. I believe you were present.’

The eye
mercifully left Tiffany and returned to Eva’s face. ‘Oh, is that all?’ Was
there a touch of relief there? ‘I’m hanged if I know how you’d make it out he’s
the right man to give you advice about Miss Felton just from that.’

Predictably, her
duenna managed to gloss this over, ignoring both the manner of its
delivery—which was hardly encouraging, if not downright unfriendly—and its
import. She’d laughed as at a jest.

‘But he is the
Conqueror, you know, Lord Kilbride. Naturally he is just the man to advise me
in this case.’

‘Well, I don’t
see it.’ Lord Kilbride had begun to look a trifle resentful, and Tiffany had
been on tenterhooks, knowing he had Mr Westerham’s ear.

Lady Drumbeg had
laughed again, and Tiffany hoped that brittle edge she recognised had gone
unnoticed by his lordship.

‘But then you,
my lord, are not the Conqueror.’

‘Thank God for
it!’ Belatedly he noticed the absence of his charges. ‘Hang it, those pesky
boys have vanished again! Must take my leave of you, ma’am.’

To Tiffany’s
intense relief, Eva had bowed acquiescence. But the ordeal was not yet over.
Lord Kilbride had taken only a step or two when he halted, and turned back,
reaching out to stop Lady Drumbeg from moving. He spoke with urgency, but so
low-toned as to be almost inaudible.

‘What is it you
want from Westerham? Advice about what, I mean?’

The triumph in
Eva’s face had sickened Tiffany. ‘Why, I wished to ask his opinion on the
marriage of very young girls to elderly gentlemen.’

It had taken his
lordship a moment or two to assimilate this. Then his voice had risen. ‘
What
?
You’re going to marry the chit off to some old—?’ His gaze had shot back to
Tiffany and on to the man who stood some way behind her. Tiffany saw shock spread
across his features. ‘Chicheley? You don’t mean it! But he’s—’

At which point,
he had broken off, shutting his lips tight as if he meant to prevent himself
from saying any more. He had given Eva a nod, and his voice was curt to the
point of rudeness.

‘I’ll bid you
good day, ma’am.’

Her heart
sinking in her chest, Tiffany had watched him set off in search of the three
boys, whom she could see bouncing up and down at a distance. There could be no
doubt Lord Kilbride would convey this tidbit to Mr Westerham, who would receive
it—how? A question that had given Tiffany several sleepless nights.

She could not
but recall the Conqueror’s reaction to her merely dancing with Sir Lambert at
the Pantheon. It had led to that fierce kiss, the remembrance of which troubled
her dreams to an inordinate degree. On the other hand, had she not well and
truly dampened any hope of animating his affections by her ill-considered words
at Vauxhall? She had by turns regretted and triumphed over them ever since.

It was better to
realise by his silence that she had spoken no less than the truth than to
labour under foolish and impossible dreams, which had no slightest chance of
fulfilment. She dared to understand that Mr Westerham liked her more than a
little. She might go so far as to suspect him of having formed an attachment to
her. But there could be no doubt his feelings, whatever their degree, bore no
comparison with hers.

Tiffany knew
this, for she was so desperately foolish as to prefer a future without the
Conqueror by her side than to imagine being tied to a man who wished for no
such connection. She had rather bear the pain of disappointment than have him
act in a manner so much at variance with his ambition and principles. In a
word, she could not want him if he did not want her with the same violence of
desire.

Betrayed by her
sleeping self, in dreams featuring the Conqueror in every secret corner of her
being, Tiffany found herself obliged to suppress the most foolish hopes and
wishes. For in her visions, he would come, maddened by the threat of his
elderly rival, and carry her off without let or hindrance.

Reality failed
to produce the man, despite a growing tendency in Tiffany to listen for the
sound of horses’ hooves and the knocker at the door. More than a week of this
exasperated her into the decision to write to her uncle and beg to be allowed
to come home. The letter refused to be written.

A knock at her
bedchamber door startled her out of these despondent thoughts. Her heart began
at once to race, but Tiffany chided herself. Did she think it was Will come
even into the house to capture her? Oh, she was foolish beyond belief. She
stood up, silently beseeching her pulses to be still.

The intruder in
the corridor proved not to be the Conqueror, but one of the maids.

‘Begging your
pardon, miss, but her ladyship says as how you’re to come down. There’s a
visitor, miss.’

Tiffany’s unruly
heart leapt back into life, hammering in her chest. She could barely formulate
the words.

‘Who is it?’

‘I dunno, miss.
It’s a lady, is all I can say.’

The sudden drop
caused Tiffany to sway. She caught at the door jamb for support. The maid
gaped.

‘Are you all
right, miss? You’ve gone all white.’

Tiffany
stiffened her spine and released her hold on the door. ‘I am perfectly well,
thank you. Pray tell Lady Drumbeg I will be down directly.’

She shut the
door and turned to lean against it, taking in deep breaths and letting them out
slowly. This would not do. She must take better control of herself or she would
attract Eva’s notice. So far she had managed, she hoped, to conceal the sorrows
under which she laboured, although not from Mrs Gosbeck. But that lady did not
live in the house, and Tiffany had evaded all efforts to inveigle her into
private. They might be prompted by an impulse of kindness, but she dared not
take the woman into her confidence.

For an instant,
she wondered if it was Mrs Gosbeck visiting downstairs, but dismissed the
notion at once. Eva would not summon her for that. Indeed, such a summons was
unprecedented. Relieved of her immediate fear, Tiffany now wondered at the
identity of the visitor. Checking herself in the mirror, she twitched at the
plain muslin gown, which had become a trifle dislodged from her sojourn on the
floor by the fire. Making for the door, she felt the rise of apprehension in
her bosom. Who could it be? And why so mysterious?

As she made her
way along the corridor towards the stairs, a knot formed in her stomach and
lodged there. It was odd, not to say sinister, for Lady Drumbeg to have
withheld the lady’s name. Did this betoken yet another humiliation? Tiffany was
transported back to those beastly occasions when she’d been called to the
headmistress’s rooms at school.

The saloon door
was before her. Tiffany took a deep breath and opened it. She stopped dead on
the threshold, struck dumb with astonishment. Eva was seated to one side of the
fireplace. Opposite, smiling a welcome and wholly at ease, clad in a dark blue
habit and a feathered beaver hat suited more to riding than paying morning
calls, sat Mrs Ariadne Membury.

The rocking of the coach had lulled her
companion into a light slumber, leaving Tiffany at last at leisure to
contemplate the lightning—and, it had to be said, alarming—change in her
fortunes. She felt light at heart for the first time in an age. Not that the
coming event held no terrors for her. Quite the contrary. But the sudden and
unexpected freedom from the shackles of Eva’s chaperonage had the most
extraordinarily heartening effect.

It had been
achieved with an aplomb Tiffany could only admire in her hostess. Without
uttering a word amiss, Ariadne Membury had managed to dispense with Lady
Drumbeg’s services, gaining Tiffany one precious week without fear of
humiliation and scolding.

‘Faith, Lady
Drumbeg,’ she had uttered gaily, ‘I imagine you must be heartily sick of
minding Miss Felton, and positively longing for a holiday.’

‘But
I—’

‘No, no, I must
insist. I will gladly take on your burden for this little time. I dare say I
shall enjoy it, for I have no daughters, you know, and it will amuse me to play
at being a chaperon.’

Eva had
introduced all the excuses she could think of to enable her to make one of the
party, but to Tiffany’s secret delight, she had been routed at every turn.

‘I fear I cannot
reconcile it with my conscience, Mrs Membury, to allow Tiffany out of my
jurisdiction. Mr Felton was quite specific.’

‘Oh, come, Lady
Drumbeg. You cannot suppose even the strictest guardian could raise any
possible objection to me?’

‘No
indeed, but—’

‘Then we are
agreed. Tiffany will accompany me to Lady Altass’s house party, and you will
enjoy an all too brief respite. I assure you I will take the greatest care of
her and return her to you safe and sound within the week.’

‘I
cannot—’

But Mrs Membury
had ridden over Eva like a tidal wave. ‘Now all that remains is for Tiffany to
pack, and we will be off at once.’

Tiffany had
balked at this. ‘Come now? But—’

‘I know it is
shocking of me to swoop down upon you like this, but I was at a stand until I
thought of you.’ She had given her merry laugh. ‘You will think me abominably
selfish, but the truth is my abigail has been taken ill and I cannot possibly
travel alone, even that short distance. My husband is not to accompany me, for
he is scheduled to take the boys back to school in a day or so. Besides, he
much dislikes this sort of affair.’