The English Witch (16 page)

"That I will do—in good time—but first I wanted you to understand that I won't have you interfering in my affairs—"

"Where they concern my goddaughter, I cannot help but interfere. I hold it as a debt to Juliet."

"Was it part of that debt to send your nephew to connive with my daughter?"

"I cannot allow you to speak so when he is not here to defend himself." She gestured towards the bell rope. "Ring for a servant, Charles, and we shall send for Basil—and for Alexandra, too. If she has been conniving with him, then let her answer for herself."

Sir Charles rang, grumbling as he did so, and for several minutes after as they waited. Lady Bertram paid no heed to his ill-natured mutterings. She sat, straight as a ramrod, rigidly calm.

At last, the two connivers entered the room. Alexandra, who hadn't seen her Papa until now, gave him an affectionate peck on the cheek.

Angrily he waved her away. "None of your coaxing arts, Miss," he growled. "I've had enough of them."

He then launched into a tirade about make-believe fiancés, bribery of friends, and betrayal of Randolph, who was supposedly in the process of breaking his heart. No one but Lady Bertram noticed the flicker of interest in Basil's eyes as this last piece of information was communicated. Meanwhile, the baronet went on to his primary grievance—and here he took a letter out of his pocket—the very upsetting words he'd had from his friend, George Burnham.

"Well, Basil," said Lady Bertram when the baronet paused for breath. "What have you to say to that?"

"I hardly know what to say, Aunt. There's so much of it." He was leaning against the door frame, completely at his ease, wearing his most seraphic expression.

Miss Ashmore, he noticed, looked panicked, and well she should. If her Papa was not quickly brought under control, she'd be whisked off to Yorkshire and married to the wool merchant's son before the week was out.

It would be best if she were married and kept far away, beyond his reach. She was spoiling his fun.
Hadn't she disrupted his entertainment last night?
And he'd been so determined to find pleasure in other company, had so looked forward to it.

There was the Honourable Miss Sheldon, who'd refused to speak to him in the old days, and Miss Carstone. Even the haughty Honoria had endured a conversation, and her Mama had positively beamed upon him. Yet, they might have been a pack of murdering Hindoos for all the joy he had of them.

Not that he needed to wonder why there should be so little joy in it. The cause was here before him, artful creature that she was.
Well then, if she was so artful, let her get herself out of this fix.

He glanced towards her then, their eyes met, and he found himself saying, "Of course, as to the fiancé part of your question, the answer is plain enough. She promised herself to me six years ago, and I mean to hold her to that promise.''

"You
what
?"
Sir Charles cried.

"I mean to—"

"What kind of fool do you take me for? I know as well as everyone else in this room that was a great piece of nonsense you concocted."

"Are you calling me a liar, sir?" Basil asked quietly.

Alexandra, who'd apparently been struck mute by the previous exchange, now found her tongue. "No, he isn't." She turned to her father. "You know you aren't saying any such thing, Papa."

"I most certainly am. And if this young blackguard wishes to name his seconds—"

"Oh, do be quiet, Charles. He wishes nothing of the sort. But you can hardly expect my nephew to stand quietly by as you denigrate his"—the countess appeared to have got something stuck in her throat, but she quickly recovered—"his tender feelings for your daughter."

"That's it precisely, Aunt. My tender feelings." He glanced again at Alexandra, expecting her to take the cue.

Instead, she crossed the room to Basil's side. "You can't get at me through my Papa, Basil," she said, with a look of deepest pity. "I told you it was a mistake." She turned to her father. "It's as you predicted, Papa."

"What is?" asked the now-bewildered baronet.

"Why, it was only romantic infatuation—as you said—and now—"

"And now," Basil interposed, beginning to grow very angry, "you're infatuated with someone else and mean to throw me over. I should have known I couldn't compete with a marquess."

"A what? What's going on here? Clementina, they're at it again, and I hold you responsible."

"On the contrary," the countess remarked serenely, "they are at each other. But really, Basil, you needn't sulk. After all, it is a compliment to be jilted in favour of a marquess. A future duke, actually."

"Will someone please speak rationally and logically? Because if they do not, I warn you, Alexandra, you'll be out of this house and on your way to Yorkshire in the next ten minutes."

"The situation is quite simple, Charles. Lord Arden, Thome's heir, has evidently succeeded in engaging your daughter's affections."

"But the wretched girl is engaged already. Twice, it seems, if I am to believe all this taradiddle about tender feelings."

"That is neither here nor there, to expect her to marry a wool merchant's son or my black sheep of a nephew"—the nephew, at the moment, had a rather black look about him, indeed—"when the future Duke of Thorne wishes to make her his wife, is perfectly absurd. It is the most illogical thing I have ever heard."

Sir Charles, whose head was now spinning, dropped into a chair.

"Thome?" he uttered faintly. Then he remembered the letter still clutched in his hand. "But what of this? What reply am I to make to this?"

Casting a warning look at Basil, Alexandra took the letter from her father. She read it through, quickly, frowning as she did so. "Why, this is infamous, Papa!" she exclaimed, when she was done. "See how the man insults you. And to go on at such length about injured friendship and in the next bream talk of the money, when he as much as says the money is nothing to him. Oh, Papa, no wonder you were so overset." She spoke with such tender compassion that even Basil half-believed her—for a moment.

"Well, it was most distressing. Especially when he knows I fully intended—but what reply can I make him now?"

"Why, that I'm to be mar—"

Basil hastily interrupted, "If it's as your daughter says, sir, then perhaps you should make no answer—not immediately. You'll want to frame a suitable reply, will you not?" he added, ignoring Miss Ashmore's look of outrage.

"Basil is right, Charles. The man has no choice but to be patient. And in a week or so, perhaps, you may answer him as coolly and logically as you like."

"Yes, Papa. You'll know exactly how to put him in his place—but later, when you're calmer."

He gazed for a moment at the three faces surrounding him, but all looked perfectly sincere—all seemed, suddenly, prodigious concerned with his peace of mind. He didn't trust any of them, and yet what could he do? A dukedom was nothing to sneeze at. With Thome's patronage, a man might explore the globe for the rest of his life with never a care in the world. And if there were no dukedom, then Alexandra would marry Randolph.

Defeated for the moment, the baronet shrugged and agreed that George Burnham could wait. Exhausted with trying to distinguish between truth and humbug, he struggled up from the chair and out of the room.

"Well, what are you glaring at each other for?" Lady Bertram asked when the door had closed behind him. "You fuddled him well enough, between the two of you, and I should be deeply ashamed of you both if it had not been so very amusing. Well, well. Run along now, Alexandra. I wish to have a word with my nephew."

Alexandra ran along readily enough, not liking the expression on Mr. Trevelyan's face.
Whatever was the matter with him?
Was this how he meant to help, with that old betrothal farce that Papa plainly didn't believe for a moment? Thank heavens she hadn't counted on help from that quarter. Now what was she to do?

The amount George Burnham referred to in his letter wasn't the "thousand pounds or so" she'd heard Papa mention over the years. She'd read the words again and again, disbelieving her eyes, and hardly noticing the rest of the insulting missive. She couldn't understand how the amount had grown so. But then, what did Papa know of finance? Annuities and percents were as unfathomable to him as his beloved ancient inscriptions were to others. That was why he'd put everything in Mr. Burnham's hands. And how he'd tied the noose about her neck.

She'd have to marry Arden now—if he'd have her. If he wouldn't, Papa would simply shrug and take her away. She could appeal to Aunt Clem—but both conscience and pride recoiled at the idea of begging more help from her indulgent godmother.

Alexandra went to her room and tried to think. So many lies—to everyone—and matters only grew more muddled and horrible. Arden hadn't turned a hair when she'd mentioned Papa's debt—but what would he think now?

Did he want her badly enough to pay this outrageous marriage settlement? She didn't believe he truly loved her. He struck her less as a man in love than as one pursuing a prize.

Was that what offended her so? Though he said all the right
words, she felt he could have been saying them to anybody. He didn't seem to know—or care—who she was.

Not, she reminded herself, that he'd necessarily
like
who she was: a manipulative, deceitful woman who was only using him to save herself from boring Randolph and his appalling sisters. She had no right to judge the marquess so harshly.

She'd have to think of some way to break the news about the money. That was sure to be awkward. She attempted to compose an appropriate speech, but her mind kept returning to one point in the previous conversation, when Basil had said he meant to have her. He'd sounded as though he
did
mean it, and her heart had thumped dreadfully, as it was thumping now. Oh, such a fool she was.
What was the good of his saying it if he wasn't going to sound as though he meant it?

For the next two days, Basil kept well away from her, Aunt Clem having warned him, as she told Alexandra, "to keep his interfering self out of this business." It was most gratifying to see how well he obeyed his aunt, especially, Alexandra thought dismally, when Aunt Clem's orders so perfectly coincided with his own fickle inclinations.

Still, it was odd that he'd taken up with Randolph, of all people. Apparently determined to be Mr. Burnham's bosom bow, Basil stuck to the young scholar like glue, toured him about the estate, and spent hours talking with him. Randolph must have found these discussions uplifting, for he'd come to Hartleigh Hall in a state of tragic melancholy. Now, after only two days, he was actually grinning at the man he'd begged her to beware of.

Oh, well, Alexandra thought wearily, it was nothing to her. She had her hands full with Arden.

Today they were sharing a picnic lunch with the Osbornes and another group of neighbours. Determined to have her exclusive company, Lord Arden had borne her off to a spot a little distance from the others. There he treated her to such a series of compliments and affectionate hints and delicate renderings of life at Thornehill—as well as the rest of the Parrington estates, so numerous she couldn't keep them straight in her mind—that he gave her a splitting headache.

Remarking her pallor, he suggested a walk. The meal had been laid out in a cool, shady grove, and he pointed to a path that followed alongside a sparkling stream.

"Hadn't we better invite the others?" she asked, as he helped her to her feet and drew her arm though his.

"Whatever for?"

She cast a furtive glance towards Basil, whose head was now bent very close to Hetty's simpering face. Any excuse Alexandra might have made died on her lips. Gripping the marquess's arm more firmly, she manufactured a shy smile.

That was answer enough for Will. He smiled down at her in a protective, proprietary sort of way, patted the slim fingers that lay on his sleeve, and bore her off towards the path.

No one appeared to take any alarm at their departure. Not Sir Charles, certainly, to whom it was comforting proof of the marquess's interest in his daughter. As Alexandra's own Papa did not object to the business, no one else felt required to do so, either.

No one, that is, but Basil, who took great exception to this impropriety. He wondered, as his hooded gaze followed the departing pair, what the devil Ashmore was thinking of to countenance it. It would have been easy enough to persuade Hetty to stroll in the same direction, but that was risky. Her Mama was bound to expect certain news at the conclusion of the exercise. Nor could Basil look with equanimity upon the prospect of stumbling, with witnesses, upon what was bound to be a compromising situation.

As the minutes ticked away, the danger of there being a compromising situation to witness increased.
Still, if no one else cared, why should he?
Consequently, between tormenting himself with imagining what was happening between the pair, and assuring himself of his perfect indifference to the lurid scenes presenting themselves to his imagination, he did not at first notice the parasol that tapped his arm. It tapped again, and a weary sigh floated down from somewhere above his head. He looked up to see Lady Deverell gazing down at him in a very bored sort of way.