The English Witch (20 page)

She shook her head.

"Not even when I'm only hours away from solving the Burnham problem once and for all?"

She looked up at him, suspicious still, though hope fluttered faintly within her.

"Not even," he continued softly, "if I say I do it all for you because it matters to me what becomes of you?"

She shook her head again automatically.

He went on more lightly, "No, I suppose there's no helping
that—
not now, at least. Well, then, here is the situation.
We must get you and Will back for a hundred reasons I can't go into now. Except that I will have laboured in vain if you run off with him. I did understand—correct me if I'm wrong— you weren't really keen on doing so."

It was useless to pretend otherwise. "I wasn't," she admitted. "I'm not."

"Then won't you please do as I ask? I can give you about half an hour to change while I deal with the innkeeper and see about horses. I promise you, it means the end of the Burnham business—without alternative fiancés and husbands. I give you my word, my love."

Well, she hadn't any choice, had she, whatever his word was worth? Will was useless at present. And she could hardly go
off
by herself, even if she had anywhere to go. She acquiesced.

"Oh, you are wonderful." He dropped a light kiss on the top of her head, then left the room.

She stared at the door for a moment, her hand creeping up to touch the spot where his lips had been. Of everything that baffled her—how he came to be here, why he'd drugged Will, what this mysterious plan was to solve the Burnham problem—it was this that puzzled her most. All the usual endearments, the usual mix of melodrama and farce...then one small, affectionate gesture to upset all her conclusions.

It recalled that afternoon they'd ridden together, when he'd put aside his practised arts for a while and treated her like a friend. He'd promised to help her then. But if he'd meant it, why in heaven's name had he gone off without a word of explanation, letting her think he'd gone out of her life for good?

"Oh, Basil," she murmured to the empty room, "it's always 'why' with you."

The room making no suitable reply, she shook her head and turned to the business at hand.

It was a disconcerting and troublesome business. For one, there seemed to be at least nine thousand fastenings to unfasten before she could get out of her dress. For another, his clothes didn't fit. The shirt was too big, and his trousers, which were indecently snug about her hips, gaped even more indecently at the waist. Frenziedly, she unbuttoned the trouser flap and stuffed her shawl inside, as padding. It felt stupid, and looked stupider, but at least it helped disguise her unmasculine curves. Having no idea how to deal with the neckcloth and afraid to crumple it, she ignored it, and jerked on waistcoat and coat. Apparently, since he'd not supplied her with his footwear, her own half-boots would do.

It was the oddest feeling to be wearing his clothes. Though they were fresh and clean, something of him pervaded them—something that made her feel uncomfortably warm and flustered. Nervously she pulled and tucked and pushed at the garments. Then, when she was certain nothing more could be done to improve her appearance, she sat down on the edge of the bed and waited.

In a few minutes there was a light tap on the door and Basil's voice asking if she was decent.

"If you can call it that," she answered, turning pink. She turned pinker still when he entered the room and, after studying her for a moment, broke into a smile.

"You needn't laugh," she snapped. "You could hardly expect a perfect fit—and I hadn't a valet to help me."

"I would have been thrilled to death to valet you, my dear, if you'd only asked. Now, if you'll pin your hair up, I shall tie your cravat. In that at least you shall not be faulted."

She did as he asked. But when he stood so close to wrap the linen about her neck, her knees grew shaky and weak, and her heart promptly commenced knocking in concert.

He was, she thought, an unconscionably long time about it. When, finally, she began to express impatience, he retorted that it was no simple business when the cloth was about his own neck; to have to work
backwards
was a feat of inexpressible difficulty.

"And it doesn't help—" But he thought better of it and held his tongue.

No, it didn't help at all that Alexandra in trousers—in
his
trousers—was provocation beyond all endurance. His hands were unsteady. They wanted to be everywhere else but at this dratted piece of linen. Her padding only invited removal, and the ill-fitting coat...oh, that was even worse. To look at it was to imagine her wearing nothing but. Being cursed with a fertile imagination, he was plagued with more disconcerting visions still, with the result that he didn't dare move a muscle beyond those required to tie the cravat, for fear he'd lose all control, drag her to the bed, and ravish her.

Finally, the job he'd been a fool to undertake was done, and he could step away from her. "There," he said, turning away. "You'll do. Just put on your—my—hat, and let's get out of here."

With the innkeeper's assistance, Will was carried out and flung unceremoniously over Basil's mount. After a brief, whispered conversation and the clinking of coins, Basil leapt up behind the marquess's prostrate form.

"It's going to be deuced uncomfortable," he told his companion. "Both the horse and I had much rather it was you. But leading another beast would only slow us more. Ah, well." He gave a forlorn sigh, and they were on their way.

They reached Hartleigh Hall a little before midnight and rode quietly round to the servants' entrance.

"Now do you go on ahead," he whispered. "My valet was supposed to leave the door unlatched—"

"You've been here already?"

"No, but I sent Rogers. You must slip upstairs and go to my room. He'll be waiting. Tell him there's been a slight change in plans and that he's to come down to me."

"You want me to go to him looking like this?"

"My dear, Rogers cannot be shocked. It's out of the question. Besides, he's the most close-mouthed fellow in creation. And I must have his help in getting Will dressed and back to the party. Come," He strode over to help her down from her mount.

If he took the opportunity to hold her a little closer than was absolutely necessary for rather longer than was absolutely necessary, and if his lips touched hers before he let her go, it must be blamed on the excitement of the moment. As must, of course, Miss Ashmore's delay in letting go of
him.
In any case, there was a brief embrace, at the conclusion of which Mr. Trevelyan gave it as his opinion that she'd better go in quickly. She retorted that it was he who kept her back, which led to another, longer embrace and Mr. Trevelyan's husky observation that if she didn't go in now he couldn't answer for the consequences.

"Then let go of me," she snapped with rather more ferocity than circumstances required, for he was not holding her so very tightly as all that, and she had suffered two kisses without giving any sort of battle.

At any rate, he did let go, and she fled, her face blazing with shame. She got upstairs undetected, found Rogers—who, as promised, never turned a hair at seeing her in his master's coat and trousers—and communicated her message. Then, red-faced again, she crept on to her own room, shut the door, and fell, shaking, onto the bed.

Lifting the cup with two trembling hands, Alexandra informed her abigail that she'd never heard a thing, having slept like the very dead she was sure. That was true enough.

Basil had come to her door last night just as she was preparing to climb into bed. Yanking her dressing gown tightly about her, she'd gone to answer the knock. With no thought of decorum, he'd pushed the door open and strolled in as assuredly as though he'd dropped into his own club. He'd looked so elegant and handsome—every hair in place, his evening costume perfectly pressed and spotless—that she'd begun to think she'd imagined the whole evening's adventure.

It was only after his eyes raked her insufficiently clad form and he'd made a rather indecorous proposal that she'd collected her wits and seized the washbasin as a weapon. After declaring her cruel and heartless, he'd said he'd only come to take his clothes back and to tell her she must pretend she'd never left her room that night—no matter what Will might be foolish enough to say when he recovered.

Basil had gone on to explain that he must be away for a few days, but he begged her to trust him in the meantime. "No one," he'd promised, "is going to drag you off to Yorkshire. So there's no need to fall in with any more of his lordship's schemes. Is that clear?" It wasn't clear, and she didn't like taking orders, but she'd nodded.

He'd then asked for a good-night kiss. Being threatened with the washbasin instead, he'd taken mournful leave of her, once more remarking on her want of feeling.

After he'd gone, she'd taken the laudanum her hostess had so thoughtfully provided earlier for her headache. It would have been impossible to sleep otherwise. She had, therefore, slept very soundly and never heard the others return. She did not mind that her tongue, at the moment, was thick and unpleasant-tasting in her mouth, or that her head felt as though it were in a vise. She had blessed oblivion for a few hours at least.

Emmy seemed about to burst with suppressed excitement.

"A to-do?" Alexandra asked, with admirable composure. "What sort of to-do?"

"Oh, Miss, every sort of thing. Mr. Burnham is gone off, no one knows where. His lordship—Lord Arden, that is—was carried up to his room, and I don't know what else. We were all at sixes and sevens and no one in their beds until sunup at least. That was only the ladies, as the gents was down in the library talking the longest time after."

As she took in her mistress's white, drawn face, Emmy was stricken with guilt, and began berating herself for upsetting the poor lady when it was plain she was still ill. She plumped up the pillows, straightened the coverlet, and left the room, still muttering at herself.

It was several hours before Alexandra heard the full story, as the rest of the family and guests remained in their beds until well into the afternoon. She dressed herself but, not caring to risk a confrontation with Lord Arden, kept to her room and tried to focus on Mr. Richardson's
Clarissa.
Though she'd read the old novel years ago in defiance of her governess, and though the interminable epistles did tax her patience dreadfully, Alexandra was determined to read the story through, "for the sentiment," as Dr. Johnson had recommended.

She would have preferred, certainly, that Lovelace did not so very much remind her of Mr. Trevelyan, and that Clarissa's parental difficulties did not make her own pale into insignificance. Nevertheless, she read on doggedly until Aunt Clem appeared to give her a full accounting of the night's events.

Lady Bertram told the tale in her usual blunt way. That rattle of a nephew of hers had put in a surprise appearance just as the party was going in to supper. He'd treated them all to some cockamamie tale about his horse stumbling into a ditch and the consequent several hours' delay which had prevented his arriving at Hartleigh Hall in time to accompany them to the gala.

Her ladyship communicated her private opinion that it was no four-footed creature that had delayed him but a barmaid, for he wore an insufferable cock-of-the-walk air that made his aunt want to slap him senseless.

At any rate, he'd exhausted himself during supper and a couple of sets after, cutting a swathe through all the debutante hearts in the vicinity. He'd gone out to the terrace for a breath of air. There he'd come upon Will who was sprawled out, unconscious, on one of the long stone benches.

"I'd wondered where he'd got to," her ladyship muttered. "Hadn't seen him for hours. Well, evidently he'd been fully occupied, drinking himself into stupefaction."

Lord Arden was bundled off to an unoccupied parlour while the festivities continued into the small hours of the morning. When it was time to depart, the servants carried him out to the carriage. Basil, who'd been supervising this procedure, was the one to find the note addressed to Sir Charles. It was lying on the seat of the vehicle in which the baronet had ridden to the gala.

At this point in the narrative, the countess's patrician features broke into a grin of unholy glee. "What do you think, my dear? Your Papa's scholarly companion—the steadiest chap in the world, according to Charles—has run away. Run away!"

"Good heavens," said Alexandra, rather faintly.

It was true. Mr. Burnham had, according to his note, decided to take control of his own life for once. Though he'd worded it diplomatically enough, it was plain—to Aunt Clem at least—why he'd gone.

"Is it not astonishing, my dear? The dutiful boy blankly refuses to marry you."

"Yes, it is astonishing, Aunt Clem. Randolph Burnham running away. Randolph flouting his Papa's commands. I can scarcely credit it," said the young lady. Her face was pale, but her voice was steady enough.

"Well, credit it, my dear. Even your father, shocked as he was, was forced to believe his own eyes. I am sure that if he had not feared for Randolph's safety—for, in truth, as Basil said, the young man's an innocent lamb and might easily stumble into difficulties, left to himself—well, if that were not his main concern, he'd have shrugged it off soon enough. At any rate, Basil offered to go look for Mr. Burnham to reassure us all that the young man was safe. Obliging fellow, my nephew, isn't he?"