The Phantom Lover (27 page)

“If not the good sense, at least the good manners,” Nell said placatingly.

He accepted her peace offering with relief. “Yes, you behaved very well. Mama was quite pleased with you. She told me so.”

“How
good
of her,” Nell said, unable to keep the edge of sarcasm from creeping into her voice.

“
I
think so. It is not easy for a lady in Mama's position in society to overlook the past transgressions of a prospective daughter-in-law, especially when those transgressions have been so widely reported. I hope you appreciate the extent of her condescension.”

Nell's fingers curled into fists. She had had quite enough condescension for one evening. “Oh?” she asked with dangerous sweetness. “Have my ‘transgressions' been so enormous that they require such very great condescension?”

Nigel failed to notice the warning signals darting from her eyes. “Well, you can hardly expect her to approve of a girl whose been a jilt—”

“A
jilt
?” Nell put in softly.

Nigel, warming to this theme and eager to have Nell understand how much his mother (in her largeness of heart) had had to forgive, ignored the interruption. “—And who rode through the park in a costume which everyone described as brazen—”

“Brazen! Do go on,” she urged, her eyes glittering ominously.

“—And whose style is described by respectable matrons as positively fast—”

“A fast and brazen jilt, am I?” she asked icily. “I'm surprised that you managed to convince her to accept me into the family at all!”

“Now, don't fly into a pucker, my dear,” Nigel said pompously, completely confident that he had made his point. “All that is in the past. I've assured Mama that you've been properly broken to the bridle at last.”

“
Broken to the bridle
!” Nell flared. “Like all the
other
horses in your stable?”

Nigel was startled. “Come now, don't take a pet. Look, we've arrived at Thorne House. We can't permit the footman to hear us wrangling. Besides, you don't wish to turn stiff-rumped after such a fine evening, do you?”

“Stiff-rumped? Is that
more
of your stable talk?” she asked furiously.

Nigel realized he was blundering badly. “Hang it, Nell, it's only a manner of speaking—”

“Well, then,
in a manner of speaking
, I'd like you to know that
this
horse is not quite broken yet! This
prime bit o' blood
has
some
spirit still!”

The footman had lowered the step and stood waiting for Sir Nigel to open the carriage door. Beckwith, who had opened the front door of the house and was awaiting Miss Belden's appearance with a puzzled frown, started down the front steps. “Here comes Beckwith,” Nigel said hastily. “Best to drop this for tonight. You'll feel more the thing in the morning.”

But Nell, her eyes blazing, would not be stopped. “Oh, no! This little mare is about to
break loose
! One little hurdle, and she can run free.”

“Hurdle? What do you mean?”

“I mean our betrothal. I'm about to break it again!”

Nigel sneered. “You're jesting. You made this mistake once before and regretted it. You can't be such a fool as to do it again.”

“Can't I? Well, perhaps
this
will convince you—!” And, just as Beckwith opened the carriage door, she lifted her lapful of flowers and dropped them on his head.

Nigel gasped and sputtered in astonishment. Nell patted his head soothingly. “Don't fall into the dismals because one little horse has bolted, Sir Nigel. Even the
best
of trainers fails with one or two. Good-bye.”

She offered her hand to the goggled-eyed Beckwith and gracefully stepped down. Then, smiling with angelic innocence, she turned back to the stupified, openmouthed Nigel. He sat frozen amidst the hawthorn blossoms and rosebuds that clung to his hair and shoulders, and the larkspur and peony blooms that had fallen all about him. A large, wet leaf had stuck to his nose, and a sprig of lily-of-the-valley hung from behind an ear. “By the way, Nigel, please remember to thank your Mama for giving me those lovely flowers,” she said sweetly. “I've never enjoyed a bouquet more.”

Chapter Nineteen

S
OMETHING ABOUT BECKWITH'S
expression as he bumbled about the breakfast buffet the following morning made Sybil decidedly nervous. “What's wrong with you, Beckwith?” she asked suspiciously. “You've rearranged those cups three times. And you
still
haven't brought me those biscuits which I've asked for twice. Haven't I asked twice, Charles?”

Charles, absorbed in buttering his toast with the intense care required to ensure that the entire surface would be evenly coated, merely shrugged.

“Sorry, m'lady,” Beckwith mumbled, ambling over with the biscuits with an irritating, dilly-dallying shuffle.

“Something's amiss, I can tell,” Sybil declared, her eyes narrowed. “Why are you hanging about in this way? You know we don't require your services at breakfast.”

“I only want to see to the tea things, m'lady,” Beckwith said, ambling back to the buffet. “We don't want Lady Amelia to go into one o' her takings because the tea ain't brewed proper.”

“Hasn't Amelia been down
yet
?” asked Sybil in amazement. “It's well after ten!”

“No, m'lady, not yet.”

“Don't recall her ever coming down this late before,” Charles remarked. “And I don't recollect that Beckwith's ever fussed so about the tea, either.”

“That's quite true, Charles,” Sybil agreed. “There's something havey-cavey in the air this morning. Out with it, Beckwith!”

The butler, who knew a great deal more than he intended to reveal, had hoped to be able to observe at first hand the cyclone which he knew was about to strike, but he realized that he'd run out of excuses to remain. “I've finished,” he muttered, edging reluctantly to the door. “I'm just goin'.”

He was about to close the door behind him when a nervous Lady Amelia made her appearance. “May I serve you y'r tea, m'lady?” Beckwith asked her eagerly, holding the door for her.

“No, thank you, Beckwith. We won't be needing you,” she answered, dismissing him and carefully shutting the door. “Good morning, Sybil, and you, too, Charles.”

“
There
you are, Amelia,” Sybil greeted her curtly. “How is it you're so late this morning? And, by the way, where is Nell?”

“I'll tell you in a moment. Only let me pour myself a cup of tea first, if you please.”

“Tell me
what
?” Sybil cried impatiently. “I
knew
something was amiss, I knew it! There's an
air
about the house this morning like … like impending
doom
!”

“No need to enact a Cheltenham tragedy,” Amelia said bracingly and carried her cup to the table. The fact that her cup trembled enough to cause some tea to slosh over into the saucer was not lost on Sybil.

“Then get
on
with it,” she urged tensely.

Amelia took a heartening sip of her indispensable brew and sat back in her chair. “I have a letter for you, my dear,” she said to Sybil in a voice that seemed to underscore the importance of her otherwise innocuous words. She pulled from her sleeve a folded sheet of notepaper and handed it across the table.

“What is it?” Sybil asked, looking at the letter as if it were a snake about to bite. “Who sent—?”

But before she could finish her question, the door opened, and Beckwith, his face flushed with anticipation, entered. “Lady Imogen Lewis to see you, m'lady,” he told Sybil with ill-suppressed glee.

Sybil, her eyes fixed on her letter, waved him aside. “Tell her I'll see her in a few minutes. Make her comfortable in the—”

“There is nowhere in this
house
where I'd be comfortable,” came a caustic voice from the doorway, “and you may as well face the fact, Sybil Thorne, that I
won't
be put off!”

“Why, Imogen, what a surprise—!” Charles murmured embarrassedly, standing up in awkward haste. “Do come in.”

“I
am
in,” Lady Imogen said coldly.

“Won't you sit down?” Sybil asked with a forced smile. “We were just—”

“No, I won't sit down! Nor will I ever set foot in this house again after I've had my say. What do you mean, ma'am, and you too, my lord, by permitting your ward to
jilt my son again
?”

Charles gasped and fell back into his chair. Sybil, with a chagrined “
What
?” could only stare at her guest in dismay. “What are you
saying
?”

“Are you trying to pretend you know nothing of this?” Lady Imogen demanded.

Sybill shook her head, completely confounded. “No,
nothing
!” she gasped breathlessly. “I've not heard a
word
—!”

“Then let me be the first to tell you,” Lady Imogen said flatly. “Your ward, a foolish chit whose disreputable behavior and shocking callousness reflect no credit on those who reared her, had the temerity and the singular lack of judgment to announce to my son last evening, in the rudest, most tasteless way, that their betrothal was at an end. And this was done immediately following a magnificent dinner party which had signified to the very
cream
of English society my approval of the match!”

There was a moment of silence while the others tried to digest the import of Lady Imogen's flood of words. Charles, who understood only that his ward had been maligned, felt that it behooved him to come to her defense. “I think I must take exception, Lady Imogen, to the way you speak of our little Nell. I cannot permit—”

“Oh, be still, Charles!” Sybil interrupted brusquely. “If what Lady Imogen says is true, I shall speak of our little Nell in terms a great deal
worse
! Lady Imogen, you must be mistaken. Nell has been most docile and tractable since the understanding with Nigel was reached. I can't
believe
she could have changed so abruptly.”

“I am
not
mistaken,” Imogen stated. “The little wretch has destroyed
everything
. When word of this leaks out, she will not only have wrecked her own reputation beyond redemption, but she'll have made my son and me the laughingstocks of England.” Suddenly her lips began to quiver and her face took on an expression of pathetic self-pity. “I don't know how I shall be able to hold up my head!”

“Don't say so,” Sybil said, jumping up and running to Lady Imogen's side. “Here, sit down, please! Not a
word
of this will leave this room. It's all been some sort of terrible mistake. A lover's quarrel, no doubt. We'll talk to Nell and bring her round, and everything will go on just as we've planned.”

Lady Imogen allowed herself to be seated, but she would not otherwise be placated. “You're a fool, Sybil Thorne, if you think this can ever be patched up. Nigel is beside himself with rage. He won't have her name mentioned in his hearing!”

“Oh, dear,” Sybil said in some discouragement. She paced about behind Lady Imogen's chair thoughtfully. “But surely
you
, Lady Imogen, could convince him to relent, if you truly put your mind to it.”

“Do you imagine that I would do anything to encourage my only son to shackle himself to that … that … wayward, skittish, shatterbrained
minx
?”

“But I tell you she's changed! We haven't heard
her
side of this. I'm certain she can explain everything to your satisfaction. Be reasonable, Lady Imogen. Would you not like to have this incident buried? Would you not like to be able to go on as before, with no need for embarrassment or shame? Let me send for Nell. I know she can put all this right.”

She bent over Lady Imogen breathlessly. Imogen looked at Sybil with speculative eyes and then nodded almost imperceptibly. Sybil, with a sigh of relief, reached across the table to the little silver bell near her place and rang it. Beckwith, who had never left the room, stepped forward. “Yes, m'lady?”

Sybil started. “
Oh!
Good
heavens
, have you been standing there
all this time
? Beckwith, you try my patience beyond
endurance!
But never mind that now. Find Miss Belden and tell her to come here at once!”

Beckwith shook his head. “She's not at home, m'lady.”

“Not at home? But where can she have gone so early?”

Amelia coughed gently. “Sybil, dear—”

Sybil waved her off impatiently. “Not
now
, Amelia, please! Can't you see that I've a crisis on my hands? Well, Beckwith, where has the girl gone?”

Beckwith shrugged. Amelia tried again to attract Sybil's attention. “She's
left
, Sybil. The
letter
, remember?”

“Letter? Oh, good
God
!” She looked down at the letter still clutched in her hand. “Has
this
anything to do with—?” She ripped open the seal and her eyes flew over the words.

In the silence, Amelia turned to Imogen. “May I offer you a cup of tea? There is nothing more soothing—”

Before she could finish, Sybil let forth a piercing wail and tottered to the nearest chair. The door burst open and Harry, with Roddy close behind, came hurrying into the room. The two men, still in their riding clothes, had just returned from a brisk canter through the park. “Good lord, Sybil,” Harry exclaimed in alarm, “what's the cause of this to-do?”

“
Disaster
!” she announced in a voice quivering with passion. “Complete disaster! I am about to have an attack of
apoplexy
!” And she fell back against the chair with a groan and shut her eyes.

“Here,” Amelia suggested promptly, “have a cup of tea. It will do you good.” She placed a cup in front of her stricken niece, but Sybil opened her eyes, glared at Amelia venomously, groaned and shut them again.