The Random Gentleman (12 page)

Chapter 12

Belinda made no effort to get in touch with Peregrine Random in the following three days. She knew she must come to terms with the extraordinary feeling she had for the wayward gentleman before she met him again. In accepting the fact that no future was possible with him there was pain, but the sense of sweetness in knowing that he existed in the world, and was well and happy, seemed to balance the feeling of loss.

Perhaps, she thought hopefully, I am growing up?

The new feeling of maturity and calm renunciation was rudely challenged on the third day, however, when the hubbub which inevitably heralded the arrival of the Earl brought her posthaste from the dining room into the central hall. Her grandfather, looking dusty, haggard, and angry, was demanding of Dittisham if Miss Belinda was still in residence, and being quietly assured that she was, when his eye lighted upon her, and the fierce old countenance assumed a reddish hue.

“There you are, Miss! No apologies for the bother and embarrassment you’ve put me to? No compunction for Lady Freya’s distress, or the Tulliver’s consternation?” He flung the riding coat in the direction of one of the footmen, his hat toward another, and his gloves, with remarkable restraint, he handed to the waiting Dittisham. “Well, Miss? Cat got your tongue?”

The new Belinda went toward him in a little rush and clasped her arms around his lean, upright body in a tight hug. Under her hands, she felt him tremble, and her heart was pierced by love and remorse.

“Dearest Grandy, I am so very happy to see you again! Do come in, and let Dittisham bring you something to play off your dust! You look as though you had ridden hell-for-leather all the way from London!”

“Fine language for a well-brought-up young lady,” blustered the Earl, but the sullen red was fading from his cheeks, and a tentative ghost of a smile tugged at his lips. He peered down into the lovely face raised to his, noticed the absence of the signs of grief he had dreaded to see, and with a feigned reluctance put his own arms around the laughing girl and kissed her on the cheek. “Playing the old man up sweet?” he challenged. “Well, Puss, better open the budget at once, and confess what fresh mischief you’ve been up to!”

“I have been most circumspect,” protested the girl. She led him by the arm into the library. Settling him in his favorite chair, she nodded to the relieved Dittisham. “I’ll be bound His Lordship hasn’t broken his fast today, rushing pell-mell from the City to rescue me from God knows what! Ask Mrs. Mayo to send in a cold collation—”

“ ‘Cold collation’!” uttered the Earl in scathing accents, then grinned reluctantly at the two beaming faces before him. “You are a minx, Puss!” he complained as Dittisham bustled away to carry out his duties. “Why did you leave me? And more important, have you come to your senses?”

“Oh, yes!” The new Belinda forced herself to hold her temper in check at this unflattering if accurate question. Then, to divert his attention she informed him that the gypsies were back in the Home Woods. “You’ll be enjoying some excellent brandy with your dinner tonight.”

“Don’t try to put me off with gypsies and run brandy,” snapped the Earl, sniffing a diversion. “What new imbroglio have you gotten us into?” A horrid suspicion struck him. “You haven’t been encouraging some local beau out of spite?”

Belinda decided that her grandfather’s uncanny perceptivity would have gotten him hanged as a warlock a hundred years earlier; it was deuced uncomfortable now. Seeing the growing alarm on his face, she attempted to make a recover.

“Local beau, Grandfather? You know the roster: Squire Highcastle’s oafish heir and Cleo Mannering’s red-headed brother! Which of them would you choose as a husband for me?”

“Neither, Miss, since you are already promised—” began her irate grandparent with parade-ground volume. Then he seemed to shrink a little. His voice, when he continued, was lower and, to Belinda, pitifully milder. “No, child, I’ll not force that issue upon you again. Romsdale’s behavior has been such as to disgust any person of sensibility.” Then, catching a certain well-known set to her lovely chin, his glance sharpened. “The Duke has not waited upon you here, has he?”

Belinda shook her head. “No, he has not. But
I
have been thinking that my behavior was equally reprehensible. I behaved like a hurly-burly miss, rather than a Sayre. Running under fire! A craven performance!” She drew a steadying breath. “Perhaps we might endeavor to patch up the business—?”

The Earl frowned portentously. “You are telling me that you would be willing to forgive and forget—to swallow that fellow’s insults . . .? I had not thought it of you, Belinda.”

“I have come to believe that I acted like a spoiled and willful child,” confessed Belinda.

“And Romsdale behaved like an insufferable popinjay!” shouted the Earl, his loud, clear tones augmented by his sense of outrage.

It was perhaps less than fortunate that Dittisham had just opened the door and now announced, “His Grace the Duke of Romsdale!”

Belinda, shocked at the shattering possibility that His Grace had heard the Earl’s comment, was still entertained by the horrified expression on her grandfather’s face. She so far forgot all sense of decorum as to succumb to a desire to giggle. But when a tall, elegantly groomed gentleman entered the room on the heels of Dittisham’s announcement, all impulse to laugh suddenly evaporated. For the visitor, point-device in the latest fashion, his blond hair attractively arranged, his handsome bronzed face imperturbable, was none other than Mr. Peregrine Random of the Open Road!

The Earl, having no knowledge of the meeting in the Home Woods, recovered his aplomb sooner than did Belinda. His advance upon his guest was more belligerent than courageous. “Well, sirrah, what do you want?” he snapped.

My Lord Duke, recognizing the authentic Sayre tone and idiom, hid a smile and said suavely, “I have come, sir, to pay my regrettably tardy respects to my future wife. Also to apologize for behavior which was insufferable, rag-mannered, arrogant, and considering the charm and beauty of my fiancée—damned stupid. Is it too much to hope that you might forgive such a cloth-headed simpleton as myself, sir? And ma’am?”

This last was said with such a beguiling air that Belinda felt her heart thump in her breast. Her mind was reeling with surprise and conjecture. The man before her, however elegantly turned out, was far from the pompous popinjay she had supposed the Duke to be. Somehow the image of a fascinating haphazardly wandering Gorgio had to be united with the persona of a noble diplomat—and at the moment, Belinda was not sure she was capable of making the meld.

Her grandfather seemed better able to accept the metamorphosis. But then he had probably not seen Peregrine Random, and had only the Duke’s change of attitude to adjust to. The old man was walking toward the visitor with hand extended in welcome, his gust of rage as quickly burnt out as it had flamed up. He said, with a wry smile, “Bid ye welcome, Romsdale. It seems we may all have been hasty!”

To which the Duke, clasping his hand warmly, replied with obvious relief, “Or, in my case, delinquent, sir! May I venture to hope that Miss Belinda will view my suit with similar lenience?”

Belinda suppressed a gasp. This was carrying the attack into enemy territory with the same daring and dash he had exhibited at the wall several days earlier. Her thoughts awhirl, she yet realized that when she had time to catch her breath, she might find her affianced husband a very attractive man—or pair of men! Had he been aware of her identity when he saw her on the wall? Perhaps the disguise of poor relation had not for a moment deceived him? If so, his announcement to the gypsies of an arranged marriage . . . his talk of the girl to whom he was pledged . . . referred to her! He had known all the time. He had been entertaining himself at her expense! Belatedly she recalled the amusement in his face, the teasing note in his voice. He had been laughing at her for a gauche child from the start! Raising eyes in which a small flare of anger was beginning to sparkle, Belinda observed that even now a barely disguised amusement lit his eyes and tugged at the well-shaped mouth.

It was a challenge she was unable to resist.

“Grandfather, you are, I am afraid, the victim of a bare-faced deception. This—
gentleman
is running a rig on you. He is one Peregrine Random, late traveler with the gypsy band at present in Home Woods. You will remember I told you they have been here for several days? I have met Mr. Random twice. He thought me to be a poor relation of the Sayres. He made—advances.”

Frowning thunderously, the Earl stared from one face to the other. “Indeed? Is this so, sirrah?”

The Duke said formally, not smiling now, “Sir, may I urgently request the favor of five minutes private conversation with you?”

Giving him a long, cold look, the Earl said harshly, “It might be advisable. Follow me, Romsdale.”

Watching with a naughty grin as the two tall men stalked out of the room, Belinda hoped that the Earl would not be too hard upon the Duke and wondered just what the latter would find to say to excuse his masquerade. The thought of His Grace being compelled to explain and apologize so tickled her curiosity that she went out into the great hall and listened shamelessly at the closed library door, to Dittisham’s disapproval and the footman’s secret amusement.

Unfortunately she was unable to hear anything except the Earl’s voice raised in what she took to be anger. She eased the door open a crack. The Earl was in parade-ground form.

“—yourself ‘Peregrine Random’! If you had to travel incognito, Romsdale, that was a damned sickly
nom-de-guerre!
What kind of ramshackle game have you been playing with my granddaughter?”

The Duke, who had promised himself not to let the old tyrant ruffle his temper, was endeavoring to cling to this sensible resolve. “First I must admit that I behaved badly—”

“Correct!” agreed the Earl, too heartily.

Dane sighed. It was clear that the old stickler was going to exact his pound of flesh. The Duke spared an unkind thought for his difficult little love, who had deliberately pitchforked him into this mess. “I came down to Sayre Court to mend my fences, sir. I hoped I might persuade your granddaughter to accept me—”

“Under an assumed name?” snapped the Earl, who, as many a cursed-out subaltern had discovered, was awake upon every suit, and no man with whom to enter lightly into an argument.

Holding his temper with both hands, the Duke continued grimly, “I was convinced that I had behaved so offensively that Belinda would refuse me under my own name, so I—”

“Took the coward’s way out?” jibed the old autocrat, unforgivably.

The Duke received this low blow with a stiffening of his back. “I had hoped that I might, upon closer acquaintance, persuade Miss Belinda to consider my suit more kindly,” he replied in a voice even colder than the Earl’s had been. “If, however, I have offended you and your granddaughter beyond forgiveness, there is nothing left but to rid you of my presence with all dispatch. You have my word I shall not intrude upon you again!”

Belinda, following the conversation with increasing anxiety—for it had not gone at all as she had expected—now experienced panic. Bitterly she condemned herself for her folly in bringing up the question of Peregrine Random. Had not the Duke come in his proper person, offering apologies, making overtures toward better understanding, even toward the marriage she now ardently desired? Whatever had possessed her to act with such petty malice? Would she
never
put aside childish ways? Well, now she saw what had come of it. He was going, coldly in anger—the man she knew she loved. Impulsively she pushed open the door, almost hitting the white-faced Duke who was making his exit at that moment.

“No! You must not go!” Belinda cried, coming into the room in a rush.

“Miss Belinda,” the Duke acknowledged her between set teeth. “My apologies for any offense I may have given you, and for this intrusion.” He bowed formally.

“But it was not an intrusion, My Lord Duke,” Belinda pleaded, since I had invited you several days ago!”

“Under an assumed name,” interpolated the Earl, unwilling to drop that bone of contention.

“Grandfather!” Belinda protested.
Now of all times, must he be so knaggy?
I forbid you to insult my guest—”

“
You
forbid
me!
” gasped the Earl, outraged by what he saw as a betrayal from within his own camp.

They glared at one another, the girl’s delicate jaw set as firmly as her grandfather’s, brown eyes flashing anger into ice blue ones.

The Duke had witnessed this confrontation with strong disapproval. From the old martinet he had expected nothing less, but from Belinda—? What had happened to the charming, soft-voiced, pretty-mannered girl who had enchanted him in the wood, he asked himself, conveniently forgetting the rather acerb comments she had made upon occasion. He tried to break into the argument, but both the Sayres were in full flight of rhetoric and appeared to have forgotten his existence. Rousing to a fine fury himself, the Duke crossed the room and broke up the quarrel by the simple expedient of shouting,
“Be quiet!”
in a voice as loud as the Earl’s.

Into the shocked silence which followed this command, the Duke continued more quietly, but even more bitterly than the contestants.