The Viscount's Revenge (The Royal Ambition Series Book 4) (17 page)

Amanda wrapped herself in the dressing gown and tied the sash about her small waist and held the fold of the material tight about her throat. It was too big for her, and folds of it trailed about her feet.

Richard sat up with a groan as they entered the room. “I had best be leaving.” He yawned.

Then he caught sight of Lord Hawksborough and flushed to the roots of his hair.

“If you are making your way back to Oxford to continue your studies, Colby,” said the viscount in measured tones, “then I suggest you do so. In future, should you decide to honor us with your presence, then may I suggest you use the room allotted to you.”

“I did not want to disturb the servants—” began Richard.

“I pay my servants very good wages,” said Lord Hawksborough. “It is their job to be disturbed. If you will now go to your own bedroom, I will send my valet to assist you in your toilet.”

He stood aside and held open the door while Richard, who had slept in his clothes, scrambled to his feet. Then Richard noticed Amanda wrapped in the folds of a man’s dressing gown, and his eyes grew wide.

“I spilled coffee on my gown,” said Amanda hurriedly. “His lordship sent for me because a man’s voice was heard coming from my bedroom and everyone imagined the worst. Please
go
, Richard!”

Richard left the room, glad to get away from his lordship’s angry face.

Lord Hawksborough slammed the door behind him and turned to Amanda. “I offer you my apologies, Amanda,” he said. “I have behaved disgracefully. You may be sure I shall not touch you again. There is something between us which should not exist. It would be better if we avoided each other’s company in the future.”

“But—” began Amanda dismally.

“I cannot remember having behaved so badly in the whole of my life,” he said savagely. “You’re a Circe, Amanda!”

Amanda began to feel guilty. The guilt was irrational, she knew, but like most guilty people, she started working herself up into a rage.

“This
thing
that you say is between us, my lord,” she said angrily, “is perhaps, merely a figment of your imagination. I was naturally overwhelmed at receiving an excess of civility from a peer in your position. I am not yet used to the ways of gentlemen, or to the ways of the world.”

“Obviously,” he said coldly. “Or you would not accept an apology with such bad grace.”

“I was under the impression I had not accepted it at all,” flashed Amanda.

“I have no intention wasting more time bandying vulgar words with you,” he said with great hauteur. “I am very tired. Good day to you, ma’am.”

He gathered the folds of his dressing gown about him and strode to the door.

The bottle of Otto of Roses which Amanda had seized and thrown in a blind rage smashed against the doorjamb inches from his face.

The whole room was permeated by the heavy smell of roses.

He turned around, not just his head, but all in one piece.

“I am sorry,” babbled Amanda.

He turned again like a clockwork toy and walked out into the passageway.

Amanda ran after him and caught his sleeve. “Charles!” she pleaded. “You must realise how very angry you can make me.”

He tugged his sleeve to get it free, and only succeeded in pulling her against him.

“I think… yes, I really think I am going to demand an explanation,” came the silky voice of Lady Mary.

Her blue eyes took in the scene. Lord Hawksborough and Amanda, both wearing dressing gowns, were standing close together. Amanda looked dishevelled and her lips were swollen. The whole passageway stank of Otto of Roses.

The silence seemed to stretch forever. “The first time I met this little girl,” went on Lady Mary, her fine eyes going from one to the other, “she smelled like a Covent Garden brothel. I recall wondering if this were one of your
traviatas
, Charles.”

Amanda, despite her distress, vividly remembered spilling the perfume over her arm on her first evening in London.

“Come with me, Lady Mary,” said Lord Hawksborough heavily. “It is not what you think.”

Lady Mary raked Amanda up and down with a contemptuous glance, and edged her way past, drawing her skirts about her as if the very touch of Amanda’s hem would contaminate her.

Amanda sighed and went back into her room and shut the door. She was bone-tired. She slumped into a chair and stared vacantly into space.

At last she roused herself from her numbed state to turn the problem of Lord Hawksborough over in her mind. She did not love him. He roused her senses, that was all. It was surely nothing more than rampant lust. He had not behaved at all like a man in love, thought Amanda, whose ideas of how men in love behaved were still well-grounded in the gothic novels she had read.

There had never been the slightest hint of a worshipful expression in his lordship’s eyes. He had untrustworthy eyes, those strange silver eyes which were so good at masking his feelings.

She must struggle out of this infatuation and concentrate on saving the family fortunes. Her mind turned to the elderly Lord Box, who had accompanied them to the play. He had been quiet and courteous and kind. He had laughed in a shy way at her mildest witticisms. He was said to be a widower and vastly rich.

The idea of marriage to Lord Box began to seem attractive to Amanda, particularly when it was followed with a pleasing dream of breaking the news of her engagement to Lord Hawksborough.

Having come to some sort of decision, Amanda decided to go to bed.

But the door burst open and Susan marched in and crashed down into a chair beside the fire and stared moodily at the flames. “Rot!” she said at last.

“Rot what?” asked Amanda, wishing she would go away. Her head was beginning to ache with stress and lack of sleep.

“Dalzell is on the point of proposing to me. I asked Lady Mary for her advice, because I think she is a very
mondaine
lady, and she said, ‘You had better snap him up.’ ‘Why?’ says I. ‘I am accounted attractive by more gentlemen than Dalzell, and Dalzell is a milksop.’ And she says, ‘You are an Original, dear Susan, and Originals quickly grow unfashionable. You are well enough in your way, but you have hardly got the sort of face that would launch a thousand ships. Perhaps a small coal barge.’”

“How malicious, and how untrue,” said Amanda warmly.

“But Lady Mary is so sensible. It was she who spoke to Mama on my behalf and told Mama to stop criticising my appearance.”

“Indeed! I was under the impression that suggestion came from your brother.”

“Charles? Charles would not trouble with me.”

“On the contrary, he is very concerned about you.”

“How do
you
know?” said Susan rudely. “And what are you doing wearing one of Charles’s dressing gowns?”

Wearily Amanda altered and retold the lie of the spilled coffee.

“Well, in any case, what am I to do about Mr. Dalzell?”

“Do you have
anything
in common?” asked Amanda.

“No. I tried to talk hunting with him, and all it elicited was a poem. It goes, ‘Diana, like the moon above…’ although why on earth he should call me Diana when my name is Susan, I’ll never know.

“Pah!”

“Then it is all very simple,” said Amanda, stifling a yawn. “You hold him in contempt. Above all, you are not in love with him—”

“Love? When did love ever get in the way of a society marriage?” said Susan crossly.

“I’m tired, very tired,” said Amanda, putting her hands to her throbbing temples. “I shall see you later, Susan.”

“But what shall I do about Mr. Dalzell?”

“A very kind thing to do would be to make it plain to him that you would not favour his suit. ’Twould be very cruel to encourage him only to repulse him. I gather that London is still thin of company, but there will be plenty of unattached gentlemen during the Season who will share your country interests. You are an attractive girl, Susan, when you are not scowling and angry. Besides, you listen so intently to everything a gentlemen says to you, and
that
seems to be more seductive than any beauty.”

“All right,” said Susan, getting awkwardly to her feet.

She suddenly smiled down at Amanda, a smile so sweet and blinding, so like her brother’s, that Amanda’s heart gave a painful wrench. “I like you,” said Susan. “You’re a great gun.”

She bent and kissed Amanda on the cheek and then cheerfully clumped from the room, slamming the door behind her so that the very furniture seemed to shudder.

“Well,” said Amanda Colby, putting her hand up to her cheek. “Well, well, well… and I thought she was not like her brother at all.”

And then Amanda reminded herself that thinking about Lord Hawksborough’s smile was certainly not going to help her forget him.

But she wrapped his dressing gown tightly about her and fell asleep, facedown on the bed, her hand buried among its silken folds, still holding it across her breast.

Whatever Lord Hawksborough had said to his fiancée by way of explanation seemed to have banished her anger and fear. Once more Lady Mary was glowing. Once more she was forever by his side.

Nonetheless, she often watched Amanda when she thought the girl wasn’t looking, watching to see if Miss Colby showed any signs of warmth towards Lord Hawksborough. But it appeared that, for Amanda, Lord Hawksborough had ceased to exist.

She was busy encouraging the attentions of Lord Box.

Amanda found Lord Box very soothing. He took her driving in the Park, he escorted her to the opera, always including Aunt Matilda in his invitations.

He was a small dapper man, not overly wrinkled considering his fifty-five years. He wore his hair powdered, despite the iniquitous flour tax, and was always formally, if soberly, dressed.

His mouth was thin and apt to droop at the corners, and his nose was an odd lumpy shape. But he was kind, Amanda persuaded herself. She was now nineteen years old and often looked younger. Had Lord Hawksborough, or his mother, or society for that matter, guessed there was any possibility of an attachment between Lord Box and Miss Colby, then Lord Hawksborough would have forbidden the friendship, as would his mother; society would have tittered cruelly, and the press would have lampooned Miss Colby with malicious wit.

But as it was, everyone supposed the elderly lord to be courting Aunt Matilda.

Unfortunately, Aunt Matilda thought so too.

Since love and romance among the elderly—and anyone in his fifties in an era when few people reached their three score years and ten
was
elderly—was totally beyond Amanda’s comprehension, she failed to notice the heaving of Aunt Matilda’s scrawny bosom every time Lord Box came to call.

As to Lord Box being in love with
herself
, Amanda would have found that idea just as ridiculous. She hoped Lord Box looked on her as a young companion who would brighten his declining years.

Lord Hawksborough sometimes wondered why Amanda wasted so much time with her aunt’s inamorato instead of looking at any of the attractive young men who danced with her at parties and balls, but not for one moment did he think she planned marriage.

Since that unfortunate night when he had returned from abroad, followed by the unfortunate morning when he had so far forgotten himself as to nearly rape Miss Colby, Lord Hawksborough had persuaded himself that he had forgotten her entirely. Lady Mary seemed to stay more at his house than she did at her own, and so he wearily decided they may as well get married in June. Lady Mary gained a warm kiss from him when she said shyly that since she had no close female relatives, she would like Susan and Miss Colby to be maids of honour.

Susan accepted the news with pleasure, Miss Colby with affected pleasure.

Miss Colby then shut herself up in her room and cried for that which was gone, never to return, and then set about charming Lord Box as hard as she could.

When Amanda felt Lord Box was on the point of proposing, she asked Aunt Matilda how that lady would feel about sharing a household with Lord Box.

Aunt Matilda was trying on new caps when Amanda asked her the question. Her eyes lit up and she exclaimed, “Darling child! Ever so perceptive. Why, you must know it is what my heart is set on.”

“I wanted to talk to you,” said Amanda seriously, “because I hoped you would understand it is something I would like above all things.”

Aunt Matilda kissed Amanda fondly, her eyes misting with tears. “You are a good and generous girl, Amanda,” she said. “It is also wonderful to know our future is secure. Does… does Richard know? Richard is sometimes not quite…”