The Reluctant Heiress Page 16

  Admiring the speculatively seductive expression on the marchioness’s face, Alistair grinned. Trust Rosalind to turn even the discussion of a man’s character into an opportunity to exploit her charms. But he was tired of flirtatious banter, and he was also well enough acquainted with her to know that no matter how long they remained in the garden, tossing provocative remarks back and forth to one another, that is all that would happen. Rosalind enjoyed being a coquette. She was extraordinarily skillful at it, but she did not possess the inclinations to follow such dalliance to its natural conclusion. For her, flirtation was all about power, her power to attract and to influence men. It was not about passion or even about romance, and certainly it was not about love. Alistair had discovered this the moment he had held her in his arms. The marchioness had been about as responsive as the parasol she was now twirling gently on her shoulder.

  Lord Farringdon had had enough. There were things he needed to discover, decisions and communications that had to be made. “So I seek danger and excitement, do I? Well then, I shall not disappoint you by running true to form and asking you if the Chevalier d’Evron is importuning you in any way.” His bluntness had the desired effect. Alistair saw the brown eyes widen a moment and the delicate nostrils flare before his companion reassumed her flirtatious air.

  Rosalind allowed a silvery laugh to bubble up from her slender white throat, giving herself a moment to recover from the shock of such a direct attack. It was just as well she had not married the earl. Really, the man had no manners whatsoever, asking questions like that and staring at her in that intense way. “Whyever should you think such a thing, my lord?” One delicate hand fluttered to her breast.

  The earl, however, was not about to be distracted by an enticingly rounded bosom; he was far too experienced to fall for a trick as simple-minded as that. “Cut line, Rosalind,” he responded curtly. “I have seen you and the chevalier in deep conversation more than once, and you have looked none too happy about it. Unless I miss my bet, it was not Spanish coin he was offering you, no sweet words of love he was whispering in your ear. You looked far too uncomfortable for that to be the case. Furthermore, you have been doing your best, unsuccessfully, I might add, to evade him. Now the Chevalier d’Evron is an attractive and much sought-after gentleman. It is not like you to avoid someone such as that—quite the opposite in fact.” Alistair raised one skeptical dark brow.

  Rosalind’s mind raced. Really, the man was far too observant for his own good. He could do himself and her a great deal of mischief, pursuing such a line of reasoning. “La.” She shrugged in what she hoped was a careless fashion. “He is not so irresistible as he seems to think. Why, the man appears to believe that all he has to do is smile at a woman to make her heart flutter.”

  As if you do not subscribe to the same notion yourself, Alistair muttered to himself. “Yet, you do not seem to have convinced him of your lack of interest. Now why is that ?”

  The gray eyes looking down at the marchioness were as cold and gray as a winter sea and they seemed to bore into the very recesses of her mind. There was no putting off the earl when he was determined; Rosalind knew that well enough. After all, she had never planned to allow him to kiss her at all until she had done him the honor of accepting his proposal to make her Countess of Burnleigh. Yet, she had found herself one warm summer evening some years ago, crushed in his fervent embrace before she had been aware of what was happening. No, it would do no good to deny him; it was time for another tactic.

  Rosalind allowed one perfect tear to roll down her cheek as she caught her breath in a sob. “You are right. Of course you are right,” she whispered so softly that he had to bend close enough to catch a whiff of her perfume in order to hear her. “I do not know what to do, I vow I am driven quite distracted by it all.” She squeezed a tear out of the other eye.

  “By what all?” Alistair was entirely unmoved by the glistening drop that clung to her lashes.

  “Oh, you know, he is so French and he thinks that... that, I might be able to help him.”

  “That you might spy for him, you mean,” Lord Farringdon interpolated bluntly.

  “Oh heavens, what you must think of me even to say such a thing!” Rosalind was breathing heavily now, her bosom heaving under a thin silk shawl that was carelessly thrown over the low neck of her walking dress. This was not all an act. She truly had been upset by the demands the chevalier was making of her, and she did not know whether to be relieved or distressed at Lord Farringdon’s discovery of it all.

  “I think you are in a desperate situation,” Alistair replied calmly, “and I think you are being forced to supply the chevalier information in order to protect someone, probably Richard,” he concluded in a tone as conversational as though he were discussing the weather.

  Lord Farringdon’s lack of reaction had a steadying effect on the marchioness. Her breathing slowed, and she stopped twisting her parasol so desperately. However, Alistair had not missed the slight widening of her eyes at the mention of her brother. He decided to press on. “What price did the chevalier exact for saving Richard, who, I might add, is going to ruin himself, despite anything you might do to save him.”

  “Oh, nothing much.” Rosalind began twisting the parasol again. “He just wished me to report to him anything I might overhear of Harold’s conversations—that sort of thing. As if Harold ever has anything of import to say.”

  Hearing the scorn in her voice, Alistair almost had it in his heart to feel sorry for the hapless Harold. After all, the poor fellow could not help that he was as stupid as a sheep, nor that he was pompous and self-important. He had been bred that way. Unbidden, the image of Sarah’s bright intelligent face rose before him, and for a brief moment, before he returned to the question at hand, he considered how unfair life had been to her in making Harold instead of Sarah a member of Parliament and master of Cranleigh. A smile quirked the edge of the earl’s mouth. “I am sure that you, irresistible as you are, were able to extract all sorts of valuable information from the Marquess of Cranleigh.”

  Rosalind hesitated, unsure of how to read her interlocutor. The voice was pleasant enough, but those penetrating gray eyes under the straight black brows missed nothing. While there was warm admiration in his expression, there was also something else—a steely determination that brooked no denial. Lord, the man was handsome, she thought irrelevantly. Then, sighing gently, she replied slowly. “Very well. You are in the right of it. Harold did let on that more troops had been sent to the Peninsula.”

  “Which troops?”

  “La, how should I—”

  “Which troops?”

  Rosalind hunched a defensive shoulder. “Well, the Thirteenth Light Dragoons, a battalion of the First Foot... er, a battalion of the Coldstreams, I think.

  Something in her expression warned the earl that she had not divulged it all. “Come now, I already know enough to ruin you. If I am to help you, I must know everything.”

  The word help exerted a magical effect on the marchioness. For a moment the earl had looked so stern and uncompromising she had begun to wonder if she might wake up to find herself in the Tower. For all his wild propensities and his life of wine, women, and song, Lord Farringdon had a stern, almost uncomfortable moral streak. Rosalind knew that from experience. He had a very strict code of honor, which included a strong dislike for lying and deception of any sort.

  “Well,” she continued, “he also thought that a battalion each had been sent from the Third Foot, the Royal Scots, and the First Staffordshire, but he appeared less certain of that.”

  “Thank you,” Alistair replied quietly. “Now I can do something to repair what damage may have been done.” The dark eyes were fixed anxiously on him, and he could not help laying a reassuring hand on the marchioness’s shoulder. “Never fear, I shall not involve you in the least The lads at Whitehall are quite accustomed to my uncovering stray bits of useful information in the oddest of places.”

  This time the sigh that escaped Ro
salind was one of pure relief. How strange and forbidding the earl looked with that firm jaw, the high cheekbones, and the determined set to the broad shoulders. Here was a man one could trust in and rely on. If only...

  She gave herself a mental shake. There was no good repining over what might have been. That only led to regrets and did nothing to sort out one’s future. And thinking about the future, she realized that in spite of her confiding them to the earl, her problems were still staring her in the face. “But what am I to do now?” she wailed. “Once he has discovered me to be a reliable source of information, he will never let me go,”

  Lord Farringdon nodded thoughtfully. There was no doubt that Rosalind was perceptive enough when her own welfare was at stake. “I am coming to that. We ... er, I shall have to make up some false intelligence for you to pass along to the chevalier. After all, misinformation can be more damaging than no information at all. In a way, this could prove a fortunate circumstance now that you have established yourself as a credible source. You could be extremely useful to us.”

  “Oh, you are clever.” Rosalind breathed.

  The earl smiled, secretly acknowledging his debt to Sarah. As a man of honor, he felt compelled to admit that he was not the inspiration behind this particular idea, but as a man of the world, he knew it to be far more effective to have the marchioness think that such a suggestion had originated with him rather than with the sister-in-law she disdained. “Now you go and attend to your guests while I take care of the matter at hand.” Alistair smiled encouragingly, and with a much lighter heart than she had felt in days, Rosalind headed toward the house.

  Chapter Twenty

  Having accomplished that particular part of the strategy that he and Sarah had concocted, Alistair felt inordinately pleased with himself. To be sure, he had completed far more complicated and dangerous missions in the past, but he had always done so on his own. Now he had a companion to share it all with him, and much to his surprise, he found that he rather liked the idea. His first impulse was to seek Sarah out immediately, but he thought better of it. It would not do her any good to be seen so frequently in his company. People were bound to talk and conjecture. Sarah would loathe that. It would also severely jeopardize his position with Rosalind if she were to think he had any interest in her sister-in-law. The marchioness did not take kindly to sharing any man with another woman, particularly as big a prize as the Earl of Burnleigh.

  Lord, he did sound like the veriest coxcomb. It was not as though he rated his charms as high as the ton did, and he certainly did not set much store by the judgments of the ton. Why, a man could be a thief and a murderer and still be highly acceptable. Just as long as the man was of an exalted enough rank, possessed sufficient income, dressed well, carried himself with an air, and frequented the best society, he would find himself welcomed without hesitation into the fashionable world no matter what else he might have done.

  Perhaps a man could not be a murderer, but Alistair had certainly known plenty of thieves—men who had married heiresses and spent their wealth, men who had won other men’s estates and fortunes from them at the gaming table, men who had stolen someone else’s reputation or position in the ton with a few well-chosen words. No, Alistair did not think the Earl of Burnleigh was such a prize, but the rest of the world did. He considered himself merely to be a person lucky enough to be born with a title, an easy competence, and a passable exterior. The remainder of his attraction lay in his utter boredom with the rest of the fashionable world. Women, especially, were intrigued by his aloofness and vied with each other to be the one who would capture the eligible bachelor and win him away from all the others. “The absurdity of it all,” Alistair muttered scornfully to a large pink rose, before turning on his heel and making his way toward the library, where he hoped to snatch a few quiet moments in which to consider his next move. His wound was beginning to ache, and the idea of ensconcing himself in a comfortable chair in a room where he was certain no one but Sarah ever frequented was most appealing.

  Meanwhile, Sarah, making the rounds of the village with Lady Edgecumbe and her daughters, would have liked nothing better than to be safely sequestered in the library. She had hoped that including the ladies in her visits to several aged and ailing retainers might take her mind off a subject that seemed to be occupying it almost exclusively for the past few days— the Earl of Burnleigh. However, she was not to be so lucky.

  The moment the Edgecumbe girls had entered the carriage they began to discuss Lord Farringdon: his elegant air, his easy address, his prowess in athletic endeavors of any kind, and, of course, his reputation among the fair sex—not that either Lucinda or Cordelia had much firsthand knowledge of the last bit--but that did not stop them from repeating the latest on-dits as though they had been present at the very moment of occurrence.

  “Yes, he has a most devastating effect on the unwary. Why, Lady Emily Saltash was quite convinced of his devotion when he suddenly, and without the least warning, began paying his addresses to Maria Melville,” Lucinda pronounced in the most authoritative of tones.

  “She had good reason to be sure of his interest,” If possible, Cordelia spoke with even more assurance than her sister. “After all, he danced the first dance with her at the Duchess of Rothmere’s ball and also at Lady Tumberry’s rout, and all that quite apart from the attention he paid to her whenever they encountered one another. But of course, he is like that, carrying on a desperate flirtation with someone one minute and forgetting her name the next.”

  “But he can do that and no one minds. At least I should not.” Lucinda smiled beatifically. “I could see that he wished very much to talk with me last evening, but the pianoforte was so loud, one could not be heard above it.” She glanced significantly at Sarah and sniffed. “However, tonight I meant to wear the India muslin with the Persian silk sash. It is most becoming, and I have no doubt of its being vastly admired. This time I shall place myself somewhere quiet enough that Lord Farringdon is not afraid to interrupt.”

  Hearing the note of smug satisfaction in Lucinda’s voice, Sarah found herself sympathizing mightily with Cordelia, who was looking daggers at her sister. She quickly changed the subject, hoping to find some topic that was less upsetting to all of them. “Do you have many villagers to attend to in Buckinghamshire, then?” she inquired of Lady Edgecumbe.

  “Oh my, yes. Hatherleigh is a great deal more extensive than this and includes several villages.” Lady Edgecumbe dismissed the charming high street and its rows of quaint half-timber houses with a scornful wave of her hand. “However, I do believe that as a rule, the cottagers in these parts of the world are a far simpler folk than in Buckinghamshire, and therefore I believe they must require a good deal more looking after.”

  She sounded for all the world as though Sarah’s little section of Kent were darkest Africa. Sarah could not help wondering how such sturdily independent families as the Pottons and the Wittles would react to hearing themselves spoken of as though they were little more than primitives. Sarah had no doubt that they and the marshmen who made their homes not far from Ashworth required far less assistance than anyone in Lady Edgecumbe’s vicinity. Surveying that redoubtable woman’s formidable jaw and determined expression, Sarah had no trouble believing that a great many Hatherleigh tenants were forced to accept charity and advice from the lady of the manor whether they were in need of it or not.

  By now they had reached the neat little cottage of Mrs. Walberswick, former housekeeper at Cranleigh. This sprightly little lady had been loath to relinquish her duties to Mrs. Dawlish, but at eighty, she had begun to find the multitude of stairs and the vastness of Cranleigh wearisome. Her rheumatism had worsened to such an extent that some mornings she was forced to stay in bed until noon, a state of affairs she found extraordinarily inconvenient.

  Mrs. Walberswick really had no need of the beef tea that Sarah brought her, being well cared for by her daughter, who was married to a local farmer, but she did relish the company and the gossip abo
ut Cranleigh. Besides, Sarah had always been a favorite of hers. However, it was obvious that her ladyship was not going to be able to stop long today, accompanied as she was by their three high-and-mightinesses. The sharp old eyes took in the situation at a glance, and the loyal old retainer thought to herself that once again Lady Sarah was being made to take on duties that the marchioness considered beneath her. The little lady had no doubt that these women who surveyed her so haughtily were guests at Cranleigh rather than Ashworth, for Lady Sarah would not have associated with such people of her own free will. Undoubtedly, Lady Melford had sent her sister-in-law off with these women so she would not be burdened by them and could spend more time on her own toilette or more interesting members of the party at Cranleigh.

  Mrs. Walberswick revealed none of these uncharitable thoughts, however, receiving Lady Sarah and her companions with delighted gratitude and doing her best to make them feel comfortable in her snug quarters. “For I do so appreciate your stopping by, my lady.” She beamed at the Edgecumbes. “You have no idea how kind Lady Sarah is, and how beloved she is hereabouts. Why, there is no finer lady to be had in all of Kent.” Mrs. Walberswick was quick to detect the look of intense boredom that settled over Cordelia’s hatchet-like features, and there was no mistaking her sister’s yawn, which Lucinda did not even attempt to smother.

  Thoroughly disgusted, Sarah patted the older woman on the shoulder. “I am afraid that we cannot stop now, Mrs. Walberswick, for we have several other errands, but I shall return tomorrow, and then we shall have a good coze.” Smiling apologetically, Sarah hurried her guests out to the carriage, leaving the former housekeeper to reflect that lady Sarah was just as she had said, a true lady, not like some who had merely been born to a title.