A Scandalous Connection, page 9
The hardened Mr. Endicott, quite used to all variants of feminine beauty, was startled.
“Good day, Mr. Endicott! You have come, I hope, to account for your disgraceful manners last night!”
His lips curved in an appreciative smile. So, it was to be daggers drawn, then. Very well.
“No, Lady Raquel. Quite the contrary.”
Lady Raquel flushed. Mr. Endicott was the most disconcerting, unaccountable, boorish man alive. She had been expecting sonnets and received an insult for her pains.
“I apologize, Mr. Endicott. For a moment I’d forgotten, of course, that you are not . . . high bred.”
For an instant, Thomas’s eyes flashed. Then they became as cold as the ones surveying him. If her lips had not been trembling, he might well have been deceived into believing the woman was heartless. But those beautiful, perfectly pink lips were trembling, so Mr. Endicott stayed the biting retort that had risen instantly to his tongue. Instead, he surveyed her as if she were a mere cockroach, or at the very least, a thing of no interest.
Lady Raquel burned with anger, but also with something quite foreign to her: the desire to gain Mr. Endicott’s complete respect. She told herself this was only so that she could gain the upper hand over him, but of course, as was her habit, Lady Raquel was not always quite honest with herself.
“I beg your pardon. That was ill judged of me.”
“Yes, it was.” Thomas did not give her quarter. He stared at her hard, until the flush rose to her cheeks and the angry fretfulness returned in full force.
“I expect you called for a reason?”
“Indeed, yes. I have left a bouquet of winter florals for you with the butler. A confection of mistletoe and snowdrops, I believe.”
“Oh!” Surprise mingled with pleasure on Lady Raquel’s handsome countenance. Thomas thought that if she smiled more, she could be very beautiful, indeed. Outrageously beautiful. He caught his breath. He was not, he remembered, to get emotionally tangled.
“How very fine of you, sir!”
“It will be just one of a dozen, I am certain.”
“Yes, but . . .” Lady Raquel stopped in confusion.
Thomas stepped toward her. “But . . . ?”
“Nothing. Oh, nothing.” Her eyes grew wider still at his closeness. She could smell tobacco and soap upon his person. It was a fascinatingly masculine combination. He tilted her chin up in his fingers. Raquel’s breath caught.
“Ah, I see. How charming. We are back to ‘nothing’ as an acceptable form of discourse.”
For a moment, she did not understand him, for his lips were achingly close to her own and he spoke in a wry whisper that she had to strain to hear over the sudden beating of her normally, extremely well-modulated heart.
Then she saw the mockery in his devilish blue eyes once again.
“You are a beast, sir!”
“Yes, so you have said. The conversation grows tedious.” He released her chin from the palm of his exquisitely gloved hands.
Instantly, it tilted defiantly and she stepped back a few paces.
“You have delivered your little posy. Please don’t let me keep you from any of your pleasures.”
“Is that a polite way of dismissing me?”
She curtsied, a small glint of triumph entering her sapphire eyes. “I believe so, sir.”
“Well, I believe it is nothing of the kind. It is damnably impolite, not to mention impertinent. But whilst we are on the subject of impertinence, my lady, I take leave to inform you that you are not keeping me from my . . . uh . . . pleasures.”
She eyed him suspiciously. Mr. Endicott was not like any other gentleman she knew. She could not guess immediately either at his meaning or his intentions. He was like an annoying wisp of quicksilver. Lady Raquel was at a loss to know why she cared.
“I am not?”
“No, for there is nothing that gives me greater pleasure than taming a woman, Lady Raquel.”
His eyes held a fascinating light that Lady Fortesque-Benton was somehow compelled to explore. She was not sure she liked what was in their depths, but she could not dismiss it with the haughty abandon to which she was prone.
“Don’t gaze too deeply, Lady Raquel. You are like a moth—a beautiful moth—to a golden flame.”
“Beg pardon?”
Mr. Endicott smiled, but the curve of his lips was dangerous rather than tender. “Often, the fascinating is also the deadly. I give you fair warning, Lady Raquel.”
Again, the dark, silky tone that sent tingles up Lady Raquel’s spine. Somehow, she liked this more than the complete indifference she had detected earlier. Perverse! Totally perverse, of course, for what could she care what an untitled nobody thought of her when she was about to become the foremost peeress of the realm?
She tossed her head. “I have no notion of what you may mean, Mr. Endicott.”
“Have you not? I am tempted to show you, but of course, your own parlor, in the presence of your butler and your house staff is not a particularly felicitous venue. I am surprised there is not a chaperon.”
“There would have been, had I known the company I was going to be subjected to!”
“Come, come, Lady Raquel! You are sulking, and I cannot abide the sulks.”
“Can you not? I shall endeavor to remember that and practice my most sullen of pouts for your edification.”
Thomas was torn between shaking the girl and laughing.
“Not advisable, Lady Raquel, but there, I have already warned you once. Practice all the sulks you like—it will keep me in your mind the whole day, I warrant.”
“Oh, you are insufferable!”
He bowed. “That, I believe, is true.”
“Don’t you care?”
“Not particularly.” He afforded her a handsome smile. She tossed her head.
“Do you still wish to view the castle at Darris?” His turn of conversation startled her. She dropped the theatrics, therefore, and turned on him questioningly.
Thomas had to step back, for the moment could not have been more perfect to catch her in his arms and kiss her thoroughly. This, of course, he was pledged not to do, so he stepped back and placed his hands in the pockets of his hunting jacket, an offense that would have had Weston, its maker, in fits.
Lady Raquel, for once, did not reproach him. Her thoughts were not on the cut of his rather handsome crimson coat, but on the sudden change of conversation. She was surprised at the pang she felt when Thomas spoke of Darris. Almost, she had forgotten.
“Of course I do.” Well, she did, did she not? It was her most earnest desire to see the castle she was to become chatelaine of. It was the culmination of all her girlish dreams, in fact. To become a duchess, to be loftier in rank than even the Countess Esterhazy, and Lady Sefton, to be received in all the royal houses throughout Europe . . . oh, yes, quite definitely she wanted to see it!
“Yes, yes, of course I do. His Grace must have spoken to you of it.”
“More than that. Demian asked me to convey you there.”
“You!”
“Don’t look so revolted, Lady Raquel! If we leave now, we should be at Darris before midnight. Eleven hours in my company is not, I assure you, too hard to endure.”
“It is too late to travel!”
“If we do not travel today, then certainly it will be too late. I’ll warrant that the first snows are already falling up north. If we leave it any longer, Darris will be snowbound and you will have to remain in London for the remainder of the season.”
“No! I most particularly wish to view Darris. I believe I made that plain to His Grace.”
“Yes, I believe you did. That is why he has charged me with conveying you there. If you wish to change your mind, however, I am perfectly amenable.”
Mr. Endicott schooled his features to a studied indifference. So well did he succeed that Lady Raquel could almost have sworn he wished her to Jericho. It was all very unnerving, especially to one who was used to her every whim being attended to with due reverence and devotion. She wished very much to tell the arrogant man that she would find her own way to Darris, but she did not dare. It was likely her mama would fret and make a hundred objections and then the whole scheme would have to be shelved on account of the detestable weather. Mr. Endicott, she felt perfectly certain, would not have the decency to organize a thing on her behalf. Then there were the horses that would need changing. . . . Oh, it was impossible!
She played for time. The rain, to her, did not look too severe. It was certainly chilly, but snow was probably a figment of plain Mr. Thomas Endicott’s overactive imagination.
“I can’t simply take your arm and step out of this house. I shall need to pack.”
“Certainly you will. But Demian says not to worry about more than a simple portmanteau. Doubtless there is all you will require up at the castle.”
A flat lie, Thomas knew, but Lady Raquel did not, he thought, know the true extent of Demian’s finances. He would authorize Lady Raquel to spend what she willed at Darris—there were several very expert seamstresses in the village—then charge the lot to himself.
“But a chaperon . . .”
Thomas smiled. “Very wise, Lady Raquel. I see you are heeding my advice to be wary. Very well, then, you may choose whatever chaperon you please, but be ready in one hour precisely. I don’t like to leave my horses waiting and they have already been strutting their paces in the forecourt this half-hour at least.”
“Oh! Well, if your horses are more important than met . . .”
Thomas quirked an irritating eyebrow at her. Drat the man, he was not possessed of the commonest civility!
“I will be ready in half an hour.” She kept her voice as cold as ice. She hoped it would freeze his very marrow. But Mr. Endicott seemed amused, rather than chilled.
“I said an hour, child. That will be perfectly acceptable.”
Oh! He was so annoying! Lady Raquel inclined her head regally and moved toward the door. Mr. Endicott admired the white pearl buttons that started at the nape of her neck, then ambled their way gently down the full length of her spine to the very arch of her delectable back.
“Lady Raquel . . .”
“Yes?”
“Do try not to wear a gown with such a plethora of fastenings when we travel. It will take you a half hour at least to get dressed.”
Thomas wondered, silently, how long it would take her to get undressed. That was the point, he supposed, of those innumerable, enticing little pearls. They made any full-blooded male wonder . . .
“I have said I will be ready, Mr. Endicott. What trimmings I choose will be my choice entirely.”
Lady Raquel’s voice was sweet, but Thomas was not fooled. He was positive that if she had been a man, he would even now be feeling the sharp side of a very dangerous sword. Thankfully, however, she was not a man, for if she were, Mr. Endicott would have been at a loss to describe his sudden soaring spirits.
Well! Feeling that she had got the better of the detestable man at last, Lady Raquel caught up her shawl in an elegant movement that caused the length of silk to billow after her in a fashionable swathe of azure. She then firmly shut the door on his obnoxiously handsome person. He did not open the door after her, but she felt her heart beating as fast as if he had. When she recovered her composure, she looked at the hall clock and gasped. Two minutes gone already. For the first time in her well-bred life, Lady Raquel threw caution to the wind and actually bolted up the stairs.
The door to her chamber was already open. An under housemaid bobbed a curtsy as Raquel entered, her sheer shawl trailing behind her in soft flurry of satin trim. She hardly noticed, for her piercing eyes were already upon the tall, competent-looking woman within.
“Where is her ladyship?”
Lady Raquel’s dresser looked up from the assortment of gloves she was critically reviewing. By her expression, none seemed to find the smallest degree of favor.
“Your mama?”
Raquel nodded impatiently.
“She has called on Lady Dantry. I really think we should discard the lilac. I cannot think the color favors you.”
For once, Lady Raquel paid her no heed. “Never mind that. Did she say when she would be back?”
“No, my lady. Only that Stevens is not to wait up, for she might take a day trip down to Astley’s with Lady Dantry’s niece.”
Raquel nodded as the gloves were all scattered about her bed and her expert dresser—a gaunt, thin lady with steel-colored hair—glided toward her. Raquel offered her her back, so that the poker-faced minion knew at once what was expected. It did not take long before the elegant Lady Fortesque-Benton was reduced to her smallclothes. She stepped into a fresh, sweet-smelling hooped petticoat and nodded thoughtfullly.
“Very well, then. Maria shall have to be my chaperon. I am going out of town for a few days. To Darris.”
Raquel’s tone was crisp, but a small, rather satisfied smile hung over her lips.
There was a little gasp from her dresser, who was not so behind hand with the world as not to immediately fathom what this might mean.
“Oh, your ladyship! Has His Grace . . . I mean . . .”
“Now, now, Anders, you know I don’t hold with gossip!” But there was a certain sparkle about Lady Raquel that spoke volumes. The dresser would have been astonished to learn that the sparkle had more to do with the infinitely tiresome gentleman belowstairs than with any intended betrothal. Consequently, she drew her own conclusions and laid out Lady Raquel’s most modish rose satin. It was not, perhaps, the most suitable as a carriage dress, but it had style. Lady Fortesque-Benton’s dresser was in no doubt that style was more desirable, in these fortuitous circumstances, then serviceability.
“Not that one!”
“But it is the very latest of Madame De Haviland’s creations! It shall look charming on you! See, here, we shall add that tortoiseshell comb to the arrangement.”
“I want the blue organdy.” Lady Raquel’s bow-shaped lips closed firmly. It was not that she did not like the rose satin, indeed, she had positively longed for her first opportunity to wear it. It was just that it fastened in the front with a confection of bows, and she most particularly desired buttons. Yes, of all things, she wanted rows and rows of shining buttons. And they must, of course, all fasten—every little one of them—at the back.
The dresser did not argue. Rather, she set about finding the appropriate garment and searching out the matching traveling bonnet of delicate straw. This she did with great efficiency, even as Lady Raquel pulled on a pair of delicately wrought silk stockings. Then, it was the turn of a pair of long, powder-blue gloves so that it was practically no time at all before the gown and bonnet were laid out and ready.
The dresser rang for Maria, barked a few orders at an upper chambermaid who was charged with the business of packing, and began the finicky matter of the buttoning. Lady Raquel eyed the ormolu clock on her mantel. She refused to acknowledge how terrified she was of being late. She was perfectly certain Mr. Endicott would leave without her if she kept him waiting a moment longer than the hour.
When Maria entered, her face was looking suspiciously puffy, and her eyes were pink, as if she had just been crying. Lady Raquel had her face to the mirror, so she did not immediately perceive her maid’s difficulty.
“Maria, you are to chaperon me to Darris. Mr. Endicott informs me that though it is a long carriage trip, the roads are pleasant. We leave in half an hour, so make all haste, if you please.”
Maria cast a miserable glance at the dresser, but that formidable lady was too busy fastening her ninety-first button to pay her the smallest attention.
So, Maria turned in miserable silence to her mistress. Lady Raquel turned from the mirror to smile at her, for though she was undoubtedly selfish, she was not unkind.
“Maria! You look positively hag ridden.”
Maria had no notion of her mistress’s meaning, but she sensed, by the tone, a smidgen of compassion. So she sniffed into her handkerchief and bobbed a small curtsy of confusion.
“Are you ill?”
“No, milady. I am just bothered with the toothache.”
Lady Fortesque-Benton smiled surprisingly gently. “A little, or are you in agonies, Maria?”
Maria, who thought she could suffer any sort of agony when her mistress smiled at her so, lied bravely and muttered that it was “nothing that some tooth powder and a little of Cook’s gin could not solve.”
“You are certain? I could take Anders, here, if you are very unwell.”
The dresser glared, for there was one thing she hated above all others and that was being dislodged from her lady’s changing room and being forced to gad about the countryside in all weathers. Besides being uncomfortable, for however well-sprung a chaise might be, it did not shield one from bumps and lurches, and the whole suggestion was beneath her station. Ladies’ dressers were hired exclusively for that occupation. They did not, under any circumstances, double as chaperons.
Maria was no match for Anders. She positively quailed under her glare.
“Yes, milady.”
“Good!” Raquel breathed an inward sigh of relief and glanced at the maid sympathetically. “Ask Cook for a cold compress, but go easy with that gin. And hurry, we have precious little time.”
The hall clock chimed, so Raquel had no need to consult the ormolu clock again. Her fingers flew through her hair as she swept it up into a topknot. Her dresser could have wept.
“Mind your precious curls, milady! Here, I am on the last catch. I shall do that myself.”
“No, no, there is no time, no time. Pass me the bonnet.”
“Not before you have put in several more of those hairpins, I thank you!” Anders sounded outraged. “You cannot go jaunting about the countryside with your hair spilling all over your face. Your father—a great man, Lord Fortesque-Benton—will have my head. No, no, not there. Leave the pins, my lady, I shall have to brush it through myself. Maria . . . ”
