Jilted Read online

  ‘I am well aware of Lord Ashbourne’s whereabouts, Lord Ilam,’ Eustacia replied, guessing the identity of the gentleman. She had merely intended to sound haughty. To her chagrin, the gentleman raised his brows ironically. In so doing, he gained more of a look of his father.

  ‘Are you indeed?’ he replied. ‘Then what brings you here? Are you spying out the territory? I regret to have to inform you that this is not my father’s home but mine.’

  ‘I was doing no such thing,’ Eustacia protested, now red as much from anger as from embarrassment. ‘I was here earlier with a friend – as no doubt Mrs Davies will testify – and I left my reticule behind in….’ Her voice petered out.

  ‘In?’ he prompted her.

  ‘In the house,’ she replied, her chin high, determined not to be bested.

  ‘Indeed?’ he responded, looking and sounding unconvinced.

  ‘Certainly,’ she answered swiftly. ‘You can see it in there.’

  He glanced round. ‘Ah. In the gallery. So you came to find your reticule, and decided that you would take another delicious look at his lordship.’

  ‘No,’ she protested, then realized that what he had said was true, at least in part. ‘I mean yes, but not for the reasons that you are implying. And I do not think that Lord Ashbourne is … is….’

  ‘You’ll forgive me if I keep to my own view on that,’ he replied. ‘And now, having looked your fill at his dark beauty, perhaps you would like to leave? I am more than happy for people to look round my house, but I’m damned if I’ll tolerate his female courtiers sighing over him and offering their homage.’ He picked up the flowers that she had laid down. ‘Take your tribute. It’s quite wasted on him, believe me.’

  With an infuriated squeak, she snatched the flowers out of his outstretched hand, threw them in his face, then hurried out through the gallery almost at a run, snatching up her reticule as she went.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  By the time she reached the village shop where Jessie was waiting, Eustacia had regained her composure. She did not say anything about her encounter to her companion as they resumed their walk. Had she done so, she might not have been able to avoid confessing that she had gone back to have another look at Lord Ashbourne’s picture. She did not want Jessie to think that Ashbourne had cast his spell over her as well.

  For a moment or two, she toyed with the idea of casually telling Jessie that she had bumped into Ilam, but it did not take her long to decide against this. Jessie knew the family well, and she might therefore feel bound to go back and greet him after his absence. In those circumstances, Eustacia would have to accompany her, and then Jessie would learn how she had thrown the flowers at him. What was worse, Ilam would think that she had gone back for yet another look at his wretched father.

  If only the truth were told, she was rapidly becoming sick of hearing about the man. As for yearning after him, she had experienced quite enough heartache and humiliation at the hands of Morrison. She had no desire to pursue a rake who was noted for dealing out that kind of treatment. She would do well to put Ilam out of her mind as well. He was probably no better than his father, as her mother had suggested.

  News of the viscount’s arrival did not reach the vicarage until the following day. ‘Ilam’s back,’ Lady Agatha announced at the breakfast table. ‘He returned yesterday.’

  ‘That’s funny. We didn’t see him, did we, Jessie?’ said Eustacia quickly.

  ‘Been to the hall, have you?’ said her ladyship, her eyes narrowing. ‘You shouldn’t keep mooning over that portrait you know. It’ll do you no good at all.’

  Eustacia realized that in her haste to establish the fact that she had not seen Ilam, she had put Jessie in an awkward position. She glanced at Jessie and saw that she was looking at her reproachfully. ‘Jessie did not go to moon over the picture, I promise you, Godmama,’ she said, anxious to make amends. ‘I asked her if you and your brother were alike and she offered to take me so that I could see. That was all.’

  ‘Hmph,’ replied Lady Agatha, only half convinced. ‘You know of Jessie’s hankering after my brother. I would have thought that you would have refrained from mentioning him at all.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Godmama,’ said Eustacia contritely. ‘I’m sorry, Jessie.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault, Eustacia,’ replied Jessie readily. ‘I should never have mentioned the picture.’

  ‘Have done with this mutual exonerating exercise at once,’ Lady Agatha commanded. ‘It is very tiresome. No doubt Ilam will be round this morning in order to pay his respects. I would like you both to be present, if you please.’

  Eustacia hurried upstairs to prepare for the visit. Much to her irritation, she was conscious of a feeling of nervousness at the thought of encountering Lord Ilam again. For some reason, this seemed to necessitate her looking her very best. So Ilam had mistaken her for one of his father’s fancy pieces, had he? He would soon discover his error. She rang for Trixie, and when the maid arrived it was to discover her mistress looking through her wardrobe. The maid looked a little put out and Eustacia wondered whether she had interrupted the girl in the middle of a promising flirtation.

  ‘Change your gown, miss?’ Trixie asked, bewildered. ‘But I dressed you not above an hour ago.’

  ‘Yes, but I think I may have spilled some fat on it at breakfast,’ Eustacia replied mendaciously.

  ‘Fat!’ exclaimed Trixie in horror-stricken tones. ‘We’ll be lucky if I ever get that out! Where is the mark, then?’

  ‘Oh … er … was it just here?’ murmured Eustacia, catching hold of a fold of her skirt. ‘No, it was there, I think. Oh well, never mind. You’ll just have to look for it later. Help me out of this gown, and into something else – something demure.’

  Trixie looked at her suspiciously, but said nothing, simply taking out a charming gown of white muslin with a modest neckline, trimmed with tiny rosebuds. ‘I suppose you want your hair to look demure as well,’ she said, as soon as she had fastened her mistress’s gown.

  ‘Yes please,’ answered Eustacia, watching as her maid worked busily amongst her dark curls with clever fingers. ‘That ought to do it,’ she said in satisfied tones when Trixie had finished, and she was standing looking at herself in the full-length mirror. She looked the image of a virtuous debutante from the highest rank of society. She also looked her very best. That, of course, was entirely beside the point.

  ‘Do what, miss?’ asked Trixie as she picked up the discarded gown for cleaning.

  ‘Never mind,’ replied Eustacia, turning to look at herself from another angle. ‘I just want to look my best for my godmother’s visitor, that’s all.’

  ‘Is it the rake, miss?’ said Trixie avidly.

  ‘I don’t know whether he is a rake,’ replied Eustacia. Then she bit her lip because she hadn’t meant to tell Trixie anything. Deciding that to say no more now would be worse than to explain, she said ‘It’s Lord Ilam, Lady Agatha’s nephew.’

  ‘I’ll come and have a look at him,’ said Trixie slyly. ‘I can tell a rake when I see one.’ This time, Eustacia was reminded not so much of someone hoping to take in Astley’s Amphitheatre as a would-be visitor to the menagerie in the Tower of London.

  ‘If I catch you so much as peeping at him from round the corner, I’ll box your ears,’ Eustacia threatened.

  ‘Oh, all right then,’ answered Trixie sulkily. ‘I’ll go and see to this gown, but if you ask me, the mark on it is a bit like some other things that are going on here – not quite what it seems.’

  As soon as Trixie had gone, Eustacia hurried downstairs to find her godmother. She now felt very foolish for not mentioning that she had seen Ilam. She would be obliged to make more of the matter, which was the last thing that she had intended. It was either that, or run the risk of Ilam revealing that they had met, thus making her guilty of being seen to have told falsehoods for no good reason.

  She ran her godmother to earth in the library, bent, as usual, over some ecclesiastical documents,
and told her that she had seen Ilam at Illingham Hall when she had gone back alone to look for her reticule. ‘In that case, why on earth did you not say that you had done so?’ Lady Agatha asked her, her fine brows drawn together.

  ‘I hadn’t said anything about him to Jessie before this morning, and I thought that it would sound rather silly if I suddenly admitted that we had met.’

  ‘I suppose that’s understandable, given that you said nothing in the first place. What I still do not understand is why you said nothing to me privately about Ilam’s presence at the Hall.’

  ‘Because he was very rude,’ Eustacia replied forthrightly. ‘He made some unpardonable assumptions about my purpose for being there, and he very nearly threw me out on my ear.’

  Lady Agatha laughed briefly. ‘That doesn’t surprise me,’ she said. ‘He has none of his father’s polish. Sometimes I think that he cultivates a boorish demeanour just to be as different from his father as possible. Raff says that he has the shoulders of a coal-heaver and the manners to match.’

  ‘Raff?’

  ‘My brother is Raphael, Lord Ashbourne. I always called him Raff when we were children.’

  ‘Is Lord Ilam not a rake like his father, then?’

  Lady Agatha gave a bark of laughter. ‘Never let him hear you say so,’ she said. ‘Ilam’s a very principled young man.’

  ‘Yet there is a physical likeness between father and son,’ observed Eustacia. ‘In fact, when he appeared in the doorway, I thought that it was Lord Ashbourne at first.’

  ‘If he knew that that was what you thought, then no wonder he nearly threw you out,’ retorted Lady Agatha. ‘There is a likeness between them as you say, but they would both die rather than admit it.’

  ‘It was partly because of the likeness that I didn’t tell Jessie,’ Eustacia said. ‘Then I thought that perhaps she would want to go back and greet him, and she would have to see the picture again.’

  ‘That picture is very bad for her,’ agreed Lady Agatha. ‘In fact, I’ve been wondering whether to send her away for a short holiday. She gets away from here very seldom, and a change of scene would do her good. The only question is where.’

  ‘Does she have any relations?’ Eustacia asked.

  ‘None. I shall have to give the matter some thought. For now, we’d better repair to the drawing-room in order to receive Ilam. I don’t want him to see all these papers. Please do not mention this tiresome dispute of mine. Gentlemen, in my experience, are very bored by ecclesiastical matters, unless they are clergymen themselves.’

  They arrived at the drawing-room door at the same time as Jessie came down the stairs. She was dressed in a neat, plain grey gown which complimented neither her colouring nor her figure.

  ‘Jessie, I did see Ilam yesterday,’ said Eustacia quickly. ‘I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to upset you.’

  ‘Upset me?’ Jessie echoed.

  ‘Because he’s like Ashbourne, I expect,’ put in Lady Agatha as the doorbell rang. ‘Sit down, both of you. Not there, Eustacia; over by the window.’

  Eustacia immediately recognized the gentleman who entered, admitted by Grimes. He was dressed very much as on the previous day, as far as she could remember. On this occasion, his coat was dark green, and he wore it with a buff waistcoat, buckskin breeches and shiny but serviceable top boots. All his clothes were of a good cut, but the fit was comfortable rather than skin tight. Altogether, he looked like a well-dressed country gentleman rather than the fashionable man-about-town which Eustacia suspected his father must be.

  ‘Good day to you, Ilam,’ said Lady Agatha in response to his polite greeting, which had included Jessie Warburton as well as his aunt. ‘I’m glad to see you looking well.’

  ‘I’m in good health thank you, ma’am, and trust that you are the same,’ replied Ilam in the same deep, rather harsh voice that Eustacia remembered from the previous day.

  ‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ said Lady Agatha. ‘No doubt you are feeling strong enough to make your apologies to my goddaughter for your rudeness yesterday.’

  Eustacia now saw the reasoning behind Lady Agatha’s decision to send her into the window seat. It meant that Ilam had been unaware of her presence until the moment when her godmother chose to disclose it.

  Ilam turned his head in the direction which Lady Agatha indicated. Whereas the previous day, he had had the advantage of surprise on his side, today that advantage belonged to Eustacia. Furthermore, because she had her back to the light, it was not possible for him to read her expression. She got to her feet. From where she was standing, she could see the look of dawning recognition on his face, followed by a dull flush. ‘Your goddaughter, ma’am?’

  ‘My goddaughter, Eustacia. You may call her Miss Hope.’ She gestured to Eustacia to come to her side.

  He bowed. It was a gesture which conveyed power and energy rather than elegance. ‘Your servant, Miss Hope.’

  ‘Good day, my lord,’ replied Eustacia, her curtsy as demure as her gown. She was beginning to enjoy herself.

  ‘Your apology, Ilam,’ prompted Lady Agatha.

  ‘My apology?’ he echoed, drawing those uncompromising brows together.

  ‘For your rudeness to Eustacia yesterday.’

  He turned to Eustacia. She noted that his grey eyes were uncomfortably penetrating. ‘Forgive me for having startled you, ma’am,’ he said, his tone not perceptibly contrite. ‘Had you made yourself known to me at the time, I would have been less….’ He paused.

  ‘Rude?’ suggested Eustacia sweetly.

  ‘I was going to say “direct”,’ he replied.

  ‘You would say that you were direct rather than rude, then,’ put in Lady Agatha.

  ‘Yes, I would say so,’ he responded. ‘Unlike your goddaughter’s aim.’

  ‘Her aim?’ Lady Agatha’s brows soared. It was Eustacia’s turn to blush as her godmother looked at her in enquiry. ‘What have you been throwing at Ilam?’

  ‘She threw a bunch of flowers at me,’ said the viscount. ‘I thought it rather an extravagant gesture at the time, especially when we had only just met.’ There was no change in his expression, but there was a softening in his tone that although not a chuckle, had the potential of developing into one.

  Eustacia eyed him with some annoyance. ‘Had you not been unpardonably offensive, then I would not have needed to throw them,’ she retorted.

  ‘That settles it then, ma’am,’ said Ilam, turning to Lady Agatha after a brief silence during which he directed a penetrating gaze at Eustacia. ‘I will certainly not beg Miss Hope’s pardon.’

  ‘Your reasons, Ilam?’ her ladyship demanded haughtily.

  ‘She has declared my behaviour to be unpardonable,’ he responded. ‘That being the case, begging her pardon would surely be a fruitless exercise.’

  Lady Agatha gave a bark of laughter. ‘You have your father’s quickness, I’ll say that for you,’ she declared.

  ‘I’ll not pretend to be flattered by the comparison,’ Ilam responded. ‘I’m prepared to cry quits with Miss Hope if she will do the same. To be at odds over such a trivial incident seems a trifle unnecessary to me.’

  Eustacia could either agree or appear ungracious in the extreme. ‘Very well, my lord,’ she said, in as pleasant a tone as she could muster. ‘Let us consider the matter closed.’ Inwardly, she was seething. He had leapt to quite unwarrantable conclusions about her presence in his house. Perhaps she should not have thrown the flowers at him, but he had been the first one to be rude. She had only been retaliating. He had offended her, both by what he had said and by his manner of saying it. Now, he had as good as implied that she was making something out of nothing. Well, she would not give him the satisfaction of making a fuss like a silly schoolgirl. Let him be on his guard, though. She would find a way to turn the tables on him one way or another.

  The viscount only stayed for half an hour, as was proper, but he left having accepted an invitation to dine with them later in the week. ‘It will just b
e ourselves, so we shall be a very quiet party,’ said Lady Agatha.

  ‘If you say so, ma’am,’ answered Ilam politely, with a swift glance at Eustacia.

  ‘I hope you do not mean to imply that I intend to start a brawl,’ she said archly.

  ‘I will do my best not to provoke you, Miss Hope,’ was his reply.

  The following morning, Eustacia received a letter from her mother. In it, she informed her daughter that both she and Papa were missing her very much, but glad that she was in safe hands. No more had been heard or seen of that wretch Morrison Morrison. Eustacia smiled. She could almost hear her mother rolling her r’s as she said it. The Morrisons had gone away for their health. Another family had come to live in the district. They were renting a house that had belonged to the late Lord Coulter. They seemed quite genteel. Eustacia smiled again. Nobody could be quite so high in the instep as her mama when she chose to be.

  ‘And how is your dear mother?’ Lady Agatha asked. She had been perusing her own correspondence. Since she had not begun spitting feathers, Eustacia assumed that none of it was from the Church of England.

  ‘She is well, as is my father,’ Eustacia replied. ‘She says that she misses me. Oh, and she sends her love.’

  Lady Agatha frowned. ‘Misses you, eh? I wonder whether she might like to have a visit from Jessie? You remember we were talking about sending Jessie on holiday only the other day.’ The two of them were alone in the breakfast parlour, Miss Warburton not yet having come downstairs.

  ‘Can you spare her?’ asked Eustacia

  ‘I can spare her very well,’ answered her godmother. ‘Now that I have you, it’s the perfect opportunity, and she won’t even suspect. The beauty of the scheme is that Ashbourne will never be mentioned there, because Claire can’t abide him. It will also test Lusty’s interest in Jessie. If it’s genuine, he’ll go after her. If his only interest is in this vicarage, then he’ll keep away, and he’ll certainly have fewer reasons for coming here, which is all to the good. Who knows, she might even meet someone else while she’s there. What do you say?’