Lord Rathbone's Flirt Page 6

  Verity quickly found that shopping in the company of Mrs. Pettiforth and her eldest daughter involved pandering to the girl’s every wish. The opinions that Miss Pettiforth expressed on matters of fashion were immature and tended toward the showy. The only caveats that Mrs. Pettiforth held fast to were the proper degree of bosom that should be allowed in a gown, and that she would not countenance a damped-down or sheer muslin.

  “It’s of no use to wheedle me, Cecily dear. Besides the cold, I know very well what a figure you would cut, and let me tell you that in that sort of gown, it is a very different sort of lady you would appear to any peer,” said Mrs. Pettiforth with unex­pected firmness. “Is that not so, Verity?”

  “Entirely so, ma’am. No lady of high position would be seen dressed in such a fashion,” said Verity, purging her soul without compunction.

  “Oh.” Miss Pettiforth considered the matter for a moment. Her brow cleared. “Very well, Mama. I shall forego having the muslins made up. I do not wish to give any titled gentleman cause to think badly of me.”

  The afternoon was soon spent. Verity had been able to make her few purchases and held them on her lap. A welter of boxes and tied packages containing all of those things that Miss Pet­tiforth had seen and determined she could not do without took up every inch of space on the seats and floor, making the ride back to the manor uncomfortable for the occupants of the car­riage. Somewhere lost in the profusion, and quite forgotten, was the humble parcel of satin ribbon that had been the cata­lyst for the orgy of buying.

  * * *

  Chapter 7

  “I had not thought ever to be summoned to you for such a cause as this, ma’am!” Lord Henry Alan George Sandidge, Viscount Rathbone, leaned his wide shoulder against the man­tel and regarded the other occupant of the room with a sar­donic expression.

  “It is extraordinary, is it not?” agreed his hostess.

  “Quite,” said Lord Rathbone dryly. “Perhaps you will be good enough to enlighten me as to your reasoning upon this signal occasion.”

  Before replying, her ladyship took a few moments to regard the viscount with objective eyes. She concluded that she was well-satisfied.

  There were few gentlemen that met the dictates of the day so worthily as Lord Rathbone. He was an extremely well-knit gentleman, athletic in build and inclination, the possessor of a handsome face and fortune. His tall figure was a familiar sight in London’s fashionable drawing rooms and he was equally well-known amongst the sporting set known as the Corinthi­ans.

  Lord Rathbone was cultivated for his birth, his breeding, his wealth, and his reputation as a blood of the first order. He had entered into his inheritance at an early age, and from that day to the present he had embarked upon a career of gentlemanly pursuits that had become a scandal and an affront to some of his more staid relations. His progress had been attended by himself with enthusiasm, an enthusiasm which had over the in­tervening years turned to weary cynicism.

  Now his mother, Lady Rathbone, smiled rather grimly at the viscount. She well knew the depths of her son’s disillusion­ment and boredom. She counted upon that more than any sense of conscience to work to her advantage in forcing him into what to him could only be a repugnant course.

  “You do not care to have your actions called into question,” she stated.

  Lord Rathbone gave a short bark of laughter. A swift grin lit his face for a bare second, then it was gone. “Frankly, my dear mother, these stories you have repeated to me this afternoon mean nothing to me. I am astonished that you give such cre­dence to talebearers.” His voice was heavily contemptuous.

  “Your uncles do not have a fondness for you,” said Lady Rathbone.

  Lord Rathbone shifted, settling both shoulders against the high mantel. “That is a superlative understatement, ma’am, as well you know,” he said softly.

  Lady Rathbone nodded. Yes, she knew very well that her brothers-in-law regarded her son with loathing and consider­able hatred. After all, if it had not been for his totally unex­pected birth, the title and estates would have reverted to them.

  She had wed a gentleman considerably older than herself. Several years of her marriage had passed without being at­tended by the birth of children. It would have been wonderful indeed if the eldest of her brothers-in-law had not begun to covet a title and a property that brought easily an income of a thousand pounds a year. A second property had been entailed to pass to the younger brother in the event that there was no heir from the marriage. Both brothers had thus stood to gain from Lord Rathbone’s death without issue. Their ambitions had crumbled to dust with the advent of the infant heir.

  Lady Rathbone drummed her fingers lightly on her chair arm, recalling the past. Her lord had been ecstatic at the birth of his son. He had disliked both of his brothers, trusting more in their obvious avarice than in their expressions of goodwill, but his advancing years had seemed to make surer and surer the likelihood of one of them inheriting his position and the other becoming overseer of his minor estate.

  With the birth of his son, Lord Rathbone had taken a new lease on life. He had hoarded his energies, conserved his health, and restricted his former excesses. He had spent what was considered by outsiders to be an inordinate amount of time with the growing boy. The resulting relationship had been uncommonly close and fierce in mutual loyalty.

  His lordship had lasted until his heir’s fifteenth birthday. Upon Lord Rathbone’s demise, his brothers had descended, swift as grinning vultures. Even though there was an heir, con­trol of the estates would naturally fall upon the shoulders of those named as the youth’s guardians until the young viscount had attained his majority. By that time, of course, there was every possibility that there would be little of substance left to inherit.

  The Sandidge brothers had rubbed their hands; their eyes had gleamed. They had said everything that was proper under the somber circumstances. Lady Rathbone had received their empty condolences with a regal nod and the slightest of smiles. Her lack of emotion had been dismissed by them as stupidity.

  When the will was read, Lady Rathbone stood legally ac­knowledged as sole legal guardian. She had swept out of the library without acknowledging even with a glance the outcries that poured from her outraged brothers-in-law. She had gone directly to her rooms and indulged in a prolonged bout of tears, for she had held back her grief until the thing should be done and over. Then she had freshened her toilette and gone downstairs to order her brothers-in-law put out of the house.

  The deposition of the will had created a scandal of no mean order. The Sandidge brothers had contested it, protesting that it must have been made under duress, for no gentleman in his right mind would leave such weighty responsibility to a mere female. It was argued that his lordship’s considerable years had made him vulnerable to subtle compulsion.

  This claim was openly ridiculed throughout the county by gentry and rougher folk alike. Local opinion held that no gen­tleman in memory had ever retained both his mental faculties and his physical capabilities to such good effect and that, even hours before death, Lord Rathbone had still been considered a force to be reckoned with.

  The will was proven indisputably legitimate. The document was not drafted in the waning years of his lordship’s life, as had been assumed. Quite the opposite, in fact. The Sandidge brothers were infuriated to learn that the will had been drafted the very eve of the heir’s birth and had not been changed by one jot for fifteen years.

  Lady Rathbone’s eyes drifted thoughtfully to her son’s face. As always she felt great satisfaction that he did not bear the least resemblance to herself.

  When the announcement was made that shortly an heir would be born to Lady Rathbone, there had been whispers bruited about of an unknown lover and that the heir was the product of an illicit union. Those rumors persisted for years, fu­eled by the malicious tongues of her brothers-in-law. But the slurs had gradually died as the boy had grown and matured, for there was no doubt of his lordship’s stamp upon him. By t
he time the heir had attained his fifteenth year, the resemblance between himself and his father was uncanny. Lord Rathbone might have become a little stooped and his once coal-black hair turned snow white, but the fierce, startlingly blue eyes and the strong, wide bones of the face had not blurred.

  Over the years Lady Rathbone had suffered the slurs and the slander and the malice of her husband’s family with quiet dig­nity. If her naturally autocratic bent had become more pro­nounced, and she did not suffer fools easily, it was scarcely to be wondered at. She had done her duty toward her son as handily as any gentleman might have; better, perhaps, for she guarded her son and his inheritance with a ruthlessness that would not be gainsaid.

  Her brothers-in-law and their families were treated with cold civility. They were never allowed to establish a foothold at Ganescourt, either by being made to feel welcome in a so­cial way or by default in presuming to have any say in how the estate was run.

  Lady Rathbone could look back with pride on all that she had accomplished. She had preserved her lord’s estate from the machinations of his greedy brothers. She had raised a strong and handsome son. However, her task was not yet en­tirely done.

  Perhaps the most profound challenge of all in the long battle to resist and to utterly vanquish her husband’s family had now to be faced. Lady Rathbone knew her own strengths and weak­nesses. If it was only herself who was to be involved, she had every confidence that a successful conclusion could be had. However, she was not the key actor this time. However reluc­tant she was to recognize it, time had inexorably and in­evitably limited her power to that of a role behind the scenes.

  When the new viscount had attained his eighteenth year, Lady Rathbone abruptly announced that she was relinquishing her guardianship over her son. When criticized by friends and foes alike, she had simply said that the viscount was too much his father’s son to be hedged about by unnecessary restric­tions. Society’s astonishment was nothing compared to the boiling outrage of her brothers-in-law. Again, she had merely smiled at them. They had subsided, suspicious of her lady­ship’s serenity. They recalled all too vividly what had taken place once before when they had underestimated her position.

  However, as the young Viscount Rathbone had embarked upon his riotous course, his uncles had taken heart. Surely such a wild young man must come to mortal grief. Surely he would break his neck riding neck-or-nothing over the roughest hunting fields, or come off the worst for a duel, or wreck one of those expensive racing curricles.

  In addition, there was a war going on. With a judicious word of encouragement, a young man of such a wild bent might develop a fancy for purchasing a pair of colors, even subsequently to fall on the bloody field of battle.

  It would be tragic, of course, for a gentleman of such tender years to expire in any of these violent ways; but the odds were surely against the viscount surviving the course he had set upon.

  Lord Rathbone’s uncles nourished their twisted malignant hopes. But the years passed and the young Lord Rathbone con­tinued to escape unscathed the violent death that had once seemed so certain. Particularly galling to the gentlemen, Lord Rathbone had proven so contrary that he had not expressed the least desire to enter the army in order to fight for the glory of England.

  Instead, Lord Rathbone had exhibited a new leaning that brought alarm to his frustrated relations. He was said to be a rake. Though his name had never been linked to that of a re­spectable female, it was obvious that he had considerable ad­dress with the ladies of his own order, as well, and could one day decide to wed.

  The viscount was openly discussed as a very eligible parti. His wild reputation was overlooked in view of his birth and fortune. Several ambitious matrons had thrown their daughters at his head, but thus far he had not nibbled at any of the delec­table bait offered him.

  The fact that the viscount was pursued, coupled with his known predilection for a pretty female, aroused the liveliest dismay in the breasts of Lord Rathbone’s paternal relations. Thus was explained the most recent stories that had been con­veyed to Lady Rathbone.

  “Your uncles fear daily to hear of the birth of a by-blow,” said Lady Rathbone calmly.

  Lord Rathbone’s mouth curled, and his eyes gleamed with a curious light. “Indeed? That would put their noses out of joint, would it not? I see that I have been singularly shortsighted. It is a circumstance that I must rectify as soon as possible.”

  “Shall you?”

  He made an impatient, abrupt gesture. “You must know that I spoke in jest only. I do not litter the streets with my get.”

  “I thought not, and so I assured my brothers-in-law.”

  The viscount uttered an oath.

  Lady Rathbone smiled. The firelight cast shadows over her face so that the expression in her eyes could not be deter­mined. “I gathered that they fear even more to read of your en­gagement to a respectable young miss.”

  Lord Rathbone glanced sharply at his mother. “What are you saying, Mother?”

  Lady Rathbone leaned back in her chair, her laughter stilled. “My dear son, you need not look at me with such suspicion. You know full well that I do not plot against your interests.”

  Yes, and for that reason you are the more formidable oppo­nent,” he retorted unfilially.

  Lady Rathbone smoothed her skirt. “I am glad that you rec­ognize it, my dear. It has been my overriding preoccupation since your birth to destroy your uncles’ grasping pretensions, as well you should know.” She paused and raised her eyes to meet his level gaze. “As it stands, Ganescourt and everything else could still pass to the Honorable Forde or Bastion Sandidge and their progeny. Your life is all that has ever stood in the way of their ambitions. For that alone, they hate you, but even more so because you are your father’s image, in face and in tempera­ment. I knew that was so. I allowed you to prove it to them.”

  Lord Rathbone’s lips thinned. His gaze was dark as he con­sidered the indomitable woman who sat before him. Slowly, he said, “I had not before understood why you relinquished the guardianship five years before my majority. It was a hell-born motive, ma’am!”

  She shrugged. “I knew that you would run your course. I knew that the pattern would be such as to impress unmistak­ably and ever deeper upon your uncles how very much like your father you are.”

  “You are a Machiavelli, ma’am,” Lord Rathbone said softly, eyeing her with mingled anger and old, formless emotions that had become so rooted that they could no longer be completely distinguished. “I have gone to the very devil and back these past years. It meant little or nothing to you, did it?”

  “On the contrary. I feared often for your life. Not by word or look would I check you, however. You had to be left to run your chosen course.”

  “And now that my course has been run? What now, dear ma’am?” asked Lord Rathbone, an unpleasant smile upon his face.

  “It is time to deal the final blow to your uncles. You must get an heir,” said Lady Rathbone calmly.

  Lord Rathbone gave a short harsh laugh. “Thank you, my lady! So I am to get myself legshackled for the sole purpose of cutting up my uncles’ pecuniary hopes. I dislike the two gen­tlemen just as much as you do, ma’am, and more, for I know how they rejoiced when my father died. I shall never forgive them that. But to enter into wedlock with one of these simper­ing milk misses—to be tied for life to a trivial mind and running tongue! No, I think not!”

  “Then get yourself a bastard,” said Lady Rathbone.

  * * *

  Chapter 8

  There was an astonished silence. Lord Rathbone stared down at his parent, staggered. At length his expression altered, reluc­tant amusement entering his eyes. “You are an amazement to me, dear lady. Never did I expect to hear such a suggestion come out of your mouth.”

  Lady Rathbone sat at her ease, a peculiar smile lighting her face. “Did you not?”

  “No, I did not!” Lord Rathbone’s lips suddenly twisted. “I recall too well the slurs that were cast upon m
yself and upon your virtue. I was very small when first the lies came to my ears, and though at the time I did not completely understand what was being said, I swiftly learned. And you would have me bring forth a child who would be a bastard in truth! Your capacity for revenge runs to cruel depths that I never sus­pected.”

  “Perhaps it does. But obviously, yours does not,” said Lady Rathbone unemotionally.

  “No, it does not!” said Lord Rathbone explosively, coming away from the mantel.

  Lord Rathbone took a hasty turn about the room. Her lady­ship watched him, her face devoid of expression. Upon returning, the viscount cast a smouldering look at his mother. “My God, what opinion you must hold of my sense of honor and decency! I could never do what you suggest. Understand me in this, Mother. I have never, nor will I ever, beget a bastard!”

  “You will not wed for an heir. You will not father a bastard for an heir. You will let all that your father held for you fall into the hands of his bitterest enemies,” said Lady Rathbone.

  Lord Rathbone swung fully around, his fists clenched at his sides. His eyes blazed in a savage face. “You dare to accuse me of betrayal!”

  Lady Rathbone did not shrink from his fury. Her voice was cold. “Well? Have I not summed up the matter most suc­cinctly?”

  He stood stock-still for a moment, his very stance a threat. Then he crossed swiftly to the window and stared down for several minutes at the busy London street. Over his shoulder, he threw, “Damn you! You have always cut too close to the bone!”

  “I have had to,” said Lady Rathbone, an unusual edge to her voice. “The jackals still circle and snap, waiting for their op­portunity.” Suddenly her voice faltered. “George, I grow so tired.”