Lady of Quality Read online

He was standing before the fireplace, a powerfully built man with dark hair, and a swarthy complexion. His brows were straight and rather thick, and under them a pair of hard gray eyes stared at Miss Wychwood, their expression one of mingled surprise and disapproval. To her wrath, he raised his quizzing glass, as though to appraise her more precisely.

  Her own brows lifted; she moved forward, saying with chilling hauteur: 'Mr Carleton, I believe?'

  He nodded, letting his glass fall, and replied curtly: 'Yes. Are you Miss Wychwood?'

  She inclined her head, in a manner calculated to abash him.

  'Good God!' he said.

  It was so unexpected that it surprised an involuntary laugh out of her. She suppressed it quickly, and made another attempt to put him out of countenance, by extending her hand and saying, in a quelling tone: 'How do you do? You wish to see your niece, of course. I am sorry that she is not at home this morning.'

  'No, I don't wish to see her, though I daresay I shall be obliged to,' he replied, briefly shaking her hand. 'I came to see you, Miss Wychwood – if you are Miss Wychwood?'

  She looked amused at this. 'Certainly I am Miss Wychwood. You must forgive me if I ask you why you should doubt it?'

  And if that doesn't make you apologize for your incivility, nothing will! she thought, waiting expectantly.

  'Because you're by far too young, of course!' he replied, disappointing her. 'I came here in the expectation of meeting an elderly woman – or, at least, one of reasonable age!'

  'Let me assure you, sir, that although I don't think myself elderly I am of very reasonable age!'

  'Nonsense!' he said. 'You're a mere child!'

  'No doubt I should be grateful for the compliment – however inelegantly expressed!'

  'I wasn't complimenting you.'

  'Ah, no! how stupid of me! I recall, now that you have put me so forcibly in mind of it, that my brother told me that you are famed for your incivility!'

  'Did he? Who is your brother?'

  'Sir Geoffrey Wychwood,' she answered stiffly.

  He frowned over this, in an effort of memory. After a few minutes, he said: 'Oh yes! I fancy I've met him. Has estates in Wiltshire, hasn't he? Does he own this house as well?'

  'No, I own it! Though what concern that is of yours –'

  'Do you mean you live here alone?' he interrupted. 'If your brother is the man I think he is, I shouldn't have thought he would have permitted it!'

  'No doubt he would not had I been "a mere child",' she retorted. 'But it so happens that I have been my own mistress for many years!'

  The flash of a sardonic smile vanquished the frown in his eyes. 'Oh, that's doing it much too brown!' he objected. 'Many years, ma'am? Five, at the most!'

  'You are mistaken, Mr Carleton! I am nine-and-twenty years of age!'

  He put up his glass again, and looked her over critically before saying: 'Yes, obviously I was mistaken, for which your youthful appearance is to blame. Your countenance belongs to a girl, but your assured manner has nothing to do with infantry. You will allow me to say, however, that being nine-and-twenty years old doesn't render you a fit guardian for my niece.'

  'Again you are mistaken, Mr Carleton! I am neither Lucilla's guardian, nor have I the least ambition to supplant Mrs Amber in that post. I conclude, from your remarks, that you have come here from Chartley Place, where, I don't doubt, you have heard –'

  'Well, that, Miss Wychwood, is where you are mistaken! What the devil should take me to Chartley Place? I've come from London – and damnably inconvenient it was!' His penetrating gaze searched her face; he said: 'Oh! Are we at daggerdrawing? What have I said to wind you up?'

  'I am not accustomed, sir, to listen to the sort of language you use!' she replied frostily.

  'Oh, is that all? A thousand pardons, ma'am! But your brother did warn you, didn't he?'

  'Yes, and also that you don't hesitate to ride rough-shod over people you think beneath your touch!' she flashed.

  He looked surprised. 'Oh, no! Only over people who bore me! Did you think I was trying to ride rough-shod over you? I wasn't. You do put me out of temper, but you don't bore me.'

  'I am so much obliged to you!' she said, with ironic gratitude. 'You have relieved my mind of a great weight! Perhaps you will add to your goodness by explaining what you imagine I have done to put you out of temper? That, I must confess, has me in a puzzle! I had supposed that you had come to Bath to thank me for having befriended Lucilla: certainly not to pinch at me for having done so!'

  'If that don't beat the Dutch!' he ejaculated. 'What the deuce have I to thank you for, ma'am? For aiding and abetting my niece to make a byword of herself? For dragging me into the business? For –'

  'I didn't!' she broke in indignantly. 'I did what lay within my power to scotch the scandal that might have arisen from her flight from Chartley; and as for dragging you into the business, nothing, let me tell you, was further from my intention, or, indeed, my wish!'

  'You must surely have known that that fool of a – that Clara Amber would write to demand that I should exercise my authority over Lucilla!'

  'Yes, Ninian Elmore told us that she had done so,' she agreed, with false affability. 'But since nothing Lucilla has said about you led me to think that you had either fondness for her, or took the smallest interest in her, I had no expectation of receiving a visit from you. To own the truth, sir, my first feeling on having your name brought up to me was one of agreeable surprise. But that was before I had had the very doubtful pleasure of making your acquaintance!'

  The effect of this forthright speech was not at all what she had intended, for instead of taking instant umbrage to it he laughed, and said appreciatively: 'That's milled me down, hasn't it?'

  'I sincerely hope so!'

  'Oh, it has! But it's not bellows to mend with me! I warn you, I shall come about again. Now, instead of sparring with me, perhaps you, in your turn, will have the goodness to explain to me why you didn't restore Lucilla to her aunt, but kept her here, dam– dashed well encouraging her in a piece of hoydenish disobedience?'

  This uncomfortable echo of what Sir Geoffrey had said to her brought a slight flush into her cheeks. She did not immediately answer him, but when, looking up, she saw the challenge in his eyes, and the satirical curl of his lips, she said, frankly: 'My brother has already asked me that question. Like you, he disapproves of my action. You may both of you be right, but I set as little store by his opinion as I do by yours. When I invited Lucilla to stay with me, I did what I believed – and still believe! – to be the right thing to do.'

  'Fudge!' he said roughly. 'Your only excuse could have been that you were bamboozled into thinking that she had suffered ill-treatment at her aunt's hands, and if that is what she told you she must be an unconscionable little liar! Clara Amber has petted and cosseted her ever since she took her in charge!'

  'No, she didn't tell me anything of the sort, but what she did tell me made me pity her from the bottom of my heart. Little though you may think it, Mr Carleton, there is a worse tyranny than that of ill-treatment. It is the tyranny of tears, vapours, appeals to feelings of affection, and of gratitude! This tyranny Mrs Amber seems to have exercised to the full! A girl of less strength of character might have succumbed to it, but Lucilla is no weakling, and however ill-advised it was of her to have run away I can't but respect her for having had the spirit to do it!'

  He said, rather contemptuously: 'An unnecessarily dramatic way of showing her spirit. I am sufficiently well acquainted with Mrs Amber to know that she would not indulge in tears and vapours if Lucilla had not offered her a good deal of provocation. I conclude that the tiresome chit has been imposing on her aunt's good-nature yet again. Mrs Amber has frequently complained of her wilfulness to me, but what else could she expect of a girl brought up with excessive indulgence? I guessed how it would be from the outset.'

  'Then I wonder at it that you should have given your ward into her care!' exclaimed Miss Wychwood hotly. 'One would have supp
osed that if you had had the smallest regard for her welfare –' She stopped, aware that she had allowed her indig nation to betray her into impropriety, and said: 'I beg your pardon! I have no right, of course, to censure either your con duct, or Mrs Amber's!'

  'No,' he said.

  Her eyes flew to his in astonishment, a startled question in them, for she was quite taken aback by this uncompromising monosyllable.

  'No right at all,' he said, explaining himself.

  For a perilous moment, she hovered on the brink of losing her temper, but her ever-ready sense of the absurd came to her rescue, and instead of yielding to the impulse to come to points with him she broke into sudden laughter, and said: 'How unhandsome of you to have given me such a set-down, when I had already begged your pardon!'

  'How unjust of you to accuse me of giving you a set-down when all I did was to agree with you!' he retorted.

  'It is to be hoped,' said Miss Wychwood, with strong feeling, 'that we are not destined to see very much more of each other, Mr Carleton! You arouse in me an almost overmastering desire to give you the finest trimming you have ever had in your life!'

  Her laughter was reflected in his eyes. 'Oh, no, you would be very unwise to do that!' he said. 'Recollect that I am famous for my incivility! I should instantly give you your own again, and since I am an ill-mannered man and you are a well-bred woman of consequence you would be bound to come off the worse from any such encounter.'

  'That I can believe! Nevertheless, sir, I am determined to do what lies within my power to bring you to a sense of your obligations towards that unfortunate child. For fobbing her off on to Mrs Amber, when she was still a child, there may have been some excuse, but she is not a child now, and –'

  'Permit me to correct you, ma'am!' he interrupted. 'I should undoubtedly have fobbed her off on to Mrs Amber if she had been left to my sole guardianship, but it so happens that I had no choice in the matter! My brother appointed Amber to share the guardianship with me; and it was the expressed wish of his wife that, in the event of her death, her sister should have charge of Lucilla!'

  'I see,' she said, digesting this. 'But did you also delegate your authority over Lucilla's future? Were you willing to see her coerced into a distasteful marriage?'

  'No, of course not!' he replied irritably. 'But as marriage doesn't come into the question I fail to see –'

  'But it does!' she exclaimed, considerably astonished. 'That is why she ran away from Chartley! Surely you must have known what was intended? I had supposed you to be a party to the arrangement!'

  He stared at her from under frowning brows. 'What arrangement?' he demanded.

  'Good gracious!' she uttered. 'Then she never told you! Oh, how – how unprincipled of her! It makes me more than ever convinced that I did the right thing when I kept Lucilla with me!'

  'Very gratifying for you, ma'am! Pray gratify me by telling me what the devil you are talking about!'

  'I have every intention of telling you, so you have no need to bite off my nose!' she snapped. 'For goodness' sake, sit down! I can't think why we are standing about in this absurd way!'

  'Oh, can't you? Did you expect me to sit down before you invited me to do so? You do think me a ramshackle fellow, don't you?'

  'No, I don't! I don't know anything about you!' she said crossly.

  'Except that I am famed for my incivility.'

  She was obliged to laugh, and to say, with engaging honesty, as she sat down: 'I am afraid it is I who have been uncivil. Pray, will you not be seated, Mr Carleton?'

  'Thank you!' he responded politely, and chose a chair opposite to hers. 'And now will you be kind enough to tell me what is the meaning of this farrago of nonsense about Lucilla?'

  'It isn't nonsense – though I own anyone could be pardoned for thinking so! I collect that you don't know why Mrs Amber took her on a visit to Chartley Place?'

  'I didn't know she had taken her there, until I received a blotched and impassioned letter from her, written from Chartley. As for the reason, I don't think she divulged it. It seemed to me a perfectly natural thing: Lucilla's own home is in the immediate vicinity, and until her mother's death she was as much a part of Iverley's household as her own, and no doubt formed friendships with his children – particularly, as I recollect, with Iverley's son, who is the nearest to her in age.'

  'Are you quite positive that she didn't tell you of the scheme she and the Iverleys hatched between them?' she demanded incredulously.

  'No,' he replied. 'I am not positive that she didn't, but I was unable to decipher more than the first page of her letter – and that with difficulty, since she had spattered it with her tears! The second sheet baffled me, for not only did she weep over it, but she crossed and recrossed her lines – no doubt with the amiable intention of sparing me extra expense.'

  Her eyes had widened as she listened to him, but although she was shocked by his indifference she could not help being amused by it. Amusement quivered in her voice as she said: 'What an extraordinary man you are, Mr Carleton! You received a letter from your ward's aunt, written in extreme agitation, and you neither made any real effort, I am very sure, to decipher that second sheet, nor – if the blotches did indeed baffle you – to go down to Chartley to discover precisely what had happened!'

  'Yes, it seemed at first as though that hideous necessity did lie before me,' he agreed. 'Fortunately, however, the following day brought me a letter from Iverley, which had the merit of being short, and legible. He informed me that Lucilla was in Bath, that her aunt was prostrate, and that if I wished to rescue my ward from the clutches of what he feared was a designing female, calling herself Miss Wychwood, I must leave for Bath immediately.'

  'Well, if that is not the outside of enough!' she said wrathfully. 'Calling myself Miss Wychwood, indeed! And in what way am I supposed to have designs on Lucilla, pray?'

  'That he didn't disclose.'

  'If he knew that Lucilla was staying with me, he must have written to you after Ninian's return to Chartley, for he couldn't otherwise have known where she had gone to, or what my name is! Yes, and after Ninian had given Mrs Amber the letter I had written to her, informing her of the circumstances of my meeting with Lucilla, and begging her to grant the child permission to stay with me for a few weeks! I should be glad to know why, if she thought me a designing female, she sent Lucilla's trunks to her! What a ninnyhammer she must be! But as for Iverley! How dared he write such damaging stuff about me? If he talked like that to Ninian I'm not surprised Ninian ripped up at him!'

  'Your conversation, ma'am, bears a strong resemblance to Clara Amber's letter!' he said acidly. 'Both are unintelligible! What the devil has Ninian to do with this hotch-potch?'

  'He has everything to do with it! Mrs Amber and the Iverleys are determined to marry him to Lucilla! That is why she ran away!'

  'Marry him to Lucilla?' he repeated. 'What nonsense! Are you trying to tell me the boy is in love with her? I don't believe it!'

  'No, I am not trying to tell you that! He wants the match as little as she does, but dared not tell his father so for fear of bringing about one of the heart-attacks with which Iverley terrorizes his family into obeying his every whim! I don't think you can have the least notion of what the situation is at Chartley!'

  'Very likely not. I haven't visited the house since my sisterin-law's death. Iverley and I don't deal together, and never did.'

  'Then I'll tell you!' promised Miss Wychwood, and straight way launched into a graphic description of the circumstances which had goaded Lucilla into precipitate flight.

  He heard her in silence, but the expression on his face was discouraging, and when she came to the end of her recital he was so far from evincing either sympathy or understanding that he ejaculated, in exasperated accents: 'Oh, for God's sake, ma'am! Spare me any more of this Cheltenham tragedy! What a kick-up over something that might have been settled in a flea's leap!'

  'Mr Carleton,' she said, holding her temper on a tight rein, 'I am aware t
hat you, being a man, can scarcely be blamed for failing to appreciate the dilemma in which Lucilla found herself; but I assure you that to a girl just out of the schoolroom it must have seemed that she had walked into a trap from which the only escape was flight! Had Ninian had enough resolution to have told his father that he had no intention of making Lucilla an offer it must have brought the thing to an end. Unfortunately, his affection for his father, coupled with the belief – instilled into his head, I have no doubt at all, by his mother! – that to withstand Iverley's demands was tantamount to murdering him, overcame whatever resolution he may have had. As far as I have been able to discover, the only notion he had was to become engaged to Lucilla, and to trust in providence to prevent the subsequent marriage! The one good thing that has emerged from this escapade is that Ninian, finding, on his return to Chartley, that his fond father had worked himself into a rare passion, without suffering the slightest ill, began to see that Iverley's weak heart was little more than a weapon to hold over his household.'