Beauty Like the Night Page 3

  Oh, but I think you did, she responded, but with her eyes, not her lips. “Rest assured, my lord, that I am relatively untarnished by my mother’s reputation,” she coolly returned. “I am respected in my field. Indeed, your money has bought you rather more than a governess. I believe my training and experience speaks for itself, but if you do not wish to avail yourself of it, someone else will be glad to do so.”

  Cam swallowed hard. She watched the movements of his throat with fascination. “Yes, yes! To be sure,” he admitted vaguely.

  Suddenly, Helene found herself a little angry at her new employer’s veiled remarks and pregnant silences. In the years since she’d left Gloucestershire, Helene had learned to govern her wild exuberance and passionate nature, but her temper was far less obliging. “Forgive me, Lord Treyhern. I grow weary of having my past suspiciously poked and prodded. Might we discuss your daughter?”

  Cam took an obvious exception to her tone, jerking from his desk chair and crossing to the wide bow window. He stared silently through the glass, one hand set at his narrow hips, the other absently massaging the muscles in the back of his neck. In the weak morning sun, a sprinkling of dark hair was visible across the corded tendons of his raised forearm.

  “I do not believe, Helene, that this is wise.” His voice was thick with some emotion she could not identify. “Indeed, it just won’t do. I think you know it as well as I.”

  “Quelle sottise, Cam!” she exploded, rising from her seat to stride after him. “Particularly when your daughter is in want of help! What do you think really matters here? Your pride? My sensibilities? I like this no better than you, but there is a child who must come first.”

  “I am only too well aware of that, Helene,” he snapped.

  Helene softened her tone. “The child requires a teacher—and a good one, from all I have heard. Moreover, I accepted your offer and signed your contract, all without knowing who you were. But upon learning it, I have kept my word. I will go, and gladly, if you will release me from our agreement. But if you wish me to stay, I want to see Ariane now.”

  Cam turned to look at her, his straight dark brows drawing taut across his eyes. “No, Helene. I am afraid it is out of the question.”

  “Why?” she demanded. “Because of my mother’s reputation?”

  “No. But Helene—after what has passed between us, I cannot—you cannot possibly think—”

  “Think what, for God’s sake?” Helene’s voice took on a bitter edge. “I can assure you, my lord, that I think of nothing but your daughter’s welfare. You and I were naught but friends. At worst, we were two forsaken children, thrown together by selfish parents. I was fond of you, and you of me. Is that such a bad thing?”

  Almost of its own volition, her hand reached out to rest lightly upon his shoulder. Despite her height, she had to reach up to do so. As if under her command, Cam sunk down into the window seat, and pressed the heel of one palm against his brow.

  “No,” he answered at last. “For the most part, it was a very good thing, our friendship. And it came at a time when I needed a friend. Rather badly, perhaps.”

  Helene’s knees turned to pudding at his frank response, and she realized how close she had been standing. Stepping slightly backward, she let her hand slide away. “Perhaps you need a friend now, my lord. It is no small matter to bury a parent, no matter their failings. No one understands that fact better than I. And your daughter, she concerns you greatly, does she not?”

  Cam stared at her, unblinking. “I have changed, Helene,” he said simply.

  She laughed unsteadily. “My lord, we are none of us what we once were. You and I, well, we are all grown up now. We may do as we please, just as we always wished. And yet, for my part, I feel decidedly old.”

  “You do not look old,” he answered gruffly. “You look the very same. I would have known you anywhere.”

  When she made no further response, Cam rose and pulled the bell. “I must think on this, Helene. Milford will show you to your room. Please make yourself—” His words faltered for a moment. “Please make yourself at home here. We’ll speak again tomorrow.”

  As she stood to leave, the cat rose, stretched languidly, then crossed the room to leap up onto a folded newspaper which had been left atop the desk. Cam followed Helene’s every move as his butler ushered her from the room.

  “Damn it, Boadicea!” he growled to the ginger cat after the door thumped shut. “What the devil was I thinking? Why did I not simply send her away?”

  Boadicea stared at him, blinked her eyes slowly, then stretched out a coppery leg and began to nibble between her toes. It was probably the most sagacious response one could expect, given the sheer stupidity of his behavior. Perhaps, Cam inwardly admitted, Helene was an excellent teacher. Nonetheless, he was not sure he could bear to have her beneath his roof. Helene enticed a man to live his life as if it were meant for laughter and pleasure. A tempting but treacherous illusion, that.

  Violently, he shoved his chair back from the desk, much to his cat’s disapproval. Ignoring her glare, Cam told himself to get a grip on his thoughts. He was no green lad now. The woman was just a damned governess, for pity’s sake. But she was right about one thing. His overriding concern had to be Ariane’s welfare, and if Helene was as gifted as her references would have one believe, could he in all fairness to the child send her away? Life’s challenges, which had seemed merely plentiful a quarter-hour ago, now seemed innumerable.

  “And there are Bentley and Cousin Joan to sort out, as well,” Cam murmured to Boadicea. “Bentley, I fear, will soon come to a bad end. And Aunt Belmont! God preserve me from her! I feel perplexed by it all.”

  The cat stretched out on the desktop with a low rumble of contentment, but otherwise had little to offer. Nor did Cam, for that matter. His young brother, Bentley, was an eternal font of misfortune. Although the boy had returned to Oxford after the funeral, disturbing rumors of his progress, or lack thereof, had already reached Cheston-on-the-Water. Not even Cam’s wealth would be able to buy his brother another chance this time.

  As to his Cousin Joan, she would shortly be eighteen, and Cam could sense that Aunt Belmont was anxious for him to announce their betrothal, and save her the expense of a London season. Cam kept telling himself that he was glad; that his aunt’s zeal would help propel him forward into the future, for he had been too long mired in the past.

  And yet, he did nothing. It was time to stop waiting, always waiting. And what the devil was he waiting for, anyway? For the hole in his heart to be filled by something greater than himself? Perhaps Joan was up to the task, though he was hard-pressed to feel much enthusiasm.

  Nonetheless, he would do his duty. A Belmont match had been his mother’s dearest wish, for her father had had no sons, so he had divided his land between his two daughters, with the vague hope that it might be reunited by a marriage between cousins.

  But over the years, those dreams and many more had been tossed to the wind like so much cold ash, with Randy Rutledge hefting the shovel.

  Now, however, things had changed. Cam was a wealthy widower, and Joan was of an age for marriage. There was an understanding. And no one could deny his cousin’s suitability as a wife, for she was quiet, subtle, and delicate. Indeed, Joan would never challenge a man’s opinion, poke her nose into his business, or leave him tossing and turning in his bed until dawn. And Joan would never wear purple, nor set such a rakish feather in her hat.

  In the darkness, she listened. The pretty lady with the lilting voice was gone now. But Papa was still talking to his cat. Papa was perplexed. Per-plexed. She liked the sound that word made in her head. She shaped it with her lips, careful to let no noise escape.

  Her leg was numb now. It was squashed against the door of Milford’s service pantry. Quietly, carefully, she twisted about in her tiny cubbyhole beneath the shelves. Ooh, ooh! Pins-and-needles! She rubbed her leg, waiting for the pain to go away. She wanted out. She wanted to slip away, to follow the lady upstairs. But
Milford was rumbling about in the parlor now, and Papa was still in his study. She was trapped between them.

  She knew why the lady had come. Oh, yes. The lady was here to make her talk. They would sit together in the schoolroom, and the lady would show her the pictures on paper. The lady would say words, and scratch them with chalk, like little white birch twigs, onto the slate.

  Anxiously, she shifted her weight again. Why, oh, why did Milford not leave? She wanted to follow, to see the lady up close. Miss Eggers had been bouncy and round like Mama, with ... sunshine hair. The new one was like Milford. Like Milford but not like him at all. Tall and ... and willowy, yes. But pretty, not ugly. Papa called her ... not Miss something, but ... Helene.

  Hay-leen. Hay-leen. She said the word in her head, just as Papa did, with a little lilt at the end.

  Well, well! Papa was per-plexed by Hay-leen. She wondered if that was a good thing or a bad thing. She did not know. But she would find out. In the dark, Ariane suppressed a giggle.

  In the dead silence which remained in the wake of Helene’s departure, Cam could hear a mouse scrabbling about in the walls of the service pantry. There seemed to be rather a lot of them in the house lately. He pushed back his chair and glared at Boadicea, who now snoozed lazily atop his morning paper.

  Abruptly, he rose from his seat to pace about in the oppressive stillness, letting his indignation fill the emptiness. Crossing the rug with long strides, Cam seized the poker and jabbed viciously at the coals until they sprang into full flame. Helene’s flashing dark blue eyes had always been able to heat a room, and her departure had seemingly stripped all warmth from this one.

  Abruptly, he was roused from his introspection by a loud, rapid knock.

  2

  The Perennial Spring of all Prodigality

  Before Cam could turn from the hearth, the door was pitched open to admit a whirlwind, in the form of the Honorable Randolph Bentham Rutledge, who stalked into the room, then hurled his lithe frame into the chair Helene had just vacated. A bitter smile made plain the boy’s mood, even before he spoke.

  “Do your worst, my lord brother!” announced Bentley without preamble, stretching his long legs out to cross them carelessly at the ankles. “I’m out on my ear, and they’ll not have me back.” He spoke with an indifference which stripped any semblance of apology from his words.

  The earl stared at his seventeen-year-old sibling in amazement. Given what had already been a disconcerting morning, Cam’s comprehension was sluggish, but catch up it finally did. “Bentley,” he began ominously, “we are but a few scant days into Michaelmas term. I pray, for your sake, that you have some mitigating explanation for your presence here ...?”

  “No,” said Bentley. Through a spreading haze of anger, Cam watched as what appeared to be his late father’s handsomely carved chin and jaw went rigid, solidifying into stubborn, arrogant lines.

  “Just no ... ?” The earl’s voice dropped to a cold whisper.

  “No, my lord?” responded Bentley, slipping fractionally lower in his chair. “I have no explanation. Or none, I daresay, which you would care to hear.”

  “How exceedingly perceptive!” Cam wanted to throttle the boy. Instead, he sat down, picked up his pencil, and began to beat a violent tattoo on the opposite palm. He found the pain strangely satisfying, and settled back to study his young brother’s ashen but willful face.

  “Oh, blister it, Bentley!” he said, after a time. “Cards or dice?”

  “Neither.”

  “Drunkenness? Whoring?”

  Bentley shrugged equivocally.

  “Cut line, my boy,” cautioned Cam. “How bad? What’s it to cost? Or perhaps more to the point, will I even pay it?”

  “Sorry to put it to you, Saint Camden, but I’m not your boy, and I’ve no dearth of funds.” Bentley managed a snide grin, then drew a tattered letter from his coat pocket and sent it sailing through the air with a casual flick of his wrist. “Here, then, if you’ve nothing better to read. I believe you’ll find that the vice chancellor ‘regrets my enduring lack of scholarly interest, and feels I might better be occupied in some less intellectually demanding endeavor.’ At least, that’s what I recollect it said. Wasn’t there to receive the official dressing-down, don’t you know. Had to tool down to London to watch a little turnup and to play hazard with some chaps at the Cocoa-Tree.” The chin came up again. “And I won, too.”

  Cam suddenly snapped, raking the note and half the contents of his desktop onto the floor with a sweeping right arm. “Damn you to hell and back, Bentley!” he raged as Boadicea bolted for cover amidst the clatter. “I swear, you’re no better than Father. The pair of you could bring a nobleman to a ninepence in a fortnight.”

  “Why, one does what one can for the family,” murmured Bentley tauntingly. Then in a mockingly seductive whisper, “Good Lord, Cam, I do love to make you lose that infernal self-control. Reminds me of the good old days when Cassandra was still alive. Glad you’ve still got a temper underneath all that ice.”

  Cam came out of his chair. “My dead wife is none of your concern, Bentley! My God! Have you no notion of what is due your name? Do you believe us to be made of money? Do you imagine our reputation so unsullied by scandal that it can bear your going on this way?”

  Bentley snorted derisively. “Our name? Our reputation? Indeed! Father cared little enough for either, so why should I be troubled with them? I hold one saint in this family to be piety enough. And as to money, if we’ve been caught short—which I doubt—then perhaps you might just thaw out that whacking great cock of yours and marry us another merchant’s chit, eh? But Joan would never serve that purpose, would she?”

  Cam’s fist came down on the desk, rattling the drawer-pulls. Bentley did jump then, his first show of real fear. “You will leave my intended bride out of this, Bentley! Do you hear me? I’ll not have you impugn your cousin’s good name.”

  Bentley was out of his chair in a flash. He strode to the window, arms crossed over his chest and fists wedged beneath his armpits, as if he could barely restrain them. “Damn you, Cam,” he whispered, staring out into the sun-dappled gardens. “You know I’d never hurt Joan! It is you whom I scorn! I am so damned tired of bowing and scraping to the savior of our reputation, our fortunes, and indeed, our bloody self-righteousness! Yet all the while, you go on trampling over all of us and doing what you presume to think best. Father never plagued me. It has always been you.”

  Cam opened his mouth, then clapped it shut again. He wanted to say “Yes! Because Father never gave a damn about you!” But it was clear, even to him, that this confrontation had nothing to do with scandal or school or funerals. Indeed, Cam was hard put to explain just what was wrong. But it obviously ran cold and deep inside Bentley’s heart, and Cam was struck with the impression that this time his whelp of a brother was truly spoiling for a fight. Damn it, he bloody well would not give it to him.

  Cam exhaled slowly and forced his temper under control. “Very well, Bentley,” he responded tightly. “I collect that you plan to seek your fortune without benefit of education, then. Moreover, you have no further wish to live under my guardianship. Do I understand that aright?”

  Bentley still refused to face him, but he watched suspiciously from the corner of his left eye. “I ... no. I ... that is to say, I have not yet decided.”

  “Then by all means, let me help you,” answered Cam, his voice laced with deceptive softness. “Law ... or the church?” He laid one finger against his lips for a moment. “No, I fancy not. If you cannot finish Oxford, those methods of earning one’s bread would never do, would they? But perhaps you would like a pair of colors? Or does the navy hold some attraction?”

  “Oh no—!” said Bentley, snapping around. “I shan’t leave England, and you cannot make me!”

  “Yes, very true! Very true!” said Cam in a contemplative tone. He was beginning to have a vague suspicion as to what this latest outburst—indeed, perhaps the last several—were all about. But there w
as nothing to be done for it.

  “Then I shall send you down to our seat in Devonshire,” he said at last. “Old Hastings shall require a bit of assistance with winter coming soon. You may go in my stead, and learn something about estate management in the bargain.”

  “Don’t plan my future, Cam!” cautioned Bentley. “You have no notion of what is best for me.”

  “True enough,” admitted Cam softly. “But if you think to piss away your life, you’ll not do it here.” He paused in thought, drumming his fingers upon the desktop. “Very well, Bentley. I shall look to you to decide what is best done with your future. I shall give you until the New Year, at which time you shall have three options: you may beg—without my help—for admission to Cambridge, or you may go down to Treyhern Castle and help old Hastings. Thirdly, if those do not suit, you must seek your fortune by whatever means you think best.”

  Bentley’s brown eyes widened in shock. “You cannot—why, you cannot send me away from Chalcote!”

  “Can and will,” countered Cam dryly. “It is time to wake up, bold fellow! You’ll be eighteen soon. If life under my roof holds such thwarted opportunity, then go and seek it where you may.”

  For only a fraction, Bentley looked crestfallen, his arms dropping loose at his sides. Then just as quickly, the impudent grin was back. “Right, then,” he said, bouncing eagerly up onto the balls of his feet. “Since I have until the New Year, I’d best pass the time in some pleasurable pursuit. I fancy I shall spend it seducing that rather fetching governess you’ve just hired. Older women are so experienced, and God blind me if she ain’t got a rack of tits to put old Miss Eggers to sha—!”

  But Bentley did not get a chance to further elucidate. Cam had hold of his cravat and was pounding him mercilessly into a bookcase. A hailstorm of books rained down around them as Cam yanked taut the fabric, then hoisted him ruthlessly upward by the coat collar, leaving Bentley’s booted feet dangling aimlessly above the Oriental carpet.