A Little Deception (11 page)

ROSE
WAS STILL tossing and turning with excitement when she heard the others return
home. At the top of the stairs Arabella’s voice sounded sleepy as she bade
everyone good night but Helena’s was sharp as she demanded of her husband,
‘It’s time to take your sister to task and demand that she have nothing more to
do with Lord Rampton. He’s dangerous.’

‘You wish to expose the charade?’ Charles sounded nervous,
as well he might, and Rose cringed at the knowledge that she’d forced it upon
all of them, without real thought for the consequences.

‘How can we?’ snapped Helena. ‘No, I’ll continue to play the
innocent virgin but Rose is out of her depth. Do you not see how she turns into
a blushing fool the moment he all but looks at her?’

The rest of the conversation was lost as the pair continued
along the passageway and all of Rose’s earlier excitement drained away.

Yes, she was being a fool. A fool to entertain any hopes
that something might come of her association with a dashing, eligible man who
clearly desired her and was in need of a wife.

So it was with resigned enthusiasm that she listened to her
Aunt Alice expound upon the possibilities inherent in a recently-received
invitation from their fabulously wealthy Great-Aunt Gwendolyn who was in need
of an heir.

‘She wishes you to call on her,’ Aunt Alice told her as they
took a turn about the rose bushes. ‘She’s very ill, you know. The end is
expected daily.’

Rose stopped and stared at her aunt. ‘But—’ she began.

‘Yes, yes, I didn’t waste time, my dear.’ Aunt Alice beamed.
‘And nor did she. This could make all the difference to your prospects, you
know, Rose, if Lord Rampton considers a sizeable marriage portion a necessary
part of the settlement.’ She floundered for a second. ‘Which is not to suggest
that I doubt your ability to entrance him of your own accord.’

They resumed walking. ‘In all good conscience,’ sighed Rose,
‘I can’t visit Aunt Gwendolyn like some blood-sucking relative.’ Nor, she
added, silently, would a sizeable marriage portion make her desirable in Lord
Rampton’s eyes. Not once he discovered the extent of her charade.

‘My dear Rose, you have far too many scruples.’

If only that were true, thought Rose, as her aunt continued,
‘Your Aunt Gwendolyn is, if nothing else, pragmatic. Her fortune must be left
to someone and she has little love for the other blood-sucking relatives who
are suddenly offering their condolences.’

At Rose’s continued silence she persisted, ‘So, you will
call on your Great-Aunt Gwendolyn soon? The poor soul would so enjoy the
company. She is quite bereft.’

Rose was soon to discover this a lie on both counts.

‘I don’t know how many times I told that lazy
good-for-nothing boy of mine that whist would be the death of him,’ pronounced
Aunt Gwendolyn in what Rose discovered was the old woman’s characteristic hiss,
and not the vestiges of a bad throat. ‘Gaming! Were I prime minister it would
be outlawed and punishable by transportation.’ She drew in a laboured breath,
exhaling on an even more venomous hiss. ‘He was raking it in when his heart
gave out and he landed with his nose in the middle of his pile of coin. Obediah
never knew how to deport himself!’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Rose said in tones that she hoped sounded
passably sympathetic. Not that the wizened old face which peeped from the
starched frills of Great-Aunt Gwendolyn’s white lace bonnet appeared in need of
cosseting or sympathy.

‘So.’ She gave Rose a beady look, her eyes travelling from
the top of the curling feather that adorned Rose’s bonnet to the tips of her
slippers. ‘I see you favour your father. Now there was a notable rake, to be
sure!’ There was admiration in her tone. ‘Broke a dozen hearts and kicked up a
lot of dust before he married your mother—for love!’ She made a noise
indicating disgust. ‘Worst mistake either of them ever made. He needed someone
strong to keep his dangerous impulses in check. Not some whining, puling beauty
who’d be the death of him. Make no mistake about that! Were you to have
favoured her I’d have given you short shrift for sitting at my bedside with
only one thing on your mind: my fortune.’

‘With respect, ma’am, Aunt Alice insisted that I came. I
have as little desire to be sitting at your bedside as you do to be
entertaining me.’

‘Miss Alice Wentworth! Addle-headed muttonhead who runs
around in terror of that stepson of hers. Oswald! Now there’s a nasty piece of
goods. If the whisperings I’ve heard are true he should be sent packing to the
Peninsula or transported.’

‘Aunt Alice has been very good to me.’

The old woman shrugged and her small black eyes seemed to
sink into the folds of her wrinkled flesh. ‘Perhaps more so than you might
suppose.’ Her eyes flashed. ‘The irony is I’ll never see the reaction of those
grasping relatives upon finding they’d been passed over in favour of the
daughter of my disgraced half-nephew, eh? A girl who only turned up at my
deathbed to inveigle her way into a fortune.’ She pursed her lips and watched
for Rose’s reaction.

‘Why would you do anything so addle-headed?’ Rose knew she
was being tested. ‘When I am nothing to you?’

‘Except the vehicle of my malicious pleasure.’ The old woman
gave a gusty sigh and turned her head. ‘But you’re not the first to whom I’ve
intimated such intentions.’ When Rose did not respond she swivelled a sidelong
glance at her. ‘I’m tired,’ she said, petulantly. ‘It’s time for you to go,
young lady. Rose? That was your name, wasn’t it?’

***

At last. Rampton felt satisfaction course through him as he
raked his eyes over lovely Lady Chesterfield whom he’d just ushered into
Felix’s studio. His brother was to do the preliminary sketch of his subject in
his artist’s studio, a quaint circular room on the second floor of the tower.

It had not been easy. The lady really was determined to make
him sweat over this protracted courtship, for she’d declined his offer to be
painted twice until he’d approached her husband and stated, baldly, that his
brother, a noted portraitist, had a week only in which to render her likeness;
that her good fortune would inspire envy amongst the ton, inferring that this
could only be a good thing.

Rampton increasingly got the impression that there was
little of substance in the relationship between Sir Charles and the
intoxicating little minx that was making Rampton’s life hell.

Fortunately Sir Charles had waved one of his long-fingered,
ineffectual hands in the air and muttered something about being honoured,
whereupon Rampton had fixed a time, there and then.

Now she was here and he was aware of his urgency to have her
almost as if it were a living thing co-existing within himself. If he couldn’t
orchestrate the necessary solitude so that he could begin to make the most of
the few short weeks left to them he thought he’d go mad.

Watching the play of emotions across her mobile features,
Rampton considered how unlike she was from the worldly women whose company he
usually sought. His brother, a short distance away, was mixing paints but he’d
already been coached on what signals indicated he must leave them to it –
and not return.

‘What an inspirational view,’ said the young woman,
impressing him by her artless tone
 
as she went to the large windows. Ha! As if she didn’t know what game
they were playing. ‘I know your brother shall do a famous job in painting me.’

A stab of jealousy surprised Rampton. Wishing he were the
one wielding a paintbrush, he replied, ‘He’ll have me to answer to if he fails
to capture your perfection.’

Her shy laugh touched him, surprisingly, with something
beyond the baseness of his intentions. Impulsively he moved towards her,
hesitating at the last moment, for clearly she was not priming herself for
passion. Good God, he was on the verge of asking permission for a kiss! When
had he ever felt the need to ask permission? It was why he associated only with
married women. The rules were established. Each knew exactly where they stood
with one another. Conversation was sophisticated and entertaining and
expectations not unrealistic.

Mind you, there had been surprising exceptions, the most
recent being Catherine Barbery, whom he had always considered the most aloof
and detached of his paramours. She had exhibited an uncharacteristic show of
jealousy when he had – with great tact and predictability, he’d thought
at the time – severed their relationship the evening after he’d met Lady
Chesterfield.

He was ashamed to recall that her tears had elicited in him
a strong desire to put as much distance as possible between them.

The flicker of surprise in Lady Chesterfield’s clear blue
gaze as she realized what he was after, followed quickly by delight, nudged at
some unrealised tenderness within him. She was enchanting! A quixotic mixture
of intelligence, strength and disarming naivety. Standing before her in the
tower room he imagined himself the knight in shining armour who must once have
stood at these very windows, wielding bow and arrow to protect his fair lady.

Good God! When was the last time he had thought like that?
Had he ever? Certainly not in relation to the dozen or more beauties he’d taken
as his mistresses since he had graduated from the schoolroom. Rampton had not
ever considered himself ready to pledge himself to a single woman and what he
felt now was decidedly uncharacteristic.

‘I prefer what’s inside the tower room to the view outside,’
he said, savouring the clean, fresh scent of orange blossom water as he
enfolded her in his arms.

Her face tilted upwards. Gently he kissed the tip of her
nose, preparing to signal to his brother to leave them … before the sounds of
approaching girlish chatter made him freeze. Surely not?

Lady Chesterfield stepped back, her expression regretful as
she ran her hand across his cheek and he said, through gritted teeth, ‘Do not
tell me, madam, that you have come with an army of attendants.’

The door was thrown open before she could answer and there
was the admittedly beautiful but dangerously forward Miss Chesterfield, whose
intimate smile only served to highlight why he was so wary of designing
debutantes.

‘I’m told you can see the dome of St Paul’s. Ah, Lord
Rampton, Mr Felix…’ This was delivered in a breathy gasp as Felix stepped
forward while Rampton quickly dropped Lady Chesterfield’s hands and felt his
rising frustration assume monumental proportions.

‘Mr Felix, how clever you must be to paint my sister-in-law.
How many sittings do you think you’ll need?’

‘Three,’ said Felix at the same time as his brother
nominated ‘five’, adding with a laugh, ‘Although Lady Casterton needed seven to
get the proportions of her monstrous nose right.’

‘Well, Rose has a little nose – too little, really,
for the proportions of her face,’ said the young woman with a guileless smile,
‘so I’m sure it won’t take as long.’

Rampton felt his protective instincts rise to the fore.
‘Perhaps you are envious, Miss Chesterfield, if you feel the need to criticize.
Lady Chesterfield could not be improved upon. However,’ he continued,
softening, ‘I’m sure if you asked my dear brother nicely enough he would paint
your likeness, too.’

‘I doubt that brothers are so appreciative of their sisters’
likenesses staring down at them from the breakfast parlour wall,’ responded the
young woman with a sigh.

Briskly, Rampton said, ‘If it is to be finished before the
charming Chesterfields leave England Felix will have to work hard –
without interruptions.’ With a meaningful look at Lady Chesterfield, he bowed
over her hand, adding, ‘Madam, what about Thursday, in the morning when the
light is best, for your next sitting?’

Two days from now. It seemed to Rampton an eternity before
he could spend time alone with her. In the meantime, though, he might manage an
intimate moment conversation or two at Catherine Barbery’s ball, an
entertainment for which he had little enthusiasm but which he’d felt obliged to
attend.

He levelled a challenging look at Helena and Arabella. ‘My
mother intends calling on me on Thursday. She has been quizzing me tirelessly
about the West Indies and indicated that she wished to meet Lady Chesterfield
most particularly.’ He frowned at Helena. ‘I understand you young ladies are
committed to a dancing lesson.’

‘As is my dear sister-in-law,’ said Helena sweetly.

‘Then it’s just as well that she is already such an
exquisite dancer.’ He looked at the young woman whose unconventional behaviour
had briefly aroused his interest before he’d realised she was just the reason
he wanted nothing to do with unmarried misses, and said with a colluding look
at Lady Chesterfield, ‘So, Thursday morning it is.’

‘Thursday morning I have made other arrangements,’ said
Felix, testily, when he finally put down his charcoal having rendered a
preliminary sketch after their visitors had gone.

Rampton grinned. ‘Perfect.’

***

‘Oh, look! A parcel!’ Removing her bonnet as the three girls
entered the drawing room Arabella darted towards the low table on which the
small, beautifully wrapped item lay.