Christmas Betrothals

Chapter Eight

Luc took a sixteen-hand gelding from the stables of St Auburn and rode for Maygate, a village a good ten miles away. He was tired and using the last light of dusk and the first slice of moon to guide him he journeyed west.

Dinner would still be a few hours away and he felt the need to stretch his body and feel the wind on his face and freedom.

Lord, how the English enjoyed their long and complicated afternoon teas, something which in Virginia would have been thought of as ludicrous.

Virginia and a green tract of land that reached from the James to the Potomac. His land! Hewed from the blood, sweat and tears of hard labour, the timber within his first hundred acres bringing the riches to buy the rest.

A piecemeal acquisition!

He ran his thumb across the scar on his thigh, feeling the ridges of flesh badly healed. An accident when the Bank of Washington was about to foreclose on him and he had no other means of paying to get the wood out. He had dragged it alone along the James by horse, unseated as a log rose across another and his mount bolted, pushing him into the jagged end of newly hewn timber. The cut had festered badly, but still he had made it to Hopewell and the mill that would buy the load, staving off the greed of the bank for a few more months.

Hard days. Lonely days.

Not as lonely as when Elizabeth had come, though, with her needs and wants and sadness.

No, he would not think of any of that, not here, not in the mellow countryside of Kent where the boundaries of safety were a comfortable illusion.

‘Lately I find I have a growing preference for orange.’ The words drifted to him from nowhere, warming him with possibility. Was it the flowers he had given her she spoke of? He shook his head. Better for Lillian Davenport to marry Wilcox-Rice than him and have the promise of an English heritage that was easy and prudent.

He stopped in a position overlooking a stream, the shadows of night long as he ran his fingers through his hair. Such dreams were no longer for him and he had been foolish to even think they could be. He should depart again tonight for London, leaving Lilly with her enticing full lips and woman’s body to his imagination. But he could not. Already he found himself turning his horse for home.

Lillian felt like a young girl again, this dress not quite fitting and that one not quite right. She was glad for the help of her lady’s maid and glad too that her aunt Jean was still in bed, her headache having turned into a cold.

When she finally settled on a gown she liked she walked to the window and looked out. The last of the daylight was lost, the moon rising quickly in the eastern sky and the gardens of St Auburn wreathed in shadow. She was about to turn away when a lone rider caught her eye, his gait on the horse fluid. No Sunday rider this, the beat of the hooves fast and furious.

Lucas Clairmont. She knew it was him, the raw power of his thighs wrapped about the steed in easy control and the reins caught only lightly as the animal held its head and thundered on to the gravelled circle of the driveway.

Caught in the moonlight, hair streaming almost to his shoulders and without a jacket, he looked to her like the living embodiment of some ancient Grecian God. What would it be like to lie with such a man, to feel him near her, close?

Shocked, she turned away. Ladies did not ponder such fantasies and she had been warned many times of the man that he was. Yet surely a light flirtation was a harmless thing and, perhaps, if she were generous, she could place her clandestinely bought kiss into that category. But she should take it no further. To cross the line from coquetry into blowsy abandonment would be to throw away everything that she had worked hard for all her life. Stepping to the mirror, she looked at herself honestly, observed eyes full of anticipation and the smile that seemed to crouch there, waiting.

For him!

Adjusting her chemise so that a little more flesh than usual was showing, she smiled, still proper indeed, but bordering on something that was not. This wickedness that had leaked into her refined formality was freeing somehow, a part of her personality that had until lately lain dormant and unrealised.

‘Oh God, please help me.’ Spoken into the silence of her room, she wondered just exactly what it was that she was asking. For absolution of sin or for the strength to see her virtue in the way she had always tried to view it? Shaking her head, she sought for the words to cancel such a selfish prayer and found that she couldn’t. There was some impunity received, after all, in asking for celestial help and a sense of providence. Tonight she would need both.

Proceeding in to dinner on the arm of the Earl of St Auburn, Lillian was surprised when Clairmont found his seat next to hers. Status and rank almost always determined seating after the formal promenade and she was astonished to see John consigned to a place at the other end of the table and looking most displeased. Cassandra St Auburn raised her glass and Lillian wondered at the definitive twinkle in the woman’s glance. Had she planned this? Was there some communal strategy behind the reason for her invitation? Well, she thought, the usual nerve-racking worry of seating seemed to have been done away with completely and the lack of any remorse was, if anything, refreshing.

At her own dinner parties the seating arrangements were what she always hated the most in her fear of offending some personage of higher status than the next one.

Determining to think no more of it, she took a quick peek at the American. His hair was slicked back tonight, still wet from a late bath she supposed after the exercise that he had taken.

‘I saw you return from your ride.’ She spoke because she found the growing silence between them unnerving.

‘After the carriage trip I needed to blow away the cobwebs.’ A loud trill from Caroline Shelby two places away punctuated his words. ‘Need I say more?’ He smiled as she looked shocked. ‘It must be difficult to always be so virtuous, Miss Davenport.’

‘I am hardly that, Mr Clairmont.’ The kiss they had shared quivered between them, an unspoken shout. ‘You of all people should know it.’

‘Your small experiment to … determine emotion can hardly be consigned to the “fallen woman” basket. Nay, put it down instead to any adult’s healthy pursuit of knowledge.’

He was more honourable in his dismissal of her lapse than he needed to be and a great wave of relief covered her. With shaking hands she took small sips of her wine and then laced her fingers tightly together.

‘I thank you for such a congenial summary, but my actions the other day were much less than what I usually expect from myself.’

‘As a dubious consolation I can tell you that the wisdom of age dims such exacting standards. When you are as old as I am you will realise the freedom of doing just as one wills.’

‘Like fighting with my cousin at the Lenningtons’?’

‘Or sending a beautiful woman flowers.’

She was silent, the last rejoinder putting a halt to her fault-finding. Beautiful. He thought her that?

‘How old are you, Mr Clairmont?’ She hated herself for asking the question in the face of everything that had passed between them.

‘Thirty-three and judicious beyond my years, Miss Davenport.’

‘Some here might call you a gambler?’

‘Which I am.’

‘And a cheat?’

‘Which I am not.’

‘There are even rumours circulating that hint at the possibility that you have killed people.’

‘More than one?’ His eyebrows rose in a parody of an actor on the stage, though when she pulled back he laughed. ‘ “A man can smile and smile and be a villain,” ’ he quoted, a new wickedness supplanting the guile.

‘You are a puzzle, Mr Clairmont. Just when I think to understand your character you surprise me.’

‘With my knowledge of Shakespeare?’

She shook her head. ‘Nay, with your intuition on the very nature of mystery!’

‘I’ve had years of practice.’

‘And years of debauchery?’

Again he laughed, though this time the sound was less feigned. ‘Mirrors and smoke are not solely the domain of the stage, Lilly.’

‘Miss Davenport,’ she corrected him. ‘So are you telling me that what I see is not who you are?’

He tilted his drink up to the light. ‘Does not everyone have a hidden side?’

The chatter around her seemed to melt into nothingness and it was as if they were alone, just her and just him, the recognition of want making her feel almost dizzy. Clutching at her seat, she turned away, the room spinning strangely and her heartbeat much too fast.

She was pleased when a delicate pheasant soup was placed before them as it gave her a chance to pretend concentration on something other than Luc Clairmont, and the turbot with lobster and Dutch sauces that followed were delicious.

Lady Hammond, a strong-looking older woman sitting opposite, regaled them on the merits of the hunting in the shire of Somerset as the entrée and removes were served, and by the time the third course of snipes, golden plovers and wild duck came out the topic seemed to have moved on to the wealth and business advantages available in the colonies.

‘How do you see it, Mr Clairmont?’ one of the older guests asked him. ‘How do you see the opportunities in the area around Baltimore and Chesapeake Bay?’

‘Men with a little money and fewer morals can do very well there. My uncle’s land, for example, was swindled for a pittance and sold for a fortune.’

‘By fellow Americans?’

‘Nay, by an Englishman. The new industries are profitable and competition is rife.’

The sentence bought a flurry of interest from those around the table and John Wilcox-Rice was quick to add in his penny’s-worth. ‘It seems that the fibre of our society is threatened by a new generation of youth without morals.’

The Earl of Marling seconded him. ‘Integrity and honour come from breeding, and the great families are being whittled away by men who have money, but nothing else.’

Looking down at Luc Clairmont’s hand between them, Lillian noticed his knuckles were almost white where he gripped the seat of his chair. Not as nonchalant of it all as his face might show.

Wondering at his manner she was distracted only when a crashing sound made her turn! Lord Paget was drunk and his wife was trying to settle him down again in his seat, the shards from a broken glass spilling from the goblet to the tablecloth and dribbling straight into the lap of John Wilcox-Rice.

Pushing his seat back, John tried to wipe away the damage and Paget in his stupor also reached over to help him, his fingers touching parts that Wilcox-Rice was more than obviously embarrassed by. The tussle that ensued knocked the first man into a second and the tablecloth was partly dragged away from the table, bringing food and wine crashing all around them.

Luc Clairmont was on his feet now as Paget went for Wilcox-Rice.

‘Enough,’ he said simply, pulling the offender back and blocking an ill-timed punch. ‘You are drunk. If you leave with your wife now there will be little damage come morning.’

Paget’s wife looked furious, both at her husband’s poor behaviour and at Luc Clairmont’s interference, but it was Paget who retaliated.

‘Perhaps you should be getting your own house into order, Clairmont, before casting aspersions on to ours. You were, after all, expelled from Eton and many would say that you still haven’t learned your lesson.’

‘Would they now?’ His drawl was cold and measured, the gold of his eyes tonight brittle.

‘Leave him, my dear, for he is not worth it. If St Auburn wishes to make himself a laughing-stock by insisting the American is a gentleman, then let him.’ Lady Paget seemed to be supporting the stupidity of her husband, no thanks being given for the assistance she had received from the man she now railed against.

Anger seized Lillian.

‘I would say, Lady Paget, that your manners are far less exacting than the one you would pillory. From where I sit it seems that Mr Clairmont was only trying to make certain that Lord Paget’s flagrant lack of etiquette did not harm any of the other ladies present. I for one am very glad that he intervened, as your husband’s behaviour was both frightening and unnecessary.’

With a haughty stare she looked about the table, glad when the nods of the others present seemed to support her assessment. Sometimes her position as the queen of manners was an easy crown to wear and a persuasive one. She felt the anger swaying back to the Pagets and away from Luc Clairmont as the wife picked up the heaviness of her skirts and followed her husband, an angry discourse between them distinctly heard.

Lillian did not look around at Lucas Clairmont or question his silence. Nay, she was a woman who knew that if you left people to think too much about a problem then you invariably had a larger one. Consequently she swallowed back ire and began on a topic that she knew would surely interest all the ladies present.

Luc sat next to her and hated the anger that the Pagets’ stupid comments had engendered in him. England was the only place in the world, he thought, where the deeds of the past were never forgotten nor forgiven, and where misdemeanours could crawl back into the conversation almost twenty years on.

For now, though, Lilly was chattering on forever about dresses she had seen in Paris in the summer, and if he had not been so furious he might have admired her attention in remembering the detail of such an unimportant thing.

Not to the women present, however! Each one of them was drinking in her every word and as the servants scooped away shards of china and crystal, replacing the broken with the whole, it was as if there had never been a contretemps. When the dessert of preserved cherries, figs and ginger ice-cream arrived, he noticed that everyone took a generous portion.

Warmth began to spread through him. Lillian Davenport had stood up for him in front of them all, had come to his aid like an avenging angel, her good sense and fine bearing easily persuading everyone of the poor judgement the Pagets had shown.

Indeed, she was lethal, a pale and proper thunderbolt with just the right amount of ire and refinement.

No one could criticise her or slate her decorum and it was with this thought that her offered kiss was even the more remarkable. Lord, did she not realise how easily she could fall, how the inherent nature of man would make any mishap or misconduct accountable in one so loftily placed?

He worried for her, for her goodness and her vulnerability and for the sheer effort that it must take to stay at the very top.

This weekend had been his doing, his own need to see her alone and overriding every other consideration for her welfare. And she had repaid this selfishness with dignity and assurance.

Respect vied with lust and won out. He would do nothing else to bring her reputation into disrepute. That much he promised himself.

He had not come near her since the Pagets had left, the tea taken in the front salon a sedate and formal sort of an affair, with Lucas Clairmont placing himself on the sofa the furthest away from where she sat.

Indeed, after her outburst she thought he might have been a little thankful, but he made no effort at all to converse or even look at her, giving his attention instead to Caroline Shelby and her simpering friend.

Nathaniel St Auburn at her side turned to her to speak. ‘I see you had much to talk about with Mr Clairmont earlier on, Miss Davenport?’ St Auburn’s question was asked in a tone indicating manners rather than inquisitiveness. ‘He was an old school friend of mine at Eton,’ he enlarged when he saw her surprise. Lillian pondered the thought.

‘I didn’t realise that he once lived in England.’ The cameo of a younger Lucas Clairmont intriguing her. ‘He seems too … American?’

Nathaniel chuckled, but there was something in the sound that made her think. She pressed on.

‘Have you ever visited him in Virginia?’

‘I have.’

‘And you enjoyed it?’

‘I did!’

Lillian grated her teeth, wishing that his answers might be enlarged so as to give her an insight into the personality of the man sitting across the room from her.

‘Mr Clairmont says his home is near a river. The James, I think he said. Does he have family there?’ She hoped that the interest she could hear in her words was not so obvious to him.

‘His wife was from those parts, but she died in a carriage accident. A nasty thing that, because Luc blamed himself, as any gentleman of sensitivity might.’

Relief bloomed at Luc Clairmont’s innocence in his wife’s demise. After all the darker conjectures in society, Lillian was pleased to find out that the cause of the woman’s death had been an accident, though she had a strange feeling that St Auburn’s words were carefully chosen. In warning or in explanation? She could not tell which.

‘So you think him a sensitive man?’

‘Indeed I do, but I can see by your frown that you may not?’

‘I have heard things …’

He did not let her finish. ‘Give him a chance,’ he said softly and she almost thought that she hadn’t heard it before he turned away.

Give him a chance! Of what? She felt again the warmth of Lucas Clairmont’s arm against hers where they had not quite touched at the dinner table. If she had moved closer she might have felt him truly, but she had not been brave enough to try. Not there, not then, not with such hooded enquiry seen in so many eyes.

Lord, she seldom came to these country weekend parties and knew now again why she did not. She was stuck here at least till the morrow, any means of escape dubious with her aunt in tow.

John next to her interrupted, making his displeasure known. ‘Surely you can see, Lillian, just how the sort of outburst you gave at dinner is damaging? Far wiser indeed to let these small spats run their course and stay well out of it.’

‘Even if I should perceive the criticism unfair?’ she returned. His social mannerisms were becoming more and more annoying tonight with every new piece of advice that he offered her.

‘You are a lady of breeding and cultivation. It is not seemly to be defending a man who has neither.’

‘Paget was hardly in order.’

‘He was not expelled from Eton for stealing either.’

‘Stealing?’ The word caught her short.

‘Clairmont the youth took a watch from the headmaster’s study and hid it in his blankets. When it was found he admitted the theft and was sent down.’

Lillian felt her hands grip her side. Why was nothing ever easy as far as Lucas Clairmont was concerned? Why could she not find out something noble and virtuous about him instead of being plagued with a never-ending lack of moral fibre?

And why would a small boy steal a watch anyway? For money? To know the time? She could fathom neither the reason nor the risk. Why indeed had he not hidden it in a place no one would ever think to look? She took in a breath. No. She must not excuse him and take his side. Not for theft!

She was pleased when the older guests began to take their leave and was able to gladly follow, John accompanying her upstairs to her room.

‘It has been a pleasure to be in your company today, Lillian,’ he said as she opened her door, and she had the distinct impression that he was angling to kiss her again.

Consequently she sneezed three times, holding her handkerchief across her mouth and sniffing.

‘My goodness, perhaps I have caught Aunt Jean’s cold?’

‘Will I call the housekeeper and ask her for some medicine?’ The amorous look in his eyes was completely overtaken by concern.

‘No, please do not bother. If I just go to sleep early …’ She stopped and sneezed again and he moved back.

‘Well, I suppose this is goodnight?’ The words were said awkwardly and with disappointment.

‘Thank you for walking me up.’

‘It was my pleasure.’

She stepped inside and closed the door, standing still on the other side and replacing her handkerchief in her pocket. One night down and one more to go! Tomorrow she would make certain that she came up with the women in order to ensure no repeat performance of John’s eagerness in seeing her alone.