He rode in an open barouche to Harewood Grange beside his grandmother, wishing for once in his life that she had not passed over Aidan as her heir simply because Aidan had had a well-established career in the cavalry. But the main problem, he knew, was that he loved her. And she was dying.
And to think that he had almost delayed his arrival here by a week or more. If Claire Campbell had not deserted him, he would be in York with her now, indulging in a hot affair with her, while his grandmother waited, every day bringing her closer to the end. He still could not think of Claire without anger and humiliation and guilt. How could he not have noticed...
But he turned his thoughts firmly away from her. She had been part of a very slight incident in his past.
And as it had turned out, she had done him a favor by running away as she had.
“Here we are,” his grandmother said as the barouche drew free of dark trees overhanging a long, winding driveway. “You will like her, Rannulf. I promise you you will.”
He took her hand in his and raised it to his lips. “I fully expect to do so, Grandmama,” he said. “I am already half in love with her merely because you recommend her.”
“Foolish boy!” she said briskly.
A few minutes later they had entered a spacious, marbled hall, had climbed an elegant, winding staircase, and were being announced at the drawing room doors by a stiff, sour-faced butler.
There were five people in the room, but it was not at all difficult to pick out the only one who really mattered. While Rannulf bowed and murmured politely to Sir George and Lady Effingham and to Mrs.
Law, Lady Effingham’s mother, he noted with some relief that the only young lady present, to whom he was introduced last, was indeed exquisitely lovely. She was tiny—he doubted the top of her head reached even to his shoulder—and slender, blond, blue-eyed, and rosy-complexioned. She smiled and curtsied when her mother presented her, and Rannulf bowed and looked fully and appreciatively at her.
It was a strange feeling to know with some certainty that he was looking at his future bride—and not too far in the future either.
Damn it. Damn it all !
There followed a flurry of laughter and bright conversation, during the course of which Mrs. Law presented both him and his grandmother to her companion, whom he had not even noticed until she did so—Miss Law, presumably a relative, a plump, shapeless woman of indeterminate age, who hung her head and repositioned her chair slightly behind that of the old lady when they all sat down.
Mrs. Law invited Lady Beamish to sit near her on a sofa so that they could indulge in a comfortable coze together, as she phrased it, and Rannulf was offered the seat beside his grandmother. Miss Effingham took her place strategically close on an adjacent love seat, the tea tray was carried in, and the visit began in earnest. Lady Effingham did most of the talking, but whenever she invited her daughter to tell Lord Rannulf about some event she had attended in London during the Season, the girl obliged, her manner neither too forward nor too shrinking. She spoke fluently in a low, sweet voice, her smile always at the ready.
She was quite agreeable to having him, Rannulf could see before ten minutes had passed. So was the mother. He must represent the catch of a lifetime to them, of course. He smiled and conversed amiably and felt the shackle close about his leg. Effingham, he noticed, made almost no contribution to the conversation.
The tea tray had been set on a table close to where Rannulf sat. The plate of dainty cucumber sandwiches had been passed around once as had the plate of cakes. Second cups of tea had been poured, after which the maid had been dismissed with a nod from Lady Effingham. But Mrs. Law’s appetite had not been satisfied, it seemed. Her silk dress rustled about her plump form and the jewels in her necklace and earrings and on her rings and bracelets sparkled in the sunlight as she half turned to the woman behind her.
“Judith, my love,” she said, “would you be so obliging as to bring the cakes again? They are particularly good today.”
The drab, shapeless companion got to her feet and came behind the sofa on which Rannulf sat and picked up the plate. His attention was on a list of expected houseguests Mrs. Effingham was reciting for his edification.
“Oh, do pass them around, my love, if you will,” the old lady said as the companion began her return path behind the sofa. “Lady Beamish did not take one the last time. But you have all the exertion of the journey home to face, Sarah.”
“We are expecting my stepson too,” Lady Effingham was saying to Rannulf, “though one can never be quite certain with Horace. He is a charming young man and is in constant demand at all the summer house parties.”
“No, thank you, Miss Law,” his grandmother said softly, waving away the cake plate. “I really have eaten enough.”
Rannulf lifted his hand to make the same gesture of refusal as the woman moved in front of him and offered the plate, her head bowed so low that the brim of her cap hid her face from his view. Not that he looked up into it anyway. He did not afterward know what it was that made him suddenly pause. She was simply one of the invisible female creatures with which the households of the wealthy tended to abound. One simply did not notice them.
However it was, he did pause, and she lifted her head just a fraction. Enough that their eyes met. And then she lowered her head hastily again and moved on even before he could complete his dismissive gesture.
Green eyes. A nose very lightly dusted with freckles.
Law. Miss Law. Judith. Judith Law.
For a moment he felt completely disoriented.
Claire Campbell.
“Er, I beg your pardon?” he said to Lady Effingham. “No. No, I do not believe I have the pleasure of his acquaintance, ma’am. Horace Effingham. No, indeed. But I may well know him by sight.”
She had set down the plate, moved behind him again— this time he felt her as she passed—and resumed her seat, though first she moved it even farther behind the old lady’s.
He dared not even glance at her, though he felt no doubt whatsoever that he had not mistaken. It was not as if he had been searching for green eyes and freckled noses wherever he went after all. He had not.
He had not wanted to see her again, had not expected to do so. Besides, he had been firmly convinced that she was in York.
Even so, the evidence of his senses had presented him with too bizarre a truth.
There was no such person as Claire Campbell, actress, then? Even that had been a clever deception?
She was Judith Law, some relative of the family. A poor relation by all appearances. Hence her empty purse when she had traveled— and hence too the stagecoach as her mode of travel. She had allowed herself a sensual fling with him when it had offered itself. She had recklessly sacrificed her virtue and her virginity and risked all the dire consequences.
The consequences.
Rannulf did not know what was said to him or what he replied during the five minutes that passed before his grandmother got to her feet to take her leave. He rose too, somehow said all that was proper to the occasion, and found himself in five minutes more back in the barouche, having handed in his grandmother ahead of him. He set back his head and closed his eyes, but only for a brief moment. He was not alone.
“Well?” she asked as the carriage rocked into motion.
“Well, Grandmama,” he said, “she is indeed remarkably pretty. Even prettier than you led me to believe.”