Seduced by the Scoundrel Page 12

  ‘What? Well, I’ll be damned. Very well. Better stay in here then. Foster, close the door, let no one in to disturb this, er … person.’

  Luc added something else. ‘Yes, yes. Foster, fetch a rug so he … er, they can sit down without ruining the upholstery. Now, let’s hear the whole of this.’

  The officer went out and reappeared with a rug which he threw over a chaise, then Averil found herself alone. The room swayed a little as she stood there, but she found if she went with the motion it took her down on to the chaise and that was soft and solid and held a faint trace of perfume. With a sigh she let herself drift. It would all be fine now, she thought. She was safe, Luc knew what to do. Safe …

  *

  ‘A female? George, really, you drag me out of bed and some ungodly hour to ask me to look after some disreputable female—’

  ‘Olivia, please! I beg you to keep your voice down.’ The door opened as Averil struggled upright and the Governor came in followed by a tall woman, fully dressed and with an expression that, Averil thought hazily, would stun wasps. Luc brought up the rear and closed the door.

  ‘This is Miss Heydon, Lady Olivia. She was washed up on St Helen’s after the shipwreck and, because of the extreme secrecy of my mission, I was unable to bring her over here at once. However, as you may know, there is the old isolation hospital there and Miss Heydon was able to sleep there behind locked doors.’

  ‘To which you hold the key, no doubt, Captain.’

  ‘Madam, Miss Heydon is betrothed to Lord Bradon—’

  ‘But not for much longer, I’ll be bound. Look at her!’

  Averil struggled to her feet. ‘Lady Olivia, I am aware that I must present a most disreputable appearance, but—’

  The older woman fixed her with a withering look. ‘Have you, or have you not, spent five nights in the company of this man, Miss Heydon?’

  ‘Well, yes, but nothing … I mean, it was all perfectly—’

  ‘Your blushes say it all! George, for you to expect me to lend countenance to Captain Dornay’s amours is outside of enough. Must I remind you that you have two daughters of an impressionable age? They have already seen and heard things that they should not with the house full of half-drowned persons for days on end and whatever is going on up at the Star Fort with Lavinia’s friend—’

  ‘Oh, of course! You will know about Dita!’ Averil interrupted her. ‘Please, can you tell me who was saved?’

  Lady Olivia looked down her nose. ‘Dita?’

  ‘Lady Perdita Brooke. She is a particular friend of mine.’

  ‘You know Lady Perdita?’ The Governor’s wife relaxed a trifle.

  Old snob, Averil thought. ‘Yes, very well. Please—’

  ‘Lady Perdita was heroically rescued by Viscount Lyndon.’ From her expression Lady Olivia obviously approved of Alistair. ‘They both left for the mainland yesterday along with most of the other survivors.’

  ‘Thank goodness.’ Averil sat down again with a thump. ‘And Mrs Bastable, my chaperon? And the Chatterton twins? Daniel and Callum?’

  The room went very quiet. ‘Mr Daniel Chatterton was drowned. His body was recovered and his brother has taken it back to the mainland for burial,’ the Governor said. ‘I will have my secretary give you a list of those saved, those known to be dead and those still missing.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, the schooled politeness forming the words for her while her chest ached with the need to weep. Daniel dead? All that fun and intelligence and personality, gone in an instant. Poor, poor Callum. What a tragic homecoming for him. And Daniel was betrothed—Callum would have that awful news to break to a woman who had been waiting years for her lover to return to her.

  ‘Miss Heydon should rest,’ Luc said. ‘She has received bad news and she is exhausted. We have been at sea all night.’

  ‘And why it was necessary for her to accompany you out to sea, I really cannot understand,’ Lady Olivia interjected.

  ‘And why should you?’ Luc said with a smile that would have frozen water. ‘All this can wait, surely? Miss Heydon should retire. She will need a bath, some food—’

  ‘Kindly allow me to know what is required for female guests in this house, Captain Dornay or d’Aunay or whatever your name is. Miss Heydon, if you will accompany me, please.’ It was an order. Averil did not miss the point that she was a female, not a lady, in Lady Olivia’s eyes. Friendship with Dita might save her from a room in the garrets with the servants, but the Governor’s wife had not forgotten the scandalous circumstances of her rescue.

  It was an effort not to seek out Luc’s eyes, not to send a message—help me, take me back to our island and make love to me—but pride stiffened her spine and allowed her to stand, smile at her reluctant hostess and bid the gentlemen good-night as though she was a house party guest.

  ‘Good night, Sir George. Good night, Captain d’Aunay.’ She pronounced his surname with care, not that the older woman seemed to notice the implied reproof. She wanted to ask when she would see Luc again, but that would raise Lady Olivia’s suspicions even higher. ‘Thank you, Lady Olivia.’ If a curtsy had not been ridiculous in damp cotton trousers and a smelly Guernsey she would have produced one before she followed her hostess out.

  ‘I will send a maid to you.’ Lady Olivia seemed to unbend a trifle now they were away from the men. ‘Goodness knows what we can do about clothing. We have had the house full of survivors for days, none of them with so much as a pocket handkerchief to their names, of course.’

  A blonde lady in her mid-thirties appeared round the corner, a list in one hand. ‘Oh, there you are, Olivia.’ She peered at Averil, then raised her eyebrows. ‘Another survivor from the Bengal Queen?’

  ‘Indeed, Sister. Miss Heydon has fallen into most undesirable company—’

  ‘But at least she is alive,’ the other woman said, her warmth reaching Averil like a comforting touch. ‘I am so glad for you, my dear.’ She held out her hand. ‘I am Lavinia Gordon, Sir George’s sister.’

  ‘I was just saying that I have no idea what to do about suitable clothing,’ her sister-in-law interjected.

  ‘I am sure I have something I can spare—we are much of a size, I suspect. If you tell the maid to come and see me, Sister, I will put out some clothes for Miss Heydon.’ She glanced down at the shocking trousers. ‘Do tell me, are those as comfortable as they look?’

  ‘They chafe rather when wet, but the freedom is a revelation, Miss Gordon. Thank you so much for offering to lend me clothing.’ Beside her, Lady Olivia tutted under her breath and urged her along the corridor.

  ‘The next door on the left, Miss Heydon. I will send the maid along.’ Averil found herself in a medium-sized bedchamber. Not a garret then. Perhaps Lady Olivia would unbend still further when she saw Averil properly dressed.

  Lord, but she was tired. And hungry. And thoroughly uncomfortable with damp clothes and dirty, tangled hair. As she thought it there was a tap at the door and a maid came in.

  ‘Good morning, miss. I am Waters, miss. There’s hot water and a bath on its way up. Would you like some breakfast afterwards? Miss Gordon said you probably would, before you go to sleep. Her woman’s bringing a nightgown and fresh linen and a gown.’ She ran out of words and stood, mouth slightly open, staring at Averil.

  ‘Thank you, Waters. I would like some breakfast very much. I expect you have been very busy with all the survivors brought here.’

  ‘Yes, miss. None of the ladies had trousers though, miss.’

  ‘Er, no, probably not. But I had to wear something, you see.’ There was a knock at the door and Averil made a hasty retreat behind the screens in the corner while thumps and the sound of pouring water heralded the arrival of the bath.

  When she looked out there was another maid spreading a nightgown on the bed while Waters tucked items away in the dresser. ‘Here you are, miss. You’ll need some help with your hair, I expect.’

  Averil shed her damp, sandy clothing with a sigh of relief. ‘Can these
be washed and returned to Captain d’Aunay’s man, Ferris? He was sent to the kitchens for some food, but I don’t know where he’ll be now.’

  ‘Oh, yes, miss.’ Waters waited while Averil settled with a sigh of blissful relief in the warm water, then produced soap and a sponge and left Averil to wash herself while she poured water over her hair and knelt to try to rinse out sand, salt and tangles.

  It was pure bliss, despite the frequent tugs and tweaks at her hair. Averil lathered up the sponge and washed her hands and arms slowly, luxuriously, as she relaxed. And then she reached her body. The scented bubbles slid down the curves of her bosom and she looked at them as they crested the rosy nipples that peaked at the touch of the suds, ran over the slight swell of her belly, down to the point where the water veiled the dark curls. Her thighs rose above the surface, smooth and pink, marred with bruises and abrasions, and the innocent pleasure she was taking in the bath turned into something else entirely.

  While she had been unconscious Luc had washed her naked body. His hands had lathered the strong soap that she had smelt on her skin, his eyes had rested on her breasts as his fingers had washed away the salt and the sand and cleaned her cuts. When she had woken she had felt clean—all over, so his attentions had not stopped with limbs and breasts—and yet, somehow, everything else that had happened, the shock and the grief and the fear, had stopped her thinking about the intimacy of the way he had cared for her.

  She could feel the blush colouring her face and hoped the maid patiently working on her hair had not noticed. The realisation should have been mortifying, yet it was not, and she wondered why. Because she had come to trust him? Because she knew with a deep certainty that he had nursed her with integrity and not to gain gratification from her helpless body?

  It was more than that, Averil realised as she started to stroke the sponge over her legs. It was erotic, and just thinking about Luc’s hands on her body, slick with soap, was arousing her. It had never occurred to her that bathing might be part of lovemaking, but the thought of him kneeling here, beside the tub, produced a soft moan.

  ‘Oh, I am sorry, Miss Heydon! It is such a tangle I don’t know that I can do it without pulling a bit.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Waters, it was not you. I have so many bruises, I knocked one, that is all.’ I must stop thinking about him bathing me, she thought as the maid, reassured, went back to tugging the comb thorough her hair. She made an effort and the phantom touch of Luc’s hands ceased. What would it be like to bathe him? Oh, my goodness! Averil made a grab for her toes and washed them with quite unnecessary vigour. It did not diminish the image of his naked body under her hands, slick with water and soap.

  What would it feel like to run her hands into the dark hair on his chest, to follow it down as it arrowed into the water? Would he like it if she touched him there? Of course he would, he was a man. Very much a man.

  And I am straying into very dangerous waters. Averil dropped the sponge and wriggled her toes to rinse them. Luc d’Aunay was not for her and Andrew, Lord Bradon, was waiting for her in London. Or, more accurately, he was mourning her; she must send a message as soon as possible

  ‘There, miss. All clean and no tangles. We’d better be getting you dry and into bed before the food arrives.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Averil got to her feet, dripping, and reached for the towel the maid held out. She had washed Luc from her life as she had rinsed the last traces of soap from her skin. She was going to be Lady Bradon and she was going to start thinking like a viscountess from this moment on. Her throat tightened. It was not going to be as easy as arriving on his doorstep to universal relief that she was not drowned.

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘If you feel sufficiently revived, perhaps we should discuss our tactics, Miss Heydon.’ The Governor put down his tea cup and the atmosphere in the drawing room changed subtly.

  She had slept until woken in the early evening, dressed in her borrowed gown of dusky pink, had her hair coiffed and had walked in Miss Gordon’s silk slippers down to join the party for dinner.

  Her reception had been gratifying. Lady Olivia nodded approval, Miss Gordon beamed at her and Sir George enquired kindly if she had slept well and felt rested. Luc had looked at her, expressionless, then bowed over her hand with what she could not help but feel was excessive politeness for a small family dinner. She had been entertaining the fantasy that he would be bowled over by the sight of her, elegantly gowned, her hair up, her femininity restored.

  But of course, he needed no prompting to think of her as female. He knew, none better, that she was a woman. But it was galling, despite her resolution, to be treated to such comprehensive indifference. Obviously, dressed and respectable, she was no longer attractive to him.

  Now she felt them all looking at her. ‘Tactics, Sir George?’

  ‘For mitigating the consequences of your belated rescue,’ he said.

  ‘I have been thinking about it,’ she said with perfect truth. She had thought of nothing else since she had woken and very uncomfortable her reflections had been.

  ‘Indeed,’ he said before she could continue. ‘And Lady Olivia and I think the best thing would be for us to say nothing publicly about the time you have been … missing. I can write to Lord Bradon regretting that the fact that I was unaware of your betrothal. We will tell him that you have been unconscious for several days being cared for in a house elsewhere in the Isles. Both those statements are perfectly true and will give the impression that you have been with some respectable family all the time. What do you say to that?’

  He was so obviously pleased with his solution, and so positive about it, that Averil found herself nodding her head before she realised what she was doing. Then her conscience caught up with her.

  ‘No! I am sorry, Sir George, but I cannot lie by omission and I cannot involve you and others in your household in a deception.’

  ‘Well, in that case,’ Lady Olivia said, ‘there is only one thing to be done. Captain d’Aunay must marry you.’

  Luc’s ‘Non’ beat her own emphatic ‘No!’ by a breath. The other three stared at them.

  Averil made herself breathe slowly in the long, difficult silence that followed. She felt as though she had been punched in the chest. Of course she did not want him to marry her, but he might at least have hesitated before repudiating the idea with such humiliating vigour! It was incredible how much that sharp negative hurt.

  ‘I have matrimonial plans,’ Luc said when it was obvious that she was not going to speak. His eyes were dark and hard and there was colour on his cheekbones under the tanned skin.

  ‘You are betrothed, Captain? Oh, dear, that does complicate matters.’

  ‘I am not betrothed, Sir George. But I am intending to marry a lady of the émigré community. A Frenchwoman. I see no reason why Miss Heydon cannot adopt your most sensible solution.’

  ‘Because it is a lie, as I said.’ She lifted her chin a notch and managed not to glare at him. That would have revealed too much of her feelings. ‘I am contracted to marry Lord Bradon and I intend to honour that contract. I shall go to him and tell him all.’

  ‘All what?’ Lady Olivia demanded.

  ‘That I was washed ashore, found by a group of men on a covert naval mission, protected by their officer and returned safely to your care, ma’am.’

  ‘Safely?’ There was no mistaking what the Governor’s wife meant.

  Averil hung on to the ragged edge of her temper with an effort. ‘If you are enquiring if I am a virgin, Lady Olivia, the answer is, yes, I am.’ She managed, somehow, to say it in a chilly, but polite, tone of voice.

  Miss Gordon gave a gasp and Sir George went red. Luc merely tightened his lips and breathed out, hard. ‘I am glad to hear it,’ Lady Olivia retorted. ‘One only hopes that your betrothed believes you.’

  ‘Of course he will. He is, after all, a gentleman.’

  The Governor’s wife inclined her head. ‘He is certainly that and will have expectations of his wife
-to-be.’

  ‘I will call on Lord Bradon,’ Luc said. ‘He will wish to assure himself of Miss Heydon’s treatment.’

  ‘I do not think that would be wise,’ Averil said. ‘It would make it appear that there was something that needed explanation.’

  Luc stared at her profile. He could not read this new Averil. The half-drowned sea nymph, the innocently passionate woman, the boy-girl in her borrowed clothes had all gone and in their place was this elegant young lady. The intelligence was there still, of course, and the courage and downright inconvenient honesty. But those attributes lived in the body of this elegant, angry, beautiful creature he did not know how to reach.

  And what had possessed him to snap out that one word? In French, too, which somehow made it worse. A few seconds and he could have been politely supporting Averil. As it was, his reaction had been one of deeply unflattering rejection. He, the last of the d’Aunays, was not going to marry an English merchant’s daughter, however well brought up and however elegant her manners, but he could have managed the thing more tactfully.

  ‘I think it would be helpful if I were to speak to Miss Heydon alone.’ He had to explain, he could not leave it like this. He no longer had any responsibility for her, he could stop being concerned for her—thank the heavens—but even so, this must be ended properly.

  ‘I hardly think—’

  ‘If they were to stroll in the gardens, Sister?’ Miss Gordon intervened. ‘I could stay on the terrace as chaperone. The evening is balmy and the fresh air would be pleasant.’

  ‘Very well,’ Lady Olivia conceded.

  Luc did not wait for her approval. He was on his feet, extending a hand to Averil, even as he said, ‘Thank you, Miss Gordon. Miss Heydon? It seems a very clement evening. It would be best if we could agree a mutually satisfactory approach to this, after all.’

  ‘Of course.’ Averil got up with grace, as though he had asked her to dance at a ball. ‘Thank you, Miss Gordon.’

  It was not until they had walked in silence down the length of the path that bisected the long garden that he realised just how angry she was. She turned, slipped her hand from his forearm where it had been resting, and faced him. In the distance, well out of earshot, Miss Gordon strolled up and down the terrace.