The Disgraceful Mr. Ravenhurst Read online

  ‘Naturally? How very odd of you,’ Eva remarked through a mouthful of hairpins. ‘I think he is very attractive. Not beautiful like Sebastian—no one else is that beautiful—but so masculine. No? And intelligent, which you need.’

  Elinor was saved from answering by the arrival of the dresser with a maid in tow. ‘Annette, madame—she will look after you while you are here.’

  Walking down to dinner twenty minutes later, Elinor wondered uneasily whether Theo had been having an equally embarrassing talk with Sebastian. It was too much to hope that Theo’s arrival with her, unchaperoned, would not provoke his cousin into some kind of enquiry, if only a teasing one. And the last thing she wanted was anyone reinforcing Theo’s conviction that he must offer for her.

  Thank goodness Eva had dropped the subject. She was talking about fashions, admiring Elinor’s carriage dress and marvelling that she had managed to have it made in such a short time. ‘Even for Lyon, that is good work. Obviously Theo has shopped there before.’

  ‘I am sure he has,’ Elinor responded brightly. ‘It is equally obvious he has a great deal of experience shopping with ladies. Women,’ she corrected herself after a moment’s thought.

  ‘If you will accept one word of advice from me…’ Eva slowed and stopped as they approached the doors flanked by liveried footmen ‘…it would be to forget the women who came before a man meets you. They will have taught him many lessons, for which you may be grateful, but it is only the ones in his life after you have met him that need concern you.’ Her eyes flickered up to the portrait of a rakishly handsome man in ornate uniform hanging at the head of the hallway. ‘And not even then.’

  ‘Did it not hurt?’ Elinor asked, greatly daring, remembering the tales of Eva’s first husband and his legendary affaires.

  ‘There is hurt pride and there is love betrayed,’ said Eva drily. ‘They are not necessarily the same thing. When you marry a man like Louis Fréderic there are many compensations, but the price is learning not to give your heart. But we are not talking about Grand Dukes here, are we? Marry for love, Elinor, or not at all.’

  ‘That,’ she retorted with conviction, ‘is my view entirely.’

  The dining room was small, obviously the space used for eating en famille. Sebastian and Theo rose to their feet as the ladies entered, Sebastian nodding to the butler. ‘Bring the wine to the table, then you may all leave us.’

  Theo pulled out a chair for Elinor, then circled the table to sit opposite her. Before them dinner had been set out à la française, but in a much reduced form with the desserts on a sideboard. She had been fearing a formal court service, full of pitfalls for the unwary and with no opportunity to relax and talk. This was perfect. Or it would be once she had got over the butterflies in her stomach that Eva’s frank remarks had produced.

  With everyone served, Sebastian put down the carving knife and looked round the table. ‘Now,’ he said with a smile, ‘you must sing for your suppers.’

  Elinor let Theo talk, occasionally chipping in a comment, but mainly eating and watching the faces of the listeners. Sebastian, she decided, must be a superlative card player, possibly even have the skills of a sharper as Theo had suggested, for there was not a flicker of expression on his face when Ana’s name was mentioned.

  Eva was less guarded, although she betrayed her recognition only by a slight narrowing of her fine, dark eyes. Then she laughed, a gurgle of genuine amusement. ‘So, you keep your mistresses in the family, you Ravenhursts?’

  Sebastian, well used to his wife, merely smiled lazily. Theo retorted, ‘She was never my mistress, that would be like trying to domesticate a wild cat. As I was explaining, having visited the chateau…’

  ‘And you decided to visit us rather than make for the coast?’ Sebastian leaned over and cut himself a corner of cheese as Theo reached the end of the tale. ‘That seems a wise choice to me, if the countess had discovered your escape and decided to give chase.’ They had demolished both courses and now the port decanter was circulating and Theo was cracking walnuts between long fingers.

  ‘I wonder if they did realise you had escaped,’ Eva pondered. ‘By now your man will have delivered the letter you left with him to the count. He will have to decide what to do about his mother.’

  ‘Unless he has resolved to keep it quiet and not risk scandal,’ Elinor pointed out.

  ‘He will have your mother to deal with in that case, with Hythe at her side. And I was frank with him—if he does not deal with her, I will tell the tale all over Paris.’

  ‘So, the excitement is probably over,’ Eva said with regret. ‘Now, where is this Chalice? I want to see it.’

  ‘No, you do not,’ Elinor retorted with a shudder. ‘It is a work of art and absolutely horrible, to look at and to touch.’

  ‘In that case, it can stay where it is. We will find you some large outriders to guard it on its way back to England. How long can you stay with us?’

  ‘Until Hythe arrives.’ Theo swirled his port and looked into the ruby wine. ‘He can escort Elinor to meet her mother in Avignon, I will go north for England.’

  And that will be that, the end of my adventure.

  ‘But you have been travelling alone with Elinor,’ Sebastian pointed out. ‘You cannot just waltz off and leave her.’

  ‘Apparently I can,’ Theo said, not lifting his eyes from the glass. ‘Our cousin will not have me.’

  ‘I don’t have to marry you,’ Elinor snapped, suddenly wanting nothing more than sleep and nothing less than a pair of men trying to tell her what to do. ‘And I am not going to be pushed into a marriage of convention I don’t want with an unwilling man just to satisfy everyone else’s sense of honour, respectability and propriety. And don’t look at me like that,’ she added for Sebastian’s benefit, ‘you aren’t head of the family, the Duke is, and he isn’t about to appear from Scotland and order us to marry, is he?’

  Eva cleared her throat. ‘I think the ladies will retire now, gentlemen. I wish to go to the nursery and Elinor is sorely in need of her bed, I am sure.’ She stopped by Sebastian’s chair as she passed, pressing down on his shoulder to prevent him rising, and bent to kiss him on the mouth.

  Elinor averted her eyes and met Theo’s. ‘Goodnight.’ She lifted her chin and swept out in Eva’s wake.

  ‘I apologise if I was rude,’ she said as Eva led the way to the guest chamber.

  ‘Sebastian can look after himself,’ Eva said. ‘If there is no risk of you being with child, then it will be a simple matter to cover up those days you two spent together. Naturally, you will mention if asked that, with my invitation to visit, I sent one of my ladies to chaperon you. Now, here we are.’

  Elinor doubted she would ever find her way back through the maze of passages and staircases, but as there were liveried retainers around every corner that was probably not too much of a problem. ‘That little door leads to a circular stair up to the west battlements. There is a range of chambers up there opening out on to the battlement walkway that we give to single male guests. There is room for them to walk up and down smoking their cigarillos and telling risqué stories. Theo is the only occupant at the moment.’

  Now why had she explained all that? Elinor wondered as she looked round at the cosy bedroom that had been fashioned from the unpromising beginning of a stone-vaulted chamber. Even in the winter it would be snug, with its thick carpets on the flagged floor and the Aubusson tapestries lining the walls.

  ‘This is lovely, thank you.’ She decided not to comment on Theo’s whereabouts; it was probably her own over-sensitivity to any mention of him. Eva was merely making conversation. ‘Eva, I would appreciate your help in finding myself a suitable companion. I have decided that I want to travel and I would rather face Mama with a fait accompli.’

  ‘This is rather sudden, is it not?’ Eva perched on the edge of the bed, looking less like a grand duchess and more like a young woman contemplating mischief. ‘Is it because of Theo?’

  It would be easy enoug
h to lie. Elinor found she was tired of dissembling. ‘Yes. That and the fact that I find I cannot contemplate going back to the way things were.’

  ‘Very well, I will help you find a companion. There is a very pleasant and cultivated widow in her forties living in the town. She dines here occasionally—her husband was one of the court physicians. She may be a possibility. But why don’t you do the obvious thing?’

  ‘What is that?’ Elinor plumped down beside Eva. Something obvious would be rather a pleasant change.

  ‘Why, marry Theo, of course.’

  ‘But he doesn’t love me, that’s what I meant at dinner.’

  ‘He doesn’t?’

  ‘No, he says he will never marry. The way he told me, I am sure there is someone he loves, but whom he cannot have. He keeps proposing, of course—but I think that’s a mixture of loneliness and guilt and this maddening male honour.’ Eva looked decidedly puzzled. ‘He is by himself so much, except for lovers, of course, and I don’t think he has become attached to anyone other than this woman he cannot have. And we get on very well, most of the time, so I expect he thinks I would be pleasant company. And the guilt—well, he knows he has compromised me and we were rather, er…’

  ‘Was he good?’ Eva enquired, ignoring Elinor’s gasp.

  ‘Very. He made me feel wonderful. And special,’ she admitted finally ‘Not that I have any basis for comparison. Eva, men don’t talk about—I mean, Theo and Sebastian?’

  ‘Theo is far too much the gentleman, and Sebastian would never ask. Women are far less inhibited about these things.’ Eva smiled her wicked smile. ‘But who is this woman he is in love with, I wonder? Not the marquesa, surely?’

  ‘Lord no. He threw her out of his bedchamber at Beaumartin. She’s like a cat, she whisked her tail and stalked off to find another mouse to play with.’

  ‘Pretending she wasn’t at all put out? The lady has style, that is obvious. But Elinor, my dear, you love Theo, don’t you?’

  The quiet question caught her unawares, still smiling at the thought of Theo’s rejection of Ana and the way she had reacted. ‘Oh, yes,’ she murmured, then caught herself. ‘Far too much to marry him like this,’ she added firmly.

  ‘Oh, dear.’ Eva put an arm around Elinor’s shoulders and hugged. ‘And you don’t want to tell him and the idiot can’t see it.’

  ‘He isn’t an idiot—’

  ‘They all are when it comes to love,’ Eva said with authority. ‘Mind you, women are too. I proposed to Sebastian, and a complete mull I made of it. Then Bel put her oar in and that made it worse. Too much pride on both sides, of course, but we came to our senses in the end, thank goodness.’

  ‘You are so happy. And Bel and Ashe, and Gareth and Jessica. Perhaps I am just infected by the Ravenhurst fashion for marriages and I’m pining for something I don’t really want,’ Elinor said, trying hard to sound light-hearted about it.

  ‘You sleep on it.’ Eva slid off the bed. ‘Ring if you want anything, Annette will come. I must go and look in on the nursery. Theo’s good with children, isn’t he? Goodnight.’

  Elinor sat looking at the closed door for some minutes after Eva had taken herself off with that airy observation, seeing not the solid wood panels, but the image of Theo with the gurgling baby in his arms.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  To Theo’s decidedly jaundiced eye Eva was up to something. His mood, he readily acknowledged, was considerably depressed by a crashing hangover. Sebastian had rung for a second bottle of port, declaring that they were both in need of an exclusively masculine evening and somehow that had emptied in short order, only to be replaced with brandy.

  Quite why Sebastian, who appeared to be in the best of spirits, should need to indulge in what turned out to be a solid evening’s drinking, Theo had no idea. In the end he knew himself to be so disguised that he took considerable care to hug the inner wall when he came out of the spiral stairs on to the battlements and Bachelors’ Walk.

  He was aware of the conversation turning to women and the problems they caused a man, and could remember wondering if Sebastian was trying to pump him about Nell. But he had quite as hard a head as his cousin, and probably almost as much experience keeping his mouth shut. So why, this morning, he had the uneasy feeling that he had given away more than he intended, he was not sure. A guilty conscience, probably.

  His mood was not improved by the presence at the breakfast table of the castle’s librarian, a slender young Englishman with blue eyes, blond hair, a classical profile and considerable address. Theo wanted to strangle him, if only to stop him discussing, with every appearance of interest, Gothic architecture in Italy with Nell.

  ‘He is such an intelligent young man,’ Eva murmured in Theo’s ear. ‘Lord Finchingfield mentioned him to us when we were last in England—Phillip is the third son, you know—and he is working wonders in the library. It had been dreadfully neglected. I was sure Elinor would find him entertaining, and I appear to have been correct.’

  ‘Indeed?’ Theo applied himself to his ham and eggs, trying not to glare at Mr Finchingfield, who was making Nell laugh now. Nell never laughed at breakfast. And why did she have to look so damnably lovely this morning?

  ‘If you have finished, Elinor and Phillip, there was something I wanted to discuss in the library.’ Eva gestured to the footman who sprang to pull back her chair and left with the others behind her, still laughing over some shared joke.

  Nell had hardly spared him more than a polite good morning when he had come in and had then pertly enquired whether he would like her to ring for a powder for his head. When he had growled at her, he had seen her bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing at him. Did he look that bad? A glance in the mirror opposite confirmed that he did. His skin was pale under the tan, there were shadows under his eyes and he had made a hash of shaving that morning.

  Sebastian, to be fair, did not look much better, but at least he had the decency to eat his breakfast in silence.

  ‘My lord. There is a lady at the front door.’ The Chamberlain looked as though he was not certain that lady was the apt word.

  ‘She has presented her card?’ Sebastian raised one eyebrow at Theo, who shrugged. Whoever it was, it was nothing to do with him.

  ‘My lord.’ The Chamberlain proffered a salver. Sebastian lifted the rectangle of pasteboard and studied it with a perfectly expressionless face.

  ‘The Marquesa de Cordovilla. Now, which of us do you think she is visiting?’

  ‘The lady enquired for Miss Ravenhurst, my lord. Apparently she has a message from her mother.’

  ‘Miss Ravenhurst is in the library with her Serene Highness and is not to be disturbed. Show the marquesa in here, Heribaut. Interesting,’ Sebastian remarked. ‘I wonder if she really does have a message from Aunt Louisa or if it is simply a ruse to get entry.’

  ‘To what end?’ Theo felt the first stirrings of amusement he had felt all morning. ‘I am looking forward to seeing the meeting between Ana and Eva.’

  She was as dangerous as a snake and as difficult to handle as a flock of cats, but Theo found no difficulty in understanding why he had entangled himself with this woman. Her sheer nerve, let alone her looks, made her stand out like a diamond in a tray of paste stones.

  And she was on her best behaviour. ‘Lord Sebastian, Mr Ravenhurst.’ Her curtsy was immaculate, her carriage dress perfection and butter would not melt in her mouth. ‘I do appreciate the honour of a reception. And I see I am interrupting your meal—my apologies.’

  ‘Please, join us, Marquesa.’ A water ice wouldn’t have melted in Sebastian’s mouth, let alone butter. Theo resumed his seat as she took hers, smiling at the footman who set a place before her.’

  ‘Coffee only, I thank you.’

  ‘You have come from Beaumartin? Our aunt is well?’

  ‘Indeed, yes. Your letter put the cat amongst the pigeons with a vengeance, Mr Ravenhurst. But perhaps I had better wait until Miss Ravenhurst can join us?’

&n
bsp; ‘Heribaut, please enquire if her Serene Highness and Miss Ravenhurst are free.’

  It seemed none of them could find a topic for conversation. Ana consumed black, unsweetened coffee, Theo pushed back his chair so he could see the door and Sebastian steepled his long fingers and sat, apparently deep in thought.

  Theo suspected Heribaut had informed Eva who the unexpected guest was, for she came through the door first, a warm smile on her lips and her hand extended. ‘Marquesa, how delightful. I have heard so much about you, such a famed connoisseur and expert in art.’

  ‘Your Serene Highness, you are too good. I merely love handsome—I mean beautiful—oh, my English!—things.’ As she sat again, Eva cast her husband a glance and winked. Sebastian’s eyes crinkled in an appreciative smile, then he was serious again as Elinor entered. ‘Ah, Miss Ravenhurst, I come with a message from your mama.’

  ‘So kind,’ Elinor murmured, waiting until the staff had filed out and the door had closed. ‘Our cousins know everything about events at the chateau before we left.’

  ‘As you may imagine, there was a great to-do once your flight had been discovered. Lady James was most affecting, reproaching herself for having spoken to you so severely that you felt elopement was preferable to the rigours of a society wedding. And so we continued, some of us grieving, some vastly entertained,’ And I know which you were, Elinor thought appreciatively, ‘Until breakfast the next day, that is, when Theo’s man arrived with a missive for Leon.’

  Theo had always thought the expression a cliché, but now, as they all sat around the breakfast table, the tension could have been cut with a knife.