The Wicked Guardian Read online

  But Budge did not share her feeling. Budge did not like London, and Budge was vocal enough about it so that Hobbs had been quite sharp with her in the servants’ hall. “Be it that you don’t like it, that’s you that’s not up to snuff. But don’t come cracking to us about it. We didn’t invite you here.” And Budge continued with a darkling feeling about the perils of the streets of the wicked city. For, she reasoned, if you can’t count on friends where you live, then where are you?

  Her grumbling finally gave out after Clare had finished her shopping. “Never mind, Budge,” consoled Clare. “We’re done now and we’ll be back home in a trice. I’m sorry I ever brought you to London, Budge. I shouldn’t have done so had I thought you would be so desperately unhappy.”

  Budge tucked the parcels under her arm and, mollified, grunted, “But I’d a been worrying all the while about who was taking care of you, Miss Clare, and that’s a fact. But we’ll be going back before long, won’t we?”

  “You mean back to Dorset? I should hope so.”

  Budge reached to clutch her shawl closer to her chin. Even though the air was mild, she had a fixed impression that the air of London was full of evil. Her gesture loosened a parcel, and the brown paper object fell to the pavement Clare exclaimed, and turned back to aid her maid, when a small ragged urchin darted out of the crowd, snatched the parcel from the pavement, and took to his heels. Clare, instantly indignant cried out “Stop, thief!”

  Her only thought was pursuit. The boy must not be allowed to escape. She feared to lose sight of him, in the mill of people, and ran after him, heedless of the passersby, ignoring the comments of surprised onlookers.

  But the boy was too fast for her, and disappeared within a few yards, and Clare, intent upon seeing where he had gone, did not notice the uneven cobbles beneath her feet. She felt her smooth-soled slipper skid, and instantly fell to her hands and knees, her breath knocked out of her by the impact.

  Budge, at her heels, saw her mistress felled by what in Budge’s alarmed fancy could only be foul play. Her nightmare fears at last realized, she dropped the rest of her parcels and opened her mouth. The screams she omitted at first had no shape, but within seconds, as a curious crowd gathered, she was able to form the word “Murder!” which she expressed in one long, high-pitched note.

  “Budge!” cried Clare, but due to her position, still on the cobbles, and a sharp pain in her knee, the sound came out as a whisper, far too faint to reach Budge’s ear.

  Clare’s heart sank. Of all things, a scene in Oxford Street was the worst possible thing that could befall her. She tested her knee, but decided, as pain shot through, that she was not ready to try it.

  “Ah, the lady’s down. Somebody shoved her. Stop that caterwauling! Did someone really stab her?”

  It was the sense of the crowd that murder had indeed been done, and although Clare was sitting up, clearly still alive, she wished she were dead. But if she could just get Budge shut up, and on their way home without anyone seeing them...

  It was a vain hope.

  Clare watched, as in a dream, the crowd melting away. As in a vision, Budge closed her mouth and fell silent, her ruddy cheeks an unwonted pallor.

  A strong hand under her elbow and a note of concern in his voice, as Lord Benedict Choate said, “Are you much hurt?”

  Of all people to come to her rescue! But Clare managed to say, even though a little shakily, “I think not. My knee, I think, will be all right.”

  She stood erect again, and tested her knee, holding to Benedict’s hand. “It will serve,” she said at last. “I must thank you, sir, for your assistance. It was a foolish accident—”

  “What happened?” said Benedict. “Your maid has some idea that murder is done?”

  Clare looked up at her rescuer. In his dark eyes she could see a queer mixture of amusement tinged with something else she could not identify. Suddenly the enormity of her action came home to her. To run shouting down Oxford Street after a thief, for all the world like a penny-pinching greengrocer—she could not have done anything more vulgar!

  “A small boy ran into me,” she improvised hastily. “I trust he was not hurt.”

  “It would seem no more than he deserved. But I cannot believe murder?”

  “Budge dislikes London.”

  “As you do, I think. If memory serves me, you have already told me as much.”

  He offered her his arm. “It is but a step to Lady Thane’s house,” he pointed out. “Perhaps you can walk that far?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Clare. “Truly I was not hurt. Only mortified.”

  “As well you might be,” he observed. He said nothing more until they were admitted to Lady Thane’s house. He desired Darrin to bring tea, and he stood over her until she had downed a cup of the restorative.

  “Now, then,” he said, “I must point out to you that certainly to cause a scene in Oxford Street is folly.”

  “I am to blame for a small boy?” she countered.

  “No matter how it happened. Doesn’t Lady Thane have a carriage you can use? Doesn’t it suit your country ways to have a little decorum?”

  Clare was recovering rapidly from the jarring fall. She had expected—and received, temporarily—sympathy, but suddenly Benedict had changed. “I truly am grateful to you,” she said with effort, “for rescuing me from my accident. I do not see, however, how one is to go on and never fall afoul of the least mishap. Surely London is not so well-regulated as that?”

  Benedict was prey to more than one emotion. He had been alarmed when he thought she might have been hurt, and he was fully aware that he was unjust to blame her for what could, after all, have happened to anyone. But still another piece of information had reached him recently, in response to his seeking it out, and it was paramount now in his mind.

  “I can’t think what you are doing in London, at your age,” he said with crisp disapproval. “At fifteen, you should still be in the schoolroom.”

  “And how do you know my age?” she said with rising anger.

  “I’ve made it my business to know,” he said savagely. “At fifteen, it is folly to come out in London. I am totally surprised at Lady Thane for bringing you out when you haven’t the least notion—”

  “Lord Choate,” said Clare in a shaky voice, “I have said I am grateful for your assistance. I am grateful for your bringing me back to this house. I am, in addition, grateful for your ordering tea, although I do feel that my years in the schoolroom have prepared me for such a task as desiring a servant to attend to my wishes. But I do not think that by your assistance in the street you have earned the right to read me such a riot act!”

  She had not finished, but she dared say no more, for tears lurked just behind her eyelids.

  “Someone should,” continued Benedict inexorably.

  “I perceive you do not approve of me,” said Clare.

  “You perceive correctly,” said Benedict.

  “I must be sure to tell my grandmama,” said Clare, “for she will be glad of your opinion, I am sure.”

  Benedict now realized he had perhaps allowed his rage to overrule his extreme good sense. He had carefully fostered an attitude in his life of allowing no emotion to overrule him. The oldest of a brood of half-sisters and half-brothers, he had learned early in his life that emotion was wearing. And since nothing he had experienced so far in his life had led him to change his opinion, he was overset as much by the intensity of his rage as by his strong opinions themselves.

  This winsome child, to his surprise, was possessed of a will of steel. And he had been trapped into fencing with her. But his pride would not let him admit defeat at the hands of a mere slip of a girl.

  This child who now said to him, “I must beg you to enlighten me, sir. I had thought that my grandmama’s approval was all that I need concern myself with. But now, I seem to be required to gain yours as well. But really, Lord Choate, I fail to understand your concern with me.”

  “I thank God daily,” said Benedict,
savagely, “that I am no longer concerned with females. My sister Primula is married and off my hands, and my youngest sister is just out of the nursery.”

  Clare turned away, more upset than she would have thought by his strictures. She found a great deal to think about in the pleating of the fringe on the golden damask draperies—except that she could see them only dimly through her tears.

  “If I had to deal with such a female as you,” Benedict continued, “I would—”

  Clare had had enough. Her pride, of which she had a good deal, prodded her now, and she took a shuddering breath and turned to face him.

  Eyebrows or not, Penryck or not, he had no right to scold her as he did. And she would not allow it. She forced a smile, and crossed the room to stand before him, the marquetry table between them. Leaning forward, hands on the table, she told him with all the sweetness at her command, “But you don’t.”

  A tiny muscle worked at the corner of his mouth.

  “You do not have to deal with me, Cousin,” she said, “and believe me, you never will.”

  Through clenched jaws he gritted, “Thank God for that!”

  5.

  Upon this tense scene, the two participants glaring fiercely at each other over the small table, entered Lady Thane. She hesitated almost imperceptibly at the sight, before sweeping in with her hand extended to Lord Choate.

  “My dear sir,” she exclaimed, “Darrin told me you had called, and I must apologize for keeping you waiting.”

  “It is no matter, Lady Thane,” said Benedict stiffly. “I did not expect you to trouble yourself. I merely restored Miss Penryck to you.”

  “Restored?” echoed Lady Thane. “How is this?”

  Clearly Benedict was seething, she thought, and a feeling of dismay smote her. What had the child done now? The fact that her earlier forebodings looked in a fair way to be justified did nothing to mollify her.

  “I am sure Miss Penryck will wish to tell you herself,” said Benedict, looking directly at Clare.

  Clare had every intention of doing so, but she would not embark upon her narrative of the afternoon’s doings upon Benedict’s direction, as though she were a delinquent pupil dancing to the tune of the schoolmaster. But Lady Thane just now noticed Clare’s torn dress. “My dear child,” she cried out, in real concern, “what does this mean?”

  Outrageously, Benedict said, “Just so, ma’am.” With a few more words, and strongly repressing a wish to box the child’s ears, he took his leave. Not until much later that day, while examining a box of books that had been delivered from Egerton, did it occur to him to wonder just why his anger had flared up to such a pitch. The accident had not been the child’s fault, and he had been gothic in his reaction.

  The wide blue eyes that had very prettily looked their thanks swam before his eyes, but memory instantly transmuted them into the flashing sapphire glance that had next put him in his place.

  Was it merely the shock of finding someone—a mere chit of a girl at that—who told him to mind his own affairs? He didn’t think so. But no other reason occurred to him. His servant discreetly reminded him that he was due in Mount Street to dine with his betrothed and her mama in an hour. It was a duty he did not relish, considering that a lifetime spent having dinner with Marianna was sufficient, without anticipating. But he sighed, and began to dress.

  In the meantime, Lady Thane had succeeded in eliciting from her goddaughter the details of her accident. “And you came home in tatters!” cried Lady Thane. “With Lord Benedict Choate!”

  “I am dreadfully sorry if that was wrong, Lady Thane, but truly I did not know quite what to do, with Budge in flapping hysterics, and I could not calm her. I could not even think what to do!” Clare collapsed into a chair, and occupied herself by drawing together the edges of the rent sustained when she toppled to the pavement.

  “I wish you would send Budge back to the country,” said Lady Thane crossly, diverted by a subject on which she had strong feelings. “The wench is less than useless, dear Clare, for she does not know the best way to dress your hair, and she trembles when one speaks to her. I daresay that is the way of Penryck Abbey, but I cannot think it is good for her to go in such fear.”

  “I agree,” said Clare. For a moment she played with the thought of telling Lady Thane that she too would return to Penryck Abbey, and rusticate in consoling silence. She had not felt so low in her mind since she had come to town. And it was not quite clear whether it was the unaccustomed gaiety or the constant anxiety lest she put a foot wrong that preyed on her so.

  But Lady Thane had already forgotten Budge, and moved again to the subject that engrossed her. “Choate is a stickler, you know. And he has such credit—you will not believe this, but I know of three cases where he simply gave such a look, and quite put the girls in the shade. Too bad of him, of course, and not quite kind, but ... my girl, facts are facts, and we would be wrong not to face up to them.”

  But Clare was listening with only half her mind. “Then there is your ball, Lady Thane, and I must not fail that.”

  Lady Thane, unaware of Clare’s brooding upon a return home to Penryck Abbey, where she was known and loved, misunderstood. “Of course you must not. But depend upon me, we will not see Lord Choate in this house that evening. Unless, of course”—she furrowed her brow in thought—“unless he takes pity on your innocence.”

  “I do not think him capable of pity,” said Clare firmly.

  “No more do I,” said Lady Thane mournfully. “Depend upon it, my dear, you have made a formidable enemy in him.”

  Clare’s heart sank to her satin-shod toes. She had not mentioned to her godmother the spirited repartee that had occurred just before her entrance. She could not imagine what Lady Thane’s reaction would be had she known of Clare’s outright defiance of the arbiter of the fashionable world. An enemy, indeed! If Benedict had had his way, Clare had no doubt that she would even now be blasted into a pile of cinders.

  There were still several days before the ball. Depend upon it, Lady Thane had warned, we will not see Lord Choate here again. How embarrassing it must have been for that Corinthian to pick up a young lady from the public walk. And escort her home, with a great rent in her gown, and her bonnet sadly alop.

  But if he had been the kind of man Clare admired, she thought darkly, he would not have minded that.

  Lady Thane’s pessimism did not lie deep. Of a cheerful disposition, but something of a realist, she had not held much hope that Lord Choate would distinguish her goddaughter in any way. Now, upon wishful reflection, she believed that Lord Choate also could not be troubled to exert himself to put down Clare’s possible pretensions.

  Marianna Morton had a hint of hardness in her face, thought Lady Thane, that indicated that Lord Choate would find she required all his dutiful attention. And that, Lady Thane decided with satisfaction, would keep him from refining upon Clare’s youthful awkwardness.

  In due time the incident dropped from the thoughts of both Lady Thane and Clare. The preparations for the party still took Lady Thane’s attention. One full day was spent with Mrs. Darrin and the man from Gunter’s on the confections to be served. And another day arranging for flowers and a plethora of potted palms.

  Clare was glad enough, therefore, to receive an invitation from Lady Warfield to go riding in the park with her and her daughter. Quite likely, Sir Alexander would escort them. “Pray say that I might go,” begged Clare. And Lady Thane, somewhat surprised that Lady Warfield wished to contrast Clare’s pretty face with the plain face of her own daughter, agreed at once.

  But she had misjudged Lady Warfield. That lady was not planning to marry her daughter to anyone except a distant cousin in Scotland, who was not of the fashionable world but who had what Lady Warfield considered an indecent number of sheep and five castles, or was it eight? She never could remember. At any rate, Clare’s undoubted fresh beauty stirred no jealousy in Eugenia’s heart, and Lady Warfield smiled benignly on them both as her coachman tooled the bla
ck barouche into the park.

  It was nearing five o’clock in the afternoon, the most fashionable hour to be seen in the park. She was already acquainted with many of the famous beauties, the Duchess of Rutland, Lady Cowper. Lady Hertford bowed to them both as they met, and Lady Jersey, the regent’s great friend, passed by on the other side.

  It was a balmy afternoon, the mildest of breezes lifted Clare’s curls, and soon she began to feel more comfortable. It would be too much, she thought, to expect her to feel at home in this world, but apparently Benedict had not passed the word that she was hopelessly naive. At least the Countess Lieven smiled kindly at her, she noticed, and Lady Warfield, by her countenancing of Clare, gave her as much credit as she could.

  “There’s Lord Alvanley,” said Eugenia, her plain face lighting with impish amusement. “Do you know that he likes apricot tart so well that his cook makes one a day, and there is always a fresh one on his sideboard?”

  “Doesn’t he get tired of it?” marveled Clare. “I vow I should not want the same taste day after day.”

  Lady Warfield laughed. “So one should. But Alvanley, you know, never eats it. And yet he is the most good-natured man in the world and I dote on him.”

  “Then why...?”

  “Because he might want to,” said Eugenia, “eat it, I mean.”

  Lady Warfield demurred. “I think he has simply forgotten to tell them he no longer wants the tart. He’s terribly absentminded, you know.”

  Diverting as was the gossip of Lady Warfield, seasoned by the unexpected humor of Eugenia, yet the constant spectacle of dandies and more sober gentlemen, of ladies in their superb carriages, provided much entertainment for Clare. She forgot her own troubles in marveling at Lady Melbourne’s proud demeanor, when everyone knew she had borne children by several different fathers.

  Or learning that two gentlemen had wagered five hundred pounds the night before at Watier’s on the outcome of two flies climbing up the wall—the bet fell through when one of the flies buzzed away, leaving behind him an acrimonious dispute as to whether the bet was still valid.