Trevelyan Family: The English Witch Part 15

"You always," she accused, "leave it up to me. But only after you make it-" She bit her lip.

He held her a little tighter. "Make it what?"

"So very difficult, Basil." Her green eyes met his.

Perhaps it was because she was breathless now as well, and because her heart beat so furiously, and because these conditions made it very difficult to think clearly. Whatever the reason, her hand strayed to his shirt, played with the ruffles briefly, then came to rest over his heart. It was thumping and that was somehow frustrating. Still, her hand remained where it was, and she went on, confusedly, "It's wicked of you... and-and unfair."

"Is it?" His lips brushed her forehead.

"Yes. And I don't see why I must always be the one to put a stop to-to everything. To get you out of the-the difficulties you get yourself into."

"Because I always get you out of yours. Because we've somehow got into the habit of looking out for each other. I wonder why," he murmured, drawing her closer still.

"Well, I'm not getting you out of this one," she answered with admirable severity, considering that she was talking into his neckcloth while he continued to drop light kisses in her hair. "You can just turn around and take yourself away."

"Can't," he whispered. "You have the key."

She was never sure afterward exactly how it happened, but one minute he was kissing her-everywhere, it seemed-and the next they had tumbled onto the great leather sofa. By that time, the notion of escaping was making less and less sense to her. How could one think of getting away from such caresses, when one's body with every pa.s.sing moment desperately needed more of them? How could one wish to break free of that lean, muscular, beautiful body that claimed one so possessively? She covered his hand with hers. Fear and longing were mingled in the green eyes that searched his face.

"I won't hurt you," he whispered.

"No." Reason was fighting, desperately, to rea.s.sert itself. "No. I can't do this. No-I didn't mean-oh, Basil, please-have a little pity at least."

He had bent to kiss the hand clasping his, but now raised his head to look at her. His face was flushed, and his eyes, so softly golden before, were now so very bright. "Pity?" he repeated.

"I'm no m-match for you," she stammered. "You know that. It isn't fair."

He continued to gaze at her for the longest time, as though trying to interpret this rather inarticulate explanation. Then, very softly indeed, he said, "Ah, yes. My vast experience." His fingers slipped from her nerveless grasp and moved to push a rumbled curl away from her eye. "But about you, my love... when it comes to you, it seems I know nothing. I suppose," he added, with a wry smile, "we'll have to deduce everything." His head bent again, this time to the base of her throat, which he kissed very tenderly, sending tremors through her.

"Please."

She felt rather than heard his long, shuddering sigh as he moved away from her.

"Please," he muttered as he rose from the sofa. "To stop on a mere 'please.' How art the mighty fallen. Oh, Alexandra, you kill me with a word. No, don't look at me like that with those great, drowned eyes, or I shall wrestle my conscience down in an instant and we'll both be undone."

Afraid of what he might have seen in her face, she looked away quickly and struggled up to a sitting position. Only her mind had wanted him to stop. Her heart would have followed willingly, eagerly, wherever he'd led. All she'd offered up in defence of her virtue was "a mere please." For once-and to her shame-he had saved her from himself. No, not even that. "Both," he'd said. He'd saved himself as well.

"You'd better go," he was saying now. "I can't be a gentleman and help you up because I don't dare touch you again."

She was up and halfway to the door when she remembered it was locked. "The key," she said, turning back to him in embarra.s.sment and dismay. She was even more dismayed when she noticed the expression on his face. A few moments ago he had appeared... well, troubled. Now his eyes gleamed in a too-familiar, wicked way, and his mouth wore that mocking smile. In the next instant, however, he had dropped to his knees to retrieve the key from under the sofa. In another minute the door was unlocked, and she was being propelled through it.

Chapter 19.

Alexandra winced as Emmy pulled the drapes open, and bright sunlight flooded the room. Morning already? But this was her a.s.signed bed, and there was Emmy, pattering about the room, and a cup of steaming coffee on a tray on the bedstand. It all seemed perfectly normal... until, in a great, tumultuous flood, all that had happened-was it only a few hours ago?-came rushing into her consciousness vividly enough to set her face aflame. Quickly she turned to take the tray in her lap, but Emmy beat her to it.

"There, Miss," said the abigail, briskly. "Only do drink it up quicklike. Your Papa's waiting in his lordship's study to talk to you. And oh, Miss-he's dreadful cross."

Cross? She flushed again with guilt this time. But he could know nothing of that. It must be about Randolph. Perhaps he'd found out the truth somehow.

Hastily, Alexandra swallowed the coffee. She was no sooner out of bed than Emmy had hauled her to the washstand. In another minute the abigail was upon her again, pulling shift and dress over her head and fastening b.u.t.tons and hooks with lightning speed.

The whole business of washing and dressing was accomplished so rapidly that Alexandra had barely, it seemed, opened her eyes before she was downstairs tapping on the study door. When she entered, she woke up quickly enough, for it was not just Papa standing there but Basil as well.

Her breath caught in her throat as she looked at him. He'd seemed so different last evening, for a time at least. She remembered him, dishevelled and flushed, covering her with kisses and even laughing happily as he'd fallen onto the sofa with her. He'd seemed rather like an eager boy then.

Now, even casually dressed in his buckskins, he was so smart and elegant, his cat eyes cool and mocking, his lips pressed into a faint, amused smile. He looked what he was: a sophisticated man of the world who might have any woman he liked. Could any woman, regardless how sensible or intelligent, resist him for long? His gaze met hers then, and the intimate, knowing expression in those glowing amber eyes made her face burn. She looked away, moving towards the fireplace.

"Deuce take it," the baronet muttered, eyeing his daughter with vexation. "So that's how it is, is it?"

"How what is, Papa?" the daughter asked innocently. She had, however, to fold her hands very tightly to keep them from shaking.

"You. Him. Oh, d.a.m.nation. Why can't a man ever get a little warning?"

Scrupulously avoiding Mr. Trevelyan's face, Alexandra asked her father what he meant.

"As if you didn't know. But I didn't, I admit. And when this-this-"

"Villain?" Basil offered, helpfully.

"When this villain saunters in and tells me he wants to marry you-"

Marry?

Considering the events of recent weeks, Miss Ashmore believed herself entirely immune to shock. She was not. She could not have been more stunned if Papa had hit her over the head with the poker she was now studying in numb fascination. Offered. He'd even gone right to Papa. Her mind was just beginning to resume operation as her father launched into a tirade.

"Of course, as you confide nothing to your poor Papa, how am I to know? So, once again I'm made a fool of. I say, No, of course you won't have him. He insists that you will, and I tell him you won't. Not my daughter," the baronet went on sarcastically. "Not my Alexandra. She's much too clever to give herself over to the likes of him. And what happens but my brilliant offspring-too clever by half for her ignorant Papa-walks in and blushes like a green schoolgirl at the sight of him. Great Zeus, woman, haven't you any sense at all?"

In the rush of relief-of exaltation, even-sense had been on the point of deserting her. But her father's words, for once in her life, made an impression. Give herself over to him. Oh, yes... easily, because she loved him so. To be his wife... No, she rebuked herself. Look how jealous and miserable she'd been yesterday, only imagining him flirting with other women. What she could imagine now was excruciating.

"Yes, of course I have sense, Papa," she answered steadily. "And I was not blushing like a schoolgirl-only flushed from running down to you in such a hurry. Of course the answer, as you said, is no." She turned briefly from the grate to throw Mr. Trevelyan a defiant look, but his expression made her turn away hastily.

The baronet's features relaxed. "No?"

"No."

"Well, then." Sir Charles turned to Basil. "There it is."

"No, it isn't." Mr. Trevelyan had moved nearer the door as this exchange was taking place. He now leaned back against it, his arms folded across his chest. "No is the wrong answer."

"I daresay you think it is," Sir Charles retorted with some impatience. "But she won't have you, and I certainly wouldn't consent unless she insisted-and that only to spare myself any more of her infernal wheedling. And so-"

"And so I'm afraid I shall have to tell you the truth," said Basil, quite calmly.

Panic swept through her. "Papa," she pleaded, "he's going to tell some lie. Make him go away."

"What truth? What lie?" the baronet demanded, glaring from one to the other.

"Nothing!" Alexandra shrieked.

"She's ruined," the calm voice went on. "I ruined her. Last night. In the li-"

"No!"

"Ruined her!" the baronet roared. His face contorted, turning nearly purple, as he launched himself at Mr. Trevelyan. "I'll kill you!" he screamed. But he found he couldn't kill the wretch because his exasperating daughter had thrown herself in the way.

"No, Papa. Stop please!" She stood in front of Basil, shielding him. "The servants will hear you. Of course it's not true. You mustn't let him provoke you. He's only made this up to blackmail me, Papa." She went on babbling protestations, which was monstrous difficult when Mr. Trevelyan's finger was tracing a lazy path down her back. She sprang away when she felt a slight pressure at the base of her spine. "Stop it!" she hissed.

Luckily, Sir Charles was no longer looking at them. He was glowering at the carpet, shaking his head. "If it is a lie," he growled, "I shall call him out."

"I see your point, sir. Perhaps, then, I was exaggerating. Perhaps she isn't ruined. Still, the circ.u.mstances were exceedingly compromising-"

"Basil!"

Sir Charles considered for a moment. He looked from his daughter whose cheeks were very pink to Clementina's dreadful nephew whose colour had also deepened.

"I see," he said slowly. "I am not such a fool as all that. Why," he demanded, "would any rakeh.e.l.l in his senses tell your father such a thing, truth or not? Only," he answered himself, "if he was set on marrying you. If that's the case, you'd better have him, Alexandra. Either way he'll make your life a misery, but married to him you can return the favour. I wish you joy of each other, indeed I do. It's just as you deserve."

He nodded to himself with grim satisfaction, deaf to his daughter's continued pleadings and protestations.

"No, madam," he said as he absently patted the hand clutching his sleeve. "I don't want to hear any more of it. You have tired me half to death for the past six years. Now you have my leave to tire him for the next sixty. Let him worry about your admirers and infatuations from now on." He shook off his daughter's hand and marched to the door.

When Basil stepped aside to let him pa.s.s, she attempted to slip out as well.

"No," said the baronet. "You had better remain and reconcile yourself to your affianced husband. You will marry him, Alexandra-and so I shall inform your G.o.dmother. I daresay it's no news to her, the interfering jade. When you join us-both of you-I expect you to conduct yourselves with some decorum for once. I've had enough scenes for this millenium, I think." With surprising dignity, Sir Charles took himself out of the room.

When the door had closed on her Papa, Miss Ashmore turned on her latest fiance, her green eyes blazing. "I hate you," she said. "I shall always hate you. And I will never-never, do you hear me?-marry you."

"No, you don't, and yes, you will," he answered composedly. "Now come, Alexandra, say something kind to me, for you've hurt my feelings dreadfully." He moved to take her in his arms, but she spun away out of his reach.

"How dare you say such things to Papa?"

"At this point, I'd dare anything. Do you think I mean to let my aunt take you back to London, where you can acquire another set of beaux for me to dispose of? I should think not. Even I would like a bit of rest now and then. I should vastly prefer resting with you in my arms," he added, very tenderly.

This brought forcibly to mind some rather delicious moments when she'd been nestled in his arms. As she felt herself weakening, she grew correspondingly cross. She moved away to take up her post before the fireplace again and frowned into the grate. "That's the worst way of offering for a woman I've ever heard," she told the grate.

"If I'd asked in the normal way, would you have accepted me?"

Yes, she thought, because I'm a fool. "No," she answered. "I couldn't. I can't."

"Why? I mean, besides the fact that you solemnly promised ages ago to jilt me."

She shot him an exasperated glance, but his horrid self-a.s.surance was replaced by a bleak look that knocked all her angry retorts out of her. "It doesn't matter," she said.

In a few steps he crossed the room to stand at her shoulder. "It does matter. Tell me why. And tell me the truth, for once."

She was silent for a moment. There was an ache in her throat, a terrible ache. Really, it should not be so very painful, this process of sparing oneself future pain. Nonetheless, the tears welled up and trembled on her lashes as though to keep the ache company.

"Why?" he asked again. "You might do me the courtesy of telling me why you're so determined to make me wretched."

"You? It's you who'll make me wretched," she blurted out past the ache and the tears. "Because there'll always be one temptation or another you can't resist. Oh, Basil, maybe now you think you want me, but in time you'll be bored. How am I to bear that?"

"I see. You're fully convinced that I should make a thoroughly unreliable, unfaithful, neglectful husband."

She nodded miserably.

"Whereas you, on the other hand, would be the ideal wife. Sweet and biddable, never thinking of manipulating her besotted spouse to get her own way. The very soul of honesty who'd scorn to tell her husband even the smallest fib. Certainly he need never worry about all the eager gentlemen cl.u.s.tered about his wife. Your spouse would never have to live in your pocket, for fear of other gentlemen's dishonourable intentions."

Her eyes, still fixed on the grate, opened very wide.

"No, really," he continued, "there's nothing at all daunting in the prospect of marrying the most desirable woman in England, not even though she happens to be dreadfully clever and manipulative besides. Not at all. I'm certain Napoleon's Grand Army might have managed such a business if, that is, they kept well together."

"What," she asked fiercely as she turned to him, "are you implying?"

"I wasn't implying anything. I was telling you straight out. The idea of marrying you frightens me out of my wits. Unfortunately, I'm so desperately in love with you that I must or shoot myself."

Love. He'd spoken tender words last night, the sweet words that came so easily to him, but he'd never uttered a syllable about love.

He was still speaking. "I offer you my very small, very vulnerable, fragile, nearly breaking heart. You trample on it, and remind me that I'm a villain. Well, so what if I am? I'm the villain who's compromised you-not once but several times-and I'm the one who loves you." He pulled her to him. "And I'm the one you're stuck with, because your Papa says so. I wish you'd stop quarrelling with me and kiss me." He must have thought better of it, because he kissed her instead.

Recognising that the odds were against her, Miss Ashmore very sensibly yielded to her opponent. In the true British spirit of good sportsmanship, she returned his kiss with enthusiasm. The victor generously returned hers, so she was obviously obliged to return his. So it continued for some minutes until the two found themselves in danger of committing a great impropriety. To her credit, Miss Ashmore became conscious of the peril in time and pulled away from him.

He swore under his breath. "What a curst business this is," he muttered. "Why did I have to fall in love with a proper young lady and be doomed to these furtive escapades in other people's houses? Halls. Libraries. Studies. What next? Shall we rendezvous in the kitchens after midnight? Or will you meet me in the stables?"

"The stables?" she repeated, greatly indignant.

"Sorry. I wasn't thinking. Or I wasn't thinking what I ought. The trouble is, I paced the library all night, and it was cold and lonely without you. I missed you horribly. Then I had to wait ages before your Papa was up. The waiting was horrible. I nearly hung myself."

She'd been about to read him a lecture about his fiance not being a common lightskirt to be tumbled about in hayracks. The lecture flew out of her head as she gazed up wonderingly into those beautifully wicked amber eyes. "Were you lonely for me, Basil? Really?"

"Good G.o.d. For such an intelligent woman you can be remarkably stupid, my love. Did you think I wanted you to leave?"

"You were very abrupt, Basil, and you did push me out the door."

"The only way I know to resist temptation is to remove it. That should have been obvious. If it wasn't-well, I take back what I said earlier. You are stupid. You're the stupidest woman it's ever been my misfortune to fall in love with." To emphasise the point, he kissed her once more very lingeringly. As this promised to bring them both into difficulties again, she pushed him away.

"We can't stay here all day," she warned, as she stooped to gather up her wayward hairpins. "Papa's expecting us to join him and Aunt Clem."

Basil relieved his feelings with a few more quiet oaths as he helped her find her hairpins and restore herself to a semblance of respectability. Finally, the two went forth to face his aunt.

Whatever story was told to Lady Bertram and Sir Charles must have been satisfactory. In another hour, host, hostess, and guests were gathered in the drawing room, listening as Sir Charles-with fiendish relish-informed one and all that his daughter and Clementina's nephew were to be shackled for the rest of their natural, or unnatural was more like it, lives.

Lord Tuttlehope was so astonished that he forgot to blink. "Marry her?" he said to his wife. "Is that what he says?"