The English Witch Read online

  In this state so closely approaching the platonic ideal, he felt generous towards his fellows. His heart went out to the elegant gentlemen who stopped to stare as they drove past. He especially pitied his cronies who charged at them every few minutes, greeting him so warmly and begging to be made known to his attractive companion. It was only when Trevelyan appeared that his spirit of generosity ebbed away.

  Trev was polite, certainly. But Lord Arden did not care for the way those devious cat eyes raked over Miss Ashmore, especially since that raking made the lady turn colour and lose her composure—and more especially since nothing his lordship had said or done had aroused so strong a reaction. It was, moreover, some time before she fully recovered. After Basil left, she seemed to have some trouble putting her sentences together—she who'd been so eloquent on the subject of Mr. Wordsworth only moments before.

  His lordship was determined to help her along. "And so what do you think will become of Byron's poetry now that he's married?" he asked. "Do you think that wedded bliss will dull his sharp tongue?"

  She appeared to shake herself out of a trance to answer him. "I haven't yet had an opportunity to read very much of his work. But from what I’ve heard recently, there's little bliss in that marriage."

  "I fear you're right. But then, many of us maintain that he was bound to make a poor husband. Some are improved, even reformed, by marriage. Others, like Byron, are only made worse by it."

  It occurred to her that perhaps it was not really Lord Byron he was speaking of, but someone else. Yet her features remained blank as she asked him to explain.

  "Because it makes them feel 'cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd.' And so they must run away to lose themselves in some desperate pursuit of pleasure."

  "You speak so knowingly, my lord. Do you, too, view marriage as a prison?"

  "Ah, you mean to trick me, Miss Ashmore. For if I say I do not, you'll throw my long bachelorhood in my face. And if I say I do—why, then, what will you conclude about my intentions towards yourself?"

  Such a query was meant to be answered in one way only: with a coy claim of ignorance. His lordship then enlightening her in proper form—perhaps on bended knee, though it would be deuced awkward in the phaeton—the matter would be settled. Miss Ashmore might then turn her thoughts to her trousseau, and he—why, to any of those myriad subjects far too taxing for the minds of young ladies.

  But Lord Arden received no claim of ignorance, coy or otherwise. Miss Ashmore stared at him for a moment as though he had asked whether he might stand on his head. Then, in the voice of a schoolmistress, she answered, "I would not presume to judge your lordship's behaviour or intentions, and most especially not on such short acquaintance. It was only your opinion I sought."

  The emphasis she placed on the words told him plain that he'd leapt ahead of himself and had better leap right back. He had not expected this setdown, but then he reminded himself that she was a tad eccentric after all, and that was one of her charms. And so, the obedient student gave as his opinion that marriage improved partners who were well suited and worsened those who were not. In Byron's case, he went on, there was a moody, restless nature to begin with and too-early fame and adulation to compound the problem. In fact, he pointed out, if all those who shouldn't think of marrying didn't, it would be easier for better-suited persons to find each other.

  "You think then," she asked, "that these ineligible individuals should be driven from Society? Or perhaps should be made to wear a badge of some sort to warn the unwary away?"

  He chuckled. "That would be an extreme solution—and yet, perhaps it might conduce to greater happiness all around."

  He dropped a deeply meaningful glance upon her, but she only appeared thoughtful as she added, "And thereby contribute to the greater prosperity of the British nation. What a novel idea, my lord. It does you credit, I am sure."

  The prosperity of the nation was the very last thing on his mind, but he did not object to taking credit where it was not due. It was his aim, was it not, to win her admiration or respect or affection or whatever it might take to install her as quickly as possible as his marchioness. Therefore, despite the unexpected check to his impatient aspirations, his lordship passed the remainder of his time with her in remarkably good humour.

  Mr. Trevelyan, lounging at his club, was not in good humour. He had a glass of very old brandy in his hand, and he glowered at it. His severe, black and white evening attire was perfect in every deceptively simple detail, and he scowled precisely as though these were the same filmy rags he'd worn in Gjirokastra. He had an appointment for dinner with a lovely blond barque of frailty, and he looked forward to it with the same cold composure with which he would, in earlier days, have awaited an interview with one of his creditors. Mr. Trevelyan, in short, was very cross.

  Miss Ashmore had not, as any right-minded woman would—considering the trouble he'd taken on her account—greeted him with anything like enthusiasm. She'd turned rather pink, then rather white, and then had stared at him for an instant as though he were some great hulking monster. Then she'd turned to that snake beside her and let him do the talking for her, as though she belonged to him already. Clearly, Will seemed to think so. He had that proprietary air and that obnoxious, self-satisfied smirk on his arrogant face, and had even found it necessary—the great coxcomb—to lean close to speak to her as though the girl were quite deaf.

  It was disgusting...and pathetic. The ridiculous chit had gone and put herself into the hands of one of the most—if not the most—untrustworthy, fickle, careless, selfish, and depraved men in England. Oh, yes, Will meant to marry her, but marriage meant nothing to him. He'd get his precious heirs on her and then be off about his usual lecheries.

  Whatever was Aunt Clem thinking, to countenance the man? Surely she knew what he was. Aunt Clem sees all, knows all. Had she simply balanced off the brute's character against his material assets? It would, after all, be a great thing to marry off her goddaughter to a future duke. Single, good-looking dukes were rare, and single, good-looking dukes with vast fortunes were scarcer than hen's teeth. No, she could hardly do better than Will.

  Still, Aunt Clem might have found an eligible parti with a better character. But then, what was it to him? Certainly he wasn't about to look out for a better husband for Miss Ashmore, and he most definitely was not about to go haring off to Hartleigh Hall just to make certain she didn't get into any trouble. Let her get herself out of trouble this time, the ungrateful wench.

  He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out the letter he'd already read some five or six dozen times, and crumpled it angrily in his hand. Then, in the next moment, he just as angrily smoothed it out again, folded it, and tucked it back into his pocket. She might at least have smiled.

  Chapter Eight

  Alexandra sighed as she approached the breakfast room. She'd thought that the fresh country air would cure her sleeplessness, but the past five nights at Hartleigh Hall had been exactly like those preceding. When finally she did fall asleep, she had very troubling dreams. His gallant knights who rescued her from dragons that looked like the Burnham sisters kept turning out to have deceitful, amber eyes instead of adoring, grey ones.

  Because she hadn't slept properly since she'd come to England, she was prey to headaches, one of which was now shooting sharp blasts of pain behind her dark eyebrows. The great racket coming from the breakfast room promised only to exacerbate it. Perhaps she'd better turn back and have breakfast sent up to her room.

  Unfortunately, Burgess, Lord Hartleigh's terrifying butler, had already seen her approach. She was astonished to note faint creases, ominously hinting at a smile, at the corners of his mouth. And then—good heavens—he was actually opening the door for her himself.

  She winced slightly at the Babel of voices, but in an instant her eyes flew wide open. There at the breakfast table, smiling with complete self-assurance at some sarcasm Lord Hartleigh directed at him, was the inconsiderate creature who haunted her dreams. He'd turned tow
ards the door as it opened, and when his gaze locked with hers it carried all the impact of a physical blow. The other faces were dissolving into haze, the voices into a buzzing in the background, and all she saw was the slow smile that lit his wicked face. Then he spoke, and the familiar, insinuating sound shook her out of her daze.

  "Thank heaven you’ve come, Miss Ashmore—and in the very nick of time. They're all lined up against me, and I want an ally badly."

  "What's this?" Lord Deverell exclaimed. "Was India so taxing then? Are you so enfeebled that you require a woman's help to speak?"

  "Ah, but I always require the ladies' assistance—"

  "Oh, he hasn't changed a bit," someone murmured, but Alexandra barely noticed. He was still looking at her and talking.

  “Luckily, Miss Ashmore has most kindly made it her business to look out for me."

  She hadn't time to blush, being too busy thinking—and that wasn't the most agreeable exercise with her head throbbing so. How dare he say such things in front of these others? Lord Arden had leapt to help her to her chair, and she used the moment that gave her to collect her wits. His lordship placed her conveniently next to himself and inconveniently opposite Mr. Trevelyan. There was nothing for it then but to meet those glittering, feline eyes calmly.

  "I'm sorry, sir," she finally answered, "but I don't recollect undertaking any such formidable task. At any rate," she went on more briskly, "you can't expect one to do business of any sort before breakfast."

  "Certainly not," Lord Deverell agreed. "Will, don't stand there gawking. Fill Miss Ashmore's plate for her."

  It could not have been agreeable for Lord Arden to be ordered about by a mere viscount, as though he were an awkward schoolboy. On the other hand, it may have been the unwelcome addition to the company that made his lordship scowl so horribly as he stood at the sideboard selecting the choicest tidbits for his future wife and listening to the conversation.

  "Well then, Miss Ashmore," Basil was saying. "I'll leave you to fortify yourself, though it means fending off this great company single-handed."

  Lady Hartleigh laughed. "Don't even think of fending us off, Basil. Not when you've been so mean to tease and say you wouldn't come. But what is this great piece of nonsense you tell of Miss Ashmore?"

  "It isn't a bit of nonsense," came the injured reply. "The whole while we travelled, Miss Ashmore was busy saving me from myself—and it was an uphill task, I assure you."

  "And a thankless one, I make no doubt," his aunt put in.

  The plate was set down before Miss Ashmore with an angry thunk.

  "I wonder, Basil," said Lady Jessica, "how you came to need saving from yourself."

  There was a deafening chorus of answers to this, most to the effect that Basil had needed to be saved from himself since the day he was born, that no one could do it, and that it must be given up as a bad job.

  Alexandra was relieved that she wasn't left to deal with him all by herself, though their good humour surprised her. Hadn't he wronged at least four of these people? Still, his machinations had simply hurried Lady Hartleigh into her husband's arms and Lady Deverell back into those of her beloved Harry. It was rather, as Aunt Clem had claimed, a great joke. Basil's plots had succeeded only in getting him packed off to India.

  "As to you, Miss Ashmore," Lady Jessica went on with studied innocence, "whatever possessed you to take on this monumental task?"

  Alexandra very nearly choked on the fragment of toast she'd put in her mouth, but she managed to swallow it and answer calmly enough. "I daresay it must seem odd. But then, Albania has few amusements for an Englishwoman, and there's little enough to do on a long sea voyage. Papa and Mr. Burnham had their theories and writing to occupy them. I, on the other hand, had nothing. I suppose," she added, with a little shrug, "since Mr. Trevelyan is the very soul of honesty and he says I took on the job, then I must have—no doubt because I was so unspeakably bored."

  Most of the company smiled appreciatively at this. At the other end of the table, Lady Deverell chuckled softly.

  "Poor Basil," said Lord Hartleigh pityingly. "Only a diversion."

  Lord Arden found the exchange a deal less amusing than the others and endeavoured to return Miss Ashmore's attention to himself. "Yet who would not delight to be Miss Ashmore's diversion?" he asked, sweetly.

  "My lord," she chided, "you play into Mr. Trevelyan's hands."

  "I?"

  "Yes. You help him draw the fire to me and away from himself."

  His disloyal sister joined in. "She's right, Will. We were all scolding him. Then you must say pretty things to Miss Ashmore and make everyone stare at her."

  "When of course, dear sister, you'd rather they looked at you."

  "Naturally—in good time. Now, however, it's Basil who must bear our stern scrutiny. He's been most unkind to his family." The look she directed at Basil would have been severe indeed, except that her eyes—amazingly like her brother's— twinkled with mischief. "Let's hear his excuse."

  "Yes, you young jackanapes," Lady Bertram growled. "What can you have to say for yourself? Nearly a fortnight in London and not once do you call on your aunt."

  "Dearest Aunt, if I called on you I might have stumbled upon Miss Ashmore as well, and she told me to keep away."

  "Abominable creature!" Lady Hartleigh cried. "You blame Miss Ashmore for everything."

  "But isn't that so, Miss Ashmore? Didn't you tell me to keep away until further notice? For my own good?"

  Alexandra's green eyes flashed dangerously. He wanted to embarrass her, the beast. Spreading a dab of butter on her toast, she answered coolly, "How, I wonder, could I make it my business to look out for you on the one hand while I drove you off on the other? How could I look out for you when you were not about?"

  "Why, I don't know. I really can't understand it. Usually, you're so logical. I'm sure I've mentioned that before—how logical you are."

  Alexandra was seriously considering throwing the coffee urn, an ornate, silver monstrosity, at him—how dare he remind her of that conversation in Prevesa?—when Lady Deverell's bored voice was heard. "I cannot make it out at all, and it makes my head ache, Harry. After all, if—as he says—Miss Ashmore told him to keep away, then why is the tiresome boy here?"

  Lord Deverell only shrugged and smiled while Lord Hartleigh turned to his cousin and gravely asked what answer he had for that?

  "Why, cousin, it must be obvious." Basil stared at him in mock astonishment that he couldn't answer this simple riddle.

  Alexandra's mind raced as she imagined a hundred different answers he might make—all of them disconcerting—and her own hundred possible setdowns.

  "None of you can guess?" He turned that wondering, childlike look on all of them in turn. "But it's so simple." His gaze rested then on Alexandra, and something in his eyes made her heart skid to a stop. "Amnesia," he said softly.

  In the din that greeted this she breathed a small sigh of relief. Though Lord Arden was looking at her tamer strangely, he held his tongue, and she was able to finish her breakfast in relative peace.

  There was peace after breakfast as well, for she went riding with Lady Jessica, Lord Arden, and the Deverells. The older couple rode well behind, but with Jess there to contradict and mock him, Lord Arden was forced to keep the conversation general. Alexandra could let her mind wander freely, the intense exchange between brother and sister precluding any real participation.

  She'd thought Lord Arden the answer to her prayers. He was handsome and amiable, and he appeared to be intelligent, even if he did look at her in that unnervingly proprietary way. After all, he'd been brought up to believe the universe was basically his for the taking.

  The Burnhams wanted a daughter-in-law who could help them claw their way into the ton, but if Papa paid his debt in gold they'd have to be content with that. Lord Arden could easily afford to settle matters with them, and even Papa couldn't object to a future duke as son-in-law. Yes, Lady Bertram had selected well of all the eligible gentl
emen she might have invited to take notice of her goddaughter. Even his sister was delightful. Why then, had he suddenly become so irritating?

  "How quiet you are, Miss Ashmore," said Lady Jessica. "But how can you help it? Neither of us lets you get a word in edgeways.”

  "Speak for yourself, Jess. It's you who monopolise the conversation."

  "Because otherwise you tease her—and that's too unfair when she was teased unceasingly at breakfast."

  "As, to your mortification, you were not.”

  "I'm sure," Alexandra put in, "it'll be Lady Jessica's turn to be teased next. And as her performance is bound to be superior, I expect to learn a great deal from it."

  "Miss Ashmore, you want no tutoring. I daresay you've had enough experience of Basil to know that he's immune to setdowns. Even if he were not, who could bear to stop him from talking so beautifully wickedly?"

  "My sister," Lord Arden said with annoyance, "is and has been, since her debut, entirely lost to propriety."

  "Well, you would know, my dear brother, so much experience you have of impropriety."

  "She has the mind of an infant," he went on doggedly, "and exaggerates silly bits of gossip into great scandals—"

  "On the contrary, I must reduce them to mere scandal in order to contemplate them—"

  His lordship was growing exasperated. It had been vexing enough to find Trevelyan at the breakfast table this morning and to be forced to sit quietly as the man flirted outrageously with the future Marchioness of Arden. Now, here was one's own sister, holding up one's rather murky private life for Miss Ashmore's examination.

  Still, Miss Ashmore did not seem horribly shocked. It occurred to him that he actually knew very little of his Intended—except that she was eminently desirable. She'd kept him at arm's length, and he'd been patient knowing that these genteel virgins did like to be courted forever. Yet, Trevelyan's insinuations had not once elicited any of those cool, reproving looks his own more gentle hints customarily evoked. For all her cool composure, she'd seemed different somehow, as though she'd been lighted up from within, the moment she'd clapped eyes on the wretch.