Lady In Silver: A Tangled Hearts Romance

  LADY IN SILVER

  A TANGLED HEARTS

  Romance

  Rebecca Ward

  Copyright 1990 by Maureen Wartski.

  To Lynn and Bert,

  Sandra and Mark,

  and to newlyweds everywhere.

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter One

  “Hello, hello, hello” crowed Peter Vries, “there sits the hero of the hour.”

  Anthony Harte, Fifth Earl of Brandmere, scarcely glanced up as his young cousin thrust his plump and perspiring countenance around the door of the morning room. He merely nodded and continued with his breakfast and a perusal of the morning paper.

  Undisturbed, Peter entered the room, tripped over a Louis XV sofa, caught his heel in the Aubusson carpet, and nearly knocked over a lamp before subsiding into a chair by the marble fireplace.

  “Stap me if all of London ain’t talking about you this morning, Brand,” he exclaimed. “It’s only natural—mean to say—it was the race of the century. After all of Kirkland’s boasts, you and your bays left his nags standing still. Privilege to have sat beside you in your curricle, give you my word!”

  Brandmere waved a languid hand in the direction of the toast. “Breakfasted yet?” he questioned, but Peter was still lost in memories.

  “D’you remember when the road divided and that accommodation coach and that wagon came at us from both sides? Couldn’t believe it when you dropped your hands and let the bays shoot. Stap me if we didn’t clear that wagon with a bare inch to spare.” He paused to shake his head before adding, “You’re the finest whip in London—and the coolest. But then, I suppose that a man who has fought on the Peninsula needs to have nerves of steel.”

  An indescribable look flickered briefly in the young earl’s eyes, but he remained silent.

  “Tell you what, Brand. Kirkland won’t have the stuff to challenge you again, but there’s Maxell. Just bought a pair of Welsh-bred grays, and he thinks they’re high steppers. He’ll be at Lord Chiltern’s ball tonight. If you say the word, he’ll jump at the chance of racing you.”

  Brandmere tossed down his napkin, yawned, and leisurely stretched his six feet two inches before rising from his cane-backed chair. As he strolled toward the window, September sunlight burnished his fair hair, then angled across a proud bridge of nose, hard line of cheek and chin, and the fine line of an ironic mouth.

  The window of the earl’s town house overlooked St. James Square. On the street below, a pair of fine bays were harnessed to a curricle. A tiger, dressed in spotless livery, waited beside the horses. Brandmere glanced at them dispassionately before announcing, “I’m not going to Chiltern’s.”

  His cousin’s slightly protuberant blue eyes turned anxious. “Are you feeling quite the thing, Brand?”

  “Bored, old fellow.” An unexpectedly sweet smile softened Brandmere’s features, and eyes of a near midnight black lightened momentarily. Then they darkened again. “I’m damned bored,” he corrected himself.

  Peter swallowed. “Bored with Chiltern? But he’s not such a bad fellow. Sets a good table, too. I should have thought—”

  “I’m tired to death of feeding and boozing and of the same faces, the same conversation, the onslaught of simpering debs and their mothers.” Brandmere turned his back on the window. “I’m played out.”

  Peter lifted his quizzing glass from his striped waistcoat, buffed it on the sleeve of his bottle-green coat, and eyed his tall cousin. There was an unmistakable sheen of health in Brandmere’s sun-darkened cheeks and no sign of sickness about his athletic body. Humbly, Peter admired the broad shoulders flawlessly encased in dark superfine, the fawn riding breeches that fitted muscular thighs and long legs like a second skin, the glossy Hessians crafted by Hoby. No matter how much he primped before the mirror, no matter how skillfully his tailor padded his shoulders with buckram, he could never manage the je ne sais quoi that Brand achieved so effortlessly.

  He began, “But I should have thought that after yesterday’s triumph—”

  “A game hardly worth the playing. I knew I could best Kirkland’s commoners with one arm tied behind my back.”

  An odd expression had begun to suffuse Peter’s round pink countenance. “So you’re tired of racing, too,” he said. “What about Boodle’s and White’s and—and sparring at Gentleman Jim’s? You excel in the ring.”

  Brandmere yawned.

  “Stap me, but that’s excellent news!” Peter exclaimed. “Wonderful, in fact. Now I know you’ll come to Devon with me next week.”

  Brandmere raised his fine brows. “Devon in September?” he drawled. “You’re bamming me. I can’t think of anything worse.”

  “But you’re tired of London, ain’t you?” Peter demanded. “Just heard you say so.”

  “Not as fatigued as I will be in Devon.”

  “But, Brand, I need you to come to Grapewood with me.” Peter dropped his quizzing glass and gazed imploringly into his cousin’s countenance. “Sir Malcolm Traherne will be there, and—and so will his daughter.”

  The light of understanding filled Brandmere’s dark eyes. “Aha,” he murmured. “Anabel the fair.”

  Peter’s round cheeks grew pinker. His eyes held the far-off look of a ruminative sheep. He ran plump white hands through hair that had until now been modishly arranged à la Titus.

  “I wouldn’t have the nerve to go there alone. I need you to give me moral support. You see, I love Miss Traherne.” As his cousin began to grin, Peter added fervently, “I know what you’re thinking, but stap me if Miss Traherne isn’t the love of my heart.”

  Brandmere considered rather cynically that it could also be a love of the pocket. Anabel Traherne was the only daughter of a wealthy nabob who had just returned from India, where, it was rumored, he had amassed his fortune. Peter, on the other hand, had very little with which to feather his expensive London nest.

  Unfortunately for the earl’s young cousin, many other featherless birds of the ton had the same idea, and Anabel Traherne was besieged by a flock of admirers and offers.

  “You’ve seen her. You know that she’s like a goddess. Venus is nothing compared to her.” Peter began to walk up and down the room until a collision with a Chippendale daybed forced him to stop. “She has so many admirers and yet, she—she smiled at me. Brand, that smile transported me to paradise! To get another such smile, I would gladly be torn apart by lions.”

  “No,” Brandmere said.

  “But I would. Cheerfully.”

  “I meant,” said the earl, “that I won’t go with you to Devon. It’s a curst flat place and besides, we haven’t been invited.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Peter shot back swiftly. “We’d be paying guests.”

  Brandmere stopped in mid-yawn and blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  Glad to have his cousin’s complete attention, Peter explained. “Grapewood used to belong to Sir Bartholomew Campion. Never heard of him before, but his was supposedly a name to conjure with in Devon. Sir Bartholomew pegged out this year. Grapewood’s heavily mortgaged. The present heir—a younger brother, name of Richard—is trying to keep the place up by inviting paying guests who’d enjoy the thrill of staying in a haunted manor. From what I hear, the first group of guests are converging on Grapewood next week.”

  Brandmere remarked coldly that he had heard
of Richard Campion. “My father referred to him as a bad hat who lost his inheritance on cards and horses and shady speculations. He lost other people’s money, too. When he left for the Continent a few years ago, creditors were nipping at his heels. The man is a regular Captain Sharp.”

  “Oh, I say,” Peter exclaimed.

  “Now you say he’s back in England and turning his late brother’s home into an inn.” Brandmere’s fine lip curled disdainfully. “Paying guests and a bogus ghost. The kind of trick you’d expect from a man like Campion.”

  In a subdued voice Peter said that there really was aghost. “That’s why Sir Malcolm’s going. He’s hipped on spirits and things that go bump in the night. Comes from living in India, I expect. Stap me, Brand, I didn’t know about this Campion fellow. Even so, we wouldn’t have to associate with him. We—”

  He broke off, as there was a discreet knock on the study door, and the earl’s manservant, Marlin, entered. He proffered a letter on a silver tray. Brandmere took it and opened it.

  “Good God,” he muttered.

  “Something wrong?” Peter wondered.

  “My sister Honoria is coming to London next week.” Brandmere’s stricken eyes met those of his valet, and that unflappable individual actually paled.

  “My lord,” he stammered, “may I be so bold as to inquire whether Lady Danbury’s children will accompany her?”

  “Yes. All five of the brats.”

  Peter could not repress a shudder. He admired Brand’s control. If he, Peter, had received word that Honoria and her horrible brood were descending on his London quarters, he would have been howling like a bedlamite.

  Marlin was asking, “Her ladyship and the children, are—are staying here, my lord?”

  “Yes, damn it. My sister wants to discuss family business with me. She adds that things will be easier now that ‘dear Percival’ has started to talk. And she is glad to inform me that Augustus has not tried to set fire to the house for several weeks.”

  There was an awful silence broken by Peter, who croaked, “Wel l, what are you waiting for? No time to lose. Do a bolt to Brandmere—or to one of your other properties.”

  The earl shook his head. “No use. She’s bound to follow me and run me to earth. We are in for a siege, Marlin.”

  The valet took the news with the cool blood of one who had been the earl’s batman at Salamanca.

  “Very good, my lord. I will inform the servants of her ladyship’s arrival.”

  As Marlin left the room, Peter seized the opportunity fate had presented him. It was now or never.

  “Honoria wouldn’t follow you to Grapewood, Brand,” he murmured. “There’d be no children there at all. None of your shirts would be ruined by sticky little hands. And your boots—didn’t you say that one of your nevvies punched holes in your boots during Honoria’s last visit?”

  “The oldest, Jeremy. The little beast wanted to try out his pocket knife.”

  “Your boots will be safe at Grapewood, Brand.”

  The earl gave his cousin a long, hard look. Then he shouted, “Marlin!” As if by magic, the manservant materialized at the do or. “Pack up, man. We’re going to Devon. I will write my sister and inform her that since we will not be in town next week, her visit is out of the question.”

  Color seeped back into Marlin’s cheeks. “Yes, my lord,” he said joyfully. “I will see to it immediately.”

  Brandmere turned to the grinning Peter. “You needn’t look so pleased with yourself, either. It’s a mutton-headed idea, and I’m going under protest. I warn you that anything that’s connected with Dickon Campion’s bound to smell like last week’s fish.”

  “This is the most mutton-headed, ramshackle idea you have ever had.”

  Suzanna Campion pushed back an errant lock of black hair and glared at her uncle. The severity of the glare was somewhat weakened by the smudge of dried mud along her cheek. The mud, along with an enormous starched apron, gave Suzanna the look of a ten-year-old.

  “I never thought to see the day,” she continued bit terly, “when a Campion would go into trade. Paying guests coming next week—as though Grapewood were a common inn. Poor Father must be spinning in his grave.”

  Her uncle pursed his lips judiciously. “Not Barty,” he said. “Barty never spun. Slow and stately, that was his style. Never knew a man with more starch than Barty, God rest him.”

  “Uncle, it will not do.”

  “On the contrary, I think that it will do very well.”

  Dickon Campion rose gracefully from the shabby but comfortable armchair in which he had been ensconced. He was a man in his forties, of middle height and weight and with a young man’s quickness, and though he shared his niece’s coloring, they were completely unalike.

  Suzanna’s gray eyes seemed almost too large for her heart-shaped face and were as open and as clear as an early morning sky. Dickon Campion’s eyes, on the other hand, were keen and sparkled with wit and often with malice. His hooded lids seemed to hide many secrets.

  There were other differences, too. Suzanna’s small, straight nose was amply freckled from being outdoors in all kinds of weather. Dickon, proud of his fair complexion and fine hands, shuddered at exposing himself to the sun and often used lead to whiten his skin. And while Suzanna’s dark hair was thick and curly and constantly escaping from the no-nonsense bun at the back of her small head, Dickon liberally powdered his own smooth, straight, carefully coiffured hair.

  Dickon Campion, moreover, wore clothes in the kick of fashion. Today he affected white silk stockings embroidered with clocks, stockinette trousers of canary yellow, a ruffled cambric shirt, a square-cut yellow coat, and a cravat arranged in the waterfall style.

  He shook his head over Suzanna’s appearance. There was a tear in the sleeve of her blue house-dress, and various splatterings of mud marred the hem.

  “Deuce take it,” he grumbled, “you look like a hoyden. What will our guests think of you?”

  “I do not care what they think. I do not want them here at all,” Suzanna countered.

  Dickon changed his tactics. “I collect that you were outside just now in the, ah, barn? How are Porcina and that ancient goat of yours?”

  “Porcina will have her piglets very soon, and all will be well with her, but Ione is failing.” Suzanna’s eyes grew shadowed as she added, “She is so old, Uncle Dickon. No doubt she dreams of her youth.”

  Dickon briefly wondered whether goats dreamed. Then, modulating his voice to tenderness he crooned, “It is for Porcina and Ione that I am trying to preserve Grapewood.”

  “Stuff,” retorted Suzanna.

  Dickon winced. Unlike his stiff-rumped older brother, Suzanna was as game as a pebble, and he had always been fond of her. But he could not get used to her forthright ways. Her regrettable frankness, Dickon mused, must spring from her unorthodox upbringing and from her preoccupation with the useless beasts and the impossible servants with which Grapewood was populated.

  “I know that the manor is heavily mortgaged,” Suzanna was continuing. “I realize that we may lose it if something is not done. But I would far rather do honest work—go as a governess, say—than welcome a series of paying guests. It is not only degrading but impractical.”

  She looked about her as she spoke, seeing the furniture that had been there so long as to almost take root, the faded carpet, the scratched woodwork, and nondescript watercolors on the wall. She loved this room, this house, but she knew well how other eyes would see it.

  “Who would want to visit this shabby old place much less pay to come here?” she demanded.

  “Sir Malcolm Traherne would.”

  Suzanna cried indignantly, “That is because you wrote to him and told him those whiskers about the Silver Lady.”

  Dickon said in an injured tone that the Silver Lady of Grapewood was no Bambury tale. “When your father and I were lads, our nurse used to frighten us into obedience with tales of Lady Blanche who during the sixteenth century was murdered and thrown i
nto a well. I merely told Sir Malcolm that she sometimes ‘walked.’ Can I help it if he is interested in the occult?”

  He rubbed his white hands together. “Sir Malcolm has a beautiful daughter. Together, they will be an excellent draw.” Seeing that his niece looked bewildered, he explained. “I mean that the Trahernes will bring other guests to Grapewood. This very morning I received a card from the Earl of Brandmere. His lordship and his cousin will arrive next week.”

  Suzanna’s shoulders slumped in despair. “Worse and worse. From all that I have read of him, Brandmere has a great deal of money and the haughty manners that go with such wealth. He has so many country estates to choose from that I am sure that he has lost count of them. If he is coming here, it is probably to ridicule us.”

  “He’s coming because he has heard that Miss Traherne is to be our guest.” Smiling broadly, Dickon continued. “Brandmere is only the first to take the bait. In the days that follow, you will see that there will be other cards. Young bloods will flock to hold court at the feet of the rich and lovely Anabel. And, naturally, news of Brandmere’s coming to Grapewood will get about and cause mothers to rearrange their plans.” He paused. “Deuce take it, my dear girl, do you know what a matrimonial catch the earl is?”

  Suzanna’s anxiety took another turn. “How many people are you expecting?” He told her, and she exclaimed, “Cook will collapse if such demands are made on her. And Margery will hand in her notice, as she always does when she is vexed, and Little John will be terribly cross.”

  Dickon frowned. “You allow those servants too many liberties, Suzanna. That fellow Little John especially does not treat me with the respect I deserve. He must come to heel.” He paused and then added in his most persuasive tone, “You are thinking that this is a gamble, which it is. But I know that Grapewood will take. If our first week goes well, we’ll become an on dit in London. Once we are fashionable, we will never need to worry about money again.” He reached out and took Suzanna’s hands. “That is why we must please the Trahernes and Brandmere at all costs.”