Vixen

Chapter 2

Downstairs, Chloe stood on the steps and waved the chaise and Miss Anstey out of the courtyard. The poor lady had been torn between her perceived duty to Chloe and her unquestionable duty to her new employers. But her perceived duty had not been proof against Chloe's brisk dismissal of her fears, and she had finally been persuaded into the chaise, dabbing at her eyes and pouring forth a stream of benedictions on the dear child she was leaving. She bemoaned the disreputable state of the house, the strangeness of Sir Hugo and his servant, and the significant absence of either housekeeper or a Lady Lattimer. The last words Chloe heard were: "Oh, dear, perhaps I shouldn't leave you like this… what will the Misses Trent say… but then what will Lady Colshot say… such a bad impression to arrive late… oh, dear…"

Chloe firmly shut the door of the chaise, putting a period to the vacillation, and called good-bye. The coachman cracked his whip and the vehicle and its still indecisively bewailing passenger disappeared from Denholm Manor.

Thoughtfully, Chloe turned back to the house. It did seem that there was no Lady Lattimer, although it had been assumed at the seminary that there would be. Chloe had never heard of Sir Hugo Lattimer until her mother's will had been read. She had no idea why her mother had chosen him, but then, she knew almost nothing about her mother, having spent no more than a few days a year with Elizabeth since she was six. The only thing she knew at the moment was that this change in her circumstances could only be for the better.

She knelt down by the hat box. The cat's labors seemed to be over and Chloe counted six damp kittens squirming at her belly. They were curiously repellent, she thought, absently stroking the cat's head, more like baby rats than the entrancing creatures they would soon become.

"Best get that lot out to the stable before Sir 'Ugo comes down." Samuel's gruff voice came from behind her and she stood up, brushing the dust off her skirt.

"I dont think we should move her outside just yet. She'll feel threatened and she might abandon them."

Samuel shrugged. "Not an animal lover, Sir 'Ugo… except horses, of course."

"Doesn't he like dogs?" Chloe caressed Dante's massive head, pushing against her knee.

"Not indoors," Samuel informed her. "Gun dogs is fine, but their place is in the kennels."

"Dante sleeps with me," Chloe stated. "Even the Misses Trent accepted that. He howls all night otherwise."

Samuel shrugged again. "I'd best get back to me kitchen. Sir 'Ugo'll be wantin his breakfast when he wakes."

"Don't you have a cook?" Chloe followed him out of the hall, down a long corridor to the kitchen at the rear of the house.

"Who needs one? Wi' just the two of us?"

Chloe looked around the room with its huge fireplace and spit, the massive table, the array of copper pots. "Only you and Sir Hugo live in this house?" It seemed very odd, but one could become used to anything.

"Tha's right." Samuel broke eggs into a bowl.

"Oh." Chloe frowned, nibbling her lip. "Well, perhaps you could direct me to my bedchamber. I could move some of my things out of the hall, then."

Samuel paused in his beating of the eggs and gave her a searching look. "You reckon on stayin?"

"Of course," Chloe said with an assumption of confidence. "I have nowhere else to go."

Samuel grunted. "There's sixteen bedrooms. Take your pick."

"Sixteen!"

He nodded and dropped a pinch of salt into the eggs.

Chloe stood uncertainly for a minute, but when it seemed that the man had nothing further to say, she left the kitchen. The events in her life so far had not encouraged her to expect warm welcomes or particularly friendly exchanges, so she was not unduly troubled by the oddities of her present situation. She was a pragmatic soul and accepted that now, as always, it was up to her to make the best of things and improve on them as and how she could. Anything… anything… was an improvement on the Trent Seminary for Young Ladies in Bolton, where she'd been immured for the past ten years.

The most important thing was to ensure she was not returned there. To that end, she went in search of the library, where Samuel had suggested her credentials might be found.

The library was as unkempt and dusty as the rest of the house. Dante went snuffling into the corners, his tail wagging furiously as he dug and scrabbled at the skirting board. Mice, presumably, Chloe decided, approaching a table where lay a pile of letters. It was dark in the room despite the brilliance of the morning. The daylight was filtered through grimy diamond-paned windows, and the massive oak beams and dark, paneled walls added to the gloom. She looked for flint and tinder to light one of the tallow candles on the table but couldn't find any, so she picked up the pile of papers and took them to the window.

What kind of a man wouldn't open his letters? Some of these were six months old, she realized, shuffling through them. Perhaps he read his mail only on New Year's Day, or maybe that's when he threw away the previous year's unread.

She found an envelope that bore the seal of the Manchester lawyers who had written to her and told her of the conditions of her mother's will-the conditions that had brought her here. She tucked the letter into her pocket and continued to sift through the remainder. She recognized the thin, spidery writing of Miss Anne Trent, and abstracted this envelope also. She had a fair idea of the contents. They would not be flattering and she'd decide later whether or not to pass on this document to her new guardian.

With the letters in her pocket she set off to explore the remainder of the house. Dante reluctantly left his mousing and followed her up the great carved staircase. A series of passages ran off the landing at the head of the stairs. The house was a rabbit warren of gloomy corridors, faded tapestries hanging on the paneled walls, piles of dust in the corners, and a closed-in musty smell that Chloe was convinced was mice. Judging by Dante's eager lunges and scampering pursuits, the dog also thought so.

She opened doors onto deserted bedrooms with heavy carved furniture and poster beds, the testers and canopies threadbare and in some cases torn and hanging from the frame. She couldn't imagine sleeping in any of them until she came upon a corner room with three windows and a big fireplace. The bed had dimity hangings, rather grubby and faded, certainly, but intact and much lighter and more pleasing than the tapestries and heavy brocades in the other rooms. An embroidered Elizabethan rug covered the dusty wooden floor. The views from the three windows were lovely-across the moor from one side and over the valley on the other.

She flung open the windows, letting light and air into the room. Dante flopped down in front of the empty hearth with an exaggerated sigh, giving his seal of approval to the choice. The first thing to do, Chloe decided, was to install the cat and her litter away from any further threat of the stables. If they weren't visible, the master of the house would perhaps forget about them. The parrot too.

It took fifteen minutes to put the parrot's cage on the broad windowsill and the hat box with cat and kittens into a cool, dark cupboard. Then Chloe left the room, firmly closing the door on Dante, who yelped frantically for a few minutes as she walked away.

At the end of another corridor she found double doors. The brass handles were not as tarnished as the others she'd noticed, and she had the sudden conviction that the room beyond was inhabited. It must be Sir Hugo's apartments. Inveterately curious, she didn't stop to consider but gently lifted the latch, pushing open the doors, praying they wouldn't squeak.

She stood on the threshold and absorbed the room in silence. It was the largest she'd seen, furnished as heavily as the others. The bed was enormous, the pillars carved with strange animallike shapes, the tester and hangings of gold-embroidered brocade. But it was all now shabby, a shadow of its former glory. The curtains around the bed had been left open and the sleeping man didn't stir as she took a tentative step into the room. The windows were open and she could hear someone whistling from the courtyard below. Presumably, there was a groom or stablehand even if there were no servants in the house.

She glanced at the bed again. Thick chestnut-brown hair flopped over a turned cheek on the pillow; one shoulder and arm were flung over the sheet across his body. Chloe stared, fascinated, at the bare, muscled flesh. The skin was deeply tanned, the hair on his arms sun-bleached. She had the impression of a powerful mass of body beneath the thin sheet. In the hall, she'd been aware of his height and breadth only peripherally, there'd been too many other things to deal with. But the man whose responsibility she would be for the next four years now struck her as a force of some magnitude, even lying inert in his sleep.

The force was a lodestone, drawing her into the room. She stepped closer to the bed. And then the world turned upside down.

One minute she was upright, the next spread-eagle across the bed, her face buried in the coverlet, one arm painfully caught up behind her back, the ridged muscles of his thighs hard beneath her stomach. Her legs flailed and her arm was jerked upward, bringing tears to her eyes. In reflex, she lay still, and the pressure was slightly relieved.

"You prying little sneak," the furious voice hissed above her. "What the hell do you think you're doing, poking and prying in my room? What were you looking for?" Another jerk on her arm punctuated the livid question, and she bit back a cry of pain.

"I wasn't looking for anything." She tried to turn her head out of the muffling confines of the bedding. "Please… you're hurting me." Again, there was a minute easing of the pressure. "I wasn't looking for anything," she repeated, tears of shock in her voice. "I was just looking-looking at, not for."

There was a short silence, during which her position remained the same. Hugo kept his grip on her wrist and became aware of the feel of her body across his thighs.

She was very light… as her mother had been. Sorrow flashed, short but bitter, across his mind.

"An interesting distinction," he said after a minute. "And just what were you looking at?"

The delicate frame shifted against him and with an unpleasant start he realized her proximity was having an unlooked-for effect. He tightened his grip on her wrist. "Well?"

"Things… everything… the house… I wanted to explore, to learn where things are. And I found the letters from the lawyer and the Misses Trent." Too late, she remembered that she'd not made up her mind about the latter document. "I was going to give them to you… Please let me up."

"I hardly think they had to be given to me in my sleep," he observed, wondering why the artless explanation should have sounded so convincing. He released her wrist. "You may stand up."

She pushed backward and he was left without the slight weight, the scent of her hair and body. It was only as the delicate fragrance departed that he realized he'd been aware of it-rose petals and lavender, he thought, with just a hint of clover honey.

"Stand back and let me look at you."

Chloe did so, regarding him warily, massaging her aching arm. She was accustomed to cool greetings, but that had been a decidedly unpleasant experience.

Hugo hitched himself farther up the pillows, noticing absently that his headache had gone and he felt as well as he usually did once the hangover had been pushed aside… until the next morning-after. Glancing at the dock, he saw that he'd slept for an hour and a half. Hardly a long night, but it would have to do. He returned his attention to the girl, seeing her dearly for the first time, assessing where she resembled her mother.

He realized with a shock that Chloe Gresham was stunningly beautiful. He had always thought Elizabeth had been, and her daughter had all the elements of that beauty, but wherever Elizabeth's had been slightly marred, the daughter's was perfection. Elizabeth's mouth had been a fraction too small, her eyes perhaps a scrap too close together, her nose a little too long. Not the kind of flaws one would ordinarily notice, except when faced with perfection.

The girl's fair hair was scraped tightly back from her forehead, hanging in two thick plaits down her back. The effect was to dim the luster of her hair while throwing the planes and shadows of her face into harsh relief. Yet it did nothing to impair the overall impression of a stellar beauty.

Her body was clad in a dull, round gown of drab schoolgirlish brown sei^ge that squashed where it shouldn't and hung loose where it shouldn't. A cleverly designed costume, he thought, if the intention was to conceal womanhood. But still not clever enough to mask the dainty, fragile perfection of Chloe's small-boned, well-proportioned body. His own stirred again, and he tried to ignore it.

"Let down your hair."

The abrupt command startled her, but obediently she untied the ribbons of her braids and unplaited the thick ropes, combing her fingers through her hair as she did so.

The final effect was astonishing. Guinea-gold radiance tumbled thick and straight down her back, framed her face, setting off the brilliant blue of her eyes, the peach-bloom glow of her complexion.

"Dear God," he whispered to himself before remarking, "That is the most hideous gown."

"Oh, I know," she replied cheerfully. "And I have at least a dozen just like it. I think they're supposed to be bushels."

"What?"

"Or is it bushes?" she mused. "Anyway, it's in the Bible… thou shah not hide your light under them." Her eyebrows quirked. "Bushes would make better sense, wouldn't it?"

Hugo rubbed his temples, wondering if his headache was about to return. "I'm sure I'm being very obtuse, lass, but I'm afraid you've lost me."

"They're supposed to hide my light," she explained. "From the curate and Miss Trent's nephew and the butcher's boy."

"Ah," he said. "I begin to see." He leaned back against the pillows, regarding her through half-closed eyes. There would be few callow youths impervious to that radiance. A prudent guardian would certainly attempt to dim it in the wrong company.

Chloe continued to stand by the bed, returning his scrutiny with one of her own. The sheet had fallen to his waist and her fascinated eye fastened on a tiny design pricked into the deeply tanned skin above his heart. It looked like a coiled snake. She had never seen a man without his shirt before and made no attempt to hide her interest. There wasn't an ounce of spare flesh on his upper body, his neck was a powerful column supporting a leonine head with a jutting chin. The chestnut hair was long and flopped over a broad forehead. Tiny lines radiated from his vivid green eyes under bushy brown eyebrows. His mouth was full and generous in repose, but at the moment was tight, presumably reflecting his thoughts. They couldn't be very pleasant thoughts, Chloe decided uneasily.

She put her hand in her pocket and the letters crackled against her fingers. "Would you like to read the letter from the lawyers?" she asked hesitantly.

"I suppose I'd better," he said, sighing. "Where has your timid chaperone gone?"

"To London."

"Leaving you here." He stated the obvious with heavy resignation. Somehow, he would have to untangle this mess, and it would require a deal more energy than in general he cared to expend.

Lawyer Scranton's letter enclosed a copy of the will. Lady Elizabeth Gresham had left the sole guardianship of her daughter Chloe to Sir Hugo Lattimer. He was to assume the management of her fortune, estimated at some eighty thousand pounds, until she married.

Eighty thousand pounds. He whistled soundlessly. Stephen had married Elizabeth for her fortune, that had been no secret. Presumably, on his death it had reverted to her. Four years of marriage hadn't been long enough for him to run through it, and after his death the Greshams hadn't laid hands on it. That was very interesting-he would have laid any odds on Jasper's finagling his way into his young and vulnerable stepmother's affairs.

He frowned, remembering something the girl had said earlier, about not grieving for her mother. "What did you mean when you said you only saw your mother for a few days a year?"

"She didn't like to see people," she said. "I went to the Misses Trent when I was six. I'd go back at Christmas for a week. Mama never liked to leave her room." She chewed her lip. "I think she was ill. The doctor gave her something that she drank and it made her want to sleep. She often couldn't remember things… people… I don't know what it was."

Suddenly she turned aside, seeing her mother as she had been just before her death, in the room that smelled of strange and unpleasant things, where the windows were never opened and the fire kept burning throughout the hottest days of the year. A woman with thin white unkempt hair and faded eyes that sometimes carried a fearful wildness in them. She would swallow the doctor's medicine and the terror would fade, to be replaced by a blankness. She had never talked to her daughter. Oh, they had said things occasionally, exchanged odds and ends of information, but they had never really talked. They had never known each other.

Hugo looked at the girl's averted back, saw the stiffening of her shoulders, heard the note in the voice that had so far been determinedly bright and cheerful, and compassion stirred. "Why did she send you away so young?" he asked gently.

"I don't know." Chloe shrugged and turned back to the room. "Because she was ill, I expect. The seminary was rather like an orphanage. There were other girls there, whose parents were abroad, or dead." She shrugged again.

And where had Jasper been throughout all this? Had he made no attempt to involve himself in his baby half sister's future?

"What about your brother?"

"Jasper? Do you know him? I suppose you must, since you knew Mama." She frowned. "He never came to the dower house. I remember going up to the big house to play with Crispin, but that all stopped when I went to school. I haven't seen them for a long time. They weren't at Mama's funeral."

Jasper's stepson, Crispin, was four years older than Chloe, Hugo remembered. He could understand, after what Jasper and his father had done to Elizabeth, why she would strive to keep her daughter away from the Gresham family. But he still wondered how she had managed it. What power had Elizabeth, a broken recluse, discovered? Could he have helped her? If he hadn't accepted her edict, could he have weaned her from the laudanum dependency that had been fairly well established at Stephen's death? Stephen had used the opiate to control his wife, and Elizabeth's hold on reality had been tenuous at best.

The violent memories, the old questions, the eternal self-disgust, rose again, bitter and invincible. He closed his eyes, the smell of the crypt in his nostrils; a parade of disheveled women, wild-eyed with drink and excitement, crossed his internal vision. He felt again his own excitement, saw it again reflected in the eyes of his fellow players. It had been his life-this single-minded pursuit of the ultimate sensual pleasure. His life and that of the others, joined by blood and oath in a dissolute quest that destroyed all decency. Until Stephen Gresham and his son had entered a realm of pure evil…

Chloe, watching his face, instinctively stepped backward toward the door. His face was a mask of anger, carved and immobile. He opened his eyes and she shuddered at their expression. They were the haunted eyes of a man who looked into hell.

And then abruptly it was gone. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, then ran his hands through his hair, pushing it off his forehead. "So, why have you left the Misses Trent?"

"They didn't want me there anymore."

"Oh?" He raised his eyebrows in interrogation. She seemed to find the question uncomfortable, judging by her suddenly shifting feet.

Chloe dug the other letter out of her pocket. "It was all because of Miss Anne's nephew," she said. "On top of the curate. I don't think it was my fault, but they seemed to think I'd led them on." This last was pronounced in accents that he assumed were an imitation of the Miss Trent in question. "Although I don't know how they could think such a thing," she said, aggrieved. "Anyway, I expect it's all in here." She thrust the letter at him.

He was aware of her anxious scrutiny as he scanned the closely penned sheet. When he'd finished, he scrunched it up into a ball and tossed it toward the fireplace. "What a pretty picture. Reading between the lines of that poison, lass, one can only assume you're a Jezebel of the first water. A deceitful, designing, lying little flirt from whom no innocent young man is safe."

Chloe flushed. "That's so unfair. I couldn't help it if the curate made moon eyes at me and dropped his cake on the floor and forgot his sermon in church."

"No," Hugo agreed. "I'm sure you couldn't. However, again reading between the lines, I suspect the real mischief lies with Miss Anne's nephew."

Chloe's expression changed to one of deep disgust. "That smarmy toad," she declared. "His hands were always wet and he had these horrible loose lips, and he tried to kiss me, as if I were a kitchen maid. He wanted to marry me! Can you imagine?"

"Quite easily," Hugo murmured. "And how did Miss Anne view his suit." "She favored it," Chloe declared. Hardly surprising, Hugo thought. What aunt wouldn't want a fortune of eighty thousand pounds for her nephew?

"But when I told her what I thought of Mr. Cedric Trent," Chloe continued, "she… well… she was horrid. Then she and Miss Emily said I was a bad influence on the other girls and they really couldnlt keep me any longer, although, of course, they were very sorry to send me away, as I'd only just been made an orphan, but I had to go for the good of the seminary. So they wrote to you, and since Miss Anstey was traveling in a post-chaise that Lady Colshot had paid for, it seemed convenient that she should bring me on her way to London." "I see." Poor brat. It was a story that revealed much more than the girl realized-a dark stretch of a lonely and unloved existence. Would it have been different if her father had not died in that crypt…?

He thrust the thought from him and flung off the sheet, swinging his legs to the floor with an unusual surge of energy.

The girl's eyes widened; with a violent oath, he grabbed the sheet again. "Get out!"

Chloe fled.

Hauling the sheet around his waist, Hugo strode out of the room, bellowing for Samuel, who appeared at the end of the corridor.

"Get that idiot Scranton out here. Send the boy with the message. I want him here by dinnertime."

"Right you are, Sir 'Ugo." Samuel, imperturbable, disappeared.

Hugo stalked back to his room and flung on his clothes. The girl couldn't stay here-not even for a night. A bachelor household was a completely inappropriate environment, as that lunatic piece of carelessness had just demonstrated. However heedless of convention he might be, there were limits.