Vixen

Chapter 7

How, in the name of goodness, could three able-bodied idiots fail to lay hands on a seventeen-year-old chit'"

Jasper Gresham stared in disbelief at the three men huddled in the dawn chill of the stable yard at Gresham Hall.

"It weren't our fault, sir." Jethro Grant, the only man still standing upright, spoke now for his wounded companions. "It was that dog from 'ell, bit Jake clean through 'is arm; and we wasn't expectin' no man with a knife on the road neither." A truculent note entered his voice. "You didn't say as 'ow there'd be any guards on 'er, Sir Jasper. Ned's got a demmed great 'ole in 'is shoulder… beggin' your pardon, sir."

Jasper's eyes, unreadable, untouchable, slithered over the man facing him and Jethro shivered, cleared his throat, and his shoulders slumped a little.

"And whose knife did this mighty assailant use?" Jasper demanded quietly. "Don't make excuses for your incompetence. It was a simple enough task, and you botched it." He turned on his heel.

Jethro looked in panic at his wounded companions, then spoke up again, a slight shrillness to his voice. "Sir Jasper… sir, what about our purse? A guinea apiece, you promised."

Jasper spun around and Jethro shrank as the blank, shallow eyes seemed to flay him. "I pay for work done, not for the incompetence of a trio of fools. Get off my land."

"But sir… sir… Ned can't work with that hole in 'is shoulder, and there's kiddies to feed… six of 'em, sir, and another on the way."

"Get off my land, the lot of you, before I set the dogs on you!"

"Oh, Jasper, is that quite fair?" The hesitant question came from a woman wrapped in a shawl, standing to one side of the stableyard.

"Are you questioning my judgment, madam?"

Louise Gresham's rare moment of courage died as her husband looked through her. "No… no, of course not, sir. I wouldn't do such a thing… it was only-" She fell silent.

"Only what, my dear?"

She shook her head abjectly. "Nothing… nothing at all."

"You will catch cold out here, my dear. I'm sure you must have business to attend to in the house." His voice was silky but the command was no less clear. Louise scuttled out of the yard, averting her eyes from the three men she had tried to champion.

"Crispin, see them off the premises."

"Certainly, sir." As his stepfather walked away, Crispin pushed himself away from the wall against which he'd been lounging. He strolled into the tack room and returned, carrying a heavy whip. His eyes gleamed with amusement as the three would-be kidnappers stumbled in terror toward the gate out of the yard. He pursued them lazily, cracking the whip at their heels until they had reached the end of the long drive and stood beyond the gateposts.

"Good day, gentlemen," he said with a mocking bow, then retraced his steps, absently kicking the gravel over the blood so untidily shed by the wounded men.

His mother appeared out of the shadows as he entered the house. She thrust a handful of coins at him and spoke in a scared whisper. "Crispin, you must give this to those men. Ned's wife is about to have another baby, and if he can't work, there'll be no food…"

"Don't be so soft, Mother." Crispin glanced at the small pile of coins, guessing how long it had taken his mother to amass this pathetic sum from the pin money she managed to beg from her husband when in the direst necessity. He took her hand and dropped the coins into her palm. "If Sir Jasper discovers you're trying to meddle-"

"Crispin, you mustn't tell him!" Her hands flew to her worn cheeks and she looked in terror at her son.

Crispin shook his head with a dismissive contempt and stalked toward the breakfast parlor, where he would find his stepfather.

Louise stared after him and tried to remember her son in the days when he'd been a loving little boy… in the days before he'd come to regard his mother through the harsh, derisive eyes of his stepfather. And not just his mother, she thought, turning to go upstairs. And not just the women they took to the crypt. The whole female sex it seemed. Poor little Chloe. She'd been such a bright, lively child despite her mother's illness and neglect. How long would it take Jasper and Crispin to break her too?

It didn't occur to Louise for one minute that her husband and son would fail in their plans for Elizabeth's daughter. Jasper wasn't going to be put off by one setback.

"Dog's come back, then," Samuel observed, lifting a steaming kettle off the fire as Hugo entered the kitchen. The back door stood open, filling the room with the brilliant sunlight of mid-morning.

Hugo winced at the dazzle and ran his hands through his hair. "Where is he?"

"Miss took him outside for a walk." Samuel glanced shrewdly at his employer and added an extra spoonful of coffee to the jug before pouring boiling water on the grounds.

Hugo swore and strode to the door. "Hasn't she got a grain of common sense? Wandering all over the countryside after last night!"

"Don't suppose she's gone far." Samuel stirred the coffee. "Not in 'er nightgown and wi' no shoes." He poured a mug of the thick black aromatic liquid. "Anyways, what about last night?"

Hugo didn't immediately answer. He turned back to the room, demanding in exasperation, "You're not telling me she's gone outside again in her nightgown?"

"Dog was in a powerful 'urry," Samuel offered in explanation, pushing the mug across the table.

Hugo took it, cupping his hands around its warmth, inhaling deeply of its fragrance. It cleared his head. "Any strangers around here yesterday, while I was in Manchester?"

Samuel nodded. "A fellow wantin' casual work. 'E fixed the 'enhouse roof… did quite a decent job."

"Could he have taken the dog?"

Samuel's faded blue eyes sharpened with intelligence. "Reckon so, while young Billy was havin' 'is dinner."

Hugo told him the events of the night up to the moment when he'd thrown the bolt on the front door, his ward and the dog safely inside.

"Chloe's convinced they were after the dog, but I'm not so sure it's as simple as that," he concluded. He debated sharing with Samuel his suspicions of Jasper's involvement, but to do that he would have to reveal some of the hideous tangle of the past, and he couldn't face that.

"Until I can decide what's best to do, she'll have to be watched all the time… but don't make too much of it. I don't see any point alarming her unnecessarily."

Samuel's sharp eyes didn't waver. He heard much that was unspoken, but he was accustomed to Hugo's secrecy and knew better than to probe.

Hugo strode back to the door. As he looked impatiently out at the walled kitchen garden, an exuberant Dante came bounding from the orchard beyond, tail flying. Chloe followed the dog, the long skirts of the kitchen overcoat trailing in the grass.

At least she'd taken the point about wandering around in a skimpy nightgown. Hugo's eyes were riveted to her bare feet. They were the most beautiful feet, long and slender with high arches, straight pink toes, and lovely rosy heels. But then, one wouldn't expect perfection to be marred even by something as insignificant as feet. His head swam. Somehow he had to forget what had happened in his brandy-sodden trance. He had to compel Chloe to forget what had happened… or at least to put it behind her as an aberration stemming from the excitement and confusion of the night's events.

It would never happen again, and the greatest service he could do her now would be to kill in her whatever bud of passion awaited watering.

"In future, you are not to go outside without an escort," he snapped, standing aside as she came up to the door. "In fact, you're not to go farther than the courtyard without my permission. It's completely inappropriate for you to be roaming the countryside unescorted. You're not a milkmaid."

Whatever greeting she'd been intending died on her lips and she gazed up at him, such aching vulnerability in her eyes that his heart turned over. He continued with the same harshness. "And since that damn dog gets into trouble at the drop of a hat, you are to keep him with you at all times. If you can't control him, then he goes. Is it understood?"

Hurt and confusion stood out for a moment in her eyes, and then were abruptly replaced by a flash of defiant anger, and her firm, round chin tilted. "A puzzling volte-face, Sir Hugo, since only yesterday you were forbidding Dante the house. Or am I to be confined to the stable also?"

"If you continue in that vein, my child, you will discover I have a short way with insolence," he said with the softness that Chloe knew denoted danger.

"Dante will need exercise," she pointed out, standing her ground. "A two-year-old dog can't be kept indoors indefinitely."

"Samuel or Billy will take him for a decent walk once a day." Hugo turned away with a dismissive gesture that infuriated her as much as it hurt her.

"I also need more exercise than pacing around the courtyard," she fired back.

He swung back to her, his eyes narrowed. "I suggest you occupy yourself about the house, in that case. You've cast enough aspersions on its general state of cleanliness. I should imagine you'd be happy to kill two birds with one stone. I'm certain scrubbing and polishing will be sufficient exercise."

"I thought it wasn't a fit occupation for an heiress of eighty thousand pounds," she retorted, her voice shaking with fury. She had no idea why she was being targeted in this way any more than she understood why it had happened last night, but her spirit rebelled at the injustice and at this moment she couldn't imagine ever feeling anything more than dislike for her guardian.

"You may as well make yourself useful," he said, shrugging.

Blindly, Chloe picked up the nearest hard object, which turned out to be the breadboard, and hurled it, bread and all, across the kitchen.

Hugo ducked sideways, but the missile had been unaimed and crashed against the wall with a resounding crack. The loaf had departed in flight and fell to the floor under Dante's nose. He sniffed at it, a long tongue drooling.

Chloe sprang for the hall door and Dante, abandoning his unexpected prize, charged after her. The door slammed on their departure. Samuel bent to pick up the bread. He examined it critically. "Bit 'ard on the lass, weren't you?" He dusted the loaf off on his apron. "What's she gone an' done to get the rough edge o' your tongue?"

"Mind your own business, damn you!" Hugo flung down his coffee mug. "Just make sure she keeps that dog with her as protection, and keep an eye on her." He stalked out of the kitchen.

Samuel heard his feet on the cellar steps. He scratched his nose, frowning. In the past fourteen years he'd stood beside Hugo Lattimer under cannon fire and musket shot. He'd watched the twenty-year-old lad grow into the wisdom and maturity of a victorious commander. And he'd sat with him through the bouts of black depression over the brandy bottle during every shore leave. He'd never known what caused the blackness, although he sensed the deep self-directed anger that fueled it.

He'd accepted the moods phlegmatically, secure in the knowledge that as soon as they hauled anchor, his friend would become again the cheerful, quick-thinking, authoritative commander, secure, too, in the belief that no young man of Hugo's character and abilities could live forever under such a bitter curse of self-contempt. Something would happen to repair the breaches in his soul.

But with the return to Denholm Manor, the depressions had become more frequent and intense. Again Samuel was vouchsafed no explanation, but he guessed that it was the proximity to the past that triggered them -that and the lack of purpose in Hugo's present existence. And the brandy merely exacerbated the misery. Patiently, he'd sat it out, trusting that something would happen to put things right.

Then the girl arrived. She was a bright, lively young thing with a streak of independence and determination that would require firm handling. Samuel had hoped she'd be just the thing to take Sir Hugo's mind off his troubles.

Now Samuel was beginning to suspect that Miss Gresham had gone a lot further than that. Whether that was a good thing or not remained to be seen.

He heard Hugo's returning footsteps on the cellar stairs. They crossed the hall and the library door banged. Presumably he was shutting himself away for a long session with whatever he'd fetched up from the cellar. Samuel sighed. Clearly, at the moment the advent of Miss Gresham was not helpful.

Hugo opened the bottle and poured himself a drink. His head was beginning to ache and only more brandy would dull the pain. He walked to the window, staring out at the overgrown garden. A climbing rose much in need of pruning straggled across the window, tangling with a rampant honeysuckle, filling the room with their mingled scents. Chloe's special fragrance suddenly seemed to hang in the air, a tantalizing memory so vivid as to be almost real.

With a muttered oath he turned from the window and his eye fell on the couch where they had tangled with such sudden and all-consuming passion. The stain of her virgin blood glared at him in dark reproof.

Sweet Jesus! What if she'd conceived a child? How could he ever have permitted such a thing to happen? How could he ever have been so blind to the consequences of his drunken folly as to have taken not even the most elementary precaution against conceptioa'

There were things that could be done to avert such a consequence. But they were methods practiced by harlots and the Society women of his past-those who dallied without affection, who deceived lovers and husbands without a qualm as they bolted down the barren paths in search of something that would give pleasure or purpose to their lives.

To provide Chloe with such a means would put her in the same category as those women… would ally her with his haunting, bitter past. But what choice did he have?

He drained his glass and refilled it. He'd taken her maidenhead-the act of a cur. Would he now, having satisfied his rutting urge, run off like a cur in an alley, leaving her to bear the fruits of that urge?

He mentally lashed himself, choosing the most despicable images his fevered brain could create, and when he'd done with it, he went to the stables for his horse.

Chloe was in the kitchen with Samuel, eating breakfast with a remarkable lack of appetite, when the library door opened. She sat up, all attention, a look of hope and expectancy in her eyes. But with the slamming of the side door, her shoulders slumped and the light died out of her eyes.

"Don't mind 'im," Samuel said gruffly. "When he gets these moods on 'im, there's nowt anyone can do 'til it's over."

"But I don't know what I've done wrong," Chloe said, lethargically spearing a grilled mushroom. A light blush mantled her cheek. She could guess where the trouble lay, although not why, but she could hardly confide in this bluff sailor with his gold hoop earrings and rough tongue.

"Leave well alone," Samuel advised. "It's best not to go near 'im when the mood's on 'im."

"But I don't see why I should put up with it," Chloe stated, pushing her plate from her. "It's unjust that he should attack me without telling me why. It wasn't my fault Dante got loose, and I don't see how he could have expected me to ignore him when he was barking."

Samuel shrugged as if the subject had ceased to interest him. Hugo was keeping his own counsel on the subject of last night, and Samuel wasn't going to be drawn into anything. He'd keep an eye on the girl and a closed mouth, as he'd been instructed. "There's a pig's liver in the pantry for that cat of your'n."

Chloe managed a smile of thanks and wandered out to the courtyard. She sat on the upturned rain barrel in the corner, lifting her face to the sun. Dante flopped down at her feet with a breathy sigh.

The sun was warm on her closed eyelids and a soft red glow soothed her eyes as Chloe tried to puzzle her way through her hurt confusion. She had enjoyed what had happened in the library with a pleasure uncomplicated by regret or guilt. She was well aware that society's rules decreed that lovemaking should be confined to the conjugal bed, but in her experience, such rules had no meaning when applied to the reality of her life. This seemed just such an instance. She wasn't injured in any way by what had happened, quite the opposite. She felt opened to the world for the first time, as if she had crossed the threshold that separated the dreary confines of her girlhood from the vibrant, exciting realm of adult experiences.

But what had Hugo found so disturbing about it? Even in her inexperience, it had been obvious that his bodily pleasure had matched her own. Knowing this had augmented her own pleasure, released her from inhibition, allowed her to give herself without reserve or fear of embarrassment.

But he'd turned on her afterward with a bitterness that had tarnished the purity of her pleasure. Mortified, she had fled the library and had lain awake, wondering why he should have unloosed such a flood of contempt. And this morning he had spoken to her with the harsh authority of the severest guardian…

Ah! Chloe's eyes shot open as she began to see a path through the maze. Just because she didn't feel guilty didn't mean that Hugo didn't. He was her guardian and he probably had some antiquated notion about the way guardians should behave toward their wards. He'd certainly become quite prune-faced at her suggestion that they dip into her fortune to benefit both of them. Perhaps he didn't yet understand that Chloe had her own plans for her future and wasn't inclined to sit passively while things happened to her. She had made last night happen much more than Hugo had. She was responsible. How absurd for him to blame himself.

Suddenly much more cheerful, Chloe slipped off the rain barrel and went to the stables to check on Rosi-nante. The nag looked as sorry as ever, notwithstanding warm bran mash and a bale of fresh hay.

"A bullet'd be the kindest thing, I reckon," Billy opined, shaking his head.

"Maybe," Chloe said. "If he doesn't improve in a few days, I'll ask Sir Hugo to put him out of his misery." She ran her hand over the painfully thin rib cage, and her mouth tightened. "I know whom I'd like to put a bullet through!" Then she looked up at Billy, asking casually, "By the way, do you know where Sir Hugo went?" Billy shook his head. "Just wanted 'is 'orse saddling." "Did he say how long he'd be?"

Again Billy shook his hand. "Nah. No reason why 'e should. None o' my business."

"I suppose not." Chloe left the stable deep in thought. It seemed it was up to her to put matters right. She must simply reassure Hugo and persuade him that they had done nothing wrong. In fact, maybe the best way to do that would be to make it happen again.

She gave a little skip on the mired cobblestones at the thought. She suspected that there was much more to the business of lovemaking than last night had vouchsafed, and the prospect of further experiments sent little prickles of anticipation coursing up her spine.

In her bedroom she examined the gowns from Madame Letty hanging in the armoire. It hadn't occurred to her to dress in anything but the brown serge that morning-it had been a rather brown serge kind of morning -but sunlight seemed to be running in her veins again as she planned her campaign, and the crisp, dainty muslins looked most appealing… not as dramatic as peacock-blue taffeta, of course. But there was no point dwelling on battles already lost.

She tossed aside the brown serge and slipped the sprigged muslin with the cornflower-blue ribbons over her head, twisting to fasten the hooks at the back before tying the sash. There was no mirror in the room, but she remembered seeing a swing mirror on a dressing table in one of the other bedrooms. She went off to find it in a dark and gloomy chamber smelling of mice, where the dust lay thick on the oak floor and faded velvet curtains blocked the light from the mullioned windows.

She pulled back the curtains to let in the light. She tried to lift the mirror from the dressing table, intending to carry it back to her own room, but it was far too heavy with its mahogany frame. So she had to examine herself in parts, standing on a low stool to see herself from the waist down.

The clumsy half boots that went with brown serge looked ridiculous with the pale filmy muslin, but there'd been no time yesterday to visit a shoemaker. Chloe kicked off her shoes, pulled off her stockings, and wriggled her toes in the mirror. The barefoot effect was rather alluring, she decided, like a milkmaid or shepherdess. It was to be hoped her guardian found pastoral images enticing.

She peered at her face in the dust-coated mirror, licking her finger and stroking her eyebrows into a tidy curve, experimenting with her hair, drawing it first into a knot on top of her head, then pulling it away from her face, held at the nape of her neck. In the end she decided it looked more pastoral tumbling unconfined over her shoulders and went back to her own room to brush it until the guinea-gold radiance rippled and shone.

Falstaff watched with his head cocked and one beady eye fixed on the rhythmic sweep of the brush, maintaining a soft stream of obscenities throughout. Beatrice abandoned her sleeping litter for.a few moments and stretched herself in the sunlight on the windowsill, warming her flanks. Dante looked expectant, his feathery tail thumping the floor periodically.

"I wonder what you'll all think of London," Chloe remarked absently, threading a cornflower-blue ribbon through her hair. "We won't be able to go until you've weaned the kittens, Beatrice." A feline ear pricked. Dante sighed heavily and flopped to the floor, clearly deciding that nothing noteworthy was about to happen. "But then, I expect it'll take that long to persuade Sir Hugo to agree and to make all the necessary arrangements," she mused, sitting on the window seat, careful not to crease her dress.

It was an hour before the lone horseman appeared on the driveway. Chloe sprang to her feet, closed the door firmly on a disconsolate Dante, and ran to the head of the stairs, from where she looked down into the great hall.

Hugo strode up the steps and into the house, his face set, lines of fatigue etched deep around his mouth and eyes. His red-rimmed eyes were lightless, like dull green stones in a face drawn beneath the sun's bronzing.

He threw his crop onto the table and ran his hands through his hair, massaging his temples with his thumbs in a gesture that Chloe was beginning to find familiar. It spoke of such utter weariness that she longed to comfort him, to find some way to bring him peace. What must it be like never to sleep?

Hugo glanced up suddenly to where she was standing stock-still at the head of the stairs. "Come down to the library," he said in a flat voice.

Chloe's optimistic assurance faltered at his tone. She hesitated, one bare foot raised to take the first stair. "Now/"

She gasped and ran down the stairs as if there were a whip at her back, but he'd already turned toward the door leading to the kitchen.

"Wait in the library," he instructed her curtly, and went through the door.

Chloe obeyed slowly, all her earlier confidence evaporated. He hadn't seemed to look at her properly, let alone notice her appearance. She stood in the library door, looking around the room where so much had happened. It seemed as gloomy and unfriendly now as it had the first time she'd entered it in search of Lawyer Scranton's letter.

Her feet led her to the couch, and she gazed at the rumpled cushions, at the rusty smudge on the shabby velvet. She'd been bleeding a little when she'd reached her own room, but in the shock of Hugo's violent rejection on the heels of euphoria she'd paid no attention beyond a superficial mopping up before crawling into

bed. She bent to touch the dark mark of her body, trying to reconnect with the joyous moment that had created it.

At this moment Hugo walked into the library, a glass in his hand. His stomach plummeted with renewed self-condemnation.

Chloe whirled toward him, her eyes wide with anxiety. "I was only… I was only…" she stammered, trying to find the words for what she had been thinking.

"I want you to drink this," he said, brushing the stammered attempt aside, refusing to see what lay in her eyes. He held out the glass.

Chloe took it and looked at the cloudy liquid it contained, her nose wrinkling at the powerful aromatic fumes. "What is it?"

"Drink it," he said.

"But… but what is it?" She gazed up at him in bewilderment. "Why won't you tell me?"

"It will ensure that there are no consequences from last night," he stated, his voice cool and even. "Drink it."

"What consequences? I don't understand." Her soft mouth quivered in a tentative smile of appeal, the blue eyes turning as purple as the heather on a Scottish moor. "Please, Hugo." Her hand drifted toward his arm, and he jerked away as if from a burning brand.

"Naive little fool!" he exclaimed. "I cannot believe you don't know what I'm talking about." He swung away from her to the brandy bottle and glass-ever-ready succor. He gulped down a shot and felt the warmth settling in his belly. The tremor in his hands steadied. He drew a deep breath and turned back to face her.

"A child. That is the consequence. You may have conceived a child. What's in that glass will ensure that it doesn't happen."

"Oh." Her expression became grave. "I should have thought. I didn't mean to be such a simpleton." She spoke clearly and distantly. Then she tilted the contents of the glass down her throat, closed her eyes against the unpleasant taste, and swallowed. "Does it work?" "Yes, it works." He walked to the window. His first time in the crypt, he'd learned about the potion. The woman had asked him for it in the dank drear light of dawn, when the hallucinatory euphoria of the night was fading and the spirit felt cold and dark. He hadn't known what she'd been talking about, and she'd laughed at his naivete, a harsh and unkind laughter that had lacerated his youthful dignity. She'd called to Stephen and laughed with him at her young lover's inexperience. But Stephen had not taunted him. He'd been sympathetic and understanding and had taken the youthful initiate to the cupboard where all the strange substances were kept. He'd explained how to mix the contraceptive herbs and a few days later took him to the charcoal burner's hut in the forest where the herbalist plied her trade.

Hugo had listened as Stephen and the old woman discussed what new supplies were needed. He watched as Stephen paid in gold for the leather pouches and the alabaster jars. And the next time the cupboard needed replenishing, Hugo ran the errand himself.

The herbalist still lived in the charcoal burner's hut. She'd recognized Hugo, even after fourteen years, and to his eyes she hadn't changed much, maybe a few more lines on the wizened face, and the gray-white hair was thinner and more unkempt. But her eyes were as sharp and her price as high.

Chloe put down the empty glass and stepped toward Hugo as he stood staring out of the window. She took a deep breath, then reached up and touched his face over his shoulder. "Hugo. I-" But she got no further.

He swung around, slapping her hand away with a violence that made her cry out. "Don't touch me!" he

snapped. "Don't ever touch me again, do you understand?"

She nursed her smarting hand and stared up at him in shocked silence.

He took her by the shoulders and shook her once. "Do you understand?"

"But why?" Chloe managed to say.

"Whyf'he exclaimed. "You ask why? After last night."

"But… but I enjoyed last night, it was lovely, I felt so wonderful. And if you feel guilty about it, you mustn't." She spoke with fervent urgency, her eyes burning with intensity. "There's no reason for you to feel bad about it. There's nothing to regret-"

"You presumptuous little girl!" he exclaimed. "You have the audacity to tell me what I should or should not regret! Now, you listen to me, and you listen very carefully." The bruising grip of his curled fingers on her shoulders made her wince, but she could no more move than she could tear her eyes away from the piercing green gaze that held her own.

"What took place last night occurred because I was drunk. If I'd been sober, it would never have happened. Do you think I'm mad enough to find a naive schoolgirl irresistible?" Another sharp shake punctuated the question.

"I did not know what I was doing." He enunciated the brutal words with a cold clarity. "And from now on you will stay out of my way unless I summon you. And I swear on my mother's grave that if you ever try your temptress tricks on me again, it will be the sorriest day of your life."

He released her shoulders abruptly, pushing her from him. "Now get out of here."

Chloe stumbled out of the library, too numb for tears. She didn't seem able to breathe; it was as if she'd been plunged into an icy lake, and she stood in the hall, fore-

ing the air into her lungs until the piercing pain under her ribs diminished. Then instinctively she moved toward the open door, questing the warmth and sunlight of the courtyard to caress her icy flesh and breathe life into her frozen spirit.