Page 15 of Dangerous Illusions (Dangerous #1)
His tone of voice and the hard look in his eyes told her that if he had been angry before, he was furious now.
Shooting a glance at Lady Ophelia and seeing from her expression of placid interest that there was not the least hope of rescue from that quarter, Daintry took a step backward, saying tensely, “If you dare to lay hands upon me again, sir, I will—”
“You will what?” He had taken step for step, and he was much too near now for comfort.
She could tell from the look of purpose in his eyes that he was going to grab her again, and no doubt he would shake her as he had done before.
She waited, lips parted, her breasts heaving with suppressed emotion.
Very close now, he said softly, “What will you do, my lady?”
She stared up at him. “I… I…”
The look in his golden hazel eyes was warm now, inviting. “Tell me,” he murmured, holding her gaze. “I want to know.”
Lady Ophelia cleared her throat, and they both stepped back as if they had been bitten. Daintry, seeing him flush, felt an answering warmth in her own cheeks, and looked quickly away.
Lady Ophelia said, “You know, Dev—Dash, just what is your proper title, young man? I’ve not the least notion what styling your brother took after that poor young cousin of yours died so unexpectedly and your father became Marquess of Jervaulx.”
“Deverill is sufficient, ma’am,” he said.
“My cousin being a posthumous child, there have been only heirs presumptive for years, and although I am told that my brother had applied for the heir apparent’s styling, which is Earl of Abreston, it had not yet been conferred.
There will be time enough to sort that out once I have learned my new duties, but in the meantime, as the new heir I’ve changed only from Lord Gideon to Lord Deverill. ”
She nodded with satisfaction. “I own, I am glad you are not out of reason puffed up by your new consequence, but I have been thinking, sir, and if you came here to tell us young Penthorpe had fallen in battle, surely that somber duty ought to have outweighed idle curiosity. What is more, I am rarely mistaken in my judgment of people, and my first impression of you was an unnaturally favorable one, considering your sex, so perhaps you had better confess your true reason for this pretense of yours.”
Flushing more deeply than ever, he straightened, ran his fingers through his thick hair, and said, “When I accepted your own suggestion, ma’am, as to why I’d behaved so reprehensibly, I did so out of base cowardice because I realized quite suddenly that I had no desire to reveal the truth.”
Instantly Daintry said, “So you are not only a plain and simple liar, sir, but a compulsive one. Can one ever believe what you say?”
His eyes flashed, and she saw with satisfaction that his tight control was slipping, but his voice was steady when he said, “I acted impulsively. I do not generally do so, but when your father declared that I must be Penthorpe, I had already decided—for reasons it would serve no purpose to reveal now—that I wished to become better acquainted with members of your family. Having no doubt that if I revealed my true identity, St. Merryn would instantly order my departure, I took advantage of his mistake in, as you have noted, the basest manner. If I regret having done so, it is because my action has served only to nourish the previous ill feeling between our families.”
Before Daintry could point out that his words scarcely constituted an apology, he added, “I do not share that ill feeling, by the way. Indeed, if you know the cause of the infamous feud, you know more than I do, for I have not the least notion what began it, nor do I care. Such a petty conflict pales in my mind by comparison to the bloodbath at Waterloo.”
For once in her life she could think of nothing to say.
No more than he did she know the cause of the discord between their two families.
She knew only that she had grown up hearing that Tarrants and Deverills were not and never would be on speaking terms, that Deverills were beneath contempt, that any contact with them was abhorrent.
Trying to remember how she had come to believe such things, she looked inquiringly at Lady Ophelia.
Deverill’s gaze followed hers, and Lady Ophelia, blinking owlishly back at them, said finally, “Dash it, do not look to me to explain it to you. I am sure I have never had the least idea what caused the feuding.”
Daintry said, “Then the feud dates back even farther than I had thought, Aunt. Is it a truly ancient one?”
“No, of course it is not, though Tarrants have resided in this part of Cornwall for generations. The Deverills …” She raised her eyebrows at Deverill.
“Deverill Court has been part of the family holdings for nearly five hundred years, ma’am, though to be sure, it has never been the primary seat for the Marquesses of Jervaulx.
I know that in my great-grandmother’s time, it was the dower house, where my grandfather grew up and where he continued to reside after his brother succeeded to the title.
My father was born in that house, as were my brother and I.
I believe the feud originated in my grandfather’s day, but if that is true, surely you would know …
that is to say—” He broke off, clearly trying to think of a tactful way to make his point.
“You are perfectly right,” Lady Ophelia said.
“Tom Deverill and Ned Tarrant were the best of friends as boys. They were almost exactly the same age, I believe, and both went off to Eton together as happy as grigs, and then on to Oxford, where they shared the same tutors. And both of them made dead sets for the same females when they went to London to learn to be gentlemen.”
“Then perhaps it was a female who caused the feud,” Daintry suggested. “That has been known to happen before.”
“Well, I do not think it can have been that,” Lady Ophelia said, looking self-conscious.
“You see, for the most part, they made wagers as to which could achieve success first with a chosen target. It was only a game to them, which I should know, for I was the first to whom they each dared to propose marriage.”
“But then—”
“Oh, no.” Lady Ophelia chuckled. “If you are seeing me as their bone of contention, it was no such thing, for although they each proposed, both knew that I had no intention of marrying any man. I believe they merely put the question to me in order to practice their courting methods, so to speak. Neither one could possibly have had serious intentions.”
Deverill protested. “But surely, ma’am, no gentleman would propose marriage to a lady without being entirely serious about it. Why, where would he be if she accepted?”
Dryly she said, “Gone to his banker, no doubt, to puff off his increased estate. I was a very great heiress, you know, for although my brother inherited the title and estates, Papa divided his extremely large private fortune equally between us.”
“But then, surely both men had excellent reason to pursue you, and each must have been sorry when you turned him down. Are you quite certain—”
“I voiced my opinions and intentions then as clearly as I do now, sir. There can have been no misunderstanding. Moreover, I can tell you that it would have upset your grandfather no end if I had accepted his offer, for he was one who believed, along with Mrs. Malaprop in that otherwise rather humorous play of Mr. Sheridan’s, that ‘thought does not become a young woman.’ Most men despise learned females, you know, and your grandfather was no exception.
According to Lord Thomas Deverill, an intelligent female was one who could sew, run a household properly, and produce healthy children.
Your grandmother was perfectly capable of all that.
I believe she produced six children for him. ”
Deverill laughed. “Seven, ma’am, although six of those were females, but surely—”
Tartly, Lady Ophelia said, “Well, Ned Tarrant had only St. Merryn, who now has only Charles to succeed him. And Charles and Davina, though they have been married eleven years, have only our dear Charlotte to their credit. Did you know, by the bye, that your grandmother was an aspiring authoress before she married?”
“Good God, no!” He sounded appalled.
“It is perfectly true, nonetheless. Tom did not approve, however, and so of course she gave up her ambition and devoted herself to pleasing him. Not that her sacrifice was any great loss to the literary world, for her only novel was an utterly unreadable romance—kittenish and cute, just like Harriet herself.”
“Aunt Ophelia, what a thing to say!”
“Well, I know it was, for she gave me the manuscript to read, and I waded through only the first thirty pages before I told her I could stomach no more. Maudlin stuff, all morals and sweet sentiment about a sadly wronged heroine with no backbone whatever, who tried to solve her problems by poking and prying into other people’s lives.
Utter twaddle. Why, my own journals are more worthy of publication than that was.
My point, however, is that Harriet ought to have been allowed to continue to write if it pleased her, and the fact that Tom utterly forbade it proves that he cannot truly have wished to marry me. ”
Deverill looked perplexed. “I collect that you were not then closely related to the Tarrant family, ma’am. How did that connection come about, if I may ask?”
“My brother’s daughter, Letitia, married Daintry’s papa,” Lady Ophelia said.
“And I can tell you, St. Merryn—Ned Tarrant, that is, not your papa, Daintry—behaved as if he had got a point more than Tom Deverill when she did. Ned always was looking to line his pockets, so I suppose that, having married a woman with an income of seven thousand a year, then managing to arrange for his son to marry into the Balterley family, he thought he’d won. ”