Page 6 of Dangerous Illusions (Dangerous #1)

“Yes, I will,” Daintry said. “It will be clear soon, just as it has been every afternoon this week, and we can ride toward the sea if you like.”

“May we go down onto the shingle?” Charley asked. “Melissa says she will not be frightened to do so if we are with her, and she wants to ride right into the biggest smugglers’ cave.”

Daintry looked at the smaller girl. “Is that right, darling? You were quite frightened when we rode down before.”

“The waves were too loud then,” Melissa murmured. “My mare didn’t like them, and her fidgets made me nervous, but Charley has promised she will not let her bolt with me.”

“Tender Lady?” Charley’s eyes lit with affectionate laughter. “I could stop any horse in Grandpapa’s stable from bolting with you, as you must know by now, but that old cow wouldn’t bolt if we put nettles under her saddle.”

Susan said, “What a dreadful thing to suggest!”

“Well, it is not as if I would do it,” Charley replied indignantly. “I meant only that Tender Lady is a complete slug.”

Lady St. Merryn said feebly, “Oh, do go away, child. Take her away, Ethelinda. I do not know why you allow her to speak so loudly. I tell you, she makes my head ache quite dreadfully.”

Daintry shot a quelling look at Charley, who looked mutinous but shut her mouth obediently and motioned to Melissa. The two little girls followed Miss Davies from the room.

“I do wish,” Lady St. Merryn said plaintively, “that Charles and Davina would come home and take that child in hand.”

Susan said lightly, “There are two children, Mama.”

Lady Ophelia said, “And do you pretend not to know which one your mother wants taken in hand? It is fortunate that neither Charles nor Davina is so foolish as to believe Charlotte’s spirit ought to be stifled or her curiosity bridled, for in all candor, I find her much easier to deal with than Melissa.

Too quiet by half, that child of yours is, Susan. ”

“Melissa is admirably well-behaved,” Lady St. Merryn said, reaching for her salts again, “but because she acts as she should, you find fault with her, Aunt. You are very hard.”

“If you ask me,” Susan said stiffly, “neither Charles nor Davina takes enough interest in Charley. They are far too busy being members of the beau monde, flitting off to London for the Season and to Brighton for the Regent’s birthday.

Next there will be shooting parties and house parties, then hunting in the shires after Christmas.

Then London again. If they pause long enough to hire a new governess, I shall own myself amazed. ”

“Pooh,” Lady Ophelia said, “you enjoy London yourself, my dear, certainly more than I do and more than you would if you had the trouble I have trying to sleep there! Moreover, you’d have gone on to Brighton in a twinkling if you hadn’t been laid low by a feverish cold.

I will say, though, that I do not suppose anyone could ever accuse you of neglecting your child.

Your deep feelings for Melissa are clear to anyone who knows you. ”

Susan blushed, and Lady St. Merryn said, “Most unfashionable is she not, to take such an interest in Melissa? Folks would have thought it most odd in me always to be fretting after my children. Not that I did, of course. St. Merryn would not have permitted it, even had my health allowed it. It simply was not the done thing. Of course, it would be better if Susan had two or three more. I cannot think why she has had only the one.”

Daintry had been watching her sister and thinking she looked much healthier than when she and Melissa had arrived at Tuscombe Park more than six weeks before.

Both had had colds then, and Susan’s had been particularly severe.

Now she looked her old self, if a trifle self-conscious as a result of Lady St. Merryn’s tactless remark.

Knowing Susan would dwell upon Sir Geoffrey’s disappointment that she had not yet given him a son if she were not diverted, Daintry patted her hand and said, “It is just like the old days, Susan. You do everything right the first time and thus need not try again. Melissa is an angel.”

Susan smiled. “She is, isn’t she? Geoffrey says that Charlotte—for I must remember not to call her Charley; he detests such boyish nicknames—that she is a bad influence on Melissa, but I told him that dearest Melissa is much more likely to be a good influence on Charlotte. Don’t you think so?”

Daintry nearly laughed aloud, but a certain look of anxiety in Susan’s eyes gave her pause and made her respond more diplomatically, “I suppose that if anyone can influence Charley, Melissa will. But Charley is a handful for anyone.”

Lady Ophelia said, “A limb of Satan, that’s what the child is, and much the better for it, if you ask me. A female needs a great deal of spunk to get on in this world.”

Susan said gently, “Manners will take her farther than spunk, ma’am. Geoffrey says she ought to have a sterner governess, and he said that even before Miss Pettibone left. He did not know she meant to go, of course, but he said—”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Lady Ophelia snapped, “spare us from hearing every word Seacourt has said these past ten years. Do you say nothing for yourself anymore, gel? I declare, for six weeks all we have heard is what Geoffrey says, and from all I can tell he never does say anything worth listening to!”

Flushing deeply, Susan bit her lip, looking suddenly very much like her daughter. “I-I’m sorry, Aunt Ophelia, I did not mean to offend you.”

Daintry said gently, “You have not offended her, Susan. You know you have not. It is only that she prefers to hear what people really think, not what they think they ought to think, or what other people think they ought—Oh, dear,” she said with a comical look, “what a tangle my tongue makes of my thoughts! I shall never learn to explain them clearly, but you do understand what I mean, do you not?”

“Oh, yes,” Susan said, sighing. “Your meaning is perfectly clear. It generally is, you know, even when you think you have got it garbled. I am the one who can never seem to make people understand what I mean. Perhaps that is why I so frequently quote others instead. I think, if you will all forgive me now, that I will go upstairs. Geoffrey and the others will be home soon, I believe, and I must begin to sort out Melissa’s and my things so that Rosemary can begin our packing.

” She got to her feet as she spoke and was gone from the room almost before anyone else understood that she was going.

When the door had shut behind her, Lady Ophelia said grimly, “Sorting clothes as though Rosemary were not a perfectly good maid! She will be darning stockings or fussing in the kitchen next. Susan is growing to be like you, Letty, all megrims and grievances. Thank heaven your daughters are different in their natures, or I should have become so dreadfully bored here that I must have set up my own household out of self-defense.”

Daintry laughed. “You would never have done such a thing, ma’am. Fancy how frustrating it would have been for you always to be wondering what sort of a fix we had got into without you here to put things right! And life here would have been very dull indeed,” she added with a teasing look.

The old lady smiled back at her, and Lady St. Merryn said testily, “Just you wait, Aunt Ophelia, until Daintry is finally married, and see if she don’t change like Susan did, and like I did myself, for that matter.

I am persuaded I was quite a lively girl before my come-out, but marriage is a sobering business, as you might not realize yourself, never having been asked. ”

Daintry looked swiftly back at her great-aunt, thinking the old lady would take offense; but, seeing that she was struggling to keep from smiling, Daintry relaxed.

Lady Ophelia said, “It was certainly not from lack of being asked, Letty, but if you are trying to tell me that I ought to have married, I simply cannot agree with you.”

Lady St. Merryn tossed her head like the pettish beauty she clearly once had been.

“I am sure I should not be so impertinent as to tell you what you ought to have done, ma’am, but to be telling married ladies how things ought to be when you have no experience of the married state is rather the outside of enough. ”

“One needn’t always experience something to understand that it would be bad for one,” Lady Ophelia said, “and having discovered quite early on in life that I had practically no respect whatsoever for men, it would have been unconscionable of me to pretend to submit both my mind and body to the direction of one of the creatures, do you not agree?”

“It would be most unbecoming in me to agree to any such thing,” Lady St. Merryn said, leaning back against her cushion.

She looked at Daintry. “You will find, my dear, that once you are Viscountess Penthorpe your ways will have to change, for no gentleman will tolerate for long having his opinions challenged by a female, and you are far too likely to do that very thing. Your father has told you, and I tell you now, that to go on as you have become accustomed will soon lead to your undoing.”

Daintry grimaced, thinking again as she had so frequently thought since the day her father had commanded her to cease her foolishness and agree to marry a man she had never met, that the road ahead was fraught with peril.

Certain that she was bound to say something she would regret if she remained in the room much longer, she said that she ought to send word to the stables to have horses saddled for herself and the little girls just as soon as the weather cleared.

Neither Lady Ophelia nor Lady St. Merryn made any objection, and when Daintry closed the door of the morning room behind her, she breathed a sigh of relief.

Deciding she might as well walk down to the stables herself rather than send a footman, she went to her bedchamber to collect her red-wool hooded cloak.

Flinging it around her shoulders and drawing on a pair of York tan gloves, she returned to the gallery and was approaching the right wing of the graceful, divided stairway that swooped down into the massive front hall, when her father came out of his library and the hall porter swung open the heavy front door to reveal a visitor, a tall, broad-shouldered gentleman in an elegant, many-caped gray driving cloak.

His gleaming Hessian boots seemed to belie the dampness outside as he stepped across the threshold onto the black-and-white marble floor and doffed his beaver hat, revealing a ruggedly handsome face and a head of thick auburn hair.

“Upon my word,” St. Merryn exclaimed, hurrying to greet him, “it’s Penthorpe, is it not?

By heaven, lad, I’d recognize you anywhere with that head of hair, though damme, it’s darkened a good bit since last I saw you.

“You can’t have been more than ten at the time, so that is not to be wondered at.

Come in, come in. You are Penthorpe, are you not?

Confess it, man. You’ve come at last to claim my daughter, and not before time, I can tell you! ”

The gentleman reached for the clasp at the top of his cloak, lifting his chin as he did so, and his gaze met Daintry’s.

She saw that his eyes were sunk deep beneath dark brows, his nose was straight, and his cheekbones and square jaw were rather pronounced.

So that was Penthorpe. She thought him handsome but very large.

His lips had parted, revealing even white teeth, and he had seemed about to speak, but after gazing at her for a long moment, he closed his mouth.

Then, visibly collecting himself, he said in a pleasant, deep voice, “Aye, sir, I’m Penthorpe. ”