Desmond, even at his amiable best—which he was not this morning—was a formidable figure. All the same, Mr. Atkins was desperate. If he was obsessed, he was entitled to be, when his entire future was at stake, when ruin and desolation stared grinning into his face.
“Are you quite sure, Mr. Desmond,” he asked poignantly, “you have no idea who has got it? No suspicions?”
“If I had suspicions,” the Devil answered, “I would act upon them, don’t you think? If I suspected, for instance, that you would not accept the word of a gentleman, don’t you think I might be a little affronted?” He went on, still smiling, but with a warning in his voice that matched the warning in his glittering green eyes, “Yet as you see, I am perfectly at ease. I imagine no such slight to my honour. You are only concerned I may have experienced a momentary absence of mind—a failing, like physical enfeeblement, regrettably common among men of my advanced age.”
As he spoke, Mr. Desmond advanced upon his guest, who found himself backing towards the door.
“I appreciate your concern,” the Devil added, as Mr. Atkins collided with the door handle, “but I do hate to be fussed over, you know. Ungrateful creature that I am, it makes me irritable. I had much rather, Mr. Atkins, you ceased fussing.”
Mr. Atkins’s courage—no reliable quality in him anyhow—deserted him entirely as the towering dark figure closed in on him.
“In—indeed, sir, I understand per—perfectly,” he stammered. “Most annoying, I’m sure. Very sorry to have troubled you. Good day, sir.” He grasped the door handle, wrenched the door open, and stumbled into the hall and against a very large potted palm. The tree tottered and Mr. Atkins made a grab for it, dropping his hat in the process. The tree swayed back into place, its fronds quivering. Trembling likewise, Mr. Atkins turned to retrieve his hat and found Mr. Langdon standing in the way, frowning at him.
Mr. Langdon’s frown was attributable to the fact that his life had become a burden to him. From the moment last night when he’d caught Miss Desmond’s furtive glance at Lord Berne and heard the ensuing sigh, Mr. Langdon had seen the light. Or perhaps the darkness was more apt a metaphor, because what he saw threw gloom upon every facet of his existence.
It was Tony she sighed for, Tony she longed for, which ought to be perfectly agreeable, since Tony was sighing and longing for her and they were well matched in every way, from their physical beauty to their restless, passionate natures. Yet try as he might, Mr. Langdon could find no joy in contemplating this pair formed by nature for each other. He found so little joy in it that he wished he were dead.
Still, whatever he felt, he knew he had no business behaving so rudely to Mr. Atkins. Though he would like to knock the fellow down for continuing to plague the family, Jack had no right to do so. No one had appointed him guardian of the Desmonds’ peace.
Accordingly, he schooled his features into a thin semblance of politeness and—perhaps to make up for this poor show, retrieved the publisher’s hat and returned it to him with something like a pleasant greeting.
“Th-thank you, sir. Kind of you, I’m sure,” Mr. Atkins mumbled, turning the hat round and round in his hands. “So clumsy of me. Business, you know. So pressing.” He darted a frightened look at the sturdy door, then, with a stammered “Good day,” scurried away.
Mr. Langdon scarcely heard the farewell, being preoccupied once more with the matter of hands. How curious that so well-fed and well-groomed a City-bred fellow should have such ill-cared-for hands. Mr. Atkins’s fingernails had been ragged and grimy, the digits themselves red and blistered. This was odd in a man whose primary labour was the shifting about of pieces of paper and the consumption of vast quantities of ink.
The butler appeared, breaking in upon Mr. Langdon’s reflections.
“Her ladyship has just come in from the garden,” said Bantwell. “She says that if you will be so kind as to excuse her appearance, she will be pleased to meet with you in the drawing room.”
Mr. Langdon was duly led in and announced in unsteady tones by the red-eyed, but otherwise pale, butler.
Lady Potterby looked rather peevish and ill as well, an appearance she explained was the result of unwelcome news from her gardener. “He insists we are overrun with moles, Mr. Langdon, which is most distressing.”
“Moles?” Jack echoed blankly.
She nodded. “Jenkins tells me there are holes everywhere. He’s beside himself. The lavender half uprooted and the lilies a shambles and I don’t know what else. At least the worst of the damage was—” She caught herself up short as Mr. Langdon’s eyes widened. “Well, it is most tiresome, and I shall spare you the details.”
Mr. Langdon, upon whom an awful suspicion had just dawned, hurriedly dispatched his errand by returning Lady Potterby’s fan to her. He then asked after Miss Desmond.
Upon learning the young lady was sufficiently recovered from last night’s jollities to go riding, he expressed his satisfaction and made a hasty departure.
He had just broken into a run, preparatory to a mad dash back to the Rossing stables for his horse, when, turning the corner of the hedge, he narrowly missed colliding with Mr. Desmond.
“All this dashing about in the height of summer—it is a wonder you young people have not succumbed to heat prostration,” said the Devil. “Well, you are young.”
Mr. Langdon rather incoherently concurred with this observation.
“Since you are thirty years at least younger than myself, Mr. Langdon, I wish you would get my horse back for me, and save me some exertion.”
“I beg your pardon?” said Jack distractedly.
“That knave—Berne, I mean—has borrowed Apollyon and gone gallivanting with Delilah. I particularly wanted to ride today and I particularly want my own horse,” said Mr. Desmond in aggrieved tones. “Apollyon and I are accustomed to each other. We are quite intimate. I got him from Wemberton two days ago in trade for an ill-natured grey.”
“Indeed, sir,” said Jack, practically hopping with impatience.
“So will you not borrow a mount and get my horse back for me? Her ladyship’s stable is nearer to hand,” the Devil added, “and I am in rather a hurry.”
No horse can sustain a gallop forever, regardless how inconsiderate its rider. Miss Desmond was boiling mad, but she was not inconsiderate. Out of compassion for dumb beasts she was eventually compelled to slow her mount. She glared at Lord Berne when he rode up alongside her once more.
“Go away,” she said, panting. “Go to the devil.”
“I come to his daughter instead. Gad, but you ride well,” he said admiringly. “We must hunt together one day.”
“Are you deaf? You are not wanted. Go away.”
“You know I can’t. You are the woman I’ve been searching for my entire life.” His voice dropped to low, thrilling tones of urgency. “You must let me speak.”
“To insult me further?”
“There was no insult in what I said. Only you made it so. Still, it served my purpose.”
“Your what?”
“I wanted to be rid of the groom, which you did for me by becoming enraged and galloping away. Were you not aware he was too ill to follow?”
Miss Desmond glanced behind her and knew an instant of alarm. She was alone and unprotected in the company of a libertine who had deliberately manipulated her into this predicament. Nonetheless, she reminded herself, this was her great-aunt’s property. He would not dare misbehave. She willed herself to be calm as she turned to meet his gaze, and was taken aback by the piteous longing in his countenance.
“It was only because I could not speak what was in my heart while others were by,” he said tenderly. “I must speak because, despite your mistrust—oh, I admit you have reason—but despite that, despite my parents’ warnings, Hope persists. How can I help it, worshipping you as I do? I must hope... or die.”
In her short life, Delilah had heard enough sweet talk to fill all seven volumes of Clarissa. Since she had never, however, heard Lord Berne a
t his heart-stirring best, she might as well have spent her twenty years in a convent. His voice easily drowned out the one in the back of her head which was shrilly recommending she return to the house immediately.
He raised every objection she could have to him just as though he had direct access to her brain, then answered each objection as brilliantly as if he had been on trial for his life. It was not so much his rhetoric that held her, however, as the boyish innocence of his handsome face and the sincerity of his tones as he gave her to understand she was the most beautiful, brilliant, altogether admirable woman who had ever existed.
Upon Delilah, who had endured virtually unceasing disapproval in recent days, his idolatry fell like rain upon an arid field. Even had she been less vulnerable, she would have been hard put to resist the kind of heartfelt declarations which had so effectively crushed a considerably more objective Mr. Langdon only the day before. When it came to the game of love, Lord Berne was a tactical genius. Had Napoleon been a woman—though every bit as brilliant a commander—the viscount might have dispatched him in a week.
It was not so surprising, then, that even Miss Desmond’s skeptical heart was touched. Though she said little, her countenance must have spoken for her, because Lord Berne’s tones changed subtly from pleading to coaxing. In a remarkably short time he had persuaded her to dismount and walk with him, so that he might pick a nosegay of wildflowers for her.
They walked, and he picked the flowers, and looked so much like a schoolboy experiencing his first calf love that he made her laugh, which undermined her defences even more effectively than the rest.
“You don’t laugh nearly enough,” he said tenderly as he presented the posies to her. “If you were mine—”
He did not complete the sentence because, evidently, his heart was too full. Or perhaps his arms were too full, since they’d already encircled her. In the next instant, the bouquet fell neglected to the ground as he kissed her.
It began with a mere touch of his lips upon hers, light and teasing—but clearly skilled, because in seconds and virtually without her realising, the kiss grew deeper and more fervent, just as the light circle of his arms strengthened into a crushing embrace. He worked so subtly and quickly, in fact, that Delilah felt like one caught in a treacherous undertow which was tugging her gently but inexorably towards the open sea of destruction.
Just as it was dawning on her to disentangle herself, Lord Berne drew away and apologised. Then he promptly embraced her again, declaring himself helpless, lost, confused, bewitched, overcome.
He did not, however, declare himself in the more formal, accepted manner. This is to say, no hint was given concerning rings or parsons or a company of witnesses, and Delilah, though rather giddy, only teetered on the brink of being swept off her feet. Then she regained her balance and pushed him away.
His eyes glistening with tears, he begged her to take pity on him. He worshipped her. Just one more chaste kiss—that was all he wanted. He took both her hands and kissed the fingers, then the palms. Then he fell to his knees, still firmly clasping her hands, and—apparently too distracted to realise what he was doing—began pulling her down to him.
Though Delilah was not a fragile young miss, she was hardly a match for a six foot, twelve stone male in excellent physical condition. She tried to pull free, but his grip was relentless. He was deaf to her protests, being utterly absorbed in his all-consuming passion for her, and she had neither dagger nor pistol with which to restore him to full consciousness.
She would have to kick him in the usual place, she concluded—though, despite her apprehension, she rather wished she didn’t have to. Still, Papa had ordered her not to be seduced, and she most certainly had no intention of being ravished in a field, like some unfortunate dairy maid. She closed her eyes, steeled herself, and was just raising her foot from the ground when she heard what sounded like thunder.
She opened her eyes again and looked towards the sound. Lord Berne, surprised, looked too, and released her hands abruptly when he saw what it was.
Though his was not a violent nature, the spectacle which met his eyes as he rode across the meadow threw Mr. Langdon into a towering rage, and an impulse seized him to trample his childhood friend into a bloody pulp.
Fortunately, Jack’s better nature reasserted itself. Masking his fury, he coldly informed Lord Berne that Mr. Desmond’s horse was wanted.
“You’d better go at once,” said Jack, “because you’re wanted at Wemberton as well. A message came from your mother not an hour ago,” he lied, “and I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
Though Lord Berne’s mother was forever summoning him and he saw no greater urgency in this latest demand, he did suspect that withholding the Devil’s horse while simultaneously attempting to ravish his daughter was a tad excessive. Besides, with Jack by, there was nothing more to be accomplished with Miss Desmond at present. Quelling his frustration, Lord Berne consoled himself with one languishing glance at his beloved before taking his leave.
Jack now turned his own gaze to that dazzling object. “Where’s your groom?” he demanded.
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” Delilah answered with great nonchalance. “Probably several miles back, casting up his accounts. Not that it is any concern of yours, sir,” she added haughtily, though two spots of colour blazed in her cheeks.
“If you ride with Tony unescorted the matter will be everyone’s concern, Miss Desmond.”
“I am still unescorted, as you put it,” she returned. “If you have so much regard for petty gossip, you would be better employed finding Peters.” She marched towards her horse, which was tethered to a nearby bush.
Jack quickly dismounted and followed.
“Since I am obviously not a lady, I can mount without assistance,” she told him as he came up beside her.
Mr. Langdon lost his temper. “Damn it all!” he snapped. “I’m very sorry I interrupted your interlude, Miss Desmond, but I wish you’d save your righteous indignation for later. I only came because we have a problem. That is, you have a problem. Really, I don’t know why I’ve been galloping about Rossingley like a lunatic and telling lies to my friends when you’re so splendidly capable of managing your affairs.” So saying, and oblivious to her sputter of outrage, he flung her none too gently into her saddle.
A stunned Delilah gazed for a moment speechlessly down upon the unkempt brown head of this unexpectedly masterful Mr. Langdon.
“What problem?” she finally managed to gasp out.
“I saw Atkins just now,” said Jack, glaring at her right boot. “His hands were all blistered and dirty. Then your great aunt told me some nonsense about moles invading her garden. I think Atkins has got hold of the memoirs. I thought you’d wish to know. I should have told your father instead,” he grumbled. “He at least doesn’t use me as a whipping boy.”
He stomped back to his own beast and mounted.
Delilah drew up beside him. “Are you sure?” she asked, alarm quickly superseding all other emotions. “How could he possibly have found out? And why would he be at the house again if he’s already got them?”
“I don’t know. I know only what I saw and heard,” was the grudging response.
“Oh, please, don’t be angry with me now,” she begged. “I’m sorry I was nasty, but I was—” She hesitated.
“Was what?” he asked testily.
She bit her lip and dropped her eyes. “I was embarrassed.”
Her frankness was disarming and Jack was, in spite of himself, disarmed. She had only to appear the slightest bit repentant or troubled and his heart went out to her, in spite of his brain’s warnings that she was a consummate actress. Really, it was no good his brain telling him anything, because he just wouldn’t listen.
Suppressing a sigh, he told her he was not angry, only anxious. They had better hurry back to find out if they could whether his suspicions were founded in fact.
With a nod, Miss Desmond urged her horse on, and the two hast
ened back to the house.
“Oh, Lord,” Delilah cried as they arrived, panting, at the book’s grave site. The flower bed looked as though it had been bombarded with cannon.
“If he did find it,” said Jack, “it was obviously not on the first attempt. And one cannot tell from this whether he did dig in the right place.”
“Well, I’m going to find out,” said Delilah. She started moving down the path towards the potting shed, but Jack stopped her.
The gardener, he told her, was already beside himself. Jenkins would not remain quietly elsewhere if anyone set foot in his domain with a spade in hand. Furthermore, he’d be sure to inform Lady Potterby, and how did Miss Desmond propose to explain further outrages to the garden?
“I’ll make some excuse,” she answered impatiently.
“You have no more excuses. There’s no sign of the seedlings. They’re obviously destroyed.”
“So I’m to stand idly by, not knowing whether the manuscript is already on its way to print?” she cried.
“I wish you’d keep your voice down,” Jack warned. “Do strive for a little patience, Miss Desmond. I’ll come tonight and search. Tomorrow morning first thing I’ll report to you.”
“No, you will not. I can search tonight myself—”
“You most certainly cannot. A young woman—at night—all alone—digging in the garden? Are you mad? If Atkins failed last night he may try again— or he may send someone better adapted to such labour. You don’t know who you may run up against.”
Delilah glared at him. “What does that matter? I’ll bring my pistol.”
“This is no enterprise for a lady.”
“Since I’m obviously not—”
“Miss Desmond, I just told you I’d see to it—and I’ll see to it my way. If you even think of leaving the house tonight I shall—” He paused briefly, then in steely tones went on, “I shall spank you.”
Delilah stared at him. As usual, his hair was untidy and his clothes had subsided into their customary matching state. At the moment, however, his face was that of a stranger. It was positively feudal. The eyes gazing down his long, aristocratic nose at her were as steely as his voice, and the set of his jaw was the very model of dictatorial obstinacy.