A Gentleman Of Substance. Deborah HaleЧитать онлайн книгу.
since he’d already indulged in an orgy of foolishness by riding out on so wild a night, he might as well purge it from his system. Something compelled him to kneel by Jeremy’s grave and ask, Brother, why did you desert me?
Cautiously, Drake picked his way through the old graveyard, following a winding route around the haphazardly arranged tombstones. So loud was the wind and so fiercely was he concentrating to avoid a fall, that he scarcely heard the sound of weeping until he was almost on top of the source. His leg brushed against a small figure huddled beside Jeremy’s grave.
What was a child doing loose in a graveyard, on such a night? If Drake had a weakness, it was for the lost and the helpless, anyone in need of his aid. Abandoning his plan to commune with his brother’s ghost, he hoisted the little stray into his arms and carefully wended his way back to the church. Finding the vestry door unlocked, he pushed it open with his shoulder. Only when he had settled into a pew and relinquished his burden, did he recognize Lucy Rushton.
“What the…? Miss Rushton, what are you doing here?”
Though admittedly not the most perceptive of men, where women were concerned, Drake could tell the girl was fighting to master turbulent emotions. Distractedly, she pushed the rain-soaked hair out of her eyes. The wetness made it look quite brown. Ordinarily, it curled in delicate tendrils around her face, a warm shade of dark honey.
“Forgive me, your lordship.” Her words sounded muffled, as though by a head cold, but the tone was icily formal. “I know you endow my father’s living, but I had no idea you counted the graveyard as your personal property. Excuse me for trespassing.”
For some reason, her haughty reply made Drake want to smile with admiration. She looked so forlorn-drenched and dripping, eyes and nose ruddy from crying, face pale and pinched. Yet there was a spark in Lucy Rushton that no amount of rain or misfortune could quench.
“You know very well I don’t own the graveyard.” Fishing in his pocket for a handkerchief, he handed it to her in a conciliatory gesture. After all, he had no more quarrel with her than she could reasonably have with him. “Even if I did, you’d be welcome to come and go as you pleased.”
Many a time, on rides about his estate, he’d come upon Lucy Rushton sitting under a tree or perched on a stile. An open book spread over her uptucked knees and a plump apple half-eaten in one hand. Engrossed in her reading or her daydreams, she seldom noticed him. Yet, from those brief encounters, he’d absorbed a measure of her contentment, going on his way in a strangely lightened mood.
Lucy scrubbed at her eyes, which only succeeded in making them redder. “Would I be welcome? I wasn’t welcome this afternoon when you buried Captain Strickland.”
She made a thorough job of blowing her nose. Loud and wet, it sounded intentionally rude.
“Not welcome?” Drake looked at her in frank astonishment. “What nonsense, I…”
“It was very badly done, barring everyone but family. Who were those people, anyway? That ridiculous creature with the garish waistcoat and quizzing glass. He didn’t appear the least bit grieved. I’d swear he was gloating.”
“Cousin Neville, the son of my father’s brother.” Drake didn’t try to deny Lucy’s opinion of his cousin.
“I recognized your grandmother, but who was the younger lady? I’ve never seen her at Silverthorne before.”
“Lady Phyllipa Strickland, widow of my cousin Clarence.” If asked, Drake could not have said why he answered her peremptory interrogation so readily.
“Oh.” His account of Phyllipa’s identity appeared to confound her for a moment. Her inexplicable indignation rapidly gathered strength again. “Those people may be Captain Strickland’s relatives. But I doubt if they knew him or cared for him as well as many of his old friends.…”
Her words trailed off as fresh tears sprang into her wide-set brown eyes. Drake reached out to take her hand, but she pushed him away. In the split second they were in contact, he could feel her trembling.
“You must be freezing. I’d offer you my coat, but I fear it would do little good, sodden as it is.”
“F-f-father…” She was shivering in earnest now, her teeth chattering rhythmically. “F-f-father keeps a s-s-spare surplice in the v-v-vestry.”
Rising from the pew, Drake strode down the side aisle to fetch the vicar’s spare surplice. He wrapped it around her as best he could.
“Believe me, Miss Rushton, it was never my intent to slight you. I only wanted to spare my tenants any obligation to attend the funeral. If you’d spoken to me beforehand, I would have welcomed you to join the family. Jeremy was very fond of you.”
In the perverse, puzzling manner of women, Lucy greeted his attempt at kindness with a fresh effusion of tears.
“Dash it all, what’s the matter now? You always struck me as a sensible person. I must say, I find your reaction to Jeremy’s death exaggerated quite out of proportion. Just because you didn’t get a front row seat for his funeral is no cause to go courting consumption by keeping a graveside vigil in the pouring rain.”
Bluster had no better effect than solicitude. Lucy Rushton bent her head practically into her lap, weeping in loud sobs that racked her delicate frame.
“There, there.” Drake patted her shoulder in an awkward gesture of sympathy. He was beginning to wish he’d stayed back at Silverthorne. “Don’t take on so. I’m sorry if I said anything to offend you.” He tried to recall what he’d said that might have caused this outburst. “You must stop. Otherwise you’ll make yourself ill.”
Then, as though she considered his warning an invitation, Lucy Rushton vomited all over the flagstone floor, the kneeling bench, and Drake’s Hessians. Fortunately for the boots, she had little on her stomach but broth.
Afterward, Drake wondered what had prompted his uncharacteristic flash of insight. Grasping Lucy Rushton by the shoulders, he looked her straight in the eye. “You’re carrying my brother’s child,” he said with complete conviction.
Her chin trembled, but she did not flinch from his look. With only the barest nod, she confirmed Drake’s preposterous charge. His hands slipped from her shoulders, limp with shock.
Lucy unwadded his handkerchief and daubed at the mess on the chapel floor. “Go ahead. Say what you’re thinking.
I’m a harlot—a wanton. I deserve everything that’s coming to me.”
Suddenly the stock around Drake’s throat felt very tight. He had a powerful urge to dig up Jeremy’s corpse so he could have the satisfaction of strangling his brother. Damn him! With his golden good looks and ingratiating manner, Jeremy’d always had more women than he knew what to do with. Drake hadn’t cared how much of his allowance the young fool spent on trinkets for actresses and barmaids. But to take advantage of an innocent like Lucy Rushton was utterly insupportable!
“Wanton?” His lips twitched involuntarily at using such a word to describe her. “Nonsense. My dear child, you could not behave in a wanton manner if you tried.”
He scarcely knew what to make of it when she flared up, “I am not a child! I am every day of twenty. I have been to Bath.”
Signifying what, exactly? Drake wondered. He opened his mouth to explain he’d meant no offense, quite the contrary.
She cut him off. “How do you know what I’m capable of? You know nothing about me. Just go away and leave me alone.”
“Perhaps I would rather stay and commiserate. It appears Jeremy’s death has put us both in a spot of bother.”
“Bother?” Sharp and shrill, the word echoed off the chapel’s stone walls. “Is that what you call it? When my condition becomes known, I will be a social outcast. My child will be farmed out to strangers or to the harsh mercy of a foundlings’ hospital. What bother of yours can compare with that?”
“Only