Текст книги "Until You"

Автор книги: Judith McNaught

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Текущая страница: 23 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

"Guitar," Sherry provided lamely.

When she left, Sherry looked at her lap. Not for one minute did she believe that nonsensical notion of Lady Skeffington's that Stephen Westmoreland had glimpsed Julianna in the park and gone to all this trouble to bring her to him. Julianna was undeniably appealing to look at, but her special qualities only became apparent in conversation, which Stephen had not had with her yet. Furthermore, according to the gossip she'd heard the one time she'd visited Almack's, he had women at his beck and call wherever he turned, ready to make complete cakes of themselves over him. He did not need to bother with an elaborate ploy like a house party.

No, that wasn't why the Skeffington family-and their governess-was being summoned to Claymore for a command appearance. The invitation had nothing to do with them at all, Sheridan thought as a hysterical laugh that was part dread and part helplessness welled up in her. The truth was that the Westmorelands-and probably a large group of their friends who'd also be at Claymore-had devised the most exquisite vengeance in the world to punish Sheridan Bromleigh for what they thought was her deceitful misuse of them: they were going to force her to return to their society, only not as an equal this time, but as the glorified servant she reallywas.

And the most painful part of it… the humiliating, agonizing part… was that she didn't have a choice in the world except to go there.

Sherry felt her chin tremble and angrily stood up. Her conscience was clear. Furthermore, there was no shame in her position. She had never aspired to be a countess.

Her conscience reminded her that wasn't entirely true. The truth was that she hadwanted to be Stephen Westmoreland's countess. And so this was to be her punishment for daring to dream, daring to reach above herself, Sherry realized, feeling furious at fate for doing this to her.

"I want to go home!" she said fiercely to the empty room. "There has to be some way to go home!" Only five weeks had passed since she'd written to Aunt Cornelia, explaining everything that had transpired since she boarded the Morning Star, and asking her aunt to send her money for passage home. The money would be coming, of that Sheridan was certain, but at best it would take a total of eight to ten weeks for her letter to cross the Atlantic and reach her aunt, and then for her aunt's response to reach her.

Even if the Atlantic seas stayed calm and the ships didn't tarry in any port between Portsmouth and Richmond, there was still three weeks left before she could hope to hear from her aunt. Three more weeks before the money for her passage home could possibly arrive. Three more weeks before the party at Claymore. If Fortune would smile down on her just one time since she set foot on English soil, then she might still be able to deprive the Westmorelands of their petty vengeance after all.

48

With so much time to prepare mentally for whatever unpleasantness the Westmorelands had planned for her at Claymore, Sheridan had almost convinced herself she was well-fortified against her fate. For weeks, she had reminded herself that she was completely innocent, and that goodness and righteousness were therefore on her side. To further insulate herself against heartbreak, she had firmly put an end to her ritual daydreams about Stephen.

As a result, she was able to endure the trip to Claymore with what she thought was stoic nonchalance. Instead of wondering how long it would be before she saw Stephen-or if she was going to see him-she concentrated on the cheerful chatter of the Skeffington boys, who were travelling with her in the third of the rented coaches that comprised the entourage. Rather than wondering what Stephen would do or say when he saw her, she insisted the children sing merry songs with her during the two-hour trip. In lieu of peering out the coach window for her first glimpse of the house, Sheridan steadfastly devoted all her thoughts, all her attention, to the boys' appearance while the Skeffington cavalcade proceeded along a winding, treelined drive and across a stone bridge that led up to the Duke of Claymore's country seat. She did not allow herself more than a passing, disinterested glance at the facade of the immense house with its double wings sweeping forward around a vast terraced entrance, nor allow herself to notice the balconies and mullioned windows that adorned its front.

Except for her treacherous heartbeat, which insisted on accelerating as she alighted from the coach, she was so well-fortified against feeling anything at all that she managed a polite, fixed smile at the servants who rushed from the house in maroon and gold Westmoreland livery to assist the new arrivals. Garbed in a plain dark blue bombazine gown, with her hair twisted into a severe coil at the nape, and her narrow white collar demurely buttoned at the throat, Sheridan looked exactly like the governess she was as she alighted from the coach. With her hands resting on the shoulders of the two boys, she proceeded up the flight of shallow steps, behind Sir John and Lady Skeffington and Julianna.

Her chin was high, but not aggressively so, and her shoulders were straight, but then she had nothing whatsoever to be ashamed of or to defend, not even her respectable, if menial, position as a governess. For the thousandth time in three weeks, she reminded herself very firmly that she had never knowingly deceived the Westmorelands or anyone else. The Earl of Langford had willfully and wrongfully deceived herabout being her fiance and about actually wanting to marry her. His family had gone along with it, therefore the responsibility and the guilt and the shame were theirs, not hers.

Unfortunately, Sheridan's hard-won poise took its first severe blow as soon as she shepherded her charges into the three-story skylit foyer, where more liveried servants were standing at attention, waiting to show the new arrivals to their rooms as soon as the under-butler had formally greeted them and indicated to which rooms each guest was to be shown. "Her grace thought you would enjoy the particularly fine view from the blue suite," he told Sir John and Lady Skeffington. "When you have had all the time you desire to refresh yourselves from your journey, she will be pleased to have you join her and the other guests in the drawing room." As he finished, a footman stepped forward from the front of the line to escort them to the blue suite.

"Miss Skeffington, the suite next to that has been readied for you." He turned to the boys as Julianna began her trip up the broad winding staircase accompanied by another footman.

"Young sirs," Hodgkin continued, "your rooms are on the third floor, where the playrooms are located. And your governess will, of course-" He turned to Sheridan, and even though she'd had time to brace herself for the moment when he saw and recognized her, she still wasn't prepared for the horror that flashed across Hodgkin's face as his pale eyes riveted on her features, slipped to her cheap gown, then snapped back to her face. "-will, of course-" he stammered, "be close at hand-in a room directly-across the hall."

Sheridan had a wild impulse to reach out and pat his parchment cheek, to tell him that it was all right that she was here as a governess, and that he shouldn't look as if he were going to cry. Instead, she managed a semblance of a smile. "Thank you very much-" she said and softly added, "Hodgkin."

Her room was small in comparison to the boys' and simply furnished with a bed, a chair, and a small bureau with a washbowl and pitcher, but it was palatial compared to the attic room she occupied at the Skeffingtons'. Better yet, the house was so vast that if she stayed on the third floor, she could easily avoid all sight of the owner and his family. In an effort to keep busy, she washed her hands and face, unpacked her night garments, and went to check on the boys.

Two other governesses were installed at the end of the hall, and as Sherry ushered the boys into the playroom, they appeared there with their own charges, two little boys of perhaps four. After friendly introductions, those governesses insisted on involving the Skeffington children in a game with the little boys, and Sheridan found herself with the last thing she wanted: time on her hands.

Left out of the playful ruckus created by four boys, she wandered around the huge, sunny room, past a large table covered with an entire army of wooden soldiers, then she bent down to pick up two books that had fallen out of the shelves. She put them back, idly picked up an old sketchbook lying atop the bookcase, opened the cover… and felt her heart stop. Beneath a childish drawing of what appeared to be a horse grazing in a field-or drinking water from a lake-was a name, awkwardly and painstakingly inscribed: STEPHEN WESTMORELAND.

Sherry slapped the cover closed and swung around, but her carefully erected defenses took another hit-this time a broadside: a few feet away, framed upon a table beside a wooden rocking horse, was a painting of a little boy with his arm slung round the horse's neck and a grin on his face. The painting had obviously been done by a talented amateur, and the smile on the dark-haired child's face was impish, rather than boldly caressing, but it was just as irresistible, and just as unmistakably Stephen's.

"I think I'll join the game," Sherry burst out, turning her back on the painting. "What are we playing?" she asked Thomas Skeffington, the seven-year-old, who was already on his way to being seriously overweight.

"We have too many players right now, Miss Bromleigh," Thomas said. "And the prize is a special sweet, so it wouldn't be right for you to win it because I want it."

"No, Ido!" the six-year-old whined.

Appalled by their manners, which had actually shown a slight sign of improvement under Sheridan's care, she sent an apologetic glance at the other two governesses, who answered with smiles of understanding sympathy. "You must be weary," one of the governesses said to her. "We both arrived yesterday and have the benefit of a night's sleep. Why don't you rest for a few minutes before the festivities begin, and we'll look after these gentlemen?"

Since it was already taking all her self-control to stop herself from opening the sketchbook again or studying the picture of the sturdy dark-haired boy with the heartbreakingly familiar smile, Sheridan took advantage of their offer and practically fled across the hall. Leaving the door open, she walked over to the chair near the bed and sat down while she fiercely concentrated on notthinking about the fact that this was the house where Stephen had grown up. However, three weeks of unabated anxiety and hard work, compounded by the events of the last half hour, had all combined to take their toll, and for the first time in weeks, Sheridan let herself daydream: closing her eyes, she fantasized that the invitation to the Skeffingtons had nothing to do with her, that she would be able to remain on the third floor, undiscovered for three days, and that Stephen Westmoreland was not going to be here.

Julianna's appearance a short time later not only removed all hope of any such possibilities but also made it obvious that Sheridan was due for more than just periodic humiliation. "Are you resting, or may I come in?" Julianna asked hesitantly, and Sheridan pulled herself from her prayerful fantasy.

"I'd enjoy the company," Sheridan said truthfully, and then because she couldn't choke back the words, she added, "Is the Earl of Langford here?"

"No, but he's expected momentarily, and Mama is up in the boughs with ridiculous notions about making a match between us. I don't know how I'll endure this weekend." Anger flared in her eyes. "Why does she dothis to me, Miss Bromleigh? Tell me why her greatest desire in life is to foist me off on the richest man with the biggest title, no matter how old or how ugly or how unpalatable I might find him! Tell me why she behaves like such a-a toadeaterwhen she's among anyone she regards as her social superior!" Sheridan's heart went out to her as she watched the seventeen-year-old struggle to keep her shame and anger under control. "You should have seenher in the drawing room a while ago with the Duchess of Claymore and her friends. Mama was so-so pushing-and so eagerto win their favor that it was horrid to watch."

Sheridan couldn't answer any of those questions without betraying her secret revulsion at the same attitudes Julianna found so abhorrent in her ambitious, cloying mama. "Sometimes," she said cautiously, "mothers simply desire a better life for their daughters than they themselves have had-"

Scornfully, Julianna retorted, "Mama doesn't care about mylife. My life would be happy if she would leave me to my writing! My life would be happy if she would stop trying to marry me off like I was a-"

"A beautiful princess?" Sheridan provided, and it was partially true. In Lady Skeffington's mind, Julianna's face and figure made her a precious asset to be bartered in return for a more elevated place in Society for the rest of the family, and her daughter was sensible enough to know it.

"I wish I were ugly!" Julianna exploded, and she obviously meant it. "I wish I were so ugly no man would look at me. Do you know what my life was like before you came to us? I have spent it all reading books. That's all the living I've ever done. I have never been allowed to go anywhere, because Mama has lived in daily fear that some scandal would attach itself to me and spoil my value on the marriage market! I wish it had happened," she said wrathfully. "I wish I were ruined, so I could take the little portion Grandmama left to me. I would live in a tiny place in London and have friends. I would go to the opera and the theatre and write my novel. Freedom," she said softly, wistfully. "Friends. You are my first friend, Miss Bromleigh. You are the first female anywhere close to my age that Mama has ever let me be near. She does not approve, you see, of the modern behavior of females my own age. She thinks they are fast, and if I were to socialize with them-"

Sheridan felt absolutely called upon to at least show she understood. "Then your reputation might suffer," she provided, "and you would be-"

"Ruined!" exclaimed Julianna, but she sounded positively jubilant about the prospect. Her eyes lit with the irrepressible humor and spirit Lady Skeffington was trying so hard to suffocate as she leaned forward and confided in a comic whisper, " Ruined. Rendered unmarriageable… Doesn't it sound divine?"

In Julianna's specific circumstances, it did sound like a permanent reprieve, but as Sheridan knew, Julianna had no real idea of the ramifications of such a thing. "No, it doesn't," she said firmly, but she smiled.

"Miss Bromleigh, do you believe in love? I mean, love between a man and a woman, of the sort one reads about in novels? I don't."

"I-" Sheridan hesitated, remembering the exhilaration she'd felt when Stephen walked into a room, the delight that came from talking with him or laughing with him. And she remembered most of all the odd sense of rightness she'd experienced when she believed he derived intense pleasure from kissing her. For a while, she had felt as if she were playing her part in the natural order of things. She had felt… complete… because she pleased him. Or because she stupidly thought she pleased him. Realizing that Julianna was suddenly watching her too closely, she said, "I used to believe in love."

"And?"

"And it can be very painful when it is one-sided," she confessed and then was astonished her guard had dropped so far, merely by allowing herself to think of a kiss.

"I see," Julianna said, her violet eyes too wise for her age, too knowing. She was, in Sheridan's opinion, a talented writer and extraordinarily observant.

"I don't think you do," Sheridan lied with a bright smile.

Julianna proved otherwise with blunt simplicity. "When you first came to stay with us, I sensed… a deep hurt in you. And courage, and determination. I won't ask you if it was unrequited love, though I feel certain it was, but may I ask you something else?"

It was on the tip of Sheridan's tongue to sternly point out the wrongness of prying into another person's life, but Julianna was so lonely, and so appealing, and so sympathetic, that she didn't have the heart to do it. "Only if what you ask is something that will not make me feel uncomfortable," Sheridan said instead.

"How do you manage to seem so serene?"

Sheridan felt anything but serene at the moment, and she attempted a joke, but her laugh was strained. "I'm a paragon, obviously. Courageous-determined. Now, talk to me about more important things. What are the plans for the weekend, do you know?"

Julianna reacted with an admiring smile when Sheridan adroitly switched the topic away from herself, but she complied by answering the question. "It's to be a weekend spent outdoors, including meals, which seems quite odd, I thought. In any case, the children and their governesses will be seated at tables next to us-I know that part because I went out onto the lawn for a stroll before I came up here and saw how everything is being set up." She had leaned down to remove a pebble from her slipper and so missed the look of dawning horror and hostility on Sheridan's face. "Oh, and you are to play the guitar and sing with the boys-"

Instead of being stricken, Sheridan was slowly standing up, propelled to her feet by a boiling wrath beyond anything she'd ever known. Based on what Julianna had said, it was obvious that the entire party had been deliberately organized in a way that would keep Sheridan constantly in view. The guests were limited to those couples whom Sheridan had known the best. They were also close friends of the Westmorelands, which meant they could be relied upon to relish humiliating Stephen's former-fiancee-turned-governess, but not to repeat anything they saw to the London gossips because that would embarrass the earl. She was not even going to be allowed to dine in peace. Far more infuriating, she was supposed to perform like a court jester for their amusement. "Those monsters!" she exploded, her voice hissing.

Julianna looked up as she put her slipper on. "The boys? They are across the hall."

"Not thosemonsters," Sheridan said unthinkingly. "The adult monsters! Did you say they were in the drawing room earlier?"

Oblivious to Julianna's open-mouthed stare, the woman she'd just praised for her serenity marched forward with a militant look in her eye that would have given Napoleon Bonaparte second thoughts. Sheridan knew she was going to lose her position over what she was about to do, but then the Skeffingtons would dismiss her anyway after this weekend. Lady Skeffington was ambitious and sly, and it wouldn't take her more than an hour to realize that her children's governess was an object of scorn, in addition to being the focal point of the occasion. Lady Skeffington was perfectly willing to sacrifice her only daughter in hopes of being included in the Westmorelands' social circle. She wouldn't hesitate one minute to send Sheridan packing if she sensed the Westmorelands had a low opinion of her.

None of that mattered to Sheridan as she marched down the long staircase. She would sooner starve than let these haughty British aristocrats torture her out of some sick, distorted need for vengeance.

49

Blind to everything but her intention, Sheridan located the drawing room with the help of a footman, and there she confronted yet another servant who was stationed in front of the drawing room's closed door.

"I wish to see the Duchess of Claymore at once," she informed him, fully expecting to be informed that was impossible-and fully prepared to force her way inside if necessary. "My name is Sheridan Bromleigh."

To her shock, the footman bowed at once and said, as he opened the door, "Her grace has been expecting you."

That announcement removed for Sheridan any question that this party might have been organized for some purpose other than to punish her. "I'll wager she has been!" Sheridan said scornfully. Feminine laughter stopped and conversations broke off the instant she swept into the immense room. Ignoring Victoria Seaton and Alexandra Townsende, Sherry walked past the dowager duchess and Miss Charity without a nod and confronted the Duchess of Claymore.

Her eyes blazing, she looked down her nose at the composed brunette she had once thought of as a sister, and her voice shook with the violence of her outrage. "Are you so poor of entertainment that torturing a servant titillates you?" she demanded scathingly, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. "How much amusement did you honestly expect me to provide for you, besides playing and singing? Did you hope I would dance for you as well? Why isn't Stephen here yet? He must be as eager as you to see it all begin." Her voice shook with wrath as she finished, "You have all wasted your time, because I am leaving! Do you understand? You have put the Skeffingtons to an expense they can ill afford and dragged them here with their hopes all built up, when all you wanted was vengeance on me! What sort of-of monstersare you, anyway? And don't you dareto pretend you haven't planned this entire weekend for the simple purpose of dragging me here!"

Whitney had expected this visit from Sheridan, but she hadn't expected it to begin with the angry aggression of a duel. Instead of gently explaining what she hoped to accomplish, as Whitney had intended to do, she entered the verbal swordplay with a thrust aimed straight at Sheridan Bromleigh's heart: "For some reason," she announced coolly, with a challenging lift of her brows, "I rather thought you might appreciate our efforts to bring you into Stephen's sphere."

"I have no desire to be in any such place," Sheridan fired back.

"Is that why you go to the opera every Thursday?"

"Anyone can go to the opera."

"You don't watch the performance. You watch Stephen."

Sheridan paled. "Does he know? Oh, please, do not say you've told him. Why would you be that cruel?"

"Why," Whitney said very, very carefully, sensing that she was a hair's breadth from finally hearing the truth about Sheridan's disappearance and that if she made one mistake, she wouldn't, "would it be a cruelty if he knew you went there to see him?"

" Doeshe know?" Sheridan countered stubbornly, and Whitney bit her lip to hide an admiring smile at the other woman's spirit. Sheridan Bromleigh might be a servant in a roomful of nobility, but she bowed to no one. On the other hand, her caution and spirit were creating a standoff. Whitney drew a breath, hating to resort to blackmail, but she did it anyway and without compunction. "He does not know, but he will know if you cannot make me understand why you go to the opera to look at him, after jilting him at the altar."

"You have no right to ask me that."

"I have every right."

"Who do you think you are?" Sheridan exploded. "The Queen of England?"

"I think I am the woman who appeared for your wedding. I think youare the woman who did not appear for it."

"For that, I would have expected you to thank me!"

"Thank you?" Whitney uttered, looking as stunned as she felt. "For what?"

"Why are you asking me all this! Why are we caviling over trifles?"

Whitney studied her manicure. "I do not consider my brother-in-law's heart and life a trifle. Perhaps that is where we differ?"

"I liked you much better when I didn't know who I was," Sheridan said in a voice so bewildered that it would have been comic in another context. She looked around the room as if she needed confirmation that the furnishings were firmly anchored to the floor and that the draperies hadn't become bed linens. "You didn't seem quite so… difficult and unreasonable. After Monsieur DuVille explained to me the day of the wedding why Stephen had suddenly decided to marry me, I did the only thing I possibly could. Poor Mr. Lancaster… dying without Charise there."

Mentally, Whitney consigned Nicki DuVille to perdition for his inadvertent part in this debacle, but she kept her mind focused on their plan.

"May I leave now?" Sheridan said stonily.

"Certainly," Whitney said as Victoria and Miss Charity looked at her in shock. "Miss Bromleigh," Whitney added as Sheridan reached for the door, but her voice was gentle now, "I believe my brother-in-law was in love with you."

"Don't tell me that!" Sherry exploded, her hand clenching the door handle, her back to them. "Don't do this to me. He never pretended to love me, never even bothered to lie about it when we discussed marriage."

"Perhaps he didn't acknowledge the feeling by name, even to himself, perhaps he still does not, but he has not been the same man since you left."

Sherry felt unbalanced by the explosion of hope and fear, of denial and joy, inside her brain. "Do not lie to me, for the love of God."

"Sherry?"

Sherry turned at the soft sound in her voice.

"On your wedding day, Stephen wouldn't believe you weren't coming back. Even after Miss Lancaster poured all her venom, he didn't believe her. He waited for you to come back and explain."

Sherry thought her heart would break and that was before the duchess added, "He kept the cleric there until late that night. He wouldn't let him leave. Does that sound like a man who didn't want you? Does that sound like a man who was only marrying you out of guilt and responsibility? Since he knew by then you weren't Charise Lancaster, why would he have felt any guilt or responsibility to you? Your head injury was healed and your memory was returned."

Sherry felt shattered at the thought of what she might have had… and what she had lost.

"He wouldn't believe you'd run away. He wouldn't let the cleric leave," Whitney emphasized. "The vicar was adamant that the wedding had to be performed in daylight, before noon, as is custom, but Stephen overrode him."

Sherry turned her head away because her eyes were glazing with tears. "I never thought… never imagined… He could not possibly have been thinking clearly," she said with more strength, turning to look at Whitney. "He would never have considered marrying a common governess."

"Oh, yes he would," Whitney said with a teary laugh. "I can tell you from personal experience-and from all I've read about the family's history-that Westmoreland men do exactlyas they please, and they always have. May I remind you that when Stephen kept the vicar at his house, he was already aware of your former position as Charise Lancaster's paid companion. It didn't matter to him. He'd made up his mind to marry you, and nothing could have stopped him. Except you."

She paused, watching Sheridan's expressive face mirror joy and anguish… and then hope. Tentative, fragile, but there, and though that pleased Whitney immensely, she also felt obliged to issue a sobering warning. "Unfortunately," she said, "Westmoreland men are extremely difficult to manage when they have been provoked beyond what they deem reasonable, and I'm afraid Stephen is already far, far beyond that unlucky state."

"Provoked beyond reason?" Sheridan said cautiously.

Whitney nodded. "I'm afraid so." She waited, hoping for a sign of the courage Sheridan was going to need if things were to be set to rights. "If matters are to be set to rights between you, I very much fear the burden for it will fall completely to you. In fact, the best thing you can hope to receive from Stephen is opposition. Cold, unresponsive opposition. At worst, he'll unleash some of the rage he feels toward you."

"I see."

"He wants nothing to do with you, will not even allow the mention of your name by any of us."

"He… hates me?" Her voice faltered at the agonizing certainty he did-and the realization that she could have prevented all this.

"Thoroughly."

"But he-I mean you do think that he didn't hate me before?"

"I think he loved you. I told you once before I've never seen Stephen treat a woman quite the way he treated you. Among other things, he was possessive, which is not at all in his normal style."

Sheridan looked down at her hands, afraid to hope she could rekindle any of those feelings in him. Unable to stop herself from hoping. Raising her eyes to Whitney's, she said, "What can I do?"

"You can fight for him."

"But how?"

"That's the delicate part of the problem," Whitney said, biting her lip to hide a smile at Sheridan's alarmed expression.

"He will avoid you, of course. In fact, he would have left here the moment he realized you were here if it hadn't been Noel's birthday, and if leaving wouldn't cause him to lose all face."

"Then I suppose I should be grateful matters happened this way."

"Actually, they didn't 'happen this way.' You were quite right when you assumed all this was planned very carefully, but it was never intended to embarrass you, only to force Stephen to be in your company the maximum amount of time over the weekend. Also, the other two governesses will step in to look after the Skeffington boys while you're here. To that end, I've suggested to Lady Skeffington that you might better serve if you were to be where you could chaperone Julianna-from a distance, of course. That will allow you to wander about the grounds, ride if you wish, and generally be visible."

"I-I don't know how to thank you."

"You may not want to thank me," Whitney said with a nervous smile. And then because she desperately wanted to give the other woman enough reassurance to make her able to face up to whatever Stephen did to her, she confided something that only the family knew. "Several years ago, I was betrothed to my husband by my father without my knowledge. I-I had some foolish girlhood notion of marrying a local boy I thought I'd love forever, and I-I did several things to try to avoid this marriage that caused my husband to break the betrothal and withdraw his offer. Unfortunately, it wasn't until then that I realized I was long over my infatuation with the other man. By then, Clayton wouldn't even acknowledge that he knew me."