Claire Read online

  “I cannot imagine that I ought to,” she said politely, without looking at him.

  “Just because I ask it?”

  “Of course, if you wish.” She picked up the teapot and poured him out a cup of tea. “We shall be neighbors for many years, I suppose; and we are not children any longer, are we?”

  “No,” he said, with that impassive smile of his, “we are not. Do you know what’s wrong between your sister and Varian?”

  The teapot descended to the tray between them with a clatter in the early morning quiet of the garden; the bird ceased instantly, and there was a quick flutter of wings from one of the oak trees.

  “For there is something wrong, you know,” he continued, in that placid way of his.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know what it is?”

  “No.”

  “Claudia, do you trust me not even a little?”

  It was a logical and reasonable question, surely; even if the answer was the height of subjectivity, the question was not so absurd, after all. “Of course I do! I have known you all my life.”

  “Then,” he asked reasonably, “if I tell you that I care very much for you and your sisters, and that I love Varian Drew as the brother whom I do not have, will you tell me whatever it is that you know, that you’re hiding from me?”

  Claudia stared at him. Her face was serene except for a tiny mark between her slender eyebrows where her spectacles had rested. “They were in the library yesterday afternoon, before tea; the door was closed. We had just come in, so I waited in the hall for Claire. She was weeping when she opened the door, and then she ran upstairs. That’s all I know.”

  “Did Claire fall in love with someone in Portugal?” Merrill asked abruptly.

  Claudia’s voice, low, had no surprise in it, as though she had already taken the question under objective consideration. “I— I don’t think so. There were many men, you know, always tempting her. She has that sort of attractiveness; but I don’t think so.”

  “Is there anything else? Anything that you know?”

  Merrill thought for a moment that she would say something, and then she shook her head. Claudia had taken to wearing her hair pulled back rather severely, as though she were a spinster, and, surprisingly enough, it became her, for it served to emphasize the sleek contour of her cheek and her neck, and the pearls in her earlobes. Claudia’s face had not the soft curves and dimples of her youngest sister, nor Claire’s very square chin; Tony realized in an instant of shock that Claudia’s face was the more perfect, with its prominent cheekbones and graceful brow and straight nose. “No, nothing.” She hesitated again as he watched her. “Only a feeling; nothing important.”

  His imperturbable brows lifted slightly. “But, my dear Claudia, feelings are the most important thing of all, are they not? Else we should toss that book of yours in the rubbish bin. What is it you felt?”

  She blinked twice at the silver sugar server glittering a reflection of this pleasant, quiet garden, and then said quietly, pleasantly, “She was different after Papa died.”

  He shrugged a little. “I should imagine that she was.”

  “No, no; not just that he had died. I would catch her sometimes on the porch, staring out toward the sea, and if she realized I was there, she would hide her face behind her palm fan for a moment, and then her eyes would be different.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “She did not want to come home, you know,” Claudia said abruptly, meeting Merrill’s gaze as she toyed with the spectacles beneath her hand.

  He thought of that day in Lisbon when Claire had told him to take her sisters home with him, that she wanted to stay for a few more weeks; just some shopping, she had said. “Yes. Why not?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Was it that she did not want to come home to England, or that she did not want to leave Portugal?” Merrill asked astutely.

  “I don’t know,” Claudia said again, and rose suddenly in a rustle of pink and green and white. “I’m sorry; I’m no help at all, am I?

  “No, I’m sorry. I’ve ruined your breakfast,” he said penitently. “Shall you allow me to make up for it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let me accompany you somewhere this morning, after you’ve finished your English les— ”

  “No; it’s not necessary, of course!” Claudia said immediately with a pleasant smile, and moved in intangible defense behind her chair and laid her hands along the back of it. “I— I wish you won’t feel as though you are obliged to look after me, only because we are neighbors at Finchingfield! I don’t wish you— ”

  “That has nothing at all to do with the matter,” Merrill said quietly, watching her from beneath his hooded eyes.

  “For I assure you, you have gone far past your duty in coming all the way to Lisbon only to bring us home! I can never thank you sufficiently for— ”

  “I said,” he repeated calmly, “that it has nothing at all to do with the matter. Won’t you sit down again while I finish my tea?”

  She lifted her eyes briefly to his and then slowly resumed her chair. “I can tell you nothing else about Claire. It shan’t do you any good at all to drive me around the Park for an hour.”

  “I didn’t intend on driving you around the Park for an hour,” he said, without a change in his expression. “I had rather thought you might like the Library at the British Museum; I understand there’s a book or two there.”

  “I have said, Lord Merrill, that you— ”

  “Tony,” he pressed.

  She blushed; only by the greatest exercise of Merrill’s very well-trained will did he command all his muscles to stay in that precise, unstudied, casual expression of placidity. His face reflected only a benign good-humor, in spite of the fact that he had just been struck to the soul with the most lethal weapon known to man: the blush of a beautiful woman. “Very well. Tony. I have told you that you needn’t feel constrained to attend me while I am visiting here.”

  “I see I should scotch that instantly,” he remarked calmly.

  “What?”

  “Shall you give me your logical mind for a moment, Claudia, and help me through something very difficult to explain?” he asked.

  “I don’t know if I shall be of any help,” she said, with natural humility.

  “Oh, just answer me a question or two,” he said negligently, and picked up his teacup and sipped it. “How long have you known me?”

  “All my life, of course,” she said, slightly mystified, those blue eyes questioning.

  “And have you ever known me to exert myself to do anything I did not wish to do?”

  Claudia smiled slightly. “No,” she replied truthfully.

  “In fact, would you guess that I ever go to trouble over anything that has not immediate bearing on my own pleasure or happiness?”

  “I shouldn’t think coming to Portugal was particul— ”

  “Just answer my questions, Claudia,” he said, with a touch of avuncular sternness, as though she were a derelict student of his.

  She almost laughed; he saw amusement there, on the edge of that delightful mouth of hers, threatening, as she said, “Of course, sir!”

  “Do I ever go to trouble over anything that has not immediate bearing on my own pleasure or happiness?”

  “I suppose not, sir!”

  “Then why have I asked you to accompany me to the Museum this morning?”

  “Either it is no trouble for you to do so, or it has an immediate bearing on your own pleasure and happiness!” she replied, her logic impeccable, her smile cool, with a hint of reserve.

  “Impeccable logic!” he complimented her, and finished his tea. “There are your English students, I see; shall you be ready by ten?”

  “I— ”

  “Excellent! You shan’t make me wait, shall you?” he asked, standing languidly, and bowing slightly.

  “No, of course not! I— ”

  “Good!” he said, and smiled at her with a
shadow of laughter in his calm gray eyes, and nodded at Consuela and Elena coming through the doorway as he left.

  chapter five

  Sensibility Put To Rout

  Claudia Ffawlkes accompanied Tony Merrill at ten that morning to the British Museum, and then he convinced her to have luncheon with him at the Brown, for, he said, “I know very well you don’t care the least about eating luncheon, Claudia, nor have you ever, but I am exceedingly uncomfortable without my lunch.”

  “But— I cannot have lunch with you, Lord Merrill! I— ”

  “Tony! And why can you not have lunch with me? Do you think I particularly care for eating alone?” he asked, handing her up into his curricle, and staring up at her from the street for a moment.

  “Oh!” She stared back, with an irresolute look on her normally calm face. “I hadn’t considered— Well, then of course you shall come home to Cavendish Square, and take your lunch with us there!” she said instantly.

  “But I do not wish to have lunch with Varian and Claire!” he said placidly, the hint of a smile teasing one corner of his mouth.

  “I thought you did not wish to lunch alone!” she said suspiciously.

  “Precisely!” he nodded, and came leisurely around the curricle and climbed up, taking up the reins from his tiger. “I wish to lunch with you. I have already told you so.”

  “But do you not understand how very awkward it would be; surely you must realize that I . . . I am not married?” she asked, as if the details of her life very likely had such little interest for him that this one had slipped his mind.

  The hint of a smile that had formerly teased the corner of his mouth now caused his brow to rise in a polite and very placid smile. “I am very well aware of your maiden state. And it is . . . awkward, isn’t it?”

  Claudia gazed sideways at him from beneath the edge of her very pretty chip hat; Claire had insisted that her sister refurbish her wardrobe, and consequently Miss Ffawlkes had acquired a number of enchanting hats and remarkably delightful gowns since she had come down to visit. “Only when bachelors wish to lunch with me in public,” she said politely.

  “Nonsense! No one will remark on it in the least; everyone knows that you have grown up not two miles from my house in Essex. I am practically your uncle.”

  “Are you?” she inquired evenly, still peering at him from beneath her hat.

  “Do I seem the sort of man who would ravish an innocent female? Or even an awkward one?”

  Her blue eyes flew open in astonishment and then the hat bent slightly and hid her face from his view. “Certainly not; nor did I mean to imply that— ”

  “Then you’ll have luncheon with me?”

  “I suppose; I don’t like you to be put to trouble with me. Perhaps you might meet a friend or two there, and I could take a hack home,” she said.

  “Claudia,” Tony began, without perturbation.

  “Yes?”

  “It would be a great deal of trouble to do anything other than sit and talk with you over lunch, and I suppose I had ought to tell you that I also intend to linger at the table until at least two, and then we are going to drive over to Kensington and stroll in the gardens until five or so, and since I intend to make you miss your tea, you had better have something at the Brown, don’t you think?”

  “Lord Merrill,” Miss Ffawlkes began, having turned her face up to him in the course of this very lengthy instruction.

  “Tony!”

  “Oh, very well, Tony!” she said with a touch of frustration. “I cannot imagine why you are taking so much trouble over me!”

  “I am not taking trouble over you; it is the other thing, you know!”

  “What other thing?” she inquired blankly.

  “Oh, the part about my pleasure and happiness! That is the reason, you see,” Merrill said frankly, in such calm good-humor that she continued to stare up at him for a moment.

  “I do not,” she said, without elaboration, “understand.”

  “I thought I had explained it rather well this morning,” he said, his eyes on his horses as they turned onto Oxford Street.

  “No, you only made me laugh,” she said, raising her slender brows as if she very well might do so again.

  “Did I? I was quite serious, you know,” Tony said blandly. “Perhaps you would understand if I told you that even were it a great deal of trouble to have you in my company today, I should still want you here?” He glanced down at her; her upturned face beneath that very charming bonnet was such a picture of surprise, with a rosy glow of color in her cheeks that, had he not been very busy with his horses, he was of the strong opinion that he would have bent down and kissed her. At the moment, though, he was attempting to pass a public hack which was taking up rather more than half the street, and when he looked down again, she had turned her head away and was staring fixedly the other way. “Claudia, I haven’t offended you, have I?”

  Her head did not turn. “No, of course not; you are a very pleasant companion, for if you must know, there are not many gentlemen who don’t mind that one likes books and such, and I am very sorry we have not gotten to be friends before now.”

  “Yes, so am I,” nodded Lord Merrill calmly.

  “And if you will promise that when I do become trouble to you, you will say so, I shan’t worry anymore about it, and I shall simply enjoy myself,” she said with her customary selflessness.

  “Your understanding,” Merrill said placidly, “is quite remarkable. And now I am emboldened to tell you that I intend to spend tomorrow with you also, and very likely the next day after that, if you think you would enjoy it.”

  “Lord Merrill, I— ”

  “Tony!”

  “Yes! Tony! I— ”

  “Would you enjoy it?”

  They turned down Regent Street, where the traffic was a little less pressing, and consequently he could enjoy that very charming picture of loveliness beside him without distraction. At the moment she was frowning slightly, obviously in the midst of a difficult logical deduction. “Have the most of your friends gone out of Town, or somesuch?”

  “Why?”

  “Have they?”

  “Well, I believe that Henry Parham is leaving Tuesday next for Scotland, but other than that, I suppose that the most of them are here.”

  Claudia searched his face again with a faint frown. “And you’re certain that Claire hasn’t asked you to look after me while I am in Town?”

  “What small morsel of truth are you chasing, my dear Claudia?” he asked, as if she had quite exhausted him with her questioning.

  “Nothing,” she said quickly, and they rode in silence down Albemarle Street to the hotel. Merrill cast a single look at her face as he threw his reins to his tiger, and then raised an eyebrow as he climbed out, with that magnificent deliberation of his, and came around to help her down.

  “Claudia,” he asked, as she gave him her hand. On impulse he raised it to his lips and kissed her gloved fingertips, and was very pleased to feel a slight tremor in her hand as he did so. “Has it occurred to you,” he asked quietly, as she rose, and he casually laid his other hand around her small waist to lift her easily from the curricle to the ground, “that, quite apart from the whereabouts of my friends and favors to your sister, I might desire your company for no other reason than yourself?” And stood there in the street outside Brown’s hotel staring down at her serious face beneath her charming hat, his eyes and his expression neither placid nor calm, one hand still laid negligently around her waist, and her fingers caught tightly in the other.

  “Yes,” she said, blushing for the second time in ten years, of which both occurrences had fallen within three hours of one another, and then met his gaze calmly. “It has just occurred to me, only I cannot give you a reason for it.”

  “Must,” he asked, smiling down at her, “there be a reason for everything?”

  “Of course,” she said, astonished that the question would arise.

  Tony released her waist and took her hand
over his arm and led her up the step, ignoring a number of surprised glances from the lackeys inside, for he habitually lunched here several times a week, only the phlegmatic earl had never before been accompanied by a lady, and in fact he usually lunched alone. Without a great deal of ado the earl told Mr Frost there that he would like a light luncheon brought for Miss Ffawlkes, and very deliberately trod past the double mahogany doors into the main dining parlor and took his customary chair at his customary table, after having seated Miss Ffawlkes at his right.

  “Well? Have you guessed the reason yet?” he asked blandly, after they had sat down and all the attending preliminaries had been dealt with, and the maître d’hôtel had gone away.

  Claudia smiled calmly. “I must suppose that you like me,” she said pleasantly.

  “Miss Ffawlkes, I have always thought your intelligence to be extraordinary, and now I am convinced of it. Excellent deduction,” he nodded approvingly, and smiled at her with a touch of teasing in that placid face that brought forth a laugh from that delightful lady, which was, as he had suspected it would be, quite worth the effort required to induce it.

  It was very likely the most enchanted day of Claudia Ffawlkes’ existence. She and Tony recited in alternating verses a good deal of Troilus and Criseide while they strolled around the gardens in the afternoon, and then he recalled to her a medieval lyric that she had not read for years, to do with Adam and his downfall, which made her laugh, and a great deal of other light nonsense over a bit of Shakespeare here and a line of Pope there that made her wonder that an entire afternoon could have disappeared so quickly. Upon reflection, as she allowed Claire’s maidservant Elena to draw up her bath and then sank into the warm water with a pleasant smile on her face, Claudia could not remember ever having laughed so much.

  In a moment of luxurious and dangerous freedom she allowed herself to wish a little. The truth was, of course, that the quiet, studious Miss Claudia Ffawlkes had been passionately and devotedly in love with Anthony Merrill for the better part of a decade, since the day his late mother had invited her and her sisters up to tea, and she had glimpsed a large and placid young man draped comfortably over a well-used sofa in the library, his riding boots, still on at four o’clock in the afternoon, crossed over the end of the sofa, with a book in his hand, as the five young girls and their mother had passed by the door.