Earl's Invention Page 6

  “I was granted no opportunity to approve or disapprove either one," she responded warmly. “I could not even see Mrs. Pruitt’s drawings from where I sat. I could only leave it to the two of you to decide that I was to have one of this and two of that, all in shades of yellow and green except for the periwinkle blue Mr. Mercer is apparently eager to sell ...” She ran out of breath and lapsed into silence.

  "But that is the way we have always done it." David protested. “Mrs. Pruitt and I. that is. She has impeccable taste, and none of my friends has ever tendered the slightest objection—"

  "I am not one of your friends,” Bonnie hissed. "Not one of your cheres amies, to describe the connection somewhat more accurately. Though I fancy I shall quite fit the mold before you and Mrs. Pruitt have done with me, shall I not? I suspect the clothes you ordered for me are remarkably similar to those awaiting Miss Godwin’s final fitting, and as I’m to have my hair styled by her coiffeur ..." She stopped and swallowed an inexplicable, infuriating lump in her throat. "You did not even trouble yourself to ask whether I wished to change my hair.”

  "Women!" David shook his head and cast his eyes upward, as though seeking divine assistance in the midst of his many trials. "I shall never puzzle out why it is women think as they do.” He transferred his sapphire eyes to Bonnie. "You’re a very bonnie lass indeed—or could be if you rid yourself of all that excess hair. I assumed you'd be delighted when I consented to engage the finest coiffeur in London to attend you; I assure you it would have cost me dearly. However, if you really want to go about as you are, with your hair spilling over your eyebrows and tumbling round your shoulders ..." His voice trailed provocatively off.

  Bonnie was sorely inclined to retort that this was precisely what she wanted, but she recollected the proverbial danger of cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. "No,” she said with as much dignity as she could muster. "No, I am willing to have my hair restyled. I should merely have liked to be consulted.

  "Then I am sorry if I offended you. As I indicated, I am accustomed to having my way with women."

  In other circumstances, Bonnie would have found his double entendre highly amusing; as it was, his phraseology served to rekindle her wrath. "And as I hope / indicated," she said frostily, "you will have to modify your custom. I elected to pose no objection at Mrs. Pruitt’s because I didn't wish to jeopardize our project. But be warned that I shall not be so reticent in future. You may ultimately bring me to look like one of your . . . your playthings, but I shan't permit you to order me about as you do them. I trust we are clear on that head?

  “Oh, abundantly clear.”

  His voice was quite as frigid as hers had been, and when he said nothing more, Bonnie redirected her gaze to the passing scenery.

  “Hell and the devil!” the earl muttered at length.

  Bonnie initially fancied his expletive to be a delayed reaction to their quarrel, but when she glanced out the front of the curricle, she saw that David's house lay just ahead and that a small landau stood before it. She could only presume that Lady Hellier had returned prematurely from France, and her stomach knotted with panic. It was one thing to fool Mrs. Pruitt, who knew nothing of the earl’s family history, but Bonnie recognized that she was wretchedly unprepared to deceive her alleged Aunt Judith.

  “Is it ... is it . . She looked fearfully at David and attempted to moisten her lips, which had gone altogether dry.

  “It is Kate,” he growled through gritted teeth. “Good God."

  Since his lordship had mentioned no relative named Kate. Bonnie surmised that the visitor must be Miss Godwin, and she was at a loss to conceive why the earl should find her call so oversetting. Nor did she have a chance to inquire, for even as David reined the geldings to a halt, a young woman descended from the landau and hurried toward them. An exceedingly handsome young woman. Bonnie noted as she reached the curricle—her great blue eyes and blond curls artfully framed by the enormous leghom hat she wore.

  “This is most embarrassing, Kate,” David said grimly, fairly jumping down from his seat. “As I explained last night—”

  “That is what I wanted to speak to you about." There was a catch in her voice, and upon closer inspection, Bonnie observed that her small pink mouth was trembling. “I wanted

  to tell you I would agree to see you only rarely. Only when you could get away without your niece’s knowledge . .

  She peered up at Bonnie for the first time, and her eyes narrowed. “This is your niece?” she demanded.

  “Ah . . . yes.”

  David seized her elbow, clearly thinking to lead her out of Bonnie’s hearing, but she jerked it from his grasp.

  “You told me she was a child,” she said accusingly.

  “I told you no such thing.” The earl’s face had turned quite scarlet, and Bonnie felt the prickle of an odious suspicion. “You may have inferred that Bonnie was a child—” “Well, you made certain I would, didn’t you?” The catch in Kate’s voice had given way to a tremor of rage. “Saying it wouldn’t do at all tor a young girl to discover you had a liaison with an actress. And I daresay she’s no younger than I am. Miss . . . Miss . . .”

  “Miss Carlisle,” Bonnie supplied. “And you are. . . ?”

  “Miss Elwell. Katherine Elwell. Though my friends call me Kate—”

  “Yes, yes,” David interjected hastily. “And now the two of you have met, I fear I really must ask you to go, Kate.” “Oh, no, David. No, please. I’m not angry; I didn’t mean to sound angry. I fancy it was all a misunderstanding—” “Yes, I fancy it was,” Bonnie interrupted pleasantly. “And if Uncle David will be so good as to help me down, I shall leave you to resolve your differences in private.”

  She took keen delight in the look he cast her—a roughly equal blend of vexation and entreaty—but he could hardly decline to assist her out of the carriage. With a polite nod at Miss Elwell, Bonnie strode toward the house, gleefully envisioning the grave difficulties David would encounter as he tried to extricate himself from the bumblebath he had created. Her sole regret was that she would be unable to hear the forthcoming conversation, but she could certainly watch it; and when she was safely out of sight in the vestibule, she raced up the stairs to the second floor, pounded down the hall to her bedchamber, dashed to the window, and tweaked the draperies carefully apart.

  David and Miss Elwell occupied approximately the same positions they had when Bonnie exited the scene, but the latter’s face was now buried in her gloved hands, and her shoulders were prettily heaving. Inasmuch as Miss Elwell was an actress, Bonnie did not attach undue importance to her sobs; but evidently David did. for he was shuffling his hessians in an apparent agony of discomfort and vainly attempting to stuff a handkerchief behind Miss Elwell’s fingers. At length, he succeeded in this endeavor, and after dabbing at her eyes for a time. Miss Elwell began to talk, her voice eventually growing so loud that Bonnie could almost hear her after all. The earl, for his part, had never ceased to shuffle his feet, but his movements now assumed a pattern: he was slowly, inexorably herding Miss Elwell toward her landau. Though the vehicle was situated only a few yards distant, their tortuous passage required some ten or fifteen minutes; but at last, David handed Miss Elwell into the carriage, closed the door behind her, and signaled the coachman to start. The earl bounded across the footpath before the wheels of the landau had even begun to tum, and Bonnie dropped the curtains and speedily retreated to the dressing table. The front door slammed as she was untying her bonnet ribbons, and—to her utter lack of surprise—there was soon a tap on the door of her bedchamber.

  “Come in,” she snapped.

  “Bonnie.”

  To her renewed delight, David’s appearance had degenerated to a sad travesty of its former splendor: rivulets of perspiration trickled from beneath the band of his beaver hat, and his shirt-points and neckcloth had wilted to a single shapeless mass of fabric round his jaws. He belatedly removed the hat, stepped over the threshold, and shut the door.

&nb
sp; “Bonnie,” he repeated. He was unmistakably panting. “Pray permit me to apologize for Kate's unfortunate intrusion. I assure you I do not normally invite my . . . ah . . . friends to call at the house.”

  “Oh, I am sure you do not,” she said sardonically. “I quite believe that Miss Elwell’s visit was altogether uninvited.” “I'm so relieved you understand.” He had obviously failed to register her tone. “As you no doubt collected, I saw Kate last evening after dinner and advised her of my wish to terminate our . . . er . . . friendship—”

  “Oh, I collected much more than that.” Bonnie flung her hat on the dressing table and leapt to her feet. “You told Miss Elwell that your niece had unexpectedly arrived from the Indies and would be residing with you for the indefinite future. You cleverly implied that this niece was an innocent young girl who would be prodigious shocked to discover that you were . . . were disporting yourself with an actress. I must admit to some puzzlement as to why you elected to rely on insinuation; you’ve demonstrated yourself a remarkably accomplished liar. Be that as it may—”

  “Bonnie, Bonnie.” David had recovered his normal aplomb: he rested his broad shoulders against the door and flashed his winsome grin. “You must also have collected that Kate and I have been at daggers drawn for some time. We did not get on at ail when I was in town last autumn, and since then—” “Since then, you have made the acquaintance of Miss Godwin,” Bonnie hissed. She was distantly gratified when his lordship flushed. “And I represented the perfect excuse for you to sever your relationship with Miss Elwell so as to devote your full attention to Miss Godwin. I should merely like to ask whether you had that objective in mind from the start or conceived it after I consented to pose as your niece."

  “I ...” He stared down at his boots a moment, then raised his sapphire eyes and tendered another dazzling smile. “I saw no harm in killing two birds with one stone," he responded airily.

  Which did not, of course, answer her question, and Bonnie once more clenched her hands. “There is a great deal of harm in it,” she said icily, “and I want us to be clear on that head as well. You cannot retract your statements to Miss Elwell. but you are not to use me so in future. Your personal life doesn’t signify a whit to me, but I will not serve as an instrument to extract you from one dalliance so you will be free to pursue another. Now, if I recollect aright, you have an appointment this afternoon, and you really must tidy up a bit before you go.”

  “Yes.” He stood away from the door, opened it, then turned back round and cleared his throat. ‘‘As I thought on it, I was compelled to own that your complaints were justified. Your complaints concerning my conduct at Mrs. Pruitt's, that is. If you prefer, I shall order out the barouche for you on Thursday, and you may complete your shopping without my interference.”

  If this was a peace offering, it seemed woefully inadequate, but Bonnie bobbed her head. “Yes, I should prefer that,” she said.

  “Very well. You did correctly recall that I’ve an appointment this afternoon, but tonight we shall begin reviewing the facts you must know if you’re to persuade Judith of your identity.”

  “Tonight?” Bonnie echoed. “I should have supposed you’d be waiting upon Miss Godwin tonight.” The earl colored again, and she nodded in comprehension "No, Miss Godwin is your appointment, is she not? I do hope you will remember to take her to Mrs. Pruitt’s for her final fitting. As you are aware, Mrs. Pruitt is most anxious to clear her workrooms.”

  She whirled around, winced as the bedchamber door slammed closed, then turned back and gazed at the spot where David had stood. Though he had declined to confess it, she was convinced he had intended from the outset to use his “young” niece to rid himself of Miss Elwell; and she could not but wonder if there were other dimensions to their charade which she had yet to discover.

  4

  The barouche jerked to a halt, and Bonnie wriggled to the edge of her seat and peered apprehensively round the box. But they had not yet reached their destination, she saw; six or eight other carnages lay between their vehicle and the brilliantly lighted entrance of Viscountess Lambeth’s house. She sank back against the squab and—as she had throughout the drive from Grosvenor Street to Berkeley Square—nervously toyed with her ivory fan.

  “Quickly now,” David said. “What sort of dog did Cornelia receive on her tenth birthday and what did she name it?”

  “It was a poodle,” Bonnie replied with a tired sigh. “A white female poodle, and though Cornelia named her Marie Antoinette, she always called her Annie. Annie conceived a great tendre for your male spaniel, and between them, they eventually produced six litters of puppies. And I shall try,” she concluded peevishly, “to work Annie's promiscuous history into my conversation with Lady Lambeth.”

  “Now Bonnie.” David clicked his tongue reprovingly against his teeth. “I realize you’ve grown somewhat weary of our lessons, but we agreed at the outset that the smallest fact might ultimately prove important.”

  Somewhat weary was an understatement of monumental

  proportions, Bonnie thought dryly as the carriage lurched ahead a bit. For the past seven nights, the earl had devoted every moment of their dinner conversation—and two or three hours in the library after dinner—to her “lessons,” and she fancied she knew far more about the Merrill family than she ever had about the Gordons. She had initially been puzzled by David’s apparent neglect of Miss Godwin, but she soon conjectured that his new amie was otherwise occupied in the evenings. Miss Godwin was probably an actress as well, she surmised, or perhaps an opera dancer. Whatever the case, David evidently spent his afternoons with her, for he raced off in his curricle at precisely two o’clock each day.

  Which was not to say that he had left Bonnie’s afternoons unoccupied. No, his clever lordship had purchased several books about the Indies and ordered her to study them while he was from home. Unfortunately, the books dwelled upon the tedious details of producing sugar—the paramount industry in Barbados and its neighboring islands—and described very little of the residents’ daily lives. Barbados was excessively warm, Bonnie had learned, and abounded in all manner of exotic vegetation; and as she and David had determined to state that Thomas Carlisle was a successful planter, she could safely claim to have grown up on a sprawling estate. Should she be pressed for details beyond these, she would have to manufacture them, and she could only hope she would not encounter anyone familiar with her alleged home.

  However, Bonnie reflected irritably, she would be required to fabricate no details at all about the early life of Lady Cornelia Merrill. David had begun his tutelage by drawing a plan of Sedgewood, the family seat in Dorset, and Bonnie was confident she could by now make her way from room to room with her eyes closed. The furniture would certainly pose no obstacle because David had insisted she memorize the location of every piece, from the pedestal in the entry hall to the bow-fronted commode at the western end of the second- floor corridor. Upon opening her eyes, she would be able to greet the servants of Cornelia’s day by name—starting with

  the senior Kimball. Alice’s late husband, who had served as butler before his demise; and ending with Josh, the youngest of the footboys. The latter, it was widely rumored, was the son of David’s father’s younger brother, the Honorable Albert Merrill, now deceased, and Rose, the handsomest of the chambermaids. Rose herself, it was generally believed, had been sired by a Gypsy tinker . . .

  After Bonnie was thoroughly acquainted with Sedgewood and—or so she was persuaded—knew the lineage and biography of every person associated with the Merrill household since approximately the Conquest, David turned his attention to “various anecdotes Cornelia might have related over the years.” Bonnie shortly decided that even if Cornelia had related one “anecdote” per day for the whole four-and- twenty years of her daughter’s life, she would scarcely have scratched the surface of her brother’s prodigious memory. Bonnie did not mind being told that Lady Amanda Rawlins had been Cornelia’s dearest childhood friend; such information,
she owned, was probably essential. But did she really need to know that Lady Cornelia and Lady Amanda had crept into the dairy one summer day in 1785, upset half a dozen pails of milk, and been sent to bed without dinner as a consequence? Or that, several years later, they had been mortified to appear at their first London assembly in identical dresses'?

  From the beginning, David’s interminable narrative set Bonnie to squirming in her chair, but several evenings elapsed before she admitted that her frustration resulted as much from disappointment as from boredom. When she had agreed that seemingly insignificant facts might prove important, she had entertained a hope that any discussion of Cornelia’s youth must inevitably lead to a revelation of the earl’s own character. They had shared the same parents, the same upbringing; how could David explain Cornelia without explaining himself? He would soon disclose—if inadvertently—when and why he had determined not to wed, how he had come to view women in such a dismal light . . .

  But he had not. If their conversation had occupied an uninterrupted expanse of time, they would have talked above a day, yet Bonnie knew little more of him than she had at the start. No, that was not entirely true, she amended. She knew, in excruciating detail, much of what he had done in his six-and-thirty years, but he had provided not the slightest clue of what he’d felt. She sometimes suspected that he wrapped his wit around him like a cloak, using his winsome smile and clever tongue to hide his emotions. At other times—when, for example, he had driven her to the point of tears because she could not remember the color of the draperies in Cornelia's bedchamber—she was quite sure he had no emotions. She would stiffen her spine, clench her hands, remind herself that he was nothing more than a calculating rake; and then he would disarm her by solicitously inquiring if she were tired or if she wished a cup of chocolate or a glass of brandy. And she would wonder whether his kindness was sincere or merely another means of bending her to his will.