Nicola Cornick - The Virtuous Cyprian

‘I beg your pardon, sir?’

‘I said that you did not strike me as a lady who would enjoy social ostracism, Miss Kellaway,’ Seagrave was saying, with weary patience. ‘No one will call on you, everyone will cut you dead…Do you really want that? Do not tell me that you do not regard it, for I shall not believe you!’

There was so much repressed violence in his tone that Lucille was suddenly frightened. He was taut with tension. Surely there was more to this than a simple desire to remove her from Cookes? But she was supposed to be Susanna, who would probably be less sensitive to the atmosphere and would no doubt have tried to flirt her way out of trouble. She tried a light, petulant shrug.

‘Lud, my lord, you’re monstrous serious! What does one small house matter to you? Or perhaps—’ she gave him a saucy look over her shoulder ‘—you have a more personal reason for wishing me off your property?’

It was a shot in the dark but its effect was electric. Seagrave spun round and caught her wrist in a grip that hurt. Lucille looked up at him. His face was expressionless but there was a look in his eyes which chilled her.

‘I do, madam, and you know why! Oh, I have no opinion of how you choose to earn a living—I make no judgments. But I do not like you.’ He spoke through his teeth. ‘You had already brought enough trouble on my family before this latest escapade single-handedly sabotaged my betrothal! You are like a bird of ill omen rather than a bird of paradise!’

Lucille felt her lips twitch at this colourful metaphor. She did not understand his allusion to Susanna’s previous entanglement with his family, but could see that he might be justifiably angry that her actions had resulted in a broken engagement. She tried to free her wrist and found herself held fast.

‘I am sorry to have unwittingly caused you trouble, sir—’

‘Unwittingly!’ For a moment his fingers tightened even more cruelly before he dropped her wrist as though he could not bear to touch her. His tone was savage. ‘There was nothing unwitting about your decision to claim this house, madam! Well, hear this! I shall do everything in my power to drive you out of Dillingham! You will be scorned and reviled at every turn! You will wish you had never come here!’

The slamming of the front door behind him echoed through Lucille’s head, causing it to ache again. She rested it in her hands in despair. Oh, why had she not told him the truth when she had had the opportunity? To try to deceive such a man was a piece of complete folly! He was both too acute to be fooled for long, and too forceful to be manipulated with feminine wiles. Feminine wiles! Lucille grimaced. What did she know of such coquetry? Her attempt to impersonate Susanna had been hopeless and she detested the blend of sexual appraisal and contempt with which Seagrave, and no doubt many other men, contemplated her sister. Lucille groaned aloud.

Seagrave…The blood was still singing through her veins from his touch, which was a singularly unhelpful reaction to him, she told herself sternly. It seemed that his slightest glance addled her wits, which was the last thing she needed when she had to have those wits about her! There was no accounting for it. No scientific theory could explain the peculiar mixture of breathlessness and excitement which possessed her in his presence. She had read about romance, of course, but had considered it to be ephemeral and often painful, not something she wished to experience. Then there was physical love, of course—she shuddered, remembering Sir Edwin’s licentious gaze and questing hands.

Lucille sighed. She thought of the uncharacteristic excitement with which she had hurried to ask Miss Pym for leave from the school, and her pleased surprise when that good lady had cautiously agreed. Her anticipation at visiting Cookes had reached fever pitch by the time Susanna’s summons had arrived. On the day after the meeting at Felixstowe Lucille had rolled into Dillingham village in Susanna’s carriage. A bevy of small children had run alongside the coach, chattering and laughing, but their elders had stood silently on the roadside, watching as she passed by. In her ignorance, Lucille had not considered that significant until this day.

But now…she was wearing borrowed plumes and impersonating a notorious woman who, if Seagrave was to be believed, was not at all welcome in the rural tranquillity of Dillingham. She did not doubt that Seagrave had meant every word he had said when he had threatened to drive her out of the village. Lucille sighed again. Why had she given into the cowardly impulse to play along with the masquerade when it would have been so much more sensible to tell him the truth? Now she really was starting to weave a tangled web through her deception!

There was a tap at the door and Mrs Appleton stuck her head around it. Felicity Appleton had accompanied Susanna to Dillingham when she first claimed Cookes, in the hope, Mrs Appleton had said with a wry smile, that the presence of a reputable older woman might reassure the good villagers of Susanna’s own respectability. It had been an unsuccessful attempt. The small resident staff at Cookes had walked out in a spirit of righteous indignation as soon as their new employer had arrived, and from then onwards Mrs Appleton had had to run the house single-handedly.

‘I do apologise, Miss Kellaway,’ Mrs Appleton said now, her plump, motherly face creased with anxiety. ‘I tried to tell his lordship that you were not receiving, but he would not be gainsaid!’

Lucille laughed at the thought of Mrs Appleton trying to deter the Earl from his visit. Nicholas Seagrave had hardly struck her as the sort of man to brook any opposition.

‘Pray do not concern yourself, Mrs Appleton! His lordship is very forceful, is he not!’

‘A man used to command,’ Mrs Appleton agreed with a twinkle in her eye. ‘I saw him a few times when I was on campaign in the Peninsula with my husband’s regiment. He was one of Wellington’s brightest officers, you know, and an inspirational leader of men!’

Lucille already knew that Mrs Appleton was the widow of an army sergeant killed at Vittoria, though how this pillar of rectitude had fallen in with Susanna was another matter. Lucille had not pried into their connection, and was only grateful that she had both Mrs Appleton’s calm good sense and knowledge of fashion to call upon. The housekeeper had advised her on matters of dress and hairstyle with a patience which Susanna would never have shown, and the result had been surprising. Although Lucille would never achieve the high fashion of her sister, the simple elegance of her new appearance gave her an absurd pleasure that astonished her. She had never been concerned with her dress before, but then, she had not met the Earl of Seagrave before…She shook her head to drive the thought away.

‘Well, would that Seagrave had left his military manners behind in Spain!’ she said crossly, still smarting from the Earl’s arrogant attitude. ‘The man is overbearing to a fault!’

Mrs Appleton laughed. ‘But prodigious attractive!’ she said shrewdly, and did not miss Lucille’s telltale blush. Her smile faded a little. ‘I must own myself vastly surprised to see him,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Your sister may have told you, Miss Kellaway, that Seagrave never spends time on his estates! I can only assume that the furore caused by Miss Susanna’s arrival here has brought him from London! She will be most disappointed to have missed him!’

‘A sorry business then, since I had no wish to meet him at all!’ Lucille said, with a sigh. It was a half-truth, for whilst Seagrave held a mysteriously strong attraction for her, she certainly had no wish for him to think her Susanna. ‘I realise now that I have been very naive about the whole situation!’ She continued wryly, ‘I truly believed that I would not need to meet anyone during my time here, and that Susanna would only be away a week or two.’