To his relief the shadowed look fled.
‘Nothing. That is, Ellen—’
‘You need not worry about Ellen. She is safe enough. As soon as I saw her and Julia Wakefield in the gardens last night I sent word to Sophia’s dresser. Duffy will have scolded them back indoors when she thought it was time. She is quite used to doing so, you know. She often had to chase after Lady Cassandra.’
Phyllida’s smile was a little forced.
‘I fear I have not acted as befits a chaperon.’
‘You are too young to be a chaperon. I have always thought so.’ He put out his hand. ‘Come back to bed.’
‘I should go.’ But she was moving towards him.
‘Not yet.’ He pulled her on to the bed beside him, wrapping his arms around her. She melted against him, raising her face for his kiss and returning it with a passion. He murmured against her hair, ‘It is still early, no one is yet abroad.’
She laughed, a soft, throaty sound that made his heart race, but she struggled in his arms and immediately he let her go.
‘The servants will be rising soon and I dare not risk being seen. Think of the scandal.’
He cared nothing for that, but he knew it mattered very much to her.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Leave me, if you must.’
She nodded but as she moved away from him he caught her hand, pressing a kiss into the palm. Looking up, he saw the glow in her eyes, the shy smile that curved her lips but still she disengaged herself and glided away from him. He propped himself on one elbow and watched as she slipped out of the door, closing it almost silently behind her.
Richard rolled onto his back and put his hands behind his head, smiling. She had felt so good in his arms, so right. He could not wait to have her there again, to awake that smouldering desire and make her cry out for him once more, but he would not rush her. The trust she had in him was fragile and he must take care not to break it. The feeling of well-being intensified: he could afford to be patient, they had the rest of their lives to enjoy each other. Richard blinked, realising that it was not a brief affair that he envisaged, but a lifelong commitment. Marriage.
It was a shock, but he suddenly knew that he wanted to abandon his wayward life, to forgo the bustle of London and spend more time at Brookthorn, looking after his property. A shaky laugh escaped him.
‘By God you are ready to settle down.’
But only if Phyllida was beside him, only if he could wake up every morning to find her in his bed, her hair spread over the pillow in wild abandon and those greeny-grey eyes dark with desire. With love. He needed her to love him as he loved her.
Richard turned and pulled the bedcovers over him, but it was not the cold of the morning air that made him shiver, it was the tiniest whisper of doubt that Phyllida might not accept his proposal. She was no lightskirt, no wanton woman, and their lovemaking last night would have meant a great deal to her, but he could not forget the shadow he had seen in her eyes. She was a woman of principle, and it was just possible that his reputation was too much for her. The thought that he might lose her, even now, chilled him to the bone. He contemplated going after her immediately, asking her now if she would marry him, but already there were faint sounds from below. The house was stirring. He must wait, do the thing properly with no breath of scandal.
He heard a faint scratching at the door and his heart leaped when he thought Phyllida had returned, but the sudden elation evaporated quickly enough as he heard his valet’s soft voice asking if he was awake.
‘Come in, Fritt.’
‘I beg your pardon for disturbing you so early, sir, but Collins has sent word, asking if you could go to the stables.’ Immediately Richard was on the alert and he was reaching for his clothes as the valet continued. ‘They have apprehended an intruder in the grounds, sir.’
Richard made his way to the stable block, turning without hesitation towards the buildings furthest from the house, where no horses had been kept for many years. Inside he found Collins and two of the men he had hired to patrol the grounds. They were standing watch over a man dressed in rough country garb. He was seated on a stool, his hands bound behind his back.
‘Found this fellow prowling in the gardens,’ the groom explained. ‘He tried telling us he worked on the estate, but we’d made ourselves acquainted with all her ladyship’s people soon as we got here, so we knew that weren’t the case.’
Richard stared hard at the man.
‘Well, who are you and what are you doing here?’
When his question elicited nothing more than a vicious glare Richard shrugged. ‘Very well. Collins, take him to the magistrate, and take along a brace of pheasant.’
‘I ain’t no poacher!’
The groom grunted with satisfaction. ‘Then if you don’t want to hang you’d better tell us what you was doing prowling around the gardens, my lad.’
The fellow licked his lips and looked nervously from the groom to Richard.
‘I ain’t done nothing wrong.’
‘You are Sir Charles Urmston’s man, are you not?’ barked Richard.
‘What if I am?’
‘And what were you doing in the grounds?’ Richard’s eyes narrowed. ‘Would you prefer to take your chances with the magistrate? If you are lucky you may get off with transportation—’
‘Sir Charles brought me here.’
The reply was swift, and once he started talking the words came tumbling out.
‘We followed you from Bath. He’s been dropping me off at the edge of the park each morning. He said I was to look out for a yellow-haired chit. He’d pointed her out to me in Bath, so’s I’d know who she was. Sir Charles couldn’t come into the grounds himself, you might have recognised him, but he said if anyone saw me I was to say I was one of the dowager’s tenants.’
‘And what were you to do when you found the lady?’
‘I was to take her to him. He’s waiting in his carriage on the Salisbury Road.’
Richard strode out across the park, making directly for the point where the main road to Salisbury ran close to the palings. He was relieved Urmston had not set his servant to prowl the grounds during the night. He might well have evaded Richard’s guards and come across the girls playing in the fountain, and if Ellen had been snatched away in the dark it would have been almost impossible to find her. His mouth tightened as he thought of Phyllida’s distress if that had happened. Well, today was Michaelmas. If he could keep the girl safe until midnight then the damned wager would be over.
Not that that would be the end of it. Ellen Tatham was still an heiress and a beautiful one at that. He had no doubt she would be pursued by any number of men and it would fall to her stepmother to look after her until she could be safely married off. A rueful grin tugged at his mouth. It would seem he was not only prepared to take on a wife, but a full-grown daughter, too. Before he had come to Bath the idea would have appalled him, now he found himself looking forward to it.
His amusement died away as he neared the edge of the park. The trees and bushes grew thickly here, providing for the most part a dense barrier between the grounds and the road, but there was a definite track meandering through the bushes. No doubt this was the point used by the daily staff to make their way to and from the lodge. Soon he could see the highway, and a carriage drawn up at the roadside. Richard approached cautiously. A coachman and guard were sitting up on the box but a caped figure stood behind the carriage, pacing restlessly to and fro. Screened by the bushes, Richard moved along and stepped out into the road just as the man was at the furthest point from the carriage.
‘What the—?’
‘Good day to you, Sir Charles.’
Urmston’s face registered surprise, anger and disappointment before he recollected himself.
‘Arrandale. I, um...’
‘You are waiting for your henchman to bring Ellen Tatham to you,’ suggested Richard.
‘How perceptive of you.’ Urmston’s thin lips curved into an unpleasant smile. ‘I take it you have foiled my little plan.’
‘I have. I suspected you might try something like this. Your man is even now on his way to Salisbury in the soil cart. You may collect him from there.’
Urmston’s face darkened.
‘Devil take you, Arrandale, you have stolen the march on us all.’
‘It would seem so,’ replied Richard, unmoved.
‘You have the heiress here all right and tight and mean to have her for yourself. Very clever, using Lady Hune to befriend the heiress and her stepmother.’
‘It was certainly an advantage.’
‘You are a cunning devil, Arrandale. I suppose you plan to seduce the wench under Lady Phyllida’s nose. Or have you already done so?’
Richard’s lip curled. Let him think what he liked, the truth would be out soon enough, but he could not resist one final twist of the knife.
‘You shall hear all about it tomorrow when I return to Bath to collect my reward.’ He grinned at the thought: not ten thousand pounds, but Phyllida’s hand in marriage. Sir Charles was glaring at him, chewing his lip in frustration. Richard laughed. ‘Admit yourself beaten, Urmston. Off you go to Salisbury to find your lackey, and leave me to enjoy my victory.’
Sir Charles stood for a moment, undecided, then with a final, vicious, ‘Damn you Arrandale!’ he turned on his heel and strode to his carriage, barking orders to his coachman.