Steeplechase Read online

  Miss LeFay—a female of above average height, with a fine figure topped by a face of classical beauty inherited from some nameless ancestor and surrounded by masses of waving black hair—crossed her arms over her very fine bosom and asked, “Have you informed your child bride of that fact?”

  “As a matter of fact, I have.” Harlan dug one hand out from beneath his head, waggling a finger in her direction. “Come back, my dear girl, before goose-flesh disfigures your stunning assets.”

  “Good God!” Miss LeFay breathed. “You cannot have actually told the poor child such a thing. Ramshackle, Davenham. Perfectly ramshackle.”

  Harlan Dawnay, unaccustomed to being scolded by anyone other than his father, scowled and flung his face toward the wall. “Sister of a friend,” he muttered. “An understanding sort. Don’t want to settle down any more than I do.”

  “I wonder,” Amaryllis mused as she sank down onto the bed, “if your aunt has any idea of the bumblebroth she set up with this nonsense about her will.”

  “You think me mercenary?” Harlan’s back was still toward her, his words slipping out through tight lips.

  “A female in my position think you mercenary?” Ryl’s tone had a decided edge. “Believe me, Davenham, no one understands the term mercenary better than a courtesan. If we did not, we would end our lives starving in the gutter. As many do,” she added softly.

  “Davenham . . . Harlan,” she whispered, laying her fingers on his shoulder, “I was merely . . . surprised. Obviously, you have no choice. I understand that perfectly, but a new bride, a young bride . . . ? She may not be as amenable as she seems.”

  Amenable? Lady Sarah? Ha! “She’s seventeen. She’ll do as she’s told,” the viscount growled, and swept his mistress into his arms.

  For a moment Miss LeFay resisted. “When is the wedding?” she demanded.

  “Tomorrow. Hell and devil confound it! ’Tis tomorrow.”

  Chapter Three

  The ceremony was private, with Lady Amalie affecting a disdainful pose beside her younger sister and Lord Richard looking uneasy, as if he had second thoughts about offering up his sister for Davenham’s convenience. The bridegroom was suave, the ultimate handsome scion of nobility; the bride a vision of budding womanhood in a gown of aquamarine silk that matched her eyes. Embroidered white buds enhanced the fabric and were echoed by a circlet of white rosebuds topping the gold-streaked strawberry curls piled high on her head. She appeared radiant, as a bride should. As if totally unaware of the tensions threatening to burst the walls of the small chapel.

  As if her heart were not about to burst as well—though whether from anticipation or terror Sarah was unsure. Perhaps both.

  She could not look at Davenham. If she did, she would be lost. She had long thought him the most strikingly handsome man she had ever seen—and, imagine! she was to be his wife—but after her mother’s visit to her room last night, Sarah feared that if she peeked at him as she came down the aisle, she might catch a glimpse of the ravening beast her mama described. Even worse, she could not look at her papa either, as thoughts of how she herself had come into the world—preceded by three brothers and a sister—might enter her head, and then she would be well and truly lost. Melting into a puddle of mortification right there in the chapel aisle.

  If what her mama told her were true—and surely it must be—then she was vastly relieved by the odd arrangement Lord Davenham offered. To do that with a man who’d become a near stranger? Unthinkable. Yet it happened all the time, she knew it did. Her mama had reminded her how fortunate she was to be marrying a friend of her brother’s, someone she had been acquainted with for years.

  So Lady Sarah fixed a charming smile in place and looked straight ahead. The vicar was a familiar face—middle-aged and kindly. She gave him her full attention, repeating her vows with clear precision. She was an Ainsworth. She had agreed to this travesty of a marriage, and she would carry it off with dignity. After that . . . after that was a great wall of fog she had been unable to pierce in spite of several sleepless nights of intense speculation.

  There was a heart-stopping moment when the vicar issued the traditional invitation to anyone knowing “just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter forever hold his peace.” Into the always expectant silence Sarah half-expected to hear her sister’s wail of protest echoing through the chapel, but Amalie—possibly recalling that Lord Richard and Lord Michael, come down from Oxford for the occasion, might well strangle her on the spot—was blessedly silent. Although Sarah thought she caught the suspicion of an Amalie-sounding sniff.

  Wilt thou . . .

  I, Harlan Damian Chilton Dawnay . . .

  With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship . . .

  . . . Man and Wife . . .

  Sarah shivered. She had just gone from being the chattel of her father to chattel of Harlan Dawnay, Viscount Davenham.

  Her husband offered his arm. Sarah accepted, glad enough of his support, for her legs were suddenly weak. What had she done? They signed the register, made their way through a crowd of gawkers on the pavement outside. Davenham helped her into the coach.

  Sarah clasped her hands very tightly in her lap and told herself not to be ninny. She had agreed to leave the shelter of her home. To place her life in the hands of this sophisticated stranger to whom she was a mere convenience.

  She was Lady Davenham. Her legal rights might be close to naught, but her social consequence was now enormous. Viscountess Davenham. Sarah kept that thought through the wedding breakfast—held from noon until three—to which Lady Rotherwick had invited the very cream of the ton. There were jeers from the throng on the streets outside Rotherwick House when the overblown figure of the Prince Regent was helped from his carriage by no less than six footmen. By this spring of 1817 his spendthrift ways and continuing family problems had made George, Prince of Wales, the least-liked prince in Christendom.

  Yet he patted the new Lady Davenham’s hand with avuncular sincerity, beaming at her with more warmth than he usually turned on his daughter, Princess Charlotte, who had married the year before. An equerry stepped forward bearing a enormous silver gilt epergne, which Sarah thought as singularly ugly as it was undoubtedly expensive. She beamed, repeated her best court curtsy, and thanked His Royal Highness for the gift. Ugly or not, no one could say the prince had been any more penny-pinching in his gift to the Davenhams than he was in providing Carlton House and his Pavilion in Brighton with the most expensive furnishings and bibelots that could be found. Certainly his attendance at the wedding breakfast added an unexpected cachet to her marriage.

  Ha! She had been recognized by the First Gentleman of the Realm. Davenham could not now lock her up at Chesterton and throw away the key.

  Not that he would have . . .

  Would he?

  I assure you that the—ah—arrangement we have agreed upon will not last forever.

  So even if he did, there was light at the end of the tunnel.

  You will have the freedom of a married lady, the freedom of my purse—

  That did not sound as if he expected her to stay out of sight, out of mind.

  Sarah smiled, accepted congratulations, picked at the stunning array of food her mama had managed to provide in the few days allowed. During the multitude of toasts, she sipped at her champagne, often merely allowing the bubbles to tickle her nose. Not even minding when her husband put his hand over her glass and waved the footman away. Moving like an automaton, she finally followed her mother from the room and allowed herself to be thrust into a carriage dress of dark blue with a jaunty hat that revealed her face when she would have preferred to hide behind a bonnet.

  They were getting such a late start, they would have to stay at an inn tonight. What if the inn had only one available bedchamber? What if . . . ?

  She was going to be alone with Harlan Dawnay.

  The ravening beast.

  Gorblimey! The silent oath, overheard in
the stables, seemed appropriate to the occasion.

  Nonetheless . . . she was an Ainsworth. She would manage.

  Sarah pulled on her white kidskin gloves, then descended the front staircase with all the aplomb of a young lady who knows herself well-dressed and well-wed. Lady Davenham, indeed! Her bridegroom offered the crook of his arm, and then they were ascending into his traveling carriage, the steps put up, the coachman giving the four horses the office to start. Farewells and good wishes rang from all sides, dying away only as they left Rotherwick House far behind.

  “Lord!” her husband breathed, slapping his tall beaver onto the seat across from them, “I thought Prinny would never leave. It will be late before we reach Reigate, where I’ve bespoke rooms.”

  “Reigate?” Sarah echoed faintly, wondering if she had drunk more wine than she had thought. “But I thought we were going to Chesterton.”

  “Nary a bit. Did I not tell you? Brighton will be more lively. My word on it—you’d be bored in a trice at Chesterton. Naught but a weekly assembly where the old tabbies will eat you alive. Seventeen ain’t up to snuff, yet, don’t y’ know. Barely out of the cradle.”

  “You said we were to go to Chesterton.”

  “Wedding journey. No sense telling the world and his uncle where we’re off to.” The viscount shifted position, angling his long legs, nicely exposed in skin-tight buff pantaloons, until Sarah was forced to move her half-boots before their toes and heels clashed in an embarrassing dance. If only she had Finella as a buffer between them, but her maid was in a second carriage with Davenham’s valet, Morgan, and the remainder of their luggage.

  “You lied,” Sarah declared baldly.

  “Hush, child. The newly married are entitled to privacy.”

  Privacy? In Brighton—the Prince Regent’s favorite home away from home? A once sleepy fishing village now transformed into a lively seafront escape for the beau monde?

  Lady Davenham’s chin firmed into an uncompromising line. “If Mama and Papa discover I am not at Chesterton, they will be frantic.”

  “Ten days, little one. We’ll be back in London before word reaches them.”

  There he sat, the man she had married, lounging against the squabs as if he hadn’t a care in the world, arms folded across his chest, dark hair gleaming in the late afternoon sunlight filtered through the carriage window, long lashes shielding the depths of his quite remarkable blue eyes. He was kidnapping her, casting her among strangers in a strange place. He was . . .

  He was her husband. Whether at Chesterton or Brighton, he was her fate. If he chose to play ducks and drakes with the truth . . . ? If he chose to take ship for Timbuktu . . . she was his wife and must do as he said. If he wished to avoid the boredom of ten days in the country with no other amusement than his new bride, so be it. If she had looked forward to those days at Chesterton as an opportunity to become better acquainted with her husband, she must put that aside.

  Sarah stifled a sigh. No one could say she had not been well-warned. It would appear she had not acquired a husband but yet another arrogant, overbearing older brother.

  Something must be done about that, but at the moment she was exhausted, champagne still tickling her nose and bubbling in her head. Sarah wiggled back into a corner as far from her husband as she could get, snuggling into the velvet squabs. Sleep, however, was impossible. Above every roll of the wheels, every clomp of the horses’ hooves, every bone-shaking rattle of the carriage, she heard a litany. Husband, husband, husband. Wife, wife wife. Harlan, Sarah . . . Sarah, Harlan. Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. For ever and ever and ever . . .

  The truth, when it came, was painful. To Lord Davenham, today’s ceremony was a means to an end. To her, it was a marriage. All those lovely traditional words . . . she had vowed them before God and her family. It might mean nothing to Davenham, but she was well and truly married. And Harlan Damian Chilton Dawnay, Viscount Davenham, was going to have to learn to live with it.

  But not tonight. Sarah squeezed her eyes more tightly shut. Thanks be to God, not tonight.

  Devil a bit, he’d shackled himself to an infant! From the look of her, asleep in the corner, she was not a day over thirteen. What in the name of all that was holy was he going to do with a child in Brighton?

  More than he could have at Chesterton, with the chambermaids twittering over unstained sheets and reporting back to the housekeeper, who was a veritable conduit of information to the village. Where the most they could have done was ride and drive a bit, be fawned over at the weekly assembly . . . and be forced to talk to each other and no one else, as his Chesterton neighbors would not press bride visits on a couple until several weeks after the ceremony.

  So, confound it, what was a man to do? As the Season in London wound down, Brighton was coming to life. Assemblies, theater, concerts, shopping, sea bathing, even hunting, though the coastline was definitely humbug country. Enough to keep them tolerably amused for ten days.

  “Is Miss LeFay waiting in Brighton?”

  He could not have heard correctly. His ears—or was it his conscience?—were playing tricks. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I merely wondered if she is to share our wedding journey. I wish to be prepared. It would not do, I am sure, for me to look surprised if we should meet her walking down the street.”

  What had Dickon said about the older sister? You’d strangle her before the wedding feast was cold. The younger one wasn’t going to make it much farther. He should have settled for Miss Nobody from Nowhere, who’d be damned grateful for the honor of being Lady Davenham.

  “Miss LeFay is in London,” Harlan pronounced through gritted teeth. “I am not so lost to all propriety as to invite my mistress on my wedding journey.”

  “Good.”

  A nasty frisson slithered from the tips of his top-boots straight up to his head. Harlan could swear he felt his dark hair, thick as it was, stand on end. His innocent baby mouse was showing teeth? Surely not.

  Silence prevailed until they entered the stableyard of the best inn in Reigate, persisted as they were shown to their separate rooms, became even more oppressive as they sat down for a late supper in a cozy, well-appointed private dining room. Lord Davenham took his time, sampling the landlord’s quite excellent Madeira before looking his bride straight in the eye. “Lady Sarah . . . are you regretting our agreement?”

  She did not offer the quick denial he had hoped to hear, but considered his question, with her head cocked to one side, her Mona Lisa smile maddeningly in place. “You forget, my lord, I am Lady Davenham now.”

  Harlan’s fingers jerked, sending his glass tilting at a precarious angle. He bit back an expletive, righting the wine glass a fraction of an inch before the ruby liquid spilled onto the pristine white tablecloth. Lady Davenham. Blast the chit, she was right.

  His wife folded her hands on the table and regarded him with wide-eyed innocence, as if—devil take it!—she were a schoolroom miss without a care in the world. “As I have told you before, my lord, I am delighted to be setting up my own establishment—something I hope we will do as soon as we return to London, as living in Marchmont House with your parents is not at all what I would like. One of the great attractions of marriage, after all, is the lure of independence. I am heartily tired of being a youngest child.”

  Lord Davenham blinked, his customarily facile tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. The chit expected a London townhouse?

  Well, of course she expected them to set up their own establishment. He simply hadn’t thought that far ahead. It was possible, Harlan conceded with a frisson of unease, that there were a great many things he had not taken the time to think through.

  “And I wish to have a curricle and pair,” his child bride informed him. “Blue, picked out in white—with white horses . . . or possibly black.”

  The little minx was bargaining with him! Not yet married twelve hours and—Hell and the devil confound it!—she was bargaining with him. Next, she’d be ou
tlining a purse-lightening visit to Rundell & Bridges. An endless parade of visits to the finest modistes.

  Inwardly, Harlan groaned. His freedom was to be bought at a considerably higher price than he had imagined.

  The trouble was, he had not thought beyond the moment. Beyond securing his Aunt Portia’s approbation. Beyond the next amusement . . . beyond returning to London and taking up his former life just as he’d left it.

  Yet he was now responsible for a living, breathing human being. A fledgling who only thought she knew how to fly. A babe in the woods. How could Dickon have suggested his own sister for this sacrifice?

  Because they were friends, and Lord Richard genuinely thought they would suit?

  Well, he had the little brat now, so what was he to do with her? Not such a dire problem, actually. She came with a more than generous dowry. Add his already comfortable funds and his prospects from Aunt Portia, and he could afford to give the spoiled little minx anything her heart desired.

  Except himself, of course. But somehow Harlan had the impression he was not on his lady’s wish list. Which rather rankled, come to think of it.

  “I am not at all certain we can find a townhouse for rent during the Season,” Lord Davenham informed his wife, “and it may take some time to locate a suitable place for sale.”

  “Oh.” She looked so disappointed, his anger dissipated on the instant, his heart nosediving into his toes.

  “But we will look. I promise.” The aquamarine eyes sparkled in the candlelight, her smile dazzling, unfettered. Responsive. Intriguing. Harlan felt a sharp tug in his groin. He swallowed hard, turning to welcome the arrival of their roast dinner with a rush of relief.

  The next day, Lord and Lady Davenham completed their journey to the seaside town that had grown from the old fishing village of Brighthelmstone into the bustling resort of Brighton, thanks to Dr. Richard Russell’s much-touted sea-bathing cures and more than thirty years of enthusiastic patronage by the Prince of Wales, now Prince Regent. The substantial farmhouse the heir to the throne had purchased at the edge of town had become a Palladian mansion designed by Henry Holland, and was now in the process of being transformed into an Oriental fantasy by the famed architect, John Nash.