The Bastard: The Kent Family Chronicles Page 8

  The girl’s sky-blue eyes engaged Phillipe’s with frank interest. And without the obvious dislike with which the boy continued to regard him.

  Slowly, then, with a curling little smile, the girl glanced away—

  But not before Phillipe’s startled senses caught a similarity between her gaze and Charlotte’s. Like Charlotte, she was a creature of the flesh, some instinct told him. But she was not common. A whore at heart, perhaps. But a gilded one—

  Obviously the two young people had been outdoors, engaging in some strenuous activity such as horseback riding. The young man gave off an aroma of sweat as he swaggered toward Phillipe, hitting the floor with the ferrule of his stick at each step, rap, rap. His grin remained lopsided, relaxed—unlike his eyes. The girl pretended disinterest, half-turning from the two young men. But she continued to watch in an oblique way, a faint sheen of perspiration glowing on her upper lip.

  Rap, rap, rap—

  The young man stopped two paces in front of Phillipe. Stared. The lopsided grin straightened out; disappeared, leaving his mouth stark with distaste.

  With unmistakable reluctance, Lady Jane at last broke the prolonged tension:

  “May I present my son, Roger, and his fiancé, Alicia, daughter of the Earl of Parkhurst?”

  Roger whipped up his stick. Phillipe had to step back a pace, quickly, to avoid being struck by the tip. He didn’t miss the flicker of pleasure in Roger’s eyes. Roger pointed the stick at Marie.

  “This is the Charboneau woman?”

  “Yes, that’s correct. I’ve forgotten her boy’s name.”

  Rage boiled inside Phillipe as Marie burst out, “You know his name is Phillipe.”

  Studying Phillipe through tawny lashes, Alicia Parkhurst remarked, “I do think there’s a resemblance.”

  Lady Jane’s gray eyes went to flint. Roger saw his mother’s fury, and as if some unseen signal had passed between them, whirled on the girl, slamming the stick’s ferrule on the floor.

  “None! None at all!”

  “Oh, but Roger my sweet, use your eyes!”

  Roger’s mouth wrenched. His color darkened as he went to Alicia in three swift strides. The mark at his eyebrow seemed more black than purple as his voice savaged her:

  “Mine are perfectly clear, Alicia dearest. Yours, however—well, one would almost think you’d been indulging your excessive fondness for claret. You’re babbling.”

  The girl’s face turned pink. Her shoulders trembled. Her expression changed from anger to humiliation, then to fear as Roger lifted his free hand to tweak the point of her chin. Not lightly, Phillipe saw. He hurt her. The girl’s eyes blazed again as Roger said:

  “Pray be silent, Alicia, while we conclude this tiresome private matter.”

  Shut out, intimidated, the girl seemed on the point of attacking him; her fingers around her riding crop had gone dead white.

  But under the impact of Roger’s furious stare, she wilted. Though still angry, she turned her back. What had made her surrender? Phillipe wondered. Fright? Or something more?

  Rap—

  Rap—

  RAP—

  Very slowly, in control again, Roger Amberly returned to stand before Phillipe, feigning a smile.

  “No,” he sighed, “no resemblance. Except one. We smell about the same. But then, I’ve been for a frisky ride, what—?” He jabbed lightly at Phillipe’s armpit with the heavy silver head of his stick.

  Phillipe’s hands flashed out. He jerked the stick so hard, the carry-loop broke. He flung the stick without looking. It skittered and clacked across the floor, landing at Dr. Bleeker’s feet.

  “Don’t prod me like some animal,” Phillipe said.

  The birthmark over Roger’s eye darkened as he lunged forward. “You filthy French clod, how dare you touch a hand to anything of mi—”

  “Roger.”

  Lady Jane’s voice, steel, brought her son up in mid-stride. A blood vessel stood out in Roger’s throat. He took another step forward but Lady Jane intercepted him.

  “Roger—you will not. I will handle this.”

  He obeyed her. But not easily. Balked, he glared at Phillipe—and over Roger’s shoulder, Phillipe thought he saw Alicia Parkhurst’s eyes brighten with a moment’s delight. It was quickly masked as Roger stormed toward Bleeker, snatched up his stick in a sudden wild arc. The stick’s ferrule struck a small porcelain vase on one of the tripod tables, shattering it.

  Once more Lady Jane stared at her son. A last piece of the vase clinked to the floor. Roger let out a long, heavy breath, as if something in him had been given release. With mingled dread and curiosity, Phillipe speculated as to whether the boy’s marked face was somehow a sign of a deeper, more damaging mark on his mind— From the hard birth, perhaps?

  Lady Jane addressed Marie in a toneless voice:

  “Be so good as to take yourself and this brawling boor out of my house.”

  “There’s some doubt about who is the brawling boor,” Phillipe said. Roger’s eyes narrowed, hateful.

  “I will leave,” Marie replied. “But I will stay in the village until Phillipe stands at the bedside of James Amberly and is recognized as his son.”

  “On both counts, madame,” said Lady Jane with that impeccable control, “there is much doubt about the outcome.”

  “I have his witnessed letter! You cannot destroy the truth of that!”

  Marie wheeled and walked away. Face hot, Phillipe started to follow, only to have Roger dart forward:

  “Hold one moment!”

  Phillipe turned, waiting.

  Roger was younger, he had decided. But by no means lacking in physical strength. Roger held his stick in one hand, fingering—almost caressing—the heavy, scrolled silver head.

  “Under the law,” Roger said with venom, “I could have you maimed for attacking me.”

  “If that’s so, then your laws are as worthless as you.”

  Roger stiffened, hand dropping from the silver head that winked deadly bright in a shifting gleam of sunlight. Phillipe expected an attack, tried to ready himself—then grew aware of Lady Jane again warning her son off with those strong gray eyes.

  The corners of his mouth tight, Roger said, “But I won’t call the law down, my little French bastard. If there’s any punishing to be done, I’ll do it. Thoroughly and well!”

  Swallowing his fear of this crazed young man with the rampaging temper, Phillipe retorted, “Perhaps there’ll come a time when we can test the truth of that boast.”

  “If you stay in Tonbridge long, I’m certain of it.”

  All at once Lady Jane was between them again, a hand on her son’s arm.

  “This is not a London cockpit! I will have that remembered.”

  Dr. Bleeker took out a tiny snuff case. “Shall I summon assistance to have the boy removed, my lady?”

  “Oh, no! Such boldness shouldn’t be punished!”

  Phillipe and everyone else swung around, startled by Alicia Parkhurst’s merry little laugh. The girl let her sky-blue eyes linger on Phillipe—

  Admiringly? Or was that merely hopeful self-deception?

  Still smiling, she addressed her husband-to-be:

  “I wouldn’t venture to be too bold, Roger—”

  “Shut your mouth.”

  Alicia rolled with the verbal blow, hardly blinked. She was afraid of Roger, that Phillipe sensed quite clearly. Yet she would not be easily humiliated. Under her lilting words, there was malice:

  “But I mean it, dear Roger. The boy appears a match for your own hot temper. And brother against brother—that would be shameful.”

  Her head came up, defiantly. “Striking him would be like striking yourself. He does have your good looks, after all. Perhaps he’s even a shade handsomer, I can’t quite decide—” She was daring them—any of them—to deny her right to speak.

  “Can you, Lady Jane?” she asked. “You, Dr. Bleeker?”

  Phillipe both admired her courage and deplored her foolhardiness. Lady
Jane now looked nearly as wrathful as her son, though she said nothing. Parkhurst must be a name fully as illustrious and powerful as Amberly, he thought.

  But insult for insult—cruelty for cruelty—the atmosphere in this breezy, sunlit room was all at once too foul and dangerous to be borne. He stalked toward Marie at the doorway, aware of a smoky, sidelong glance of speculation from Alicia.

  As he reached Marie’s side, she spoke, implacable:

  “We will wait in the village. As long as necessary.”

  “At your peril,” said Roger.

  Hearing Lady Jane’s sibilant burst of breath as she tried to still her son, Phillipe concentrated on taking Marie’s arm and leading her out of that room of enraged faces. Still half-blind with anger himself, he seemed to see but one image: Alicia Parkhurst’s sky-colored eyes, vivid and intense in the moment he passed by her—

  Lady Jane’s voice was raised behind them. It did no good. Roger shouted anyway:

  “Your son will be dead before anyone calls him my lawful brother, you French harlot!”

  Phillipe swung around, making a guttural sound. Marie’s hand on his arm restrained him. Fighting his anger, he stumbled after her.

  He didn’t know whether the encounter had been a victory or a defeat. But there was no doubt that new perils had developed in the confrontation. As if to convince the world—and himself—that he wasn’t afraid, he slammed the front door thunderously on the way out.

  CHAPTER V

  A Game of Love

  i

  THAT NIGHT, BACK AT Wolfe’s Triumph, Phillipe expressed a worry that had troubled him ever since the stormy confrontation at Kentland.

  “How long can we wait?” he asked Marie. “Lady Jane was right—our money won’t last indefinitely.”

  “Then we will find a way to get more.”

  Phillipe couldn’t see his mother’s face when she answered. He was lying on the truckle, pulled from underneath the higher bed into which he could hear her settling. Downstairs, the sounds of laughter and friendly argumentation emphasized again just how isolated and vulnerable they were in this alien land. Vulnerable especially to the temper of Roger Amberly—

  But his mother’s reply seemed to take no account of that. After a moment she went on, “We will not leave this place till your father has seen you, and you have seen him. No matter what it costs us.” With a sharp exhalation of breath, she blew out the candle on the stand beside the bed.

  Hands locked under his neck in the darkness, Phillipe reckoned that it had cost a good deal already.

  After leaving the Amberly house, he and Marie had found no cart waiting to return them to Tonbridge. So they walked—not a long walk, at least not for him. Despite the attempted humiliation by Lady Jane and her son, he could take pleasure from the fact that she had not quite been able to conceal her fear of Marie Charboneau’s presence—or his.

  But Marie had made the trip to Tonbridge with difficulty. She grew short of breath, asking often that they pause and rest. In the low-slanting light of late afternoon, her face had an unhealthy pallor that disturbed Phillipe considerably.

  In the sultry darkness of the room at Mr. Fox’s establishment, he voiced his concern:

  “Are you positive you’re well enough to stay here for some length of time, Mama?”

  “Why do you ask that, Phillipe? Because the boy threatened you?”

  “No!” he burst out. “I’m not afraid of him—he’s probably all bluff.” In truth, he didn’t completely believe either statement. He finished, “It’s you I’m worried about.”

  “I am stronger than she is! You’ll see. Now go to sleep!”

  Over the noise from below-stairs, Phillipe heard a far-off rumble. The first thunder of a spring storm. Coming from the north, the great city of London. Blue-white light flashed across the sky outside the open window.

  Lightning flashes filled his uneasy dreams.

  And an enraged face branded with a purplish mark.

  And a vase shattering—

  And the sky-blue eyes of an aristocratic girl.

  ii

  Next morning, early, a knocking at the door roused him.

  He clambered up from the truckle bed, aware that the sleeve of his coarse nightshirt was damp with rain. A shutter banged in the chilly breeze.

  As he stumbled over to close it, he glimpsed the river winding near the High Street, all gray in a mist of morning. Tiles and thatching on the roofs of cottages in the village glistened from the storm that had drenched Tonbridge all night long.

  Directly below the window, he saw a team of matched grays standing in the mud. The team was hitched to a splendid gilt-and-blue private coach with a coat of arms on its door. Two men huddled on the rear step while the driver complained about the sudden end of the fine weather. One of the men at the back of the coach picked at mud spatters on his white stockings and wondered rhetorically how long they might be forced to wait.

  The knocking sounded again, waking Marie. She came muttering up from sleep, as though still partially in the grip of a bad dream. Phillipe touched her arm to calm her. Her dark eyes opened wide, suddenly full of fear as the knocking was repeated a third time, loudly.

  As Phillipe strode to the door, he glanced at the trunk, wondering whether he should quickly unwrap his sword. But he decided to go ahead and slip the door latch, blocking the opening with his body.

  A moment later, sounding relieved, he said to Marie, “No danger. It’s only the landlord’s boy.”

  Young Clarence Fox, a towhead with teeth equally as protuberant as his father’s said in a hushed voice:

  “You have visitors below. They want to speak to you private. My father and I are to stay in the kitchen. They ask you and your mother to come down as quick as possible. You’d better do it, because Father can’t afford to anger the most important folk around here.”

  Tense, Phillipe asked, “Who are the visitors? People from Kentland?”

  “Lady Jane herself. And some churchman wearing purple. My father treated ’em plenty polite.”

  Marie was sitting up, covering her threadbare nightgown with the comforter. Her dark eyes were clear and alert now. Her faint smile showed satisfaction.

  Phillipe took his cue from that. “Go down and say we’ll attend them as soon as my mother is dressed, Clarence.”

  As he shut the door, Marie laughed. It took no words to explain why. Lady Jane Amberly would not have bothered to seek them out if there was no validity to Marie’s claim.

  iii

  But the brief period of exhilaration vanished the moment Phillipe and his mother went down to the common room.

  Mr. Fox and Clarence had indeed retired, leaving a wedge of cheese and two apples on a serving board at the table where Lady Jane sat motionless. The hood of her pearl-gray cloak was pulled up over the powdery pile of her hair. Her hands were clasped tightly atop the handle of an umbrella of waxed silk.

  Fox had built a small fire in the inglenook. Silhouetted against the flames was an obese man of middle age. Wearing purple, as Clarence had reported.

  The man turned as Marie preceded her son into the room. The man’s full moon of a face matched Jane Amberly’s for severity. Small blue eyes that scrutinized the arrivals seemed to lack any emotion, save a remote distaste. But perhaps Phillipe was deceived by the flickering light of the fire—

  All at once the man licked his thick, already moist lips and smiled an unctuous smile. Thready purple veins showed in his fleshy nose. Still, he radiated affluence, importance, authority. And once in place, his smile never wavered.

  Marie maintained the pretense of politeness:

  “I am sorry for the delay, my lady. I was not yet awake when the boy knocked.”

  Lady Jane offered no similar courtesy, coming to the point at once. “Last night, madame, I reflected for several hours on the unpleasantness which took place at Kentland. I then sought counsel from Bishop Francis.”

  She indicated the obese man standing at the hearth with hands
clasped behind his back. So this was the prelate supposedly praying for James Amberly. Phillipe thought the man looked more acquainted with the ways of the flesh than with those of holiness.

  With an air of sympathy, the bishop spoke in a deep, honeyed voice:

  “And I naturally advised Lady Amberly to bring the matter to a speedy and amiable conclusion—for both your sakes. Affairs at Kentland are troubled enough, as I’m sure you understand.” A tiny pursing of the bowed lips. “If you are truly concerned for the welfare of the Duke—as well as your own—you will be receptive to my lady’s proposal.”

  “I am concerned for his welfare but also for that of his son,” Marie shot back with a sharp gesture at Phillipe.

  “Yes, yes, of course, but don’t you mean his alleged-son?” Bishop Francis asked with the merest flicker of his eyelids. “The matter is in dispute—”

  “Not as far as we’re concerned,” Phillipe said.

  Lady Jane lifted one gloved hand from the head of her umbrella. “Please. Let us come to the solution without quarreling over the problem itself.” To Marie: “You must realize that your presence places additional strain on our entire household. I have come here in the hope of persuading you to leave, thereby removing the extra burden. At the good bishop’s suggestion, I am prepared to make a favorable reaction to my request worth your while.”

  Instantly, Phillipe suspected the game. So did Marie. Her cheeks turned chalky white. But her acting ability helped her keep control.

  She walked to a chair near Lady Jane, sat down gracefully. Her dark eyes met the other woman’s; held. Bishop Francis continued to smile sympathetically. But the little blue seeds of his eyes showed worry. He already sensed resistance.

  “You have come to make us an offer of money?” Marie asked.