LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

‘If you mean who stayed awake longest. I think your uncle is home. I heard wheels on the gravel just now.’

      ‘Oh, goodness.’ Bree got to her feet, found that her left foot had gone to sleep, and hopped painfully to peer in the spotted mirror. She patted her hair back into something like order and smoothed down her skirts. Max was looking perfectly composed. ‘How long have I been asleep?’

      He glanced at the clock. ‘About an hour. It’s half past one.’

      There were sounds from the front hall. Bree hurried to open the door. ‘Uncle George!’

      ‘Bree? Well, bless my heart, what are you doing here, child?’ Her uncle turned from the foot of the stairs and came towards her, a candle in his hand. With relief she saw he looked much as usual, although perhaps his face was a trifle thinner, his hair a little whiter. ‘Are you well? Is something amiss?’

      ‘That’s what I came to ask you.’ Bree reached up a hand to his shoulder and kissed his cheek, cold from the night air. His breath smelt of brandy. ‘You wrote such a strange letter, we were worried about you.’

      ‘I did?’ He frowned in puzzlement, but followed her as she turned back into the room. ‘I don’t recall that.’

      ‘Here.’ Bree took it out of her reticule and offered it. Her uncle took it, started to read, then coloured.

      ‘That nonsense? I was in my cups, started scribbling some maudlin stuff—I thought I had burned it. That old fool Betsy must have posted it instead.’ A movement arrested his attention. ‘Who’s this?’

      ‘Lord Penrith, Uncle. Max, this is my uncle, Mr George Mallory.’ In his cups? But Uncle George hardly touches a drop of liquor.

      The men shook hands, George frowning. ‘You two are not married, are you?’

      ‘No!’ they both chorused again, with such emphasis that Uncle George looked startled. It was really embarrassing the way this household took one look at the pair of them and jumped to that conclusion. Max must be mortified to deny it so vehemently.

      ‘I am a friend of Miss Mallory and her brother,’ he said, collecting himself. ‘When I discovered Miss Mallory was intending to make this journey by stage with no escort, I offered to accompany her.’

      ‘I see.’ George Mallory looked at the cards scattered on the table, then glanced away again. He seemed unsettled, but not, apparently, by his niece’s behaviour in sitting up half the night, unchaperoned, with an earl. ‘You should be in bed, child. Look at the hour.’

      ‘I came because I was anxious about you, Uncle. If everything was well, I intended to leave again on the morning coach, so there would be no time to speak then.’ Bree took his hand. ‘I am sorry, I have worried you, arriving like this.’

      ‘There is nothing wrong.’ Her uncle fixed her with a direct stare from under beetling grey brows. ‘Nothing at all. I can’t have you rushing about the place every time I do something foolish. Now, off to your bed with you if you’re to be up first thing tomorrow. I’m expecting you and Piers to stay in a few weeks, aren’t I? How is the boy?’

      ‘Much better, Uncle. He sends his love.’

      ‘Better from what?’ he demanded.

      ‘From the pneumonia.’ Bree regarded him anxiously. ‘Don’t you recall? I wrote to say he had to come home from Harrow to recuperate.’ Out of the corner of her eye she saw Max beginning to edge tactfully towards the door and shook her head at him. He stopped.

      ‘Oh, yes, so you did.’ Her uncle seemed to pull himself together, becoming, in the flickering candle- and firelight, someone closer to the vigorous man she had left after her last visit. ‘Nothing the matter with me, child. No need for you to stay.’

      ‘Betsy—’

      ‘What’s she been saying?’

      ‘Just that you had made some new friends.’

      ‘Aye, so I have. And what of it?’

      ‘Nothing. I am glad.’ Bree bit her lip. He seemed fine, if slightly forgetful and somewhat irascible. But perhaps that was simply to be expected with advancing years. ‘I will stay if you would like me to, Uncle.’

      ‘No, I thank you. You be off back to London in the morning and keep an eye on that young whippersnapper of a nephew of mine.’ He swung round and regarded Max. ‘Don’t expect I’ll see you again, my lord. I thank you for your escort for my niece. Goodnight to you both. I’m off to bed.’

      Bree stared at the door as he closed it behind him. ‘Well,’ she said blankly. ‘What did you think?’

      Max shrugged. He had walked to the table and was gathering up the cards. ‘I don’t know him. The cards appeared to worry him, don’t you think? Far more than my presence. In his shoes I’d be demanding what the devil was going on with my niece.’

      ‘And he’d been drinking, although he was far from drunk. Perhaps his rheumatism is troubling him. I suppose I had better do as he says and go back to London and Piers and I will take our holiday a little earlier this year.’ She broke off and yawned hugely. ‘Oh, excuse me! I really must be off to bed.’

      Max held the door open for her. ‘What do you think, truly?’ she asked as he followed her into the hall.

      ‘That he is hiding something. But unless you intend to move in and interrogate him, I am not sure what you can do about it.’ Max lit a branch of candles from the one he held. ‘My great-aunt became very secretive as she got older. That is probably all it is.’

      ‘Of course. Thank you, Max.’ For a moment she thought he was going to say something, then he bent and kissed her, lightly, on the cheek.

      ‘Goodnight, Bree. Sleep tight.’

      ‘There you are! How is he?’ Piers demanded as she arrived home half way through the next afternoon, tired, stiff and hungry.

      ‘Is Mr Mallory well?’ Rosa set aside a piece of sewing and got to her feet. ‘I collect he must be, as you are back so soon.’ She tugged the bell pull. ‘You look in need of a nice luncheon and a lie down.’

      ‘Oh, yes, indeed I am,’ Bree agreed, tugging off her gloves and tossing them and her hat onto the sofa. ‘Uncle seems in good health, but, Piers, he had been out, visiting new friends and drinking brandy, which is not like him at all. And he seemed very happy to send me on my way the next morning.’ She sat down with a sigh and put up her feet, most improperly, on the fender. ‘He says he wrote the letter in a maudlin moment and meant to burn it, but Betsy must have posted it. Max agrees with me that Uncle is hiding something, but goodness knows what.’

      ‘Max? You mean Dysart was with you?’ Piers demanded.

      ‘Lord Penrith to you,’ Bree corrected. ‘He saw me catching the stage and insisted on escorting me. It did his shoulder no good at all, so I felt I had to invite him back to the house.’

      Piers, to her relief, appeared to find nothing odd about this, but Bree could feel Rosa’s eyes boring into her. She turned and raised one eyebrow with what she hoped was a cool assumption of indifference.

      Her companion merely picked up her sewing again and remarked, ‘How very gallant of his lordship.’

      Braced for criticism or comment, Bree felt curiously deflated. She wanted to talk about Max, she realised. She could hardly tell Rosa that she was falling in love with the man, but she had at least expected exclamations and discussion, something to give her the opportunity to speak his name. She jumped to her feet. ‘I will go and wash and change. That stage was decidedly grubby.’

      ‘Yes, dear,’ Rosa said cheerfully. ‘That’s a good idea.’ Maddening!

      Max sat back in his deep armchair in the book room at the Nonesuch, tapping the folded letter he had just received from Ryder against his knee. It had been short, and couched in the code they had agreed

Скачать книгу