The Decadent Countess Read online

  She reached into her reticule and removed a card. On it was printed an invitation to the long-awaited Lethbridge party. Miranda took it from her very carefully, almost as if she were afraid it might bite.

  ‘Oh, Sophie,’ she breathed, ‘I don’t know if I can—’

  ‘Don’t you dare refuse, Miranda! You cannot allow Mr Harmon to spoil everything. You will come, and Jack will be there, and of course Leo, and…and everyone, and it will all turn out very nicely. No one dares to misbehave at a Lethbridge party.’

  Miranda stared at her friend in wonder, and then she laughed. ‘I believe you are right, Sophie. No one would dare.’

  ‘There, you see,’ cried Sophie, a gleam in her green eyes. ‘You are feeling better already!’

  Chapter Twelve

  As Miranda turned from sending Sophie on her way, she found Pendle hovering about behind her and making rather alarming faces.

  ‘I will see no more visitors today, Pendle. In fact I want no more visitors, ever!’

  ‘I’m sorry, madam, I would grant your wish if I could, but unfortunately you have Mr Harmon awaiting you in the garden.’

  Miranda stared in a manner more bewildered than angry. ‘What is Mr Harmon doing in the garden?’

  ‘He was in the house, madam, but when he heard Miss Lethbridge’s voice he became quite agitated, and scampered through the side door into the garden.’

  ‘Scampered?’

  ‘Yes, madam. That is the only word I can think of which properly describes his movements. I thought it best to leave him there until Miss Lethbridge had left. Perhaps he is a little touched in the upperworks, madam.’

  Miranda made a tart reply. ‘Why not? Everyone else seems to be.’

  ‘Yes, madam,’ said Pendle, with feeling.

  ‘Very well! I will go and see him in the garden. And, Pendle?’

  Pendle leaned toward her, his manner most subservient, while at the same time alert for new instructions.

  ‘Don’t allow Mr Harmon into The Grange again. He is no longer welcome. Do you understand?’

  ‘I do indeed, madam. Neither the Duke nor Mr Harmon are to be allowed admittance to your presence.’

  ‘Exactly, Pendle.’

  Miranda made her way into the garden. It had clearly been a wilderness for years, but new growth had turned roses and flowering shrubs quite rampant. She paused a moment to enjoy the sunshine and the mingled outdoor scents, thinking it was a little like the garden in a fairytale. Only there was no chance of a prince cutting his way through this wall of thorns to wake her with a kiss.

  As if he had been awaiting the chance to pounce, her head was suddenly full of Leo. A fog of despair all but took her breath away. What a fool she had been! How could she have taken the word of a man like Harmon over someone like Leo? All along her heart had been trying to tell her the path she should take, but she had ignored it and followed another.

  Now she would pay the price with a lifetime of unhappiness.

  Even this morning, when he had come ranting to her door, she might have salvaged the situation. She might have… Well, thought Miranda, perhaps not. Leo had wanted to murder her. A bright flicker of anger stirred the murky depths of her misery. He had been very rude. As if it had all been her fault, when anyone could see that the bulk of the problem was his.

  If Leo had not made that arrogant assumption in the drawing room in the house in Berkeley Square, none of the rest of it would have followed. If he would once apologise for… He had apologised. He had apologised when he came to see her and she had been sorting in the linen cupboard. And then he had kissed her, and she had thought, foolishly as it happened, that everything would be all right.

  Tears stung her eyes.

  ‘Blast and damn it!’

  The exclamation was so in keeping with her own thoughts that for a bizarre moment Miranda believed she must have spoken aloud. And then, of course, she realised that she had not and that the voice had belonged to Mr Harmon.

  He was stooped over beside a huge mound of roses, tugging furiously where his trousers had caught upon a particularly vicious thorn. His violent action was causing the rose flowers to fall in a cascade of white and pink petals all about him.

  ‘Mr Harmon?’

  The trousers came free with a faint but ominous ripping sound. Mr Harmon straightened and adjusted his apparel with a couple of angry tugs. His hair, usually so carefully arranged, was rather unkempt, a lock falling across his forehead, a couple of rose petals decorating his crown. He smoothed it impatiently. He looked very cross, almost a stranger. As Miranda watched, he reset his features by the same mechanism of tugs and adjustments into the amiable gentleman she had always believed him to be.

  ‘Miranda!’ he cried, as if he had not been playing tug-of-war with a plant, and strolled towards her. He meant, she supposed, to take her hand and kiss it in his usual manner. As Miranda waited, she supposed she should be angry with him. He had stolen her happiness because of his own vendetta against Leo. Had he known she was in love with the Duke when he did it, or was it simply that he didn’t care? Whatever the extent of the damage, he had knowingly caused it.

  She should be angry.

  Instead she felt a sort of irritable impatience. Mr Harmon was, on reflection, not a man worth hating. He was a figure who clearly longed to be in the limelight, but the fact was he would always be one of the lesser performers. She no longer liked him, no longer trusted him, but neither could she hate him as he probably deserved.

  Mr Harmon captured her hand but, when he bent to press his lips to her knuckles, Miranda quickly withdrew it and placed it behind her back. He stilled and looked up at her, his brown eyes suddenly very sharp as they examined her face. Like a fox that has been caught robbing a nest.

  In a moment the impression was gone, and he was smiling benevolently once more.

  ‘Your garden is absolutely blooming, Miranda. For some reason it puts me in mind of the lines of a poem I once read. If you have no objection, I will recite them to you.’

  ‘I do object. This is neither the time nor place for poetry, Mr Harmon.’

  He smiled, but his eyes remained watchful. ‘Surely there is always a time and place for poetry, my dear?’

  ‘I am not “your dear”, and I have heard some very unpleasant facts about you, Mr Harmon. I think you know what they are.’

  Frederick Harmon looked pained. ‘Ah, I understand. Believe me, if it was up to me, Miranda, I would not have spoken. I do not believe in telling malicious tales. But it appears that others are not so scrupulous, and if I must defend my honour, then I must.’

  Miranda opened her mouth to cut in on this bold avowal, but Mr Harmon held up his hand to prevent her and, other than shout above him, she had perforce to listen to what she expected to be a tissue of lies.

  ‘Sophie Lethbridge appears to be a sweet girl. Her face, her manner, her smile, all inspire one to believe she is as good as she is beautiful. I did believe, and I gave my heart to her. Alas, she is not as she appears. That lovely face hides a serpent. Imagine my despair when, instead of honouring her promises to me, she jilted me most cruelly? And the reason? Because I was not rich enough for her! She may have held some small regard for me, I do not know. Certainly she did not love me as I loved her. But she had no qualms about sacrificing our love at the altar of Mammon.’

  He had worked himself up into quite a state. Perhaps part of him believed what he was saying, but Miranda was quite sure Sophie would not recognise herself in the tale he was telling.

  ‘If anyone worships at Mammon’s altar then it is you, Mr Harmon,’ Miranda informed him coldly. ‘Once I might have listened to you and accepted your lies, but now I see you are a scoundrel. Miss Lethbridge wants you gone from the neighbourhood, and so do I.’

  He gasped and appeared shocked to the core, but again Miranda wasn’t deceived. At least, she told herself, he had been useful in educating her in the detection of cads. She would never be quite so gullible again.

  ‘Mir
anda, I beg of you! Adela will be heartbroken if she hears you and I have fallen out. She is quite depending upon me to—’

  ‘Did you really receive a letter from Adela?’ Miranda asked, not really expecting to hear the truth.

  Mr Harmon did not disappoint her. ‘Of course I did! She is very concerned. She begged me to watch over you. How can I tell her that you have taken the word of others over mine and sent me from your side? Miranda, you are in danger and they are all in cahoots against me. Once I am out of the way, you will be at their mercy. There will be no one to watch over you.’

  Miranda bit her lip. There was really nothing amusing in what he was saying, and yet she felt like laughing in his face. Too much drama in the one day, she supposed. It had made her light-headed.

  ‘Then you had best write back to her, telling her that I am perfectly well and happy, and that I have relieved you of the onerous duty of “watching over me”.’

  ‘Miranda, please—’

  ‘Goodbye, Mr Harmon.’

  He wanted to say more, and may well have done so, but Pendle appeared behind him and stood waiting in ominous silence to escort him on his away. Mr Harmon, spying him there, turned his gaze from Miranda to her servant and back again. His expression changed, hardened, the easy friendliness dropping from him like the rose petals in his hair.

  ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I will go. Once again Belford triumphs. But it will not always be so.’

  ‘Come, Mr Harmon, this way.’ Pendle spoke in his most superior manner, his mouth twitching as though he had drunk vinegar. Quite like his old self.

  When they had gone, Mr Harmon stalking crossly ahead of the relentless Pendle, Miranda did not immediately follow. She preferred to linger amongst the overgrown shrubs and flowerbeds. It was peaceful here, and her thoughts wandered sadly through the maze of her life since she left Italy.

  She looked about. Perhaps there had once been a maze here too, in the flesh, as it were. And Elizabethan knots and bowers, where lovers could sit and make their plans, and steal secret kisses. No doubt Fitzgibbon and his wife had strolled together, hands clasped, and dreamed of founding a dynasty.

  A pity such happiness would never be hers and Leo’s.

  Mr Harmon had done what he had come to do. He had destroyed any chance of her finding happiness. Nothing she could possibly say or do would ever restore her to Belford’s affections. He would never forgive her now, and she could not blame him for it.

  Mr Harmon had almost reached the Rose. He was footsore and weary, and neither had improved his temper. He had gone to The Grange hoping for at least a glass of ratafia and a piece of cake, and instead he had been turned out like an unwelcome tradesman.

  It was too bad.

  He had travelled to Somerset with such high hopes. He had spent considerable sums of money, which he could ill spare, on new clothing, as well as coach fare, inns, et cetera. In his most optimistic moments, he had dreamed of vanquishing Belford and himself winning Miranda’s hand. She was not wealthy, of course, far from it, but she owned the house and land that Belford coveted.

  What a triumph if she chose him over the Duke!

  But he was generally a practical man—he had to be—and he had known it was unlikely Miranda would marry him. It had been enough that she considered him a friend, and would have in time, he was sure, come to lean heavily upon his advice. How he would have enjoyed burrowing, like a tick, into Leo’s skin, itching infernally but always just out of reach. He could have driven Belford beyond the limits of his famous caution, and maybe even made himself a small fortune in the process.

  But now it was over. All that time and effort, not to mention credit, wasted.

  Sophie Lethbridge, that Jezebel, had put her dainty foot in it, and Miranda had judged him, and sent him away. He did not think she would ever be persuaded to change her mind—he had seen that inflexible look before in too many women’s eyes.

  No, it was over and he’d best leave before things got nasty. He might rusticate on the continent for a month or two. There was a place he knew on the French coast that was pleasant and cheap, and the weather was a damned sight better than in London.

  So thinking, he entered the narrow lane behind the inn and strolled briskly towards the outside staircase leading to the back door. He had put one foot on the bottom step when a voice hailed him.

  ‘Mr Harmon, is it?’

  Mr Harmon glanced up and found himself looking into a pair of cunning dark eyes in a face rather like a hefty slice of raw beef. The woman gave him a wink, which startled him considerably.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ he said in chilly accents.

  She was unimpressed, and answered saucily. ‘What, are you hard of hearing, Mr Harmon?’ She leaned toward him conspiratorially. ‘I’ll speak up, will I?’

  He blustered. ‘What is your name, woman? What business do you have with me?’

  ‘My name is Nancy, but I’m no street walker, Mr Harmon, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

  She appeared to be amused by the thought, which irritated him even more. ‘Well, be on your way, then!’

  ‘Not just yet, sir. I heard you was a friend of her ladyship up at The Grange. You might be able to have a word to her for me. You see, she owes me and my family wages. Before she come we never had no complaint. Her husband, Master Julian, he was a fine gentleman. But her ladyship, she’s hard as nails. We’re poor folk, Mr Harmon, and we need those wages.’

  Her words suggested she was seeking his help and compassion, her tone did not. Frederick Harmon knew a spiel when he heard one. He gave Nancy a long, hard look. ‘Be on your way, old woman.’

  Nancy’s cheeks flushed bright red and her resemblance to a slab of meat increased.

  “‘Old woman”, is it! I’m not old, no more old than you, Mister London-gent…I don’t think! I know what you’re after. Maybe I’ll have my owed wages from you, what do you think of that?’

  Frederick Harmon laughed sourly. ‘I pay no one else’s debts. Certainly not Mrs Fitzgibbon’s!’

  Nancy raised an eyebrow with interest. ‘What, have you fallen out with her ladyship? Well, here’s news.’

  Mr Harmon suffered her laughter, and her perusal of his person, with what dignity he could muster. ‘If you will excuse me,’ he began, but she caught his arm in a surprisingly powerful grip—or perhaps not so surprising, going by the breadth of her shoulders.

  ‘No, I won’t excuse you. She owes us wages. That’s our house, we lived there longer than she’s been alive. We want our house back and, failing that, we want to be paid what we’re properly owed.’

  ‘Do you?’ Mr Harmon muttered, looking down at her grubby hand on his new jacket, which he expected he would have to sell when he reached London. The knowledge strengthened his anger, and he drew himself up to his full height and glared down into her sullen countenance.

  ‘Do you, indeed? Unfortunately, Nancy, I cannot help you. If you want to remove Mrs Fitzgibbon from your house you had best burn her out of it like a rat in a haystack. There, that is my advice to you!’

  Nancy stared at him, her eyes narrowing. He expected her to start screaming, or at least offer a threat or two. She did neither. She smiled, which was just as unnerving, and disclosed a checkerboard of white teeth and black spaces.

  ‘Why, thank you for that advice, Mr Harmon,’ she said, releasing her grip on him. ‘I won’t keep you no longer.’

  Mr Harmon hurried into the inn without looking back, wincing at the echoes of her laughter. He had not meant it, he told himself. That bit about burning her out. It had been said in the heat of the moment, because he was already cross with Miranda, and having his plans ruined, and then to be accosted by such a person. He hadn’t liked the look of her at all, though she was probably bluffing, and it was hardly his fault if a madwoman took an offhand comment as an instruction to…

  It might be sensible if he caught the first available coach back to London. Just in case something happened. None of this was turning out as he’d hoped
; indeed, he was most disappointed with himself for having so wrongly read the situation.

  Mr Harmon had reached the narrow, creaky staircase that led up to his room, when another voice halted him. It was deep and familiar, and the icy shiver that ran up his spine briefly prevented him from turning.

  ‘Harmon. At last. I have been waiting for you.’

  Slowly, unwillingly, and hoping Belford had not noticed his momentary lapse, Mr Harmon looked to his left.

  Belford was leading idly against the doorway into the downstairs parlour, a tankard of the landlord’s best in his hand, and a look on his face which bespoke retribution.

  ‘What do you want, Belford?’ he blustered, his hand gripping and ungripping the banister. ‘I am busy. I have a coach to catch. I will not be delayed.’

  Leo pretended to be surprised. ‘What, leaving already, Freddie? Wasn’t the country to your liking?’

  ‘If you must know, sir, I find it damp and cold and utterly disagreeable!’

  A cold light gleamed in Leo’s eyes. ‘Well, well. Perhaps you need a helping hand, Freddie. You see, I’ve come to send you on your way.’

  ‘I do not require any help,’ Mr Harmon replied sulkily.

  ‘And to warn you,’ added Leo, as if he had never spoken, ‘that if you show your face in my part of the world again, I will very likely flatten it. Do you understand?’ He smiled, but there was no mistaking his seriousness.

  Mr Harmon experienced a wave of self-pity. Everyone seemed to be against him. Had he not one friend remaining? ‘I said I was leaving, Belford. What more do you want?’

  ‘And if you have taken advantage of Mrs Fitzgibbon in any way, shape or form, I will pursue you wherever you go, and I will not be happy until you are completely ruined. Do you understand that?’

  Harmon’s cheeks flushed. ‘You are very violent, Belford! Quite lacking in the gentlemanly qualities for which you are so famed. I wonder if Mrs Fitzgibbon knows what you are really like? I think you will find she prefers men of refinement over bruisers. You are a brute, Belford. Go and bully someone else.’