Page 53 of Needs Must
Cal smiled. ‘You don’t escape that easily.’ He rode to a clearing on a high part of the estate that afforded a view over the entire village nestled in the valley below them. ‘Sit with me for a while. We are partially sheltered from the wind here, and the horses need to get their breath back.’
‘If you can spare the time,’ she replied with an impudent smile.
‘For you, I will make the time.’
Cal dismounted, but before she could follow suit he reached up, placed his hands on her waist and lifted her from the saddle.
‘Thank you,’ she said primly. ‘I think!’
She brushed down her skirts and then turned to pat Thad’s neck.
Cal tied the horses to tree branches and led Donna to a ring of boulders where he and his brothers had played complex games during their childhood, knocking one another off the stones in an endless battle for supremacy. Donna sat on one of them now and stared at the village below.
‘I can see people walking down the street. Oh, and I can pick out the tavern, the smithy …’ She turned to look at him. ‘But that is not why you brought me here, and the horses don’t really need a rest. So tell me what it is that you want from me,’ she said.
‘I have told my sister and her wastrel husband that they must leave Arndale Hall.’
‘Oh.’ She blinked, clearly surprised that he chose to share that information with her. ‘Why? It is my understanding that your mother cannot manage without Lady Celia.’
‘Ha! That is what Celia would have you believe but it’s moonshine. My mother is a formidable lady, and while she enjoys having Celia at her beck and call, she is perfectly capable of surviving without her. She is not nearly as weak as she would have me believe. Not when she wants something, that is.’
‘Yes.’ Donna pleated the fabric of her habit between her fingers. ‘I think formidable describes her very well.’
‘I have been too lax, avoiding confrontation by permitting my sister and Daventry to reside with me. It was only ever supposed to be for a few months. Daventry’s estate was leased while he travelled prior to the marriage, you see. He gave me to understand that the lease was about to expire. That was four years ago.’
‘And they have become a burden upon your charity.’
‘Not a burden, more a liability. I know I shouldn’t say such a thing about my own sister. However, our characters are very different and since Daventry doesn’t curtail her excesses, her self-importance has become insufferable. As if that were not enough, she has foolishly taken to trying to tellmehow to behave.’
‘I understand and sympathise, indeed I do.’ She canted her head and regarded him with a quizzical expression from beneath that ridiculous plume. ‘What I fail to comprehend though is why you are telling me all this. We are barely acquainted, and it is none of my business anyway.’ Her expression turned accusatory. ‘Surely you are not doing this simply because Lady Celia was impolite to me last night. God in heaven, you are!’ she cried, when Cal didn’t immediately deny it. ‘Have you even thought about the type of message that is likely to convey?’
‘I did not lose patience with her entirely for that reason. Her treatment of you was just the final straw.’ Cal paused, wishing he could leave things there. Well aware that he could not. ‘Unfortunately, Celia has come back at me, all guns blazing.’
Donna sighed. ‘Tell me,’ she said.
Cal did so, watching the kaleidoscope of expressions that flitted across her countenance as he spoke, anger and resignation competing for dominance. But no surprise that Cal could detect.
‘I see,’ she said calmly when he came to the end of his account.
‘Is that all you can say? My sister is attempting to hold me to ransom. Allow them to remain at Arndale Hall or she will blacken your name beyond redemption. No one will want to know you if she and my mother start the rumours.’
‘Don’t look so crestfallen, my lord.’
‘Cal,’ he reminded her.
‘It was always going to happen at some point, which is why I was hoping to run Ian to ground and get him to confess to what he did.’ She threw up her hands. ‘Somehow. A tenuous plan, I’ll grant you, but my options were and still are severely limited.’ She turned to give him her full attention. ‘Yours, however, are not. Clearly you cannot permit your sister to blackmail you. I don’t have the pleasure of knowing you well, but I am absolutely certain that giving in to her demands would be anathema to you. And even if you did, she wouldget her revenge by blackening my name simply because … excuse me if I speak bluntly, but because she is a spiteful and disappointed lady who must always have the last word.’
‘You are in the right of it insofar as Celia’s character is concerned. She is very like my mother, whereas my brothers and I, thankfully, take after our father.’
‘I observed that much for myself in your drawing room and at your table,’ Donna said.
‘You are right too about my reaction to being blackmailed.’ He rubbed the back of his neck, barely conscious of a fresh wind buffeting them both. ‘There has to be another way. You are not aware, of course, that Graves has already heard the rumours.’
She gasped. ‘How?’
Cal explained.
‘Aykroyd? Why on earth would he …’ Her words trailed off and she plucked absently at her lower lip with gloved fingers, hiding her discomposure well. But not well enough. He could see the devastation in her eyes and desperately wanted to comfort her. To assure her that it would be all right. But he wasn’t about to make promises that he was not in a position to keep.
