Diamond Dreams Page 2

  “No! And if I did, I assure you they would not be actresses!”

  “Ah.” On that sad note he was at last prepared to abandon the subject, but not to entirely abandon his interest in Ellie. “I may have mistaken you for another, and aroused your justified indignation in the process, but I would still like to know more of you.”

  “I, on the other hand, do not wish to divulge anything,” she reminded him.

  He smiled. “Will you at least tell me if there is someone else in your life?”

  “There isn’t anyone, sir, but even so—”

  “Then agree to meet me again.”

  “No.” But oh, she wanted to. She wanted to so much that her heart seemed to be spinning within her.

  “Meet me again,” he repeated.

  “No.” The single word was final. Her father needed her too much for her to even think of embarking upon ... upon what? She had no idea what was really in this gentleman’s mind, and only had his word that his intentions were not base.

  His fingers slid to her cheek, and he caressed her with his thumb. “Then there should at least be a memory for us to savor, a reminder of what might have been, what should have been.”

  “Please let me go,” she begged, but the words meant nothing, for she was his willing captive.

  “First ... a kiss,” he whispered, and drew her toward him. She succumbed to the dream, stepping into a fantasy that all the rules forbade. Her body was alive, stirring with feelings never before encountered, and the touch of his lips was exquisite joy. An incredible yearning, warm and beguiling, spread through her, and the need for fulfillment swept irresistibly into her veins.

  Their lips moved together, and their bodies were so close they might almost have been one entity. Suppressed emotions tumbled through her, finding expression in this shameless moment that was teaching her so very much about herself. She could feel the outline of his body, and how hers seemed to fit so perfectly to him. Oh, she wanted to surrender everything, to lie down on the grass and give in to the spellbinding desire that had ignited from the moment they looked at each other, but it was all wrong. Wrong!

  With a gasp she pulled away from him. “No! Please!”

  “Ellie—”

  “I want you to forget this ever happened,” she said breathlessly, her senses still so scattered that she found it difficult to collect herself.

  “I will never forget,” he answered.

  She wanted to explain her situation and why she had apparently masqueraded as a maid, but she was suddenly craven. No matter how drawn she was to him, she shouldn’t have permitted his advances; nor, if he were truly a gentleman, should he have so presumed upon her honor. It was best to end matters here and now, and to do it completely. “Please leave, sir.”

  “My name is Athan.”

  “Please leave ... Athan.”

  He turned to go, but then caught her hand and raised the palm to his lips. “Goodbye, Ellie.”

  “Goodbye, Athan,” she whispered.

  But as she watched him walk away, she did not know how very much she would regret spurning him, because before the next dawn she would be all alone in the world.

  Chapter Two

  Ludgate Hill was filled with people, traffic, and even a phalanx of smartly uniformed soldiers as Josiah Rutherford handed Ellie from the carriage outside the Unicorn Bank. An idle breeze played with her veil and the weepers on his sleeves and top hat as she put a gentle hand on his arm. “I’m sure all will be well,” she said in as reassuring a tone as she could manage.

  “You are too trusting of your fellow man, my dear,” her father observed. “I fear the embezzling rats will have left no smell.”

  If he was right, it was unicorns, not rats, she thought, glancing up at the sign above the bank’s doors. Surely a bank as reputable as this could not be guilty of such a despicable crime?

  Josiah patted her hand. “When we go inside, I wish you to adjourn to the corner by the windows. Few people care to sit there because they are so visible from the street. And when I leave afterward, I merely wish you to follow me out. There must be no scenes inside. The bad news will be imparted out here. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  He drew himself up. “Right. Let’s face the music, my dear.”

  The bank vestibule was opulent, with Ionic columns, dark oak walls, and a marble floor of quite exquisite design. Groups of gentlemen, many of them accompanied by ladies, stood around or lounged on the elegant chairs and sofas provided. There was a low murmur of voices, and drifts of tobacco smoke hung in the warm, motionless air.

  There were marks of mourning everywhere, not for the late Mrs. Rutherford, of course, but because—as Ellie was to learn later—only the previous day one of the bank’s senior partners, a Mr. Albert Forrester-Phipps, had died after falling from a cliff near his home outside Dover. All employees were in black, and so were many of the clients, so that few paid particular attention when Josiah and Ellie entered. Some male glances lingered on Ellie, trying to gauge if she was young or old, beautiful or ugly, but she was so enveloped in black that it was impossible to tell.

  She moved to the corner her father had mentioned, and sure enough it was deserted. She sat down, clasped her black-gloved hands over her reticule in her lap, and watched her father approach a gleaming desk presided over by a haughty young man who sported a black satin neckcloth of dandyish proportions. On hearing Mr. Rutherford’s name, the bank clerk—for in spite of his airs and graces, that was all he amounted to—rose from his chair and beckoned to Josiah to follow him.

  As they disappeared through a door at the rear of the vestibule, Ellie lowered her eyes uneasily. It had to be an error, she told herself again. Her father simply hadn’t done the things the bank claimed. She blinked back tears.

  “I know I presume by asking this, but may I be of some assistance?”

  Her thoughts were interrupted by a courteous male voice that she recognized with a jolt as belonging to Athan. She was covered with confusion, and relieved to be able to hide behind her veil. “I ... I’m quite all right, thank you.”

  “Are you related to the late Mr. Forrester-Phipps?” he asked, the depth of her mourning suggesting this must be so. He wore the clothes he’d had on that morning, but with a black weeper tied around his upper sleeve.

  “No, I’m not, sir. I wear black for my late mother.”

  “Forgive me, I just assumed....” He hesitated then, realizing that her voice seemed familiar. “Have we met before?” he inquired.

  “No, sir, we haven’t met before.” She gave in to the instinct to disguise her tone a little, while at the same time thinking that whoever he was, he felt it necessary to observe at least a little mourning for the late Mr. Forrester-Phipps.

  He smiled. “Well, no matter, for I merely wished to be sure all was well. Seeing you seated alone and in such mourning, and knowing how hot it is today, I feared you might be a little unwell.”

  “I ... I’m perfectly well, thank you.” She gazed at him, her heart pumping, her lips burning as if he had just kissed her again. Willfully wayward emotions tingled through her, beckoning, seductive, and alluring.

  “Are you sure?”

  “You are very kind, sir, but there really is no need for concern.”

  He inclined his head, but as he walked away, another gentleman of about his age hailed him. “I say, Athan, it is you, isn’t it?”

  Athan turned, and when he saw who’d spoken, Ellie thought his smile became a little fixed. The new gentleman was a Corinthian of the highest order, perfectly turned out in a slate gray coat and dove gray pantaloons that were so tight and well fitting that they might almost have been poured over his person.

  His dark blond hair was precisely curled, and everything about him was well groomed and stylish, even his smile, which seemed to Ellie to be a little too groomed to be genuine. He had pale eyes, blue, she thought, although she could not be sure. The fact that they were so pale gave him a cold look that would h
ave verged on the reptilian had his expression not been so generally amiable and winning.

  “Well, if it isn’t my old school torment, Freddie Forrester-Phipps,” Athan murmured, sketching a bow of sorts, “and suitably turned out for his own father’s demise,” he added dryly, for suitably turned out in that respect the newcomer most certainly was not. Even the bank’s employees were dressed in black, yet the deceased’s son went only so far as gray and a black silk rosette fixed to his lapel.

  Ellie was able to hear what they said to each other because she was only a few feet away, and that part of the vestibule was relatively quiet.

  “You know there was little love lost between the old pater and me,” Freddie responded. Or between you and me, he might as well have added.

  “You’re making it plain enough now,” Athan replied.

  “Look, I don’t give a damn about my father, nor did he about me. I couldn’t give two figs whether he fell over that cliff, jumped over it, or was pushed, because all I’m interested in is my inheritance, and since your presence here has a bearing upon that important matter, I intend to stick to you like glue.”

  “Once a bounder, always a bounder, eh, Freddie?” Athan responded. “Well, you are wrong about my presence being of consequence, because I assure you it isn’t.”

  Ellie wondered why Athan was at the bank, for it seemed increasingly likely he wasn’t simply a customer.

  Freddie smiled at Athan. “Tell me, how is your delectable auburn-haired ward?”

  Athan was surprised. “I didn’t know you and she were ... ?”

  “Acquainted? Oh, yes, we met last summer. The same social round, you know. While you remained in the wilds.”

  “I see. As it happens she is very well, but she is not my ward, as I think you know.”

  “Maybe not within the small clauses of the law, but she may as well be, for she resides beneath your roof and has your protection. Oh, her dear Mama is there too, of course, to make everything proper. Anyway, ward or not, please give her my felicitations when next you see her.” Freddie smiled again, then took out a snuffbox and opened it with a flourish. “Would you care for a pinch?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “As you wish.” Freddie regarded Athan. “As I recall, the lady in question was on the Marriage Mart last year, but, of course, you were not free then. Now that you’re a widower, do you have designs upon her?” he asked bluntly.

  “That would be between her and me,” Athan replied with equal bluntness.

  Freddie smiled. “Well, there she is, living beneath your roof, a beauty with a great fortune. With Mama to make things proper, of course. I tell you, the young lady would have been in my marriage bed before now.”

  “It would seem the offensive schoolboy has become an offensive adult,” Athan answered crushingly.

  Not without a touch of jealousy, Ellie wondered who the unnamed but exceedingly fortunate young lady was, but then all such thought was banished from her mind as there came the sound of raised voices from the area beyond the vestibule. An awkward hush descended as the contretemps continued, and after a few moments Athan left Freddie to stride purposefully to the desk where the supercilious young man in the spotted neckcloth was once again in command. A few sharp words had the latter on his toes in a second to find out what was going on. The argument was momentarily louder as the door opened and closed, and Athan’s left hand drummed on a pile of documents on the desk. She could see his profile now, flawless and strong, yet with an odd hint of vulnerability that even at such a moment as this seemed to reach out to her.

  The unseen fracas continued, and Ellie, suddenly realizing that one voice belonged to her father, rose anxiously to her feet. At last Athan could stand it no more, and with Freddie once again at his heels, he strode to deal with the disturbance himself; a few seconds later there was abrupt silence. Everyone in the vestibule stirred uncomfortably, for such goings-on were hardly the thing.

  Ellie moved forward hesitantly, worried about her father, who so seldom raised his voice that she knew this incident denoted grave tidings. Worst fears realized? Oh, please, no....

  The door opened again, and her father emerged, his figure somehow more frail, bowed, and careworn than ever, crushed by the baleful relentlessness of fate. His dismayed daughter did not need to see his face to know that there was no hope. She glanced through the door before it closed behind him, and saw Athan confronting a number of bank employees, none of whom seemed able to meet his gaze. Freddie stood nearby, his pale eyes sharp and darting, missing nothing.

  Ellie followed her father outside, where he paused by the waiting carriage. “All is lost, Ellie, all is lost,” he whispered, leaning on her arm as if without the prop he would sink to his knees. “Barely a penny remains. What have they done to me? What have they done? We have lost everything, even the house. Oh, dear God, dear God...”

  “We will engage a lawyer, Father, and he will soon have it properly sorted out,” she declared firmly as she assisted him up into the vehicle, but she knew her voice sounded hollow.

  “A lawyer will avail us of nothing, my dear, nothing at all,” he whispered, sinking weakly back against the upholstered seat. “The bank is doing all it can to protect its own.”

  “Its own? What do you mean?”

  “Simply that I am up against the memory of a dead man. It would seem that the hand of the late Albert Forrester-Phipps may—only may—be involved, and if that is indeed the case, no one in authority at the bank will put profits at risk by admitting to such chicanery. I am ruined, Ellie, and there is nothing I can do about it.”

  Ellie stared up at him from the pavement. “But you’re innocent, Father, so the law must be on your side,” she said, “and if Mr. Forrester-Phipps was indeed involved, then—”

  “Then nothing, Ellie. Nothing at all. Ranks have been closed, and not to protect me, of that you may be sure.”

  The moment was too much for her, and before getting into the carriage she flung back her veil, just to feel the air move against her skin. She closed her eyes and lifted her face toward the sky. This horrible year wasn’t happening, she told herself, it just wasn’t happening. In a while she would awaken in her bedroom at home at Rutherford Park, it would be spring again, and she’d hear her mother’s gentle laughter in the topiary garden outside.

  But when she opened her eyes, the nightmare was still there. She was looking up at a classically proportioned window on the bank’s second floor. Suddenly Athan stepped to the glass to look out, and she glimpsed Freddie Forrester-Phipps in the room behind him—Freddie, whose father might be the cause of Josiah Rutherford’s continuing nightmare. At first Athan gazed at the buildings across the street and was clearly speaking angrily, presumably to Freddie, but then something drew his eyes down to her. Time seemed to stand still, and his lips moved to her name. “Ellie?” He turned quickly away, and she knew he was coming down to her.

  She longed to wait for him, to rush into his arms where she knew it would be safe, but such a thing was totally out of the question. So for the second time that day she turned her back upon him, this time climbing hastily into the carriage, which drew away and had vanished into the incessant traffic of Ludgate by the time Athan emerged from the bank.

  From the window he had only seen Ellie, so did not realize that she was with Josiah Rutherford. His face was pale as he gazed in the direction her carriage had gone. “Ellie?” he breathed, unable to quite believe that in spite of the evidence of his own eyes, he had really just seen the woman he’d kissed so passionately that morning in the garden of the Crown Inn.

  After a final glance up and down the street, he went back inside, deciding to put the matter behind him. Before coming to the bank he’d been to Thomas Lawrence’s house in Greek Street, Soho, but the artist was away for the next couple of months, so interrogating him was out of the question.

  “Perhaps it’s for the best anyway,” he murmured to himself, “for you’re only chasing dreams, and besides, my lad, you’ve
already committed yourself to another.”

  In the meantime he would be absent in St. Petersburg, where he would enjoy a long stay with his married sister, Louise, whom he had not seen in far too long. He had already applied for a special license. His lawyer would deal with everything during his absence and would have the license waiting when he returned. The marriage could then take place as soon as possible. Time alone would tell if he’d chosen the right bride, but at least he’d have done what honor and duty demanded, and with luck would be able to forget the delectable and mysterious Ellie.

  * * *

  Josiah was in no fit state to face the long journey home to the Isle of Wight, not even the first stage as far as Hounslow, so instead he and Ellie took rooms at a modest city hostelry. The Golden Lion was neither fashionable nor disreputable, but somewhere in between, and its prices were more suited to their severely reduced circumstances. From the third-floor window of her plainly furnished bedroom Ellie could look between gables opposite at the great dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral.

  Before retiring that night she almost went to her father’s room. Almost, but not quite. On reaching his door she paused. All was quiet within, and thinking he’d managed to go to sleep, she returned to her own room. She lay awake for a long time, watching the moonlight move slowly across the bedroom floor. The sounds of London were just beyond the window, as was the first chill of autumn in the air.

  Sleep came at last, and with it tortured dreams. It seemed her mother was trying to awaken her, but that her slumber was far too deep to be disturbed. Yet she was restless, tossing and turning, afraid of some unspeakable thing that would be there if she opened her eyes.

  Then came the pistol report. It shattered the quiet of the night, and wasn’t a dream, for the entire inn was awakened. Doors opened, and sleepy voices could be heard. Ellie lay there in the darkness of her bed, gazing up at the ceiling. Somehow, even before the innkeeper tapped reluctantly at her door, she knew what had happened. Her father was dead. Her mother had tried to arouse her so that she would go to his room and prevent the terrible thing he was about to do, but sleep had remained supreme. Now it was too late.