Of white tulle, caught around the hem and on the shoulders with bunches of snowdrops, it made Aspasia think that it was the kind of gown that Persephone might have worn when she came back from the darkness of Hades to herald spring.
When she put it on, however, she thought that it was far too low in the front to be decent, but, when she begged Mrs. Fielding to raise it in some way, the woman merely laughed.
“What are you being so modest about?” she asked. “You’ve got a pretty figure and there’ll be plenty of men to tell you so before you’re much older.”
Aspasia tried not to look shocked. She knew that it was the sort of thing that she had not only never heard before but was something no respectful servant would say.
But, while Mrs. Fielding looked like a servant, she obviously had a position of authority.
She kept ringing bells and calling for maids who came hurrying to obey her, but the more she talked the more Aspasia realised that she had a common voice and a vulgar way of saying things that her mother would not have approved of.
Then she had been given a bath, which she enjoyed because it was scented with violets, and the same perfume was rubbed into her skin and sprinkled on her hair.
“Do you make this in your still room?” she had asked. “I know that there are plenty of violets in the woods around here.”
“We’ve no time for things like that,” Mrs. Fielding replied. “This comes from Jermyn Street in London and a nice price we pays for it too.”
“It is very kind of you to let me use it,” Aspasia said.
She thought when she was ready that the scent was slightly overpowering and she hoped that it would gradually vanish when she moved about.
When she was dry, one of the maids brought her a pair of silk stockings that made her exclaim in delight.
She had never worn silk stockings before and they fitted closely to her legs and were fastened just above the knee with white satin garters that had little snowdrops attached to them.
“How pretty!” Aspasia exclaimed.
Then Mrs. Fielding took the bath towel away from her and she felt embarrassed at being naked and looked around for her underclothes.
But instead to her surprise the maid brought the white gown with the snowdrops and it was lifted over her head.
“But – I have nothing underneath yet,” she protested.
“You don’t need anything,” Mrs. Fielding said. “It’s hot in the dining room and dresses fits better when you’re not encumbered with chemises and petticoats.”
Aspasia knew that her mother would not approve, but Mrs. Fielding was once again instructing her on her behaviour and before she knew what was happening her gown was buttoned up at the back and only when she looked in the mirror did she realise how very low it was.
She tried to tug it up, but it was too tight at the waist.
“Now leave it alone!” Mrs. Fielding admonished her. “It looks very nice.”
“But it is – indecent!”
“Nonsense.”
Whatever she said Mrs. Fielding would not listen and Aspasia tried to console herself with the fact that perhaps, as she was unimportant, nobody would look at her anyway, except, of course, the strange man she had to devote herself to for the whole evening.
She wondered what she would do if he was ugly and debauched.
Although she had not told Jerry, she had heard some of the villagers talking to Martha in the kitchen a little time ago and, although she had not meant to listen, she had heard what the woman said,
“Disgustin’, I calls it! The Vicar ought to stop it, that’s what he ought to do.”
“It’s none of his business,” Martha replied.
“It’s everybody’s business when gentlemen gets drunk and behaves like animals and when women who are no better than they ought to be are brought down from London. It’s a disgrace in a Christian community, that’s what it is.”
“It’s none of our business,” Martha had said again in an uncompromising voice.
“It’s an abomination and the work of the Devil! And I’ve always said as those as don’t protest against sin when they sees it are sinners themselves!”
“If you are prepared to protest, we are not!” Martha said, “And the less we talk about it, Mrs. Briggs, the better!”
Aspasia had forgotten the conversation, but now she remembered what Mrs. Briggs had said and, although she had very seldom seen anybody the worse for drink, she knew that it was frightening and something that she would have no idea of how to cope with.
Now, as she looked up at the Marquis, she thought that he was the most handsome man she had ever seen in her whole life, even better-looking than Jerry, and she knew, whatever else he might be, that he was not a drunkard.
But he was overpowering and she thought despairingly that she would never be able to interest him and certainly not amuse him in the way that Mrs. Fielding expected of her.
She saw too that there was a cynical twist to his lips and thought for a while that he was amused by what was happening and perhaps by her appearance, but his attitude was not particularly complimentary.
Aspasia was offered a glass of champagne and, although she wished to refuse it, she thought perhaps it would give her courage and took it with a hand that trembled.
The Duchess moved away and the Marquis said in a voice that she thought was deep and somehow attractive,
“Well, Miss Stanton, as this is my first visit here you must tell me what to expect.”
“I don’t – know myself,” Aspasia answered. “I only came – here this evening.”
“So you have come here from London,” the Marquis remarked and she thought it best not to contradict him.
Mrs. Fielding had been most insistent that she was not to talk about herself.
She took a sip of the champagne and thought the taste disappointing.
It was a wine that she had never drunk before and had always imagined, because people talked about it as being so delicious, that it would be sparkling, which it was but also sweet and succulent.
She did not like to put down the glass, but stood holding it, her eyes on the Marquis.
“You must tell me about yourself,” he said. “What do you do when you are in London?”
“I would much – rather talk about – you,” Aspasia said. “Will you tell me your – name?”
“Of course,” the Marquis replied, “we were very inadequately introduced. I am the Marquis of Thame.”
Aspasia’s eyes lit up.
“Then you own some very splendid horses.”
“You know about them?”
“But of course.”
She did not add that living near Newmarket there was nobody even in Little Medlock who was not aware of the horses that were trained there.
Jerry, when he was at home, took the racing papers and followed the methods of the trainers who they knew by name with an enthusiasm that Aspasia found infectious.
They had always shared everything together and she shared this interest as she shared his others.
Although Martha disapproved, they went to the races when they took place and in the last two years she had seen the Marquis’s horses carry off the best prizes.
“Are you really interested in racing?” the Marquis was asking now, “or is it the bets that are put on for you by your admirers that make you find ‘The Sport of Kings’ so enticing?”
But Aspasia was not listening.
“I thought the race won by your horse, Conqueror, was one of the most exciting I have ever watched.”
“You were there?” the Marquis asked in surprise.
“For one moment he was boxed in, but your jockey was clever enough to come up on the outside and when he won by half a length it was the most thrilling thing that ever happened in any race.”
There was an enthusiasm in her voice that the Marquis knew was sincere and they talked about his horses until it was time to go into dinner.
When they were seated in the
large dining room where the Duchess’s ancestors looked down at them from their portraits on the walls, the Marquis glanced around the table to take stock of the other guests.
There were twenty in all and he recognised many of the men as characters he had gone out of his way to avoid in London and whom he would not have invited to his own house under any circumstances.
As Charlie had anticipated, Dagenham was there looking more dissolute than ever, but he was easily rivalled by several other middle-aged men whose reputations were as disreputable as his if not worse.
Besides Dagenham there were several rather stupid young wasters who were throwing away their fortunes either at cards or on women whom the more experienced men avoided.
To each of the gentlemen at the table there was a girl attached in the same way, the Marquis realised, as Aspasia was attached to him.
He noticed that the Duchess had obviously chosen her guest’s partners with some forethought.
Dagenham had a woman with him who looked young, but from the way she was behaving the Marquis reckoned that she was an expert in the ‘exotic’ pleasures that revolted him.
The other male guests were partnered by sophisticated creatures whom, if nothing else, would have an expertise in extracting from their pockets every possible pound they owned.
The Marquis knew exactly why he had been given someone as young and fresh-looking as Aspasia.
He had not been one of the youngest Commanders of troops in the Duke of Wellington’s Army without being able to assess a man’s character shrewdly and unerringly and, while he did not pretend to be as expert with women, he found when he used his instinct as well as his knowledge of humanity that he was seldom wrong in his assessment.
Looking at the Duchess sitting at the top of the table glittering with emeralds and having the appearance of a hooded cobra he was prepared to salute her for her perception.
She had taken the trouble to reason out for herself with what he knew was a sharp and intelligent mind exactly what a man needed and desired and was determined to provide it.
The Marquis was certain she thought that this was the only way she could preserve her power.
It had been easy when she was young and beautiful to fill the house with men who now no longer came for her personally, but for what she could provide.
At the same time the two foreigners on either side of her were fawning over her and paying her compliments. She was enticing them with her eyes, her lips, the sensuous movements of her body and, the Marquis was certain, inflammatory words.
He could only find the whole play unrolling in front of him was both intriguing and entertaining.
Now he could understand why the Duchess was spoken about with bated breath and why he had been warned against her.
‘Fortunately,’ the Marquis told himself, ‘I am too clever to be caught in such a trap.’
He was certain that it was one.
He had complained and instead of answering his complaints she had decided to force him into her clutches and to make herself indispensable to his needs, as she had obviously done with the other men sitting round the table.
There was a very cynical look in the Marquis’s eyes as he turned his attention once again to Aspasia.
She certainly looked the part of being a very young, pure and innocent virgin which would attract a man because she was the exact opposite of the sophisticated women who he occupied his time in London with.
What was more he had already realised that she was a consummate actress.
Her nervous little manner when they first met, the question in her eyes as if she was afraid of him as a man, were all so well acted that he felt sure that if she was on the stage she would soon make her name.
But he assumed that she had chosen an older and more obvious profession and he thought that by the end of the evening he would be able to catch her out and that he would find her not as innocent as she pretended and undoubtedly not as pure as she looked.
For one thing her gown was too low and for another the flames in her hair made the Marquis feel that it would be impossible for her to escape the fires of Venus although for the moment she was keeping them well under control.
When he looked at her, he realised that she was staring round the table in surprise and, as she looked at the Duchess at the end of it, she looked away quickly and said,
“Please let us go on talking about your horses.”
“I have a feeling that we have rather exhausted that subject,” the Marquis replied. “What else interests you?”
“The pictures in this house,” Aspasia replied. “When I arrived, there was a Rubens in the room that I was shown into and the colours are even more beautiful than I ever anticipated they would be.”
“Who told you that it was a Rubens?” he asked.
“I knew,” she answered, “but it was also marked underneath.”
“Now confess,” the Marquis said, “you looked at the artist’s name first.”
“I think I should have been very stupid not to be able to recognise a Rubens,” Aspasia protested. “His colours are painted in a very different way from other artists. But Poussin is more difficult and I did have to guess when I saw one in the same room. Then when I was near enough to read the artist’s name on the frame I saw that I had guessed correctly.”
“You surprise me,” the Marquis said.
He spoke a little dryly as if he did not believe her and Aspasia remembered that she was not talking about him.
“Do you possess many pictures?” she asked him.
“A great number,” he replied, “and some of them are particularly fine.”
“I should – love to see them.”
This, the Marquis thought, was the sort of hint he would expect to come later in the evening, but he merely smiled as he replied,
“It might be possible. We shall have to see.”
Aspasia realised that it was completely impossible, but perhaps it would be a good thing to pretend.
“I have seen pictures in the museum at Cambridge,” she went on, “and, while there are not many of them, some of them are very beautiful.”
“Why were you in Cambridge?” the Marquis asked. “You told me that you had never been here before.”
“This is my first visit to Grimstone House.”
He thought that the way she spoke was very convincing. He was certain that she was putting on an act, but was finding it difficult to catch her out.
The food was delicious. In fact the Marquis when comparing the efforts of his own chefs was not certain that the Duchess had not beaten him in the culinary stakes. The wine too was superlative.
Charlie had been completely wrong. The claret was outstanding and the white wine superior to anything that the Marquis had savoured at Carlton House.
Of one thing, however, he was aware of very early in the evening and that was that nobody’s glass at the table was ever empty for one moment. The servants continually refilled them every time a diner took so much as a sip.
It was quite obvious that the Duchess’s guests made the most of the excellent fare and drink that they were provided with.
Voices grew louder, faces grew redder and, although the Marquis held up his hand to prevent his glass from being refilled every time he drank from it, the servants obviously had their orders and ignored him.
He noticed, however, that Aspasia was drinking nothing.
He had been aware as he had given her his arm to take her into dinner that when she put down her glass of champagne it was still full.
Now he noticed that she had three glasses in front of her, all of them untouched.
“You are not thirsty?” he asked.
“I am,” she replied, “but I feel if I ask just for water it will look rude.”
“Perhaps you would like some lemonade?”
“I would love some, but would they not think it strange?”
The Marquis thought that she was again playing her part of being ingenuous, but he turned hi
s head to the servant standing behind his chair.
“Bring this young lady a glass of lemonade.”
“I don’t think there is any, my Lord.”
“Then find some!” the Marquis said sharply.
As if he obeyed the voice of authority, the man hurried away, but Aspasia looked at the Marquis with a worried expression in her eyes.
“Perhaps the Duchess will be – angry.”
The Marquis smiled.
“Let her be!”
“I-I cannot do – that.”
“Why not?”
Aspasia looked at the end of the table.
“Please – please be very careful – if I do anything to make her – annoyed it – will be terrible.”
“I cannot think that a glass of lemonade could have such a devastating effect.”
“One – never knows,” Aspasia replied in a little above a whisper.
Then, as if she felt that she had said too much, she said quickly,
“But – I want you to enjoy yourself – how can I make sure that you do so?”
“Perhaps we can talk about that later,” the Marquis replied with a faint smile.
CHAPTER THREE
The dinner came to an end and, as the table was cleared, the Marquis looked around once again at the other guests and saw that the majority of the gentlemen had had too much to drink and so had some of the women.
This resulted in their behaving in a very familiar manner with one another and he thought that what would happen for the rest of the evening was very predictable and bore out Charlie’s contention that it would not amuse him.
The two foreign men on either side of the Duchess were obviously flattering her and whispering intimacies into her ears, vying with each other doubtless to excite her.
She was actually, the Marquis thought, the only woman in the room who was being enticed rather than attempting to entice, with the exception, of course, of Aspasia, who had been allotted to him.
He looked down at her and then realised that she was staring at the other guests with an expression which seemed to be one of shocked surprise.
Then he told himself that it was all part of her very clever act and he would be half-witted if he was deceived by it.
In the Arms of Love Page 5
