by M. C. Beaton
“Mama was always rather coarse in her speech,” said Lucy. “I had forgot about Harry. What do we tell him?”
“Tell me what?” demanded Lord Harry’s voice from behind them.
“First,” said James, “that we are to be married, and I do not want any remarks about my age.”
“Congratulations, dear boy.”
“You mean you do not object?”
“I? Of course not. What a devilish dull evening that was at Almack’s. But I did well, did I not? Stirred the place up a bit. I hate Almack’s with all its rules and tepid lemonade and old sandwiches. Why do you both stare at me so? Have I not given you both my blessing?”
“You had best come down to the morning room,” said the captain quietly. “There is something you should know.”
Once in the morning room, they told Lord Harry about Isabella’s assignation. “And you have only yourself to blame, Harry,” said his sister. “Carrying on like the veriest coxcomb. It is enough to give anyone a disgust of you. And it is of no use lecturing Isabella about this and telling her I have told you, for it will only annoy her the more.”
He shrugged. “Lord Rupert is welcome to her.”
“But I do not think he loves her!” cried Lucy. “I think he wants revenge.”
Lord Harry stood up. “Perhaps I will call on my beloved.”
“Do that,” said Lucy, “and tell her you don’t want to marry her!”
Chapter 8
LORD HARRY WENT thoughtfully on his way. He was shrewd enough to know that Isabella would not listen to any warning about Lord Rupert Fitzjohn. But he would call on her first and then see if he could find out what Lord Rupert was planning.
The Chadburys received him with warmth to make up for their private doubts about this prospective son-in-law. Isabella was summoned and at last came reluctantly into the drawing room. She was wearing a morning gown of fine white lace, beautifully cut, and her thick hair was dressed in a simple style. She curtsied to Lord Harry and then sat down on a sofa beside her mother.
Mrs. Chadbury thought Lord Harry was looking more—well—hopeful a prospect as a son-in-law than he had done before. He no longer used paint. His well-cut clothes sat easily on his athletic frame, and his blue eyes were serious.
“I am sure, Mr. Chadbury,” she said, rising to her feet, “that we can spare Isabella and Lord Harry a few moments alone together.”
Mr. Chadbury bowed to Lord Harry and followed his wife from the room. There was a long silence.
The fire crackled, the clocks ticked, but Isabella felt none of that cozy intimacy so recently enjoyed with Lucy. Outside a hawker shouted his wares, and a carriage clattered over the cobbles.
So here we sit, thought Lord Harry, two members of society bound by the conventions. She wants to scream, I hate you, and I? … I should be telling her that it was all a game and that she is free. His conscience suddenly nagged him. That beautiful face across from his was made for love and laughter. But not for Lord Rupert’s kisses, he thought savagely.
“We do not appear to be very suited,” he said at last.
Her hazel eyes filled with hope and she said, “No, indeed, you would be happier with anyone else, I think.”
She moved slightly and carefully arranged the drapery of her gown. He had a sudden fierce longing to clasp her in his arms and was alarmed at the intensity of his feelings. He began to grow angry. “But we are engaged,” he remarked in a neutral voice, “and so must make the best of it.”
The light died out of those eyes. She pleated a fold of her gown with nervous fingers. “You do not need to marry me now,” she said. “You are rich. My money was the attraction, you must admit.”
“It was … but not now.”
“What then, pray?”
“Your face, your figure, your love.”
Startled, she gazed at him. He was no longer the fop. He looked strong and masculine and seemed to exude a mixture of sensuality and predatory maleness. She shuddered and dropped her eyes.
“And so, Isabella, my love, you are going to have to make the best of it.”
In her mind’s eye rose a picture of Lord Rupert’s face. All she had to do was to nod to him at the opera, and then she would be free.
He rose to his feet and stood looking down at her. “I shall be here this evening to escort you to the opera.” He rose and stalked from the room.
Tears welled up in Isabella’s eyes and slowly rolled down her cheeks. Mrs. Chadbury, entering the room, saw those tears. She turned to her husband who was behind her and said severely, “We must talk.” She led him away and into a little used ante room and faced him. “I have been your dutiful and obedient wife these many years, but I will not stand by and see my daughter in such misery. Enough is enough! Isabella must be released from this engagement!”
“To repulse yet more suitors?”
“Mr. Chadbury, if our daughter has set her mind on remaining an old maid, then an old maid she will be. We meet the Tremaynes at the opera tonight. I beg you to speak to them. Think on’t! Are you desperate to have a son-in-law who shrieks in Almack’s—Almack’s, mark you—at the sight of a mouse that strangely enough only he seemed able to see and then, recovered, tells bawdy lyrics to the gentleman? Is he of more value than Isabella’s happiness?”
Mr. Chadbury looked at his wife in silence for a few moments. Then he said harshly, “Have you considered the social shame to yourself not to have secured a marriage for one of the most beautiful women London has ever seen?”
She made a dismissive move with one of her plump hands. “Pooh, what does it matter what they say? There will be no more Seasons for Isabella. We say we have spoiled her and yet apart from this one desire not to marry, she has proved a gentle and biddable daughter. We shall lose her love, and all because we tried to force her into marriage with a decadent popinjay. Would you have such a creature father your grandchildren?”
“Enough,” said Mr. Chadbury wearily. “But say nothing to Isabella until we have had a chance to speak to the Tremaynes.”
Lord Harry returned to his parents’ town house in a black mood. The elderly retainer, Biddle, was sitting in the hallway playing with a cup and ball.
“Are you sober?” asked Lord Harry.
“I’ve done wi’ drink,” said Biddle gloomily. “It’s what keeps us lower order from rising up against the likes of you.”
“Yes, quite. How would you like a couple of gold sovereigns to fund the English revolution?”
“What have I got to do?”
“Find out what you can about a certain Lord Rupert Fitzjohn.” Lord Harry handed him a piece of paper. “This is his address. Report back to me.”
Biddle picked up an old-fashioned tricorne from the seat beside him and crammed it on his greasy locks. He was delighted at the prospect of some time out on the streets of London. Lazy and old the Tremayne servants might be, but nonetheless, Stokes, the butler, expected them to remain at their posts drunk or sober.
Biddle creaked his way through the streets of the West End. The day was still cold, and a thin fog made the lights of the taverns seem to beckon to him, but he went steadily on. He was fond of Lord Harry. He arrived outside Lord Rupert’s house in Green Street and sat down on the front steps. As he expected, the door behind him soon opened and a butler came out. Biddle, twisting his head round, decided the fellow looked more of a thug than a butler.
“Move on, old man,” growled the butler.
“I’m tired,” whined Biddle.
The street was quiet, and Biddle’s voice was unusually high and penetrating for such an old man. A window opposite popped open and a housemaid looked out, leaning her arms on the sill. She was a pretty girl with red hair and a jaunty cap.
“Get out of here or I’ll throw you in the street,” said the butler.
“Oh, you would, would yer?” screeched Biddle. “Here’s me, an old sodjer what fought them bleeding Americans and got wounded in me back and you wouldn’t even let me rest my bones.”
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“Shame!” shouted the pretty housemaid. “He ain’t doing no harm.”
The butler, by the name of Jakes, fancied the pretty housemaid, and so he pasted a smile on his unlovely face and said, “Here, step down to the servants’ hall and I’ll get you some ale.”
With amazing alactrity, Biddle nipped down the area steps and was shortly after admitted into the servants’ hall.
One quick ferrety glance at the few servants who were seated at the table told Biddle that the master was probably a villain. There were two slatternly housemaids, one thin, indolent footman in grimy livery, and a small evil page. All were drinking ale. “Give this old pest some and send him on his way,” growled Jakes before retreating back upstairs to see if he could engage the pretty housemaid opposite in conversation.
One of the housemaids drew a tankard of ale from a barrel in the corner and slapped it down in front of Biddle. “Whose livery is that, then?” asked the footman, eyeing Biddle’s black velvet coat laced with silver.
“Got it out o’ Monmouth Street,” said Biddle, Monmouth Street being where the old clothes were sold. “Me in service? Nah. I wouldn’t work for any of them parasites what battens on poor creatures like you.”
“We don’t do so bad,” said the footman, tilting back his seat and swinging his legs up onto the table. He jerked his thumb at the ceiling. “His lordship is hardly ever home. Eats out the whole time.”
“Decent sort, is he?”
The housemaids cackled with laughter, and the footman gave a sly grin. “He pays good wages so long as we keeps our mouths shut.”
“You’re making it up,” said Biddle. “He’s Lord Rupert Fitzjohn, ain’t he? Can’t hardly be on the thieving lay.”
“No, but he lays everthink else,” shrieked a housemaid and then threw her apron over her face.
“He ain’t laid you, Marion,” said the footman. “Not when there’s all them Cyprians about. You should see some o’ the parties here, old man. Make your eyes pop.”
“Garn,” sniffed Biddle. “I’m a traveled man. The things I saw in ‘Merica. There’s wimmin for ye.” Biddle had never been out of England, but his dream had been to go to America, so much so that in his cups he often really thought he had been there.
“Ah, but them Yankees is puritans,” jeered the footman. “Them and their Bibles. There’s things goes on here you wouldn’t see in them foreign parts.”
“Such as?”
The footman leaned forward with a salacious leer and told Biddle about various parties and how at the end of one of them, Lord Rupert had taken three of the women to bed. “And they was lucky they got a bed,” said the footman, nudging Biddle in the ribs so that some of the old man’s ale splashed on the table. “Mostly he has them anywhere in the house, even the dining table.”
“You set for another party tonight?” asked Biddle. “If so, you’re mighty casual about it.”
“Naw, he’s going to the opera, and then he says he wants ‘is curricle brought round at quarter to five in the morning.”
“Why?”
“Race meeting, I s’pose. But he might have something else in mind. We’ve all been told to stay below stairs for the night and the whole of the following day.” The footman winked. “And if we hears shrieks or suchlike, we’re to stay deaf. So what does that tell you?”
“He’s bringing some tart back.”
“Heggzactly.”
Feeling that he had found out enough and considering the ale poor stuff—Biddle did not consider drinking ale as drinking—he rose to his feet and made his way out into the London streets. But the taverns were somehow more welcoming than ever, and Biddle persuaded himself that he needed a reward for his efforts.
Lord Harry was preparing to go out to the opera when Biddle lurched in and fell on the hall floor. “What did you find out?” demanded Lord Harry, shaking the old man by the shoulder.
“He consorts wiff whores,” slurred Biddle and closed his eyes.
“Leave him alone,” said Captain James. “We’ll be late.”
“I suppose there is no use in trying to get sense out of him,” remarked Lord Harry bitterly. “What a useless old fool. I should have known he would get drunk. No sovereigns for you, Biddle.”
He turned away and drew on his gloves.
“ ‘Ere!” Biddle sat up in a panic that almost sobered him. “I earned it, so I did. He sleeps wiff half the Cyprians in London, that he does. Must ha’ one coming round. Ordered ‘is carriage for quarter to five in the morning. Told the servants to keep below stairs for the rest o’ the day.”
“Traveling carriage?” demanded Lord Harry.
“Naw, curricle. Where’s me money?”
Lord Harry tossed down two sovereigns that Biddle fielded expertly, then he slowly collapsed back on the floor and was soon snoring.
“So what does all that mean?” demanded James.
“Something important, I think,” replied Lord Harry. “I’ll think about it some more at the opera. Where are my parents?”
“They’re not going. Your father said he could not stand the caterwauling, and the countess agreed to keep him company.”
Isabella could not help contrasting her own sorry state with that of Lucy’s. Lucy, who had announced her engagement to the Chadburys, was happy and radiant, and the captain’s eyes were glowing with pride and love as he looked down at her. Isabella could only be grateful that Lord Harry was quiet and thoughtful. She had expected him to start the evening in his usual way by making insulting remarks about her dress. The Chadburys were disappointed not to see the Tremaynes, Mrs. Chadbury in particular. She was anxious to have the matter settled before her husband changed his mind. She suggested in a whisper that they should tell Isabella now, but her husband said severely that they would call on the Tremaynes on the morrow, and she must be content until then.
“Two weeks until our wedding,” said Lord Harry suddenly as he was leading Isabella into their box at the opera. She looked at him, startled, and then realized she had put the idea of the actual wedding so firmly from her mind that she had almost forgotten it was to take place so soon.
The opera was a new one by a Signor Belotti, and there did not seem to be anything about it to take Isabella’s mind off her predicament. In the light of the huge blazing chandelier that hung down from the roof of the opera house, she could clearly see Lord Rupert in a box opposite. She looked straight at him and then slowly nodded her head. He smiled and raised his hand. Lord Harry noticed that exchange, and his eyes sharpened.
Isabella sat with her head bowed until the interval. She had done it. She had, by that simple nod, agreed to run away with Lord Rupert. Captain James, despite his own happiness, noticed how quiet and miserable Isabella was and experienced a feeling of impatience at Lord Harry’s behavior.
At the interval when Isabella was talking to a friend of the Chadburys, James whispered to Lord Harry, “In faith, you are capable of driving that girl into anyone else’s arms. If you are not behaving like a fop, you are behaving like a sullen pig, and so I tell you. Tell me, Harry, did you never court a woman?”
“I suppose I must have done.” Lord Harry raised his thin eyebrows. “Why do you ask?”
“As you have not yet released Isabella from an engagement she so obviously loathes, then one must assume that you want her. So if you want her, try courting her.”
“Tsch!” said Lord Harry moodily and wondered how it would feel to land a punch full on Lord Rupert’s nose.
There was a ball after the opera. Lord Harry, waltzing with Isabella, found himself thinking of what James had said. Isabella’s steps were not light. Her feet seemed to drag, and she made conversation in the way that she had been trained to do but barely seemed to hear his answers. He praised her gown and her looks, and she said in a dull voice, “Thank you. You are most kind,” but he could have sworn she had not heard a word he had said.
His conscience was really hurting him now, and he tried to tell it savagely that his behavior
had been justified. Isabella Chadbury was nothing more than a cold flirt. But there had been nothing of the flirt about her in London. He alone was to blame for her interest in Lord Rupert. And how happy she had been at the castle when she had run off across the grass with Lucy. There was one way to lighten her darkness, and that was by telling her that the engagement was at an end. But that would leave her free to marry Lord Rupert Fitzjohn, and that she must never do.
So while Lucy and her captain circled the floor and gazed into each other’s eyes, Isabella and Lord Harry moved mechanically to the music and wished the ball would end.
It was Mrs. Chadbury who, thankfully for Isabella, said she must go home as she had the headache. Isabella promptly said she would accompany her.
Lucy was cross at having to leave so early but was soon consoled by Captain James, who said he would call for her on the following afternoon and take her driving.
Isabella gave Lord Harry a curt goodnight and hurried off into the house before he even had time to bow to her and give her a formal farewell.
At his parents’ house, he said good night to James and retired to his own room, but he did not go to bed. He paced up and down, turning over in his mind what Biddle had told him. Fitzjohn was a lecher. He had asked for his curricle to be ready at quarter to five in the morning. Isabella had nodded to him and he had acknowledged that nod, and he had smiled, a slow gratified smile.
Although they had left the ball early by society’s standards, it was now three o’clock. He decided to stay awake and then walk to Malmbrooke Square to see if Lord Rupert made any move to take Isabella away. But surely he would in that case have asked for his traveling carriage. Nonetheless, Lord Harry was suddenly determined to go.
The minutes dragged, and he half dozed in an armchair in his bedroom until four o’clock. Then he roused himself and changed quickly into morning dress and wrapped himself in a warm cloak, after stowing a brace of pistols in his pockets.
