The Undoing Of A Lady

by Nicola Cornick

  Was this what marriage was about? Lizzie wondered. Did Dexter habitually leave Laura sitting around on her own whilst he went out to do whatever it was that gentlemen did? Would Miles have abandoned Alice on their wedding day to go out to his Club? She thought not but she was not sure. And what was she supposed to do in the meantime? The house required no running because Nat had hired the servants along with the property and it already functioned like well-regulated clockwork. Was she supposed to sit in the drawing room and read, or, God forbid, embroider something? Suddenly she did not seem to know anything, nor did she have anyone to ask. Laura, Alice and Lydia had all sent messages of congratulation on her marriage and Lizzie fully intended to call on them in the morning, when, no doubt, the rest of Fortune’s Folly society would also call to hear about her wedding to Nat. They would all be expiring with gossip and curiosity. Tonight, though, she was alone and she was bored and she felt neglected and not a little afraid.

  I don’t like being married, Lizzie thought, drumming her fingers irritably on the windowsill. I knew it would not work and I was right. My husband is already ignoring me after only twelve hours of married life. He behaves as though he were still a single man. I have no notion what he plans for our future, when we will go to Water House to meet his family, where we will live, what shape my life will take. I should have thought about this before; I should have talked to him.

  I should not have married him.

  The thoughts, so jumbled and painful, made her realize how distant she was from Nat and how, in the aftermath of Monty’s death and in her desperation to escape Tom, she had allowed Nat to take all the decisions almost unchallenged.

  She looked outside at the puddles of water lying on the cobbled street and the sky lightening in the west as the thunderstorm receded. A solitary carriage rumbled past, breaking the silence. A shadowy figure in a black cloak slipped by so quickly that Lizzie wondered if she had imagined seeing it. Who could be out on a night like this?

  “I wish mama were here to advise me,” she thought. There was a hot lump in her throat and suddenly she felt very young and very small. “No, perhaps I don’t, because she was not very reliable. But I wish she were here simply to reassure me.”

  She sat very still. The ticking of the clock was the only sound in the entire house, the only indication that anything was alive beneath the stifling weight of soft furnishings. Perhaps when we have a house of our own I might decorate it, Lizzie thought. She could not touch Chevrons, despite finding the decoration fussy and ugly, because it was let with the furnishings. The frustration and the fear gripped her again. What was she supposed to do with herself? And why had she not thought about this before? She was trapped, and this time she could not run because she was married and she would not repeat her mother’s pattern. That was the one thing on which she was determined.

  She had been married for less than a day and her husband was out carousing with his cronies. It simply was not appropriate for Nat to marry her and then go out and leave her behind as though she was a part of the furniture, just another commodity that he had acquired, a little wife waiting patiently at home for him when he deigned to return.

  The anger flamed through Lizzie, hot and reassuring. She preferred it to the cold grip of the fear and panic. This is my wedding day, she thought, fanning the flames of her own indignation. I will not sit at home, alone and disregarded. If Nat wishes to go out that is his affair but I shall do likewise.

  She went over to the drawing room door and flung it open. Immediately the door to the servants’ quarters opened, too, and Mrs. Alibone, the housekeeper, emerged, moving smoothly and silently as though she had oiled wheels beneath her prim black gown. There was something a little sinister about Mrs. Alibone, Lizzie thought. For all her apple-pink cheeks and neat white hair and kindly expression she was so efficient she seemed almost mechanical.

  “Good evening, madam,” she said. “Can I help you?”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Alibone,” Lizzie said. “Please ask the coachman to have the carriage ready. And please send my maid to me. I am going out.”

  Mrs. Alibone’s eyebrows rose smoothly into a gray fringe of hair. “Out?” she said. “But madam, you are in deep mourning! It is not appropriate for you to go out in the evening, least of all without your husband.”

  “It is my brother who has lost his life,” Lizzie said sharply. “I don’t see why I should lose mine, as well. And why should I cease to be a person in my own right when I wed?”

  “Then I will have your black crepe gown laid out if you insist, madam,” Mrs. Alibone said, her nose twitching with disapproval.

  “No, thank you,” Lizzie said. “I require my silver silk evening dress-and the Scarlet Diamonds. I intend to make an impression.”

  “I DIDN’T EXPECT YOU TO be free on your wedding night, old chap,” Dexter commented as Nat joined him in a quiet corner of the Granby’s taproom. “How is Lady Waterhouse?” he added. “I am surprised that you were able to tear yourself away from her.”

  “Lizzie is fine,” Nat said. He took a long, appreciative mouthful of ale and settled back on the bench. “She is very tired,” he added. “It has been a long day for her. I left her reading quietly at home.” By the time that he had left the house, Lizzie had been dressed and sitting in the drawing room at Chevrons, flicking through the Lady’s Magazine. It had been a sight that had pleased Nat and had made him feel very content-his demure wife rising from the bed where she had just pleasured him most satisfactorily and then taking up her books or her sewing to sit quietly at home. It seemed that he had tamed his vixen and she would be the perfect wanton in the bedroom but a paragon of wifely virtues out of it. Indeed, Nat had begun to think that perhaps Lizzie had it in her to be the calm, decorous wife that he had desired all along. Perhaps she would surprise him. Maybe their marriage would not be the disaster he had predicted.

  Perhaps all Lizzie had needed was a settled home and a secure background. Nat was proud that he had been able to give that to her. She had certainly been a great deal quieter and more malleable in the weeks preceding their wedding. She had accepted his proposal without further argument, she had agreed to all the arrangements he had made and she had been remarkably reserved and quiet.

  Dexter was looking at him a little quizzically. “If you say so, old chap,” he said. “It doesn’t sound much like the Lady Elizabeth Scarlet we all knew before, but you must know her best. She is your wife, after all.”

  Nat nodded. He reflected that the past couple of weeks had gone exceptionally well. From the moment he had rescued Lizzie from Fortune Hall on the night of Tom’s orgy he had been completely focused on doing what he had to do to protect her, to secure her fortune and to pay off Tom’s blackmail. Today had been the culmination of all his work. He had married Lizzie, thereby saving her reputation, gaining her dowry and in some indefinable but deeply satisfying way, putting matters right. He had paid off her brother with a draft advanced by his bankers. He had been able to keep safe the secret of his sister Celeste’s sexual indiscretions. He had shielded his family from harm, which had been his prime concern from the very first. He was entitled to feel satisfied with his efforts. Everything was safe, everything was ordered again. He had done his duty.

  Nat took another mouthful of ale as he silently congratulated himself. Once Sir Montague’s murder case had been successfully resolved, he thought that he would take Lizzie to Water House to meet his family again. She had known his parents when she was younger and had even been a friend to Celeste during his sister’s first London season, for Celeste and Lizzie were of an age. Perhaps Lizzie would be pregnant by the time they went to Water House. Perhaps she already was. She had not mentioned that she had had her courses in the six weeks since they had first made love. A beautiful, dutiful wife and an heir…Nat felt remarkably expansive. He gestured to one of the inn servants to refill his glass and the conversation turned to the murder case.

  Nat’s good humor lasted for precisely two hours.

&nb
sp; “Excuse me, my lord.” By the time one hundred and twenty minutes had passed Nat had consumed several pints of the excellent local ale and was feeling very mellow. Then one of The Granby servants approached discreetly and slipped a note into his hand. It was short and to the point, clearly written in haste.

  “Please come to the card room as quickly as possible. Lizzie is here and there is a problem. Alice Vickery.”

  Nat frowned. He had been aware that The Granby was hosting one of its fortnightly assembly balls that night. When Sir Montague had died it had been suggested that the program of entertainment in the village should be canceled for the summer as a mark of respect, but Tom had promptly vetoed the idea because he wanted the income that the balls and other social events brought. Nat knew he was traditional in such matters but he realized that he was shocked to think that Lizzie would attend a ball only three weeks after her brother’s death. Disquiet stirred inside him. He knew that Lizzie frequently behaved unconventionally and chose to do precisely as she pleased, but surely that should all have changed now that she was his wife? He had thought that she had understood that and had settled down in her new role. Perhaps his earlier optimism had been premature. The mellowness that had possessed him was draining away now and he felt exasperated with himself for his complacence. Evidently he had imagined matters to be how he wanted them rather than seeing them as they really were. How foolish he had been to picture Lizzie sitting quietly at home when she had never done such a thing in her life.

  “Is something wrong?” Dexter asked, brows raised.

  Nat crumpled the note fiercely in his hand. He looked at his friend’s face and then sighed. “Lizzie is apparently here at the assembly, in the card room, and Alice has asked me to join them. There appears to be some sort of problem, so I can only imagine that she is gambling.” He got to his feet.

  “If Miles and Alice are present they will be keeping an eye on Lizzie,” Dexter said reassuringly, getting up, too.

  Nat knew that Dexter was right but he admitted to himself that the last thing he wanted was for their friends to witness any discord between him and Lizzie. They were all so happy in their own marriages that he felt hopelessly lacking. Dexter and Laura had practically fallen in love at first sight, years before, and although the road to marriage had proved decidedly bumpy for them they were now incandescent with bliss. Miles was even more irritating because he had been the sternest opponent of marriage imaginable, had cynically denounced love as nothing more than a fig leaf to make lust appear more acceptable, and had even tried to blackmail Alice into marrying him so he could have her fortune to save him from debtors’ prison. Yet here he was now, the most sickeningly uxorious of husbands and desperately in love with his wife. It made Nat feel ill with envy because he had a depressing feeling that he and Lizzie would never achieve the sort of deep understanding that was blossoming between Miles and Alice. True, he had married Lizzie under different circumstances, primarily those of finance-his-and reputation-hers-and as such they could not really expect to experience the dizzy heights of love. He had run through that sort of emotion in his salad days anyway, with Priscilla Willoughby, and had no inclination to suffer it again. No, he had wed Lizzie out of duty and desire. Yet despite telling himself that his reasons for the match was perfectly adequate, somehow he felt perfectly inadequate in the face of his friends’ wedded happiness.

  And now it seemed that his wilful wife was already behaving very badly indeed, just as he had feared she would…

  Nat quickened his pace from the taproom down the stone corridor, round a corner, through a doorway and into the Granby ballroom, his temper rising at each step as he wondered what on earth he would find when he caught up with Lizzie. A country-dance was taking place in the main assembly room. It was very calm and decorous. Nat looked around but he could see neither Lizzie nor Alice nor Miles. Alice’s note had mentioned the card room. Nat skirted the dancers and strode through the doorway, past the long table that groaned under the weight of refreshments. He could already see a crowd in the card room. They were pressing close around one of the tables and a feverish atmosphere was in the air. As Nat and Dexter entered, Miles Vickery pushed through the throng toward them. Nat grabbed his arm.

  “What’s happening?”

  “Lizzie is playing Three Card Monte with Tom,” Miles said tersely. “He challenged her for the Scarlet Diamonds.”

  “What?” Nat froze.

  “Tom challenged her,” Miles repeated. “He said the diamonds should have been his because he was the elder. Lizzie said their mother had expressly left them to her but she would play him for them, the best of three games. So far they have won one each.”

  Stifling a curse, Nat cut his way through the crowd about the table. Lizzie looked up as he pushed his way to the front. She was wearing a concoction of silver net, scandalously low cut, and her auburn hair was piled up in a diamond clasp on the top of her head. She looked ethereal and fey. Her green eyes were smoky and slanted and when she saw Nat her mouth curled in the smile that always did strange things to Nat’s insides, turning them molten with lust. There was a champagne glass by her elbow and she looked more than a little cast away for her cheeks were flushed pink and her eyes glittered. The Scarlet Diamonds, a necklace that the late Earl had given to his wife when first they were wed, lay sinuous and gleaming on the table between her and Tom.

  “Good evening, my love,” Lizzie said brightly. “I hope you are enjoying your wedding night.”

  “I’ve come to take you home,” Nat said. He clamped down on his anger. He was very conscious of the silence in the room, of everyone watching them, but more than anything else, he was aware of Tom Fortune’s triumphant, mocking gaze. So Tom had not been content with relieving him of a draft for twenty-five thousand pounds earlier in the day, Nat thought savagely. Tom’s greed was uncontrollable. He always wanted more.

  Lizzie’s eyes had narrowed at his words. “But Nat, darling,” she said, “I am having such a lovely time! You cannot make me go home now!”

  “Don’t spoil sport, Waterhouse,” Tom drawled. “Can you not afford a trifling twenty grand for a necklace now that you have Lizzie’s money-and more besides?” His dark, insolent gaze told Nat exactly how much he would disclose if he was pushed and Nat felt a bolt of fear. He had thought the matter of the blackmail settled, but now he realized just what a fool he had been; blackmailers were never satisfied and if Tom breathed a word of Celeste’s disgrace…Suddenly Nat’s ordered world lay teetering on the brink of disaster again.

  “I don’t see why you assume I will lose, Tom.” Lizzie pouted. She shuffled three cards with expert precision, two black and a red queen, and laid them facedown on the table. “You know I have the luck of the devil.”

  “When it comes to cards, perhaps,” Tom said, smiling at her, his eyes empty of affection, “though not, I think, in your choice of men.”

  Nat made an uncontrollable movement of anger and Lizzie’s bright green gaze rested thoughtfully on him for a moment before it flickered back to her brother.

  “Find the lady, Tom,” she goaded, “and the diamonds are yours.”

  Nat’s body was tight with tension. Tom looked up at him again, malice in his eyes. “Find the lady indeed,” he murmured. “A relative of yours is she, Waterhouse?”

  Nat felt Miles shift beside him and felt rather than saw the quizzical look his friend bent on him but he kept his eyes fixed on Lizzie now. Her face was pale, her eyes narrowed on the cards as she waited for Tom to choose. Her fingers tapped her half-empty champagne glass.

  Tom put out his hand and turned a card. It was the seven of spades. Lizzie gave a delighted little squeal and clapped her hands. “I win!”

  There was a smattering of applause from their audience.

  “You’re worse than a card sharp,” her brother said sourly, vacating the table. “How the hell do you do these tricks?”

  Lizzie picked up the necklace and fastened it around her neck. It rested on the upper curve of her
breasts, where it flashed fire and ice with each breath she took. Nat dragged his gaze away with difficulty and caught the look of challenge in Lizzie’s eyes.

  “Who’ll play me next?” she demanded, looking around. Once again the smile curved her lips and the lust kicked Nat hard in the groin. How could Lizzie make him so angry and yet so hot to have her? It was not a comfortable feeling and yet he could not resist it. It was as though she infected him with her own madness, driving him far beyond the rationality that normally governed his life. Well, if he had to play by her rules this time then so be it.

  He grabbed a chair.

  “I’ll play,” he said.

  A ripple of shock ran around the group of onlookers and Lizzie’s eyes widened in surprise.

  “I did not think you approved of gaming,” she said.

  “I don’t,” Nat said. He sat back, undid his jacket and loosened his cravat.

  Lizzie took a long gulp of the champagne. Nat watched her throat move as she swallowed. The diamonds danced and glittered about her neck. She picked up the pack of cards and started to shuffle it again.

  “Basset?” she said.

  “Piquet.”

  Lizzie shrugged one white shoulder. “Whichever you prefer. The stake?”

  “You,” Nat said. “You coming home with me. To our bed.”

  Again the group of onlookers rippled with scandalized shock and some moved away, Dexter, Miles and Alice amongst them. Lizzie looked up at Nat, her eyes wide and very bright with the excitement and wildness he had come to recognize. “You’ll lose,” she warned.

  “No, I won’t,” Nat said.

  Out of the corner of his eye Nat could see that Alice was clasping Miles’s sleeve and speaking to him urgently. Miles’s face was grim, but after a moment he shook his head and they left the card room, Alice throwing one troubled, backward glance at Lizzie. Nat felt the tension tighten within him, straining the muscles across his shoulders, drawing the material of his evening jacket taut. His entire attention was riveted on Lizzie, on the way the silk and net of her gown clung to each line and curve of her body, on the provocative rise and fall of the diamonds at her breast, the slender flick of her fingers as she dealt the cards. Their gazes locked. Hers was vivid and excited and challenged him so that the blood burned fierce within him.