The hush broke into a dozen whispered questions, which spread out in envious ripples. All her senses finely tuned to the slightest variation in the tone of the crowd before her, Marietta stared at them all—she could not afford to look at anyone in particular. She seemed in awe of the magnificence all around her, as if she had not yet grasped that all this fuss was for her. Then she smiled. Secure in herself, secure in certain victory, her confidence was to be admired. This was for her. She drank it all in with shining eyes. It really was quite astonishing.
When she had arrived in England her grandmother had taken it upon herself to help her become a part of this strange new world, full of so many unknown people who all knew how to behave in it and looked down their snooty, aristocratic noses at a foreign girl whose money was associated with trade. Not wishing to expose her too soon into society, her grandmother had whisked her off on an extended tour of Europe to acquire what she called ‘polish’.
They had arrived back in London just two months ago, with enough time for Lady Wingrove to prepare her for her introduction into society before they journeyed north. Marietta had not yet seen Grafton le Willows, the Wingrove family mansion in the Border country, but she knew her grandmother was impatient to go there. Usually at this time of year—which she had told her ignorant granddaughter was the hunting and shooting season—she invited a party of friends from London to partake of her hospitality for one week.
Lady Wingrove had made her intentions clear to Marietta. She wished for her to make what she called a brilliant match, and to that end she had in mind a duke who was a widower with no children. He was the Duke of Arden, a neighbour of her grandmother’s on the Borders. He had sailed for America several months ago, but was expected home at any time—hopefully in time for Marietta’s début. Failing that, she would meet him at Grafton le Willows.
Pleading her case—and contrary to her decision to come to England to marry as soon as a suitable beau could be found because, having enjoyed her time in France, she was no longer impatient to wed—Marietta had told her grandmother that she was in no hurry to find a husband, that she wanted to enjoy her freedom a while longer, giving no indication to her grandmother that at the heart of her resistance lay the dread of bearing a child. She also told her grandmother that she might have an aversion to the duke she had selected for her and might not want to marry him, but the lady didn’t seem to listen and had merely stared at her with an expression on her face that could best be described as blank.
Marietta had ceased to argue, but, having failed to make her understand, she resolved to take more drastic measures if she took a dislike to the duke when they met. In Paris she had loved attending the many social functions continually held in the nation’s capital and had looked forward to enjoying the same in London, but her grandmother was impatient to take her to what was now her home in the north of England. This gave her even more reason to enjoy the party, to have the eyes of everyone upon her. She would revel in the admiration and the envy. The finery and the flattery would delight her and she would snap her fingers at those who showed their dislike of her.
She loved to dance and she did so with a natural grace which delighted her grandmother. She could sing and play the piano in a strange and untutored way which was somehow more effective than if she had been taught by a maestro.
Marietta was alluring and fiery and with an unshakeable sense of her own worth. Her moods were like quicksilver and unpredictable, but whether she was aloof and frosty or wickedly appealing, she drew men to her side almost without conscious effort. Those who fell victim to her potent magnetism soon learned to their cost that the fascinating Marietta Westwood had her heart set on a loftier destiny.
‘So that’s the famous heiress,’ Claudia remarked, staring at her. ‘She is beautiful, I grant her that. But she’s nothing but a parvenu.’ A pleased expression came over her face. ‘I don’t think any of the girls of our acquaintance has anything to worry about.’
Amelia wasn’t too sure about that. Marietta Westwood was magnificent. She would give any of their friends a run for their money.
* * *
Max Trevellyan stood in the gathering dusk while the last of the sun pulled elongated shadows across the gardens. He was there only because to refuse would have offended Lady Wingrove. Such an invitation could hardly be ignored by anyone wishing to remain on the lady’s very exclusive guest list. Having just returned to England after travelling extensively abroad and in no mood for socialising, he would have declined, for Lady Wingrove and his mother had been close friends and she was extremely fond of him and would forgive him anything. But the note she had enclosed telling him she had a matter of the utmost importance to put to him, had piqued his curiosity, which was why he had accepted her invitation.
He was wearing a finely tailored cutaway coat of deep-moss green, narrow fawn trousers and cream-
coloured waistcoat. Conducting himself in that august society with the solemn dignity of his rank, his handsome, brooding good looks turned many heads and caused several young women to heave a quiet sigh. Overpoweringly masculine at well over six feet tall, with his thick black hair, piercing silver-grey eyes, his lips firm and sensually moulded with a cynical twist, wide shouldered and narrow hips, he stood out among his fellow men like a magnificent panther.
Above his white neckcloth his face was tanned to a warm brown by the sun, his grave expression relieved from time to time by the appearance of a dazzling white smile that lit his features, but failed to reach his eyes. The beauties whom he took to the balls and theatre—and bed—were in awe of him, for he treated them with little more genuine warmth than he did his servants But this did not deter them from eyeing him with unveiled longing wherever he went, for, despite his cynical attitude, there was an aura of virility about him that made their hearts flutter.
At present his face was a brooding mask. Motionless save for the steady movements of his breathing, the image of relaxed elegance, he stood with his shoulder resting against the statue of a naked Adonis, his hands hanging by their thumbs from his jacket pockets, his eyes resting with little interest on the figure of the young woman who stood by Lady Wingrove’s side.
Suddenly he felt a stirring inside him, for there was something about her that was vaguely familiar and attracted his attention. He had the impression that he’d seen her before. She stood quite still—so still that in that moment he knew where he had seen her before. His face became grim and unsmiling, his silver eyes smouldering with emotions too long held in check. When he had last seen her she had been a young girl and she had stood in the same rigid attitude as she did now, when she had stood beside her father’s grave in the colonial cemetery in Hong Kong.
When she had faltered and almost fallen, he had reached out with an attitude of benevolence to a grieving girl and she’d spurned him. At the time he had thought she would be grateful for the gesture, but when she turned and raised her eyes and looked straight at him, her face so very young and unguarded, hatred had filled her eyes, so much hatred that he had been puzzled by it. When she spoke her words had reviled him, then she had turned from him and moved on.
After much thought, he realised there were two reasons why she could have turned against him, the first being the sudden and unexplained death of his wife. At the time it had caused much gossip and speculation among Hong Kong society. Because Nadine had been found in her hotel bedroom covered in blood, when no explanation was forthcoming, it was rumoured that he’d somehow had a hand in it. If Marietta had believed the gossip, then she was not the girl he thought she was. But, if so, the fact remained that she had judged him and condemned him and left Hong Kong without giving him a hearing.
The second reason for her coldness to him might have been because of his harsh reaction to the impulsive kiss she had given him, and his words of recrimination afterwards. She had been just seventeen years old, a young, inexperienced and impressionable girl, and he a married man. In all moral decency he could not have acted in any other wa
y.
After that there had not been enough liquor in the whole of Hong Kong to wash away his self-loathing and to douse the wrath burning away inside him like an inferno. She was dead to him and he didn’t give a damn what happened to her. Marietta Westwood had a way of surviving. She’d land on her feet whatever she did and wherever she went—and the very fact that she had turned up here, the granddaughter of Lady Wingrove, proved that.
As he continued to watch her, he wondered how it was that such complete immobility could manage to convey such a vivid and unmistakable impression of uninterest in what was going on around her. She was heartbreakingly beautiful. More beautiful than he remembered—a radiant sunburst in a world choked with darkness. Her face was just as he remembered—heart shaped, wider at the brow and pointed at the chin, with enormous eyes under delicately arched black brows—and though her mouth was too full to suit the accepted standards of beauty, it was a mouth to set a man’s pulses beating. It was evident, too, that the gloved hands clasping the painted ivory fan at her waist were possessed of surprising strength.
Max didn’t want anything to do with her. It would take an invitation from her—unmistakably and hopefully irresistible—to lure him to her again. But his decision to ignore her existence became harder to adhere to as the night wore on. He saw her hovering on the edge of his sights wherever he turned. The shock of seeing her again had fortified him for a while, but now he no longer had the advantage of that barrier.
Standing on one side, he watched her glide around the ballroom in the arms of first one gentleman and then another without being observed, while the memories of a laughing, adorable girl with shining hair that he couldn’t seem to quell paraded across his mind. People turned to look at her and she ignored the stares, but he knew by the way she held her head and smiled secretly that she was aware of the effect she had and enjoyed it.
* * *
Meanwhile Lady Claudia Murray and her friend Amelia were taking a short respite from the dancing, the topic of conversation Lady Wingrove’s granddaughter.
‘Marietta! Who ever heard of such a name? Why—it is not a name that I’ve ever heard of!’ Claudia said spitefully. ‘She’s quite the lady already—although she’ll always be considered an upstart. Having been brought up among the native Chinese, she can hardly be classed as top drawer. Her manner tells me she is quite fearless.’
‘That’s just as well considering she has Lady Wingrove as her grandmother.’ Amelia could see her friend was quite envious of the foreign girl, who was causing quite a sensation on the dance floor.
‘That’s true. And I hear she has brought a native of Hong Kong with her—Yang Ling! Would you believe? Whatever next? A Chinese coolie I expect. Having been in Paris for so long you’d have thought she’d have a fancy French mam’selle to wait on her, not a Chinese foundling. It would appear she has caused much talk among the servants—and those funny clothes she wears are quite outrageous.’ She was sitting on the edge of a fountain, leaning over slightly and trailing her fingers on the surface of the water. ‘It is clear that Marietta Westwood, or whatever her name is, thinks too highly of herself—but then I suppose we must make allowances for her since she’s a foreigner.’
Suddenly she felt something hit her shoulder and then she was engulfed in a horrible sense of shock as she tumbled head first into the water, disappearing for several seconds before reappearing. Struggling to right herself, she spluttered and gasped, horrified as she realised what had happened and that her hair was drenched and her beautiful apricot gown soaked with slimy dark-green weeds clinging to the fine lace.
‘What...’ she spluttered, wiping the strands of hair from her face, ‘what happened...?’
‘Oh dear,’ an unconvincing sympathetic voice purred. ‘What an awful thing to happen. It was lucky for you the fountain isn’t deep.’
Claudia blinked away drops of icy water and saw Marietta Westwood standing in front of her, her eyes sparkling with glee—and something akin to satisfaction. Everyone around them had paused to watch with barely restrained amusement as they took in the extent of her drenching. Amelia had one hand clamped to her mouth and her eyes were as big as saucers. Claudia was unable to take in what had happened. Never had she been so humiliated. It was like a nightmare, being at the centre of all these people while looking like a drowned rat, her beautifully coiffed fair hair straggling down her back.
Remembering the pressure she had felt on her shoulder prior to falling in, she turned her venom on Marietta. ‘You! You pushed me!’ she fumed, taking a hand proffered by a kindly gentleman and climbing out of the fountain, her wet gown and petticoats clinging to her legs.
Marietta’s eyes were wide with mock innocence and incredulity. ‘Pushed you? Now why on earth would I do that? I don’t even know who you are. You simply leaned in too far and overbalanced. It could happen to anyone. If you make your way to the house, the servants will take care of you.’
Still laughing and shaking their heads, people began moving away as Claudia continued to glare at Marietta. ‘Say what you like,’ she hissed, ‘but you did push me. I know you did.’
Marietta leaned her mouth close to Claudia’s ear, smiling serenely, but when she spoke, quietly and for Claudia’s ears alone, her voice was like steel. ‘You say I pushed you. You are right. You see, I overheard the nasty and spiteful remarks you made about my maid. Do you think I would let you talk like that about someone who is worth a hundred of you and get away with it? She is Chinese—there is nothing wrong with that. You are mean and disgusting and if it were up to me I would see you marched off the premises without the courtesy of allowing you to clean yourself up. Say what you like about me, but if I ever hear you pour scorn on my maid again, you will know soon enough what my intentions are,’ Marietta said cuttingly through her brilliant smile.
Claudia stiffened, shaking with anger, her eyes glittering with malice. ‘How dare you speak to me in this manner? I will not take it from the likes of you.’
Marietta lifted one brow. ‘Then you would be a very foolish woman. As I said, never speak of my maid like that again. You may be assured that for every insulting word you utter I will repay you tenfold.’
‘How dare you threaten me,’ Claudia hissed, struggling to maintain her composure despite the way she looked.
‘Oh dear,’ Marietta said sweetly, her face wearing the expression of a concerned friend. ‘If you do not heed my words, you will find there is precious little I do not dare. And just to set the record straight. I am not a foreigner. I was born in England and partly raised in England. So, you see, I am as English as you.’
Marietta stood back as a gallant gentleman stepped forwards and draped his jacket about Claudia’s trembling shoulders. She shook her head, spraying a shower of drops on anyone within reach. Then, too furious to utter another word and trying to remain impervious to the stares and amused comments, the drenched woman, accompanied by her friend, allowed the gentleman to lead her towards the house.
Marietta watched her go, her heart racing, still full of anger. Who the woman was she had no idea, but she really was the rudest person she had ever met. She turned and made her way round the fountain, only to find her path blocked by a man who was standing watching her.
‘That was badly done, Marietta. Of all the brazen, outrageous things to do! I can see you haven’t changed.’
Marietta looked up at him. His face was painted in harsh shadows from the flickering lights of the lanterns. At first she had thought he was a stranger, but his voice... How well she remembered that voice and those handsome tanned features. With her heart beating in deep, fierce thuds of disbelief, she stared at him, her eyes drawn to him of their own volition, thinking there must be some mistake, but he was there, his presence a certainty beyond proof of sight. But the expression in those eyes staring at her, those silver-grey eyes, was a mixture of reproach and accusation and he was unsmiling.
‘Lord Trevellyan!’ she gasped, telling herself to calm down, to control herself. ‘
What—what are you doing here? I—I never...’
‘Never mind that.’ He raked her with an insulting glance from the top of her shining head to the tips of her slippered feet. ‘Didn’t anyone ever teach you how to behave?’ he asked contemptuously. He saw her flinch.
‘You, more than anyone, know I have a habit of getting into scrapes,’ she reminded him tightly, recalling the shame and the humiliation of their encounter on the Peak. Never would he know how deeply his rejection and his cruel words had hurt her that day.
‘And I thought you would have grown out of it by now. I saw what you did. What did you think you were playing at? Lady Murray could have drowned. Did you not think about that when you decided to push her into the fountain?’
Marietta continued to stare into his eyes that were glittering liked shards of ice, unable to deny the truth of her actions to this man. ‘She deserved it,’ she said fiercely. ‘If you’d heard what she said—’
‘I didn’t need to. Whatever was said, she did not deserve what you did to her.’
‘I have never heard a woman talk so much and say so little. I have never been so insulted in my life and you take her side.’
‘I don’t take sides, Marietta,’ he said coldly. ‘You are in England now, not Hong Kong, and you have to learn to control your temper. You cannot go around shoving people into fountains just because they say things you don’t like. That is not how adults do things. They are the actions of a spoiled child throwing a tantrum.’
Helen Dickson Page 9
