‘Oh, I have it on good authority it is a very…regular relationship that the Earl enjoys with Signora Laviola,’ Rachel whipped back, squeezing comfortingly at her sister’s arm as she heard June choke in embarrassment. She was edging dangerously close to being outrageously coarse. Well-bred ladies, even those with their débût far behind them, did not talk so indelicately. She wasn’t sure she cared how that affected her. It was damage to her family’s reputation, and especially June’s, with her marriage imminent, that made her employ a little control and caution. This, after all, was a member of her sister’s new family…however horrendous the idea.
Mrs Pemberton glanced uneasily about as though pondering the wisdom of continuing to be party to such rough banter. June was then on the receiving end of one of her glares as though she, the only person present to have contributed nothing, was guilty of something.
As June flushed miserably beneath that spiteful, silent censure, Rachel bridled and became more determined to squarely take the blame. ‘Actually, I have a little related on dit to share…’ she whispered, then deliberately paused and inclined her head conspiratorially. The older women exchanged a glance, then, too intrigued to care of vulgarity, moved their gross turbans closer to the sleek golden ringlets. ‘I understand that it is with great regularity that his lordship…attends the signora’s recitals. He is not known to have missed even one.’ She smiled as the disappointed women recoiled in unison. Their rouged lips became more corrugated as they straightened their necks.
Actually, Rachel understood nothing of the sort. She hadn’t the faintest notion whether his lordship listened to his mistress sing or not. Nor did she care a jot either way. What did vastly annoy her was that she’d come here unaware what was in store for her. Had she known, she would as lief have spent the evening locked in a library with nothing to read but Philip Moncur’s poetry. As it was she couldn’t even retreat home to that task. If she cried off, pleading illness, it would only agitate more gossip. There was nothing to be done but endure this evening as best she could.
‘Well, I dare say your parents don’t find the whole matter as amusing as you seem to, miss,’ the childless Baroness primly lectured. ‘Four daughters to settle is no joke. I know I should not like it above half if a younger girl of mine were married before the eldest were off the shelf.’
‘It is as well then that you will never be so troubled, ma’am,’ Rachel said sweetly, pointedly.
‘Indeed, no, I should not like it either,’ Pamela interjected shrilly as she noticed her friend’s ruddy countenance boiling at that jibe. ‘Although now, of course, I believe I’m right in saying there are but three Meredith girls. For poor Isabel is gone…and what a terrible to-do that must have been for your poor mother. I can’t imagine such private grief…’
‘Indeed…and that’s why it’s best not to speak of it. Especially on such a public occasion as this.’ The masculine voice was unyielding and held more than a hint of cold disgust.
Pamela’s complexion pinked beneath her powder as she looked at her only child. She adored him and was chary of his scolding over her love to gossip, although as she impressed on him, time and again, there was no harm done, for no malice was involved… To reinforce this, she gave her beloved boy a sugary smile; he returned her one that bled further colour into her cheeks.
June’s relief at the sight of him was almost audible, and, with a tender smile, he drew his willing fiancée close to his side.
‘And, of course, I was mistaken,’ Pamela self-reprimanded with a jovial hand flap. ‘La, I forgot to say that June is settled by soon marrying into our family…and very welcome…which just leaves Miss Rachel and little Miss Sylvie at home. And several years, I’d say, to that youngster’s come-out by the look of her. Although, when last I saw her, I thought, My! isn’t she growing tall! And so pretty! Quite a heartbreaker in the making, to be sure…’ Aware that perhaps that was an unwise observation, taking into account Miss Rachel’s history, she ceased her chatter and fiddled with her thin ringlets.
‘I’m sure you’re right, ma’am,’ Rachel sighed, enjoying the woman’s discomfit. ‘And no remedy for it; I believe it’s a family trait.’
Pamela stabbed a fierce look at her tormentor, then swivelled her eyes about, seeking an escape route. ‘Why, June, I think I see your mother over there,’ she burst out. ‘I must just go and speak with her over essentials…the wedding, you know…’ With a meaningful nod at Lady Winthrop, the two matrons were hurrying gladly away.
‘I’d like to say she means nothing by it,’ William offered quietly, ‘but I’m not sure how honest a statement it would be.’
‘Well, we must give her the benefit of the doubt,’ June said gamely. ‘I believe she sincerely finds Sylvie pretty.’
‘And do you believe that she sincerely welcomes you to our family?’
June looked flustered, her eyelashes aflutter, as she strove for a diplomatic answer.
‘You are sincerely welcomed by me, with all my heart, my love.’
‘I know,’ his fiancée whispered, her glistening hazel eyes clinging adoringly to his face.
‘Well…’ Rachel said, feeling exceedingly contented yet also intrusive, ‘I think I’ll just go and seek out Lucinda and Paul. I know they arrived some while ago—before we did—I saw their carriage stopped at the curb as we drew up outside.’ With a few backward steps she happily turned away. She knew that neither her sister nor William were really conscious of her poor excuse to discreetly depart. Their eyes, their thoughts, were with each other.
It was easy now to negotiate a path through the assembly: just a few groups of people, absorbed in their private conversations, were about the flagged hallway. Most of the guests had already moved to the music room on the first floor, or were on the stairs, en route. Rachel scoured the colourful mass of bodies, garish as exotically plumed birds soaring beneath a glaring light. Halfway up, on the left-hand side, she spied her parents, with their hostess. The woman’s turban was almost horizontal as she craned her neck to see past her father to talk to her mother. Inwardly Rachel smiled. Mrs Pemberton was apparently all amiability now she had taken a set-down from her son. William obviously knew how to deal with his mother. He was a fine gentleman…a wonderful gentleman. Rachel was once more pleased to acknowledge her sister’s good fortune and accept praise for having a hand in it.
About to start up the stairs herself, for she could hear the fluting opening bars of a melody, she gave one last peer about the emptying vestibule for her friends. As a group of men moved away from where they had been lounging against the wall, she located Lucinda and Paul Saunders just behind. She ignored the dandies ogling her and, tilting her chin, set off to join them. Before she was halfway there, her pace was faltering. On closer inspection, they, too, had the look of people who would prefer to be alone. Lucinda was coyly angling her dark eyes up to her husband’s face with a very fond expression animating her countenance. Paul seemed oblivious to all but his wife’s ardent attention. Slowly he raised a single finger to caress one of her flushed cheeks.
Rachel took two swift steps backwards, desperate not to be noticed by the couple. Swishing about, she diverted out of sight back to the stairs. She hesitated, a solitary figure on the bottom step, the melodic air drifting down doing nothing to lift her sudden melancholy. Her long slender fingers began sliding agitatedly over the slippery polished banister while she attempted to quell a tightening in her chest. Horrified, she realised that she might cry. That absurd notion prompted her to instead stop a laugh behind an unsteady hand.
How could she feel lonely with her family and friends close by? she impatiently rebuked herself. She had every reason to feel elated. Her best friend was enceinte and in love, and her dear sister June would soon be married to the nicest gentleman of anyone’s acquaintance. The hurting lump in her throat seemed undiminished by thus bolstering her spirits. Blinking her eyes, she swallowed, gripped the handrail and took a determined step up. After two more she felt better, recover
ed enough to part her damp lashes. There was no shame in entering a room unaccompanied by friend or relative. It was only an odd circumstance that she should be on her own. She drew a shivery, steadying breath, bravely shaking back her hair that gleamed beneath a thousand flames like spun gold, and looked up.
The ensuing gasp was involuntary and quite audible. Dismay held her momentarily spellbound, then, with a clumsy bob, she was sidling sideways on the damson carpet to grab at the opposite banister. Gripping it as though it might save her life, she again began to mount the stairs whilst, with blurred eyes, she minutely examined William’s ancestors, marching off up the wall. Peripheral vision kept her aware that a pair of muscular black-clad legs, a step or two above her, were keeping pace with her escape. Then, as though irritated with climbing stairs backwards, he crossed the tread. He came so close she stopped, desperately smearing away tears with her fingers while studying an especially fearsome-looking warrior glowering at her from beneath a visor.
‘Shall we get this over with?’
‘I beg your pardon.’
‘I said…shall we get this over with?’
‘I heard the words, sir, it’s the meaning that escapes me.’
Realising that speaking to a gilt-framed portrait might seem strange, she abruptly spun about on the wide stair, and rested her back against the banister. She looked boldly, challengingly at him through spiky wet lashes. He was handsome, she had to admit. And very imposing. Quite frighteningly so. She didn’t recall, six years ago, ever having felt intimidated by him. Now she did. Or perhaps she just felt stupid…for crying for no reason. But then she wouldn’t cry now. Not in front of him. He wouldn’t know, anyway…it didn’t show…
A corner of his mouth tilted her a smile, while his very blue eyes lingered on her face. He was still watching her when his head flicked, indicating the top of the stairs. ‘There are above a hundred people here tonight who are anxious for an incident to gossip over tomorrow. They’d like it to concern you and me.’
‘Well, they shall have to settle for a gossip over you and your…your friend who sings very well, I’m told. I should like to listen to her,’ Rachel announced briskly and, gathering her skirt in one hand, she renewed her flight up the stairs. Before she’d achieved three steps, her way was barred by a dark arm fastening on the polished mahogany a mere inch in front of her bosom. She seemed to sway dangerously backwards on the spot.
‘Be sensible, Miss Meredith. It need take only five or ten minutes; a little polite conversation, a smile or two…perhaps we might even manage to dance together and really confound them.’
Rachel swallowed, then pivoted back to face him. It was sensible advice. Even in her agitation she knew that. They would never be left alone; speculation as to the one’s high or low regard for the other would always prevail until the matter was finally laid to rest by a display of indifference.
What had she to lose by making an appearance of casually chatting to this man she had once callously jilted on the eve of their wedding? She moistened her full soft lips. ‘I believe my father was kind enough to present you with the opportunity to quash rumours of any lingering bitterness between us…by attending my sister’s wedding next month.’
‘That’s next month. This is now. Why wait so long?’
‘Why, indeed?’ Rachel rejoined softly after a long pause. For an awful moment she thought he might make no more of it and go. But his expression suddenly softened from an impassive study into a smile. In a move that seemed oddly conciliatory to Rachel, he stepped down to join her on her lower step rather than expecting her to rise to meet him. His bow might have been a little mocking, though, she supposed, as he held out an arm. It was the least she could expect. After a tiny hesitation her long, elegant fingers hovered on his sleeve, and for the first time in six years she allowed Connor Flinte to escort her to polite society at play.
Chapter Four
The first people Rachel noticed as they walked in silence into the music room were her parents. Through a chink in a curtain of stirring bodies she saw that her mother was facing her, her father was presenting his solid squat back to the entrance. And Mrs Pemberton was, it seemed, still their good friend.
Rachel observed the moment that her mother caught sight of them: she abruptly ceased talking. After a stupefied second, Mrs Meredith’s neat little jaw sagged further, making her appear a deal more dull and double-chinned than she actually was. Her expression, so severely altered, prompted Pamela Pemberton to inquisitively crane her neck about to locate what was so astonishing. Fortunately, the human shutter was already closing. Rachel was grateful for being spared her hostess’s immediate attention. But it would come. Oh, it would certainly come.
Her father, of course, was oblivious to it all, for he was not attending to the ladies’ chatter, but to his own. Despite standing with his wife, Edgar Meredith was actually conversing with a man in another group. Positioned like bookends, rigid-backed and with hands in pockets, they were talking with their chins jutting parallel to their shoulders, eyes darting up and down to the ceiling while they jigged from foot to foot. Edgar’s interlocutor seemed equally bored with the company, even though the ladies in his circle looked considerably younger and rather glamorous. It was a moment before she realised that the man was in fact her father’s brother-in-law. It was a long time since she had seen Nathaniel Chamberlain and she barely recognised him. Never a handsome man, in the interim he had become quite podgy and quite bald.
Nathaniel was married to her papa’s sister, Phyllis, who had refused to have anything to do with her brother, or his family, since Rachel scandalously jilted Connor. Phyllis had been quite happy to bask in the glory of having been the one to bring together her niece and the son of one of her acquaintances. For Phyllis and Lady Davenport had once moved in the same circle. Rachel wondered, as she had many times before over the years, if they still did…
As Rachel peeked at her papa and his brother-in-law, she was stabbed with an ache of remorse: it was because of her jilting the man beside her that these once good friends must make conversation in such a clandestine fashion.
It had been at one of the Chamberlains’ mediocre little dances that Rachel, then nineteen years old, had first been introduced to the handsome young Major. In common with the other young debutantes present, she had found him wonderfully attractive with his glossy black hair and sapphire eyes and that soft southern Irish brogue that so swooningly honeyed his tone. When he singled her out for particular attention that evening, she had been unbelievably flattered and so pleased. Not least because so many of her peers could barely contain their bitter-eyed envy. Yes; she had to admit that, at nineteen, beating her rivals to him had considerably boosted Major Connor Flinte’s appeal.
Determinedly, she looked about, took in her surroundings. At present she was a bystander to the action; soon she would be its nervous protagonist. Her senses seemed heightened in anticipation of that time as she absorbed all manner of minor detail from the threshold of the plush, aromatic room. Verbena and lavender from cologne, and spice from perfumes and buffet foods mingled in the sultry air, infiltrating her nostrils like incense.
On a small raised dais Signora Laviola had been idly shuffling sheets of music in her hands, presumably in readiness to start her performance. Rachel noticed that Lord Harley and one of his cronies were loitering about the foot of the stage, like faithful puppies. Sporadically a rewarding smile was tossed their way. One such flashing look from the diva darted directly from her lapdogs to her lover. Rachel watched the flash of recognition narrow Maria’s eyes. Probably she remembered her from their brief exchange of glances in Charing Cross during the rumpus with the vehicles locking wheels. Rachel sensed the dark almond eyes slide over her. The woman’s suspicion was quite legitimate; twice this week the signora had watched the Earl pay her obvious attention. She met the hostile appraisal challengingly for a second or two, then with a toss of butter-coloured curls turned her head.
And that was just the start!
It seemed that everywhere she then looked she was subjected to a shrewd scrutiny.
Ruefully, she wished that, on the stairs moments ago, she had declined to take part in this singular scheme to secure them both a quiet life. And it had only been moments ago, despite the fact she felt as though she’d hesitated here for hours instead of minutes. A spurious show of concord no longer seemed such a good idea at all!
Pamela Pemberton’s eyes had finally homed in on their quarry, resulting in a comically astonished grimace. That was the final straw! Rachel’s façade of composure crumbled. An irrepressible choke of laughter had her quivering helplessly against her escort.
Connor looked down at her, then angled his raven head to see her demurely averted face shielding a tortured expression. She heard him swear softly in relief, then drawl, ‘For a moment there I thought you were crying again. What’s so funny it’s transformed tears to laughter?’
His unwanted perception was exactly what Rachel needed. Her hysteria was immediately stifled. She put up her chin; indeed, it lifted so high her eyes skimmed the ceiling before flitting over a sea of watching faces. Some people she recognised and knew would recall the scandal; others, fairly new to the social scene, had simply sensed the atmosphere engendered by their appearance and had grasped something gossip-worthy was afoot. Yet she managed to reply coolly, ‘I’m not…I wasn’t ever crying. You’re mistaken, sir, I’m afraid.’
‘Fine. You’ve not been crying. Let’s not bicker and dispel the myth too soon.’ With a sideways look, he added mildly, ‘We’ve been well and truly spotted, so try not to look quite so downcast. We’re aiming for harmony…carefree…remember? Now, do you want to join your parents?’
‘No! Not quite yet, sir, if you don’t mind.’ The first word was barked; in mitigation, the others emerged in such a meek whisper he had to stoop to hear them. Rachel cleared her throat and endeavoured to think of something else to say, so that she could converse in a properly modulated tone and prove she was quite able. Then she caught sight of her papa…and his wide smile…and his wink!
Mary Brendan Page 5
