by M C Beaton
“Like this,” he whispered, bending to her mouth again and slowly and carefully beginning to remove all the articles of clothing that had not been removed before. The wind howled and moaned outside, and the logs in the fire sputtered and cracked, and there were only the black beetles to watch the ancient naked dance of the two bodies on the floor.
“You’re very bruised,” said Lord Gerald as the white-and-red light of dawn crept across the floor. “Was that me?”
“No, darling,” smiled Ginny. “The fall from the carriage.”
“You have a great bruise just here, rather like the map of India. I shall kiss it better….”
Mr. Figgs often said in later years that he had never been so well looked after in his life. “They didn’t even allow me to set a foot out of bed,” he had said proudly, “and Miss, she even read to me. And they paid handsome for their board when they left.”
A freakish warm wind came dancing over the English Channel on the third day, turning the white carpet of snow into slush and flooding the fields.
Lord Gerald struggled back into his shirt, which Ginny had washed, and helped her into her stays and then fastened up all the tiny buttons at the back of her dinner gown with thin, sensitive fingers that itched to unbutton them all again.
Gerald planned to walk for help, leaving Ginny at the inn after warning her not to unbolt the door until she heard the sound of his voice.
He went into the kitchen to make some tea first and, while he filled the kettle, he found a nasty questioning voice had entered his brain. You’ll have to marry her now, won’t you? said the voice. Walked neatly into that little trap, didn’t you? He resolutely fought the voice down, made the tea, put cups and saucers on the tray, and returned to where Ginny was sitting by the fire, looking pensively at the flames.
He poured out tea and as Ginny made no remark, he said in a voice with a sharp edge to it, “I’m getting quite domesticated.”
“Yes,” said Ginny. She looked up at him and her gaze seemed disconcertingly penetrating and shrewd. In a second it had vanished, leaving her eyes completely blank. She fiddled with her teaspoon and then there was silence. Not Ginny’s usual placid silence but a silence stretched taught, an atmosphere of waiting.
Lord Gerald finished his tea and stood up. He had better propose and get it over with.
“I say, Ginny,” he remarked casually. “I suppose I had better marry you. I mean, in the circumstances, that is…”
“I don’t see why,” said Ginny.
“What?” Lord Gerald was outraged. “If I did not have first-hand evidence that you were a virgin, dear girl, I would begin to suspect your morals. Of course we’ve got to get married now. It’s the done thing!”
“There is no need for anyone but us to know what has happened,” said Ginny calmly. “You may return to your bachelor pursuits. You will soon find someone to replace Alicia.”
“Has all this time we spent together meant nothing to you?” he raged.
Ginny turned her face away. “I have already pointed out that you are under no obligation to marry me,” she said in a flat, dead voice. “Now, are you going to find help or do I have to do it?”
He went out and slammed the door.
It was several miles hard walking before he stopped shaking with anger. It was several more before he could calmly review what he had said. He was on the outskirts of Gyrencester before he realized he had not said he loved her.
And with a sickening, lost feeling, he realized that he did!
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The police failed to find any trace of Ginny’s abductor. The telegraph boy had said a large gent had met him in the driveway of Courtney and had taken the telegram and then given him that famous sovereign. He couldn’t describe him rightly, because he had been wearing a long coat to his heels, a cap down over his eyes, and a muffler across his face and his voice had sounded funny.
Ginny had removed herself and most of her household to town. Although some months had passed, Lord Gerald could still remember his last painful interview with her in the stuffy little estate office at Courtney. He had tried to point out that his honor as a gentleman was at stake. He was not in the habit of seducing virgins. It was her duty to marry him. And Ginny had just stood there as empty-eyed and lifeless as a china doll. He was about to take her in his arms and tell her how much he loved her when she had suddenly walked from the room, and by the time he had gathered his wits and had gone to look for her, she was nowhere to be found.
He was so humiliated and angry, he decided he did not care for her one bit and the very next day he would ride over and show her so. But the next day she had left for London and had promptly hedged herself about with a round of social calls and activities and he was never to see her alone, even for a minute.
As Ginny flirted and danced with one eligible man after the other, his hopes died. The charming, warm, and passionate Ginny, he decided, only existed in his mind. He had been tricked by the snow and the storm and the firelight. She was as silly and empty-headed as he had always believed her to be. He prided himself on a narrow escape and returned, brooding, to his country home. If he thought of her at all during that long winter it was to hope that someone would murder her.
One warm May day when the dog daisies danced on the green banks and the purple clover carpeted the meadows he looked across to Courtney and saw spirals of smoke rising up from the tall chimneys. She was back!
He worked harder than ever on his estates, burying himself in agriculture and manual labor so that he might fall into an exhausted and dreamless sleep each night.
He was just beginning to tire of this monkish existence when he received an invitation from Lady George. The gilt-edged card was accompanied by a letter informing his lordship that Lady George’s “duveen” niece was staying with her and was absolutely the prettiest thing imaginable. Lady George wanted the ball in honor of her niece, Mary, to be a great success and would Lord Gerald please attend, although little dickey birds had told her he never went anywhere these days.
He looked at it thoughtfully and then across the sunny fields to where the tall chimneys of Courtney rose above the trees.
He would go, he decided. He was sure Ginny would not be there. He had a longing to dance with a pretty girl and be feted and petted by their hopeful mamas.
He sent a warm letter of acceptance and felt the first pleasurable thrill of anticipation he had experienced since his nights at the inn with Ginny.
He endowed Lady George’s niece, Mary, with all the beauty and charms of perfect womanhood. He would marry her, he would invite Ginny to the wedding, and he would smile into her empty eyes and tell her how happy he was. He might make some laughing little reference to their time at the inn to show her that it had meant nothing to him.
The days before the ball passed quickly and the evening of the great event soon arrived. He dressed with unusual care, pulling his white gloves over his hands, which were callused like a laborers’ by the hard work during the winter and early spring.
His servants smiled their approval to see their master once more behaving as fitted his position in life instead of grubbing among the turnips.
His new Lanchester purred along the lanes in the twilight toward Lady George’s mansion. The air was warm and sweet and full of the scent of growing things. Tiny new leaves arched across the road, spreading their black lace against the darkening sky. It was as if the whole of nature had fallen asleep and was breathing deeply and evenly—the faint mist that was beginning to rise from the fields, her gentle breath.
He found himself relaxing and the nagging empty feeling he had been carrying around inside him for months began to recede.
As he drove up the winding drive of Lady George’s mansion he could hear the strains of music mingled with laughter.
Soon he had deposited his coat and was mounting the red-carpeted steps to the ballroom, breathing in the familiar smell of an English country house ball: hothouse flowers, beeswax, woodsmoke, and d
og.
He shook hands and bowed to Lady George, who was receiving the guests, and then turned to be presented to her niece, Mary. A big ox-like girl grinned up at him from under a heavy fringe of dull-brown hair. A small light-brown mustache graced her upper lip, and her mouth was very full and red. He had a sudden urge to turn and flee, but instead he murmured politely that he hoped to have the pleasure of a dance with Miss Mary, adding hopefully that he was sure her dance card was already full. No, it wasn’t, said Mary with a great horse laugh. She was a regular farmyard this girl, thought Gerald bitterly as he wrote his name in her card with its little silver pencil.
He escaped into the ballroom, nodding and bowing to various familiar faces. He escaped to the champagne bar and joined the group of chattering young men who were fortifying themselves against the night ahead and discussing shooting, hunting, and military pursuits as if the female half of the race did not exist. Lord Gerald would like to have chatted about farming with someone but there was no one who seemed interested. He felt old and depressed and began to wonder whether he might be a bourgeois manqué.
He thought he heard the announcement, “Miss Bloggs,” but he immediately realized he must have been imagining things. Bloggs was such a ridiculous name anyway, a lump of a name, a common name. Still, it would do no harm to saunter to the ballroom and just look in.
Ginny was standing at the entrance to the ballroom, followed by Barbara and Tansy, who were looking as if they had just found out that the slipper did not fit. Barbara was bristling with silk and lace and feathers and looked like a dumpy self-important pouter pigeon. Tansy was thin and angular in tight purple georgette, and was wearing a pottery necklace that had obviously been hand-thrown in the studios of Bloomsbury, to judge from its knobby appearance and acid colors.
Cyril and Jeffrey brought up the rear, both magnificent in impeccably tailored evening dress.
Ginny stood bowing and smiling around and was quickly surrounded by a court of admirers, both male and female. He was surprised to notice that Ginny appeared to have become a great social success. But then was it so surprising? She had looks and a fortune and had already built up a reputation for herself as a hostess. Her eyes were vague and her smile empty and meaningless and Gerald sighed as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Despite the exquisite lines of her sapphire-blue dress and the magnificent diamonds that sparkled at her ears, her face was silly and empty and he could have laughed aloud from sheer relief.
He had thought of her and dreamed of her too much, he realized, until he had forgotten what the original looked like.
He turned his attentions to the other ladies present, noticing for the first time what a lot of pretty girls there were around, and endured his dance with Miss Mary with charming fortitude.
But as the evening went on and Ginny was constantly surrounded by admirers either on the floor or off, he began to experience the first nagging pangs of pique. She had not once looked in his direction or had given any sign that she was aware he existed. But why should she bother even though she had lain passionately in his arms? She had not been found out, and in this new and often shocking Edwardian society, which was kicking up its heels with a vengeance after the death of Queen Victoria, to be found out was the only crime.
Once again, as in the champagne bar, he felt stuffy and out-of-date.
He resolutely flirted with all the prettiest girls—unaware that he had never looked more handsome, with his fair hair bleached by the spring sun to bright-gold, his face tanned by his work in the fields, and his strange black eyes and high-bridged nose giving him an autocratic air.
He had just completed a noisy and exhausting set of the Lancers and was wondering whether to have a drink or call it an evening when the band began to play that lilting Strauss waltz, that haunting, yearning melody that he had once considered so sugary and trite—but that was before he fell in love. Well, he was not in love any longer and…
He turned to go. Ginny was standing right behind him with two young men assuring her that this was their dance.
“Now, what am I to do to settle this dispute?” said Ginny, dimpling delightfully up at them.
“Dance with me,” said Gerald, moving forward and wondering at the same time if he had lost his wits. The dimple disappeared and her face went blank, but she picked up her small train with accomplished grace and moved into his arms as the lilting music carried them slowly over the polished floor of the ballroom. She was wearing that scent again and he felt compelled to look down at her face to reassure himself that it was as stupid and empty as he had found it earlier. But for some reason she was dancing stiffly and awkwardly and was looking down at her little high-heeled slippers. She stumbled twice and then said in a low voice, “You must excuse me, Lord Gerald. I am tired and I do not think I want to dance anymore.”
If only he could have seen her face then, he could have led her to a seat and left her. But her head was still bent, so instead he found himself asking her whether she would like to walk on the terrace with him for a while.
She did not reply, and looking at her with some confusion, he finally took her arm very gently in his and led her out onto the terrace, where several couples were already walking up and down, despite the fact that the warm night was misty and damp.
They walked in silence. Suddenly a man gave a great guffaw and a girl shrieked with laughter. Gerald winced at the sound, which affected his nerves like a knife scraping on a pot. He led the unresisting girl down into the garden, too puzzled by her strange and uncharacteristic silence to notice that her shoes were becoming wet with the heavy dew and that the train of her dress was trailing unheeded across the damp lawn.
He paused at that uncomfortable piece of garden furniture, a rustic bench, and asked her whether she would like to sit down. Still she said nothing but she did sit down—at the very edge of the seat and with her head turned away from him, dew diamonds and real diamonds sparkling in her hair.
Her dress was cut low on her shoulders, her white skin emerging from the blue silk of the dress like some nymph of old rising from the blue waters of the Mediterranean. Her hand was lying on the bench encased in its long blue kid glove. He had a sudden desire to behave badly, to promote some reaction even if she slapped his face.
He picked up her hand and unbuttoned the small buttons at the wrist of her glove and, bending his head, pressed his lips to the white exposed skin. As his lips touched her wrist and the familiar smell of her perfume weaved itself around him like the coiling mist, he felt as if an electric charge had been shot through his body.
He suddenly knew why he had felt so lonely and lost all these months. He knew why he had tried to persuade himself that she was nothing more than an empty-headed doll. He raised his head and with great control turned her gently to face him. He drew off his white gloves and placed his long fingers on either side of her face, turning it up to his.
“I love you very much, Ginny,” he said. “It sounds silly, it sounds like something from a musical comedy but I mean this with all my heart. I can’t live without you. I-I’m lonely without you.”
Large tears began to run down the beautiful face turned up to his. “Why didn’t you say so before?” cried Ginny. “All those long months I’ve believed you thought I was nothing more than a tart you simply had to marry. And I would not marry any man on those terms.”
“I didn’t know it,” said Gerald, “but I do now. Can’t you see it in my eyes?”
“No,” said Ginny with a sudden infectious giggle. “They’re like great black pits.”
He gave her a little shake, sliding his hands down to her shoulders. “You will marry me,” he said and then much like his old manner, “You are going to marry me anyway, whether you like it or not. Say yes or I’ll wring your neck.”
“Yes, Gerald,” said Ginny.
“And you will marry me as soon as possible?”
“Yes, Gerald,” said Ginny meekly. “But what of all those urges that men and women should
suppress? Are you going to sublimate them?”
“Yes,” said Gerald, gethering her into his arms. “I shall sublimate them on our honeymoon, my dear, if I have to keep you chained to the bed. Oh, Ginny…”
After a while Ginny murmured, “I refuse to be seduced on this knobbly bench in this damp garden. You don’t need to chain me to the bed, dear Gerald, just lead me to it.”
“We will be very good and proper,” said Gerald firmly. “We shall go back to the ball and I will announce our engagement.” Then he remembered the events leading up to their stay at the inn and gathered her close in his arms again. “Have there been any more abductions or mysterious coachmen?” he asked with his lips against her hair.
“No,” said Ginny and then shivered. “But it’s still there. At Courtney, I mean. That feeling of lurking menace. It was alright at the town house and Tansy certainly earned her keep. She had the town house running as smoothly as clockwork. I don’t think she will ever like me like Barbara does but she no longer hates me. Perhaps I’m imagining the whole thing. I dismissed Fosdyke, you know, the private detective. He wasn’t very good at detecting and he wasn’t very good as a footman either.”
“I won’t leave you now,” said Gerald. “You are going to invite me as a house guest and I shall be with you day and night even before we’re married. Especially the nights,” he added, sliding her dress further down her shoulders. Then he sighed, “What an awful lot of clothes you ladies do wear. How am I supposed to get at you through all this armor?”
“You’re not,” said Ginny, jerking her gown back up again. “Not here, that is. Do you realize, darling, that it’s turning colder and damper by the minute? You only have to wait until we make our announcement and get home.”
“Even if I kiss you like this… and here… and here?”
“Especially there and there,” said Ginny. “Don’t be wicked.”
“I’m not wicked,” said Gerald, sighing, helping her to her feet. “Simply anxious to make up for lost time.”
