I ground my teeth. But I still had no practical ideas for how to go about forcing Mrs. Hurst to give the necklace back to Jane. And standing there and allowing myself to trade polite insults with her would accomplish nothing.
I murmured an excuse, turned, and pushed my way through the crowds to follow after Mary.
For a moment after I had exited the Rotunda, I thought I had lost her in the crowds of revellers milling about between the supper boxes. There was to be a fireworks display in an hour, and already the masquerade-goers were organising themselves so as to procure the best places on the main lawn from which to watch. And then I saw them: the gold epaulettes of the Spanish bullfighter, and Mary’s purple silk costume of a Turkish sultana, weaving their way towards the shadowy grove of trees that lines the Lover’s Walk.
I was alarmed—truly alarmed. The Lover’s Walk at Vauxhall Gardens is rather like the London debutante’s equivalent of the bogeyman stories used to frighten children. Everyone has heard whispered tales of girls whose virtue was irretrievably ruined in the private glades of the Lovers’ Walk. Even if only half of the stories bear any resemblance to truth, the Lover’s Walk is still no very respectable place to be. And Mary was about to enter it with Lord Henry Carmichael.
I stood frozen while my mind spun uselessly through various possibilities for action. I might be standing there still—except that someone crashed into me from behind. A grey-haired, billowy, grandmotherly-looking woman wearing—rather improbably—the costume of Helen of Troy.
I clutched her arm. “Oh—do you think you might help me?” I spoke in a breathless rush, letting a quaver—not entirely a false one—creep into my voice. “I am sent after that girl over there—the one wearing the purple Turkish costume.” I pointed to Mary. “Her aunt asked me to give her the message that her sister is ill and requires that she return at once to their supper tent. Please, do you think you might pass the message on for me?”
Fortunately the grandmotherly woman did not pause to ask why I did not simply carry the message the remaining fifty feet and tell Mary myself. I have noticed before that if one speaks very quickly and urgently, people seldom do question the logic of what you say.
The elderly Helen of Troy patted my hand and told me kindly that of course she would do as I asked. She waddled off in Mary’s direction, and I ducked behind one of the statues that dotted the lawn. Peering out from behind Adonis’s marble elbow, I saw Helen of Troy deliver the message. Mary frowned, said something to Lord Henry, and then sped off in the direction of the supper boxes.
Lord Henry looked after her a moment, shrugged—and sauntered into the entrance to the Lover’s Walk on his own. I stared after him. I had thought only to separate him from Kitty, but now I had before me the chance to do what I had resolved on before—speak to Lord Henry alone.
I still had to force my feet to move, following him across the lawn and into the shadows of the tree-lined path. It was much darker there, the lanterns in the trees being placed at farther intervals. And quite cold, as well—which I suppose accounted for the path being almost deserted. Far more lovers probably take advantage of the place during the spring and summer months.
Tonight, I surprised a Lady MacBeth locked in a passionate embrace with a man wearing the hunchback and neck ruff of a Richard III. But apart from them, I met no one as I sped along the paths, searching for Lord Henry.
I found him at last in a small clearing which had been made about a marble statue of— Actually, I have no idea of whom the marble carving was supposed to be a representation. Some male worthy or other. My heart was beating hard as I approached a bench on the opposite side of the glade—where despite the darkness, I could see a man in matador’s knee breeches and spangled coat sprawled back, his legs stretched out before him.
I had a momentary qualm—thinking that I was going to feel an utter fool if the man proved not to be Lord Henry after all. But it was he; he had taken off his mask, and as I approached, I recognised him at once: the charmingly tousled blond hair, the boyishly handsome features which—though I had never noticed it before—concealed the weak line of his jaw.
He was alone, at least. That had been my other fear, that he might have entered the Lover’s Walk for the purpose of some other assignation. And he was also extremely drunk. His head wove and his eyes struggled to focus themselves as he looked up at me, frowning as though he were trying to decide whether I were real or some hallucination.
“Hallo,” he said at last. Slurred, rather; his words were even more indistinguishable than Ben’s at his most inebriated. “Won’t you join me?” He spread out his arms in invitation. Then took another swallow from the engraved silver flask he held. He tried to wink and—not quite being able to manage the effort—ended by blinking both eyes. “Plenty of room here for two.”
“No.” Coming face to face with one’s own past is seldom precisely pleasant. I surely have learned that lesson well enough in these last months. But coming face to face with this particular slice of my past was proving especially disagreeable—since I was forced to wonder how on earth I could ever have been idiot enough to be taken in by the man before me now—to have been infatuated enough that I had actually hoped to marry him.
Though I could at least console myself with the fact that I had not succeeded in marrying him. If I had, I would surely have even more reason to repent of my idiocy than I do now.
My voice was still short, though, as I snapped, “I have come to tell you to keep away from my sister.”
Lord Henry blinked slowly at me, his head still weaving slightly from side to side. “Afraid I don’t quite follow you, m’dear,” he said at last. “What’s your sister”—the s’s in that sentence nearly undid him— “Whatsh your shister got to do with me?”
I drew a breath. I had wanted to find Lord Henry alone. What I had not accounted for in my plans was that he might be too addled by drink to take in anything of what I said. “My sister is Miss Mary Bennet. I want you to stop paying her attentions—stop dancing with her, stop seeing her altogether, in fact.”
Lord Henry gazed blearily up at me, and then he shook his head. “Can’t do that, I’m afraid, old thing. There’s the bet, you see. Got to win the bet.” He leaned forward and spoke confidentially. “Can’t let old Squiffy—the Earl of Southampton, you know—get the best of me.”
“Bet?” I repeated, frowning. It seemed as though he really was too intoxicated to make any kind of sense. “What bet?”
“A wager, you see.” He tapped the side of his nose and looked cunning—or as cunning as a man is capable of looking when his eyes are refusing to focus in the same direction at once. “Something entirely new. My own idea, actually.” The word came out more like, ackshully. “Wagering on horses—that’s been done to death. And so’s betting on bear baiting, cock fighting, boxing matches—it’s all been done. No, my idea’s entirely new. Each of us picks a girl who’s an absolute pillar of virtue. The sort of blue stocking who won’t let a man so much as kiss her hand.” He took another pull on the silver flask, belched, and then wiped his mouth on the spangled cuff of his matador’s coat. “First one to make a conquest of his girl wins.”
I stared at him. Feeling as though—
Actually, I am drawing a complete blank on finding any comparisons to describe what I felt. I am perfectly certain that my mouth dropped open. And my voice, when I finally found it, emerged sounding high and squeezed-off. “You mean to tell me that you are attempting to seduce my sister as part of a bet? A wager with your disgusting friends to see who can compromise a respectable girl’s honour first?”
Lord Henry blinked at me, looking entirely taken aback by my furious tone. He had apparently reached the stage of drunkenness where he was unable to see anything but the perfect reasonableness of his own plans and ideas. “Yes, what about it? She seemed perfect, to me.” He tipped his head back and laughed. “Lord, what a born ape-leader. The sort of girl who probably wears a—”
But no. I am not going to writ
e down any more of what he said about Mary. Suffice it to say that his remarks were largely devoted to speculation about Mary’s undergarments and whether they came equipped with locks and keys.
And then he broke off in mid-sentence, frowning up at me in perplexity. “Hallo,” he said. “I know you, don’t I? We have met before.”
Apparently even Mary’s last name—and my saying that I was her sister—had not made him recall the Kitty Bennet he met last year in Derbyshire. Why should it? After all, perhaps I had only been the object of some similar wager.
I had not thought that the recollection of my acquaintance with Lord Henry Carmichael could possibly grow any more mortifying, but my cheeks burned at that thought. It was cold comfort to reflect that if his attentions to me had been part of a bet, Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy had probably caused him to lose the wager by sending me away.
I leaned forward and spoke between clenched teeth. “Yes, we have met. This past summer, in Belgium.” Which was true enough. That was the meeting at which I realised the humiliating truth that he had no recollection of either my face or my name. “And if you do not leave my sister alone—in fact, if you do not call off this revolting wager entirely—I will go to your Aunt Maude and tell her that we were in fact secretly married in Belgium. And that you cruelly abandoned me during the battle to flee back to England.”
Lord Henry’s eyes snapped open at that. His aunt Maude is the elderly relation whom he was visiting when we met in Derbyshire. The extremely wealthy elderly relation, in whose good graces he must stay if he wants to inherit her fortune. Which he does want to—very much indeed—since if rumour is correct, he has almost entirely run through the whole of his own.
“But we never … that is, we were not …”
“No, we did not and were not,” I snapped. “But your aunt does not know that. And as respectable a lady as she is, I do not think she would be at all pleased with you if I went to her with the claim of being your cruelly abandoned bride.”
Lord Henry goggled at me—his eyes glassy and rather like those of a fish. But my threat did appear to have sobered him somewhat. He drew himself up and attempted an air of bravado. “But you would have no proof for such a claim. No papers—”
“Our marriage papers were sadly lost during the chaos following the battle. And the church in which we were married was burned to the ground by those French devils, Napoleon’s soldiers.” I opened my eyes very wide in an exaggerated look of innocence. “The countryside was in such an uproar—what with the French army fleeing, and the allied forces moving in pursuit.” Which was also entirely true. “And of course I suffered the most terrible privations and difficulties in returning home to England.”
“You would not dare—” Lord Henry began.
I interrupted him again. “Oh, but I would. In fact, if you continue to argue, I may also decide to add a child to my story.” I heaved a sigh and looked suitably sorrowful, touching one hand to my heart. “A baby boy, who tragically died at birth—due of course to all those privations and difficulties I suffered thanks to your abandonment.”
I was leaning far enough forward that even in the darkness I could see the look of real fear dawn in his eyes. I have never met his Aunt Maude. But I had heard a great deal about her last year—largely from Lord Henry himself. She is crabbed and irascible and extremely religious. According to Lord Henry, she insists on her entire household, servants included, assembling every morning and kneeling in her drawing room, where she leads everyone in morning prayers. Let her hear any hint of my story, and any hopes Lord Henry had of inheriting her fortune might very well indeed vanish like wood smoke.
Then I saw something shift in his gaze—as he evidently determined to change his tactics and try charm instead of bluster. “Come now, Miss … Bennet, I suppose it must be?” He gave me a frank, charming smile. “You do not really wish to cause me such difficulties. You know”—the quality of his voice changed, becoming low and intimate-sounding—“you know, you are a very pretty girl. Far prettier than your sister, in fact.”
I had failed to consider that in leaning so far in towards him, I had also placed myself squarely within his reach. As he spoke, his hand came out to grasp my wrist—and before I could jerk away, he had tugged me down onto the bench beside him. He leaned forward, wrapping his arms around me, his brandy-scented breath hot on my neck and face.
“Get away from me!” I shoved at him. But even intoxicated, he was far stronger than I was, and he only laughed.
“A girl of spirit. I like that. I am sure we can come to some sort of understanding between us.” His lips brushed the skin just below my ear.
It is strange. Last year, I would have thrilled at his touch. Tonight, the hot, wet brush of his lips made me feel as though I had been coated from head to toe in pond slime. Bile rose in my throat, and I struck out at him. To be honest, it was luck more than skill that made my clenched hand connect with his nose. But the blow was at least hard enough to snap his head back.
Not hard enough, however, to make him loosen his hold on me. His eyes narrowed, his handsome face darkening and turning positively ugly with anger. “Why you little—”
This is the part that makes my hands shake to write. Which I suppose would be obvious to anyone reading this; my writing seems to have grown even more illegible.
I think—at least I hope—that I would have been able to defend myself in some fashion and get away. But the true fact is that I do not know what the end result of the encounter might have been—if, in the middle of speaking, Lord Henry had not abruptly flown backwards through the air, spun, and then landed with a thump, flat on his back in the middle of the decorative border around the marble statue.
At least that was how it appeared to my dazed eyes; it was a moment before my mind could process the truth of what in fact had happened. Which was that a man had appeared out of the shade of the trees that ringed the grove, seized Lord Henry by the back of his collar, yanked him away from me, spun him around, and gave him a punch in the jaw that sent him flying backwards a good three or four feet.
Lord Henry struggled to rise. But the second man planted a foot on his chest, pinning him to the ground, and said—in dangerously pleasant tones, “I believe the young lady asked you to keep away from her.”
I recognised his voice and felt the blood in my veins turn cold—even before he turned to me and said, “Miss Bennet, are you all right?”
It was Lancelot Dalton. Naturally. Evidently I was being allowed to extract the maximum degree of mortification from this episode.
I swallowed. I discovered that I was shaking from head to foot, and I had to clench my teeth again—this time to keep them from chattering. But I managed to nod and say, “Yes. Fine.”
“Good.” Mr. Dalton turned his attention back to Lord Henry, removing his foot from the latter’s chest. “Get up and go. Before I change my mind about allowing you to walk out of here under your own power.”
Lord Henry looked calculating for a brief moment—as though he were gauging his odds of winning against Mr. Dalton in a fight. But he evidently decided that those odds were by no means in his favour, for he scrambled ungracefully up from the grass, swayed, and then lurched off into the trees.
Mr. Dalton started to offer me his hand, changed his mind, and instead dropped down to sit beside me on the stone bench. Thankfully for me; I was still shivering and was not at all sure that I could manage to walk without tripping over my own feet.
We were both silent a moment, and then: “How did you come to be here?” I asked. It still seemed beyond belief that he should have appeared on the scene at the precise moment I had need of aid.
Mr. Dalton was staring at the space in the surrounding trees where Lord Henry had vanished, and I could see that the line of his jaw had tightened. He exhaled, though, and said, “Your aunt could not find you or your sister and became alarmed. She sent me out to look for you. I saw you entering the Lover’s Walk and was … concerned. I followed after you.”
/> So it had not been only chance that had caused him to appear from nowhere as he had. And I suppose I might have expected that he would be a supporter of this charity, on account of the military connection.
Still, I felt my cheeks heat up with another burning flush. “I do not—” I began hotly.
I snapped my mouth closed. Managing to bite back the words that sprang first to my lips—that I did not require to be watched and minded like a six-year-old child in need of a nursemaid.
It is perfectly remarkable how Lancelot Dalton seems to call out all my least admirable instincts. The truth was that I was angry. But not with him. I was far angrier with myself, for … Well, for a whole host of reasons, really. But chief among them was the fact that I had been careless enough to place myself in a position to require rescuing. As though I were a six-year-old child. Or one of those brainless heroines in a gothic romance who skips blithely off into the abandoned wing of the haunted mansion without an apparent second thought.
I forced myself to draw a long, slow breath, and then I said, “Thank you, Mr. Dalton. Truly. If you had not intervened when you did, matters might have grown very unpleasant indeed.”
Mr. Dalton turned to look at me. I thought there was a momentary crinkle of amusement about his eyes. As though he knew what I had been about to say and why. When he spoke, though, his voice was grave enough. “Lord Henry Carmichael is not a man whom I would willingly allow to be alone with any woman I cared about.”
I felt another burning wave of mortification spread over me. Mr. Dalton had said when we first met that he knew me by reputation. Did he know that Lord Henry Carmichael was in fact the man with whom I had come close to disgracing myself? Likely he did. In which case he probably believed that I had deliberately come here to meet Lord Henry for a lovers’ assignation.
Kitty Bennet's Diary (Pride and Prejudice Chronicles) Page 11
