The Last Earl

by Lara Blunte

  "She is pretty, I suppose," a middle-aged woman said to another.

  "I suppose girls in Paris act very freely!”

  The men, as usual, were of another opinion.

  "What do you think of the Lytton gal, William?"

  "I am damned if she is not the greatest beauty in the world!"

  "A thoroughbred if I ever saw one."

  "She has a thousand charms."

  "And ten thousand a year."

  "Then she has ten thousand charms!"

  Younger men, who did not think as much about money, resorted to poetry. "‘She doth teach the torches to burn bright’," drawled the fashionable Viscount Heresford to his friend, Hugh Kirkpatrick.

  "That she doth. Do you think she will notice our waistcoats?"

  Lady Ware felt a dizzy spell coming on and gave up trying to control her daughter's progress. She sat being fanned by a bespectacled young girl who gushed, "Your daughter is so beautiful, Lady Ware. Everything about her is so perfect!"

  But Lady Ware felt too faint to reply.

  "The dress is a work of art," Princess Kwiatsova was saying to Lady Reville as she inspected Catherine through her lorgnette. "But she is too tall."

  "Too tall, too dark," Lady Seymour said, tapping her fan emphatically at each remark.

  "I think your English beauties are too short and too blonde," Lady Reville snorted.

  "Alexandra!"

  Lady Reville was not one to mince matters. "Catherine is by far the loveliest woman in this room and both of you know it!"

  But she had no time to stay and argue, for the dancing was about to begin and she had to make sure that everything was in order. Catherine had found herself in a circle of admirers, and was so engrossed dispensing waltzes, polkas and quadrilles to them that when she suddenly caught sight of Adrian across the room she could not help but look startled. She stood frozen, only inclining her head when he inclined his.

  She moved a little blindly to get the glass of champagne being offered to her by Hugh Kirkpatrick, and forced herself to smile and nod at whatever he was saying as her eyes discreetly followed Adrian.

  It struck her then how vividly he stood out against all other men in the room. He moved with an effortless and slightly insolent grace, instead of the stiffness of someone aware of his station. Among a sea of pale and somewhat blurry faces, his had the sharpness of good bones and the healthy glow of time spent outdoors. His eyes were alive with intelligence and irony, not dulled by smugness or hooded with aristocratic disdain.

  Adrian's pristine white shirt and silk cravat and the impeccable cut of his suit proclaimed his wealth and taste, but he still didn't look like a man who habitually frequented a ballroom. It was as if he had an abundance of life and strength that was missing in all the others, or as if the enormous room were too small to contain him.

  She started when she saw that he had actually begun coming towards her. "Kate," he said in his deep voice when he reached her.

  "I don't see you about much," she managed to say, unable to decide whether she liked to be called 'Kate' or not.

  "No." He looked around the room rather as if he were trying to find the exit. Then he looked at her again. "But I couldn't miss this."

  She was taken by surprise, though she realized almost immediately that he was teasing her once more. But the orchestra was heard tuning its instruments and she knew the dancing was about to begin.

  "The Duke of Devonshire was meant to open the ball with you, but it seems he has tripped over some animals he killed," Adrian said. "Lady Reville has asked me to have this great honor."

  Catherine lifted an eyebrow, "I am sorry to inconvenience you."

  "Not at all. We should always be happy to perform if we are going to be fed."

  "Is that a saying you picked up abroad?"

  "I have just heard it in the room next door. They are ravenous over there," he replied, smiling at her. "I hope I don't step on your gown. I haven't danced in... a long time."

  She looked at him in alarm, but a waltz had started. As the ball was being given in her honor, they were being watched by a large circle of people who were waiting for them to begin. Adrian took her hand, put his arm around her waist and suddenly he was whirling her around.

  What an infuriating man, to make her think for a second that she might look ridiculous when in fact he seemed to understand the tempo and nuances of the music intimately, his frame was impeccable and his feet were quick and light. Catherine was an avid dancer and after a moment she gave herself entirely to the music, to his strong touch, to his shoulder under her hand.

  As they expertly whirled and counter whirled she hardly noticed that other couples were shy to join them. She could only feel his arm holding her, his movements leading her, his body near hers.

  When the waltz ended, Catherine became aware of the room once more.

  "That wasn't so bad," she told him as she waited for her heartbeat to subside.

  "I suppose one never forgets a jig," he replied, nodding at her and then at the German prince who eagerly stepped forward to claim the next waltz. Adrian walked away as Catherine gave an exaggerated smile of welcome to the prince.

  She did not listen to a single word her partner said to her as they danced. Instead, she followed Adrian's progress around the room and right out of it as he escaped through a side door.

  Catherine danced several more times, hoping that Adrian would return and ask her for another waltz, but he never did.

  The temperature in the room had become tropical and, using the heat as an excuse, she begged to be left out of a quadrille. While her partner rushed to fetch her a glass of ice water, Catherine moved swiftly towards the big curtain through which Adrian had disappeared, knowing that it led to a gallery made of glass windows. She stepped into the gallery, closing the heavy curtain behind her.

  It was a lovely evening and the air in the gallery was decidedly sweeter and cooler than in the crowded ballroom. She looked around the garden from the door and didn't see anything at first, until she heard laughter and the sound of wood hitting something.

  She could distinguish movement in the corner of the lawn, and when her eyes became accustomed to the darkness she saw that it was a boy, perhaps fifteen years old, holding his cricket bat and laughing. Adrian stood a little further in his shirt sleeves, with a ball in his hand. He threw it, the boy hit it with the bat and sent it back rather high. Adrian jumped, hand outstretched, and caught it. The boy applauded.

  Playing cricket! Catherine thought, outraged. Instead of asking me to dance again!

  She must have made a sound or movement, because Adrian turned and stared right at her; she thought about hiding, but it was too late. She might as well have been a white butterfly pinned to a bright glass case.

  "Bored with dancing?" Adrian asked.

  Catherine opened and closed her mouth. "Not remotely. I... was only taking the air."

  Turning around, she walked briskly back towards the ballroom.

  "She's so beautiful," the boy gushed, staring at her retreating figure.

  Adrian laughed. "With beautiful little feet to stomp all over you."

  Returning inside, Catherine furiously danced her way through to supper, and when at last she was sitting at her place with Prince Kwiatsov on her right, she felt that her face had become a smiling mask that she would have difficulty removing later on. Though the prince expertly poured the balm of flattery onto her wounded vanity, Catherine could not help but stare down the table and see Adrian flirting with a blonde woman of thirty or so. It must be Lady Whitby, with whom he was said to be carrying a liaison.

  It seemed that everyone in London knew that Lady Whitby and Adrian might be lovers, yet no one cut her, for she had royal family connections. She was seen as an independent and eccentric woman of great character, and Lady Reville would never have left her out of the guest list.

  However, Catherine questioned her tactfulness in sitting Lady Whitby and the Earl next to each other, so that she, an unm
arried girl, was forced to observe the sinful couple smiling intimately at each other. Catherine ruffled with indignation and never for a moment considered her own flirtation with the married Prince in any way objectionable.

  But Kwiatsov had seen where her eyes were wandering all evening and remarked, "An interesting woman, Lady Whitby."

  Catherine raised an eyebrow coldly, "Is she?"

  "Very English," said the Prince, who was very Polish. "Something of an intellectual. After her husband died, she chose to go on with his studies about Islam. She has published a fascinating volume only last month."

  "Indeed!"

  "And yet," the Prince went on, "she is quite handsome. Not the sort of woman you would suppose would go in for studying."

  "I must confess this lady was calling my attention precisely because I find her skin strangely sun burnt. I guess the desert explains it."

  The Prince smiled as he realized that he had made the tactical mistake of praising another woman to the one with whom he was flirting, but he did not find it hard to put things right, as it was easy to praise Catherine.

  The night ended at three o'clock, and as the guests left, Lady Reville and Lady Ware stood together to see them off.

  "It has been a great success," Lady Reville was saying triumphantly.

  "I heard someone say that her dress is too immodest," Lady Ware whispered unhappily making a motion towards her own chest to point out the possible offense.

  "Oh, you have been listening to malicious gossip. If I approved of her dress you may be sure there is nothing objectionable. Nothing, except that she looks too beautiful in it! Why, even that cousin of yours seems quite taken!"

  Lady Ware twisted her head around, trying to understand what Lady Reville meant, and saw Catherine and Adrian standing at the foot of the stairs, speaking to each other. Her face was fully tilted up to his as he smiled down at her.

  Lady Reville noticed her friend’s worried look and said with a smile: "Don't be so alarmed, Helen. Catherine has a head on her shoulders. She will marry some man who will do everything she wants. That won't be Halford."

  II. Three. Jealousy

  "A great success!" Lady Reville said again with satisfaction as she perused the mention of the ball in the newspaper.

  She beamed at the girl, who did her best to look grateful, though from her point of view the event had been a great failure. Adrian had once more not seemed remotely impressed by her, and her triumph over every other man that night had left her completely indifferent.

  As Lady Reville sifted through dozens and dozens of calling cards placed next to her coffee cup, Catherine kept her eyes peeled to see if Adrian's was among them. But there was no sign of it. Still, it was unlikely that he would come and leave his card so soon after the ball. Or at all. She wondered if he had cards; she could not imagine it.

  Othello was on at the theater a week after the ball and, as Catherine sat at Lady Renville's box studying the program, she was thoroughly taken by surprise when Adrian entered. He stood next to her, running his hands through his wet hair and saying, "Good evening."

  Catherine was looking up at him, eyes wide: "Your head is wet! Have you no hat?"

  "I dislike them," he said with a shrug. "And since I have been gone, it seems that men have taken to wearing even taller chimneys on their heads."

  She laughed. "Do you dislike hats in women too?"

  "Bonnets!" The way he said the word revealed that he felt no more charitable towards them.

  "But our very bad weather requires them," Catherine said. "It often feels as if heaven is falling on our heads!"

  "That's just the sky," he replied, smiling down at her. "The least one ought to expect from heaven is that it should stay put."

  He was always so ironic, she thought, and realized that she had started to like that she never knew what he would say. She liked his deep voice, which had an edge of huskiness to it. She liked his damp hair, and wagered he wouldn't get a terrible cold from walking around with a bare head; he was probably used to much worse than this.

  Adrian was that feared but fascinating figure, the adventurer, the hardened man who had gone out to savage places. Some of these men would always manage to make their way to a noble drawing room, invited because of their knowledge of faraway places, or because a high born person sponsored them. They would prowl around in search of an heiress and all girls would be kept from talking to them, as if they were beasts that had sneaked into the house.

  Yet Adrian already had a fortune, said to be one of the biggest in Europe, and his title was as old as the hills. That made him even more of an enigma, Catherine thought. No wonder women were craning their necks to look at him even now.

  She frowned hard at a particularly daring girl who had practically stuck her head into the box from the neighboring one, and the head retreated. Fanning herself, Catherine watched as Adrian looked around without much interest.

  "Aunt Helen and Lady Reville are mingling and you are hiding in the box?” he asked.

  Catherine motioned towards the program, "I come for the play, not for the crowd."

  "You must be the only person in London who does so," he remarked dryly, aware of the many lorgnettes and opera glasses that were turned on them.

  "Don't tell me you have come to mingle. I would find it hard to believe."

  "I've come to hear Iago," he said, sitting next to her.

  "Iago? Then you enjoy the villain in the piece?"

  He nodded slowly, "Yes, the villain."

  She fanned herself, her eyes twinkling with interest, "And why is that?"

  "Because his actions are impossible to justify,” he explained, and there was something grim in his expression as he added, “And yet they feel real to me."

  Catherine pondered: "So you think that the love between the principals is inconsequential, but that inexplicable hatred is real? That's very dark of you."

  He appraised her. "And probably not something I should be saying to a beautiful girl with her life ahead of her."

  She felt annoyance at the thought that he was dismissing her as an innocent who could not be let into the secrets of life, and instead preferred mature widows who could milk camels. But before she could say any more Lady Ware and Lady Renville returned. He was charming to them, in spite of Lady Ware's trying exclamations over his disappearance.

  Lady Renville insisted that he should sit in her box for the performance. The older women took their places in front and the younger people in the second row of the box, where Catherine remained acutely aware of Adrian’s presence next to her as the drama began on stage.

  However Iago, far from shedding any light into possible reasons for his burning hatred toward the Moor, had a Scottish accent so impenetrable that it made Adrian snort with laughter. Soon Catherine was also giggling uncontrollably behind her fan.

  She had a grand time with him that night, feeling that she had finally got past his irony, and that in fact they had quite a few things in common apart from a liking for Shakespeare and a mischievous sense of humor.

  Yet, though she had never looked more beautiful, in the days that followed, he did not once try to court her. He never appeared to be jealous of her admirers or even aware of their existence, never looked at her more meaningfully than a kinsman should, though he was only a third cousin of her mother's. Catherine at first thought that he would eventually reveal his devotion. But as time passed and he continued to be as cool as ever, she became convinced that he was truly indifferent to her.

  Lady Reville watched as Adrian resisted Catherine and came to the surprising conclusion that he did not even desire her. Was he oblivious to the potent charms of this young goddess, fully directed at him? Lady Reville feared that if there were to be a reaction, it would not be a bended knee before Catherine. He wasn't that sort of man, and that was probably what the girl found intriguing.

  The old lady wished, not for the first time, that Lady Ware were a little more forceful and less fearful, so that she could share he
r suspicions.

  But in civilized society one did not separate two well born people because of what might or might not happen, and one could not close the door on the Earl of Halford.

  

  Catherine knew that Lady Reville was observing her closely, especially when Adrian was present. The old woman's reptilian gaze, going tirelessly from her face to Adrian's began to seem an enormous obstacle to her objective, which was to make Adrian love her and confess that love.

  One night she went into her mother's room and announced that since she knew it was unthinkable to move to their London house, as it was the site near which her father's accident had taken place, she wished to take a furnished house, and that it would not do to stay at Lady Reville's any longer.

  "But she will be offended!" Lady Ware protested feebly.

  "I am very grateful to her, mama, but we cannot live in her house forever."

  Forever? Lady Ware asked herself confusedly. Only a little while before Catherine's plan had been to return to Paris and live there. But she could not resist her daughter's wishes and the next day she told Lady Reville of their intention, with profuse apologies, and directed their solicitors by letter to find a furnished house in Mayfair to be let.

  

  Catherine hardly dreamt of anything else but of dancing with Adrian again, a feat that she had never managed, because he rarely went to balls.

  However, she knew he was attending a ball given by the Countess of Highbury to which, naturally, she was also invited.

  She prepared herself with extreme care, and was unusually irritable with Henriette, who felt about to burst into tears by the end of the afternoon. Her mistress had been displeased with her hair and the placement of the diamond stars in it, and had told her to start over three times.

  Finally satisfied with the way she looked, Catherine went by Henriette and, seeing the girl’s downcast face, she stopped to give her a repentant kiss on the back of the head. Henriette smiled as she left.