by Mary Brendan
Since the Duke had sent his sister back to her own home, Joan had seen nothing of her aunt. She felt rather mean thinking that the respite had been very welcome.
‘I promised Lady Regan that we would have a chat to Mrs Denby and her daughter.’ Dorothea swivelled her eyes to indicate the newcomers. ‘My friend has kindly taken the girl under her wing.’ Inclining closer, Dorothea muttered, ‘Sooner hers than mine, I can tell you.’ The widow’s loaded comment soon gained her companions’ interest.
‘What is amiss?’ Maude darted a glance at the strangers. ‘Is there some scandal?’
‘Indeed there would be! If news of it circulated.’
‘Surely it already has, if you know of it,’ the Duchess pointed out.
‘Oh, I have given Lady Regan my word not to tell a soul.’ Dorothea observed that several quizzical looks were turned on her. ‘Of course, I may confide the sorry tale to people I know I can trust.’ She gave her niece a hard stare.
Joan and Louise exchanged a look of muted amusement.
‘Well, don’t leave us in suspense,’ the Duchess prompted in an undertone. ‘I must say Mr Denby appears bored rather than embarrassed.’ As the fellow glanced her way Maude attended to her plate of food. ‘I expect he might prefer to play faro while the ladies mingle,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll ask Alfred to speak to him later about a game of cards.’
The Duke of Thornley had come to find endearing his second wife’s gauche social manners. Maude found nothing strange in expecting him to befriend lesser mortals. And neither did he since she’d entered his life like a breath of fresh air.
‘Oh, that is not Mrs Denby’s husband.’ Dorothea’s explanation emerged from behind her quivering fan. ‘She is a widow. Mr Saul Stokes is Cecilia’s guardian. The girl has just turned eighteen, although she made her come out last year and just as well she did!’ Dorothea added darkly. ‘For I doubt she’d shine this Season.’
‘She is surely old enough to do without a guardian,’ Maude responded. ‘My two girls were independent from an earlier age.’
‘And so was Louise,’ Mrs Finch piped up, keen to join the conversation.
‘Since her debut Cecilia has been a terrible trial to her mother.’ Dorothea pursed her lips. ‘The chit needs a father’s discipline. If she were mine I’d disown her...after I’d taken a stick to her back.’
Maude’s widening eyes prompted her sister-in-law to hurry on. ‘A while ago the minx was caught on the Great North Road, attempting to elope with a groom.’ Dorothea employed her fan so energetically her companions also received its benefit. ‘Of course, the family are adopting a united front, but then they would.’ The widow gave an emphatic nod. ‘Mrs Denby will want the little hussy sporting a wedding band as soon as may be.’
‘What a dreadful thing for her poor mama!’ The Duchess darted horrified eyes to Cecilia’s profile. ‘Mr Stokes caught up with the lovers in time then, you say.’
‘Oh, he didn’t save the day...it was her uncle brought her back and she behaved like a harpy all the way, so I’ve heard. At one point she tried to jump from his speeding carriage so he bound her hand and foot.’
‘Her uncle seems the better choice to keep her in check,’ Maude ventured.
‘He’s sunk out of sight following some trouble.’
‘Bad blood the lot of them,’ Patricia Finch summed up with a sniff, turning grateful eyes on her well-behaved daughter.
Louise was still single at twenty-one, having rejected the only proposal that had ever come her way when she was seventeen. At the time Patricia had been exasperated to lose a future son-in-law with so little consideration given on Louise’s part. Her daughter had said she needed no time to think: the fellow wasn’t right for her. As he had gone on to duel over a Covent Garden nun, then flee abroad to escape arrest, Patricia had to admit that Louise—despite her tender years—had been the wiser of the two of them on that occasion.
‘Your friend is taking a special interest in the girl, you say?’ Maude glanced through the open dining-room doors. Lady Regan, an influential, veteran hostess, was settled on a sofa with her entourage around her. She didn’t seem to be putting any effort into welcoming the Denby family herself.
Maude could pull rank on every female present, should she choose to, but she had not long been elevated through marriage to the peerage. She knew that there were those present who resented her good fortune and thought her an upstart. Her husband’s sister was a prime example, as was Lady Regan.
‘Is your friend related to the Denbys in some way?’ Maude was keen to understand why a snob would lend her name to nobodies.
‘I believe her ladyship’s husband has asked her to be of assistance in the matter.’ Dorothea raised her sparse eyebrows. ‘Mr Stokes is Lord Regan’s friend, I understand.’ Dorothea hurried on. ‘Vouchers for Almack’s have been procured for Cecilia. The little hussy is luckier than she deserves to be.’
Having listened with mounting interest to the older ladies’ debate Joan realised she felt rather sorry for Cecilia Denby. She was sure the strangers knew they were being gossiped about. There but for the grace of God went she. She’d acted recklessly when a similar age and Joan knew she’d no excuse, other than a hankering for an adventure, for having done so. Cecilia, on the other hand, could claim love as a purer motive for her outrageous conduct.
‘Shall we say hello to them?’ Joan suggested with a bright smile. On impulse she set off towards the Denbys and some hissed words of restraint told her that her stepmother and aunt were not far behind.
‘I’ve come to introduce myself,’ Joan blurted, giving a little bob and one of her hands to shake. ‘I’m Lady Joan Morland.’ For an awkward second it seemed her friendly overture might be rebuffed, then the older lady extended her gloved fingers.
‘How nice of you to take the trouble to speak to us. We know few people here this evening. I’m Mrs Denby and this is my daughter, Cecilia.’
‘Mr Stokes at your service, ladies,’ the gentleman trumpeted with a stiff bow.
After the other introductions had been politely made the silence lengthened. ‘There is a fine selection of dishes on the dining table,’ Joan rattled off. ‘Would you like to sample a few, Miss Denby?’
‘I’ve no appetite.’ Cecilia sighed.
‘The lemonade is very refreshing, too.’ Maude attempted to keep the conversation going. ‘I should like another glass.’ Her smile drooped when the gentleman present made no courteous offer to fetch it for her. She had hoped to get rid of Mr Stokes for a short while as he seemed to be a barrier to a more informal chat with the Denby women.
‘It is very warm in here...might I walk with you, Lady Joan?’ Cecilia flicked open her fan to cool her pink cheeks. ‘I noticed you and Miss Finch were strolling in the ballroom earlier.’
Joan crooked an elbow in an affable way. ‘Let’s go and watch the dancing.’ Her sympathy for Cecilia increased as she realised the poor thing was desperate for an excuse to escape her guardian’s eagle eye.
‘Your mama and I will walk on the terrace for a few minutes, then join you,’ Mr Stokes announced sternly.
Cecilia gave a nod of acceptance, then the trio of young ladies set off towards the ballroom.
‘Who are they?’ Cecilia was observing, from under her lashes, the two boisterous young fellows.
‘Henry Laurenson and his chum Ralph Woodley,’ Joan supplied, noticing from a corner of an eye that Henry had turned to watch them as they passed by.
‘I’d like it if he asked me to dance,’ Cecilia whispered, slanting a subtle glance at Henry. ‘He’s very handsome...I wonder if he’s charming, too.’
A soft-chinned, auburn-haired fop was not to Joan’s taste and she could tell from Louise’s comical expression that her friend wasn’t smitten either. But Joan had been a flirt with Vincent and, although she’d been younger than Ce
cilia at the time, she could recall the heady excitement of attracting a gentleman’s attention and acting in a way designed to make his eyes pursue you from place to place.
‘Will your guardian object if you are asked to dance?’ Joan had noticed Henry straightening his colourful waistcoat in a purposeful way.
‘I don’t care what he thinks,’ Cecilia muttered, stabbing a sour glance back over a shoulder to where her mother and Saul Stokes had been standing. But they had already stepped through the billowing curtains on to the terrace.
‘And your mama?’ Joan drew to a halt and gazed questioningly into the girl’s blue eyes.
Cecilia shrugged. ‘She’ll follow his lead; she’s his puppet. But I’ll not jig to his tune. I’d willingly dance with him, though...and I think he is about to ask me.’
‘Might I beg an introduction and a dance?’ Henry had slipped into Cecilia’s path to bow low over his extended hand.
‘You may, and I would like to,’ Cecilia replied and immediately slipped her gloved fingers onto his sleeve.
‘Well...let’s get the formalities over with first,’ Joan rattled off, resisting an urge to snatch Cecilia’s hand away from her admirer’s arm till etiquette had been observed.
‘Good, that is out of the way,’ Cecilia said the moment Joan had introduced them. She gave Henry a beam and a nudge towards the dance floor.
Henry looked delighted, obviously finding engaging Miss Denby’s lack of modesty.
Joan smothered her chuckle with a tiny cough as the couple went off. Cecilia’s mama obviously did have a trying time controlling her daughter.
‘Would you care to gavotte, Lady Joan?’ Ralph enquired with a bashful grin. ‘Or perhaps Miss Finch might like to partner me.’
‘I’m sure she would,’ Joan said with a twinkling smile for her friend. ‘Alas, I must find my stepmother and fetch her a glass of lemonade that she asked for some time ago.’
Joan did go in search of the Duchess, but found that she and Mrs Finch had quit the supper room. Thinking they might have followed Cecilia’s people on to the terrace, Joan headed in that direction.
Chapter Six
A refreshingly pure fragrance of jasmine and rose was wafting from the blooms trailing over trellises, welcoming Joan into the evening air. Indoors, she’d found the atmosphere heavy with cloying French scent and cigar smoke. Strolling to the balustrade, she gazed out over the darkling lawns edged by shadowy shrubbery. The perimeter of the vast garden was staked at intervals by burning torches that cast undulating shapes on to those promenading beneath a star-studded sky. But of her stepmother and Mrs Finch, or of Mr Stokes and Mrs Denby, there was no sign.
Joan pivoted on her satin slippers, settling her slender hips against the iron railings. While her friends were dancing she could go back inside and seek her papa’s company...but she knew he would be with his chums, enjoying a brandy and concentrating hard on the cards in his hand. The Duke took gaming seriously. It amused Joan that he was miserly with his wagers despite his skill and stack of sovereigns. Besides, she had no desire to quit the soothing twilight yet and return to the ballroom. She felt a twinge of guilt at having abandoned her friend. She hoped Louise wouldn’t mind too much; during their friendship—that had started properly in the schoolroom—they had mischievously indulged in teasing one another. The Finches and Morlands were friends of long standing. Joan’s mama and Louise’s mama had also known one another as children. They’d been of similar stock, but whereas one young lady had gone on to wed an aristocrat, the other had settled on a plain mister of comfortable, rather than great, means.
The difference in their husbands’ status had made no difference to the two women who’d continued their friendship much as before. And Maude had settled into a similar, cosy amity with her predecessor’s old friend when she became the Duke’s second wife.
Feeling at a loose end, Joan descended the wide stone steps, endeavouring to keep her silk skirt from collecting dew from the lawn as she traversed it. A fountain was playing to her left and the sweet sound lured her towards it. She stripped off her lace gloves, enjoying the sensation of light spray on her warm fingers.
Mingling with the tinkling of the water was a hum of low voices. Joan was about to move away when she heard spoken aloud the name that seldom quit her mind and it rooted her to the spot. Usually Joan would have died rather than be found eavesdropping on a private conversation, but on this occasion she had no hesitation in moving quietly closer.
Taking a cautious peek about a privet hedge, she glimpsed Mr Stokes and Mrs Denby locked in an embrace. Joan sharply jerked back her head before she was spotted, but pressed an ear against the bush to catch any further mention of Rockleigh. First came the unmistakable sound of a passionate kiss interspersed with little moans from the lady. Joan’s cheeks were burning, her stomach squirming in embarrassment, but still she stayed right where she was and was soon rewarded for her courage.
‘We must put matters right. My brother is no fool and his retribution will be harsh when it comes, my love,’ Mrs Denby whispered.
‘Rockleigh can do nothing where we are concerned,’ the man scoffed. ‘And if your dear brother were the paragon of wisdom you imagine him to be, Bertha, I would not have managed to so easily dupe him.’
Joan smothered her hissing intake of breath with her fist. Her quick intelligence sifted through what she’d just heard, plucking out the facts. Drew Rockleigh was Bertha Denby’s brother! And Mr Stokes had somehow managed to deliberately trick him! Joan strained to hear the rest of their conversation, but the voices were growing fainter. Her uncontrollable need to discover more propelled her forward an inch. Cautiously she again peeped about the privet and was furiously disappointed to see that the lovers were strolling sedately towards the terrace.
Flabbergasted, Joan immediately questioned what she’d seen and heard. But she rejected the notion of having imagined it all and cupped her face with her palms while fiercely concentrating on the puzzle.
If Drew Rockleigh and Mrs Denby were brother and sister, then Cecilia was his niece. He was the uncle who had dragged her home when she’d attempted to elope with a groom! Joan could understand now how the girl had been apprehended: Rockleigh didn’t seem to be a character easily thwarted once he set out to do something.
Yet...she’d just overheard Cecilia’s guardian crowing about besting him. Stokes must be a fraudster who had cruelly impoverished Rockleigh! And the victim’s own sister had assisted in the plot. Joan didn’t believe that Cecilia was also an accomplice. The swindlers would conceal dangerous information from such a scatterbrain.
‘Joan! What are you doing alone in the dark?’
Joan nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of her stepmother’s voice. Stepping away from the fountain, she waved a hand that still quivered from the shock she’d received.
Maude daintily stepped over the lawn towards Joan, tutting all the while. ‘The grass will spoil our new slippers,’ she complained.
‘The turf is barely wet,’ Joan reassured, forcing herself to act normally although her mind refused to concentrate for long on anything other than the dialogue between Mrs Denby and her lover.
‘What were you doing over there by the fountain?’
‘I was...um...taking the air and looking for you to see if you still fancied a glass of lemonade,’ Joan replied truthfully. She quashed the urge to immediately confide in somebody. She was privy to something dangerous and thus must think very carefully before divulging a word of it, even to those she loved and trusted. But she was certain that a dreadful crime against Rockleigh had been committed.
‘I don’t know why you imagined I’d be loitering in the shrubbery.’ Maude sounded bemused. ‘I was having a chat to my friend Rosalind Wentworth. Her godson is just back from his Grand Tour and will attend Almack’s next week. Apparently he is seeking a wife as he has just
taken his birthright. We could obtain vouchers for that day.’ Maude’s smile drooped when the exciting news of a rich young earl seeking a countess prompted not a single comment from her spinster stepdaughter. Joan was a vivacious beauty, but at twenty-one, she’d been out for five years and hadn’t received a single proposal. Even her doting papa sometimes seemed concerned over his daughter’s lack of interest in becoming a wife and mother at her age, yet he confessed to having scared off more than half-a-dozen would-be suitors when Joan first made her debut.
Distracted though she was, Joan realised conversation of sorts was required from her. ‘Louise and Miss Denby were asked to dance,’ she rattled off.
‘And you were not?’ Maude barked, sounding vexed.
She knew that her stepdaughter would sooner remain on the shelf than settle for a marriage of convenience as Maude had when accepting Alfred’s proposal. Maude understood and applauded youthful idealism about romance. She, too, had wanted a love match the first time round and she had got it with her daughters’ father. She knew, too, without rancour, that Alfred had dearly loved Joan’s mama. But against the odds the two of them dealt well together and their mutual affection strengthened with every passing day. But Joan was not getting any younger and if she didn’t hurry up she might miss out on choosing her soulmate.
‘Would you have liked to dance?’ Maude rephrased her question when Joan seemed to have gone into a dream world.
‘Oh, Ralph Woodley asked me to partner him, but I let Louise have her toes squashed,’ Joan answered.
‘No great missed opportunity, then.’ Maude smiled wryly. She knew the Woodleys and Laurensons. The heirs to those dynasties were woefully immature. Nevertheless, they were personable enough young gentlemen and had the sort of prospects that ensured their mantelshelves were stacked with invitations.
‘Henry Laurenson definitely wanted Cecilia as his partner.’
‘Did he, indeed?’ Maude slanted an enquiring glance Joan’s way. ‘I wonder how her guardian will take to knowing that. Of course, considering what Dorothea has told us, if a solvent bachelor comes up to scratch the family should give thanks and immediate consent. Some might approach her without a marriage proposal on their minds though,’ Maude rumbled beneath her breath.
