“That must put you in a very difficult situation,” said Lady Buchan. “Come and meet the rest of the company. Miss Briggs and Miss Faring...” And so the introductions went on. Honoria curtsied to Archie and thanked him shyly for the bouquet of flowers he had sent her that day. He gave her a hunted look, said hurriedly it was nothing, nothing at all, and then immediately engaged Miss Briggs in conversation again, talking about people Honoria did not know and therefore excluding her from the conversation.
The duke arrived with Mr. Delaney just in time to see what was happening. He bowed to his hosts and walked immediately to Honoria's side and raised her hand to his lips. “Miss Goodham,” he said in a caressing voice. “Your beauty eclipses us all. Walk with me for a little. I have news of your aunt.”
“What news?” asked Honoria. She felt miserable about Archie. He had a silly laugh, she decided suddenly. She looked up at the duke, who smiled intimately down into her eyes, making her feel awkward and breathless.
“I heard from a friend recently returned from Paris that your aunt, Lady Dacey, had declared her intention of returning home to take up her duties, namely you and Mrs. Perryworth.”
Honoria felt that what had started as a bad evening was becoming horrible. She realized all at once how comfortable she and Pamela were together and how she secretly dreaded her aunt's return. But there was worse to come. “Do not take Archie Buchan's defection to heart,” she heard the duke say. “I fear I am responsible for that. Mr. Delaney put it about that you were an heiress. I disabused Lord Buchan of that notion. Hence the presence of two genuine heiresses and the busy courtship of Archie.”
“This is dreadful,” exclaimed Honoria. “Such vanity! Mine, I mean. I am grateful to you, Your Grace, for interceding on my behalf. If Mr. Buchan's interest in any female is because of her fortune, then he is not worth knowing.” She looked up at him candidly. “And I know you are flirting with me to be kind, to give me a social cachet I might not otherwise have. I have heard you have a wicked reputation, but I judge people as I find them. It gives me pleasure to tell you, Your Grace, that I think you have a heart of gold.”
And the Duke of Ware blushed for the first time in his life.
Mr. Delaney was furious with Archie Buchan. He felt the man should at least have tried to disguise his blatant greed. So just before they were about to go in for dinner, he murmured to Lady Buchan, “It is wicked of Ware to put about that Miss Goodham is not an heiress.”
“What can you mean?” demanded Lady Buchan.
“I fear Ware has fallen in love at last.” Mr. Delaney sighed. “Miss Goodham is a considerable heiress, but by telling everyone that she is not, Ware hopes to cut down the competition.”
“Indeed! How odd!” Lady Buchan realized with anguish that she had placed Honoria at the bottom of the table, far away from Archie. She glared at Archie, who had relented enough to compliment Honoria on her gown.
Archie took that glare as a reminder that he was to forget Miss Goodham and so he added hurriedly, “Of course, I do not know about such things as gowns. You must not take me seriously. Ah, I must take the beautiful Miss Briggs in to dinner.” He turned his back on Honoria and held out his arm to Miss Briggs. Lady Buchan stifled a groan.
Once they were all seated at the table, Lady Buchan noticed Honoria's downcast looks and cursed the Duke of Ware who, as the highest ranking guest, was seated next to her.
How to get a message to Archie? She had supplied the diners with those newfangled French table napkins. In most houses, the guests still wiped their mouths on the tablecloth. She waited until the duke was talking to the lady on his other side and taking a lead pencil out of her reticule, hurriedly scribbled the message, “Miss Goodham IS an heiress,” on the starched linen surface of her napkin. She leaned forward to the duke. “Would you be so good as to pass that to my son, Archie?”
The duke took the napkin, flipped it open, and glanced down at it just as the gentleman on Lady Buchan's other side claimed her attention. He took a lead pencil out of his pocket, and changed IS quickly to ISN'T, and told his neighbor to pass it to Archie.
Archie glanced down at the message and then up at his mother, who nodded to him solemnly. Archie was in awe of his domineering mother. He took the message to mean that he had not disaffected Miss Goodham properly enough and so during the meal, he flirted assiduously with Miss Briggs and Miss Faring, who were placed on either side of him.
When the ladies retired to the drawing room, Lady Buchan set out to be charming to Miss Goodham. Honoria began to relax and to think kindly of Archie again. But as soon as the gentlemen joined them, Archie went straight to Miss Briggs and Miss Faring and continued flirting.
“Now, why did Lady Buchan try to tell her son that Miss Goodham was an heiress after all?” the duke asked Mr. Delaney.
“Because I told her you only said she was not because you wanted her for yourself,” replied Mr. Delaney cheerfully.
“I should call you out. Do you know Lady Buchan wrote a message on a napkin that said Miss Goodham IS an heiress and asked me to send it along to Archie? I changed the IS to ISN'T, so our Archie is still being cold to Miss Goodham. Ah, his stern mama has his ear at last. Watch this.”
The duke quickly crossed to Honoria's side. “Have you heard the latest on-dit, Miss Goodham? It seems that Lady Arthur, married only a month, took off for foreign parts with her first footman. Her husband pursued the guilty pair to Dover and fought the footman on the quayside. They beat each other nearly to a pulp and then retired to the nearest inn to have their wounds dressed while Lady Arthur fainted and sighed and fainted again, crying to all who would listen that two men were fighting over her, so there was little hope of keeping the matter quiet.
“Alas for Lady Arthur. When she awoke the next morning, feeling like Cleopatra and Delilah rolled into one, she was informed by her maid that her husband and the footman had become the best of friends and had gone abroad together.”
“That is very shocking,” said Honoria seriously. “Poor Lady Arthur.”
“Poor nothing! She cuckolded her husband and made him fight with her lover as publicly as she possibly could.”
“I suppose other people's romances are considered ridiculous and funny,” said Honoria. “But perhaps they are tragedies to the people concerned. What, for example, would you think if I told you that I was in love with Mr. Archie and the fact he was spurning me was upsetting me greatly?”
“I would say you were a silly goose to waste your affections in that direction. But just in case you have formed a tendre for that worthless object who is now beaming on you—No! Walk with me, talk to me! He is not going to cut into our conversation. The fact of the matter is that Lady Buchan did believe you to be a great heiress. Disabused of the fact, she ordered Archie to be cool to you. Mr. Delaney, in a spirit of mischief, told Lady Buchan that ... that you were in fact an heiress after all and so she has no doubt ordered Archie to court you again.” The duke had no intention of telling Honoria that his friend had said he wanted her for himself.
“How sad and shabby all this is,” said Honoria. She turned away from him to face Lady Buchan, who approached them with a beaming Archie in tow. “Would you sing for us, Miss Goodham? My son would be delighted to turn the music for you.”
“Mrs. Perryworth has a very fine voice,” said Honoria, avoiding Archie's gaze. “You would find her the better choice. I am sorry. You were saying, Your Grace ... ?”
“Now look what you have done, you idiot,” raged Lady Buchan as the duke led Honoria away. “You have practically thrown her into Ware's arms.”
“Not my fault at all!” Archie looked hurt. “You sent me that message at table saying she wasn't an heiress. You'd told me that already, so I thought you were giving me a further warning.”
“It said IS!”
“Is. Isn't. The damage is done for the moment. If I were you, Ma, I'd ask Mrs. Perryworth to sing and therefore do something to please Miss Goodham.”
Pamela loo
ked nervous when asked. She had never performed since her marriage, the vicar frowning on anything other than singing hymns in church. Honoria had heard her singing as she moved about Lady Dacey's house. It was one thing to sing when one was by herself, but another to perform in such fashionable company. Mr. Delaney saw her confusion and said merrily, “Come, Mrs. Perryworth, we will give them a duet. I will play.”
He sat down at the piano and flicked through the music, after lighting the candles in their brackets on the pianoforte. “Here we are.” His eyes glinted up at her mischievously in the candlelight. “'Oh, Love Divine,’ just the thing.” And before Pamela could protest, his fingers rippled expertly over the keys, and the guests fell silent.
The two voices rose and fell in the simple ballad, the soprano that was Pamela's voice intertwining with Mr. Delaney's tenor.
Honoria, who had taken a seat next to the duke on a backless sofa, watched the couple uneasily. She felt they had forgotten everything in the world but each other, that they were singing the words to each other.
When they finished singing, the guests applauded enthusiastically and called for more, but Mr. Delaney said quietly to Pamela, “If only I could kiss you again.” Her color flamed, and she walked away from the piano.
“I think he really is in love at last,” said the duke to Honoria. “What a pity.”
“You must speak to him.” Honoria leaned toward the duke and spoke urgently. He was conscious of every bit of her, the way a tendril of brown hair lay against the cream of her cheek, the curve of her lips, the scent she wore. Without thinking, he took her hand and raised it to his lips. “No, don't do that!” exclaimed Honoria, taking her hand away. “I beg of you, Your Grace, you must tell Mr. Delaney to leave Pamela—I mean, Mrs. Perryworth— alone.”
“It is not as easy as that,” he said. “Love, once started, is very hard to stop. Archie is hovering about again. Talk to me about something, anything. I know—tell me about this vicar.”
“Oh, Mr. Perryworth? Well, he is quite well-looking in his way. But a very cold man with a rather judgmental manner. ‘Mrs. Perryworth, I trust you will behave becomingly in London and spurn the devil at all times.'” He looked down at her in surprise, for she had mimicked the vicar's voice, he was sure, accurately. “He delights in finding fault. Dear me. I am quite overset or I would not criticize the man so. But if only he were a warmer person, more caring, then perhaps Mrs. Perryworth would not be in danger. Mr. Delaney is very charming.”
“I am surprised Mr. Perryworth allowed his wife to escape to London.”
“He is impressed by Lady Dacey's title and fortune, as are my parents. But he must miss her dreadfully. Mrs. Perryworth does a great deal of the parish work.”
* * * *
Mr. Perryworth looked down on the heads of his congregation. He found his eyes fastening on a pretty bonnet decorated with red cherries, and with an effort tore his eyes away. The bonnet belonged to Mrs. Sarah Watkins, a widow. She was a demure lady with a round rosy face, small black eyes, and very thick, glossy black hair. He had not noticed her particularly until one day when he had realized he had not called on her to welcome her to the parish, something that in the past he would have let his wife do for him.
He had knocked at her door. It had given under his knock. “Mrs. Watkins!” he called. He was used to walking in and out of the houses of his parishioners, for doors were hardly ever locked. He entered.
He found himself in a pretty parlor, but stopped short at the sight of Mrs. Watkins herself, lying on a sofa near the window, asleep. Her black hair was loose and cascading about her white shoulders, which were revealed by a low-cut nightgown, all she was wearing. One leg was slightly raised with the thin material falling back from it.
He blushed and backed out, quietly closing the door behind him. But that vision of her stayed in his mind, burned into his memory. He felt his senses quickening when he thought of her in a way he knew he should not.
It was all his wife's fault, he thought angrily. Her letters were dull and correct with no particular news and no words of affection.
His eyes strayed back again to that fetching bonnet. At that moment, Mrs. Watkins raised her head and gave him a slow, warm smile. He turned his eyes away again, but felt a glow of exultation that had nothing to do with religion.
Chapter Six
LADY DACEY ARRIVED back in London, unannounced, some three weeks later. She had initially had a pleasant time in Paris after she had got over her fury at learning that the Duke of Ware had not been seen anywhere in that city. She had been on the point of returning to London when fate had thrown a young charmer in the presence of one Guy Lupin in her path. He was twenty-three, lazy, and attractive. He professed himself devastated with her beauty, and for the first time in her life she had succumbed to the wiles of a young man who was only interested in her money. He deserted her for a younger, richer target on the same day as she read in an old copy of the Morning Post that the Duke of Ware had been seen driving Miss Honoria Goodham in the park.
She was in a very bad temper indeed and illogically blamed Honoria for having tricked her into going abroad. Only the thought of Honoria as she had last seen her, young and schoolgirlish, served to mollify her. Along with that came the thought that she had invited Honoria to London to use as bait. To have a young miss to bring out meant the company of eligible men. Lady Dacey planned to marry again and as soon as possible.
She arrived in the evening and was told that the ladies were at the opera with the Duke of Ware and Mr. Delaney. The news made her bite her lip in a returning excess of fury.
She decided to wait up for them, tired as she was. After half an hour, she began to fret at the inaction and therefore resolved to change and visit the duke's box at the opera herself. Dressed in a new Parisian gown of violet silk and decked out in some of her finest jewels and with a feathered headdress, she set out.
Honoria was watching the opera, hands clasped, eyes shining, and the duke was watching Honoria. He was at times amused and at times irritated with the indifference with which she treated him. Little Miss Goodham, he thought wryly, was only using him while she looked about for someone younger and more interesting. There was one good thing. Although Archie Buchan still tried to court her, Honoria was barely civil to him. He knew she was contemptuous of a young man who was prepared to court only at his mother's bidding.
He studied Honoria's face and wondered idly if he could make her fall in love with him. The trouble was, he had never had to try to be particularly charming or civil to any female in his life before. His title and fortune had seen to that. Still, he might flirt with her a little to see how she coped with it.
He thought he would begin at the first interval by pressing her hand warmly as he led her from the box for the promenade in the corridor outside.
Mr. Delaney and Pamela were sitting quietly, side by side. Although they were several inches apart, it was as if they were joined together, as if the one were thinking so intensely of the other that no one and nothing else mattered.
Mr. Delaney was privately chafing at the bonds of friendship. He had been all that was correct, but he dreamed increasingly of what her lips had felt like under his own. He longed to reach out and take her hand. He was conscious at all times of every part of her body. A light-hearted love was sinking into a deep obsession, so that he felt as if he were tumbling down into a bottomless well of love with nothing to hold on to to stop him. He sometimes imagined what it would be like if he rode north and challenged the vicar to a duel.
And then just as the curtain descended at the first interval, the door to the box was flung open by an usher and Lady Dacey sailed in on a cloud of powerful scent.
“Aunt!” cried Honoria. Lady Dacey kissed her on the cheek and muttered, “Don't call me that!” before standing back to better survey her niece.
Her china blue eyes narrowed slightly as she took in the glory of that new crop, of the fresh and untouched beauty of that face, of the exquisite lines of a
white muslin gown embroidered with rosebuds.
“I am glad you are returned, Clarissa,” said Pamela quietly. “We were beginning to wonder if we would see you again.”
Lady Dacey ignored her and held out her hand to the duke. “How do you do, Ware. Devastatingly handsome as ever.”
“And you are as beautiful as ever,” he said with automatic gallantry and kissed her hand.
“Naughty man!” She rapped him playfully with her fan. “Do move over, Honoria, and let me sit next to Ware. I have not seen him this age.”
Honoria obediently took a chair on the far side of the box. Lady Dacey turned the chair on which Honoria had been sitting and sat down so that she was facing the duke while her back was to the rest of them.
Lady Dacey talked and flirted and told all the gossip of Paris. When the duke tried to glance past her to see what Honoria was doing, Lady Dacey had a way of quickly moving her head so that his view of the girl was blocked. At first he felt frustrated. Then he began to wonder if young Honoria could be made to feel jealous. So he capped Lady Dacey's outrageous stories with a few of his own.
But when the opera began again, Lady Dacey talked on and he could sense Honoria's irritation. He knew she was unfashionable enough to like to listen to the music and that by continuing to entertain her aunt, he was falling rapidly in her esteem.
By the end of the opera, Lady Dacey was almost purring like a cat. Honoria had fulfilled her role by bringing this wicked and handsome duke into Lady Dacey's own orbit.
Her delight intensified when the duke took her up to dance first at the opera ball. Honoria, whose reputation as heiress was already established, was immediately surrounded by courtiers.
“Let us sit and watch the dancers,” Mr. Delaney urged Pamela. “Yes, I know you are popular, too, but just for once say you are feeling faint.”
Pamela would normally have protested that such behavior was neither correct nor fitting in a chaperon, but her feelings were thrown in a turmoil by the return of Lady Dacey and by the fact that the duke seemed to have forgotten Honoria's very existence. Pamela felt a pang of regret. She had begun to warm to the duke because of his kindness, his humor, and his courtesy. She had even begun to believe that his wicked days were over and that perhaps he might make Honoria a good husband.
The Sins of Lady Dacey Page 8
