by M C Beaton
Quadrille
M. C. Beaton/ Marion Chesney
Copyright
Quadrille
Copyright ©1981 by Marion Chesney
Cover art to the electronic edition copyright © 2011 by RosettaBooks, LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
First electronic edition published 2011 by RosettaBooks LLC, New York.
ISBN Mobipocket edition: 9780795320866
For Eileen and Tom Kerr
with love
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter One
“I do not want to go to Clarissa’s,” said Lady Mary Challenge, standing beside the open window to try to catch a breath of cool air.
“You will do as you are told, madam,” said her husband, Colonel, Lord Hubert Challenge, from his position in front of the looking glass.
Mary stifled a little sigh. So it had begun and so it would go on in this loveless marriage. He issued the commands, she must obey. She turned and surveyed her husband who was shrugging his muscular shoulders into his evening jacket. The room was lit by one branch of candles on the mantelpiece and his reflection looked almost satanic in their wavering light. It was a handsome if swarthy face with a strong chin and a firm mouth. He had a patrician nose and large, beautiful brown eyes, very well spaced and ornamented with long thick lashes which detracted not one whit from his overpowering air of masculinity. His thick black hair sprung in two wings from his high forehead and his tall figure moved with athletic grace as he turned to face her.
Mary turned away. She did not want to read the expression in his eyes, for she knew she looked dowdy. Her dress of heavy silk was overfussy, giving her immature figure an awkward air. She had a smooth madonna-like face with an almost translucent skin and two large gray eyes and a quantity of fine, light brown hair, but it was her shy cringing air which made her appear dowdy, rather than her unfashionable clothes.
“I told you before that Lady Clarissa is an old friend of mine,” said Lord Hubert, turning away from her and searching through the card rack for the correct invitation.
“All Brussels knows of your friendship with Clarissa,” thought Mary, but she did not have the courage to say it aloud.
Mary knew herself to be a wealthy heiress. She knew also that Lord Hubert had married her for her money in order to save his ancestral home. Mary had naively expected love to blossom in this arranged marriage. But no sooner was she his wife than, three weeks after they were married, his regiment was ordered to Brussels.
He hadn’t wanted her to go with him but she had insisted with a pertinacity foreign to her shy nature and he had shrugged and agreed. She had fondly imagined a grim battlefront—for wasn’t that ogre Napoleon back to ravage Europe?—where she would have her husband all to herself.
But never in her wildest dreams had she imagined the sophisticated, glittering scene that was Brussels, where every society beauty seemed to be gathered to dazzle and charm her susceptible husband. And Clarissa, Lady Thorbury, was the most beautiful of all. Already Mary had heard it rumored that Clarissa had been her husband’s mistress before their marriage and before her subsequent engagement to Viscount Peregrine St. James.
“There are rumors that Napoleon’s troops are at Quatre Bras,” ventured Mary timidly to try to turn the conversation away from Lady Clarissa.
“Gossiping women,” said Lord Hubert impatiently. “What do they know of military matters?”
Mary opened her mouth to point out that it was the elderly Colonel Chalmers who had given her the news but her husband had already marched to the door and was holding it open.
She bent her head and walked before him down the stone steps from their rented apartment and out into the warm June night. The streets were thronged with carriages, their lamps gleaming and flashing in the dark blue night. Ladies laughed and flirted their fans and the officers escorting them seemed as merry as ever. But the undertone everywhere was war. War stalked the cobbled streets and brooded in the darkness of the Park. The laughter had an edge and faces were lit with a hectic look.
Lady Mary was suddenly afraid for her husband. She wanted to talk to him about the forthcoming battle. At first it had seemed during the past carefree sunny days that Napoleon was merely some type of low criminal who would soon be fettered and chained by the might of the allied armies. But frightened rumors and scared whispers had grown in volume. Every time she had tried to convey her fears to her husband he had snapped back that she knew nothing of such things, and so she had to hug her fear to herself. She was too timid and retiring and countrified to make any friends among the dashing Brussels belles and so she had no one to confide in.
“Not that I ever had anyone to confide in,” thought Mary bitterly. Her parents, two grim members of the untitled aristocracy, had passed her over to the care of a nurse and then a governess since that day she had surprised them by coming into the world when her mother was forty-eight and her father fifty.
When she reached her seventeenth birthday, they had seemed to notice her for the first time. “Why, Mary, you have become a woman,” her mother, Mrs. Tyre, had said with a grim smile. The next week she was affianced, whether she liked it or not, to the impecunious Lord Challenge, the Tyres having decided it was time they had a title in the family.
Mary had fallen desperately in love with Lord Hubert with all the aching, tremulous passion of first love. But on their wedding night, he had brutally told her that he did not seduce virgins. It was an arranged marriage, nothing more. He would not interfere with her, provided she left him alone.
But still she had hoped. Until the day they had arrived in Brussels and Lady Clarissa had appeared as their first guest, looking at Lord Hubert with melting eyes. Every line of her body could be seen plainly through a transparent muslin gown, hinting at all sorts of untold intimacies.
Damn Clarissa! Mary’s eyes filled with unshed tears. The carriage rolled to a halt and Mary braced herself for the ordeal.
At first she thought it was not going to be as bad as she had feared. Clarissa welcomed them, hanging onto the arm of her fiancé, Lord Peregrine. Lord Peregrine was a thickset, brutish man with a fat, blue chin and a great hooked nose. He had small twinkling eyes and his face was always creased up in a jolly laugh; but nothing could disguise the atmosphere of suppressed rage that he seemed to carry about with him. Mary did not like him one bit. But he was Clarissa’s fiancé and therefore his presence surely meant that Clarissa would be too occupied to flirt with Lord Hubert.
Clarissa was a buxom redhead of about thirty years. Her dress of gold tissue was damped to cling to her body and Mary could not help hoping she caught a fatal chill. Clarissa had eyes which were strangely narrow and slightly tilted. They were of a pale green color and gave her appearance the lazy sensuality of a cat.
The company chattered of everything but war, and Mary wondered why they did not seem to feel its brooding presence creeping in from the streets.
Apart from Clarissa and Lord Peregrine, Mary and Lord Hubert, there were two other couples present.
There was a Major Frederick Godwin and his wife, Lucy. Major Godwin was a big, slow-speaking man, handsome in a florid way. He had thick, fair hair an
d a fine pair of military sideburns. His wife Lucy was small, pretty, vivacious and cruel. Her husband stared at her in dumb adoration while she pouted and flirted with all the men present. She had curly blonde hair confined over one ear with a blue silk ribbon and a ball gown of celestial blue muslin which enhanced the Dresden china perfection of her features.
The other couple struck Mary as being a very odd pair to find in high society. Their names were Mr. and Mrs. Witherspoon and they were hearty, jolly, middle-aged and very vulgar. They “my lorded” and “my ladied” all the titles to death, and when they weren’t doing that they were claiming friendship with every notable in Brussels, from the Duke of Wellington to the Prince of Orange.
Mrs. Witherspoon patted her hideous turban complacently and turned her full attention on Lord Hubert. “Was you going to open up your town house in London?” she asked.
“If I come out of this affair alive,” he said coldly.
“Such a fine house it is too,” said Mrs. Witherspoon, laying a fat white hand on his jacket sleeve. “Such a pity it had to be kept closed all these years. St. James’s Square, it is, I believe. It’s a wonder you didn’t sell it when you was so down in funds.”
There was a startled silence, and then Lord Hubert looked down at the hand on his jacket as if some white slug were crawling up his arm.
“You seem to be well versed in my affairs, madam,” he remarked, turning away.
“Oh, ain’t I just,” crowed Mrs. Witherspoon, peering round to see his averted face. “I know all about you, my lord. I remembered when it was rumored that Hammonds, your pa’s old home, was to go under the hammer. What a pity, I said to Mr. Witherspoon, for it breaks my heart to see an old home going out of the family. ‘Never fear, my love,’ says he, ‘for that young spark’ll find the money even if he has to marry to get it.’”
There was an appalled silence which penetrated even Mrs. Witherspoon’s thick hide, for she added hurriedly, “It was just his little joke for I can see by looking at you and your lovely wife, my lord, that if ever I did see a pair of lovebirds….”
“Madam, pray keep your distasteful and vulgar observations to yourself,” said Lord Hubert.
“That’s right, my lord,” remarked Mrs. Witherspoon complacently, “as I was saying to the dear Dook only yesterday, I says, ‘Arthur,’ I says, ‘I likes a gentleman who can take a joke.’”
“Come Mrs. Witherspoon,” said Lady Clarissa hurriedly, “you are not eating your food.”
“We’re newly married ourselves,” said Major Godwin with a fond smile at his wife, Lucy, who pouted and stared at the table.
“Why must you tell everyone we’re just married?” complained Lucy.
“Because it’s true, my love,” said Major Godwin in surprise.
“Oh, you’re such a dull old stick, Freddie,” said his wife with a brittle laugh.
There was another embarrassed silence and Mary racked her brains for something to say.
“Your little wife is very quiet,” said Clarissa to Lord Hubert. “I do believe you beat her.”
“Do you think this affair at Quatre Bras will come to anything?” Lord Hubert asked Major Freddie Godwin.
“Can’t say till we join the chaps in the morning and see for ourselves,” said Freddie.
Clarissa frowned and bit her lip. Hubert was not going to let her attack his little wife in any way. Why had he married that countrified nobody anyway? She could have given him money. And hadn’t he been her lover for two delirious years before this strange marriage? Now Hubert was stuck with a wife he obviously did not want, and she had gone and got herself engaged to Perry in a fit of pique at the news of Hubert’s wedding.
Well, she would punish. Somehow, she would have him back in her arms. She became aware that Mr. Witherspoon was addressing her.
“My lady,” said that gentleman, “my good wife informs me that a young officer has just ridden up to your front door looking all of a lather.” He paused and looked at Clarissa expectantly.
“I,” said Clarissa sweetly, “have servants to answer the door for me.”
“But I wonder…” began the unsnubbable Mr. Witherspoon. But at that moment a servant entered, and said that Captain Harry Black was anxious to have a word with Lord Challenge.
Lord Challenge left the room with the curious eyes of the Witherspoons boring into his back. Clarissa called the servant back. “Tell Captain Black to join us for a glass of wine.”
The servant bowed and withdrew. A thin, nervous young Captain walked into the room carrying a portfolio which he clutched tightly under one arm, followed by Lord Hubert.
“Harry,” smiled Clarissa, “how divine to see you again.”
“Not another,” said her fiancé, Lord Peregrine, with a heavy sneer, and Captain Black blushed. “I really must go,” he said, but Clarissa stood up and wound her white arms around his neck. “We are just moving to the drawing room, dear Captain,” she cooed. “Do put down that silly portfolio and come and join us.”
“I am not supposed to let it out of my sight,” said Captain Black. “I…”
“Oh, silly,” laughed Clarissa. “Which one of us here is going to steal it?”
“I didn’t mean that, my lady. I meant…”
But Clarissa was already leading him out of the door after having taken the portfolio from under his arm and dropped it carelessly onto the table.
Mary looked sympathetically towards Lord Peregrine. She did not like him, but she could not help feeling sorry for him as he stood by the empty fireplace, scowling furiously at the hearth.
She looked round for her husband but Lucy Godwin was talking to him in a very animated fashion. Lord Hubert was smiling down into her eyes in a way that he certainly never showed to poor Mary.
She gave a tiny sigh and turned as she heard a small echo of it behind her. Major Freddie Godwin was standing miserably behind her, fingering his sideburns and watching his wife.
“Do I look like that?” thought Mary suddenly. “Hurt and lost and oh! so transparent?”
“Come, Captain Godwin,” she said with a boldness that amazed her, “you shall escort me to the drawing room. Tell me, do you think we shall still be going on to the ball?”
“Oh, I think so,” said the Major, reluctantly tearing his eyes away from his wife and offering Mary his arm. “We’ve orders to march in the morning, but Wellington’s to be at the ball so we may as well be there too.”
“Does Hubert march too?” asked Mary faintly.
“Dash it, didn’t he tell you? He’s bound to, you know. His regiment’s out there already.”
He led her into the drawing room and sat next to her on a small sofa.
Ignoring Mary’s obvious distress, the Major took her gloved hands in his and looked earnestly into her eyes.
“I say, Lady Challenge, do you think you could keep an eye on little Lucy for me while I’m away? She’s just a child, you know. So beautiful and, well,” here the poor Major tugged desperately at his sideburns, “if something happens to me I’d like to think that she’s in capable hands.”
For all her distress, Mary could not help reflecting bitterly that she, Mary, was seventeen and the beautiful Lucy a mature twenty. But beauty, she thought sadly, is always considered vulnerable.
“What are our chances of victory?” she asked in a low voice.
“Oh, we’ll win,” said the large Major cheerfully. “Napoleon’s nothing compared to our Duke. Why, look how Wellington routed them in the Peninsula!” But his eyes held a worried look.
“But why,” said Mary intensely, “why must we all go to this ball? It is eleven o’clock in the evening and if you must march in the morning, surely you at least want to spend some time alone with your wife?”
“Well, I would and that’s a fact,” he said miserably. “But Lucy was so thrilled to get the Duchess of Richmond’s invitation, that she would go even if Napoleon himself, and all his troops, were to be there.
“Fact is,” he said with a sudden bur
st of confidence, “I feel Lucy’s had rather a hard time of it. We were neighbors, you know, and she had never really met any other fellows when she married me. I’ve got the family place in London and the minute we were married I decided to give her a Season. She got a great deal of attention for she is so very beautiful, you know, and she sometimes feels that perhaps she could have done better than have married a stick-in-the-mud like me.”
“She surely did not say so!” exclaimed Mary, shocked.
“No,” lied the gallant Major, “but I love her and I notice things.”
Mary was overcome by a rush of affection for the miserable Major. After all, who knew better than herself what it was like to be married to someone one adored, and to receive no love in return?
