by M C Beaton
Betty's next partner claimed her and saved her from having to reply. She was shocked at the impact on her emotions the very sight of the Duke had provoked. She was angry with him because his cool elegance seemed to make Mr. de Brus' charm seem, well, showy. Well, the Duke obviously did not feel a thing for her, that much was clear. His social pride obviously did not extend to his farmers or indeed to men in general. Betty began to wonder if he considered all women beneath contempt.
She saw with a little pang that Fanny was dancing with Mr. Beauly and putting a very good face on things, smiling and chatting.
Betty's heart went out to her. Brave Fanny! It was amazing that someone so sinister and so hate-filled as Mrs. Bentley should have such a warm and honest daughter.
What a dreadful mistake this ball had been! Simon seemed to be enjoying himself and that was something. He and Lucy and James were engaged in sliding up and down a corner of the floor.
But would the evening never end?
Chapter Eight
It was two in the morning and the ball still seemed likely to go on forever. Bella and Miss Armitage had taken Simon off to bed long ago and when Betty had slipped away quietly to see him, he was already asleep. The moonlight was striking full on his face so she gently pulled the curtains closed and went quietly downstairs again.
The air of the ballroom was hot to suffocating point since there were two fires burning, one at either end, not to mention the heat from the hundreds of candles. The huge room smelled suffocatingly of musk as a great number of the guests not only sprayed it liberally on their clothes but also sucked musk pastilles to combat their bad breath, rotting teeth affecting rich and poor alike. Betty smiled reminiscently.
Her stepsister Jane had always said you could tell the young men at a ball who had bad teeth because they carried fans in winter as well as summer and held them up to their faces every time they spoke.
Several of the ladies had commented on Betty's lack of paint, but Betty had been so alarmed at the number of deaths of young women from cosmetics, the white lead of their maquillage causing poisoning, that she had decided to forgo wearing it, no matter what society said.
Even old Bella played dangerous games with beauty aids, mixing up depilatory washes to remove the hair from her chin and testing it by dipping a feather in the mix and pronouncing it satisfactory only if the feather came out bald. Betty could sympathize with the old Duke of Newcastle who had said when he removed himself from the delights of society that he intended to retire to the country and allow his beard to grow as long as the Duchess of Newcastle's.
Many had retreated to the card room where several noisy games of brag and ombre seemed to be in progress. Others were still in the supper room, among them Fanny and Mr. Beauly. Fanny looked animated and happy and Betty could only wonder at her. Off with the old and on with the new? Was it as easy as that? Now she, Betty, was violently jealous of every woman that the Duke of Collingham spoke to or danced with.
She was relieved to see he had joined one of the card parties. He had only danced with her that one time and it looked as if he did not mean to dance with her or talk to her again for the remainder of the evening. Mr. de Brus had claimed her hand twice for the country dances and Betty nervously hoped he understood he should not ask her a third time, since it would cause a scandal.
At that moment, the Duke of Collingham looked up from his card game, saw her, threw his cards on the table and made his way toward the ballroom. Betty turned away nervously so as not to seem to be waiting for him and found herself looking up into the blue eyes of Peter de Brus.
"Lady Betty." he murmured, "I must speak to you in private. It is very important."
"Simon," said Betty immediately, her hand flying to her throat in a nervous gesture.
Peter hesitated and then said, "Yes," since out of the corner of his eye he could see Collingham approaching and felt he had not time for elaborate explanations.
Heart beating fast, Betty allowed him to lead her from the ballroom and out into the shadowy hall.
"The garden," he said urgently.
Thinking only that Simon was in danger, Betty seized up a warm cloak from a settle in the hall and allowed him to hurry her out into the night blackness of the garden where a chill winter wind moaned through the trees.
"Where . . . what happened . . . where is Simon?" she gasped as he hurried her along toward the blackness of the lake.
At last at the edge of the water, he turned and faced her, his face barely visible in the pale moonlight.
"Lord Westerby is in his bedchamber asleep," he said.
Betty's fear changed immediately to anger. "Then what are you about to hustle me into the grounds in this hurly-burly fashion? Have you no thought for my reputation?"
"Everything about you is my concern," he said in an intense voice. He seized her hand. "Lady Betty Betty, mine own . . . I have been aware for some time that you are not indifferent to me. Will you be my wife?"
"Mr. de Brus," said Betty, huddling her cloak closer around her, "I will forgive you and overlook this matter since I consider you may be a trifle well to go. But the folly of taking me away from my guests to . . ."
His face turned white. "Do you mean to deny that you have not encouraged me?"
"I admit I have treated you with more familiarity than I should have shown toward my nephew's tutor. I am sorry for it and I apologize." Betty went on in a softer voice. "It has all been a silly mistake and we will return to the ballroom and pretend it has never happened."
"It is only your pride that makes you say such things," he said wrathfully. "I know you care for me, but whether you care or no, you will be glad to marry me by morning.
He had seized her in a strong grip and was forcing her toward the blackness of the bushes. Betty's taunt about him being well to go was the truth. He had imbibed a great deal of brandy and he felt invincible. The great bulk of Eppington Chase, looming up behind them in the darkness, seemed to urge him on. "You can be master of me," it seemed to whisper. "So take her."
Betty opened her mouth to scream for help and he clamped a brutal hand over her mouth and forced her down into the grass.
"But I'm telling of Your Grace," wailed Bella, "I saw him rushing my lady out into the night and I feel I should call the servants and go after her, but she might be angry with me and I was a-thinking if Your Grace could go quiety-like . . ."
"No, Bella," said the Duke, "I have no intention of making a cake of myself at this late hour. Lady Betty was not dragged from the house, after all . . ."
"I saw her face," said Bella urgently, "and she looked as if she had had bad news. . . ."
The Duke stood twirling his quizzing glass in his long fingers. He was burning with such jealousy that he almost hoped something nasty had happened to Betty with part of his mind while the other part was telling him calmly that probably nothing was the matter at all and he would only end up by making himself look ridiculous.
But he found himself suddenly giving Bella a curt nod. Bella hurried after him into the hall. "You see, Your Grace," she whispered, "even if my lady is up to something she shouldn't be, then the less folk that know about it the better."
The Duke let himself out into the black night and stood irresolute. Across the lawns and rose bushes and statuary faintly silvered by the moonlight, he saw the dull shine of the lake. Ornamental water always seemed to draw lovers to it like bees to a honey pot, he thought cynically. He strolled slowly across the lawns past the clubbed shape of the yew hedges.
It was then he heard a sort of threshing sound. He stopped and cocked his head to one side, listening hard. All at once there was a sharp call for help, immediately cut off, immediately stifled.
The Duke drew his sword and started to run in the direction from which the cry had come. Swiftly he pounded along the side of the lake, stopping short at the sound of a struggle in some nearby bushes. He parted the branches.
To say that Peter de Brus was forcing his attentions on Lady Betty
Lovelace was putting it mildly. The Duke realized with horror that he was in the nick of time to stop a full-scale rape.
He leaned down and seized Peter by the neck of his coat and jerked him so hard that to terrified Betty, he suddenly seemed to fly up and away, landing with a sickening thud on the path beside the lake.
She pathetically tried to pull the torn wreck of her gown together. Then she screamed, "Look out!"
The Duke swung around, his sword at the ready and parried the blow from Peter's sword just in time.
Peter de Brus was desperate. He knew he had to kill Collingham or be hanged. Betty rose on trembling legs, picking up her cloak and wrapping it tightly around her. Terrified thoughts raced through her head. She knew Peter was an expert swordsman and she was sure he would kill the Duke. She must run to the house for help.
But as she turned to flee, the Duke shouted, "Stay! Keep this a private matter!" His thoughts, as nimble as his sword, had immediately realized that should any of this come to light, then Betty's reputation would not survive the scandal. De Brus had only to say she had encouraged him and that he had lost his head and he would meet with a great deal of sympathy. She had danced with him, invited him as a guest, and perhaps more than that, Bella had seen her leaving willingly.
The clouds parted and a small, cold moon illumined the scene. The two men in ball dress, parrying and feinting and thrusting. At first it seemed as if Peter would surely win. He was a fine swordsman, he was in a murderous rage held well in check and he was trying with every bit of expertise he had to kill the Duke. Time and again the Duke was hard pressed and once Peter de Brus slipped the Duke's guard and the point of his sword pierced the Duke's shoulder and in the moonlight Betty could see a sinister black stain spreading on the silk of the Duke's evening coat.
Once again, she turned to run, but hard-pressed as he was, the Duke saw the movement and cried "NO!"
Betty stood rigid, her hands clasped in front of her, her lips moving silently in prayer.
Peter was an experienced fencer, but the Duke was taller and stronger and had a longer reach. His icy calm contrasted with Peter's now blind rage which he was unable to keep under control. Peter lunged and slashed. The cold night air was still, the feet of the fencers rapping out a mad sarabande on the paved path. Ragged breathing, glittering steel, the moonlight blazing on the jeweled hilt of the Duke's dress sword, no longer a toy for the ballroom but a deadly weapon. The Duke suddenly lost his footing on a pebble and fell backward on the path. Betty screamed, a loud desperate wail.
Peter's eyes, no longer charming and tender, but wild with hate and frustrated ambition, blazed with a mad light. He drew his sword back and lunged. The Duke twisted like an eel and came up under the tutor's guard and the point of his sword sank into Peter's side.
"Enough," said the Duke. "Put up your sword."
Peter de Brus held his side and then stared down at the sticky dark liquid covering his hand as he took it away again.
"Blood!" he whispered. And then suddenly he was off and running hard. The Duke made no move to give chase. He bent down and wiped the blade of his sword on the long grass behind the path and turned to Betty.
All defenses down, she flung herself into his arms, crying and sobbing, "You were nearly killed. Oh, forgive me."
"You went with de Brus willingly?" said the Duke, holding her away from him.
"He told me it was about Simon. That there was danger to Simon. He did not say that in so many words but that is what he led me to believe. He thought I would marry him and when I said I would not, he . . . he . . . said he would make me want to marry him and I suppose I did flirt with him and it's all my fault and I'm so sorry and I love you."
The Duke stood very still, looking down at her, feeling happier than he had ever been in his life before. Happiness, exultation, excitement and tenderness. Her soft voice saying, "I love you," turned in his brain.
He drew her close to him and murmured, "I love you," and Betty began to cry with sheer happiness. All the words of the poets, all the music and ballads, and still nothing can reassure or convince or seduce the senses like that simple, straightforward little phrase.
He bent his head and kissed her very tenderly, only becoming aware after some time that her cloak had fallen open and that her naked breasts were pressing against the silk of his waistcoat. "Was I in time?" he asked, and Betty nodded dumbly and turned her lips up to his again. "No, my sweeting," he smiled. "We will go quietly into the house and repair the damage to our clothes and return to the ballroom and see your guests to bed and then I shall come to you. Will you marry such a pompous, pride-filled old stick as myself, Betty?"
"Oh, Dolph, my love, you are not old and of course I will marry you. But should I not send the servants to catch de Brus?"
"No, let him go. He is a wastrel and a fortune hunter. He mistook your kindness to him for love and if we drag him to court he will use that against you. Spare yourself the scandal. We shall not see him again."
Pulling her cloak around her, he led her to where the great house seemed to be waiting for them. "We will enter by the backstairs. Oh, my love, you are wounded!" Betty touched the spreading stain on his jacket.
"I think it is a flesh wound and my discreet man will soon have me bound up in a trice."
When Betty appeared in the ballroom, garbed in a different gown, she fended off Bella's anxious questions, saying merely that de Brus had behaved badly and had fled and that Simon was safe in his bed and there was nothing to worry about.
Although the whole episode of the attempted rape and the subsequent duel seemed to Betty to have lasted for hours, she found that her absence had not been remarked and that no one had even stopped to ask her why she had changed her gown. Through the open door of the cardroom, she saw the Duke sitting at one of the tables, calmly playing a game of brag, resplendent in pale green satin. Apart from his change of dress, he looked as if he had been there all evening.
Betty's hand was quickly claimed for the next dance and although she smiled and chatted to her partner when the figure of the dance brought them together, her thoughts were running along several tracks. He loves me . . . wishes to marry me . . . I must tell Fanny . . . Is it wise to tell a friend like Fanny of one's own fortune in love when that friend is so unfortunate? . . . Oh, if only dear Hester were home to hear my news! . . . Peter, oh, Peter, how could I have been so wrong about you? . . . What a fool I was. . . . Pray God I may never see him again.
After the country dance finished, Betty glanced out at the rising sun and stifled a yawn of weariness. Half of the guests were staying and the other half were to make their way back to London. One by one, they came to make their adieux. Bella, too, begged leave to retire and Betty smiled affectionately at the maid and said she wondered that Bella had the stamina to stay awake so long. "Where is Miss Armitage?" asked Betty.
"Gone to her room this time past in a great huff because that nasty tutor is not here," sniffed Bella.
"Why, Bella, what can you mean?"
"Just what I say, my lady. She is fair smitten with that good-for-nothing. Hadn't you noticed?"
Betty bit her lip. "Well, no, I had not, Bella, for Miss Armitage is so quiet and always rather like a shadow. She performs her work well, but strange to say I cannot credit her with any excess of feeling at all."
"Well, she loves that de Brus and she'll be like a watering pot when she finds he's gone."
"I shall speak to her in the morning," said Betty. "Now go to bed, Bella, for even the last of the guests are going now."
Betty at last curtsied to the last guest, Mr. and Mrs. Osborne, her stepsister's former neighbors who lived in Huggets Square. The Duke must have gone to bed, she thought, as she sank wearily into a rout chair beside the fire and stared at the flames. The servants were going quietly around the great room, snuffing the candles one by one.
She became aware that she was not alone and tilted her head back. The Duke was leaning against the door of the card room, watching her.
"Time for bed, my lady," he said, walking slowly toward her. Betty's heart began to hammer. She rose to meet him and stumbled slightly with fatigue.
He swept her up in his arms, oblivious of the startled stares of the servants.
Confused thoughts ran through Betty's head as he carried her up the stairs. "What if he wishes to pleasure me because he thinks I am like Hester or Fanny? What if he does not wish to marry me after he has had me? What if he does not want me at all and has changed his mind?"
She looked anxiously up into his face and her heart turned over at the tenderness in his eyes. "It will be all right," he said softly. "I am not leaving you this night . . . or what's left of it," he added with a grin as a shaft of bright sunlight struck through the landing window.
Betty felt herself borne along as if in a dream. He finally set her down on her feet outside the door of her bedchamber and stood looking at her and she realized the decision had to be hers.
She put out her hand and took his own in hers and drew him gently into the room.
Another flash of panic assailed her. Was she expected to undress in front of him? But she was in his arms and he was kissing her fears away and soon his nimble fingers were unloosening buttons and tapes.
And then she was in bed and naked in his arms. He kissed her slowly and lingeringly, his mouth wandering over her body. At last he moved away and tore off his own clothes until he was as naked as she. She gasped with a mixture of pleasure and fear as his hard muscular body was pressed down on her own and then she was assailed by such a wave of passion that she became deaf, dumb and blind to anything but sensation, the hard smooth feeling of his thrusting, agile body, the sensitive touch of his long fingers, the faint smell of musk, the scented powder of his hair.
With his strong hands cupping her hips, he looked down at her in the dawn light, his green eyes as steady and unwavering as a cat.
"I cannot hold back any longer," he said in a low, urgent voice. "I shall try to hurt you as little as possible," and before Betty could wonder what he meant she felt a sharp stabbing pain and cried out in fear; but he said, quite simply, "I love you, Betty," and she wound her fingers tightly into his long, powdered hair as he began to move slowly inside her, gradually relaxing under his caressing hands and caressing words until slowly she began to match passion with passion until their two bodies were moving in the oldest dance in the world. The rays of the sun shining through the slats of the shutters cast their changing twisting shadows on the wall where a portrait of Lady Jane Lovelace looked down on them with an indulgent smile.
