More alarming still, he was formidably handsome. His dark hair curled shortly round a high forehead and his large and piercing eyes gave a romantic impression to his face which was somewhat contradicted by a straight nose and small, firm mouth. Looking at him, Camilla was perfectly certain that she should never have agreed, however tacitly to spend a night in his house.
He, too, while apparently absorbed in talk with his housekeeper, was getting his first real look at his guest. He saw a slight, graceful girl, not beautiful, although there was something appealing about the large brown eyes in the thin face and something else about her that he had recognised even in the dark carriage. Very much the aristocrat himself, he had been aware of breeding in her despite the governess’s drab costume and awkward plight. He had known her at once for a lady; now, looking at her, with her soft brown curls escaping from under the unbecoming bonnet, he thought her almost a child, and it was with an adult’s impatience that he broke off what he was saying to Mrs. Lefeu to exclaim: “But Miss Forest is soaked to the skin and we keep her standing here. Had you not best take her to your apartments while a fire is lighting in the Blue Room?” Having thus indicated to his housekeeper that this unexpected guest was to be treated as an honoured one and given the best guest chamber, he took a quick leave of Camilla, hoping formally that she would do him the honour of dining with him when she felt more herself.
Camilla, appalled now at what seemed in retrospect her incredible boldness, merely curtsied, too shy to speak, and thus, though she did not know it, did much to win over Mrs. Lefeu, who had so far been regarding her with well-concealed distrust. She had seen too many lures thrown out for her handsome cousin not to be suspicious of this child’s story. Now, however, she reserved judgement, confining herself to polite nothings as she led the way up a handsome flight of stairs and down a long corridor to her own apartments, where Camilla, shivering as she removed her sodden shawl in front of the fire, turned to her with an impulsive gesture.
“Dear madam, what am I to do? I beg you will advise me. He said he was old enough to be my father and—I believed him. He sounded so—so composed that I thought there could be no harm in spending the night here with him and his—excuse me—his housekeeper. But now I see it will not do at all. What shall I do?”
Thus approached, Mrs. Lefeu, who heartily agreed with her as to the impropriety of her visit, found herself in something of a quandary.
“Well, my dear,” she temporised, “it is not perhaps an arrangement that would quite satisfy your friends. Can you not send to have them fetch you away? I am only surprised that Lord Leominster did not propose it.”
“But that is just the difficulty.” And Camilla plunged headlong into the story of her troubles. Mrs. Lefeu, who had begun to purse up her lips when she heard that her cousin’s protégée had been brought up at Devonshire House, relaxed a little when Camilla turned to her after describing the death of her patroness the Duchess: “I loved her so. And then, when she was gone, Lady Elizabeth just stayed and stayed. ‘To look after the poor dear Duke,’ she said. And how could I stay then? It was bad enough for the others, but he was their father, they had to. But I—I could not bear it.”
“And quite right, too,” said Mrs. Lefeu. The gossip about Lady Elizabeth Foster and the Duke of Devonshire had been widespread enough so that there was no need to pretend ignorance. “So what did you do?”
“I went to stay with my father, but I found that would not do either.” Camilla coloured. She did not wish to tell anyone how appalled she had been by her father’s way of life. It was all very well to meet him, the man about town, sauntering elegantly in the park, but something else again to be let into the sordid secrets of his ménage. “So ... I could not think what to do for the best. We have no money, you know, Bonaparte has taken our estates. Father says we shall get them back one day, but what is the use of ‘one day.’ Besides, I do not believe it ... Anyway, ‘one day’ is too late. I have
to live now. So, altogether, there seemed nothing for it but to go for a governess, and Miss Trimmer—she was the governess at Devonshire House, you know—was so good as to find me a place with Mrs. Cummerton.”
“Oh.” Mrs. Lefeu was beginning to see.
“Yes. Mrs. Cummerton was only too happy to have someone recommended from Devonshire House. I do not believe she would have minded it I had been as ignorant as she is herself; all she cared about was to be able to tell her friends that she had me ‘from the dear, dear Duchess.’ Which was not true, since the Duchess died a year ago. But it went well enough, just the same, and I was fond of little Harry and Lucy. They were just beginning to mind me when Gerald came home from Oxford.” She stopped, colouring.
“I have heard about Gerald,” said Mrs. Lefeu helpfully.
“So I can imagine. Even the housemaid warned me about him. But what could I do? He was forever making excuses to come to the schoolroom, and how could I give him the setdown he deserved in front of his brother and sister? But to have his mother say that I had encouraged him—” She stopped, scarlet with mortification at the memory of that scene in the shrubbery, where Gerald had come upon her unexpectedly; of the stale smell of wine on his breath as he forced his kisses on her, and the hot moisture of his hands on their rough way down the front of her dress. At first, when his mother irrupted upon them, she had felt nothing but relief, but when she found that it was upon her not Gerald that Mrs. Cummerton’s reproaches fell, she had flared up in self-defence. The result had been instantaneous dismissal and that weary vigil at the crossroads where Lord Leominster had found her. And so she was back at her immediate problem. “Dear madam,” she said again, “advise me. What must I do?”
“Why, make the best of things, I think, my dear,” said Mrs. Lefeu kindly. “And be grateful you have fallen into such good hands. At least you can have nothing to fear from my cousin, who is indeed ...” She stopped, then made a new start. “For a moment, when he handed you out of the carriage, I hoped ...” Again she paused. “But what am I thinking of to keep you gossiping here? The fire will be lit in your room by now and you must be changing for dinner. Leominster always dresses, even when he is alone.”
“Alone? But dear madam, you will dine with us surely?”
“No, no. Our arrangement was, when I came to live here, that I would dine with him only by invitation. And tonight.” Once again she paused., “Tonight I have not been invited.”
CHAPTER 2
Camilla found the Blue Room full already of firelight and dancing shadows. Her box had been unpacked and her best muslin laid out for her, but she gratefully declined Mrs. Lefeu’s offer of her own woman, Hannah, to help her dress. “I am used to manage for myself,” she said with truth, forbearing to add that her shattered nerves cried out for a few minutes alone before the ordeal of dining with Lord Leominster. And yet, when she was at last alone, she could not help a thrill of enjoyment at the unwonted luxury of the room. Life had been like this before, at Devonshire House, and now, as she brushed out her curls in front of the fire, the whole misery of the cold and dreary attic at Mrs. Cummerton’s seemed like a dream. This was her world, and she was back in it at last.
But only for one night, she reminded herself, as she turned to the glass to adjust the soft folds of her dress and then, with hands that would not stop shaking, tied her one jewel, the miniature of her mother, on its ribbon round her neck. Ready all too soon, she turned from a last reassuring glance in the glass, then stood for a moment, hesitating, in front of the fire. The sound of a gong, growling somewhere below-stairs, alerted her. She must go down and face her host. And after all, she told herself, what was there to be afraid of? How often, as she ate her meagre supper in the schoolroom at Mrs. Cummerton’s, had she longed for one more civilised evening. Now, she was to have one. Why not make the most of it?
Just the same, it was with some trepidation, and a becomingly heightened colour, that she joined her host in the small salon Mrs. Lefeu had pointed out to her, and allowed him to conduct her, as
formally as if they were met for a great dinner, across the hall into the dining room. To her relief, this was not so formidable an apartment as she had feared. The mahogany table had been contracted to its smallest extent, and as the room’s whole light came from the heavy candelabrum that stood on its centre, it was possible almost to forget the outer reaches, where only firelight flickered. Settled on Lord Leominster’s right, Camilla was able, for a moment, to consider him unobserved as he turned to give an order to a footman, and congratulated herself, as she took in his impeccable evening attire, on the trouble she had taken with her own.
The meal was a simple one, but was accompanied, to her slightly shocked surprise, by champagne. Catching her eye as her glass was filled, Leominster smiled at her for the first time. It changed his face entirely, transforming the rather formidable handsomeness into something infinitely more engaging. “My butler thinks I am run quite mad,” he said, lifting his glass to hers, “to be drinking champagne with my soup, but I hoped it would be what you would like. Besides,” his smile included her in a small conspiracy, “I like it myself. I trust I do not need to reassure you that this is not the prelude to a scene of seduction. Nothing, I promise you, is farther from my thoughts.”
Camilla, who had been wondering that very thing, smiled, blushed, disclaimed, and drank to him. If it was not exactly a complimentary speech, it was certainly a reassuring one. “Though indeed,” he went on, “I have what you may think a somewhat unusual proposition to make to you—later, when we are a little better acquainted. In the meantime, pray let me help you to some of this pate which my chef, being a compatriot of yours, makes to perfection. But I beg your pardon, I remember that you did not wish to be considered as French. You have no hankering, then, to return and throw in your lot with Bonaparte?”
“Good God, no. You must understand, sir, that I do not feel French. After all, I have lived in England ever since I was three years old. Patriotism, I think, is a plant of later growth.”
He seemed pleased with her answer. “Yes, I suppose so. Though I cannot think that your treatment at the hands of the English has been such as to fill you with any great gratitude.”
“You are mistaken, sir.” She flared up at once in defence of her friends. “Everything I am and have I owe to the Duchess of Devonshire. You do not understand—how can you?—what it is to be a refugee, to have nothing. If it had not been for her ... I ... I do not like to think what might have happened to me.”
He smiled at her very kindly. “It becomes you to defend her, but surely to end up as a governess—and in such a house as Mrs. Cummerton’s—is hardly the pinnacle of worldly bliss?”
“But that was no one’s fault but my own,” she said. “I could have stayed at Devonshire House forever, I am sure, if I could have borne it, and I have no doubt, if the Duchess had lived, I should have done so. Everything was different when she was alive. It did not seem to matter then that I was the object of charity, penniless, without a dowry, but when she died, everything changed. You have no idea, sir, how difficult it is to be the victim of benevolence.”
He smiled, signalled to the footman to refill their glasses, and changed the conversation to politics. “I collect, since you were brought up at Devonshire House, that you are the fiercest of Whigs,” he said, “and think nothing Government does is right.”
“Why, not exactly.” She considered it for a minute. “Because, you see, we must beat Bonaparte, or he will tyrannise over the whole world, and the Whigs do not seem to be sure about that. But what are your politics, sir?”
He smiled at that direct question. “Why, Tory of the deepest dye. In fact, I rather expect to be employed in the new government that is now forming—the Duke of Portland, you must know, is my cousin, and you will, I am sure, have heard that we Tories carry nepotism to the point of scandal.”
“Nepotism, sir?” She raised delicate eyebrows at him.
“I cry your pardon. I am lecturing you as if you were a political meeting. Nepotism, Miss Forest, is the gentle art of giving jobs to your relations. You must have heard that we Tories are perfect in it.”
“Well,” she considered, “the Whigs seem to do pretty well at it too.”
“Ah yes, but in their case, of course, it is pure coincidence. Or so they say. But tell me, now we have reached our second glass of champagne, is it possible that you have come out of Devonshire House heart-whole? Are you not secretly wearing the willow for young Hartington? Or one of those noisy Lamb boys who hang about there?”
She coloured—what an extraordinary conversation this was—but answered composedly enough. “Why, as to Hartington,” she said, “no one who knows him could help loving him—as a brother—but I am not quite mad, sir. To be Duchess of Devonshire is something above my touch. Besides,” she added with transparent candour, “I think I lived too closely with them all to fall in love with any of them.”
“So here you are, a full-fledged governess, and, if I am not very far out in my calculations, twenty years old, and without a romantic attachment to bless yourself with?”
She laughed. “You make my condition seem deplorable indeed, but I refuse to despair. We French, you know, are a practical race. I gave up dreaming of a grand romance when I was seventeen and began to understand that all the men I met were quite beyond my mark. Since then, I have had various plans. I should make an admirable wife for a country clergyman, I think; and a governess, you know, has frequent chances of meeting them. And, if all else fails, I can always set up as a modiste.”
“What a talented young lady you are, to be sure. You will be telling me next that you are skilled in cookery and made that charming dress you are wearing. I cannot, however, think that you know Portuguese.”
“Portuguese?” She looked at him in amazement. “What is that to the purpose?”
“Why, perhaps, a great deal, if you are indeed as practical as you suggest. Do you drink port, Miss Forest? No? I thought very likely not; it is hardly a young lady’s drink. Marston,” he turned to the butler, who had been, for some minutes past, hovering nearby in a faintly threatening manner, “fill up our glasses, set the dessert on the table, and leave us. Miss Forest will take pity on my solitude and drink another glass with me. You see,” he turned back to Camilla, “that I am something of a tyrant in my home.”
She had been thinking that on the contrary he seemed oddly ill at ease. Throughout the meal she had been aware of a certain tension behind the miscellaneous questions he had fired at her, and this awareness of strain in him had done much to ease her own nervousness. Just the same, now, with the room empty, the candles flickering, and the fire burning low, she found her hands uncontrollably shaking as she helped herself to the cheese Leominster recommended. What could the proposition be that he had spoken of at the beginning of dinner? Why had he asked her so many questions, almost, she thought, as if she were applying for a position? What was the cause of the strange excitement she felt burning beneath his outward calm?
“A glass of wine with you, Miss Forest.” His voice interrupted her thoughts. Solemnly they drank, then, his glass empty, he pushed his plate aside and leaned over the table towards her. “Will you bear with me, Miss Forest, while I tell you something about myself?”
“Of course.”
“Good. Then to begin with, as I think I told you before, I do not like women. Anyone will tell you that. I do not understand them, I do not appreciate them, I do not want them. Please remember that. I never had a mother; my sister might just as well be my daughter. My cousin Harriet is well enough; she teases me, but not beyond bearing—but as for young ladies—heaven defend me. I know nothing about them, and I do not wish to learn. You will forgive me, I know, for making this plain from the start. You are, you have told me, a practical Frenchwoman; very well, then, I have a practical proposition to put to you. Will you marry me, Miss Forest?”
“Marry you?” She could not believe her ears.
“Yes, marry me. On the strict understanding that it is a marriage of�
��shall we say—appearance only. You look confounded, Miss Forest, and I do not blame you. I fear I have set about this quite the wrong way. Let me explain. I have a grandmother, the Dowager Lady Leominster, to whom I have just been paying my yearly visit of duty. She is a fierce old lady with a great sense of family pride—and a close hand on the family purse. I have the title, this house, and a pittance with which to support them. My grandmother has millions, which I had always assumed would come to me, in the fullness of time. Yesterday, she told me that unless I marry, she will leave the whole to my cousin. So you see you are not the only one to know what it is to be the victim of benevolence.” His voice was bitter. “You, with your spirit, which drove you out into the world as a governess, will perhaps ask why I do not snap my fingers at my grandmother and her money. But I have family pride too. I love this house and cannot bear to see it falling to pieces about my ears. Besides, a title has its responsibilities; there is my cousin Harriet; there are others, whom I feel bound to support. I had hoped, perhaps vainly, that I might find a solution to my difficulties in Government office. Now, I have been offered a place by my cousin—he wishes me to go as special assistant to Lord Strangford, our Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of Portugal. It is a position of the greatest dignity and difficulty—and one that will cost me infinitely more than it brings in. And as if that was not enough, my grandmother has to tell me that she wishes to see me married before I go. I tell you, Miss Forest, I was in despair when I met you, but since then, I have been beginning to hope. You are everything of which my grandmother would approve, and—forgive me—you are in a position where even the half marriage I offer might be—well, preferable at least to turning modiste. If you were head over ears in love, I would not have ventured this proposition, but you tell me you are heart-whole. Would it amuse you to come to Portugal with me, Miss Forest?”
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