‘You do not frighten me with your threats, Louisa, for they are empty. And I will not let you frighten my wife with them either. Do not seek admittance here again, for you will be denied, and it causes embarrassment, throwing a woman into the street.’
The smile hardened.
‘You do not mean it. You are simply reluctant to resume old habits, and I wonder why. It is not “nicety” of character, not a moral stand. You have said “my wife” four times, George. Who are you trying to convince? Yourself? Or is this new-found possessiveness a counter to all those gentlemen you have cuckolded? Afraid it might happen to you one day?’ She laughed, that tinkling laugh he had put up with for the sake of her more physical attributes, but which set his teeth upon edge.
‘There is nothing between us.’
‘There has often been nothing between us, my dear, and was that not delicious?’ Her voice purred.
Syde entered with a glass of ratafia upon a salver, and presented it to Lady Yarningale. A butler should always be expressionless, an efficient automaton above stairs and a beneficent dictator below, yet in every tiny movement Lord Ledbury detected his dislike of the lady before him. Thinking about it, her servants had never shown any liking for her either, which compared very unfavourably with his Kitty. ‘His Kitty’; he was being possessive of her even in his own head now. Lady Yarningale had never, even in the throes of passion, been ‘his Louisa’. No, the servants might almost be said to form a phalanx of devoted support for the new Lady Ledbury, and she achieved this without any artifice. Louisa was all artifice, beautiful, concupiscent artifice, and the ‘real’ woman beneath, if this was what was coming to the surface now, was deeply unpleasant. He watched her sip her ratafia with deliberate slowness. He wanted her gone, and so she would linger. A muscle moved in his cheek, and she could have laughed out loud.
There was silence between them, malevolent silence. Eventually, a single glass of ratafia could not be extended further. She held it, empty, as though it surprised her. He came forward, took it, ignoring the look she gave him as their fingers touched.
‘Thus fortified, my lady, I am sure you have other visits to make, and you have certainly remained the statutory half hour.’ He placed the glass on a small table, and rang the bell. Syde returned.
‘Lady Yarningale is just leaving. Please show her out.’
‘Yes, my lord, with pleasure. My lady?’
Syde bowed, and preceded her to the door, which he held open as she swept past. A minute later the earl went down into the hall, ensuring the door had closed behind her. Syde was still in the hall.
‘If Lady Yarningale calls again, she is not to be admitted, whether to see me, or Lady Ledbury, is that clear, Syde?’
‘As clear as a crystal fountain, my lord.’ Syde permitted himself a very small smile. ‘I shall ensure all members of the staff are made aware of it.’
‘Thank you.’
11
Kitty, secretly rather chastened by her friend’s prediction, returned to Ledbury House rather more thoughtful and less euphoric than she had left it, and changed for dinner with a slight frown, which she excused to Wootton as a mild headache. Her lord, by contrast, was in ebullient mood, proudly declaring that he had seen, at first hand, several strips of the reviled lilac roses being removed from her chamber walls.
‘Yes, I spoke with the foreman when I returned.’ Kitty smiled at him.
‘How long will the hangings take?’ he enquired, striving to sound casual about it.
‘I was assured within ten days, sir.’
‘Ten days?’ he looked so crestfallen, she could not help but laugh.
‘My poor lord. I could not tell them the reason to expedite matters, now could I?’
‘I suppose not, but ten whole days.’
‘Just think of how much credit you accrue by showing such patient virtue.’
‘I rather think virtue is overrated.’
‘Only, my lord, because you have rarely walked beside it.’ Her words were sharp but her look was soft, and she smiled, quite tenderly.
‘You confuse me.’ He frowned.
‘I do?’
‘Yes. You know so little and yet you know so much.’
‘I think that, sir, is a description of a woman.’
‘Is it? Most of the women I have known have known so little and simply said so much.’ He was patently sincere, and Kitty laughed so much she nearly choked on a piece of chicken. ‘What shall we do this evening, madam wife?’
‘This evening, my lord? I had assumed you would be going out.’
‘I need not. It would be rather nice to have an evening at home, don’t you think?’
‘We could make a list of those people to invite to our party,’ she offered, her cheeks a little pink.
‘We could.’ He did not sound as if the idea inspired him.
‘And I must tell you that I have discovered a friend of my own to invite, sir. Having said that none were likely to be in Town, Lady Rowington is here to bring out her sister. I had not thought she would be in London this Season, having had a baby shortly after Christmas, but there is nobody else to chaperone her poor sister.’
‘Poor sister?’
‘Lady Rowington was previously Miss Sudbury.’
‘Ah. I see. Unfortunate for the sister.’
‘Yes. Charlotte says her sister is still very low. Fortunately she herself has Rowington, and three small children.’
‘So the Rowingtons and her ladyship’s depressed sister head your list of guests.’
‘I would not phrase it that way, but yes.’ She paused. ‘I do not think making our list will take all evening, my lord. You could go out afterwards.’
‘Are you trying to get rid of me, my dear?’ He smiled, wryly. ‘What a bad husband I must be, to be sure.’
‘No, no, it is just… I do not want you to be bored, my lord.’
‘Oh, I am sure we could think of something that would not be at all boring.’ His eyes twinkled wickedly.
‘My lord, we were talking of patience.’
‘You were. I said it was overrated.’
‘That was virtue in general.’
‘And you are being pedantic, but I shall let that pass. What if we went out to the opera, and consigned lists to tomorrow morning, after our ride?’
‘Our ride? You intend to ride with me again tomorrow?’
‘Of course. You ride very well, and I enjoy the exercise. In a subtle way, since it is not riding to be fashionable, it will be remarked upon that I am a good and attentive husband. I assure you in some quarters that will be a revelation.’
‘So you do it so that I will not be pitied?’
‘Perspicacious of you, but incorrect. It is but a bonus. I will ride with you, my Kitty, because it gives me pleasure.’
‘As it also gives me, my lord.’
‘Then there is no need to question the arrangement. Every morning, at half past nine of the clock, we shall ride together. And tomorrow morning, after our ride, we will make that list.’
‘I am sorry to dash your hopes, sir, but I feel that the opera will have commenced before we finish dinner, and I am not dressed for it.’
He glanced at the ormolu clock upon the mantelpiece and stared as if doing so would make it change the hour.
‘Hmm.’
‘You could send round to Lord Inglesham, if he is not engaged elsewhere, and we could… play spillikins.’
He regarded her in fascinated horror.
‘Spillikins? My dear girl, what have you been doing with your life?’
‘Nothing, my lord.’
‘Patently. I dare not imagine Inglesham’s face if I invited him here to play parlour games.’
‘Well, I think he would smile, and then come.’
‘Glutton for punishment he must be, then.’ His lordship dismissed the servants with a nod, and thanks. ‘You need not withdraw, my dear, not tonight.’
‘I…’
‘You are afraid I want to play other
“games”. I do, but that is beside the point. You have your time to steel your nerves, but it does not mean we might not spend a pleasant evening in dalliance.’
‘I never learned to dally, sir.’
‘I would teach you. It would be interesting, dallying with someone as sharp-witted, sharp-tongued, and…’
‘Awful?’ She looked taken aback at his description of her.
‘I was going to say “interesting”. You would throw inappropriate flattery back in my face. If I said you were like a flower unfurling, you would demand to know which species of flower. If I said your eyes sparkled like stars you would enquire from which constellation.’ He grinned, suddenly. ‘The more I contemplate it, the more appealing it becomes. I would certainly have to keep my wits about me, and if you wish to treat it as merely a game, as a sop to your nerves, do so.’
‘So you wish for entertainment, my lord.’
‘Yes, I do. I keep telling you I am selfish. The “entertainment” with members of the opposite sex has never been so cerebral, but I am willing to experiment. Besides, even married ladies are expected to flirt, decorously. It is a social skill. Think of it as educational.’
She eyed him speculatively.
‘You, my lord, are a dangerous man.’
‘So I have been led to believe, ma’am. Are you a coward?’
He was jousting with her already. She felt a heady thrill. If this was wooing, she rather liked it after all. She looked him straight in the eye.
‘I think perhaps I am not.’
He downed the last of the port in his glass, and rose from the table, coming to take her hand.
‘Then come and dally with me, my lady, and we shall be vastly entertaining, one to the other.’
‘Ah yes, but only after that list, sir.’
He groaned.
*
He followed her into the drawing room and sat in a chair opposite her, near the fire, from which he could study her. Having arranged pen, ink and paper, Kitty sat primly at the little escritoire by the heavy-curtained window, and commenced by asking upon which date her lord desired to hold their party.
‘Good Lord, who am I to ask about that? You must know better than I when the house will be up to your requirements to show off, and then it is simply a matter of not clashing with Newmarket or Epsom, nor with one of those parties that everyone “simply has to attend”. Put it on the same night as the Jerseys’ ball and we will be very thin of company.’
‘Very well, my lord.’ Kitty sighed. There were intricacies of Society that had been of no interest to a mere debutante which would be vital now. ‘But at least give me some names to whom we must ensure invitations are sent.’
‘The Jerseys, the Bedfords, the Roehamptons, the Catheringtons, the Wisboroughs, your friends the Rowingtons. They are for dinner beforehand. Henry Inglesham will come, and Duddon, and Jasper Cowleigh if he is in Town. Countess Lieven, why not, but only invite the Drummond-Burrell woman if she has invited you to anything. I dislike her and the feeling is mutual. I would hope she would decline, but you never can tell. In fact, outside of the dinner guests, make it a squeeze, my dear. Invite all and sundry.’
‘And what of Lady Yarningale?’
‘No.’
‘Would it not be better to pretend nothing ever happened, as our public face?’
‘No. Since everyone knows it did. You keep out of her way, Kitty. She has a damned unpleasant tongue.’
‘Then why did you…’ She coloured, and he looked grim.
‘What is it with women and “why”? Always you have to know.’ He paused. ‘Louisa Yarningale was… entertaining, a game. There was no love, and to be frank, barely liking if one considered it. At the time I did not.’ He sounded quite callous.
‘I only…’
‘And if I had a sovereign for every time a woman opened with “I only”, I would be…’
‘Rich enough to have not married me, my lord?’
‘Probably, but in that case I would have been the loser. I am finding a wife is more of a gain than merely a healthier balance in the bank.’
The blush remained, but its cause changed. She did not look him in the eye.
‘Do you mean that, sir?’
‘I would not say it if I did not believe it to be true.’ There was another awkward silence. ‘No more lists tonight, Kitty. Come over here.’ It was intended as an invitation, but sounded more like a command.
She rose and seated herself on a chaise on the far side of the fire.
‘Is this not dalliance then?’
‘No. Dalliance is… You will see.’
‘It seems rather strange, sir, approaching it in such a cool manner.’
‘Does it? It is simply another game, you know.’
‘Ah,’ she sighed. ‘Alas, I learned long ago that boys, and by extension, men, play “games” in which people get hurt.’
‘Was Bidford a little toad?’
‘No. I think toads much maligned. I never heard of one causing harm, and he did.’
This was not leading to the sort of interchange he wanted, but Lord Ledbury could not resist asking for more detail.
‘Oh, where does one start? There was, for example, the campaign against my governess, the one I liked the most. I was twelve then. He began that Christmas holiday to do things like put a dead mouse in her bed, with a label tied to its leg which said “You are next”. Then it progressed to notes under her door written in blood-red ink, and one of her nightgowns slashed about and left on the floor of her bedchamber with a dagger transfixing it.’
‘Do not tell me she was of the Gothic novel reading type and given to hysteria.’
‘Not at all. Very pragmatic, was Miss Marshall, and I was very fond of her, which is why James did it all, of course.’
‘Of course?’ The earl frowned.
‘He thought I was too happy. So he did these things, and Miss Marshall did not have hysterics, but caught him red-handed in the process of pouring red ink into her tea. She went, quite rightly, to my father. James said it was “just a game”, and when Miss Marshall, incensed, demanded that he be punished, she was dismissed on the spot. James came and crowed about it in the nursery. He knew father would never take a hand to The Heir. And he was right. James could do no wrong.’
‘That was not a “game” though. It was a nasty little plot. He should have been soundly thrashed.’
‘Is not one man’s “game”, something for which another thinks he should be soundly thrashed?’
‘Are we referring to husbands here?’
‘Perhaps, my lord.’
‘Then since I have never before been a husband, I am the wrong man to ask.’
‘Hypothetically, shall we say, if another man tried to play games with your wife…’
‘I would not thrash him.’
‘No?’ She could not help the touch of disappointment in her voice.
‘No, my dear. I should snap his neck.’ There was a chilling calm to his voice, then he smiled, ruefully. ‘Which has led us a long way from dalliance, which is a very different game.’
‘With an objective?’ Her eyes narrowed.
‘Indeed. At the social nicety level it is harmless; to pass a pleasant twenty minutes in a room that is probably too hot, and to avoid dancing with some partner foisted upon one by a desperate hostess.’
‘Ah, and you are addressing just such a one, for I doubt if one in five of my dance partners ever picked me on their own.’
‘The four were blind.’
‘Pretty, but inaccurate, and I watched you evade the requirement yourself once.’
‘With you?’
‘Oh yes. It was at the Countess of Mexborough’s ball. I had not had a partner, excepting for one country dance, and I saw her ladyship approach you and indicate me. Your conversation was quite animated as I recall, and then you moved away.’
‘You remember too well, I think. Does it rankle?’
‘Not now, but then I am not nineteen anymore.’
‘I apologise, very belatedly.’
‘Accepted, my lord.’ She smiled. ‘Your answer implied there was more than one level.’
‘Oh yes, but the other is obvious, my sweet innocent.’
‘It is?’
‘Yes. Dalliance over a period of days or weeks is not dalliance at all, but seduction, and has the objective of getting the lady into bed. That does not shock you, does it?’
‘It should not, does not, but it makes the lady appear very much as “prey”.’
‘Ah, now in my own defence, I do not “prey” on the defenceless.’
‘What about me, my lord. Are you not intending to seduce me?’
‘I find the idea appealing, yes.’
‘And am I not defenceless?’
‘I do not think so, not entirely at least. Your intellect defends you.’
‘I fear it may prove a poor defence, impressive from a distance, but weak in the face of siege tactics.’
‘Do not tell me you see yourself as a bastion of maidenhood.’
‘No, for I am not a maid.’ She dropped her gaze.
‘You should not blame yourself you know, for… that night. I was more than culpable, because I should have considered… and I did not. In a way, Kitty, I was as innocent as you, for I had never been intimate with a “maid”. I made assumptions that were wrong. I… would like us to forget it ever happened. When your chamber is ready to receive you, when you are ready to receive me, it will not be like that, I swear to you.’ He stopped, and grimaced. ‘That, my Kitty, is also not dalliance. Far too serious. If I am to educate you in social dalliance perhaps you should pretend I am someone else. Gentlemen do fall into types.’
‘You mean like elderly generals who try to pat one upon the rear and claim they last did it when you were a babe.’
‘They do?’
‘Oh yes. And they make slightly risqué remarks to see if they can put one to the blush. It is best to feign ignorance, as a single woman, though in the married state that might be more difficult.’ She sounded quite matter of fact.
‘This is news to me.’
‘Oh, it is widely known among women.’
‘I was thinking of the shy type who avoid looking at the ladies either side of them in case they see a hint of bosom.’
The Devil You Know Page 13
