Deception (Daughters of Mannerling 3) (16 page)

‘That is true, Mama,’ said Lord Burfield. ‘I have no need to marry Abigail if I do not want to. You must not judge her by the behaviour of her mother, who has been extremely ill over all this and is desperately trying to act as if she is doing everyone a favour in order to restore some of her tattered dignity. Lady Beverley is much to be pitied.’

‘If this is what you want, Rupert,’ said the earl heavily, ‘then so be it. But I cannot say I like it one bit.’

When the earl and countess had left, Abigail felt all her new-found spirits ebbing away. She was also bitterly ashamed of her mother. She went to her room to remonstrate with her but Lady Beverley barely seemed to hear her. She was sitting at her desk with sheets of figures. ‘Do you know,’ she said, after listening impatiently to her daughter’s complaints, ‘that we are saving a considerable amount of money by staying here? I have calculated what we save on coals and candles alone! Of course it is as well it is to be a quiet wedding, just family, because if Mr and Mrs Devers had pressed on with their ridiculous request that I pay for that wedding that never really took place at Mannerling, I should have been in the suds.’

Abigail wondered if it was possible to feel any more deep shame than she was experiencing at that moment. ‘Do you mean you refused to pay them?’

‘Of course,’ said Lady Beverley, impatiently rattling the sheets of paper. ‘I simply sent them a letter of hand saying that they could take me to court if necessary. I knew they would not do that,’ she added complacently. ‘And while we are on the interesting subject of money, Jessica and Isabella have sent me certain sums. I expect you too to remind your husband what is due tome.’

‘Never!’ said Abigail passionately. ‘Not one penny.’

Lady Beverley sighed. ‘Then I shall just need to ask him myself. Do run along, dear. You are giving me the headache, standing glowering like that. Ladies should not glower. I never glower. It causes such unnecessary wrinkles.’

Defeated, Abigail retreated from the room. She wanted again to tell Lord Burfield that she did not want to marry him, but if she did not marry him, then he might fall prey to that harpy, Tarrant, and she could not bear that. It was so sad that his parents were disappointed in the forthcoming marriage, but they would come about after the wedding. Until then, she would behave like the veriest model debutante.

Alas for Abigail. The next social engagement was a breakfast at a Mrs Dunwoody’s home in Mayfair. Mrs Trumble had not had to negotiate that invitation. Curiosity about the Beverleys was rife. Harry Devers had been disgraced. No one wanted to ask
him.
But the Makepeaces had been invited. Prudence was feeling her age. Other, younger, ladies were certainly arriving with their parents, but quite a number of them also had some suitor in tow.

And then she saw Abigail walking into the garden on the arm of Lord Burfield and jealousy caused her to feel slightly ill. Abigail had no right to look so radiant.

The breakfast, like all breakfasts, started at three in the afternoon. Food was served on long tables set in the garden, after which guests listened to a military band, which was later replaced by an orchestra. Dancing took place in a marquee erected at the side of the lawn.

Mrs Dunwoody was a fashionable hostess with a rich and complacent husband who allowed her every extravagance. Neil Gow of Almack’s had been hired to play for the dancers, and the band of a hussar regiment to entertain the guests while they ate delicious food prepared for them by Gunter’s of Berkeley Square.

Mrs Dunwoody did not believe in segregating the sexes, that is, placing the ladies on one side of the table and the gentlemen on the other. Nor did she believe in having married couples and engaged couples sitting together. As she often said to her husband, the poor things saw enough of each other as it was, a remark which Mr Dunwoody accepted with his usual placid good humour.

And so Lord Burfield found himself seated next to Prudence Makepeace. She asked various questions about his home and tenants and lands and then said, ‘I believe I must congratulate you on your forthcoming marriage.’

‘Yes, I am to be married at last,’ said Lord Burfield, his eyes automatically straying to where Abigail sat at the other side of the table and towards the bottom end. Abigail was seated beside a curly-haired army captain. They were talking away with great animation. And the captain was young, about Abigail’s age. Like Abigail, Lord Burfield did not recognize jealousy in himself. He began to flirt with Prudence, who flirted back with him quite outrageously. Abigail threw him a pained look and then began to sparkle for the army captain. ‘Who is the lady next to Burfield?’ she asked him at last.

The captain put up his quizzing-glass. ‘Oh, that is Prudence Makepeace, a great heiress. It is rumoured that she was to marry Burfield. He invited the lady and her parents to his home. But nothing came of it.’ He coloured. ‘I beg your pardon, Miss Beverley. I had forgot. You are engaged to Burfield.’ The captain then remembered all the gossip about the young lady next to him and blushed even more miserably. Abigail saw his confusion and tried to chat to him as easily as she had been doing, but he answered her in monosyllables and so she turned her attention to the elderly gentleman on her other side, while fury at her fiancé burnt in her bosom.

Lizzie felt herself dwindling with misery. When the meal was over and the guests were walking in the garden, she said to Belinda, ‘That is Prudence Makepeace, the one Burfield is flirting with so dreadfully. It was she who tried to drug his lemonade.’

‘We must tell Abigail,’ said Belinda firmly.

‘Oh, I wish Miss Trumble was here to counsel us,’ mourned Lizzie. ‘I do not think we should tell Abigail anything. She looks so furious.’

‘It is our duty as sisters,’ said Belinda. She walked over to Abigail and drew her aside and began to talk busily. Lizzie groaned inwardly.

Lord Burfield went off to fetch Prudence a glass of wine and Abigail moved in for the kill.

‘Trying to drug my fiancé at Lady Evans’s ball is not enough, I see,’ she said. ‘You must needs still try to get your claws into him even though he is shortly to marry me.’

Had Prudence turned away disdainfully, the situation would have been diffused, but she said haughtily, ‘Poor Lord Burfield
has
to marry you,’ she jeered. ‘Everyone knows all about you. I pity him from the bottom of my heart.’

Prudence was wearing a flowered head-dress. Abigail tugged it off, threw it on the ground and stamped on it. Prudence seized Abigail by the hair. Abigail kicked Prudence on the shins and Lizzie let out a scream of horror and dismay as the warring pair fell onto the grass, kicking and biting and scratching. The men had formed a circle and were cheering them on, some of them already laying bets. Lord Burfield pushed them aside and forcibly separated the warring couple. ‘Come with me,’ he said to Abigail and dragged her off towards the house while Prudence manufactured a faint.

Abigail tried to pull away but Lord Burfield had her in a firm grip. He pulled her into the house, snapping at various staring servants to go about their business. He kicked open the door of a room which turned out to be a library, shoved her into it, followed her, and slammed the door behind them.

‘Just what were you about, you hell-cat!’ he raged.

‘And what were
you
about to flirt with Prudence Makepeace? You complain about my behaviour and yet you flirt outrageously with that silly vapid female who tried to drug your drink at Lady Evans’s ball!’

‘She only took some laudanum. She did not try to drug my drink.’

‘She would have done if Lizzie had not switched your glasses.’

He could not quite explain that he had been fully aware of what Prudence had tried to do and had been flattered that she would go to such lengths to make sure he would not call on the Beverleys.

He continued to attack. ‘You cannot accuse me of flirting when you were romancing that army captain.’

‘He was pleasant, he was very pleasant, but then he told me that you had intended to marry Prudence and had even invited her to your home. Besides, my captain is
young
.’

‘I being in my dotage?’

‘Not yet, but close, very close, quite like little Miss Prudence.’

‘Bitch!’

Her hand seemed to move of its own volition. She slapped him full across the face and then stared up at him in horror.

He put his hands on either side of her face and, pulling her towards him, he kissed her full on the mouth. Abigail began to struggle but he held her close. That clever sensuous mouth moved against her own, softening from a punishing kiss into a long, languorous one. The surge of emotion, of passion, that gripped her stopped her struggles. Her hands, which had been beating on his shoulders, stole up round his neck instead. The military band outside was playing a waltz, the library smelt of leather, beeswax, and roses. He smelt of cologne and soap.

He drew back a little and looked down at her anxiously, remembering how terrified she had been of Harry’s love-making. ‘I am sorry,’ he began, but she gazed up at him with a drowned look and drew his mouth down to hers.

At last he said huskily, ‘What a hell-cat you are! Your hair is all tangled and there are bits of grass on your gown.’

‘What should I do now?’ asked Abigail. ‘Should I apologize?’

‘I think that would be wise. Was the provocation great?’

‘Very great. She said you were being forced to marry me.’

‘Love is a very great force, I have just discovered. That is why I must marry you.’

‘Oh, Rupert, kiss me again!’

Romances paint at full length people’s wooings,
But only give a bust of marriages:
For no one cares for matrimonial cooings,
There’s nothing wrong in a connubial kiss:
Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch’s wife,
He would have written sonnets all his life?

LORD BYRON

The news of the fight between Abigail and Prudence spread through polite society the next day like wildfire. It came eventually to the ears of Harry Devers, who was dreading every day that his parents, having learned of his latest disgrace, would arrive to send him back to the army.

Obsessively curious now about anything to do with the Beverleys, he made inquiries about this Prudence Makepeace and learned quickly that she had entertained hopes of wedding Burfield herself and considered Abigail had tricked him into marriage. He felt very alone. This Prudence could make a good ally. But he was not invited anywhere he might meet her. He secured her address and learned that she often walked with her maid to the shops in Pall Mall in the morning. He positioned himself outside her house until, three mornings after the breakfast, he saw her emerge. Hoping it was Prudence and not some guest of the Makepeaces, he began to follow, wondering how to approach her. As luck would have it, she stumbled over a loose paving stone, and as he was right behind her, he was able to grasp her elbow and support her.

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Prudence, dimpling prettily.

He swept off his hat and made his best bow, one leg well back, his nose almost touching the knee of the other. He straightened up and said, ‘I consider myself honoured to be of assistance to such a beautiful lady, Miss Makepeace.’

‘You know me?’ Prudence looked at him doubtfully.

‘We have not been introduced. I am Devers of Mannerling.’

Her face hardened and she drew her skirts about her as if to avoid contamination. ‘Ah, you shrink from me!’ he cried as she would have walked on. ‘And yet I am the only person who feels for you, who could help you.’

Had Prudence not still been burning up with rage against Abigail, she would have gone on her way, for she had heard of Harry Devers’s scandalous scene with the opera singer. But she wanted to talk about Lord Burfield to someone, anyone. Her parents had forbidden her to mention his name, saying that she must accept the fact that he was going to marry Abigail, and that was that. They had told Mrs Brochard the same thing, for that lady still entertained hopes of ‘saving’ her nephew.

‘How can you help me?’ she asked coldly.

‘If we could talk without your maid hearing us . . .’

Prudence turned round. ‘Betty,’ she said to the maid, ‘take yourself a few paces off, and do not tell Mama of this or you will be dismissed.’

They waited until the maid had backed away out of earshot. ‘How can you help me?’ demanded Prudence again.

‘There must be some way to stop that wedding from taking place,’ said Harry. He saw the look of distaste on her face and added quickly, ‘Ah, no, I am not revenging myself on the Beverleys. I am thinking of saving a decent man from being entrapped into a disastrous marriage. You have heard the scandal? Of course you have! But can you imagine how these Beverleys have nearly driven me to ruin?’

He proceeded to tell her a highly sanitized tale of how first Jessica had broken his heart and then Rachel. She believed him, because she wanted to. Her thirst for revenge matched his own.

‘But what can we do?’ she asked, and Harry suppressed a satisfied little smile. That ‘we’ meant Prudence had decided to become his ally.

But his next statement shocked her. ‘We could make sure the wedding never takes place.’

‘How?’ she asked faintly.

‘All we have to do is keep Abigail Beverley out of the way on the day of the wedding. With the Beverleys’ reputation, Burfield will assume she has stood him up.’

‘That is abduction you are suggesting. We could hang.’

‘This is my idea. I wish you to befriend Abigail Beverley.’

‘Never!’

‘Only to find out her movements, get her confidence.’

Prudence shook her head so vehemently that the feathers on her poke-bonnet looked as if they were about to take flight.

‘I would be suspected.’

‘No, I do not think so. And who would suspect an eminently respectable young lady like you?’ His mind worked rapidly. ‘I have a cottage on the outskirts of the village of Kensington. All I need to do is get her there the day of the wedding. Some ruse.’

‘But you can do that without my help!’

‘Abigail attacked you at that breakfast because Burfield was flirting with you and she was jealous. Jealousy unsettles the mind,’ said Harry sententiously. ‘Your part would be merely to sow seeds of doubt in Abigail’s mind about the faithfulness of Burfield. I have been busy and I have a little tidbit of information.