Escapade (24 page)

“Of course! It is all one and the same to you. That is perfectly clear. You have only to ask any girl in the whole world, and she will have you.” She wrenched her hands from his grip.

“With the possible exception of yourself and Prattle,” he added playfully. He was used to having Ella give him a hard time.

“Well, we refuse you,” Ella said angrily.

Her voice was so fierce that he looked at her face closely, and began to realize for the first time that she meant it. It had the effect of a hard blow to the stomach. The shock of so unexpected a thing momentarily knocked the wind out of him. A rising anger quickly followed the initial shock. “Shall we let Prattle speak for itself?” he asked scathingly.

“Oh no, Your Grace. No one is better qualified to speak for Miss Prattle than I.” The fateful words were out in a rush of spite before she well considered their consequence.

“Am I to understand you are an intimate acquaintance of this vulgar gossipmonger?"

“I have the pleasure to be an intimate acquaintance."

“Then you will kindly tell her for me she is a vicious, underbred..."

“That will not be necessary, Your Grace. You have just told her."

While he stood, dumbfounded, she turned on her heel and ran from the room. In seconds he was after her, but by the time he reached the hall she was halfway up the stairs. “Ella! Ella, come back here!” he shouted angrily after her rapidly retreating figure. She didn't even look around.

Two footmen and a maid, their ears flapping, stepped forth from the dim recesses of the hall that had been concealing them, tacitly offering their services to bring her back, though it must have been pretty obvious that force would be required to do it.

“What are you doing here?” Clare demanded sharply, then walked away without awaiting an answer.

Before he had decided what to do, Sara came into the hall. She knew by his face that no satisfactory conclusion had been reached to the episode at the dinner table.

“Clare, you greenhead,” she said baldly. “What possessed you to do such a thing?"

“Desperation,” he answered with an equal directness.

“Strayward is the outside of enough, certainly, but you should have stuck to your guns and left your imaginary fiancée anonymous."

“She refused me, Sara,” he said, his voice puzzled.

“Yes, and wouldn't you be in a fine pickle if she'd accepted!"

“But I meant it. Why do you think I did not?"

Sara's heart skipped a beat. She had dared to hope he meant it but had not thus far revealed to a soul that she did. In fact, she had just inferred to the guests at the table that it was all a little private joke between the pair of them, and Ella was angry at Clare's making it public.

“I hope I am not so monstrously arrogant as to pull a stunt like that on an innocent female."

“No, Clare, not monstrously arrogant, just arrogant."

“It is what she said."

“Did she indeed? But then I gather she didn't believe you meant it either."

“Of course she knew I meant it,” he said, still angry at the realization. “And she said something else that wants some explaining too. Is it possible she is Miss Prattle?"

“Good God, did she tell you that?” Sara shrieked. Oh, the fool of a girl, she had clearly lost her reason. Bad enough to reject the top marital prize in England, without incurring his eternal wrath as well. No hope of a repeated offer now.

“That is what I understood her to say, and I take your exclamations of horror as a confirmation."

The fat was in the fire. To make little of it was the best, the only way now. “She does it for a lark, you know. She was always interested in writing."

“You call that
writing
? It is muckraking of the worst sort. I am shocked you would allow her to so degrade herself, Sara. You should have known better."

Sara's well-coiffed hackles rose dangerously at this slur on her taste and guardianship. “You make too much of it. A little playful criticism of the social scene—no one takes it amiss but yourself. Indeed Lord Byron told me the other day he finds it vastly amusing, and thought Sherry— Richard Sheridan, I mean—to be the author."

“Lord Byron has not been mocked and scorned as
I
have been."

“True, but then Byron is not yet so toplofty as yourself."

“It is
unpardonable
, Sara, and you would do better to call your niece to account than to make excuses for her."

“I make no excuses, in fact, I add several items to the column myself, and so does Mama,” she added haughtily.

One could only marvel at such gross impertinence. “Upon my word, I don't know what to say."

“You might try saying you're sorry,” she suggested, with an imperious toss of her head.

“More sorry than you can know to have unwittingly invited Prattle under my roof. And I collect even you will admit that was an underhanded thing for her to do."

“That was wrong, but it was my fault. It was I who wangled the invitation."

“No, it was Tredwell. Does he know?"

“Indeed he does not. He was an innocent pawn. I fabricated the romance between them out of whole cloth to get you to ask her, and for that I
do
apologize."

Clare's temper was quick to rouse, but like most hot-blooded people, he exploded, then soon settled down. He was not without a sense of humor, and the thing had its humorous side, even if he was the butt of the joke himself. He had always liked Sara, liked the very dégagé manner of her that would pull off such a stunt as this. To see her looking penitent softened him, and when he replied there was less rancor in his voice. “I am relieved to see some shred of respectability still clings to you, Sara."

“I
am
sorry, Clare. It was beastly of me, but really she has hardly written a word about the odd time we have had here, hunting frogs and holding a jousting tournament..."

“Well she might refrain, when it was all her own doing!"

As this was delivered with a rueful smile, she dared to return, “She only suggested—it is for the
host
to provide entertainment for his guests, and you were sadly lacking there."

“You know how hastily this party was thrown together, and why."

“The why of it has succeeded at any rate. I trust not even Strayward will push the match now, after that leveler you dealt him. Lord, I nearly died laughing when you said, cool as a cucumber, your fiancée might dislike it. You are a complete hand."

“Too complete a hand for your niece's taste, it seems."

“I imagine it was the
manner
of the proposal she resented, rather than the idea itself. If you were serious, why did you not ask her before dinner?” It seemed there might yet be a hope of pulling the thing off, if she trod softly.

“It occurred to me. In fact, I was looking for her when I came down, but she was in the saloon, and there was no privacy."

“You were certainly leaving it to the last minute. You have been alone with her a dozen times these last days."

“It takes a little time to fall in love, Sara. I was by no means positive till she told me in the garden she wouldn't have me. I decided on the spot she would. But then Strayward arrived..."

“He is an inopportune devil. Er ... Am I to understand you did ask her before dinner?"

“No, I've just told you there wasn't time."

“But how did she come to refuse you then?"

“It was not a refusal precisely. She only said she wouldn't have me if I did ask her, and neither would Prattle. I wonder if she was trying to tell me then she was Prattle."

“Very likely,” Sara agreed, without believing a word of it. Her mind was fully occupied with figuring how Ella had come to say anything so forward as Clare had just told her. They were clearly on a much closer footing than she had guessed. “What shall we do now?” she asked. She wanted to hear whether he was still desirous of marrying Ella, after that strong tirade against Miss Prattle.

His reply told her nothing. “She won't come down to the ball. It will be a headache, I expect."

“It would be best if she would come down, and let everyone see it was all a little joke, as I have been busily convincing your guests it was."

“I hope you may not have entirely convinced Strayward."

“He won't insist after this, surely."

“I shan't give him a chance. He's three sheets to the wind already and will likely go to his room."

“I hear the others coming,” Lady Sara said, as the voices of the ladies leaving the dining hall was heard through the corridor.

“Try to get her to come down,” Clare urged. Then he added, hesitantly, “Of course, we must not insist."

“No."

“You may tell her I shan't inconvenience her by repeating my unwelcome offer,” he added a little stiffly.

Sara's spirits sank to hear this, but she had to nip off upstairs before she was discovered in conclave with Clare by the others.

Clare returned to the dining room to take port with the gentlemen and was happy to see Strayward's head on the table, with stertorous snorts issuing forth. He had him lifted bodily from his chair by four stout footmen and carted off to his room. He had never been so happy to see a guest dead drunk and only wished he had passed out half an hour ago.

Sara mounted the stairs to do battle with her niece. She did not find Ella sunk into vapors on the counterpane, as she rather feared she might, nor even indulging in a bout of tears. No, she was swiftly and silently snatching her clothes from their hangers and wadding them into balls before tossing them into her traveling trunk, which stood open on the floor before her. Her face was composed into rigid lines of unroutable anger. Sara quickly scanned her mind for the best way to handle such a touchy situation and in the squeezing of a lemon formed her plan.

“So, Clare was right,” she said, laughing light. “He made sure you would be too hen-hearted to meet the company below."

Ella paused, her green sprigged muslin in her hands, ready to be mussed up like the others. “Did he say so?” she asked, her eyebrows lifting.

“Yes, I told him I would try to persuade you to come down to the ball. I had hoped to pass his awkward proposal off as a joke but, of course, if you fly into the boughs and flee his house in the dead of night, there will be no hope of that. Well, he told me exactly how it would be, and he was right. This means I must miss the ball, too, of course, and I have been rather looking forward to it."

“What did he say?” Ella asked, disregarding Sara's spurious complaint.

“How did he word it exactly?” she asked herself, while hastily composing a quotation. “He said, ‘Don't think she will have the bottom to face the masses. That would take more countenance than Miss Fairmont possesses.’ Something of that sort."

“I don't pretend to match him for gall,” Ella said coolly. Sara stored it up for repetition to Clare. He'd enjoy it. “You think the others at the table know it was a joke?” Ella asked.

Know it was a joke. So that was to be the game played. Very well, then. “They will know it if you go downstairs as though nothing had happened and behave normally to Clare.” Such a black glare greeted this suggestion that Sara back-tracked, lest she lose the advantage gained by asking too much. “Oh, you need do no more than exchange a few pleasantries with him. He charged me to tell you you need fear no repetition of his proposal, if you do decide to go."

“No, that is a joke best not repeated,” Ella replied, not emphasizing the word ‘joke,’ but making sure to use it.

Ella didn't know why she hid the truth from Sara. In one sense she was proud of it. Maybe he had only asked her to escape Honor, but at that same table sat both Sherry and Belle, either of whom would have snatched eagerly at any offer from him, no matter what grotesque form it took. They were both pretty, popular ladies. To have been preferred to them was something. Sara would give her the very devil for refusing and pinch on about it forever. She wanted nothing so much as to get away from Clare Palace and try to forget the whole thing.

And now getting away was impossible. A challenge had been issued—a challenge for her to match his own nerve and brazen out the curiosity of the mob. Upon consideration, it seemed the best plan. If it could be passed off as a joke, it would cause only a ripple in London; if not, it could be a tidal wave. The Duke of Clare's finally making an offer after all these years was singular enough, but to have made it to a very plain girl in public, and to have been refused, was indeed an event. He would never live it down. And why should she care for his embarrassment? He had cared little enough for hers.

Well then, call it charity. It might mitigate the last blow Prattle would deal him, when he read the account of himself seducing a servant. This low blow still to come bothered her more than the rest. He had been sincere in his offer, but he did not know she was Prattle when he made it and still did not know what was in store for him. She really ought to do what she could to atone for that.

“I daresay I made too much of it,” Ella said, when she realized Sara was looking at her, expectantly.

“A good deal too much,” was the unhesitating answer. “Clare is a great one for jokes, you know. Well, love, I think your hair wants some fixing. It looks quite disordered from your packing. I'll have Stepson come in, but you better get Bickles to repack those clothes, too."

“Yes. They will think it was a joke, won't they, Sara?"

“I'm sure they've heard you two teasing each other times out of mind. He thought you had a sense of humor to match his own. How shocked he must have been to see you so irate. I can't think what came over you myself, Ella."

“The others didn't think it was a joke. And that Sherry..."

“Too farouche. I could have killed her, and so could Clare. But it will all pass over if you can but buck up and make an appearance downstairs for a while."

“Yes. We'll leave early tomorrow, Sara?"

“It was our original plan, so that is no problem. I am eager for my Herbert. He'll be home by now, and the children too."

This return to mundane topics relieved the tension, and in fifteen minutes Sara returned from her room, ready to take her niece to the ball. The company from the countryside had begun to arrive in the meanwhile, and the opening minuet was about to begin. Clare was standing up with the Marchioness. Sara wondered how he had exchanged Honor for her. It was a sort of symbol of his not being expected to offer for the daughter she supposed. Ella's hand was sought by Peters, and within minutes the dance begun. Heads turned in Ella's direction. It was clear the dinner party was being discussed, but the interest waned when she was seen to be in good spirits. It took all her self-control to maintain a semblance of the spirits she by no means possessed, but she did it.