Faro's Daughter (10 page)

‘Shall we say five thousand pounds, ma’am?’

She gave a tinkle of rather metallic laughter. ‘Really, sir, I am afraid you are trying to trifle with me!’

‘You rate your claims high,’ he said grimly. ‘Certainly: Your cousin is quite devoted to me.’

‘My cousin, Miss Grantham, is a minor.’

‘Oh, but not for long!’ she said. ‘I am not impatient: I can afford to wait for two months, I assure you.’

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I do not choose to haggle with you, ma’am. I will give you exactly double that sum for my cousin’s release.’

She leaned back in the curricle, very much at her ease, schooling her lips to smile. Mr Ravenscar observed the smile, but failed to notice the dangerous glitter in the lady’s eyes. ‘Paltry, Mr Ravenscar,’ she said gently.

‘Come, Miss Grantham, that won’t serve! You will get not a penny more out of me, so let us waste no time in haggling!’

‘But only consider, sir!’ said Miss Grantham, smoothing her lemon kid gloves over her wrists. ‘You would remove from my grasp at one stroke a fortune and a title!’

‘Rest assured, ma’am, that there is not the slightest possibility of your enjoying the possession of that particular fortune or title!’ said Ravenscar unpleasantly.

‘My dear sir, you underrate my intelligence, believe me!’ said Miss Grantham, softly chiding. ‘You would not have offered me money had it been possible to detach Adrian from me by any other means. You are quite in my power, you know.’

‘If you refuse my terms, you will discover your mistake!’ said Ravenscar, anger hardening his voice.

‘Nonsense!’ said Miss Grantham coolly. ‘Do, I beg of you, be reasonable, sir! You cannot, I am persuaded, think me so big a fool as to let such an advantageous marriage slip through my fingers for the sake of a mere ten thousand pounds!’

‘How old are you?’ he demanded.

‘I am twenty-five, Mr Ravenscar.’

‘You would do well to accept my offer. Nothing but unhappiness could be the sequel to your marriage with a boy barely out of his tutor’s hands. Think this over carefully, Miss Grantham! Adrian’s calf-love will not endure, I assure you.’

‘It is very possible,’ she acknowledged. ‘But I do not anticipate that it will wane within the next two months. I shall be at such pains, you see, to keep it alive.’

She had the satisfaction of knowing that she had succeeded in putting him in a rage. A muscle twitched at the corner of his mouth; she thought the expression in his eyes quite murderous, and wondered indeed if her body would be found in some secluded corner of the Park one day.

‘Let me make it plain to you, Miss Grantham, since you will have it, that there is nothing I will not do to prevent my cousin’s marrying a woman of your order!’

She gave a gasp, but rallied enough to retort: ‘Very fine talking, Mr Ravenscar! In fact, there is nothing you can do.’

‘You will see, ma’am!’

She yawned. ‘I protest, you are unreasonable, sir! Pray, what is to become of me if I whistle your cousin down the wind? I have made up my mind to it that it is time I became eligibly settled in the world.’

‘As to eligibility, ma’am,’ said Ravenscar, through his teeth, ‘I apprehend that Ormskirk has plans for your future which should answer the purpose admirably!’

The palm of Miss Grantham’s hand itched again to hit him, and it was with an immense effort of will that she forced herself to refrain. She replied with scarcely a tremor to betray her indignation, ‘But even you must realize, sir, that Lord Ormskirk’s obliging offer is not to be thought of beside your cousin’s proposal. I declare, I have a great fancy to become Lady Mablethorpe.’

‘I don’t doubt it!’ he said harshly. ‘By God, if I had my way, women of your stamp should be whipped at the cart’s tail!’

‘Why, how fierce you are!’ she marvelled. ‘And all because I have a desire to turn respectable! I dare say I shall make Adrian a famous wife.’

‘A wife out of a gaming-housel’ he ejaculated. ‘One of faro’s daughters! You forget, ma’am, that I have been privileged to observe you in your proper milieu! Do you imagine that I will permit the young fool to ruin himself by marriage with you? You’ll learn to know me better!’

She shrugged. ‘This is mere ranting, Mr Ravenscar. It would be well if you learned to know me better.’

‘God forbid!’ he said with a snap. ‘I have learnt enough this morning to assure me that no greater disaster could befall my cousin than to find himself tied to you!’

‘And is ten thousand pounds all you are prepared to offer to save your cousin from this horrid fate?’ she inquired.

He looked at her in a measuring way, as though he were appraising her worth. ‘It would be interesting to know what figure you set upon yourself, Miss Grantham.’

She appeared to give this matter her consideration. ‘I do not know. You regard the affair in so serious a light that I feel I should be very green to accept less than twenty thousand.’

He turned his horses, and they broke into a trot again. ‘Why stop at that?’ he asked, with a short bark of laughter.

‘Indeed, I dare say I shan’t,’ said Miss Grantham cordially. ‘My price will rise as Adrian’s birthday approaches.’

He drove on in silence for some little way, frowning heavily at the road ahead.

‘How pretty the trees are, with their leaves just on the turn!’ remarked Miss Grantham, in soulful accents.

He paid no heed to this sally, but once more looked down at her. ‘If I engage to pay you twenty thousand pounds, will you release my cousin?’ he asked abruptly.

Miss Grantham tilted her head on one side. ‘I own, twenty thousand pounds is a temptation,’ she said. ‘And yet ...!’ she added undecidedly. ‘No, I think I would prefer to marry Adrian.’

‘You will regret that decision, ma’am,’ he said, dropping his hands, and letting the greys shoot.

‘Oh, I trust not, sir! After all, Adrian is a most amiable young man, and I shall enjoy being his wife, and having a great deal of pin-money. I hope,’ she added graciously, ‘that you will be one of our first guests at Mablethorpe. You will see then what a fine ladyship I mean to be.’

He vouchsafed no answer to this, so after a thoughtful pause she said airily: ‘Of course, there will be a good many changes to be made at Mablethorpe before I shall be ready to receive visitors. I collect that everything is shockingly old fashioned there. The London house too! But I have a great turn for furnishing houses, and I do not despair of achieving something very tolerable.’

The contemptuous curl of Mr Ravenscar’s mouth was all the sign he gave of having heard this speech.

‘I mean to set up a faro-bank of my own,’ pursued Miss Grantham. ‘It will be very select, of course: admission only by card. To make a success of that sort of thing, one must have a certain position in the world, and that Adrian can give me. I will wager that my card-parties become the rage within a twelvemonth!’

‘If you think, ma’am, to force up the price by these disclosures, you are wasting your time!’ said Ravenscar. ‘Your plans for the future come as no surprise to me.’ He reined in his horses to a more sober pace, as the gates of the Park came into sight. ‘You have had the chance to enrich yourself, and you have seen fit to refuse it. My offer is no longer open to your acceptance.’

She was surprised, but took care not to let it appear. ‘Why, now you talk like a sensible man, sir!’ she said. ‘You accept the inevitable, in fact.’

They passed through the gates, and turned eastwards, bowling along with a disregard for the convenience of all other traffic which drew curses from two porters, a hackney-coachman, and a portly old gentleman who was unwise enough to try to cross the street ahead of the curricle. ‘No,’ said Ravenscar. ‘Once more you are out in your reckoning, Miss Grantham. You have chosen to cross swords with me, and you shall see how you like it. Let me tell you that it was with the greatest reluctance that I made my offer! It goes much against the grain with me to enrich harpies!’ He glanced down at her as he spoke, and encountered such a blaze of anger in her eyes that he was momentarily taken aback. But even as his brows snapped together in quick suspicion, the long-lashed lids had veiled her eyes, and she was laughing.

The rest of the drive back to St James’s Square was accomplished in silence. When the curricle drew up outside her door, Miss Grantham put back the rug that covered her knees, and said with deceptive affability: ‘A most enjoyable drive, Mr Ravenscar. I must thank you for having given me the opportunity to make your better acquaintance. I fancy we have both of us learnt something this morning.’

‘Can you get down without my assistance?’ he asked brusquely. ‘I am unable to leave the horses.’

‘Certainly,’ she replied, nimbly descending from the high carriage. ‘Goodbye, sir—or should I say
au revoir
?’

He slightly raised his hat. ‘Au revoir, ma’am!’ he said, and drove on.

The door of the house was opened to Miss Grantham by Silas Wantage, who took one look at her flushed countenance, and said indulgently: ‘Now, what’s happened to put you into one of your tantrums, Miss Deb?’

‘I am not in a tantrum!’ replied Deborah furiously. ‘And if Lord Mablethorpe should call, I will see him!’

‘Well, that’s a good thing,’ said Wantage. ‘For he’s been here once already, and means to come again. I never saw anything like it, not in all my puff!’

‘I wish you will not talk in that odiously vulgar way!’ said Deborah.

‘Not in a tantrum: oh, no!’ said Mr Wantage, shaking his head. ‘And me that’s known you from your cradle! Your aunt says as how Master Kit’s a coming home on leave. What do you say to that?’

Miss Grantham, however, had nothing to say to it. She was an extremely fond sister, but for the moment the iniquities of Mr Ravenscar possessed her mind to the exclusion of all other interests. She ran upstairs to the little back-parlour on the half-landing, which was used as a morning-room. Lady Bellingham was writing letters there, at a spindle-legged table in the window. She looked up as her niece entered the room, and cried: ‘Well, my love, so you are back already! Tell me at once, did—’ She broke off, as her eyes met Miss Grantham’s stormy ones. ‘Oh dear!’ she said, in a dismayed voice. ‘What has happened?’

Miss Grantham untied her bonnet-strings with a savage jerk, and cast the bonnet on to a chair. ‘He is the vilest, rudest, stupidest, horridest man alive! Oh, but I will serve him out for this! I will make him sorry he ever dared—I’ll have no mercy on him! He shall grovel to me! Oh, I am in such a rage.’

‘Yes, my love, I can see you are,’ said her aunt faintly. ‘Did he—did he make love to you?’

‘Love!’ exclaimed Miss Grantham. ‘No, indeed! My thoughts did not lie in that direction! I am a harpy, if you please, Aunt Lizzie! Women like me should be whipped at the cart’s tail!’

‘Good heavens, Deb, is the man out of his senses?’ demanded Lady Bellingham.

‘By no means! He is merely stupid, and rude, and altogether abominable! I hate him! I wish I might never set eyes on him again!’

‘But what did he do?’ asked Lady Bellingham bewildered.

Miss Grantham ground her white teeth. ‘He came to rescue his precious cousin from my toils! That was why he invited me to drive out with him. To insult me!’

‘Oh dear, you thought it might be that!’ said her aunt sadly.

Miss Grantham paid no heed to this interruption. ‘A Grantham is not a fit bride for Lord Mablethorpe! To marry me would be to ruin himself! Oh, I could scream with vexation!’

Lady Bellingham regarded her doubtfully. ‘But you said much yourself, my dear. I remember distinctly—’

‘It doesn’t signify in the least,’ said Miss Grantham. ‘He hi no right to say it’

Lady Bellingham agreed to this wholeheartedly, after watching her niece pace round the room for several minutes, ventured to inquire what had happened during the course of the drive. Miss Grantham stopped dead her tracks, and replied in a shaking voice: ‘He tried to bribe me!’

‘Tried to bribe you not to marry Adrian, Deb?’ asked her aunt. ‘But how very odd of him, when you had never the lea intention of doing so! What can have put such a notion in his head?’

‘I am sure I don’t know, and certainly I don’t care a fig replied Deborah untruthfully. ‘He had the insolence to offer me five thousand pounds if I would relinquish my pretensions—my pretensions!—to Adrian’s hand and heart!’

Lady Bellingham, over whose plump countenance a hopeful expression had begun to creep, looked disappointed, she said: ‘Five thousand! I must say, Deb, I think that is shabby!’

‘I said that I feared he was trying to trifle with me,’ recounted Miss Grantham with relish.

‘Well, and I am sure you could not have said anything better, my love! I declare, I did not think so meanly of him!’

‘Then,’ continued Miss Grantham, ‘he said he would double that figure.’

Lady Bellingham dropped her reticule. ‘Ten thousand!’ she exclaimed faintly. ‘No, never mind my reticule, Deb, it don’t signify! What did you say to that?’

‘I said, Paltry!’ answered Miss Grantham.

Her aunt blinked at her. ‘Paltry ... Would you—would you call it paltry, my love?’

‘I did call it paltry. I said I would not let Adrian slip through my fingers for a mere ten thousand. I enjoyed saying that, Aunt Lizzie!’