Lady Anne's Deception (11 page)

And sometime later a pleasant sensation of strong hands lifting her into a warm, scented bath, rubbing her down with a fleecy towel, carrying her back to bed again.

And then it seemed, at last, as if she awoke properly. Her head was clear and everything in the room looked sharp and new.

Her husband was sleeping in a chair beside the embers of the fire. He was unshaven and wrapped in his dressing gown.

She lay quietly studying his face. It was much stronger than it usually seemed, devoid as it was in sleep of its indolent charm. The mouth was set in a firm line. Two grooves of weariness were etched from his nostrils down each side of his mouth. His hair was tousled, one thick lock falling over his forehead.

Annie tried to think that his vigil by her bedside was a sign of love but could not bring herself to believe it. She was sure he would also sit up all night in the stables if his favorite horse were sick. And on that cynical thought she fell asleep again, awaking again when the sun was high in the sky.

There was no sign of her husband. The fire was blazing cheerfully, the hearth had been swept, and the curtains pulled back. Great white castles of clouds were being tugged across a chill, blue sky. Of her husband, there was no sign. Annie began to wonder if she had imagined the whole thing.

Barton came in quickly and exclaimed on seeing her mistress awake. “We were very worried about you, my lady,” said the maid, coming forward to straighten the pillows behind Annie’s head. “Thank the Lord the fever has gone. There’s an epidemic of that nasty influenza all over London. People are dropping like flies. I told the master he should hire a nurse, but he insisted on doing all the work himself.”

“He did? I didn’t dream it?”

“No, my lady. He only went off to get some sleep when he found your fever had gone down. Everyone in London seems to have called, but he wouldn’t let anyone see you. Lady Marigold came straight up one day when he was out of the room for a moment, and he was so angry when he found her here.”

“I seem to remember something about it,” said Annie.

“Mr. Shaw-Bufford called as well,” said Barton. “He said to remind your ladyship that you had an engagement on Wednesday. I didn’t tell his lordship, for I was sure he would be annoyed. It was thoughtless of Mr. Shaw-Bufford when you are so ill.”

Annie flushed guiltily, suddenly remembering with awful clarity her promise to give the chancellor money.

The door opened and her husband strolled in. She searched his face for some sign of love, but his eyes held a strangely guarded look. He sat down on the edge of the bed and studied her face.

“I’m glad to see you well, my dear,” he said. “The doctor says you are to continue taking your medicine for the rest of the week and you are to rest in bed. He will be along to see you this afternoon. You gave us quite a fright. When I arrived home I found the house full of chattering women and the chancellor of the exchequer making free with my study.

“It puzzles me that Shaw-Bufford should champion women’s rights. I would have said that the only thing that man believed in intensely was the advancement of Shaw-Bufford.”

Annie avoided his gaze and plucked nervously at the satin quilt. Barton left the room.

“Now what is worrying you?” teased the marquess. “You have two little lines right in the middle of your forehead.”

“I was wondering if I had any money of my own,” said Annie, still not meeting his eyes.

There was a little silence. Then the marquess said lightly, “Did I not tell you? Your father deposited a great deal in a private account for you. He wrote to me only the other day about it, but you were too ill to receive the news. Certainly, it’s yours . . . as my money is yours.”

It was on the tip of Annie’s tongue to say that she believed he hadn’t any. Instead she said, “Do you have access to my money?”

“No,” he said, looking at her steadily, “which is a pity since I have already dissipated your dowry in riotous living. I assume that is what you expect to hear?”

“Yes . . . I mean, no . . . I mean . . . Oh, what would you do if someone asked you for a large sum of money for a certain organization?”

“If I believed in what the organization was doing and I thought they genuinely needed the money, and if I could afford it, then I would certainly give them a check. Them. Not he or she, if you take my meaning. I would take the precaution of making the check out in the name of the organization and not to the individual who asked for it.”

“But if it was someone in a high position, someone in a national position of trust . . . ? What if, say, King Edward asked you for money for a certain charity?”

“Then I would most definitely insist that the check be made out to the charity,” replied the marquess, his eyes crinkling up with laughter.

“Oh.” Annie digested this in silence. Then she remembered that Barton had said that Marigold had called. And she also remembered Marigold looking down at her, but it still all seemed part of a fevered dream. And had he meant all that about having spent her dowry on riotous living?

“Barton says Marigold called,” she said. “When is she getting married?”

“I neither know nor care.”

Annie smiled. “So you were only teasing me . . . ?”

“About what, my love?”

Annie blushed. “About wanting me to have a baby before Marigold.”

“Well, according to your father, if Marigold has a son, the child will be the heir to the title and fortune since Marigold is the eldest. I felt quite depressed when I heard the news. But, ah well, one can’t compete with Marigold forever.”

So he didn’t love her. How that thought pierced Annie’s heart. Her pain made her lash out. “It’s just not fair,” she said. “No matter what I do, she always seems to win.”

He looked at her thoughtfully. Was it her imagination or was there a certain hint of ice in his blue eyes?

But the next second he was smiling amiably down at her. He yawned and stretched. “Well, my dear,” he said, rising from the bed, “I am glad you are better. I can now toddle off and frivol about London in my usual manner.”

“With Miss S.?” said Annie, bitterly.

“Unfortunately, she is still in Paris. Perhaps I shall send her a wire . . .” And with that, he strolled out of the room.

Annie lay, staring out at the cold sky and aching with misery. For the rest of the day, she tortured herself with pictures of her husband walking about London with some pretty charmer or another on his arm. She pictured Marigold’s false pity.

In her mind, her husband slowly turned into an evil and depraved monster, and by evening she had conjured up such a Frankenstein that it was something of a shock when the marquess ambled into the room looking very much his usual handsome self.

“What do you want?” said Annie harshly.

“I’ve come to read to you,” he answered mildly, settling himself down in the armchair in front of the fire.

“I don’t
want
be read to,” said Annie pettishly. “My head aches.”

“Then you will find my voice very soothing,” he said imperturbably.

He began to read while Annie lay and seethed with fury. At first she was so angry that she could not hear the words, but after some time, despite herself, she began to listen. He had chosen Surtees’s
Handley Cross,
and Annie’s attention was caught by the mad antics of that famous huntsman, Mr.

Jorrocks. The marquess read in a rather flat, soothing voice. From time to time Annie would remember her hurt and open her mouth to say something wounding, but somehow she found she could not and began to listen to the story again.

She had just decided that as soon as he finished the next chapter she would tell him what she really thought of him, when all at once it was morning again and she had slept the whole night through.

After that he ambled in and out of her room for the next two days, sometimes chatting to her, sometimes reading to her, always ignoring the blazing hurt and fury in her wide eyes.

Mr. Shaw-Bufford had sent flowers daily; Miss Hammond had sent a large box of chocolates. Marigold contented herself by sending Annie a letter, sympathizing with her sister for having such a tyrannical beast of a husband. Annie sent a letter to Mr. Shaw-Bufford thanking him for the flowers and regretting that she would be unable to see him until she was feeling better.

And then, just as she was feeling fully recovered, just as she was beginning to thaw toward her infuriating husband, just as her slowly maturing brain was beginning to tell her that a man did not spend his days waiting on his wife unless he felt
something
for her, she received a note from him saying that he had gone back to the country.

He begged her to forgive him. He pointed out that the matter was urgent. One of his tenants had been arrested for murder. He had killed another man in a drunken brawl. Although he was undoubtedly guilty, arrangements had to be made for the welfare of his wife and children.

Annie did not believe a word of it.

All at once, it was not Marigold she wished revenge on; it was her husband. She had an intensely feminine longing to play his game and see how
he
liked it.

Her mind shrank from the idea of actually having an affair with anyone. But somehow she was sure she could arrange things so that her husband would
think
that she had fallen in love.

Annie was resting on the sofa in the morning room the day after her husband had left when Mr.

Shaw-Bufford was announced.

She toyed with the idea of starting to flirt with the chancellor in order to make her husband jealous and then dismissed it, knowing instinctively that Mr. Shaw-Bufford was the last man to make her husband jealous.

The chancellor came in, wreathed in smiles and flowers. Annie gave his present of a handsome bunch of chrysanthemums to a housemaid to put in a vase and thanked him prettily for all his bouquets and messages.

He told her that the arrangements for the ball were going ahead. It would be held in a week’s time at Mrs. Winton’s and practically the whole of London society had paid for tickets.

“That’s very gratifying,” said Annie, surprised. “I did not think so many members of society would be interested in women getting the vote.”

“They aren’t,” said the chancellor. “We simply told them it was in aid of ‘Women of the World,’ which sounds vague enough to be reassuring.”

“Isn’t that dishonest?” asked Annie. “I mean, shouldn’t you tell them what the ball is really in aid of?”

“Why?” he said baldly. “They wouldn’t come if they knew exactly what it was in aid of.”

“But Mrs. Winton . . . ?”

“Mrs. Winton has already forgotten.”

“Does anybody believe in
anything?”
said Annie.

“Of course,” he replied, hitching his chair a little closer. “
We
do, Lady Torrance, but we are diplomats.

Diplomats! People of our intelligence know that the end justifies the means.”

“I don’t think I believe that exactly,” said Annie.

He patted her hand. “Then you must trust me to believe it for you. May I remind you that you were gracious enough to offer to donate a little something?”

Despite her embarrassment, Annie could not help saying, “Ten thousand pounds is not a ‘little something.’ ”

“Ha! Ha! No, of course not, but, however, you . . .”

“What is the name of Miss Hammond’s society?” interrupted Annie, rising and going over to a desk in the corner. “I mean, what is it
really
called now?”

“I believe ‘Women’s Rights, The Vote, and Feminine Equality.’ ”

“Dear me. I hope all that will fit on to one line of the checkbook.”

“There is no need for that.” Mr. Shaw-Bufford smiled. “Simply make out the check to me, and I will see the funds are given to the society.”

“No, I couldn’t do that,” said Annie, stubbornly. “My husband told me never to give money to an individual, always to a society.”

“Lady Torrance! That sounds just as if you didn’t trust me!”

Annie bit her lip. She could not forget how her husband had asked her whether Shaw-Bufford had approached her for money, and when she had told him that the chancellor had not, the marquess had calmly replied, “He will.”

“Why can’t I just make the check out to the society?” she asked.

“Because they do not have a banking account in their name yet.”

“Then what are they going to do with the money from the ball if they can’t bank it?”

“The money will be handed to me. I will put it into a separate account so that Miss Hammond and her supporters may draw on it whenever they wish.”

Annie looked very young and feminine in a long tea gown of blond lace. She picked up the checkbook, and Mr. Shaw-Bufford smiled his encouragement.

“I think I should explain something,” said Annie, with the open candor of a child. Only her husband would have recognized that look as being a preliminary to a whopping lie.

“I haven’t any money of my own. So this would be my husband’s money and he’s bound to ask questions.”

“You surely did not tell your husband . . . ?”

“Oh, no,” said Annie gently. “I only discussed the matter with him in general terms. He told me I must never give a check to an individual who was asking for money for some society but only to the society itself. So perhaps if you would like to ask him . . . ?”

“But you are a wealthy heiress!” exclaimed the chancellor.

“I’m afraid not.” Annie sighed. “Poor papa. He thought he had been left a fortune, but the legacy turned out to be only a few hundred pounds, which, of course, he is keeping for himself. But my husband . . .”

“I have been shamefully misled,” said the chancellor stiffly.

“Indeed, Mr. Shaw-Bufford,” said Annie coldly. “I thought we were friends.”

“But you led me to believe you were an heiress.”

“
I
was led to believe I was an heiress,” said Annie sweetly. “Now I find I am completely dependent on my husband for every penny. I am doing my best to help you, Mr. Shaw-Bufford. If there is nothing, er, about your request for money that is strange, then I do not see why you do not ask my husband. You will find him extremely sympathetic toward the feminist movement.”