Mesalliance (36 page)

*

Rockliffe dined
at White’s that evening and then, meeting the Marquis of Amberley,
moved on with him to the Cocoa-Tree where, as luck would have it,
they were presently joined by Mr Ingram and Lord Harry.

‘Well!’
exclaimed Harry with dry humour. ‘Am I allowed to sit down – or had
I best take myself off to the other room?’

‘That,’ replied
his Grace, ‘rather depends on what you want to talk about.’

‘Oh – I’ll be
dumb, never fear. Though it would be a damned sight easier if I
knew exactly what’s eating you.’

‘What is all
this?’ asked Lord Amberley, laughing. ‘Do you know, Jack?’

‘It looks,’
observed Mr Ingram, ‘rather like a quarrel.’

‘Lord, no!
Nothing of the sort,’ said Harry, seating himself. ‘You have to
talk
to each other for that.’

‘I thought you
were to be dumb?’ enquired Rockliffe sweetly. And then, ‘I suppose
you’ve been to the Portland’s ball?’

‘Yes.’ Having
discovered from Nell that, though his Grace had been uncommonly
angry, he had not spoken of banishment, Harry felt safe in offering
a little provocation. ‘I thought Adeline was in quite her best
looks – didn’t you, Jack?’

Faintly
startled, Jack busied himself pouring wine and wisely said
nothing.

‘Indeed?’ The
Duke’s gaze continued to rest on his lordship while his hand toyed
idly with a pack of cards. ‘Then I am surprised you did not choose
to remain … in order to escort her home.’

Amberley’s
brows rose. ‘
My God
!’ he thought. ‘
If
that’s
what’s in the wind, Harry had
better be very
careful
.’

Harry,
belatedly recognising the expression in the dark, heavy-lidded
eyes, thought so too. Changing tack, he said, ‘And spend another
hour tripping over Diana Franklin every time I turn round? No thank
you! The girl’s like a confounded bloodhound.’

Jack looked up.
‘Serves you right for encouraging her.’

‘Oh – that. It
was only a flirtation, you know. And I never expected to wake up
one morning and find her attached to my shirt-tails. I felt dashed
ridiculous this evening. Anyone would think she didn’t have other
fish to fry.’

‘Perhaps she
hasn’t,’ grinned Amberley. ‘Or none so eligible.’

Harry laughed.
‘Thank you.’

‘I happen to
know,’ said Jack, who had been patiently waiting for the right
opening, ‘that something has occurred to … upset Mistress Di.’

‘Oh?’ asked
Harry. ‘What?’

‘I believe I
can guess.’ Rockliffe gave his peculiar glinting smile. ‘My
felicitations, Jack.’

Mr Ingram
coloured faintly and then laughed.

‘Damn you,
Rock! May a man not even announce his own betrothal?’

‘
Betrothal
?’ Harry sat up straight. ‘You sly dog, Jack!
Never say you’ve done it at last?’

‘Yes. I have.
And thought to surprise you all.’

‘Surprise
Dominic,’ advised the Duke. ‘He’s as much in the dark as you could
possibly wish.’

‘More,’
complained the Marquis. ‘Who is she, Jack?’

‘Althea
Franklin,’ smiled Mr Ingram. ‘The gentlest and most beautiful girl
I ever saw in my life. And also – as Harry is itching to tell you –
the bloodhound’s twin sister.’

The rift
between the Duke and Duchess of Rockliffe showed no sign of mending
… mainly because, with no solid ground to rely on, neither of them
knew where to begin. He was wary of inviting another rebuff; she
was devoured by guilt at her other, more significant deceit. And
the result was a chilly state of impersonal courtesy that
excoriated them both and, in time, gravely concerned their
friends.

At a saner
level beneath his involuntary jealousy, Rockliffe was well aware
where Harry’s heart lay and, although this did not help him in his
dealings with Adeline, it did make it possible for him to tacitly
heal the breach with his lordship.

‘But he made
damned sure I wouldn’t dare ask any awkward questions,’ confided
Harry later to Nell. ‘Gave me the sort of smile you usually see
over a yard of steel and advised me – ever so gently, mind – not to
meddle. Then he showed me his newest snuff-box.’

Nell nodded,
frowning a little.

‘Adeline won’t
discuss it either. She simply looks straight through one and says
something cutting.’

‘Don’t I know
it! But though I daresay the root of it is that they’re both too
stiff-necked to make the first move, it don’t make me feel any
better. For, whichever way you look at it, it’s my fault.’

‘No, it isn’t,’
denied Nell firmly. ‘It’s mine.’

He looked down
at her for a moment and then, smiling, took her hand companionably
in his.

‘All right.
Ours, then. But I still wish Rock would let one of us near
him.’

*

As it happened,
he was not alone in this wish and the next person to try was the
one best equipped to succeed.

‘What’s wrong,
Rock?’ asked the Marquis of Amberley simply one evening over a hand
of picquet. ‘You can’t keep us all at arm’s length forever. And if
you get any more tense, you’ll snap.’

‘I shall
certainly snap if I have to endure any more of this kind of thing –
however well-intentioned it may be,’ came the caustic response.
‘It’s becoming extremely tedious.’

‘Well, there’s
a simple way to avoid further repetitions, isn’t there?’

‘For whose
good? Yours or mine?’

‘Oh for God’s
sake! Do you have to be so bloody difficult? I’m trying to
help!’

‘I’m aware of
it. I’d prefer that you didn’t.’

‘You think
after all the years we’ve known each other I’m just going to leave
it?’

‘Now that
would
be helpful.’

The Marquis
eyed him implacably. ‘What is it? A quarrel you can’t mend?’

‘First Jack and
now you,’ sighed his Grace. ‘Why does everyone think me so
quarrelsome?’

Laying his
cards face down, Amberley leaned back in his chair and fixed his
friend with a direct grey-green stare.

‘It’s no use
playing off your airs with me, Rock. I’m wise to them.’

‘You are also,’
returned the Duke, ‘annoyingly persistent.’

‘That too.’
There was a pause. Then, ‘It
is
Adeline, isn’t it?’

‘And tactless –
and intrusive – and cocksure.’

‘
Isn’t
it
?’

‘
All
right
!’ Releasing a sharp breath of pure irritation, Rockliffe
flung down his cards. ‘All right. It’s Adeline. Are you satisfied
now?’

‘No. Talk to
me.’

‘Why? For the
good of my soul? I really don’t need this, Dominic.’

‘Yes, you do.
You need it very much.’ Amberley met the inimical gaze
unwaveringly. ‘What’s the problem?
Is
it just a quarrel? Or
have you begun to wonder – now that you have her – whether you were
not a little hasty in leaping into wedlock?’

Quite slowly,
the dark eyes filled with bitter amusement and then the Duke said
mockingly, ‘Dear me … how very banal of you, my loved one. I’m
disappointed.’

‘I take it I’m
wrong, then?’

‘You are.
Indeed, I may truthfully say that you were never more so.’

The derisive
quality of Rockliffe’s irony was not lost upon the Marquis. He
considered it for a moment and then, eyes widening with incredulous
realisation, he said, ‘Oh Christ. Are you telling me that, despite
marrying her for just that reason, you’ve still not -- ’

Rockliffe stood
up with a force which almost overset his chair.

‘No. You may
not have noticed … but I have been endeavouring – for the last ten
excruciating minutes – to tell you nothing at all,’ he said.

And walked
out.

*

In her turn and
with rather more success, Adeline fended off a similar approach
from the Marquis’s wife. Then, entirely without pleasure and purely
in order to occupy her mind, she set about planning her promised
party. That it would be narrowly preceded by the most glittering
event of the season bothered her not at all for she was neither
aiming to compete with nor eagerly anticipating the Duchess of
Queensberry’s ball. To her, it was just another interminable
function at which she and Tracy would have to maintain the polite
fiction of not being strangers. And, but for Nell, she would not
even have ordered a new gown.

‘Wear your blue
silk?’ echoed that lady aghast. ‘You can’t! Everyone’s seen
it!’

‘So?’

Nell opened her
mouth, closed it again and took a long, calming breath.

‘You don’t
understand, Adeline. This isn’t any ordinary ball. People sell
their souls for an invitation. And those who get one don’t go in a
gown they’ve worn at least three times before.’

Adeline eyed
her sardonically.

‘That must be a
boon to the mantua-makers. Or does her Grace claim a
percentage?’

‘That,’ said
Nell severely, ‘is not funny. Now … will you please stop arguing
and come with me to Phanie’s? Or do you want Rock to be ashamed of
you?’

And that, of
course, was not only unanswerable but also responsible for Adeline
choosing to buy the exquisite but criminally expensive peacock
shot-silk.

*

For almost a
week, nothing much changed.

Congratulations
poured in upon Jack and Althea; Diana fermented with jealous rage
even before she’d been forced to put up with Cecily Garfield’s
spurious sympathy; and Harry, finding himself suddenly under hot
pursuit, took to lurking in lonely antechambers – as often as not,
with Nell. Rockliffe, meanwhile, remained scrupulously polite to
Adeline in public and equally scrupulous in avoiding her at home …
and Adeline, drowning in an ever-deepening well of misery, tried to
comfort herself with the view that matters could not possibly get
any worse.

Then several
things happened at once.

It was the
evening of Lady Lacey’s rout-party and, for Adeline at least, the
auspices were bad from the moment she came downstairs to find that
she had misjudged her timing and arrived before Nell. His Grace,
formidable in bronze watered-silk with gold lacing, accorded her
the most elaborate of bows and then proceeded to conduct a
leisurely head-to-foot appraisal.

Adeline set her
teeth, aware that he was being deliberately provoking. Finally, he
said languidly, ‘You look charming, my dear – as always. And you
are wearing the aquamarine set, I see. How delightful! They remind
me so irresistibly of our wedding-night, you know … and, if it was
not plainly a silly question, I am almost tempted to ask what they
remind
you
of.’ He smiled blandly and then, looking past
her, ‘Ah – Nell. At last. Perhaps now we can go?’

After such a
beginning, Adeline’s expectations for the evening ahead were
naturally low – but not, as it transpired, low enough. At the very
first opportunity, Richard Horton materialised at her side and
purringly demanded another five hundred guineas.

Adeline’s skin
turned clammily cold and there was a distant roaring in her ears.
Willing herself not to faint, she said baldly, ‘No. I can’t go on
with this.’

‘As I see it,
you’re in too deep to do anything else,’ came the smooth reply.
‘And with your noble husband somewhat less than attentive these
days, I’d say it was a little late to confess all and throw
yourself on his mercy – wouldn’t you? Then again … if you daren’t
tell him yourself, you can’t afford to have
me
do so, can
you?’

She stared at
him, racked with nausea. And then, unevenly, ‘You think you have it
all worked out.’

‘And have I
not?’ He smiled again, reading the answer in her face. ‘Five
hundred, Adeline … in time for the Queensberry ball, shall we
say?’

She continued
to gaze defeatedly at him until, from somewhere inside her, she
found enough energy to say, ‘If – if I agree to give you the money,
it will be for the last time. And I want my mother’s letter.’

Richard laughed
softly.

‘All in good
time. Bring me the money … and then we’ll see.’ Upon which he
strolled unconcernedly away.

From a position
just out of earshot yet close enough to study Adeline’s face, Jack
Ingram watched with increasing grimness. Then, crossing to her side
and registering the helpless blankness of her expression, he said
quietly, ‘Come with me. You look ready to collapse – and you can’t
do it here.’

Unresistingly,
she let him lead her to a curtained alcove and press her gently
down on a small sofa. With growing concern, Jack thought she
resembled nothing so much as a glassy-eyed doll. He said, ‘Adeline,
my dear – what is it? What did he say to you?’

‘He wants five
hundred guineas,’ came the courteous, mechanical response. And
then, as if the mere effort of speaking had jerked her from the
lethargy, the blankness vanished and, drawing a ragged breath, she
said, ‘Oh God. Forget I said it.’

The grey eyes
narrowed and it was a moment before he replied. Then he said
reasonably, ‘Did I not suspect that it’s not the first time, I
might perhaps try. As it is, I don’t think I can.’ He paused
briefly. ‘This is it, isn’t it? The reason you tried to win money
at cards rather than ask Rock for it?’

She gripped her
hands tightly together to prevent them from shaking and bent her
head over them, saying nothing.

‘Adeline … you
can’t go on dealing with this yourself. You need help.’ Again, Jack
waited in vain for a reply and finally, when none was forthcoming,
‘What exactly is Horton threatening you with?’

A tremor ran
through her and very slowly she raised her head to look bleakly
back at him.

‘The skeleton
in the family cupboard,’ she said, ‘Only, ironically enough, the
whole problem is that there isn’t one.’

Jack blinked
and sat down beside her.