Miss Darby's Duenna (13 page)

When the clock chimed the dreaded hour of eleven with no sign of Sir Harry, Olivia found that the oppressive heat matched the oppression of her spirits. She did stand up when solicited, although with such a lack of interest that her would-be partners soon sought the company of more willing ladies. Far from being offended, Olivia was content to sit beside her chaperone, searching the crush in the forlorn hope that Sir Harry had somehow slipped in without her having seen him, and might at any moment separate himself from the crowd and come in search of her.

When it became increasingly obvious that this joyous event would not take place, she sank even deeper into the dismals. Why should Harry beg to dance with the fiancée who had struck him in anger only twenty-four hours earlier? Or did he still consider her his fiancée at all? Perhaps he would wish to cry off. At this point, logic overcame melancholy. Sir Harry was too much the gentleman to do anything so shabby but, perhaps worse, he might
wish
he could. Olivia knew she should set him free rather than trap him in a marriage he no longer wanted, but doubted she possessed the strength to follow a course of action so opposed to her own desires.

As the night progressed, the ladies’ faces grew shinier and the gentlemen’s cravats wilted. Georgina’s latest partner, a ruddy-faced young gentleman whose once-magnificent shirtpoints now sagged against his neck, mopped his face with his handkerchief while Georgina, her red hair curling riotously from the heat, excused herself to the powder room for the same purpose. Olivia plied her fan with renewed vigor, then, turning to make some idle remark to her chaperone, noticed Lady Hawthorne’s hands trembling.

“Are you much bothered by the heat, my lady?” she asked. “Shall I fetch you some lemonade?”

Sir Harry, who under normal circumstances would have spurned such an insipid drink, was in no condition to refuse. “If you please,” he rasped.

Olivia did not hesitate. She made her way to the refreshment room as quickly as possible, given the crowds, and at last returned bearing a glass of the pale liquid,
sans
ice.

“It is not very cool, I’m afraid,” she said by way of apology, offering this dubious refreshment to the dowager.

“Quite all right,” said the
faux
Lady Hawthorne, accepting the offering and raising it gratefully to her lips. As her head tilted upwards, Olivia noticed that the jaunty ostrich plume which had curled over Lady Hawthorne’s left temple now drooped against her ear. The heavy powder and rouge favored by so many of Lady Hawthorne’s generation had long since melted away, revealing the dowager’s bare cheek—which bore the unmistakable imprint of a lady’s hand.

If Olivia had still been holding the glass of lemonade, it surely would have slipped from her nerveless fingers and crashed to the floor. Her chaperone, Lady Hawthorne, and her fiancé, Sir Harry Hawthorne, whom she had slapped at Vauxhall Gardens a scant twenty-four hours earlier, were one and the same.

Olivia stared at the beloved, familiar features beneath the curled and powdered wig. How could she not have seen it? Of course, she had never actually met the real Lady Hawthorne, although a very fine Romney portrait over the fireplace in the drawing room at Hawthorne Grange revealed a tall, mannish woman with a marked resemblance to Harry, who did look quite different without his sidewhiskers. Still, she of all people, who had loved him from her earliest childhood, should have recognized him through any disguise.

“I beg your pardon, Miss Darby,” Lord Mannerly’s voice, smooth as satin, cut through her thoughts, “but I believe the next dance is mine.”

She blinked at the marquess like one awakening from a particularly vivid dream. At that moment she could have cheerfully wished him to the devil, along with all the swirling, sweating dancers and the musicians whose strident fiddles grated painfully on her taut nerves. But one dared not make a scene at Almack’s, so there was nothing Olivia could do but place her hand on his proffered arm and, with one last helpless glance at Sir Harry, allow the marquess to lead her into the set.

The movements of the dance prevented conversation, for which Olivia was profoundly thankful. Still, the intricate figures were not sufficient to occupy her mind. What had possessed Harry to attempt such a masquerade, and had he any notion of the risk he was running? Did he not realize that if he were discovered, the ensuing scandal would mean ruin? Powerless to demand answers of Sir Harry, she could only watch him helplessly as the questions spun around and around in her brain, faster and faster, turning in upon one another in a dance more convoluted than the cotillion ever was.

Her frequent, furtive glances at her duenna were not lost on her partner. “Something has happened to distress you, Miss Darby,” Lord Mannerly observed, when the figures of the dance brought them back together. “What is it, if I may be so bold?”

Olivia shook her head. “ ‘Tis nothing, my lord, I assure you.”

“Are you quite certain? You look a bit pale.”

“How very ungentlemanly of you to say so,” replied Olivia, forcing a smile. “Since you will have it, I confess I feel a bit faint, but I daresay it is only the heat. It will soon pass, I am sure.”

“Perhaps, but you will no doubt feel better for a bit of privacy.”

Brooking no argument, he took her elbow and led her from the floor. Their departure in the middle of a dance, which would have raised eyebrows under normal circumstances, was on this occasion scarcely remarked at all, several other ladies of delicate constitution having already succumbed to the heat and made similar exits. Having reached a small antechamber along the wall, Lord Mannerly drew back the heavy curtain and ushered Olivia within. After seating her on a chair, he took the fan which hung from a satin cord about her wrist and began to waft it gently to and fro.

“Thank you, my lord,” she said with a grateful sigh. “I feel better already. If you will bring Lady Hawthorne to me, I would be much obliged.”

“I am, of course, yours to command, but I am reluctant to leave you alone, my dear,” said the marquess smoothly, regarding Olivia through narrowed eyes. “I am sure it must be most distressing to learn that one’s affianced husband has been capering about London in the guise of a woman.”

Chapter Eleven

The devil is a gentleman.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY,

Peter Bell the Third

Olivia’s abrupt departure with Lord Mannerly had not gone unnoticed by Sir Harry. Indeed, as he watched the marquess sweep Olivia into the secluded alcove, his eyebrows drew together in a frown, and his mouth assumed a hard, taut line. Claiming his prerogative as both her chaperone and her affianced bridegroom, he rose from his chair and made his way toward the antechamber as quickly as was possible in the evening slippers which pinched his toes quite painfully.

He was perhaps halfway to his goal when he heard himself (or rather, his grandmother) hailed with some urgency. Turning, he beheld a breathless Colonel Gubbins bearing down upon him, his corsets creaking with every step.

“My dear Lady Hawthorne,” panted this worthy, mopping his brow with a large and decidedly damp handkerchief. “How delightful to see you here!”

“Likewise, I’m sure,” replied his object, retreating before the gallant’s advance. “Now, if you will please excuse me—”

“Oh, cruel!” cried the Colonel, drawing the dowager’s gloved hand through the crook of his arm. “Can you not spare one moment for an old friend?”

Sir Harry would have hastened his retreat, but found it prevented by the colonel’s grip on his hand. “I am very busy, Colonel. My charges, you know—”

“Are they such hurly-burly females that you must watch them every minute? I’ll not believe such a thing, not with you, my lady, for their example!”

“You are too kind—”

“And you, alas, are unkindness itself! But mere maidenly modesty will not—cannot!—deter me. My feelings are too powerful. I must persevere!”

In a tactical maneuver which Lord Mannerly might have envied, the military man steered the hapless Sir Harry into a nearby antechamber. There, to his dismay, he found his hand released, but only so that the colonel might take his inamorata into his arms.

“But say you will be mine, and I will be a happy man!” declared the colonel.

“Colonel Gubbins, I must insist—!” cried Sir Harry in real alarm, struggling to free himself.

“Don’t try to fight it, my dear. This is bigger than the both of us!”

“Colonel, please!”

But his protests fell on deaf ears. Puckering his lips and squeezing his eyes shut, Colonel Gubbins leaned forward with every intention of stealing a kiss from his lady fair.  In the nick of time, Sir Harry remembered the heavy brass paperweight he had carried in his reticule ever since his brush with London’s criminal element.

“Forgive me, Colonel, for what I am about to do,” said Sir Harry.

And with a strength born of desperation, he wrested free of the larger man’s grasp and, swinging his reticule by its silken cords, landed a blow to the colonel’s ear.

“There!” pronounced Sir Harry with no small satisfaction, as the stunned colonel staggered back against the wall, clutching his injured auricle. “Perhaps that will teach you not to force unwelcome advances onto a lady!”

And sweeping the curtain aside, he quitted the chamber with great dignity.

* * * *

Olivia’s eyes opened wide. Suddenly, in spite of the stifling heat, she felt chilled. “I—I beg your pardon?”

“But I am speaking of Sir Harry, of course. Tell me. Miss Darby, when did you learn his secret? I confess my suspicions were aroused that night at Covent Garden, but I did not discover the whole truth until last night, when I watched your enterprising bridegroom enter his town house through an upper-story window.”

Olivia rose with a jerk. “I—I haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about, my lord.”

“Oh, but I think you do.”

“Nonsense! Why would anyone pull such a preposterous stunt?”

“Perhaps for love of a lady?” suggested the marquess. “A lady whom he was afraid of losing to another?”

In spite of her predicament, something akin to joy pierced the veil of Olivia’s fear and misery. If Harry had taken such a foolish risk for her sake, he must love her more than she had ever dreamed possible. If only it were not too late! For his sake, and for the sake of their future, she must keep a cool head.

“I think you are being most unkind to poor Lady Hawthorne,” she informed the marquess with surprising calm. “I will own, she looks somewhat hag-ridden tonight, but she became quite ill last night at Vauxhall.”

Lord Mannerly remained unmoved. “Sir Harry is certainly ill, Miss Darby, but I can assure you the damage was done at White’s, not Vauxhall—as any number of gentlemen can attest, should you be so indiscreet as to make inquiries.”

Having failed to convince the marquess with one argument, Olivia tried another. “Tell me, my lord, if you are so convinced that I am aware of this—this so-called charade, why do you find it necessary to bring it to my attention?”

“All in good time, my dear. Your obvious distress suggests that you are aware of the consequences Sir Harry will face should the
ton
learn of his folly. He would, of course, be ruined, to say nothing of the damage to your own reputation if it should become known that you are residing under the same roof.  Miss Hawthorne, pious though she undoubtedly is, could hardly be considered an adequate chaperone.”

In spite of her fears, Olivia’s chin rose, and she looked the marquess squarely in the eye. “Am I to understand, sir, that you intend to make Harry’s—indiscretions—public?”

The look Mannerly gave her was one of wounded innocence. “You misjudge me, my dear. I only seek to offer you the opportunity to, shall we say, safeguard Sir Harry’s interests.”

“If blackmail is your intention, my lord, you must know that you already possess more wealth than Harry or I could ever hope to give you!”

“No, no! Nothing so crass, my dear. I simply offer you an exchange: my silence for your virtue.”

“What?”
cried Olivia, aghast.

“Ah, we begin to understand one another. Good! The whole thing is quite simple, really. One brief assignation, after which you will be free to return to your own home, where you may marry your baronet before anyone, including Sir Harry, is the wiser. As for myself, I will consider the matter forgotten.”

“But—but this is monstrous!”

“Monstrous? Spare me the Cheltenham tragedies, I beg you! You might even find it quite enjoyable. At any rate, ‘tis Hobson’s choice for you, my dear. If you are to preserve your reputation, you must sacrifice your virtue. Ironic, is it not? Naturally, I understand such a momentous decision cannot be made on impulse. I will give you until tomorrow afternoon to consider. Then we shall meet at Kensington Gardens at, say, three o’clock. There you may give me your answer.”

Without awaiting a reply (which Olivia could not have uttered, at any rate), Mannerly strode to the curtain and grasped its velvet folds, then paused and turned back.

“By the bye, I should not mention any of this to Sir Harry, if I were you. Things might be the worse for him if you do.”

Then he was gone. Sunk in despair, Olivia collapsed onto her chair and buried her face in her hands. And it was here, a short time later, that Sir Harry found her.

“Miss Darby?” He peered through the curtains and, seeing Olivia’s grief-stricken countenance, momentarily forgot his alter ego. Crossing the small chamber in two strides, he dropped to one knee before her chair and seized her by the shoulders. “Livvy! Whatever is the matter?”

His unconscious use of the childhood nickname almost proved more than Olivia could bear, but remembering Lord Mannerly’s parting shot, she pulled herself together with an effort. “ ‘Tis nothing but a foolish megrim, Har—my lady,” she assured him. “But, pray, would you mind very much taking me home?”

“Of course not!” he said, giving her a measured look which she knew not quite how to interpret. “Only wait here while I find Georgina.”

If the trio which set had out from Curzon Street earlier that evening had been subdued, the one that returned was positively morose. Even Georgina had succumbed to the combination of stifling heat and vigorous exercise, her low spirits exacerbated, no doubt, by the disappointing behavior of Lord Mannerly, who had arrived at Almack’s just before eleven, danced a single dance with Olivia, and quitted the Assembly Rooms almost immediately upon escorting her from the floor. Although she bore her future sister-in-law no ill will, she would have thought Olivia would agree that one admirer per lady was a suitably even distribution.