The Convenient Marriage (15 page)

He laughed, and caught her hands, pulling her towards him. ‘Horry, shall we consign Louisa to the devil?’ he suggested.

‘N-no, I must go,’ Horatia answered, suddenly shy. ‘B-besides, she hasn’t seen my landaulet!’

The landaulet, the possession of which was enough to set any lady in the forefront of fashion, was glitteringly bright and new, having only just come from the coach-maker. Lady Louisa duly admired it, pronounced it to be extremely comfortable, and was so obliging as to say that she had not in the least minded being kept waiting over half an hour. Since she had shopping to do in Bond Street the coachman was instructed to drive there first, and the two ladies leaned back against the cushions and embarked on a discussion concerning the proper kind of ribbons to wear with a ball dress of green Italian taffeta for which Lady Louisa had just purchased two ells of stuff. By the time the rival merits of ribbons à l’instant, à l’attention, au soupir de Vénus, and a great many others had been fully weighed, the carriage drew up outside a fashionable milliner’s, and the ladies went in to select a branch of artificial flowers which Lady Louisa hoped to make bearable a hat she had bought two days ago, and quite detested already.

It was naturally impossible for Horatia to visit a milliner without purchasing something on her own account, so when the flowers had been selected, she tried on a number of hats, and bought finally an enormous confection composed chiefly of stiff muslin in Trianon grey, which was labelled, not without reason, ‘Grandes Prétentions’. There was a collet monté gauze scarf in the same delectable shade of grey, so she bought that as well. A cap à la glaneuse caught her eye as she was about to leave the shop, but she decided not to add that to her purchases, Lady Louisa having had the presence of mind to declare that it made her look rather prim.

Horatia was just a little nervous of her sister-in-law, whom she suspected of disapproving of her, but Lady Louisa was behaving quite delightfully, and had not suggested by so much as a look that she thought it extravagant of Horry to buy that hat. She had even said that it was ravishing, so when they stepped into the landaulet again Horatia was feeling more friendly towards Louisa than she ever remembered to have felt before.

This was precisely what Lady Louisa wanted. As the carriage moved forward she pointed her furled sunshade at the coachman’s back, and said: ‘My dear, how much does he hear of what one says?’

‘Oh, n-nothing!’ Horatia assured her. ‘He is very d-deaf, you know. D-didn’t you notice how I have to shout at him?’

‘I fear it would take me an age to grow used to an open carriage,’ sighed Lady Louisa. ‘But if he is really deaf – my dear, there was something I wanted to say to you. That is – no, I don’t want to say it at all, but I think I ought to, for I know Rule never would.’

Horatia’s smile faded. ‘Indeed?’ she said.

‘I detest people who interfere,’ said her ladyship hastily, ‘but I do feel you have a right to know why you shouldn’t admit Lord Lethbridge to your friendship.’

‘I am aware, L-Louisa,’ said Horatia stiffly. ‘His r-reputation –’

‘It isn’t that, my love. Only he, and Rule, and I know, and Rule won’t tell you because he’d never give me away bless him!’

Horatia turned, round-eyed. ‘G-give you away, Louisa?’

Lady Louisa sank her voice to a confidential murmur, and started bravely to tell her sister-in-law just what had happened in a mad spring-tide seven years ago.

At about the same moment that Lady Louisa was engaged laying bare her past history for Horatia’s inspection, Lord Lethbridge was being admitted into a house in Hertford Street. Declining the footman’s escort he walked up the stairs to the saloon overlooking the street, where Lady Massey was impatiently awaiting him.

‘Well, my dear,’ he said, closing the door behind him. ‘I am flattered of course, but why am I summoned so urgently?’

Lady Massey was staring out of the window but she wheeled about. ‘You had my billet?’

He raised his brows: ‘If I had not, Caroline, I should not be here now,’ he said. ‘It is not my practice to pay morning calls.’ He put up his glass and critically surveyed her through it. ‘Allow me to tell you, my cherished one, that you are looking something less than your usual incomparable self. Now what can be amiss?’

She took a step towards him. ‘Robert, what happened at Ranelagh last night,’ she shot at him.

His thin fingers tightened perceptibly about the shaft of his quizzing glass, his eyes, narrowed to mere slits, stared across at her. ‘At Ranelagh…’ he repeated. ‘Well?’

‘Oh, I was there!’ she replied. ‘I heard you speak to that little fool. You went into the pavilion. What happened then?’

He had let his glass fall and drawn a snuff-box from his pocket. He tapped it with one finger and opened it. ‘And pray what is that to you, Caroline?’ he asked.

‘Someone said a Scarlet Domino had gone into the smallest card-room. I saw no one there. I went out on to the terrace. I saw – you, as I thought – cut one of the bride’s curls off – oh, that doesn’t signify now! She ran out and I went in.’ She stopped, pressing her handkerchief to her lips. ‘My God, it was Rule!’ she said.

Lord Lethbridge took a pinch of snuff, shook away the residue, and raised the pinch first to one nostril, then to the other. ‘How very disconcerting for you, my love!’ he said blandly. ‘I’m sure you betrayed yourself.’

She shuddered. ‘I thought it was you. I said – it makes no odds what I said. Then he took off his mask. I was near to swooning.’

Lord Lethbridge shut the snuff-box and dusted his ruffles. ‘Very entertaining, Caroline. And I hope it will be a lesson to you not to interfere in my affairs. How I wish I had seen you!’

She reddened angrily, and moved towards a chair. ‘You were always spiteful, Robert. But you were at Ranelagh last night, and you wore that scarlet domino. I tell you I saw no other there!’

‘There was no other,’ replied Lethbridge coolly. He smiled, not very pleasantly. ‘What an instructive evening our dear Rule must have spent! And what a fool you are, Caroline! Pray, what did you say to him?’

‘It’s no matter,’ she said sharply. ‘Perhaps you lent him your domino? It would be so like you!’

‘Now there you are wrong,’ he replied with great affability. ‘It would not be in the least like me. That domino was wrested from me.’

Her lips curled. ‘You permitted it? You let him take your place with the girl? That is not very probable!’

‘I had no choice in the matter,’ he said. ‘I was eliminated in the neatest possible way. Yes, I said “eliminated,” Caroline.’

‘You take it very calmly!’ she remarked.

‘Naturally,’ he replied. ‘Did you suppose I should gnash my teeth?’

She plucked at the folds of her gown. ‘Well, are you satisfied? Do you mean to be done with the bride? Is it all over?’

‘As far as you are concerned, my dear, I should imagine that it is certainly all over,’ he said reflectively. ‘Not, of course, that I was privileged to witness your meeting with Rule. But I can guess. I am quite acute, you know.’

She abandoned the sarcastic attitude she had adopted, and stretched out her hand. ‘Oh, Robert, can you not see that I am upset?’

‘Easily,’ he answered. ‘So are my plans upset, but I don’t permit that to put me in a taking.’

She looked at him, wondering. He had an alert air, his eyes were bright and smiling. No, he was not one to give way to unprofitable emotion. ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked. ‘If Rule means to stop the girl –’

He snapped his fingers. ‘I said my plans were upset. I believe it to be quite true.’

‘You don’t seem to care,’ she remarked.

‘There are always more plans to be made,’ he said. ‘Not for you,’ he added kindly. ‘You may as well make up your mind to that. I am really distressed for you, my dear. Rule must have been so useful.’ He eyed her for a moment, and his smile broadened. ‘Oh, did you love him, Caroline? That was unwise of you.’

She got up. ‘You’re abominable, Robert,’ she said. ‘I must see him. I must make him see me.’

‘Do, by all means,’ Lethbridge said cordially. ‘I wish you may plague him to death; he would dislike that. But you won’t get him back, my poor dear. Very well do I know Rule. Would you like to see him humbled? I promise you you shall.’

She walked away to the window. ‘No,’ she said indifferently.

‘Odd!’ he commented. ‘I assure you, with me it has become quite an obsession.’ He came towards her. ‘You are not very good company today, Caroline. I shall take my leave of you. Do make Rule a scene and then I will come to see you again, and you shall tell me all about it.’ He picked up her hand and kissed it. ‘Au revoir, my love!’ he said sweetly, and went out humming a little tune under his breath.

He was on his way home to Half-Moon Street when my Lady Rule’s landaulet turned a corner of the road and came at a smart pace towards him. Horatia, seated alone now, saw him at once, and seemed undecided. Lethbridge swept off his hat and stood waiting for the carriage to draw up.

Something in that calm assumption that she would order her coachman to stop appealed to Horatia. She gave the necessary command and the landaulet came to a standstill beside Lethbridge.

One look at her was enough to assure Lethbridge that she knew just what had happened at Ranelagh. The grey eyes held a gleam of amusement. It annoyed him but he would not let that appear.

‘Alas, the jealous husband came off with the honours!’ he said.

‘He w-was clever, wasn’t he?’ Horatia agreed.

‘But inspired!’ Lethbridge said. ‘My damp fate was particularly apt. Make him my compliments, I beg of you. I was certainly caught napping.’

She thought that he was taking his humiliating defeat very well, and replied a little more warmly: ‘We were b-both caught napping, and p-perhaps it was as well, sir.’

‘I blame myself,’ he said meditatively. ‘Yet I don’t know how I could have guessed… If I had but been aware of Caroline Massey’s presence I might have been more on my guard.’

The arrow struck home as he knew it would. Horatia sat up very straight. ‘Lady Massey?’

‘Oh, did you not see her? No, I suppose not. It seems that she and Rule laid their heads together to plan our undoing. We must admit they succeeded admirably.’

‘It’s n-not t-true!’ Horatia stammered.

‘But –’ He broke off artistically, and bowed. ‘Why, of course not, ma’am!’

She stared fiercely at him. ‘Why did you say that?’

‘My dear, I beg a thousand pardons! Don’t give it another thought! Depend upon it, it was no such thing.’

‘Who told you?’ she demanded.

‘No one told me,’ he said soothingly. ‘I merely thought that the fair lady knew a vast deal of what happened last night. But I am sure I was wrong.’

‘You w-were wrong!’ she said. ‘I shall ask R-Rule!’

He smiled. ‘An excellent notion, ma’am, if it will set your mind at rest.’

She said rather pathetically: ‘You do think he will say it was n-nonsense, don’t you?’

‘I am quite sure he will,’ said Lethbridge, laughing, and stood back to allow the coachman to drive on.

He flattered himself he was an adept at shooting tiny poisonous shafts; certainly that one had gone home. While she assured herself it was a lie Horatia could not help remembering, first Lady Massey’s cruel little smile, and second, Rule’s own words: She did indeed know. And of course now Lethbridge had put her in mind of it she realized that whether the tale was true or not Rule would be bound to deny it. She did not believe it, no, but she could not help thinking about it. She could not rid herself of the idea that as a rival to the beautiful Lady Massey she stood no chance of success. Crosby Drelincourt had been the first to tell her in his oblique fashion that Lady Massey was Rule’s mistress, but it was to Theresa Maulfrey that she was indebted for further information. Mrs Maulfrey had never liked her young cousin very much, but she had made a determined attempt to cultivate her friendship as soon as she became a Countess. Unfortunately, Horatia had no more liking for Theresa than Theresa had for her, and perfectly understood the meaning of that lady’s sudden amiability. As Charlotte had so shrewdly guessed, Mrs Maulfrey had tried to patronize Horatia and when the gay Countess showed plainly that she stood in no need of patronage she had found herself quite unable to resist the temptation of saying a great many spiteful things. On the subject of Rule and his loves she spoke as a woman of the world, and as such carried weight. Horatia was left with the impression that Rule had been for years the Massey’s slave. And, as Mrs Maulfrey so sapiently remarked, a man did not change his mode of life for a chit in her teens. Mrs Maulfrey spoke of him admiringly as an accomplished lover: Horatia had no notion of swelling the ranks of his conquests. She supposed – for gentlemen were known to be strange in these matters – that he would be quite capable of making love to his wife in the interval between dalliance with widows and opera-dancers. However, since she had married him on the tacit understanding that he might amuse himself as he pleased, she could hardly object now.

So the Earl of Rule, setting out to woo his young wife, found her polite, always gay, but extremely elusive. She treated him in the friendliest way possible – rather, he thought ruefully, as she might treat an indulgent father.

Lady Louisa, considering that the state of affairs was unsatisfactory, took him roundly to task. ‘Don’t tell me!’ she said. ‘You’re in a fair way to doting on that child! Lord, I’m out of all patience with you! Why don’t you make her love you? You seem to be able to do it with any other misguided female, though why I don’t know!’

‘Ah!’ said the Earl. ‘But then you are only my sister, Louisa.’

‘And don’t try to turn it off!’ said Lady Louisa wrathfully. ‘Make love to the girl! Gracious heaven, why isn’t she in love with you?’

‘Because,’ said the Earl slowly, ‘I am too old for her.’

‘Stuff and fiddle!’ snapped her ladyship.

When the Earl went down to Meering a week later he suggested that Horatia should accompany him. Perhaps if Lady Massey had not chosen the previous evening to throw herself in his way Horatia might have wished for nothing better. But Rule and she had gone to Vauxhall Gardens with a snug party of their own contriving, and Lady Massey had gone there also.

It had all been mighty pleasant until after supper. There was music and dancing and everything had been very gay, the supper excellent and the Earl an ideal husband and host. And then it had all gone awry, for when she had tripped off with Mr Dashwood, and Pelham, and Miss Lloyd to look at the cascade, Rule too had left the box and wandered over to greet some friends. Horatia had seen him strolling down one of the paths with Sir Harry Topham, a racing crony. Twenty minutes later she had seen him again, but not with Sir Harry. He was in the Lover’s Walk (which made it worse) and standing very close to him and looking up at him in the most melting way was Lady Massey. Even as Horatia caught sight of them the Massey put up her hands to Rule’s shoulders.

Horatia had whisked round and declared her intention of walking down quite another path. Miss Lloyd and Pelham had fallen behind; probably Mr Dashwood had not observed the Earl. She had him away from the fatal spot in a trice so that she did not see her husband remove Lady Massey’s hands from his shoulders.

No one could have been in greater spirits than my Lady Rule for the rest of that horrid evening. Several people remarked on it, and Mr Dashwood thought her more entrancing than ever.

But when Rule visited her room next morning and sat down on the edge of her bed while she drank her chocolate he found her in a wayward mood. Go to Meering? Oh, no, she could not! Why, she had a hundred engagements and it would be dreadfully dull in the country.

‘That is not very complimentary of you,’ Rule said, half smiling.

‘Well, but Rule, you are only g-going for a week, I daresay, and think how tiresome to pack for such a short stay! Of c-course I shall come with you after the Newmarket m-meeting, if we d-don’t go to Bath.’

‘I would very much rather you come with me now, Horry.’

‘Very w-well,’ Horatia said, in the voice of a martyr. ‘If you say I m-must, I will.’

He got up. ‘Heaven forbid, my dear!’

‘R-Rule, if you feel cross about it, please tell me! I d-don’t want to be a b-bad wife.’

‘Do I look cross?’ he inquired.

‘N-no, but I never can tell what you think by l-looking at you,’ said Horatia candidly.

He laughed. ‘Poor Horry, it must be very difficult for you. Stay in town, my dear. You are probably quite right. Arnold will make me attend to business at Meering.’ He put a finger under her chin, and tilted it up. ‘Don’t game all my fortune away while I am gone, will you?’ he said teasingly.

‘No, of c-course not. I will be very g-good. And you need not be afraid that I shall encourage Lord Lethbridge, for Louisa told me all about him and I quite see that I m-mustn’t know him.’

‘I am not afraid of that,’ he answered, and bent and kissed her.