The Convenient Marriage (16 page)

So the Earl of Rule went away to Meering accompanied only by Mr Gisborne, while his wife stayed in London and tried to convince herself that she did not miss him at all. If she was not successful in this, at least nobody could have suspected it from her demeanour. Since the big house in Grosvenor Square seemed unbearably empty without his lordship Horatia spent as much of her time as she could away from it. No one meeting her at all the card-parties, routs, drums, and picnics that she attended could have supposed her to be pining most unfashionably for her own husband. In fact, her sister Charlotte said severely that her frivolity was excessively unbecoming.

Lord Lethbridge she had no difficulty in keeping at arm’s length. They naturally met at a great many parties, but his lordship, finding Horatia was civil but very formal, seemed to accept with equanimity his relegation to the ranks of her merest acquaintance and made no attempt to win her over again. Horatia put him out of her life without much regret. Glamour might still have clung to a rakehell who abducted noble damsels, but no glamour remained about a man who had been pushed into a pond in full ball-dress. Horatia, sorry only that she never had played cards with him, discarded him without a pang, and proceeded to forget about him.

She was succeeding admirably when he forced himself on her notice again in a manner as unexpected as it was outrageous.

A charming entertainment was held at Richmond House, with dancing and fireworks. Never was there so elegantly contrived a party. The gardens were brightly illuminated, supper spread in the apartments, and the fireworks let off from a platform of barges anchored in the river to the admiration of the guests and all the unbidden spectators who crowded every nearby house. At midnight a shower of rain came, but since by that time all the fireworks had been finished, it could not be thought to signify, and the guests retired to the ballroom for the dancing.

Horatia left the party early. It had been pretty to see the fireworks, but she found that she did not care to dance. For this a new pair of diamond-embroidered shoes was partly responsible. They pinched her abominably, and nothing, she discovered, could so effectually ruin one’s enjoyment as an uncomfortable shoe. Her coach was called for shortly after twelve, and resisting all the entreaties of Mr Dashwood, she departed.

She decided she must have attended too many balls, for certainly she had found this one almost tedious. It was really very difficult to dance and chatter gaily when one was all the time wondering what a large, sleepily smiling gentleman was doing miles away in Berkshire. It was apt to make one distraite, and to give one a headache. She leaned back in the corner of the coach and closed her eyes. Rule was not coming back for a week. What if one were to take him by surprise, and drive down to Meering the very next day? No, of course one could not do any such thing… she would send these shoes back to the makers, and let them make her another pair. The coiffeur too – really, he had dressed her head abominably; there were dozens of pins sticking into her scalp, and the wretch should have known that the Quésaco style did not become her at all. All those heavy plumes bunched up made her look forty if she was a day. And as for the new Serkis rouge Miss Lloyd had induced her to use, it was the horridest stuff in the world, and so she would tell Miss Lloyd the very next time she saw her.

The coach drew up and she opened her eyes with a start. It was raining quite fast now, and the footman was holding an umbrella to protect his mistress’s finery. The rain seemed to have extinguished the flambeaux that always burned in iron brackets at the foot of the steps leading up to the front door. It was quite dark, the clouds obscuring what had been a fine moon.

Horatia drew her cloak, an affair of white taffeta with a collar of puffed muslin, tightly round her, and holding her skirts up in one hand, stepped down on to the wet pavement. The footman held the umbrella well over her, and she sped quickly up the steps to the open door.

In her hurry she was over the threshold before she realized her mistake. She gave a gasp and stared round her. She was standing in a narrow hall-way, not in her own house, nor any like it, and the lackey, even now in the act of shutting the door, was no servant of Rule’s.

She turned quickly. ‘There is a m-mistake,’ she said. ‘Open the d-door, please!’

A step sounded behind her; she looked over her shoulder and saw Lord Lethbridge.

‘A thousand welcomes, my lady!’ Lethbridge said, and flung open the door of the saloon. ‘Pray enter!’

She stood perfectly still, dawning anger struggling with the bewilderment in her face. ‘I don’t understand!’ she said. ‘What does this m-mean, sir?’

‘Why, I will tell you, ma’am, but pray come in!’ Lethbridge said.

She was aware of the silent lackey behind her; one could not make a scene before servants. After a moment’s hesitation she walked forward, and into the saloon.

It was lit by a great many candles, and at one end of the room a table was laid with a cold supper. Horatia frowned. ‘If you are giving a p-party, sir, I assure you I was not invited, and d-don’t mean to stay,’ she announced.

‘It is not a party,’ he replied, shutting the door. ‘It’s for you and me, my dear.’

‘You must be mad!’ said Horatia, gazing at him in perplexity. ‘Of c-course I would never c-come to supper with you alone! If you asked me, I vow I never knew of it, and I c-can’t imagine why my coachman set me down here.’

‘I didn’t ask you, Horry. I planned it as a little surprise for you.’

‘Then it was a great piece of impertinence!’ said Horatia. ‘I suppose you b-bribed my coachman? Well, you may escort me out to the coach again, sir, at once!’

He laughed. ‘Your coach, my dear, has gone, and your coachman and groom are lying under a table in a tavern off Whitehall. My own men conveyed you here. Now, do you not agree that I planned it very neatly?’

Wrath blazed in Horatia’s eyes. ‘I think it was m-monstrous of you!’ she said. ‘Do you m-mean to tell me you had the audacity to overpower my servants?’

‘Oh, no!’ he answered lightly. ‘That would have been unnecessarily violent. While you were at Richmond House, my love, what more natural than that the honest fellows should refresh themselves at the nearest tavern?’

‘I d-don’t believe it!’ snapped Horatia. ‘You d-don’t know much of Rule if you think he keeps a coachman who gets d-drunk! You m-must have had him set upon, and I shall send for a c-constable in the morning and tell him! Then perhaps you will be sorry!’

‘I expect I should be,’ agreed Lethbridge. ‘But do you think the constable would believe that one tankard of beer apiece could have so disastrous effect on your servants? For you see, I didn’t have them overpowered quite as you think.’

‘D-drugged!’ Horatia cried hotly.

‘Precisely,’ smiled his lordship. ‘Do, I beg of you, let me take your cloak!’

‘No!’ said Horatia. ‘I w-won’t! You are quite out of your senses, and if you have not the civility to summon me a chair, I will w-walk home!’

‘I wish you would try and understand, Horry,’ he said. ‘You will not leave my house tonight.’

‘N-not leave your house – oh, you are m-mad!’ Horatia said with conviction.

‘Then be mad with me, love,’ Lethbridge said, and put his hand on her cloak to remove it.

‘D-don’t call me “love”!’ choked Horatia. ‘Why – why you are trying to ruin me!’

‘That’s as you choose, my dear,’ he said. ‘I’m ready – yes, I’m ready to run away with you, or you may return home in the morning and tell what tale you please.’

‘You m-make a habit of running away with f-females, do you not?’ said Horatia.

His brows contracted, but only for a moment. ‘So you have that story, have you? Let us say that I make a habit of running away with the females of your family.’

‘I,’ said Horatia, ‘am a W-Winwood, which you will find makes a vast d-difference. You can’t force me to elope with you.’

‘I shan’t try,’ he replied coolly. ‘Yet I believe we might deal extremely together, you and I. There’s something about you, Horry, which is infinitely alluring. I could make you love me you know.’

‘N-now I know what is the m-matter with you!’ exclaimed Horatia, suddenly enlightened. ‘You’re drunk!’

‘Devil a bit,’ answered his lordship. ‘Come, give me your cloak!’ He twitched it from her as he spoke, and threw it aside, and stood for a moment looking at her through half shut eyes. ‘No, you’re not beautiful,’ he said softly, ‘but – damnably seductive, my pretty!’

Horatia took a step backward. ‘D-don’t come near me!’

‘Not come near you!’ he repeated. ‘Horry, you little fool!’

She tried to dodge away from him, but he caught her, and pulled her roughly into his arms. There was a wild struggle; she got one hand free and dealt him a ringing slap; then he had both her arms clamped to her sides, and kissed her suffocatingly. She managed to jerk her head away, and brought one sharp heel down full on his instep. She felt him flinch, and twisted herself free, hearing the lace at her corsage rip in his clutching fingers. The next moment the table was between them, and Lethbridge was nursing his bruised foot and laughing. ‘Gad, you little spitfire!’ he said. ‘I never dreamed you would show such spirit! Damme, I believe I shan’t let you go back to that dull husband of yours after all. Oh, don’t scowl so, sweetheart, I’m not going to chase you round the room. Sit down.’

She was by now really frightened, for it seemed to her as though he must be out of his senses. She kept a wary eye on his movements, and decided that the only thing to do was to pretend to humour him. Trying to speak quite steadily, she said: ‘If you sit down, so will I.’

‘Behold me!’ Lethbridge replied, flinging himself into a chair.

Horatia nodded, and followed his example. ‘P-please try and be sensible, my l-lord,’ she requested. ‘It isn’t the least use telling me that you are fallen in l-love with me, because I d-don’t believe it. Why did you bring me here?’

‘To steal your virtue,’ he answered flippantly. ‘You see, I am quite frank with you.’

‘W-well, I can be frank too,’ retorted Horatia, her eyes gleaming. ‘And if you think you are g-going to ravish m-me, you quite mistake the m-matter! I’m much nearer the door than you are.’

‘True, but it is locked, and the key’ – he patted his pocket – ‘is here!’

‘Oh!’ said Horatia. ‘So you don’t even play f-fair!’

‘Not in love,’ he replied.

‘I wish,’ said Horatia forcefully, ‘you would stop talking about l-love. It makes me feel sick.’

‘My dear,’ he said, ‘I assure you I am falling deeper in love with you every moment.’

She curled her lip. ‘Stuff!’ she snorted. ‘If you l-loved me the l-least little bit, you wouldn’t do this to me. And if you did ravish me you would be p-put into prison, if Rule d-didn’t kill you first, which I daresay he would do.’

‘Ah!’ said Lethbridge. ‘No doubt I should be put into prison – if you had the courage to tell the world of this night’s work. It would be worth it. Oh, it would be worth it, only to know that Rule’s damned pride was in the dust!’

Her eyes narrowed; she leaned a little forward, her hands clenched in her lap. ‘So that is it!’ she said. ‘F-fustian, my lord! It would d-do very well at Drury Lane, I d-daresay, but in life, n-no!’

‘We can but try,’ said Lethbridge. The mockery had vanished, leaving his face very harsh, the mouth set in grim lines, the eyes staring straight ahead.

‘I can’t imagine how ever I c-could have wanted you for a friend,’ said Horatia, meditatively. ‘You are d-dreadfully poor-spirited, I think. C-couldn’t you find a way of revenge except through a woman?’

‘None so exquisitely complete,’ Lethbridge answered, unmoved. His gaze travelled to her face. ‘But when I look at you, Horry, why, I forget revenge, and desire you for yourself alone.’

‘You c-can’t imagine how flattered I am,’ said Horatia politely.

He burst out laughing. ‘You adorable rogue, I believe a man might keep you a twelvemonth and not be tired of you!’ He got up. ‘Come, Horry, throw in your lot with mine! You were made for something better than to be tied to a man who don’t care a rap for you. Come away with me, and I’ll teach you what love can be!’

‘And then Rule can divorce m-me, and of c-course you’ll m-marry me?’ suggested Horatia.

‘I might even do that,’ he concurred. He walked over to the table and picked up one of the bottles that stood on it. ‘Let us drink to – the future!’ he said.

‘Very w-well, sir,’ Horatia answered in a voice of deceptive mildness. She had risen when he did, and taken a step towards the empty fireplace. Now, as he stood with his back to her, she bent swiftly and picked up the heavy brass poker that lay there.

Lethbridge was filling the second glass. ‘We will go to Italy, if you like,’ he said.

‘Italy?’ said Horatia, tiptoeing forward.

‘Why not?’

‘B-because I wouldn’t go to the end of the street with you!’ flashed Horatia, and struck with all her might.

The poker fell with a rather sickening thud. Half horrified, half triumphant, Horatia watched Lethbridge sway a moment, and crash to the ground. The wine-bottle, slipping from his nerveless fingers, rolled over the carpet spilling its contents in a dark ruby flood.

Horatia caught her underlip between her teeth, and went down on her knees beside the limp form, and thrust her hand into the pocket he had patted so confidently. She found the key, and pulled it out. Lethbridge was lying alarmingly still; she wondered whether she had killed him, and shot a frightened look towards the door. No sound disturbed the silence; she realized with a sigh of thankfulness that the servants must have gone to bed, and got up. There was no blood on the poker, and none that she could see on Lethbridge’s head, though his wig, gaping up from his forehead, might conceal that. She put the poker back in the grate, caught up her cloak and sped over to the door. Her hand shook so that she could scarcely fit the key into the lock, but she managed it at last, and the next moment was out in the hall, tugging at the bolts of the front door. They scraped noisily, and she cast a quick nervous glance behind her. She got the door open, and wrapping her cloak round her fled down the steps into the street.