The Shadow of Tyburn Tree (10 page)

Georgina drew herself up. ‘How dare you suggest that I would sell myself for a paltry three hundred pounds!'

‘ 'Tis not the money but the principle of the thing. You know as well as I that you have made an unspoken bargain with the man and are by nature too honest to go back upon it.'

‘I tell you that I have made no bargain! The Russian has taken a gamble on my good-will, no more. He may count himself lucky if I allow him to kiss me goodnight.'

Roger's laugh rang with angry scorn. ‘Is it likely that he will be content with that?'

‘I do not know, and I do not care,' Georgina flared. ‘I told you this morning that what I had seen of him in London had predisposed me in his favour. On closer acquaintance I find him both intelligent and amusing. Therefore I pray you disabuse yourself of this notion that anything I may choose to do will be done on account of your own folly. Both political interest and my own inclination conspire in urging me to favour his suit. In the circumstances, it seemed to me that if by accelerating matters a little I could also cancel out this wretched debt of yours, I should be doing you a service. Now, Sir, I pray you take me within doors again.'

Roger bowed stiffly. ‘Since those are your sentiments, Madam, no more remains to be said.' Then he offered her his arm, and in stony silence escorted her back to the drawing-room.

It was now close on midnight, and within a few moments of their reappearance the company declared for bed. Going out into the hall they lit their respective candles, and having
mounted the broad staircase in a body, separated on the landing with a chorus of ‘good nights.'

Georgina and Vorontzoff turned to the right. Roger, following a few paces behind, saw them pass the door of her bedroom and enter the next one to it, which led into her boudoir. As he passed it the door closed behind them. Biting his lip, he walked on down the corridor to the third door in the row, that of Sir Humphrey Etheredge's room, which he was occupying; and, going in slammed it behind him with a loud bang.

In the boudoir Vorontzoff had just completed the lighting of a three-branched candelabra that stood on an occasional table at the head of the golden day-bed. As the slam reverberated through the room he shot a quick look at the communicating door, then smiled at Georgina. ‘ 'Twas young Mr. Brook behind us just now, was it not? He seems to have sought his bed in something of a temper.'

She made a little face. ‘Poor fellow! He sets considerable store on his privilege of lighting me to bed and was most loath to surrender it, even for the cancellation of his debt.'

‘That I can well understand,
Madame
. And lest it trouble him so much as to cause him to walk in his sleep we will take due precaution that he should not disturb you.'

As he spoke the Russian took three swift steps towards the communicating door and shot its bolt; then he turned to face her again and gave her a long steady look.

He was not as tall as Roger but broader in the shoulders, and all his movements denoted a quick, determined mind. His flattish face was saved from ugliness by its strength, and the upward slope of his dark eyebrows at their outer ends gave him a faint resemblance to a satyr.

Georgina, faintly smiling, returned his look. She was tensely curious to know what line he would take with her. In such a situation the usual technique of the day was for the gallant to pour out a stream of wildly exaggerated compliments, beseech the fair to take pity on him, and falling on his knees before her, vow that he would commit suicide unless she salved the sweet but deadly wound that Cupid's arrow had made in his heart. If the lady actively disliked him, or wished to prolong his torment, she firmly rejected all his pleas. Otherwise she pretended an exaggerated virtue and alarm, gradually appeared to become affected by her lover's emotion and finally, apparently quite distraught, half-fainting and with languorous sighs, succumbed to his attack.

Having been the object of a score of such attempts during the past five years Georgina had come to find them a little boring, and the Russian's only real attraction for her lay in the
fact that she believed his love-making would prove quite different from anything that she had so far experienced.

As their long look broke, he picked up the candle again and moved with resolute steps towards her bedroom.

‘Monsieur!' she exclaimed. ‘Whither are you going?'

‘Why, to light the candles you will need for your night toilette, Madame,' he replied airily. ‘Surely you do not think that I am a man who would leave anything half done. I pray you come with me and show me which lights you will require.'

She wondered if he meant to pounce upon her immediately he had got her inside, and she was by no means prepared to let him do so as yet. But the casualness of his tone suggested that he intended no more than to complete his service with the candle; so, a little uncertainly she followed him through the door. Then, keeping well away from him, she said: ‘If you will light the candles on my dressing-table and the night-light beside my bed, those will serve.'

He complied without giving her a glance, set down the candle he was carrying next to the night-light on the far side of the big four-poster, and, stepping into the centre of the room looked round it with the eye of a connoisseur.

‘ 'Tis a lovely apartment,' he declared, ‘and well-suited to be Hymen's playground for the loveliest lady in all England.'

‘Fie, Monsieur!' she rebuked him. ‘I am not used to hear such outspoken thoughts from a new acquaintance.'

‘Indeed!' His eyebrows lifted in faint mockery. ‘Then Englishmen must be even poorer champions in the lists of love than they are reputed. In my country even acquaintanceship is accounted redundant when two pairs of eyes have met and kindled the Divine spark.'

‘Then it must be a plaguey dangerous place for the poor females,' Georgina smiled. ‘But come, Monsieur, let us return to my boudoir and you shall tell me something of your country before I send you to your rest.'

She had already turned, to go through the doorway. Suddenly he took two swift strides forward and seized her from behind. One of his arms shot round her waist and caught her to him, the other encircled her breast with the hand raised to grasp her chin. Catching it firmly between his fingers and thumb, he jerked round her head and, thrusting his own face over her shoulder he kissed her full upon the mouth.

For a moment she let him have his way, then she made a violent effort to free herself; but his grip held her like a vice and he kept his mouth pressed against hers until they were both breathless.

At last he jerked back his head, smiled down into her eyes,
and panted: ‘A demonstration of how a Russian can love is better than any tales I could tell.' Then, shifting his grip, he picked her up, carried her across the room and threw her down upon the bed.

As she made no attempt to cry out, or even to protest, he felt that his triumph was assured; but he had reckoned without Georgina's agility and resource. Within a second of his having thrown her face upward on the bed she had jerked herself over, squirmed off it and stood facing him on its far side.

‘Enough of this!' she panted. ‘Your Excellency is much mistaken if you think that I am to be taken so.'

He laughed, his dark eyes boring into hers, his white teeth flashing. ‘If you prefer the French style to the Russian, Madame, you have but to say so. I am accounted a tolerably good lady's maid and would be charmed to assist at your unrobing. I ask only that you should spare me the pretended vapourings, faints and tears, which most English ladies seem to regard as an essential accompaniment to their surrender.'

‘I will spare you both that and all other exertions,' Georgina said regally. ‘The favours you have received elsewhere have led you to count your chickens before they are hatched on this occasion. 'Tis my pleasure that you should now leave my room.'

‘Nay. That is too much to ask,' he shot back. ‘You are a woman in a million, and I have set my heart upon you, I mean you no disrespect when I say that you have long lived apart from your husband and taken other lovers in his place. And you openly encouraged me to hope. Choose for yourself, then, if we are to play Cupid's game with the leisurely refinement of the French, or if you would have me leap this bed and catch you as I can.'

Georgina's heart was hammering in her breast. The novelty of the Russian's forthright love-making had already surpassed her expectations. She found it wildly exciting; and now the time had clearly come when she must either give in to him or take some drastic action to cut matters short.

The thought of Roger crossed her mind. She still felt that he had behaved boorishly in seeking to put a restraint upon her contrary to their original pact; yet she knew that she had hurt his pride by breaking away from him so abruptly; and had wanted to be able to salve it the following morning by telling him that she had dismissed Vorontzoff after letting him take only a couple of kisses.

Suddenly she decided that she had had enough excitement for one night, and that the present game would lose nothing from keeping; so she took refuge in a clever lie.

‘Monsieur,' she said. I have ordered you to leave my room. I now beg you to do so in order to avoid a most unseemly incident. My father and I are much attached and 'tis his invariable custom to come in and wish me goodnight after I have retired. He will be here at any moment now and I should be mightily shamed if he found you with me.'

Vorontzoff had no means of telling if she was speaking the truth, yet he could not decently refuse such a request. It seemed that she had completely foiled him, but after thinking furiously for a moment, he said: ‘So be it, Madame. At what hour shall I return?'

‘I—I fail to understand…' she faltered.

‘ 'Tis quite simple,' he said with sudden gravity. ‘While we were admiring your Canaletto we made an unspoken bargain. Under pretext of my lighting you to your room you invited me here. Men and women such as you and I do not make assignations for such an hour and place to tell one another nursery-rhymes. Besides: you cannot have so soon forgotten the clothes that you are wearing.'

Georgina gave a swift glance down at her embroidered bodice and short skirts. ‘Why no!' she said, with a puzzled frown. ‘ 'Tis the Russian peasant costume, you gave me. But, what of it?'

‘Surely, Madame, you realised that it is a wedding-dress; and that I should naturally take your having donned it so promptly as a clear sign that you were willing to grant me a husband's place tonight.'

She shook her head. ‘I donned it in your honour, Monsieur, but with no thought that the garment had any special significance.'

‘Then let that pass,' he shrugged. ‘There still remains our unspoken bargain.'

‘Do you dare to infer that I am to be bought for three hundred pounds,' she cried hotly.

‘Nay,' he protested. ‘You are unfair. The matter hinged upon your desire to save that young man from an embarrassment. The money itself is a mere bagatelle, and I crave permission to place at your feet jewels of ten times that value. But of more worth still are the services that I can render you. I am no fool, Madame, and I know both your love of power and the value that Mr. Fox sets upon the Russian interest. If you will honour the inference upon which you brought me here, and the significance of the dress you wear tonight, I will place all my influence unreservedly at your disposal tomorrow.'

Georgina hesitated. She had believed that while this hardheaded
diplomat might prove a novel and amusing lover, she would probably find it extremely difficult to sway him politically; yet he was now offering her that power to exercise a secret influence on great events which was her most cherished ambition.

‘I must think,' she murmured. ‘Give me a little time, I beg.'

‘Madame! You are playing with me!' His voice held a sudden note of anger. ‘We Russians are not accustomed to such finesse, and when we want a thing we want it badly. You are old enough to know your mind on such a matter. Have done with these delays and give me your answer.'

She gave him a half smile and pleaded: ‘Tomorrow. Surely, you can wait till tomorrow for it.'

While they had been talking he had imperceptibly edged round the corner of the bed. Suddenly he moved again and, with one bound was, on its far side; but he made no attempt to seize her. Falling on his knees he reached up, and grasping her hands he began to smother them with kisses, as he cried.

‘Tomorrow! Why tomorrow when tonight can be ours! Oh, my beautiful Georgina, I beg you to take pity on me, I am no pretty, strutting youth, but a strong man worthy of your love. All these winter months since I first saw you in Devonshire House I have adored you with the adoration that we Russians reserve for the Saints. I cannot live unless you will grant me what I ask. I am your slave to do with as you will, but let me return in half an hour to renew my worship at the loveliest of shrines. Let me come back I implore—I entreat you.'

Georgina's heart was now beating fast again. Had she been in any state to think clearly she would have realised that the Russian's love-making was no more than a reversal of the usual procedure; yet his having attacked her first and reserved his impassioned pleas for later had proved more effective, and her brain was in a whirl. As she bent above him she felt all the thrill of having, after all, reduced this strong, virile representative of a great nation to a suppliant at her feet, and emotion now combined with interest to incline her to be merciful.

‘What I would not do for jewels I might do from kindness,' she whispered. ‘For your passion moves me much. Yet I will make no promises.'

He suddenly released her hands and stood up to renew his anguished pleading. ‘Madame, how can you have the heart to torment me further? Be plain with me or I shall be forced to think you the hardest-hearted of coquettes.'