by Fiona Hill
He was looking at her hard; then, as if he had satisfied himself of something important, he broke his long scrutiny and gave an odd, short laugh. “You would not refuse to marry,” he declared. “Not if you knew eternal spinsterhood lay the other way.”
Lady Elizabeth jumped to her feet. “Do you suggest, sir, that I would marry and prove a bad wife before I would brave a single life?” she demanded.
“To be blunt, I do.”
Fury was visible in her every feature as she stood before him. The idea of knocking him down was uppermost in her mind, but as this was impossible she only locked eyes with him and hoped he could guess her emotions. “Lord Marchmont,” she said tensely, “you have a very low idea of women. Where you acquired it I do not know. I am certain it was not from your sister. I can only be glad to reflect, however, that neither the responsibility of causing it nor the desire of changing it belongs to me. Good evening, my lord.”
She started to move past him, though with no very clear idea of where she was going. Out of the room, was all she could think, before she lost her temper altogether. The insufferable Marchmont jumped into her way, however, before she had gone three steps. The expression of his countenance suggested both horror at his own behaviour and abject apology towards her—which was indeed what he wished to express. “I cannot imagine—Lady Elizabeth, please, I pray you will believe—I have no notion what could have made me speak in such a—” he sputtered, “such a beastly…My dear ma’am, I beg you will tell me what I may do to repair…It is quite unpardonable, quite—Lady Elizabeth, I am so sorry! Give me another moment, I will not abuse it,” he pleaded, as she continued to try to get past him.
“My lord?” she said. She bit her lip in anger, but she held still.
He looked wildly about the room. He seemed surprised and annoyed to find it still full of guests. “Please, come with me where it is quiet. I must do something to—please.” He took her arm with too much urgency for her to resist and led her out the drawing-room doors and into his own study. There was no one there; a few candles had been lit, but no fire. Mechanically he started to close the door.
“I beg you will leave that ajar,” she said quickly.
The earl withdrew his hand from the knob as if it had been a live coal. He looked at his hand, appearing to examine it as one would an object of unknown origin and purpose. “I cannot fathom what has made me so odd tonight,” he presently began, though in fact he knew it was the memory of Charlotte Beaudry’s faithlessness. He faced her. She was standing in the middle of the room looking out into the corridor.
“There is no need to explain,” she brought out primly.
“There is every need, and to apologize too. I am so—”
“I beg you will not apologize,” she broke in with the same prim demeanour. “Nothing so out of the common has occurred as to occasion an apology.”
“But it has,” he replied, with great simplicity, then almost pleaded, “admit that it has, dear ma’am.”
She looked down at her feet. “Very well, then. It has.”
“Something out of the common has happened,” he repeated.
“My lord, I should like to rejoin the others,” she said.
He looked at her carefully. “Something out of the common. Lady Elizabeth, I cannot say why, but your company elicits some extraordinary response from me.”
Elizabeth was really very uncomfortable about being alone with him, even with the door open. She feared she would be missed. Marchmont’s behaviour was so very erratic. She said, with more than ordinary candour, “You are frightening me, sir.”
He continued to stare at her, then once again broke away as if he had satisfied himself of something. “Yes. Indeed,” he said. “Oh! Am I frightening you?” he burst out, as if he had just then heard her. “Small wonder.” He offered his arm and began to escort her from the room. “Lady Elizabeth, I give you thanks for this interview. Will you let me have another?”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“Will you let me call upon you, ma’am? I should be most honoured.”
Her anger now subsiding into bafflement, Lady Elizabeth said diffidently that he might if he cared to.
“I thank you, ma’am,” answered he, with what she could only view as fervour. Of all the conversations she could remember, this was surely the oddest. She was just making this observation to herself as they entered the hallway. She must have been distracted by the thought, for she nearly walked straight into Isabella, pink-cheeked and with her blond hair streaming, flying from a darkened doorway further down the corridor.
6
While it is not so alarming, perhaps, as the sight of a star shooting madly from its sphere, the spectacle of a young lady with flushed cheeks and tousled hair running from a dark room during a dinner-party is none the less unusual, and deserves investigation. How then did Lady Isabella come to be hastening down that corridor in Cavendish Square? A brief return in time is needed to discover the answer.
When dinner (itself worthy of description and a place in the annals of culinary history—but not here) had been concluded, and the ladies had taken themselves off to the drawing-room, Charlie, Lord Halcot, found himself sitting next to a man who identified himself as Sir Jeffery de Guere. Charlie, genial young chap, struck up a conversation with him at once and soon learned that this de Guere knew more of the current state of pugilism than either himself or John Firebrace. He even knew (he said) who had rigged the fight on which Charlie had lately lost five pounds, but the gentleman in question was, unfortunately, now out of England. From pugilism the talk drifted on to faro, and thence to horseflesh. Charlie drank off a glass or two of Madeira and considered his new friend a very fine fellow. Another glass and a short dissertation on the finenesses of blind-hookey persuaded him de Guere possessed a keen intelligence, and a fourth bumper left him with the conviction that he had stumbled upon a virtual prince among men. The excellent fortune of happening to make such an acquaintance very naturally put him in a good humour, and by the time the gentlemen rejoined the ladies Lord Halcot would have highly recommended de Guere to anyone who asked.
Nothing could have suited Isabella better, of course. Having first abandoned the timid Amy Lewis to the garrulous Lady Mufftow, Isabella quite naturally wandered over to her brother’s side. Here she was at last made known to the gentleman (she felt) she had known all her life. Here, palms damp and cold with excitement, she heard in his compliments the first confirmation of what she had read in his eyes. Her pretty denials of his high praise were suitably feeble; Sir Jeffery escalated the assault; Isabella grew even meeker in her contradictions—and Lord Halcot was soon bored half off his head. With a quick bow he retired from this battle of flowers and went off alone to wonder why his ears were ringing.
Isabella’s heart beat ever higher. Observed thus nearly, Sir Jeffery was even more handsome than she’d imagined. The bright intensity of his dark liquid eyes seemed to pierce her very spirit, and the mobile beauty of his smile was fascinating. Lady Emilia had talked of him so harshly. Was it possible, Bella began to wonder, that Emilia herself was in love with him and so spoke from a desire to eliminate rivals? Was it possible to see him and not be in love with him? Lady Emilia, by the by, was too busy speculating with Lord Weld on the possibility of a match between her brother and Lady Elizabeth Stanbroke (for these two were now engaged in their highly animated discussion) to notice that de Guere had taken Elizabeth’s sister for his prey. Lord Weld was being excessively amusing, and Emilia had decided to enjoy the evening a little, even if it was her party.
Sir Jeffery was not the intellectual luminary Lord Halcot imagined him to be, but he was as shrewd a man as ever lived when he wanted a thing. What he wanted right now was Isabella, and an evil angel prompted him to mention Sir Walter Scott. Isabella’s whole frame seemed to vibrate at the very name, for it was just such a heroine as Scott’s that she longed to be herself, and she responded with great warmth. “Do you read Scott, sir?” she inquired somewhat inc
redulously, for she had had no experience of romantic men.
“But certainly, mademoiselle,” said he. “One would be a fool not to do so, don’t you agree?”
Her joy was boundless. “Have you read Guy Mannering?” she demanded breathlessly.
“It is my favourite of his.”
“Is it? But it is mine as well!” she exclaimed, never for an instant imagining that he had easily guessed as much from her mentioning it first, and had for that reason proclaimed it as his own. As luck would have it, he had in fact read a little piece of it, and so he was enabled to turn the topic to his very good advantage.
“The fact is,” he said carefully, smiling down upon her, “I have named my matched greys Salt and Pepper after Dandie Dinmont’s terriers.”
“But they are not called Salt and Pepper,” she objected, prepared to cite chapter and verse if necessary. “They are called Mustard and Pepper!”
“No!”
“But yes, I assure you.”
The sight of her earnest blue eyes roused no sense of shame in this consummate rogue, who in fact owned no horses whatever, and consequently was in no position to name them either rightly or wrongly. “Mademoiselle, you alarm me greatly,” said he, succeeding pretty well in looking alarmed. “What shall I do? You say I have named my horses in error. Can you be right?”
“But I am right,” she persisted, wide-eyed. “I am terribly sorry to be the one to tell you, but…I can scarcely conceive how you made the mistake, Sir Jeffery, for since it is your favourite book—!” She left the sentence there and looked up at him almost apologetically.
“Dearest girl, if this is true, it is a blow. Yet I cannot believe—Oh, yes! I know what we must do,” he cried suddenly, as if just taken with a shining solution. “Come with me,” he commanded, moving swiftly towards the door.
“Where are we going?”
“I have just realized my cousin Emilia is certain to have a copy of Guy Mannering in her library,” he explained. “We will go and settle this once for all.”
“But Sir Jeffery—” she hesitated, not liking to leave the room alone with him. She glanced about for her parents and discovered they had joined Lady Mufftow and Amy. The four were apparently much absorbed in their talk—and Elizabeth was clearly lost in conversation with Lord Marchmont—and Charlie was not to be seen (he was out on the balcony trying to make his head stop spinning), and so…Isabella concluded it would be all right to slip out, just this once, with Jeffery—especially since the circumstances were so particularly urgent. She fell into step beside him and followed him down the corridor. “I daresay I could be mistaken,” she murmured dubiously as they went, then, “My goodness but it is dark here!”
“Chilly, too,” he agreed. “But anything in the name of knowledge, after all! Keep close by me, my dear Lady Isabella; I should not like anything to happen to you in the dark.”
“But how shall we find the book?” asked the innocent.
Sir Jeffery took a taper from a sconce in the hallway and used it to light a candle dimly perceived on a table in the tiny, book-lined library. He replaced the taper and took a quick glance at the footman in the corridor. The man did not appear to know or care if anything were amiss. Sir Jeffery rejoined Isabella.
“I have been trying to see the titles,” said she, turning to him from the far wall, “but I’m afraid the light is too low even for me. I have rather good eyesight,” she confided, suddenly nervous at finding herself in the shadows with him.
“My dear!” he burst out, then was silent.
Lady Isabella hastened towards him. There had been something poignant in his tone—or at least it seemed so to her. “Sir Jeffery?” she barely breathed.
He said nothing.
“Sir Jeffery?” she repeated, trying to peer into his face. She took up the candle from the table behind her and held it up near him. He turned his head away from her. “Dear sir, what is it?”
He emitted a choking sound.
“Sir, are you well?” she demanded breathlessly. Never had her blood raced at such a fever-pitch; she had scarcely dared to dream of such an intrigue as this.
De Guere turned his face towards her again. By the light of the candle she could see it was suffused with emotion. Then she observed a detail she could but with difficulty credit.
“Dear sir,” she exclaimed in a hushed tone, “are you crying?”
The tears shone in his eyes; at her words, one spilled onto his finely-coloured cheek. Isabella stared in thrilled astonishment. “My dear!” he finally repeated, just when she thought she would die waiting.
Involuntarily she reached for his hand. It rose to meet hers, and they touched. What a strong, warm hand his was! “Pray, tell me what can have happened to make you—” She could not bring herself to finish the sentence.
“Yes, I am crying,” said de Guere at last. “But it is nothing—”
“What is it, what can have happened?” she insisted.
He dropped her hand. She regretted it and moved an inch and a half closer to him. “Lady Isabella, may I tell you the truth?” he asked gently.
“Of course!”
“Lady Isabella—”
She moved another half-inch towards him.
“Lady Isabella, it is only that you are…so beautiful,” he concluded on a broken note. His hands flew up as if by instinct to frame her glowing face. Her cheeks were hot. She met his gaze fully. “Dear girl, you will hate me.”
“Never! What for?”
“What affair is it of mine, how beautiful you are? Were you thrice as beautiful—as if such a thing could ever be!—you could still never care for me.” He allowed his hands to fall again, to Bella’s great disappointment.
An inspiration came to her. She set the candle down uncertainly and grasped both his hands, carrying them again to her cheeks. “Now do you think I could never care for you?” She looked anxiously into his dark eyes.
“You do not mean—” His eyes gleamed intently into her own. “Can it be you felt it too?”
Her heart knocking against her chest, she nodded ever so slightly.
“From the first moment?” he demanded.
Another nod.
“Can such happiness be mine?” A second tear fell on his cheek as Sir Jeffery de Guere pronounced these words. He gathered her to him with hands that trembled violently. In a moment his mouth was upon hers and his long fingers had pushed deep into her shining hair. From Lady Isabella’s throat issued a sound like something fragile breaking.
Now the reader will be growing impatient with Lady Isabella perhaps—and not without some reason. “What manner of heroine is this?” the reader may quite justifiably demand. “Has she no eyes in her head? Has she no ears? This man is a rake. Has she no sense?” Well, the reader will kindly remember, in the first place, that Isabella is not our heroine—Isabella is her own heroine. It is she, and not I, who believes something momentous is afoot here in the Earl of Marchmont’s tiny library. It is she, and not I, who insists on seeing Sir Jeffery de Guere as a hero. Our heroine, I should like to take the opportunity of pointing out, is her sister Elizabeth—who, I must further observe, at the moment Isabella was carrying on so foolishly was easily holding her own against a peer of the realm. Now I don’t care for Lady Isabella’s way of doing business any more than does the reader: but if the reader supposes a romantic girl of sixteen will take the advice of a fusty old authoress when she has come to have her first interview ever alone with her True Love—then the reader has not spent much time in the company of sixteen-year-old girls. Not that I recommend such a course, by the way; far from it. Sixteen-year-old girls are preferable only to sixteen-year-old boys, in the general run of things—unless of course we are speaking of sixteen-year-old girls with the elegance and refinement to be reading such a book as this one.
For better or for worse, and whatever we may think of it, Isabella was now in Jeffery de Guere’s arms, and the fact is she was extremely pleased and proud of herself for contriving to get
into this situation. For such was the subtlety and fineness of de Guere’s methods that he had managed to make her believe she had seduced him as much as he had seduced her. This was a specialty of his. He particularly liked it, since the girl’s feeling of responsibility for her own predicament increased her desire of keeping the liaison a secret from her parents. It sometimes took a little longer, it was true—but there was no use rushing these things, he had found. Far better to give it time, to let the fruit ripen till it dropped from the tree of its own accord. Sir Jeffery, as he has already amply demonstrated, was a master of timing.
Accordingly he drew back from her as abruptly as he had reached out. “I have done wrong,” he whispered hoarsely, to her infinite delight.
“Nothing is wrong which is done for—which is done in affection,” she amended. Even Isabella did not presume to say the word love at such an early juncture.
He shook his head and seemed to withdraw into himself a little. “I am sorry. Lady Isabella, you must accept my apology. This scene will never be repeated, I assure you.”
“But I want—”
“Never, never,” he continued roughly. He looked away from her to stare into the candle. “I can never possess you in the eyes of the law. I can never possess you in the eyes of the world. So I must never…never…” He stopped.
“But why?” was surprised out of her.
He laughed with a sardonic edge he had perfected through years of practice. Good God it was exhilarating! he suddenly thought. There wasn’t another game like it in the world. “My poor lamb,” he answered, still looking away from her. “You have no idea who I am. I am a bad man.”
“No!”
He laughed again, this time on a distinctly rueful note. “Well, in any case, I have a bad reputation. It amounts to the same thing. Your father will never let me near you.”