‘So, you...’ She still could not quite manage to form the words to describe what was happening.
‘There are other like-minded ladies in the ton, most of whom are married. It is not difficult to meet them at house parties like this while the gentlemen are busy at hunting or fishing or drinking port. It is somewhat harder in bad weather, when we are all trapped inside and getting under each other’s feet.’
‘And Benedict provides you with an alibi,’ she finished.
‘It is much easier to get away from the crowd when everyone assumes I am waiting in his bed,’ she agreed, smiling.
‘And how does he benefit from this arrangement?’ Abby asked.
‘I do the same for him. Today, when he wished to be with you...’
‘Does he have many lovers?’
The question should not have been shocking, but it seemed to surprise Lenore. ‘Not many,’ she said, at last.
‘Fewer than you?’ Abby pressed.
Lenore nodded.
‘And I suspect he can manage them without your help.’
‘In the future, he will have only you,’ Lenore said, smiling.
‘For the moment, let us speak of the past,’ Abby said. ‘If he is not always sneaking from room to room, how has this arrangement benefited him?’
For a moment, Lenore looked as confused as Abby had been. ‘The poor boy does not like crowds. He would rather sit in his room and read than choke down port with strangers. He does not enjoy sharing himself with people whom he does not know well. It is much easier for him to have a single, close friend to converse openly with then to become intellectually intimate with others,’ she said with a flutter of her hands.
‘He is not a poor boy,’ Abby said softly. ‘He is a grown man, very near to your age. He has the power of speech, when he chooses to use it.’
‘But it is against his nature to laugh and chat with people who do not have his full trust,’ the older woman reminded her. ‘His father...’
‘Is dead,’ Abby finished. ‘And has been for quite some time.’
‘Sixteen years,’ Lenore said, hesitating.
‘And who are his other friends?’ she asked. ‘Are they aware of the reason for your ruse?’
‘Other friends,’ Lenore said. Then, after a long pause, she added, ‘He has acquaintances at his club...’
‘Like your husband did?’
‘No,’ she said hurriedly. ‘Not at all like that. He does not speak of them, of course. But I am sure there must be some gentlemen he counts as friends.’
‘But you are not sure,’ Abby said, beginning to understand why it was so difficult for Benedict to explain this friendship.
‘He has always found it easier to remain apart from society,’ Lenore confessed.
‘Because, as a boy, he feared that they would think him foolish,’ Abby said.
‘But he is not. He never was. He would rather read than talk. Even when in company, he has little to say,’ Lenore insisted.
‘Has your friendship made it easier or more difficult to do so?’
Lenore did not have to answer the question for she must know it herself. She was the one who smiled, who chatted and smoothed the edges of any problem while Benedict stood in the corner and observed.
At last, she smiled and shook her head. ‘You are smarter than your years, Miss Prescott. I told him that you would be good for him. I am happy to see I was right.’
‘Then there will be no more tricks?’ she said.
‘No more surprises,’ Lenore replied. ‘Goodnight, Miss Prescott.’ And then she was gone, before Abby could realise that her question had not been answered at all.
Chapter Fourteen
The next morning, Benedict lingered in the breakfast room, hoping to see Abby. Though he told himself that she could not hide in her room for ever, he was not totally sure of that fact. The rain had stopped again and the sky had cleared for most of the morning before beginning to cloud over again.
After yesterday, he was sure the Prescotts would be gone the minute the grass was dry. If things remained unsettled between them when she left, he might never convince Abby that his intentions were sincere.
‘No sign of her?’
‘No thanks to you,’ he said. For the first time in his life, Lenore’s constant presence annoyed him.
‘I apologised,’ she said. ‘Last night, after dinner, I went to her room and explained.’
‘Everything?’ he said.
‘Everything,’ she said, smiling as if this might settle it all. ‘She is aware of the details of our arrangement. And she put me in my place. Apparently, she feels that I have been taking advantage of your good nature.’
If she had, it had never bothered him before. But now that he had found Abby, things were different. ‘When I marry, some things will have to change between us.’
She nodded, sadly.
‘We will still be friends, of course,’ he assured her.
‘That will never change,’ she agreed.
‘But in the future, when we are at parties like this, we must be much more careful about our interactions,’ he said. ‘There must be no more rumours about us.’
Now she was looking at him as if he was a naive child. ‘And how do you propose to stop them?’
It was an excellent question.
‘If we are discreet, they will die in time, I am sure,’ he said.
‘Eventually,’ she agreed. ‘When you have been married as long as we have been together, our supposed affair will be all but forgotten.’
With Abby’s dislike of gossip, sixteen years was not soon enough. ‘I will think of something,’ he said.
‘For now, if you are interested, Miss Prescott is in the morning room, reading a book of psalms and trying to repent for her interest in pornography.’
He set his coffee aside and left without bothering to say goodbye.
In the morning room, Abby was sitting by the window, with the psalter open in her lap. In the rare rays of morning sunlight, her dark hair shone like obsidian and the blush that still lingered on her pale cheeks made her look like a repentant fallen angel.
He wanted to make the room believe that nothing improper had happened between them. But ignoring her was likely to be more suspicious and not less. So, he approached her, as any gentleman might, gestured to the chair at her side and said, ‘Miss Prescott, is this seat taken?’
She looked up, colouring attractively and answered in a near whisper, ‘No, Your Grace.’
‘I do not mean to interrupt,’ he said, not caring whether others in the room might hear. ‘But I understand that my friend Lenore played a cruel trick on you yesterday.’
‘She has already apologised to me,’ Abby replied, giving him a desperate look of warning.
‘All the same, I feel I owe you an apology as well.’ He could feel ears all over the room pricking to catch their conversation, even though it could not be more mundane. ‘No matter what has happened between us in the past, I would not want you to be hurt because of your acquaintance with me.’
‘That is most kind of you, Your Grace.’ The words were right, but they sounded too formal and there was none of the warmth in her voice that he had heard in the conservatory. Was she trying to conceal her feelings because they were being observed? Or had she only accepted his apology to avoid talk?
‘Not kind at all,’ he said, choosing his words carefully. ‘It is no less than you deserve. In fact, I would like...’
Before he could finish his attempt at a discreet reconciliation, there was another commotion in the hall.
‘I should not have to hunt through the whole of this house each time I wish to ask you a question!’
Elmstead was shouting at his wife again and the guests gathered in the morning room were torn between curiosity and frustration at the repetitive argumen
t. Benedict could hardly blame the poor woman if she was hiding from her husband. The man was almost as unpleasant as John Prescott.
Across the room, the Comstocks seemed to be holding a wordless conversation as they tried to decide how best to deal with this latest argument. After a few pointed glances passed between them, the Countess rose and announced in a voice almost loud enough to cover Elmstead’s shouting, ‘I do not know about the rest of you, but I cannot bare this tedium another minute.’
‘And what do you mean to do about it, darling?’ her husband asked. ‘The rain is likely to start again at any moment.’
‘We must have a ball,’ the Countess said, with a sly smile that merited a look of surprise from her husband.
‘But you do not have a ballroom,’ Miss Williams the elder said, surprised. She was a pretty young girl, who had probably been regretting the lack of just such an entertainment.
‘I have been to the music room,’ her sister added. ‘It is too small for dancing and the pianoforte is dreadfully out of tune.’
‘On the contrary, my dear, we have a delightful ballroom, but it is exceptionally inconvenient,’ the Countess replied. ‘It is in an old portion of the house, shut off from the rooms we have been using. The best way to enter it is by walking through the garden. I have not mentioned it because I doubted that anyone would wish to dance after being soaked to the bone.’
‘There is another way, of course,’ the Earl added. ‘But it is rather dangerous to have the guests creeping through the space between the walls like mice.’
‘Then whatever are we to do?’ said the first Miss Williams, obviously dismayed that an entertainment had been suggested only to be declared impossible.
The Countess looked to her husband and said, ‘I was thinking we might do what we had discussed before the guests arrived.’
He smiled at her, obviously impressed. Then he rang for the butler and looked to the male guests in the room. ‘Gentlemen, I suggest you remove your coats. We have work to do.’
The Comstocks led their guests, gentlemen in shirtsleeves and ladies in rapt anticipation, to the entrance hall. The sound of Elmstead’s shouting was clearer here. When the butler appeared, he was in the midst of listing his wife’s transgressions from the first day of their marriage to the present.
‘Chilson!’ Comstock said in a voice loud enough to be heard over the ruckus. ‘Send the footmen for the tools I used in the chapel. Then, please go upstairs and tell Lord Elmstead his presence is requested down here. We will need all hands to accomplish the job I have in mind.’
Benedict wondered if it was necessary to explain to their host that English gentlemen did not do work. They had servants for that. Perhaps he might have, if Elmstead had not been so annoying. As it was, he was honestly curious as to why Comstock was tapping his way along the walls behind the stairs.
Elmstead appeared at the same time as a pair of footmen, carrying sledgehammers, metal bars and what appeared to be a mace from the Comstock family armoury.
Then Comstock found a panel that echoed hollow as he pounded on it. ‘Here we are.’ He passed the heaviest hammer to Elmstead, who stared at it in confusion.
‘What do you wish me to do with this?’
‘Strike the wall, my dear fellow,’ Comstock said with a grin. ‘From what we have all just heard, you have a stout set of lungs on you. But I suspect that your constitution and your temperament will be better after some exercise. Would you care to join us, Your Grace?’ He passed the bar to Benedict and then took a hammer and chisel for himself.
They stared at Elmstead, who made a single, ineffectual strike at the centre of the panel as though afraid to damage the woodwork.
‘Like this,’ Comstock said, taking a mighty swing that cracked the moulding. Elmstead’s next strike was a little better, though the hammer bounced back, nearly striking him. After a few minutes of industrious pounding his skill had increased and they had created a gap in the woodwork big enough for a crowbar. Benedict stuck his lever into the space, leaning into it with his whole body weight.
There was a tooth-aching screech of nails leaving wood and the panel swung free, revealing an open space where there should have been lathe or brickwork. On the other side of the gap, they seemed to be looking at the back side of another wooden panel.
Comstock looked to Elmstead. ‘Again, please.’ Then they began to pound on the next wall. The plan appeared to be successful in more ways than one. The longer he pounded, the more enthusiastic Elmstead became and the less concerned he seemed with his wife, who had crept down the stairs after him in ghostlike silence to watch what was happening.
This time, when the panel began to give way Benedict pushed forward with his shoulder, following with a kick that made the wall swing away in the rough semblance of a door. The Earl called for footmen to sweep the rubble from the path and then he gestured his guests forward into the large open space beyond.
‘Amazing,’ Mrs Prescott said, staring up at the room that had been revealed. They were standing in a grand ballroom, complete with musicians’ gallery and high, floor-to-ceiling windows looking out on the wet garden at the back of the house. Quite beyond all logic, the end of the room appeared to be occupied by a chapel, separated from the dance floor by a Gothic arch of stone.
Benedict stared around him, both amazed and impressed. ‘Was your home designed by a madman, Comstock?’
‘Several of them, I should think,’ the Earl replied. ‘The mistakes made in the architecture hold to no one style or era and none of the most useful rooms connect to each other. But the walls are sound enough. And if we do not wish to tear it down, we were going to have to make a passage from one wing to the next.’
‘And you have taken advantage of your guests to create it,’ Benedict said, smiling back.
‘But what shall we do for musicians?’ Miss Williams said, staring up at the empty gallery.
‘Do not fear. Comstock will provide,’ the Countess said gleefully. ‘Now go to your rooms to rest and arrive at eight, dressed for dancing. Tonight, we will have a light supper and a proper ball.’
Chapter Fifteen
Since they had not been travelling with proper ballgowns, Abby’s mother was near to tears at the thought that she might have to make do in the same dinner gown she had been wearing the previous night. In Abby’s opinion, clothing was the least of their worries. She was still shocked and confused by the events of the last day and the multiple highs and lows of mood that she had been put through.
Lady Beverly was either a dangerous enemy or an exceptionally erratic ally. Though it was some comfort to realise that she had no desire to be Benedict’s lover, she had proved herself able to cause more than enough trouble with her friendship than a brothel full of courtesans.
Benedict had been, by turns, passionate, negligent and courteous and she was still unsure which of his manners had been the truth. But of one thing she was certain: her heart had fluttered alarmingly at the sight of him in shirtsleeves breaking down walls. No matter what his intentions were, she doubted that she could resist him, should he come to her again.
Just as her mother despaired of her appearance being worthy of the Comstock ballroom, the Countess’s maid appeared with gowns and headdresses from her own wardrobe.
* * *
When they went downstairs at eight, they were as elegant as the guests who had packed for the occasion.
The Comstock servants had done the house proud in preparing the ballroom on very short notice. The crystal chandeliers were fully lit. But they were no match for the cavernous space and had been supplemented by sconces and candelabras until the gilded borders along the ceiling glowed, the light flickering on the marble pillars that surrounded the room.
But on the far side of the room was the bizarre sight of the chapel fully lit. The stained-glass windows cast jewelled patterns on the floor. But to do so, they could not face o
ut on the dark garden outside. Then Abby remembered the hidden route to the glass house and imagined the similar passages that must surround the little church and the candles that created the magical display.
‘Beautiful.’
Abby turned to find Benedict standing behind her. Though he pretended to stare at the lit chapel, there was a glint in his eye that announced he had not been admiring the architecture at all.
When the rest of the guests had gathered, all equally in awe of their surroundings, the Countess announced, ‘You are about to be treated to an entertainment available in no other house in England. Tonight, Comstock will be entertaining you with his banjo and teaching us some of his American dances.’
She began arranging the crowd into groups of four, assuring them, ‘It is all quite simple. He thinks they are unique to his country, but they are really nothing more than English country dances.’ Then she spoke louder, so her husband could hear. ‘Comstock will call out the steps in badly accented French—’
‘I beg your pardon?’ her husband said, pretending to be shocked. ‘I will speak in proper American. I cannot help it if our English forefathers did not give us enough words to make an entire language.’
‘—and you have but to follow his instructions.’ She finished pushing people into position, partnering couples and leading them about the room.
It did not occur to Abby until she was almost upon them that there might be a reason for Lady Comstock’s enthusiasm. Before she could object, she had been placed, like the dining room silver, in a square with Lady Beverly and Benedict. A tubby baronet made the forth, glancing between her and Lenore as though terrified to partner either of them. Then he looked to Benedict with the face of a Lenten penitent.
Benedict responded with a shrug and a smile. ‘It is a dance, Fellowby, not a harem. Do what Comstock tells you and try not to step on the lady’s feet.’
The Brooding Duke 0f Danforth (HQR Historical) Page 15