We sat. After a constrained moment I asked, "What brings you to Briarlea? I wouldn't have supposed you and Cecilia Conway-Gore to be bosom bows."
She wrinkled her perfect nose. "Cecilia has every amiable quality, and she makes a truly delectable bride, but she is rather, er..."
"Slow?"
"Your word. I was going to say young--for my taste in friends."
"Diplomatic."
"Yes."
Our eyes met, and this time we laughed. Bella said frankly, "I came to meet Lord Clanross. According to Lady Whitby he is looking about for a wife, and besides, I have a great curiosity to meet him. I'd thought to at Sarah Tyrell's wedding, but Mama took ill at the last moment, and I was foiled. Do you like his lordship?"
I contrived to say yes in suitably dispassionate tones. After a moment, I added, my voice ringing hollow in my ears, "So you mean to have another try at matrimony, after all." That was not tactful. Bella had been auctioned to the highest bidder at the end of her second Season. Her marriage to Forster cannot have been pleasant.
She said coolly, "I think so. On my terms, this time."
"And you believe Clanross will accept your terms?" I wondered if I were going to be sick.
She laughed. "Don't rush your fences, Liz. I've not met the man. I daresay I shan't like him, and I won't wed where I've no liking. There's no need. This time."
A grim note underlay her light tone, but she looked far from grim. She had grown into a true beauty, and she had the vivacity to make her beauty interesting. I uttered a small prayer that Bella should loathe Clanross on sight. Otherwise I was lost.
Arabella Forster had been two years a widow. Old Lord Haverford, her father, a baron of antique lineage and antediluvian debt, had indulged expensive habits in his youth. When it became clear that Bella would be handsome, her mama had groomed her to retrieve the family fortunes by marrying on the most generous terms possible a very wealthy man--it did not greatly matter whom.
At the end of her second Season, Bella had been sold to Mr. Forster. That Forster was a Nabob, sixty if he was a day, with a yellow complexion, a sly eye, and, it was said, peculiar tastes, did not signify. He was also rich beyond the wildest dreams of Haverford avarice. The marriage lasted seven years, it was childless, and, in the end, Bella copped everything. She deserved her good fortune.
Bella was too adept at easing social awkwardness to let the silence lengthen on her last remark, and presently we were exchanging innocuous chitchat about old acquaintances as easily as if we had met the week before. I began to relax.
As I did so I spotted Clanross making his unhurried way toward us from the direction of the formal garden. He had some distance to cover, so I had time to rehearse several possible greetings and to order my disordered pulse, if that were possible. Fortunately, Bella was deep in an account of the Princess Charlotte's latest tribulations, and she did not spy Clanross until he was upon us.
"Hullo, Elizabeth. I hope I see you well." He looked wonderfully well himself--still on the lean side but brown and fit and moving with the ease of an athlete.
I gulped, I hope unobtrusively, and held out my hand. "Clanross! So you decided to honour us with your presence after all. Do you come now on a mission from my aunt?" That was taking the bull by the horns.
"No, on my own initiative. Gore did suggest you and your companion might care for refreshment."
"Are you hungry, Bella?"
"Not in the least."
They were both visibly waiting for me to do my duty.
I swallowed my chagrin and put as good a face on it as I could. "Clanross, allow me to present Mrs. Arabella Forster. She is an old friend. Bella, Lord Clanross, to whom we are all very attached." The last remark was meant to sound cousinly and came out patronising.
Clanross shot me a baffled look. He did not have time to brood upon my words, however, for Bella held out her hand.
"My lord, I've been looking forward to meeting you for some time." The phrase was conventional, but she spoke with intensity.
Clanross bowed over her hand, uttering something polite and noncommittal. I could see he had transferred his bafflement from me to Bella.
"Haverford is my father," she added, as if in explanation.
He straightened and, after a moment, said gravely, "Then you're Jack Haverford's sister."
"Yes," she said, still intense.
Clanross smiled. "I'm relieved to see he didn't exaggerate. I placed considerable reliance on Jack's judgement."
Bella cocked her head.
"He said you were the handsomest woman in England."
Oh God, I thought. That's torn it. I muffled a moan.
They were gazing deep in one another's eyes, and Bella had actually summoned a blush. "You flatter, my lord."
"Jack's words, not mine."
Bella blinked hard. Oh dear, I thought, she's going to cry. However, she merely said, "Then you must make some allowance for the partiality of a relation. What a dear boy he was. I must thank you, sir, for the letter you writ my mother when Jack was killed."
I drew a sharp breath.
Clanross grimaced. "It was my duty."
"Even so, it helped Mama, for the others were writing the most dreadful Drury Lane heroicks. I think she didn't believe Jack was dead. Then you writ a plain account we could believe. When she admitted to herself that he was gone, she could grieve properly. Oh dear." And she did begin to weep but in a restrained way.
Clanross did not look wonderfully happy himself.
"What the devil are you up to?" Willoughby's irritable voice.
I gave a nervous start. Willoughby stood almost at Clanross's elbow bearing empty glasses and an uncorked bottle of champagne, which smoked with cold.
"Upon my word, Clanross," he said, juggling the glasses, "have you no address at all? I sent you to amuse the ladies, and I find the one Friday-faced and the other a watering pot."
I was never more glad of Willoughby's company. I watched, fascinated, as he contrived to pour a glass of champagne.
Clanross took it from him. "Very timely. Here, Mrs. Forster, drink up or Gore won't forgive me."
Bella took the champagne and sipped, dabbing at her eyes. "Dear Willoughby, always the right impulses." By now we all had champagne and she raised her glass to Clanross, smiling tremulously and most beautifully, "To you, my lord."
"To Jack's sister." Clanross returned her gesture and tossed off his glass.
I took a healthy swallow myself. Perhaps if I were foxed, the pain would deaden. Damnation to Aunt and her pug and her diabolical plans--my toast, if I'd been asked for one.
"Now, if you mean to sample the bridecake..." Willoughby gestured toward the marquee.
Bella shook her head and dabbed again at her eyes.
"I believe Mrs. Forster and I ought to take a turn by the river." Clanross held his hand to her and she took it, rising. "If you'll pardon us, Elizabeth."
"By all means," I said through my teeth. He met my eyes. I contrived a feeble smile.
They drifted off. Willoughby and I watched them.
"God, how revolting." Willoughby split the remaining tipple between us. "Can the man have known every deceased officer in the Peninsula?"
"So you heard that." I was too dispirited to continue.
"Bella Forster..."
"Do you dislike Bella?"
Willoughby's brows shot out of sight. "Of course not. Unexceptionable. She is everywhere received."
Chapter 22
I was not given leisure to brood over Aunt's stratagems. She required reinforcement at once. She dragooned Willoughby and me into chitting and chatting with a whole division of county worthies, most of them antique. It is an art Willoughby practices with better grace than I.
Clanross restored Bella to the company within a socially acceptable limit of time--at least he wouldn't have to marry her--but they'd been gone long enough for the tabbies to remark their absence. Aunt listened to the gossip with a smug expression on her basilisk features
, but she forbore adding coals to the fire. I was congratulating myself on keeping my temper when Mrs. Chacton greeted me shyly from a clump of lesser personages.
"How do you, my lady?"
I assured her that I did very well and asked after her school.
It was still building, as I knew from Charles's reports, and she spent some time describing the amenities. Her garnet brooch quivered with the force of her enthusiasm, and her eyes sparkled. I had begun to feel almost at ease when she broke off her discourse on infant education.
"I'm glad to see his lordship looking so well. Quite a new man, as I was just saying to Mrs. Reynolds here."
I stiffened.
She looked up at me trustfully. "Will you tell me, my lady--is it a match?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"You must have remarked Lord Clanross's attentions to a certain Dark Lady. I do hope..."
"Dark Lady?" I heard myself say in my haughtiest tones. "My dear Mrs. Chacton, you can't mean Bella Forster?" Another tinkle of artificial laughter rattled in my throat. "Clanross is merely an old friend of Bella's brother. I daresay they're talking over old times."
Mrs. Chacton's face fell. I think she was hurt as well as disappointed.
I turned to find Aunt regarding me with a look of sardonic amusement. My face flamed. There was no doubt she had heard the whole shaming exchange.
I crept away, feeling, like Shakespeare, that love is a disease.
How I survived the rest of the afternoon I know not. Clanross, having restored Bella to my aunt, behaved with such stultifying decorum for the balance of the time that I couldn't hope for a moment's speech alone with him, even if I'd known what to say. Both knights of the shire and the Chacton borough member were among the company. Clanross did his political duty, listening to their verbal hand-wringing over the state of the nation with polite attention and allowing himself to be drawn by Mr. Chacton into a spirited discussion of the Usefulness of Canals to Commerce.
Bella's manners are superb. I watched as she circulated on Willoughby's decorous arm among the elderly dowagers in their old-fashioned wigs, among the tongue-tied young men and the slightly dowdy matrons, and I envied her address. She would make a splendid countess. I hadn't felt so gauche since I turned sixteen and spillt sauce on my gown at my first grown-up dinner.
Just as I sank to my ears in a slough of self-pity, my sisters made their appearance from the direction of the terrace. They looked suspiciously tidy. I caught Miss Bluestone's eye.
"Margaret slipped on a patch of damp ground and stained her frock," she said briefly. "I took them up for refurbishing."
"Bless you."
"Where's Clanross?" Jean, pert and overloud.
I frowned. "In conversation with Mr. Chacton, Jean. Pray do not interrupt."
She made a face.
"We want to tell him about our rocks," Maggie piped. "I say, Liz, did you know there's a grotto, with moss and waterfalls and a rustick seat, at the edge of the woods?"
"I've heard of it."
"Did someone mention rocks?"
It was Clanross, behind me. I jumped. Again. Such was the state of my nerves, I had not even seen him approach. The girls' faces (and Miss Bluestone's) lit like tapers.
They surrounded him instantly, my sisters chattering like daws and Miss Bluestone smiling benignantly, and once more I couldn't edge in a private word. I wondered at Clanross's patience. I wondered at my own impatience--and selfishness. Not only were they delighted to find themselves in his company, but I saw, though he made no vulgar demonstrations, that he was very glad to see them, too. Presently, he observed that we were attracting attention. Willoughby had sauntered over and was listening openly, a sneer on his well-bred lips.
Smiling, Clanross raised his hands in mock surrender. "Enough. I'll inspect your collection. Do you return to Brecon tomorrow?" This last to me.
"At first light," I said, grim. "Are you coming home, too?"
He blinked at that, and it took me a moment to recall that he probably didn't think of Brecon as home.
He didn't correct me. "For a night. I'm on my way to Ireland by way of Lancashire."
"Ireland!" The girls' faces--and mine, I daresay--fell.
"Why, yes. The Meath agent thinks it necessary."
"Aunt thinks it necessary," Willoughby interposed silkily. "Clanross has agreed to give Mrs. Forster and her mother his escort to Dublin."
Charles and Cecilia chose that moment to make their grand exit. They were travelling as far as Scarborough on their bridetrip. In the general laughter and confusion that followed I could hide my despondency. Presently, Aunt demanded Clanross's attendance, and Miss Bluestone took my sisters off.
It is not surprising that I developed an historical migraine and was no use to anyone for the rest of that nightmare day. I did not even drag myself down to dinner. I couldn't bear to watch the spectacle of Bella ensnaring Clanross.
* * * *
When we reached Brecon next day Clanross was there before us. He had spent the morning with Mr. Moore and young Sholto. I gathered these news from my excited servants. Jem offered to saddle Josephine if I wished to join his lordship for a little ride round Brecon--"as usual." Usual? I wished it were. It was a heavy irony that my servants had taken the brief month that spring when Clanross and I rode daily as somehow usual, when in fact it was a mere interlude. How happy I had been. How sane. How unaware of what was happening to me.
I refused Jem's offer and retreated to my chamber to hide, but I couldn't hide forever. At teatime I made myself go down to the withdrawing room on the theory that I was expected to preside at my own tea table.
When I entered the room I discovered I was dispensable. Maggie and Jean, Alice and Miss Bluestone--a clump of assorted houris--were happily engaged in giving Clanross tea.
"Hullo," I said glumly.
The ladies' faces betrayed surprise and dismay. Clearly, no one was expecting me. Clanross rose, setting his teacup aside and drawing a chair for me. He looked very tall and brown amid the crockery.
"Ah, Lady Elizabeth," Miss Bluestone murmured, "I daresay your headache has moderated. What a blessing."
My headache was by then fiction. "Er, yes. Do sit down, Clanross." With no little confusion, I sank into the chair Clanross had pulled for me.
"Shall you pour?" Jean's courtesy warred with her disappointment.
"Go ahead, my dear. You seem to have it well in hand. One lump."
She brightened and poured the tea with exquisite care. Maggie leapt forward with a tray of dainty sandwiches and cakes.
"High tea, I see." I chose a macaroon.
Maggie regarded me anxiously. "We thought you wouldn't mind."
"We wanted to welcome Clanross home properly." Jean, half defiant.
Good God, was I such an ogre? I made my voice light. "A very good notion. I'm glad you thought of it."
They both looked relieved--so did Alice. Miss Bluestone watched me calmly.
Clanross said nothing. He had resumed his place. I saw that my sisters had inflicted on him a sticky concoction to which they were partial. Involuntarily I met his gaze. It said, plain as day, "Yes, I know it's dreadful, but I intend to choke it down. Don't betray me." I smiled, and his mouth relaxed.
At least there was some understanding between us still. I took a long breath. "I hope you find everything in order at Brecon, Clanross."
"Yes. I'm obliged to you for smoothing young Sholto's path."
"Does he deal comfortably with Mr. Moore?"
"He's promising, or so I'm told, if he'll overcome his enthusiasm for four-course rotation and dibbled corn."
"That is indeed a grave limit."
"We showed Clanross the dogs." Jean said.
"He said they were well grown. D'you think Una will have a litter soon, Clanross?" Una was the name Maggie had bestowed on her wee red bitch, after careful reading of The Faerie Queen.
Clanross looked up from the girls' torte, which he had been dissecting with a slightly harra
ssed air. "Er, not yet, Maggie. Have you put your rocks in order?"
That was sufficient to set them off, and presently they dragged him up to the schoolroom to view their hoard. Miss Bluestone led the way.
"His lordship will not object if you remove the tea things, Agnew," I murmured. "The cakes, that is. Yes, that one."
Agnew cleared the glutinous torte away and deftly removed the other remains as well. High tea in the servants' hall this evening.
Alice chattered.
When I heard the schoolroom expedition end in a commotion in the hall, panick galvanised me. I dashed to the door, leaving Alice in mid-sentence.
I found the right words to persuade Clanross to come back to dinner. He meant to leave early in the morning--for Ireland and Bella Forster.
On the surface the meal was pleasant. Certainly, Alice and the twins enjoyed it, and Clanross appeared to. I think Miss Bluestone was almost as uncomfortable as I was.
I had, however, regained my social faculties, and I contrived to keep the conversation light and remote from topics that might cast a damper--like Ireland and Bella Forster. Clanross was composed, as he had been the previous afternoon.
Maggie and Jean had almost three months of daily drama to report to him. As they chattered I watched Clanross. He had a fatal capacity for listening well. I learned more of my sisters' feelings and thoughts at that dinner than I had observed all summer. How did he do the trick?
It was not that he sat on the edge of his chair with eager questions bursting from his lips. On the contrary. Unlike Willoughby, however, he didn't look bored, or seem to demand an audience himself. When a question was called for he supplied one--gravely offered and a little surprising so that the speaker was spurred to fresh revelations. It was a rare gift--one that must often be a mixed blessing.
When Clanross finally took his leave I determined to go part of the way with him.
Lady Elizabeth's Comet Page 20