He had been invited to the Hertfords’ reception and she would be there, she had told him. Someone had said that Grant and his wife were back from Paris. So much the better. He would like Grant to see him winning Susanna Winthrop—it would add to his enjoyment.
It certainly didn’t add to Cobie Grant’s.
He had walked up the giant stairway, Dinah on his arm, amused at some of the stares they attracted. Dinah was wearing a dress of pale lemon silk, cunningly cut to give her a slightly more ample figure than she actually possessed. Hortense had dressed her hair in a new fashion, simple, but effective. It was high on her head, to show the lovely line of her neck, made even more effective by her newly learned proud carriage.
She wore no tiara this evening, but a topaz star, with a giant diamond at its heart, was placed above the noble line of her forehead, held there by a narrow band of silver lamé. Her ear-rings were diamond and topaz, as was the necklace she wore, and the bracelet around her left wrist. None of the stones were large, or ostentatious, but the effect was dazzling. Her slippers this evening were of topaz and silver damask, peeping below the straight hem of her elegant Paris gown.
Her fan was a feather one, dyed to match her dress. She remembered Cobie and the Marquise exclaiming over it when they were choosing her whole ensemble: scarf, slippers and long evening gloves. Her jewellery had been bought later.
‘Smile,’ he said in her ear. ‘You are creating a minor sensation. The Marquise deserves the Ribbon of the Legion of Honour for transforming you at such speed.’
‘And what do I deserve, Cobie Grant?’ she whispered back to him. ‘Tell me that.’
The smile he gave her was wicked, Cobie Grant at his most winningly provocative.
‘Wait until we get home, Madame wife, and I shall take pleasure in showing you.’
Dinah shivered. She thought that she knew what he meant, and she spent the whole evening in a lather of excitement, hidden under the surface gloss Paris had created.
‘Don’t try too hard,’ her husband had told her before they had set out, and he had seen her white face when she had joined him in the drawing room.
She had whispered to him, ‘I’m frightened.’
‘There’s no need to say anything,’ he had whispered back to her. ‘Just smile and murmur “Exactly so” and hold yourself as Madame taught you. Don’t forget to put your fan before your face and smile over the top of it if you feel nonplussed. Men don’t expect pretty women to be able to talk.’
Dinah was acid. ‘What do they expect from pretty women, then?’
He had picked up her shaking hand and kissed it. ‘It will be my pleasure to teach you—soon.’
Now it seemed that soon was almost upon her. She had no time to worry about it, though, for here was Violet coming towards them, magnificent in old rose and cream, but the eyes which she cast on Dinah were inimical.
‘Well, well,’ she drawled when the civilities were done with. ‘That’s Louis Pontadour, is it not?’ waving a hand at Dinah’s beautiful gown. ‘However did you persuade him to dress her?’
‘Money, of course,’ returned Cobie, his smile taking the sting out of his words. ‘One look at Dinah, though, and he was proud to have her wear his creations.’
‘Fancy that,’ remarked Violet nastily.
The anger she felt at the sight of a transformed Dinah was so great that she could hardly prevent herself from showing it. ‘I suppose that any improvement, however small, is to be welcomed. You no longer look like a house-maid out for the day, my dear. Such a relief.’
Living with Cobie, even if their time together so far had been brief in the extreme, was beginning to have its effect on Dinah. She now knew that the double meanings in his conversation, which she had remarked on before their marriage, were no accident.
She opened her fan, saw Violet’s eyes narrow at the sight of it, yawned behind her lemon-shaded lace gloved hand, and said sweetly, ‘Yes, Violet, dear. My next aim is to look like the cook, and after that, I may aspire to the housekeeper. You must tell me how you achieved it.’
‘Good God,’ said Violet to Cobie. ‘Have you given the kitten claws already? And talking of kittens, have you seen Susanna Winthrop this evening? No, I thought not. She has become totally occupied by Ratcliffe Heneage while you have been enjoying yourself in Paris.’
‘Really?’ said Cobie, his perfect calm still present on the surface, but beneath it he was paddling as fast as an apparently unruffled swan paddles in still water. ‘A new friend, one supposes.’
‘Oh, much more than that,’ returned Violet. ‘After all, that husband of hers is a dull dog, of which I am sure that you are aware, knowing them so well. Why shouldn’t she try to make her life a little livelier?’
‘Why not?’ agreed Cobie warmly. ‘I’m happy to hear that she is present tonight. With, or without, Sir Ratcliffe. I had thought him your admirer, Violet dear.’
So had Violet. She had dropped him for Cobie, then Cobie had had the bad taste to marry Dinah. She had turned around to pick up Sir Ratcliffe again but, lo and behold, he was after that dull stick, Susanna Winthrop, God knew why.
Another disaster for which one day she hoped to make this presumptuous American pay. But she said nothing further, only drifted away to watch her sister and her husband become the sensation of the evening.
A spectacle watched by Susanna Winthrop with even more dismay than Violet. She was determined not to let her foster-brother know how hurt she was, how every time she saw him was like a knife through her heart. It was as though all the love she had felt for him since she had first seen him—a small baby in Marietta’s arms—and which she had suppressed for ten long years, had turned at once into hate, like milk curdling in a jug.
Now she was smiling up at Sir Ratcliffe, who was behaving towards her with the kind and careful assiduity of a man determined to make a conquest. More than one person remarked on them.
Halfway through the evening she and Cobie met. He had left Dinah for a moment to speak to a friend. He could see her sitting still and upright, doing, he noticed with his best inward grin, exactly what he had suggested to her before they had left home. Her fan lifted slowly before her face; she was talking and laughing as though she had been showing such savoir-faire, such self-control, for years, instead of for only the last month.
Susanna tried to smile at him. For the first time in her life she found herself speaking to him as though to a stranger, making small talk.
Pain lanced through Cobie. He had watched her with Sir Ratcliffe, watched how she was behaving with him, not at all like the cool woman he had always known. She was acting for his benefit, he knew. Look, she was saying. Other men find me attractive, and so I find them pleasing. This man, whom I know you dislike, I am deliberately finding attractive.
It was unwise, he knew, but he had to say something to warn her since she could have no notion of what a cruel swine the man was. He was sure that in her present mood she wouldn’t heed him, but the necessity not to allow her to run from one unhappiness to another was strong in him. He now knew too much about Ratcliffe Heneage to keep quiet.
‘You are enjoying yourself, Susanna?’
‘Very much so,’ she told him defiantly. ‘I suppose you are, too. You always make sure you do!’
He inclined his head, and said gravely, ‘In order to enjoy one’s self properly, Susanna, it is necessary to choose one’s partners carefully.’
Her laugh was shrill. ‘Having turned me away, do you now presume to choose my companions for me, Cobie? I find Sir Ratcliffe an amusing and well-informed man. Do I see your wife looking for you? That is where your responsibilities lie now—not with me.’
There was nothing for it. He said, a little desperately, ‘If you must choose someone, Susanna, choose someone less unsavoury than Sir Ratcliffe Heneage…’
She gave him her shoulder. ‘I don’t understand you, Cobie. The man is a Minister of the Crown, a friend of the Prince of Wales. He is connected with most of the great fam
ilies in the land. He is charming and civilised. Can you say as much?’
Every word she threw at him now was designed to hurt. He had lost her. He bowed as though to a stranger.
‘I never thought that we should come to this, Susanna. I only wish you well. I shall not try to advise you again.’
‘I should hope not. Now, if you will forgive me, I see Sir Ratcliffe coming. After all you have said of him, I am sure you do not wish to meet him. Your wife may be looking every inch the woman you are making of her, but she must still need your support. Content yourself with that.’
She turned her back on him, and walked away. More than one pair of eyes had seen the exchange—and how it had ended. No one knew that something which had been part of Cobie’s life for more years than he could remember had dropped dead on the floor of the Hertfords’ ballroom.
Dinah had seen all that had passed from a distance. The sixth sense which she was acquiring through living with him told her that however calm and charming he was on the surface while he laughed and talked for the rest of the evening, her husband was deeply disturbed below it. Her new instincts, awoken by the Marquise’s training, told her to say nothing.
She had no time to think further. The Prince and Princess of Wales had arrived, and the Royal command was that he wished Mr Grant to present his new bride to him. So there she was, curtsying, and having her small hand taken into the Prince’s large one to lift her, while he said, ‘No need for that, my dear,’ in his guttural voice—his German, they said, was better than his English.
She was not so overset that she didn’t register what Cobie had already told her, that despite his easy manner he was no fool, and knew and understood men and women and what moved them. She knew, too, about Violet’s liaison with him. Was the Prince about to understand her? What would she do if he took a fancy to her? What would Cobie say and do? She could not see him behaving like a complaisant husband, like Kenilworth for instance, happy to see his wife a royal favourite.
That she pleased the Prince was plain. He complimented Cobie on her, told him that he and his wife must visit them at Marlborough House, his London home.
‘See to it,’ he said peremptorily to the grey man who was always at his shoulder. Envious glances followed the Grants when he finally released them.
‘Your success in society is now assured,’ Cobie whispered in her ear, ‘for anyone of whom the Prince has approved—and he has approved of you—has a secure future, provided that they never breach protocol.
‘You are not going to breach protocol, are you, Lady Dinah? However, a word to the wise. Royal favour has its disadvantages as well as its advantages—you must expect jealousy from the many on whom he does not confer his special accolade. Success has two faces, and one of them is not pleasant.’
Dinah had known so little success in her life that she hardly needed warning against it. The evening passed like a dream. So many grand personages came up to speak to them, after the news of the Prince’s favour to the Grants had become known, that she began to feel weary. Being a social success was even harder than she had thought it might be.
They were leaving at last, paying their farewells to Lord and Lady Hertford, their hosts, walking down the grand staircase again. Now they were on the red carpet laid before the front door, beneath the canopy over it, put up so that they might reach their carriage untouched by the elements, and in as much comfort as possible.
Even at this early hour in the morning, there were a small number of spectators, standing respectfully back, watching them. She felt Cobie stiffen, then heard him laugh to himself when his eyes swept over them.
He handed her into their carriage, murmured, ‘Excuse me, my dear,’ and walked over to a burly man, standing on the edge of the group, who, Dinah saw, tried to dodge back, out of the light.
In vain. She watched her husband put a hand on his shoulder, speak and press something into the man’s hand before he returned to her. She looked at him questioningly. He shook his head, and said, with the double meaning strong in his voice, ‘Nothing, my dear. A pourboire for a man who needs a little help to speed him on his way.’
Constable Alf Alcott found watching Cobie Grant a time-consuming and tiring business. The man himself seemed tireless. He also knew that he was being watched, winking at Alcott on more than one occasion when he frantically tried to retreat into the shadows.
This evening he had followed him to a grand house, and stood outside waiting for him to come out again. He had complained to Inspector Walker, ‘What’s the point of all this, sir? He’s not doin’ nothing but enjoy himself. There’s better things for me to do than this, surely.’
‘Such as, Alcott, you lazy devil? If I want you to do this, then this is the best thing that you can do. No one else is bitching about their work, you lazy so-and-so. Get on with it.’
His quarry had come out at last, his wife on his arm, his top hat on his head, his white silk scarf about his neck. He hadn’t been standing in the street for all hours, not he.
Boredom and weariness had made Alcott careless, he knew. His man had seen him, had handed his wife into his carriage and had walked over to where he stood—no hope of escape.
‘Why, Constable Alcott—it is Constable Alcott, isn’t it? I do believe that you could do with a good drink and a bite to eat. Here’s a little something to help you on your way. I’m sure that they don’t pay you properly at Scotland Yard for all the painful hours you spend in the cold.’
He pressed what the grateful Alcott later found was a golden sovereign into his hand. ‘Good luck to you, Alcott, in whatever enterprise you are at present involved,’ and the sarky swine was waltzing back to his lady.
It was a waste of time watching him. Alcott dismally knew that his man would have no difficulty in losing him if he were really up to something.
He tried to tell Walker so the next morning. The Inspector was having none of it.
‘He’s making monkeys of us, sir,’ he said as respectfully as he could. Bates, standing just behind Walker where his superior could not see him, nodded his head in silent agreement.
‘He is, guv, look,’ said Alcott a trifle desperately. ‘Look what he gave me last night. Tipped me, he did.’ He pulled the sovereign from his pocket to show Walker. ‘Thinks we’re a joke, he does.’
‘You’re the joke,’ Walker told him through stiff lips, ‘allowing yourself to be seen.’
‘Then put someone on him who he doesn’t know. Maybe they’ll have more luck.’
‘I haven’t got anyone else, Alcott. Get back to your duties, and report to me what he’s up to today.’
Grumbling beneath his breath, Alcott stamped out. The only consolation he had was the sovereign in his pocket.
‘Bribing Alcott, now, is he?’
Bates, listening to this, coughed, and said respectfully, ‘It ain’t just Alcott, guv.’
Walker roared, ‘What the devil do you mean, Bates?’
‘Well, you know as how the missus is expecting. I got home two nights ago to find she’d had a parcel delivered. Mysterious, she said it was. Weren’t no mystery to me when I read the note inside. A layette it was for the babby. Beautiful. Compliments of Mr Dilley, it said. I told her it was from a friend I had made. She said that he must be rich. A sempstress, my wife was, knows about such things. What’s his game, sir? Tell me that.’
Walker couldn’t tell Bates what Mr Dilley’s game was, for he had no idea himself.
Seated opposite to Dinah on the drive home from the Hertfords’ ball after baiting Alcott, Cobie watched her head droop, and her eyes close when tiredness finally claimed her.
In repose her face was already displaying the delicate beauty which he had thought he had seen latent in it at Moorings, and which, once he had made up his mind to marry her, he had decided that it was his duty to reveal to the world. Left to Violet and a wretched marriage he was sure that it would have died aborning, and with it would also have been stifled her bright and lively mind. He had told her father
that he would cherish her, and so he would.
A thought struck him. Was that love—to want to cherish someone, to care for them, to watch them blossom? Were love and lust connected? Did he lust after Dinah? The answer must be no; even if he were able to perform his marital duty by her he would neither love, nor lust after her, but he would simply do what every animal does for its mate—please her, and bless her with a child. He was sure that Dinah would think having a child would bless her.
Violet Kenilworth had children, but he had never seen her with them. They were brought out for her, once a day, for her to speak to them briefly, acknowledge that they were hers—and hand them back to their nurse, governess, or tutor.
No child of his would be so treated, he would make sure of that. Nor would he lie to them, as he had been lied to—which was why he was so honest with Dinah, for to deceive her would be to lay up trouble for the future…
He laughed soundlessly to himself, for was he not deceiving her over some of the most fundamental parts of his life? She knew nothing of what he was doing in the wider world outside, from his major financial exploits all the way down to his mildly criminal ones.
No matter…he leaned forward as she slipped sideways in her sleep and eased her into a more comfortable position. He had not even made her his wife, and here he was, dreaming of children!
They were home again, and she was still soundly asleep. He climbed out of the carriage, and then leaned into it to lift her tenderly out, to hold her against his heart, to carry her inside, followed by a sleepy footman, his valet hovering in the hall.
He shook his head at Giles to dismiss him, and made his way upstairs, Dinah still in his arms. She was half-awake now. She said, sleepily into his chest, ‘Cobie?’ as though she were questioning him. He thought that she might be dreaming that she was a child again, being carried upstairs, perhaps by the father whom she loved, and who loved her.
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