by M C Beaton
“Cruel.”
“But true.”
“Then you do not wish to be my lover?”
“My dear Lady Lucy, any man with all his faculties and his wits would be delighted to be your lover. I am sorely tempted to tell you to find someone else but I fear all are not as scrupulous as myself. There are, however, certain young gentlemen of a certain effeminacy who would be glad to play the role of sighing lover.”
“They would not make Guy jealous.”
“And I would? Dear me, how stubborn you are. What if my passions should overcome me?”
Lucy looked at him, at the calm profile revealed by the bobbing light of the carriage lamps, and said with a trace of humor in her voice, “I cannot imagine you being carried away by passion.”
“Do not be too sure of that. But before we decide to do anything, I entreat you to return home and, if your husband is there, I beg you to question him.”
“Very well,” sighed Lucy.
“I think you will find him very contrite. These young bloods are lions at night and meek little lambs in the morning. I remember the follies of my own youth.”
“You talk as if you are old.”
“I am… compared to you.”
They jogged on in silence until Clarence Square was reached. He helped her from the carriage and stood looking down at her.
“Do you know, Lucy,” he said softly, “I think this is the very last I shall hear of this idea.” He glanced up at the house. “There is a light still burning abovestairs. No doubt it is your husband. Go to his arms where you belong and cease to tantalize hardened roués such as myself.”
“You find me very young and silly.”
He looked at her seriously for a long moment and then raised her hand to his lips.
“On the contrary, I find you adorable,” he said.
Lucy felt an overwhelming urge to throw herself into his arms, to bury her head in his chest, to beg him to take her away.
But her conscience, clear and strong, told her where her duty lay. She caught up her long skirts and ran lightly up the stairs.
As she put her hand on the knob, something impelled her to turn and look at him.
He was standing beside the carriage, regarding her gravely. A light breeze ruffled his black hair. Although dawn was streaking the sky, he looked as elegant and glittering as if he had just left the hands of his valet. He did not look like the handsome rake he was reputed to be. He looked tall and dependable and overwhelmingly attractive.
She had a sudden vision of what it would be like to come home to him, to be folded in his arms, a still rock in a stream of shifting, chattering, glittering society.
Her hand rose to her lips to stifle a sob and she turned and went into the house.
The Marquess of Standish was pacing up and down his bedroom, still fully clothed, still disheveled.
He was no longer in the depths of despair. Harriet Comfort had told him that the Chinese were protégées of Barrington and that she would take him to Barrington on the morrow. Mad hope of seeing Li again, hope of returning to that magic world, had kept him from sleep.
But he felt an acute stab of guilt as his grave-faced wife asked him quietly to explain his conduct, to explain what he had been doing at Harriet Comfort’s after he had sworn he had not seen her.
“It was the truth, my sweeting,” said the Marquess earnestly. “But I have been… gambling… and am again indebted to Barrington. I was in despair because I could not find him at his offices. I felt wretched and could not tell you the fool I had made of myself. Harriet knows the whereabouts of Barrington. Once she had told me, I was able to become calm and think rationally. I was ashamed to tell you because you had already bailed me out.…”
“My parents bailed you out,” sighed Lucy. “I lied to them. I told them I needed a vast amount of money for a court dress. Oh, Guy, I cannot ask them again. But I am so happy that it was only gambling that kept you away at nights. We have become so estranged.” She held out her arms. “But of course I forgive you. All we need to do is retrench. We can move to Standish.…”
“Don’t talk fustian,” said the Marquess, turning his back on her. Lucy’s arms fell to her side. “I would die of boredom in the country. Look, ask your papa to sport some more blunt. He won’t miss it.” He turned back and his voice became coaxing. “I know we have made a false start in this arranged marriage of ours.…”
“Arranged!” Lucy’s hand felt for a chair back to steady herself.
“Oh, you know your parents’ ambitions. Mr. Hyde-Benton paid quite a lot for my title as well you know so…”
His voice faltered and died at the look of blind shock on Lucy’s face.
“Well, you did know,” he said with false joviality.
Lucy dumbly shook her head.
“Well, I mean, by George, you must have guessed. I mean, that a man of my standing would… Oh, don’t look so, Lucy. Arranged marriages happen all the time.” He was all of a sudden desperate to placate her. Nothing must prevent his returning to Li. “We rub along very well, don’t we? I don’t interfere with your pleasures. What you need is a brat to take your mind off things.”
“And how is that to be achieved, sirrah?” said his wife icily. “Another immaculate conception?”
“You funny little thing.” He laughed. “You’re jealous and I have not had you in my bed for a long time. Come to me!”
He held out his arms.
Lucy looked at his flushed, swollen face, at his hair damp with sweat which fell about his collar, at the wine stains on his cravat, and took two steps back and stood with her hand on the handle of the door.
“Don’t touch me!” she spat. “Don’t ever touch me again, Guy. If you had told me at the beginning that it was to be an arranged marriage, I would never have married you. Now I know I need no longer be faithful to you. I shall take a lover.”
“You!” laughed her husband. “Miss Prunes and Prisms. That’s rich, that is!”
Lucy turned and slammed the door on his jeering face.
The savage ringing of the bell from my lady’s rooms sounded only minutes later. Wilson, the butler, wearily climbed back into his livery. He would need to change his bet in the betting books at the Three Feathers tavern, where the odds on the Standishes’ divorce were running fifty to one before word of this night’s happenings got abroad. The odds would drop to five to one in no time at all.
My lady, attired in a walking gown of severe gray wool merino, called out the carriage again and demanded to be taken to the home of the Duke of Habard. The well-trained servants murmured, “Very good, my lady,” as if it was all the most ordinary thing in the world, and then returned to the kitchens to mull over the latest gossip and administer sal volatile to the cook who had gone into strong hysterics, being of a Delicate Constitution and not so hardened to the vices of high society as some she could mention.
The Duke of Habard received the intelligence that Lady Standish was awaiting him belowstairs with his usual imperturbable calm, although it was five in the morning and he had only just fallen asleep.
He did not immediately leap from bed but lay with his hands clasped behind his head, staring at the canopy and debating whether to call an end to the farce.
He had been sure when he had left her that that would be the end of the matter. It was, he realized wryly, because he could not imagine any man turning his back on Lucy Standish.
After some time, he rang for his Swiss and gave orders to be barbered and his clothes laid out. Word was to be sent to the stables to have his traveling carriage made in readiness. Word was to be sent to Lady Standish’s residence with instructions to her lady’s maid to present herself at the Duke’s with her mistress’s trunks.
Now I have done it, he thought, noticing the shocked look on his valet’s face.
He made a leisurely toilet and descended to the morning room an hour later to find the Marchioness of Standish fast asleep by the fire. He had passed Lady Standish’s grim-faced and weary lady’s maid
who was sitting sentinel in the hall beside several corded trunks. He had ordered his butler to supply the maid with tea and to see that the baggage was strapped onto his carriage along with his own trunks.
He stood looking down at Lucy as she sat asleep in a winged chair. She had taken her hat off and her small face was tilted back against one of the wings. She looked little more than a child.
As if aware of his gaze, her eyes flew open and she stared up at him, first in bewilderment and then in dawning comprehension.
“I had to come,” she said faintly. “He does not love me. He said… he said my parents had paid him to marry me.”
“It is not unusual,” he said calmly. “You will breakfast. I have sent for your maid and your clothes.”
“You mean… I will live here with you?”
“No. Nothing so blatant. You are coming to the country with me… to my home.”
“Oh,” said Lucy weakly.
“We do not want to give your husband outright grounds for divorce and so it will all be very respectable. My mother, the Dowager Duchess of Habard, is in residence.”
“What will she think…?”
“What she wishes. It need not concern us.”
Lucy was still too tired and hurt and emotionally buffeted to protest.
When they left, a thin brown rain was falling from a low brown sky.
“Where do you live?” asked Lucy sleepily.
“Mullford Hall in Essex. It is not a very long journey so we will not have to spend the night anywhere.”
Lucy’s lady’s maid, Harper, sat grimly opposite, holding my lady’s jewel box on her lap and trying to keep the disapproval she felt at these strange goings-on from showing on her face.
The matter of Lucy’s marriage could not be discussed in the presence of the maid, and after a little while, Lucy fell fast asleep, only awakening when they stopped for luncheon.
Dusk came early on that dismal day and the carriage lamps had been lit as they finally turned in at the great gates of Mullford Hall.
“Is your mama expecting me?” asked Lucy, becoming nervous despite her fatigue.
“No. It will be a surprise.”
“I would rather she had been prepared,” said Lucy in a small voice.
“Well, that was not possible since I was not prepared myself,” said the Duke equably.
Lucy fell silent, rubbing at the steamy glass of the carriage and trying to see out the windows through the gathering twilight.
“It looks very big… the park, I mean,” she ventured at last.
He nodded and seemed absorbed in his thoughts.
Finally the carriage rattled to a stop and Lucy was helped down and stood looking up at the great pile that was Mullford Hall.
The house was Palladian in principle, consisting of a central oval building surmounted by a dome joined to two rectangular pavilions by curving wings.
“The west pavilion has not been completed,” said the Duke. “We use the east, and the central building is reserved for guests. Since you are our only guest, you will share the family wing.”
Lucy was led off by the housekeeper down a long corridor lined with statues and glass cases containing priceless china over to the east wing.
Her rooms were tasteful and cool with high ceilings, Adam fireplaces, and pastel walls. No sounds penetrated from the world outside. London seemed very far away and, for the moment, her marriage ceased to exist.
It was soothing to look forward to a quiet family evening. She imagined the Dowager Duchess a tall, elegant figure—for surely that was the sort of mother the Duke would have.
At last, a vastly imposing Groom of the Chambers arrived to escort her to the Long Gallery where she was told everyone was assembled.
It seemed more like a Royal procession to Lucy as she followed the imposing back of the Groom of the Chambers, who held his tall staff with all the swagger of a Macaroni. One footman carrying a candle in a flat stick supported her on one side, and on the other, another footman with her shawl, her fan, and her vinaigrette.
Lucy stopped at the entrance of the Long Gallery with a little gasp of dismay. The Duke had only mentioned his mother. He had obviously not seen fit to include the names of several members of the county, the rector, various cousins, and three old and moth-eaten hounds.
The company arose at her entrance and the Duke led her around, making the introductions in his easy manner. Lucy’s eyes flew from face to face. Which was the Dowager Duchess? As if in answer to her unspoken question, the Duke said, “Mama is late as usual. She does it quite deliberately, of course.”
Lucy felt a pang of disquiet. Her feeling of escape was melting away, leaving her with the uneasy feeling that she should be at home with her husband, no matter what he had done. She had, she realized, been hoping for some lady of mature wisdom who would comfort and counsel her. Again her conscience gave a sharp twinge. She should turn to her own mother. But her mother was so obsessed with the glamor of a title that she would simply not listen. All these thoughts were churning through Lucy’s shining fair head as she murmured pleasantries to the various guests.
“I don’t know why Angela cannot be on time for once,” grumbled an elderly, choleric-looking gentleman called Sir Frederick Barrister, whose high starched cravat cut into the florid flesh of his fat cheeks.
“Oh, you know Mama’s little ways,” said the Duke of Habard soothingly. “I tell her dinner is at seven, don’t you see, and I tell my chef to arrange it for seven-thirty, and that way the kitchen staff is not thrown into disorder.”
The Groom of the Chambers rapped his staff and announced portentously from the doorway leading to the Long Gallery:
“Her Most Noble Grace, The Dowager Duchess of Habard!”
Chapter Six
The Groom of the Chambers stood aside and the Duchess stood poised on the threshold, her eyes darting around the room.
She was tiny and grotesque. Her wrinkled face was rouged and powdered like a mask. Her diaphanous, high-waisted gown revealed a pair of perfect—perfectly improbable—breasts. They were, in fact, wax. The gown was cut low and the upper half of them gleamed palely in the candlelight. She wore a frivolous little lace cap adorned with multicolored ribbons on top of a blond wig. Her pale blue, slightly protruding eyes fastened almost greedily on her son as she moved forward to take his arm, baring a mouthful of china teeth.
“Now, you are about to scold me, naughty boy,” she cooed. “But you shall take me into dinner and then I shall know I am forgiven.”
“Much as I do not wish to forego the honor, Mama,” said the Duke, “my guest, Lady Standish, has the prior claim.”
“Who’s she?” demanded his mother rudely, her eyes raking around the room.
The Duke went across the room and took Lucy by the hand and led her forward. Lucy sank into a low curtsy while the Duchess looked down at all that beauty and youth and innocence with her face setting into a petulant mask.
“There is no need to stoop so low.” She laughed shrilly, rapping Lucy playfully on the head with her fan but with such force that she snapped one of the sticks of her fan on the jewelled comb which held Lucy’s blond ringlets in place.
“Now, let me see… Standish,” the Duchess went on, beginning to rap the handle of her fan against the china of her false teeth with an alarming series of clicks.
“Pon rep, I have it now. Dev’lishly handsome buck. So he married you, heh? And where is my lord?”
“In Town, an it please Your Grace.”
“It does not please me at all. He was a great flirt of mine. All the bucks are. Why isn’t he here?”
“He may join us in a few days,” interrupted the Duke smoothly. “Sir Frederick, will you oblige me by taking Mama into dinner? Your arm, Lady Standish.”
Lucy’s heart sank to the points of her little kid shoes as the Dowager Duchess led the way, tossing venomous glances over her shoulder.
The Duke took the head of the long table and his mother took her place at the
other end—to Lucy’s relief. She herself was placed next to the Duke with an ebullient young man called Harry Brainchild on her other side.
“Are all these people house guests?” asked Lucy in a low voice.
“A few cousins and aunts, I believe,” said the Duke carelessly. “You are not eating, Lady Standish.”
“I… I am still fatigued. And… and I fear your mother does not approve of me.”
“I think you will find this Moselle to your taste,” said the Duke. “If this weather lifts, I shall be able to take you riding tomorrow.”
“Thank you,” said Lucy meekly, wishing however that he had not deliberately ignored the remark about his mother.
Harry Brainchild promptly engaged her attention, and finding she knew nothing of the surrounding countryside, launched enthusiastically into an exhaustive description of every bird, bush, tree, animal, and fish in the surrounding district. He professed himself to be a great Lover of Nature and then went on to describe how many foxes he had killed, how many birds he had shot, and how many otter cubs he had put to death, and this history of carnage went on so long that he had, it seemed, finally paused for breath when the Dowager Duchess arose to her feet indicating that the ladies should rise also and leave the gentlemen to their wine.
It seemed to Lucy as if all the other ladies followed the Duchess’s example. They clustered around her on the road to the drawing room, pointedly ignoring Lucy.
The drawing room was the one room in the house where the Duke’s austere and elegant taste had not been allowed a foothold. It was dominated by a full-length portrait of the Duchess in a sky blue gown and Leghorn hat, posing before an open window which looked out onto a sky in which an approaching typhoon threatened. Garish stripes climbed up and down the walls and furniture, reminding Lucy of the interior decoration of her own townhouse. The air was suffocatingly warm and scented with patchouli. One half of the room had broken out in a rash of chinoiserie with carved dragons, silk screens, and jade buddhas, and the other half was in the new Egyptian style with Recamier couches and an enormous fireplace with carved glass sphinxes on the pilasters.