by M C Beaton
Amanda followed more slowly. Mrs. Fitzgerald had promised the girls would be roused at eight in the morning. It was now, Amanda estimated, about five.
She stopped on the landing of the second floor and leaned over the banister, looking down at the short passage which led to the library on the first.
As she watched, Lord Hawksborough emerged, still in evening dress. She hung tightly onto the wood of the mahogany banister and said a silent farewell.
As if aware of being watched, he looked up. The second-floor landing was in darkness so Amanda was confident that he could not see her, although she could see him, as there was an oil lamp on a chest of drawers on the first landing.
But he said quietly, “Cannot you sleep, Miss Amanda?”
“Susan wanted me to talk to Mrs. Fitzgerald,” whispered Amanda.
“Come down,” he commanded. “I want to talk to you.”
“I am in my undress, my lord.”
“Then I am sure you are more clothed than you were in the ballroom. Come down!”
With a fast-beating heart, Amanda scampered down the stairs. He led the way back to the library, where he threw a shovelful of coal on the red embers of the fire and lit one branch of candles on the mantel.
“What did you want to see my mother about?” he asked.
Amanda told him about the early-morning horse-riding project.
“I am glad my mother has agreed,” he said testily when she had finished. “But Susan is no longer a baby. She has a tongue in her head. Why the deuce couldn’t she ask Mother herself?”
“Perhaps she fears another terrible set-down.”
“You make my mother sound like an ogre. Words cannot hurt.”
“Yes, they can.” Amanda sighed. “They can hurt so terribly and… and… make one want to do stupid things like taking revenge.”
“So wise and yet so young,” he mocked. “May I offer you a glass of wine?… What is your choice?… Madeira?… Then I will join you. Sit down, Miss Amanda, and tell me how you enjoyed your first London ball. You were a success, as I was sure you would be.”
“You did not ask me to dance,” said Amanda, settling herself in the chair by the fire. “You promised you would dance with me.”
“Then I will dance with you when I return.”
“Will… will… Mr. Townsend…? I mean, I do not suppose Mr. Townsend will still be pursuing the highwaymen with you gone.”
“What put that idea into your pretty head? I sincerely hope he will continue to do the job for which he is being highly paid.”
“Oh.”
“I suspect you to have a sneaking sympathy for these rogues. You read too many romances, Miss Amanda. Do you know that every time you talk about that robbery, your eyes take on a hunted look. One would think you a highway robber yourself!”
“You did not answer my question,” said Amanda quickly, desperate to change the subject.
“Which one?”
“Why did you not dance with me?”
“Perhaps I forgot.”
“Perhaps,” echoed Amanda in a small voice.
“I will be honest with you,” he said quietly. “It may sound very vain, but I was afraid you might have formed a tendre for me.” She gave a soft exclamation and he held up his hand. “No, let me go on. I am very much older than you, my child. I am thirty. Sometimes when one is as young as you, one forms a tendre for someone older. That someone is never the person that one would love in later years.”
“How do you know?” asked Amanda, the lace at the bosom of her nightdress revealed by the open wrapper rising and falling.
“I am engaged to be married.”
“You have begged my question. And that was the only reason you did not ask me to dance?”
“Not quite. I find you—”
But before he could finish what he was about to say, a great gust of wind tore at the windows and the candles blew out. He gave an exclamation of impatience. “I will close the shutters if you will relight the candles.”
He strode to the window. Amanda put a taper between the bars of the fire and then stretched on tiptoe to try to light the candles on the mantelshelf. But they were too high, so after a little deliberation she climbed up on her chair and then stood on the arm, and lit the candles one by one. He was returning and she was stretching out to reach the last candle when the chair she was standing on wobbled dangerously.
“Silly child,” said Lord Hawksborough. “You will end up in the fire.”
He caught her in his arms and swung her down onto the rug in front of the fire. He had meant to release her immediately, but even through his waistcoat he could feel her small high breasts pressing against him. He was conscious of a faint scent of roses from her hair, of the pliant softness of her body, of the drowned lost look in those strange green-gold eyes turned up to his own.
Then she veiled her eyes with her lashes and turned her mouth a fraction up towards him and gave a little sigh of submission.
He felt his pulses racing and a constriction in his chest, and he suddenly, cruelly wanted to know if he could shock her senses more than she had shocked his. It was unbelievable that such a little slip of a girl could rouse such violent feelings in him.
He put his hand under her chin and lightly brushed her mouth with his own. Then he kissed a little blue vein at the base of her left ear, and brought his other hand up to tangle in the masses of curly soft hair, brushed free from its fashionable coiffure.
Her whole body seemed to throb and vibrate in his arms, and he thought wryly that he would give her one good kiss on the mouth to punish her, and then send her off to bed.
But as his mouth closed over her own, her lips, soft and warm, opened instinctively under his, and somehow the next moment he was sitting in the armchair with her on his lap, while each movement of his busy hands and busy mouth seemed to drive them both mad.
To Amanda, it was as if they were both whirling through space and time, fused together by passion. He kissed her for a long time, his senses assaulted by hair and perfume of roses, and lips and arms, and candlelight and firelight, and the glitter and desire in those thick-fringed green-and-gold eyes.
Outside, the mounting storm tore at the building and howled in the chimneys.
His exploring hand slid inside the neck of her nightgown and closed around one small perfect breast.
Amanda’s body went very still and her lips beneath his own stopped moving.
The room swung back into focus.
Lord Hawksborough gave a ragged sigh and realised in dawning horror that he had been within an ames-ace of seducing his mother’s young guest.
“You witch!” he said suddenly and savagely, and pushed her off his lap. Amanda regained her balance and stood up. Her eyes were wide and dark and her mouth was swollen and bruised.
“My dear Amanda,” he said, obviously fighting for control. “You asked me why I did not ask you to dance. That is your answer. I knew I could not trust myself if I held you in my arms.”
“Then?” said Amanda, taking a step towards him as he stood up. “Then…?”
“It’s madness. I am engaged. The whole thing is folly and madness. No! Don’t dare come near me. I must confess I drank overmuch tonight. I am not myself. Do not look at me so. Be the good child you are and run along to bed. I will be gone by the time you wake, and when I return, you will be engaged to a suitable young man. Please do not distress me further nor make me more ashamed of what I have done. I beg of you. Leave me.”
Amanda looked sadly and searchingly up into his face, but his mouth was set and his eyes were cold, and he brushed himself down and straightened his waistcoat with a certain fastidious distaste which cut her to the quick.
All at once she ran from the room and slammed the door behind her.
He stood for a long time looking into the embers of the fire, his face as grim and hard as it had been when Amanda had first seen him at the assembly at Hember Cross.
6
Amanda was awake
ned almost, it seemed, five minutes after she had dropped off to sleep. She heard the wind still roaring outside, but knew that Susan would be hell-bent on riding, no matter what the weather.
It proved to be as good a tonic as any for a sore heart. The two girls galloped side by side through the empty Park, Amanda on a borrowed horse and Susan on her black horse called Pericles. At last, even Susan felt she had had enough exercise and shouted above the wind that they should return home.
They swung their mounts around and cantered side by side under the tossing trees. Amanda was wearing a wool dress and cloak but Susan was wearing a dashing riding habit of bright green cloth, ornamented down the front and on the cuffs á la militaire with black braid.
They were nearing the gates of the Park when they saw an odd figure approaching.
A great rawboned horse was bearing a slim masculine figure dressed in dandified morning dress. His guinea-gold curls peeped out from beneath a wide-awake, and as he came nearer, the girls were able to see he had a very beautiful, sensitive face and vague blue eyes.
He reined in his horse and Susan and Amanda brought their mounts to a halt. He made a low bow which nearly sent him flying over his horse’s ears, looked at Susan and put his hand on his heart and sighed, and then with another low bow he pressed the heels of his spurless hessians into his horse’s flanks and moved on.
“What a court card!” said Susan, urging her horse forward again.
“He seemed much taken with you, Susan.” Amanda giggled.
“Yes,” said Susan smugly. “It is amazing to find that I am attractive after all.”
Amanda cast her a doubtful glance but reflected charitably that Susan could do with a little vanity.
They were ambling through Grosvenor Square on their way to Berkeley Square when a light travelling carriage rounded the square pulled by four horses. Seated on the box was Lord Hawksborough. He raised his whip in salute but did not stop. Amanda watched him go, her heart in her eyes and resentment in her heart.
He had casually made her aware that she was now a woman with all a woman’s passions. But he had called her a child, and he had not even stayed his horses to say good-bye.
She was glad to be able to leave Susan as soon as they returned home and fall into bed again.
That evening, Mrs. Fitzgerald was entertaining in style. She held a dinner party for twenty. Susan appeared en grande tenue and adopted the airs of a reigning beauty. Amanda blushed for her, until she realised that Susan was well on the way to becoming the latest fashion.
Gossip was about the victory celebration of the previous June and the eccentricities of the visiting royals. The Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia had not given any money to the state coachmen and cooks. The King of Prussia had eaten voraciously at half-past two each day, and one day eleven loins of veal were cut up for his hundred and eighty attendants. The Emperor, for three months’ stay at the Pulteney, had only given two hundred pounds amongst thirty servants. And so the gossip went.
Amanda listened intently to every word until she realised she was saving every on-dit, dreaming of sitting in the library telling every bit of it to Lord Hawksborough on his return. But he would not want to see her on his return, she thought miserably. He would no doubt pat her on the head and give her sugar plums and rush off to the well-rounded arms of Lady Mary Dane.
That evening party was the start of many. Aunt Matilda became more and more animated as the pressure of social engagements grew.
Mrs. Fitzgerald now praised her daughter’s appearance lavishly, and Susan, from being a sulky gauche girl, became a swollen-headed gauche girl, and then gradually began to settle down and acquire a dignified air of breeding and a quieter, easier manner. The beautiful young man who had been so enraptured with Susan that day in the Park had managed to introduce himself to Mrs. Fitzgerald and was a constant visitor. His name was Mr. Bertram Dalzell, a young man of good family. He kept sending Susan long poems which she would read aloud to Amanda, punctuating the lines with gurgles of laughter.
Christmas was celebrated in the Hanoverian manner with a tree at one end of the room and presents piled on a table at the other.
Amanda had saved most of her allowance so that she could repay a little of her hostess’s generosity by buying Mrs. Fitzgerald a cashmere shawl.
Young men came and young men went and Amanda paid not the slightest heed to any of them. Despite the fact that her mind was telling her that Lord Hawksborough was engaged to be married and that he thought of her as a child, she knew she was waiting, waiting, counting the days until his return.
Lady Mary came back to London one snowy day, dropping from her reticule, by deliberate accident, a bunch of love letters tied up with pink ribbon. She snatched them up and gave a rueful laugh, her clear blue gaze going to where Amanda sat sewing in a corner of the Red Drawing Room. “Charles’s letters,” she said with a shrug. “He is such a passionate man, Mrs. Fitzgerald. I would be put to the blush if anyone saw even one line!”
Amanda lowered her eyes to her sewing, but her thoughts were racing.
Lord Hawksborough was right, she thought grimly. She was a schoolgirl. Only a schoolgirl would sit pining away for an unattainable man who had no interest in her whatsoever, a man who wrote passionate letters to his fiancée.
She, Amanda, would have to leave London after the Season was over. The Season began in May and finished in July. And then what?
I must make a push to secure a husband, thought Amanda fiercely. Richard’s studies have only just begun. ’Twould be no hardship to be married to someone comfortable—an elderly gentleman, say, who only wishes a companion.
Her determination was further cemented a few days later when she received a letter from Richard. He had reclaimed the jewels and burned the masks and wigs and hats. He had stayed at Bellingham, being frightened to show his face at Hember Cross. He had learned Mr. Cartwright-Browne had found Mr. Brotherington snooping around the garden of Fox End and was charging him with trespass. On the day of the court hearing, Richard had gone to Fox End and had affected to be surprised to find the master not at home. He had told Mr. Cartwright-Browne’s butler that he would like to see his horse, Caesar.
Once in the stable, he had locked the doors and unearthed the jewels. He would return to London during the small hours of Sunday morning.
Amanda was to creep down the stairs and unbar the door. They would leave the jewel box in the hall.
Amanda gave a sigh of relief. She sat down with the letter crushed in her hand, her legs trembling. All at once she realized she had been living all the time since her arrival in London in great fear of being found out. Now the nightmare was over.
Life had become ordinary. She was used to London society. She must grow up and find herself a husband and then remove herself as far away from Lord Hawksborough’s unsettling personality as possible.
On Saturday, they were to see Kean perform in Othello, so Amanda was confident of being back in Berkeley Square well before two o’clock in the morning.
The party for the theater was made up of Mrs. Fitzgerald; Aunt Matilda; Lady Mary; Susan Fitzgerald; Amanda; the beautiful Mr. Dalzell, who was being encouraged in his attentions to Susan by Mrs. Fitzgerald, who had found out that the young man had a not inconsiderable fortune; Lord Box, an elderly friend of Mrs. Fitzgerald’s; Colonel John Withers of the Hussars, a ferocious military gentleman who seemed quite dazzled by Lady Mary; and Mr. Tom Moore, the poet.
The performance absorbed Amanda’s attention completely. Kean’s acting was superb.
And when the performance was over and Mr. Moore offered to escort them to the green room to meet the great man, Amanda was so excited at the thought of meeting the actor that she forgot about the jewel box and the time.
The green room was a small apartment with a large looking glass and a sofa all around it—yellow, not green.
Mr. Kean at last made his offstage entrance. He was a very short man, wearing a pepper-and-salt suit. But he was strongly m
ade and wide-shouldered, with a hollow, sallow face and thick black hair. Mr. Moore asked after his health and he replied mildly that it was tolerable but that he was having trouble with his voice.
Amanda had heard reports of the actor’s amusing stories, but he seemed tired that night, and uncomfortable in the presence of so many strangers.
Miss Smith, who had played Desdemona, came in, and Mrs. Fitzgerald remarked loudly that she bore a marked resemblance to Lady Tavistock—a middle-aged peeress famous for the amount of paint with which she bedaubed her face and bosom—and Susan cackled with laughter.
Mr. Moore winced and brought the audience to an end. Not for the first time did Amanda wonder how Lord Hawksborough had managed to acquire such charm and ease of manner. Not from his mother anyway.