Jane Feather

by Engagement at Beaufort Hall

  Esther nodded with a murmured, “I see. I suppose having to maintain a neutral attitude all the time in the law courts must spill over into his everyday attitudes, don’t you think? I mean, he can’t crack a smile in front of a judge or show sympathy.”

  “He can do both of those if he thinks it will advance his position in a case,” her sister returned smartly. “It’s not genuine. I’ve heard him give the most impassioned pleas to a jury in his summing-up about the innocence of some appallingly guilty creature, a man he knows perfectly well is as guilty as sin.”

  “I suppose that’s what makes him so successful,” Esther observed. “A barrister doesn’t become a QC without rising to the top of his profession.”

  “I am all too aware of that,” Imogen said glumly. “And I’m sure he has his sights set on a knighthood, just like his father.”

  “Well, that’s no bad thing,” her sister said pragmatically. “Lady Riverdale would have had a nice ring to it. And,” she reminded, “whatever his personal faults, you were still prepared to marry him. Nothing about his professional life, his ambitions, or his talents has changed in the last few months.”

  “True enough,” Imogen conceded. She shook her head. “Honestly, Essie, sometimes I don’t think I have a clear thought in my head. I can’t help wondering what Mama would say. I wish she was here,” she added wistfully.

  “I think she’d tell you to follow your heart, not your head,” Esther said with a considering frown. “If your head’s so muddled, maybe your heart’s a better compass.”

  Imogen laughed without much amusement. “I don’t think my heart knows true north either. I’ll see you in the drawing room at six.”

  Charles waited impatiently for his guests to leave. He wanted time to himself, to think about his next step. He tried to imagine how he would proceed if this were a court case, what arguments would he summon up for the defense—and he was, without doubt, the defendant. He knew he had a reputation for a silver tongue, and he knew how to use it to best advantage. In the same way, he could use his tongue like the sharpest knife when it suited his purpose. But Imogen knew all his tricks, and they were tricks. Tricks of his trade. Perhaps he needed a completely different approach.

  His guests started to leave eventually, all except for Duncan and his party, who had colonized the billiard room and were deep into Charles’s port and cigars. As the front door closed on the last guest who seemed aware of the time, Charles went into the billiard room, where the players had all shed their coats and were playing in shirtsleeves, very much at home.

  He stood for a moment leaning against the door at his back, and Duncan, flushed with drink, looked up from the cue he was positioning. “Riverdale, come and join us. We’re trying to beat Harry’s score, but he’s the very devil at this game. Won’t you try your hand?”

  For all the world as if he were the host and Charles the guest, Charles reflected. He was debating a harsh put-down when Harry Graham spoke up, throwing an arm lightly around Duncan’s shoulders. “Duncan . . . Duncan, dear fellow. You forget yourself. We’re monopolizing our host’s billiard room, and I’m sure he’s wishing us to the devil. It must be near dusk.”

  Duncan looked startled, glanced towards the window, where the daylight was definitely on the wane. “Good God, Charles. My apologies. Having such a good game, we quite forgot the time.” He dropped his cue on the table and reached for his coat, shrugging into it. “A splendid afternoon, sir. A most delightful luncheon.”

  “My pleasure,” Charles murmured, standing aside as his guests filed past him into the hall. “Send to the stables for my guests’ horses, Neal.”

  “Immediately, sir.” The footman bowed.

  The small party stood awkwardly in the hall, and Charles was not in the mood to fill the void with small talk. He had always found Duncan Carstairs an irritating young man, and he wondered now what Harry Graham saw in him to make the intimacy of shared lodgings a viable arrangement. Graham was very different, nothing of the dilettante about him. His gaze was particularly sharp and seemed to indicate a brain equally as sharp. From what Charles knew of the young man’s career at Oxford, he had excelled both academically and athletically, so what did he see in Duncan Carstairs? Obviously the attraction was not an intellectual one, but then, when it came to attraction, there was no accounting for tastes, he reflected wryly.

  “The horses are here, sir.”

  With relief on all sides the party broke up, and Charles was left to the peace and quiet of his own house. His own houseguests had departed the day before, and he was relishing his solitude. An only child, he had been very much left to his own devices while he was growing up. His father, Sir Daniel Riverdale, QC, an eminent barrister, had supervised a rigorous education, and his mother had lived so much in her husband’s shadow that Charles often found it quite difficult to conjure a clear image of her. She had always seemed a pale and insignificant figure, choosing the shadows rather than the bright light of day.

  Thoughtfully he went into his study, a small, paneled room off the drawing room. In truth, it was the only room in the house he liked. The rest of the place was like a mausoleum, but this room he had turned into his own, with his own books on the shelves, his own furniture and carpet, his own pictures on the walls.

  He poured himself a goblet of brandy and sat down in a deep armchair beside the fire. He had gone away to school, then to Oxford, and then straight into his father’s chambers at Lincoln’s Inn. At Oxford he had had the occasional flirtation with a sister or cousin of one of his undergraduate friends, and his sexual initiation with a young woman from the town, with whom he’d conducted what at the time he considered a very daring and torrid affair. Town and gown were very separate in the rarified atmosphere of the university, and he had developed something of a reputation among his peers for this reckless association, an association which, if discovered by the university proctors, would have had him sent down for at least a term.

  He took a sip of brandy, smiling slightly. He had enjoyed that reputation, although it by no means represented the hardworking and ambitious student that he actually was. Quite a Goody Two-shoes, in fact. He had left Oxford with a double first, much to Sir Daniel’s gratification, and had been plunged instantly into the world of the bar. Connections helped, of course, and he received a few minor briefs quite quickly, and when he had won his first few trials his own reputation had grown and the briefs had come in in greater numbers and had been of greater importance. There had been little enough time for romantic dalliance in his life, and he’d had no interest in marriage at that point, which was why Dorothea Symonds had seemed the perfect solution to a young man’s lust and need for female companionship as a necessary leavening of the all-male world of chambers.

  Dorothea was a widow, living on a small stipend from her late husband’s career in the army and what she could earn as a milliner’s assistant on Praed Street. Most important, she did not belong to the same social circles as the Riverdales, or frequent the small and exclusive area of town they inhabited. She was genteel, never vulgar or overly demanding, and he could go about town with her in areas where she was comfortable without any fear of drawing unwelcome attention to their liaison. He had set her up in a small cottage in Hampstead and visited her as it suited him. It had been the perfect arrangement for a man so wrapped up in his career that he had no time to play the field, or even to look about him seriously for a wife.

  And then Imogen Carstairs had burst upon his consciousness one early summer evening at a soiree given by a friend of his parents. He had gone reluctantly, but at his father’s insistence. Sir Daniel was more interested in his son’s finding a suitable wife than was the son himself. And he’d been struck dumb the minute he’d walked into the room and seen her holding court among a group of young men and women in a window embrasure.

  The late afternoon sun caught glints of liquid honey in her hair, a thick dark brown like molasses. She was tall, almost as tall as he, and slender as a willow, her bare slop
ing shoulders rising from the neckline of an elegant gown of pale green striped silk, with a dark green sash. Charles was not of a poetic nature, and yet the imagery came thick and fast that evening as he stood still, gazing at her. He remembered how his hostess had tried to hide her amusement when she’d come over to greet him, and even now he could remember his blush as he realized when she’d said, “Ah, my dear Charles, I see that you urgently require an introduction to the beautiful Miss Carstairs,” what his rapt gaze must have revealed to all and sundry.

  He’d stammered a reply, and his hostess had taken his arm and led him across to the group. “Imogen, my dear, allow me to introduce Mr. Charles Riverdale. He is most anxious to make your acquaintance.”

  He remembered that Imogen had turned to him with a smile that even now could take his breath away, it was so dazzlingly intense when she gave someone her full attention. Her eyes were wide, clear, and gray, sparkling with wit and humor.

  But he’d also seen them dark as a storm-ridden sky, he reflected, taking another sip of brandy. And it didn’t take much for the mercurial Miss Carstairs to turn from sunshine to storm when her most deeply held convictions were challenged. But he loved that in her. She was not changeable or unpredictable in the general way of things, and she was more than capable of rational discussion and analysis of opposing opinions—except in one area: the social and legal inequality of women.

  He sighed. It wasn’t that he was unsympathetic to her position, or to her fervent support for women’s suffrage. But he worked within the law and had little interest in changing it. He took briefs that were offered to him, and won them as he knew best how to do. He thought of one particular fight they’d had when she’d called him a legal whore, willing to spread his legs for whoever was paying him.

  Now that had really made him angry, even as he had the uncomfortable realization that she had a point, however insultingly expressed. She had apologized readily enough for the language she’d used. Imogen was always quick to acknowledge her faults, but she had not taken back the sentiment.

  And yet throughout all the tumult of their relationship, it had never occurred to him, or, he believed, to Imogen, that they were not somehow a match pair. Without her, he felt as if he’d lost an essential part of himself. She was the white to his black, or vice versa.

  And when he had tried to bring a gentlemanly close to the liaison with Dorothea, she had told him she was carrying his child. He had thought he had done everything possible to avoid pregnancy, but somehow it had happened anyway. He’d told himself there were ways to manage the situation, to fulfill his responsibilities to child and mother, and yet separate himself from Dorothea and live the married life that was his destiny . . . until Jamie had been born. Even as he’d held the baby for the first time, he’d been swept by a totally unexpected hurricane of adoration for his son. He had been fool enough to imagine that he could keep that side of his life away from Imogen . . . that somehow he could visit Dorothea as a concerned friend, see Jamie regularly, take care of his schooling. The house was in Dorothea’s name: She would be taken care of financially, but there would be no personal relationship with her, particularly after his marriage. His lawyer and accountant would take care of everything. He would more than honor his obligations, and it would be of no concern to Imogen at all.

  And what kind of midsummer night’s dream had he been living in? Charles thought with disgust.

  He drained his goblet and went to refill it. A tap at the door brought in the parlormaid to draw the curtains, turn up the gas, and see to the fire. Charles stood by the sideboard holding his goblet, gazing reflectively into its amber depths as he swirled the liquid against the sides of the goblet.

  The girl finished her work, bobbed a curtsy, and hurried away. Charles sipped his brandy. What was his next step? His reflections had led him to one conclusion. Bringing the lawyerly detachment of the courtroom to this situation would be futile. So what alternative? And then it came to him. A smile spread slowly over his lean countenance. He had had the right idea last night. Imogen was a citadel, to be taken by storm. Forget the niceties, the elegant courtroom moves—surprise in a full frontal attack was the only way forward.

  Chapter 11

  Daisy was draping a paisley shawl over Imogen’s shoulders when a knock at the bedroom door brought Esther, already dressed for dinner in a gown of blue velvet. “This came for you by the second post, Gen. It looks like Kate Sutton’s handwriting.” She held up the envelope in her hand. “Sharpton apologized for not getting it to you earlier, but the postman was late, apparently.”

  “Oh, news at last,” Imogen said eagerly as she took the letter. “I have been starved of all the news and gossip from society since the New Year. Kate is a shocking correspondent. . . . Oh, thank you, Daisy. That’ll be all for now.” She threw an absent smile at her maid, who dropped a curtsy and hurried down to the servants’ hall for her own hasty dinner before the family sat down to theirs.

  “I’ve always liked that Indian muslin,” Esther observed, regarding her sister’s dress with approval. “Won’t it be a bit chilly though? It’s drafty in the dining room.”

  “Hence the shawl,” her sister responded, slitting the envelope with the tip of her manicure scissors. She unfolded the tightly written sheet. Lady Katharine Sutton was a good friend and a fellow member of the committee of the Westminster branch of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies.

  “What does Kate have to say?” Esther prompted, when it seemed her sister was not about to share the contents of her letter spontaneously.

  “Mostly she wants to know how soon we’ll be back in town,” Imogen said without lifting her eyes from the letter. “Some poor soul has been thrown out of her house by her husband, who’s denying her access to her children, and the Westminster branch is gathering together as much support for her as we can.”

  “Divorce?” Esther inquired, coming to read over her sister’s shoulder.

  “Looks like it . . . but the woman . . . Emily, her name is . . . is still frightened about taking such a step. She won’t even use her husband’s name in case he finds out where she is. Here, read it for yourself.” Imogen handed the sheet of vellum to her sister. “Kate’s taken her in for the moment, but obviously that’s no permanent solution.”

  “No,” Esther agreed, reading to the end. “But women are so powerless in the courts. No wonder she’s frightened. He’ll have the upper hand without even proving anything.”

  “He already has the upper hand,” Imogen pointed out with a grimace. “According to Kate, Emily has no access to money—she’s completely dependent on her husband.” She took back the letter and folded it carefully. “We have to get back to London, Essie. There’s nothing like a good cause to get the blood moving, and I’ve been sitting on the back burner far too long.”

  “Sounds very uncomfortable,” Esther said with a quirk of a smile. “But I take your point. Next week we’ll be back in Stanhope Terrace and pick up the reins again.”

  They went down to the drawing room together as the clock struck six, just as Duncan and his friends returned from Beringer Manor. They were noisy, stamping their feet as they came into the hall, laughing and talking, cheeks reddened with the cold night air, but warm inside from the afternoon’s drinking.

  “Ah, there you are, Imogen. Why did you run off so early?” Duncan asked his sister. “It was hardly polite for you and Esther to disappear so soon after luncheon.”

  “It was a great deal politer than overstaying our welcome,” Imogen retorted. “It’s six o’clock. The customary hour for leaving a luncheon party is four.”

  “Oh, in the country, maybe,” Duncan declared, “but Charles is accustomed to town customs, my dear girl.” He took in his sister’s evening dress. “Lord, you’re dressed for dinner already. You may be sure Charles isn’t intending to dine much before eight.”

  “Charles may do as he sees fit,” Imogen retorted. “He’s not invited for dinner. Mrs. Windsor, however, expects to
put dinner on the table at seven when we’re here.” She gave her brother’s guests an apologetic smile. “You must forgive us our country ways, gentlemen. But the staff like to keep country hours unless we have a full house party. Of course, we could ask Sharpton to send a message to the kitchens to put dinner back for you if that would suit you better. I’m sure something could be arranged.” She sent Duncan a significant glance and saw to her satisfaction that he had taken the point. He knew from childhood that Mrs. Windsor was not to be trifled with.

  “No . . . no, of course that won’t be necessary . . . wouldn’t put out Mrs. Windsor for the world. We’ll dress at once, eh, chaps?” He glanced at his friends, who, apart from Harry Graham, looked as if they were ready for an extended nap.

  Murmurs of agreement accompanied the young men across the hall and up the stairs, and Imogen, exchanging a quick smile with her sister, followed Esther into the drawing room. She was about to sit by the fire when Sharpton, looking apologetic, came in with a small package. “This arrived by the afternoon carrier, Miss Imogen. Quite slipped my mind when I gave Miss Esther the afternoon post.” He handed her a slim packet that bore the postmark of Leonard Smithers, a London publisher with whom she maintained an account.

  Imogen opened the packet with scissors from Esther’s sewing basket. As she expected, a pristine copy of The Ballad of Reading Gaol. She had ordered it late the previous year, but her abrupt departure to Hampshire and the upheavals of Christmas and New Year had caused a delay in its arrival.

  It was the seventh printing of the poem but the first that bore the author’s name. Oscar Wilde. She sat down to open the book. Wilde had been in exile since his release from gaol in May 1897 and, according to rumor, was living in poverty in Paris.

  “New book?” Esther inquired from the sideboard, where she was pouring sherry.

  “Yes, just arrived this afternoon. The Ballad of Reading Gaol.” Imogen closed the book as she spoke, holding out the slim vellum-bound volume to her sister, taking the proffered sherry glass in exchange.