Julie Tetel Andresen

by The Temporary Bride

  Helen had met so many people and heard so many names in the days since her arrival that she could not be expected to remember them all. However, Talby’s name was memorable enough. “Is he the Duke of Clare?”

  “Why, yes,” Lady Happendale answered colourlessly.

  Helen nodded. She had learned from Lady Happendale’s maid that Kenneth Talby, Seventh Duke of Clare, had never been a prime favourite with her ladyship, despite their family relationship. It was reported that when Talby had succeeded to the dukedom following her ladyship’s young brother’s death in a sailing accident, she had found Talby even more difficult to bear, although she never showed it to him or mentioned her dislike of him to a living soul.

  “And this morning,” Lady Happendale continued, “I have received a note from Olivia Saltash saying that she and her niece, Deborah, will also be stopping by for a chat. I should wish you to keep Deborah company, since you are almost alike in age.”

  “I shall, of course, be delighted to do so,” Helen assured her ladyship.

  “I am glad we have it all settled.” Then, briskly, “The morning is wearing on, my dear, and we have many things to do yet. I should like to take lunch with you downstairs, for I have decided to receive our guests this afternoon in the green saloon.”

  Helen assented agreeably. With a fine intuition, she realized that Lady Happendale must not like Lady Saltash any more than she did Kenneth Talby. Otherwise she would be receiving them in her private apartment, which she apparently reserved only for her favored guests and intimate friends.

  “Let me warn you, my dear,” Lady Happendale added, “Lady Saltash is very forthright and given to plain speaking, which is what I admire most about her. So do not be put off. I should also tell you that her niece is reported to be quite a beauty. At least, Olivia says so!” She smiled, a little slyly. “I look forward to showing off to her my new protégée!”

  “I hope to acquit myself creditably,” Helen said.

  “Oh, indeed!” Lady Happendale said with a twinkle. “I predict you will quite take the wind out of Deborah’s sails.”

  “You cannot think that I will outshine a Beauty,” Helen protested.

  “You think not? Well, I will concede that you are no pink- and-white miss, which is all the rage but neither are you in the common style. And you are not at all what I had expected!”

  “Did the employment agency lead you astray?”

  “No, it was Augusta Faversham.”

  “Oh, Lady Faversham!” Helen said with a chuckle, remembering that matron from her days in Society. “I have not seen her for three years, so I daresay you thought you were getting a plump and slightly shy governess.”

  Lady Happendale nodded. “Exactly so! But it is obvious that you are no longer plump, the shyness has been replaced by a most becoming self-assurance, and a governess you are not!”

  “You are too good, ma’am,” Helen said with some difficulty.

  Lady Happendale let it go at that, and they fell to talking of other things. After a light nuncheon, Helen and her ladyship installed themselves in the green saloon, whereupon Helen asked, “Do you think that the visits of His Grace and the Saltash ladies will coincide?”

  “I expect so,” Lady Happendale returned dryly.

  “Do I understand that His Grace is as yet unmarried?”

  “That is correct,” her ladyship said with a smile that made clear to Helen that Lady Saltash had chosen to come on this day in order to bring her Deborah to the Duke of Clare’s notice.

  Fifteen minutes later, Lady Saltash and Miss Saltash were announced.

  Two ladies crossed the threshold. Both were dressed in the first stare of elegance, but there the resemblance ended. Olivia, Lady Saltash, approaching her fiftieth birthday, was a spare woman with a noble bearing, an elegant head and a good deal of countenance. She was also known for making not-quite-snide comments that awed and consternated many a younger matron. Deborah was her junior by some thirty- two years. She had an excellent figure, lustrous brown hair, a wonderfully straight nose, cupid’s-bow lips, a rose-petal complexion, wide violet eyes, and a distinct lack of character.

  “How do you go on, my dear Amelia?” Lady Saltash gushed, coming forward to kiss Lady Happendale’s cheek.

  “Very well,” came the invariable reply to such solicitous enquiries. “And yourself, Olivia?”

  “I am in high gig, as the young people say,” Lady Saltash replied, “now that my Deborah has come to stay with me. Do you come forward, my dear, and make your curtsey to Lady Happendale. You must know that my Deborah has such pretty, unaffected manners, and she is such a taking thing that I am sure she will capture your heart just as she does everyone’s!”

  Miss Deborah Saltash remained unblushing throughout this tribute and dropped a graceful salute to her hostess, greeting her in a most charming manner.

  It remained for Lady Happendale to introduce Helen, who was presented as her ladyship’s companion. Only a second’s frozen smile on Lady Saltash’s lips betrayed the fact that she was mentally reviewing all she knew of the Denville family.

  The guests took their seats, and Lady Saltash opened with her least valuable card. “Well! We are all looking forward to Deborah’s Season, and I am hoping that she will ‘take.’ Although Lord Saltash and I were never blessed with children, I feel a mother’s pride and confidence that she will! I know all the young men will be vying for her favours—that is if she is not snapped up before the Season begins!” She turned to Helen. “Did you have a Season, Miss Denville?”

  “Yes, I did,” Helen answered, unruffled and a little amused.

  “Oh, I see!” Lady Saltash murmured.

  The latest on-dits and fashions were duly discussed, and on this subject Deborah bore up her end of the conversation very well, being extremely knowledgeable on the subject of the most becoming styles for debutantes and surprisingly conversant about the lives of people she had yet to meet and who would soon make up her circle of acquaintance. Helen learned, for instance, that Miss Saltash preferred azure above all colours, did not favour immodest décolletages, and was the god-daughter of Lady Hervey, who held very select dinners in Town every Tuesday during the Season, which always included some discreet gambling.

  When these topics and that of summer plans had been exhausted, Lady Saltash set up her hand to play her ace. “Well!” she began. “I hope that we are not fagging you to death with all our prattle.”

  “How can you say so,” Lady Happendale replied, “when you know I delight in visitors? I find it stimulating, not tiring!”

  “I do not want to overstay,” Lady Saltash continued, “that is, if you are expecting other visitors today.”

  “I am expecting the Duke of Clare,” Lady Happendale said, as if she did not know that her guests were well aware of Talby’s visiting schedule.

  “Oh, are you?” Lady Saltash said with creditable surprise. “It will be interesting to see his reaction to the latest on-dit. You must be sure to tell me what it is, Amelia, if we find we must be off before His Grace arrives.”

  “I should be happy to do so if I knew what you are talking about, Olivia. As it is, I have heard no breath of gossip about Kenneth for an age!”

  “I should have thought that some one of your other visitors would have told you,” Lady Saltash replied, “but I suppose I ought to have guessed that you did not know, for you seemed to be taking it very calmly. The fact is that I only heard it yesterday myself, but I thought that surely you—” Here Lady Saltash broke off.

  “You see now what a sorry creature I am, for I am not up to every rig and row in Town. Not this one, at any rate. But I am sure that Talby will be here soon and will give you his opinion of whatever it is firsthand!”

  “I am beginning to wonder if he has heard,” Lady Olivia said. “In such a case, he might very well be the last one to hear.”

  “Crossed in love?” Lady Happendale ventured.

  “No, my dear, something far more…serious! And something of inte
rest to you, too, I should think!”

  “My dear Olivia, I am quite in the dark!”

  Lady Saltash smoothed the lavender kid gloves in her lap and looked up. “Wraxall has been seen,” she said, with a dramatic flourish.

  This intelligence produced its desired effect upon Lady Happendale. Her naturally expressive face became rigid, and Helen noted with some alarm that the customary twinkle in her ladyship’s eye vanished and there appeared a tiny crease of pain between her brows. Her hands clasped and unclasped on the arms of her chair. Helen wondered about the other woman’s motives in revealing such obviously affecting news, but decided that Lady Olivia had only intended to shock and dazzle. Lady Saltash seemed far too shallow a creature to suspect such deep emotions in others.

  The moment passed, and Lady Happendale was smiling again. “You are not going to persuade me that you believe in ghosts, are you, Olivia?” her ladyship teased with such a light touch that Helen at once doubted her reading of Lady Happendale’s momentary expression of suffering.

  “No, indeed, Amelia!” Lady Saltash rejoined. “But I heard it from Charlotta Storwick, who had it from Caro Bradshaw. She reportedly heard it first from her aunt, Hester Grooby, who claims the story emanated from Sally Jersey. How Sally comes to be at the centre of all things, I’ll never know! And how she came to tell the story to Hester Grooby is beyond me, for Hester lives quite retired, and in Bath of all places!”

  “Sally is at the moment visiting her husband’s parents in Bath, and they are friends of Miss Grooby,” Lady Happendale informed her.

  “There you have a confirmation, then!” Lady Saltash cried. “For it was made clear to me that the story comes from Bath. It is said that no one in London knows of it yet.”

  “This is most preposterous, Olivia! Surely you cannot give credence—serious credence—to a fairy tale you heard second… no, fifth-hand! Has my brother been seen many times and in many places, or can his apparition be apprehended by only one pair of eyes and in only one place?”

  “He was seen as recently as last week, my dear! And the person who saw him is reportedly most reliable but has asked not to be identified!”

  “But of course!” Lady Happendale exclaimed. “That is only to be expected, Olivia! And just where was he supposed to have been seen? Sauntering about the countryside or haunting an abandoned castle?”

  “I do not know, and it makes little difference. He was seen,” Lady Saltash insisted.

  “Yes, by someone out of one of Mrs. Radcliffe’s novels! Really, Olivia, if Wraxall were alive, I should think that I might be the one to see him. Explain how it is that he has been so thoughtless as not to come to see me?”

  “Of course I cannot answer that, but I am sure that there is a reasonable explanation,” Lady Saltash answered primly.

  “Oh, surely not reasonable!”

  “Well, I do not know, in any event. I thought you would wish to know. The matter is, of course, quite a secret!”

  “So I perceive,” Lady Happendale said, the twinkle unmistakably back in her eye. “But I feel that we must explain to Miss Saltash and Miss Denville what we are talking about, to reassure them that we have not lost our senses. We are discussing my brother, Richard. Richard Wraxall, Sixth Duke of Clare.”

  During the course of this conversation, Helen had felt her head begin to spin. She had become quite pale and quiet and had begun to piece together quite an unbelievable possibility. Until she heard that his name was Richard, it had not occurred to her that the man she knew as Mr. Darcy could be Lady Happendale’s dead brother. Or was it just an extraordinary coincidence? Fortunately, the news was sufficiently startling and absorbing that neither Lady Saltash nor Lady Happendale was interested in Helen’s reactions.

  “You must understand that my brother died in a sailing accident more than six years ago. Almost seven, come this August,” Lady Happendale explained. “So, naturally, it is difficult to imagine that he is alive.”

  “But the body was never found,” Lady Saltash pointed out somewhat ghoulishly.

  “His yawl was, however. You remember that the splintered remains of the Sealion were found off the Cornish coast some three months after his disappearance, along with some of his personal articles and those of his man,” Lady Happendale reminded her evenly. Not even Helen guessed how many years it had taken her ladyship to be able to speak on the matter with anything approaching equanimity.

  “Is it so impossible for him to be alive, ma’am?” Helen asked gingerly, having had to swallow the uncomfortable lump in her throat.

  “Not impossible, my dear,” Lady Happendale said gently with a sad little smile. “I did believe him alive for such a long time, but what I wished to believe did not bring him back. Just after his disappearance, there were rumours to spare that he had been seen here and there, but they died down after his absence became prolonged. Then they finally stopped when his boat was discovered by some fishermen. So I see little value in placing any hopes in unfounded rumours that are circulating almost seven years later. It seems so much…better to let him rest in peace, for I do not believe that the current rumours provide us with a clue to what he was supposed to have been doing in the meantime.”

  Helen might have informed them, but did not think it wise to offer her suggestions.

  “Perhaps he lost his memory,” Deborah proposed.

  “Or had some deep secret that had to be concealed,” Lady Saltash said.

  “Must I insist that I doubt it?” Lady Happendale replied, shaking her head a little.

  Lady Saltash was somewhat displeased by her friend’s dismissal of so interesting a piece of news. Some little demon prompted her to add, “I had not wanted to mention it, Amelia, in case you are sensitive to it, but there is more to the story than I have said! It seems that Wraxall was seen in company with another person. Need I mention that this person was a woman? Now, do not ask me for details of who the woman is, for her name had become quite garbled by the time it reached me!”

  Helen let out her breath slowly and softly and silently hurled a severe curse upon the head of Lord Honeycutt.

  “Spare me any further elucidations, Olivia!” Lady Happendale said. “No one seriously intends to cast stones at a…a dead man, do they?”

  “There is certainly no offence intended, my dear,” Lady Saltash said, “but if there were such a woman, and she could be found, it would make the story all the more believable! I should think you would be happy to hear it, for that would mean that Talby would be quite cut out of his position!”

  “Whatever can you mean?” Lady Happendale replied, shocked. “I certainly do not begrudge Talby his position, for he had nothing to do with Richard’s sailing accident! Naturally, I was crushed by my brother’s death and wish him back with all my heart, but I do not want to bring him back to life in my mind only to have to mourn him again when the rumours are finally refuted. Surely you understand!”

  “Well,” Lady Saltash said, “I hope you do not blame me for having told you, for the news is destined to become an item.”

  “You see, then, the difference. The news that Richard might be alive can never be ‘an item’ with me, or an idle piece of gossip that one discusses with one’s friends. It is a personal matter of the heart, and I can tell you that I buried a piece of my heart with him long ago. Do not let us speak of it any more.”

  These words, gentle but firm, had the effect of a mild reproof. Lady Saltash was on the point of responding when the door to the saloon opened.

  All heads turned towards it expectantly when the Happendale steward intoned in portentous accents, “His Grace, Duke of Glare.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  IT WAS NO GHOST, but Kenneth Talby, Seventh Duke of Clare, who entered the room.

  His Grace looked every inch a duke. He wore a green coat in a pale emerald shade with lace frothing at neck and wrists, and a powdered wig. His thin, handsome face, marked by encroaching dissipation, showed him to be more of an age with Lady Saltash than with Lady H
appendale. He carried himself with an air but underplayed his consequence, although he was well aware that he was sought after by gentlemen and ladies alike. The ladies found him a particularly desirable cavaliere servente, which role he had had ample time to polish since his wife’s death only a few months after their marriage, some twenty years before.

  Over the years, he had shown no disposition to remarry and resisted, charmingly, all the young damsels and attractive widows who had set their caps for him. Only when Lady Happendale’s husband died almost ten years before had Talby conducted what even the most sceptical might have called a courtship. However, since Talby’s attentions were persistent but very idle, as was his manner, and Lady Happendale proved extremely diffident, the lady’s affections had not been engaged at the time of Wraxall’s death. Thus, it was popularly believed that Talby’s ascent to the position of Duke of Clare came to him as a mixed blessing, for Lady Happendale, ever the fondest of sisters, could never be expected to marry the man who had succeeded to her brother’s position. However hopeless his case, His Grace came regularly to visit Lady Happendale to discuss “the affairs of the estate.” That lady suggested to any who brought it up that Talby’s attentions were only natural, since she was, in fact, his cousin. No one had ever responded by pointing out that Wraxall blood was many times removed from the Talby line.

  This middle-aged exquisite entered the room in his usual languid manner. Upon perceiving four pairs of widened eyes riveted on him, he raised a quizzing-glass and levelled it.

  “But do I intrude?” he said with a lift of his delicately pencilled brows.

  Lady Happendale recovered first. “Of course not, Kenneth, for I was expecting you,” she said, smiling. “If we stare so rudely, you must realize that you are looking uncommonly fine this afternoon and quite outshine us.”

  “Shall I flatter myself and believe you?” His Grace murmured, advancing into the room and bowing low over Lady Happendale’s hand as he imprinted a salute upon it.