Lady Happendale lost no time withdrawing her hand and bringing to the duke’s notice the other ladies assembled there.
Weary green eyes roved the room, stopped at the eldest of the trio, whom he acknowledged as “My dearest Olivia,” and gazed a moment at Miss Saltash before coming to rest on Miss Denville. He made the three ladies an elegant leg and then disposed himself in a wingchair opposite Lady Happendale.
The hostess averted an awkward pause by informing him of the connection between Lady Saltash and Miss Saltash.
“Matthew Saltash is your husband’s brother?” Talby said to Lady Saltash, then transferred his gaze to Deborah. “And your father, my dear? No, I do not believe I have the pleasure of your father’s acquaintance.”
“That is because Deborah’s parents live quite retired in Kent,” Lady Saltash said quickly. “Is that not so, my dear?”
Deborah corroborated this with a pretty flutter of her long lashes. The movement indicated that however intriguing were the latest rumours about Wraxall’s reappearance, she was not concerned about a possible unseating of the present Duke of Clare or inclined to waste the smallest opportunity to ensnare him.
“However, I did know your parents, Miss Denville. Your name is Denville, is it not?” he continued smoothly.
“Yes, it is,” Helen replied, expecting a snub.
“Gareth was an excellent whip,” His Grace recalled with a faint smile that betrayed no clue to his thoughts on the Denville demise.
“Yes, he was,” Helen agreed, pleased to be reminded of the one agreeable memory of her father.
“Tell me, my dear, if your father was insistent that you follow in his footsteps. It is a mania, I have found, with some men that they feel they must impart their driving skill to their offspring. Particularly if they are daughters.”
“My father was no different from the rest, then,” Helen said with a chuckle, “for he had me behind the reins almost before I had mounted my first horse. After some years of frustration, however, he realized that I would be at best only a passable whip and finally gave up!”
“That is most reassuring,” he replied, shaking the fall of lace away from one dead-white hand and flicking open the catch on his snuffbox, “for it is most disconcerting to meet with so many modern misses who do not scruple to outmanoeuvre one in the driving box.”
“Deborah’s parents have always felt just as you do, Your Grace,” Lady Saltash interjected with spirit, “and never taught her to drive even a curricle and pair, much less a team!”
“Really?” he replied in a light, bored voice.
“Miss Saltash is to have her first Season under Olivia’s aegis,” Lady Happendale commented.
Talby, whom the recital of the careers of very young ladies filled with inexpressible boredom, momentarily suspended the taking of snuff and replied with a tolerable affectation of interest, “You must tell me, my dear, what you have in store for you in London.”
Deborah favoured him with an account of the Tuesday evening delights at Lady Hervey’s and made the satisfying discovery that His Grace often frequented the functions. “For I am much addicted to gaming, I fear,” he said. “It is a passion I no longer attempt to curb.”
“The play must be too tame for you at Lady Hervey’s, then,” Deborah responded coyly, “for there are ceilings on bets and nothing so daring as roulette or an E.O. table.”
“The play could hardly be stigmatized as being tame,” His Grace returned, “if such captivating ladies as yourself are there.”
Deborah blushed becomingly. Lady Saltash made an unsuccessful attempt to conceal her pleasure at His Grace’s sally. “One would hope,” this lady pursued in a bantering spirit, “that your passion at the gambling table and your attentions to the ladies do no lead you into excesses.”
“Rarely,” he assured her.
“It seems that for you gentlemen,” Lady Saltash continued, “gaming and lovemaking are the same. Winning is all, and losing is intolerable!”
Talby’s fingers were poised above the snuff. He paused and glanced saturninely at the woman he had always deplored for having much more elegance of person than of mind. “Oh, not intolerable,” he said, taking a pinch, “but most unpleasant!”
“How can you know, if you have not had the experience of losing?” Lady Saltash said archly. “You are said to have the devil’s own luck!”
“At gaming, yes,” he clarified.
“At both, Your Grace!” she retorted.
“I have the dubious felicity of being much luckier at the tables than in love,” he remarked, lightly dusting the excess snuff from his fingers.
“Don’t you believe him for a minute, Olivia!” Lady Happendale laughed. “You must know that he is joking.
Everyone knows that Talby has only to toss the handkerchief.”
“Do they, dear lady?” he said.
“Yes,” Lady Happendale responded without hesitation, “but you are far too kind-hearted to do so!”
“Until this very moment, ma’am, no one has ever accused me of kind-heartedness,” His Grace returned.
“I should think that is the only thing one could call it, Kenneth,” Lady Happendale said. “You do not choose one above the rest so as not to disappoint the other ladies languishing at your feet.”
“Do you not think of singling out one of those ladies some day, Your Grace?” Lady Saltash interjected.
“I abandoned the idea of marriage some years ago. One becomes used to one’s little ways and one’s independence.”
“But the need for an heir!”
“I should hardly call it a need. My cousin, Clovis Talby, stands ready to succeed at my demise, which, he has assured me most sincerely, he hopes will be in the distant future.”
“But that is hardly satisfactory!” Lady Saltash exclaimed.
“I find it entirely satisfactory, dear lady. I have never been fired with the ambition to see any progeny of mine reared to fill my shoes.”
Lady Saltash misliked the turn in conversation. “Well,” she said, “I suppose your attitude is just as well, given the recent news.”
Lady Happendale said with amused resignation, “I perceive that Olivia has a desire to regale you with a most absurd story, Talby, that merits recounting only to demonstrate how far the credulity of perfectly rational beings can be stretched!”
“You interest me,” His Grace said in his weary voice.
With relish, Lady Saltash informed him that his predecessor, Richard Wraxall, had been seen recently in England. She slightly dampened her announcement’s dramatic effect by adding, “And that is not just a story of my invention!”
“I should suppose not,” the duke replied, his face impassive. He invited Lady Saltash to elaborate on this most interesting theme.
She gladly obliged and concluded her recital with, “It seems that he was seen in the company of a woman.” Discouraged by the duke’s lack of response, but not daunted, she demanded, “Well, have you nothing to say to the story?”
“I have yet to hear anything that merits reply,” he said calmly.
“You are certainly cool about it,” Lady Saltash complained.
“This information, if one may call it such,” he said, removing an invisible particle of fluff from his lapel, “is hardly worth a yawn.”
Helen had been watching His Grace curiously, but at that remark, she swiftly lowered her lashes to hide her thoughts. The motto encircling the emblem on Vincenzo’s portmanteau sprang into her head: Vix Tanto Hiatu Digna. She and Mr. Darcy had specifically discussed its translation in the English words: “Hardly worth a yawn.”
“You are something of a classicist, Your Grace?” Helen said, unexpectedly entering the conversation. She had bravely raised her eyes to his face.
His eyes met hers. They had narrowed slightly, but gave nothing away. “I do not precisely understand your meaning, Miss Denville,” he said.
“Oh!” she said artlessly, “the phrase ‘hardly worth a yawn’ has a classical origi
n, does it not? It is a Latin phrase, I feel sure, but I find that I am entirely unable to place it!”
“Very acute,” he said with a thin smile. “I should hazard that the phrase originates in a comedy of Plautus. His Amphitryon, if I do not mistake it.”
“I am sure you do not,” Helen said cryptically, satisfied to have ruffled his composure, if only a trifle.
“You go too fast for me!” Lady Saltash said testily. “I should not dismiss the matter so carelessly!”
“Do you think the phrase might derive instead from Plautus’s The Swaggering Soldier, dear lady?” Talby replied.
“I know nothing of the matter!” Lady Saltash said, impatient with such pedantry. “But I take it you do not credit a story which concerns you most intimately!”
“Perhaps I am extremely dull,” the duke responded, “but I apprehend that all there is to the story is the report of someone who—most wisely—wishes to remain anonymous. This person claims to have seen Wraxall in the company of a woman who is fortunate enough to be nameless, as well. These barren details seem hardly the stuff to inspire credulity. I think I should need more convincing evidence before I took serious heed of the story. Thus,” he drawled, “I believe we may safely leave the topic without feeling that we have not done justice to it.”
His expression of disinterest was marred slightly by the drawing together of his thin brows as he glanced at Lady Happendale, Helen decided.
“Pray do not put yourself into the fidgets on my account, Kenneth,” Lady Happendale said, for she, too, had easily interpreted His Grace’s concerned glance at her. “I do not regard it in the least! I feel just as you do that this farrago of nonsense is just that: a farrago of nonsense!”
“It seems entirely possible that someone saw a man who resembled your brother, dear lady, and mentioned it to another, who transformed the story into its present form. This is the way a rumour—for it is nothing more than that, is it?—often starts.”
“But if this particular rumour proved true?” Lady Saltash persevered.
“Then nothing would please me more,” His Grace answered. “Yet in the words of a famous poet, ‘Even the gods fall victim to their own caprice and, er, cannot undo the errors of their wilful judgement.’” He addressed Helen. “The passage, whose translation I have mauled a little, scans better in the original and comes not from a comedy this time, Miss Denville, but from a rather famous tragedy.”
Even Lady Saltash was silenced by the note in his voice, which surprised Helen with its genuine ring.
“Machiavelli?” Helen ventured, naming the only Italian writer she could think of who had also composed plays.
“No,” he replied with a wan smile, “but that is close enough.”
“You continue to amaze me, Talby,” Lady Happendale said in mild surprise. “I had no notion that you were so well versed in the classics.”
“I have always nourished an amateur’s interest in the theatre,” he said casually, “particularly since my first sojourn in Italy when I was but a boy.”
From there it was easy enough to introduce a fresh topic, and since there was no lack of news to review and to comment upon, the conversation became more general. When all other subjects had been exhausted, Lady Saltash recounted the story of the curricle race from London to Bath that had been undertaken by Lord Honeycutt and Mr. Anthony FitzHugh. When most of the particulars of the race had been discussed, Helen enquired, out of pure curiosity, “And who won?”
Lady Saltash could not precisely answer this. “I believe it was … no, that is not right … so perhaps it was … I did hear something about Lord Honeycutt having an upset, so I am inclined to think that it was FitzHugh who won after all. But I have entirely forgotten, and it is nothing to the point! I simply do not know what possesses these young men to embark on such hare-brained schemes!”
“I am in complete agreement with you, dear lady,” Talby purred. “I hold in abhorrence the violent nature of the Young Bloods, as I believe they call themselves. A distasteful appellation! In my day, no man of character and breeding would have engaged in so…stimulating a race, attended prizefights or cock-fights, or beguiled away an evening masquerading abroad in the guise of footpads and ruffians. And when these pastimes pall a trifle, so I am told, there is always the light-hearted sport of Boxing the Watch, which ‘gentlemen’ of Miss Denville’s and Miss Saltash’s generation find so diverting. I am quite at a loss to discover what pleasure is to be had in such activity, but that is ever the lament of the elders against the youth, is it not?”
If these lightly censorious remarks were designed to indicate to Lady Saltash that His Grace considered himself rather more of a father than a suitor to her niece, then Talby’s words were most effective. Helen, for one, could not but admire his methods, although she did not think that Olivia would take the hint.
She did not. “In your day, indeed, Your Grace! The elders against the youth!” Lady Saltash twittered. “I should think that the young sparks would rather take you as a model, with your elegance and your address!”
Talby gently pressed his point. “Since they have had their whole lives to witness my generation and still behave in an outrageous manner, I can only say that they have chosen to ignore the model established before them.”
“Oh, Your Grace, how you talk!” Lady Saltash exclaimed. “You make it sound as though you could almost be their father!” Then, recognizing the truth of that remark, she hurried on, “But, dear me, how all these stories—why, the curricle race and the news of Wraxall’s reappearance—come out of Bath at this unpromising time of the year, I shall never know!”
After some little time, it became clear that Lady Saltash intended to sit Talby out. Presently he rose and begged his leave of his hostess. Lady Saltash took her cue and said, upon parting, “We shall come round again, Amelia, if there is any news!”
When the visitors had gone, Helen found herself in a quandary. She toyed with the idea of telling Lady Happendale about her relationship with a certain Mr. Darcy and their encounter with Lord Honeycutt, but decided against it on the excellent grounds that any mention of these matters would put Richard in an extremely delicate position. If she had wanted to avoid placing Mr. Darcy under an obligation, she had even more cause to spare the Duke of Clare any embarrassment on her account. On the other hand, it seemed exceedingly unkind to keep a sister in the dark about the fact that her beloved brother seemed to be very much alive and well.
Before Helen could fully deride the matter, Lady Happendale had rung for her maid. Although her employer had kept up normal conversation with Helen after her guests had gone, Helen could see the strain on her ladyship’s face and knew it was a result of the strange, unsettling news. Helen helped Lady Happendale’s maid, Maria, assist Lady Happendale to her apartment, whereupon she was dismissed with a kind smile and the recommendation to “Do whatever you like for the rest of the afternoon, my dear!”
A little later, Helen met Maria in the nether regions of the house. Helen had already discovered that the maid was not a jealous protector of her mistress and, more important, was not one to try to diminish Helen’s influence with her ladyship. Instead, Maria had welcomed the presence of a companion to her adored Lady Happendale and was committed to any person, or any course of action, that would make her employer’s life easier.
Thus, when Maria spotted Helen, she immediately imparted the news that Lady Happendale was resting comfortably but had needed a draught of medicine. “But there is nothing unusual in that, for her ladyship often needs one after one of Talby’s visits. However, today—! Why, today, she is not at all the thing, and it’s all because of those…vicious rumours! And that is what they are, vicious, for her ladyship loved her brother beyond all else!”
Helen’s solemn nod was all that was needed for Maria to disparage Talby for some minutes, saying that he was a deep old file and as sneaky as two left shoes, and Maria did not know where it would end. Helen thought this an extremely apt sentiment and murmured ag
reement. Maria soon bethought herself of several unfinished items of business, and Helen went to her chambers to fetch her pelisse and give physical vent to her emotional agitation in a long walk amongst the spiny bushes and barren paths of the dormant gardens.
As she strode along, Helen at first attempted to convince herself that her Mr. Darcy was not the incarnation of His Grace Richard Wraxall, Duke of Clare, but the effort proved as short-lived as it was futile. She was unable to pass off as mere coincidence the points of contact between what she knew of Mr. Darcy’s life and the curious disappearance of Lady Happendale’s brother. Nor could she deny the physical similarity that identified brother and sister. However unlike was the set of their features, their laughing grey eyes held resemblance enough. Although Richard was one of the most common names in the land, it was a remarkable fact that Wraxall’s body had not been found with the wreck of his sailing boat, nor had that of his trusty manservant. Who could that be other than Keithley? Then, too, Helen now remembered clearly the story of the dashing Duke of Clare’s death that had rocked the ton during the summer after her first Season. She had never met him, of course, but she had heard, like every other debutante, the stories of his private life, and these recollections made it all too plausible for her to recognize a distinct similarity in character between the distinguished peer of the realm and the vagabond gamester.
Helen plunged deeper into turmoil, and discovered to her dismay that her sense of humour had deserted her. She refused to be diverted by the irony that in wanting to escape from the man to whom her heart had fallen victim, she had taken refuge in the home of his sister. She could only reflect with a deep blush on all the nonsense she had prattled to one of the richest, most powerful, and most courted men in all of England. No, she had no desire to face Richard Wraxall again, for no matter how charming and approachable he had been as Mr. Darcy, he could not but be formidable as the Duke of Clare. She did not know why he had not yet paid a visit to his sister, but Helen was glad he had not. It seemed impossible that she could remain in Lady Happendale’s home and escape his notice, especially now as her ladyship’s companion. And so she began, with regret, to consider leaving Lady Happendale’s lovely home without delay.
Julie Tetel Andresen Page 19