Apart from any other reason, he quite simply wanted Miss Ann Carter in his bed. He had been very correct in his behaviour and had not even pressed her hand. What Miss Ann lacked in conversation she made up for in the art of dress. Although the day was very cold, she seemed content to wear the lightest of wraps, and had a way of leaning forward to tighten the ribbons of her shoe with an impatient little shake which allowed Lord Dantrey the delightful sight of two firm breasts, trembling against the silk of her bodice.
‘There is an assembly in Hopeminster on Saturday, my lord,’ said Ann, peeping up at him from the shadow of her bonnet. ‘I believe we are to be honoured with your presence.’
‘I do not know if my presence will add anything much to a country ball. But since a beauty such as yourself considers it a suitable affair to attend, who am I to hold back?’
Ann laughed and preened. But her laugh was silvery and her preening involved a great deal of tossing of her golden curls against the pink of her cheeks. Lord Dantrey chided himself for being overcritical. Ann would make him a charming wife. He could court her in the country thereby saving himself the rigours of a Season in town.
Then they heard the belling of hounds and the high winding note of a huntsman’s horn.
‘Coming this way,’ said Lord Dantrey, reining in his team.
His sharp ears told him that hounds were in full cry. With any luck, they would come crashing through the hedge onto the road and Ann would squeak with fright and throw herself into his arms. As a matter of fact, Ann was sitting demurely beside him, waiting for an opportunity to do just that.
Hounds came thrusting through a gap in the hedge and streamed across the road, disappearing through a break in the wall on the other side.
‘When the first huntsman comes over the hedge, I will pretend to be frightened,’ thought Ann.
Magnificent in her new purple riding habit, Diana Armitage cleared the hedge. Ann let out a shrill cry and threw herself into Lord Dantrey’s arms. His hands did not leave the reins. He sat very still.
Annoyed, Ann sat up, her cheeks very flushed.
She had not seen Diana, but Lord Dantrey most certainly had. The riding habit fitted Diana like a glove and the dashing shako balanced neatly on her glossy curls. The other huntsmen, led by the vicar, were emerging through a gap in the hedge further up the road; obviously no one else had dared to make the same dramatic jump as Diana.
‘Miss Diana seems to be recovering from the shock of her mother’s death,’ said Lord Dantrey.
‘I have not seen her,’ said Ann crossly, straightening her bonnet. ‘I wished to call but Mama said …’ She bit her lip. Mama had actually said there was no use working up a friendship with the gauche Diana when that young lady was immersed in gloom in a country vicarage and would not be in London for the Season.
‘Diana the Huntress,’ smiled Lord Dantrey. ‘I must say, she looked magnificent.’
‘When?’ demanded Ann, an edge to her voice.
‘Just now. She was leading the hunt.’
‘How terrible,’ breathed Ann. ‘A woman hunting. She must be as coarse as Letty Lade.’
‘On the contrary, she may well set the fashion if she continues to look so modish,’ said Lord Dantrey.
Ann bristled like a little kitten. ‘Do not tell me you approve of ladies hunting, my lord!’
‘Not in the slightest. I do not know of any other lady of my acquaintance who could carry it off with the same air as Miss Diana.’
Ann pouted. She prided herself on her horsemanship. But she did not want to hunt. Perhaps she might have to, if only for a little. Lord Dantrey’s taste in females might prove to run to Amazons.
‘Faith, this is a gloomy place,’ complained Mr Emberton as he sat with his friend, Peter Flanders, in the cold library of the Wentwater mansion.
‘Then why do we stay?’ demanded Mr Flanders petulantly. ‘It’s not as if you show any interest in Miss Armitage. Your recent game of fleecing young Barnaby Jones has been profitable. But he’s cleaned out, and his father’s taken him off to London.’
‘I beat him fairly and squarely at hazard. I did not fleece him, as you so nastily put it.’
‘You’d never have thought of him if I hadn’t found out he was a rich merchant’s son with more money than sense,’ said Mr Flanders proudly.
‘Well, well. So be it. I have not given up Miss Armitage. I kept clear. First, because I feared she would wed Dantrey after all. I mean, what the deuce was she doing talking to him in the middle of Hanover Square at that hour of the morning? Secondly, because of her mother’s death. Girls in mourning don’t come a-courting. But I have not forgotten her. She seems to be superstitious and believes in all that rubbish the Egyptians talk. That’s why I stopped to talk to that old beldame. I told her if she saw Miss Diana to read her palm and say I had not forgot her. The gypsy told Diana Armitage that a dark and handsome lover was to come into her life, and Miss Diana thinks that’s me,’ said Mr Emberton smugly.
‘There’s a ball on Saturday.’
‘A country hop. Pooh!’
‘A lot of the county notables are to be there. And there might be easier, fairer game for you.’
‘Who?’
‘A Miss Ann Carter.’ Mr Flanders kissed his fingers. ‘A diamond of the first water. Rich widowed mother guards the treasure. Bit of a dragon.’
‘Aha! Perhaps I might go to this dance after all. I do not suppose Miss Diana will go. She is still in mourning.’
‘Oh, she can go all right so long as she does not dance.’
Mr Emberton bit his thumb nail and sat for a few moments, buried in thought. ‘Will Dantrey be there?’
‘Don’t suppose he’d lower himself. Very high in the instep is Dantrey.’
‘I think perhaps I might pay a call on the vicarage,’ said Mr Emberton thoughtfully. ‘Someone over in Hopeminster said Miss Diana was looking plain and ill. She might be even readier to fall into my arms.’
‘What if she told her father about the elopement?’
‘Then he would have been around here waving his horsewhip. Miss Diana has kept quiet about it. Furthermore, Dantrey don’t want to marry her. Stands to reason he must have withstood all sorts of pressures so everyone’s keeping quiet about everything.’
‘Don’t take me with you,’ said Mr Flanders. ‘Can’t stand vicars.’
Mr Emberton rode over to the vicarage in the dim light of late afternoon. Sarah answered the door since Rose was down in the village, buying ribbons.
She told Mr Emberton that everyone was out with the hunt and cast a languishing eye over his tall form.
‘But if you was to step into the parlour, sir,’ she said, ‘you could wait till they return. Shouldn’t be long now, I reckon.’
Mr Emberton looked appreciatively at Sarah’s rounded figure and promptly accepted the invitation. Soon he was settled in the vicarage parlour with a glass of the vicar’s best hock in his hand and his feet up on the fender. He was just wondering whether to ring the bell to summon Sarah and see if he could steal a kiss when he heard the hunt returning home.
He heard Sarah say something in the hall and the vicar’s voice, suddenly loud, ‘Damn and blast you, girl. I’m too tired to see anyone,’ and then the door opened and the vicar, followed by Diana, walked into the parlour.
‘You will excuse us,’ said the vicar, glaring at the glass of hock in Mr Emberton’s hand. ‘We’ve had a hard ride and we must get cleaned. So if you don’t mind …’
‘I shall call another time,’ said Mr Emberton hastily. He looked at Diana who lowered her eyes and bit her lip in mortification. A pheasant had rocketed up, right at Blarney’s feet, causing the mare to rear and throw her. Diana had landed slap in a bog, face down. Her beautiful new habit was smeared with black mud and her hat was crushed. There was a streak of mud on her face. ‘I was wondering whether we could look forward to the pleasure of seeing Miss Diana at the ball on Saturday,’ said Mr Emberton.
‘We’re in mourning,
or had you forgotten,’ snapped the vicar.
‘I thought Miss Diana could come for a little and watch the dancers,’ said Mr Emberton.
‘Well, think again,’ growled the vicar rudely.
‘It is very kind of you to call, Mr Emberton,’ said Diana hurriedly. ‘As you can see, we are not in a state to receive visitors.’ She threw a defiant look at her father. ‘Perhaps I may go to the ball after all.’
She moved towards Mr Emberton, her large eyes fixed on his face. She walked straight into the arm of an old-fashioned sofa and tumbled headlong onto it.
‘Clumsy sheep, that’s what you are,’ said the vicar nastily. He was in a bad mood for the village boys had dragged red herrings across the scent and so hounds had lost the fox.
‘I think I had better go,’ said Mr Emberton. ‘I hope to see you on Saturday.’
‘Oh, go on with you,’ said the vicar crossly. Mr Emberton helped Diana to her feet and smiled at her, affecting not to hear.
In the hall, he took his hat and his cane from a smiling Sarah, and, quickly looking around, he bent and kissed her on the cheek.
‘Lawks, sir!’ said Sarah with a giggle. ‘Master’s as cross as crabs. Better not let him catch you.’
‘Not me,’ grinned Mr Emberton, feeling his spirits restored. ‘See if you can get your mistress to go to the ball.’
‘And what do I get if I do?’ asked Sarah.
‘Another kiss.’
‘Pooh, kisses is ten a penny.’
‘Then I shall kiss you twelve times and that makes a shilling.’
Mr Emberton mounted his horse outside and cantered off, happily aware that the pretty maid was standing in the open doorway, watching him.
‘It would be much more conventional for me to appear at a ball, Papa,’ Diana Armitage was saying furiously as Mr Emberton rode away, ‘than to go hunting.’
But the vicar thought his bad day’s hunting had been a punishment from the Almighty for trying to enjoy himself so soon after his wife’s death. In his way he was as superstitious as Diana, and his God was more Greek than Christian, sending down thunderbolts of misery as punishment, and dispensing very little love and charity to the sinner.
Sarah appeared, looking flushed and still giggling. Diana threw her a suspicious look, but the vicar brightened perceptibly.
‘Mr Emberton do be hoping hard that Miss Diana will be at the ball Saturday,’ said Sarah.
‘Well, she ain’t going, and were you about to give that fellow my best hock?’ said the vicar.
‘First thing came to hand, and Rose is down in the village,’ said Sarah pertly. ‘You said I was to be lady’s maid,’ she added in a wheedling tone, ‘but I don’t have much practice, and it would be fine to prettify miss for the ball. Not as if Miss Diana had to dance. And that semi-mourning gown Miss Annabelle sent is so very beautiful.’
She fluttered her eyelashes at the vicar who looked sheepishly at his daughter.
‘I suppose it couldn’t do no harm,’ said the vicar. ‘Squire and myself might take you along, Diana, and that’ll make it right and tight.’
The vicarage was very silent as Diana sat in front of the dressing table, preparing for the ball. She could not help but remember brighter, happier days when the house was full of noise and excitement with all the sisters gossiping and chattering as they prepared themselves for an evening in Hopeminster.
The closed door of her late mother’s room was foremost in her mind. It had been closed so often in former days, Mrs Armitage lying behind it in bed in a drugged sleep. It was hard to pass that room and know that its one-time occupant was lying in the churchyard. She wondered what her mother had really thought about; what her worries and fears had been and whether any of them could have done anything to stop her treating herself with those awful medicines.
A full moon riding high in the sky sent sparks of light twinkling over the frost-covered garden. There was no wind and the tall candles on the dressing table burned bright and clear.
Diana’s gown was of grey silk trimmed with black ribbons. Dull red silk roses and black ribbons were threaded through in her hair. She felt she looked like a dowager, but Sarah was pleased with the effect. Her eyes were enormous in her thin face and Sarah thought the sombre colours made Diana look much more dramatic than any fashionable debutante pastel would have done.
Sarah put a cape of crushed velvet about Diana’s shoulders and declared her ready to go downstairs to join the squire and her father.
It was a relief to leave the vicarage with all its sadness and silence and go bowling along the frosty, sparkling road from Hopeworth to the county town of Hopeminster under a full moon and a starry sky.
The squire was resplendent in antique finery, the lace at his wrists and throat as fine as cobwebs. The vicar was in good spirits, for he had discovered his evening dress fitted his now thinner figure and so he had not had to put on corsets. The squire wore his hair powdered and his wrinkled face was delicately painted. Old habits die hard and the squire never considered himself dressed for a ball without powder and paint.
Diana began to feel tremors of excitement. She would see Mr Emberton again, see his laughing blue eyes and feel his reassuring presence. Certainly it was strange that he had not managed to send her a letter explaining why he had departed so quickly on the day of their planned elopement. Even though one knew the reason was bound to have been the presence of Lord Dantrey, it would have been a gentlemanly thing to have at least tried to send some sort of explanation, some love letter.
But he had stayed away, surely, because of her mother’s death, Diana reminded herself severely. Lord Dantrey had come to the funeral but he had made no attempt to speak to her.
Her excitement grew as the silhouettes of the towers and spires of Hopeminster rose above the flat fields.
The assembly was being held in the Cock and Feathers. As they drove into the courtyard Diana could hear the music of the fiddles and the beat-beat-beat of the drum. She was relieved that her mourning state stopped her from dancing. Diana had had dancing lessons in London when she was staying with her sisters, but the dancing master, a very excitable Frenchman, had been barely five feet high. He had made her feel so nervous that she had hardly been able to learn any of the steps, and then she was never quite sure which was her left foot and which her right. The dancing master had tied different coloured ribbons on each slipper to help her, but every time she looked down at her feet to tell the left from the right by the colour of the ribbons, she fell over him.
It was when she had returned to Minerva’s from one of these lessons, demanding, ‘Pray, what is the meaning of “merde”?’ that dancing instruction had mysteriously ended.
She left her cape in an ante room and adjusted a few curls in the mirror, surprised and pleased with her appearance. She could hardly believe the elegant beauty staring back at her was her own reflection.
And then the first person she saw on entering the ballroom was Ann Carter. She was dancing with Mr Emberton, his large size making Ann seem even more diminutive and fragile. She was dressed in a filmy thing of pink and silver gauze. Her hair gleamed in the candlelight like newly minted guineas. Her little feet barely seemed to touch the floor.
Feeling once more like a great lumbering giant, Diana found herself placed on a row of chairs against the wall. Squire Radford sat and talked to her for a few moments and then left to fetch her a glass of lemonade.
Diana played with the sticks of her fan. The music sounded so jolly and everyone seemed to be dancing with such ease. All at once she longed to dance herself, to float like Ann Carter through the mazy steps of the quadrille.
She raised her head at the final chord of the music. Surely he would approach her now. She remembered the gypsy’s words and felt comforted.
Mr Emberton was promenading with Ann on his arm. She looked across the room, saw Diana sitting against the wall and said something to Mr Emberton. He glanced at Diana and he laughed. Diana flushed. She wondered miserably whethe
r her appearance at a ball so soon after her mother’s death was considered odd; whether that was what had caused Ann to comment and Mr Emberton to laugh.
Squire Radford returned with her lemonade. ‘If you will excuse me, Miss Diana,’ he said, handing her the glass. ‘There is an old friend here I have not seen this age. I do not wish to leave you alone …’
‘I am enjoying watching the dancers,’ said Diana. ‘I will do very well.’
The squire bowed and left. Diana looked down into her glass of lemonade. The music struck up again and she covertly looked up again. Now he would come. Please God. If the log in the fireplace which looked just about ready to fall down into the hot ash and flare up stayed where it was, then he would come. She would concentrate on watching the log. The log fell. A cheerful blaze roared up the chimney.
‘Miss Armitage.’
Stars in her eyes and a blush of pleasure on her cheeks, Diana looked up.
Lord Dantrey stood looking down at her.
Her face fell.
He pulled forward a chair and sat next to her. ‘I was extremely sorry to hear of your mother’s death,’ he said, his voice as pleasant and husky as ever. ‘You may have seen me at the funeral. I did not approach you for fear I would upset you further. It is a hard time for you.’
‘Thank you, my lord,’ said Diana primly.
‘May I hope that you will honour me with one dance?’
‘I am afraid I must refuse,’ said Diana. ‘I am in mourning.’
‘As everyone knows. I took the liberty of asking the Master of Ceremonies if it would be very shocking if I were to lead you to the floor and he said “not at all”. Your family is much respected in the neighbourhood and everyone, it seems, would be happy to see you enjoying yourself.’
Diana the Huntress Page 13