by Norma Darcy
“It is not for me to do anything of the kind. He is a grown man and I am not his father,” said Mr Ashworth coolly, sipping his wine.
“You might as well be. You are all he has got.”
“He’s just blowing off steam, that’s all. Father’s death has been like a weight off his shoulders. He’ll come around.”
“And in the two years since the old man’s death, how much money has he blown?” demanded the Duke.
Mr Ashworth shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “I have no idea.”
“Poppycock. No idea how much money has gone out of your coffers? Come now, Marcus. I think I know you a little better than that. I suspect that you know very well that it runs into thousands.”
“You exaggerate.”
“Do I?”
“Nick is two and twenty. He is as young and foolish as ever you and I were at that age. And for the record, I do not shell out for him to keep his mistress in Brook Street. I give him an allowance; how he spends it is up to him.”
“It’s the same result.”
“Come, Jasper, would you deny a young man his chance to sow a few wild oats, before he gets himself shackled down?”
“Oho! And now a comment on the married state, methinks.”
“I meant the shackles of responsibility,” said Mr Ashworth acidly.
“Of course you did,” murmured the Duke.
“Jasper, go to the devil.”
The Duke laughed. “Well, I have said my piece. But don’t be surprised when he finds himself married to some fortune hunting harpy because he’s got her with child. Your problem, I am happy to say and not mine.”
“I thank you for your warning. But I say again that I will not step into my father’s shoes. Nick had twenty odd years of repression to suffer under that man and he does not now need it from me. He does not even have the consolation of inheriting the estates and Stoneacre as I do. He is young and enjoying life; I would not put him back in his cage for all the world.”
“Speaking from experience, Marc?”
Mr Ashworth was spared the necessity of answering him by the appearance of his butler. “Dinner is served, sir, your grace,” announced Hale from the door.
“Saved by the bell,” murmured the Duke.
“Thank you, Hale. We shall be there directly.” Mr Ashworth turned his attention back to his friend. “You have nothing to fear from Nick, you know. He thinks he’s in love for the moment but it will soon pass. In my experience, his undying love rarely lasts longer than a month. In three weeks he will have forgotten all about her.”
“He might well,” the Duke agreed, standing. “But she may not forget him so easily. Anyway, let us talk of something else. What plans have you for my entertainment tomorrow? More ritual humiliation at my expense?”
“We shall all play quoits tomorrow. Nick is hopeless at it and so am I. That will give you a chance to shine heroically,” said Mr Ashworth smiling.
“Great. A man wielding a quoit. She will scarce be able to keep her hands off me, will she?” the Duke muttered, tossing off the rest of his wine. “Will you stop laughing? Damn you Marcus, it’s not funny.”
“No, of course not,” said his friend still smiling.
“Are you sure that quoits isn’t a little too much excitement for a man of my advanced years? You wouldn’t want me keeling over dead in the middle of your green, now would you?”
“You may die on my green with my good wishes, as long as you don’t make a divot when you land.”
“Your concern touches me. But I won’t say where.”
“You can sit next to that Garbey woman at dinner. You are the golden prospective nephew-in-law and she much prefers your company to mine anyway. And if I have to spend another evening enduring her insolent questioning, I’ll drown her in the turtle soup.”
“I beg your pardon, old boy? A bit deaf…I can’t hear you without my ear trumpet.”
“You heard me perfectly well. Let us go in to dinner before my brother drinks all my sherry.”
Chapter 8
Louisa lay on her back on the warm flat rock, bathing in the warm afternoon sunshine and staring up at the ocean of blue sky above her. The trees around her reached up into the blue, the green leafy branches almost ensnaring the tiny cotton-bud white clouds as they scudded by. The waterfall rushed at her feet, the sound of churning, falling water whooshed in her ears. Her bare toes dangled over the edge of the rock, skimming the cool surface of the raging torrent.
She was clothed in nothing more than her chemise, as her sister was beside her. She and Emma had been swimming in the pool at the foot of the waterfall and had climbed up here to the top, out of the shadows into the full heat of the sun to dry off, their hair soaking wet and matted in great clumps, the white material of their shifts clinging wetly to their backs and indecently to the womanly curves of their figures.
Had their father seen them he would have been shocked; had anyone else seen them they might have been ruined. But Louisa and her sisters had thought of the waterfall as their own private space since they were children, and no-one ever seemed to go there but them. It was situated on the border between Mr Ashworth’s property and that of his neighbour, Mr Deverill, and it was disputed as to which estate owned it. Neither of the gentlemen ever seemed to go there and so the girls since they had been old enough to swim had often trespassed on a hot summer’s day to splash about in the pool.
“So then what happened?” Emma asked gently, plucking the damp material of her shift away from her breasts. “Did you dance with him?”
Louisa sighed from the rock beside her, tracing shapes in the clouds with one fingertip extended towards the sky. She let her hand fall back against her chest. “Yes, twice,” she replied, frowning at a bird hovering overhead. “Then he sent me flowers the next day, pink roses, but that doesn’t signify because every gentleman sends flowers after a ball.”
“Not every gentleman, my love. How intolerably vain that sounds.”
Louisa gave a gurgle of laughter. “I did not mean it quite like that. What I meant was that every gentleman I danced with at that ball sent me flowers so one cannot set any store by him sending me them too.”
“No, I suppose not. And then?”
“And then we met his sister Jane, Lady Myall, when we were out driving in Hyde Park. I have to confess that I have never liked her. She was so intolerably rude to me, Emmy, that it was all I could do not to lose my temper with her. Malvern looked rather mortified at her behaviour and apologised as we drove home. But then the following week I was shopping with Aunt Garbey and just as I was leaving the circulating library, who should I bump into but Lady Myall? It had started to rain and I had four books under my arm that were getting wet. So she offered me a lift home in her carriage; such a very fine carriage too. And she apologised. She confided to me that she was worried for her brother, worried that I might break his heart. Me, Emmy! As if I would deliberately do such a thing! As if I could do such a thing. As if Malvern ever would let himself go enough to fall for anyone.”
“He never loved Sophie, you know,” said Emma, turning her head on the flat rock to look at her sister’s profile. “They were only ever intended in the hearts of their fathers. There was nothing more between them than that. You cannot condemn him for deserting a match neither of them wanted.”
“Oh I know that!” said Louisa, plucking at a frond of grass. “And you needn’t think I am jealous, Emmy, for I am not.”
Her sister turned away to hide a smile. “Oh no, I wouldn’t think that.”
“But to be so coveted, merely for the name of one’s family is so very lowering.”
“How do you think he feels?” said Emma. “The poor man has been a target of every match-making mama since he turned eighteen.”
“Yes, but don’t you think he would prefer to marry for love?”
“I think he might well,” returned Emma, thinking of a conversation she had with him not so long ago. “But he knows what is due to his name and his
family and is prepared to do his duty.”
“Duty! I am sick to death of it,” said Louisa with feeling.
“So are we all.”
“So he is to sacrifice his own happiness by marrying me,” retorted Louisa with spirit. “What a tiresome thing it must be to be so eligible. To be contrived to make pretty compliments to a girl just out of the schoolroom who was cutting her milk teeth when he was attending his first ball, just to acquire good breeding stock.”
“Louisa! You shock me,” said Emma, laughing. “And exactly how old do you imagine he is, for God’s sake?”
Louisa sat up abruptly and teased her long hair apart with her fingertips. “Too old for me.”
“Rubbish.”
“Nicholas says he is old enough to be my father.”
“Fathering babies at ten? Even Nicholas would have to own that that is unlikely.”
“He offered for me, you know,” said Louisa wistfully.
“Who, Nicholas? Yes, you told me.”
“No, not Nicholas, that was later―I meant Malvern.”
At last! Emma thought. Finally we get to the heart of the matter. “Did he though? You never mentioned it before.”
“Not long after my talk with Jane…he came to Grosvenor Square. We had been out riding and I was wearing my scarlet riding habit with the frogging up the front. I really must get it altered for I have lost weight and it sags around my waist but it so suits me that I am reluctant to give it up. I get so many compliments when I wear it―” She broke off, realising that her sister was staring at her in barely disguised irritation. She laughed. “Oh Emmy, you look like you are ready to murder me! I daresay you are waiting for the rest of the story. Where was I? Oh yes, he asked me before I’d barely had time to remove my hat. He said he was going into the country for a while and needed to put his affairs in order before he went. His affairs in order? I ask you! What sort of a beginning was that? He told me that the whole affair had gone on too long and that I should once and for all give him an answer. ‘Lady Louisa, would you do me the honour of accepting my hand in marriage.’ Just like that, he said it, Emmy, all stiff and starched as if his valet had pressed him along with his shirt points. Well it was all I could do not to laugh. It was very embarrassing. He just came out with it before I had realised what was happening.”
“And then?” asked Emma, breathless with anticipation.
“And then I ordered tea and he went away,” said Louisa airily.
“No, no, you can’t leave it hanging like that!” cried Emma, bursting with curiosity. “Tell me all! Did he say nothing more?”
“Not really. We talked of Mrs Henderson’s cake and then he left.”
“And is that all?”
“Yes,” said Louisa, reaching for an apple from their small picnic basket and biting into it.
“But did he not try and persuade you?”
“No. I came away with the impression that he didn’t much care if I accepted him or not.”
“Oh…” replied Emma, a frown between her brows. “But did he try and kiss you?”
Louisa burst out laughing. “Malvern? Lord, no!”
“Why is that so fantastical?”
“Because he is a gentleman through and through. I shouldn’t think he would let himself get…get so carried away. I have never seen him with as much as a hair out of place…well excepting at Vauxhall.”
“No,” said Emma slowly. “I suppose not. Although I didn’t have him down as a man who wouldn’t go after what he wanted. And what was your answer?”
“My answer?” Louisa asked, taking another bite of her apple.
“Yes. You haven’t told me.”
“Well, I didn’t precisely give him one at the time. I said I would give it some thought and rang for tea instead.”
“Oh, Louisa, you didn’t!”
“What is so very terrible about that? He said I might take as long as I needed to think it over. I must say I think it was excessively obliging of him.”
“Excessively,” agreed Emma, faintly.
“Which made his behaviour at Vauxhall all the more remarkable,” said Louisa, frowning at her half eaten apple. “It was so romantic. All the lights were twinkling and there were music and flowers, lanterns and fireworks. It was during the show that I contrived to slip away from the box from Mr Biggleswade who was becoming so tiresome in his attentions that I was out of all patience with him. Nicholas was waiting for me; we had not planned to meet but somehow we knew the other would be there. We ran down one of the pathways into an avenue that was so dark it was hard to see the path. And there was a stone arbour set at the end of the walk, surrounded by roses that were still in bud. He told me that I was beautiful and that he thought that he might be falling in love with me. Such a contrast, Emmy! Malvern was so stiff and formal in his declaration when he should have tried to woo me. I was seduced by the atmosphere and the words of a handsome man. So I let Nicholas kiss me. I know! I know I shouldn’t have let him and indeed I was just about to push him away when suddenly I was freed from his embrace and Nicholas was sent sprawling into the hedge. Then I saw who it was who had rescued me and I hardly recognised him. Malvern! He looked so stern and disapproving, his face…his eyes, usually so full of laughter were cold and hard. I have never seen him so utterly altered, so pale with anger. His eyes raked me over as if I were the veriest trollop…” Louisa paused and looked down at her hands. She took the remains of the apple and wrapped it in a napkin. “Oh Emmy, I felt so ashamed! I could hardly bear to look at him. Nicholas came back then, shaking himself off with fists raised. Malvern told Nicky to take a damper in such a voice as I had never heard from him. Then he turned back to me and was all starchy stiffness and propriety, just like Papa. He read me a lecture about going off unattended with strange gentlemen, and when I told him that Nicholas was not a strange gentleman at all and was in fact my most particular friend, he said, ‘Indeed?’ in the most odiously pompous way you ever heard, looking down his nose at me as if I were unfit to shine his boots―and then, what do you think, Emmy? Malvern announced that we were engaged! Nicholas choked and I nearly swooned with the shock of it―well I didn’t, but I felt like it! Malvern said that if anyone had the right to meet me in private, it was him and that we had been engaged for a week! How dared he? How dare he assume that I would accept him? Of all the stupid things to do, for all it did was put my back up. And of course then Nicholas swung at him, fists about his head. It all happened so fast and it was over before it had begun. Malvern barely moved but Nicholas went down clutching his jaw and I was so angry with Malvern that I hit him. He turned his eyes on me, and demanded to know if there was anything between Nicholas and me. And I could not answer because I was so confused. But Nicholas then announced that I was engaged to him! I was never more astonished in my life!”
“Heavens, what a tangle!”
“Yes! And then because I had been caught in a compromising position I said that yes, I was engaged to Nicholas and poor Nicky looked so shocked that I almost burst out laughing. So we ended up engaged without Nicholas having actually asked me!”
“And Malvern?”
“He spun on his heel and walked away.” Louisa looked down at her hands. “He was due to take me to the British Museum the next day but he sent word that he had business to attend to instead.”
“Oh,” said Emma, trying to digest all the information her sister had thrown at her.
“Emmy, I am so confused! Tell me what to do! When I am with Nicholas I am sure it is him I love and when I am with Malvern…I…I…”
“You…what?”
Louisa buried her face against her upraised knees. “I jump at the slightest touch of his hand, my legs turn to jelly when he smiles at me and I…oh―”
The sentence was torn from her mouth as an ear-splitting cry rent the air followed by an almighty splash. The sounds of more shouts and splashes came to them and the sisters exchanged startled glances as they crouched down against the rocks. On their bellies, they
crawled to the edge and peered over into the gorge below.
Diving off a rock into the pool at the foot of the waterfall was a man, stark naked. He came up screaming with the cold, slicking his hair back from his head, the muscles of his shoulders bunching together. Another man swam into view, his arms forming perfect arcs as he glided through the water.
Louisa clapped a hand over her mouth to stop herself from laughing. “It’s Malvern,” she whispered watching the long muscular curve of his arms as he swam.
“And Mr Ashworth,” said Emma wryly, ducking down quickly as the man slicking back his dark hair looked up to where they were sitting and into the sun. “What are we to do? Our clothes are down there.”
“Then you’ll have to go down and get them,” whispered Louisa.
“Me? I’m not going down there dressed like this,” cried Emma, indicating the very visible outline of her breasts through her chemise.
“They are gentleman; they will turn their backs.”
“Of course they will,” agreed Emma sarcastically. “We all know that every man is likely to turn away at the sight of a half naked woman, don’t we? All those spyglasses trained at the bathing machines on Brighton seafront are purely there to watch the seagulls, aren’t they? You go down there. Malvern will much rather look at you than me anyway.”
“What? No! I will be ruined!”
“Then we’ll have to wait until they have gone.”
“We’ll be frozen to death by then. The sun is already disappearing behind that cliff.” And she shivered as if to prove the point.
“I don’t believe this,” cried Emma, flinging up her hands. “How long have we been coming here without seeing another soul?”
“Oh…” said Louisa, reddening, her eyes latching on to the sight of Malvern, standing waist deep in the pool, water dripping from his surprisingly well-formed torso. “I didn’t expect him to be so…to be so…beautiful. He’s like a Greek sculpture.” She gulped, blushed and was silent.
“Oh God,” said Emma with feeling, rolling her eyes.