by Joan Smith
When dinner was finished, the ladies left the gentlemen to their port and removed to the saloon. Lady Selena received her fair share of attention then, for the quizzes were all eager to spot a flaw in the sullen beauty.
“So you have attached Lord Harrup. That is quite a coup, my girl,” Lady Castlereagh informed her.
Selena looked on with serene indifference. “My papa arranged it.”
“When is the wedding to be?” Lady Castlereagh asked.
“Whenever they tell me. I have nothing to say about it,” Lady Selena answered, then rose and changed her seat. She chose to sit beside Ronald’s sister. “How did your brother do at his new job, Miss Beecham?” she asked.
“Very well, I believe,” Diana answered, and turned aside to inform Lady Castlereagh that her brother was Harrup’s assistant, hoping to imply this was Selena’s only interest in him.
Lady Castlereagh answered in a low voice, “if you want my opinion, Miss Beecham, Harrup is making a dreadful mistake. That young chit is not at all up to snuff. I’m surprised Groden hasn’t taken her in hand. You may rest assured Harrup will soon do it. He will not put up with her sighing and sulking ways. Furthermore, she is too young for him—though monstrously pretty, of course.”
It was an uncomfortable half hour during which Selena only spoke voluntarily to Diana, while snubbing the wives of the most important government leaders. To Diana, she spoke only of Ronald. It was with a sigh of relief that Diana heard the approach of the gentlemen. Harrup came toward his future bride and tried to engage her in harmless banter till it was time for the other guests to arrive. The bride-to-be paid him only scanty attention. Her interest obviously lay across the room, where Ronald was caught up in conversation with Lord Eldon.
At nine o’clock the other guests began arriving for the rout. Diana went immediately to the ballroom to see that all was in order there. She was staggered to see one of the first arrivals was Lord Markwell. In a tizzy of disbelief she went searching for Harrup, who was greeting guests at the doorway.
During a lull in arrivals she tugged his arm. “Harrup, Markwell is here!” she said.
“Yes, I have already made him welcome.” He smiled blandly.
“You mean you invited him after what he tried to do to you?”
“Of course. He is an excellent employee in my department. Personal animosities cannot be carried over into work.”
“A rout isn’t work. I made sure you would snub him outside of the office.”
“This function is work related. You don’t think I voluntarily cavort with the likes of Eldon and Liverpool?” he asked, shocked. “This is my card of thanks for their kindness in my appointment. As it turns out, Markwell has this very evening performed an invaluable service for me.”
Diana just shook her head. “I thought I had begun to understand you, but you’ve surprised me again.”
“This has surprised you?” he asked, and laughed. “Wait till you discover the favor Markwell has done.”
“If you tell me Mrs. Whitby is coming to your party as well, I shall assume there is no limit and elope with Lord Castlereagh.”
“You’ve chosen your quarry ill. He won’t be easy to detach from his lady. He’s peculiarly fond of Amelia,” he warned her. “A fine example to those like myself, who are about to embark on a matrimonial journey.”
Diana stiffened perceptibly when this subject arose. She turned to leave, and Harrup touched her ann. “Save me a waltz. I’ll be joining the dancers shortly,” he said. That was all, but the searching smile that accompanied his short speech left her emotions in tatters.
The gentlemen, she decided, handled these tricky situations much better than she. Lord Markwell, who certainly knew who she was, made a point of being presented to her and stood up with her twice. He was an excellent dancer and amusing as well. When he had the impudence to express his joy on Harrup’s promotion, he went too far.
“I expect Mrs. Whitby was also thrilled that I got away with her letters,” she said frankly, hoping to jostle him out of his sangfroid.
Markwell emitted an uneasy little laugh. “It’s the chance of the game,” he said. “You win some, you lose some. At this point, I expect madam is nearly as confused as I am myself.”
“She is not as confused as I,” Diana declared, and decided to forget the whole affair.
Half her attention was on the doorway, where she expected to see Harrup appear at any moment. When he finally came, he was with the entire Groden family, and his first dance was with Selena. She noticed that he didn’t bother trying to prod the girl into conversation. While Selena looked around the room for Ronald, Harrup was busy looking for someone, who Diana soon realized was herself. When he spotted her dancing with Lord Castlereagh, he smiled and stopped looking.
Diana wondered if he would have to stand up with Lady Groden, too, before he could come to her. Perhaps Lady Eldon must be honored as well. She kept an eye on all these people while still enjoying her dance with Castlereagh. She saw Lord Groden called from the room by Stoker, and wondered what it could mean. In less than a minute Stoker was back, beckoning Harrup away. A sense of excitement was in the air. Markwell kept looking at her in a curious way. Soon Castlereagh began to wonder if something was amiss at Whitehall.
“It can’t be,” he decided. “Lord Liverpool is still overflowing one of the side chairs. If I see him being hauled to his feet, you must excuse me, Miss Beecham.”
At the end of the dance Diana went to join her brother, to prevent him from running to Selena. While she went through the paces of a country dance with Ronald, Lord Harrup was summoned to his own office by an extremely irate Lord Groden.
He lowered his bushy eyebrows and shook two letters under Harrup’s nose. “I have just been handed these missives, Harrup, and must demand an explanation of them.”
Harrup took the two familiar sheets and conned them quickly. “They appear self-explanatory to me, milord,” he answered blandly. “May I know where you got hold of them?”
“This Whitby woman,” he said, jabbing at the letters, “had the effrontery to send her footman to this house to give them to me.”
“What an extraordinary thing for Mrs. Whitby to do,” Harrup answered. “Are you quite sure they weren’t intended for me?”
“They were addressed to me, in this large envelope with a note. Mrs. Whitby says that I might be interested to learn the character of my future son-in-law. The character of that hussy is what I have learned. Forging notes . . .” He looked hopefully to Harrup, who stared at him in astonishment. “I know how these women behave. You have only to give me your word these were not written by you, Harrup, and the matter is forgotten. The handwriting is not at all like yours, now I take a closer look at it.”
Harrup examined the letters more closely. “No, these are a couple of letters I wrote to Mrs. Whitby, actually.”
“Now don’t be rash, Harrup. Look again,” Groden advised.
Harrup looked again. “They are definitely my letters,” he insisted. “You will notice the date on this one is today. I would hardly forget so soon.”
“But see here, you say ‘when we were together last night.’ You were at the party at Brooke’s last night.”
Harrup ground his teeth in frustration at this error.
“Quite right. I ought to have said ‘this morning,’ It was certainly well past midnight when I visited Mrs. Whitby.”
When Groden realized he had been outmaneuvered and must do the proper thing, he went into a fine bluster. “You can hardly expect me to hand over my innocent young daughter to a man who hasn’t even the decency to deny he wrote these!” he pointed out.
“Would a lie enhance my eligibility?”
“No, sir, but behaving like a gentleman would. I must inform you my wife will be sending in a retraction of the engagement to the papers this very night.”
“I am very sorry to hear it, sir,” Harrup replied mildly.
“Hmpf! Now you will lie,” Groden roared, and squash
ed the two letters in his fist.
Harrup stood like a rock, willing down the triumphant shout that he longed to break forth. He waited to see if Groden had any further abuse to heap on him, and when the old man only stood shaking his head, he spoke. “It was a bad idea from the start. I had no idea Selena was so, er, young,” he said.
“I told you she was not quite eighteen.”
“Eighteen or nineteen, you said.”
“What odds? She is out, and she is fully developed, so far as physique goes. A dandy-looking gel. Not a bright child, of course. I can see why you are reluctant to have her. Perhaps it is as well. My wife was not fully in favor of the match.”
“The season is just beginning, Groden,” Harrup pointed out. “An incomparable like Selena will be snapped up before you can say one, two, three. She will be very happy to hear the wedding is off.”
“I won’t pretend she hasn’t been pouting and mooning about the house till I can hardly look at her without feeling like Jack Ketch. It would have been an entirely eligible match, though. An excellent match for her. The attorney general’s lady, and that is just the beginning, if I know anything.”
“I am honored at your confidence.”
Groden cast a regretful glance at his host. “You’ll go far, my lad. There are more twists in you than we knew. Thank God you’re not a Whig.”
“True blue and Tory, too. Shall we drink a toast to the party?” Harrup asked. The battle was won, but to ensure he hadn’t lost a friend into the bargain, Harrup called for a bottle of his best champagne, and they drank their toast, chatting of this and that. “I hear Princess Charlotte is enceinte. That will be good for the mood of the country. Let us hope she gives Prinney a grandson,” Harrup mentioned.
“That would be some compensation for his wretched marriage. My eldest is expecting as well, did you hear? It will be her third. A good, fertile lass, and she gives us sons, too.”
“That makes ten grandchildren in all now, I believe?”
After one glass, the two gentlemen returned to the party. There was no scandalous storming out of Harrup’s house, wife and daughters in tow, but the Grodens did depart early. Lady Groden was informed by her spouse that she had a migraine and wished to leave. Lady Selena couldn’t be counted on to conceal her joy at the news and didn’t learn she had escaped Harrup’s clutches till she had reached home. She was so happy she cried for ten minutes before she fell sound asleep.
Diana watched from the sidelines when Groden and Harrup returned from the study. She observed there was no breach between them—in fact, Harrup was smiling and Groden looked no more fierce than usual. She saw the family take a polite leave, and while they left early, the evening was by no means just beginning. A few of the other elderly guests were beginning to pull out their watches and stroll purposefully toward the door as well.
Still following Harrup with her eyes, Diana watched him go to the orchestra and speak to the head fiddler. From there he came directly to her. It was impossible to interpret the gleam in his eyes, the smile he couldn’t quite hold in check, and impossible for her not to assume the same tokens of joy.
“Time for our waltz,” he said. As the beguiling strains of Weber’s music filled the room, he drew Diana into his arms to whirl around the floor till her head spun. A dozen questions were begging for answers, but there would be time for that later. Now she wanted to enjoy the too brief pleasure of being in his arms, swirling and spinning in dizzying circles, forgetful of tomorrow and all the dull tomorrows after.
Harrup, his mind seething with thoughts of his own, appeared satisfied with her silence. It wasn’t till the dance was over and he led her to a seat that he noticed they hadn’t exchanged a word. “Chatterbox. Setting up in competition with Selena, are you, Di?” he asked. “That was my second wordless dance this evening.”
“I had a dozen things I wanted to ask you, but the music was too wonderful to spoil. Oh, dear, and now you must go. I see the Eldons are edging toward the door. Your friends aren’t very lively partygoers, are they?”
“My friends are; my colleagues are less frivolous. Tomorrow is another working day. We’ll talk as soon as I get the last of them blasted off.”
In an effort to hasten this moment along, a midnight dinner was served at eleven-thirty. The younger guests who hoped for another round of dancing after dinner were disappointed. The orchestra had been dismissed while they ate. With these little hints staring them in the face, they soon took their leave. Strangely, Lord Markwell was the last to leave.
“Did everything work out all right, Harrup?” he asked as he was being handed his coat by Stoker.
“Excellently. You must thank our mutual friend for me.”
“You won’t forget to put in a word for me when they are choosing new privy councillors?” he mentioned. His speech indicated this subject had arisen before. Diana was bewildered at the man’s gall and Harrup’s calm acceptance of it.
“You have my vote,” Harrup assured him.
Polite good-nights were exchanged; the door was closed on the last guest and bolted with a sigh of relief by Stoker.
“A nice early party, your lordship,” he said.
“Nicer than you know, Stoker.” Harrup smiled, and putting his arm familiarly around Diana’s shoulder, he drew her toward his office. This breach of good taste surprised her. With a blighting look she lifted the offending arm and entered the room by herself.
“I feel I am one of your colleagues,” she said. “We always seem to talk in your office.”
“The servants will be breaking glasses and spilling drinks in the saloon,” he explained. “We will be more private here.”
She turned a questioning face toward him. “Do you have something to say that requires privacy?” The diabolical light in his eyes told her he had and set her pulse pounding with hope. “Harrup, what has been going on here tonight? Why did you let that weasel of a Markwell come, and treat him with special respect, too?”
“I’m sure I explained that already.”
“You didn’t explain why you would support his bid for privy councillor.”
“That was for services rendered.”
She thought for a moment and could make no sense of it. “I know you’re up to something. How dare you leave me out of it? What favor has he done for you?” she demanded.
“He had coerced Mrs. Whitby into helping me,” he admitted.
“Helping you what? I am the one who got you out of that muddle. Harrup—she didn’t have more letters!”
“She did, actually,” he said, and smiled softly.
“You’re hopeless. I don’t know when you ever found time to be a privy councillor. Between romancing Mrs. Whitby in person and writing your maundering drivel to be blackmailed with, you mustn’t have had much time to spare for work. You said there were eight letters. I recovered eight. What new ones are these?”
“These are the two I wrote her this evening,” he said.
Diana felt like a bull taunted by a red flag. “You couldn’t stay away from that painted hussy, could you?” She blinked and stared at him as though he were Satan incarnate. Bereft of words to express her outrage, she turned on her heel and marched to the door. Harrup got there a minute before her and blocked her exit. Taking her by the arm, he led her back and gently pushed her into a chair. When she spotted a bottle of champagne and two glasses on his desk, with a small purple velvet box on the tray beside the glasses, she didn’t bolt up from the chair. Harrup opened the wine and poured two glasses, handed her one.
She lifted her chin and tossed her head, ignoring it. Harrup raised her hand and placed her fingers around the stem. “To us, Di,” he said softly. His smile was enigmatic.
“Which ‘us’ is that, Harrup? You and me and Lady Selena? Or is it you and me and Mrs. Whitby? Perhaps all four of us? I have heard of romantic triangles, but if you actually think to involve me in a—a rectangle, I must tell you—”
“I have no interest in polygons. A straight line is wha
t I shall be walking in future. A straight line, the shortest distance between two points, if memory serves.”
Her heart began thudding in her chest. Two rose circles, very similar in appearance to Mrs. Whitby’s rouge, blushed on her cheeks. Harrup was unaware of them. He was gazing into her blue pixie eyes, where that hardy, intangible hope gleamed once more. Her breaths came in rapid, light gasps. “You wouldn’t recognize a straight line if you fell over one,” she said unevenly.
His lips quivered in delight. “What use would a couple of renegades like us have for straight lines? To us,” he repeated, and lifted his glass to touch hers. The delicate tinkle of crystal on crystal was the only sound in the room. A pall of silence sat around them. Diana slowly lifted her glass, looking at him over its rim, and sipped the champagne.
“And now will you tell me what happened?” she asked, setting the glass aside.
“Soon. First I mean to eliminate the distance between us.” Harrup put his glass aside and drew Diana up from her seat into his arms. She was crushed to his chest while his lips pressed ruthlessly on hers. She felt again the heady sensation of the waltz, as though she were adrift on a sea of sensation, cut loose from dreary reality. She spun in a world where any wonderful thing was possible. Where Harrup was hers, incredibly, in love with her, and a mere bride and mistress were irrelevant.
She had never been kissed so thoroughly or so long before. Nothing had prepared her for the sweep of emotions that surged over her, making her want to cry and laugh, to dance and shout and sing all at once. His lips moved hungrily on hers, and she answered every demand, with her arms curling around his neck to hold him to her.
When he eventually lifted his head, she saw his wild gaze, the pupils dilated till his eyes looked black. There was no mischievous smile now, but a sober gentleness that was new. She had no idea what he would say.
“Diana, you know me with all my faults,” he said simply. His voice was low, ragged, and uncertain. “I’m not a very worthy man. My past is littered with indiscretions, but with you to manage me, I can be as good as you care to make me. I never cared enough before to want to please anyone but myself,” he continued, his tone becoming firmer as he saw the acceptance in her eyes. “I find myself, now, wondering what Di would think of my actions. You have shown me how a gentleman ought to behave, and that such behavior need not be piously sanctimonious—in fact, it can be more fun than lechery. But I doubt I can keep up your standards without you here to remind me from time to time. Will you marry me?”