Lady Incognita
Page 18
How could she have failed to notice how beady the man’s eyes were? she asked herself. Previously she had seen him only as a ridiculous pomposity. Now he was a danger. But one she could handle, she told herself with a grim smile, reaching for a fresh piece of paper and picking up a pen.
As Percival interposed his body between hers and that of the villain, Count Ombre, Corrine felt a great warmth. How she loved this valorous man who now risked his life on her behalf.
The Count spoke, his beady black eyes glittering in the dim light. “You are a foolish man. You will die and the fair Corrine will be mine. Why not be wise? Come, I will return to you your white charger and you may depart.”
Percival drew himself to his full height and an imposing sight he was with his broad shoulders stretching taut the tunic that covered their rippling muscles. “Never,” cried he in a voice of thunder. “Never, while there is breath in my body will I leave the woman I love to your foul clutches.”
The Count laughed, his eyes gleaming evilly in his dark swarthy face. “As you wish, my noble friend. Sooner or later the woman will be mine. And you will lie mouldering in your grave.”
At this threat Percival seemed about to lunge, but the flickering point of the Count’s sword stopped only an inch from his throat. “I warn you, my courageous one,” commented the Count sardonically. “Your life is destined to be cut off very soon, but perhaps you would like to live as long as possible. Is it not so?”
Corrine saw the muscles of Percival’s back quiver as though he were about to lunge. “No,” she cried. “Percival, my darling.” She laid her snow-white hand on his arm. “We must trust in Providence.”
Percival did not move, but his voice was taut with tension. “I will not give her up to you, you devil’s spawn.”
“Perhaps she will come to me of her own accord - to save your life,” the Count goaded, the point of the sword moving to only a hairsbreadth from Percival’s throat.
The big man stood perfectly still, but Corrine cold feel with what tremendous effort he held himself in check. “You must not, Corrine,” he cried, his voice thick with emotion. “I adjure you by all that we hold holy, by the love that binds us for eternity, do not do this despicable thing.”
Corrine’s voice rang out clear and strong. “I should never so disgrace our love,” cried she. “And if you die, be assured, my beloved, that I shall follow you into eternity. For our love is blessed of God and no man may separate us for long.”
Louisa, finding herself suddenly blinded with tears, was forced to lay down her pen. How addlepated she was behaving, she told herself. To cry over these silly creatures of her own imagining, with their extravagant talk of eternal love.
But even as she dried her eyes on her handkerchief, Louisa forced herself to acknowledge the truth. It was exactly this kind of love - holy, eternal, ecstatic - that her readers desired above all things.
And, she told herself as she blew her nose determinedly and reached again for the pen, she was even more foolish than they. For she, too, even while she knew it as an absolute impossibility, would have given anything for such a love.
Chapter Fourteen
Several days passed. For Louisa they were days of agony. She could not help starting at the sound of every carriage in the street, holding her breath and listening for the tones of a familiar voice. But she did not rescind her orders to Drimble. She could not risk having Atherton come in while Harvey was there. For the Viscount’s quick eyes would soon discern the pomposity’s sense of proprietorship. And, if she knew Atherton as well as she thought she did, she would be called to account for encouraging such a creature.
Each day the silver salver on the table in the anteroom held many cards, though not that of the Viscount. And Drimble, adhering to his orders, reported his mistress not at home.
On the evening of the third day, Harvey, replete in a new suit that did little for his pomposity, arrived to pick her up for the theater just as Drimble was turning Atherton away. Louisa, standing behind a curtained window on the second floor, saw his lordship leap into his barouche and tear off like a man infuriated. She pressed a trembling hand to her lips to hold back a cry of pain. There was no time now for thinking about this. She must compose herself and exert all her wits to get Harvey to show her his alleged proof.
Two miserable afternoons had she spent in his company, chatting brightly and listening attentively, and all to no avail. He would only smile mysteriously and play with the cover of Love in the Ruins.
Louisa knew that she could not hold him off much longer. He fancied himself in the driver’s seat and he was eager for their nuptials to take place. She would figure out something, she told herself as she hurried down the stairs, smoothing the dress of cream satin to which Naomi and Aunt Caroline had stitched rows of seed pearls.
Harvey’s eyes, beady little eyes, lit up as he saw her descend the stairs and Louisa repressed a shudder. She should be laughing at herself for seeing the pomposity as a villain. But the truth of the matter was that his company was beginning to aggravate her no end. The tension of trying to be cheerful and amiable, when what she desired above all things was to slap his smirking face and send him packing, was telling on her nerves.
And now there was his Mama to be faced. Louisa stifled a sigh as he tucked her arm through his and led her down the steps to the waiting carriage. As he helped her inside, she felt a hysterical giggle rising in her throat.
The light of the carriage lamps revealed an immense dowager clad in livid orange silk. Her head was topped by two enormous orange-dyed ostrich plumes. And she glittered with diamonds. The whole effect, thought Louisa, was rather like that of a gaudy pavilion at Bartholomew Fair.
The dowager’s eyes, beady and little like those of her son, scrutinized Louisa carefully. “That is the dress you wore to the theater with Palmerton,” she said sharply, without waiting for an introduction.
“Yes, it is,” said Louisa, feeling a stirring of hope. If the dowager took a dislike to her ... From the way Harvey was sitting on the edge of the seat he was frightened of his Mama. “Yes,” repeated Louisa. “Aunt Caroline and Naomi altered it for me.”
Certainly that would let Mama know that there was no portion to be had with this bride.
“Good,” said Mama, nodding her head so vigorously that the ostrich plumes were in imminent danger of disaster. “You will make a frugal partner, not be wasting my son’s funds on frivolous gewgaws and gowns.”
Too late Louisa realized that she had taken the wrong tack, but before she could decide how to remedy this and earn the dowager’s dislike, the Mama spoke again. “My boy is a rare catch. Miss Penhope. I trust you realize that. Many are the young heiresses who’ve dangled after him. But I always told him - a sensible, older woman, that is what he needs, not some ninny just out of leading-strings.”
This information left Louisa somewhat dumbfounded. That the pomposity had once been a boy like other boys she realized. But now, when he must be over forty, for his Mama still to refer to him as her “boy” - Louisa felt a moment’s pity for Lord Harvey. Life with such a Mama could never have been a happy one.
“We are seeing Kemble tonight,” said Harvey suddenly. “He is playing Macbeth.”
“I believe that is one of Shakespeare’s best,” said Louisa.
“So do I,” replied Harvey, apparently eager to keep the conversation going.
Louisa took pity on him and asked, “What do the critics say of Kemble? Is he as good as Kean?”
“I believe ...” began Harvey.
“What sort of portion have you?” interrupted the dowager, just as though her son did not exist.
“None at all,” replied Louisa with a sweet smile, turning back to Harvey. “You were saying?”
Harvey cast a frightened look at his Mama. “Kean might...”
“Nonsense,” interrupted Mama again. “Kean is nothing but an upstart. A little ill-looking vagabond. He will amount to nothing.”
“Yes, Mama.”
“I cannot agree,” said Louisa firmly. “I think Kean is quite possibly the better actor.” Complacently she regarded Harvey’s stare of dismay and his Mama’s of disbelief. “Kean is young; he has more power.” She searched her memory of the reviews she had read.
“He is a reprobate,” said Mama sternly.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Louisa smiled sweetly again. “Artists are always temperamental, you know. They have such great gifts; perhaps it behooves us to allow them a little more leeway in their lives.”
“Drunkenness is drunkenness regard-less of a man’s genius,” proclaimed Mama in a voice that defied contra-diction.
Louisa, considering that she had already disagreed with the dowager to what the old lady appeared to feel was an unprecedented extent, wisely held her peace.
Fortunately by this time they had arrived at Covent Garden and Lord Harvey helped first his Mama and then her to descend. The jostling crowds of elegantly dressed fashionables, the swearing coachmen, the rattling carriages, could as easily have been outside Drury Lane, she thought.
Suddenly, for the first time, it occurred to Louisa that someone might see her in the company of Lord Harvey and his blazing Mama. In her distress over her circumstances this thought had hitherto escaped her notice. Resisting an impulse to hide behind Mama, she allowed Harvey to escort her to the box. Unfortunately, she noticed, Mama did not seem to spare any expense for herself and the box was a prominent one.
Louisa, as she settled into her chair, resigned herself to the tongues that would click on the morrow. For surely no one in the theater could miss seeing Mama, whose ample arms and throat were afire with diamonds, and in whose coquettish and quite probably false curls, nestled, besides the towering ostrich plumes, a great diamond tiara.
Gazing out over the pit, Louisa gave herself a steadying lecture. It seemed entirely possible that her ruse would work and Mama would think her an unsuitable connection for her darling boy. But if that happened, if Harvey no longer planned to make her his bride, would he keep her secret? Or would he take this opportunity to crow over Atherton, whom he obviously disliked?
It seemed fairly simple. Once Harvey had bowed to Mama’s dictum and resigned himself to looking for a bride he would gain an on-dit. He would take great pleasure in giving Atherton a setback, she was sure.
And so there seemed only one thing left to do. She must pack up the family and leave London as soon as possible. Per-haps in Shropshire they could return to a life of some normalcy. She only hoped they might get away before Lady Palmer-ton came to call again, though she would have to leave a note with some sort of explanation.
She had no real hope that the Viscount would ever return to the house on Arlington Street. She had had a clear view of his face as he threw himself into the driver’s seat of the barouche. And it had been white with suppressed fury.
Louisa’s hands tightened involuntarily as they lay in her lap. Could he have discovered her secret and come to berate her for it? But common sense indicated that that was not likely. It would be enough to enrage a man of Atherton’s breeding to find another admitted after he had just been turned away. And that other one of Harvey’s stamp at that.
Louisa stared fixedly at the drop scene representing a temple dedicated to Shakespeare. She had made up her mind. The light of morning would find them packing for Shropshire. The rest could be worked out later.
As the curtain rose she turned her attention to the play. It was one of her favorites; for though she had not attended the theater she had been a voracious reader. Now she determined to enjoy seeing in reality what she had many times imagined.
Kemble, she saw as the play progressed, was a handsome man, taller and larger than Kean. He did not have Kean’s great tragic eyes, but his features themselves seemed of a tragic cast and certainly the part of Macbeth suited him. However, when she compared the voices of the two men, she felt entirely justified in her remarks to the dowager. Kemble’s voice did not come up to Kean’s in strength or quality. He spoke with a great deal of stately dignity and what might even be called preciseness, but he lacked Kean’s vitality.
As the curtain dropped for the inter-mission Louisa decided that, though probably not a match for Kean, Kemble was a fine actor, more grand than passionate, and excellent in his delivery of tragic soliloquies.
Looking around her, she thought that she much preferred the play to the dubious pastime of being ogled by the ton. The occupants of the pit were their usual raucous selves, throwing orange peels and insults with equal abandon. As Louisa watched, several young exquisites, whose manners though not perhaps their physiques reminded her of Lord Reardon, rose to promenade. Watching them prance up and down, showing off their finery and generally making themselves ridiculous, Louisa found her lip curling in distaste. No wonder women were given to daydreaming over impossibly virile heroes. How could they be expected to consider an elegant fop as a fit mate for a lifetime?
She allowed her eyes to drift over the boxes. There was Poodle Byng, his dark curls bent over the hand of a lovely young enchantress. And there was Petersham, elegantly extending his snuff box to a golden beauty. Here a covey of young bucks clustered around a fabulous looking redhead.
And then her eyes stopped their desultory drifting and were fixed by the sight of Lady Jersey, resplendent in rose silk, leaning coyly against the arm of a certain very handsome Viscount. Louisa wrenched her eyes away, but not before Jersey had observed her and said something to the man beside her who turned to look. In that last second as she directed her gaze elsewhere, Louisa met those dark piercing eyes that had so often looked down into her own. And they were absolutely empty, blank of any expression whatsoever.
Louisa could not help the shudder that passed over her. Atherton had given her the cut direct. Whether he was still angry was impossible to tell, but clearly he had cut her, not even offered the merest of nods.
Louisa blinked to keep back the traitorous tears. She would not give Jersey, who was now, she saw out of the corner of her eye, leaning coquettishly against Atherton’s sleeve and regarding him out of those deep-fringed eyes, the satisfaction of seeing her cry.
Anger swept over Louisa then, anger such as she did not recall ever feeling before, anger at a woman who used men - as playthings - and women much worse. Everyone knew how Jersey, as the Prince of Wales’ mistress, had gone to meet the German Princess who was to be his bride and in the name of friendship deliberately encouraged her to dress in a way extremely unbecoming to her. And this in order to prevent the Prince from being removed from her power.
Louisa had heard the old story more than once since her entry into the ton. Certainly Jersey deserved the hatred which women so often conceived for her. For she delighted in power of the worst kind, often, Louisa suspected, wresting a man from his wife’s side simply to prove her own strength. Louisa sighed. Such a creature was foreign to her under-standing.
“Louisa!” From the tone of Harvey’s voice Louisa gathered that this was not the first time he had addressed her. “Mama asked you a question.”
“I’m sorry,” replied Louisa. “I was woolgathering.”
From the thunderous cast of Mama’s brows it was evident that people were not in the habit of woolgathering in her exalted presence. “I said,” she repeated with a look obviously intended to impress the culprit with the immensity of her sin, “that Kemble is the greatest tragedian ever to grace the English stage.”
Louisa considered this for a moment. “I am afraid that I must disagree.” Louisa paused, but Mama appeared to be struck dumb by such apostasy, so she continued. “I often heard my Papa speak of the great Garrick. He said he was the greatest of them all.”
“But your Papa had not seen Kemble.”
“I am sorry to disagree again,” said Louisa. “But in his salad days my Papa was quite a regular at the theater. Even in later years he attended whenever he was in town.�
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“I suppose your Papa saw Kean also,” glowered the dowager.
“No,” replied Louisa. “My Papa died these five years past.”
This simple statement reduced the dowager’s frown somewhat and before she could regroup her forces for another attack the curtain rose once more.
Thankfully Louisa turned back to the stage. She hoped fervently that no poor female would ever consent to wed Lord Harvey. Life under the fat thumb of the dowager Mama would be hardly worth living.
As the tragedy of Macbeth continued to unfold before her eyes Louisa wanted to let herself slip again under the spell of the great Shakespeare. No one had ever or would ever surpass him, she thought, with the pride of a fellow writer.
But the temptation to look toward Jersey’s box and a familiar tall figure was too great and finally she succumbed, letting her eyes slide quickly in that direction. What she saw made her wish she had resisted temptation. For Atherton was leaning intimately toward Jersey, his gloved hand resting lightly on her bare arm. Whatever his love for the theater the Viscount was not watching the play this night - at least, not the play upon the stage.
Resolutely Louisa returned her gaze to the actors. But she saw little. Jersey had gained her objective, it seemed. She had Atherton dangling after her.
A man who could admire such a heartless creature as Jersey had proved herself to be was not worthy of a decent woman’s love, Louisa told herself sternly. But she could not slow the rapid thudding of her heart. For regardless of Atherton’s worth - and his inclination toward women of sophistication like Jersey - there was no denying the fact that Louisa loved the man. No denying it at all.
And he was not an unworthy person, another part of her replied. Consider all the times he had spent with Harry, giving “gentlemen” lessons, as they called it. And the things he had done for her. Including, said a voice in her head, breaking her heart.
But in all good conscience she could not blame him for that. He could not help it that he was tall and handsome, with the broad shoulders and lean body of an active sportsman. Nor, probably, could he help it that he was an excessively charming man.