A flicker of amusement showed in his grey eyes. ‘Maybe not, ma’am,’ he answered dryly, ‘but while you are in my mother’s house I am responsible for your well-being.’
Lord Fontevin gently cleared his throat. ‘Forgive me, Miss Honeywell, for being such a poor creature, but in this instance I must take my stand with Mr. Derwent. It won’t do, my dear. You had best travel in the curricle, and one of my fellows will drive the phaeton after you. I can take him on to Newmarket from London.’
Seeing her downcast face, Lysander relented a little.
‘No doubt different manners and customs obtain in the Cape, but here in England the less a young lady in a delicate situation exposes herself to animadversion, the better. You cannot be too careful how you conduct yourself.’
His kindly condescension made her more angry than ever, and not for the first time, there stirred in Miss Honeywell’s breast an ignoble desire to hurl something at him, preferably something hard and hurtful. He was become unpardonably autocratic, and the sooner he got himself married off to some unfortunate female the better she would be pleased.
CHAPTER
TEN
The Dowager was quite sunk in melancholy. ‘That such a thing should have happened at a dinner-party of my giving!’ she lamented. ‘It will be all over town this morning—that Endersby woman is the greatest chatterbox that ever I knew, and one could not expect Mrs. George Lamb to stay silent over such a choice piece of scandal.’
‘If it is of any comfort to you, mama,’ said her son, who was standing by the window, staring unseeingly out upon the busy street, ‘I shall be the butt for their ribaldry once the true story gets about, so neatly gulled as I was.’
‘And Kate to have helped them! I’ll never forgive that girl—never!’
He turned at that and came to stand beside her. ‘I have accepted that her natural affection for Bredon overcame her good sense,’ he said almost painfully.
‘She knew you were about to become betrothed to Lady Sophia!’ expostulated the Dowager indignantly. ‘No one would have expected you to be unmoved by her flight with Bredon, unless they were quite—quite—’
‘Dicked in the nob, you would say?’ he suggested wryly. ‘No, I would not!’ she retorted. ‘Such a vulgar phrase! I cannot imagine where you acquire such cant, Lysander!’ Ignoring his mother’s reproof, Mr. Derwent went on in the same strained way, as if the words were being forced from him against his will.
‘Miss Honeywell has been through a very distressing experience. She is not a bad-natured girl, after all, and is doubtless suitably penitent for having gone beyond the line of what is pleasing.’
‘Gone beyond the line of what is pleasing indeed! Are you saying, Lysander, that you don’t wish me to reprimand her for her outrageous behaviour?’ gasped the Dowager.
‘If you do she may turn about and go straight back to the Cape,’ warned her son.
The Dowager was much struck by this possibility. ‘Oh, dear, that would never do,’ she sighed. ‘You know how people would talk.’
‘And the least said about this business the better,’ he stressed.
‘Yes, of course, I do see that,’ she agreed. ‘How very fortunate that you had not sent notice of your engagement to the Gazette.’ He forbore to remind her that there had been no engagement to announce and she swept on anxiously: ‘Unhappily our guests of last night will not observe the same need for discretion.’
‘What did Wayleigh say?’ he asked suddenly.
The very mention of the Marquis’s name caused her ladyship to shudder. ‘At first he was highly amused at the thought of you being led such a dance. Then, as time went on and you did not return, he became uneasy and—yes, I remember it clearly, for I was speaking to him at the time—he snapped his fingers and cried out: “By God, that’s it! They’ve tipped me the double!” He at once took his leave, scarce troubling to excuse his departure. What did he mean, Lysander?’
‘I daresay he had guessed the truth.’ Mr. Derwent’s face was very grim. ‘He must have known of his sister’s attachment to Bredon.’
‘And I was beginning to feel quite in charity with him,’ lamented the Dowager.
‘Mama, I must go now.’ He bent to kiss her cheek. ‘I am sorry about your disastrous dinner-party. The fault was mine, for yielding to what I believed to be a whim of Sophia’s. Don’t look for me before the day following tomorrow at earliest. And—don’t be too unkind to Kate.’
‘Oh, do you call her Kate?’ enquired his sorely tried parent, showing a flicker of interest.
‘No, I do not!’ His disclaimer surprised even himself by its vehemence. ‘I shall be at Newmarket should you have need of me.’
Her ladyship accepted this intelligence without question and wished him a good journey. He regularly attended the meetings at Newmarket, and she was not sufficiently conversant with the racing calendar to know their precise dates. In any case, her mind was too occupied with consideration of how she should deal with her erring goddaughter to allow of anything else.
Miss Honeywell, very conscious of her guilt, thought it best to remain in her bedchamber until the Dowager sent for her. The servants’ awed reception of her upon her return to Charles Street, and their hushed voices, led her to expect the worst. Had she had the good fortune to hear some of the kitchen comments she might have been somewhat comforted for the staff, as was to be expected, were well informed concerning their employers’ affairs.
Horace, the first footman was, as ever, strong in her defence. ‘Duke’s daughter or not, her ladyship’s a niminy-piminy creature and I’d say Mr. Lysander’s well rid of her,’ he asserted stoutly.
‘That is no way to be speaking of a noble lady,’ Bates reproved him. ‘Though I’ll grant you her conduct last night left much to be desired. Breaking up a dinner-party in that fashion, indeed! I don’t know what the world is coming to!’
Horace opined that Miss Honeywell deserved to be congratulated for her share in business. But this Mrs. Hignett would not allow.
‘Quite apart from her being a gentlewoman and one from whom such conduct is not to be expected, she is a guest in this house,’ she declared. ‘To practise such deceit upon her host and hostess—it is beyond anything wicked! Poor Mr. Lysander!’
Further discussion was prohibited by the strident ringing of a bell. ‘That’ll be her ladyship.’ Bates heaved himself to his feet with a sigh.
‘Wishful of seeing Miss Honeywell, I daresay!’ tittered Miss Peveril with ill-concealed satisfaction. ‘She’ll tell her to pack her bags and leave, I shouldn’t wonder!’
But no such dire fate lay in store for Miss Honeywell. The Dowager, to be sure, was at pains to point out her goddaughter’s many failings, but when Kate had expressed her genuine contrition and apologised humbly for having caused her ladyship such distress, she found herself being readily forgiven.
‘Though how I am to hold my head up in society, I am sure I don’t know!’
‘Take heart, dear Aunt Hetty, yours will probably go down as the most entertaining dinner-party of the year!’
The Dowager visibly brightened. ‘Do you think so? It well might, you know! But—it is the most unfortunate thing!—I am bidden to a soiree this afternoon at, of all places, Mrs. George Lamb’s! I dare not cry off, I must outface them!’
‘Of course you must, and you shall!’ her goddaughter assured her, and in discussing just what attitude her ladyship should adopt, in no time at all they were back on their old comfortable terms again.
Once having seen the Dowager off to her soiree, Miss Honeywell settled down to write a long overdue letter to her mama. Outside the rain was pouring down, and the whole fresh April scene wore a limp and dejected air. She thought with nostalgic longing of the bright sunshine and warm breezes of the Cape, and of the big airy Dutch farmhouse that was her home. Even a carriage drawing up to the door won her from her no more than a cursory glance. She was agreeably surprised when Bates came to tell her that Lady Harveston had called and, on being
informed that she was at home, had asked to have a word with her.
‘I told her ladyship I could not say as how you were receiving or not, miss.’ His air of discreet gloom provoked her amusement.
‘Of course I am receiving—why should I not? Ask Lady Harveston to step up, if you please, and if she would care for some tea, for I am sure I would.’
Bates, shaking his head at such unseemly levity, went to carry out her instructions while Miss Honeywell shut her unfinished letter away in the satinwood Biedermeier writing-desk.
‘I am persuaded it was Aunt Hetty you really wished to see,’ she said, stepping forward to greet her visitor with outstretched hand. ‘But I cannot pretend to be disappointed that she is out if you will stay and drink a dish of tea with me. One always feels so low on the day following a dinner-party, don’t you find?’
‘Indeed, yes, and such a dinner-party!’
The twinkle in Lady Harveston’s eye quite reassured Miss Honeywell, and she began to laugh.
‘I fear I shall never be forgiven my share in it! Do please sit down and tell me you were not utterly shocked!’
‘Not shocked, perhaps,’ said Lady Harveston, seating herself on the sofa and drawing off her delicate lavender-hued kid gloves. ‘Surprised, certainly. I had no notion you were Bredon’s cousin, Miss Honeywell.’
‘Who told you that I was?’
‘I think—yes, it was Mrs. Lamb, who had it from Wayleigh.’
‘Wayleigh? How should he know?’
Lady Harveston leaned forward. ‘May I speak plainly, Miss Honeywell?’ Kate, wondering what next to expect, made a gesture of assent. ‘Did you know I was Elizabeth Draycott before my marriage? No, I can see that you did not. Pray believe me when I say I do not regard Wayleigh to be a friend to your cousin. Oh, yes, I know he helped him out of the country when—after Mr. Cantwell and my brother died, but there is something else you should know.’
She paused, as if summoning up courage to say what she must. ‘Just prior to those dreadful events, Wayleigh had made me an offer of marriage.’
‘What?’ The very notion of the Marquis succumbing to the tender passion so astonished Miss Honeywell that she could only look at the other in utter disbelief.
‘Absurd, is it not?’ Lady Harveston’s lips twisted in a travesty of a smile. ‘But he professed to have a fondness for me, and when I rebuffed him with loathing it merely excited his determination to wed me. After your cousin had left England, Wayleigh came to me with the deeds of my home, saying that Bredon had given them to him for safe-keeping. He offered them to me as a—as a bribe if I would consent to marry him, but I refused. They were part of my Brother’s debt to Cantwell, I had no right to them.’
‘Some would say that Cantwell’s death wiped out those debts,’ objected Miss Honeywell.’
‘My mother held to my opinion, and depend upon it, if I had produced those deeds I would have signed your cousin’s death-warrant.’
‘You still think him innocent?’
‘Whatever he may have done, he did it for my brother’s sake. I cannot forget that.’
‘Oh, Bredon is a dear creature, if a trifle totty-headed,’ pronounced Miss Honeywell, a shade impatiently. ‘How he and Sophia will deal together I dare not conjecture, for I vow she is as up in the clouds as he.’
‘So that was it!’ Lady Harveston clapped her hands together in satisfaction. ‘She has gone to join him!’
Miss Honeywell looked rather self-conscious. ‘I forgot you couldn’t know the whole of it. He came to fetch her, and I—I handed her over!’
‘Oh, Miss Honeywell, Miss Honeywell, what have you done?’ Her ladyship’s eyes were alight with laughter. ‘And the on-dit is that Mr. Derwent was about to offer for her! Great heaven, I wonder he didn’t beat you!’
‘He—’ began Kate, and then decided that further discussion along those lines was better avoided. ‘He was very angry,’ she admitted, wriggling a little in her chair as at some uncomfortable memory.
‘As well he might be. Do you think they got away?’
‘Why should they not?’
‘Who, apart from Sophia and yourself, knew that Bredon was in England?’
‘Why, no one but—’ Miss Honeywell checked, recalling that several people had known of her cousin’s presence in the country. ‘Well, there were one or two of his old servants, and—’
‘And Wayleigh?’
‘It seems to me,’ said Miss Honeywell tartly, ‘that my lord of Wayleigh is mighty busy about other people’s affairs.’
‘He is a devil,’ said Lady Harveston. ‘Do not be deceived by his charm of manner, he can turn that on at will. He is also, I am convinced, in dire need of money. He called upon me this morning to renew his offer of marriage. I am persuaded that his infatuation—call it what you will—is long over. My husband left me a generous dependence, that is all Wayleigh’s interest now.’
‘Your husband—I am so sorry, ma’am. It is but six months since, is it not?’
‘Your sympathy is misplaced, so I beg you to spare your breath.’ Again her face was contorted by that wry smile. ‘I married him to escape Wayleigh and for a roof over my mother’s head. Oh, Joshua was less unkind than uncouth. He had no sensibility; to him everything had its price—including me.’
Miss Honeywell felt unbearably moved by this disclosure. ‘But, ma’am, you are still so young, life has everything to offer you! And you say you are well provided for—’
‘Ah!’ Lady Harveston raised a hand. ‘But my dear husband laid down in his will that if I should marry again then all but a pittance is taken from me and goes to a distant cousin. I could not but observe that when I informed the Marquis of this circumstance his enthusiasm to take me for wife waned in a most marked manner.’
The entry of Bates, bearing a massive silver tea-tray, followed by Horace with plates of macaroons, ratafia cakes and gingerbread, put a period to this discussion. When these delicacies had been dispensed, the butler and his minion withdrew and Lady Harveston resumed her story.
‘All this brings me to another thing of which I must speak to you. Wayleigh and Mr. Derwent are engaged in a wager, a race, are they not?’
‘Yes, tomorrow.’ Miss Honeywell sipped her tea and watched her visitor over the rim of her cup.
‘Wayleigh cannot afford to lose, it would ruin him.’
‘Perhaps if he lost he would blow his brains out?’ Kate suggested hopefully.
‘You know little of him if you think that! Now that I have failed him and Lady Sophia can no longer be used to ensure Mr. Derwent’s complaisance, he must win. Mr. Derwent’s very life may be in danger.’
Miss Honeywell’s cup rattled dangerously in her saucer. ‘What do you suspect?’
‘With Wayleigh, anything. Can you warn Mr. Derwent?’
‘I doubt he would even listen to me. He believes me to be a hen-witted female with no notion of proper behaviour and no regard for his consequence!’
‘Then he must be made to listen to someone of whom he will take heed.’
‘But who—why, of course, Lord Fontevin! He has announced his intention of coming to town this afternoon and lodging with His Grace of Edmonton before going to Newmarket tomorrow.’
‘I seem to recall hearing Lady Sophia say to Mr. Derwent last night that His Grace had decided to remain at Mount Trennick some few days more.’ Lady Harveston thoughtfully nibbled a macaroon. ‘And Wayleigh did speak of leaving town this afternoon. No doubt Lord Francis will accompany him.’
Miss Honeywell was quick to take the implication. ‘So it should be safe to send a message to Lord Fontevin?’
‘You are sure he will be with you in this? After all, Wayleigh is his grandson.’
‘Depend upon it, he dislikes him excessively.’ In her agitation Miss Honeywell rose and began to pace the room. ‘Lord Fontevin knows Wayleigh’s capacity for evil as well as any. But he is such a very old gentleman and quite blind; it may all be too much for his resolution.’
�
�Why, then,’ said Lady Harveston, setting down her cup, ‘do not you accompany him tomorrow? You could be his eyes and give him all the support he needs.’
Miss Honeywell had only one fault to find with this suggestion. ‘What am I to tell my godmother?’ she asked.
‘I am returning to Harveston Hall for a few days to attend to some business matters, and would be very glad of your company. If you would care to write your message to Lord Fontevin, my groom can deliver it and await a reply. Then, once you have received your godmother’s permission, I suggest you join me in Albemarle Street, as I will be making an early start in the morning.’
‘As no doubt will his lordship!’ Miss Honeywell needed no further prompting. ‘How can I thank you, ma’am, for your help?’
‘By ceasing to call me “ma’am”! My name is Elizabeth, and yours, I believe, is Kate? Our friendship may be of brief duration, but is none the less firm for that!’
Well pleased with each other’s understanding of the matter, the two ladies then settled down to order the details of their plan of campaign.
When the Dowager returned later in the day, it was to find her goddaughter in the act of applying a wafer to seal her letter to her parent.
‘You can have no notion of what I have endured!’ she complained, putting off her bonnet while Miss Honeywell hurried to place a stool for her feet. ‘No one yet knows what really happened, and I was at the greatest pains not to tell them! Politeness forbade the question direct, but everyone was torn with curiosity!’
‘I do believe you enjoyed the whole thing, Aunt Hetty!’ Kate accused her.
‘I might have enjoyed it more had I not had to suffer the company of that tiresome Lady Byron—oh, I know what you will be saying, that she is much to be pitied because of her husband’s scandalous conduct. I could sympathise more did she pity herself less. I consider it the height of folly for any woman to imagine she could reform such a man! Be advised by me, Kate, and whoever your choice falls upon, accept him as he is and don’t waste your time trying to improve upon nature. If you please him well, your husband may at first appear all complaisance—I am not saying Byron did, in fact I am very sure he did not!—but, as time passes, you will find he slips back into his old ways, and you would be excessively stupid to repine over it.’
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