John realised that Arthur Scuggins was standing beside him. His eyes were fixed on Drusilla, who seemed suddenly to become aware of him and ran forward, leaving her partner stranded in the middle of the floor.
"I have a dance free now, Arthur," she said teasingly. "Isn't it lucky you are so patient."
"Yes, my dear," he said gravely. "I think it is much better that I waited."
He turned to John, looking pale and almost distraught.
"Your Grace –"
"John. Or Chesterton, if you must be formal."
"Chesterton, may I speak with you?"
"Of course, old fellow. What can I do for you?"
"It had been my intention to ask your permission to marry Drusilla."
"I grant that permission. I think she is a very lucky girl."
He gave a wan smile.
"I doubt if she would agree with you. In any case, I do not, now, intend to seek her hand."
Drusilla gave a little scream and her hands flew to her mouth.
"Don't tell me you have quarrelled over an evening's dancing?" John enquired.
"Not at all. It is merely that I have realised the hopelessness of my position."
"It is not hopeless. Drusilla has been intending to marry you these last two weeks. She told me so. Repeatedly."
"Yes, because she was afraid of being poor."
Arthur looked into Drusilla's face and his voice was very gentle.
"My dear, I mean no disrespect to you if I say that I know the chief attraction is my money. How could it be otherwise, when I am so much older than you and you have so much life and beauty?"
"I think you are a dashed good match for her," John insisted.
"I might have been, if you had not found a Rembrandt. But I know what it will be worth. Now you will have all the money you can possibly want. You can restore this place and Drusilla can take her rightful position in Society – a society that would never accept me."
He looked kindly at Drusilla.
"You don't need me now," he told her.
"You don't know that," Gina said quickly. "What about her feelings? What about love?"
He gave her a wry smile.
"You are surely not suggesting that Drusilla is in love with me?"
There was an awkward silence as each one of them remembered Drusilla's behaviour that evening.
"She is young," John said awkwardly. "A little flirting – I grant that it was improper –"
"No, it was not improper," Arthur insisted at once.
He turned back to Drusilla, standing there, her eyes full of horror, fixed on his face. Gently he took her hand.
"As you say, she is young and a little innocent flirting is no more than she is entitled to."
"But – I didn't mean it," Drusilla stammered.
"My dear girl, be young and enjoy yourself without an elderly husband around to spoil everything for you. The fault was mine for ever daring to intrude on your life."
He gave a little bow in John's direction.
"Chesterton, I withdraw my suit and I bid you all goodnight."
Everyone there was dismayed, but nobody knew how to stop this dignified man from doing what he had decided. He had a will of iron. That much was clear.
For a moment everyone in the little group was frozen as they watched Arthur Scuggins walk calmly away.
Then the air was rent by a terrible shriek.
"Arthur! Wait."
But he did not stop.
"Go after him," Gina said urgently.
Gathering up her skirts Drusilla sped across the floor and the dancers parted before her.
"Arthur!" she screamed.
"We had better follow," counselled Lady Evelyn worriedly. "She will need us to console her."
In the corridor outside they saw Drusilla catch up with Arthur and fling her arms about his neck.
"Don't go," she wept. "I love you."
"You are a child. You do not know what love means."
"I know that I love you," she cried. "I know I have been mean and horrible tonight –"
"No, my darling, you have just acted like a girl at her first dance."
"But it will never be my first dance again," she explained quickly, "so that will be all right, won't it?"
Even the troubled Arthur had to smile at this piece of disjointed logic.
"And I don't care about Society," she hurried on. "We will just entertain your friends, all the other grocers and – your friends and I can just flirt with them."
"You most certainly will not," he said sternly but beginning to smile.
"I will, I will, and I will make you very proud of me."
"I think you and Drusilla need to have a long talk," John intervened. "Just walking away from her is not the answer."
Arthur shook his head doubtfully.
"Please," Drusilla said, looking up tearfully into his face. "There is so much I want to say to you, Arthur dear."
"Go into the library," suggested Lady Evelyn. "I will have some refreshment sent to you."
Arthur threw her a look of gratitude and allowed himself to be drawn away by Drusilla, who held his hand tightly, as if fearful that he should escape.
"It's up to her, now," John said. "Now she has discovered the value of what she nearly lost, she will have to work to keep him."
"I think she will manage it," Lady Evelyn commented.
John nodded.
"I do hope so."
"But Mr. Scuggins was right in a way," Gina mused. "She could marry a title and live in Society now. And yet, here you are, trying to match her to a man who must seem no more than a tradesman to you."
John smiled ruefully.
"Maybe I know a little more now than I did earlier," he told her. "Drusilla would be lucky to have a man who loves her enough to put up with her feather-brained ways. And she seems dashed fond of him. They could be the perfect couple."
Gina smiled.
This was the man she loved.
Then her smile faded as she remembered that this was the man she was about to lose.
They were making their way back to the picture gallery, when they saw Athene's parents waiting for them in the doorway.
John groaned.
"Now, Your Grace, I will not be put off any longer," asserted Mr. Wicks-Henderson firmly.
"I was not aware that I was putting you off," John answered, trying to be pleasant. "I have merely been very distracted with so much happening."
"Yes, so I have seen. Now that you are rich again, I suppose you think you are above my daughter."
"I beg your pardon!"
"You know what I mean. I am talking about my Athene – where is the girl by the way? She ought to be here."
It dawned on John that he had not seen Athene for some time, but he could only be glad that she was not here to witness what was clearly going to be a very vulgar scene. Every time her father spoke, John was engulfed in heavy wine fumes.
"Shall we go aside to talk?" he asked, indicating the door to a small ante-room.
"Oh, yes, you would like to fob me off, wouldn't you? But I am staying here until you tell me that you are going to do the right thing by my girl."
"And may I ask what you consider the right thing to be?" John asked in a tone that was all the more dangerous for being quiet.
"As if I needed to say! She has lived under your roof all this time –"
"As the guest of my mother," John reminded him.
Gina, watching this scene with clenched fists, became aware that Pharaoh was at her elbow.
"I was asked to give you this," he murmured.
It was a pale blue envelope with her name written on it in Athene's hand writing. Frowning, she tore it open.
Athene's father raised his voice.
"My girl has spent all her time with you, riding over the countryside in full view of the world."
"If the world has been watching so closely," John said, "then the world will have noticed that we did not ride alone, but in company wit
h this lady and a friend of mine."
"Fine talk, but everyone has seen you together and knows she has been staying here, and I say that the time has come for you to make an offer for her hand."
John drew a sharp breath.
Now it was placed before him starkly he knew that the thought of marriage to Athene was appalling. Her beauty could never make up for her infantile conversation and the total lack of any mental communion between them. And this would be true even if he was not in love with another woman.
But to marry Athene when he had discovered his perfect woman in Gina! Even if he could never marry his beloved, she would remain his ideal of perfection all his life and to be tied to another woman was unthinkable.
But, even as he dwelt on these thoughts, he wondered if what this man was saying might be true. Had he compromised Athene? Would he be obliged to marry her, even though it would mean a lifetime of misery for them both?
He closed his eyes, praying for a miracle to save him.
Once, it seemed long ago, Gina had promised him a miracle. But surely even Gina could not save him now.
"I am waiting, Your Grace," said Wicks-Henderson.
"Does Athene say I have compromised her?" John asked, playing for time.
"Yes, she does," put in Athene's mother quickly.
"Yet she chooses to absent herself from this conversation," John observed.
"Where is she?" Athene's mother snapped, looking around with her little sharp eyes. "Bring her here and then we'll see."
"I am afraid that will not be possible," Gina said slowly, her eyes on the letter she was holding.
"What do you mean, not possible?" Wicks-Henderson roared. "Where is she?"
"A long way away by now," Gina informed him. "This is a letter from her to me, explaining why she will not be returning."
She began to read,
"Dear Gina,
Do forgive me for doing this to you in the middle of the ball, but there was no other way.
Benedict and I are in love. It struck us both like a flash of lightning at the first moment and we have lived only for each other since ever then.
My parents will never consent to our marriage, so we have run away together. When you next see me I will be Mrs. Benedict Kenly.
Please give my apologies to the Duke. I never meant to mislead him, but he didn't really want to marry me anyway. He –"
Gina checked herself at this point, for the letter continued,
"He loves someone else and I think you know who. If you haven't guessed by now, then you must be very blind."
Omitting this passage, Gina hurried on to the final words.
"Your affectionate friend,
Athene."
There was a stunned silence before Athene's parents let out a joint roar and pounced, snatching the letter from Gina's hand.
"We'll get her back –"
"He's abducted our girl –"
"He won't get away with it –"
John hardly heard any of this. It was being borne on him, like a burst of music, that he had misunderstood Benedict's words. It was not Gina that he loved and who had said she loved him, but Athene.
And Gina?
Who did she love?
He turned to look and her and found her regarding him, a yearning look in her eyes. His heart began to beat strongly as he thought he understood that look. If only he was not mistaken.
If only –
"Your Grace will be hearing from me," Mr. Wicks-Henderson bawled. "If you had done your duty earlier this would not have happened."
"It would always have happened," John replied as if in a dream. "Your daughter is in love with Benedict –"
"In love? What has that got to do with it?"
"It has everything to do with it?" John said fiercely. "In fact, it is the only thing that matters. Athene is right. If you have found the one person in the world that you care about, then you should go through fire and ice to be with that person."
His eyes were on Gina as he spoke.
"It doesn't matter what else you have to give up," he added. "Give up the rest of the world and cling to that one person – if she will have you."
He saw by the faint smile in Gina's face that she had understood and his heart soared.
"And what does this bit mean?" Mr. Wicks-Henderson screamed, stabbing at the letter, "he loves someone else – "
"Give me that," John shouted in swift rage and snatched the letter from him.
He immediately returned it to Gina, although he longed to read the mysterious passage that she had omitted.
"Oho! I see," Athene's father sneered, looking from one to the other. "That's the way of it, is it?"
"Do not let me detain you," John told him in a frosty voice.
Mr. Wicks-Henderson snorted. His wife sniffed. But it was useless. They were defeated and they knew it. They were still frothing with rage as they departed and the ball began to break up.
Guests approached John to say their farewells. He played his part, smiled, and made the right remarks and all the time his mind was seething with questions.
Had he imagined Gina's reaction?
What would she say to him when they were alone?
Did she really love him?
After all his blind stupidity, would he be given a second chance?
At last most of the guests were gone and only those who were staying the night remained.
"Leave them to me," his mother told him. "Go to Gina."
"Mama –"
"It is what I hoped for, my dear boy. She is the perfect wife for you, I knew it from the first."
"You – ?"
"Why else do you think I invited her to stay? I was not going to take the chance of her escaping. You need her too much."
"I thought you wanted me to marry Athene."
"Goodness no! I knew she would bore you within five minutes. I thought the more you saw of her, the quicker you would become disillusioned. With Gina it was the opposite. I knew the more you saw of her, the more you would value her."
"And I did. But perhaps she won't have me, Mama."
"If she has any sense, she won't have you," agreed Lady Evelyn with spirit. Then she softened. "But I rely on her being too much in love to have any sense."
The picture gallery was almost empty. John could see Gina at the far end, concentrating on some flowers.
With sudden determination he marched towards her, seized her hand and whisked her out of the room.
The next moment she was in his arms.
It was the kiss they had both dreamed of and believed could never happen. John pressed her fervently against his heart, thanking Heaven for his miracle.
He kissed her fiercely, passionately, rejoicing as he felt her sweet response.
Inspired, he kissed her again, trying to tell her, without words, all the feelings that were in his heart.
"I thought you loved Benedict," he said at last.
"And I thought you loved Athene."
"What do I care for her? I wish Benedict every happiness, but she could never suit me. I think I must have loved you from the first moment, but you convinced me that I had no hope."
"I – ?"
"You insisted that I needed an heiress, but you never told me that you were one, so I took that as a rejection. You little witch! Why did you send for Athene?"
"But I never did, I told you. It was just a coincidence her turning up like that."
"After what you said about knowing an heiress?"
Her smile turned his heart over.
"There was no heiress – unless, perhaps, I meant myself. I wanted to know what you would say to the prospect. And I also wanted you to love me, but I could not bear to think that my money was an attraction, so I pretended not to have any. I should have trusted you better."
"But I don't need an heiress now," he said, "so you can believe me when I say that it is love and love alone that makes me beg you to be my wife."
She searched his face longingly.
/> "Do you really love me, my darling? Is it possible?"
"It is not possible for me to love anyone else. I was a fool, Gina, but I am a fool no longer. Tell me that it isn't too late."
"It isn't too late," she whispered. "We found each other, as I believe we were always meant to do."
He drew her against him again for a kiss that was full of tenderness and joy.
When at last he released his lips, he said in a shaking voice,
"My mother tells me that she always wanted this. She will be delighted to have you as a daughter-in-law."
"Let us go and share our happiness with her, quickly," Gina suggested.
They hurried in search of Lady Evelyn, but could find no trace of her. They hunted through several rooms, until at last they approached the library.
"Perhaps she has gone to bed," John observed. "I hope not, because I don't want to wait until morning to – Mama!"
As he spoke, John was opening the door, half turning to speak over his shoulder and then looking back into the library. And what he saw there brought him to a sudden halt.
"Mama!" he repeated.
The couple in the room sprang apart. On Lady Evelyn's face was a rosy blush that made her seem much younger than her years. And as she looked at the man with her and took his hand, she wore a look of blinding happiness.
"Ambrose!" John said slowly. "Mama –"
"Oh, darling, don't be angry with me," Lady Evelyn said. "I couldn't help it. Truly I couldn't."
As she spoke she looked at Ambrose again and John drew in his breath at that look. Like all the young, he had not thought of his mother as a woman who could be in love. But there was no doubting the adoration in the gaze she turned on her beloved.
"It is all my fault," Ambrose explained hastily. "I have loved Lady Evelyn for years, ever since I came here to pay a respectful visit to the late Duke. In fact, that was why I offered myself to him as a secretary." He turned worshipful eyes on John's Mama. "It was a chance to be near – her."
"Oh, I think it's so lovely," Gina sighed.
"But Gina," John murmured, aghast, "this is my mother."
"Well, she is a free agent. She is a widow. If she wants to love again, that's nobody's business but hers."
"But – Papa –"
"I loved your father devotedly while he was alive," Lady Evelyn said. "But now that I am alone – cannot you try to understand?"
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