He said gently, ‘And why is that?’
‘I should have thought that was obvious,’ she shrugged. And then, as though changing the subject, ‘Nell looks happy. One can only hope it lasts.’
‘But you, of course, doubt that it will.’
‘Don’t you? You must know that Harry only - ’ She broke off artistically. ‘Well, let’s just say he is a desperate flirt.’
His Grace smiled.
‘I am not sure of my cue. Do I observe that it is a case of pot calling kettle – or simply remark that it takes one to know one?’
Something flickered in the blue eyes and then was gone.
‘Oh - that! That was nothing.’
‘No,’ agreed the Duke. ‘So Harry has said.’
‘Has he? Well, well.’ Her voice thickened with spite. ‘And has he also said that there’s nothing between himself and Adeline? Because if there isn’t, I’d not wager a groat that there soon won’t be. Why else is he marrying Nell?’
Rockliffe appeared to be in rapt contemplation of his snuff-box.
‘You are the one who appears to have all the answers. You tell me.’
‘To make it easier for him to be close to Adeline, of course. I should have thought you were bright enough to have worked that one out for yourself.’
‘Did you? Then you did me an injustice, my dear.’ His tone was like honeyed silk but his eyes, when he looked at her, held an expression of icy contempt. ‘You see … unlike yours, my mind is not filled with sordid imaginings.’
Diana’s mouth contorted, showing small sharp teeth.
‘The truth hurts, doesn’t it? But go on deluding yourself, if you like. It’s nothing to me. I’m just sorry for you all … you and Nell and my poor sister. Yes – particularly for Thea.’
‘Desolate as I am to be obliged to contradict you,’ came the blighting reply, ‘it has to be said that you have never been sorry for anyone in your life. Particularly your sister. Your problem, at this precise moment, is that you are jealous.’
‘Jealous? Not I! Why should I be?’
‘I should have thought,’ he mocked, ‘that the reason was obvious. Despite your undeniable beauty, you are being forced to watch others succeeding where you have failed. In short, Mistress, you are just beginning to suspect that you may be unmarriageable … and you still don’t know why.’
‘It’s a lie!’ she spat breathlessly. ‘I’m not unmarriageable – I’m just choosier than some. I won’t make do with other people’s leavings.’
‘It’s unlikely that you will ever be given the chance.’ The lean mouth curled in a hard, derisory smile. ‘It is plain that you have accosted me for the purpose of saying something I should probably much prefer not to hear … and, in a moment, I shall permit you to do so. But first you must allow me the satisfaction of informing you that you are undoubtedly the most vain, selfish, and unprincipled brat it has ever been my misfortune to meet … and the man who is foolish enough to marry you will have my profoundest sympathy.’
For almost a minute, Diana’s fury threatened to choke her. Something was boiling inside her and the closing strains of the gavotte seemed to come from a long way off. The sticks of her fan snapped in her hands as she fought for control of her lungs. Then she said unevenly, ‘Save your sympathy for yourself, your Grace. By the time you’ve heard what I have to say, I doubt you’ll have any to spare.’
‘By the time I hear what you have to say,’ drawled Rockliffe, flicking open his silver snuff-box, ‘I am likely to have expired from pure boredom.’
The bubbling cauldron inside her brain reached its zenith and was propelled, by the sheer unconcern of his manner, into violent explosion. Freed of its last feeble constraint, her self-control snapped and she hissed, ‘Bastard!’ Then, her voice starting to rise, ‘You’re a bastard – and that’s funny, if you only knew why! But you don’t, do you? Shall I tell you? Or shall I just tell you to ask your dear friend Jack? He knows. She told him. She told him, do you hear? But she didn’t tell you, did she? It’s so funny – I vow I could die laughing!’
The gavotte had finished and, in the area around them, people were already staring; so Rockliffe refrained from saying that he rather wished she would and, instead, snapping shut the lid of his snuff-box, said coldly, ‘You are distraught. Were it not that I am all too well aware what could come of it, I might offer to listen to you in private. As it is, I can only suggest that you strive for a little self-discipline and abandon this … charade … until you are calmer.’
‘Oh no!’ She backed off a little way, wild-eyed and laughing. ‘You won’t stop me like that – no, nor frighten me with your clever little threats, either! I’m going to tell you something interesting about my sweet, irresistible cousin and there’s nothing you or anyone can do to stop me!’
The silence was spreading and a space was beginning to yawn about them. Behind Diana, the dance-floor had all but emptied and, strewn in little knots along its edges, the cream of London society was gradually congealing in blank astonishment.
Inwardly cursing himself for letting it get this far, the Duke said softly, ‘You have overlooked one small thing. I can deprive your drama of point by refusing to listen.’ And, turning his back on her, he started to walk away.
‘Go, then!’ she jeered shrilly. And, with a bright, sweeping glance, ‘There’s audience enough to suit my purposes – and they say, don’t they, that the husband is always the last to know? So go, your Grace. Then you can be the last to find out that your slut of a wife’s a bastard!’
Rockliffe stopped as if turned to stone. Then, very slowly, he turned round. Throughout the whole of the Duchess of Queensberry’s vast, magnificent ballroom the silence was so acute that he could hear the whispering wind-song of the great crystal chandeliers. His gaze took in Althea, clinging to Jack’s arm and looking ready to faint … Harry, half-baffled and half-murderous … Lady Miriam, belatedly moving like a sleep-walker towards her ungovernable child. And, finally, Adeline … standing at the far end of the room beside Isabel Vernon, her face paper-white and her wide, horrified eyes staring straight into his.
‘Well?’ demanded Diana. ‘Are you deaf – or is it that, just for once, you’ve nothing to say?’
‘I say that it is a damnable lie,’ replied Rockliffe, in a tone calculated to cut to the bone. ‘My wife is as well-born as you are – and a hundred times better bred.’
‘Diana!’ Lady Miriam had arrived at last. ‘You are quite hysterical and making a complete exhibition of yourself. Now stop this foolishness at once and come -- ’
‘Foolishness?’ The force with which the girl threw off her mother’s restraining hand sent her ladyship staggering backwards. ‘You ought to have told him. If you’d told him, he wouldn’t have married her. I’ll never forgive you for that – never!’
Despite all his months of care, Rockliffe could see the ground opening up in front of him and, in a final bid to avert catastrophe, he said curtly, ‘Lady Miriam – take your daughter home. Now.’
‘What do you think I’m trying to do?’ Her voice shook and she looked ill. ‘Richard … I need my brother, Richard.’
‘Oh yes. Don’t we all?’ Diana laughed harshly. ‘Or no – I was forgetting. Adeline doesn’t, does she?’ She paused, looking round again. ‘But where is she? Where is my poor fatherless cousin? I’d hate for her to miss all the fun.’
‘I’m here.’ Sheathed in a curious frozen detachment, Adeline stepped forward into no-man’s land. ‘Say what you have to say and let us be done with it.’
‘Dominic!’ The word cracked like a pistol shot and Rockliffe’s eyes flew to command those of his friend. ‘For God’s sake --’
‘Yes.’ The Marquis was already on the move.
‘No.’ It was Adeline who spoke. ‘No. It’s too late, don’t you see? She’s said too much already and, short of physical restraint, she’s going to finish it. So it’s only fair that I hear it.’
‘Of course it is,’ nodded Diana. ‘And you�
�ll want to see his face, won’t you? The noble Duke who only married you because you appeared compromised. You were clever there, Adeline … and he fell for it, didn’t he? He fell neatly into your little trap and married you. So now you want to know how he’ll look when he finds out that his mama-in-law – my late lamented Aunt Joanna – isn’t really dead at all … but actually living in some cosy love-nest with her paramour!’
If the hush had been deathly before, it was now positively electric. Rockliffe let it seep into every sinew and fibre and then, without taking his eyes from Adeline, said calmly, ‘But I knew that. I could even tell you where the … love-nest … is.’
He saw the uncontrollable shudder that ripped through her and his soul wept. In every other respect, however, the effect of his words was exactly what he’d hoped. A collective murmur of shock echoed around the room and Diana’s jaw dropped.
He had never felt less like smiling but he did it anyway and said smoothly, ‘I’m sorry if I have disappointed you. But if you have engineered this unpleasantly vulgar scene for no better purpose than to exhume a scandal that is already more than twenty years old, you have wasted your time. For, as anyone who knows me could have told you, I am rarely left in the dark – about anything.’
This time there was a ripple of uncertain laughter. He was winning – but it was small consolation when Adeline was staring at him out of stark, lightless eyes as though she had never seen him before. He tried to communicate courage to her and held out his hand, inviting her to cross the floor to his side … but then, swift as a hawk, Diana struck again.
‘So you know. But you didn’t find out from her, did you?’
‘Does it matter?’ A spasm of utter distaste crossed the Duke’s face. ‘I think you’ve edified us enough.’
‘More than enough.’ Leaving Althea leaning on Cassie Delahaye, Jack stepped into the fray. ‘And if no one else is willing to put a stop to this, I will!’
‘Ah!’ Eyes blazing, Diana wheeled round to face him. ‘You want to prevent me telling them all you’re Adeline’s lover!’
A gasp ran round the room and Jack halted mid-stride, looking decidedly sick. He said, ‘That is both untrue and completely ridiculous. I’m betrothed to your sister.’
‘So you are. Poor, simple Thea. She’s not hard to deceive, is she? But I know better. And if Adeline’s not your mistress, how come she tells you things she won’t tell her husband? Why,’ she finished, on a rising crescendo of triumph, ‘did she send you to pay off my uncle?’
The heavy lids flew wide and Rockliffe impaled Diana on a hard, dark stare.
‘What did you say?’
‘You heard. She sent Jack to buy my uncle off. I heard it all.’
Seconds ticked by in silence and then the whispering started. Rockliffe and Adeline remained remote as statues, their eyes locked together; Althea began to cry; and Mr Ingram, with murder in his face, resumed his advance on Diana.
‘No, Jack.’ His Grace turned at last and, though his voice was smooth as ever, the pure rage in his eyes sufficed to kill the whispers and make Mr Ingram halt in his tracks. ‘We have arrived – albeit somewhat laboriously – at the point where Mistress Diana finally begins to interest me. Indeed, I sense that it may well prove to be the crux of the matter.’ He paused to sweep the room with a glance of stinging mockery. ‘And when our friends have borne with us so patiently, it would be uncharitable to deny them the climax, don’t you think?’
Jack, who understood only too well that he was being punished, compressed his lips and said nothing.
‘Just so,’ agreed Rockliffe, sardonically. The dark eyes drifted inimically to Adeline, dragging her painfully from her frail carapace of ice and driving her to cover her mouth with one shaking hand before stumbling blindly from the room. Dispassionately, he watched her go – followed quickly by Isabel and Rosalind; and then, seemingly satisfied, he strolled urbanely into the centre of the stage.
‘Very well, Mistress. You have our undivided attention. But first I think we should complete the cast of our little comedy. Where, I wonder, is your uncle?’
‘Skulking by the card-room door,’ volunteered Harry Caversham grimly. ‘And about to make a run for it.’
Rather pale beneath his paint, Richard Horton hesitated and found his arm being drawn in an iron grip through that of the Marquis of Amberley, who said cordially, ‘You mustn’t think of leaving us now. The performance might founder completely.’
Without quite knowing how it happened, Mr Horton found himself effectively marooned in the magic circle inhabited by his niece and the Duke. He stared at Diana, willing her to hold her tongue and then recognised, sickeningly, that she was completely beyond reason. Beginning to sweat, he looked at Rockliffe – and wished he hadn’t. All around were silent, watching eyes, none of them friendly. He tugged at his cravat and said chokingly, ‘She – she’s mad! My niece is mad – you must see that!’
‘Yes,’ agreed Rockliffe expressionlessly. ‘I do see it. Indeed, I think the whole room does. However … let us hear what else she has to say.’ He turned a cold, inviting smile on Diana. ‘We had reached the point where you were telling us that my wife sent Mr Ingram to buy your uncle off. Why was that?’
Diana’s chin lifted and she held out her blue silk skirts as if to curtsy. Then, with a slow secret smile, she said, ‘Because he threatened to tell everybody she was a bastard. She wouldn’t have wanted you to know that, would she? So she paid him to keep quiet. Oh - and Uncle Richard had a letter from her mother. She wanted it back. But she must have got tired of paying him … so Jack came and gave him a thousand guineas for the letter and on condition that he kept quiet and didn’t ask for more money.’
There was a long airless pause. Then, ‘I see,’ said the Duke. ‘Jack?’
‘Yes.’ Mr Ingram spoke curtly. ‘It’s true.’
‘And do you know when this piece of gutter-debris started blackmailing Adeline?’
‘Not exactly. It – I think it began when you went away that first time.’
‘Thank you. That’s all I need to know. For the moment.’ Eyes glinting with incipient danger but his step as languid as ever, Rockliffe advanced on Mr Horton. ‘Your sister, Joanna, described you as sly, sadistic and weak. To that we can add that you are a vicious, cheating liar of the kind any decent person would spit on.’ He paused and then added coldly, ‘Although you are not aware of it, you have caused me a considerable amount of trouble … but it’s possible I could have supported that. What I will not tolerate, however, is that you have gone out of your way to frighten and distress my wife with your threats and completely unfounded allegations.’
‘Here it comes,’ murmured Harry cheerfully in Nell’s ear. ‘He’s going to challenge him.’
Mr Horton thought so too.
‘I won’t fight!’ he said wildly. ‘You’d kill me – I know you would. So say what you like – but I won’t fight, I tell you!’
A slow, unpleasant smile bracketed his Grace’s mouth.
‘You won’t be given the opportunity. A duel is an affair of honour between gentlemen,’ he said, deliberately unlocking each lethal syllable. ‘Neither of those qualities apply to you. And, rather than have it touch filth of your sort, I would as soon drop my sword in a midden.’
Upon which, Tracy Giles Wynstanton, fourth Duke of Rockliffe, astounded the noble company and delighted his friends by doing the unthinkable. Without any warning whatsoever, he smashed his fist into Horton’s face.
The crack of bone sounded loud in the silence and Horton went down as if pole-axed, sliding across the polished floor, spewing blood and teeth. And the room erupted into a buzz of shocked chatter over which rose the eldritch descant of Diana’s wild, hysterical laughter.
Seeing the Duke advancing on him, Mr Horton tried to drag himself away only to be stopped by the Marquis of Amberley’s foot. Dropping on one knee, Rockliffe gripped the man’s throat in one long-fingered hand and squeezed hard enough for him to cough up more blood. Then, so
softly that only Amberley and his quarry could hear, he said, ‘If you come near Adeline again, I promise that it will be the last thing you ever do. And now I suggest you take your hell-born niece, get out of my sight – and, if you’re wise, stay out of it.’
Leaving Mr Horton to his own devices, Rockliffe ripped the blood-stained ruffles from his wrists and said, ‘Dominic … I doubt there’s anything that can make this any better – but do what you can. I have to go.’ And tossing the contaminated lace down with a gesture of complete disgust, he walked the length of the ballroom, its guests falling back to create a path for him … and then was gone.
~ * * * ~
TWENTY-THREE
Driven from the ballroom by Rockliffe’s hostile eyes, Adeline had succumbed, finally, to panic.
It was plain that he had known for some weeks about her mother – but not that she had known too and been paying Richard Horton so keep it from him. What that was likely to mean to him, she was as yet too emotionally battered to evaluate. All she was aware of was that she couldn’t face him yet … not until she’d had time to think.
She had reached the hall before she realised that Isabel and Rosalind were with her.
She said raggedly, ‘I can’t go home … I have to get away.’
‘You can’t,’ objected Isabel, shocked.
‘Yes she can. It might be for the best,’ said Rosalind decisively. ‘She needs time and – after whatever’s going on in there is over – so will Rock.’ Concentration creased her brow and then she went on rapidly, ‘She’ll need a head start in case he follows. Isabel – let her take your carriage so she needn’t go back to St James’ Square. I’ll take you home to Jermyn Street as soon as she’s on her way. Adeline – I don’t want to know where you’re going but you should tell Isabel. Rock will come to me first and, apart from the fact that I don’t want to lie to him, he’ll know if I do. Once he gets to you, Isabel, it won’t matter and you can tell him the truth. I’ll wait here for you. Now go – go!’
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