The Bride Hunt

by Jane Feather

  Gideon frowned, as if puzzled by the question. “I intended to drive to Oxford,” he said.

  “But you could change your mind,” Prudence said, regarding him quizzically. It occurred to her that perhaps he couldn’t.

  As if in confirmation, he said, “When I’ve made a plan, I like to stick to it.”

  “Like to, or need to?”

  He added sugar to his coffee with careful deliberation. It was not a question he’d ever asked himself, but the answer was immediate. “Need,” he said. He looked across at her with a rather rueful smile. “Does that make me very rigid and pedantic?”

  She nodded, and drank some coffee. “I would say so. I’ll need to bear that in mind when I’m looking at candidates. Some women find that quite comforting . . . knowing that someone isn’t going to change his mind.”

  “Somehow I think that you are not one of them,” he observed, taking a bite of currant bun.

  “Spot on,” she said with a cool smile, breaking a tiny piece off her bun.

  “We seem to be concentrating on my character flaws this morning,” Gideon observed. “I had been hoping for a pleasant day of getting to know one another.”

  “Isn’t that what we’re doing? Flaws and all?” she inquired. “And on that subject, if Barclay’s barrister is going to attack me, wouldn’t it be better if you asked me first the hostile questions he might ask . . . spike his guns, as it were. Then I might be able to respond with proper composure.”

  “That was one of the tactics I was considering,” he conceded. “But whenever I start to ask them, you attack with all the ferocity of a swarm of hornets.”

  “Ah, but that was because I hadn’t realized it was a tactic. Now I know that it’s just preparation and you’re not expressing your own views, I’ll practice moderating my responses.” She took off her glasses and rubbed them on a napkin, unaware that it was a reflex action whenever she felt on her mettle. “Am I right to assume that you aren’t expressing your own views?”

  “It wouldn’t matter if I were. My views are not at issue here.” He pushed aside his coffee cup and sat back in the deep leather armchair. The light was dim in the low-ceilinged parlor, and the diamond-paned windows let in little sunshine. In the gloom he noticed how her hair glowed a rich copper and how her eyes were a brilliant glinting green in the smooth cream oval of her face.

  “To answer an earlier question,” he said, “I have decided that a woman’s personal appearance is very important to me.”

  Prudence set down her coffee cup. “She must be beautiful?”

  He shook his head. “No, not at all. Interesting . . . unconventional. Those are the adjectives I would choose.”

  “I see.”

  “Aren’t you going to write that down?”

  “My notebook is in the motor.” She wanted to glare at him; she wanted to smile at him. But instinct told her she could do neither. Not unless she was prepared to let down her guard. He was trying to draw her into playing this game of allurement. It wasn’t naked seduction, it wasn’t as banal as flirtation, it was just a beguiling invitation to join the dance. And a little voice that she tried to ignore was questioning: Why not join the dance?

  The answer, however, was as clear as day. She . . . her sisters . . . they all needed this man’s complete professional attention. She needed his single-minded professional attention on the issue, or she’d lose her own. There was no room for anything but a purely business relationship with the barrister. And besides, she reminded herself, she disliked him excessively.

  When it was clear that he was not going to get a more interesting reaction, he said neutrally, “Ready to continue?” He stood up, shoveling a handful of coins from his pocket onto the table.

  “Since Oxford needs to be the destination,” she said, rising in her turn.

  “You will enjoy it,” he promised, moving ahead of her to open the door to the bright, sunlit outdoors. “And I own, I’m curious to see how well I remember punting. It’s been nigh on twenty years.” He gave an exaggerated sigh. Prudence closed her lips firmly. She was not going to give him the compliment he was fishing for. She was not going to join this dance.

  “I don’t think I need this fur,” she commented when they returned to the motor. She folded it carefully over the back of her seat.

  “You’ll need the hood and the goggles,” Gideon said, putting on his own goggles. “And I think you’ll find in a few minutes that you need the coat. Once we’re on the open road.” He put on his own coat then turned his attention to the crank that would start the engine. It sprang to life after a couple of turns and he stowed the crank and climbed behind the wheel, saying as cheerfully as if he was not beginning to feel disheartened, “Ever upwards and onwards.”

  “How far is it from here?”

  “About twenty miles. We should do it in an hour, or just over. The road’s quite good. I’ll be able to open her up.”

  Prudence fastened the hood beneath her chin, reflecting that his clear enthusiasm at the prospect of bouncing along rutted roads at top speed was not something she could share. She pulled the fur coat up over her shoulders as the rushing air chilled her anew and rather gloomily contemplated the prospect of the three-hour return journey. By the time they left Oxford, the sun would be going down and the air would be even colder. Her companion, who was humming contentedly to himself, obviously had no such qualms.

  “Are you ever free in the afternoons?” she asked.

  Gideon stopped humming. “Unless I’m actually in court, or have a business meeting, I can be,” he said. “Why?”

  “We usually use our At Homes to introduce likely couples. I was thinking that you could vet some of the possibilities one afternoon.”

  A terrier with a bone, no other description would do. He sighed and accepted the inevitable. “And do you have any possibilities in mind? Apart from this Agnes Whatever-Her-Name-Is.”

  “Hargate,” she said. “And I really think you’re doing yourself a disservice by not at least meeting her. You would like her very much. You haven’t even listened to a description.”

  “I had an instinctive reaction,” he stated. “The minute you mentioned her, I knew we would not get on at all.”

  Prudence surveyed him with growing irritation. “I don’t know how you can be so certain.”

  “Well, I am.”

  Prudence opened her notebook again. She looked at the few names that she and her sisters had come up with. “All right, let’s try again. You might get on well with Lavender Riley. I’m sure I could get her to come to an At Home if you were available on a Wednesday.”

  “No,” he said firmly.

  “No, you wouldn’t be available on a Wednesday?”

  “No, I would not be interested in Lavender Riley.”

  “How could you possibly know that? I haven’t told you anything about her.” Exasperation rang in her voice.

  “You told me her name. I forgot to mention that names are very important to me. Perhaps you should write that in your little book. I could not possibly live with someone called Lavender.”

  “That is so ridiculous. You could give her another name . . . a pet name.”

  “I find the whole concept of pet names quite revolting,” he said. “Besides, everyone else would be calling her Lavender. I’d never get away from it.”

  “If you’re just going to make frivolous objections—” She stopped abruptly. She was just laying herself open to mockery by persisting, and she wasn’t going to encourage him any further.

  However, it seemed he didn’t need any encouragement. He continued blithely into her frozen silence, “Now, the names of the virtues I find most appealing. Hope—”

  “Hope is not a virtue,” Prudence snapped.

  “Oh, I think a hopeful character is a virtuous one,” he demurred. “But Charity is an appealing name; Patience, I like. Oh, and Prudence, of course. Now, that’s a very attractive name, if a rather stolid virtue.”

  Prudence clasped her hands inside
her muff and refused to smile.

  He glanced at her and grinned. “Come on,” he said. “I can see you want to laugh. Your eyes are shining.”

  “You can’t possibly see what my eyes are doing behind these goggles.”

  “I can imagine them very easily. Your mouth is quivering just the tiniest fraction, and when it does that your eyes sparkle. I’ve noticed often.”

  “Considering what little reason I’ve had to smile in your company since we first met, I find that an unlikely observation.”

  “It was intended as a compliment,” he said rather plaintively.

  “An empty one, in that case.” She shrank deeper into her coat as the motor’s speed increased and the wind whistled by.

  “You are a very stubborn woman,” Gideon said. “I had planned a delightful day out and you’re doing your level best to spoil it.”

  Prudence turned sideways in her seat to face him. “You had planned a delightful day out. Without one word of consultation with me. Without a moment’s consideration of my own possible plans, or indeed of my wishes. And now you’re accusing me, who was dragged along willy-nilly, of spoiling your plans. You said we were going to work on the case.”

  “Well, we are, but unfortunately it’s not going as well as I had hoped,” he said. “I wanted to see how you are when you’re relaxed, comfortable, not on the offensive . . . or defensive. I had thought that if I provided the right situation and surroundings, you would show me that side of yourself. If such a side exists,” he added a shade dryly. “If it doesn’t, this is indeed a wasted day.”

  Prudence was silent for a minute. Then she said, “It does, actually. Why do you need to see it?”

  “Because that’s the side that’s going to win this case for us,” he said simply. “I want the warm, intelligent, compassionate Prudence Duncan on the witness stand. Can you give her to me?”

  There was silence then between them. Prudence was absorbed in her own reflections and assumed her companion was in his. It was such a simple, reasonable explanation, and she was beginning to wonder why she had resisted the appeal of this outing, fighting his efforts to charm her, disarm her, amuse her, with such dogged persistence. There was surely no need to do so, not when his objective was so directly related to their libel suit.

  Gideon broke the silence finally. “It’s a lovely day, we have a delicious lunch waiting for us, followed by a quiet trip on the river. We’ll stop for dinner in Henley on the way back, and then you can sleep the rest of the way home curled up in your furs. How could you possibly resist such a prospect?”

  “It is irresistible,” she responded, feeling the tension suddenly leave her shoulders. She hadn’t even realized how tightly clenched her muscles had been, as if she had been arming herself against something. “If you promise not to annoy me, I will show you my other side.”

  “I can’t promise,” he said, turning to smile at her. “Sometimes it’s inadvertent. I’ll ask that you give me the benefit of the doubt if something slips.”

  “All right,” she agreed. “Just for today. But in return I ask that you listen to two things about the case that I have to tell you. We don’t need to discuss them, but you need to hear them so that you can think about what we should do.”

  “Fire away.”

  “First, my father is going to take the stand as a character witness for Barclay.” She watched for his reaction but there was none. He merely nodded.

  “Don’t you see how awkward . . . in fact, terrible . . . that is?”

  “Not really.”

  “But you’ll have to attack Father.”

  “I will attempt to shake his faith in his friend’s probity, certainly.”

  “But you won’t be unpleasant to Father?”

  “Not unless he makes it necessary.”

  Prudence absorbed this. He sounded so matter-of-fact and unperturbed by what for her was a hideous prospect. “I’m afraid he might recognize me . . . or my voice, rather,” she said after a minute. “I don’t know if I can disguise my voice well enough to fool him.”

  “What did you have in mind?” he asked curiously.

  Prudence chuckled. They had decided she should adopt the accent Chastity had used when meeting their first paying client, Anonymous, at the very beginning of the Go-Between venture.

  “Oh, but I am from Paris, moi. En France we do not ask ze ladies such questions. Non, non, c’est pas comme il faut, you comprend? Ze Mayfair Lady, she is most respectable. Vraiment respectable. Respectable, that is what you say over ’ere, n’est ce pas?”

  “Can you keep it up?” Gideon demanded through his laughter.

  “I don’t see why not,” Prudence said airily. “My French is good enough to combine the language enough to add a little confusion to the mix, while still not making myself completely incomprehensible. I thought that would be a good idea.”

  “A mysterious, veiled French lady,” Gideon mused. “It’ll certainly be intriguing. It might also make you seem more sympathetic. Your regular Englishman is fascinated by the somewhat—how shall I put it?—somewhat uninhibited reputation of the French female. They might be rather less hostile to the views expressed in The Mayfair Lady if they believe they’re perpetrated by a woman not of their own kind. A woman who might be expected to be a little outrageous.”

  “So, it’s a good strategy all around,” Prudence declared.

  “It’ll serve if you can hold it together in the face of some fairly relentless interrogation.”

  “I’ll practice with my sisters,” she promised.

  “It will also depend upon your identity remaining hidden at the time of the trial,” he reminded her. “As I said before, I can promise you that the prosecution will do everything they can to discover your identity. They’re probably setting a search in motion already.”

  “We’re going to discover next week if there have been any strange inquiries at the various places that distribute The Mayfair Lady.”

  “Sensible,” he said. “So, what’s the second thing?”

  Prudence reached into her muff for the earl of Barclay’s note, and read it to him. “It’s not dated, but it’s certainly not recent.”

  “It’s not good enough,” he stated. “Find this schedule of payments, find me dates, find out what your father was buying. I’m not opening this can of worms without unshakable evidence.”

  “You could surely question the earl about it,” she said, bristling at his brusque dismissal despite their earlier compact. “Maybe rattle him a little.”

  He shook his head. “No, it’s not sufficient even to bring the subject up. You’ll have to dig deeper.”

  “Well, as it happens, I have authorization to examine his bank records. I’ll go to Hoare’s tomorrow.”

  “How did you get that?” His surprise was evident.

  Prudence huddled deeper into the coat, turning the collar up. “It was a trick. Not one I’m proud of, so can we leave it at that?”

  “Of course,” he said instantly. “Are you cold?” His quiet voice was now concerned and sympathetic.

  “A little,” she admitted, although it was not really a bodily cold, more an internal chill.

  “We’ll be there in less than half an hour. See the spires?” He gestured with one hand towards a faint outline on the horizon. Oxford’s gleaming spires in the valley below them.

  “It’s strange, but I’ve never been to Oxford,” Prudence said, resolutely putting aside her depressing thoughts. “Cambridge, yes. But never Oxford.”

  “I prefer Oxford, but then I’m prejudiced.”

  “You were at New College?”

  He nodded, then placed a hand on her knee. It was a fleeting touch but it felt oddly significant to Prudence. In fact, she realized this whole journey had taken on a significance that she couldn’t identify. But it was more than the sum of its parts. A lot more.

  They drove up in front of the Randolph Hotel on Beaumont Street just as the city’s clocks chimed noon. Prudence stepped down and stretch
ed her shoulders again. The sun was very warm, more like early summer than autumn, and once again she discarded her furs.

  Gideon scooped them off the seat. “We’ll take them inside. They’ll be safer than lying on the seat in the open.”

  A doorman hurried to escort them into the lofty hall of the hotel. An elegant sweep of staircase led to the upper floors. “The ladies’ lounge is upstairs,” Gideon said. “I’ll wait for you at the table.” He strode off to the restaurant.

  When Prudence joined him, he was perusing the wine list. A glass of champagne sat by her place.

  “I took the liberty of ordering you an aperitif,” he said. “If you’d rather have something else . . .”

  “No,” she said, “this is lovely.” She sat down and took a sip from the glass. “It does seem to cheer one up.”

  “And I get the impression you need cheering up,” he said. “Let me try for the rest of the day to do just that.” He leaned over and placed a hand over hers on the tablecloth. “Will you?”

  Oh, yes, Prudence thought, this day was very much more than the sum of its parts. She slid her hand out from under his quite gently and opened her menu. “What do you recommend? I assume you know the dining room.”

  “I know it well,” he said, accepting her change of subject. If she wouldn’t give him a spontaneous answer, then he wasn’t going to press for one. He had his pride, and he was not accustomed to rejection, but he allowed none of his pique to show, saying coolly, “The kitchen is very good. How hungry are you?”

  “Starving.”

  He examined his own menu. “Saddle of lamb,” he suggested. “Unless you’d prefer the Dover sole.”

  “Lamb sounds good,” she said. “I’m not feeling fishy. What should I have to start?”

  “The smoked mackerel pâte is delicious, but if you’re not in a fishy mood . . .” He frowned at the menu. “Vichyssoise, perhaps?”

  “Yes, perfect.” Prudence closed her menu, took off her glasses to rub them on her napkin, and gave him a smile. Gideon was not prepared for the effect of a smile that he had seen all too rarely. When combined with the luster it gave to her lively green eyes, it was quite stunning. It was something of a consolation prize, he decided, but it was not one to be sneezed at.