For several moments, the viscount stared down at her without speaking, presumably weighing up whether or not there was any real substance in what, as far as Felicity was concerned, had been her own rather trifling contribution to his queries. After waiting in vain for some explanation as to his rather odd manner of questioning, Felicity lost patience with him.
‘I fail to see what any of that has to do with your proposal that I should strike up a friendly relationship with the Beresford female!’ she flung at him. ‘And, unless you are prepared to explain to me immediately, I intend to have nothing further to do with your foolish machinations. Kindly let go of my hand and take yourself off!’
‘Calm yourself, dear lady, I beg of you!’ returned Hazlett, with a low chuckle. ‘Have I not told you that all would become clear eventually? Since I am about to relieve you of a—how shall I put it?—unwanted thorn in your side, it occurs to me that the less you know of any arrangements I might make, in regard to the aforesaid, the better. In this way, should any of those plans misfire, you could, quite truthfully, claim to have known nothing about the matter! You really must just learn to respect my judgement in the case, my dear Miss Draycott! I assure you that, eventually, everything will turn out for the best.’
‘I trust that these “arrangements” you speak of do not involve damaging Miss Beresford in any way!’ countered Felicity nervously. ‘I would not care for you to think that I condone violence of any sort! I merely wished for Wyvern to cease his mooning after her—the girl has so many other beaux to choose from, after all is said and done!’
Hazlett gave another of his unsettling smiles, sending a shudder of revulsion running down Felicity’s spine, leaving her wishing, more than ever, that she had not been so unwise as to voice her innermost thoughts to him. Impatiently freeing her hand from his hold, she would have turned away from him had he not blocked her pathway.
‘Just be sure that you play your part, Miss Draycott,’ he said, now with a clear hint of menace in his voice. ‘You would not wish our little conversation to become common currency, I’ll be bound!’
Then, with a mocking bow, the viscount stepped back to allow her to proceed. ‘Do not fail me,’ he murmured softly, as, trembling with uneasiness, she stumbled past him towards the safety of the ladies’ retiring room. ‘Mark me well—I shall be in touch!’
Following Wyvern’s precipitate departure, the Hendersons’ supper dance, from Jessica’s point of view at least, was proving to be even more tedious than before. The four-piece musical ensemble seemed to be unable to keep time with one another and one of the violinists was decidedly flat which, she thought to herself, was exactly as she herself felt at this moment. To add to her annoyance, Richard Howlett, her most recent partner, had trodden on her slipper, his clumsy great foot practically severing the pretty silver rosette that embellished its top.
Lifting the hem of her pale-blue sarsenet evening gown a few inches to inspect the damage, Jessica was not sure whether to laugh or cry. Her lovely new slippers were almost ruined, to be sure, but at least a visit to the retiring room, to attempt some sort of hasty repair, would provide a much-wanted respite from the heat and incessant chatter.
‘Oh, my goodness!’ exclaimed Imogen, having surveyed her cousin’s predicament. ‘How very unfortunate. The rosette is hanging on by the merest thread—we must make haste to cut it off, lest you trip and fall over!’
She made as if to rise, but Jessica pressed her back into her seat. ‘You stay there,’ she said firmly. ‘The retiring room is just across the hall—I can manage perfectly well myself—I shan’t be more than a few minutes.’
And, taking great care not to trip on the trailing ornamentation, she made her way across the floor to the nearest doorway whilst, at the same time, harbouring a secret hope that Wyvern might not, as she had previously assumed, have actually left the building. Perhaps she would bump into him in the corridor, she thought breathlessly. Pushing open the heavy oak door in eager anticipation of his being there, waiting for her, with a full and plausible explanation of his odd behaviour of late, she stepped into the passage.
Sadly, it was not to be. Several individuals were milling about in the hallway, but Wyvern was not amongst them. With a self-conscious shrug and much lowering of spirit, Jessica let herself into the ladies’ retiring room, a wistful smile curving her lips as she cast her mind back to that other never-to-be-forgotten occasion.
Any further thoughts regarding that memorable incident, however, were soon to be dashed from her mind, as the unmistakable sound of copious weeping met her ears. Looking around the room for the source of the distress, her eyes lit upon the corner screen behind which, it was now quite evident, some unfortunate female was crying her eyes out.
Closing the door with as little noise as she could manage, she stepped forward and softly enquired whether she might be of any assistance. At the sound of her voice, the unknown lady broke into a fresh torrent of tears.
‘You will make yourself ill if you continue in that manner,’ warned Jessica, tapping on the screen. ‘Please come out and let me help you!’
The crying stopped, to be followed by a loud sniff and a few lesser snuffling sounds then, ‘Do you have a handkerchief I could borrow?’ came a plaintive voice. ‘Mine is no longer serving any useful purpose!’
Jessica held her breath in surprise. That voice, she was almost certain, belonged to none other than Felicity Draycott! What on earth could have happened to the girl to cause her such anguish? Then, diving into her reticule, she pulled out a neatly folded scrap of linen and, raising her arm, tossed it over the top of the screen. ‘Now, do come out from behind the screen before someone else comes in,’ she urged the now-silent sufferer. ‘I am sure you will feel better if you splash your eyes with some of this cool water here in the jug.’
With Jessica’s handkerchief to her eyes and her face averted, Felicity crept into view. ‘You have been most kind,’ she began, but then, as she registered the identity of the person who had come to her aid, her face crumpled in dismay and she began on another bout of weeping. ‘Oh, no!’ she wailed. ‘Not you! This is more than I can bear!’
Although she was somewhat taken aback at the older girl’s reaction to her presence, Jessica chose to believe that the hysterical outburst must all be part and parcel of Miss Draycott’s state of distress and, setting out a chair in front of the dressing table, she begged Felicity to sit down and compose herself.
‘Do let me bathe your eyes,’ she said, reaching into a bowl for some of the cotton wool pads that had been so thoughtfully provided by their hostess. Then, tipping out the hairpins from a small dish nearby, she quickly filled it with water and, having dipped the pads into the cool water, she proceeded to apply them to Felicity’s badly swollen eyelids. ‘You will feel much better after this,’ she soothed the now unresisting Miss Draycott, as she gently mopped away at the worst ravages of the girl’s suffering.
As if in some sort of trance, Felicity made no comment as Jessica then concentrated her efforts on removing some of the damage that the constant scrubbing with a handkerchief had done to her nose and cheeks. But then, as soon as the puffiness around her eyes began to subside a little, she found herself watching the younger girl’s patient ministrations with a deep sense of shame.
‘So you are kind as well as beautiful,’ she said, trying to smile. ‘’Tis little wonder that you are so well liked, Miss Beresford!’
A slight flush covered Jessica’s cheeks but, as she looked up and caught Felicity’s eye in the looking-glass, she merely shook her head and smiled and, after patting the other girl’s face dry, she indicated the powder box.
‘Possibly just the lightest dusting of rice-powder?’ she suggested. ‘Then you will be as good as new, I promise.’ Then, after a slight pause, as she watched Felicity applying a powder puff to a face that had benefited greatly from her own dedicated attention, she added, ‘Will you not tell me what has upset you so?’
Lowering her eyes, Felicity was
at a loss as how to reply to Jessica’s question. How could she tell this sweet young girl, who had come to her aid so ungrudgingly, that, scarcely half an hour previously, she herself had been involved in plotting her downfall! Her chest heaved and, before she could prevent them, tears began to fill her eyes once again.
Seeing that her unexplained misery still appeared to be causing Felicity considerable distress, Jessica could not think how best to assist the girl. There could hardly have been a death in the Draycott family, she reasoned, for, had that been the case, Felicity would not have attended the supper party. She frowned, as another thought occurred to her. Surely, no gentleman could have been responsible for such an extraordinary outburst of weeping? Suddenly, her heart stopped and, as the evident cause of Felicity’s misery became horribly clear to her, she was forced to bite hard on her lip to prevent herself crying out in protest. Felicity Draycott was, quite clearly, pining over Wyvern’s rejection! It had been impossible for Jessica to escape the rumours regarding the earl who, having been on the verge of offering for Felicity, had abruptly and without explanation, withdrawn his suit and retired from the running. How galling, then, for her to have to watch her lost love dancing with another! Small wonder that she had greeted Jessica’s intervention with such dismay! And, as unwanted images of Wyvern’s as yet still unfathomable behaviour towards herself came flooding into her mind, coupled with her own feelings of frustration and regret, a flash of anger ran through her. Why, she thought to herself, I was right about him. It is clear that the man is nothing but an out-and-out philanderer!
Then, without a thought for the welfare of her new evening gown, Jessica threw herself down at Felicity’s feet and took the other girl’s hand in hers. ‘Please don’t start crying again,’ she begged. ‘Else all our good work will have been for naught! He really isn’t worth it, I promise you—you can do so much better!’
Felicity’s brow wrinkled in a questioning frown at Jessica’s final words, but instinct warned her that, whatever the other girl had imagined to be the cause of her misery, it might be more prudent to leave the matter as it was.
‘You have been more than kind, Miss Beresford,’ she said, rising to her feet and holding out her hand. ‘I do hope that you will disregard my previous lack of courtesy towards you—a childish attack of the green-eyed monster, I fear! If you could bring yourself to forgive me, I would be more than happy to count you my friend!’
Although she had spent the previous few weeks ignoring Felicity’s pointed rebuffs, Jessica, having recalled Imogen’s remark that it might do her no harm at all to study the ways and manners of those such as this coolly elegant young woman and the other members of her select coterie, could not help but be flattered by her offer. Grasping the other girl’s proffered hand in both of her own, she gave her a beaming smile, saying, ‘I would consider it a great compliment to be numbered amongst your friends, Miss Draycott,’ and finding, to her surprise, that she actually meant every word she had uttered. A friend with whom she might share her innermost secrets was just what Jessica was in need of, at this moment, and the knowledge that Wyvern appeared to have been playing fast and loose with Felicity’s emotions, too, was in the way of being some sort of salve to her own mounting feelings of resentment towards the earl.
‘Felicity, please!’ returned her new friend, as she tidied her hair and briskly shook out her skirts. ‘And now, perhaps we had better give some attention to your poor slipper—I could not help noticing that it seems to have suffered a good deal of damage—another careless gentleman, I dare say!’
And so it was that Jessica found herself taken up into Felicity Draycott’s top-drawer set, to begin a new, albeit slightly more sedate, phase of her stay in London.
If one or two of Felicity’s more long-term acquaintances were a little surprised to find the previously disdained Miss Beresford admitted to their august ranks, they were far too polite and well bred to remark upon the strange occurrence. Even more gratifying was her half-brother’s almost instant relaxation of his previously stringent control over her movements.
‘Miss Draycott’s escorts are known to be perfectly reliable,’ he explained to Imogen, who had expressed considerable amazement at his having allowed Jessica to go off in a curricle in company with the Earl of Dawlish’s younger son, the Honourable Walter Allardyce. ‘They gain immense satisfaction from being seen about town with a series of attractive young women on their arms, but take great pains never to commit themselves! The plain truth of the matter being that, since the burden of procuring heirs for their family estates rests entirely on the heads of their older brothers, not one of these gentlemen feels compelled to alter his bachelor state and so, in consequence, they are all highly practised in avoiding compromising situations. Our little enfant terrible will come to no harm at their hands, I am certain of that!’
Chapter Thirteen
Tossing the butt of his cigar into the dying embers of his library fire, Viscount Digby Hazlett reached across his desk for the note that one of his paid minions had filched from the new Earl of Wyvern’s jacket pocket.
Scowling, he perused the note’s contents for the umpteenth time. Trust that scoundrel Theodore Ashcroft to have gone out of his way to make everything so deuced complicated, he thought savagely, pouring himself another bumper of brandy and tossing back half its contents in one careless gulp.
Having foolishly lost the title deed of what was now looking to be a highly productive gold mine to the late earl in deep play, Hazlett had spent the better part of the last five months endeavouring to retrieve the vital document. Several abortive attempts to track down the missing deed had left him beside himself with frustration and, since it had become obvious that not only did Wyvern not have the paper in his possession, it was also looking increasingly likely that the earl was oblivious as to its very existence.
It had been only by the merest coincidence that Hazlett had chanced upon the new earl and his two comrades in White’s, but his gaze had been immediately drawn to the three men’s unusual interest in the sheet of paper that lay between them on the table. At Wyvern’s hurried removal of that same piece of paper, Hazlett’s attention had grown even more pointed and he had taken great pains to note where Wyvern had secreted the document. Subsequently, this application to detail had proved to be of considerable use to the well-practised pickpockets whom the viscount had employed, affording the wily pair no trouble at all in their speedy distraction of the somewhat preoccupied earl, along with the nifty removal of his notecase. This, as Hazlett had suspected, had contained a document that had, in the first instance, appeared to be of great import.
Having had no difficulty in recognising the reference to the mine, Hazlett had then set his mind to trying to decipher the rest of Theodore’s words but, to begin with, no matter how strenuously he had persevered, he had been unable to make any sense of it. It was of no consolation to him that both Wyvern and his friends, in their perusal of the note, looked to have been experiencing a similar difficulty.
Although the late earl had died owing Hazlett such an exorbitant amount, the viscount had decided not to press for payment, reasoning that the return of his deed of title, which Theodore had continually refused to relinquish, looked to be, potentially, of far greater value to him than a one-off payment of twenty-five thousand pounds. However, he was sufficiently shrewd to have reached the conclusion that the burden of such an enormous debt would remain a useful lever with which to intimidate Wyvern, should the earl happen to come across the title deed before he himself got his hands on it.
It had been an overwhelming dread of the latter occurring that had caused Hazlett to set his spies upon Wyvern, in addition to a frantic doubling of his efforts to try to decipher Theodore’s garbled phraseology. Then, suddenly, almost like a bolt from the blue, it had hit him! The document was hidden in some place where the two Ashcroft brothers had, in their boyish pursuits, been wont to play! But where that favoured place might be, Hazlett had no way of discovering—not until h
is furtive conversation with Felicity Draycott, that is—and, no sooner had that lady’s little gem of information worked its way into the equation, than the viscount had sent two of his back-street associates to scour every accessible inch of the ruined edifice that was once Wyvern Abbey.
That costly plan having failed to produce the elusive document, Hazlett found himself at a standstill. Eventually, having discovered that Wyvern was engaged in some sort of covert operation of his own in regard to mining stocks, he was reluctantly obliged to concede that, other than keeping a constant watch on the earl and his movements, there was little else he could do to further his own ends. And, after some weighty consideration of the matter, it occurred to him that leaving Wyvern to solve the problem in his own way might be by far the best solution to the problem. After all, he reasoned, once the earl had all the pertinent information at his fingertips, he would immediately understand where to go to find the missing title deed and, as soon as he had accomplished that task, Hazlett could move in and demand reparation! To that end, he knew exactly what to do to make Wyvern’s job just that little bit easier!
Having spent the past two weeks engaged in a fruitless pursuance of every single one of the possible leads with which Charlie Fitzallan had, after a certain amount of persuasion from his cousin Freddy, agreed to supply him, Wyvern eventually found himself seated in a small, dusty office tucked away in the back of Capel Court’s Stock Exchange.
Heartily weary of following endless trails that had led to nothing, he had not held out a great deal of hope that this latest excursion into the unknown backwaters of London’s business quarter would further his investigation in the slightest. Somewhat to his surprise, however, it seemed that his tentative questions regarding the possibility of there being some sort of mine somewhere to which the late Earl of Wyvern might have claimed title were being taken perfectly seriously, instead of being met with the unsympathetic and often scornful incredulity that had generally been the case thus far.
An Unconventional Miss Page 15