by Carola Dunn
“Almack’s! I had forgot. My wits have gone a-begging, I vow.”
“And what has dispossessed them of their usual abode?” Jane asked, smiling.
“I... Oh dear, I hardly know....” Her cheeks pink, she set down her empty cup on the bed and took a deep breath. “My dear, wish me happy. Mr. Selwyn has asked me to be his wife.”
“Has asked you to...? To marry him? And you have accepted?” For a moment Jane stared blindly into an empty future. She was cold, so cold; her head swam and a dreadful tightness constricted her chest. Then pride, good breeding, and her love for her dearest friend came to her rescue. Shaking herself, she said in a voice she scarce recognized as her own, “Forgive me, you took me by surprise. My darling Gracie, of course I wish you happy, though I have no doubt that you will be. Mr. Selwyn is the most amiable gentleman in the world.”
Miss Gracechurch hugged her, and she found a temporary solace in the embrace that had soothed her childhood hurts and sorrows. But present reality intruded, in the form of Ella, asking had she finished her tea and was she ready to dress.
She slipped out of bed, her composure fragile as a blown glass goblet. In a dream, a bad dream, a nightmare, she washed and put on petticoat, satin slip, net frock, satin dancing slippers. She sat down at the dressing-table, her white face a stranger in the looking glass. Pearl ear-drops, pearl necklace.
“A touch o’ rouge, my lady? Miss Pickerell’ll lend me her ladyship’s.”
Dumbly, she shook her head and Ella began to arrange her hair.
Someone knocked at the door. Thomas, with a note for his sister.
“Beg pardon, my lady, but the lad said ’tis urgent.”
Jane nodded, uninterested. Ella took the twist of paper, firmly shut her brother out, and opened it. She gasped.
“My lady, ’tis from Alfie... Mr. Alfred. He just found out Lady Wintringham’s making his lordship go to Almack’s tonight! Lor, he told us just in time. Now don’t you worry, we’ll think up summat to tell your ma why you didn’t go. You’ve been a touch peaky all day.”
“But I shall go, Ella.” Watching, listening from some distant place, Jane wondered at her own icy calm. “I cannot put it off for ever. The worst will soon be over and then...and then.... Please put out my fur-lined cloak.”
She was cold, so cold.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Almack’s: the Marriage Mart; to the uninitiated, a set of less than magnificent assembly rooms in King Street, St. James’s; to the eligible damsels of the Ton, the holy of holies where only those judged worthy by the lady patronesses were admitted to the Wednesday subscription balls.
Eligible gentlemen had less difficulty gaining entrée. Without prospective husbands to be hunted, the purpose of the assemblies would vanish and with it the influence of the patronesses, the overweening doyennes of Society. A gentleman had only to remember to wear knee breeches rather than pantaloons, and to arrive before the doors closed at eleven o’clock, to be welcomed.
Correctly attired and on time, Edmund was unsurprised to be greeted with complaisance even by so high a stickler as Mrs. Drummond Burrell. Lady Jersey, with her usual hint of malice, twitted him on not having previously graced Almack’s with his presence. His aloof dignity, and his status as a superior match, saved him from further reproach.
He moved on into the ballroom. Neil Gow’s Band was fiddling away up on the balcony, and waltzing couples swirled about the floor. However ghastly this evening, Edmund reminded himself, tomorrow he would propose to Jane and the next day whisk her away to Dorset.
Glancing around, he saw Fitz nearby, talking to Lord Orme. Edmund was slightly acquainted with the viscount, a noted Town Beau, and did not care for him. Deciding to seek out Fitz later, he was about to go in search of a partner when Fitz saw him.
Lord Fitzgerald’s thin face turned an unlikely shade of puce. He bounded forward and grabbed Edmund’s arm.
“I say, Ned, you never come to Almack’s.”
“There is a first time for everything.”
“But you told me you mean to offer... And besides, you won’t like it above half, I assure you. Devilish flat company, low stakes, and the supper’s a disgrace. You’d best just turn around and go home.’’
“Unfortunately, home is where Lady Wintringham arrived last night. My aunt considers it remiss of me to have avoided Almack’s.”
“Oh, lord!” Fitz blenched, then rallied. “Damme if she knows what it’s like.”
“I don’t believe the countess has stepped within these sacred portals since she married off the last of your cousins, Wintringham,” Lord Orme confirmed.
“You see, Ned? All you have to do is toddle off home and tell her you don’t care for the place.”
“So I shall, when I can tell her I have stood up with two or three suitable partners. I suppose Miss Chatterton is here? At least she has no designs upon me.”
Over his shorter friend’s head, Edmund glanced about the room. The waltz was over and the dancers were returning to the seats around the walls. Opposite the door where he stood, he caught a glimpse, between attentive gentlemen, of a young lady who reminded him of Jane.
When Jane was his wife, she should come to Almack’s if she chose, he vowed. She should dress in silks and laces, bedeck herself in sapphires to match her eyes, and dance the night away.
Lord Orme had followed his gaze. “Admiring the latest heiress, eh?” he asked.
“Heiress?” said Edmund without interest.
“She’s the only daughter. There’s a brother, but Hornby has plenty for both by all accounts, and she’s a pretty chit, into the bargain. Oh, haven’t you met her? I’ll present you to her if you like. That’s Lady Jane Brooke.”
At that moment, the girl looked across the room. Even at that distance, her eyes met Edmund’s with a shock of recognition.
He shook off Fitz’s hand, turned on his heel, and stalked out into the night.
Lady Jane Brooke, daughter of the Marquis of Hornby! His thoughts whirled. Pretending to be a nobody, she had made a May game of him, enticed him into abandoning formality, laughed at him behind his back like her fellow debutantes. She had undermined his walls and left him defenceless.
And somehow she had persuaded Fitz to betray him. Fitz knew everything, that was obvious. She had stolen from him a friend he could ill spare, flung him back to the agonizing isolation of his first days, weeks, months at Wintringham Abbey, surrounded by his girl-cousins’ contemptuous derision.
How could a mask of enchanting friendliness hide such wanton cruelty? The girl he had fallen in love with did not exist.
Unseeing, unknowing, he found that his rapid stride had carried him to the river, to the Whitehall Stairs. Here he had embarked with Jane—with Lady Jane—for that delightful day at Richmond. That was the day he had first suspected that she might be illegitimate. How wrong he had been, a pathetic fool from first to last!
He stood, brooding. Below the embankment, the dark Thames slid past, glinting here and there with reflected light. Many a troubled soul had sought oblivion in those black waters, but that craven escape was not open to him. He was the Earl of Wintringham. Pride in his family and his rank was all that was left to him. He swung away from temptation and retraced his steps up Whitehall.
At Charing Cross he took the righthand fork, then turned up St. Martin’s Lane. In the mean streets, alleys, and yards around Covent Garden, a mass of humanity swarmed in abject misery. Among them, surely, he ought to be able to count his own blessings. But, lost in a different sort of misery, he scarcely noticed the ragged waifs, the crippled beggars, the painted, half-naked, gin-reeking whores, who whined as he approached and jeered as he passed.
He walked until the short May night ended in a misty dawn. It was still too early for the City’s clerks and shopgirls to be about, but a watchman on his rounds stared at the tall, bareheaded, forbidding gentleman in evening dress.
Returning homewards, Edmund trudged past St. Paul’s—Jane! Today we were to vi
sit the bookshops of Paternoster Row. Today I was going to ask you to be my wife. Today, would you have ended the farce? Would you have mocked me to my face?
Alone, he made his way through the noisy bustle of Covent Garden Market, through the quiet, empty streets of Mayfair, and let himself into Wintringham House.
She had left him at Lady Wintringham’s mercy. The special licence, his defiant symbol of freedom, lay useless in a drawer in his dressing-room.
The servants were still abed. Edmund sought his own, tossed and turned for a couple of hours, then rang for Alfred.
“Good morning, my lord.” The valet marched across to the window, flung back the curtains to admit a flood of inappropriate sunshine, and said in a voice quivering with reproach, “My lord, Lady Jane cried herself to sleep.”
“What flummery is this!” cried Edmund.
Alfred turned round. “It’s no more than the truth, my lord. Upset already, she was, and then you ups and takes to your heels without so much as a how-de-do. It’ll be a nine days’ wonder, mark my words. Lady Jane Brooke rushing out of Almack’s in a fit of weeping.”
“So you are part of this conspiracy?” he asked bitterly. “My own servant laughing at my credulity! It is too late, Alfred. I am past believing any more lies.”
“I wouldn’t lie to you, my lord, honest, nor laugh at you. Haven’t I been with you near twenty-five years and stuck by you through thick and thin? Only, Ellie—Miss Ella, that’s Lady Jane’s abigail—she wouldn’t never have walked out with me, let alone told me nowt, if I hadn’t’ve promised I’d keep mum. It weren’t my secret, my lord, nor yet Ellie’s, and she’s as fond of her mistress as I...as I am of you, my lord, begging your pardon.”
The passionate speech, the need to believe in the one person who had never let him down, convinced Edmund that Alfred spoke the truth as he knew it. Whether he had the truth from Ella was another matter. Jane running from Almack’s in tears? Crying herself to sleep? His heart turned over at the thought.
Fitz would know, but he could not trust Fitz. Who was left to him? Selwyn must be aware of Lady Jane’s deception, yet it was impossible to imagine the sober lawyer willingly lending himself to a cold-hearted trick. He, if anyone, might help Edmund separate lies from reality.
“Have my curricle brought round.”
“But my lord, it’s only just past six!”
“At once.”
When he reached the house in Hart Street, the flustered maidservant showed him into the library.
“The master’s not down yet, my lord,” she said, wringing her hands.
“I shall wait.”
He paced for a few minutes, oblivious for once of the books surrounding him, until Mr. Selwyn arrived, swathed in a red and green tartan dressing gown. After one glance at his visitor’s face, the lawyer said over his shoulder, “Coffee.” Shutting the door, he took Edmund by the elbow, made him sit down, and poured him a glass of brandy.
“I shall not appreciate this as it should be appreciated,” Edmund said, attempting to smile.
“It will warm you. What has made you look as if you have seen a ghost?”
The syllables emerged with difficulty. “Lady Jane Brooke.”
“Ah.” Selwyn appeared to be oddly pleased with himself. “You had no suspicion? I had my doubts, even before we reached Wintringham Abbey, and when I voiced them I was enlightened by Miss Gracechurch, Lady Jane’s governess and companion—and soon to be my wife.”
“Your wife!” Edmund was jerked out of his absorption in his own troubles. “Yesterday I should have congratulated you most sincerely.”
“You need not scruple to do so now. I count myself extremely fortunate to have won the affection of an admirable woman.”
“Then I... Wait! You doubted Jane’s story before you reached the Abbey? She was already playing a part?”
“I understand that her carriage broke down, and being forced to continue on the Mail she thought it best, with Claudia...Miss Gracechurch’s concurrence, to travel incognito. Would you have believed a shabby young woman, arriving by Mail, to be the daughter of a marquis?”
“No,” he admitted, then frowned. “But why did she not tell me when we met here? It was then no more than a joke.”
“A joke?” Selwyn regarded him shrewdly. “I cannot feel that it is my place to explain Lady Jane’s motives. Put it down to a lawyer’s discretion, if you wish. Ah, here is our coffee. And toast, excellent, thank you.” He poured them each a cup and passed the plate of buttered toast. “You will feel the better for a bite to eat. And then, my suggestion is that you go to St. James’s Place and request an interview with Miss Gracechurch.”
His mouth full of toast, Edmund stared, shrugged, and nodded. Brandy, food, and coffee in their turn made him feel slightly more human; however, they helped his uncertainty not at all. He did not know what to think so, as he drove to St. James’s, he endeavoured not to think at all.
“Miss Gracechurch!” The butler’s jaw dropped. He reread Edmund’s card, consulted the long-case clock, glared at the footman who had summoned him from his breakfast, and, his face restored to proper woodenness, enquired aloofly, “Now, my lord?”
“Miss Gracechurch, now.” Despite Edmund’s haughty demeanour, despite the doubts that tormented him, the man’s perplexity almost amused him. Jane’s influence, no doubt. How could he live without her?
The Chinese salon he was shown into reminded him painfully of her liking for his Chinese chess set. The extravagance of red silk hangings and false bamboo reminded him that the daughter of the Marquis of Hornby must have countless eligible suitors who paid court to her in this room. Even if she did not despise him, the wealthy, captivating Lady Jane had no reason to choose an unsociable fool like himself.
He crossed to the window and looked out. The flower-filled garden reminded him of their first meeting in Hart Street. Nowhere could he escape her.
He turned as the door opened and Miss Gracechurch came in, her cap awry. The honey colour of her dishevelled curls reminded him of Jane’s sleek tresses, and of his absurd apprehensions that they might be mother and daughter.
“I understand I am to wish you happy,” he said harshly.
“Thank you, my lord. Will you be seated?”
Though she sounded calm, her hands were tightly clasped before her, white-knuckled. For the first time he recognized the difficulty of her position, as little better than a servant trying to curb the starts of a minx like Jane. He held one of the bamboo and ivory-brocade chairs for her and sat down opposite.
A minx like Jane—was that the whole story? Mischief gone awry, not cruel mockery? His anguish burst forth. “Why?” Unable to sit still, he strode back to the window, then flung round. “Why did she not tell me? At least when we met at Selwyn’s. We could have laughed together about her masquerade at the Abbey.”
“Would you have laughed, sir?’’
The quiet question arrested him. Again he cast his mind back to that meeting. Stiff, frowning—she had teased him about the frown—he had apologized for kissing her. If she had revealed then that she was Lady Jane, would he have thought it a joke? “Probably not,” he conceded. “But she had a hundred opportunities to explain later, after...after we became friends.”
“She did not dare.” In her agitation, Miss Gracechurch joined him and laid her hand on his arm, looking up earnestly into his face. “Once you were friends, she was terrified of losing you.”
He shook off her hand. “She has dozens of friends.”
“She has dozens of acquaintances, my lord. You cannot imagine how lonely her life has been. She was her mother’s pet until her brother was born. At the age of four—four! —she was exiled to the wilds of Lancashire, with none but servants for company. I went to her a year later, thank God, and then the marchioness tired of the boy, too, and sent him to us, until he was of age to go to school. Her father she saw at most once a year, her mother less often.”
Edmund turned away to hide his heartache. Four! All
too clearly he remembered his own agony at eleven years old.
Miss Gracechurch took his silence for disdain. “Can you not understand that having come to...to be fond of you, she could not bear to risk your turning from her in disgust?”
“Disgust?” he exclaimed, startled.
“Did you not tell her once that you abhorred deceit?”
“Did I? Perhaps I did. You mean she feared my contempt as much as I feared hers?”
It was her turn to be startled, but as she sought for words, the door opened. The pale, wan face with reddened eyes that appeared around it was the most beautiful sight Edmund had ever seen.
* * * *
Five minutes earlier, that same sight, viewed in the mirror, had made Jane wince. “What a fright I look, Ella.”
“His lordship won’t care a groat, my lady, whether Miss Gracechurch has talked him round or no.”
“I cannot go down!” she cried, panicking. “I shall wait until Gracie sends for me.”
“Madam said get dressed and go down, my lady, and that’s what you’ll do. You’re in no fit state to think for yourself, that’s for sure. Now keep still, do, while I pin up your hair. There you go, you don’t want nowt fancy this morning.”
Starting down the stairs, Jane felt sick with apprehension. By the time she reached the first landing, she was certain her gay, periwinkle-blue muslin sprigged with white was quite the most inappropriate gown to wear on such a dreadful occasion. Mourning black would be more to the point. She half turned, ready to run back to the shelter of her chamber, but Ella stood there urging her on.
By the time she reached the bottom of the stairs, she had forgotten what she was wearing, forgotten her red-rimmed eyes. She stood shivering outside the door of the salon. Was he still there? What would he say? Would he look at her again with that bewildered hurt, quickly changing to cold fury, she had read across the width of Almack’s ballroom?
Squaring her shoulders, she pushed open the door.
And suddenly there was nothing to fear. His heart in his eyes, Edmund took two hesitant steps towards her and she flew into the safe haven of his arms.