by M. C. Beaton
“No. Just you.” He smiled into her eyes, and she felt her bones melting. “Just for the day.”
Poppy looked at him doubtfully. It suddenly did not seem at all respectable. But then his mother would be there, and guests, as well as all those servants.
“If you’re sure it would be all right,” she said. “I don’t like leaving Emily and Josie. I usually spend the day with them on Sundays.”
“Only one Sunday,” he teased. “That’s all I ask.”
“Very well,” said Poppy, wondering why she felt so apprehensive. They were friends… weren’t they?
But her qualms had disappeared by the end of the evening. He behaved formally and courteously, and did not flirt with her once or imply any close intimacy other than friendship.
Her decision to go was further fortified by her servants. Mrs. Abberley scented a romance in the offing and looked forward to telling the servants in the street the next day—quite casually, of course—that madam was spending the day at Everton. And so she encouraged Poppy in her decision to go. Such is the magic of a title. If plain Mr. Bloggs from Bermondsey had asked Mrs. Plummett to spend a day with him at his home, then Poppy would naturally be expected to refuse, for after all, everyone could see that Mr. Bloggs was up to no good. But a duke! Ah, that was different.
Was Poppy staying the night? Poppy thought not, but Mrs. Abberley advised her to pack a few clothes. She would be expected to change for dinner.
The morning brought a little more snow… and Cyril. He came breezing in, very sure of his welcome, and then went very still and quiet when Poppy informed him of her impending departure for Everton. His long lashes quickly veiled his eyes, and he twisted the toe of one elastic-sided boot in the pattern on the carpet.
“So we’re all forgiven,” he said. “Kiss and make up, eh? I hope it doesn’t spoil your performance.”
Poppy looked at him in dawning awareness. “Was that why you invited him on the opening night? Was that why you got him to come?”
Cyril shrugged his elegant shoulders, still not looking at her.
“And you hope I’m not going to be happy now,” raged Poppy, “because that might spoil my heartbreaking performance!”
He looked straight at her then, his eyes hard and cold. “I’m not afraid of that,” he said. “You don’t think for a minute he’s going to marry you.”
“We’re friends, that’s all,” said Poppy hotly.
“Are you sure? Are you sure he doesn’t want revenge for dragging his precious family name across the boards?”
Poppy nodded to Gladys to pick up her trunks. She had heard the clatter of the arriving carriage, and suddenly did not want Cyril to meet the duke.
“Good-bye, Mr. Mundy,” she said firmly. “I think our friendship is at an end.”
“Oh, no,” said Cyril, smiling and shaking his head. “You’ll be running back to my arms very soon.”
Poppy followed Gladys out of the front door. The duke, who was about to enter the garden gate, saw her approaching, and waited for her, holding the gate open.
Poppy felt a twinge of apprehension. She half turned back to Cyril, who smiled slowly and whispered so that only she could hear, “Keep your legs crossed.”
The blood flamed in Poppy’s face, and she raised her hand to strike him, but he caught her wrist and stared down mockingly into her furious eyes.
“Don’t make a scene, Sheila,” he murmured. “So unladylike. What on earth will His Grace think?”
Poppy tore her wrist free and marched down the path, her head held high.
“What was all that about?” asked the duke curiously.
Cyril heard the question and waited with bated breath. He hoped she would not tell the duke.
“Nothing. Nothing at all,” said Poppy grimly.
Cyril heaved a sigh of relief.
Chapter 12
Everton looked grander and more imposing than Poppy had remembered. Even the warm welcome of the staff, even Stammers’s happy smile and Mrs. Pullar’s deep curtsy could not quite remove the feeling that she was an intruder.
Now, the duke’s own father’s death had not caused him overmuch grief, and therefore he naturally assumed that Poppy would suffer no reaction from her father’s death. In this, he did not take into account the close ties that bind the working-class family together, the compassion for the frailties of humanity that makes them, in the long run, grieve heartily for a useless parent. The duke, like most of the aristocracy, had been several times removed from his parents since his birth, first by a series of wet nurses, then a governess, then a tutor, then boarding school, then Oxford, and then the army—a rigid and austere life devoid of the womblike, dirty closeness of the lower strata, which is what makes the aristocracy good soldiers and excellent prisoners, but not very compassionate or endearing when it comes to understanding the rest of the human race.
Yet Poppy was unaware that her brain could tell her, firmly, that it was just as well that her wretched father was out of the road, and that nothing in his useless life became him like the leaving of it, while her emotions could suddenly surface in an agony of loss and longing. Therefore she grew quite pale and shaken as she mounted the staircase behind Mrs. Pullar, and she clutched at the banister for support, while the duke surveyed her anxiously, wondering if she was onto his game. He was not a stupid or insensitive man, but he really did believe Poppy to be one of the world’s greatest actresses, both on and off the stage, and in this he was not quite to be blamed. He had had women chasing him all his life for his title and fortune, and therefore he honestly never dreamed that anyone could possibly love him for himself alone. And so after a moment’s hesitation he tidied up his mind and set it back firmly on the track of seduction.
His mother was in the South of France, there were no guests, and no one was likely to call. The snow was falling heavily outside, and he had Poppy entirely to himself. Yet he had forgotten blissfully about the vast army of servants.
Mrs. Pullar ushered Poppy into a different set of rooms than those she had shared with Freddie.
“I hope you’ll find everything to your taste, madam,” said Mrs. Pullar, as if presenting Poppy with a meal. “I was distressed—we all were—to learn of your father’s death, madam, and on behalf of the staff I wish to convey our deepest sympathies.”
“Thank you,” said Poppy, feeling tears rising to her eyes.
“There, now, madam,” said Mrs. Pullar, lowering her voice to a whisper to honor the dear departed. “I did not want to make you upset, or I would never have mentioned it.”
Poppy from Cutler’s Fields had not yet learned to control her emotions. She was suddenly overcome by grief for her father and his wasted life, and throwing back her head, she burst into tears and roared and cried, while Mrs. Pullar ran around her in distress, making little chirping, birdlike noises of sympathy.
“What on earth is all this blasted row?” demanded an amused voice from the doorway.
Mrs. Pullar raised shocked eyes to His Grace’s mocking face. “Oh, Your Grace. Poor madam is crying… about her father, you know.”
“Oh, that,” said the duke lamely, trying to compose his features into a suitably serious expression.
“I will not intrude further on Mrs. Plummett’s grief,” he said stiffly. “When Mrs. Plummett has recovered tell her luncheon is about to be served.”
“Perhaps a tray up here…” ventured Mrs. Pullar, but the duke countered that with a stern “Luncheon. Downstairs,” and left the room.
He went down the stairs slowly, feeling upset and puzzled. Poppy was not fitting into the role in which he had cast her.
He received another setback on entering the small dining room, where he hoped to enjoy an intimate little meal with Poppy. Stammers was there, wearing a black tie and a black armband.
“One of your family dead, Stammers?” demanded the duke, pouring himself a stiff whisky and soda.
“No, Your Grace,” said Stammers in hushed tones. “I am observing the dea
th of madam’s father.”
With that he began to tiptoe about the room, as if any noise on his part would resurrect Bert Smith from his Bermondsey grave.
“There is no need to creep,” said the duke acidly, earning himself a look of deep reproach.
The whole thing had been a mistake, he decided suddenly. He would need to hold his fire. He put any romantic longings for Poppy down to sheer frustration. Romance was, after all, simply a polite euphemism for sexual frustration.
She looked so frail and grief-stricken when she eventually entered the room, that he was glad of his decision to behave himself—for that day anyway. He sympathized with her grief, and found to his surprise that he meant it.
After a light luncheon he took her on a tour of the house, and then suggested she might like to lie down for the afternoon, and Poppy, overcome with emotion, was delighted to escape.
She fell asleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow, not awaking until darkness had fallen as the early winter night stole over the countryside. Feeling much better, she rose to her feet and looked out of the window, gasping in dismay.
Blinding sheets of white snow were whipping across the countryside, piling up against the house in great drifts. A maid softly entered the room and lit the lamps as the dressing gong sounded for dinner.
Poppy put on the blouse and skirt she had worn that day she had gone to Mr. Lewis’s in Chelsea. She did not feel like wearing anything more formal.
“Isn’t the snow terrible, madam?” said the maid as she hooked Poppy into her blouse. “His Grace says as how you will be unable to travel to London tonight.”
“I hope I shall be able to travel to London tomorrow,” said Poppy anxiously, thinking of the performance.
She was to join the duke in the drawing room before dinner. He was formally dressed in white tie and tails, and Poppy wished she had worn something grander. He seemed to find no fault in her appearance, however, as he led her to the fire.
“Am I the only person here?” asked Poppy, staring around the empty splendor of the long room.
“Yes. Does it trouble you?”
“Well…” Poppy bit her lip. “Aren’t I supposed to be chaperoned?”
“I assure you, you are,” he said dryly. “There is a whole army of servants to look after you.”
“It’s not quite the same, is it?” said Poppy. “I mean… where’s your mother?”
“South of France.”
“Oh!”
Poppy looked at him nervously. Although he was smiling and seemed very much at ease, there was something in the atmosphere which belied it. After a few moments she decided he was tense and angry about something.
“Did you want to go to London tonight?” she asked, accepting a glass of sherry. “Is that why you are angry?”
“My dear child, what on earth makes you think I am angry?”
“I don’t know,” said Poppy weakly. “Something about you.”
“I am anxious about us being stranded here,” he said. “That is all. I know you have to be at the theater tomorrow.”
“Dinner is served, Your Grace,” said Stammers.
The duke offered Poppy his arm, and noticed that her hand trembled slightly. His brain ticked over rapidly. Perhaps tonight was the night.
When they were seated at the dining table he said cautiously, “I fear I did not realize how upset you actually were over the death of your father. I must have seemed callous.”
“It’s all right,” said Poppy. “I didn’t know myself it would take me like that. He was my father, after all. You know how it is.”
“Yes, indeed,” he replied politely, reflecting all the while that in fact he did not. Then he remembered that Mrs. Pullar had lost her mother the previous year, and that Mrs. Pullar’s mother, by all accounts, had been a greedy, grasping, horrible old woman. But Mrs. Pullar had trailed around, red-eyed, for weeks. It was all very strange.
He then thought of his own mother, and wondered how he would feel if anything happened to her. Although he had not seen much of her in his youth, they had grown very close in recent years. He suddenly knew that he would mourn her deeply, and felt as if he had joined the human race. Then he began to wonder if Poppy were as calculating and cunning as he had thought. But if she were not, then he could not go ahead with his seduction, and he wanted to seduce her very much.
She was eating very little, for Poppy had now learned that it was not necessary to plough through all nine courses. He studied her face in the candlelight and decided that it held a new maturity.
“How did Freddie hurt you?” he asked suddenly. “I was watching from the window that day you both drove up—the day he died.”
“Oh, that,” said Poppy. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Try,” he said, watching her curiously.
“Well… I wanted to leave Everton, you know, and get Josie and Emily to St. John’s Wood as quickly as possible, and Freddie said something about them being used to that slum, so they could stay there a little longer. And I suddenly thought that none of you lot would ever forgive me for my background… ever… no matter how much I changed. You would always find me common. Funny, isn’t it? I once saw a Shakespeare play, The Merchant of Venice, where that moneylender, Shylock, well, he says something about ‘If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh?’ Well, I feel that’s me surrounded by all of you. With you, but not of you, if you know what I mean. And yet I’m flesh and blood, and I hurt just the same as you. It’s not my fault I was born in Bermondsey. That was why I was so surprised and grateful when you forgave me for going on the stage.”
“Why? Why did you do it?” he asked urgently. “It’s important.”
“Well, I’ll tell you because I hope we’re friends.
“First of all, you see, it was the villa. It was so perfect, and it even had the roses and the apple tree and the swing. Something like that, people like me have to work and slave a lifetime to get. But for people like you, well… you just wave the magic wand and there it is. Anything you want. Any dream you want. That made me angry. Then Mr. MacDonald made me angry, telling me you didn’t want me to go on the stage. I was proud of being a Lewis girl and making my own living. That would be a big step down for someone of your class, but for someone of mine, it’s a big step up. Then there was that day in St. James’s Park.…”
“Yes?” he prompted, studying the expression on her face.
She propped her chin on her hands and stared into the middle distance. A sudden blast of wind shook the windows, and the candle flames streamed horizontally across the table.
“You cut me dead,” said Poppy in a low voice. “And you were with Freda. I wanted revenge that day. I wanted to see if I could make you notice me… even if it made you angry. I don’t like to be passed over. I don’t like to be parceled out of the way like so much dirty laundry.”
He looked down into the depths of his brandy goblet.
“I thought you married Freddie for his money,” he said.
“I did.”
“That’s honest,” he said. “But mercenary.”
“I had to… for the girls,” said Poppy. “Pa had drunk all the back rent, and we were going to be put out into the street. I had to get the money. I knew Freddie didn’t have all that much. I was honest with him. I never pretended to love him. I told him I was marrying him for the back rent. I would have made him a good wife, you know.” Her voice dropped in a note of pain. “And he would have had the best of the bargain, because, before God, he would have made me a rotten husband.”
There was a long silence while Poppy stared at her plate and thought wildly, Why did I tell him all this? I’ve disgusted him.
She looked up quickly and saw with a sinking heart that his face was cold and withdrawn.
“I should retire and leave you to your brandy,” said Poppy, desperate to get away before he could say anything cruel.
“We’ll both retire,” he said in an abstract voice, picking
up the brandy decanter. “Bring your glass. Ah, here is Stammers.… Stammers, get one of the footmen to carry this into the drawing room. We shall have the brandy in front of the fire. Mrs. Plummett, your arm.”
The duke escorted Poppy to a chair on one side of the fire and placed himself in a chair opposite. He leaned back in his chair, staring at the leaping flames, while Poppy wondered what on earth was going through his head.
The duke’s brain felt like a kaleidoscope—all his thoughts spinning in a jumble.
So that’s that… she told me why she did it.… I think I really love her very deeply… worse than before. I can’t seduce her.… I’d better marry her.… How Mama will scream!… I’ll need to wait another year for decency’s sake, yet when I look at her, I don’t think I can wait another minute.… Why couldn’t I fall for a girl of my own background?… ‘If you prick us…’… Nothing up with her… Don’t be such an awful snob… the servants like her. And so ran his thoughts as he stared at the fire, unaware that Poppy was watching him in an agony of despair.
The wind roared outside as the storm increased, and Poppy shrank back in her chair, dying for him to speak, dreading his words.
When he did he said the last thing she ever expected him to say.
He raised his head and looked across at her with a strange, twisted little smile.
“I love you, Poppy,” he said.
She rose slowly from her chair, and he got up at the same time as she came toward him.
He opened his mouth to say “Don’t touch me,” for he knew that once she was in his arms, he would not be able to control himself, but before he could say anything she had rushed forward and flung her arms around his neck.
He kissed her then, savagely and brutally, holding her closer and closer, his senses reeling and clamoring. And somehow he was still holding her, still kissing her, and they were in his bedroom, and he was removing her clothes with feverish hands and stretching out on the bed beside her.
She gave a faint moan of protest and fear, and then seemed to fall a long way down, engulfed by a sea of passion, drowning and crying in his arms, twisting and turning while the storm tore and battered at the old house, helpless under his caressing, probing fingers, driven beyond reason by his hard, muscular, experienced body, hanging on to his shoulders and helplessly crying his name over and over again. And then when the first savage onslaught was over, there was the exquisite, painful ecstasy of slow lovemaking, where the nerves seem to throb just beneath the surface of the skin and the lightest caress leads to further madness.