06.The Penniless Peer (The Eternal Collection) (23 page)

Lord Farquhar rose from the arm-chair on which he had been sitting to stand in front of the fire-place. He did not look at Lord Corbury, but he appeared to be choosing his words carefully when he said,

 “Now, Periquine, we both, as I well know, have Fenella’s interests at heart. I have no wish for you to come barging in at this particular moment perhaps making trouble. Childhood sweethearts and all that sort of thing often unsettle a young girl when she is making a decision on anything so important as marriage. What I would like to suggest is that you go to the Priory or anywhere else you fancy, but stay away from Brighton for the next forty-eight hours.”

“Why should I do that?” Lord Corbury asked truculently.

“Because I think it is in Fenella’s best interest,” Lord Farquhar replied.

Lord Corbury rose from the chair in which he had been sitting to walk restlessly across the room towards the window.

Having reached it he stared with unseeing eyes at the blue sea, his chin set in a manner which Fenella would have recognised as a sign that he was at his most obstinate.

He stood still for quite a minute before he turned round to say,

 “I presume that as Fenella’s Guardian you would consider it correct that I should ask you if I can pay my addresses to her?”

Lord Farquhar stared at him in what appeared to be genuine astonishment.

“Pay your addresses to Fenella !” he exclaimed. “But, my dear boy, the whole of Brighton is expecting you to marry Hetty Baldwyn ! Sir Virgil has been telling all his most intimate friends that the engagement will be announced as soon as you come South.”

“Let me make this quite clear,” Lord Corbury retorted, “I do not intend to offer for Hetty Baldwyn or for any woman other than Fenella !”

“Good gracious me,” Lord Farquhar said. “I quite understood that you were infatuated with the other young woman, and it was only lack of fortune that was keeping you apart.”

Lord Corbury had the grace to look slightly shame-faced.

“I admit to having found Miss Baldwyn extremely attractive for a short while,” he said. “She is undoubtedly a very beautiful girl. But when I came to know her character better and realised that her pretty head would always undoubtedly rule the vacillations of her heart, I was no longer interested.”

“You have certainly surprised me,” Lord Farquhar ejaculated. “So now at this somewhat belated hour you have transferred your affections to our little Fenella? Well, Periquine, as far as I am concerned I forbid you, absolutely and categorically, to approach Fenella or to make her an offer of marriage!”

He paused before he added,

 “As I have already told you, I have very different plans for her, which I am sure would meet the approval of the most ambitious Mama who ever launched a debutante upon the social world.”

He walked across the room to put a hand on Lord Corbury’s shoulder.

“I do not suppose your heart is seriously involved, dear boy, and I can assure you that now you are so warm in the pocket you will find any number of attractive young women only too ready to throw themselves without even a momentary hesitation into your manly arms.”

He added with a smile,

 “What is more, if you take my advice, you will take your time in choosing one. There is nothing so amusing, or indeed so flattering, as being a matrimonial
parti,
as I have found all through my life.”

Lord Corbury did not answer. For a moment he glared at Lord Farquhar with a ferocious frown upon his forehead and then without a word he turned and went from the study slamming the door behind him.

Lord Farquhar went to the window to watch him drive away and as he did so the door opened and Fenella came in.

She was looking extremely attractive in a negligee of oyster silk trimmed with lace, and her deep red hair, which had not yet received the ministrations of a hair-dresser, was hanging over her shoulders.

She ran towards Lord Farquhar, her eyes wide and curious.

“He has gone!” she exclaimed. “What did he say? Oh tell me, Uncle Roderick, I could hardly bear not to come down and see him! “

“He has left in a rage that was quite intimidating,” Lord Farquhar replied with a smile. “After I had told him of my plans, he asked if he could pay his addresses to you.”

Fenella clasped her hands together.

“Uncle Roderick, is that the truth? You are not teasing me?”

“No, I assure you, the words almost seemed to blister his mouth, he was so incensed.”

Fenella threw her arms round Lord Farquhar’s neck and kissed his cheek.

“I cannot believe it is true!” she cried. “Do you really think he cares for me?”

“I am quite certain he does,” Lord Farquhar said. “As I told you when you were so unhappy, there are some people who cannot ‘see the wood for the trees’. It is only now that Periquine is afraid of losing you he realises how much you mean to him.”

Fenella took her arms from her Uncle’s neck and put her hands against her breast as if to still a tumult raging there.

“Do you believe it was my letter which has brought him South? Hetty is proclaiming to the whole of Brighton that she has written to him and that she is expecting him to come to her side post-haste.”

“I think Miss Baldwyn is in for a shock,” Lord Farquhar said, “and I must say it will give me great pleasure to circumvent the greedy advances that Sir Virgil has undoubtedly been making in Periquine’s direction. He would have given him short shrift when he was a pauper.”

“He would — indeed.”

Fenella spoke in a low voice and then she said,

 “I cannot really — credit that Periquine — cares for me as much as he cared for — Hetty.”

“That is why,” Lord Farquhar said briskly, “you are to behave exactly as we agreed. No weakening, Fenella ! Remember your whole happiness for the future depends on your being sure in the very depths of your heart that Periquine loves you.”

Fenella sighed.

“I will do what you have told me to do, Uncle Roderick,” she said meekly. “After all perhaps it was the letter we concocted with such pains which has incited him to travel here from Yorkshire, and not Hetty’s soft persuasiveness.”

“I am quite certain,” Lord Farquhar said, “that we will have to play young Periquine with the skill one would expend on catching a salmon.”

Fenella was still for a moment and then she said hesitatingly.

“You do not think it — wrong, Uncle Roderick, to —behave in this manner? I would not wish him in the future to feel he was — caught.”

“Wrong?” Lord Farquhar questioned. “I can remember my brother telling me he was not interested in women and concerned only with books. Then a very pretty girl with eyes like yours was continually begging him to translate the Latin names of flowers and plants in which she was interested, until one day my brother forgot his books and found that a pair of green eyes were considerably more beguiling.”

“So that was how Mama managed to marry Papa!” Fenella cried. “And actually, Uncle Roderick, her Latin is just as good if not better than his.”

“But of course!” Lord Farquhar agreed. “Most men, my dear Fenella, have to be persuaded or shall we say tempted into marriage. After all there are so many advantages in being free to pick and choose.”

Fenella gave a little sigh.

“I want to be sure — quite sure — that Periquine really — loves me,” she whispered.

Dressing for the Dowager Marchioness of Harrington’s Ball the following night, Fenella felt so miserable it was hard to take any interest in her appearance.

Even a new gown of white satin, trimmed with lace so fine that it might have been made with fairy fingers, failed to bring a smile to her lips.

She had done exactly what her uncle had told her the previous evening, and now she thought his advice had been disastrous.

Lord Corbury had arrived at the Royal Pavilion after dinner with a number of other guests invited by the Prince Regent.

Fenella had seen him enter the exotic Chinese Salon and heard his Royal Highness greeting the young man for whom he had a warm affection.

But she had pretended not to notice, and made a valiant effort to concentrate on what the Marquis of Harrington, Sir Nicolas and Lord Worcester were saying to her.

Finishing his conversation with his host, Lord Corbury had looked round for Fenella and seen her at the far end of the room laughing gaily at something one of her escorts had said.

The smile faded from his lips and there was a frown between his eyes as he started to move through the throng of distinguished personages to her side.

Before he had proceeded far a voice cried,

 “Periquine!” and a hand went out to touch his arm.

He looked down to see Hetty, exquisite in a pale blue gown which matched her eyes, her hair the soft gold of ripening corn, her red lips pouting up at him in a provocative manner.

“I heard that you had arrived in Brighton,” she said softly, “and I was expecting to see you earlier this afternoon.”

“Your pardon, Hetty,” Lord Corbury said, “but I have to speak with Fenella.”

To the Beauty’s astonishment, he moved swiftly away from her side to leave her staring after him in perplexity.

Directly avoiding a number of people who wished to engage him in conversation, Lord Corbury reached Fenella and she turned towards him with a cry of delight,

 “Periquine ! What a surprise!” she exclaimed. “I had no idea you were coming to Brighton.”

She was looking, Lord Corbury noticed with no particular pleasure, very different from when he had last seen her.

Her dark red hair skilfully arranged in the latest fashion framed her small face from which he noticed the freckles had vanished, and her skin, which had not been noticeable in her old faded gowns, was very white and lovely against the dress of apple-green gauze which sparkled with every movement she made.

Lord Corbury had not realised in the past what an exquisite figure Fenella had.

Now with the new tight waist which had been reintroduced into fashion and her small breasts clearly defined by her well cut gown, it was obvious that she was indeed perfectly proportioned.

“When did you arrive?” Fenella was asking, “and how have you enjoyed yourself in Yorkshire?”

“I want to tell you all about it,” Lord Corbury said in a deep voice.

“Of course, I wish to hear every detail,” Fenella answered, “but at the moment I am afraid I am engaged for the next dance.”

“Which is mine,” the Marquis said firmly.

Fenella smiled at him.

“I had not forgotten,” she said her eyes meeting his.

 “And the next is promised to me,” Sir Nicolas interposed.

Fenella made a little gesture with her hands.

“I dare not disappoint these gentlemen, Periquine.”

“No indeed,” Lord Worcester said, “we have all a prior claim! And I can assure you, Corbury, we will unite to prevent any bumping and boring on your part!”

The Gentlemen laughed at this, but Fenella saw Lord Corbury’s lips tighten.

As she moved towards the ball room on the Marquis’s arm, she glanced back to see him looking after her and, if she had not been sure that her uncle’s advice was right, she would have run to his side to tell him he could dance with her whenever he desired to do so!

Now she .wished she had done just that, because Lord Corbury had left the Royal Pavilion early and although she had expected him to call on her the next morning, he had not appeared at Lord Farquhar’s house then or later in the day.

‘Could he really be put off so easily?’ Fenella asked herself. ‘If so, he cannot really — love me.’

Her love for him was like a continual ache in her heart.

However gay she might appear, however much of a success she might have been these last three weeks, she had gone to bed every night thinking of Periquine, longing for him and knowing that the emotions he evoked in her were so deep, so overwhelming, that every day the hurt of them grew worse.

‘I love him — I love him —’ she whispered into her pillow.

When the dawn broke, she would wish only that she could be back at the Priory in her old gowns tidying Periquine’s room, ironing his cravats, and slaving after him as she had done ever since they had been children together.

At the same time her success in the Fashionable World had given her a sense of self-confidence that she had never had before and a pride which made her realise that Periquine’s love must be as deep as her own or they would never know true happiness.

She had listened to him eulogising about Hetty. Was it possible that he would ever feel the same about her?

It was a question that remained unanswered in her mind all day.

When the hours passed so slowly that each one seemed like a century and there was still no sign of Periquine, she knew a darkness and despair which encompassed her like a thick fog.

“He loves you,” Lord Farquhar had said consolingly just before Fenella went up to change for dinner.

“Then he has a — strange way of — showing it,” she sighed.

“Perhaps he will turn up at the Ball tonight,” Lord Farquhar suggested.

“I hope — so,” Fenella murmured miserably.

Her maid wished her to lie down, but she felt so depressed that she knew it would be worse lying in the darkness thinking about Periquine than being able to move about.

The hair-dresser came early to do her hair as he had a large number of other ladies to attend to in succession, and when he had gone Fenella put on her new gown. She thought as she did so it was far the most becoming of all those Lord Farquhar had bought for her.

There was a string of pearls to fasten round her neck and there was also a diamond brooch to wear in front of her décolletage.

She looked at it in the glass and wanted only that Periquine should see her.

Once when she had worn his mother’s green gown, he had told her that it made her skin look white. The pearls and tiny diamonds which ornamented the lace on the bodice, gave her skin a kind of translucence which few other girls had.

It was due, she knew, to her red hair, and she wanted Periquine to realise that now at last she was not so afraid of the contrast between herself and Hetty.