Delphine glanced down suddenly and saw something on the path, and she bent to retrieve it from beneath the vivid starflowers of a mesembryanthemum. “Oh, you didn’t pick up everything, Petra,” she said, holding it out to Bryony. It was the little silver-framed miniature of Sebastian—at least, that was what Bryony initially thought, until quite suddenly she saw that the portrait in the frame was no longer that of the man she was to marry; instead, it had been changed to a likeness of Anthony Carmichael!
The shock was so great that for a moment she was quite numb, unable to say or do anything but stare at it. Delphine looked at her in puzzlement and then glanced at the miniature. “What a handsome man,” she said. “Who is he?”
Bryony still couldn’t reply, and to her utmost dismay Delphine turned the little portrait over and read out an inscription which had been put on the back. “
‘Bryony. My heart and love forever. Anthony.’
“ Delphine’s eyes widened and she stared at Bryony, whose face had become quite ashen.
There was a silence during which the splashing of the fountains sounded inordinately loud. Bryony looked anxiously at Sebastian. “I said earlier that there has never been a liaison between myself and Mr. Carmichael. I promise you that I did not lie. Until this moment I have never seen that portrait. The only one which should be in my reticule is the one you yourself sent to me.”
The duchess gave an angry gasp of disbelief. “How dare you!” she cried. “How dare you hint that you are innocent and that therefore someone else must have placed it in your possession! How despicable you are to attempt to blame someone else because your sins have been discovered!”
Felix put a cautionary hand on his mother’s arm. “Mother, I do not think you should say anything more. Come, it is time to go in to dinner.”
He held his mother’s gaze firmly, and after a moment she lowered her eyes and gave a barely perceptible nod of her head. He drew her hand through his arm and then gave Delphine a meaningful glance. Reluctantly she went with them, glancing back regretfully at Bryony.
Bryony was left with only Petra and Sebastian, who had said nothing yet. “Sir Sebastian—” she began hesitantly.
“As you said, Miss St. Charles,” he said coldly, “the only portrait which
should
be in your reticule is mine.” He turned to his mistress. “Shall we go in?” They walked away, leaving Bryony standing alone by the fountains.
Blinking back the tears, she turned away from them, gazing out toward the estuary. She was trembling with mixed emotion, from dismay and hurt, and from anger and bewilderment. Why had Anthony Carmichael done this to her?
Why?
But even as the silent question echoed in her head, she knew that he hadn’t done it at all; the culprit once again was Petra, the jealous, scheming mistress who was determined to stop, the match if she could.
It
would not have been difficult for a woman of such resourcefulness to find out about the rumors circulating in Liskillen, and she was quite capable of writing the letter purporting to be from Anthony Carmichael. The miniature would also be a simple matter, for Anthony was well known in County Down and any artist would have been swiftly able to produce a likeness of him, especially if offered a handsome recompense for his trouble.
Tonight Petra had had opportunity enough to place the miniature in the reticule, and no doubt had Delphine not unwittingly done the task for her, she would have pretended to find it, having probably been foiled a little by the way it fell almost out of sight beneath the flowers. Petra had promised herself that the match would not take place, and if Sebastian’s reaction was anything by which to judge, she had succeeded in her purpose in less than a day.
Bryony slowly wiped her tears away. Her reign as the prospective Lady Sheringham was almost certainly at an end, and with her failure, Liskillen was lost. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to quell the sob that rose sharply in her throat. Her first impulse now was to return to her rooms and spare herself further misery, but then suddenly a flash of anger burned in her heart.
She was innocent, she had done nothing wrong except perhaps dance a little too zestfully, so why should she hide herself away as if guilty of everything? She turned to look toward the house again, and there was sudden purpose in her green eyes. She would not allow Petra so easy a victory; she would join them all at the dinner table and conduct herself with pride. She was completely innocent, and wrongly condemned, and she would face them with the strength such innocence commanded.
They were all about to take their seats at the table in the winter parlor when she appeared in the arched doorway, her little figure almost dwarfed by the heavy velvet curtains draped so dramatically against the wall. Petra noticed her first, breaking off in mid-sentence to stare in evident surprise. Sebastian saw her too, but then looked away as if completely indifferent to the arrival of his intended wife, Felix turned toward Bryony then, a rather too easy smile on his lips as he walked across to her. “My dear Miss St. Charles, we began to think you would not join us after all.”
“Why should I not join you, sir?” she inquired in a clear, carrying voice. She heard the duchess’s affronted gasp.
Felix’s dark eyes rested lightly on Bryony’s face. “Why indeed?” he murmured.
In spite of the fact that she knew he was moved by nothing more or less than a desire to see how things developed, and a hope that Sebastian would be acutely embarrassed, Bryony found it surprisingly easy to accompany him to the table. The meal commenced, and she endured the heavy atmosphere with great fortitude, telling herself over and over again that she had done nothing wrong and must not therefore behave as if she had.
Felix and Delphine spoke to her, the duchess remained furiously silent throughout. Petra did not seem to know quite what to do; she glanced frequently at Bryony, the expression in her wide eyes rather difficult to read. Was she merely surprised that the vanquished refused to behave as if vanquished? Or was she wondering if her rival might prove more difficult to dispose of than she had thought?
No, it could not be the latter, for how could Petra fear anything when Sebastian himself showed his feelings so very plainly? He did not look toward Bryony once, and everything in his manner suggested that he would now cry off the match at the first available opportunity.
At last the meal was ended and the moment came for the ladies to withdraw to the solar, leaving the two gentlemen to linger over the port. Felix immediately revealed that he had no intention whatsoever of lingering over anything with Sebastian. Tossing his napkin aside, he got up before anyone else. “If you will excuse me, ladies,” he said firmly, “I will spare you any more of my company tonight, as I have made arrangements to practice again in the
salle d’armes.”
The duchess gave him an offended look, for it was very bad form on his part, but Sebastian, against whom it was all directed, merely seemed a little amused. “Dear me, cousin,” he murmured, “are you so rusty that practice is required even at this hour?”
Felix’s face was cold. “I am not rusty, sir.”
“Unskilled, then.”
There was a moment’s silence. Felix stiffened. “Have you not heard the expression ‘practice makes perfect’?”
“Oh, yes, I’ve heard of it, cousin, but I do not know that it will ever apply in your case,” replied Sebastian in an infuriatingly conversational tone.
Petra kept her gaze fixed firmly on the epergne in the center of the table, while Delphine looked in alarm at Sebastian, who appeared to be intent upon provoking Felix on a subject for which he boasted no sense of humor at all. “Sebastian, please,” she begged, “don’t say anything more—”
Felix was angry with her. “This has nothing to do with you, Delphine!”
“But—”
“Stay out of it.” He looked again at Sebastian, whose smile had not wavered. “Since you appear to think there is some doubt concerning my prowess, perhaps you would care to test it for yourself?”
The duchess gasped and looked a little faint, but Sebastian leaned back in his chair, one eyebrow raised in apparent surprise. “Test it? Whatever for? My dear fellow, run along to your converted greenhouse if you wish, it’s all the same to me, but the next time you wish to be inexcusably rude to me,
pray do so in the firm knowledge that I will be rude in return—and probably to more effect.”
Felix’s hand clenched into a tight fist, his knuckles white. “Don’t attempt to toy with me, Sheringham,” he breathed, “for if you do, then it will be the worse for you.”
“Don’t be tiresome, Felix,” replied Sebastian coolly, “for if you proceed any further with this then you will find that you have bitten off rather more than you can chew.”
Petra rose agitatedly to her feet. “Gentlemen, I think this has gone far enough, don’t you? It isn’t at all the thing to conduct yourselves in such a fashion before ladies.”
Felix’s eyes were very bright and angry, and without a word he strode from the room. Petra looked down at Sebastian. “Shame on you, sir!”
“I enjoyed every moment of it. He was long overdue for being taken down a peg or two.”
Bryony couldn’t help being in agreement with him, for Felix, Duke of Calborough, could be insufferably arrogant, but she did wonder if the method Sebastian chose was entirely wise, sailing as close as it did to the winds of a challenge. She admired him, though, for he had very deftly disposed of Felix’s rudeness and vanity. She hadn’t realized how long she had been looking at Sebastian, but suddenly he met her gaze. With a start she turned her head away, unable to prevent a slight flush creeping over her cheeks again.
The duchess seemed to have recovered from the alarm the confrontation had caused, and from her manner toward Sebastian now Bryony could only suspect that even she found Felix a little too much to take at times. She smiled at him now. “Since my son does not intend to take port with you, Sebastian, perhaps now would be an ideal opportunity for you and me to discuss ... er, certain matters?”
The woman’s meaning was all too clear; she was referring to the match, and ways of ending it. Bryony couldn’t help herself, she looked at Sebastian again, only to find that he was still looking at her. Her lips parted and she knew that anxiety was written large in her eyes, but there was nothing she could do to hide it. He had hurt her so much already; soon he would hurt her even more.
He nodded at his aunt. “Very well, the time does seem right,” he said. The duchess’s taffeta skins rustled as they withdrew from the room.
Petra cleared her throat a little uncomfortably and then managed a bright smile. “So, we ladies are to be a cozy threesome and must amuse ourselves as best we can. Shall we adjourn to the solar?”
An awkward atmosphere surrounded them as they went to the solar and sat down, but Bryony’s feeling of awkwardness soon turned into one of anger when she found out that Petra’s notion of amusement was apparently to perceive and examine closely every ladylike accomplishment of which Bryony St. Charles was not the complete mistress.
Petra soon discovered that she was a reluctant musician, being no more than adequate. Delphine seemed to feel it was required that Petra be persuaded to play the harpsichord for them, which she did, thus proving that
she
was apparently the world’s finest musician! As the notes flowed effortlessly from her fingers, Delphine whispered to Bryony that Petra’s brilliance had made her much sought after at Carlton House, where the Prince of Wales was her avid admirer.
After that it was the art of painting which was held up for examination. It was a pastime from which Bryony drew great enjoyment but at which she was hardly a genius. Petra, on the other hand, was so accomplished and talented that she had been persuaded to exhibit her work privately and had received much acclaim.
Bryony loathed her, wondering if there was anything at which the Countess of Lowndes did
not
excel. She was delighted to discover that Petra did have an Achilles’ heel—she could not sing, and admitted that hearing her was a positive torture; Bryony, on the other hand, could sing like a nightingale, and took great delight in giving a demonstration which left Petra smiling a little thinly. Shortly after this Petra suggested they play cards.
They had not been seated long at the little octagonal table when Petra looked up from her cards to speak to Bryony. “I do hope, Miss St. Charles, that tonight hasn’t been too much of an ordeal for you?”
Bryony was wary. “Ordeal?”
“Yes. You see, it did occur to me that meeting both Sebastian and myself on your very first evening might be a little too much. You’ve only just arrived, you’ve already had to meet many strangers, and now you’ve had to meet two more. It must have been a dreadful strain.”
Bryony smiled a little, determined suddenly to deal in kind with this woman. “The only strain, my lady, was of someone else’s doing,” she said sweetly.
Petra looked taken aback, “I beg your pardon?”
“I presume you were talking about the matter of the miniature?”
“Oh, no!” said Petra hastily, “I wasn’t referring to that at all!”
“Really? You do surprise me.” Bryony’s tone was dry and she took a certain pleasure in the other’s discomfort, so much so that she wondered if it would prove even more satisfying to tell Petra exactly what she thought of her and her wretched plot against the match.
Petra was quite flustered. “I was only referring to the strain of meeting Sebastian so quickly, Miss St. Charles. Oh, I know that this evening has not been a resounding success, but I promise you that he was very eager to make your acquaintance, indeed he would not listen to my advice that it would be more thoughtful to delay a day or so before calling on you. I do believe, Miss St. Charles, that he fell in love with your portrait, for it is indeed a charming likeness.”
Bryony was rendered speechless by this succession of monstrous fibs. It was too much, it really was! She was about to deliver the blistering response such out-and-out gall deserved, when at that very moment the doors opened to admit the duchess.