“Oh, please,” said Bryony quickly, “you must join us, for I shall be lost without you.”
Delphine’s brown eyes were kindly. “If that is truly what you wish ...”
“It is, oh, it is.”
Delphine nodded. “Then of course I will attend. Oh, it really is too bad of Sebastian, for it makes for so much difficulty and embarrassment all round. Mother disapproves, of course, but she disassociates herself from the whole thing by pretending it isn’t going on. Sebastian is her nephew and Petra her neighbor, so great problems and awkwardness could arise between Polwithiel and Tremont if my mother spoke her mind. As to my brother ... well, Felix loathes Sebastian and isn’t all that fond of Petra, but he takes the view that what they do is their own affair and as long as it does not encroach upon his life at all they can continue to do as they please.
“He says that as your marriage will be simply one of convenience anyway, it is rather foolish to expect love or constancy from either side. So there you have it, and you will know exactly what to expect when you arrive at Polwithiel; everyone knows Petra is Sebastian’s mistress, but no one will mention the fact openly. Discretion is the order of the day; the real sin is to be too careless and force it upon others when they do not wish to know. If you remember that, I suppose you will go on well enough.”
She paused for a moment. “Felix is right about the marriage, you know: it
is
simply one of convenience. Oh, I know Sebastian is saying that it is on account of the pledge between his father and yours, but everyone knows that that isn’t so. No one knows what his reason is. Or at least, perhaps only a few do.”
“Petra, for instance?”
“Maybe.”
Bryony was quiet for a moment. “He is not the angel you said he was in Falmouth, is he?”
Delphine flushed. “I thought it best and more kind to say it. Sebastian isn’t an angel, but he isn’t a devil either, and it will be up to you to make what you can of what is presented to you. But then, isn’t it always up to the woman to do that?”
Bryony said nothing.
Delphine looked at her for a long moment. “What Felix said about marriages of convenience ...”
“Yes?”
“Well, you will not be approaching it from an entirely innocent standpoint, will you?”
Bryony stared at her. “I beg your pardon?”
“You haven’t mentioned it all, but there is the matter of you and Mr. Carmichael.”
Bryony’s eyes widened with shock and her heart seemed almost to stop. Her voice was barely audible. “What have you heard?”
“I know only what Mr. Carmichael wrote in his letter to Felix.”
“Letter?” cried Bryony in the utmost dismay. “What letter?”
“When the match between you and Sebastian was first announced, Mr. Carmichael wrote to Felix, begging him not to allow you to stay at Polwithiel for the purpose of meeting and eventually marrying Sebastian. He was adamant in the letter that you had already promised your hand to him and that therefore there could not possibly be a match with anyone else.”
Bryony was so astonished that for a moment she couldn’t reply. “There is no truth whatsoever in his claim,” she said then, “for I have most certainly
not
promised to marry him. Indeed, I cannot think why he should imagine there is anything even remotely approaching such an intimacy.” Her head was spinning. Why would Anthony write such a letter?
Why?
Delphine looked uncomfortable. “Oh, dear, I wish I had not said anything.”
“You must believe me, for I would swear on the Bible that I am innocent. I haven’t given Anthony Carmichael any reason whatsoever to think I will marry him.”
“Perhaps he has a
tendre
for you and sees this as a way of preventing the match with Sebastian.”
“I suppose that could be so, but I cannot believe it. He gave no hint at all of being in love with me and I am sure that there were opportunities when we were riding together when he could have confessed all, had he wished.” She looked earnestly at Delphine. “Please say you believe me.”
“Of course I believe you, and I think this wretched Mr. Carmichael is an insect for writing such a letter. Still, if it was his purpose to make Felix behave awkwardly about your stay with us, then he did not succeed. Felix is far too cynical a man of the world to be swayed by such a thing.”
“Does ... does Sir Sebastian know of the letter?”
Delphine nodded. “Yes, but he has so far completely ignored it.”
Bryony looked out of the window, suddenly too upset to say anything more. First her father had learned of the rumors, and believed them, and now those rumors had crossed the Irish Sea to plague her again. What did Anthony hope to gain by this? Perhaps her father had been right all along, and Anthony Carmichael’s sole purpose in befriending her had been to try to gain Liskillen House. What a fool she’d been to think him genuine!
She fought back sudden tears as she continued to stare out of the window, hoping that Delphine would not say anything more for the time being. Outside the trees were more sparse now and the road had curved more to the south, allowing her a clear view of Tremont. The house was white, like Liskillen, only much larger, and with an impressive portico. It rose majestically at the head of what appeared to be a lake in the creek, its beautifully landscaped grounds sweeping along the banks of the glittering water. Closer to the house there were wide terraces and formal gardens, like those at Versailles, and Bryony had to admit to herself that the Countess of Lowndes’s home was very lovely indeed.
The road approached a crossroads, with the lodge and entrance gates to Tremont on the left, and the road to the fishing village of Polwithiel, on the banks of the Helford, leading away to the right. The way to Polwithiel Abbey lay directly ahead, passing a low thatched inn called the Royal Charles, where evidently the workers of both estates congregated to enjoy their ale.
Bryony was looking at the gates to Tremont when suddenly a lady and gentleman rode through them, reining in to speak to the lodgekeeper. The gentleman she recognized immediately, for Sebastian Sheringham was the very image of his portrait. He was very elegant in a dark green riding coat and white buckskin breeches, his top hat tipped back casually upon his golden hair. The woman was tall and slender, and very graceful in a sapphire-blue riding habit, a little plumed black beaver hat resting neatly on her red hair. They both turned as they became aware of the Calborough carriage.
The coachman immediately began to rein in, fully expecting Delphine to wish to speak to them, but Bryony was alarmed. “Please, no!” she begged. “I couldn’t speak to them just yet!”
Delphine didn’t seem to know what to do for a moment, but then quickly she lowered the glass of the window away from the lodge, in a low voice bidding the coachman to drive on. Immediately the carriage began to pick up speed again, leaving the gates of Tremont far behind.
Bryony leaned her head back with relief. She knew that she had to face them both that evening, but she needed the intervening time to screw herself up to the pitch she knew would be required for such an ordeal. She had to go through with it well, she had to carry it off and make sure of the match, for Liskillen depended upon her.
But as she thought this, there was something else at the back of her mind, a deep disappointment which went right through to the depths of her soul. She had hoped, so vainly and pathetically it seemed, to make something more of her marriage than merely a contract; that hope had been cruelly dashed by each unkind word of Petra’s letter.
It was another half-hour before the carriage passed beneath the battlemented gateway marking the beginning of Polwithiel Abbey’s vast park. Through the trees to the left Bryony could see Polwithiel Creek sweeping toward the Helford estuary, which the day before she had seen from the deck of the
Molly K.
Oh, how long ago that seemed now. She gazed into the distance where the two flows of water came together, and saw on a headland overlooking the confluence what appeared to be a ruined castle, or at least the only remaining tower. She asked Delphine what it was and was informed that it was a folly which, like the gateway they had just passed, and like Polwithiel Abbey itself, had been built by her grandfather, the third Duke of Calborough. The only truly old part of the whole estate was the ruined abbey from which the house took its name, and those remaining few walls formed one side of the quadrangle before the main entrance, as she would soon see.
Through the other window of the carriage Bryony at last saw the great house, and her breath caught in wonderment at its beauty. It was a truly splendid Gothic building, half-castle, half-cathedral, and it could have been taken directly from the pages of Mrs. Radcliffe’s
The Romance of the Forest,
except where that lady would have imbued it with an air of brooding menace, Polwithiel Abbey was simply a beautiful jewel set in surroundings of unrivaled loveliness.
From its hilltop it gazed over the park toward the distant sea, and it was quite the most perfect house Bryony had ever seen. She gazed at it, her eyes moving slowly over the ivy-covered walls, the stained-glass windows with tracery which would not have shamed Lincoln and Salisbury cathedrals, the mock battlements stretching up toward the flawless blue sky, and then the gardens, sweeping down the park to the right of the house. They were not formal and precise like at Tremont; they contrived to look natural, although the line of fountains, each one playing into a pool which overflowed into the next one slightly below it, had a strange formality which did not look at all out of place. As the carriage approached an arched entrance in the curtain wall to one side of the house, Bryony just caught a glimpse of a little summerhouse at the head of the fountains, a place from which one would have a magnificent view down through the gardens and then across the park toward the distant sea.
The hooves and wheels rattled beneath the gateway and then they were in the cobbled quadrangle of which Delphine had spoken. Overlooked on one side by the house, one of its other walls was a curtain wall like the one they had just passed through, while the fourth was indeed formed by the ruins of the ancient Benedictine abbey which had occupied this site all those centuries before.
Glancing back at the wall beneath which they had driven, Bryony saw the conservatory in which Felix, Duke of Calborough, had his
salle d’armes.
It was a lofty erection, built against the wall and stretching from the arched gateway right to the corner joining the second curtain wall. She had expected the entire glasshouse to be set aside for the duke’s pleasure, but it seemed that that was not so, for she could see the thick, almost tropical foliage inside, the leaves pressing vigorously against the gleaming glass panes.
The steward was waiting as the carriage came to a standstill before the jutting porch which guarded the door into the house itself. The porch reminded Bryony of the porch of Liskillen church, and she felt suddenly homesick.
The steward was a sturdy Cornishman dressed in serviceable brown, his unfashionably long hair tied back with a black ribbon. He bowed low to them both. “Welcome home again, Lady Delphine. Welcome to Polwithiel, Miss St. Charles.”
Delphine nodded. “Has the duchess left on her morning calls yet?”
“Yes, my lady, she left an hour ago. She instructed me to tell you that she would be taking luncheon at Tremont Park and would return at approximately five o’clock this afternoon. She wishes to interview Miss St. Charles then.”
“Very well. And the duke?”
“Is in his
salle d’armes,
my lady.”
“That will be all for the moment.”
“Yes, my lady.” Bowing, he withdrew.
The coachman urged the tired horses forward again, crossing the quadrangle and passing beneath another arched gateway into the stables beyond.
Delphine turned to Bryony, smiling. “Well, at least you are spared the awful moment of coming face to face with Mother, for which you must be very grateful after all the dreadful things I’ve been saying about her. It will be some time before luncheon is served. Would you like to meet Felix now?”
“But he is engaged in the
salle d’armes.”
“My dear Bryony, Felix is
always
at his wretched swordplay, and if one waited for an opportune moment before speaking with him, one would wait a very long time indeed. Come, I will introduce you.”
She led the way to the conservatory. Fuchsias nodded over the sunny steps by the doors, their dainty frilled skirts of magenta, purple, and pink trembling a little in the light breeze. Inside there was no breeze; the air was stifling and humid, smelling of damp earth and citrus leaves. The dense vegetation seemed to press all around, except for a brick path which led farther in between the overhanging branches. At the far end of this path Bryony could see a raised wooden floor and she could hear the swift metallic clash of steel upon steel.
The floor was built against the wall of the quadrangle itself, and arranged on this wall was an impressive array of weapons, from swords and rapiers to cutlasses, sabers, and fencing foils. Tall mirrors had been set around to afford clear views from all angles, and to one side there was a small table and a single chair. On the table there was a crystal decanter of port and a half-filled glass. A costly beige coat, a brown-and-white-striped waistcoat, and a starched muslin cravat had been casually tossed onto the chair.
In the center of the floor two men were fencing with guarded foils, their faces protected by masks. It was easy to
I tell which of the two was the valet and which the duke, for whereas the shorter man wore the clothes of a servant, the taller was clad in a silk shirt and close-fitting buckskin breeches.
Felix, fifth Duke of Calborough, was lithe and supple, moving with superb grace and speed. His frilled shirt was undone almost to his waist and the cut of his breeches revealed to perfection his slender hips and long legs. The mask hid his face completely, but his hair was very dark like his sister’s. He was by far the superior swordsman, the shielded tip of his blade time and time again breaking through his opponent’s guard to press against his heart.