A Wicked Gentleman (31 page)

“I confess, it surprises me that you would choose this as a venue for a party, Harry,” she murmured, as they walked up the path towards the Rotunda between displays of what were admittedly magnificent fountains.

“Does it not please you, ma'am?” He raised his eyebrows.

“You don't consider it to be just a little garish?” She glanced sideways at him with a hint of a smile.

“More than a little,” he agreed readily. “Indeed, I've never truly understood the appeal at all.”

“Then why would you select it?”

“Can't you guess, Nell?” His voice was low and sensual, his eyes glowing with pure lust as they met hers. “This is one of the very few public places where one may withdraw unremarked into the shadows to pursue whatever…” He spread his hands in an all-encompassing gesture.

She inhaled sharply, and touched her tongue to her lip. “It's a little chilly for al fresco seduction, sir.” Her voice had a strange little quiver to it.

He gave an elaborate sigh of regret. “Alas, I fear you are right, my dear. So much for the best-laid plans.”

Cornelia went into a peal of laughter that drew curious glances from those around them on the path. Hastily she withdrew her hand from his arm and dropped back to where Livia was walking with David.

“Isn't it magnificent, Liv?” she called gaily.

Livia gave her a puzzled stare. “Is it?” Then she thought of her host and the possible discourtesy he might see in objections to his choice of venue. “Oh, yes, of course it is. The lights are magnificent, and the orchestra is very…very loud,” she finished lamely.

“Gallant is probably the
mot juste,
Lady Livia,” Harry said, slowing to wait for them. “No one pays them any heed, and they play on into the night, ever hopeful.”

Livia gave him a reproachful frown. “How callous, viscount.”

“You're a brute, Harry, to upset the lady in such fashion,” David protested. “D'you care to listen to the orchestra, Lady Livia? I'd be happy to escort you to their kiosk.”

“Thank you, I would like that,” Livia said. They walked off towards the largest of the many groves that made up the gardens, beyond which could be glimpsed the colored lights that adorned the huge kiosk that housed the orchestra.

“I fear I have offended,” murmured Harry.

Cornelia and Aurelia both laughed at this. “Liv has a soft heart, Viscount, but she's not sentimental,” Aurelia told him. “She was only teasing you.”

They walked on towards the Rotunda, where a string quartet was playing. The duchess waved her lorgnette imperiously when she saw them. “Bonham, over here. I require rack-punch.” She rose in a flurry of shawls, heedless of the disturbance this caused to her fellow listeners in the rows around her, and sailed out of her own row, trailing in her wake a small lady, brown hair tucked under a white lace cap, who murmured apologies to all and sundry.

“Poor Eliza,” Harry muttered going forward to assist his great-aunt as she reached the end of her row.

“Tedious music,” his aunt declared. “I dislike Handel.”

“You were not obliged to go to the concert, ma'am,” Harry said quietly.

“Well, what else was I supposed to do while you were off gallivanting at the steps?” the lady demanded petulantly.

“Hardly gallivanting, ma'am, merely meeting my guests,” Harry said. There were times when he refused to indulge his great-aunt. He was the only member of her family to do so, and he knew she liked him for it, even though she would die rather than acknowledge it.

“Insolent puppy,” she said, but the petulance left her expression.

“Good evening, Your Grace.” Cornelia spoke first, offering her hand. “What a delightful surprise. You remember my sister-in-law, Lady Farnham. Lady Livia is listening to the orchestra. She'll join us shortly.”

“Yes…yes, of course,” the old woman said. “Eliza, these are the gals I was telling you about. My companion, Miss Cox.” She waved her fan in the general direction of the lady, who smiled and bobbed her head even as she gathered up her employer's trailing shawls.

“Your Grace.” Nick bowed.

“Oh, it's you,” she said, raising her lorgnette to peer at him. “Where's the other one…Forster, isn't it? You two are always together.”

“Not quite always, ma'am,” Nick protested as he bowed again. The lady, however, seemed to lose interest in him. “Bonham, if you've arranged a supper box, I'll go there now. I'm in want of a glass of rack-punch. You, Lady Dagenham, walk with me.” She beckoned to Cornelia, adding, “In my opinion, my dear, the only reason to come to this place is for the rack-punch.”

Cornelia smiled polite acquiescence and offered the lady her arm. Harry, accepting his place, offered his own to Eliza Cox.

Aurelia said swiftly in a low tone, “I'd like to listen to the concert, Sir Nicholas. Just for a few minutes. I happen to be very fond of Handel.”

He was instantly responsive. “Of course, ma'am…Harry, you'll excuse us? We'll join you at supper.”

“Of course, dear fellow, of course.” Harry waved a hand in careless agreement. It was supposed to be his party, but once the duchess had decided to take charge, he might just as well resign his commission. “I believe the box is number six along the main colonnade. You'll find us there.”

Aurelia and Nick retraced their steps, and the other four continued down the lamplit path. Cornelia made small talk until she realized that her companion had absolutely no interest in anything she was saying, so she fell silent and was rather amused to discover that since this caused no remark either, she had been right.

Harry directed them to the supper box he'd hired for the evening and himself procured a glass of negus for Eliza, who wouldn't touch anything as strong as rack-punch, while a footman served goblets of punch to Cornelia and the duchess, who without saying anything had somehow made it clear that Cornelia was not to leave her side.

After two glasses of punch, Her Grace announced, “I'll walk a little. Give me your arm, Lady Dagenham.” She gathered her shawl tightly around her as she issued her instructions.

“Ma'am…?” Harry began.

“No, no, we have no need of your escort, Bonham. Stay here and take care of Eliza. Come, ma'am.” She tapped Cornelia's arm smartly.

Cornelia complied. She couldn't imagine doing anything else, and, in truth, she found Harry's great-aunt rather amusing, although she suspected that a little would go a very long way. She cast a glance towards Harry who offered an infinitesimal shrug and the flicker of an eyebrow, before turning his attention to Eliza.

“We'll walk this way,” announced the duchess once they had attained the path beneath the main colonnade. She gestured with her fan to a narrow path that ran at right angles to the broader pedestrian thoroughfare.

It was a much more secluded path that led them to a small inner grove from which other paths radiated. Judging by the whispers and rustles that surrounded them as they entered the grove, Cornelia guessed that this was some kind of lovers' retreat. Perhaps one of the places Harry had had in mind for a quiet walk of their own. Instead of which she was arm in arm with a fearsome old lady who had some kind of reason for this tête-à-tête. It would have made her laugh if she wasn't at the same time somewhat apprehensive. She was convinced that the duchess did not do anything without purpose. In that respect, if not in others, her great-nephew resembled her.

“I'll sit down over there,” Her Grace announced, pointing towards a wooden seat beneath the branches of a beech tree, whose winter bare branches were hung with colored lanterns.

“We'll leave the shadows to the lovers,” she added. “We're trespassing on their territory quite enough.” To her astonishment, Cornelia heard a note of dry humor in the old lady's voice.

The duchess sat down on the seat, arranging her skirts and shawls around her. “Now, m'dear, let's to business.”

Cornelia's apprehension came to full flower. But with it came anger. She did not have to subject herself to this woman's bullying even if the lady's own family did. “I don't understand you, ma'am.”

“Don't get on your high horse, Lady Dagenham. Sit down beside me.” The woman's voice was positively pleasant.

Cornelia sat beside her, but held herself apart. She folded her hands in her lap and waited.

“You have an interest in Bonham,” her interlocutor stated.

“What gives you that impression, ma'am?” Cornelia inquired icily before this could go any further.

“Well, you'd be a fool not to,” the lady retorted. Then she said in a rather more conciliatory tone, “But that's not what I meant. Bonham has an interest in you.”

“Again, ma'am, I ask what gives you that impression?” Cornelia could feel dread twining around her gut. If this woman suspected anything, just the whisper would be enough for Markby.

“My dear, I've known Bonham since he was a babe in arms. And I probably know him better than his own sisters. He
has
an interest in you. Apart from the way he looks at you when he thinks no one's watching, he'd never otherwise bestir himself the way he has on your behalf. The Bonhams are one of the first families. They can trace their lineage to the Conqueror. Face up to it, Lady Dagenham, you and your friends, while respectable enough, would not on your own gain entrée to the best circles. No…no, don't bristle. Believe it or not, I mean this interference kindly. Harry has no need to go to such lengths to assist three women who possess neither fortune nor great lineage to get on in this world.”

Cornelia knew this to be true only too well. She held her tongue and waited.

“Therefore, he has another interest in one of you, and I wasn't born yesterday, Lady Dagenham. His interest is in you. And if it was not reciprocated, then why would you accept his help…unless you're all social-climbing gold diggers.”

Cornelia didn't dignify this with a response. She sat seething, keeping her hands still in her lap with only the greatest difficulty.

The duchess chuckled disconcertingly. “No need to tear my eyes out, m'dear. I know perfectly well that's not the case. Very prettily brought up you all are. A credit to your mothers. And there's nothing objectionable in your families.”

“You are too kind, ma'am.” Cornelia stared rigidly ahead towards the center of the grove, where some anonymous Grecian statue held court.

“There is however something objectionable in Bonham's. You will hear of it eventually; I'd prefer you to hear it from someone who has his best interests at heart.”

Cornelia turned to look at the woman for the first time since this abominable conversation had begun. “Lord Bonham's family?” she inquired incredulously.

“No, not his family. Bonham himself.” A hint of discomfort was now apparent in Her Grace's demeanor. Her mittened fingers started to twist the fringe of her cashmere shawl. “Has he told you anything of himself?”

Cornelia laughed, a short, humorless laugh that held more than a hint of bitterness, and averted her gaze once more. “Very little, ma'am.”

Her companion sighed a little. “That is ever his way. Even I know almost nothing about him…about what he does. But that's for you to sort out, my dear. Either you can live with that, or you can't. I do not consider that to be my business.”

And that makes a change,
Cornelia thought acidly. She said only, “I assume you mention this objectionable fact because you intend to tell me about it.” She felt her companion's eyes on her profile, and she felt them to be uncomfortably penetrating.

“You know that he was married?” the duchess asked.

“Yes, he told me that,” Cornelia responded without expression. “And that she died in an accident.”

The duchess seemed to take a deep breath as if preparing herself. “His wife was Lady Anne Fairbanks, daughter of the duke of Grafton. She died in suspicious circumstances.” The duchess closed her lips in a thin line as she said this.

Cornelia felt as if someone had thrown a pail of cold water over her. “Could you explain, ma'am?”

“They were in the country together.” Her Grace spoke briskly now, as if recounting distasteful facts as quickly as possible.

“They were heard quarrelling. According to witnesses at the inquest, Anne left her husband's bedchamber in high dudgeon. Bonham was heard protesting at the head of the stairs as his wife began to descend them. Anne somehow caught her foot. She fell to her death. No one saw exactly what happened, but her father became convinced that her husband had caused her death.”

She fanned herself for a moment, before saying, “It came out that Anne had a married lover…indeed she and Vibart had been lovers since before her marriage to Bonham, who had known nothing of it. That fact seemed to offer some motive, enough, anyway, for the inquest to pursue the possibility that her death had not been accidental. Nonsense, of course.”

She stopped as if to catch her breath, and Cornelia was perturbed by her pallor beneath the carefully applied rouge.