Elizabeth Mansfield (25 page)

Kitty, having made the impression she wanted, walked quickly across the room and threw her arms around his neck. “Roger, you beast! You gave me a sleepless night with your coldness.”

“Did I?” he asked coolly, removing her arms. “You look none the worse for it, I assure you. Come, sit down here with me. I want to talk to you.”

She shook her head and slipped her arms around his waist. “But, love,” she whispered into his ear, “we can talk later. I haven’t seen you for almost a month.”

“You are not trying to tell me that you’ve missed me, are you?” he asked, freeing himself from her embrace and leading her firmly to the sofa.

“But
of course
I’ve missed you, dearest. I’ve been so bored and lonely that I fell into flat despair! That’s why I decided to come here. I was quite beside myself without you.” She spoke with quavering sincerity and put her head on his shoulder.

Roger raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Then the news that I’ve had from London was no doubt false.”

Her head came up abruptly. “News? What news?”

“The news that you were seen frequently in the company of your duke.”

“
My
duke?” she exclaimed, drawing herself erect. “Roger, are you trying to pick a quarrel? If it is Eddington you are speaking of—”

“Oh? Have you
another
duke as well?”

“Really, my dear, you are being quite ridiculous. You cannot be jealous of Eddington! He is half bald, has a stomach as big as a barrel, and is the greatest bore in Christendom.”

“I am no more jealous of him than I was of your escorts last evening. I will admit that, in the past, I found it irksome to share your affection with other men while you openly declared that you were living under my protection. However, I no longer wish the right to feel irked. I think the time has come, my dear, to sever our connection.”

Kitty whitened. “You can’t mean it! Is it because I followed you?” She put a hand on his chest. “You cannot blame me, love. I
did
miss you so.”

“I think it much more likely that you heard a rumor of my interest in matrimony. You
did
hear some gossip, did you not?”

“Well, I may have heard—”

“And you came to see if you could dissuade me, isn’t that it?”

“Nonsense, Roger,” Kitty said, getting to her feet and beginning to pace about the room. “I always knew you would marry eventually. What difference can it make to me? To us?”

Roger leaned back on the sofa and watched her agitated pacing unperturbed. “You always knew what my marriage would mean to us. I made my intentions quite plain. I never intended to play a wife false.”

She halted her stride and stared at him. “Then you
are
to be married?” she asked tensely.

“I don’t know,” he answered frankly. “It seems unlikely.” With a rueful smile, he added, “Not every woman finds me as good a catch as you do.”

“Oh?” Kitty asked, brightening. She returned to the sofa and sat down close to him. “Is your courtship proving difficult?” She ran a finger affectionately along his jaw and the side of his face. “The girl must be a fool,” she said in a low, provocative voice.

“Kitty, stop playing,” he said brusquely, brushing her hand away. “Let’s talk with gloves off. Whether I marry or not, it is
over
for us. It’s been over for some time. Don’t shake your head. You know it as well as I. Let’s end what has become nothing more than a charade. Take your duke while you still can.”

“No!” she said furiously, jumping up and turning her back on him. “He never meant anything to me! Your friends are
vicious
to have sent such gossip. You
know
you have always been first with me.”

Roger rose and stood behind her. “First, perhaps, but never
only,
” he said meaningfully. He reached into his pocket and took out the box. Turning her to face him, he placed it in her hand. She flicked him a sullen glance and then opened it. Against the black velvet lining of the box lay a magnificent diamond bracelet.

“Do you think to
buy
my complaisance?” she asked furiously, tossing the bracelet at him. It fell to the floor where it lay unheeded.

“I have no need to buy your complaisance or anything else,” Roger said gently. “I offer the gift to you only as a gesture of thanks for some pleasant memories.” He went to the door, picked up his hat and gloves, and looked back at her. She stood in the middle of the room, her eyes stormy, her fingers clenched. “Try not to be angry,” he said soothingly. “I think you and your duke will get on famously, especially now when you need no longer concern yourself about keeping that—and your other liaisons—secret from me. Goodbye, Kitty.”

Kitty’s color rose to an almost apoplectic red as the finality of his words struck her. A vase, filled with fresh flowers, was close at hand. She picked it up and hurled it against the door that he had just closed behind him. It crashed noisily to the floor, spilling water and blooms in all directions. She next picked up a lovely and expensive Sevres bowl and was about to send it crashing to a similar fate when her eye fell on the bracelet. It was truly a magnificent piece. She replaced the bowl and knelt down. She picked up the bracelet and held it so that the light shone through. Her high color faded, and her eyes narrowed as she observed the dazzling highlights of the multifaceted jewels. She sat back on her heels with a resigned sigh. He was right, of course. Everything he’d said was true. And even now, knowing her duplicity, he’d been more generous than she had any right to expect. With a shrug of acceptance, she began eagerly to count the diamonds.

Lady Denham sent round a note to Lady Upsham begging her forgiveness for being unable to keep their appointment for the afternoon. She was beset with a painfully nagging toothache, she wrote, and had taken to her bed.
I have learned nothing whatever from Roger,
she added,
about what transpired last night. Perhaps my discomfort with my tooth is the cause of my present mood, but I’m afraid, my dear Millicent, that I feel very little hope that our plans will ever come to fruition. I am much inclined to wash my hands of the entire matter. The young men and women of that generation behave in ways quite beyond my understanding.

Lady Upsham read the note with sinking spirits, although the contents didn’t really surprise her. She had been feeling, of late, that a match between Letty and Roger was not to be. Some serious impediment, the nature of which she could not guess, lay between them, and since neither of them saw fit to permit an outsider to assist them in overcoming it, the match was undoubtedly doomed. She knew she should accept that fact with resignation. But what she really felt was irritation.

To relieve that feeling, she sat down at her writing desk and penned a scathing letter to her sister-in-law.
Your daughters,
she wrote,
are quite impossible, and I seriously doubt if you should persist in the hope that they will make beneficial marriages. Letty remains unmoved in her position vis-à-vis Lord Denham. All our exertions in that direction have proved useless. And as for Prue, she
continues to frustrate my hopes. She had attracted the attention of a mature and wealthy bachelor named Mr. Eberly. I was in transports, I can tell you. But last night the silly child blithely told him that he was old enough to be her father, and the poor man scurried off without a backward look. Although the little flirt has all the young men of Bath hanging at her heels, none of them can be considered marital prizes. The one ray of hope I can offer you is the prospect of a better choice when I bring Prue out next season. If, in the meantime, we can teach her to control her tongue
—

Her writing was interrupted by a tap at the door, and Miss Tristle came in to tell her that Lord Denham had called and was waiting below. “Lord Denham?” Millicent asked in delight. “Tell him I’ll be right down.” Hope sprang alive in her breast. If Lord Denham still cared to call, all was not lost. Perhaps her letter to Lady Glendenning had been hasty. She tore it up, straightened her hair, and hurried downstairs.

Lord Denham had called to ask her permission to take Letty for a drive. This she gave with alacrity and sent Miss Tristle to fetch Letty at once. Miss Tristle returned alone and whispered in Lady Upsham’s ear that Letty had sent her regrets to Lord Denham—she was feeling indisposed. Millicent could not permit Letty to ruin this opportunity. “Excuse me, Lord Denham,” she said firmly. “Letty and I will return in a moment.”

Millicent’s resolve almost failed her when she entered Letty’s room and confronted her. The expression in Letty’s eyes was like that of a trapped rabbit. “Don’t order me to go, Aunt Millicent,” she pleaded. “I am not feeling at all the thing today.”

“Of course I won’t order you, my dear,” Millicent said, offended. “I am not an ogre or the wicked stepmother in a fairy tale!” She took a seat and looked up at her niece in concern. “I only wish you
would explain to me what it is about Lord Denham that makes you so eager to avoid him. Perhaps if I understood, I would refrain from giving him further encouragement,” she said in as patient a tone as she could muster.

Letty shook her head and turned away. “It is not … There is nothing I can speak of, Aunt,” she said in a muffled, quivering voice and went to the window.

A dreadful thought suddenly occurred to Millicent and caused her to rise quickly and follow Letty to the window. Putting her hands affectionately on Letty’s shoulders, she asked gently, “Oh, my dear … It is not … Lord Denham cannot have behaved improperly toward you! Is that it? I should never forgive myself if—”

But Letty didn’t let her finish. “No, no!” she said fervently. “You must not think such a thing! Lord Denham has never been anything but gentlemanly and proper in my company, I promise you. There is no blame to be placed on him or on you—or indeed on
anyone
!”

Millicent, much relieved, could not help but pursue her goal. “Then, Letty, what can be the harm of a little drive in his company?”

Letty turned away and stared out the window at Roger’s curricle waiting below. “Tell him … tell him I’ll ride with him
tomorrow,
” she said in sudden inspiration.

Millicent smiled. At least her renewed hopes need not yet be dashed. “Very well,” she said agreeably, and then added shrewdly, “but I would be obliged if you could go down and tell him so yourself.”

Letty wheeled around, the frightened-rabbit look returning to her eyes. “No, please, don’t ask me to do that!”

Millicent hardened her heart to Letty’s look. What could be so dreadful about speaking briefly to Lord Denham? The girl was being too missish. Millicent told herself that such foolishness should not be encouraged. “I
do
ask it,” she said coldly. “I am much too tired to climb down the stairs again. I’m going to my room to lie down.”

“Then couldn’t Miss Tristle—?” Letty asked desperately.

“Miss Tristle?” Millicent said in horrified accents. “Surely you cannot suggest that we treat Lord Denham in such cavalier style. Go down at once, and don’t make a to-do over nothing.”

With those quelling words she marched from the room. Letty had no choice but to obey.

Lord Denham was standing before the high, paned windows of the sitting room, his manner calm and cool, the picture of the impeccable and elegant Corinthian from the top of his curly hair, cut with a casual-seeming artistry, to his gleaming top boots, which gave a subtle emphasis to the excellent shape of his legs. The sight of his sartorial splendor reminded Letty that she had not even checked her appearance in the mirror before she had left her room, and her hand unwittingly flew to her hair, which she had loosened when she’d returned from her visit to Brandon and now hung in unkempt abandon around her face. Her careless appearance gave her a decided feeling of disadvantage until she noticed that he was twisting his curly-brimmed beaver rather nervously in his hands.

His whole face brightened when he caught sight of her. “Letty!” he said in a voice vibrant with hope. “Are you coming with me, then?”

She gave him no answering smile but merely shook her head. “I hope you will forgive me, my lord,” she said with excessive formality, “but I find I am rather indisposed this afternoon.”

“I see,” he said, deflated. There was a moment’s pause. “Thank you for taking the trouble to inform me of your indisposition,” he said carefully. “I hope it will not be of long duration. But since you’re here, I wonder if you might spare me a moment or two. I have some matters of urgency to discuss with you.”

Letty took a deep breath. “Lord Denham,” she said with what she hoped was crushing dignity, “I don’t believe there is
anything
that must be discussed between us.”

“Letty, for heaven’s sake!” he burst out impatiently, “must we hide behind these artificial attitudes? We’ve passed far beyond these formalities, you and I. You
know
there are matters to be discussed.”

“You are mistaken, sir. The matters to which you refer are not my affair and of no concern to me.”

He took a step toward her and looked at her intently. “Are you sure, my dear?”

She met his eyes unwaveringly. “Quite sure,” she said.

They stared at each other, both of them pale and strained. His eyes fell first. Wordlessly, with a quick bow, he turned and went to the door. But there he hesitated. Without turning, he lowered his head and asked in a choked voice, “May I not even be permitted to apologize for … for Vauxhall?”

She felt her breath catch. “I … It is not at all necessary, my lord.”

He turned and looked at her steadily. “It is necessary to me.”

A pulse in her neck was beating wildly. Her knees felt weak and her determination to prevent any sort of intimate communication between them was weakening, too. But honest or meaningful conversations between them in the past had sometimes ended with an embrace, and she was well aware what his embrace could do to her resolve. “I am truly not up to exchanges of this kind today,” she said helplessly.

Instantly he was struck with remorse. “I don’t mean to press you,” he said quickly. “Forgive me. Perhaps another time … ?”