The Byram Succession (12 page)

She was staring at him now in steady enquiry. There was undoubted determination beneath the playful words, and though he
was smiling
a little there was an intent look in the grey eyes that she had never seen before. Unaccountably her heart began to beat a little faster and she could feel that she was blushing. She pressed the back of one hand to her warm cheek and said shyly, “You leave me no choice, sir.” Then, drawing herself very erect, “Though your manner leaves me in some doubt as to whether I should thank you for your kindness or dip a humble curtsey and meekly promise to obey your commands.”

His whole face changed as he broke into soft laughter. How he liked the imperious little tilt of her chin as she delivered her rebuke. What a wife she would make for a man who set considerable store by proper dignity and conduct! He bowed deeply, a stately reverence, and taking her hand in his raised it lightly to his lips.

“Forgive me, ma’am,” he beseeched, the humble words belying the laughter in his eyes. “Desperate circumstances demand strong measures. I plead justification, and promise to conduct myself with the utmost humility next Tuesday if you will but give me the pleasure of your society.”

This was a game that two could play, and Alethea was swift to seize the opening that he had given her. “Why, surely, sir,” she said lightly. “I had only to think of Lady Emily’s disappointment if you did
not
make one of our party, and there could be no doubt as to my decision. But the opportunity of studying your notions of humility will certainly add considerable interest to the occasion.”

The grey eyes flashed wide. “Why! You naughty little thing, you!
What
a comprehensive set-down! And so sweetly, so kindly delivered. My congratulations, Miss Forester. I salute an adversary worthy of my steel. But look to yourself in future.”

Alas! She would need to do so. This sort of heady exchange was no diet for a damsel already far sunk in love. It was the kind of play that should end in a close embrace and kisses. Punitive kisses—or so one pretended—but none the less warm and sweet. And she longed only to yield to such punishment. But he was not for her. The words were becoming almost a battle emblem to which she must cling for survival. She looked about her for James and Marianne, but they had abandoned the painted deities and drifted out into the sunshine again, absorbed only in themselves.

“Shall we follow them?” enquired Damon, and she agreed thankfully, feeling that the presence of other people, real life, every day people, would help to steady her unruly heart. But in the gardens the pair were nowhere to be seen. Damon, having caught a glimpse of a familiar coat sleeve vanishing round a corner, had taken care to steer his charge in the opposite direction.

For on Damon, too, that brief crossing of swords had had a powerful effect. It had brought home to him the realisation that marriage with Miss Forester might not be just the staid, sober partnership that he had envisaged. Rather it seemed to hold promise of laughter and gaiety. That look of demure mischief on the girlish face when she had spoken of Lady Emily’s disappointment! It had been no random jibe. She knew very well what she was about. He had been strongly tempted to catch her in his arms and make her pay forfeit for her impudence in kisses. Most certainly he would not waste the few precious moments of privacy that now remained to them in mere sight seeing.

“I was most interested in your views on royal marriages, Miss Forester,” he began carefully. “From the masculine point of view I had thought that if a man offered his wife a position of great dignity and the power to do much good, housed her sumptuously and gave her everything that a reasonable woman could desire, then he might justifiably expect her loyalty and affection in return, even if the pair had met only briefly and formally before the marriage took place.
You,
on the other hand, seemed to find such marriages pathetic—even tragic. Why?”

Alethea considered her answer well. Marriage was a dangerous topic for discussion, even if it was limited to the marriages of long dead historic personages. “I did not condemn
all
such marriages,” she reminded him. “Some of them may have been perfectly successful. But in general I do not think a marriage can be truly happy unless the contracting parties are deeply attached to each other from the outset.”

“You sound very confident,” he said shrewdly. “I think you have some particular marriage in mind.”

She nodded. “My parents’. They are—oh—it is difficult to explain! And of course one cannot compare ordinary folk with royalty. No considerations of state compelled them to marry. They did so because neither of them is really complete without the other. They are of one mind. Though by that I do not mean that they agree about everything. They were used to argue quite fiercely before Mama took ill, but it always ended in laughter. And can you not see already that James and Marianne will make just such a marriage?”

“And that is the kind of marriage for you?” he asked, deliberately keeping his tone light. “You would never consent to the other kind—the worldly kind—not even if Prince Florizel himself were to offer you the half of his kingdom?”

But Alethea thought the conversation was becoming much too personal. She had no desire to discuss her own marriage with this, of all gentlemen. Her tone matched his for light amusement as she replied, “What an improbable suggestion! Besides, the Prince Charmings of the story books always fell in love with the lady before making that very rash offer, which quite spoils your argument, my lord, since we were discussing marriages in which love had no place. As for a match of great worldly consequence—I stand in no danger of temptation! You should ask that question of my lovely cousin!”

“You under-rate yourself, Miss Forester, indeed you do. I, for one, infinitely prefer your society to your cousin’s, as I made abundantly plain not a quarter of an hour ago.”

What more he might have said was unfortunately lost, since at that moment the Admiral himself, with James and Marianne, was seen approaching. There was no further opportunity for private conversation, but on the whole Damon was not dissatisfied. His appreciation of Miss Forester’s personality was growing apace, and although, in his view, she set too much store on love, at least it was on a steady and enduring love, not the idealistic romantic passion which most girls of her age seemed to think so desirable. It should not be difficult to persuade her that love, of the kind that she valued, would come naturally after marriage. And at least she could no longer be in any doubt as to his intentions, and she had not hinted him away as he had given her every opportunity to do. At the next opportunity he would suggest that he would very much like to meet her parents. That would put everything on a proper footing. In happy ignorance of the true state of his chosen bride’s feelings, and with a growing conviction that matrimony—when one became accustomed—might be quite enjoyable, Damon went contentedly to bed and slept soundly.

Alethea, after a shattering scene with Tina, who had come home early from the review in a furious temper over Damon’s defection and refusing to believe that her cousin had not deliberately contrived the whole thing, was also thankful to escape to the shelter of her bedchamber. Tina’s parting remarks echoed in her ears as she rather wearily submitted to Hetty’s ministrations.

“Do you imagine he’d look twice at
you?
A dab of a girl with no claim to beauty and countrified to boot! Unless he’s heard of Cousin Albert’s will—and I wouldn’t put it past you to have let fall a hint about
that
, sly scheming wretch that you are.”

Well—she had not let fall a hint—had never dreamed that Cousin Albert’s money, even if it were doubled and trebled would buy her an offer from Lord Skirlaugh. Nor would she want one, on those terms, she thought proudly. Relaxing gradually to the caress of the cool sheets, she carefully rehearsed all that had been said between them, weighing every word, so vividly remembered. If she had not known, thanks to Marianne, that his affections were already engaged, she might almost have imagined—But that, of course, was because she would have liked to imagine it. She dwelt blissfully for a little while on the thought that at least he preferred her society to Tina’s, wondered uneasily how she could maintain an attitude of cool detachment in the intimacy of a drive a deux in a curricle, and finally drifted into uneasy dream-haunted slumber.

TWELVE

“I
daresn’t, miss.
I’m right-down sorry but I just daresn’t. I’m not clever nor quick like gentry folk, even if me mam did say me dad was a gen’leman born. I’d make a mull of it as sure as eggs is eggs. And if I was caught it’d be the jail at least if it wasn’t transportation.”

“But I was relying on you, Toby. You said you would do
anything
for me. Not once, but several times you swore it. And this is such a small thing. I can’t do it for myself because I don’t understand about carriages, but
you
could do it so easily. Please!” Tina’s eyes were great beseeching pools; her mouth drooped pathetically.

The lad’s face crimsoned, an ugly, dull flush which sorted ill with his sandy hair and pale blue eyes. But the eyes returned Tina’s gaze squarely, though he licked his lips nervously. “Yes, miss. I know I did. But I meant anything in the line o’ duty, and me not wanting to be paid for it. Meddling with a gentleman’s carriage is different. Even if I could do it—which I don’t say as I couldn’t, ’cos there’s ’alf a dozen different ways o’ making a vehickle break down haccidental-like and no one to know no better—Who’s to say what would come of it? A break-down’s one thing, but it all depends where it ’appens. Say you’re goin’ at full gallop and a wheel comes orf. That’s nasty, that is. Might be someone killed. You’d not want aught like that to ’appen, all along of a bit o’ mischief, would you now, miss?”

Tina hesitated. What Toby said was common sense. And certainly she had no wish to suffer injury in a carriage accident. But she had made up her mind to a certain course of action and she would not permit wiser counsels to prevail. Lord Skirlaugh apparently admired a girl who kept her head and behaved coolly in emergency. Very well. He should see that Miss Newton could play the part to admiration—even if she had to contrive an accident to prove it to him.

“There’ll be no risk of anything more than an awkward spill,” she told the boy serenely. “I shall see to it that the carriage is travelling at a very moderate pace. If
you
can contrive that a wheel shall come off, I will do the rest. We are to lunch at the inn at Hampton Wick, so you will have no difficulty in approaching the carriages, and you know Lord Skirlaugh’s curricle well enough to avoid any risk of tampering with the wrong one. If anyone should question your presence there, you may say that you have an urgent message for me. I will even furnish you with a letter to be delivered to me. I really don’t see what can go wrong.”

Toby could; a great many things. Yet Miss Tina was depending on him. She had said so. He remembered all the dreams he had woven about serving her. How he had rescued her from blazing buildings, sinking ships (despite the fact that he could not swim) and villainous abductors; and now he was reluctant to perform the simple service that she asked of him. But she didn’t understand what it meant, bless her innocent heart. To her it was just a bit of naughty mischief—a set-down for Lord Skirlaugh because, she said, he was so conceited about his driving. If it had been a phaeton, now, he wouldn’t have minded so much. Mebbe, in that case, there’d be little harm done, unless his lordship was springing ’em, which wasn’t his usual way. Besides, Miss Tina had said she would ask him to drive slowly. But a curricle! A two-wheeler—and could be on a busy road with other vehicles involved and Miss Tina in the midst of it. No! He would rather endure her scorn and disappointment than put her at such risk, even though he burned to show her how cunningly he could have done the job.

He had no idea how easily the astute maiden watching him with those big appealing eyes could read the conflicting feelings mirrored in his irresolute face. Well she knew that scolding would not serve. At his sullen rejection of the whole affair she permitted herself just one reproachful glance before she lowered those devastating lashes. “Oh, Toby! And I had thought you truly my friend,” she said sorrowfully, and turned dejectedly away.

“No, miss! Wait!” exclaimed poor Toby, tried beyond his seventeen-year-old strength. And then, as she glanced back over her shoulder, jerked out, “All right, then. I’ll do it, if so be as I can,” and, still hoping to dissuade her, “Only what’ll I say to the master? For ’e’s an ill man to cozen and ’e’ll want to know why I’m takin’ the day orf.”

Tina was not in the least interested in this aspect of the affair, but she was well aware that her ally was still wavering. “Could you not say that you felt unwell?” she asked plaintively. “Or perhaps that your mother was ill and that you must go and see her?”

Toby did not think the owner of the livery stable would be impressed by either of these improbable fictions. “More likely to turn me off without a character,” he said glumly.

“If he does, I shall persuade Papa to engage you as my own particular groom down in Dorset,” Tina assured him.

The lad stared at her incredulously. “D’yer really mean it miss?” he breathed, his eyes beginning to glow with excitement.

“Indeed I do. I can’t think why I haven’t done so already, for no one understands my wishes as you do. But you must do
your
part first you know, and so contrive that his lordship’s pride and his superior person take a tumble in the dust. How will you manage it?”

Poor Toby! He was just sufficiently green, just sufficiently infatuated, to believe her pretty promises. His scruples were swept away in the medley of joyous plans for a rosy future in which he would always be near Miss Tina, always her faithful servant and protector. He thrust out his meagre chest and smiled at her.

“Easy enough,” he said confidently. “I can fix the linch-pin so’s it’ll ’old for ’alf a dozen miles. ’E’ll not know nothing’s wrong till it goes and the wheel comes orf. But mind you do what
you
promised, miss, and make ’im take it slow. Else it ’ud be proper dangerous, see?”

Tina promised, and returned to the patiently waiting Sophie, the young French maid who had taken Hetty’s place. Sophie thought the ways of English demoiselles were very odd indeed. An assignation with a gentleman she could understand, but what could miss want with talking so long to a common stable boy? The pair continued their stroll in the Park, the picture of demure innocence.

She had managed that very neatly, thought Tina complacently. They would be leaving Town in a week’s time and quite out of Toby’s reach if he thought to pester her about her share of the bargain. She had a sudden picture of her father’s face should she ever venture to suggest that he employ an uncouth youngster whom he would unhesitatingly describe as the scum of London’s kennels. It was so comical that she almost laughed aloud. The only nuisance lay in the fact that she would be obliged to patronise another livery stable next season. But perhaps by then she would be a married lady. The courage and calmness that she planned to display could not fail to impress his lordship. He would realise that there was more to her than her beauty, her charming manners and a substantial portion. The thought of his admiration sent her home in a mood so sunny that, after the thunder clouds of the past three days, the whole household relaxed thankfully.

Alethea set out on her second visit to Hampton Court with very mixed feelings. On the one hand she looked forward with pleasure to renewing her acquaintance with Lady Emily and to spending her day in such delightful surroundings. On the other she dreaded the awkward scene that must ensue when Tina discovered that Damon intended to take
her
as his passenger for the return to Town. The cousins had scarcely exchanged more than a dozen words since the day of the military review. Even if they
had,
Alethea doubted if the circumstances would ever have been propitious for such a disclosure.

But by the time that the actual moment of confession was upon her, she could only be thankful that a disastrous afternoon was approaching its end. The day had begun pleasantly enough, save for the weather which was oppressively hot. Tina was in her gayest mood, driving off with Damon in the wake of James and Marianne. Alethea’s own escort was the young Hussar officer who had sprung to her defence when Tina had snubbed her so unkindly at her début party. He confided almost at once that he had a great ambition to become, as he phrased it, a ‘first-rate fiddler’. But as he then added that he believed the foundation of such success must lie in establishing a good understanding with his horses rather than in attempting feats of showy whip-work that were at present beyond his skill, she was able to enjoy her drive in comfort, to refrain from drawing his attention to a charming view just when he was negotiating a sharp bend, and to talk horses with unfeigned interest at such times as he could spare a little of his attention for the social niceties.

But the afternoon was fraught with discomfort from the moment that they were admitted to Lady Emily’s private apartments. It was difficult to say just why. Tina’s company manners did not usually put one to the blush. Perhaps on this occasion she was a little
too
anxious to please, a little too conciliating. She addressed Lady Emily with a deference so marked as to be slightly suspect and, in general, treated her as one who must be cherished and tended with such care as one bestows upon the near senile. It was an attitude that did not take at all with Lady Emily. Remembering the very different treatment that
she
had been accorded, Alethea could scarcely credit the malicious humour with which her ladyship proceeded to expose her cousin’s every weakness.

She voiced several ridiculous and even contradictory opinions and nodded pleased approval as Tina echoed them with sycophantic enthusiasm; led her, by artfully innocent questions to acknowledge a lack of principle quite shocking in any female with claims to gentility and displayed her to her embarrassed fellow guests in the worst possible light. She might, perhaps, have wearied soon enough of this one-sided pastime. One, moreover, which she would undoubtedly have condemned in any other hostess as being a shabby way to treat a guest. Unfortunately, before the novelty had had time to pall, she had turned to Alethea and suggested that she might care to show her young escort some of the glories of the State Apartments. “And I could not put you in the hands of a better cicerone,” she assured him graciously. “It is quite amazing how much history the child knows.”

It was at this point that Tina chose to echo and improve upon Lady Emily’s sentiments. “Deplorable, is it not, ma’am?” she said lightly, patronisingly. “My little cousin is never so happy as when she is poking about some musty old building or has her nose glued to letters and diaries writ by persons who would not have had the time for them if their own lives had not been so deadly dull. Mama is quite in despair over her. Says it is high time she left the schoolroom behind and directed her thoughts to more profitable matters.”

Lady Emily herself had advised Alethea to much the same tune, if rather more kindly. But she had liked the girl at that first meeting, even to the extent of mildly regretting that she had no fortune to recommend her as a possible bride for Damon. To have this spoiled, conceited chit decrying her was more than she could stomach.

Alethea and young Gilbert could do no other than fall in with their hostess’s suggestion, though Alethea had already seen enough of Lady Emily’s methods to render her deeply uneasy. Gilbert’s, “Phew! Regular old termagant, ain’t she?” did nothing to allay her fears; and the atmosphere upon their return, after a very cursory tour of the main points of interest, confirmed that the worst had happened. Lady Emily looked smug, Tina complacent. But Marianne’s hunted expression and James’s quizzical one betrayed all too plainly how the game had gone. Only Damon appeared to be unperturbed, though after one swift glance at Alethea’s face he took the opportunity afforded by their interruption of removing his aunt’s prey from her clutches.

“With your permission, ma’am, I would like to show Miss Newton something of the Palace. You are behaving very badly, you know, devoting your whole attention to her, when here is Marianne’s betrothed anxious to improve his acquaintance with you. Come, now! Yield her to me for a little while. As yet she has seen nothing of her surroundings.”

Their eyes met and clashed, slow amusement in Damon’s, guilty defiance in Lady Emily’s. But hers were the first to yield. “Very well, then,” she said crossly. “Be off with you, if you must. Though in my day a fifteen mile drive from Town would have given a young man opportunity enough for all that he needed to say. And don’t keep her out too long.”

Tina positively preened. To have Damon claiming her society and Lady Emily bestowing such distinguishing attention upon her was just what she had hoped for. She smiled bewitchingly at Damon as she set her hand upon his proffered arm, promised Lady Emily in dulcet tones that they would not be gone above half an hour, and allowed herself to be escorted from the room.

“Half an hour!” snorted Lady Emily disgustedly. “What does she hope to see in that time?”

Since no one ventured a reply, she added on a more reflective note, “At least the boy has too much sense to let himself be trapped by
that
piece of brass-faced perfection.” She turned to Marianne. “Has he made up his mind yet? Found a wench who fulfils all his exacting requirements?”

“So I believe, ma’am,” returned Marianne primly. But when the old lady plied her with eager questions she would say only that it was the merest speculation and that to be discussing her cousin’s private affairs so openly must be embarrassing to their friends. Recalled to a sense of decorum, Lady Emily rang for her maid, directed that cakes and wine should be brought for the refreshment of her visitors, and, as though purged of all malice by her recent spirited performance, addressed herself to James in the kindliest way. Since Damon had the good sense to keep a very willing Tina strolling about the ancient walks for a good deal longer than the prescribed half hour, the remainder of the visit passed off comparatively peacefully, until Lady Emily announced her intention of coming into the forecourt to watch her guests drive away.