‘Of course,’ Lizzie said eagerly, ‘Gyre is very rich indeed. There is always the possibility that you could get him to buy Mannerling for you as a wedding gift.’
And Belinda, who had been badly shaken by the tumult of feelings caused in her breast by Lord Gyre and was anxious to return to her old image of being strong and confident, said with a laugh, ‘Perhaps I might consider Gyre if my wiles fail to work on Saint Clair. It is always as well to have one in reserve, don’t you think?’
Lizzie gave a trill of laughter. ‘Now that is more like the dear sister I know.’
Gurney retreated, his face dark with anger.
‘Was that someone at the door?’ Belinda asked sharply. ‘And it is open a little way. I am sure Lord Gyre closed it behind him.’
Lizzie darted to the door, opened it wide and looked outside. ‘There is no one there at all,’ she said.
* * *
Lord Gyre was adjusting his cravat when Gurney strolled into his room. ‘Morning, Gurney,’ said the marquess. ‘You look like the devil.’
‘I have just overheard a most interesting conversation,’ said Gurney. He repeated almost what he had overheard but made it seem much worse by adding the embellishment that Belinda had said, ‘I can have Gyre any time I want.’
The marquess did not feel angry. He only felt a great weariness of spirit. Since he had come of age, he had been ruthlessly pursued. Débutantes had pretended to faint in his arms, matchmaking mamas and their eager daughters had even pursued him to his home in the country, and he had been naïve enough to think that Belinda was beginning to be attracted to him, that she had brains and character.
‘I am sorry to disillusion you,’ said Gurney, beginning to feel guilty that he had lied, if only a little. ‘There are ladies a-plenty who would love you for yourself alone.’
‘Take away my title and my fortune and I doubt if any of them would give me a second glance,’ said Lord Gyre. ‘Shall we go for a gallop? And then we will perhaps decide to leave. This place wearies me. There is, however, someone in the neighborhood I think
you should meet.’
‘And who is that?’
‘A Miss Trumble.’
‘And who is Miss Trumble?’
‘The Beverley girls’ governess.’
‘I do not think that is a good idea, nor do I wish to meet a governess who has no doubt instilled—or at best failed to curb—such unmaidenly ambitions in her charges.’
‘I think you will find she has done everything she could to quench them. Trust me. She is not in the common way.’
* * *
Gurney uneasily felt, when they arrived at Brookfield House, that his friend was still besotted with Belinda, else why would he wish to visit this old creature who had answered the door herself, dressed in an old gown and a baize apron.
‘I was working in the still-room, gentlemen,’ said Miss Trumble, ‘and you must forgive my dress. But come into the garden and the maid will bring us some refreshment. I have just made this morning a pitcher of lemonade.’
When they were seated in the garden under the cedar tree, Gurney noticed the governess had quickly changed into a very modish gown. ‘And how are things at Mannerling?’ asked Miss Trumble.
Startled, Gurney heard the marquess say
coldly, ‘I regret to inform you that your charges are plotting and planning as usual.’
‘You already knew they were plotting and planning,’ said Miss Trumble, her eyes moving from Gurney’s face to the marquess’s and back again. Gurney shifted uneasily in his chair.
‘I did not know quite how ruthless they could be,’ said the marquess. ‘My friend here heard a most unsettling conversation between Misses Belinda and Lizzie.’
‘Overheard conversations that are not meant for one’s ears can often be unsettling,’ said Miss Trumble.
‘I felt I had to warn my friend,’ said Gurney hotly. ‘It was my duty.’
‘Pray enlighten me,’ said Miss Trumble.
The marquess repeated what Gurney had overheard. Miss Trumble listened carefully until Belinda’s supposed last sentence that she could have Gyre any time she wanted.
‘Belinda is headstrong and wilful, I admit,’ said Miss Trumble, looking steadily at Gurney, ‘but she is not vain, despite her looks. Most of what you say you heard, Mr. Burke, has the ring of truth, but such as Belinda Beverley would never say that she could have the marquess here any time she wanted.’
Gurney flushed and his eyes darted about the garden. But, he thought quickly, if he admitted he had lied about that little bit, then Gyre would assume he had lied about the whole, and his friend had to be protected
against the machinations of the Beverleys. ‘I repeated only what I had heard,’ he said stiffly. ‘I am not in the way of being taken for a liar.’
Miss Trumble gave him a kindly look which made him feel worse. So his mother had once looked on him when he was a small boy and he had sworn he had not stolen the local farmer’s apples when his pockets had been bulging with them.
‘In any case, I am tired of this visit,’ said Lord Gyre, ‘and mean to depart to London on the morrow.’
‘I think it is time I returned there myself,’ said Miss Trumble. ‘How goes Lady Beverley?’
‘I have not seen very much of her,’ said the marquess. ‘She is poorly but refuses the attentions of the physician.’
‘I will wait here until the family decide to return to London and then I will depart. I have been neglecting my duties.’
The marquess looked at her curiously. ‘Surely your duties are over. The ladies are old enough to do without the services of a governess.’
‘Belinda is nineteen years and Lizzie, eighteen,’ said Miss Trumble. ‘But Lady Beverley is often ill and the girls need someone to guide them. Yes, I shall go back to London. I am only sorry you—or rather Mr. Burke here—overheard such a conversation. But as the Beverleys are not your concern, my lord, that should not trouble you overmuch.’
‘You have the right of it,’ he said bitterly. ‘Belinda Beverley is nothing to me.’
But she was, thought Miss Trumble sadly, until your friend here interfered.
* * *
Belinda dressed that evening with more than her usual care. Although she had wandered through the rooms of the great house and out around the grounds, she had seen no sign of Lord Gyre. She found she could not think of St. Clair. All she could think of was the marquess, of his dark handsome face, his long strong legs, his firm yet sensitive mouth. As Betty pinned the last artificial silk rose among Belinda’s glossy curls, Belinda’s heartbeats quickened. She would soon see him again.
As she made her way a few minutes later along the corridor and down the stairs to the drawing-room, her elation began to ebb. She began to feel a dark, brooding disappointment that seemed to emanate from the very walls.
As she reached the first landing, there was a brilliant flash of lightning which set the crystals of the chandelier flickering with blue light. Then there was a loud crash of thunder.
Belinda bit back a cry of fright and headed for the drawing-room. A footman sprang to open the double doors.
Her mother was there reclining wanly on a sofa. The Hartley twins were clutching each
other and looking out of the window at the breaking storm. The lamps and candles had not yet been lit. The marquess, who was standing with Mrs. Ingram by the fireplace, looked across at her. Another flash of lightning lit his stern face, and then he turned to Mrs. Ingram and began to say something.
Belinda knew in that moment that she had been dismissed, that he had taken her in disgust. The Hartley twins, Margaret and Polly, and Jane Chalmers had never liked Belinda or Lizzie much, seeing Belinda in particular as just so much unwanted competition. Lord St. Clair only seemed to want to be in the orbit of Mrs. Ingram, and Gurney Burke was sending Belinda little glances of distaste, and so Belinda felt grubby and diminished. Only Mirabel talked to her pleasantly, his worried eyes going from her downcast face to St. Clair’s happy one, St. Clair happy because Mrs. Ingram was paying more attention to him than she was to Lord Gyre.
Perry Vane looked out at the storm. The trees below the window were thrashing back and forth and throwing their branches up to the tumbling black sky. He had sent an express to the earl about his son’s ‘liaison’ with Mrs. Ingram. He happily expected that St. Clair would get a furious letter by return express post in the morning, summoning him back to London.
It was a pity that Gyre seemed to have lost
interest in Belinda Beverley. What Perry had seen as a budding romance between the two had seemed to him added insurance that St. Clair would not be wed to Belinda.
For Belinda, the whole evening seemed to take an eternity, and when Lord Gyre announced that he and his friend Gurney would be taking their leave early in the morning, she felt her misery to be complete. She made a few half-hearted attempts to flirt with Lord St. Clair, but it was all too evident to her that he, too, was no longer interested in her. She began to long for Miss Trumble, the way a hurt child longs for its mother. Finally, she could bear it no longer and, pleading a headache, she curtsied to the company. Only Lord Gyre saw the sign of tears in her large eyes and felt a momentary weakening. Then he hardened his heart. Belinda Beverley was crying with thwarted ambition, that was all.
When Belinda at last climbed sadly into bed, she heard Lizzie’s light step come along the corridor and pause outside the door. Belinda shut her eyes tightly, prepared to feign sleep, not able to bear the thought of Lizzie’s probable recriminations.
But Lizzie went on her way to her own room. Belinda gave a shaky sob. Lizzie had no doubt decided that her sister was such a failure that there was no use talking to her any more.
* * *
Belinda awoke early but forced herself back to sleep, reluctant to face the new day. When she awoke again it was to hear that the house was in an unusual bustle. She climbed down from the high bed and looked down at the front of the house. Carriages were drawn up at the front door and luggage was being loaded into the rumble of each.
She rang the bell for her maid. ‘Is everyone leaving, Betty?’ she demanded.
‘Oh, yes, miss. My lord do be in such a taking.’
‘Saint Clair?’
‘Yes, miss. He received a letter by the post-boy and he started shouting that he must leave, that we all must leave.’
‘How odd. Where is Lizzie?’
At that moment, the door opened and Lizzie came in. ‘What a coil!’ she exclaimed. ‘Lord Saint Clair’s father is in a taking. Lord Saint Clair punched Mr. Vane on the nose and called him a tattle-tale, and Mr. Vane blacked Saint Clair’s eye, and Mr. Burke and Lord Gyre separated them. It seems that Mr. Vane wrote to the earl, Saint Clair’s father, to say that Saint Clair was becoming enamoured of Mrs. Ingram.’
‘Mrs. Ingram!’
‘Yes, Mrs. Ingram,’ said Lizzie with a flash of contempt. ‘While you were dallying with Lord Gyre, Mrs. Ingram was trying to secure the prize. It is as well for you, Belinda, that she is a
Fallen Woman and not marriageable.’
Lady Beverley came in, her face a mask of petulance. ‘It is too bad,’ she mourned. ‘I explained to Saint Clair that I could not be rushed about in this hurly-burly fashion and I could run Mannerling for him in his absence, and he rudely told me that my own home was hard by and suggested I go to it.’
‘And that is a very good idea, too,’ said Belinda, who longed again to speak to Miss Trumble.
‘And let Saint Clair slip through your fingers, Belinda? Fustian. I will summon up all the weak strength the Good Lord has left me to do what is right for my daughter. Get servants to attend to our packing, Betty, and quickly, too. With any luck we may be able to share the same post-house as Saint Clair on the road to London, and Belinda may there try to attract him.’
The door was standing open and Belinda, looking over her mother’s shoulder, saw Lord Gyre going past. She hoped he had not heard her mother’s last remark but was gloomily sure that he had.
* * *
Miss Trumble learned of the departure of the house party because Lord Gyre, despite Gurney Burke’s protests, felt somehow obliged to stop at Brookfield House and tell her.
‘Has anything gone wrong?’ she asked.
Now Gurney regarded this governess as a servant and expected his friend to give some bland reason, but to his surprise Lord Gyre told Miss Trumble exactly why St. Clair had been summoned to London.
‘Mrs. Ingram,’ said Miss Trumble thoughtfully. ‘Why, that might answer very well.’
‘What can you mean?’ demanded Gurney haughtily.
‘Only that she is a rich and mature lady of good sense and Lord Saint Clair’s mother died when he was young and I think he needs a lady to look after him.’
‘I cannot think that Earl Durbridge would countenance such an alliance,’ said Gurney. ‘He wants his son to marry, not take a mistress.’
‘I was thinking of marriage,’ said Miss Trumble equably.
‘As we are being so open,’ said Gurney, ‘may I point out that Belinda Beverley’s ambition is to marry Saint Clair herself?’
‘Oh, Belinda will come to her senses soon enough,’ said the governess, ‘if she has not already done so.’
‘Miss Belinda has come to her senses enough to realize that if she marries Gyre, then she believes she can get him to buy her Mannerling.’
‘I am sure you are mistaken. Are you sure you overheard her conversation with Lizzie
correctly, Mr. Burke? Listening at doors is not always a reliable way of gaining information.’
Gurney turned red. ‘I do not listen at doors,’ he said wrathfully. ‘This was an odd case. I decided my friend needed protection.’
Miss Trumble’s eyes glinted as she surveyed the powerful figure of the marquess. ‘Yes, he does look in need of protection.’
Lord Gyre laughed. ‘There is something about that house, I must admit, that twists everything and everybody. So do you leave for London, Miss Trumble?’
‘Yes, I will go tomorrow. There are still things to do here.’
* * *
‘It’s your own fault,’ said Mirabel Dauncey crossly as St. Clair’s well-sprung travelling-carriage swayed along the London road. ‘What were you about, flirting with that Ingram woman? You handed Perry his revenge on a plate.’