‘No,’ he answered. ‘She is not, Louisa. I am not at all sure that she is not a heroine.’
‘Don’t she wish to marry you?’
The Earl’s eyes gleamed. ‘Well, I am rather old, you know, though no one would think it to look at me. But she assures me she would quite like to marry me. If my memory serves me, she prophesied that we should deal famously together.’
Lady Louisa, watching him, said abruptly: ‘Rule, is this a love-match?’
His brows rose; he looked faintly amused. ‘My dear Louisa! At my age?’
‘Then marry the Beauty,’ she said. ‘That one would understand better.’
‘You are mistaken, my dear. Horatia understands perfectly. She engages not to interfere with me.’
‘At seventeen! It’s folly, Marcus.’ She got up, drawing her scarf around her. ‘I’ll see her for myself.’
‘Do,’ he said cordially. ‘I think – but I may be prejudiced – you will find her adorable.’
‘If you find her so,’ she said, her eyes softening, ‘I shall love her – even though she has a squint!’
‘Not a squint,’ said his lordship. ‘A stammer.’
Four
The question Lady Louisa Quain longed to ask yet did not ask was: ‘What of Caroline Massey?’ Her brother’s relations with the fair Massey were perfectly well known to her, nor was she, in the general way, afraid of plain speaking. She told herself that nothing she could say would be likely to have any effect on his conduct, but admitted that she lacked the moral courage to broach the subject. She believed that she enjoyed a good deal of Rule’s confidence, but he had never discussed his amorous adventures with her, and would be capable of delivering an extremely unpleasant snub if she trespassed on forbidden ground.
Although she did not flatter herself that her influence had had very much to do with it, it was she who had urged him to marry. She said that if there was one thing she found herself unable to bear it was the prospect of seeing Crosby in Rule’s shoes. It was she who had indicated Miss Winwood as a suitable bride. She liked Elizabeth, and was quick to value not only her celestial good looks, but the sweetness of her disposition as well. Surely the possession of so charming a wife would wean Rule from his odious connection with the Massey. But now it did not seem as though Rule cared whom he married and that augured very ill for his bride’s future influence over him. A chit of seventeen too! It could not be more unpromising.
She waited on Lady Winwood and met Horatia. She left South Street later in quite another frame of mind. That black-browed child was no simpering miss from the schoolroom. Lord! thought her ladyship, what a dance she would lead him! It was better, far better than she had planned. Elizabeth’s docility would not have answered the purpose near so well as Horatia’s turbulence. Why, she told herself, he’ll have not a moment’s peace and no time at all for that odious Massey creature!
That Rule foresaw the unquiet future that so delighted his sister seemed improbable. He continued to visit in Hertford Street, and no hint of parting crossed his lips.
Lady Massey received him in her rose and silver boudoir two days after the announcement of his betrothal. She was dressed in a négligée of lace and satin, and reclined on a brocaded sopha. No servant announced him; he came into the room as one who had the right, and as he shut the door, remarked humorously: ‘Dear Caroline, you’ve a new porter. Did you tell him to shut the door in my face?’
She held her hand to him. ‘Did he do so, Marcus?’
‘No,’ said his lordship. ‘No. That ignominious fate has not yet been mine.’ He took her hand and raised it to his lips. Her fingers clasped his, and drew him down to her. ‘I thought we were being very formal,’ he said, smiling, and kissed her.
She retained her hold on his hand, but said half quizzically, half mournfully: ‘Perhaps we should be formal – now, my lord.’
‘So you did tell the porter to shut the door in my face?’ sighed his lordship.
‘I did not. But you are to be married, are you not, Marcus?’
‘Yes,’ admitted Rule. ‘Not just at this moment, you know.’
She smiled, but fleetingly. ‘You might have told me,’ she said.
He opened his snuff-box and dipped in his finger and thumb. ‘I might, of course,’ he said, possessing himself of her hand. ‘A new blend, my dear,’ he said, and dropped the pinch on to her white wrist, and sniffed.
She pulled her hand away. ‘Could you not have told me?’ she repeated.
He shut his snuff-box and glanced down at her, still good-humoured, but with something at the back of his eyes which gave her pause. A little anger shook her; she understood quite well: he would not discuss his marriage with her. She said, trying to make her voice light: ‘You will say it is not my business, I suppose.’
‘I am never rude, Caroline,’ objected his lordship mildly.
She felt herself foiled, but smiled. ‘No indeed. I’ve heard it said you’re the smoothest-spoken man in England.’ She studied her rings, moving her hand to catch the light. ‘But I didn’t know you thought of marriage.’ She flashed a look up at him. ‘You see,’ she said, mock-solemn, ‘I thought you loved me – only me!’
‘What in the world,’ inquired his lordship, ‘has that to do with my marriage? I am entirely at your feet, my dear. Quite the prettiest feet I ever remember to have seen.’
‘And you’ve seen many, I apprehend,’ she said with a certain dryness.
‘Dozens,’ said his lordship cheerfully.
She did not mean to say it, but the words slipped out before she could guard her tongue. ‘But for all that you are at my feet, Marcus, you have offered for another woman.’
The Earl had put up his glass to inspect a Dresden harlequin upon the mantelpiece. ‘If you bought that for a Kändler, my love, I am much afraid that you have been imposed upon,’ he remarked.
‘It was given me,’ she said impatiently.
‘How shocking!’ said his lordship. ‘I will send you a very pretty pair of dancing figures in its place.’
‘You are extremely obliging, Marcus, but we were speaking of your marriage,’ she said, nettled.
‘You were speaking of it,’ he corrected. ‘I was trying to – er – turn the subject.’
She got up from the sopha and took an impatient step towards him.
‘I suppose,’ she said breathlessly, ‘you did not think the fair Massey worthy of so signal an honour?’
‘To tell you the truth, my dear, my modesty forbade me to suppose that the fair Massey would – er – contemplate marriage with me.’
‘Perhaps I would not,’ she replied. ‘But I think that was not your reason.’
‘Marriage,’ said his lordship pensively, ‘is such a very dull affair, you know.’
‘Is it, my lord? Even marriage with the noble Earl of Rule?’
‘Even with me,’ agreed Rule. He looked down at her, a curious expression that was not quite a smile in his eyes. ‘You see, my dear, to use your own words, you would have to love me – only me.’
She was startled. Under her powder a faint flush crept into her cheeks. She turned away with a little laugh and began to arrange the roses in one of her bowls. ‘That would certainly be very dull,’ she said. She glanced sideways at him. ‘Are you perhaps jealous, my lord?’
‘Not in the least,’ said the Earl placidly.
‘But you think that were I your wife you might be?’
‘You are so charming, my dear, that I feel sure I should have to be,’ said his lordship bowing.
She was too clever a woman to press her point. She thought she had gone too far already, and however angry she might be at his marriage she had no wish to alienate him. At one time she had held high hopes of becoming the Countess of Rule, though she was perfectly aware that such an alliance would be deemed a shocking one by the Polite World. She knew now th
at Rule had baffled her. She had caught a glimpse of steel, and realised that there was something hidden under that easy-going exterior that was as incalculable as it was unexpected. She had imagined that she could twist him round her finger; for the first time she was shaken by doubt, and knew that she must tread warily if she did not wish to lose him.
This she certainly did not want to do. The late Sir Thomas had, in his disagreeable way, tied up his capital so fast that his widow found herself for ever in most unpleasant straits. Sir Thomas had had no sympathy with females who doted on pharaoh and deep basset. Happily the Earl of Rule was not afflicted by the same scruples, and he had not the smallest objection to assisting pecuniarily a distressed lady. He never asked uncomfortable questions on the vice of gambling, and his purse was a fat one.
He had startled her to-day. She had not thought that he dreamed of a rival; now it appeared that he knew very well, probably had known from the first. She would have to be careful; trust her to know how matters lay between him and Robert Lethbridge!
No one ever spoke of it, no one could tell how the story got about, but any number of people knew that once Robert Lethbridge had aspired to the hand of Lady Louisa Drelincourt. Louisa was now the wife of Sir Humphrey Quain, with no breath of scandal attaching to her name, but there had been a day, in her mad teens, when the town hummed with gossip about her. No one knew the whole story, but everyone knew that Lethbridge had been head over ears in love with her and had proposed for her hand, and been rejected, not by the lady herself but by her brother. That had surprised everybody, because although it was true that Lethbridge had a dreadful reputation (‘the wildest rake in town, my love!’), no one could have supposed that Rule of all people would put his foot down. Yet he had certainly done so. That was common knowledge. Just what had happened next no one exactly knew, though everyone had his or her version to propound. It had all been so carefully hushed up, but a whisper of Abduction started in Polite Circles. Some said it was no abduction but a willing flight north to Gretna, across the Border. It may have been so, but the runaways never reached Gretna Green. The Earl of Rule drove such fleet horses.
Some held that the two men had fought a duel somewhere on the Great North Road; others spread a tale that Rule carried not a sword but a horse-whip, but this was generally allowed to be improbable, for Lethbridge, however infamous his behaviour, was not a lackey. It was a pity that no one had the true version of the affair, for it was all delightfully scandalous. But none of the three actors in the drama ever spoke of it and if Lady Louisa was reported to have eloped with Lethbridge one night, she was known twenty-four hours later to be visiting relatives in the neighbourhood of Grantham. It was quite true that Robert Lethbridge disappeared from society for several weeks, but he reappeared in due course without wearing any of the symptoms of the baffled lover. The town was agog to see how he and Rule would comport themselves when they met, as they were bound to meet, but once again disappointment awaited the scandal-mongers.
Neither showed any sign of enmity. They exchanged several remarks on different subjects, and if it had not been for Mr Harry Crewe, who had actually seen Rule drive his racing curricle out of town at the extremely odd hour of ten in the evening, even the most inveterate gossip-mongers would have been inclined to have believed the whole tale a mere fabrication.
Lady Massey knew better than that. She was well acquainted with Lord Lethbridge and would have wagered her very fine diamonds that the sentiments he cherished towards the Earl of Rule were tinged with something more than a habitual maliciousness.
As for Rule, he betrayed nothing, but she was not inclined to run the risk of losing him by encouraging too openly the advances of Robert Lethbridge.
She finished the arrangement of her flowers and turned, a gleam of rueful humour in her fine eyes.
‘Marcus, my dear,’ she said helplessly, ‘something much more important! Five hundred guineas at loo, and that odious Celestine dunning me! What am I to do?’
‘Don’t let it worry you, my dear Caroline,’ said his lordship. ‘A trifling loan, and the matter is settled.’
She was moved to exclaim: ‘Ah, how good you are! I wish – I wish you were not to be married, Marcus. We have dealt extremely, you and I, and I have a notion that it will all be changed now.’
If she referred to their pecuniary relations she might have been thought to have reason for this speech. Lord Rule was likely to find himself with new demands on his purse in the very near future. Viscount Winwood was on his way home to England.
The Viscount, having received in Rome the intelligence of his youngest sister’s betrothal, was moved to comply with his parent’s desire for his immediate return, and set forward upon the journey with all possible speed. Merely halting a few days in Florence, where he happened to chance upon two friends, and spending a week in Paris upon business not unconnected with the gaming-tables, he made the best of his way home, and would have arrived in London not more than three days later than his fond mother expected him had he not met Sir Jasper Middleton at Breteuil. Sir Jasper, being on his way to the Capital, was putting up at the Hôtel St Nicholas for the night, and was in the midst of a solitary dinner when the Viscount walked in. Nothing could have been more providential, for Sir Jasper was heartily bored with his own company, and had been yearning this many a day to have his revenge on Pelham for a certain game of piquet played in London some months before.
The Viscount was delighted to oblige him; they sat up all night over the cards and in the morning the Viscount, absent-minded no doubt through lack of sleep, embarked in Sir Jasper’s post-chaise and was so borne back to Paris. The game of piquet being continued in the chaise, he noticed nothing amiss until they arrived at Clermont, and since by that time there were only some seven or eight posts to go before they reached Paris, it needed no great persuasion to induce him to continue the journey.
He arrived eventually in London to find the preparations for Horatia’s nuptials in full swing; and he expressed himself extremely well satisfied with the contract, cast a knowing eye over the Marriage Settlements, congratulated Horatia on her good fortune, and went off to pay his respects to the Earl of Rule.
They were naturally not strangers to each other, but since Pelham was some ten years the Earl’s junior they moved in different circles and their acquaintanceship was slight. This circumstance did not weigh with the lively Viscount in the least; he greeted Rule with all the casual bonhomie he used towards his cronies and proceeded, by way of making him feel one of the family, to borrow money from him.
‘For I don’t mind telling you, my dear fellow,’ he said frankly, ‘that if I’m to appear the thing at this wedding of yours I must give my tailor a trifle on account. Won’t do if I come in rags, you know. Girls won’t like it.’
The Viscount was not exactly a fop, but anything less ragged than his slim person would have been hard to find. It did not require the efforts of two stout men to coax him into his coats, and he had a way of arranging his cravat askew, but his clothes were made by the first tailor in town, and of the finest stuffs, embellished with any quantity of heavy gold lacing. At the moment he sat in one of Rule’s chairs with his legs stretched out in front of him, and his hands thrust into the pockets of a pair of fawn breeches. His velvet coat hung open to display a waistcoat embroidered in a design of exotic flowers and humming birds. A fine sapphire pin was stuck in the cascade of lace at his throat and his stockings, which represented a dead loss of twenty-five guineas to his hosier, were of silk with large clocks.
The Viscount nobly upheld the Winwood tradition of good looks. He had a reasonable height, and a slender build, and bore a resemblance to his sister Elizabeth. Both had golden locks, and deep blue eyes, straight and beautiful noses, and delicately curved lips. There the likeness ended. Elizabeth’s celestial calm was quite lacking in her brother. The Viscount’s mobile face was already rather lined, and his eye was a roving one. He looked to be ve
ry good-natured, which indeed he was, and appeared to survey the world with a youthful air of cynicism.
Rule received with equanimity the suggestion that he should pay for his prospective brother-in-law’s wedding clothes. He glanced down at his guest with some amusement, and said in his bored way: ‘Certainly, Pelham.’
The Viscount looked him over with approval. ‘I’d a notion we should deal famously,’ he remarked. ‘Not that I’m in the habit of borrowing from my friends, y’know, but I count you one of the family, Rule.’
‘And admit me to its privileges,’ said the Earl gravely. ‘Admit me still further and let me have a list of your debts.’
The Viscount was momentarily startled. ‘Hey? What, all of ’em?’ He shook his head. ‘Devilish handsome of you, Rule, but can’t be done.’
‘You alarm me,’ said Rule. ‘Are they beyond my resources?’
‘The trouble is,’ said the Viscount confidentially, ‘I don’t know what they are.’
‘My resources, or your debts?’
‘Lord, man, the debts! Can’t remember the half of ’em. No, it’s no use arguing. I’ve tried to add ’em up a score of times. You think you’ve done it and then some damned bill you forgot years ago crops up. Never come to the end of it. Wiser to leave it alone. Pay as you go, that’s my motto.’
‘Is it?’ said Rule, mildly surprised. ‘I shouldn’t have thought it.’
‘What I mean,’ explained the Viscount, ‘is, when a fellow puts the bailiffs on to you, so to speak, then it’s time to settle with him. But as for paying all my bills – damme, I never heard of such a thing! Wouldn’t do at all.’
‘Nevertheless,’ said Rule, moving over to his desk, ‘I believe you must oblige me in this. Your arrest for debt, perhaps even in the act of bestowing your sister’s hand on me in marriage, would quite unnerve me.’
The Viscount grinned. ‘Would it so? Well, they can’t clap up a peer yet, y’know. Just as you please, of course, but I warn you, I’m in pretty deep.’