When all the ladies except Miss Desmond looked blank at this, Jack seconded his uncle with the more lucid request that Lady Jane accommodate them with a song.
Lady Jane made a proper show of modest hesitation, then took her place at the pianoforte and trilled out a sharp staccato version of “Barbara Allen.” Perhaps she ought to have sung “Green-sleeves” instead, but Lady Jane had too much dignity to sing of being cast off discourteously. Nevertheless, her voice did grow a tad more shrill as Lord Berne crossed the room to stand near Miss Desmond and drop several sad, tender glances upon her.
He proved equally deaf to Miss Wemberton’s melodic offering, though her tones were sweeter and softer than Lady Jane’s. By the time Miss Desmond’s turn came, there were several pairs of hostile eyes fixed on her.
Colouring somewhat, she demurred.
“Come now, Miss Desmond,” said Lady Streetham with excessive condescension. “You needn’t be shy. There are no harsh critics in this informal group.”
Miss Desmond flushed more deeply then, though she dutifully moved to the pianoforte. With a brief glance about her she removed her gloves. Then she sat down and struck the first notes of an unfamiliar melody.
It was nothing like the old ballads typically heard at such small gatherings in the country. The song was Italian, and Jack noted with dismay that the lyrics were not precisely proper for polite company. He glanced about him nervously, but all he saw was wonder in most of the faces about him as Miss Desmond’s mezzo-soprano easily conveyed every throbbing nuance of the passionate song. Evidently few of her listeners were well-versed in Italian. He breathed a small sigh of relief as he turned his gaze to her.
When she’d seemed so reluctant to begin, Mr. Langdon’s heart had pounded in sympathy for her apparent stage fright. Now, as he listened to her rich, beckoning voice, his heart beat with pride ... and a longing that made him ache.
He glanced at Lord Berne and saw the same feelings openly displayed upon his friend’s handsome countenance. Of course Tony loved her. He couldn’t help it, any more than he could help showing it. Still, he might have been a tad more discreet. Miss Desmond would surely be the one to suffer for his lapse, as the expression on Lady Jane’s face clearly augured. Her eyes were narrowed to two black points like stilettoes aimed at her rival’s heart.
When the applause had died away—Lord Berne contributing a solo tattoo for a few seconds after the others had stopped—Lady Gathers smiled, showing all her teeth and most of the gums as well.
“Very pretty, Miss Desmond,” said she with excessive condescension—and loud enough to drown out the other compliments. “You are generous indeed to treat so small a group to a display of your considerable gifts—though one trusts you plan to share that gift with a wider audience in time. No doubt you have thought of going upon the stage, as your mama did. I never had the pleasure of seeing her perform, but I daresay you have inherited her talents.”
Jack heard more than one gasp, but his eyes were on Miss Desmond’s father. The Devil said nothing, only gazed about him with a cynical smile before turning back to his daughter. Though she was rather pale as she rose from the piano seat, the face which met her father’s glance was inscrutable. She turned towards Lady Gathers and smiled.
“You are too kind, My Lady,” she said.
“Not at all,” said Lady Jane, taking up the gauntlet. “Mama is quite right. Talent such as yours ought not be hoarded for small private gatherings, when it might delight the public.”
“Ah, you believe one’s skill should be used to the common good.”
“Indeed it must. That is virtually an obligation.”
“Then I wonder, Lady Jane, why you have not offered the public the benefit of your exquisite taste and elegance by becoming a couturiere,” said Miss Desmond sweetly.
Before Lady Jane had time to counterattack, Jack leapt into the fray.
“Really, it is most gratifying to hear the ladies speak so knowledgeably of Benthamite philosophy,” he said hurriedly. “In order to be good, according to them, the object examined must be useful. The object, of course, refers to the matter under discussion, whether it be an abstract quality or a physical fact.”
Apparently oblivious to the bafflement of most of his audience, Jack soared into the empyrean realms of the most abstruse philosophy, citing Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine and others with no regard whatsoever to relevance or coherence, and with a great deal of Greek and Latin thrown in for good measure. He continued in this vein for at least a quarter hour, at the end of which time most of the company had withdrawn from the battlefield to less mystifying conversations. At last, when even his uncle had apparently dozed off, and Tony had retreated to the window—where he stood looking bored and cross—only Miss Desmond of Jack’s listeners remained.
As he paused to look about him and draw his breath, Jack found Miss Desmond’s eyes upon his. She smiled, and in that smile was so much gratitude that he could not resist drawing closer to bask in its warmth. He drew near enough to join her at the pianoforte, where she still stood.
“You are a ‘verray, parfit, gentile knight,’” she said softly. “Thank you for coming to my rescue. I’m afraid I nearly provoked a scene.”
“It was she provoked it,” said Jack heatedly. “The effrontery of the woman, to speak to you as though you were a damned organ grinder’s monkey. And her ill-bred daughter to take it up—pure, malicious ignorance. But that is what you get, Miss Desmond, for casting your pearls before swine. You sang like an angel, and made me wish I could banish this common herd from the paradise you created.”
He had not meant to say so much, and for an instant wished he could recall the words. But only for an instant, until his gaze was drawn once more to hers and he discovered a soft light shining in her grey-green eyes.
“How beautifully you smooth my ruffled feathers,” she said. “As beautifully as you routed my enemies. You have depths, sir, I had not imagined.”
As a man accustomed to consider himself the most uninteresting, prosy fellow who ever existed, Mr. Langdon could not help but be agreeably surprised. Her words set chords vibrating within him, and this inner music crept to his tongue. “I wish,” he began—then a shadow fell upon him. He looked around to meet his erstwile friend’s frown.
“Really, Jack, I do think you’ve edified the company sufficiently for one evening,” said Lord Berne. “Have some consideration for our fair songbird. You give her not a moment to catch her breath.” He bent a killing glance upon Miss Desmond.
She appeared not to notice, but another young lady must have because the latter was, as Jack noted, making her way towards them with all deliberate speed.
“I am hardier than you think, My Lord,” said the songbird. “One tune is not so great an exertion as to require extended convalescence.”
“But perhaps you want a change of scenery,” he hinted.
“Now that is what I should like,” said Lady Jane as she nipped out a position for herself between Lord Berne and Miss Desmond. “We spend every summer in the country, though I beg Papa to take us to Brighton instead. Everyone is there now, it seems. Is that not so, Tony? Aunt Lilith wrote that you were upon the Steyne every day. I wonder you did not remain longer. I daresay Brighton was as lively as London in the Season.”
Lord Berne looked abashed, and to Jack’s surprise, allowed his chattering companion to lead him away.
As Jack turned back to Miss Desmond, he experienced a disagreeably familiar sensation of something throbbing in the air about him, like the first ominous rumblings of a volcano.
“I wonder,” she said in suppressed tones, “what invalid makes his sickbed upon the Steyne.”
Mr. Langdon looked baffled.
“He wrote me, you know,” she explained, her eyes very bright. “He was called away to some bosom-bow’s bed of pain. In Rye. Really, what a full evening this has been. Most enlightening. I have learned precisely in what estimation I am held by the lords and ladies. She sings and remains a
lady. I sing and immediately descend to the ranks of ballet dancers—only a bit higher on the social scale than the village idiot he appears to take me for.”
Her low tones were crisp enough, but the glitter of her eyes and the slight trembling of her lower lip betrayed her. With a sinking feeling Jack perceived it was this last—Tony’s falsehood—which had made the deepest cut.
“Miss Desmond, the ladies had to strike at the only place where they thought they could wound you, because you wounded their pride,” Jack said quietly. “You know how matters stand with Lady Jane. Surely you’re aware of her—and his—parents’ plans.”
“Indeed, I am sorry their plans do not proceed apace,” Miss Desmond answered, lifting her chin. “Yet that is certainly not my doing. It’s all his, but he lets them make a scapegoat of me—after he’s made a fool of me.”
Mr. Langdon underwent a short, fierce struggle with his conscience. Though he didn’t want to defend Tony, the impassioned speech of this afternoon had left its mark.
“I know that can’t be, Miss Desmond,” he said finally, unhappily. “He should not have lied about where and why he’d gone. I suppose it was improper of him to write at all—yet I’m sure he did so because he feared you’d despise him otherwise. His father sent him away, you know,” Jack added, growing uneasy under her searching scrutiny, “and his father controls the purse strings. It was only Tony’s pride prevented his confiding this to you. That he’s returned, in defiance of his parents’ express command, speaks volumes, I think, of his regard for you.”
Unable to meet her gaze with equanimity, Jack had dropped his own. It fell upon one white hand whose fingers nervously traced a corner of the pianoforte. Though her hands were graceful, they were not small and delicate. They were strong and expressive, with long, slim fingers that could play a deadly tune upon a pistol as easily as they could a passionate one upon the pianoforte. He thought sadly, that she might play any tune upon him she liked. He longed, even as he defended his friend, to feel those fingers in his hair.
He could not know that Miss Desmond, at this precise moment, had any thoughts of obliging him. She had struggled with her rage and hurt while he spoke. She had struggled, too, with embarrassment at what those feelings had caused her tongue to reveal. She should not for worlds have anyone know just how deeply she had been hurt, repeatedly, this evening. She too had her pride.
But pride, hurt, and rage had gotten all mixed up somehow with another sort of agitation she could not or would not define. She saw her companion’s clear, compassionate grey eyes cloud over with some inner sorrow, and she wanted to comfort him as he’d tried to comfort her. She wanted, at least, to push back the errant lock of hair that had fallen onto his forehead, as though by smoothing out his hair she might somehow smooth away his trouble as well.
Lord, what was she thinking of? She was not the maternal type. Delilah glanced towards the window where Lord Berne stood, entirely self-assured, his arrogant self again as he talked with Lady Jane. He certainly wanted no mothering, any more than Papa did. She looked away from Lord Berne and sighed.
While Lord Rossing’s guests were either enjoying or making themselves miserable according to individual inclination, Lady Potterby’s servants were engaged in the usual modest dissipations attendant upon their mistress’s being out for the evening. The human denizens of the stables had settled down in their quarters to cards and drink, while the household staff had retired either to the housekeeper’s room or the servants’ hall, according to rank, to partake of punch and gossip about their betters. In their innocent enjoyment of an evening’s freedom, not one loyal retainer suspected that a serpent lurked in their beloved mistress’s garden.
If there was nothing sleek and sinuous about him, if his form was more porcine than reptilian, and if he was insufficiently cold-blooded for his task and trembled with terror every step of the way, Mr. Atkins could lurk as well as the next man, and lurk he did. He crept into the garden as the sky began to darken and slunk uneasily, starting at every imagined sound, to the bed where the illfated seedlings had been planted.
He would have felt a bit less terrified—but only a bit—if this had been an utterly black, moonless night. In such a case, however, his task would have been more difficult than it was already. He dared not carry a light and, not being as familiar with the site as he could wish, must find the spot before the descending sun made its departure from the heavens altogether.
What with starting and hesitating and imagining footsteps where there were none and turning back half a dozen times for every dozen he went forward, he discovered the one barren square of soil just as darkness truly fell. Still, having come so far, he could not—would not, for fear and greed drove him on—go back and wait for a better opportunity. He drew out his few hand tools (he had not dared bring anything so loudly incriminating as a shovel) from the pockets of his overcoat and began to dig.
He dug a hole, not so deep as a well nor so wide as a church door but, as Mercutio had once observed, it would serve. The excavations Mr. Atkins effected might have served, in fact, to bury a host of volumes and one or two owners besides. These efforts, to his unspeakable despair, did not serve sufficiently to produce what he sought.
Hours after he’d begun, as a few bold stars twinkled defiantly through the heavy overcast of late-night sky, Mr. Atkins sank down on his knees, defeated and near tears with frustration. It must be here. There was no other explanation. Yet there must be some other, because it was not.
He sat and mourned and raged by turns and rubbed his dirty, blistered hands against his forehead and got dirt into his eyes, which made them water, and up his nose, which made him sneeze. A slug began oozing over his fingers towards his shirt cuff. Shuddering, the publisher struck at it with the trowel, but only succeeded in gashing his wrist. While the slug crawled away unharmed, Mr. Atkins, eyes smarting, nose running, muscles aching, and wrist throbbing in excruciating counterpart to his head, collected his tools, rose, and trudged out of the garden.
Chapter Eleven
Though he’d experienced some confusion the night before, an untroubled night’s sleep was sufficient to revive Lord Berne’s customary aplomb. He appeared at Elmhurst the morning after the dinner party, fully prepared to recover whatever credit he had lost. When the butler informed him that Miss Desmond was not in, Lord Berne was not too shy to ask where she had gone.
Bantwell certainly had no business telling him. Unfortunately, the butler was suffering the aftereffects of dissipation and, due to what seemed like a hundred nails driving themselves into his skull, was not thinking clearly.
Thus Lord Berne learned Miss Desmond had gone riding. He had only to bribe a groom to obtain a mount. Finding the young lady was not difficult, either. Forbidden any pace speedier than a trot and not allowed beyond the park boundaries, she could not go very far.
He found her decorously following the bridle path which circuited the park, her groom trotting at a discreet distance behind her. Peters, the groom, looked even more ill than the butler had. He was, in fact, rather green about the gills.
Lord Berne smiled. The gods were with him this morning. He erased the smile as soon as he was alongside his beloved, whose expression was not at all welcoming. Without further ado, Lord Berne threw himself at her mercy. He was despicable, he declared. He wished he might be flogged—no, a rack would be better—for the falsehood he had, in a moment of utter despair, committed to paper.
He was informed in flinty tones that his wishes could be of no possible interest to her.
Miss Desmond’s icy hauteur immediately aroused Lord Berne as no coquetry could have done. Perhaps this was because, as Jack had supposed, such treatment was a novelty. Lord Berne had encountered feigned indifference before, but this Arctic fury was another species altogether, and held all the exotic thrill of travel in uncharted lands.
“It’s as I feared, as I knew it would be, then,” he said. “You will not forgive me, and it were futile to explain, to exonerate myself.
”
“I wish, sir, you would divest yourself of the delusion that anything you do or say could be of any possible concern to myself.”
“Is it a delusion, Miss Desmond? Would you be so angry—would you hate me so if what I had done were a matter of indifference to you?”
Her eyes flashed, telling him he had scored his point.
“Spoken with all the conceited arrogance of a true coxcomb,” she retorted hotly. “But what do you care how you insult me? I only wonder you take the trouble with one so utterly beneath your notice.”
No woman in his whole life had ever spoken to him so, and no one could look so ravishingly enraged while she did. Lord Berne grew giddy with desire.
“Despise me, then,” he said. “Loathe me. Tell me I disgust you. At least there’s feeling in that. At least I inspire you with some sort of passion.” He saw her raise her riding crop. “Will you strike me? Do it,” he urged. “I cannot tell you the relief it would bring me.”
“How dare you!” she gasped, goaded nearly to tears. “But of course you dare. You think you can say any filth to me you like. And like a fool I remain passively enduring it. Well, I’ve amused you long enough.” She spurred her horse and dashed ahead.
Being by no means taken unawares, Lord Berne set off in pursuit, as did the less prepared groom. Unfortunately, Peter’s physiology was in no state amenable to a gallop. In less than a minute he was forced to halt, so that he could dismount and vomit into the bushes. By the time he could look up again, Miss Desmond and her pursuer were out of sight.
“Atkins, I admire persistence. A man gets nowhere in this wicked world without it. But I must tell you frankly, sir, that your case now passes the bounds of British tenacity and hovers on the brink of obsession. I told you I haven’t got it. You may offer a million pounds, and the Crown of England in the bargain, and I still won’t have it. The manuscript is no longer in my possession.”
Mr. Desmond’s smile was regretful, even pitying, yet something in his eyes caused Mr. Atkins to step back a pace.