A Dark and Distant Shore (13 page)

Vilia twinkled at him. ‘I have it on the best authority, I assure you! But I think the truth probably is that Captain Lauriston is very conscientious, and what they call “a good fighting officer”. Brrrr!’ She shuddered expressively. ‘And he had been in the Peninsula without a break since 1809, so even Lord Wellington might have thought he deserved a few weeks’ leave. He is in London now because he was told to come here when his leave was up and await further orders, which haven’t yet materialized. So all he has to do is report daily at the Horse Guards and spend the rest of his time going to parties. He doesn’t lack invitations, as you may have noticed.’ Lucy glanced suspiciously at her, but her expression was quite artless. ‘Hostesses are always happy to have dashing young officers on their guest lists.’

‘Surely he must be recalled soon?’ Lucy asked hopefully.

‘No doubt. But not before the ball!’ This time there was no question in Lucy’s mind but that Vilia was being provocative. She shook her head reproachfully.

The ball she was giving for Vilia was imminent, and she was determined that it should be a triumphant success. For a week beforehand the house was in turmoil, and the day itself saw as much coming and going as if three thousand guests, rather than three hundred, were expected. Tradesmen and errand boys and delivery men thronged St James’s Square and the mews behind
.
Magnus had said, in a magisterial way, that all such persons should enter through the mews, but this soon proved not only impractical but very upsetting to the horses. By the time fifty or sixty gilded chairs had been manhandled through the stables, the head groom was at his wits’ end and the housekeeper almost in tears over the straw and manure that were being tracked into the house, sheeted floors notwithstanding.

By midday, a good deal of intemperate language was also coming from the Square, as lads bearing unwieldy trays from Gunter’s and baskets of fruit from Covent Garden cannoned into the men who were erecting the awning over the flagway, or trod mud on the clean red carpet that was being unrolled down the front steps. The crossing sweeper was beginning to feel as if he hadn’t sat down for a week. Indoors, the staff and extra help were here, there, and everywhere, laden with great boxes of candles for the dining-room and ballroom, or tottering piles of table linen, or potted plants, or curtains for draping over the front of the musicians’ platform. There was an occasional nightmare crash as a tray of wine glasses met its doom, and at one point there drifted upstairs the unmistakable sound of a kitchen-maid having hysterics.

Lucy spent most of the day laid on her bed, while Magnus did what the harassed butler had been hinting he should do for a week, and took himself down to the cellar to select the champagne. Vilia was left to deal with all the problems that arose above stairs, and did so as capably as if she had been supervising such affairs for years.

Luke and Henry, having been tripped over and bumped into by almost everyone, took themselves off to Mr Bullock’s Museum, just round the corner in Piccadilly. It was a restful place, full of stuffed elephants and zebras and boars, and visitors so overcome by the atmosphere of dust and scholarship that they, too, might have been products of the taxidermist’s art. Even the attendants looked as if they hadn’t moved for years.

Long before the last of the guests had arrived, it was clear that the ball was going to be a great success. It was an impeccably
ton
-ish company that trooped upstairs. Debutantes in pale satins and muslins, with gold or silver nets on their hair and a few ringlets clinging to one cheek. Their elders in stomacher bodices and trains and diamonds, with Moorish turbans or small, plumed satin hats. Most of the men were in tail-coats and black satin knee breeches, but there was a sprinkling of military and naval dress uniforms.

Lucy’s smile became a trifle fixed when she found Captain Lauriston bowing to her in the receiving line at the head of the stairs. His uniform gave him an unfair advantage – doubly unfair when he had a figure that would have been striking even in civilian clothes. His face was no more than conventionally handsome, and customarily wore a rather stern expression, but his considerable height and muscular build gave him an air of splendour with which few other young men could compete. Magnus, beside her, was also studying the captain. No need for his tailor to pad out the shoulders of
his
coats, or cut his waistcoats to conceal an incipient bow window. Then a new group of guests came smiling up the stairs, and Captain Lauriston was released to go in search of Vilia.

Another man, freed from the Telfers’ dismaying scrutiny, might have allowed his relief to show, but not Andrew Lauriston. At the age of ten, overgrown and awkward, he had been sent to a school for young gentlemen that was prepared to admit the son of a minor Scots ironmaster only because its finances were so unstable that even an ironmaster’s money was better than none. Andrew hadn’t expected to enjoy the experience, because he had known he would be jeered at for his inferior birth, but what he hadn’t foreseen was that his fellow pupils would find the contrast between his eager, anxious nature and his Herculean size hilariously incongruous. It had taken him a good deal of time, and a good deal of heartache, to develop a manner to match his physique, but by the time he left school for the army no one would ever have known that his impassivity hadn’t been part of him from birth. And by the sheerest fluke, it had been reinforced when he found himself appointed temporary aide-de-camp to Lord Wellington. His lordship’s regular staff included such men as Sir Alexander Gordon and Lord Fitzroy Somerset, who were kin to some of the greatest peers in the land and showed it in an easy self-assurance with which Andrew couldn’t compete. All he could do was cultivate his habit of reticence. It proved an acceptable substitute.

Otherwise, he had learned never to put a foot wrong. Even the highest social stickler could find nothing in him to complain of – except, perhaps, a certain lack of sparkle – and no one doubted either his breeding or his dependability. The only trouble was that, deep inside, he was as eager and anxious as he had ever been. It was his misfortune – almost his tragedy – that he had reached a stage, not where he
wouldn’t
show it, but where he couldn’t.

Not even to Vilia Cameron, who had haunted his dreams, day and night, for weeks, and who belonged to the world that wasn’t, despite all appearances, his. But for once in his life, he didn’t care. He was obsessed to a point where he would allow no consideration to stand in his way.

He moved across the upper hall towards the series of large and elegant chambers that served the house as a ballroom. Everywhere was splendidly decorated in white and gold, and lit by huge crystal chandeliers whose lustres had taken the second footman, the pantry boy, and Sorley McClure two days to wash and polish. On pedestals between the long windows that looked out over the square were great urns of early summer flowers, crimson and pink, and the orchestra was banked into a green and leafy bower. The whole effect was charming.

The captain found Vilia at once, surrounded by a throng of gallants who had besieged her as soon as she came off the floor.

‘...quite radiant!’ one of them was saying.

‘Thank you.’

‘And how fortunate,’ interposed another comically, ‘to be able to match your gown to the decorations!’

Vilia, watching a girl in an unhappy shade of puce moved hurriedly out of range of the roses, gurgled delightfully and agreed. ‘One of the undoubted advantages of living here.’

Radiant was the word, the captain thought besottedly. Most debutantes wore insipid whites, or jonquils, or powder blue, but Vilia’s ball gown was of the finest, silkiest Indian muslin, woven of smoky green crossed with pale rose threads so that it changed colour as the light caught it. The style was the very latest, a tunic overdress falling to about a foot above the ground, revealing a straight, clinging slip below. The neckline was low and round, but Vilia hadn’t made the mistake of filling it with vulgarly glittering stones. Her only adornments were a delicate string of pearls and a single pink rose in the Grecian coil of her silver-blonde hair. Lucy had feared that this toilette was altogether too
à la mode
for a girl in her first Season, but it was so ravishing that she hadn’t had the heart to say no.

Andrew Lauriston bowed over Vilia’s hand and wished her good evening. But before he could say more, she told him demurely, ‘My friends are all so determined to do their duty this evening that every dance is bespoken, Captain Lauriston!’

She had been going to tease him a little, but relented almost at once. He was not the kind of person who understood teasing. ‘However, I have saved the third waltz for you. If, that is, you
wish
to dance with me?’

Her smile melted his bones. He stammered, ‘Oh, Miss Cameron, as if I... And perhaps you will permit me to take you down to supper?’

She hesitated. Lucy would disapprove. And then, ‘That would be delightful,’ she said.

The captain had come only to see Vilia, and for almost an hour stood just inside the door, oblivious to the dagger glances cast him by chaperones of the partnerless young ladies sitting on their gilt chairs, chattering vivaciously with one another. Expressionlessly, he watched Vilia go down a country dance with that unreliable puppy Merricks. Then she stood up with Julian Lewis, spineless young cub. Then with Thornton of the Life Guards, a smooth fellow with a vicious streak. Captain Lauriston disliked him intensely.

Lucy, entering the ballroom on her husband’s arm, observed the direction of the captain’s gaze and was not slow to interpret its meaning. What a provoking young man he was, standing there as if he were on sentry duty and ready to murder anyone who stumbled over the password!

‘Captain Lauriston,’ she said sweetly. ‘Do allow me to present you to Miss Delavalle. I am sure she would be pleased to stand up for the cotillion with you!’ Inexorably, she bore him across the room and introduced him to a blushing damsel who accepted his hand with real gratitude, subsequently a little dimmed by the discovery that her partner was paying more attention to Miss Cameron than to the intricacies of the figure.

The supper interval did nothing to console the captain. It would have been too much to hope that he would have been left alone with Vilia, but their table at once became the scene of a convivial party, so that he had to devote more time to ensuring supplies of lobster patties and champagne than to advancing his interest with her. By the time it was over he had come to a decision.

When he claimed Vilia’s hand for the promised waltz, he was as wrought up as he had ever been in battle. The situation didn’t seem to him very different. It was a question of win or lose, and nothing in between. All his experience of soldiering taught him that it was folly to wait for ideal conditions that might never come, and that action, once decided on, should follow before delay had time to drain the stiffness from one’s spine. After they had circled the floor only twice, therefore, he swung Vilia towards one of the long windows, open to the mild air, and out on to the rail-enclosed ledge that the house-builder had dignified with the name of balcony.

There was no real impropriety, as they were still in full view of the ballroom, but Vilia was annoyed. The captains attentions had been altogether too particular, and although she had nothing but contempt for jealous tongues, she saw no purpose in stimulating them unnecessarily. She looked up at him, her eyes wide and startled, but he forestalled her.

‘It’s wrong, I know,’ he said, ‘but it is torture to me never to have you alone. It is like living in a glasshouse, not just this evening, but every evening, every day. You are always surrounded by people.’ He paused, and gathered his courage together. ‘My time is running short. With Wellington on the move again, I will be recalled very soon. And there is something I must say to you.’

Her heart sank to the level of her pink slippers. She had known for days that something was coming, but she hadn’t expected it tonight and certainly not in full view of three hundred people. How
very
unhelpful of him, she thought. No taking her hand, or clasping her in his arms, or going down on one knee to her, as young Gethin John had done only a week ago. She had handled that situation with perfect sang-froid, because he was only a boy and she had felt sorry for him. But Andrew Lauriston was different, although he was only five or six years older. He was undoubtedly a man, and a determined one. She didn’t know how she felt about him, and thought that perhaps a kiss or an embrace might have told her. Perhaps! A quiver of fear or excitement, she didn’t know which, ran through her as she realized for the first time how very inexperienced she was.

He was standing as rigidly as if he were on parade, and to Vilia it seemed as if everyone in the ballroom must be watching them. A little helplessly she turned to face out on to the square, which forced the captain also to turn his back on the company.

Politely, she repeated, ‘Something you must say to me?’

He took a deep breath. ‘I am no hand at pretty speeches, I fear, and I can’t offer you a title, or great estates, or a fortune. I have only a modest competence. But you know my situation.’ He turned his eyes to hers, and her heart began pounding erratically in her breast.

‘I have little to offer you now, compared with your other suitors, although if you gave me your love I know I could achieve great things. But no one –
no one
– could offer you more devotion or deeper adoration than I.’ He stopped, as if to regain control over his voice. ‘Miss Cameron. Vilia! I love you so much. If you will not marry me, I...’ Leaving his words hanging in the air, he turned his face away from her again.

To her own surprise, she felt a sudden desire to stretch out her hand to him. Instead, she said softly, ‘I understand.’ It would have been maidenly to blush and ask for time to consider, but she felt that, somehow, that would be insulting. They weren’t adolescents playing adolescent games.

She had made up her mind that, whatever happened, she would find a husband before the summer, because only marriage could release her from the orbit of the Telfers – and Kinveil. She could more readily imagine marrying Andrew Lauriston than any other of her suitors. She didn’t think she was in love with him, but love matches were rare in the property-conscious world of the
haut ton,
and most girls married the husbands their parents chose for them. Vilia, at least, could choose for herself. And if she refused Andrew Lauriston, who else was there? Although she had smiled at Lucy’s animadversions on this Season’s crop of eligible males, Lucy had been right. Nothing but unformed, pleasant boys still tied to their parents’ or their trustees’ apron strings. That would mean a long period of engagement. It would mean living in a mother-in-law’s shadow, even – impossible thought! – in a mother-in-law’s house. Whereas if she married Andrew, whose mother was dead and whose father lived four hundred miles away, she would have her own life and her own home. She would have privacy, too, for it was in the nature of a soldier’s calling to be much abroad. The French wars had begun before Vilia was born, and she couldn’t envisage a world where the army was on anything other than a war footing. In most ways, marriage to Andrew Lauriston would suit her very well. It was just that... But perhaps, she thought, encouraged by the music and lights and laughter in the ballroom, she might in time be able to persuade him to take life a little less earnestly.