All for Love (6 page)

‘Oh, in that case, I rather think we might dispense with his flowers, if you are agreeable? I had had it in mind that this was the night for you to appear in these.’ He picked up a set of jeweller’s boxes from the table beside him. ‘I think my mother would have wished it. And, if I may take a husband’s liberty, they will add a touch of colour which your delightful appearance somewhat lacks.’

‘You are too good.’ How useful formal phrases were. She opened the small box at the top of the pile, and green fire flashed out at her from a pair of earrings. ‘Emeralds!’

‘
The
emeralds,’ he corrected her. ‘The Winchelsea emeralds. And your birthstone, as you have reminded me, from time to time. I do hope, my dear, that you approve of the way I have had them reset for you. They were quite gothic before, if I remember your words correctly.’

Josephine’s birthstone, not hers. An absurd wave of superstitious terror washed over her as she forced herself to open the other cases, revealing a close-fitting necklace of the same brilliant, unlucky gems and then an exquisitely designed flower piece to be worn in the hair. ‘You see,’ he said, as she gazed at this, ‘we shall be able to dispense with Mr. Incognito’s tribute.’

‘And I’m glad of it.’ She moved over to the glass. Characteristic of Josephine that there was a gold-framed glass in every public room in the house. Her hands shook a little as she removed the camellias. Unlucky to wear them? Unluckier still to wear emeralds that were not her own?

‘You must let me help you.’ He threw the camellias in the trash basket, then moved over to stand behind her, his tall figure dominating hers in the glass. ‘You were used to think me a handy enough lady’s maid.’ He took the emerald flower from her trembling hand and adjusted it neatly among her glowing curls. ‘There, that’s better. And the necklace.’ A strange, long shudder went through her as his warm hands fastened it round her cold neck, but he seemed to notice nothing. ‘No doubt you would prefer to put the earrings on yourself.’

‘Oh, yes, thank you.’ Her hands shook so much that this was almost impossible, but Mr. Jay’s appearance provided the distraction she needed. By the time he had done apologising to Hyde for his deplorable lateness, the earrings were safely in place.

They had champagne to drink Mr. Jay’s health and success to his theatre, and Juliet felt her courage rise with the bubbles in her glass. But when old Adam, the waiter, came to fill it for the third time, Hyde’s outstretched hand prevented him. ‘Forgive me, my dear, but we have a long evening ahead of us. Mr. Jay and I will need cool heads too, before it is over.’

For a moment, she was furious; she needed that extra glass! Then, incorrigibly, she shook with internal laughter. So this was marriage. Disconcertingly, Hyde’s eyes met hers, laughing too. ‘A husband’s privilege, my dear, and may I say how well that angry colour suits you?’

***

Mr. Jay’s theatre was overwhelming. As guests of honour, Juliet and Hyde found themselves in the first row of boxes, just to the right of the seats reserved for the mayor and the other dignitaries of the town. They had arrived early, for Mr. Jay’s sake, and as the theatre filled up with a brilliantly dressed crowd, Juliet had ample time to look about her. Gilded columns supported the first row of boxes, golden eagles adorned them and crimson panels separated each one from the next. The seats, too, were crimson, though, looking down, she could see that those in the pit were green.

‘And look at the curtain!’ Hyde’s voice was dry.

‘I was! What in the world do you think it represents?’

He laughed. ‘Ingrate! Poor Mr. Alton spent the longest dinner I have ever sat through telling you all about it, and now you ask me what it represents!’

‘Good God!’ She made a quick recovery. ‘That prosy bore! You expect me to listen to him! I remember about the temple, of course, but who in the world are the ladies in front of it?’

‘The Muses, my dear. And the gentleman they are pulling along with them is Shakespeare himself.’

‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘I should have remembered that. And of course the plump gentleman in the foreground is Falstaff.’

‘Precisely. Just as the one in the scarlet tartans is Macbeth. Entirely surrounded by the weird sisters — but you will doubtless not have heard of them.’

‘No.’ Josephine had never looked at a play of Shakespeare’s. ‘They look a disagreeable set to me.’

‘Not what one would choose for one’s dearest friends,’ he agreed with her gravely. ‘But, seriously, my dear, what do you think of Mr. Jay’s masterpiece?’

‘Sumptuous.’ She turned to face him. ‘And vulgar beyond belief.’

‘I am relieved to find that you agree with me. But we shall be in a minority, I am sure, and a silent one, of course.’

‘Of course. Poor Mr. Jay.’

‘Nothing of the kind. Listen!’

And indeed the house echoed with a buzz of enthusiasm. ‘At least it’s safe,’ Hyde went on. ‘These gilded pillars are all of the best cast iron, and you can see how many entrances there are, in case of fire. But here come the big-wigs.’

Naturally, Josephine would know them all. The formal greetings, the bowing and curtseying were an agony to Juliet, but the very formality of the occasion was her salvation. They were safely seated at last, and she did not think she had betrayed any fatal ignorance. If only she could feel equally secure about the party that was to follow the performance. The theatre held a thousand people, but it was safe to assume that her guests would be in the boxes around and above her. She strained her eyes, trying to see how many of her visitors and the passers by from the square she could recognise in the full panoply of evening dress, with hair piled high and trimmed with flowers, feathers, and even, in one remarkable case, artificial fruit. When the lights were dimmed at last, and Mr. Cherry’s play,
The
Soldier’s
Daughter
began, she leaned back in her seat with a sigh of relief. No need, at least, to pay attention to this.

But the interval presented a new hazard. Everyone rose to troop out to the lobby and refreshment rooms at the front of the building. She thought for a moment of pleading fatigue and suggesting that they stay where they were, but it would be too hopelessly out of character. Besides, in this kind of casual intermingling, she might have a chance to identify a few more of her prospective guests.

The refreshment room to which Hyde led her was decorated in the same lavish style as the rest of the building. ‘Wait here.’ He settled her on a crimson plush seat. ‘You would like a cold drink, I am sure. It’s deplorable that we still have no ice in Savannnah, but doubtless they will have done their best.’

‘Yes, please.’ The champagne’s glow had faded now, leaving her tired and dry. It was a relief to be alone for a moment in a crowd every member of which was concerned with the immediate problem of securing refreshments. Miraculously, Hyde had led her to a seat that stood a little by itself. On a larger one, beyond a golden pillar, a group of red-faced women were vigorously fanning themselves and complaining, loudly, of the heat. She was almost sure that Josephine would not know them. But the fan was an admirable idea. She opened hers in her lap and made a little business of smoothing out its ostrich plumes. Much safest not to look about her and so risk cutting one of Josephine’s dear friends.

‘At last!’ The deep, angry voice drew her eyes up with a start. He loomed over her, dark, bewhiskered, sallow-complexioned, furious. ‘I should have known better than to look out for my flowers,’ he went on. And then, with a sneer. ‘Naturally, they could hardly compete with the Winchelsea emeralds. My congratulations on prising them out of old tightfist at last. My camellias, I assume, were exactly the lever you needed. But a line of thanks, of apology even, might not have come amiss.’

‘I am so sorry.’ No; Josephine would not apologise. She made herself smile up at him, archly. ‘That you are disappointed.’ The smile became genuine as she remembered Hyde tossing the camellias into the trash basket. It served this bad tempered stranger richly right. ‘But you have it exactly, of course. What is even the rarest flower compared to an emerald?’

‘I said, “Wear them, tonight, for me.”’ This man was dangerous.

‘Why, so you did.’ She was frightened, but would not show it. ‘But, you see, I had to wear the emeralds —’

‘For me.’ Hyde’s voice saved her. ‘I am glad to see you safe back from your Spanish venture, Fonseca. Sooner, surely, than you had intended?’

‘Much sooner.’ He turned the full blast of his fury on Hyde. ‘Since some blabbermouthed jackass chose to blow the whole affair to the Spanish authorities. I found them waiting for me at the border. Oh, as courteous as you please, and be damned to them —’

‘Ladies are present,’ Hyde interrupted him.

‘A lady?’ He favoured Juliet with a comprehensive, withering scrutiny, then looked beyond her to the red-faced group who had stopped their chatter to listen, open-mouthed, to his angry voice. He made them a sweeping bow, ‘Your pardon, ladies, I quite forgot where I was.’

‘Sir —’ But Hyde was silenced by the loud clangour of the bell that summoned the audience back for the farce. At once, the crowded room was in a whirl of movement; the red-faced women leapt to their feet as if in some kind of a race and swept between Hyde and Fonseca, but not, Juliet thought, before one long, speaking glance had passed between them. Then Hyde was putting the untasted drink carefully down on the flat head of a gilded cupid. ‘Forgive me for being so long, my dear. The crowd at the bar was quite intolerable. Let us wait here, shall we, until the worst of the press is over?’

‘Yes, do let us. But, Hyde —’ How could she ask it? ‘Mr. Fonseca —’

‘Is in a very bad temper,’ he said equably. ‘Having had his plan to have a parcel of slaves smuggled north out of Florida blown to the Spanish authorities. Though I don’t know what else he expected when he talked about it all over town before he left. I heard of it from a dozen sources and I have no doubt that you had it from the man himself. How else could so devoted a cavalier have explained his expected absence from your party? I suppose he was invited, by the way?’

‘Good God, how should I remember?’ They were back in their seats, the curtain was rising for the farce, she had no further chance to ask about that significant exchange of glances between the two men. Probably she was refining too much upon it. It was true that southern gentlemen had an appalling reputation for fighting duels over the merest trivialities, but Hyde was not like that. He was civilised.

Their seats had been chosen near one of the entrances, so that they were able to slip out while the house was still ringing with applause as much for Mr. Jay’s theatre as for the performance itself, which, in so far as she had noticed it, Juliet had thought indifferent enough. ‘I cheated, I’m afraid.’ Hyde led her over to his sulky which was waiting in the lane behind the theatre. ‘Thank you, Satan, I’ll drive.’ He laughed, as he helped her up. ‘Avoiding Scarbrough’s red carpet as best I may. But as host and hostess it strikes me that we have a duty to be there first.’

‘A good many other people seem to have cheated too.’ The square and the roads round it were thronged with carriages.

‘Yes. I thought that carpet one of Scarbrough’s wilder ideas. I wish he had less imagination and more bottom, that man. I am sometimes afraid that he may come to grief.’ And then, quickly. ‘I should not have said that. For God’s sake forget it, and, for mine, mention it to no one.’

‘Of course not.’ Lucky for him, she thought, that it was to her, not to Josephine, that he had made this rash confidence. ‘But Hyde,’ she went on. ‘Your affairs are so mixed up with his. What about the steamship, the
Savannah
?’

‘Oh, I’m not too anxious about that,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I don’t see how she can fail to be a money-spinner. Besides, my dear, you must remember that I am not merely a man of business. I have Winchelsea behind me. Which reminds me,’ they were entering Oglethorpe Square now. ‘I have been away from there altogether too long. Will it suit your book, my love, if we plan to move there tomorrow, or at latest the day after?’

‘What?’ Plans fell around her ears like castles of cards. ‘So soon?’

‘It’s three weeks to the day until Christmas.’ He slowed the horses outside the brilliantly lighted entrance to the house. ‘The first Christmas I shall have celebrated at Winchelsea since 1814. Can you not understand how I long to be there? And to have you there at my side,’ he added, as he jumped down to anticipate the servant who had come forward to help her alight. He took her arm to lead her up the curving stairway to the front door. ‘Say you will accompany me tomorrow? Please?’

It was, extraordinarily, a word she had never heard him use before. His arm in hers was another kind of plea, one she would not quite let herself understand. No time to be thinking about that. No time even to wonder how in the world she and Josephine would make the exchange which was due any day now, if she had been carried off to Winchelsea. Moses, the old butler, was waiting for them in the lighted doorway, beaming all over his face. ‘You’re as good as your word, sir; you said you’d be first, and first you is.’

‘Well?’ Hyde smiled at Moses but held her back just for a moment.

‘Of course, if you wish it.’ What else could she say.

‘Good.’ He led her into the lighted hall. ‘Naturally we are first, Moses. Is all ready? But I know I need not ask.’ And then, to Juliet. ‘Up with you quick, my dear, and take off your cloak. Our guests are beginning to arrive already, I rather think. I told you we were not the only ones who cheated.’