Babe (19 page)

She curtsied at the door of the Crimson Saloon. “What is this important matter that must get me out of my bed at close to midnight?” she asked haughtily.

“Fast footwork, Lady Barbara, if you managed to set aside your red wig and get into your bed in less than half an hour.”

“Are you bosky, by any chance, Clivedon?” she asked with a quizzical smile, as though at a loss to understand him. “I thought you would be at that interesting do you mentioned. The Cyprians will be missing you.” Especially Adele, she added to herself, with a silent gurgle.

“Cut line. You were there, against my orders, and I wish to hear an account of your evening’s proceedings.”

For half a minute she regarded him, wondering whether to admit it or brazen out her lie.

“Don’t bother trying it,” he advised. “I am not a complete fool. Your face is still pink from scrubbing off the rouge, and I know well enough if I sent a servant to your room, she would find the wig and low-cut gown.”

“What of it?” she asked boldly, abandoning all thoughts of concealment. “No one recognized me.”

“I recognized you, and if Webster did not, he is blind.”

“He didn’t!”

“You don’t leave me much choice, do you? I forbade you to attend, and you disobeyed my orders. You must not accuse me of hard dealing now for doing as I see fit.”

She looked at him, uneasy at the uncompromising line of his jaw, the steely edge in his voice. “What do you intend to do?”

“I cannot in conscience subject my sister to such usage as you have shown her—such absolute disregard for the feelings of a lady who has tried to befriend you.”

Barbara had enjoyed life at Cavendish Square, and saw looming before her a return to Mecklenberg Square instead. “I don’t want to go back to Lady Graham,” she said.

“I expect the feeling is more than mutual. Do you have anywhere else to suggest?”

She racked her brain for an answer, but with Fannie away, she could not alight on anyone. The Harrows, she knew, would dislike to have her as much as she had hated being with them. She frowned into her lap, trying desperately to think of a friend or relative.

“Well? Run yourself to a standstill, have you? I mentioned the possibility at your last scrape—or was it the second-last? I think you come to realize now, too late, the wisdom of my advice. Your flaming career has ground to a halt. Nowhere to go.”

“I can always go home,” she answered with dignity. She was not crying, or close to it, but she was deeply upset. She would like to go to Drumbeig, but she could not go alone, and disliked to be sunk to hiring a companion, a total stranger, to go with her.

“I doubt you would long be happy in the wilds of the Cotswolds.”

“You’re wrong. I’d be happier there than I ever was, being billeted on people who don’t want me.”

“You would not be unwanted if you behaved yourself with the very least modicum of propriety.”

“My lack of propriety did not disturb my other chaperones to the extent it troubles you. No one looked down their noses when I had the Czar dangling after me, or when Wellington escorted me to the ball in Paris. In fact, Fannie said it was a victory. And she would laugh at this too. I don’t know why you are making such a to-do over it.”

“I don’t consider it a joke that you make a scandal of yourself. Carrying on with married men old enough to be your father is an odd sort of victory to crow over as well, but they were at least eminent, respectable gentlemen who would not harm you, which removed the aroma of the second-rate from it. When you sink to the likes of Gentz, and switch your stomping ground from Carlton House to the Cyprians’ Ball, however, the joke turns sour. Next it will be porters and chairmen in gin alley your name is associated with. Have you no pride, no sense of what is owing your family?”

“You make it abundantly clear my so-called family have no use for me. You were kind enough to tell me before ever I came here that your sister didn’t want to have me. Fannie was delighted to be rid of me as well. I shall spare you all the bother of putting up with me and go home.”

“That will be my decision.”

“You don’t have much choice.”

“I have the responsibility till your twenty-fifth birthday, and will not have it said I chucked you off to the country to be rid of you.”

“You take your reputation very seriously. I see it is your own that concerns you, after all your fine talk about mine. Sorry I couldn’t have been a greater credit to you and attached the Prince of Wales, to remove the taint of the second-rate from my latest performance, but he is just a little passé for my taste.”

“Your own youth will not much longer serve as an excuse for your behavior. You have about reached the end of your rope, milady.”

“There’s enough left to hang myself!” she said, and arose suddenly from her chair with a sparkle in her eyes of anger, or perhaps unshed tears.

“Babe! Don’t be a fool!” he said, grabbing her wrist as she bolted past him. She was jerked around to face him. To his surprise, he saw a tear hovering at the corner of her eye, and her lips trembled. “You teeter on the razor’s edge of complete ruin. If tonight’s spree had been discovered, it would be enough to topple you over, once for all. Think what you are about.”

All her life she had been accustomed to do as she wanted. No one had checked her. Her escapades were all good jokes, to be laughed over and discussed merrily the next morning. She saw she had skated close to the edge of disaster, and was shaken. If Lady Withers and Clivedon turned her off, where was she to go? There was nowhere left but Drumbeig, and home without parents or even a relative was hardly home. But she wouldn’t beg them to have her. Not if she had to marry Lord Romeo and go to Greece.

“I only wanted to make you see the seriousness of' this way of carrying on,” he said, in a kinder voice. “My girl, don’t you realize if Webster had recognized you, it would be the end? It would be all over town before morning. There wouldn’t be a door open to you.”

“He didn’t know me.”

“I hope you may be right. Were you talking to anyone else before I arrived?”

“Only Romeo.”

“How did he come to leave you?”

“He wanted to make the acquaintance of one of the girls there.”

“That jackanapes! Well, it seems you have once again squeaked through with your hide intact. No irreparable harm has been done.”

She looked at him, hopeful, but not liking to put the question that was on her mind. “Go on up to bed. We shan’t mention this to my sister,” he told her. The word “shabby” was present but unspoken.

“Does that mean—am I to be allowed to stay?” she asked, rather timidly.

“Yes, if you will only please try to behave,” he said, with a rueful smile that sent the tears spilling over her lids.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I will. Truly I will, Clivedon. I didn’t mean to be so much trouble, but when you forbade me to go . . . well, I know perfectly well you expected to see me there, and if you hadn't been looking for me, you wouldn’t have recognized me either. No one else did.” She blinked away the tears and lifted her chin, in some vestigial semblance of her old self.

He found he was relieved to see her not completely abject. “Don’t feel obliged to live up to everyone’s worst expectations. Why should you take upon yourself to provide the town’s amusement? Let them find a new whipping girl.”

She thought about this for a moment, and found it good advice. Why did she behave so foolishly, but because everyone expected it of Babe? And what was in it for her? To be looked down upon and disparaged. “I wish I had known you sooner,” she said, in a joking way, but there was a hint of regret too.

“You could have. I tried to get to know you once, if you recall, but couldn’t get past the mask.”

“You didn’t try very hard.”

“I’m trying harder now. You will notice with what forbearance I resist mentioning that even the mask failed to show up upon certain occasions.”

“Only once!” she pointed out, then became embarrassed, as she had thus far refused to recognize any mention of Richmond Park. He did not mention her sudden recovery of memory, but only smiled in a way that acknowledged it. She rushed on at once to change the subject. “I collect I ought to thank you for being angry with me. I mean—for your advice,” she amended hastily.

“I know. I know what you mean, Barbara, about Romeo . . .”

“He came to call after your sister left, and gave me a note. I slipped out and he took me to Fannie’s to get dressed, but I didn’t let him come in.”

“That’s not what I meant. It was my hope Agnes would forbid him the house, but if you really care for him . . .” There was no longer any anger, but a quiet, searching look of the keenest interest.

“No! Don’t be absurd. How could anyone love such an unlicked cub. Oh dear, that is not what I meant at all. He is more like a handsome Harlequin. Pray keep him away from me if you can, for he has taken the notion I am going to elope with him, and is deaf to all my refusals, in that peculiar way he has of hearing only what he wants to.”

“And Gentz?”

“Gentz? I had nearly forgotten all about him.”

“Is there anyone else?”

“Not yet, but you make me realize the advantage of a decent husband, and I mean to put the next few weeks to very good use. You will have the pleasure of attending my wedding before the summer is out, sir, and that is a promise. You see how cocksure I am of my charms. I’ll find myself a companion to take me home to Drumbeig, and am convinced a husband would be more amusing than a gorgon. You and your sister will not much longer have me to put up with.”

“We do not consider it an unmixed evil.”

“I shall take my leave, before you fall into pretending you have enjoyed it, and remove any doubt that you are shamming it. Good night, and thank you.”

“My pleasure. I’ll come by tomorrow. While you schemed behind my back to fall into a pond and jaunter off to that disreputable do, I was busy preparing a surprise for you. A pleasant surprise, I hope.”

“Oh, Clivedon! You have got my horses,” she exclaimed. “Thank you.”

“Baggage. Get to bed,” he laughed.

Chapter Seventeen

Lady Barbara went to bed nearly at once, but she did not sleep immediately. She considered her past history with an intensity she had never accorded it before in her life. She had been a fool for six years, making a scandal of herself till her few respectable relatives and friends had nearly given up on her. No more. She was three-and-twenty years old, and long past the age when she should be married. This was her last Season. Even if Lady Withers should extend her offer to another year, she would not accept it. One could accept only so much charity from friends, and seven years on the town was too much. She’d make some match, some good respectable man, and she’d make him a good wife too.

She had not a notion in her mind who the man would be, but he would be someone like Clivedon. Some effectual gentleman who took a genuine interest in her and was old enough and strong-willed enough to restrain her if she became bored and impossible. It was unfortunate she had no such flirts amongst her admirers. As Clivedon was truly trying to steer her into a safe matrimonial harbor, it was odd he had not brought any such gentlemen to her attention. Any of his own friends would do nicely, but he never took the least pains to foster an attachment in that direction. Did he think his friends would despise her as being too silly and too raffish? Very likely. And very likely he was right too. If he didn’t know, who did?

The touch of rakishness she had picked up over the years would not appeal to a mature sort. It was the younger bucks who were impressed by it, considered it glamorous, and not shoddy, as it was. He had seen it all along. That was why he had often mentioned Ellingwood as being suitable. No matter, a man of twenty-five would soon be mature, and as she was totally committed to behaving herself now, she could not feel she really required as firm a hand as she would have a month ago.

It was not till morning that she remembered the few letters given to her at Fannie’s house and opened her reticule to have a look at them. One was from Fannie herself. She had decided to have her marriage ceremony in the country from her own little place. She would not be coming back to town at all. Nor did she suggest that Barbara go to attend the ceremony. After all those years, she was not even invited to the wedding. So much for old friends. She was no better herself. Her major emotion was relief not to have to either go or make excuses.

The second letter was a bill from a jeweler that Clivedon seemed to have missed, and the third a note from Colonel Gentz, expressing surprise and delight at his engagement, which he had read of in the papers. Ass! He asked if it would be proper (and safe) for him to come to London now. This one must be answered immediately. She found a copy of the retraction of her engagement and slipped it into an envelope with a few lines explaining briefly the position. She also wrote a note to Fannie, then remembered that she must send a gift as well, if Clivedon could be persuaded to advance her some of her money. There was no resentment that she must appeal to another for her own funds. He had been right about that too. How did she manage to run through such a sum as she did? Gambling, lending to her friends, buying a good many extravagant items. She had gone on with practically no money this past month and not much missed it.

She was eager to see her new team, and eager too to begin her reformed life. Lady Withers was polite at breakfast, only saying that it might be better if Lord Romeo not be entertained in future if he called. Had Clivedon spoken to her last night then?

“Was there any talk of my dunking at the Swansons’?” Barbara asked.

“Several people asked for you. I said you stayed home to recuperate. I slipped Clivedon the word to bear me out, when he dropped in later.” She mentally noted that he had gone to the Staunton ball, and not back to the Argyle Rooms. Very likely Romeo had made his assignation with Adele, then, and she would be free of him for a while.

They were still at the table when Clivedon arrived with the repaired phaeton and new team. “Get your bonnet and we’ll give them a try,” he told Barbara.