Belgravia (42 page)

“Oh yes. He was a clergyman before the fighting started, and he was a clergyman when he died.”

“So any wedding he conducted in Brussels before the battle was legal?”

“Yes, so there’s nothing to worry about. Whomever he married were definitely husband and wife. So I hope it’s soothed any concerns you had on that score.” He waited for John to say something, but his friend just stared blankly back. “As I said, the news is good.” He waved at the club servant, pointing at their glasses, and the man soon returned with the decanter. “I know you’ll want to thank me, but please don’t. I really enjoyed it. I’ve been thinking that I might like to write something about that time. The question is, would I have the discipline?” But still John said nothing. Hugo tried again, wondering at his friend’s silence. “Might I know the
parties in the wedding you were worried about? Was there a story behind the request?”

At this, John woke up. “Oh no. It was just a relation of mine. The wife died in childbirth and the father was killed in the battle. Their son was a little nervous about his own status.” John raised his eyebrows humorously and his companion laughed.

“Well, you can tell him he has nothing to worry about. He’s as legal and legitimate as the little Princess.”

Caroline was in her private sitting room at Brockenhurst House, cleaning her brushes. In front of her was an easel, a large canvas, and a wooden palette covered in curls of paint that went in a circle of colors from browns, blues, and greens to various shades of yellow, pink, and white. On the tray next to her was a collection of cloths, palette knives, and paintbrushes varying in width, shape, and thickness.

“Don’t move,” she said, looking around the canvas at Maria, who was sitting on a pale peach divan. “I’m afraid I haven’t used oils in too long and I’m a little rusty.”

The truth was, Caroline liked having Maria in the house. She had initially offered the girl shelter because she was determined to protect her for her grandson, but, as time wore on, Caroline had to admit she enjoyed her company. She placed a well-judged stroke on the pretty, pale face that was beginning to emerge from the canvas. She supposed she had been lonely without knowing it. That must be the truth. She’d been lonely since Edmund’s death, but, like all her kind, she would never have admitted it. Still, sitting here now with Maria, she felt as if the weight of the last twenty-five years had been lifted slightly, as if the world were coming alive again.

That said, her plans had gone awry. When Maria had first begged for her help she’d intended to take the girl to Lymington, invite Charles to join them, and then she would tell her husband and her grandson the truth in one sitting. But the day after her tea party she’d received a letter from Peregrine, who had stayed in the country, to say that he was going shooting in Yorkshire and
he would return via London. So she and Maria had lingered on in Belgrave Square, waiting for Lord Brockenhurst to come home.

“Have you had any news from your mama?” she said.

Maria shook her head. “Nothing. She’ll arrive one of these days with Reggie or someone to drag me away.”

“Then we shall take hold of your other arm and prevent it. Anyway, would Reggie pull on her team or yours?”

Maria smiled. It was true that she thought she could count on her brother if it came to a fight.

There was a sound at the door and Lady Brockenhurst looked up. “What is it, Jenkins?”

“Your ladyship, Lady Templemore is in the hall.” The butler knew enough to be sure that he was right not to have shown the Countess straight into the drawing room.

Caroline looked at Maria. “Talk of the devil.”

“Indeed,” said the girl. “But we must face her sooner or later, so it might as well be now.” She stood, arranging her skirts as she did so.

Her hostess considered this for a moment and then nodded. “Please bring Lady Templemore up to the drawing room.”

The butler gave a slight bow and left.

“Perhaps you’d better stay here.” Caroline stood to remove her painting apron and check her appearance in the glass above the chimneypiece.

“No,” said Maria. “This is my battle, not yours. I’ll see her.”

“Well, you’re not going in there alone,” said Caroline, and the two women walked across the gallery together to face the enemy. The green marble columns that linked the balustrade of the staircase with the decorated plaster ceiling seemed to lend a certain formality to their progress—as if we’re going into court, thought Maria.

Lady Templemore was already sitting on a damask Louis XV
bergère
when Caroline walked into the room. She looked rather stately and, somehow, very much alone, which gave Caroline a slight twinge of guilt. “Can I offer you anything?” she said, as pleasantly as she could manage.

“My daughter,” said Lady Templemore, without a trace of a smile.

At that moment, Maria entered. She had stopped by a looking glass on the gallery to tidy her hair before she faced her parent’s stern gaze. “Here I am, Mama.”

“I’ve come to take you home.”

“No, Mama.” She was as definite as she knew how to be.

The words were unexpected, even shocking. It had never occurred to Lady Templemore that she could not reclaim her own child when she wanted. For a moment nobody said anything.

Lady Templemore was the first to break the silence. “My dear—”

“No, Mama. I am not coming home. Not yet, at any rate.”

Corinne Templemore struggled to maintain her equilibrium. “But if word leaks out—which it is bound to—what will people think?”

Maria was very calm. Lady Brockenhurst’s opinion of her was rising by the minute. “They will think I am staying with the aunt of my fiancé, which they will find perfectly normal. Soon, however, we will announce that the marriage will not now take place. And that I am going to be married instead to a Mr. Charles Pope. This they will find very interesting indeed, and they will no doubt discuss it a great deal. Who is this Mr. Pope, they will say, and that will keep them happy until there is news of an elopement or some great man in the City fails, and then they will talk about that and we will fade away into the background and get on with our lives.” She was sitting on a sofa, and as she finished speaking she clasped her hands with resolve and let them rest in her lap.

Lady Templemore stared at her daughter, or rather at the faery changeling that had stolen her true daughter and was now sitting in her place. But she did not answer. Instead she turned to Lady Brockenhurst. “You’ve done this,” she said. “You have corrupted my child.”

“I do hope so,” said Lady Brockenhurst, “if this is the result.”

But Corinne Templemore had not finished. “Why are you doing this? Are you jealous of me? I have living children, while
your son is dead? Is that it?” Her calm, even pleasant, voice as she spoke was, if anything, more startling than if she had shouted and torn out her hair by its roots.

It took a moment for Caroline Brockenhurst to catch her breath. At last she spoke. “Corinne—,” she said, but Lady Templemore silenced her with a gesture of her open hand.

“Please. My Christian name is only for the use of my friends.”

“Mama,” Maria said. “We must not be at odds, like ruffians fighting in the street.”

“I should prefer to be attacked by a ruffian than by my own daughter.”

Maria stood. She needed to use this moment to move things forward. Otherwise she and her mother would be caught in a dead end. “Please, Mama,” she said as reasonably as she could, “I will not come home until you have had time to accept that your plans for me to marry John Bellasis will not come to fruition. When you are able to grasp this fact, I’m sure we can soon repair matters between us.”

“So that you can marry Mr. Pope?” Her mother’s tone was not encouraging.

“Yes, Mama.” Maria sighed. “But even there, things are not perhaps quite as bad as you think.” She glanced at Caroline in the hope that her hostess would take over the argument. She was not sure how much, or how little, she should say.

Lady Brockenhurst nodded. “Maria is right. Mr. Pope is less obscure than he might at first have appeared.”

Lady Templemore looked at her. “Oh?” she said.

“It seems that his father was the son of an earl.”

There was a silence as Corinne absorbed these surprising words. Then, when she had thought for a moment, she spoke. “Was the father illegitimate? Or is Mr. Pope himself a bastard? Since clearly there can be no third explanation for your statement, if it is true.”

Lady Brockenhurst took a deep breath. She was not quite ready to play all her cards. “I might remind you that, fifteen years ago, the illegitimate son of the Duke of Norfolk married the daughter of the Earl of Albemarle, and today they are welcomed everywhere.”

“And you think because the Stephensons have gotten away with it, Charles Pope would, too?” Lady Templemore did not sound as if she agreed.

“But why wouldn’t he?” Caroline’s voice was as soft and as pleading as Maria had ever heard it. The woman was begging, and of course Maria knew why.

But Corinne Templemore was unrepentant. “For a start, because the Duke brought up Henry Stephenson as his son and he was recognized as such from his birth. And secondly, because I am not aware that Lady Mary Keppel broke off an engagement to an earl in order to marry him. Your meddling has cheated my daughter of a position that would have allowed her to do some good in the world. I hope you’re proud of yourself.”

“I think I could also do good if I were married to Charles.” Maria was growing irritated with her mother’s intransigence.

At this, the Countess of Templemore finally got to her feet. Caroline was forced to admit there was something impressive in the woman’s stance; well dressed, her back as straight as a poker, she was unbendingly severe and all the more imposing for that. “Then you must manage it without your mother’s help, my dear, for I will have no more of you. I’ll send Ryan around with your things as soon as I get back. You are welcome to keep her on as your maid, but it must be at your own expense. Otherwise, I will give her notice. I’ll ask Mr. Smyth at Hoare’s to write and explain your income under your father’s trust, my dear, and in future you will communicate with him but not with me. Henceforth, I cast you off. You are adrift and you must sail your own barque. As for you,” she turned to Caroline, hatred shining from her eyes, “you have stolen my daughter and ruined my life. I curse you for it.” With that, she swept out of the room and down the great staircase, leaving Maria and Lady Brockenhurst alone and silent.

Susan Trenchard couldn’t tell precisely what her mood was. Sometimes she felt hopeful, as if her life were about to change for the better. Sometimes things seemed darker, as if she were trembling on the brink of an abyss.

She had told John she thought she was pregnant the last time she’d gone around to Albany. She spoke almost as soon as they had climbed the stairs to reach his little drawing room. He was puzzled as he listened, surprised even, although not at first hostile. “I thought you were unable to conceive,” he said. “I thought that was the whole point.”

It was an odd choice of phrase. “What does that mean? The whole point?”

He covered himself by ignoring her question. “I suppose you’re sure?”

“Quite sure. Although I haven’t had it confirmed by a doctor.”

He nodded. “Perhaps you should. Do you have one you can trust?”

She looked at him. “I’m a married woman. Why do I need one I can ‘trust’?”

“True enough. But go to a doctor who’ll know what to do.” Again, his wording was odd, but she could see he was distracted. She knew her mother-in-law’s maid had just walked away when she arrived, and Susan could only suppose he’d learned something, presumably about the mysterious Mr. Pope, which was taking up his attention.

At any rate, they’d made the decision that Susan would arrange an appointment on a certain day to see her physician, and she would then report back to his rooms where he would be waiting for her. Except now she was here, he was nowhere to be seen. His silent servant had let her in, and she’d been shown to a chair in the sitting room where she’d waited, crouched over a meager fire. The master had kept an appointment in St. James’s, and it must have run longer than he expected. But he would be back shortly. How long was shortly? The servant couldn’t tell and nor could she, since she’d been waiting for almost an hour.

John’s absence gave Susan time to review her situation. Did she hope they would marry and she would be rescued from the dreariness of the Trenchard household? In her dreams, yes; but now that the first flush of infatuation had passed, she was too clever a woman to believe she was the chosen candidate to be the next
Countess of Brockenhurst. A merchant’s divorced daughter? She would not fit easily into the history of the Bellasis dynasty. And anyway, how long would a divorce take? Could they find a tame Member of Parliament to usher through a private bill dissolving her marriage, and would it be in time for them to wed before the baby was born? Almost certainly not.

What, then, did she want? To be John’s mistress in perpetuity? To take a house somewhere and bring up the child as his? Once his uncle was dead, there would be plenty of money for this sort of arrangement, and yet… and yet… Susan was not certain it would suit her, to live outside the boundaries of Society, even the dull and ordinary level of Society that she had succeeded in penetrating. But could she stand to stay with Oliver, and would she even have that option? Oliver Trenchard might not be a genius, but he would know the child was not his. They hadn’t made love for months. There was a certain irony in the realization that for years she had lived as a barren woman, pitied on every side, when she had not been barren at all. The fault must have been Oliver’s, but of course he would not see matters in that light. Maybe to accept the post as John’s kept woman was the best choice available. Finally, the door opened.

“Well?” John said as he entered the room.

“I’ve been waiting for the best part of an hour.”

“And now I am back. What happened?”

She nodded, knowing perfectly well that there was no point in even trying to make John Bellasis feel guilty. “I’ve done what you asked. I’ve seen a doctor and I am pregnant. Three months or more.”