Escapade (2 page)

“But a law is a law, and a duty is a duty. If I offered for you, there would be all those brothers and sisters to provide for, whereas if I offer myself to, say, the Honorable Miss Twillingford, I should be advancing the welfare of my family."

“But she has a squint! You would not like that, my lord. Indeed you would not."

“I only mentioned Miss Twillingford as an example of the sort of lady I ought to offer for. I don't believe Kant mentions a squint at all, but certainly I must look as high as I dare for the sake of my family."

Miss Artley was reeling, but she was not down—and by no means out. She laughed weakly—too weakly to produce the dimples—which might very well have turned the trick. “You have misunderstood me,” she told him. “I do not mean you will be expected to provide for the girls and Clarence and Edgar. Gracious, we are not so poor as that. Papa has taken care of them all, and I, as the eldest daughter, have a larger dowry than the other girls. Twenty-five thousand pounds. Anyone might live handsomely on the income of that."

“But you recall that when I offered for you before, you did not think we could live at all handsomely on your portion and my own. And I was not quite penniless at the time."

“What has that to do with anything?"

“A great deal, my dear. As Lord Patrick and Lady Arabella we might have rubbed along on our jointures, but a duke and duchess have such ripping expenses you don't begin to perceive the half of it. Three estates to keep up..."

“But you have a huge income now! Thirty thousand pounds I have heard mentioned."

“Very true, but you have made me see it is my duty to marry a fortune of similar size, for the sake of my family."

“No, indeed! I didn't mean anything of the sort. You have misunderstood me."

He smiled a deceptively bland smile. “No, ma'am, I have understood you perfectly. It is impossible for me to offer for you, but I do wish you every success in your capture of Baron Almquist. A very respectable fortune, and he will be of some assistance to your family, I believe.” Clare arose from the velvet settee where they had been sitting together.

“But you asked to see me alone!” she pointed out. “You would not have done so only to speak to me of Kant, whoever he may be. Mama expects..."

“Mama will be disappointed, even as we are disappointed,” he said, lifting her ringless fingers to his lips. The family engagement ring sat in his pocket. He was aware of an inexplicable feeling of joy at the thought.

“This is so silly, Patrick. It is not in the least necessary for us to part. I am sure papa could raise the dowry if that is what..."

“Now that, my dear, would clearly break every law you have been extolling to me. I could not allow you to act so unhandsomely."

“It is you who keeps chattering about laws and imperatives,” she said angrily. “I never heard of Kant till you mentioned him."

“Wise young girl.” He touched her cheek with one finger. “You reached his immutable laws all by yourself. You knew your duty a whole two years ago and acted in a manner that would be to the best advantage of your family. I am really abominably slow. I didn't find it out till I happened to come across Kant a few weeks ago. Barely in time to avoid making a dreadful mistake."

“But you came to make me an offer. You know you did."'

“I will be eternally grateful that you reminded me of my duty.” He bowed and swept majestically out the door. The impish smile on his face led the hovering butler to believe that all was well. He even dared to enquire roguishly if the duchess would like him to summon her mama when he went to the drawing room a moment later.

He was confounded when the young lady stamped her foot at him and said she never wanted to hear such impudence again. As this was followed shortly by a childish outburst of tears, he refrained from pursuing the matter.

The duke was in a pensive mood as he tooled his yellow curricle down the street to the Park. He had most certainly gone to Park Lane to make Miss Artley an offer. He was no longer a young sprig and felt vaguely that he ought to marry, as he had no brothers to inherit if he should by mischance die young, as Joseph had done. He was accustomed to thinking himself in love with Miss Artley. Clearly she was desirous of marrying him, so why had he shied off at the last minute? It was some latent resentment that rankled, he supposed, at her former refusal. The sure knowledge that since he had come into his late brother's honors, he was sought after by one and all. Hadn't more than two words to say to him when he was Lord Patrick. Each one wanted to be a duchess—that was the sum and total of it. Damned if he'd satisfy ‘em. He had gone too far in goading Miss Artley, though. That had been unhandsome and uncalled for. He would see no more of her dimples after this day's work.

In less than twenty-four hours, he realized he had miscalculated the degree of his insult. Miss Artley's mama, when she discussed the visit with her daughter, decided that Arabella had set the duke's back up by alluding to former times, but felt it must be only a temporary fit of pique and sought to reawaken his interest. New gowns were fitted and great pains taken to discover where Clare might have the chance of seeing them and rekindling his passion, but the flame was well and truly extinguished.

She was replaced by a bevy of anxious beauties in the following season. There were the Misses Twitchwell, one blonde, one redhead, who refused to take offence at his never being able to tell them apart. When this joke palled on him, they were superseded by Miss Legg, famous for her killing eyes that slew a score of suitors a week. But Clare sustained no mortal wound. At a month's end he cast her off, and when she persisted in hounding him, he took to addressing her as Miss Arm, Miss Foot, or any other part of the anatomy that occurred to him.

It was reported by Miss Prattle that His Grace, the D—e of C——-e, would not be Legg-shackled after all and was once more running in the London Open, as she had dubbed the marriage race. This and other interesting morsels were to be read in her gossip column entitled ‘Miss Prattle Says.’ It was to the third page of the Morning Observer that all members of the
ton
turned while having their morning chocolate, to see what scandalous and near-libelous gossip they might pick up from Miss Prattle to enliven their daily chatter. For three seasons now she had reigned supreme as the Queen of Gossip, and to add mystery to mystique, she was still unknown after all that time, in spite of strenuous efforts to learn her identity. Certainly a member of the very inner circle of society, for she knew everyone and everything. During her first year of writing, she had hit on Clare as her whipping boy. He exemplified all that she deplored—vanity, arrogance, conspicuous display of wealth, wasting of time and talents. To this were added two attributes that Thorndyke liked, too: He never threatened to sue, as some did, nor did he ever storm into the office demanding to know who Miss Prattle was; and his name was of lively interest to his readers. Miss Prattle received every encouragement to say what she pleased about him.

During the time the Twitchwells were after Clare, his intimates teased him about being color-blind, because of his inability to distinguish red hair from blonde. Miss Prattle also took him to task, but she avoided the obvious and hinted instead that it was his color blindness that had led him to appear on the strut in a waistcoat no gentleman of fashion would be caught dead in, and added that it might also account for his book at Tatt's being in the red.

“Damme, I've missed settling up day at Tatt's,” Clare said when Miss Twitchwell read the article to him.

“Yes, but it is really a dig at you for not being able to tell me and Alice apart. Everyone says so."

“And one may always count on you to belabor the obvious, Lady ... Alice, is it?"

“No, I'm Mary,” she told him, still smiling.

“And
quite
contrary,” he said, returning her smile.

Clare shrugged his elegant shoulders when Miss Prattle ticked him off for betting five hundred pounds that Miss Altmire would not be allowed a voucher to Almack's, and agreed that he ought to have made it a thousand, for it was a dead certainty no mere Cit's daughter would get her toe into the holy of holies. That she had used his name as a reference to Sally Jersey had goaded him into making the bet, but Miss Prattle had slipped up on that piece of business.

His failure to appear at a garden party tossed at Clare Palace for his friends resulted in the title, “The Great Absent One,” but he merely quirked an eyebrow and said, “Damme, my barber was down with the quinsy; it would have been an insult to attend my own party unshaven.” Miss Prattle retaliated that His Grace had had a closer shave than he realized on that day, but she knew it was untrue and unworthy of her pen. There was nothing this presumptuous lord could do that would turn society against him while he remained the richest single gentleman in England.

Miss Prattle once wrote an entire column, ostensibly devoted to the general debauchery and low behavior of high society, but sprinkled throughout with so many references to the D—e of C—e that she deceived no one, least of all the Duke. Though he put a bland face on it, it angered Clare that it should be publicly advertised how he had failed to follow up in the House of Lords his efforts to alleviate the lot of those engaged in cottage industry, who were losing their livelihood by the introduction of mechanization. It hurt because it was true; he was well aware that he had not put forth his best efforts. Had only made the speech to support Byron—it did not affect his own county—and when George had let it go, he too had forgotten it. He felt the rest—the money spent on gambling and horses—was mere nit-picking, but the slur on his sloth and disinterest spurred him, and he had resumed his activities in the House. Miss Prattle had made no mention of that, he observed to himself.

He was chatting one day in his study with Bippy Tredwell, an intimate friend, and the subject of Miss Prattle arose.

“The woman's turning serious on us,” Bippy offered. “A regular tirade she's come up with today."

“Yes, and she's becoming a dead bore as well,” Clare agreed. For three years he had been listening to people tell him what she had said about him in her latest piece. “I would dearly like to know who this curst Prattle might be."

“Might be anyone,” Bippy surmised.

“Or everyone. She reports simultaneously on the dos in London, and in the country, and at Brighton. Seems to know Prinney and his set pretty well, which indicates an older woman."

“Knew about your bill being overdue at Tatt's, too. Shouldn't do that, Clare. Gambling debt—ought to pay up promptly."

“I cannot believe they were worried about it. There was no dun on my doorstep, and the grand total was five pounds. That one fact, though, indicates a masculine interest.” (It was Sir Herbert who had added that gem, quite by accident.)

“A man, you mean? I've heard Sheridan mentioned, but surely only a woman could write such stuff as you often read, about gowns, and furbelows, and so on."

“Mmm, possibly."

“Someone you've given a heavy set-down. Think a minute."

“Lord, I could think for days. I've insulted them all."

“That's true, and the devil only knows why you do it, when they couldn't be nicer to you if you flattered ‘em all hollow."

“Yes, there's no turning them against a title and fortune. I've been trying for years. I daresay I could call a lady toad-faced and humpbacked, and she'd smile and simper till it's all I can do to keep from shaking her."

“Still, you shouldn't have said Liza Entwhistle always looked good in that blue gown, for her papa's in the basket, and the truth hurts."

“Is he indeed? I didn't know that, or I shouldn't have said it. Really, I was sure it was a new gown, or I shouldn't have said a word. I never do cast aspersions on a lady's real faults, only on her pretensions. Except, of course, when her tenacity makes it absolutely essential."

“What an odd way to go about. You don't make your insults to the point then?"

“I fear my subtleties are quite wasted on the
hoi polloi
, but I only accuse a lady of a squint when she is minutely aware that her orbs are her finest feature. Take that lamentable waddle of Sylvia Blakeney, for instance. I would never tell her she waddles like a pig in farrow. It would be too utterly crude. I merely imply she sings like a crow, for she's proud of her voice. Whereas Miss Stinson, who sounds for the world like an unoiled hinge when she opens her mouth—I tease about her black curls, with red roots. She has really lovely hair, naturally black. Sets ‘em down a peg to think the whole town isn't admiring them."

“Beats me how they all eat up your barbs like honey, but I'm sure it's nothing to me. There's one who ain't afraid to give you back your own anyway, and that's Miss Prattle."

“Yes, Miss Prattle. Do you think I ought to do something about her—or him? Let us compromise and say ‘it.’ Shall I slay it?"

“How?"

“Now what was the weapon St. George used to slay the dragon? A sword, I believe. Shall I run it through, and do society a favor?"

“Got to find out who she is first."

“Not necessarily, Bip.” He sipped on a glass of sherry, and held the glass to the light to examine its color and clarity. “It would be nothing without me. If I reformed, its column would sink into a dull hash of who is flirting with whom. I make Miss Prattle, as surely as Brummell made the Prince."

“By Jove! Doing it too brown. Prinney made Brummell is more like it. His father was Lord North's secretary. Brummell is nothing but the son of a clerk, when all's said and done."

Clare's gray eyes leaped to Bippy's face, and his tone was cool.

“Do you infer that Miss Prattle makes me?” he asked.

“Course not. Didn't mean any such a thing. The way it works, though, you wouldn't be talked about so much if Prattle didn't jot down every word you say and write it up in her column every time you buy a new bit o’ blood or give a party. She does give you a certain éclat you wouldn't have otherwise. Calling you The Great Absent One when you didn't make it to your party that time, and Clare the Bare when you first got your hair cut
au naturel
. All that sort of nonsense. In a way, she
does
make you."