Escapade (29 page)

It was not a phrase to give reassurance to one already convinced life was over for her. “I have been wanting to apologize for that,” she added, so weakly that he had to strain his ears to hear her.

“Apologize for thinking it, not writing it. How could you, Ella? But it was that damned Belle Prentiss who set you on to that track."

“I cannot blame anyone but myself, but if you didn't tell about my being Prattle, who did?"

“I most assuredly did not tell, and in future I should be careful of printing any items given me by Miss Prentiss, if I were you."

Ella saw no way in which Belle could have known, yet she would not believe it was Clare when he had explicitly denied it. It had to be Belle. She had unearthed the truth somehow. “Does everyone know?” she asked.

“I doubt there's a person in the room who doesn't know by now."

“I am ruined! Please, I must go home."

“What—all your gall deserted you? If you care tuppence what people may think of you, you'll stay.” All this altercation went forward while they danced, and Clare even smiled occasionally at others on the floor.

“I don't care. Please, let me go."

“And what about Sara? A fine thank-you to her for carting you around town these four years! And to myself, for trying if I can to save your reputation. Think of someone other than yourself for a change, Miss Fairmont."

These harsh words and the even harsher tone in which they were delivered shook her out of her fit of despair. Clare hated her—that much was indisputable—but if he thought her a despicable, underhanded conniver, he might at least be shown she was not craven. She repressed the urge to flee and said in a stronger tone, “Yes, I must stay, for Sara's sake."

“Try if you can to manage a smile while you're about it. Everyone is looking at you."

To smile under such circumstances was too tall an order, but she tried manfully. It only emphasized her misery. Clare felt a strong inclination to waltz her out the door and take her home, as she wanted. To get her away from the prying eyes. But they had to go on living in this world, with these same people, and if they were put to rout now, the future would be infinitely worse than it could be.

“We'll have this one dance—talk to a few people who matter, then I'll take you home,” he decided. She was clearly not up to facing the whole night.

“Thank you,” she said. He feared she was on the verge of tears. That last “thank-you” had been uncharacteristically meek. Sympathy at this point would send her over the edge.

He said brusquely, “For God's sake, don't turn into a watering pot on me."

“No, I won't,” she said, still too meek to please him, and her eyes were flooding up.

“Come now, I expect better than this from Miss Fairmont."

She blinked back the tears and made answers, largely irrelevant, to what remarks he could think of to say to her till the dance was over. Ella looked about for Sara when the music stopped, but Clare, discerning her intention of getting away, held her arm.

“Shall we tackle your new love first?” he asked.

“What do you mean?"

“Byron. Might as well get it over with, don't you think?"

“I couldn't!"

But Byron, like everyone else at Almack's, was eager to meet Miss Prattle, and upon intercepting a smile from Clare, came hurrying over.

“Now tell me, Clare, was I correct or not in my surmise regarding Miss Prattle?” he said, looking at Ella in a teasing manner out of eyes which had been described by another poet as something like the windows of heaven. Even with the troubles besetting her, Ella took a moment to admire them.

“Are you ever wrong, George?"

“Not in my judgment of literature—and women. I take those two areas as my own special province."

“With such a bare-faced assertion as that, I quite tremble to make you known to my special friend, Miss Fairmont."

“Alias Miss Prattle.” Byron took her hand and raised it to his lips. Ella's heart fluttered, and Clare bristled to see her falling under the poet's spell. “I have been longing to make your acquaintance, ma'am,” he replied, looking deeply into her eyes.

Some jumbled phrases were made by Ella. “Never have I regretted my inability to dance so much as tonight,” Byron continued, glancing at his club foot, while the others politely looked elsewhere and pretended not to know what he was talking about.

“Well, I have decided to forgive Miss Prattle,” Clare said after a moment's uncomfortable pause, “and if she asks you very nicely, George, may I count on you to do the same?"

“Oh, I forgive her anything, so long as she doesn't take to printing the truth about me."

“I am sorry,” Ella said.

“But I find it less easy to forgive you, Clare. I made sure Miss Prattle was in love with me. I am much more interesting, you know,” he turned to Ella, with a bantering and dangerous smile. “We literati ought to stick together, don't you think? These dull clods of Corinthians have no appreciation of the finer things in life. May I call on you tomorrow, and ask your opinion on some verses I am presently composing?"

Ella smiled in delight, and Clare replied, “Unfortunately, old man, Miss Fairmont is already engaged to ride out with me. And now I shall forcibly drag her away, before you make some other rendezvous."

“Ah, but we writers can arrange things by letter, eh, Miss Fairmont?"

Clare did drag her away then, in a state of alarm.

“Oh, he is charming,” Ella enthused. “I never saw such eyes, with lashes a yard long."

“There are Harley and Peters,” Clare pointed out, welcoming any distraction.

“By Jove, I always knew you was up to anything, Miss Fairmont,” Peters began. “Is it true you're Miss Prattle?"

“It is all too true,” Clare said, happy with the way in which the revelation was being taken. “Pulled the wool over all our eyes."

Harley had other fish to fry. “Been wanting to ask you about this pig race,” he said to Clare. “I've got myself a porker—a young sow, clocked her at eight miles an hour—over a short run of course. Whom do we see about entering?"

“Don't believe everything you read,” Clare told him.

“Read? I don't read anything. Wideman told me about it. He says it's to take place in a month's time, and I think you ought to advance the date, for July is getting pretty hot to be running a pig."

Into this discussion Miss Sheridan appeared, so lovely that all talk was suspended. “Everyone is saying you are Miss Prattle, Ella. Can it possibly be true?"

“I'm afraid it is,” Ella confessed.

Sherry smiled at her. “You will want to mention I was the first one Clare stood up with tonight. If you are wondering what this new hairstyle I am wearing is called, it is the Victime. Quite an old do, but I have decided to bring it back into fashion. Isn't it lovely? Do you like it as well as the Méduse, Clare?"

“Did I fail to compliment you on it when I stood up with you for the first dance? How very remiss of me. It is charming."

“It is, isn't it? But very few could wear it. Mama said in the olden days ladies used to wear a little red ribbon round their throats, to remind people of the guillotine, but I think that is horrid and wore this blue one instead."

Clare dragged Ella away as soon as possible and engaged various groups in conversation. Not everyone was so well pleased with Miss Prattle as Lord Byron and the crew from the house party, but there were no direct cuts, and with the Season about over, he thought talk would have time to die down over the summer.

“Can I go now?” Ella asked.

“Yes, I shall take you home. We'll say you have the headache—or perhaps it will be better if Sara has a headache, and you take her home. We have scraped through pretty well, I think, and shan't give anyone the satisfaction of saying you have a headache."

Sara accepted without a blink that she had a headache. She had placed their fates in Clare's hands and was well pleased with his handling of the mess. “It's no more than the truth, for I think this knife jab in my temple is the onset of migraine."

“I'll call your carriage,” Clare said. He took them to it as well, then returned to continue his charade for another hour, before going to Belgrave Square with a splitting headache himself.

Sara, despite her migraine, gave Ella to understand that she had been treated much better than she had any right to expect by Clare, and she hoped she was grateful to him.

A night's indifferent sleep proved efficacious in curing all the headaches involved except Belle's. Hers would linger for a few days, till she formed the excellent notion of trapping Lord Harley, now that she knew from experience at the Palace what sort of girl he liked. That she was not that sort of a girl mattered not in the least. She was nothing if not versatile, and very capable of entering into the interests of a Corinthian.

At Grosvenor Square, Lady Watley was treated to a recounting of the night's events and entered, with Sara, into hopes that Clare might yet come up to scratch, if only Ella would not do something foolish.

“Well, she won't do it with the column,” Sara affirmed, “for I mean to write it myself. This is the end of the contract, thank God! I wouldn't renew it for all the tea in China."

“We'll both stay home today,” Mrs. Watley said. “We'd be asked a million questions if we showed our noses out the door, and we can keep an eye on you-know-who, too, to see she don't decide to slip away to Fairmont, or something equally foolish. Just like her to vanish when things are going so well."

“I don't mean to budge an inch from the house, and if he comes to call, I shall make sure she has her hair combed and something decent on."

“Where is she anyway? She's usually down before this."

“She's up and dressed. Writing on the magnum opus, I expect."

“I don't dare ask what it's all about."

“It's about twenty pages of doodling right now, for she hasn't put a word on paper since we came back from Dorset, in spite of the hours she's spent pouring over it."

In her room, Ella was not even pretending to write this morning, but pacing back and forth, wondering if Clare really meant to drive out with her today, as he had indicated to Lord Byron. Surely he would not just leave things like this. She had subjected the preceding night's events to exhaustive scrutiny and realized at length what Clare must have grasped in a moment. Once the secret was out that she was Prattle, he had acted in the only possible manner that might have saved her skin. That he had pulled it off at all was a feat of no mean proportions and that he had done it for her, after her abuse of him, could indicate nothing but continued regard. It was incredible, but no other possibility could account for it. His ploy might very well have failed, and if it had, he would have looked the greatest fool in the kingdom, to have gone on befriending her when everyone else cut her out. In short, he had staked his reputation to save hers, and while she did not place so high a value on her reputation as he seemed to, it was the act of a generous man.

Sara would have been relieved to know what care was spent on her niece's toilette that morning and that Stepson had been asked to do the recalcitrant hair. When all was arranged, there was nothing to do but wait, in an agony of suspense, for Clare to come.

Before he could come, Clare had to wait and explain to his Mama why he had not better news to report than he had.

“Well, am I looking at an engaged man?” the Duchess asked her son, before she even took her place at the table.

“I'm afraid not, Mama, but you're looking at one about to pop the question."

“Four hours wasn't enough time for you to screw yourself up to the sticking point?” she asked. “I couldn't get to sleep. Heard you come in after twelve. I was going to ask you then, but I knew I wouldn't get any sleep if you had failed."

“Things fell out somewhat differently than I expected. She was at Almack's, you see, and there was no privacy there to ask her."

“No, well, it ain't the best place. I'll grant you. How was the assembly?"

“More exciting than I expected. I was wishing you were there; I could have used you."

“You've developed a charming way of expressing yourself. I don't advise you to use that particular phrase when you're making your offer to Ella."

“No, Mama."

“What do you mean anyway, you could have used me? I don't trip the light fantastic so well as I used to, and I can't think you were lacking for partners."

“No, but when it was revealed that Ella is Miss Prattle, I would have been thankful for your power with a set-down,” he smiled agreeably.

“What! Patrick, quit bamming me. You cannot mean..."

“Oh, yes, I have known it for some time now."

“And her so sweet butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. Oh, the minx! Just wait till I get my hands on her."

“Take care, Mama. You are speaking of your future daughter."

A loud laugh escaped his mother's mouth. “Am I indeed? Well in that case, I shall limit myself to one hand. And you still mean to have her?"

“Certainly. She can make good use of me now. You see I am willing to be put to use myself, with no objection whatsoever."

“And do you mean to sit there and tell me you managed somehow to get the patronesses to accept her? Walking on water is nothing to this. I begin to think I've sired a magician. Tell me the whole, at once."

He did so, and they both enjoyed a triumphant laugh at his brass. “Well, it seems to me the poor girl has suffered enough for her little prank, and I shan't add to her discomfort by saying another word. Get on over there now and ask her to marry you. She can hardly refuse after what you've done."

“No—I feel she is beholden to me, after that."

“And bring her back here after. I have a hundred questions to ask her."

“And I have one to ask you. Will you go and lure Sara and her mama from the house for me? Sara is a darling, but I fear she will be hanging around to crow over last night, and I am just a little impatient after waiting so long..."

“You took on the assembled patronesses of Almack's and the whole of London society, and yet you are afraid of Lady Sara Mantel. There is no understanding you, Patrick. I'll go, though. I want someone to talk to about it."