False Angel (16 page)

Whatever he had been about to say died on his lips. He gave Leonora one long, expressionless look, and then led her to her cousin. Then, bowing, he left her.

But he did not leave the party. In fact, it was noted and much commented upon that the Marquess of Severne danced with the obscure Miss Greyling once again after he had taken her in to dinner, and that he lingered over her hand for a very long time before he left the Talwins’ ball.

TEN

“Kind of you to stop in to say good-bye,” the viscount commented as he filled his visitor’s glass once again.

But his guest put up one white hand as he was proffered the drink, “No, thank you,” he said in his husky, whispering voice. “Since my duchess will have my head when I come late to tea, I shudder to think what other parts of my adorable person she would revenge herself upon if I came to her merry with drink as well.”

The viscount had to turn his head as if he were wondering where to replace the glass in order to conceal his smile. Those few who knew the Duke of Torquay well were constantly amused at how often it pleased him still to say “my duchess,” as though he were only lately wed, as though there were some special magic and merit in that proud possessive phrase. But he soon sobered, remembering how few of his own friends and acquaintances derived any sort of similar pleasure from mention of their own marriages. That thought quite naturally led him to the business at hand again.

“The invitation was kind,” he said gruffly, “and unexpected. I hope it’s not too much for you. I know how seldom you and your delightful duchess entertain.”

The duke’s lucent blue eyes lit up at that, as though he well knew how much his phraseology had amused his host, but he only said softly, wonderingly.

“You shock me, Talwin, you do. It’s very bad ton, you know, to chide a fellow for inviting you to his home even as you accept his invitation. And we are not precisely hermits, you know, my duchess and I. No, no,” he went on, ignoring the viscount’s attempts to explain himself, “never think it is all for you. It isn’t a bit of it, you know. We want to go home, you see. It’s time. In the past weeks, we’ve seen every outstanding new piece of theater and heard every fresh scrap of enthralling gossip, and have managed to be noted by every person of unimportance in London and have doubtless contributed to half a hundred delectable new scurrilous tales ourselves. But we have to be careful of our reputations, you know, lest familiarity take the shine out of them. Well, even a circus must eventually move on. So the ton will just have to soldier on without us for a space, I fear. But perhaps Boney will take up the slack and liven things up for them by invading this summer,” he mused.

“Surely you don’t believe that Johnny-come-lately can replace you?” the viscount asked dryly.

“Jacques-come-lately actually, and no, though it’s kind of you to fret over it,” the duke answered agreeably. “But we must go anyway. Still, though we’re headed home, we do hate to part company with our closest friends. So we hit upon the happy idea of having a festive week at Grace Hall for a few of our intimates. It’s warm enough for picnic parties, and water parties, and riding parties—we can make ourselves dizzy with our revelries.”

“Just what you most wished,” the viscount said quietly.

After a pause, the golden-haired duke shifted in his chair and went on thoughtfully, “Well, you did mention that you could scarcely give another ball, and I don’t wonder that Lord Benjamin and his good Sybil balk at it. It looks mightily odd for the Talwins and the Benjamins to suddenly become such demons for society. And then too, my duchess and I worry over Joss. We have few friends, perhaps that’s why we take such undue care with those we do have. He’s a very good man, and deserves better than he’s gotten, and far better than what he appears to be going after. And though we don’t understand or approve of what he seems to be doing at the moment, we’re enormously fond of him. As we are of you. And of your delightful daughter, although we don’t know her too well.”

“Nor do I anymore,” the viscount said sadly, “but I do want her happiness.”

“It’s happiness we’re both after, then,” the duke agreed, and then smiling widely as he rose from his chair, he said, “Talwin, if you find it amazing that I am become such a paragon of husbandly virtues, you may find it even more delightful when I tell you that I know myself to be perhaps the most unlikely cupid that ever picked up a bow. And I can’t ascertain,” he mused, “whether it’s my advancing age that has made me so interested in the trivial, or whether the wisdom that comes with age has shown me that affairs of the heart are what is essential, and all the rest, trivial.” As the viscount took his guest’s hand, he said, “Whatever it is, Jason, I’m grateful for it And so would Leonora be, I’m sure, if she knew of it If I dared let her know of it, that is.” He grinned. “Oh, and before I forget, I’ve some papers for you to look over,” he said, turning to take some correspondence from a desk drawer. “There’s some nastiness on the coast that I’d like your opinion on. It may well be trivial compared with my daughter’s love life, but I think our Prince should know of it, and I’d like your recommendations. I doubt Boney’s going to fly over Dover in a balloon, and don’t think for a moment that he’s about to tunnel under the channel neither, but I don’t like the look of this report of beacons on the cliffs. See what you make of it,” he said as he handed the letters to his friend.

“Of course,” the duke said. “So then we shall see you, the viscountess, and the Lady Leonora as well, on the twenty-fifth?”

“Thank you, and gladly,” the viscount replied.

The duke hesitated, and then asked, after a pause, “And her companion Miss Greyling accompanies you? I inquire,” he said carefully, “because Joss specifically asked me if she were coming as well when he received his invitation.”

“She accompanies us,” the viscount said on a sigh. “How could she not at this point?”

“Do you have that report on her history as yet?” the duke asked casually, glancing down at the gloves he was donning.

“I only just sent for it, on your urging,” the viscount answered glumly, “and I doubt it will come to anything.”

“Oh doubtless,” the duke said carelessly as he took up his walking stick and prepared to take his leave of the older gentleman, “but I’m nevertheless glad that you acted on my suggestion and are proceeding with the inquiries. I’ve always followed my impulses, and see what they have got me. My
duchess
,” he said on a laugh that was all self-aware, and aware of his friend’s embarrassment even as he laughed with him.

The fair-haired young woman stood looking down silently at the great book which lay open upon the table. She ran one finger gently across the page, brushing it slowly across the picture which showed two little boys embracing while their spaniel played at their feet and a king looked down upon them.

“No,” commented the dark-haired woman who’d come into the room behind her to look over her shoulder, “I’m never in the mood to follow the awful chronicles of Richard Crookback today, Belle. In fact, it’s become so warm today, so summery actually, that I scarcely feel like doing any reading at all. Why don’t you read on without me? Then later, if you like, we can go for a stroll. Or,” Leonora said lightly, as she turned her back to her relative, “there may be no need for me at all, for you may be invited out for a ride again.”

The chamber grew very still, and then Annabelle said in a soft, hurt, and puzzled voice, “Cousin, are you angry with me? For if you are,” she said at once, when the lady spun around with a deep blush upon her cheek, “I’m sorry for it and want to know what I can do to remedy the situation. A carnage ride,” she said quietly, “can never make up for my losing your esteem. Is it that you dislike my associating with the Marquess of Severne? But that is nothing, for I can always tell him no, next time that he calls. I can always refuse politely by telling him that my friendship with you, cousin, is of paramount importance to me.

Annabelle stared at Leonora expressionlessly, awaiting her answer. But it was a time in coming, for Leonora was too appalled for immediate speech. Trust Belle, was her first acutely embarrassed thought, to bring the thing out into the open without hesitation. The girl has no shadows in her soul, Leonora thought, feeling very small and crabbed. I am a spiritual troll compared to her. No wonder he has chosen her, she is light to my dark, in morality as well as looks. Who would not choose day over night? Then she rushed to say, almost stumbling over her words in her haste, “Oh, Belle, no never. Whatever gave you that impression?” while all the time she thought, I did, heaven help me, I do.

“But cousin,” Belle replied, “you looked so very unhappy when I accepted his offer to ride around Town to see the sights the other day, that I almost refused him until you insisted that I go. And then, when he came to call that first time, you left the room at once, or at least you did when you realized that he had come to visit with me and not you. Then too, when we met at the Winthrop house that night, and he came to sit with me, you frowned and then left us. I do enjoy his company. He is amusing and very kind, and handsome, too, but I owe you so much that I would forego his company for you if you wish. You have but to ask me to do so. I cannot say,” Annabelle went on, cocking her head to one side in thoughtful consideration, “that he would then take up with you. But I could ask that he do so, for my sake, if you wish me to.”

Had any other female of her acquaintance but Annabelle said what she just had, Leonora felt that she would without doubt have slapped the chit soundly across the face, or even done more complete mayhem with whatever stray objects were at hand. Or if not that, she thought sadly, remembering that her passions, while strong, were usually ridden and reined by strong conventions, she would have at the very least dressed her down and slammed from the room.

But Annabelle, she sighed, Annabelle had no malice in her. Just as it had turned out to be impetuous rather than presumptuous of her to take matters into her own hands and deliver Severne’s invitation personally, so too, what might appear to be vicious behavior, this gloating over Severne’s apparent courtship, was only the innocent reportage and observation of a child. Or a childlike adult, she corrected herself.

She gazed at Annabelle sadly as she tried to frame a politic answer for her. What was it, she wondered, as she had since Severne had taken up with Belle, that attracted him to her? If she herself were a gentleman, Leonora thought, surely she would not wish to make love to a female who behaved more like a girl than a woman. But then, she admitted that she hadn’t the slightest idea of what gentlemen truly preferred in their choice of females.

She’d once believed, hadn’t she, she remembered, that her father would prefer to remain faithful to his wedded wife rather than taking up with sluttish baggages that he encountered in public parks. Although, Leonora thought again, as she had in her recent uncomfortable nights, she could see how a man might be drawn to a vulgar tart like the one she’d seen her father embrace far more readily than she could understand interest in such a meek, obedient creature as Annabelle, no matter how lovely she appeared to be. But then, she decided, bizarre as it seemed, perhaps the gentlemen wanted Annabelles for their wives so that they could then go out and betray them with females who were low harlots.

And if so, why then it might well have been her wholehearted response to his kiss, she thought wearily, that had convinced him to begin his courtship of Annabelle. He might have thought her an experienced cheat, he might have had a wife who cuckolded him, or he might have thought her delightful to dally with but nothing more, and had known that one did not trifle with a viscount’s daughter.

It might have been a dozen other things she could not, and would never know about. But Talwin’s daughter had certain obligations to her position and to herself. So Leonora drew herself up and steadied herself.

“Please say nothing to the marquess,” Leonora said humbly, “for though it’s true that I once liked him, I cannot say that I know him at all, not really. And I think that if he prefers your company to mine, you certainly ought to allow him to continue to see you. He would be a wonderful catch for you. And that is what our trip to Town was all about originally, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Annabelle, “but I thought you’d forgotten that.”

Leonora looked at her sharply, but the fair-haired girl’s expression was bland and she only trailed her finger over the opened page again.

“You said you did not wish to read Richard Crookback today, as though it were an unpleasant chore. Is it? And if it is, why is such a work included in such an entertaining volume?” Annabelle asked suddenly, leaving off the other conversation with the unconcern of a child. And so, Leonora, glad to forget all her painful ruminations, gave her a brief lecture on King Richard the Third, which became so interesting to her that it was not long before she was reading aloud from the book after all.

She looked up at her audience just about the time that Richard was beginning his treacherous courtship of the Lady Anne. Annabelle was patting at the dust motes that were set spinning around her like golden fairy dust in the stream of light from the window each time one of the great pages of the book was turned. Leonora dropped the smooth and unctuous voice that she had adopted for her characterization of Richard, and said simply, as she closed the book, setting up a draft that caused the golden specks to whirl in a blizzard of activity, “It really needs a man’s voice to do it justice. I don’t blame you in the least for losing patience. Richard is such a lovely villain I’m sure I’d enjoy his company more than I would most heroes. But a woman reading his lines gives him a dimension I’m sure was not intended, for I don’t believe that a woman could ever be so entirely evil, so wholeheartedly concerned with only her own advancement, so brutally self-interested as to blithely destroy all those closest to her. Richard is gentle here, to be sure, for he must be so, but it is a particularly seductive, dangerous gentleness, and I do think a man ought read the part. Then again, men did act all the parts when it was first performed, and I often wonder what other connotations the roles had then.”