Mr. Darcy's Daughters (28 page)

Alethea was in some ways, she had to admit, much older than the twins, and far more resourceful, even if she had no more sense than the flighty pair. Like the twins, she had outgrown the schoolroom; unlike them, her desire to venture into the wider world was private, had been carried out in the utmost secrecy, and was not, thank God, driven by interest in the male sex but rather by a spirit of adventure.

Wytton, meanwhile, was turning his mind to practicalities.

“As long as her maid is with her, I can take her home.” He raised his hand to silence her protests. “Do not make a fuss about it, it is a short enough journey, and I shall go and return within half an hour; no one will even notice my absence. The only problem is how she may get into the house in Aubrey Square unnoticed.”

“In exactly the same way she came out and has returned on her previous excursions, I dare say.” Camilla’s voice was pure acid, and it won an appreciative smile from Wytton.

“My word, you are angry indeed. I would not be in your sister’s shoes for anything. I am surprised she risked incurring your wrath.”

“Would not you be angry if one of your sisters had behaved in such a way?”

“I am afraid my sisters, although dear girls, are dull by comparison with the Darcys.”

“You are being deliberately obtuse.”

“Not at all. Merely truthful. I thought you were impatient of convention. Would you rather I uttered a few insincere and platitudinous phrases of disapproval?”

“It would be more appropriate.”

He looked her straight in the eye. “You lie.”

She could not hold her gaze steady, and so took a different tack. “And I should not be here alone with you, that is enough to set all the gossips’ tongues wagging.”

“Let them wag. Oh, very well, if it worries you, return to the ballroom; we have not been gone above a few minutes, and I doubt if we were observed. Our disappearance coincided with the arrival of Prinny, in case you did not notice it. How unlike our fat prince to be of use to anyone, but on this occasion he provided an admirable diversion.”

“Are you making that up?”

“Would I do such a thing? Of course not. Go back in, and you will see him resplendent in all too many dazzling orders, holding court among his cronies and hangers-on.”

She couldn’t suppress a laugh, although it came out as a muffled snort.

“Go,” he said. “You may safely leave your sister to me.”

Doubts assailed her. Should she let Alethea go with him, at night, in his carriage? Fanny would be horrified if she knew.

“I assure you, she will be perfectly safe with me. In that outfit, you, her sister, hardly knew her; no one will give her a second look, and as for the proprieties, I am not in the habit of forcing my advances on very young ladies travelling in my carriage.”

“Don’t be absurd. It is only—”

He touched her hand, the merest brush, but it gave her disproportionate comfort.

“Leave it to me, all will be well. Back into the ballroom with you; listen, the musicians are striking up for a waltz. I cannot believe you have not a partner for this dance awaiting you.”

“Oh, my goodness, I am promised to Mr. Roper. He will be hunting everywhere for me.”

“Then let him find you where he expects to, among the guests, and not in here with me and a dubious musician.”

Camilla waited for a moment beside the door, opening it the merest crack. No one was looking her way, there were nothing but silk and satin and velvet backs in front of her; in a trice, she was through, darting forward into the throng of people waiting to take their places for the dance.

To think how she had looked forward to this evening! How happy she and her sisters, even Letty, had been as they dressed for the ball! The twins were all in white this evening, their dresses made in satin and gauze and cut very low across the bosom, with wide, puffed sleeves. They wore pearls; Letty, very fine in yellow silk, wore a diamond necklace that had belonged to their grandmother, the icy stones suiting her style of beauty.

Camilla preferred darker shades, as dark as was permissible for a debutante, and she had chosen green for her ball dress, worn with a silver underskirt and, round her throat, a delicate chain interwoven with peridots. She looked, Alethea had said approvingly, like a river nymph.

“A naiad,” Miss Griffin said, as she inspected the four girls in their ball finery.

“Don’t you wish you were coming?” Georgina said to Alethea.

“Not at all,” Alethea had said, with a swift, secret smile.

A smile that Camilla now understood perfectly. As she twirled round the floor with Mr. Roper, her mind only half on his ecstatic admiration of Mrs. Rowan’s dancing, gown and looks, Camilla wondered what else her sisters might do to make the evening, awaited with such excitement and pleasurable anticipation, even more disagreeable.

As always, once she was on her feet and dancing, she felt better. There was Letty dancing again with Mr. Barcombe; how kind he was. She gave him full marks for not letting his eyes roam around the room in search of Belle.

That was just as well, for where was Belle? Her own eyes might roam, but she could not see Belle, no, nor Georgina, neither. When the dance ended, she would find them, to tell them of what had happened to Letty, if they were somehow unaware of it, and warn them to be on their best behaviour, as sharp eyes would be on the watch for any more slips by the Darcy girls.

Would the twins care? Would it come as news to them? Surely they would already have heard about Tom Busby, and Letty’s reaction; no doubt they would think it all a capital joke.

Nonetheless, she would look for them and try to make them understand that this was not a time for them to make sport of Letty.

It proved to be no easy task.

“I don’t see Belle or Georgina,” she said to Fanny, who was engaged in an animated conversation with Pagoda Portal.

Fanny looked up at her. “Are not they dancing? They cannot lack for partners, they were besieged by men begging for a dance the instant they set foot over the threshold.”

“They have probably gone outside; the night is hot, and there are seats in the garden,” said Mr. Portal.

“Yes, and do not be alarmed, my dear,” said Fanny. “It is all perfectly seemly, the garden here is quite open, there are no dark shrubberies or shaded walks where couples might slip away. You should not be so ready to suspect your sisters of mischief.”

Fanny underestimated the twins’ ingenuity in finding places to slip away to. If the garden were indeed open, with no shady corners and sheltering shrubs, then Belle in particular might well be tucked away behind some curtains or in a deserted corner of a library or morning room.

She left Fanny and Pagoda Portal, and went further afield, looking into rooms where the doors stood open, first finding herself in a handsome morning room, where a little group of people stared her out of countenance before resuming their talk, and then into the library, a fine room with crimson silk brocade visible on the walls between the floor-to-ceiling shelves of books. There were voices coming from an alcove at the far end of the room, and she advanced hopefully towards them, treading carefully on the slippery Chinese rugs scattered across the floor—did Lord Mersham intend his guests to slide about as though on the ice?

Disappointment. As she drew near the alcove, she found that the voices belonged not to a twin and her companion, but to a tall man with greying hair and heavy-lidded eyes who was talking with her aunt Lydia. He was telling her what sounded like a scurrilous anecdote while she sat back in a winged chair, listening to him with evident amusement. The man gave Camilla a cool, appraising, calculating stare, the kind of look she had come to dislike so much. She didn’t wait for an introduction, but addressed her aunt.

“I am looking for Belle; have you seen her?”

The man answered. “Miss Belle Darcy, the beautiful fair twin, the one they call Day? She was here some minutes ago, with Rampton.”

“Thank you, sir. Which way did they go?”

“Now, my dearest niece,” Lydia broke in. “You are not to be following them. When a young couple slip away together on a sultry summer’s night at a ball, it is a great piece of folly to try and find them. It is very evident what they are up to; let discretion be your watchword. In such a crush, she will not be missed for a half hour or so.”

“Except by her devoted sister. I assume you are her sister,” said the man.

Camilla could not avoid the introduction, did not take in his name, smiled mechanically at him.

“Have you no partner with whom to sit out the dance, Miss Camilla? A thousand pities! What a waste of a delightful evening for so charming a young lady to be chasing a sister about the place. If you should be about to enquire after your other sister—Miss Night, shall I call her?—I saw her pass by a while ago on Sir Joshua Mordaunt’s arm.”

Camilla caught the contempt in his voice, flushed and, murmuring her apologies, went quickly out of the library. So Belle was with Rampton. Well, he might forget himself under the intoxication of being alone with a lovely creature like Belle, but she doubted it. Rampton had an eye to Belle’s fortune, and that meant he would take care how he behaved at a ball with her family present. In any case, Belle must look out for herself; short of keeping her locked up, there was little her family could do about her flirtatious and reckless ways.

As for Georgina, could she really have been so lost to all sense of propriety as to slip away from the ballroom with Sir Joshua Mordaunt?

The present Lord Mersham, inheriting a vast fortune and the title upon the death of his uncle, had, some years before, set about modernising Mersham House. A man of individual, not to say eccentric tastes, he had determined on top-to-bottom refurbishment in the classical style, his designs part gleaned from his visits to Italy, part taken from Palladio’s works.

It was said that there had been columns in the kitchens and wall paintings in the Roman taste even in the housekeeper’s room, until the staff had risen in revolt. The pillars had been placed elsewhere, and several coats of whitewash applied to the servants’ quarters over the bright figures of naked nymphs disporting themselves, which had caused such giggles among the younger members of staff and such dismay to the older and staider servants.

One result of all this was that, to the stranger, all the rooms, ante-rooms and small chambers seemed alike, with one triumph of marble floors and columns leading to another. In short, Camilla was soon lost, knowing that she had ventured away from the public rooms and was in a part of the house where she had no business to be.

She came at last to a circular hallway, with an elegant staircase rising in a flourish to the floor above, and several curved doors, each a classical perfection of architrave and fluting, all of them closed. She stopped, quite disoriented by now, and with no idea of the way back to the ballroom.

As she was about to turn and attempt to retrace her steps, one of the doors opened and a short, plumpish man in a rollicking good humour came bouncing through, accompanied by a bored-looking woman in a feathered purple toque. The woman was unknown to her, but she had noticed the startling headdress earlier in the evening. These must surely be fellow guests rather than family.

The man had evidently drunk rather more than was good for him, and was insistent that the supper room was this way, that the Mershams always laid out supper in the Venus Salon, you couldn’t mistake it, not with that splendid statue perched in the centre of a huge marble table, and see, here was the very door, here in front of them, unless his memory was altogether at fault.

A footman in gorgeous livery and powdered wig stepped forward, but before he could explain that supper was being served in another room tonight, the man had flung open the door. He took a lurching step forward, then stopped so abruptly as to send the woman behind him staggering back.

With a sense of foreboding, Camilla started towards the open door, and the three of them gazed into the room, where a couple in some state of disorder were revealed in a close and amorous embrace.

“Curse you,” cried the man, as he and the woman sprang apart. “The fiend take you for a set of prying busybodies.”

A few fierce strides, the plump man received a direct thrust from a formidable fist that sent him reeling from the room, and the door was slammed in his face.

“Well!” he said, when he had recovered his breath. “Did you ever see such a thing? Sir Joshua Mordaunt, as I live.”

“Disgraceful behaviour; monstrous. And at a ball!” The woman’s gleeful voice belied the disapproval of her words.

Camilla’s swift glance into the room had told all she would rather not have known. That second or two was quite enough for her—as for the others—to take in the identity of the woman in Sir Joshua’s arms. It was Georgina, her violet eyes huge, her face soft, her whole being concentrated upon her male companion.

She retreated, coming to rest behind a pillar. She stood there, eyes closed, trying to shut out the images of her sister and that man—in vain, they seemed to have been etched on her mind. Sir Joshua, a married man. And Georgina in his arms, in full view of a woman who was so clearly a scandalmonger! Dear God, it was as though her sisters had deliberately set out to disgrace themselves this evening in a bout of midsummer madness.

She should go back, knock on the door, demand that Georgina come out. Yes, and arouse the interest and curiosity of everyone in the ballroom. Besides, she had distinctly heard the key turn in the lock after the door had been slammed shut in that drunken man’s face.

What a fool Sir Joshua was; why had he not locked the door in the first place?

She caught herself up; the wrong was in what he and Georgina had been doing, not in the discovery.

No, there was no purpose to be served in deceiving herself. It was hard to admit that one, or even two, of her younger sisters might have so little sense of morality that they would engage in intrigues of so ardent a nature. She would have thought that an instinct for self-preservation would be stronger than their passions.

It was evidently not so, at least not in Georgina’s case. Camilla and Letty and her cousins had been at fault, for taking the easy way with an impossible pair, for not packing them off home to Pemberley at the first sign of trouble.

She felt sick with apprehension; it would not take that woman long to find out who the woman with Sir Joshua was, if she had not instantly known, and then Georgina would be left without a shred of reputation. There could be no salvation in marriage; Sir Joshua already had a wife. Loathsome man, to seduce a young, innocent girl, a stranger to the way of the world.

Seduce? She was using words and sentiments straight from a Minerva novel. She could not say whether it was a question of seduction, and if it were, there was no telling who was the seducer and who the seduced. She was in no position to cast stones at her errant sister. If Sir Sidney Leigh had been other than he was, if he had responded in any way to her, if he had felt half the attraction she had for him, and they had been alone together, then what might the consequences have been for her, what then would caution and self-control have counted for?

She found she did not care to examine herself on this point. She knew now what she had not known only a few short weeks before: that virtue was not so easily preserved, and morality, sense and reason were but slender defenders against the onslaught of passion and tenderness, let alone love. That was what your mothers and governesses and respectable women never told you when they spoke of reputations and good names, of ruin and of fallen women.

All these thoughts flitted through her mind in seconds, and revelatory as they might be, they were of no help to her immediate predicament. She took another step backwards, hoping to slip away before the man and woman noticed her, and found herself gripped in a pair of strong arms.

She was about to let out a shriek, but was forestalled by a man’s voice speaking low and close to her ear.

“Be quiet,” said Wytton. “Do not say a word. Go back to the ballroom. The door under the stairway will take you there. Leave this to me.”

He released her and gave her a push, and in a state of disbelief and disquiet, she went through the door he had indicated and, following the sound of music and people, found her way back to the ballroom.

The crowd on the dance floor and the people standing and sitting and talking round the edge of the room were a blur of colour and movement, the candlelight a cloud of flickering flames; the air was stuffy, fetid, full of the smells of hot wax and bodies. Nothing was in focus, nothing was clear or made any sense. What had Wytton seen? What was he proposing to do? Would he storm into the room, challenge Mordaunt to a duel, drag Georgina out and cast her to the society wolves?

What absurd fancies; there was no reason to believe he would do any of those things. Leave this to me, he had said. Leave what to him? Oh, why did he not come back to explain himself?

Wytton went into the ballroom by a different entrance. He saw Camilla at once, standing apart with an air of aloofness, which he knew to be no such thing, but merely a mask for her anxiety and distress. He moved easily through the knots of people to reach her before she had noticed his entry to the room. She turned, and a little exclamation escaped her as he came to stand beside her.

She must look as though she were enjoying the ball and had not a care in the world. “Smile; look animated,” he said in a low voice. He offered his hand to take her into the dance and said in a more formal tone, “I was promised to Sophie, but I missed my turn. I was not back in time.”

“Oh, but she will be waiting for you,” Camilla said, drawing away from him.

“No, she is over there, dancing with Allington. I expect he saw that her partner had let her down and stepped in, which is very civil of him.”

“You do not mind?”

“Mind? No, I do not mind.” His eyes drifted back to Sophie. Now she looked animated indeed, and so pretty, with her laugh breaking out and her eyes sparkling with her pleasure in the dance.

“Is Al—” Camilla began, and then stopped.

“Wiser not to name names,” he agreed. Not with so many eager ears on all sides.

“Is she safely home?” she asked, her voice urgent.

“She is.”

“Without her absence being noticed?”

His hand tightened on hers; she looked up at him, alarmed, then saw that his face was alight with laughter. She let out a small sigh of relief.

“Not exactly,” he said. “There was a maid waiting up—your maid, I believe.”

“Sackree.”

“Yes. She seemed to have some inkling of what the young lady had been up to, and took control of her and Figgins in a truly terrifying way. Can she be trusted?”

“I believe so. I hope so.”

There was a pause as the dance separated them, and it was a few minutes before Camilla was beside him once more, and able to ask the question he could see burning on her lips. “Just now, what did you—”

“Do not speak of it.”

“That man and the woman in the headdress, they will be running round with their tale at this very minute.”

“They will not. Rory Happiston is already half cut, and I have settled him in a seat with a bottle of wine; he will soon be under the table and remember nothing of what has happened, except as some dream of inebriation.”

“The woman in the toque was not drunk, however.”

“No, but she will say nothing. She is a distant connection of my mother’s; she will keep her mouth shut because Georgina will be my cousin, and her sense of family is stronger, fortunately, than her love of gossip.”

He didn’t mention that he had also threatened her with his mother’s fury, of which she had had some experience; he had no doubt that she would—regretfully, it was true—forbear from mentioning the luscious scene she had witnessed.

This had been well done, but other forces were at work, and less restrained tongues had been busy on the subject of the Darcy sisters. George Warren’s serpent rumours spread their venomous way around the company, hissed from eager mouths to attentive ears.

People turned to stare at Camilla as she left the floor with Wytton.

“May I fetch you a glass of wine, or of lemonade?” he asked politely.

“Lemonade, if you please.” He left her side, and she looked about her for Fanny. Tiresome people, why were they looking at her in this way, and then turning to whisper to their neighbours? Was this the consequence of Letty’s behaviour?

Camilla caught sight of Sophie. She had a disconsolate air as she stood beside Captain Allington. She was not speaking to him, but looking down at the floor, seemingly only interested in the rosettes on her satin slippers. There was none of the happiness or radiance of a bride-to-be about her—as more than one sour dowager remarked within her hearing. Oh dear, Sophie must have thought that Wytton had stood her up. Where was the man? He must go directly to Sophie and explain.

The voices around Camilla became suddenly audible.

“Poor child! It is not as though she had been sold to the highest bidder; it was a love match between her and Wytton.”

“Her own cousin; did you ever hear such a shocking thing?”

One of Sophie’s dear friends opened her mouth in an O of surprise before narrowing her eyes and giving her opinion in a low voice to another close friend. “Well, that should pull Sophie Gardiner down a peg or two. I never did like her, spiteful little thing as she is, and queening it over everyone with her fortune and splendid match.”

“That family are determined to cause one scandal after another. Did you hear what happened earlier this evening? No? Well, I shall tell you. I did not think there was anyone here who had not heard—”

“And the one they call Day, I have never seen such a determined flirt! First one man and then another; a heart as fickle as a cat’s.”

“Of course, there was probably more to that attachment between Miss Darcy and Busby than meets the eye. It may have been a boy and girl affair—”

“My dear, they were engaged, positively engaged.”

“And he saw no other way of escaping from a disastrous marriage than the route he took. He could not jilt her, whatever she had done, so he made other plans.”

“Rather extreme, is it not, to spend so much time in Belgium, of all places, simply to get away from a girl? Easier to end the engagement, I think.”

“You are a foreigner, Count, you do not understand how impossible it is for a gentleman to withdraw from an engagement.”

“It is so in my country, but here in England everything seems to be possible.”

“Not that. That would cause a really big scandal.”

“And this is not a big scandal, these oh-so-depraved sisters of such great fortune and beauty?”

His companion laughed. “No, no, my dear Count. This is altogether a delightful tumbling down of a proud family name, but no more. This is improper and shocking behaviour. To end an engagement would be far worse, it would be extremely bad
ton.
”

Camilla wanted to clap her hands over her ears, but there was nothing to be done except to smile and appear unconscious of the malicious talk and glances all around her. She wished they had not felt the need to drag Sophie into it; she was not a Darcy, the scandal need not touch her.

Soon, supper would be over, the night would no longer be young; soon, they could go home without their departure attracting any comment. Soon, this dreadful evening would come to an end.

Camilla looked about her for the man who was to take her into supper. He was nowhere to be seen.

She was a little taken aback, but not especially perturbed. No doubt he would hurry up to her shortly, full of apologies. She saw Fanny, a bright spot on either cheek, sitting very upright on a chair set against the wall, and went over to her. As she went past, two or three women turned powdered shoulders to her; a man raised his glass, looked her up and down and then made a murmured comment to his neighbour. Two debutantes tittered behind their fans and were silenced by their mamas.

She reached Fanny and took the seat beside her. “Fanny, what’s amiss? You do not look well; may I fetch you a glass of water?”

Fanny’s eyes were glittering with unshed tears. “Smile, for God’s sake, smile. Do not ask me what is amiss, but behave as though nothing were the matter.”

Suiting her actions to her words, Fanny bestowed a dazzling smile on an acquaintance going past, and, laying a trembling hand on Camilla’s arm, babbled on about fashions and the music and the news from Paris, all with a brilliant smile and over-bright eyes.

“I seem to have mislaid my partner for supper,” Camilla said, unable to think of anything else to say. “I suppose he will appear in due course.”

“Smile,” hissed Fanny. “He will not come.”

Camilla was beginning to feel more annoyed than perplexed by this strange behaviour of those around her, including Fanny.

“Then I shall go to the supper room on my own.”

Before Fanny could prevent her, Camilla rose from her seat and moved away. She walked with resolute steps across a ballroom that seemed empty and hushed; she had the sensation of being watched by dozens of pairs of eyes. Undaunted, she reached the doors and turned round to flash a quick glance at the expectant faces all about her.

A plain girl sidled up to her, a fellow debutante, what was she called? Selina something, not a girl she had ever found very interesting or amusing company.

“Never mind them,” she said, taking Camilla’s arm. “I shall come into supper with you.”

So Selina had no partner; well, she was very plain, and had a malicious tongue to go with her ordinary looks and blotchy skin.

“I do not believe a word that they say,” Selina went on. “I have told everyone who asks me that you are devoted to your cousin Sophie and of course you would not dream of casting your eyes in Wytton’s direction. I mean, apart from anything, Sophie has ninety thousand pounds. My mama said the same. ‘What man of sense,’ she said, ‘would exchange ninety thousand pounds and a very pretty face for a mere fifty thousand and only a moderate degree of beauty?’ Not that I don’t think you pretty also, but dear Sophie is so very pretty, is she not? It is all lies and scandalmongering, that is what I have told everyone, for Mr. Wytton is far too much of a gentleman to break Sophie’s heart; why, he would not do such a thing—and certainly not at a cost of forty thousand pounds. It is not such an inconsiderable sum that a man could be throwing it away any day of the week as if it did not matter. That is what my mama says, too.”