Mr. Darcy's Daughters (34 page)

Camilla stood quite still in the centre of the room, lost in her own thoughts, hardly hearing Sackree’s muttered commentary on the French late-evening callers, and young gentlemen who didn’t know when they should make themselves scarce.

A knock on the door, the latch was lifted, and Wytton was back. “My hat,” he said hastily. “I believe—ah, there it is.” He seized it from the table by the window, and, as he headed back to the door, took her by the hand and pulled her with him.

Sackree’s beady eye was upon them; she opened her mouth to protest, but they were gone; the door had shut behind them, the latch dropped.

Wytton released his hold on Camilla, and stood in the dim, narrow passage looking down at her with such an expression in his eyes that she was quite overwhelmed.

She heard voices coming from a great distance: Mr. Gardiner, and a man who spoke English with a strong French accent; they belonged to a different world.

“I cannot part from you like this,” said Wytton without preamble. “Now that your sister is found, I can be of no further use here, and Mr. Gardiner will expect me to return to England—at any rate, he will not wish me to be in your company. He is a kind man, and although he is not as full of suspicions about me as his wife is, he has too much sense and care for the proprieties to wish me to remain with you.”

“If Mrs. Gardiner suspects that your feelings for Sophie are not what they should be, how can she want Sophie to be married to you?”

The words were wrung from her, regretted the instant they were spoken. She could not judge the strength of his attachment to Sophie; she could be sure of her own heart, but not of his.

His eyes searched her face; he made as if to take her hand again, then dropped his own to his side. “I fell in love with Sophie the moment I saw her. Such prettiness! Such a fine complexion, such entrancing ways. And an open, happy spirit! I adored her.”

Why was he saying this? She turned her head away, holding her hand up as though to ward off a blow.

“I was possessed. I longed to be near her; to hear her voice, to see her lovely face, was scarcely enough. I was near enough out of my senses over her. She was very young, but I thought that was all to the good: She would soon accustom herself to my way of life, which is not what she would be used to; she would share my pleasure in travel and discovery.”

His voice was controlled and bitter. Every word was a stab to Camilla, but still he went on.

“When I realised that she had no wish to see Rome, or tread the Argive plain, it made no difference. She would be waiting for me at the abbey, a lodestar for my affections and desires.”

“Stop!” She could bear it no longer. “Why are you saying this? Excuse me, but I must go back into our apartment. I have no wish—”

“Listen. You must listen to me.” His eyes were dark, his gaze even more intense. “I want there to be nothing less than the truth in our dealings. Like it or not, that is the way things were. I was enchanted by Sophie, yes, but like all enchantments, one day you wake to find the spell broken. And also”—he had to force these words out, it seemed—“she was so different. So different to someone who—”

“It pains you, please do not speak of it. I understand.”

“Do you?”

Camilla was no longer looking at him. “Did that happen?” she asked in a voice striving to be normal. “That the enchantment lost its power to hold you?”

He nodded. “Oh, yes. I still think Sophie is the prettiest creature imaginable—but the magic has flown. However, this being a rational world, and not one of fairies and make-believe, we are bound together in such a way that I cannot in honour draw back. I do not think her feelings for me were ever so strong as mine for her, but we are betrothed with the full approval of her parents, already tied with legal knots—as you know, the wedding is but the blessing of the Church upon a commitment, an agreement made and confirmed long before a couple comes to the altar.”

“You should not be telling me this.” Anger was beginning to stir in her. “What, to tell me how much you loved Sophie, that you no longer do so, but that you are to be married just the same. What chance of happiness is there for Sophie in such a match?”

“Every chance, for I shall make it my business to see that she has the happiness she is entitled to. She has made her choice, she could have released me in the light of what has happened. She might have been the butt of society’s jokes for a few weeks had she done so, but none would blame her, and so pretty an heiress would not lack suitors for long. I would incur the opprobrium, not her.”

“Only she will not release you.”

“She will not.”

“Then I am sorry for both of you.” Camilla made a dart for the door, had her hand upon the latch. “I hear Mr. Gardiner calling you.”

“No, stay a moment longer. I cannot let you go without telling you—without giving some expression to my heart. I—”

Now she was furious. “You can have nothing to say to me. Good-bye, Mr. Wytton. It is not likely we shall meet again, at least not for a long time.”

He stepped in front of her, preventing her opening the door. “Camilla, there may be another way, there is one small hope, and in that case, do not leave me without a word—without telling me that, if circumstances were different, you would allow me to declare my love in the proper form. Your sister—”

“Has followed the dictates of her heart, in selfish disregard for the hurt she does to others, to Sir Joshua’s wife and family, to her own family, to the prospects and happiness of all her sisters. Do not even hint that I could take such a course, for I would and could not.”

He flushed. “Do not presume to read my thoughts. I had no intention of offering to run away with you, if that is what you think. I had rather wanted to say that my knowledge of how things were between your sister and Sir Joshua, and my silence upon the matter, should it come out, may cause Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner to consider that I am not a suitable husband for their daughter.”

“You are clutching at straws, Mr. Wytton. You presume now to read
my
thoughts. You do not know how I feel about you, you cannot take my feelings for granted. You do not know me well enough to appreciate that I wish nothing but good to Sophie, and I would not have you separated from her by any tricks and schemes. I fear that you make very light of her attachment to you, an attachment that may be a good deal stronger than you imagine.”

“I love you, not Sophie.”

“You have said enough. I bid you good night.”

Once safely within her chamber, Camilla stood in a daze, catching at her breath as though it hurt her to breathe. Her eyes were dry and bright, with no tears to shed, and she clenched her fists so tightly that they were numb.

“You were quite right, Miss Camilla,” said Sackree, placing a basin of water on the stand for her. “I heard every word, and to think a gentleman should speak so! The sauce!”

“Oh, Sackree, how hard life is!”

“Harder for some than others, and there’s hard and hard, Miss, if I may say so. It’s a crying shame, for he’s as fine a gentleman as ever I saw, and a proper man, too, which the two things don’t always go together, but he’s promised to another, and that’s that. You’ll meet someone else; there are more fish in the sea, as the saying is, than ever came out of it.”

Camilla climbed drearily into the unfamiliar, lumpy-mattressed bed. “But I am so much in love with him, Sackree. What am I to do?”

“There’s nothing you can do. You try and get some sleep, for just at present you’ve got more urgent duties on hand with that Miss Georgina to be dealt with. You stick to that. Your sisters are more than enough to fill up anyone’s worry-box; I tell you that for nothing.”

Mr. Gardiner looked at Camilla with concern. “My dear Camilla, you are not well. You are pale, your eyes are ringed with shadows. You slept ill, I can see; you cannot have been comfortable.”

She hastened to reassure him: a strange bed, the rigours of the journey—imagining one was still in a jolting carriage—concern for her sister, the heat of the night. “Indeed, sir, I am quite well. Let us be off as soon as possible. I confess that I shall not be easy until I have seen Georgina, until this whole dreadful business is settled.”

This time, the gates were swung open, and a footman in morning livery ushered them through a magnificent hall and showed them into an elegant room overlooking a garden laid out in the geometrical style the French favoured; pretty in its way, but odd to Camilla’s eyes. Formal portraits hung on the walls; the stiff-back chairs were arranged with chill order around the edges of the room. This must be a public apartment, not one in regular use by the residents of the house.

It was a shock when Sir Joshua entered the room. Over these past days he had grown into Lucifer in her eyes; she was prepared for a monster, for a beast with cloven hoofs, not for a mere mortal. Yet here was a human being, a man of excellent appearance and with an air of well-bred ease.

He was perfectly poised as he made his bows; indeed, he greeted her with some warmth, reminding her of their earlier acquaintance.

The audacity of him. No doubt Don Juans took all this kind of thing—irate relatives, distraught sisters and so forth—in their stride. And no doubt, if you were a man of a rakish disposition, then charm and lazy, attractive eyes and a finely moulded mouth were a decided help in the pursuit of innocent females—but even so!

Sir Joshua was ordering refreshments now, enquiring about their journey, for all the world as though this were no more than an ordinary visit, made out of politeness.

Mr. Gardiner was growing visibly more annoyed. “Sir, this is no mere morning call. I am astonished at your effrontery in refusing to see us last night, and now at your ease of manner, your lack of any sign of remorse or awareness of the very wicked step you have taken.”

Sir Joshua’s eyebrows rose. It was clear from his face that he felt that Mr. Gardiner, however rich and distinguished in his milieu of commerce and banking he might be, had no right to speak to him in quite that way. “I am not aware of any wickedness. The method of Georgina’s departure from Aubrey Square was unconventional, I admit, but the need for speed was pressing. I had killed my man, you see—ah, did you not know? An affair of honour, a meeting by the river—perhaps the body has not yet been discovered.”

“You killed a man! In a duel! And then, since you had to fly the country, you calmly decided to take Georgina with you? Sir, this is beyond belief.”

“I could scarcely knock on the door and ask that ass Fitzwilliam to release her into my care. All that nonsense about her being sequestered for what her sisters had or had not done. A great deal of fuss about nothing, in my opinion.”

Camilla saw that Mr. Gardiner was rendered speechless by these remarks, and she could hardly blame him. Was Sir Joshua mad? Drunk?

“Georgina will be here in a moment to wait upon you,” said Sir Joshua in his suave way. “Why, here she is.”

The door burst open and there was Georgina, on wings as usual. She looked more beautiful than ever—although with a slightly heightened colour. She was no doubt feeling all the awkwardness of her situation.

This was not at all the case.

“My dearest Camilla, I would have been with you before, as soon as you were announced, but I am not completely well just now, and so I had to wait until I was quite sure I would not faint or some such thing, which Sir Joshua would not like, you know. Dear Mr. Gardiner, how glad I am to see you. Are you in Paris for long?”

Mr. Gardiner was going to suffer an apoplexy, Camilla was convinced of it. Normally the calmest of men, he was now in such a state that something must be done. She spoke sharply to Sir Joshua. “A glass of brandy, if you please; you must see that Mr. Gardiner is in some distress.”

He busied himself with a decanter, and Camilla turned to her sister. “Georgina, have you taken leave of your wits? You run off to Paris with a married man, and you prate on as though Mr. Gardiner was come to chat about the weather. This is no social call, I do assure you. We have come here at great trouble and expense to find you and to take you home. Your absence has been covered up, but it cannot be kept a secret for much longer, and you seem to find it all a joke, an affair of no consequence. Only see how your and Sir Joshua’s behaviour has affected Mr. Gardiner; he is quite overcome.”

“You mistake the matter,” said Georgina blithely. “I have no intention of returning to England; indeed, my present condition would render any such journey insupportable.”

“Present condition?” A horrid suspicion was growing in her mind. “Georgina, you do not mean to say—”

“Oh, don’t be missish. I’m breeding, that’s all.”

At these casual words, Mr. Gardiner gave a groan and sank on to the nearest chair, dropping his head into his hands.

“Georgina, how is this possible?”

“Come, sister, you are not such an innocent as that. You know very well how it is possible. You may wish me joy, for indeed, I am very happy, and so is my dear Sir Joshua.”

With which she laid her hand on Sir Joshua’s arm and gazed dotingly up at him.

Pregnant! Nothing had prepared her for this. This connection must have been going on far longer than anyone had suspected. It was no very improbable outcome of an illicit liaison, of course. Camilla was not so stupid as not to be aware of on what grounds, other than the teachings of the Church and the threat of the world’s censure, young ladies were so carefully protected from the attentions of the opposite sex. The granting of the ultimate favour would always be disapproved of, but it happened, even in the best families, and a veil of respectability could be drawn over the unsanctified earlier relationship by means of a hasty wedding.

In this case, there could be no such happy outcome. With Georgina pregnant and Sir Joshua married, she would be doubly cast out from her world. And her sisters—sisters to a woman the world would dub a fallen woman, a creature of easy virtue—nay, why mince words?—a whore, would certainly be involved in her ruin.

“Georgina,” she cried. “What have you done?”

“Don’t be so stuffy, it is not so very bad. Now that I am Lady Mordaunt, no one will think anything of it, after all. And the baby is to be born here in Paris, and who except the most odious-minded old dowagers will be counting the weeks?”