Palace Circle (2 page)

Unused to Ivor's clipped way of speaking, Beau had interpreted the remark as a put-down and, refusing to let Delia persuade him otherwise, had vowed he would never forgive it. When she had married Ivor a month later in Richmond's St. James's Episcopal Church, Beau had been noticeable only by his absence.

Despite the sumptuousness of her silk-and-satin wedding gown, with its high bodice encrusted with seed pearls and its slim skirt and lavish train, it hadn't been quite the extravaganza she had always imagined her wedding would be—or the wedding her mother had always planned for her to have—because it had all been so sudden.

“It is impossible for me to return to England—which I must do almost immediately in view of the forthcoming coronation—and then travel back to Virginia for a spring wedding,” Ivor had said to her father in the tone of a man accustomed to getting his own way. “And it would be highly inappropriate for Delia to accompany me to England without doing so as my wife and it is not what she wants.”

It wasn't what her father wanted either; hence the speedy wedding that had set tongues wagging all over Virginia.

As she neared the hill that gave a perfect view of Sans Souci, Delia urged Sultan into a canter, still thinking of her husband and the intimidating effect he had on people. Sometimes even she felt a little intimidated by him, but common sense told her that it was natural when her respect for him was boundless and when he was, in so many ways, still a stranger to her.

Cresting the hill, she reined Sultan to a halt. This was the view she most wanted to remember.

Set against a background of evergreen trees, Sans Souci lay cradled in a circle of lushly green hills. Near to the house were the paddocks and then, a little to one side, the stables and the various barns for the yearlings, the broodmares, and the winter foodstuffs. Beyond them lay the neat precision of apple orchards.

And dominating everything was the house.

It was a three-story brick-built colonnaded manor, its elegant Georgian windows flanked by pale-yellow shutters, a flight of stone steps leading up to its double front doors. The sun shimmered on its slate roof and honeysuckle fragranced the porch where her father and his friends liked to sit in the evenings, frosted mint juleps conveniently to hand.

It was the only home she had ever known and suddenly the prospect of leaving it caught at her throat. Sans Souci meant, in French, “without a care,” and her mother had ensured that since the day she had entered it as a young bride, it had lived up to its name.

Delia's hands tightened on Sultan's reins. Though Ivor had told her they would be spending most of their time in London, she was sure that Shibden Hall would begin to play a large part in their married life once she had given Ivor an heir, and she was determined to turn it into the kind of home her mother had created at Sans Souci. A home that however impressively splendid, was also welcoming with fresh flowers in every room. A home where everyone who entered it instantly felt at ease. Most of all, a home where Ivor would want to be whenever he could get away from London and his court commitments.

As she gazed across the open meadowland, the double doors to the house opened. For a heart-stopping moment she wondered if she would see Ivor's distinctively tall figure. She had been gone for nearly two hours and he would be up and
dressed by now and wondering where she was. The thought of him walking into the meadows to greet her, as impatient to be with her as she was to be with him, filled her with excitement.

She dug her heels into Sultan's flanks, but even as she did so she saw that it wasn't Ivor stepping out onto the colonnaded porch: it was two of the servants hauling black traveling trunks.

Her disappointment was intense, but swiftly overcome. Any moment now the luggage would be loaded into one of the many horse-drawn buggies that would accompany them when they left Sans Souci for the local train station. It meant she hadn't much time in which to bathe, eat breakfast, and change into her traveling clothes. And though Ivor wasn't yet in sight, somewhere within Sans Souci he was waiting for her.

At full gallop she jumped the treacherously high split-rail fence that marked the beginning of Chandler land, eager for the opportunity, aboard ship and away from the prurient eyes of her family, to get to know her husband better. Eager to embark on the new, exciting life awaiting her in England.

The country that was to be her home wasn't remotely what she had expected. When the
Mauretania
had neared land after a windy transatlantic voyage she had expected to see white cliffs topped by springy green turf. Instead she faced a forbidding-looking city of stone. The grayness of Liverpool was something she had never experienced, not even in New York.

The train journey to London had also been a disappointment. She had seen no picturesque houses with thatched roofs and doors framed by roses; no children skipping around Maypoles; only distant church spires and fields of cows huddled miserably together in heavy rain. By the time their train steamed its way into King's Cross Station she realized that the reality of England was going to be far different to her naively idealized picture-book expectations.

Her new home, however, was far from disappointing. Tall and imposing and with a splendid portico, it was situated in an elegant square only a few minutes away from Buckingham Palace. Her first surprise was the stiff etiquette she immediately was met with.

The staff—a veritable army of white-capped maids and liveried footmen—had lined up to greet her and when she stepped out of the Conisborough Rolls-Royce, their reaction was one of unanimous disbelief.

Ivor had already warned her what to expect. “Be prepared to meet with a little bemusement, sweetheart,” he had said as they neared the house. “Whatever the staff are expecting, it won't be an eighteen-year-old with flame-red hair who uses expressions such as ‘a cracking good one,’ ‘I'm mighty glad,’ ‘real soon,’ and— don't deny you've said this, because I've heard you—‘shucks.’”

“I'll have you know,” she had replied archly, “that I've been tryin' real hard to drop all my Virginian speech and slang. I just haven't gotten to replace it yet with an acceptable cut-glass English accent.”

Beneath his blond mustache his austerely straight mouth had twitched with amusement and she had squeezed his hand lovingly.

Nothing could have been farther removed from the easygoing atmosphere of Sans Souci than the formality of the Cadogan Square house. Over the next few days Delia made a determined effort to inject a little Virginian friendliness into her new home. There were occasions when Ivor cleared his throat or pursed his lips in disapproval, but she took no notice. Bellingham, the butler, soon became her adoring slave and wouldn't allow a word of criticism to be said about her belowstairs. As she had arrived at Cadogan Square without a personal maid she had rejected Ivor's suggestion that she hire a suitably experienced young woman and instead, having taking a great liking to Ellie, one of the young parlor maids, had asked her to fill the position.

Ellie was a chatterbox, something Delia was grateful for, since she still knew no more about Ivor's first wife than she had on the day he proposed.

“Lady Olivia spent very little time in London, my lady,” Ellie had said when Delia had pressed her for information. “She much preferred being at Shibden Hall.”

It was a piece of information that had startled Delia. Somehow she had never thought of Olivia as spending a great deal of time away from Ivor.

Then there was the mystery as to why, among the many family portraits adorning the walls of the Cadogan Square house, there wasn't one of Olivia.

Again, it was Ellie who told her.

“There used to be one, my lady,” she had said as she brushed Delia's turbulently fiery hair until it crackled, “only it's been taken down.”

“Taken down?” Delia had turned away from her dressing table. “But why, Ellie?” she'd asked. “For what possible reason?”

With an awkwardness she rarely displayed Ellie had said, “I think, my lady, his lordship thought it best. I think he thought you wouldn't constantly want to be reminded that he had once been married to someone else.”

That Ivor should have been so sensitive to her feelings had taken her breath away and she had instantly forgiven him for the long hours he spent away from her at the palace, the House of Lords, or his gentlemen's club in Pall Mall.

One friend, Sir Cuthbert Digby, had even ushered Ivor away to Buckingham Palace only minutes after he had escorted her into the house. She had tried not to be cross about it, but she had been alarmed at the realization that if the aged Sir Cuthbert was typical of Ivor's friends, then their wives were all going to be as old as her mother or, even worse, her grandmother.

Gwen, Ivor's elder sister and his only close relative, was nearer to fifty than to forty. Though she had speedily become deeply fond of Gwen, Delia very much wanted to make friends with people of her own age—and thought it unlikely she was going to be able to do so. A comfort was that Ivor left her in no doubt that his friends had all taken her to their hearts.

“Cuthie thinks you're a delight,” he said, preparing to leave in a hurry for the palace. “And lovemaking on a morning is
going to have to come to an end, sweetheart, if this is how late it makes me.”

She laughed, knowing he was teasing, and helped him into his frock coat.

He reached for his top hat, gave her a swift kiss, and was gone.

She was just about to ring for Ellie when she saw that in his hurry Ivor had left his appointments diary behind. She picked it up, about to run after him with it. A photograph fell from between the diary's pages and as she knelt to retrieve it, she saw that it was of a woman far too young to be Ivor's mother and far too old to be a niece or a godchild.

She sank back on her heels, knowing the photograph could only be of Olivia. She had expected Ivor's late wife to have been lovely and dignified. What she had not expected was for her to have been shatteringly beautiful.

Dark-haired, dark-eyed, and dazzling, she was wearing a diamond tiara on her upswept, intricately arranged hair. Her eyebrows were strongly marked and dramatically winged. Beneath them, heavily lashed eyes stared out boldly with an expression of sultry insolence. Her cheekbones were high, her darkly lipsticked mouth sensually curved. The evening gown she was wearing was low-cut, revealing a full bosom and a wasp waist. In addition to the diamonds in her hair, there were diamonds at her throat, her ears, her wrists and on her fingers. Even in a photograph she glittered and shone, the epitome of exotic,
soignée
glamour.

Trembling violently she turned the photograph over.
All my love, darling Ivor, is for you and you alone
was written in an extravagant flourish in mauve ink.

That Ivor had obviously loved his first wife was something that had never troubled her. She had been too confident of his love to allow herself to become jealous of a much older woman who was now dead.

But that had been before she had realized how staggeringly beautiful Olivia Conisborough had been. And before she had realized that though Olivia's portrait had been taken down, Ivor still kept her image where he would see it frequently.

As she heard the front door close she placed the photograph back into the diary with unsteady hands and then put the diary back where she had found it.

It was something she knew she would never be able to speak to Ivor about and, no matter how deep her shock, it was something she was determined to come to terms with.

A day after her arrival in England she met a friend of Ivor's that she instantly liked. They were walking along Piccadilly when Ivor came to such a sudden halt, she almost tripped. A second later a man she judged to be in his mid-thirties walked up to them. As toughly built as a heavyweight boxer, he was wearing a dove-gray lounge suit and his matching gray homburg was tilted at a rakish angle. There was a devil-may-care air about him that reminded her of Beau and that she found unexpected in someone who was obviously on friendly terms with her statesmanlike husband.

“Jerome, I would like to introduce you to my wife,” Ivor said, an odd note in his voice. “Delia and I were married a little over a fortnight ago in Richmond, Virginia. Delia, Sir Jerome Bazeljette.”

Something crossed Bazeljette's handsome swarthy face that was as indecipherable as the expression in Ivor's voice.

“My congratulations, Lady Conisborough.” He shook hands with her and raised his hat, and as he did so, she saw his hair was black as a Gypsy's and thick and curly as a ram's fleece. “And to you, Conisborough, as well, of course,” he added.

To Delia's mystification the conversation then came to a standstill.

Delia, who could launch into conversation with anyone, beggar-man or king, said pleasantly, “Have you ever visited Virginia, Mr. Bazeljette?”

“No.” He was clearly startled by her disarming directness. “I haven't. Is it one of the states south of the Mason-Dixon Line?”

There was genuine interest and friendly feeling in his voice and she responded to it sunnily. “It most certainly is. And Virginians never forget it. We still fly the Confederate flag at Sans Souci.”

“Sans Souci?” There were gold flecks in his brown eyes.

“Sans Souci is the name of my family home, Mr. Bazeljette,” she said, thinking what a very attractive man he was.

Ivor put a quick end to the conversation by saying, “We must be on our way, Jerome, before Piccadilly Circus is treated to a rendering of ‘Dixie.’”

It was a remark that could have been taken humorously, but there was a hard edge to his voice that caused Delia to gasp.

“Perhaps I will have the pleasure of hearing ‘Dixie’ sung at another time,” Jerome said, and something in his voice indicated that he too had caught the undertone in Ivor's voice. Turning his attention to Ivor, he said crisply, “Sylvia is on the Riviera, as I think you know, Ivor. I'm not sure when she intends returning,” and without waiting for a response he raised his homburg once again and sauntered on his way.