Pretty Polly (15 page)

As they approached the Dowager Duchess of Weams’s town house in Grosvenor Square, Verity began to feel a thrill of anticipation. She was in London, escorted by a countess, and she was going to meet Lord Byron. She thought of the sewing circle back at Market Basset and was determined to write down everything about the famous poet before she went to bed that evening.

The great house was crowded with people moving back and forth through the chain of saloons on the first floor, drinking and talking as they waited for the musicale to begin.

Verity was pleased to see many people present she knew and liked. She was chatting to a group of young people when Lady Wythe pulled her aside. “Now you shall meet Lord Byron,” she said.

Verity followed her through the rooms to a shadowy corner. A knot of people parted at the old countess’s approach. Sitting on a sofa was a young man who had been holding court.

“Miss Bascombe, may I present George, Lord Byron. Byron, Miss Verity Bascombe.”

Verity curtsied low. “And how are you, Byron?” demanded the countess. “Woke up to find yourself famous, I hear.”

Lord Byron remained silent, his eyes ranging beyond the countess as if looking for someone. Verity was disappointed in him. He looked like a nobleman playing the part of a successful poet. He was about the same age as she was herself, with a strangely pale face under a mop of chestnut curls. His mouth was scornful, and his whole attitude one of weary disdain.

“My lord,” said Verity sharply, “you have not answered Lady Wythe’s question.”

He looked at her in haughty surprise. Then he turned his gaze on Lady Wythe. “I believe you asked me how I was. I am well.”

There was the sound of a commotion behind Verity. She half turned as a thin, energetic figure burst past her, sat down on the sofa next to Lord Byron, took his hand, and looked at him, wide, hectic eyes eating him up. This, then, thought Verity, must be Lady Caroline Lamb. Her hair was very short and curled all over her head. Her eyes were enormous in her thin face. She was slight, angular, almost skinny, and exuded an air of excitable neuroticism. Lord Byron pressed her hand and sent a smoldering look down into her adoring face.

“Come, Miss Bascombe,” said Lady Wythe. “I think the concert is about to begin.”

They both turned about. Verity found herself looking up at the Duke of Denbigh. He gave her a cold nod. She blushed and curtsied, then moved on. Lady Wythe followed, her eyes snapping with interest.

“Verity!”

Verity stopped, looking amazed, as the vision that was Charlotte Manners floated toward her. “I thought you had left, my dear,” said Charlotte. “Why did you not let me know you were still in London?”

Verity was speechless. “It could be because you threw her out,” said Lady Wythe nastily.

“
I?
” Charlotte’s blue eyes filled with tears. “We had a few words but nothing that anyone in her right mind would take seriously. Lord James,” she said, turning to that gentleman, who was at her side. “You know I would not harm my dear Verity.”

Lord James looked bewildered. “No, no,” he said gallantly. “You could not harm anyone except, perhaps, such a cavalier as I. A slight coldness in your beautiful eyes can pierce my very heart.”

“Stoopid.” Charlotte laughed, rapping him playfully with her fan.

Verity found herself wondering stupidly where Charlotte’s tears had gone. One minute they had been sparkling on her cheeks, the next she was dry-eyed, dry-faced, and radiant. “I do not want to discuss it here,” said Verity in a low voice.

“Of course not,” trilled Charlotte, kissing her cheek. “We shall have a comfortable cose after supper.”

She tripped off by Lord James’s side.

“Goodness!” said Verity. “Is she quite mad?”

“She no longer has any hopes of Denbigh and has decided to settle for Lord James,” said the countess. “How amusing it all is! Are you not glad you came?”

“It is not a play,” said Verity tartly. “Although it may look that way to you.”

“It’s all Byron’s fault,” said Lady Wythe. “You
young things believe in too much sentimentality and romance. If you all concentrated more on a man’s fortune and standing and less on romantical rubbish, you would all be happily married and less discontented. That’s what we settled for in my day, and if the fellow had a good skin and a fine pair of legs, we considered ourselves doubly fortunate. When you get to your marriage bed, it’s not whether he can recite poetry or not, it’s what he does between the sheets.”

“Lady Wythe, you are a shocking old rip.”

“I am honest and practical and I know it does not do any good to go on like a Haymarket tragedy. Do try to show Denbigh you are not pining away, for heaven’s sake. You are in looks tonight, Verity. A little sparkle is all you need. So sparkle!”

“I am not a chandelier,” said Verity, amused despite herself.

At the other end of the room and well away from her, the Duke of Denbigh was talking to Mr. George Wilson. He knew Mr. Wilson slightly and would have exchanged a few civilities and passed on had not Mr. Wilson suddenly said, “I saw Miss Bascombe here tonight. Do you know her?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Women. There is no trusting them. They lead you on and then spurn you,” said Mr. Wilson passionately.

“You interest me,” said the duke, looking at him curiously. “Did Miss Bascombe lead you on and then spurn you?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Wilson. “She allowed me to believe she would favor my suit. She encouraged my attentions, and when I called to propose marriage, she laughed at me.”

Still smarting with humiliation, Mr. Wilson had
convinced himself the parrot had not existed and that he had indeed proposed to Verity. To tell the duke about a gossiping parrot would make him feel ridiculous.

“Why should Miss Bascombe do that?” asked the duke.

“I think,” said Mr. Wilson venomously, “that she is one of those females who need to foster adulation to feed their vanity.”

“In that case,” said the duke, “you may congratulate yourself on your escape, can you not?”

He moved away from Mr. Wilson, his mind busy. Charlotte’s silly words to Lord James seeped through his mind like slow poison. He decided to teach Miss Bascombe a lesson. He would get his revenge, and perhaps, in the future, she would not give away her kisses so freely.

“Here comes Denbigh,” hissed Lady Wythe. Verity’s painted fan trembled in her hands. The duke took a seat next to her in the music room.

“What did you think of our famous poet, Miss Bascombe?” he asked.

“I was disappointed,” said Verity, too rattled to do other than tell the truth. “I expected a real romantic, not a bogus romantic.”

“I think you have it the wrong way round,” he said. “
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
was bogus romantic. George Byron is a true romantic.”

“You are thinking of his affair with Lady Caroline Lamb?”

“No, I was not thinking of that much-publicized affair. How scandalous they are in public, how they flaunt their love for each other! If they were deeply in love, they would be content to confine their caresses and intimacies to the bedchamber. They are both playing their roles to the hilt: she, the woman half crazy with love over the country’s most famous
poet; he, the brooding romantic poet and wrecker of hearts and aristocratic marriages. He is lame, you know, and that contributes to his desire for adulation. Understandable in his case; less understandable in those without physical blemish. He had a very unhappy Calvinist childhood, and the women he really prefers are not creatures of romance but vulgar, hearty, and worldly ladies. There is a darkness in him, a self-destructive streak.”

“He will go from strength to strength,” said Verity. “It is said the Prince Regent much admires his poetry.”

“Byron already has hopes of being made poet laureate, but the prince prefers the poetry of Walter Scott.”

He stopped talking then, for the concert had begun. A pianist played Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto no. 2 in F Major with great style and verve. Verity felt herself beginning to relax. The duke had forgiven her. There was still hope.

The pianist was followed by an Italian tenor with a liquid, melting voice. He not only sang arias from operas but Italian love songs also. Verity felt her hand taken in a firm clasp, started, and looked down nervously. Her stole was draped in folds over her lap, covering her hand. The duke had slid his hand under a fold of the shawl and was now clasping her own. Although both their hands were gloved, Verity thought she would faint from sheer exaltation. The tenor’s voice soared to the heights, taking her with it.

The little rout chairs in the music room were jammed close together. Although she had not been aware of him moving, Verity felt the heat from the duke’s thigh pressing against her own. She felt that she should draw away, that she should protest,
but the people in the row of chairs in front of her were pressed together as intimately as lovers.

The duke was beginning to feel real hatred for Verity. His emotions were raging. He wanted to seize her in his arms and kiss her breathless; he wanted her naked body moving under his own until he had had enough of it. His hand tightened convulsively on hers and Verity let out a faint gasp. He glanced down at her. Her lips were red and slightly parted. Her bosom rose and fell quickly. He wanted to put his hands against her breasts and feel them swelling against his fingers.

The tenor finished and bowed. The audience applauded, with the exception of Verity and the duke, who sat very still, hands locked, backs straight—no one but the very vulgar ever allowed his or her back to touch the back of the chair—hip against hip, leg against leg, and both of them feeling quite sick with emotion.

People began to rise. Chattering voices rose on the air. Someone was quoting loudly from
Childe Harold:

The pianist dropped the lid of the piano and picked up sheets of music; the doors of the supper room were thrown open by two liveried footmen, their faces impassive beneath their spun-glass wigs.
Lady Wythe, still talking to an elderly friend who had been seated to her left, shook out her skirts and started to walk away, then turned and looked back in surprise.

The duke and Verity were sitting, very still, both of them staring straight ahead, their eyes quite empty.

Lady Wythe gave a cluck of disapproval.

“Miss Bascombe!” she called. “Supper!”

The duke released Verity’s hand and arranged her shawl about her shoulders. He smiled down into her eyes and Verity gave a timid half smile back.

In a daze of happiness, she walked beside him to the supper room.

Holding her arm under the elbow, he piloted her down the room and over to a corner of one of the long tables by the far window. There was no one sitting near them.

A waiter came up with champagne. “No, no,” protested Verity. “I do not think I like champagne anymore.”

“Quite right,” the duke said to the waiter. “Take the stuff away and bring us a couple of bottles of port.”

“I don’t think I want port, either, Your Grace,” protested Verity. “I do not have a good head for wine.”

“It is a particular kind of port,” he lied. “Not at all strong.”

He chose a selection of delicacies for Verity from the trays of food presented to them and, when it arrived, filled her glass to the brim with port. Verity was surprised at the duke’s taste. Although many of the old guard in society damned burgundy and claret as weak beverages only suitable for women and children, she would not have thought
that the duke shared their tastes. She herself did not like the heavy sweet wine as an accompaniment to meat. But the port was giving her much-needed Dutch courage, and so she barely noticed how deftly he kept topping up her glass.

He began to talk of the American war. America, tired of the Royal Navy’s blockade, had declared war on Great Britain. A British squadron, moving by river, had landed four thousand regular soldiers within reach of Washington, where they burned the capital. Strangely, this had not done much to inspire the British, said the duke, but it had infuriated the Americans, and so this odd, scattered war continued to rage apace from Canada down to Louisiana, with hastily assembled small forces advancing and retreating and losing and winning all over the place.

Verity drank a great deal and listened muzzily to his voice and studied his strong profile and was totally unaware of anyone else in the room.

When the Countess of Wythe rose to leave the supper room, she decided it was better to leave Verity with the duke. They appeared to be talking together like old friends. The dowager smiled to herself. It seemed certain that Verity Bascombe was to be the next Duchess of Denbigh.

The duke and Verity were now discussing novels. “Have you read Mrs. Baxter’s
Follies of a London Lady
?” he asked.

“I have never even heard of Mrs. Baxter,” said Verity, which was not surprising since the duke had just invented her.

“Oh, but you must read her. I am sure they have a copy in the library here.” He stood and pulled out her chair as she rose tipsily and unsteadily to her
feet. “The library is just across the hall. Let us go and have a look for it.”

Verity let him lead her through the supper room, back through the music room, and across the hall. She did not think she was doing anything improper. She was dazed with port and love and happiness. He held open the door of the library, ushered her inside, and shut the door behind them.

The library was dark and quiet, the serried ranks of calf-bound books rising from floor to ceiling. In the center of the room was a long, backless sofa upholstered in red-and-gold-striped silk. On a low table in front it lay a pile of books and magazines.

“Ah, I think I see it,” said the duke, pulling Verity forward. “On that table.” He sat on the sofa and drew Verity down beside him.

Then he turned, looked at her with a mocking glint in his eyes, and said, “Would you be very alarmed, Miss Bascombe, if I were to tell you that there is no such creature as Mrs. Baxter and no such book?”