Regency Rumours/A Scandalous Mistress/Dishonour And Desire (51 page)

But as so often happened, no sooner were the rich mellow tones of Caterina’s voice picked up from every polished surface than a slow trickle of listeners flowed on tiptoe towards the source, their ears straining to catch every luscious sound, and when the two artistes turned to look, the crowd applauded the rehearsal as if it had been a performance.

Laughing, Caterina took a bow. ‘Well, now, there’s no more to look forward to,’ she said. ‘What a pity.’

There were several faces she recognised who came forward with smiles of welcome and congratulations for a marriage none of them had anticipated, though they knew Sir Chase Boston well. Who did not?

One of them was their mutual friend George Brummell who, with typical understatement, good-humouredly took Sir Chase to task. ‘Dashed if I can tolerate this habit of yours any longer, Chase, of snatching the goods before the rest of us can get a look in. I was about to saunter over to Richmond to claim the heavenly Miss Caterina Chester for myself and, but for a pressing engagement with my coat-tailor, I’d have done so. When did you marry him, Miss Chester?’

‘Yesterday, Mr Brummell.’

‘There you are, then. It was yesterday I was all set to claim you. Too bad of you, Chase. Too bad.’ Moving his quizzing glass up and down Sir Chase’s large frame, he
halted its progress at the cravat. ‘Tch!’ he remarked. ‘A drink, somebody, before I call this coxcomb out.’

A liveried servant appeared bearing a silver tray of cut-glass beakers and a bowl of fruit punch, placing it at a small table by Sir Chase’s side. His skin was the colour of polished ebony, his solemn face exceedingly handsome, his hair like astrakhan. Sir Chase thanked him; the man bowed and left. Others were chatting and laughing too loudly to notice, but Caterina did, and when she and Brummell sauntered to a bench with their drinks, it was she who remarked that she’d not expected the Duke to employ black servants, on principle.

‘On what principle, my dear Lady Boston?’ said Brummell. ‘The man’s not a slave, he’s on the same footing as any other servant. Everyone employs them nowadays, even if only to show their liberal-mindedness.’

‘Do you, Mr Brummell?’

‘Lord, no. I can’t afford any more servants. But Chase does.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

Laconically, he turned to her wide eyes to search for more behind the amazement. ‘Ah, I see. You’ve hardly had time to find out these details yet, I take it. Why is the man always in such a blinding hurry, I wonder?’ His eyes turned towards the assembly, resting upon the finely proportioned figure before he continued. ‘Somewhere, my dear, your lusty husband employs a negro woman; if not in London, she’s safely tucked away in one of his other places. Oh, dear, don’t look like that, child. She’s a servant, that’s all. He’ll tell you, if you ask him. He’s coming over.’

‘No, don’t mention it,
please.
I’ll ask him in my own time.’

‘Very well. Ah … Chase, just asking your bride what your plans are. Will you be at Prinny’s “do” next weekend?’

‘No,’ said Sir Chase, noting Caterina’s frown. ‘If fortune favours us, we shall be several hundred miles away.’

The conversation flowed gently without Brummell caring too deeply about the seeds of mistrust he had just scattered over the new Lady Boston’s fertile imagination, which already had begun to nurture all kinds of reasons why her husband would employ a negress in his service unless he had bought her or, worse, unless she was his mistress. That there could be a dozen other reasons for the woman’s existence in his household did not occur to her, primarily because she was looking for some evidence that would fit her vague theory about his duplicity. Why else would he keep a beautiful young negress hidden away unless he wanted to avoid questions being asked? Was he, like her father, involved in the slaving racket? Or was he an abolitionist out to take revenge on her father, to ruin him with blackmail or exposure? Was she being made to play some bizarre part in this power game?

With a supreme effort of will, she pushed the information to the back of her mind during her performance that evening so well that none of the guests had the slightest inkling about her newest fears growing like hothouse plants, feeding off what remained of her resentments. Her contribution to the musical evening was so well received that she and Signor Cantoni were asked for several encores until Sir Chase drew her away for some refreshments.

Still nursing serious doubts about him, Caterina nevertheless found it impossible to conceal the delight
she felt at being by his side, as his wife, the one he’d chosen and paid a fortune for, as he’d reminded her only recently. Conveniently, she chose not to recall his use of the word ‘love’.

Sir Chase’s past mistresses concerned her very little. What concerned her now was the possibility of an existing mistress, even if she were a servant, which would be quite unacceptable, and heartbreaking. It was a subject she had never spoken of, nor was any wife expected to pay any attention to her husband’s
affaires,
let alone discuss them with him. She was not supposed to care enough for that.

To balance Brummell’s cynical information, Caterina discovered yet more about her husband’s abilities, for their host was eager to involve his guests in dancing the quadrille, which Sir Chase had already mastered, as Caterina had. Between the envious looks of the assembly, they executed the complicated moves like a dancing master and his best pupil—a caper merchant, he laughingly called himself after the compliments. Then there was the waltz, for which the Duke held morning classes at his Burlington House, shockingly improper to dance with anyone except one’s nearest and dearest, or under the strictest supervision.

But to waltz in the arms of Sir Chase Boston was a fantasy that women took to their dreams, for here was no sharing of partners but bodies pressed close, the woman arching against the man’s supporting arm, her own arms held wide and raised in surrender. That night, in their adjoining rooms at Chiswick House, they lay alone and thinking of the waltz and how they needed each other, but aware that the chasm between them was widening instead of narrowing. She did not go to his room, and he did not visit hers.

***

Had he not promised her a few days’ shopping in London before heading northwards to Derbyshire, Sir Chase would have taken her away immediately from the claustrophobic public scrutiny where his own and Caterina’s experiences of the marriage-mart were well documented and regarded with some healthy scepticism.

George Brummell and he had known each other since their Eton days, had been in the same regiment and shared many an escapade and, although he liked much about the man, there was a prickly side of which to beware when George envied something he could, with more effort and commitment, have got for himself. His remarks concerning Caterina had not been quite as innocent as they appeared, and Chase had little doubt that the ensuing coolness she had shown when no one else observed was a direct result of something Brummell had said to her. He would have liked to know what it was.

The more positive result of their stay at Chiswick House was an invitation to stay with the Duke at another of his homes, Chatsworth House, for as long as they wished while they were in Derbyshire. It was a prospect that pleased Caterina well, giving Chase an extra incentive to set a day for the first stage of their journey. The sooner he could be alone with her, the better it would be for both of them.

She and Sir Chase were emerging together from Jackson’s Habit Warehouse in Covent Garden, about to climb aboard the high-perch phaeton, when Caterina felt Sir Chase’s attention being drawn to a group of gawping young dandies on the opposite side of Tavistock Street. He would normally have ignored them but, from his delay, she saw that one of them had been recognised.
Without cutting the fellow, it was too late for them to escape.

‘Oh no,’ Sir Chase muttered. ‘Look who it is. Can you believe it?’

Caterina could. Even without the five-storey neckcloth, the bee-striped waistcoat, the brilliant blue long-tailed coat with the exaggerated lapels like wings and the tight pantaloons, his mincing walk alone would have been enough to proclaim him a peep-o’-day boy. With winks and waves he was making it clear to his cronies that he knew the owner of the raffish phaeton and his stylish lady, and that he would remind them of it. The lady was, after all, a relation.

Neither of them had bargained for the untimely interference of yet another face from the past in the unwelcome dazzling form of Mr Tam Elwick, younger brother of Hannah, née Elwick. Caterina had heard news of his return after years of travel, but she had hoped it would be some time before they met again, for Tam’s irresponsible behaviour had once caused her some problems.

The foppish young man tripped daintily, flashing unnecessary spurs at each step, swinging a silver-topped cane and lifting a colossal bucket-shaped hat off his head, swinging it in a wide arc to reveal a mass of nut-brown curls. The years, Caterina thought, had not dealt too kindly with him since their last meeting, for now Tam had learned to smirk instead of sporting that memorable mischievous smile when he had been twenty-one and she an impressionable seventeen.

‘Tamworth Elwick at your service,’ he reminded them, bowing stiffly as if he might be wearing a corset. ‘How d’ye do, Cat? Your servant, Boston old chap. Well met, eh?’ The bucket was replaced at exactly the correct angle.

‘Sir Chase and Lady Boston are very well, thank you, Elwick,’ said the deep voice in a singular display of rank. He had not wanted even the remotest relationship with this upstart, for though their parents were near-neighbours at Mortlake, the sons had nothing else in common worthy of first-name familiarity.

‘Ah … er … oh, yes. The
wedding.
’ Tam giggled. ‘Of course. Well, congratulations to both of you. Yes, indeed,
what
an achievement, eh? Married, after all that, my lady. Must try to keep up with events, now I’m back, mustn’t I?’

‘Are you back at Mortlake, then? Or staying in London? I’m glad to see you’re no worse for your Grand Tour,’ said Caterina, smoothly.

With typical drama, he rolled bloodshot eyes. ‘Oh, not the Grand Tour exactly,’ he said. ‘What a bore! I was dragged round the whole island of Great Britain rather like Defoe, but even further. Father thought it was too dangerous to traipse across the water. He didn’t want me
killed,
you see, only out of the way. I don’t suppose your elite regiment caught a boat either, did it,
Sir
Chase?’ Neither of them were intended to miss the tone of bitterness at his father’s harsh treatment when he had longed to join the army, to prove himself as a dashing daredevil of a man like Boston.

‘Oh, I did some traipsing through Europe a few times. As you see, I’m still alive to tell the tale,’ Sir Chase replied with a noticeable lack of sympathy.

Tam would have given much to adopt the same deeply cultured bored tone of one who’d seen the world, but didn’t care who knew about it. ‘So what are you two up to? Living in London, are you? Bit different from those heady days in Bath, eh, Cat? Er … Lady Boston?’ There was now a malicious glint in his eye
after the snub, and the questions he fired like shots were not intended to be answered. ‘Remember? Had ‘em all on the run, didn’t we? What? You and Seton, or must I use
his
title now? What a fiasco that was, and your father chasing all over the countryside after you, and then your so-broken heart to mend. Oh, what a todo, eh?’

‘I believe your friends are waiting for you,’ said Sir Chase. ‘It’s been a pleasure meeting you again. Please give our regards to your parents when you return to Mortlake.’

‘Oh, but Lady Boston and I have so many pleasant memories to share,’ the persistent man said, stepping between the two of them with almost suicidal imprudence, ‘of the times when she and I would …’

But here his determination was no match for Sir Chase’s. Finding an iron fist tightly bunching the high neckcloth beneath his chin, Tam Elwick was propelled forcibly backwards in an ungainly stagger until, pressed hard against the wall, his eyes began to protrude rather unpleasantly. Held there for a count of five, not a word was wasted on him until, with an attempt to nod his head, he gained his release. He gasped, fumbled at his very disturbed throat and walked away to rejoin his friends with rather less affectation than before.

Caterina could have used the ugly situation to explain what Tam Elwick had been referring to, or to challenge Sir Chase about his jealous response when there was no need. Which may have been what a more incautious woman would have done. But she said nothing as they drove home through London’s streets, nor did Sir Chase demand to know more about the pointed reference to Lord Rayne and the broken heart in Bath, and
she could only guess whether that was due to a lack of interest or to his anger. Unfortunately, she did not know him well enough to risk finding out.

T
he visitor to Halfmoon Street arrived as Sir Chase was just about to retire for the night. Crossing the hall, he placed the silver candlestick on the table and waited to see who was being shown in. ‘Sete?’ he said. ‘What brings you here?’

He had known Lord Rayne for many years, and still the only way he could tell when his friend had been drinking heavily was by the slow and very precise way of speaking, as if he was delivering a lecture.

Lord Rayne was, in fact, intending to deliver a lecture. ‘A word or two … if I may … in private,’ he said, ponderously. ‘Miss Chester gone up, has she?’

Sir Chase didn’t bother to correct him. ‘Yes. Did you want to …?’

‘No … er … no! Indeed, I do not. I have not come here to upset
her.
’ As usual, his appearance was faultless, but his host detected more than a whiff of tobacco smoke and spirits on his clothes as the door closed.

‘Thank you for the warning. In here, if you will.’ Taking up the candlestick, he led Lord Rayne into the salon and waited for the butler to disappear. ‘Will you take a
brandy? A glass of wine?
Do
sit down, Sete. It can’t be all that bad, can it?’ Crossing over to a sideboard, he poured two glasses of brandy, puzzled by Seton’s unusual displeasure.

‘Well, you may not think so,’ snapped Lord Rayne, ‘but I think it is as bad a thing as ever I have heard, and I have heard a few in my life. How you have the gall to enter into an arrangement like that with Stephen Chester’s son, of all people, when you must know he is unable to stump up the bronze, is more than I can—’

‘Sete, for pity’s sake, man! What the devil are you talking about? Look, drink this and
sit down
before you forget where your backside is. Where’ve you been, White’s?’

‘No, of course not. They would not allow Tam Elwick’s sort in there.’

‘What does he have to do with it?’

‘Do with what?’

‘What you’ve come here to tell me.’

Lord Rayne sat down rather heavily upon a long settee, took the glass from his friend and gulped down the amber contents in one go. ‘I have … argh!… I have come here, Boston, old chap, to tell you exactly what I think of you. That’s what.’

‘Right. But before you do, tell me where you’ve been, and with whom.’

‘Timson’s Club. Met Tam Elwick there. Wished I had not gone.’

‘I’ll bet you did. Lost a lot of pennies, did you?’

‘I did not lose. I won, from that pinheaded little sapskull. So then he was peevish. So he told me he was there when you fleeced Stephen Chester’s ninnyhammer of a son for twenty grand, and by my reckoning that was a short time before you made an offer for the hand of Stephen Chester’s eldest daughter, Miss Cat—’

‘Yes. And so? Is there a law against it?’

‘Against what?’

‘Offering for a woman.’

‘For
that
woman, yes, I should think there ought to be, if there is not one already. Is there?’

‘No, Sete. So what’s the problem, exactly?’

Lord Rayne frowned, staring morosely into his empty glass. ‘The problem?’ he said. ‘Oh, yes. Well, you must have known Chester’s son could not honour his debt.
Did
you know?’

‘I suspected it. In fact, Sete, I didn’t much care whether
he
could or not. I knew he’d go to his father with it.’

‘So then you made a beeline for the father, knowing that he couldn’t meet it either? So then you offered to take his daughter instead? Now I know why Cat was so angry with you at the Ensdales’ house party. She did not care for your scheme, did she? She did not wish to become Lady Boston because you and her brandy-soaked papa between you have forced her into a marriage she did not want. Have you not?’

‘Another drink?’

Lord Rayne lifted his glass, shakily. ‘Small one. You think I’m bosky, but I ain’t. Jober as a sudge. Thankee.’ He took the drink. ‘And I have come here to rescue her. You cannot take a woman in such stance … cum … scances, Chase. Not even you can do that.’

Impassively, Sir Chase seated himself upon the chair by the wall, his eyes giving away nothing in the shadowy room, but watching his friend like a hawk. ‘And what were you to each other?’ he asked, quietly. ‘You had an
affaire
of the heart, I believe?’

‘I thought I had told you all that, once.’

‘Tell me again. About Bath. What happened in Bath, Sete?’

‘Did I not tell you?’

‘Only that Caterina once made a run for it. Was that from you?’

‘To me, not
from
me. All a mistake.’

‘I see. She was in love with you, then.’

‘Mm … m. Should not be talking about this. Not done, old man.’

‘I’m her husband. I need to know.’

‘Perhaps, but I am not so foxed that I rattle like an empty can, Chase. I would like to be able to tell you that we were lovers, but that would not be true. However, I do not intend to stand by and see her hurt. I have told Miss Chester that she must send for me whenever she needs help.’

‘And has she sent for you?’

‘Eh? No, I have sent for myself. She needs rescuing.’

‘From me.’ It was more of a statement than a question.

‘Yes, from you. You cannot take a woman in this way. I have told you.’

‘So you have. But am I to understand that she would have accepted you if I’d not insisted she accept me instead?’

‘I doubt it. Doubt it very much. Told me so.’

‘Told you what, exactly?’

‘That we would not suit. Friends, she said. To come when I need her. Besides, I have seen how she looks at you. You know how women look.’

‘So you’ve come to rescue her even though you think she may not be so very averse to the idea of being my wife?’

Lord Rayne was truly nonplussed. ‘Eh?’ he said.

His friend stifled a yawn. ‘Would you like me to find you a bed, Sete? Or I can take you home, if you prefer?’

‘What I want,’ said Lord Rayne, catching the yawn with one of his own, ‘is Miss Caterina Chester. I cannot
think
why I did not realise it sooner.’

‘You were away, Sete.’

‘So were you, but that didn’t hold you back, did it? This time, I think I shall plant you a facer, Chase. You deserve it.’

Sir Chase smiled, recalling Caterina’s resistance, then her amazing capitulation. ‘If you remember, you once said that all you wanted was Caterina’s happiness.’

‘Then I must have been too sober to express myself properly. What I meant was that I want
my
happiness. She is everything I want, Chase.’

‘She’s everything I want, too, old man, so if you’re thinking I’ve done a straight deal with her father, think again. There’s more to it than that. Much more.’ He would have continued, but now Seton’s head had begun to droop towards his glass, his eyelids already closing. ‘And I shall take Lady Boston,’ Sir Chase whispered, ‘well away from you, my besotted friend, and well away from Brummell and Elwick and the wagging tongues of helpful relatives, pregnant stepmothers and especially from inebriated fathers who are trying to prove something to the world. Come on, my lad. Sleep it off. It’s not like you to get all maudlin over a woman.’

Removing the glass from Lord Rayne’s loose fingers, he eased the broad shoulders back against the scrolled end of the settee, swinging his booted legs up on to the other end. Then he reached over to the wall and tugged upon the bell-pull. When his valet arrived,
he issued compassionate instructions for Lord Rayne’s comfort, including the use of a coach at dawn to convey him to his parents’ grand house in Berkeley Square.

On the second landing, he paused outside the door of Caterina’s bedroom, opened it and went quietly inside so as not to wake her. Within the curtained bed she was sound asleep, sprawled across the sheets with one arm outstretched, reaching into his space. For a few moments he stood watching her, feasting his eyes upon the undulations of hip, waist and breast, on her long slender limbs, the mop of tousled curls, the fringe of dark lashes upon her cheek. Then, taking the edge of the sheet, he pulled it upwards to cover her shoulders and, removing the candle, tiptoed away to his own room. ‘Not yours, Seton my friend. Go and do your Saint George act somewhere else. It’s me she needs, not you. And you
are
beginning to get under my hooves, as you predicted,’ he said to no one in particular. ‘What did you intend to take place down at Brighton, I wonder?’

Inebriated or not, it took Stephen Chester only an hour or two to discover the loss of two very important documents from his new and expensive walnut desk. For the next two days he turned his study inside out, thinking that, in the excitement of Caterina’s wedding, he might have placed them somewhere so safe as to be lost for ever. As he was unable to ask his wife, his temper grew more and more frayed until it was with guilty relief that Hannah accepted his announcement that he would be going into town that day. Being overcome by morning sickness, she did not bother to question why he had taken his valet and a portmanteau of clothes so, when he failed to return that evening, she assumed he would be staying overnight at his club.

In fact, he had gone directly to Halfmoon Street, intending to accuse Sir Chase of the theft of documents of massive significance which he was by now certain would be used to set him up for something much worse than a mere debt. The incriminating evidence that his stupid hare-brained son had spelled out in that letter was alone enough to give a man nightmares, and now all the conversations he’d had with Boston pointed to the distinct possibility that he had it in his power to ruin him.

Looking back through a mind fuddled with alcohol, he could see how his own story of shortage of funds and daughterly stubbornness, which he believed had been swallowed, had been his own undoing. The man had been laughing at him, plotting his downfall, taking his daughter
and
the IOU, which he would now insist on being honoured if he wanted his letter back. Now the man would know that Harry was abusing a position of trust in the Liverpool Customs House, placing a noose firmly around his neck, too.

As it turned out, Chester’s arrival at Halfmoon Street was half a day too late, the master and mistress having that very morning departed for the north. And, no, the butler did not expect their return for some weeks.

‘Where’ve they gone?’ said Chester, irritably pulling at his cravat.

‘I believe Sir Chase and Lady Boston intend to stay in Derbyshire, sir.’

‘They can’t get there in one day, surely?’

‘No, sir. They’ll be stopping.’

‘Where?’

The dignified butler scarcely blinked at the brusqueness. Whatever the father-in-law intended, he was sure Sir Chase would be able to deal with it. ‘I heard him mention Ampthill, sir.’

‘Ampthill?’ Chester echoed. ‘Where’s that?’ ‘In Bedfordshire, sir. A delightful little—’ ‘Yes … thank you!’ Chester was already halfway through the red door, down the steps and rocking the shabby town coach as he leapt on to the worn leather seat. ‘Great North Road!’ he snapped. ‘And look sharp about it.’

In contrast to her father’s desperate haste, Caterina’s comfortable journey was a more leisurely affair in the crane-neck travelling coach large enough to carry leather trunks besides. In a smaller coach that followed them with more luggage, Millie, Signor Cantoni and Pearson, Sir Chase’s valet, were getting to know each other rather well.

Caterina had made no objection to her husband’s suggestion that they should leave London promptly, and it had taken her and Millie no time at all to pack and be ready by midday, time enough to reach Ampthill before dinner. Sir Chase’s mother, Lady FitzSimmon, owned a cottage there, a gift built in her birthplace by Sir Reginald as a reward for marrying him. To Caterina’s amusement, the so-called cottage was a mock-Tudor mansion set in beautiful parkland on the outskirts of an attractive village within sight of St Catherine’s Cross, a memorial to Queen Catherine of Aragon, who had waited in the nearby castle while her husband, King Henry VIII, divorced her.

The house, fully staffed, was hung with ancient tapestries and Lady FitzSimmons’s ancestral portraits, heavily beamed above, windows twinkling with leaded glass, walls shiny with oak panelling, brass and pewter everywhere, stone floored and filled with hefty tables and Jacobean chairs no more out of date than double
garden-windows that opened like doors or kitchens that held every modern device.

The two grand pianos in the long gallery were more than Caterina could have dreamed of and, if she had been more than usually preoccupied with her own private concerns until then, this seemed devised to lift her spirits as nothing else could have done. That evening, after a meal of young vegetables from the garden and local lamb with mint, she and Sir Chase and Signor Cantoni played duets and trios, singing them, too, laughing like children at mistakes, losing themselves as the light dwindled and the servants tiptoed in with candles to prolong the music to which they had all secretly been listening.

At the door of her mock-medieval bedroom, Caterina’s mood had risen to such pleasurable heights that it seemed quite natural for her to cling to Sir Chase just a little longer than the night before, to accept his kisses with her own fervour and to convey the message, without realising it, that her need of him was as strong as ever. Sir Chase was in no way disappointed.

But neither of them could have known that, at about the same time, her troubled father was stumbling from his battered coach that had just pulled into the courtyard of the White Hart at Ampthill. After miles of being shaken like a string puppet, Stephen Chester’s bad temper was shaken even more by his enquiries about Sir Chase and Lady Boston. There was no one of that name staying at the coaching inn, nor did anyone by the name of Boston own any property in the village.

Immediately after an early breakfast they were off again, heading north-westwards to reach Northampton by mid-morning where they ate and refreshed themselves
at the Chequers, close by Allhallowes Church. Then on for the longest stretch through Rothwell and Market Harborough to the village of Wigston Magna, just south of Leicester.

‘We never came this way when we travelled down from Buxton,’ said Caterina. She did not mind the change of route, for Sir Chase usually had very sound reasons for whatever he did and, losing her penchant for confrontations, she found it quite pleasant to accept whatever surprises he had in store for her. It was getting late and the horses were tiring. She, on the other hand, lounged inelegantly in the crook of her husband’s arm with his hand spread across her midriff over the peach-coloured spencer. Her hat had been abandoned long since, and her feet were wedged into a corner of the velvet seat.