The Counterfeit Gentleman (28 page)

“You wrong me,” the young man said with a grin. “She
not only knows who you are, but she has considered you
only slightly below the angels ever since you brought her
precious little boy back to her with his skin intact. I’ve
written her, by the way, and coached her in what to say if any of the old biddies write for more information, so you
need have no worries on that score.”

Bethia decided that Townsley was the very person to ask
about her husband’s various adventures as a smuggler of
brandy and men—he would doubtless be more forthcoming
than Digory. But before the conversation could continue,
the orchestra started playing a waltz, and Townsley led out
Adeline.

“Well?” she asked.

“Well, what?” Digory replied.

“Are you going to invite me to dance?”

“I could tell you that I do not know how to waltz.”

“Indeed you could. And then I would feel obliged to
point out to you that there are at least a dozen of my former
suitors in attendance tonight, all of whom waltz beauti
fully.”

Without further demur, Digory led her out onto the floor
and began to whirl her around the room with an expertise
far beyond that of any mortal man.

The noise of the crowd faded, and all Bethia could see was
her husband’s eyes—all she could feel was his hand on her
waist—all she could hear was her heart pounding in her ears.

It seemed a lifetime—an eternity—and yet the music
stopped all too soon, and they returned perforce to where
Lord Edington was sitting.

For the next dance she was partnered by Mr. Townsley
while Adeline danced with Digory. When the music
stopped the second time, other men approached to sign
their names on her card. Some were turned away with a sin
gle look from Digory, but others were allowed to scrawl
their names for the country dances.

Bethia did not question her husband as to why some
were acceptable and others were not. She assumed that the
men who were allowed to dance with her had been to a
greater or lesser extent involved in espionage.

She also did not contest Digory’s right to put his name down for all the waltzes. In fact, if it would not have been
too scandalous for words, she would have preferred to
dance with no one but her own husband.

In private he might not desire her as a husband is sup
posed to want his wife, but in public she could at least have
his arms around her, and with that she must be content.

* * * *

As soon as she was in her nightgown, Bethia dismissed
Mrs. Drake and waited alone for her husband to join her.

But the minutes dragged past, one after the other, first a quarter hour, then a half hour. Despite the fire in the grate,
a coldness began to spread, starting in her heart and chilling
her to the marrow.

Finally, the need to be with him could not be denied, and
she opened the connecting door. He was sitting staring at
the fire, his legs stretched out in front of him. Without wait
ing for an invitation, she crossed the few feet separating
them and laid her hand on his shoulder.

“Will you not come to bed now?” she asked softly.

“I think it will be better if we each sleep in our own beds
from now on,” Digory said, unable to meet her eyes lest he succumb to temptation. “So long as we muss both sides of your bed, the servants will not suspect anything.”

His wife jerked her hand away as if she had suddenly
been burned, and looking up, he saw such pain in her eyes
that he knew himself to be lost. Fully aware that he was
making a mistake, he stood up and put his arms around her.
“I have changed my mind; we will sleep together if that is
your wish.”

“I am sorry,” she said.

“It is not your fault. Come now, and I will tell you a
story.”

As soon as they were together in bed with his arm
around her and her head on his shoulder, she said, “Tell me a story about when you were a smuggler.”

“Those are not bedtime stories.”

“You used that excuse before. But I need to know every
thing about you. Tell me how you saved Lord Edington’s
life.”

She did not know what she was asking, but perhaps it
would be best to tell her—perhaps if she knew more about
the things he had done before he met her, then she would
be more agreeable to having the marriage annulled.

So he told her, leaving nothing out and making no attempt to gloss over the ugliness—no attempt to alter the
events so as to present his own deeds in the most heroic
way possible—no attempt to make light of the danger he
and Lord Edington had been in.

When he was done, she took a deep, shuddering breath,
and he thought she must be on the verge of tears. But when
she spoke, her voice was calm.

“I feel as if I have been living in a fool’s paradise,” she
said. “As if I have been little better than a songbird who is
shut up in a cage, and who knows nothing of the great
world beyond the window.”

“The world is a dangerous place. Doubtless the bird is
safer being cherished by its owner.”

“Safer perhaps, but look what it has given up for that se
curity—the sky, the sun, the wind, the rain. I was petted
and cossetted by my grandfather, who could deny me noth
ing I wanted, and I thought I was more fortunate than the
masses, who live in poverty and squalor.”

“I am glad you recognize that.”

“I am not so foolish as to think I would have preferred to
live in Soho or in some peasant’s hovel. But you have
shown me just how restricted—just how superficial—my world actually has been.”

She still had no idea how dangerous the world at large
could be. As reluctant as he was to disillusion her, he had to
do it for her own good. “Surviving by one’s wits is not the
same thing as uttering a witticism. Many of the spies who went to France did not come back.”

“You need not worry that I am being romantic,” she said,
“for I know that war is not noble. But on the other hand, the
tales you have told me have shown that there are things
worth dying for, and that some men and women are willing
to lay down their lives for others.”

She was quiet for so long that Digory thought she was
falling asleep, but then she spoke again.

“I think what I want is to find out what I am capable of
doing. I want to decide for myself where I belong and how
I want to spend the rest of my life. Do you understand?”

“Not really,” he said.

There was another pause, and then she said, “Lady Letit
ia told me about going to Marseilles.”

“I am not taking you to Marseilles,” Digory said immedi
ately.

“No, that is not my point. I just meant that I have never
been allowed to think about what I want from life—I have
never had the freedom to try something merely because it
was what I wanted to do. Everything I have done, I have done because it was the proper thing to do. You may not
have had a happy childhood, but you have taken the cir
cumstances of your birth and made of yourself the man you
wanted to be. I regret to admit that I have blindly accepted
the life I was born into without even knowing that there
could be more.”

And then he understood, and he told her so.

Satisfied, she snuggled closer against him, and soon he
could tell from her breathing that she was sleeping. Having
her in his arms made desire turn into pain, and he was
afraid that if he stayed where he was, he would forget all
his resolutions and kiss her awake.

Before he could yield to temptation, he disentangled
himself and slid out from under the covers. On tiptoe he re
turned to his own room and his empty bed, where after a
long period of tossing and turning he likewise managed to
drift off.

In his dreams he was a child again, listening to his
mother crying in the night and wishing in vain that he could
do something to comfort her. But gradually the dream
faded, and he became aware that it was his wife who was
crying in the other room.

He could not lie there and listen to Bethia weep, even if
it was torture for him to share her bed.

“I dreamed I was drowning,” she said when he slipped
back under the covers and took her in his arms again. “The
water was cold and dark, and I kept going down and down.
And when I woke up, you were gone, and I was so afraid.”

“You needn’t fear your nightmares again,” he said. “I promise I shall never again try to persuade you to sleep
alone.”

Oliver Lord Cavenaugh could not find fault with either the play or the performers, but he was well aware that
the actors could have been speaking Russian and scarcely
anyone would have noticed. The theater was packed, but
virtually every eye was directed toward Lady Letitia’s box,
where that august personage was entertaining Lord and
Lady Edington, and what was even more interesting, the
former Miss Pepperell and her newly acquired husband.

During the first intermission the division had been
sharply drawn between those fortunate enough to gain admission to Lady Letitia’s box and those who knew all too
well that they were in danger of receiving the cut direct
should they seek to presume upon a mere acquaintanceship.

All in all, it was proving to be a vastly entertaining
evening, and he was not at all sorry that he had invited several other aspiring dandies to join him in his box. Although none of them could properly be called friends of his, they
resembled each other in their gullibility and penchant for
gossip.

“I say there, Cavenaugh,” someone behind him said.

Turning, Oliver saw it was Lord Herword who had
screwed up his courage to ask the question Oliver knew
they must all have been dying to ask.

“What can you tell us about this man Rendel? You seem to know him better than any of us.”

With secret delight Oliver launched into the spiel that he
had prepared for just this occasion. “Rendel? Indeed, it is
impossible to explain. I cannot believe the scandal that will ensue if it becomes widely known.”

“Scandal?” Bertram Brewster asked eagerly.

“Shocking, utterly shocking. That he would have
dared—what gall he has displayed—what reckless disre
gard for the consequences.”

He paused so long that Sir Edward Tyrwhitt blurted out,
“Tell us more—we are all ears.”

“All ears? No, no,” Oliver corrected him, “one needs
only eyes to see that abomination of a waistcoat he is wear
ing this evening. Ecod, did you not mark it? I vow, I was
positively overcome with shame. Really, my dear Rendel, I
told him, as delighted as I am to see you in London, you
positively must allow me to introduce you to my tailor. Not that there is much chance, mind you, of making him into a
pattern card of fashion, but there are limits, don’t you
know, and I cannot, I simply cannot have it bruited about
that a friend of mine dresses with such total disregard for
the sensitivities of his friends. I have my reputation to think of, I told him. Those were my exact words—I have my rep
utation to think of.”

“Yes, but who is he?” Vivian Werge was foolish enough
to ask.

Oliver raised his quizzing glass to his eye and inspected
the corpulent young man from top to toe. Then his lip
curled slightly. “He is my very dear friend. What else is
there to know?”

Brewster snickered self-consciously and earned for him
self a turn under the glass, so to speak.

After that everyone in the box displayed a passionate in
terest in what was transpiring on the stage, and nothing
more was said about the mysterious Mr. Rendel.

* * * *

In constant pain and too weak even to raise his head
from the pillow, Wilbur Harcourt realized he was now in
danger of starving to death. As near as he could estimate,
considering that he had been drifting in and out of con
sciousness for the whole time, it had been at least two and a
half days since his brothers had attacked him, and about a
day and a half since he had managed to drag himself to his
bed.