The Scandal of the Season (32 page)

He hesitated. He thought again of that night, of Douglass's face as he fingered the money, and he felt a gleam of doubt. Why
had
Douglass counted the bills in the carriage? Why would he not have trusted Lord Petre? They were working together to save the man they believed should be king. At the time he had been so concerned about hiding the light that he had not thought about it. What if Caryll were right? “Losing money to a group of their own men.” He realized how little he knew about what Douglass did with the money that he gave him, nor why he had needed it so urgently on the night of the ball.

The more he thought about what had happened, the more wary he grew. The look on Douglass's face when he told him that Gerrard had found the traitors. He had thought it was concern for the cause, but now he suspected that it had been concern for himself. And who was that fellow Dupont? What need had the Jacobites for the help of a French slave trader? Douglass had said that he would help to bring the King back across the waters—but the papers from Menzies had not mentioned such a person at all. He found that he was afraid of the meeting with Douglass that afternoon, and that he had changed his mind about the banknotes.

He wrote to Douglass instead, telling him that his financial affairs had fallen unexpectedly into disarray, and that he would not be able to produce the money, nor play the role that had been planned in the forthcoming action. The letter was delivered to a coffeehouse in Leadenhall Street where Douglass received all his mail, but Lord Petre received no reply. A day or two later John Caryll arranged for him to meet William Dicconson and Catherine Walmesley, and plans for his marriage began.

Somewhat to his surprise during the next few days he gave almost no consideration to the Jacobites or to the heroic part that would have been his. He thought very little of Jenkins, or of Molly Walker. But Arabella was constantly on his mind. He did not know what to do. Only now, when the prospect of losing her loomed so horribly before him, did he realize how deeply he had fallen in love. But he was powerless. He had been trapped in a diabolical pact—and he saw no means of escape.

He longed to see her again, but feared that if he were to do so, a servant would inform his mother. At last he contrived a meeting on an afternoon when Jenkins had left him at his club. Sneaking away, he hailed a hackney carriage and drove to Arabella's house.

“I thought that it would make an amusing novelty,” he explained when she asked him why he had not come for her in his own coach. “We shall drive to Hackney-Hole, pretending to be out for a Sunday drive.”

“But it is not a Sunday,” Arabella protested.

“That will make it all the more pleasant,” he assured her. “The roads will be clear.”

As soon as they were alone he could not keep his hands off her. Taking hold of her face he kissed it ravenously, running his hands through her hair, stroking her neck, her breastbone, her shoulders; touching the curve of her arms, her white hands. He took her face in his hands again and kissed her eyes, her mouth. He pulled her onto his lap, pushing his hands under her skirts.

“Lovely Arabella; my greatest happiness.”

The urgency, the physical force of his feeling as he made love to her was overpowering. Never had he been quite like this, Arabella thought.

Later on, when he was calm again, he was more himself; the Robert that she knew well.

He touched her neck. “May I beg some token of you, in lasting remembrance of your charms?” he asked.

She pushed him away. “I shall refuse you,” she answered, though her smile belied her words. “A lady does not wish to have her charms remembered, but actively admired,” she said.

He smiled and tried to kiss her again, but still she pulled back. She could not be sure whether or not he was in jest.

“If you will not grant me so trifling a favor I may be reduced to stealing one,” he said, twining his fingers through her curls. “Would not it be a romantic gesture for you to give me a lock of your hair?”

“Ridiculous practice!” she said. Her voice was cold. “Why would any woman sacrifice her toilette to bestow so useless a gift?”

Arabella was taken aback. What a strange favor for Lord Petre to ask. Surely he must know that such a gesture would be ludicrously out of place. Locks of hair were exchanged only in the courtship rituals of the very chaste or the very young.

She remembered an occasion when she had been about fifteen, and had sent a lock of hair to a young man whom she had met at a country ball. She had received in return for the favor a tender sonnet of his own composition, and she had thought herself very sophisticated; the young man had been eighteen, and had subsequently married the third daughter of a marquess. She and Lord Petre had moved far beyond the moment for such tokens. Far more radical an action was called for from him now. She could not understand it.

Lord Petre made no further mention of the lock of hair, and when, after a little while, he took her into his arms again, she did not resist.

“How you captivate me, Arabella,” he whispered as he kissed her, and the drive ended as it had begun: in silence.

 

While Lord Petre was thus occupied, James Douglass turned in at the door of the cookshop that the amorous couple had visited some months before. The fires for the spits of meat, which had been cheerful on a winter's afternoon, disgorged infernal heat and stench into the summer's evening, and Mr. Thomas and his family crackled and gleamed with so much sweat that they could hardly be distinguished from the haunches of flesh. Douglass peered into the hot gloom in the rear of the shop and perceived that Monsieur Dupont, the slave trader, was waiting for him.

Douglass sat down and called for a mug of ale from a lackluster Polly Thomas.

As soon as she brought it, Dupont began. “So your man has lost his nerve,” he said. “What of the banknotes?”

“Gone,” Douglass replied angrily. “And the baron with them. I believe that his part in the conspiracy must have been found out. The whole action is to be abandoned.” Dupont, however, had little interest in the affairs of the Jacobites.

“You have no money for me, then,” he said.

“No money,” Douglass repeated, drinking off a mouthful of the ale. “And no prospect of getting any. My advice to you, Dupont, is that you forget the five hundred pounds, and leave England immediately.”

“When I met you at that coach stop on my way to Liverpool, you said that he was good for two thousand. What the devil went wrong?”

“I cannot say. The plan was sound—he supported the cause ardently—he had not the slightest suspicion of me.”

Dupont laughed at this last claim. “So your man was an imbecile,” he scoffed. “But then who but an imbecile would give two thousand pounds to a group of madmen he has never met, to save a king he has never seen?”

“You know nothing of Jacobite affairs,” Douglass snapped in reply.

“Neither do you, I might say.”

Douglass said in a fierce whisper, “You would not have had any money out of him, had he not believed that I was true to the cause. But beware, Dupont—Francis Gerrard told his secret before he died.”

Dupont shrugged. “Our scheme is ruined. The little priest was not lying to us that night when he warned us we were too late. You killed him in vain.”

“
You
killed Gerrard, Dupont,” Douglass said.

“You handed me the knife,” answered Dupont quickly.

Douglass stood up. “You need to leave England. I shall go to Liverpool tonight.”

“You sail for Jamaica?” Dupont asked.

Douglass nodded.

As he walked out of the cookshop, he reflected that he had probably not seen the last of his French friend. After all, their scheme was cunning—his own idea, of course—but it could not go ahead without Dupont. Douglass lacked the connections to pursue it on his own. And Dupont was ruthless. He thought again of the night when they had killed Gerrard; Dupont had slit his throat as though he were opening a sack of flour.

The trouble with Dupont was that he was not clever. It had been Douglass who thought of the masquerade ticket. He remembered running back down the alley to find Gerrard's bloody body after Dupont had scurried off in the opposite direction. He had pulled the ticket out of his own pocket, and put it into Gerrard's as neatly as he could. It had not been easy, with the dead weight of the corpse falling against his legs. But it had bought them time. Gerrard was still known to most as the poor devil from the masquerade.

As he walked into the night, Douglass shrugged. He did not much care that the plan with Lord Petre had gone awry. He was tired of being in England, and longed to escape abroad again.

L
ess than a week later came the day appointed for Queen Anne's levee at Hampton Palace. It was to be the crowning event of the summer season, the one to which Teresa had looked forward to so eagerly, and for which she and Martha had remained in town. The day would be spent drinking tea, playing cards, and talking of the pleasures of the season. Her Majesty would make a brief appearance in the afternoon, encircled by those courtiers with whom she enjoyed the most favorable relations. Court dress was the order of the occasion; Teresa and Martha had ordered new gowns of pink and pale green silks; the colors of a magnolia tree in the flush of its spring color. Arabella's dress was of white damask, with birds and flowers embroidered in gold on the skirts. Her shoes were covered in fine ribbings of golden thread, and she carried the ostrich muff that she had ordered from Molly Walker many months before.

The guests were to arrive at the palace by water. Arabella traveled in a boat up the Thames with Henrietta Oldmixon and Lady Salisbury, whom she met on the banks of the Strand early in the morning. It was sunny but not yet hot, and all three ladies wore light summer shawls around their shoulders. The seats of the vessel had been covered in silk cushions to protect the ladies' gowns, with additional pillows and rugs behind them. A delicate shade was suspended like an awning above to preserve the ladies' fair complexions from the brightness of the day.

As soon as they were settled, Henrietta asked, “How are we to bring my Lord Petre to the point? He has been dithering far too long.”

“To which point must he be brought?” Lady Salisbury asked languidly in reply.

“He must make Arabella a proposal,” Henrietta declared. “I think it would be fitting if he were to speak today.”

Arabella did not want this sort of talk. She was still confused by Lord Petre's strange request in the carriage. “Flirtation is far too pleasant to be thinking of marriage,” she interjected. “The baron would be a man of little taste if he were to make his declaration just as we have at last arrived at easy intimacy.”

Lady Salisbury flounced her fan open and waved it at herself. “Ah! So you do expect to hear from him,” she said.

Henrietta cut in briskly. “Of course she does. They are constantly together.”

Arabella, sitting as far forward in her seat as the angle of the boat permitted, corrected her. “We are in each other's company but once a fortnight.”

“But that is in public, my dear,” said Lady Salisbury sweetly. “Henrietta is speaking of your private hours.”

Arabella was silent, unsure as to what response she should make to this, and Lady Salisbury, taking her silence as a tacit admission, continued to speak.

“Well, Arabella,” she continued, moving her fan back and forth. “I am glad to hear that you still expect an offer, for I have just heard that Lord Petre is to marry Catherine Walmesley—and none of us wishes to have
her
as a friend, of course.”

“You mean William Dicconson's ward?” Henrietta interrupted in astonished tones. “But she cannot be more than sixteen! Lord Petre must want her for her fortune.”

She looked across to Arabella, who had gone rather white. “Be not alarmed, Arabella,” she said. “Miss Walmesley may be worth fifty thousand, but in every other respect you are her superior.”

Arabella did not have an answer for this, and she was glad when Lady Salisbury spoke instead. “I hope that he does marry you, Arabella,” she said. “You have been a delightful member of our party this year, and we should be sorry to lose you.”

Arabella smiled in reply, but like the sun, her smile was more brilliant than it was warm. She saw Henrietta and Lady Salisbury exchange a confidential glance. Meaning to show that she was indifferent to what had passed, she reached lazily over the side of the boat to trail her fingers in the water. But the surface of the river was farther away than she had expected, and she was forced to withdraw her hand in a quick, jerking motion. She gripped the sides of her seat in an undignified pose, conscious that the others were smirking, though they pretended to look around at the view.

She was staggered by Lady Salisbury's news. It could not be true—Lord Petre would have said something when they met. To be sure, Catherine Walmesley was worth many thousands of pounds a year, and Arabella's own marriage portion was only four thousand pounds in all. But though she had never met Miss Walmesley, she knew that she was considered dull, and not at all pretty. Lord Petre liked to pretend that physical beauty did not rate highly in his catalog of virtues, but Arabella believed that he did not mean it. It was a position that he only maintained when he was in the company of very handsome women. Besides, he had told her that he loved her. A proposal could not be far off.

When Arabella's party arrived at the palace, the gardens were already well supplied with the ladies and gentlemen of the court. They strutted about in fringe, gold lace, and feathers, with as great a quantity of hair powder and paint as could be carried off without obscuring the identity of the wearer. The peacocks seemed drab beside them.

Arabella walked up the path from the river with her two companions and came face-to-face with Lord Petre.

He swept her a low bow, declaring loudly, “Miss Fermor! Your beauty is as a zephyr upon a blazing day, bringing exquisite relief and refreshment to the weary traveler.”

Arabella disliked him in this mood. The conversation in the boat had made her nervous. “On what account are you weary, my lord?” she asked tersely. “Did your oarsman expire upon the river, and oblige you to row yourself to Hampton Palace?” She saw a familiar flash of laughter in his eyes, but he restrained it, and bowed formally again.

He turned to Henrietta. “Miss Fermor is high-spirited, is she not, Miss Oldmixon?” he said. Henrietta looked at him with surprise, and was about to speak, but Lord Petre stopped her. “Miss Oldmixon looks displeased,” he said. “I hasten to assure her that her spirits are every part as high, and her beauty just as brilliant as her companion's.”

He was gone as soon as he had spoken, hurrying to greet Lady Mary Pierrepont and her sister, who came up the walk behind them.

At first Arabella attempted to take Lord Petre's conduct as a matter of course, reminding herself that she had seen his concern for the opinion of others before; it was no surprise that on this most public of occasions he should abandon the intimacies that he permitted himself when only close friends were present. She did not number indomitable strength of character among her lover's signature traits. But as she watched him moving around, she perceived a nervous unsteadiness in his movements that contrasted sharply with the authority and control of his usual demeanor. Normally when he saw her in public he would catch her eye, sharing the secret of their connection. She wished that she could find a way to speak to him away from everybody else.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lord Petre walk up to Teresa and Martha Blount. This was strange; he had paid them very little attention in the past, except when their friend Mr. Pope was by, which he was not today, she was pleased to see. Lord Petre bowed to Teresa—no doubt she would be grateful for the attention. Arabella could only surmise that he wanted to show off his acquaintance with so ancient a family as the Blounts, although everybody knew that they were heavily encumbered by debt.

“How charming to see you and your sister,” Lord Petre said to Teresa, as he kissed each of the Blounts in turn. “I was speaking of you but a few days ago when a gentleman of my acquaintance praised the beauties of Mapledurham. I told him that even so lovely an estate as that was not one part so charming as the ladies who belong to it: Miss Teresa and Miss Martha Blount.”

Martha looked apprehensively at her sister, expecting her to receive this new attention with fawning enthusiasm. But much to her surprise, Teresa greeted the baron with a wary smile.

“We can hardly be said to belong to it anymore, my lord,” she replied. “Mapledurham is now my brother's seat.”

Martha took Teresa's response as a sign that, finally, her sister had accepted that her interest in the baron was never to be reciprocated. She wished that Alexander might have been there to observe the spectacle, and wondered what he would make of it. Alexander had always understood Lord Petre very thoroughly.

Teresa did not wait for Lord Petre to reply to her last remark, but said instead, “I am so unaccustomed to seeing you without Miss Fermor, my lord, that I would fear she had taken ill—but she is standing twenty feet away.” She gave a little tinkling laugh, not unlike one of Arabella's.

Lord Petre looked nervous. “Oh! Miss Fermor and I are such established friends that it would be tiresome for me to hover about her on an occasion like this,” he said. “Nobody wants to be hindered by old acquaintance when they are in pursuit of new.” At this, the girls stared at him with open astonishment.

Lord Petre, seeing that they were at a loss, forged on. “You are not with your friend Mr. Pope today,” he said. “A pity—I would like to have improved my acquaintance with him. I fancy that he will be sorry to have missed an occasion that could have supplied him with so much diversion for his pen.” He chuckled to himself, appearing not to mind that the girls still said nothing. Martha wondered whether he might be drunk.

As Petre walked away Martha stole a quick glance at Arabella. She flicked her head around as soon as she saw her cousin, but Martha caught, nonetheless, a look of alarm.

The girls' attention was taken again by Lord Petre, who was being addressed in the clear, unmistakable accents of Lady Mary Pierrepont.

“I am surprised to hear you describe Miss Fermor as an old friend, my lord,” she was saying. “The general understanding is that your acquaintance with her is of a different kind altogether.”

Teresa smiled to see Lord Petre's face when Mary Pierrepont delivered her observation, and wished, not for the first time, that she, too, had been the daughter of an earl. He looked around to see if they had been overheard, but he collected himself, and replied with something close to his former self-confidence. “Miss Fermor would be dismayed to know that so scandalous a rumor has circulated,” he said. “A lady of her unrivaled beauty and charm would not permit an association with a person so inconstant, so uncertain, as myself.”

Lady Mary looked closely at him. “But the general expectation is of an engagement between you,” she said. Again he started visibly.

“The person who marries Miss Fermor must be a more deserving gentleman than I,” he finished, and quickly extricated himself from the exchange.

He joined a party of girls in pale blue and lilac silks, whom Teresa had never met. They were several years younger than she and Arabella—she had seen one of them at a levee that she had attended with her mother. She had given the impression of being very silly. Soon after Lord Petre had joined the group, the girls could be heard laughing in shrill, excited bursts, and Lord Petre's own distinctive baritone rang out after them.

“Lord Petre's remarks puzzle me,” said Martha to Teresa, as they followed his movements. “Arabella seemed sanguine about the match, and I cannot believe her to be mistaken. Perhaps this is the line she has instructed Lord Petre to take with respect to her until they are publicly engaged.”

“Hardly!” Teresa replied. “Not even Arabella would wish to be thought so beautiful that Lord Petre did not deserve her.”

They were interrupted by the hurried arrival of Margaret Brownlow. She had remarkable news to deliver.

“Eliza Chambers says that Catherine Walmesley is to marry Lord Petre!” she exclaimed breathlessly. “But I told her that it could not be true. Is not the baron engaged to your cousin?”

Martha gasped; Teresa, too—but she collected herself quickly.

“That seems rather to depend on which of them you ask,” she said with a tart smile.

“We had believed that an arrangement would soon be in place between them,” said Martha hastily, covering over Teresa's sharpness. “The Fermor family has been expecting it—and ours, too, indeed. But if my Lord Petre is to marry another lady, I hope that people will not think Miss Fermor has been treated unhandsomely.”

“Oh! Arabella Fermor will not mind,” said Margaret. “Every man in London is wild for her. But Miss Walmesley! Who can believe her good luck?”

 

Arabella, who was beginning to mind a good deal more than Margaret would allow, was walking in the grounds between Lady Salisbury and Henrietta. She knew that people had been talking about her, and she wished that she could find a way to stop Lady Salisbury from discussing the subject of Lord Petre now.

Lady Salisbury did not trouble to lower her voice as she said, “If Lord Petre cannot obtain his family's permission for the match, you might still marry in secret. An arrangement about the money can always be made later on.”

It would be futile to try to silence her, so Arabella responded in an equally strident tone. “I would never consent to a secret marriage,” she declared. “It suggests that the lady has something to conceal. There is but one situation in which that arrangement is allowable, and that is where a woman wishes to avoid a husband chosen for her by being already married to somebody else.”