Wife Errant (11 page)

Tess nodded in satisfaction. “A man his age would be concerned about catching cold. Where are we taking these invitations?”

“My footman is delivering all but yours and Cousin James’s.”

“You lied to Mama?”

“Harsh words! I did not lie; I merely prevaricated. I told your mama I was delivering the cards, not
all
the cards. I delivered yours and my cousin’s.”

“Where are we going then?”

“We shall drive into the country and find an inn for tea.”

“You don’t want to be seen on the strut with me,”
she said. It was not an accusation, but a simple statement. “I quite understand, Revel. Naturally someone who considers himself a dasher would not want to be seen publicly with such a dowd, though I am wearing a new bonnet, which you did not even mention.”

Considers
himself a dasher! The gall of the wench! “Very nice,”
he said perfunctorily. “Are you sure it’s new? It looks like the one you wore yesterday.”

“I always buy navy bonnets for winter, to match my pelisse. This one has a higher poke. You must have noticed.”

“To be sure. At least a quarter of an inch higher. Which direction shall we head? Toward the Mendip Hills, or
—
”

“That’s much too far. I cannot stay away so long.”

He turned a curious eye on her. “Correct me if I am wrong, Tess, but was it not the plan that I help you misbehave? That you stay out longer than your mama likes, to bring her to a proper idea of chaperoning you and Dulcie?”

“That was the idea originally,”
she admitted, frowning. “It seems to be changing now. What I want most is for her to bring Papa to heel. If they are back together, then that hint of impropriety will be removed from the family. They will both chaperone Dulcie and me at the assemblies and so on. It achieves the same thing, really, only just by a slightly different method.”

“That’s fine for you, but it is not what I agreed to help you with.”

She turned a wrathful face toward him. “Are you saying you would help me destroy my reputation, but you would not help me bring my parents back together? That is just what I might have expected from you, Revel. An enterprise must have a tinge of debauchery for you to be interested.”

“The idea was never to destroy your reputation! It was all to be done privately, to worry your mother.”

“Mama is worried enough. My aim now is to bring Papa home a reformed man.”

“You might as well try to carry water in a sieve. A leopard of Marchant’s age does not change his spots.”

“Nor does one of your age, it seems. And furthermore, this bonnet is
nothing
like the one I wore yesterday,”
she added angrily. “Yesterday’s bonnet did not have pink feathers.”

Revel fell into a fit of the sulks and stared out the window. “I take it you want to go on the strut on Milsom Street?’

“Not at all. I won’t disgrace you by being seen with me.”

“No one would be foolish enough to take it for a romance.”

“They might believe that at thirty you had begun to develop some common sense,”
she snipped.

“No, no, you have already assured me leopards do not change their spots.”
He pulled the drawstring and asked John Groom to direct the carriage to Milsom Street.

They dismounted, and Revel offered Tess his arm.

“Would you like to look at the bonnets?”
he asked, trying to establish civil relations.

“I have just bought a new bonnet, even if
some
people don’t appreciate it. It is freezing cold. Let us go to the library.”

“The library!”
he exclaimed. Libraries were for little old ladies, for retired clerics and vegetarians.

“You do know how to read, I suppose?”

“Only in English, French, Latin, and Greek. My Italian is a little rusty.”

“You need not worry that the library shelves of Bath will hold a surfeit of Italian books.”

They entered, and Tess strolled along, checking out the novels while Revel walked determinedly to the section of foreign books and took out Boccaccio’s
Decameron
in the original, to show Tess there was at least one Italian book there.

Her fit of ill-humor evaporated when she found a new novel by Walter Scott, and they soon went back to Milsom Street, with Revel carrying the books.

“Shall we have a cup of tea at the Pump Room?”
he suggested. “Not tea with cakes and sandwiches, but just a cup of tea to warm us?”

Revel admitted to himself, if not to Tess, that he had been behaving badly. He realized that he had enjoyed the little game of playing her suitor. It was unusual to be with a young lady who treated him so offhandedly. His flirts more usually hung on his every utterance. By helping her bring her parents together, however, he could still continue seeing her without the fear of raising marital expectations.

“About getting your parents together,”
he said. “It would be helpful if your father knew your mama was seeing Cousin James tonight.”

She peered up from her cup. “Yes, but how will he find out? It is a private party.”

“Someone would have to tell him.”

“Mama does not let us call on him.”
She looked hopefully to Revel. “He is staying at the Pelican.”

“Are you suggesting I—”

“Oh, no! No, indeed. It is just that there is no one else, Revel.”
She peered at him expectantly. “And it would be so
very
helpful if he could know about it.”

“To drop in out of the blue and just announce my aunt is holding a party and he is not invited? Well, it would look odd. In fact, it would look demmed provocative.”

“Yes, you must be more subtle than that,”
she agreed.

“I have not said I would go!”

“Oh, I thought when you spoke of the subtlety required, you were planning how to approach him. I am sure you could do it in a manner that did not provoke him. But I am not asking you to do it.”

Her eyes were not only asking but demanding.

“Perhaps if I just loitered about the lobby until I chanced across him and mentioned it ... It might take hours!”

She gave him an arch smile. “Or you could tell Esmée.”

“I do not see Esmée.”

“You said you parted friends.”

“I’ll loiter about the lobby of the Pelican,”
Revel said, defeated.

“Thank you, Revel,”
she said, and patted his hand for being such a good boy. “It must have been unpleasant for you to swallow your pride and admit you were behaving so shabbily. I appreciate it. Really you are not at all as bad as everyone says.”

“I should like to know who this
everyone
is
,
who has such a poor idea of my character.”
His first spate of vexation changed to amusement as he watched her. “I take leave to tell you, Tess Marchant, you are a deal worse than society knows.”
She smiled her forgiveness. “Furthermore, the new bonnet is as like the old one as two peas in a pod. Why don’t you buy a more dashing one? I have my reputation to consider.”

“There is no hope of making a silk purse of this sow’s ear, Revel. When we have got my parents together, you must find yourself a diamond of the first water, to reestablish your reputation to its usual heights.”

She drew her book forward and opened it. Before long, she had begun reading, forgetting all about her escort.

Revel opened his Italian book. As he could not read it, he contented himself with looking at the pictures. A smile formed on his lips as he admired the sketches of full-bodied Italian temptresses. After ten minutes, Tess noticed what he was up to.

“The Italian comes back to you, does it?”
she asked.

“Mmmm. Very interesting. Mind you, I do not grasp every word.”

“A good thing a picture is worth a thousand words.”

He noticed then that the page he was studying lacked any prose and hastily closed the book. “Some very fine artwork here, too. Titian, I believe.”

“Very likely,”
she said, with a knowing laugh.

When their tea was finished Revel took Tess home and drove to the Pelican. The taproom was preferable to lurking about the lobby. At five-thirty, he spotted Mr. Marchant coming in and strolled casually out to meet him. Revel seldom had trouble making conversation, but he knew this one was going to be rough going.

“Mr. Marchant,”
he said, feigning surprise. “Nice to see you again. Are you enjoying Bath?”
He noticed straightaway that Mr. Marchant was not looking his usual dapper self. His face was drawn and his shoulders sagged.

“A cruel question, milord. I think you must know the misfortune that has befallen me.”

“Tess mentioned it. I am very sorry ...”

Marchant sighed wearily. “Tell her, Tess I mean, that it is all over with Mrs. Gardener. Tess will tell her mama. I have behaved like a fool, Revel. A man of
my
years should know better.”

To agree, although he did agree, would sound surly. To disagree would encourage the fellow to continue on his foolish path. Revel made noncommittal harrumphs. Eager to get away, he wanted to deliver his message as soon as possible.

“I must be getting home,”
he said, glancing at his watch. “My aunt, Lady Corbeil, is having a little rout party this evening. Mama and myself will be there, and of course my cousin James. The Marchants are invited.”

Marchant looked at him with interest. “That is very kind of you, lad. Lady Corbeil, eh? I don’t know that I dare to attend. Lou might dislike it, but I will think about it. Very kind of you to drop by and invite me. Very kind.”

Revel stood with his jaw slack, wondering how this awful misunderstanding had arisen. Yet it was only too easy to understand. He had been waiting at Marchant’s hotel, and had come darting forward the moment he arrived to announce his aunt’s party. What else was the poor man to think? Revel was too much a gentleman to rescind what had been taken for an invitation, yet for Marchant to turn up at the do uninvited was surely worse.

“I quite understand your reluctance,”
he said. “I shall be happy to—
That is, I will deliver your regrets.”

“Nor it is not a firm refusal. I shall think about it. Lord James will be there, you say?”

“Yes, he is definitely attending.”

“It could be awkward.”

“Very awkward. Perhaps it would be best if I deliver your regrets.”

“Still, a man must eat humble pie from time to time, when he has eaten forbidden sweets first. I shall attend, Lord Revel. You may count on my presence. Most obliging of you.”
He bowed and took his leave, while Lord Revel stood aghast at what he had done.

Lyle Marchant was not a modest man, nor a pessimist. Yet neither his pride nor optimism quite convinced him that Lou was at the bottom of this invitation, much as he would have liked to believe it.

It was pretty clear to him that young Revel’s was the hand at work here. Revel wished to make an offer for Tess; he could not like to choose his bride from a scandal-ridden family. Therefore he was trying to patch the marriage up. He had done his best, poor fellow, but it was not within Revel’s powers to keep Lady Corbeil’s own kin away from her party. Lord James would be there, and Revel had come to warn him of it.

Demme, they were all civilized people. He would be a perfect pattern card of civility to all his potential in-laws, even including Lord James. And while he was about it, he would continue to pursue his wife. Lou could hardly throw a jug at his head at a polite party. He sent off his acceptance, which threw Lady Corbeil into quite a tizzy.

Revel knew he had failed miserably in his execution of Tess’s errand. His instinct was to send Auntie Corbeil his own regrets and head off for London. Yet to send Tess and her mama off to that do without warning of the disaster awaiting them was unconscionable. He would go and confess to Tess, and let her and her mama decide what course to take.

He arrived at Bartlett Street just as the ladies were going abovestairs to dress. “That will be my corsage!”
Tess exclaimed, and waited below till Crimshaw answered the door.

“Revel!”
she said, and went rushing forward when she heard his voice.

“May I have a word with you, Tess?”
he said, and herded her into the saloon. “The worst thing has happened.”

She was disappointed to see no corsage. “If you are going to tell me you have the sniffles again, Revel, it will not fadge. And furthermore, that is not the worst thing that could happen.”

“Sit down, my dear,”
he said, with a weak smile.

She remained standing and observed him suspiciously. “Did you speak to Papa?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I assume from the hangdog look of you that you managed to turn the meeting into a disaster. Pray how did you do that? What happened?”

“I—”
He stopped, conning his mind for the least damaging words to employ.

“Revel! You didn’t
hit
him... ?”

“Good God, no. We had a friendly chat. The thing is, Tess, he somehow got the notion he is invited to the rout party, too, and he plans to attend.”

She blinked and was silent a moment. “I don’t see how he could think anything of the sort when he knows Mama is going with Lord James,”
she answered testily.

“She is not actually going with James.”

“They will meet there. It amounts to the same thing. I am sure Papa will not come.”

“I am sure he will,”
he said, and sank onto the edge of the sofa without realizing he did it.

“Did you invite him?”

“Not intentionally.”

“Oh, Revel, you gudgeon! I should have known better than to use you on such a delicate errand.”

He jumped to his feet. “Well, upon my word! This beats all the rest. I
told
you it would be impossible.”

“You did not. We agreed you must use subtlety. How could you make such a botch of a simple errand? Really, Revel, I thought you were up to all the rigs. You are a complete clunch.”

“I know it,”
he said simply.

Even the most wealthy, handsome, titled, and sought-after gentlemen carry at the bottom of their hearts some vestigial memory of childish incompetence. When the string is plucked, they revert to guilt and uncertainty. In Revel’s case, it was only his mama who could stir these uncomfortable sensations; but Tess had unintentionally, and without her own awareness, discovered his secret. It is part and parcel of the situation that the ghost from the past must be appeased, to prove the wrongdoer’s worth. “I am very sorry, Tess,”
he said humbly.