Regency Rumours/A Scandalous Mistress/Dishonour And Desire Page 14

  By contrast, Amelie had chosen to wear a clinging gown of forest-green crepe deeply cut away at front and back, the tiny bodice of which was spangled with emerald beads that trailed across the train to complement the emerald and diamond necklace and pendant earrings. A matching green ribbon bound up her dark curls, but she refused the plume, the hair ornament and the turban. ‘No, Lise,’ she said, pushing them away. ‘I’ll not go looking like a harvest festival. Pass my fan and reticule, if you please.’

  She was assured that the choices had been well made when she saw the expression of admiration change Lord Elyot’s usual aloofness into something altogether more heartwarming and, when he assured them that they would take Ham House by storm, they politely protested, thinking that this must be an unusual show of exaggeration on his part. They might have known that Lord Elyot never exaggerated. From the moment they passed into the great hall at Ham House, a dozen or so conversations suffered minor fractures, sips of wine paused in midair, eyes widened and blinked and elbows nudged as the whisper went round, ‘Who’s that with Elyot and his brother?’

  Amelie was no stranger to large gatherings, having entertained and attended functions with her late husband several times a week in Buxton and Manchester. Here at Ham House, just round a bend of the river from Richmond, she had not expected to know a single soul, though Lord Elyot had briefed them on the way there about their host, the cultured sixth Earl of Dysart who had been a widower for less than a year. His hostess, Lord Elyot guessed, would be the Earl’s sister Mrs Manners, a widow who stood to inherit her brother’s title unless he produced an heir.

  Amelie saw how unlikely this might be when they were greeted at the door of the reception room by a distinguished-looking gentleman in a white wig and wearing the long embroidered frock-coat of twenty years ago. But nothing could have prepared Amelie for the look of recognition that beamed from the Earl’s alert eyes beneath drooping lids and black bushy brows.

  ‘Lady Chester, what an evening of surprises this is, my dear. Sir Josiah and I met often in Manchester, I recall. We must talk, you and I. We must talk. Will you promise me?’

  ‘Indeed, my lord, I will,’ she responded while not taking his enthusiasm too seriously with so many other guests to attend.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Elyot, good to see you here. Saw the Marquess in town only two days ago. And who’s this charming young lady? Welcome, my dear.’

  They moved on into a waving sea of plumes, frothy lace creations and turbans trimmed with yards of goffered frills, feathers and jewels, an abundance of scarves, veils and fichus, bits of gauze half covering bare backs and fronts, the wicked evening glitter of diamonds, and everywhere eyes that turned to look at the two ravishing creatures on Elyot’s and Rayne’s arms, some with envy, some with admiration, and all of them with interest.

  Lord Elyot’s deeply mocking voice in Amelie’s ear was loud enough to be heard above the general hum. ‘Well, well. So you are known, it seems.’

  ‘He must be mistaken,’ said Amelie. ‘How could he have known Sir Josiah, except by name?’

  ‘Could it have been in his capacity as High Sheriff of Cheshire, d’ye think? If Sir Josiah was active in Chester, Dysart might have banked with him.’

  ‘High Sheriff? Is he really?’

  ‘Was,’ he said, nodding to someone across the room. ‘He’s a man of many parts. He’ll not be mistaken.’

  It was not the first time Caterina had met an earl, but it was her first experience of being surrounded by so many titles and, as she and her aunt were presented to viscounts and dowager countesses, marquesses and minor lords, knights and honourables, neither of them could doubt that the grand launch had begun in earnest and that the creak of opening doors could already be heard.

  Through one polished door the splendid tide of guests flowed into the crimson plush seats of the grand hall and settled themselves over the black-and-white chequered floor with occasional glances at the gallery above where more plumes nodded and diamonds flashed. Briefly, Amelie caught sight of a lovely face that withdrew rather too quickly to suggest mere appraisal of the scene, and as Lord Elyot’s eyes also withdrew from the same direction, it was only natural for her to assume some former attachment.

  ‘You know her?’ she said, competing with the tuning of strings.

  His head inclined towards her and she felt the warmth of his skin just before she was caught looking at it. The smile in his eyes recognised her concern and soothed her with their caress. ‘I know many of them,’ he said, softly, ‘but not in the way you think.’

  ‘What way do I think, my lord?’

  The smile deepened, just reaching his lips. ‘Later,’ he whispered as a tall black-clad gentleman walked onto the shallow dais at the far end of the hall. ‘Here’s Mr Saloman, the concert master.’

  To her other side where Caterina sat contentedly with Lord Rayne, she whispered, ‘Mr Saloman,’ but the word later had found a niche in Amelie’s mind and so, missing most of the impresario’s introduction, she did not know what to expect until she recognised Handel’s familiar Water Music. Then, when she ought to have entered into the trotting rhythms and weaving patterns of sound, her thoughts lingered on the touch of his arm against hers, on the hand spread over his thigh, on the long fingers, and on her desire to smooth the dark hair that dusted the back of his wrist.

  She knew he had noticed her inattention when he caught her eye with the remnant of his smile and a lazy blink, sharing those thoughts that were not to do with Herr Handel’s artistry. With deliberation, he gave his frilled shirt-cuff the slightest tug, then watched with a deepening grin as her long neck took on a deeper hue. Glancing at Caterina, she was satisfied to see her fingers tapping, and not for the first time did Amelie wonder at the cost to her own heart of this very dangerous and unorthodox liaison.

  As the evening progressed, however, she began to make the discovery that high society in this part of the country was not quite what she had been used to in more introvert northern circles where the strait-laced elite would have enjoyed a bonanza of malicious speculation concerning her sudden appearance as the notorious Lord Elyot’s ‘intended’. During the intervals, Lord Rayne kept up a running commentary for Caterina’s enjoyment, pointing out to her as many irregular liaisons as conventional marriages. Indicating yet another mistress, another ménage à trois, an ex-mistress of the Prince of Wales, a lover of several earls and viscounts, all beautiful, intelligent and popular women, Lord Rayne smiled and nodded to them while keeping Caterina close beside him to hear his outrageously pithy comments, not quite shocking enough to make her blush, but frank enough to make her feel womanly. In a perverse way, it was worth any number of compliments about her appearance.

  While he amused Caterina, Amelie realised that what would have degraded these women forever in the eyes of this exalted society was not so much their selective promiscuity but the wrong background, a far greater sin. Lord Nelson’s mistress, Lady Hamilton, was sometimes denied the salons of certain hostesses whose invitations stipulated ‘Lord Nelson only’, for she was of common birth, ill-mannered, and an embarrassment to them. Even that might have been tolerated if, like Lady Caroline Lamb, for instance, she had been a somebody instead of a nobody.

  In the company of Lord Elyot and his brother, Amelie and Caterina were accepted as respectable ladies of impeccable breeding, and no questions asked that could not easily be answered. But this did not remove the nagging worry that the man to avoid was Lord Dysart, their host, who had known Sir Josiah Chester and who would presumably feel free to tell his guests about him being a northern industrialist, a banker, and the victim of a duel. Not a perfect pedigree by any standards. As for herself, her family’s wealth was well-established and her education of the finest, but here where everyone blithely owed vast sums of money to everyone else and whose general level of education was not high, it was still the trade connections and the degree of scandal that Amelie believed would earn the loudest condemnation in these exalted circles. Once he
had heard her story, Lord Elyot himself had endorsed that view, despite the hint from his sister that scandal was written into their family’s history. Especially their mother’s.

  The shaking of this belief came when Lord Dysart and his elderly sister eventually caught up with her during an interval. The handsomely coiffured black-laced Mrs Manners bore down upon her like a tidal wave. ‘Here she is!’ she announced. ‘At last! Now, my dear Lady Chester, I shall take you away from all these admirers because my brother and I want to know what has brought you to these foreign parts.’

  The Earl was a good listener, a sociable and intelligent man whose contact with Amelie’s late husband had been of a business nature in Manchester. He had heard about his sad death, and although he and his sister could sympathise with Amelie’s reasons for moving away, they were adamant that her concerns were ill-founded and that duels were not as uncommon hereabouts as she had thought them to be. ‘In fact, my dear,’ said the Earl, looking around the crowded supper room, ‘I would not be surprised if almost half the men here had not been on the end of a duelling sword at some time in their lives. Even Elyot has.’

  ‘Pistols, Wilbraham,’ said his sister. ‘I believe they use pistols nowadays. Not nearly as interesting to watch. You can fire into the air with a pistol whereas you can’t quite do that with a—’

  ‘Yes, my dear Louisa,’ said Lord Dysart, patting her arm. ‘Thing is, it takes much less to scandalise ‘em up north than it does down here. I’m not saying that duels happen every day, nor is the gossip any kinder, but here they’re far more likely to kick up a stink over bloodlines than they are over a whiff of scandal. It’s all about honour, you see. Duels are soon forgotten, my dear. Soon forgotten. Bloodlines ain’t. I seem to recall that your future mother-in-law, the Marchioness, got up to some party tricks in her youth, though perhaps I should not let the cat out of the bag too soon, eh?’

  Beyond Mrs Manners’s powdered and feathered hairdo, Lord Elyot stood within earshot, talking to a gentleman and, as they turned, Amelie found herself face to face with another acquaintance from the past who had painted portraits of her and Sir Josiah in the year of their marriage.

  ‘Mr Lawrence,’ she said, smiling. ‘You’re here too. What a delight.’

  With his usual theatrical flourish, Thomas Lawrence bowed and, taking her hand, kissed it and held on to it to extend the contact. Once a child prodigy, he was now a witty and popular portraitist for whom Amelie remembered sitting with great pleasure. ‘My lady,’ he said, gravely, so that she knew he was about to say something teasingly complimentary, ‘is it possible that you could have grown even lovelier? Now, I have an idea. You shall put aside the first portrait and allow me to paint an up-to-date version to put in its place. My lord,’ he said to Lord Elyot, ‘you must back me up on this. You must have seen how her beauty has changed?’

  A denial would have appeared strange, but he knew at once what was needed. ‘Of course she has,’ he said, ‘but we cannot dispense with the first one. We’ll have two. Shall we make a date for it?’ And without showing the least surprise that Amelie and the Royal Portrait Painter should know each other, he swung the conversation smoothly away from Amelie’s past towards the painter’s recent commissions, to the music, to young Miss Chester’s interest in the singers, to anything except Lawrence’s sojourn in Buxton.

  ‘Thank you,’ Amelie whispered as they strolled back into the hall for the next part of the concert. ‘Does anything ever put you in a quake, my lord?’

  Once more, the slow blink revealed laughing eyes that held a reply well away from the subject of conversations. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said, softly. His gaze slid downwards past the emeralds. ‘But no need to be surprised, my lady. I promised you my protection and now, as a reward, I shall insist on seeing the portrait. Where do you keep it?’

  ‘Er …’ She studied a displaced bead on her reticule.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Somewhere private.’

  Now there was a bubble of laughter in his voice too. ‘Then you will have to admit me to this private place, or how shall I ever know how much you’ve changed?’

  ‘How did you know my gift to your sister had been accepted by the Royal Academy?’ she said, still poking at the bead.

  ‘The label was still on the back. I saw it first in your folio stand. You were not going to tell me of that either, were you?’

  ‘I have to keep some secrets from you.’

  ‘Not for much longer you don’t.’

  ‘My lord …’ she said, looking to see who might overhear them.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Hush … please!’

  Taking her hand, he clasped it in his and held it upon his thigh until the four vocalists walked onto the dais and were applauded. Solos, duets and quartets by Purcell were followed by a furioso performance on the pianoforte of Steibelt’s celebrated ‘Storm Rondo’ which, if anything could, drowned out all the inconsistent information about the importance, or not, of scandal to this society. Lord Elyot had implied that his parents would not tolerate any whiff of scandal, yet Lord Dysart had said that few people hereabouts would care one way or the other, citing the Marchioness’s own indiscretions, though vaguely. In fact, the only difficult moment had been as a result of this so-called betrothal to Lord Elyot himself who was expected to know more about her than he did. How ironic was that?

  But there was also a disturbing conclusion to be drawn from her conversation with Lord Dysart, which went some way to confirming what Amelie feared that, despite the illusion of good breeding, if it was not borne out by fact, she would be unacceptable in the eyes of a potential husband and his family. Bloodlines, the Earl had termed it. And now, his pronouncement lay like a dead weight upon Amelie’s heart, for it was her own bloodlines that concerned her most, a pedigree so insubstantial that it faded into nothing. Even if no one discovered her secret, she could never go through with such an appalling deception, and the shaky contract she had entered into with Lord Elyot would be broken with some with relief on his part.

  It would have mattered less, no doubt, if she had not allowed her feelings for him to get out of hand. But she had. She had thought that her love for Josiah was ‘being in love’. Now she knew the ache, the yearning, the churning inside like a sickness, and there in the great hall, in the midst of a sublime quartet that told of love, betrayal and anguish from four different viewpoints, her heart swelled, her eyes filled with tears and her breathing staggered and trembled as the overlapping voices soared upwards towards the dark gallery, tearing her composure apart, pulling at her heartstrings.

  A large warm hand moved across to cover hers, but the thumb that smoothed her skin added yet another layer of sensation to those already brought alive by the music, and it took every ounce of her self-control to close the doors of her mind while clinging to his hand as if to a life raft.

  The applause was appreciative and prolonged, and when Amelie leaned towards Caterina to comment, she saw tears in her eyes too. ‘Like it?’ she said, above the noise of applause.

  Gulping, clapping and craning her neck to see more, Caterina nodded. ‘Loved it!’ she replied. ‘That’s what I’m going to do. Wonderful! Bravo!’

  ‘What, sing in public?’

  ‘Yes. I can do that.’ Her voice dropped with the volume. ‘I could, you know.’

  ‘What can she do?’ said Lord Elyot.

  ‘Caterina wants to be a vocal artiste.’

  ‘Then we must introduce her to Signor Rauzzini. He’s the tenor. He composed the last song. The best singing coach. Lives in Bath.’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘Not personally, but Salomon will introduce us.’ He looked closely at her. ‘You all right now?’

  ‘Yes, my lord. It’s the music, that’s all.’ She knew he was not convinced, though he appeared to accept her explanation.

  Whatever it was that had gone askew in the relationship between Caterina and Lord Rayne, it seemed to have been straightened out by the heady events of the
evening and, by the time they were packed into the dark intimate space of the town coach for the short journey home, the atmosphere could be described as companionable. Very little was said except the occasional, “Did you speak to …? Did you see …? Did you like the Telemann?” after which all four of them found their own thoughts enough to keep them occupied.

  Dwelling on her most recent discoveries, Amelie would like to have tackled Lord Elyot head-on about the glaring discrepancies in his reading of her difficult situation, which he had used to his advantage, but this was hardly the time, and the hour was late, and it would have been churlish to thank him with an argument. Better to save it for another time when she’d had a chance to weigh up the implications.

  It appeared that the brothers had made plans of their own when, on arriving at Paradise Road, the ladies were handed down, escorted into the hall, and were then left rather hastily by Lord Rayne who wished the remaining three a very good evening before striding back to the carriage.

  ‘Where’s he going?’ said Amelie, staring after him.

  ‘Home,’ said Lord Elyot, quietly, handing his cloak to Henry.

  ‘You mean … home? To Sheen Court?’

  ‘Shall we go in? You’re going to show me a portrait, I believe.’

  Amelie waited for Caterina to reach the first landing. ‘No … look … this is late. What am I going to tell—?’

  ‘You’re not going to tell them anything,’ he said, taking her elbow. ‘And I think it’s time you had a butler as well as a housekeeper.’

  ‘I don’t need a butler.’

  ‘I think you do. This way, is it?’

  This was not what she had wanted, not while her emotions were pulled taut like harp strings, not when there was so much that was unclear in her mind, not when she wanted to talk to Caterina about their evening or when she could feel the deception swirling about her like a mist. And not at his bidding, either, damn him. With an unusual lack of graciousness, she led the way into the Wedgwood-blue saloon, which Lord Elyot had admired and which now lay open to the matching dining room through two white-and-gold doors. Pale blue velvet curtains fell to the floor at both ends, and an oval table reflected in its brown satin surface a large bowl of cream roses and the soft flutter of candlelight. The scent wafted towards them as the door closed.