Part 7 (2/2)
Lady Cheverell smiled uncomprehendingly at her mirth and went on, ”All I want is for him to settle down here at Cheve with just one respectable female.”
”He told us you are to have a house party to present prospective brides to him.” Remembering her violent reaction to his announcement, Sarah winced.
”Yes, but I have little hope that he will find one to his liking. Mary will bring a highly accomplished young lady who will sing and play the harp and the pianoforte, and embroider and net purses and probably even write verse. Eliza will bring a beauty, a dark beauty to act as foil to her fairness. And Louise, being the managing sort, will bring some poor, shy little creature who dare not say boo to a goose.”
Sarah laughed again at this accurate summing up of the Lancing girls' preferences. ”There is nothing to say that Adam will not conceive a tendre for one of them,” she said.
”I cannot think it likely. I always thought he admired you excessively, Sarah. He treats you quite differently from the way he treats other females ... at least, the ones I have seen. He certainly prefers you to his sisters.”
”I believe he sees me more as a sort of brother, like Jonathan,” she said bitterly. The thought flashed through her mind that Adam would never have kissed Jonathan's hand. She dismissed it. That was no more than an automatic exercise of his charm, and she did not mean to refine upon it. ”We have been such good friends for so many years that it would be impossible for him to see me in a romantic light.” She tried to speak cheerfully.
”Perhaps. And I daresay you would not even consider accepting his hand after his shocking behaviour.
Oh dear, what a coil! I confess I should like above all things to have you for my daughter-in-law.”
Before Sarah was forced to respond to this astonis.h.i.+ng revelation, Jane danced into the room. She held up a glittering torrent of diamonds before their dazzled eyes.
”Mama, Sarah, look what Tom has brought me! That is why it took him so long to get here, because he went to London to purchase it. I told him I would sell it and buy him another Chinese vase, and he said the happiness of the mother of his heir is more important to him than any porcelain. Was not that prettily said? And the baby is to be called Thomas Cyril. Tom is gone up to take off his wet clothes. I must go to him.” With rosy cheeks and eyes as bright as the diamonds, she hurried out again.
”I must go, too,” said Sarah, seizing the opportunity. ”I am so glad that Jane is reconciled with her husband.”
”It is still raining. Do stay a little longer,” urged Lady Cheverell.
”Jonathan will be wondering where I am.”
”Then I shall send for the carriage. Yes, I know it is but a step to the vicarage, but two wettings in one day will never do, my dear. If you should take a chill, my house party will all come to nothing.”
This mysterious utterance went unexplained, for Gossett answered the bell promptly and the bustle of departure ensued. The butler escorted Sarah down the front steps, holding a huge umbrella over her. She took her seat in Lady Cheverell's comfortable barouche, the raised hood sheltering her from the persistent drizzle.
The groom on the box was Peter, Nellie's admirer. He gave her a shy grin and saluted with his whip, then they were off. As the carriage turned down the drive, the larch grove came into view. It was dark and dripping and altogether uninviting, but Sarah remembered a bright spring day when the fresh new needles were pale green, the branches scattered with the red of developing cones.
She had been eight, to Adam's eleven. Until that day she had half resented his constant calls on her brother's time. Then came that terrifying moment when she looked down from the top of the tall larch to the ground, a dizzying distance below her, and realised that she could not climb down.
Jonathan had laughed at her. Adam, with the kindness that was already an integral part of his nature, had climbed after her and helped her down, branch by branch, step by step.
That was the day she fell in love with him. After sixteen years of uncritical devotion, what hope had she of curing herself?
Unconsciously, she rubbed the back of her hand where his lips had touched.
CHAPTER TEN.
Adam's fingers rose with a will of their own to his right cheekbone, where Sarah's fleeting kiss had landed. It was ridiculous that her casual gesture stuck in his mind.
It must be because of the contrast with the impact that had hit his left cheek shortly before, he decided. His nose was decidedly sore and a spectacular circle of purplish black surrounded his left eye. His companions were politely ignoring his appearance. He turned his attention to entertaining them.
It had proved less difficult than he expected to persuade Marguerite and Janet to share the latter's carriage. The pouring rain doubtless had helped, since it made it likely that he would stay in whichever vehicle he set out in. However, the hostility between them was almost palpable. Janet was aloof, while Marguerite chattered constantly about marquises who had complimented her singing and dukes she had danced with. By the time they stopped in Hartley Wintney for luncheon, Adam was ready to hire a hack and continue the journey on horseback even if the drizzle had continued.
Fortunately it did not. They had outpaced the rain clouds and the setting sun shone on their arrival in the city. Adam escorted his companions to their homes, promised to call on them first thing in the morning, and retreated exhausted to Mount Street.
”I trust her ladys.h.i.+p is well,” said Gossett, eyeing his face with ill-concealed interest as he relieved him of his hat and gloves. ”Your lords.h.i.+p will dine at home?”
”For at least a week,” said the viscount sourly.
Wrigley did not let him off so lightly. The valet was appalled at the result of letting his master go off without him for a week, and said so without roundaboutation.
”Your lords.h.i.+p shall stay within doors for the next few days,” he proposed.
This was going too far, and the viscount rounded on him with a scowl that was the more effective for being rarely seen.
”When I want you to arrange my schedule, I shall hire you as a secretary,” he advised the quaking manservant. ”I have two appointments tomorrow. I look to you to make me as respectable as possible.”
Wrigley produced rice powder, which did somewhat soften the effect of the black eye. Regarding himself in the mirror the next morning, Adam remembered Sarah's advice to borrow Marguerite's cosmetics. He smiled and shook his head. There was tart and witty tongue hidden beneath the proper exterior of the vicar's sister.
A broad-brimmed hat shading his face, Adam set out in his closed town carriage for the Royal Exchange. Lloyd's was the obvious place to look for information on Henry Goudge's s.h.i.+p. If the underwriters were surprised that a n.o.bleman looking somewhat the worse for wear was enquiring for the whereabouts of a certain India merchant, they admirably concealed it. Only their pleasure was evident when they informed him that, though reported sunk in a storm in the Bay of Biscay, the s.h.i.+p had only yesterday been sighted off Dungeness. With a fair wind, she would dock today, tomorrow at the latest.
Janet rose to greet Adam, her black silks rustling, hands clasped pleadingly. The incredulous joy in her face when she heard his news was ample reward for his embarra.s.sment at Lloyd's. She sank back into her chair and he hurried to pour her a gla.s.s of wine.
”What a friend you have been to me,” she cried. ”I only wish I could introduce Henry to you and tell him of your kindness.
”Lord, no, not a word,” said Adam nervously.
”Of course it must remain our secret, but I do hate to keep anything from Henry. Now I regret being unfaithful to him. I have been very wicked.”
”Your affection for him has not wavered. Come, Janet, do not be sad. It was wrong in us, but what is past is past and cannot be mended.” It was not Adam's custom to dally with married women, and he had not antic.i.p.ated her sudden remorse. He blamed himself and vowed then and there never again to touch another man's wife. There were actresses and opera singers aplenty who understood these affairs and were ready to satisfy a man's needs without a second thought.
”You cannot understand,” Janet was saying. ”The confidence between husband and wife is one of the chief delights of marriage, and I have betrayed it. It will take me a long time to deserve his trust again, but I shall not cheat him of the joy by telling him what I have done.”
”Could it not make you happier to win his forgiveness?” Adam asked, curious.
”Yes, but must I hurt him to salve my conscience? I should like to know Miss Meade's opinion. I have never met anyone like her and I admire her greatly.”
”Sarah is the best of friends,” he agreed. ”I must be off now, or Marguerite will be wondering if I have abandoned her again. You go and put off your blacks, for Henry will expect to see you in your most cheerful array.” He kissed her hand in a final farewell. It was an old-fas.h.i.+oned courtesy that he thought she would appreciate. Her hand was soft and white and well cared for, yet somehow it did not please him as Sarah's had. He touched his cheek, in a gesture that was becoming habitual.
”I hope you will marry a woman who has faith in you, and that you will love her enough to strive to earn her faith,” said Janet solemnly.
She was becoming a veritable fount of sentimental sermons, Adam thought as he returned to his carriage and directed his coachman to stop at the first jeweller's shop in Oxford Street. Not that what she said was untrue, but he could not imagine his mother spouting such stuff, or Sarah. He made a mental note to avoid entanglements with bourgeois females in future.
The shop had precisely what he was looking for: large gems, not of the first quality, in flashy settings. Marguerite did not appreciate the restrained elegance of Rundell and Bridge's fas.h.i.+onable jewellery. She wanted to create a stir. He chose a gaudy bracelet of rubies arranged like blossoms with emerald leaves and diamond dewdrops. It would make a perfect farewell gift.
He stared at the shopkeeper's bill with such a look of surprise that the merchant quickly retrieved it from his hand and lowered the price by a hundred guineas. The viscount was completely unaware of the whole business. He was wondering just when he had decided to give Marguerite her conge. He signed the chit without even reading the total, thrust the velvet box into his pocket and went out to his carriage in a daze.
Conscious or not, the decision was made. That left him with the necessity of finding himself a new mistress. As the carriage turned down Poland Street, he pa.s.sed in review the qualifications of all the well-known High Flyers. Most would have current protectors, of course. Though many would leave less attractive gentlemen in order to boast of having attached Lord Cheverell, Adam had no intention of arousing ill feeling.
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