Kitabı oku: «Regency Society», sayfa 7
‘I didn’t mean…if you liked her it would be different…’
‘Enough, Asher. Rutledge would not take kindly, I think, to seeing two of his patrons having a fist-and-cuff in his salon and any association I choose to pursue with Beatrice-Maude Bassingstoke is none of your damn business.’
‘Very well. If you feel that strongly about her…’
Taris suddenly frowned, having the sneaking suspicion that he had just been taken for a ride in the dulcet tones of his sibling, and wondering too just what his defence of the Widow Bassingstoke actually meant.
He knew that she was still here, for he had caught the sound of her voice. His eyesight, however, allowed him no possible means of locating her again and he did not dare to chance sending Bates to wheedle the promise of another dance.
It simply was not done. One dance would not excite the comment two would, and already he could hear in the buzz of comments around him speculation about Beatrice-Maude and their possible relationship, as he seldom took to the floor at any of these soirees. He smiled. Seldom was probably putting a generous face on it—never would be the more appropriate term.
Chapter Seven
An assortment of calling cards and invitations arrived the next morning and Bea found them in a tidy pile on the salver on the hall table.
Lord, she thought as she sorted through them, the impressive list of names making her wonder. She remembered when Frankwell had received cards in Ipswich in the early years of their marriage and the lengths he had gone to arrange them where they might be the most visible.
For her part now she stacked them up and placed them face down, hoping that no one would make the effort to come and call and agitated by the fact that they might.
She knew exactly why she had suddenly become fashionable. It was the direct result of her dance last night with Taris Wellingham. She had heard it from her servants, who had heard it from those of the other grand houses, the grapevine of gossip as rapid and faultless as any paper in print.
Chewing on the edge of a nail, she glanced up and caught sight of herself in the mirror above the mantel and was glad that Taris Wellingham could only see the vague outline of shapes.
If he could see properly, she doubted he would make the effort to dance with her at all. Perhaps everything she was imagining between them was pure falsehood.
She lifted her wrist to her nose and smelt. Violets. Her mother would pick posies sometimes and place them in her room in the old house above Norwich before she had been betrothed. Nearly half a lifetime ago.
When Elspeth appeared at the door a few moments later Beatrice was already sorting through a pile of new books in her library. This room of all the rooms in her house was the one she most favoured. To have a place where she could set out each tome was a delight above all the others and to read in the daylight without any interruption was something she had not been able to do since…for ever.
‘You look happy this morning, Bea. Could that have anything to do with your apparent success at the Rutledge Ball last night? Molly mentions the name of Lord Wellingham?’
‘I danced only one turn with him, Elspeth,’ she returned. ‘In a ball with a programme of at least twenty-nine other dances I fail to see the significance of such an action.’
‘Word is that he seldom favours the waltz. It also says that he has not danced at a soiree in years.’
Beatrice remained silent.
‘Lord Taris Wellingham is one of the most powerful men in England, Beatrice. He is the also the gentleman that all the young girls set their caps at and a lord who, although charming, is decidedly unavailable.’
Bea waited to see if Elspeth would mention the problem of his sight, but she did not. Still, as the silence lengthened she was loath to just leave it there.
‘I heard some woman speak of a property…Beaconsmeade I think it was they said.’
‘His seat in Kent. A magnificent house by all accounts it is too, and its master a man who should not be trifled with. You can see that in his visage, for the mark on his face is rumoured to have come from a pirate’s bullet in the West Indies.’
‘You are jesting with me, surely. What possible tie could the son of a duke have with such people?’
‘I do not know. All I do know is that he is a man whom any woman, no matter what her age, might be swayed by.’
Bea began to laugh. ‘The woman that you are alluding to meaning me?’
‘Even a sensible woman has her dreams.’
‘I was married for twelve years, Elspeth, and I can honestly say to you that the experience was such that I would never repeat it. Not for any man.’
‘Oh, it was not marriage I was thinking of. I do not think he would offer that…’
A violent blush of red had Bea turning away. She felt her fingers shake as she reached for the collar of her dress, pulling the light wool from her throat to allow the slight feel of air against her skin.
His hand on her breast and his tongue tracing the shape of her nipple before pressing closer…
‘Are you well, Beatrice? You seem somewhat distracted this morning.’
With an effort Bea pulled herself together.
‘Your very liberal opinions are sometimes distracting—I was not born into a family such as your own with the penchant for expressing ideas that are…so radical.’ When she saw the slight frown on her friend’s face she hurried on to allay any worry. ‘That is not a criticism of you, Elspeth, for I wish with all my heart that I could throw caution to the wind in the way that you so effortlessly seem to.’ She was horrified as tears came behind her eyes, and the bone-deep desire in her breast for something more surfaced.
Taris Wellingham. He had sent no card this morning, just as he had not tried to approach her after the waltz they had shared. Perhaps his eyesight was such that he could not find her, though she suppressed that excuse; if the servant had sought her out before, then he certainly could do so again.
No! She tried to push the desire she felt for him beneath the easier banner of sense. Of course he would not be searching her out. She was a woman who had broken every rule of good sense after all. First with the easy giving of her body in the night-snowed barn and then again yesterday at the small park when she had failed to offer any support after his unexpected and genuine confession.
The heavy ring of her doorbell brought her from her reveries to find Elspeth had left. She listened to the sound of the visitor’s voice with growing concern. A young woman’s voice. But not one she recognized.
When the maid brought in her card, Bea was surprised. Lady Lucinda Wellingham! Bea indicated that she would receive her and sat down to wait, not wanting to appear quite as flustered as she felt upon hearing the name.
‘Mrs Bassingstoke?’ The same woman tooling the horses in Regent Street all those weeks ago came into her room. Not daintily either, but with a decided purpose. Bea noticed she did not wear gloves and that the hat she had donned barely covered her silky blonde hair.
Beautiful. Like all the Wellinghams were beautiful, though her fair hair and blue eyes were not mirrored in either of her brothers.
‘You are Mrs Beatrice-Maude Bassingstoke, are you not?’ she asked, a heavy frown easily seen between her brows.
‘I am,’ Bea returned and stood, though she was nowhere near as tall as this newcomer and wished suddenly that she had kept her seat.
‘The same Mrs Bassingstoke involved in an accident with my brother Taris between Ipswich and London?’
‘The very same.’
‘Then I am pleased to meet you.’ Her wide smile was both puzzling and welcome. ‘Very pleased to meet you, in fact—I am Lady Lucinda Wellingham, Taris’s only sister. Might I sit down?’
‘Of course.’
She sat on the sofa less than a foot away and left very little room between them, though when Bea hesitated she carried on in a whirl of words. ‘I heard from my sister-in-law that you would be speaking this week on the property rights of women.’
‘An inflammatory subject that I hope I will handle sensitively,’ Bea returned, not at all certain of the position Taris’s sister was approaching the argument from. ‘I should not wish to run foul of your family.’
‘Oh, I rather think it is too late for that—you have already.’
Tardon?’
Lady Lucinda’s hand swatted the air in front of her as though any problems would be easily solved. ‘Asher seems to think you should be hanged, drawn and quartered for your outlandish opinions.’ Her giggle softened the sentiment.
‘And your other brother?’
‘Oh, Taris holds all thoughts of you very close to his chest, Mrs Bassingstoke. The incident you were both involved in outside Maldon was, after all, fairly unusual, and he seldom courts gossip in any form.’
‘I see.’ A man who was careful, then? Careful to live his life within the boundaries of what was expected, the tittle-tattle of society dangerous to a man who would hide his lack of sight from everyone. Even from his sister? For in every conversation Beatrice had had in which Taris Wellingham was the subject, not once had she heard a whisper of what he could or could not see.
‘ Our family has had its fair share of tragedy, Mrs Bassingstoke, but then I would guess you are no stranger to such a thing either…’ Her glance flickered to the ring on her marriage finger.
‘No. I suppose that is true.’
‘If I might give you a piece of advice then…’ the younger woman suddenly whispered and leant forwards so that her voice did not travel ‘…my brother is a man who would be well worth pursuing.’
‘Oh, I doubt that I would interest him, my lady,’ Bea began, hating the telling blush that crept up her cheeks.
‘Ahh, you might be surprised in that, for I have never seen him ask a woman to dance in years and certainly not a waltz.’
Shrewdness was evident in her eyes and because of it Bea was inclined to answer defensively. She did not wish Taris’s sister to relay any tale back of a perceived interest.
‘I have only recently been made a widow, Lady Lucinda, and as I am well over twenty-eight…’
‘You had no children from your first marriage?’ Lucinda Wellingham clamped her hand across her mouth even as she asked the question. ‘I am sorry; of course that was very rude of me to ask.’
The blood pumped in Beatrice’s temples as she was taken back to the house in Ipswich, the voice of her husband reverberating loudly.
‘I am trapped in a lacklustre pointless marriage to an uninspiring and barren wife, and all you can do is apologise?’ His fist had connected with the side of her head before she could answer and knocked her from her chair ‘You cannot even give me an heir. Beatrice-Maude, you cannot even give me that when God knows I have given you everything…‘
Everything? A broken arm and a broken nose and a hundred bruises hidden beneath the folds of her gown…
‘Are you quite all right, Mrs Bassingstoke?’ Lucinda Wellingham’s worried countenance came through the haze, bringing Bea back to this time, this place, the wheezing in her breath worse now than she had ever heard it.
Panicked, she tried to stand and could not, collapsing against the sofa, a sheen of sweat marking her face and her hands shaking.
Barren Beatrice.
Broken Beatrice.
Such a long, long way from Bea-utiful and Bea-witching Beatrice.
‘Should I call someone to help you?’
‘No…Please do not do that…I…shall be all right.’ Clearing her throat, she made herself sit up, made herself face the woman opposite, the curiosity imprinted in the watching light eyes persuading her against her better judgement to try and explain.
‘I could not have children, Lady Lucinda, and it was a great loss…’
‘I am so sorry; of course, with your husband now gone to his Maker a child might have been such a comfort. A memory, so to speak, of all the good times, a child formed in the mould of a man you had loved.’
Stifling a smile at such a sentiment, Bea began to feel immeasurably better. She had never met a woman who seemed so able at putting her foot in her mouth. A memory? Of love? My God, when all she wanted to do was to forget. Still, there was something appealing in such eager openness, some engaging exuberance that reality had not yet snuffed out, and so completely opposite from the careful and measured stance of her brother.
‘Thank you for your kind words, Lady Lucinda. It has been most…refreshing, and please do give my regards to your sister-in-law.’
‘Emerald? You know her?’
‘Not well.’
‘You remind me of her in some ways, not in looks of course…’
Again Bea smiled.
‘But in strength. You have the same sort of intensity that she does. But now, I really must be going for I see you have much work here to do.’ Her glance flicked to the pile of books and notes on the table. ‘Of course, I cannot even imagine speaking in front of a whole room of people and on subjects that you seem to want to delve into…’
‘And at your age I am certain I would have felt just the same.’
A practised giggle was the only reply as her young visitor stood and allowed the maid to show her out. Sitting back again on the sofa, Beatrice tried to collect her scattered thoughts. What had just happened? Had Lucinda Wellingham come to warn her or to help her?
She could not quite fathom which, for every Wellingham she met thus far was as impossible to understand as the last one and Taris Wellingham was the most difficult of them all to comprehend.
Pushing back her concerns, Bea ironed out the creases in her vibrant green-silk day dress with her fingers.
Outside she could hear the servants going about their day, cooking, cleaning, polishing. A house with only her in it. It all seemed so very wasteful and unnecessary to do such tasks each day when she was the only inhabitant, but the penny-pinching she had been forced into for so many years had led her to enjoy just a little bit of luxury.
Lord, why on earth had she told the girl of her barrenness when for ten years she had mentioned it to no one? The grief of loss turned slowly again in her chest, but with even such a small conversation the potency of such a secret was lessened. Perhaps therein lay the fortunes of the Catholic confessionals, the age-old adage of a trouble shared being a trouble halved suddenly making a sense that it never had before.
Because in all her life she had never really had friends. Not real ones until coming here to London.
Lucinda Wellingham’s concern had unwittingly laid bare all the strategies she had put in place for coping.
Barren.
No wife for any man. No fit and ripe companion. No heir.
Taris Wellingham’s fingers playing across her breasts, making her believe that she was beautiful and that impossible dreams could indeed come true. And between her legs the place that throbbed at the recollection of such an unexpected paradise.
‘She’s what?’
‘Barren. She told me she was barren. Told me right out loud when I tried to console her on the untimely and unfortunate loss of her very dear husband.’
Taris felt the anger in him rise and struggled to contain it. ‘I cannot even imagine what ill-thought-out plan would have taken you to the door of Mrs Bassingstoke’s town house in the first place, Lucinda.’
‘Curiosity.’
‘Pardon?’
‘You had asked her to dance at the Rutledge soiree and I wanted to see why you had.’
‘Lord. Any number of reasons could have had me up on the floor and certainly none of them requiring the sort of consequences that you are now mentioning.’
‘I did not wring it out of Mrs Bassingstoke, Taris. She seemed to want to tell me.’
‘And who else have you told?’
‘Just you.’
‘Well then, say nothing of her condition to any other person.’
‘I might have told Penny Whitford.’
‘Might have?’
‘Did. On my way back I happened to see her. She asked me where I had been.’
‘God!’
‘Mrs Bassingstoke did not petition my confidence on the matter, Taris.’
His sister sounded upset and he hoped that she would not burst into tears. Why the hell would Beatrice-Maude have spilled such a private thing to a mere acquaintance anyway?
Barren?
Would society be kind or cruel when the confidence she had so unwisely given became gossip?
Beatrice. He wanted to see her again, to feel her beside him, to spar with her wit and to laugh at her honesty. He would go to her discussion group on Wednesday evening and warn her of the dangers of too much candour.
Using a softer tone, he bade Lucinda to stop worrying and was pleased when she stood and took her leave.
Chapter Eight
Beatrice-Maude’s salon was crowded with people and Taris hung at the back of the room beside a bookshelf, his hand against the heavy wood of it to give him balance. He rarely came to anything like this, the inherent danger of tripping always close, but Jack had accompanied him tonight and had gone to help himself to drinks at a generously laid table his friend had used much detail in describing.
The shape of someone loomed in front of Taris though he had no way of knowing who it was, so he stopped and waited, pretending to take interest in the numerous titles he had felt on the shelf.
‘Good evening, Lord Wellingham.’
Bea’s voice. Taris could not quite believe his luck. He moved to face her.
‘Mrs Bassingstoke. I thought I should take you up on your offer to broaden my mind.’
‘And I am pleased that you have done so.’
‘My sister has told me that she made your acquaintance.’
Silence greeted the statement.
‘Lucinda can be a chatterbox.’
Again there was silence.
‘Put more bluntly it would probably be prudent not to relate any secrets into her safekeeping.’
‘Secrets such as my not being able to have children, you mean?’
Taris winced at her direct honesty. ‘Playing your cards close to your chest is sometimes a wiser option.’
‘As close as you play yours?’ The query made him wary and he jammed his hands into his pockets. No one had ever spoken to him as this woman did.
‘Sometimes secrets hold us back,’ she added, her husky lisp more evident today than he had ever heard it.
‘Twenty-eight and a sage!’ He could help neither the anger in his reply, nor the memories of her naked skin against his own.
‘A barren sage,’ she returned, challenge evident in the edge of her words. ‘And one who it seems has forgotten the golden rule.’
‘Which is?’
‘In society a lady does not ever question the intent of a gentleman with a better pedigree than her own.’
‘You sound scathing. I am certain such rules cannot have ever bothered you before, Mrs Bassingstoke.’
‘You would be surprised…’
‘But not enlightened?’
Her laugh was light and real, so different from the shallow false humour he heard in other drawing rooms of this city.
‘It seems perhaps I was remiss in scolding you, my lord. Do you have a drink?’
‘Jack Henshaw has gone to get me one.’
‘Do try the punch. I made it myself. A non-alcoholic concoction with more than a hint of fruitiness!’
‘Sounds delicious.’
She began to laugh again. ‘The discussion will begin in another five minutes or so. I do hope that you will be happy to contribute.’
‘I fear in this room, Mrs Bassingstoke, that my opinion will not be popular.’
‘Oh, you might be surprised. The tolerance is as remarkable here as the range of opinions. Indeed, sometimes I think Parliament might do well to mimic us.’
‘I will make sure to relate that to Lord Grey next time I see him.’
‘Little voices can hold as much sway as more important ones.’
‘A sentiment I would never question.’
‘Even with the weight of privilege full upon your shoulders?’
‘Such a bigot, Mrs Bassingstoke.’
Her giggles were like a fountain of joy ringing around the room and chasing away the darkness and her touch upon his arm was taken with the ease that it was given.
Not forced or obtrusive, but natural and easy.
The shadows of many people swirled around him, the timbre of voices attesting to a very large number. He did not recognise any of them. The occasional accent was of a member of the trades or a dweller from the parts of London that were considered undesirable by the ton, though Beatrice made no mention of occupation or their standing in society as she introduced him.
Finally they stopped and the room seemed to quieten. Whether she had raised her hand he could not tell because she had moved away from him now and Jack was once again at his side.
‘The place is full to bursting,’ his friend said quietly. ‘Cowan is here and Lansdowne, and the wife of Lord Drummond is sitting with her sister in the corner.’
‘A rather eclectic bunch, then,’ Taris returned.
‘With little differentiation between those who are gentry and those who are not! There are four women standing at the back who look like servants and they have a glass in their hands as everyone else here does.’
Taris began to smile. ‘The egalitarianism of the Americas has come to London?’
‘At least the debate on property rights should prove interesting. Some here look so formidably righteous that I hope they are not heiresses.’
‘Excuse me, my lord.’ Taris turned to the voice at his left shoulder. ‘Mrs Bassingstoke asked me to bring you this drink.’
‘Thank you.’ He took the glass in his hand and sipped a fine smooth brandy. Not the fruit punch that he had expected, he ruminated, as he leant back against the wall next to Jack, listening to Beatrice call the discussion to order.
Half an hour later Taris realised that indeed this room was a hot bed of liberalism and that at least on the subject of matrimonial property rights the opinion here was swayed very firmly towards the viewpoint of the hard-done-by bride. Finally he had had enough.
‘The presumptive legal unity of husband and wife can cut the other way too,’ he began when there was a second of space in the heated argument, and he felt the room take in a collective breath before turning its attention to him. The heavy censure made him smile. ‘With marriage a bride and groom become one person and the husband is held legally liable for any debts and civil wrongs his wife may have incurred.’
Beatrice leapt into the fray. ‘I hardly think that the virtual loss of a woman’s property on marrying can be compensated by the unlikely event that if she breaks a law her husband may take the blame for it.’
Taris was beginning to feel the flimsiness of his arguments, but pressed on regardless. ‘Female capriciousness is well documented and some might say that the art of marriage is nothing more than an economic transaction tied to the protection of the great estates.’
A murmur settled around the room, and he realised he had probably used the wrong word when describing the changeable character of women. Beatrice’s quick reply was well worded.
‘Others would argue that it is nothing more than a sham to allow men the right of power over something that was never theirs in the first place, Lord Wellingham.’
‘ Yet you do not take into account that economic manoeuvring favours a bride as well as a groom if the financial aspects are considered openly. The benefits of a well set-out investment can hardly be to the disadvantage of either party.’
‘Well set out for the husband, my lord. Should he wish to confine her against her will and administer any properties himself he is well within his rights to do so.’
‘Our world is not peopled with characters from Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa, Mrs Bassingstoke, and the “vile Lovelace” exists only in a story.’
Laughter resounded and Taris fought to hear Beatrice’s voice above it.
‘Any husband may “correct” his wife should he wish to do so and the tales of such cruelty are certainly not solely the preserve of popular fiction.’
There was a tone in her voice that was not simply academic, a tone that trembled beneath the tenets of truth and chased away any desire he might have had to keep such a disagreement going.
‘Touché,’ he returned with a smile as he leant back against the wall and took a sip of fine brandy. ‘I concede my case entirely.’
‘It’s not like you to give up a fight, Taris?’
Jack’s question a few seconds later held a warning within it that he did not like as the chatter around them grew more general.
‘You are beginning to sound just like my brother.’
‘And your week is beginning to ring with the dubious clanging of firsts, my friend.’
‘How so?’ Finishing his brandy, Taris knew exactly what was coming.
‘The first waltz, the first concession of an argument you could have won had you truly wanted to…’
‘You read too much into these actions.’
‘Do I, indeed? Your Mrs Bassingstoke is coming towards us, by the way, and she looks like a cat who just swallowed the cream. Perhaps your reasoning in playing the “honourably beaten” was sounder than I gave it credit for, after all.’
Taris shoved his glass into Jack’s hand. ‘Get me another drink, will you?’
‘I will do so only because I detect your desire to be alone with the clever widow,’ he returned, laughter imbued in his retort.
‘Lord Henshaw looks as though he is enjoying our soiree,’ Beatrice said less than a few seconds later. ‘I hope that you are too?’
‘The debate is all that I imagined it to be.’
Her answer was worried. ‘I think our discussions go better when the opinion for and against them is more evenly divided.’
He laughed. ‘You won the argument, Bea.’
‘But not well. I think you gave up on me for some reason.’
He felt her hand on his arm, the pounding awareness between them blotting out all other noise.
‘Could I speak to you alone? After this is over?’
‘Yes.’ She gave her promise easily and as the world and its noise and need cascaded again on to them she was claimed in speech by another before disappearing into the crowded room.
Taris Wellingham had spoken carefully and well in the debate, she thought. A man who was confident in his ability to woo a crowd and gracious in defeat.
He was nobody’s man save his own, the one concession to his limited sight an opened hand that lay on the wall behind. He always did that, always created an anchor to the environment around him. The fence at the park, the ledge of the window in the carriage, his foot against the edge of the ditch in the snow outside Maldon.
A small habit that would be unremarkable without the knowledge that she had of how little he could really see. She watched him now from the other side of the room, watched his ease in a setting that was eminently foreign to him. The signet ring on his little finger glinted in the light as he pushed his dark hair back, his eyes creasing at the corners when he smiled.
Taris Wellingham was a man who might trace his ancestry back through all the years of history and yet he had conceded the argument to her with grace. She wondered suddenly whether he had done so by choice, as there had been a tone in his words denoting empathy that she found disconcerting.
The quick flash of her husband ‘correcting’ yet another opinion came to mind and she pushed it back, all the laughter and discourse in this room as far from the big Ipswich house as she could ever be.
Lifting her glass of punch to her lips, she dragged her eyes away from the enigmatic and mercurial Lord Wellingham and wished the hour before everybody would leave away.
Everyone was gone. Almost everyone, she amended and looked again to see that Taris still sat on the blue sofa in her salon.
‘I could stay if you want…?’ Elspeth was uncertain as she gazed towards the room.
‘I am a twenty-eight-year-old widow, Elspeth, and sense is my middle name.’
‘Still, a man like that could—’
She did not let her finish. ‘Look at me, Elspeth. A man like that is here merely to speak to me and I am very happy to listen.’
‘You are not as plain as you might say, Beatrice, and sometimes when you argue a point so very cleverly every male in the room looks at you in the way of men who are wanting much more than just words.’
‘A sentiment I shall receive as a compliment. But you forget I have no wish to take any such flattery further.’
‘Very well, then. But I shall be back in the morning to make certain that…’
‘And I shall look forward to the company.’
Bea was pleased when her friend finally allowed her to shepherd her out; turning, she walked into the salon, shutting the door against the bustling of servants clearing away the last of the plates and the glasses in the dining room.
‘Thank you for allowing me to talk to you privately,’ he said and waited as she sat next to him.
‘If this is about my conversation with your sister…’
He raised his right hand and she came to a stop. ‘Did Mr Bassingstoke ever “correct” you, Beatrice?’
Her world spun in a receding dizzy arc as she clutched at the arm on her end of the sofa. Had he seen the movement? For the first time since knowing of his blindness she was glad of it.
‘All my arguments were purely theoretical, my lord,’ she returned, her voice sounding almost normal, ‘and I could easily take umbrage should you think a man might rule me like that.’
‘A lack of sight has some benefits, Mrs Bassingstoke. One of them is the ability to determine the cadence of untruth.’
She was silent.
‘At Maldon you limited our liaison to just one night. I would like to negotiate for another.’
‘One night…?’ Her voice was squeaky.
‘More if you are offering.’ His smile made his eyes dance and the glasses gave him a rakish appearance. His cane lay untouched against his thigh as if, for the moment, he was comfortable and relaxed. Still, he looked much too big for her small salon, a tiger readied to pounce, the amber in his irises predatory. She could not move, could not rise and say nay to any of it, could not remember the promise that she had made to herself of ‘never again’.
