Joan Wolf (11 page)

“Who is that?”

He smiled a little crookedly. “That is Lady Barbara Bevil, better known as The Beauty.'”

“Isn’t—isn’t she the Duke of Cartington’s daughter?”

“She is.”

We danced in silence and my mind was in a whirl from which only one thought emerged clearly: she wasn’t married, she was still Lady Barbara Bevil and not the Countess of Leyburn.

“Leyburn,” said Martin, and I started violently to hear my own thoughts echoed.

“What did you say?”

“I said Leyburn didn’t come up to scratch over the winter, apparently. Perhaps this Season her father will listen to another offer.”

“Leyburn?” I asked tentatively.

“The Earl of Leyburn. Good God, Valentine, surely you know that name. The Fitzallans make the Wakefields look modern.”

“Of course I know the name.”

“Well, the old duke has been trying to arrange a match between Lady Barbara and the earl. They’re still frightfully dynastic up there in the north.”

“Does he ever come to London?” I asked a little breathlessly. “Lord Leyburn, I mean.”

“Very rarely. I know I’ve never seen him. And a good thing it is, too, that he keeps away. Talk about a throwback to the days of feudalism.”

I could feel my back stiffening. “What do you mean?”

“He doesn’t have to come to London,” Martin said. “The whole Yorkshire delegation in the Commons is in his pocket anyway. It doesn’t matter if they’re Tory or Whig. They simply do as ‘my lord’ wishes. It’s disgraceful.”

“It’s not so unusual,” I said spiritedly. “Look at all these rotten boroughs you’re always going on about.”

“That’s a very different thing. Lord Leyburn hasn’t nominated these men. They represent a whole variety of boroughs.”

“Then how does he influence them?”

“Feudalism,” he grunted, and I smiled.

I found London society a luxurious and lavish world. It was not a world my cousin Martin approved of, and he was quite vocal on the subject of the privileged aristocracy, a class he heartily deplored. I had to agree with many of his strictures; certainly there was outrageous economic inequality in London. One had only to look at the squalid throng of filthy wretches who were to be seen everywhere outside the patrician areas of town to know that. But it seemed to me that it was only in the city that one saw such sights. There had been no homeless, hungry outcasts in the Dales of Yorkshire.

The round of social activity went relentlessly forward. I met a whole collection of young men, but there were two in particular whom I liked. One was Lord Stowe. He was tall and thin and clever-looking and had a wonderful sense of humor. Grandmama liked him as well, which meant he must have money as well as a title. Grandmama was interested in that sort of thing.

The other young man was Lord Henry Sandcroft, a younger son of the Duke of Markham. He was in the Guards and very serious about a military career. There was a dedicated quality to him that was quite formidable. He was quite different from the other idle men who thronged London for the Season. I liked him very, very much. Grandmama, however, tended to be rather cool toward him. His father might be a duke, but his financial expectations evidently did not impress her.

The man I spent the greatest amount of time with, however, was my cousin Martin. We were comfortable together. I had never had a brother, but if I had, I think I would have felt toward him much as I felt toward Martin.

In early June my grandparents and I attended a ball at Lady Bridgewater’s. It was quite an international affair as Lord Bridgewater was a power in the government, and I was standing talking to a French gentleman when the event happened that would change the color of the world for me. Monseigneur de Varennes lifted his champagne glass to sip it and glanced casually over my head. His hand stilled.

“But who is that?” he asked me. His voice was quite awestruck. I looked.

He was standing at the ballroom door surveying the scene before him with such perfect and natural arrogance that I quite understood Monseigneur de Varennes’ awe. So might Lucifer have looked at the legions of hell after the fall.

“That is the Earl of Leyburn,” I said out of a constricted throat.

“Leyburn? So. One knows that name, of course.”

We watched as Diccon scanned the crowd, sublimely indifferent to the interest he was exciting. He was impeccably dressed in black coat, white waistcoat, and satin knee breeches. Mr. Fitzallan must have gotten him to the tailor after all. His black hair was trimmed shorter than I remembered, but the face was the same.

“Mais, c’est un grand diable,”
Monseigneur de Varennes breathed beside me. And at that moment Diccon’s eyes rested upon me.

“Mademoiselle,” said my companion, “I believe he is coming this way.”

He was. He crossed the room swiftly with his long individual stride that barely touched the ground, and it was as if a gust of exhilarating air from his own beloved moors blew through the room with him. He stopped directly in front of me, his dark eyes glittering, his lips curled in the pretense of a smile.

“I heard you were in London,” he said, and stared at me.

My heart was thundering. “How—how are you, Diccon?” I said weakly, and then flushed at the unconscious familiarity.

The smile became even more sardonic than before. He didn’t answer. I could feel my back stiffening.

“May I present the Vicomte de Varennes?” I said with what I hoped was icy politeness.

“How do you do.” Diccon barely glanced at him. “You’re looking well, Valentine. The London air must agree with you.”

“Thank you.” I looked up at him and everything inside me seemed to give way. This was the face I loved, the face I called up in the night, the face that haunted me by day. He was furious with me.

“Valentine, I did not know you were acquainted with Lord Leyburn.” It was my grandmother.

Diccon turned to look at her. “I was acquainted with Valentine’s father,” he said blandly. “A splendid chap. You must be Lady Ardsley, ma’am.” He smiled.

Grandmama’s whole face softened. “Yes, my lord, I am Valentine’s grandmother,” she replied with dignity.

“I am delighted to see she is being so well looked after.” He nodded smoothly and took my hand. “Come along and dance, Valentine,” and he walked me toward the floor. My grandmother and the Vicomte de Varennes stood and watched us go.

“You little wretch,” he said as soon as we were out of hearing range. “Why the hell did you run away like that?”

“I told you why, my lord,” I replied with a fair imitation of Grandmama’s dignity. “I wrote you a letter.”

 "You wrote me a lot of nonsense.’’ He sounded savage. “It’s lucky for you, my girl, that your grandparents were willing to take you in. You weren’t disguised as a boy that time. God knows what could have happened to you.”

“I can take care of myself.”

He said something extremely unflattering under his breath and I glanced at him. He was beginning to put me out of temper. I had run away solely on his behalf and here he was acting as if I had done something terrible. I should have thought he’d found my disappearance a blessed release.

“You didn’t want to marry me,” I said fiercely. “Why are you making such a fuss?”

“I have to marry someone,” he replied. “It might as well have been you. We get along.”

I stared at him, speechless. Then I collected my wits. “You are the most arrogant, bloody-minded
bastard.”
I stopped because he was beginning to smile.

“That’s my girl,” he said encouragingly. “I was starting to think that all these fine clothes had changed you.”

I saw red. He still thought I was a child. Any minute now and he would pat me on the head. I narrowed my eyes and stared up at him. “Did it ever occur to you, my lord, that perhaps
I
might not wish to marry
you?”

He smiled, the smile that turned all my bones to water. “No,” he said simply. He knew too well that I thought he was wonderful. Damnation.

I raised my chin and tried to look dignified. “Well, I’ve grown up, Diccon. I am nineteen years old now.”

He looked thunderstruck. “Nineteen! Good God, you’ll be donning a cap before I know it.”

I laughed. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t help it.

“All your comrades sent their greetings,” he continued.

I brightened. “Georgie?”

“Georgie. And Robert. Your companions in crime. I’ll wager you haven’t had a decent game of dice since you ran away.”

I grinned. “I haven’t.”

“We’ll have to see about rectifying that,” he said, and then the movements of the dance separated us.

When the set was over, Diccon very properly returned me to my grandmother. When next I saw him, he was dancing with Lady Barbara Bevil. They made a breathtakingly beautiful couple. I felt unutterably depressed.

“So Leyburn decided to put in an appearance.” Martin sounded as gloomy as I felt. We watched the black and golden heads on the dance floor for a moment in silence, then he looked at me. “You never told me you knew Leyburn.”

“Oh. Well, he was a friend of Papa’s,” I explained awkwardly.

“I’ve never seen him before.” Martin’s face was decidedly glum. “No wonder Barbara waited.”

I had suspected for a week or more that my cousin was not disinterested when it came to Lady Barbara Bevil. He always managed a dance with her, and I had several times seen them sitting out a set together. They appeared to spend a great deal of their time arguing.

Lord Henry Sandcroft appeared now at my other elbow. He followed the direction of our eyes and, like us—like half the ballroom, in fact —watched Diccon dance with Lady Barbara. The music came to an end and Diccon escorted his partner back to her mother. Then he moved a little away from the crowd and stood before one of the great windows, head erect, hands clasped behind his back. His very stillness, however, gave a distinct impression of energy, almost of violence.

"There is a man who gives the lie to all of your fine theories, Wakefield,” Lord Henry remarked.

“Why is that, Sandcroft?”

“I look at Leyburn and can’t help but come to the conclusion that in human beings, as in horses, there is something to be said for the heredity.” Lord Henry looked at Martin and smiled.

Martin was staring at Diccon; his mouth looked decidedly grim.

I turned to Lord Henry. “Have you come to claim your dance, Lord Henry?”

“I have,” he replied promptly, and led me out to the floor.

Chapter 16

I didn’t see Diccon for four days after Lady Bridgewater’s ball. I couldn’t imagine what he was doing; I found it almost impossible to picture Diccon in the role of man-about-town. He was never idle, never self-indulgent, as so many men of my London acquaintance appeared to be.

He called at Grandmother’s one afternoon while I was out driving with Lord Stowe, and when I arrived home, it was to find that we had been invited to a performance of the London Musical Society the following evening. There was to be a harpsichord recital.

Grandmama was in high gig. She was not herself at all musical, but evidently an invitation from the great Lord Leyburn was important enough for her to submit herself to the boredom of hours of harpsichord.

There was a harpsichord as well as a piano at Carlton Castle, and I knew Diccon played both. I myself had only experience of the piano, but I had always been intrigued by the very different sound of the harpsichord.

I dressed most carefully for the evening. I wanted very much to look grown up and wished heartily that I could wear a low-cut gown of Italian silk instead of the pale and prim and pretty dresses considered suitable to a girl in her first Season. I chose my lowest-cut gown, which wasn’t very low at all—not, I thought gloomily, that it would make very much difference—and I put on my shoes with the highest heels. My hair, finally, was looking quite presentable and I had lost last year’s tan so my skin was back to its usual creamy color. I surveyed myself critically in the mirror and thought I looked nice.

The recital was being given at the Earl of Oxford’s house, and when we arrived, the ballroom had been set up with rows and rows of gilt chairs. The earl, an old man whom I had not met before, greeted us with his sister, Lady Elinor Barnett, beside him. He smiled at me kindly.

“So you are the young lady Leyburn tells me is so fond of Bach. I think you will enjoy our evening very much, my dear.”

“I’m sure I shall,” I said, and we went into the ballroom to take our seats.

There were very few people present whom I recognized from my frivolous rounds and I was by far the youngest person in attendance. I was looking curiously at the lovely harpsichord standing in the front of the room when Diccon came in and sat down next to me.

“That’s a Tashin,” he informed me.

“A Tashin?”

“The harpsichord was made by Pascal Tashin, a wonderful harpsichord maker in the French School. Its sound is singularly beautiful. I know.” He smiled. “I’ve been playing it all afternoon.”

“Who is going to play this evening?” I asked curiously.

“Pierre Ramatin.” He glanced at me. “Just wait,” he promised. “You don’t know the harpsichord, do you?”

“No.”

A very faint smile lingered on his lips. “Wait.”

A tall, very thin man came briskly into the ballroom and took his seat at the instrument. There was a brief pause and then he began to play.

He played Bach. For two straight hours he played Bach, a Bach I had never heard before. The harpsichord had a very different sound from the piano: more austere, highly distinctive, extremely complex. He played the “Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue,” a piece I had often played on the piano, but the sound and the shape were completely different.

I sat and listened, aware only of the music and of the happiness of being in the company of someone who felt as I did. Bach had never been more awesome. I could hear all the profound intricacies, the overlapping melodies. The music and I were perfectly attuned. I sat without breathing, it seemed, and so did Diccon.

When the last note had died away, there was a moment of perfect silence before the clapping began. I turned to look at Diccon and he looked back at me, quite gravely, and nodded.