Palace Circle (5 page)

The realization was so earth-shattering that she swayed.

Jerome, not Ivor, steadied her.

Out of nowhere he gripped hold of her elbow, saying nonchalantly to Sylvia and everyone around her, “It's devilish hot in here, isn't it? I think the heat is proving too much for Lady
Conisborough. It might be as well if I were to take her outside for a breath of fresh air.”

And without waiting for Ivor to answer he propelled her away from the group. Only when they had stepped through open French windows onto a blessedly empty balcony did he swing her toward him, saying fiercely, “How, in the name of God, do you
know
?”

“Her photograph is in Ivor's diary.” She began to shiver. “I thought it was a photograph of Olivia.”

He swore beneath his breath and she said, “I don't understand, Jerome. Was it after Olivia's death that… that…” She wanted to say “that my husband and your wife became lovers,” but she couldn't.

He didn't finish her sentence for her. Instead he said brusquely, “You're cold. I'll go get your evening cloak.”

“No!” She put a hand on his arm, appalled at the thought of being left alone on the balcony. “I'm not cold, Jerome. It's the shock. I thought Ivor kept the photograph where he could see it every day because despite his being so much in love with me, he was also still grieving for Olivia. And I could understand that…”

“Stay here,” he said, his voice charged with emotion. “I'm going back to give your apologies to Lady Digby. I shall say I'm escorting you home as you have a headache and that I am doing so, instead of Ivor, as the King has asked him to speak in an unofficial capacity to one of her guests. The Montenegrin royal will be a good choice as it's common knowledge he returns to the Balkans tomorrow.”

“What about Ivor?” she said, knowing she couldn't possibly face her husband until they were in the privacy of their own home.

“I'll give him the same message, and publicly, so that there is no gossip about you leaving with me. He'll pick up straightaway on the Montenegrin red herring. And when we
leave there's no need for us to walk the length of the ballroom. There's a small side staircase just to the left of the French windows.”

Without waiting for any kind of a reply, he was gone.

She closed her eyes, knowing that the very worst thing about what had happened was that there was no question of her having put two and two together and having made five. Though Jerome hadn't said so specifically, that he knew his wife had been Ivor's mistress was too obvious for her to have made any mistake about it.

The sound of laughter and the buzz of animated conversation drifted through the French doors. And then the orchestra struck up into a deafening Strauss waltz.

She dug her nails into her palms, knowing that she was going to have to come to terms with the fact that she would regularly be meeting with her husband's ex-mistress. Even worse, that it was Sylvia who would be presenting her at court.

She bit her lip so hard that she tasted blood. She had thought Ivor sensitive, yet in having asked Sylvia to present her at court he had behaved in a way that was unimaginably cruel. She remembered Jerome's shock—the way he had said, “Ivor has asked
Sylvia
to present you?” when she had told him the arrangements.

She tried to think how she would feel, being accompanied to Buckingham Palace by a woman who was as intimately acquainted with Ivor's body as she was; a woman who knew exactly how he kissed, how he always shouted at his moment of climax.

It was a situation so far removed from anything she had ever experienced that she didn't have the slightest idea as to how she was going to handle it. All she wanted to do was go home and wait for Ivor to return. When he did, he would, she was sure, make everything all right. He would explain about the photograph and how he had presumably forgotten it was
still tucked in his diary. He would explain how, after Olivia's death, he was so stupendously lonely that he had embarked on an affair with Sylvia. She tried not to remember that Sylvia was Jerome's wife and that his having an affair with her was the action of a cad. She would come to terms with that later. For now, all that mattered was that Ivor reassure her that she was the one he loved with all his heart and that his feelings for Sylvia were in the past.

The French windows opened and Jerome stepped onto the balcony again, her cloak over his arm. “We can leave without causing gossip, Delia,” he said, slipping the evening cloak around her shoulders. “Clara Digby sends her sympathy and will call on you in the morning. Are you ready to make the short walk to the side stairs?”

She nodded and he took her arm, the anger he felt toward her husband and his wife so intense he thought he was going to explode.

Jerome's motorcar was parked in the square; there was no chauffeur. He opened the front passenger door for her. “I always drive myself,” he said, knowing very well that Ivor never did so. “I hope you'll feel safe.”

“I will.” She managed a wobbly smile and something terrible trembled within him.

As she huddled deep in her warmly lined cloak he cranked up the car.

A few minutes later they were driving out of the square and into Fitzroy Street and she said with touching simplicity, “Is it because Sylvia has been unfaithful to you, that you are unfaithful to her?”

He crossed Howland Street and continued into Charlotte Street fighting the temptation to say yes and gain her sympathy, knowing that if he did she might, in a little while, even turn to him for comfort.

With any other woman—especially a woman so overwhelmingly desirable—it was a ploy he wouldn't have thought twice about using. Delia, however, was different. In the short time they had known each other she had become a friend and, unscrupulous as he was about many things, he was always punctiliously truthful to his friends.

“No,” he said. “I'm unfaithful to Sylvia because being unfaithful is in my nature. I'm sorry if I disappoint you, Delia.”

She shook her head to show that it didn't matter to her; only Ivor mattered to her. Ivor, whom she suddenly felt she didn't know at all.

Jerome changed gear. “Would you like me to take you somewhere so you can get your thoughts in order before going home? We could drive out to Hampstead if you'd like?”

She shook her head. “No. I want to be in the house when Ivor arrives. I want him to explain about the photograph to me—and I want him to tell me that I need never spend time with Sylvia again after she presents me.”

They were driving down Park Lane, Hyde Park dark and mysterious on their right side.

He frowned, his face grim. He had thought that she understood—and he now knew that she understood barely anything. He said unhappily, “If you need me, you've only to telephone my club, the Carlton, and leave a message for me there.”

“Thank you—and thank you for bringing me home,” she said, as he turned into Cadogan Square. “And don't worry about me, Jerome. You once told me that marital fidelity wasn't a virtue highly esteemed among the British aristocracy, but my marriage is far different. Whatever the situation that existed in the aftermath of Olivia's death, it isn't one that will continue. Ivor loves me now and he will be as faithful to me as I will to him.”

He brought the car to an abrupt halt, knowing that he should say something.

With the breath hurting in his chest he walked around the car and helped her step from it.

She squeezed his hand tightly and then, before he could speak, ran across the pavement and up the steps.

If Bellingham and Ellie and the rest of the servants were intrigued seeing her arrive home without Ivor they gave no indication. Bellingham was as imperturbable as ever and when Ellie removed the white rose from her hair and unpinned her chignon, she did so swiftly and silently.

Later, when Ellie had left her, Delia seated herself at her dressing table and stared at her reflection in the mirror. The face looking back at her was not the face of the carefree young girl who had left the house three hours ago.

White lines of tension edged her mouth. She had told Jerome that whatever the situation that had existed between Ivor and Sylvia after Olivia's death, it was one that existed no longer, but as she remembered the expression in Sylvia's voice, fear flickered in her chest.

Sylvia's demeanor had not been that of a woman whose lover had fallen in love elsewhere. Her expression was one of a woman whose lover's marriage was of no consequence whatsoever.

It would, though, be of consequence to Ivor. Of that she was sure.

She looked toward the small clock that stood on her dressing table. It was now an hour since Jerome had escorted her home and with luck he had already told Sylvia that no matter what her expectations to the contrary, her affair with Ivor was over.

Fraught with tension Delia began brushing her hair hard. Then, from the street, she heard the sound of a car door closing. She held her breath, the hairbrush motionless in midair. Moments later the front door opened.

Slowly she laid the brush down.

There was a sound of muted male voices, though whether Ivor was speaking to Bellingham or to his valet she couldn't tell. She heard his tread on the broad sweeping staircase.

She remained where she was sitting.

The door opened and their eyes met in the mirror.

He smiled and closed the door behind him. “I take it you've recovered from your headache,” he said, walking toward her, undoing his tie. “It was a great shame it attacked when it did. Sylvia was most concerned.”

She didn't believe that for a moment, but she said, surprised at how steady her voice was, “I didn't have a headache, Ivor. I left the ball because I'd had a shock.”

“A shock?” He tossed the bow tie onto her dressing table and said, intrigued, “What kind of a shock?”

“The other day when you left in a hurry for the palace, you forgot to take your appointments diary with you. I picked it up, intending to run after you to give you it, and a photograph fell from it. I thought it was a photograph of Olivia and that despite us being so happy together you were still grieving for her. But tonight… tonight I realized the photograph wasn't of Olivia. It was of Sylvia.”

“I have photographs of lots of my close friends in and among my personal possessions, Delia. The photograph I have of Sylvia isn't one that need cause you concern.”

Not rising from the vanity stool she turned around to face him. “There was a very personal message on the back of the photograph,” she said, her voice no longer so steady. “It said, ‘All my love, darling Ivor, is for you and you alone.’”

She waited.

A pulse began to throb at the corner of his jaw.

She licked lips that were suddenly dry and said, “And so … and so I know that she was once your mistress and
though I wish that you had told me so … and that you hadn't arranged for her to present me at court… I do understand. Or at least I think I understand.”

Despite his sophistication he had the look of a man who was cornered, who couldn't decide on what was the best course of action. With sudden certainty she knew she had to assure him she wasn't going to let Sylvia destroy their happiness. She had to let him know that she was mature enough to understand.

Speaking very fast, she said, “My uncle Ellis Chandler was widowed when in his early forties and he almost immediately began a most unsuitable relationship with a showgirl from White Sulphur Springs. One of my aunts was very angry but my mother told her that it was simply Ellis's way of coping with his grief. And so I know that unsuitable affairs are something newly widowed men often have.”

Instead of being grateful for the allowances she was trying to make for him, he said explosively, “For God's sake, Delia! Sylvia isn't a White Sulphur Springs showgirl! And there is no similarity whatsoever between me and your uncle!”

It was so very much the opposite of what she had expected, that she gasped.

He rubbed the back of his neck in a sharp, convulsive movement and when he had regained control of himself, said tautly, “I'm sorry, Delia. I shouldn't have spoken like that. And I'm very, very sorry that I've been unfair to you.”

“Unfair to me?” The conversation was veering so far from the course she had expected it to take, that she felt dizzy. “Unfair to me in what way, Ivor?”

“Unfair in that I married you without telling you of my commitment to Sylvia.”

“Your
past
commitment,” she said, her voice so strained she barely recognized it. “Surely you mean your
past
commitment, Ivor?”

He shook his head and panic bubbled in her throat. Vainly
trying to see things from his point of view, she said, “I understand what a shock our marriage must have been to Sylvia, Ivor. And I understand that because of your friendship with her before your relationship changed, you feel that you still have some kind of commitment to her, but—”

“No, Delia.” The expression in his eyes was one of deep regret for the hurt he was about to cause. “Sylvia and I were never merely friends.”

She blinked, bewildered. “I don't understand.”

“We were always lovers,” he said and then, as if unable to bear the pain in Delia's eyes, he turned away from her and walked across to the window.

She didn't speak. Couldn't speak.

He lifted the curtain aside and looked out. “We've been lovers since before my marriage to Olivia. Since before Sylvia's marriage to Jerome.” He let the curtain fall and turned toward her again. “I would have told you when we'd been married for a little longer, when you had gained a little sophistication and come to understand how things are in my world.”

“You married me when you were in love with someone else?” She felt at the edge of a bottomless abyss. “You married me without loving me?”

“It's true I had an ulterior motive when I asked you to marry me, but that doesn't mean I don't love you, Delia. In my own way, I do. You're a joy to look at and a joy to be with—and you amuse me immeasurably.”

She was falling now. “But I'm not your soul mate.” Against her fiery hair her face was deathly white. “Sylvia is your soul mate. You love her more than you love me.”