Scandals of an Innocent (24 page)

“I’ll race you to the stand of trees by the river,” he said, and saw his brother’s face light up before the boy dug his heels into the horse’s side and stole a head start.

“I
T DOES NOT FEEL RIGHT
coming out to a musicale when Lydia and Tom have not been found,” Lizzie said dolefully to Alice two nights later, as they sat in the Pump Rooms and waited for the orchestra to tune up. “I do not think I will dance tonight. I am far too cast down.”

They were sitting in the front row, with Lady Vickery and Celia to Alice’s right and Mrs. Lister and Lowell to Lizzie’s left. Miles had paused on the way in to exchange a few words with Nat Waterhouse. He had kissed Alice’s hand and told her he would join her shortly. Nat had pointedly made no such promise to Lizzie, who had glared at him.

“I feel monstrous sad, Alice,” Lizzie was saying. “If they find Tom then he will be clapped in prison and hanged for sure this time, and if they do not we cannot be sure that Lydia is safe, and meanwhile there is some madman on the loose with a rifle who might take a potshot at us at any time.” She sighed. “I think I preferred it when Monty was here inflicting his ghastly medieval taxes on us! At least that was more fun!”

“Talk of the devil,” Alice said. She looked at the portly figure who was standing in the doorway to the Pump Rooms with all the preening self-importance of
a cock pheasant. “I do believe your brother has returned, Lizzie. Is that not Sir Montague in the entrance, chatting to Mr. Pullen?”

Lizzie swung around in her chair. “Goodness!” she said. “So it is! He must have come back from London for Mary Wheeler’s wedding. I heard he had asked Lord Armitage for a cut of her fortune because he claimed they would not have wed without the Dames’ Tax, and Lord Armitage told him to go hang!” She sighed, slumping back in her chair. “Drat! I suppose Monty will be all stuffy now and demand that I return to live with him at the Hall, and it has been so much more fun with you, Alice. Good Lord!” she added, grabbing Alice’s arm as her brother came into the room accompanied by a lady. “Has Monty attached himself to some female?” She screwed her face up tightly. “Surely she cannot be a…a
lightskirt?
Have you ever seen a gown like that in the Fortune’s Folly Pump Rooms before, Alice?”

“Not on a lady, certainly,” Alice said. She was torn between horror and amusement at the spectacle Sir Montague was making. “Gracious,” she said, “I do believe the lady is about to lose the bodice altogether!”

Sir Montague Fortune’s fair companion was waiting quite blatantly until everyone in the room was looking at her. Dressed—barely—in a glittering gown of dampened silver gauze, she looked exotic and disdainful. The murmur of voices in the room rose to a crescendo and then died away to a shocked whisper as the couple came forward.

“Oh, my!” Lizzie whispered irrepressibly in Alice’s ear. “My brother is about to introduce me to his mistress, here in front of everyone! I always knew
Monty was a ramshackle fellow, but this! What shall I do, Alice?”

“Nothing,” Alice said. “Wait. I think there may be something else going on….” She had started to feel a little anxious, for she had seen that Miles and Nat Waterhouse had also spotted Sir Montague. Nat was saying something to Miles, and a rather strained look had come over Miles’s face all of a sudden. A cold premonition tiptoed down Alice’s neck and a slightly sick feeling was turning her stomach.

“She does have a certain style,” Lizzie was murmuring. “I wonder what she can possibly see in Monty? And what on earth possessed him to bring her here? She looks like a bird of paradise in a farmyard!”

“That is Louisa Caton,” Lady Vickery whispered, waking from what seemed to be a scandalized trance. “Look away, girls! Whatever can Sir Montague be thinking to bring the most notorious courtesan in London
here?
Look away, I say,” she said again, catching Alice’s arm. “Really, this is most vulgar and an utter disgrace.”

“That is Monty for you,” Lizzie said irrepressibly. “Dear ma’am, have no fear! I do not think we shall be corrupted simply
looking
at a courtesan—” She broke off. “Oh, but…wasn’t Miss Caton the one—” She stopped again, looking at Alice. “Oh dear,” she said, stricken. “Oh, Alice.”

“Yes,” Alice said. She realized her voice was shaking. “I do believe that Miss Caton
was
the courtesan with whom Lord Vickery was involved when last he was in London.”

“Alice!” Mrs. Lister snapped. “You are not supposed to know such things. And if you
do
know, you are to pretend that you do
not
know!”

“I am sorry, Mama,” Alice said. “No doubt you are correct and that a lady would pretend ignorance. But you have always known that I am no lady.”

Mrs. Lister made a little sound of abject misery. “Oh, what are we to do?” She turned to Lady Vickery. “In front of his mama, too!”

“In front of his betrothed,” Lady Vickery said hollowly. “In front of the
lawyers!
” She glanced across at the row of chairs that contained Mr. Churchward and Mr. Gaines. Gaines had a look of extreme interest on his face as he watched Louisa Caton approach Miles. Mr. Churchward, in contrast, looked as shocked as though the courtesan had sat herself down on his lap. His face was red, his eyes as round as dinner plates behind his spectacles and his mouth was an equally round, scandalized circle of shock. Alice knew exactly how he felt.

“Whistling away an heiress—and before the knot is tied, too!” Lady Vickery wailed. “Stupid, stupid boy.” She turned to Alice. “Miss Lister, I appeal to you to give Miles a chance to explain—”

“I do not think so,” Alice said. “Events are rather speaking for themselves, are they not?”

She watched in fascinated horror as Sir Montague accosted Miles. It almost felt as though she was watching a play, seeing the moves, hearing the lines. In the moment she felt nothing but she knew that at any point the chill carapace that held her might crack and the pain would rush in and she was afraid she could not bear it.
This
was the gilded creature with whom Miles had had a torrid affair. This was the woman whose bed he had sought after he had jilted her the previous year. This was the salt in the wound.

She tried to tell herself that it was all a terrible coincidence, that Miles knew nothing of this, that Sir Montague was probably Miss Caton’s lover now and with his typical disregard for good taste and propriety was set on thrusting her into Fortune’s Folly society. The thoughts and words and images jostled in her head, the anger and fear stung her and then she heard Sir Montague’s greeting:

“Vickery! Got your letter!” Sir Montague slapped Miles on the back. His stentorian tones seemed to bounce off the ceiling of the concert room so that every person present could hear his words with excruciating clarity. “Happy to oblige, old chap, and escort this gorgeous creature to Yorkshire. A rather splendid present for you, what!”

He stood aside beaming and Miss Caton reached up and in view of the entire company kissed Miles full on the mouth.

There was a scandalized silence in the room.

Alice stood up. Her fan and reticule clattered to the floor, but she did not bother to stop and retrieve them. She was conscious of nothing other than the need to escape. Up until that moment she had been so determined to believe that the whole scene had been either a mistake or a rather unpleasant coincidence. She had fiercely resisted the whispered thoughts in her own mind that said that Miles was bored of courting a virgin heiress, bored because he did not have a sophisticated woman in his bed, and so he had sent for his mistress. She had refused to accept it. She had not wanted even to think it because she had hoped against hope that Miles’s outward coldness was a mask that would one day crack and she would be the one to reach the man beneath.

Now she saw her hopes for the naive dreams they were, for Miles had
always
told her the truth with the brutal honesty that the terms of her inheritance had demanded. He had wanted her for her money. She was the one to save him from the debtor’s prison not the one to win his heart.

Got your letter! Happy to oblige…

Damn Sir Montague and his thoughtless masculine bonhomie! Damn him and the beautiful painted creature at his side whom Miles was even now putting away from him as he turned toward her….

“Alice,” Miles said.

Alice ignored him. She started to walk, very slowly and carefully, toward the door. She could see that people were staring at her. It felt dreadful. Her confidence was suddenly wafer thin. Every last one of her insecurities rose to mock her, the scorned little housemaid turned heiress, courted for her fortune, humiliated by her fiancé and his mistress in full public view.

“Of course he has to go after her,” she heard Miss Caton say with languid lack of interest. “She is very rich, after all, so I hear, and he is very poor and
I
am very expensive.” And she gave a small trill of affected laughter.

Alice’s face flamed with absolute fury to think that her money would be paying for Miles’s pleasure in some harlot’s bed. Perhaps, she thought, through the haze of anger, the aristocracy were so sophisticated, so debauched, that a wife would not even blanch at subsidizing her husband’s amorous activities. It was only another entertainment, after all, like gambling or drinking. But such aristocratic cold-bloodedness was foreign to her nature. She could not be so complacent.

Every thought, every feeling, seemed to hurt. She
recognized the sensation with some shock. She had not expected to feel such pain. She might have expected anger at so public a humiliation, or embarrassment to be shown to be so painfully naive in contrast to Miss Caton’s brazen worldliness. But this naked, piercing grief that seemed to skewer her heart—that was something both unexpected and deeply painful, and it could only mean that she had compounded all her other follies by falling in love with Miles all over again, far more deeply and hopelessly than she had realized.

“Alice, wait!”

She heard Miles’s step behind her and then he had caught her arm and was bundling her through a doorway and into a room beyond. It was the spa baths. At this time of night they were deserted but for a servant stolidly folding towels and tidying up in preparation for the morning. A lamp glowed on a low table, its red heart a match for the embers that glowed in the wide fireplace. The steam rose from the water in the square stone bath like eerie fingers of mist. During the day the communal baths were packed with Fortune’s Folly visitors. Now the cushioned benches with their pretty carvings designed to resemble Roman baths were empty and the room echoed to the soft bubble of the waters. Alice saw the warmth around her but she could not feel it in her bones. She felt chilled through and through.

Miles looked at the maid and jerked his head toward the door. “If you would be so good…” The courtesy of his tone was belied by the look in his eyes. The girl dropped a frightened curtsy and fled.

Alice heard Miles turn the key in the lock.

“You can’t do that,” she said, rousing herself from
her cold stupor. “It isn’t proper.” Then she laughed, a bitter sound to think of herself pleading for propriety when Miles’s mistress had just accosted him in the concert hall in front of everyone in Fortune’s Folly.

“Alice, listen.” Miles ran a hand over his hair, disordering it. Alice noted with detachment that it was the first time she had seen him looking anything less than immaculate. There was strain in his face and deep lines about his eyes. His expression was pale and set.

“I suppose she is your mistress,” Alice cut in, wondering even as she spoke why on earth she had to prolong this agony. She sighed. “Actually, I don’t think you need to answer that, Miles. Of course she is.”

“She
was
my mistress,” Miles said.

Alice looked sharply at him. “Sir Montague said he had brought her as a present for you.” Her face twisted. “Did you…did you send for her like he said?”

“No,” Miles said. “No,” he repeated more forcefully. “I had no notion Monty was bringing her. I think he probably did it on purpose to try to wreck my betrothal to you. You know he has always wanted to wed you himself or failing that to claim half of your money under the Dames’ Tax.”

Alice’s gaze searched his face. Her heart felt sore, torn. “So you swear you did not know?” she whispered.

A rueful, boyish smile touched Miles’s lips. “You have never doubted that I was telling you the truth before, Alice,” he said. “Why now?”

“Because you are a rake,” Alice said, “and I—” She stopped. “I am jealous,” she said with some surprise. The feelings scored her again with the painful intensity of cats’ claws. “Very jealous,” she added. “I hate it. It feels horrible.”

Miles was watching her intently. “You always knew I was a rake,” he said. “I never concealed my past from you.”

“No,” Alice agreed, “but I had not thought it would ever matter to me. I had not thought I would care.”

Miles’s eyes darkened. He took a step toward her, put out a hand. “You care?” he said.

“About some lightskirt from London coming in and kissing you in front of half of Fortune’s Folly?” Alice retorted. “Yes, I care about that! It hurts my pride.”

“Pride,” Miles said. “I see.” His hand fell to his side. “There is nothing between Miss Caton and me,” he said. “I care nothing for her. I never did. It was over before I came back to Yorkshire.”

“Then why is she here?” Alice demanded. The pain twisted inside her, tighter than a knot. The room was hot and steamy, and her gown was sticking to her skin. No lady should perspire, of course, but Alice felt her shift and petticoats absorb the moist heat of the steam, felt her body start to heat and the sweat run. The tiny curls of hair that nestled in her neck were clinging to its nape. Her physical discomfort seemed only to mock her mental misery.