Sir Philip's Folly (The Poor Relation Series Book 4) (16 page)

Lady Carruthers had spared no expense on Arabella. Her ball gown of white muslin was ornamented with seed pearls and gold thread. A coronet of seed pearls and thin gold wire had been hired to decorate her head after Monsieur André had finished with it. A lady’s-maid had been engaged to help her get ready, Lady Carruthers needing the sole services of her own lady’s-maid. At last Arabella was ready. She knew, looking in the glass, that she had never looked so well. Monsieur André had
burnished
her hair so that it appeared to glitter in the candle-light as much as the fairy-tale coronet on top of it.

She entered the sitting-room at the same time as her mother. Lady Carruthers was also in white muslin, although her head was bedecked by tall ostrich plumes. She stood for a moment looking at the glory that was her daughter, and instead of being filled with maternal pride she experienced a bitter pang of envy and then reminded herself that Denby was to make that dramatic announcement this evening. She could not keep her secret any longer.

“You must wish me happy, Arabella,” she said.

“I do. I wish you every success at the ball, Mama.”

Lady Carruthers gave a little trill of laughter. “You do not understand. But of course he swore me to secrecy. My engagement is to be announced tonight.”

“To whom?” asked Arabella, her mind quickly ranging over the number of middle-aged men with whom her mother had flirted at balls and parties.

“Denby.”

Arabella closed her eyes. The pain was almost too great to bear.

There was a scratching at the door. “Lady Fortescue,” announced the footman after opening it.

Lady Fortescue’s black eyes flew from Arabella’s stricken face to her mother’s triumphant one and she wondered furiously what Lady Carruthers had been up to.

But she said, “It is time to welcome your guests, Miss Carruthers.”

“We are ready,” said Lady Carruthers.

“As we are bringing your daughter out, so
we
will be with her on the reception line, not you, Lady Carruthers. Come, child, you look very beautiful although a trifle pale.”

Lady Carruthers shrugged but did not protest. Her own moment of glory would soon come.

Arabella stiffened when she reached the hall but she pinned a brave smile on her face and marched up to the Earl of Denby. She curtsied low. “Congratulations,” she said. He gave her a puzzled look. He opened his mouth to ask her whether she was being sarcastic or not, but Lady Fortescue snapped, “Here come the first of our guests. Head of the line, Lord Denby. Miss Carruthers, take your place next to him.”

And so began all the curtsying and bowing while the earl flashed anxious little slanting glances at the frozen beauty next to him and cursed himself for his own clumsiness and arrogance. Why had he assumed she would have him? She did not look at all happy. If only he could have a word with her in private.

By the time the Prince Regent arrived and the colonel, Lady Fortescue, Sir Philip, and Miss Tonks swelled with pride, Arabella barely noticed the royal personage and the earl was only glad that this fat prince had finally put in an appearance so that he might get a moment alone with Arabella.

The prince walked down the double line of waiting guests, nodding and chatting and joking. Behind him walked his friends, who varied from the fop to the Corinthian, and after them the poor relations with the earl and Arabella. The earl expected that the prince would take Arabella to the floor for the first dance but he had forgotten about the Prince Regent’s penchant for elderly ladies. And so it was Lady Fortescue who was led to the floor, Lady Fortescue who glanced around in a dazed way, hardly unable to believe her own triumph. Sir Philip looked at Lady Fortescue with open admiration in his eyes and said, “What a woman!”

“What? That old stick of a creature?” said a coarse voice at his elbow and he turned and looked at Mrs. Budge, and for the first time since he met her, he heartily wished her at the devil. She was wearing an old-fashioned hooped gown embellished with red-and-white-striped ribbons. She looked a fright.

The earl meanwhile had moved quickly. He took Arabella firmly by the arm and hustled her off into the supper room, which was in a former morning-room adjoining the coffee room. But servants were working laying out food and glasses under the eye of Despard. “Where does that door at the end lead?” demanded the earl.

“The back stairs,” said Despard, thinking he never would understand the English, as the earl pushed Arabella towards the door.

“Upstairs,” commanded the earl. “If I am not private with you, I will scream.”

Arabella, listless and tired, went ahead of him. “Now,” he said, stopping on a dark little landing, “what did that sour little ‘Congratulations’ mean?”

“I was congratulating you on your engagement to Mama,” said Arabella in a little voice.

“Has everyone run mad? It is
your
hand in marriage I asked her for.”

She looked up at him in a dazed way. And then she said in a wondering voice, “Cannot you do
anything
right?”

He took her in his arms. Her brain was in a turmoil. She opened her mouth to berate him, to demand to know why he had not asked
her
. But before she could speak, he kissed her passionately, and suddenly all the hurt and fright melted inside her. She could feel her whole body
yearning
against his and then everything seemed to whirl about her and she clutched his shoulders for support.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” she asked when she could.

“I realized at last how very much I loved you, how I do love you,” he said huskily. “Oh, I never dreamt for a moment that mother of yours would think I meant her. And I am to announce our engagement this evening. Well, I am going to do it. Lady Carruthers needs to be punished for all the pain she has given you. Will you marry me?”

She smiled up into his eyes. “Perhaps.”

“Oh, Arabella, my sweetheart.” He kissed her again while downstairs the dancers performed the Sir Roger de Coverley, their feet thumping on the floor, scattering Miss Tonks’ and Arabella’s magnificent chalk carpet, their steps acting as a sort of counterpoint to the thudding of the two hearts on the back stairs, pressed so very close together.

***

Mr. Davy was dancing with Miss Tonks and Miss Tonks was in seventh heaven, for Mr. Davy was such a beautiful dancer that it seemed to her that her own steps had never been better.

Sir Philip, lounging beside a tub of roses, watched them sourly.

“Where’s Denby?” said a voice at his ear.

Sir Philip looked up and recognized Mr. Sinclair, whom he had met many times during drinking sessions at Limmer’s. “Somewhere around,” said Sir Philip.

“I would like to thank him. Very knowing chap, Denby. Saved my marriage. I’m going to keep clear of actors from now on. What’s that creature doing here? Going to entertain us later, hey?”

He pointed with his quizzing-glass to where Mr. Davy was dancing with Miss Tonks.

“Do you mean my Miss Tonks?” demanded Sir Philip wrathfully. “Any more remarks like that and I’ll have you thrown out.”

“No, no, Davy. Jason Davy. Haven’t seen him act in some time but remember him well.”

“But that Mr. Davy is a merchant—son of a friend of Colonel Sandhurst!”

“Someone’s been bamming you, Sommerville. When did you ever see a Cit dance like that?”

He moved away and Sir Philip sat with his brain churning. So they
had
hired an actor to lure Mrs. Budge away. But there was that Mr. Davy in the City. Must be another Davy. He, Sir Philip, had been tricked by his partners. They would pay for this, and pay dearly.

“There you are, my chuck,” cried Mrs. Budge, sailing down on him like some particularly massive bird of prey. “Isn’t the supper to be served? Can’t we just have a little peek?”

“Not yet,” said Sir Philip. She had broken veins on her cheeks. Why had he not noticed that before? “The old morning-room’s so small that we can only hope they all don’t descend on it at once.”

“Aren’t we going to sit down to a proper meal?” she asked.

“No, it’s stand, take a fork and plate and eat in a crush.”

Sir Philip noticed that the earl and Arabella had reappeared. He saw the earl lead Arabella up to the Prince Regent and say something, he saw the prince smile indulgently, and then, when the music ended, he saw the earl hold up his arms for silence.

Lady Carruthers moved forward, her eyes darting this way and that in triumph.

Holding Arabella’s hand, the earl said in a loud voice, “I am the happiest of men. Miss Arabella Carruthers has agreed to become my wife.”

There was laughing and cheering and then a terrible scream rent the air. Feathered head-dress askew, Lady Carruthers thrust her way forward to the front.

“You’re marrying me!” she shouted. “Me, me,
ME
!”

The earl put his arm about Arabella’s shoulders and shook his head.

Lady Carruthers fell to the floor and began to scream and drum her feet in a paroxysm of rage.

Lady Fortescue clasped her thin beringed hands and her eyes shone with delight. The crowning triumph of the evening, a really awful scandal! Society would talk about it for weeks and weeks.

For all except Arabella and her earl, a great cloud of anti-climax settled on the Poor Relation. They all felt jaded and tired.

Miss Tonks succumbed to a bad cold and Sir Philip took over the account books, raising spirits a little by saying that even after their donation to the army, they were well in profit.

Mrs. Budge announced she was leaving him. Sir Philip was still smarting at the trick played on him by the others, for he had firmly established that Mr. Davy was indeed an actor; but on the other hand, he did not want to tell Mrs. Budge about the deception, for he was heartily sick of her now and was glad to get rid of her. He was also suddenly tired of hotel life. With the large profit they had made from the ball and with the sale of the business, they could all retire comfortably.

He broached this matter when they were all in the sitting-room, even Miss Tonks, sniffing into a damp handkerchief and decidedly red about the nose.

But Lady Fortescue, although very tired, was still flushed with success. In her dreams at night she still circled that ballroom with the Prince Regent, with everyone watching.

“Seems like as good a time as any to sell up,” said the colonel, ever hopeful. “What do you say, Amelia?”

Lady Fortescue looked at his upright figure and for a moment her black eyes softened, but then she said, “May I see the books, Sir Philip?”

Sir Philip handed them over. Lady Fortescue bent over them for a long time, and then said, “Do you know, after our success, I suggest we raise our prices again, and after another Season, why, we could all retire and live very well indeed. In fact, we could all live in the style to which none of us has been accustomed for many years, or, in your case, Miss Tonks, has never been accustomed to at all.”

“What will become of me?” asked Miss Tonks pathetically. “You, Lady Fortescue, will go off with Colonel Sandhurst; I do not know what Sir Philip will do, but I will be left to live alone again.”

Sir Philip was feeling exhausted. He had put forward a sensible suggestion and he had been looking forward to a life of leisure. His temper broke and he forgot his desire to be quit of Mrs. Budge.

“While we’re on the subject of money,” he said nastily, “how did you fix the books to cover up what you were paying that mountebank of an actor?”

Miss Tonks looked like a frightened rabbit. “You
knew
,” she whispered.

“I found out at the ball,” said Sir Philip. “She’s packing now, but wait until she hears what I have to tell her. All that expense for nothing.”

“That’s blown it,” said the colonel when Sir Philip had marched out.

“The fault was not Mr. Davy’s,” pleaded Miss Tonks in a tremulous voice. “He played his part well.”

“Yes,” agreed the colonel. “It is a pity he was found out. But pay him we must. We should have known Sir Philip would not be gulled for long. But it nearly worked.”

***

Mrs. Budge looked up from a large trunk as Sir Philip entered the room and stood surveying her with an evil grin on his face.

“You can’t talk me out of it,” said Mrs. Budge. “I’m leaving you for a better man, a younger man, a richer man.”

“Like play-actors, do you?”

Mrs. Budge turned and looked at him, holding a large petticoat which she had just folded to her massive bosom. “What you talking about, then?”

“Davy, Mr. Jason Davy, penniless actor, paid by my faithless friends to gull you and lure you away from me. Ah, well, they’ve succeeded, and they’re all next door having a good laugh at you.”

“Is this true?”

“Every bit of it. I’ll go and get him.”

Sir Philip returned shortly with Mr. Davy.

“What is this?” cried Mrs. Budge. “Sir Philip tells me you ain’t nothing but an actor in the pay of them next door to trick me into leaving.”

Mr. Davy looked at the malicious glint in Sir Philip’s eyes and knew the game was up. He spread his hands. “I am afraid that is the case.”

“Get out of here,” wailed Mrs. Budge. She threw her bulk into Sir Philip’s elderly arms. “Oh, my sweetheart, my precious darling, can you ever forgive me?”

Lust stirred in Sir Philip’s ancient body. Oh, well, he thought, just one more time.

Mr. Davy walked sadly next door and up to the sitting-room.

“All that for nothing,” he said disconsolately. “Do you know that Sir Philip has discovered the deception?”

The colonel nodded. “You nearly did it. You just nearly pulled it off. We will pay you what we promised.”

“I cannot take the money for a failure.”

“If a play failed but you had played your part well, you would take the money,” said Miss Tonks. “Please accept it.”

“I quite agree,” said Lady Fortescue. “Make out a cheque for the full amount, Colonel.”