The Flight of Swallows (25 page)

‘What must I do?’ she asked him quietly while the others in the room, including Robbie who had no idea what was happening, stared in apprehension at the cruel face of the man who had shown them nothing but kindness.

‘Come home with me,
and stay there
!’

16

None of the guests who attended the hunt ball, at least at the beginning of the evening, were aware of the frozen stillness with which Brooke Armstrong and his lovely young wife contained themselves and were not awfully sure of the precise instant when they realised that something, they didn’t know what, was seriously awry. Was it when she icily refused his polite invitation to waltz with him and then in the very next moment, as her husband stood beside her, accepted Joel Denton, leaving Brooke stranded at the edge of the floor? She laughed and chatted and, they thought, flirted with young Denton, allowing him to swing her off her feet, the hem of her exquisite gown riding almost up to her knees and showing a great deal of her lacy stockings in a most shocking manner. When the waltz ended, instead of returning to her husband she continued to dance with Joel Denton which was simply not done! She grew flushed and even lovelier, her gleaming, tawny coil of hair, the colour of the fox with which the event was associated, coming loose with curls escaping in tendrils about her ears.

Brooke stood, outwardly unperturbed by his wife’s improper behaviour, listening to his wife’s father complain about he knew not what, nor cared, for he was focused on the sight of his wife swinging and swaying around the floor, this time in the arms of Jack Ackroyd. She was wearing one of the elegant gowns he had bought her in Paris made of ivory lace moulded tightly round her slender waist and cut low over her splendid bosom, the bodice slipping from her shoulders in a provocative way he did not care for. He had bought her jewels, emeralds and diamonds and rubies, and a necklace of aquamarines because, although they were not precious, they were the exact colour of her eyes. She wore none of them, instead choosing a simple necklace of seed pearls that had belonged to her mother and she was magnificent. It was clear every man in the room thought so, while the women thought her fast.

‘. . . and I was saying only the other day to Elizabeth it was high time we had my daughter and her husband to dine. Now that Charlotte has settled into her new life as mistress of King’s Meadow and has, presumably, become accustomed to entertaining surely we may expect—’

Arthur Drummond was startled when Brooke turned on him.

‘What?’ he snapped and all about them a sudden silence fell.

‘I was only saying, my dear fellow, that after – what is it? – nine, ten months of marriage, you and Charlotte might care to begin entertaining your neighbours.’ He smirked, unshakable in his arrogant belief that he and his wife were welcome in his daughter’s home, or indeed anyone’s home, anyone of note, that is, and was only surprised that, as yet, no invitation had been forthcoming. He met Brooke Armstrong on the hunting field during the season but now that it was ended he was keen to continue what he saw as an advantageous connection. He and his new wife were welcome in many houses but none of their owners was as wealthy or influential as his son-in-law. Arthur was somewhat strapped for cash at the moment as a result of one or two schemes into which he had gambled money and lost, so when he had heard that Charlotte and her husband were to be guests at the hunt ball he had hoped to sound out Brooke delicately on the question of a loan. His own wife was not in attendance this evening, her husband’s reason for her absence given as a slight cold, the black eye and swollen cheek he had given her hidden from all the servants bar her discreet maid. She was, or had been, in the first months of their marriage, inclined to argue with him, and even to run to her home at Hill Edge and her elderly parents, but her father Sir Clive had soon put a stop to that since he had been glad to get her off his hands at the age of twenty-five and had told her she had made her bed and must lie in it. Arthur’s own children, had they been asked, which they weren’t, could have told Elizabeth that her husband’s complete belief that he should be the absolute ruler in his own home was set in stone and that to argue with him was not only useless but physically dangerous.

‘So what do you say, my dear fellow? Can we expect to receive an invitation to your next dinner party at King’s Meadow? Charlotte is obviously well able to hold her own when it comes to mixing with polite society,’ nodding his head in Charlotte’s direction where two gentlemen were almost engaging in fisticuffs over who should take her into supper.

He was astounded and mortally offended when his son-in-law brushed him aside, strode across the shining floor and, taking his wife’s wrist in a vicious grip, dragged her, still laughing, towards the doorway that led into the wide hall. They were watched in a silence that was broken only by whispers, though Lady Denton was heard to say ‘Well!’ in a loud and shocked voice.

Charlotte had already drunk three glasses of champagne, one handed to her as she and Brooke entered the ballroom, another put in her hand by Joel Denton who was enchanted by this hitherto little known wife of Brooke Armstrong, a man he thought to be a dry old stick. Like all the young he considered any man approaching thirty had one foot in the grave. But Armstrong’s wife, who could be only a year or two younger than himself, might turn out to be great fun. She laughed and tossed her head in a most tantalising way so he was inordinately put out when Armstrong snatched his wife away and disappeared into the hall.

A buzz of conversation broke out in the ballroom as soon as they left, most thinking they understood now why Armstrong had kept his young wife hidden away for so long.

‘Now then, madam,’ Brooke hissed to his still merry wife as he propelled her into an ill-lit corner beneath the stairs, ‘may I ask what you think you are doing?’ His face was rigid with anger.

‘Doing?’ Charlotte asked, giggling and leaning against him, still clutching her glass of champagne.

‘You are making a spectacle of yourself in front of our friends and I demand that you behave as a lady,
as my wife
should.’

‘Why, Brooke, I am only doing what you have asked me to do.’ She hiccupped, then put her hand to her mouth as a child would. ‘I am mixing with
your
friends as ordered. This is a ball and I am dancing. Is that not correct? The young men are particularly complimentary and I am enjoying myself, as you bade me to. You told me—’

‘I did not tell you to get drunk and if—’

‘Drunk? Am I drunk? Well, if I am it is a very pleasant way to get through this . . . this . . .’

He roughly took the glass of champagne from her hand, in the process spilling some on her gown and a passing footman who carried a tray was startled when a hand shot out from beneath the wide, curving staircase and crashed the glass on to the tray.

‘We had a bargain, you and I,’ Brooke continued in a deadly voice. ‘You were to perform your social duties as my wife and I was to allow those homeless,
pregnant
young women you have taken under your wing to remain in the Dower House. Since we married this is only your second entrée into what is known as polite society, the first where you talked of nothing but fallen women, and you now seem to imagine you can dance and flirt with any man who comes within your range. You are making an exhibition of yourself, and of me. Again! Everyone is talking about you and your behaviour and it is doubtful the Dentons will invite us again.’

‘It is you who are making a fool of yourself treating your friends to the spectacle of a—’

‘Stop it, stop it, or I swear I will—’ Brooke heard his own voice start to rise and with a rush of self-realisation knew that what drove him on was pure jealousy. Sheer, unadulterated jealousy. She was the loveliest and liveliest woman here, drawing the men to her like bees to a flower. She was glorious and his love and need of her was barely under control. He wanted to shake her, hit her, drag her into his arms and kiss her until she, and he, were breathless. Instead he was snarling at her and accusing her of disporting herself in an unseemly manner and turning him into the jealous husband he was.

She stood away from him, no longer under the influence of the champagne, it seemed, and was watching him coolly, then she spoke.

‘Are we to return to the ballroom or would you like to take me home? Either way it is of no interest to me. I have agreed to your terms since I will not see these girls turned out on to the streets and their babies put into an orphanage. I cannot believe that that is what you want either. I have mixed this evening with your friends and have even exchanged a word or two with my father – oh yes, while your back was turned he spoke of dining – so I feel I have kept my part of the bargain. I cannot help it if . . . if the young men ask me to dance. I believe that is what we came for.’

‘Besides dancing so recklessly I wish you to sit and talk to the ladies with a view to forming acquaintances. There will be tennis parties, visits to Ascot for the race meets, Hendon and . . . and other events this summer, but if you are to do nothing but flirt and prance about the ballroom . . .’ He listened to himself with horror.

‘Is that what I was doing? Well, I’m sorry if that offends you but I do not see Patsy’s husband objecting to—’

‘Patsy Ackroyd is not exactly the kind of lady I had in mind—’

‘She is lively, which cannot be said of the others.’

‘That is not what I meant, Charlotte.’ He was being pushed too far and it showed in the way he dragged his hand through his dark, curling hair, ruffling its carefully brushed smoothness. ‘Damnation, woman, can you not see what you are doing, making a show of yourself? Even your gown is not quite decent.’

She looked down at herself in genuine bewilderment. ‘What is wrong with my gown? You were with me when I bought it.’

‘It is . . . you are not . . . look at you: it is slipping from your shoulder and your hair is . . . is wild.’ She did indeed look enchanting and his aching heart could understand why the men clustered about her but it would not do. It seemed whatever he decided she would be talked about. Let her have her way with the wild scheme she had conceived, a home for dishonoured young women and their children, a factory –
God in heaven, a factory
– go into business of sorts, or force her into the mould of the wives of his class and have her whispered about because she was beautiful, charming, wildly attractive to men. Whatever he chose he must stand on the sidelines and watch her either disgust them or bewitch them.

Charlotte watched him dispassionately. She had not deliberately set out to draw these tedious young men – and even older ones like Jack Ackroyd – to her side, to invite her to dance and indeed, in one case, to walk with him on Sir Charles’s terrace. It seemed they were for some reason enraptured by her. It was a fine, mild evening with a full moon lighting the garden and the young man could see no reason why the exquisite, vivacious wife of the elderly husband, who should by rights be playing cards with other elderly husbands, should object!

But Charlotte, who was young and enjoying the adulation of these rather boring young gentlemen, was wise enough to know that providing she was in full view of Brooke and the other guests she was really breaking no rules.

‘I have done no wrong, Brooke. I have done nothing improper and I cannot see what objections—’

‘Young Denton swung you off your feet in the polka—’

‘Oh really, Brooke.’ She was unwise enough to laugh.

With a curse he took her hand and tucked it tightly in the crook of his arm. Almost dragging her, he guided her back to the ballroom, which was almost empty since most of the guests had adjourned to the supper room. The small orchestra was taking a break but there were several couples sitting at the small tables set round the room. They watched, open-mouthed as Brook Armstrong towed his somewhat dishevelled wife towards the supper room where he sat her down at a table with Milly Pickford and Maddy Hill who were consuming a dish each of almond soufflé and gossiping about the very young woman who was literally thrust between them.

‘I’ll fetch you something to eat,’ he told her curtly. ‘Stay here until I return,’ acutely aware that he was making a fool of himself. He bowed courteously to the ladies then shoved his way towards the tables where the excellent buffet provided by Lady Rosemary Denton was set out.

‘Well, my dear,’ Milly Pickford began, ‘you seem to be enjoying yourself,’ her spoon halfway to her mouth. ‘This is your first hunt ball, is it not?’

‘Yes indeed,’ Charlotte answered politely, her heart sinking as, looking about her, she saw Joel Denton making his way rapidly towards them.

‘Oh, bloody hell,’ she exclaimed, words she had heard Brooke utter. Mrs Pickford and Mrs Hill were shocked. ‘Brooke will kill me, or him, if that jackanapes does not leave me alone.’

Milly Pickford recovered her composure. ‘You should not encourage him, my dear,’ she ventured, exchanging a meaningful glance with her companion.

‘I do not encourage him, Mrs . . . Mrs . . . I’m sorry, I have forgotten your name. I do not mean to be rude,’ for Mrs Pickford, a well-known and important light in her world, had drawn herself up, her, chest thrust out like a pouter pigeon. She stood up, followed by Mrs Hill, and the pair of them, after bowing politely to her for they were ladies if she was not, glided to another table where Lady Denton chatted to Mrs Parker. Soon their heads were together, their glances cast in her direction so that she knew they were discussing her. And worse still, Joel Denton, smiling with satisfaction, sat down beside her.

‘There you are, you gorgeous creature,’ he said, his eyes devouring her half-exposed breasts, his mouth ready, it seemed, to fasten on hers. ‘That husband of yours is an ogre to keep you so imprisoned and when he does let you out watches you like a hawk.’

‘Really, Mr Denton—’

‘Joel, please, we know one another better than—’

‘We do not know one another at all, sir, and I would advise you to take yourself off since that ogre as you call him is descending on us with a face like thunder,’ which was true. He held a plate in his hand which he had haphazardly piled with frosted tangerines, tartlets of salmon, caviar, mushroom pâté, truffles, all mixed together in a most unappetising heap.