The Sins of Lady Dacey (14 page)

They were late as usual, Lady Dacey liking to make an entrance. She had reverted to one of her scandalous gowns, transparent muslin worn over flesh-colored stockings and a corset, and the bumps and ridges of her corset could be clearly seen through her filmy gown. How such a sight was supposed to attract any man was a wonder, thought Honoria, noticing that the red wig was also once more in place. She had lectured her aunt on the virtues of modesty and Lady Dacey had appeared to have listened to her, but, Honoria realized sadly, had not been taking in a word of it. The fact was that Lady Dacey had noticed that Ware no longer complimented her on her gowns and put it down to her new “dowdy” appearance. Her eyes glittered behind her mask with anticipation. This, she was determined, would be the night when she brought him up to the mark.

It was a perfect evening, warm enough at last to make the ladies feel comfortable in their fashionably thin gowns. The Palfreys had a large mansion. All the curtains were drawn back and, as they arrived, they could see masked dancers moving through the brightly lit rooms.

They left their cloaks in an anteroom. “Coming, Pamela?” demanded Lady Dacey impatiently from the doorway.

“Go on ahead,” said Pamela. “My hem is coming down. I will mend it and follow you.”

“We will wait for you,” said Honoria.

“Fiddle,” exclaimed Lady Dacey, anxious to make her appearance.

“It is all right, Honoria,” urged Pamela. “I shall be some time.”

Honoria left reluctantly with her aunt. Pamela took a small box of sewing materials out of her reticule and stitched diligently at the hem. But when it was repaired, she continued to sit there. She planned to enter the ballroom between dances, boldly approach the Duke of Ware and ask him why he had kissed Honoria and then refused to have anything to do with her again.

A country dance had just started. Fortunately there was a clock on the mantlepiece in the anteroom. The dance would last a good half an hour. She settled down to wait.

He entered the hall and handed his cloak, hat, and stick to a footman and walked toward the stairs.

“Your Grace?”

A timid female voice hailed him and he swung round.

Pamela had hardly been able to believe her luck when she had finally left the anteroom to see the duke just arriving. And yet it had taken a lot of courage to hail him.

He was wearing a black velvet mask but Pamela knew she would recognize those odd tawny eyes of his anywhere. He bowed and waited, emanating an arrogant, frosty chill.

Pamela's courage almost deserted her. She firmly reminded herself of her duties as chaperon. She rose from a low curtsy and faced him determinedly. “I would have a word in private with you, Your Grace, about Honoria—about Miss Goodham.”

His eyebrows rose superciliously but he said, “Go on.”

A party of late arrivals chattered in the doorway. Pamela spread her hands in a helpless gesture. “Not here.”

He summoned a footman. “I wish a few words in private with Mrs. Perryworth.” The footman, used to the intrigues of the quality, led them to a door off the hall and threw it open.

“Leave the door open,” said Pamela, aware of the curious stares of the arriving guests.

It was a little-used saloon, little-used to judge by the stale, cold smell of the air.

“Now, Mrs. Perryworth,” said the duke haughtily, “explain yourself.” He spoke to Pamela as if addressing her over a wide social gulf.

“Your Grace,” began Pamela, unable to meet his eyes but addressing a dusty vase of blue john instead, “I have heard something from Honoria this very day which prompts me, as her chaperon, to ask you your intentions.”

The surprise in his eyes was so great that she colored, thinking for one awful moment that Honoria had made the whole thing up.

“My intentions? What intentions, pray?”

“I must make myself plain. Oh, dear. How distasteful and embarrassing all this is. I only learned this very day that you kissed Miss Goodham and made arrangements to take her driving the following day. Then you cancelled that arrangement and have cut her quite dreadfully since. I know something of your reputation, Your Grace, and yet I cannot quite believe such bad behavior.”

“Mrs. Perryworth, I assure you, I called as arranged to take Miss Goodham driving and was told by Lady Dacey that you had both gone off to visit your sister in Lincoln's Inn Fields. I was then somehow constrained to take Lady Dacey driving.”

Pamela shook her head in bewilderment. “Why did you not tell her this? Do you not see, Your Grace, she damns you as a heartless philanderer? Lady Dacey lied to us.”

He felt suddenly, ridiculously, lighthearted. “I will put matters right directly, Mrs. Perryworth. I thank you. I am cursed with a stubborn pride. Your arm, ma'am. Let us find Miss Goodham.”

They left the room together and began to mount the staircase just as Honoria appeared at the head of it. She had noticed Pamela's long absence, had become worried, and had just started to go in search of her. She stopped short at the sight of Pamela on the arm of the duke and would have turned on her heel had not Pamela called to her, “Stay, Honoria. His Grace has something to say to you.”

They came up to her. “I will talk further to you later, Mrs. Perryworth,” said the duke. “Miss Goodham, I wish to speak to you in private.” Pamela curtsied to him and released his arm. Honoria looked wide-eyed at Pamela, who gave a little nod. She looked up at the duke in a dazed way. He was smiling down at her. He held out his arm. In a dream she placed her fingertips on the silk sleeve of his coat as he led her back down the stairs. Some ladies were leaving the anteroom. She was only dimly conscious of their faces staring upward, of their high voices.

The footman who had ushered the duke and Pamela into the saloon off the hall now sprang to open the door again, giving a surreptitious wink to his colleagues as he did so. The Duke of Ware was living up to his reputation, particularly when he firmly shut the door this time on the watching footmen. He removed his mask and tucked it into his pocket.

“Honoria,” he said. “Why did you not ask me why I had not come to take you driving? I did come. But the intriguing Lady Dacey told me that you had left to visit Mrs. Perryworth's sister. I felt cut and snubbed.”

“But ... but Aunt Clarissa told me you had sent a messenger to say that you were too busy. Why did you not say anything to me?”

“Because I thought one kiss that had meant so much to me meant nothing to you.”

“How could you think that?” cried Honoria, shocked into bluntness. “It was a first kiss for me, but only one of a thousand for you.”

“But the only one that ever mattered.” He reached out and untied the strings of her mask. She blushed and looked down.

He took her face between his hands. “Will you marry me, Honoria?”

She raised her eyes to his and said simply, “Yes.”

He bent his mouth to hers and this time kissed her and kissed her again, each kiss hungrier than the last, each kiss making up for time wasted. At last she drew back a little and looked up at him anxiously. “Your mistress ... ?” she whispered.

“That is long over. There is no other woman for me now. I want you, Honoria. I want you completely.”

And that seemed not at all scandalous to Honoria, but a very right and proper statement, and so she wound her arms round his neck and buried her fingers in his hair and kissed him so passionately that he eventually put her away from him and began to talk rapidly and breathlessly of how soon he could get a special license.

Pamela had refused to dance. She was sitting with the other chaperons, her chair facing across the ballroom where she could command a view of the entrance through the shifting, turning dancers. And then just as a dance ended, she saw them. They were both masked again but they exuded happiness. She gave a choked little sigh of relief and then was overcome with such a sharp longing for Mr. Delaney that she nearly cried out.

The duke had no intention of waiting until the ball was over to ask Lady Dacey's permission to marry Honoria. Lady Dacey was delighted when he said he wanted a few words with her. She rolled her huge eyes in a languishing way at him as he led her out of the ballroom. The waiting footmen in the hall exchanged glances as the duke descended the stairs with yet another lady.

But this time he left the door open. “Lady Dacey,” he began, and then took a step backward, for she was almost leaning up against him, “I wish to pay my addresses to your niece. I wish to marry her.”

Lady Dacey stared at him, amazed. “You can't,” she said finally.

His brows snapped together. “Why not?”

“Honoria is promised to Lord Herne.”

“Does she know this?”

“N-no. I wrote to her parents and asked their permission.”

“Honoria wishes to marry me. I wish to marry her. That is all you need to know. You will tell Herne that his suit is no longer welcome.”

Lady Dacey bit her thumb in that nervous way she had when she was upset. She felt miserable. She felt sure the scheming Honoria had stolen this duke away from her. And Herne would be nasty. Still, what could he do, and what could she do? Honoria's parents would naturally prefer a duke for their daughter.

“Very well. I'll speak to Herne,” she said. She thought of that diamond, and sighed bitterly.

“I am most displeased with you,” said Lord Herne.

Lady Dacey gave a little shrug. “What else could I do? They both want each other. Surely you could see that.”

“I warned you. I make a bad enemy. But you can still do something for me. Tomorrow, I want you to send the servants away by four in the afternoon. You will also send Mrs. Perryworth off on some errand and you will drug Honoria and then leave her to me. I will have her first and if Ware wants my leavings, it is then up to him.”

“He will kill you!”

“I will be out of the country.”

“No, of course, I would not dream of doing such a dreadful thing. Why should I?”

“Because, my dear, if you do not, I shall expose you.”

“What are you talking about?” Lady Dacey's voice was shrill.

“I called one day when you were out. To pass the time until your return, I picked the lock of your desk and read your correspondence.” Lady Dacey turned a muddy color under her paint.

“Oh, yes. Everyone believes you and Dacey were man and wife, but that was not the case. You returned from Italy and put it about that you were wed there. So I was most interested to read a letter from an old servant in Italy who was dying and who appeared very fond of you, begging you to legalize your position. Old Dacey was senile when he died and really believed you were man and wife and so left everything to you. But I could have it all taken away from you.”

“I shall burn that letter!”

“Which you should have done a long time ago. But all I have to do is approach your peers and suggest an investigation. You would be asked for proof, for the name of who married you and where. The only way you can stop my mouth is doing what I ask.”

“But Ware will kill
me!
”

“He will think I drugged her. I shall return here at four o'clock. Let me in and make yourself scarce. Sleep on it. You will see it is the only way. I suggest you have her drugged by three in the afternoon. That way she will be ready for me.”

Pamela was surprised to be summoned by Lady Dacey as early as noon and given a list of shopping to do and told not to return until she had completed it ... surprised because Lady Dacey hardly ever rose until two in the afternoon and because, like most ladies, when not amusing herself by shopping, she sent her servants or summoned the tradespeople to the house.

She was further bewildered when told by one of the maids that Lady Dacey had ordered all servants to leave the house that afternoon and not to return until after dark. When she asked Lady Dacey about this, an unusually haggard Lady Dacey replied that “the poor things” deserved some time to themselves. This, thought Pamela, from a woman who never seemed to notice that her servants were human beings.

When she suggested that Honoria might accompany her on this prolonged shopping expedition, Lady Dacey turned pale and said in a low voice that she and Honoria would take the opportunity to discuss the wedding arrangements.

“What is wrong with her?” asked Pamela. “I know she is very upset because she thought for some reason that Ware wanted her.”

“But if she wishes to discuss wedding arrangements,” said Honoria, “then she certainly must have accepted the engagement. But how very odd!”

Honoria became more bewildered when she was finally seated with Lady Dacey over the tea tray in the drawing room that afternoon. Pamela and the servants had left and Lady Dacey herself had carried the tea things up from the kitchen. From time to time, someone hammered at the door, but Lady Dacey said, “We do not want to be troubled with callers.”

“But Ware will be calling,” protested Honoria. “That last caller might have been him!”

“Oh, you will be seeing him for the rest of your life.” Lady Dacey's large eyes shone with tears. “We will settle down and have tea and a comfortable coze.”

Honoria rose and went to the window. The day was dark and rainy. Rain drummed down on the cobbles but the square below was deserted except for a crossing sweeper at the corner and a closed carriage rattling over the cobbles. This she could see by cupping her hands on either side of her face, for the room behind her was brightly lit with many candles. And then as she stood back from the window, it became a mirror caused by the darkness of the day outside. She could see the room behind her reflected in the glass. Just before she turned round, she saw Lady Dacey take a little phial and empty the contents into the cup which had been set at her place.

Honoria's heart began to thud. The most sensible thing surely would be to confront her aunt and demand to know what she had poured into that cup. On the other hand, she had to know Lady Dacey's plan, for if this one was thwarted, there would be another attempt. She walked back and sat down.

“Now drink your tea while it is hot,” commanded Lady Dacey.

Honoria stared over her shoulder at the door and exclaimed, “What is that?”

Lady Dacey started up and looked around. Honoria quickly poured half the contents of her cup onto the thick carpet under the table. When her aunt said, “Nothing. Nobody there, you silly goose,” and turned back, Honoria was lowering a cup now half full of liquid from her lips as if she had already drunk it.

“Well, Aunt ... I mean, Clarissa ... I gather you wish to discuss wedding arrangements with me.”

“Indeed, yes, but I fear you have been roused too early, Honoria. You look so very tired. Would you not like to lie down for a little?”

Drugged, not poisoned, thought Honoria. Thank God for small mercies. She drooped her eyelids and said faintly, “I am indeed very tired. Perhap if you will excuse me...”

“Let me help you.” Lady Dacey stood up at the same time as Honoria and put an arm about her waist. Despite her worry and fear, Honoria could not help wishing, and not for the first time either, that her aunt would try bathing instead of dowsing her body with scent instead. But she suffered herself to be led to her bedroom. “I will just lie on the top of the bed,” she said faintly. She lay back and closed her eyes. Honoria suddenly felt she knew why her aunt was doing this and began to feel amused. She felt she knew the reason for the dismissal of the servants, although why her aunt had not thought to send her away with Pamela was a puzzle. Of course it must be that Lady Dacey was about to receive a lover.

Her aunt's initial feeling of relief was short lived. On a table beside Honoria's bed was Lady Dacey's own Bible, a great brassbound tome that Honoria had borrowed. Lady Dacey looked from Honoria's beautiful face to the Bible and back again. She drew up a chair beside the bed and waited.