The Sins of Lady Dacey (9 page)

He had knocked at her door. It had given under his knock. “Mrs. Watkins!” he called. He was used to walking in and out of the houses of his parishioners, for doors were hardly ever locked. He entered.

He found himself in a pretty parlor, but stopped short at the sight of Mrs. Watkins herself, lying on a sofa near the window, asleep. Her black hair was loose and cascading about her white shoulders, which were revealed by a low-cut nightgown, all she was wearing. One leg was slightly raised with the thin material falling back from it.

He blushed and backed out, quietly closing the door behind him. But that vision of her stayed in his mind, burned into his memory. He felt his senses quickening when he thought of her in a way he knew he should not.

It was all his wife's fault, he thought angrily. Her letters were dull and correct with no particular news and no words of affection.

His eyes strayed back again to that fetching bonnet. At that moment, Mrs. Watkins raised her head and gave him a slow, warm smile. He turned his eyes away again, but felt a glow of exultation that had nothing to do with religion.

She was in a very bad temper indeed and illogically blamed Honoria for having tricked her into going abroad. Only the thought of Honoria as she had last seen her, young and schoolgirlish, served to mollify her. Along with that came the thought that she had invited Honoria to London to use as bait. To have a young miss to bring out meant the company of eligible men. Lady Dacey planned to marry again and as soon as possible.

She arrived in the evening and was told that the ladies were at the opera with the Duke of Ware and Mr. Delaney. The news made her bite her lip in a returning excess of fury.

She decided to wait up for them, tired as she was. After half an hour, she began to fret at the inaction and therefore resolved to change and visit the duke's box at the opera herself. Dressed in a new Parisian gown of violet silk and decked out in some of her finest jewels and with a feathered headdress, she set out.

Honoria was watching the opera, hands clasped, eyes shining, and the duke was watching Honoria. He was at times amused and at times irritated with the indifference with which she treated him. Little Miss Goodham, he thought wryly, was only using him while she looked about for someone younger and more interesting. There was one good thing. Although Archie Buchan still tried to court her, Honoria was barely civil to him. He knew she was contemptuous of a young man who was prepared to court only at his mother's bidding.

He studied Honoria's face and wondered idly if he could make her fall in love with him. The trouble was, he had never had to try to be particularly charming or civil to any female in his life before. His title and fortune had seen to that. Still, he might flirt with her a little to see how she coped with it.

He thought he would begin at the first interval by pressing her hand warmly as he led her from the box for the promenade in the corridor outside.

Mr. Delaney and Pamela were sitting quietly, side by side. Although they were several inches apart, it was as if they were joined together, as if the one were thinking so intensely of the other that no one and nothing else mattered.

Mr. Delaney was privately chafing at the bonds of friendship. He had been all that was correct, but he dreamed increasingly of what her lips had felt like under his own. He longed to reach out and take her hand. He was conscious at all times of every part of her body. A light-hearted love was sinking into a deep obsession, so that he felt as if he were tumbling down into a bottomless well of love with nothing to hold on to to stop him. He sometimes imagined what it would be like if he rode north and challenged the vicar to a duel.

And then just as the curtain descended at the first interval, the door to the box was flung open by an usher and Lady Dacey sailed in on a cloud of powerful scent.

“Aunt!” cried Honoria. Lady Dacey kissed her on the cheek and muttered, “
Don't call me that!
” before standing back to better survey her niece.

Her china blue eyes narrowed slightly as she took in the glory of that new crop, of the fresh and untouched beauty of that face, of the exquisite lines of a white muslin gown embroidered with rosebuds.

“I am glad you are returned, Clarissa,” said Pamela quietly. “We were beginning to wonder if we would see you again.”

Lady Dacey ignored her and held out her hand to the duke. “How do you do, Ware. Devastatingly handsome as ever.”

“And you are as beautiful as ever,” he said with automatic gallantry and kissed her hand.

“Naughty man!” She rapped him playfully with her fan. “Do move over, Honoria, and let me sit next to Ware. I have not seen him this age.”

Honoria obediently took a chair on the far side of the box. Lady Dacey turned the chair on which Honoria had been sitting and sat down so that she was facing the duke while her back was to the rest of them.

Lady Dacey talked and flirted and told all the gossip of Paris. When the duke tried to glance past her to see what Honoria was doing, Lady Dacey had a way of quickly moving her head so that his view of the girl was blocked. At first he felt frustrated. Then he began to wonder if young Honoria could be made to feel jealous. So he capped Lady Dacey's outrageous stories with a few of his own.

But when the opera began again, Lady Dacey talked on and he could sense Honoria's irritation. He knew she was unfashionable enough to like to listen to the music and that by continuing to entertain her aunt, he was falling rapidly in her esteem.

By the end of the opera, Lady Dacey was almost purring like a cat. Honoria had fulfilled her role by bringing this wicked and handsome duke into Lady Dacey's own orbit.

Her delight intensified when the duke took her up to dance first at the opera ball. Honoria, whose reputation as heiress was already established, was immediately surrounded by courtiers.

“Let us sit and watch the dancers,” Mr. Delaney urged Pamela. “Yes, I know you are popular, too, but just for once say you are feeling faint.”

Pamela would normally have protested that such behavior was neither correct nor fitting in a chaperon, but her feelings were thrown in a turmoil by the return of Lady Dacey and by the fact that the duke seemed to have forgotten Honoria's very existence. Pamela felt a pang of regret. She had begun to warm to the duke because of his kindness, his humor, and his courtesy. She had even begun to believe that his wicked days were over and that perhaps he might make Honoria a good husband.

But now she had only to look at the duke flirting expertly with the outrageous Lady Dacey to guess that he deserved every bit of his reputation, and so she refused her first partner and therefore was left free to sit quietly in a corner with Mr. Delaney.

“Faith, this changes things,” said Mr. Delaney, nodding in the direction of the duke and Lady Dacey. “I can only hope your young friend is heartfree.”

“I am sure she is,” replied Pamela.

But Honoria found she was disturbed by the return of her aunt. The short time she had spent with the duke, Mr. Delaney, and Pamela had kept her protected and innocent of the darker side of society. Lady Dacey and the duke seemed to share a world of wicked experience that she did not know and did not want to know. She realized with a little shock that she was once more under authority—that marriage was her duty. With a new ease she had acquired since she first came to London, however, she chatted to her partners and tried to block the duke from her mind. When she eventually found him standing before her asking for a dance, she blinked at him as if trying to bring him into focus.

“A waltz,” he said, smoothly guiding her steps. “We should always dance the waltz together, you and I. Our steps match so well. Are you enjoying yourself?”

“Yes, Your Grace. I am delighted you have found a soul mate.”

He held her hand more tightly and smiled down at her. “I am glad you have noticed it.”

“I think all must notice how well you and my aunt get along together.”

For one moment, his eyes darkened with anger and his clasp on her hand loosened. Then he gave a light laugh and said, “Lady Dacey is certainly amusing.”

He looked across the ballroom. Lady Dacey was not dancing. She was talking to Lord Herne, not in her usual flirtatious way, but intently, seriously. He thought with a stab of alarm that it looked like a business meeting and hoped Honoria was not the trade they were dealing in. But then, what was this innocent girl to him? It had amused him, surely nothing else, to take her about. Now that Lady Dacey had returned, there was no need for him to do more. He could return to his own life.

When they promenaded after the waltz was over, Honoria found she was waiting for him to make some arrangement to see her again. He usually suggested something—a call, a drive in the park, a night at the opera—but as her next partner approached, he merely bowed and turned on his heel, leaving her feeling strangely flat.

She tried not to watch him, tried not to notice that he asked Lady Dacey for a second dance, or that this time, whatever he was saying to Lady Dacey was putting her in a bad mood. After that dance with Lady Dacey, she saw him stopping to exchange a few words with Pamela and Mr. Delaney, and then he left the ballroom.

He had served his purpose, she told herself firmly, trying to feel worldly-wise. He had done his best to bring her into fashion. But after she curtsied to her partner, she saw Lady Dacey approaching with Lord Herne and felt that as the duke had warned her against this man, he should have stayed to protect her.

“I am delighted you have already made the acquaintance of my good friend, Lord Herne,” said Lady Dacey. “Herne begs a dance with you.”

Honoria stifled a sigh and curtsied. All these curtsies, bobbing up and down all evening when all she wanted to do was go home.

It was another waltz. So much for the fickle duke saying they should always waltz together. Lord Herne danced very well. She glanced up at him fleetingly. She supposed he could be accounted handsome, although his brooding, rather reptilian stare was a trifle unnerving.

After this dance, supper was served and Lord Herne escorted her to the supper room and sat beside her. “Are you enjoying your first Season?” he asked.

“Yes, very much,” replied Honoria politely.

“It will be your first and your last.”

“Why so?”

“With your beauty, you will be engaged to be married by the end of it ... or perhaps before it has begun.”

“You flatter me, my lord.”

He took a little painted chicken-skin fan out of his pocket and waved it languidly in the air. “Not I. You have beauty to break hearts. You are fortunate to have such a sterling lady as Lady Dacey to bring you out.”

“Lady Dacey is all that is kind.”

“Lady Dacey has your best interests at heart. Perhaps she has not yet warned you about Ware.”

“There is nothing to warn me about. His Grace was merely being kind to someone considerably younger than he,” said Honoria with rare malice, judging Lord Herne to be about the same age as the duke.

“Ware is never kind. He pursues women and then leaves them. Ah, his poor mistress, cruelly abandoned.”

“I am sure his lawyers arranged an adequate settlement,” snapped Honoria. “Such is usually the case, although I am sure you have more knowledge of such matters than I.”

“My dear Miss Goodham, allow me to be your guide. One does not mention such subjects in polite society.”

“Then in future, my lord, I suggest you do not bring them into the conversation.”

“We must not quarrel.” His odd eyes caressed her body in a way she did not like. “I shall call on you tomorrow.”

“I regret, my lord, that I believe I have several calls to make.”

“On the contrary, Lady Dacey herself invited me and gave me permission to take you driving in the park.”

Honoria looked around for Pamela. She felt threatened. Her life was being organized for her. From now on, she would meet only the gentlemen Lady Dacey allowed her to meet. She would probably never see the duke again.

Fortunately for her, Lady Dacey discovered how tired she really was from her journey shortly after the duke left, and so she appeared to tell Honoria they were returning home.

Pamela was as silent as Honoria on the road back to Hanover Square. She felt a great weight of guilt somewhere in the pit of her stomach. She was letting herself fall more deeply in love every day. And yet she found it in her heart to be concerned for Honoria. It was almost as if the pair of them had been plunged back into their old life of thralldom overnight. While they had been waiting at the opera for Lady Dacey's carriage to be brought round, Honoria had protested that she did not really want to go driving on the following day with Lord Herne, to which Lady Dacey had replied calmly, “You will do as you are told.”

When they entered the house, Lady Dacey said to Pamela, “I would have a word with you in private. Go to bed, Honoria.”

In the Green Saloon, Lady Dacey said briskly, “Delaney is in love with you and you are encouraging him.”

Pamela looked at the floor and said in a stifled voice, “I am sorry if that is the way it appears. Mr. Delaney is a good friend and...”

“Good friend, fiddlesticks. Harken to me, Pamela. You have done well in my absence. You have attired young Honoria in style, although I thought her braids were pretty. Never mind. Herne is interested in her and would make her a good husband.”

“Never!”

Lady Dacey's voice was like silk. “You will help me to secure Herne for Honoria or I will write to that husband of yours and suggest he travel south to see how you go on with Sean Delaney.”

“That will not be necessary,” said Pamela with cold contempt. “For I shall not be seeing Mr. Delaney again, so you may not use that as a weapon.”