The Wedding Game (10 page)

The orchestra struck up the opening chords and he leaned back against the wall, arms folded, and settled into the music.

Chastity, in a prime seat, nibbled the sugared almonds supplied by her host. She was feeling much more relaxed, warmed by a bowl of rich onion soup and cheered by the bubbles of a vintage champagne. The music was sublime and she had completely recovered from her strange mood of earlier by the time the violinist drew his bow across his instrument in finale and the musical chords faded into the grand expanse of the Hall. The applause was, as always, conventionally discreet but nonetheless heartfelt. The musicians took their bows and left the stage.

“That was wonderful,” Chastity said. “Thank you so much, Roddie.”

“My pleasure, my pleasure,” he said, beaming. “Not really my thing, though, this concert business. Prefer a good old singsong m'self, but a bit of culture never did any harm, did it?”

“Oh, Roddie, you're a lost cause,” she said, laughing. “You're not nearly the Philistine you pretend to be.” They slid out of the row, exchanging comments with the rest of the party. In the lobby, the women made their way to the cloakroom to refresh themselves and retrieve their cloaks. When they returned, Chastity gazed dumbstruck at the sight of Douglas Farrell chatting casually with Roddie and the men of his party.

“Wonderful musician, Toselli, don't you think, Miss Duncan?” Douglas commented as she came up. “A real privilege to have heard him.”

“Yes,” she said faintly.
Was he stalking her?
It was an absurd idea and she dismissed it on the instant. “What a coincidence,” she said. “You being at the Albert Hall tonight. Perhaps you thought to find your missing card case here?”

His eyes sharpened. There was no mistaking the sardonic edge to her voice, or the challenge in the hazel eyes. Mind you, he could hardly blame her, there
was
something more than a little suspicious about his repeated appearances this evening. He didn't fully understand it himself. He managed a bland smile. “I hardly think so, Miss Duncan. And I hardly think it's that much of a coincidence. Toselli is only playing for this one night. What lover of his playing would miss the opportunity to hear him?”

“And you are a music lover, of course.”

“A passionate one.”

“Ah.” She turned aside as if to dismiss him and said to one of her companions, a young lady sporting a diamond tiara, “Did you notice the gown Elizabeth Armitage was wearing, Elinor? Definitely Worth, don't you think?”

“Oh, definitely.”

“Say, Farrell, why don't you join us? We're just going on to the Piazza for supper. Plenty of room for another.” Roddie issued the invitation with customary good nature, and Chastity ground her teeth. It was not an invitation for her to rescind. She kept her shoulder resolutely turned to Douglas and heard him accept the invitation.

“Why, that's very kind of you. I should be delighted.”

“New to London, are you?” Roddie asked as they moved towards the open doors to the street. “Haven't seen you around.”

Douglas lowered his head to be more on a level with his companion as he answered him. Chastity heard strands of their conversation as it drifted back.
Edinburgh . . . doctor . . . Harley Street . . .

“He's a welcome addition to the scene,” Polly confided in an undertone as they stepped into Roddie's barouche. “Oh, Roddie, there's no room for you in here,” she cried as he attempted to follow them in. “Elinor is coming with us, aren't you, dear?”

“I suppose you want to gossip.” Roddie stepped back with a resigned bow and handed the third lady into his carriage. “We'll follow in a hackney.”

“So, tell us about this doctor, Chas. Where did you meet him?” Polly leaned forward across the narrow space that separated them as the carriage started forward.

“Oh, he came to the At Home this afternoon. He was looking for someone . . . I can't quite remember who,” Chastity said vaguely. “I don't know anything about him, except that he's new to London and he's starting a medical practice.”

“Oh, well, I shall definitely go to him,” Elinor declared. “Large men seem to inspire such confidence.” She dabbed at her cheeks with a
papier poudre
. “Anyone else need a touch-up?” She offered her companions the tiny book of paper impregnated with peach-colored face powder.

Chastity shook her head, though Polly availed herself of the offer. Chastity was still feeling somewhat stunned, as if she were caught up in a whirlwind. Was it more than coincidence that had brought Douglas Farrell to the Albert Hall that night, so soon after accosting her at home on an excuse that quite frankly had sounded trumped-up? Why wasn't he calling upon Laura Della Luca as he was supposed to be doing? Just what was going on? He certainly wasn't supposed to be forming part of
this
supper party. It was thoroughly disconcerting.

It was just as disconcerting to find herself sitting next to him at the round supper table in the noisy mirrored restaurant on Covent Garden's Piazza. One minute she had been about to sit between Roddie and Elinor's brother and the next she had Douglas Farrell adroitly displacing Roddie and sliding in on her left.

“This is a cheerful place,” he said, shaking out his napkin.

“Yes, it specializes in serving the kind of food the costermongers in the market would eat,” she said. “Good Cockney fare.”

“Appropriate enough for my first opportunity to sample London's nightlife,” he observed.

“You've been too busy starting up your practice to go out and about much, I daresay,” she responded, accepting that the rules of etiquette now required her to engage her neighbor in small talk. “How does one go about doing that, exactly?”

She took a sip of water as her eyes roamed over the menu. She was actually interested in his response. As the Go-Between, she knew rather more of his plans than he would ever acknowledge, so it was at least amusing to see what web of fantasy he had spun for social use.

“I have some contacts from my father,” he replied. “And, of course, some referrals from my previous patients in Edinburgh. It's a beginning. What are you going to eat? Do you recommend anything special?”

“The roast chicken is good,” she said. She leaned forward around her other neighbor. “Excuse me, Peter. Roddie, was it the jugged hare that was so good last time we were here?”

A lively discussion ensued as to the relative merits of jugged hare or the
jarret de veau.
No one mentioned the merits of the roast chicken, Douglas noted. When Chastity sat back, he murmured, “Roast chicken seems somewhat pedestrian under the circumstances.”

“That rather depends on your viewpoint. My brother-in-law, who is an excellent chef and an unashamed gourmand, always eats it here. He says it's the Platonic ideal of roast chicken—a perfect bird, perfectly cooked.”

“Is that Lady Malvern's husband, or Mrs. Ensor's?”

“Prudence's husband. Sir Gideon Malvern.” Chastity broke her roll and buttered a piece lavishly.

“Ah. The barrister.”

“Yes,” she agreed, then turned to the sommelier, who on Roddie's instructions was offering a choice of wine. “I'll have the red, please. I'm going to have the
jarret de veau.
”

Douglas took a glass of the same. He was trying to remember where he'd heard the barrister's name before. Then it came to him. He snapped his fingers. “Wasn't Sir Gideon the barrister who defended
The Mayfair Lady
? Didn't he defend it in that libel suit?”

“Yes,” Chastity agreed airily. “And a very fine job he did of it too.”

Douglas ran the tip of his finger around the lip of his glass. “Forgive me, but wasn't your father involved in some way?” He gave her an apologetic smile. “I read about it in the papers.”

“I'm amazed the story reached the Scottish newspapers,” she said. “But, yes, my father was a witness for the broadsheet. It was one of the main reasons why Gideon took on the case . . . family, you understand.” The lie was smooth as Jersey cream. It had been perfected in the weeks since the case had concluded, the story being that Gideon and Prudence had been secretly engaged at the time of the libel suit, and when Lord Duncan's possible involvement had come up, the prospective son-in-law had naturally enough stepped into the breach.

“Families have their uses,” Douglas said with a somewhat ironic smile.

“Yes, they do. Did you just say that your father had medical connections in London?” The ironic smile puzzled her.

“Yes, he was a prominent physician in Edinburgh. I followed in his footsteps, although he died when I was very young. His partners in the practice took me under their wing.” The smile didn't waver. “I've found that the name of Sir Malcolm Farrell can open quite a few doors for his son.”

“You sound as if you disapprove.”

He shrugged. “I believe a person should succeed on his own merits, so it rather goes against the grain to capitalize on my father's reputation. But needs must.” He returned to his menu with an air that clearly indicated the subject was closed.

Now, just how did succeeding on one's own merits jibe with marrying for money, Chastity wondered. That was certainly ironic.

“What do you recommend to start . . . or should I ask, what would your brother-in-law recommend?” Douglas asked, breaking into her thoughts.

“Oxtail soup,” she said promptly. She saw his look. “Oh, don't you like oxtail?”

Douglas's abused taste buds were reliving his landlady's braised oxtail that had appeared on the supper table a few nights back. It had been barely edible. “Not greatly,” he said.

“Jellied eels?” she suggested. “They're a house speciality.”

“Are you serious?” He turned to look at her and saw a dimple twitch at the corner of her mouth. “You're not,” he said flatly.

“But they're very authentic,” she protested. “Straight from Billingsgate. They're a Cockney delicacy, you must know that.”

“I don't happen to be a Cockney,” he said dryly, taking a sip of wine. “I think I'll stick to the kipper pâté. Kippers I understand.”

“Don't they come from the Orkneys?”

“Among other places.”

“It seems rather feeble to eat only what you're used to,” she said. “I'd have thought you'd want to assimilate yourself to your new environment.”

“Very well,” he said, closing his menu. “Jellied eels it shall be, Miss Duncan, on condition that you eat them with me.”

Hung by her own petard,
Chastity acknowledged ruefully. But there was something in his tone that made it impossible for her to refuse the challenge. “A deal, Dr. Farrell.”

“A deal.” He offered his hand and she shook it, once again oddly fascinated by the way her own disappeared so completely within his.

“What are you two settling?” Roddie called from across the table.

“The issue of jellied eels,” Douglas returned. “Miss Duncan has challenged me to sample a local delicacy. I've challenged her to sample it with me.”

There was applause at this. The wine was circulating freely and in the noisy informality of the restaurant the usual strict rules of dining etiquette had gone by the board.

“Five guineas on Chastity,” someone said. “She'll eat every last mouthful.”

“Oh, I don't think so,” someone else said, sizing up Dr. Farrell. “I think the good doctor here can see off a plate of jellied eels without even noticing. Six guineas on Farrell.”

It went on, the bets mounting until the plates of jellied eels were served to the contestants. Chastity surveyed the pale shivering length on her plate and controlled a shudder. She glanced sideways at Douglas, who was regarding his own plate with all the resolve of Caesar about to cross the Rubicon. All eyes were on them, even those from other tables who had been drawn into the bidding. Waiters seemed to appear from nowhere, drawing closer to their table in their long white aprons, flipping dishcloths at tables that needed no cleaning, rearranging cruet sets and place settings.

“Oh, well,” Chastity said, “they are a local delicacy for those whose budget doesn't run to
jarret de veau.
Who are we to despise what others enjoy?” She stuck her fork in the quivering fish.

Douglas, for a moment struck by the matter-of-fact comment that he would never have expected from such a creature of privilege as the Honorable Chastity Duncan, hesitated, then plunged in his own fork. They ate stolidly, stoically, fork after fork. Chastity concentrated on swallowing. She made no attempt to chew, merely gulped and forked, and gulped and forked. Every now and again she glanced sideways at her neighbor's plate. He seemed to be following exactly the same technique, but his mouth was bigger, so the contents of the plate diminished rather more rapidly than did hers. When he set down his fork in triumph, she still had at least three forkfuls to go.

Chastity did not look up. She cut, forked, swallowed. Cut, forked, closed her eyes, and swallowed, and with her eyes still tight shut, dealt with the last mouthful, then reached for her wineglass and drained it amid the laughing applause.

“A draw,” Roddie, who'd been keeping the book, announced. “There were no bets on who would finish first.”

“Considering how much smaller Chas is, she should have had a handicap,” someone observed judiciously.

“Not established beforehand,” Roddie said briskly. “I declare a draw.”

“How are you feeling?” Douglas asked softly, seeing that Chastity's eyes were still closed.

“What do you prescribe for nausea, Doctor?” she murmured, reaching blindly for her refilled wineglass.

“Wine,” he said cheerfully, following suit with his own. “In truth, they weren't that disgusting. It was the texture, not the taste.”

“As my brother-in-law will tell you, the two are inseparable,” Chastity returned with a mock groan. “Oh, pass me another roll,
please.
”

Douglas reached for a roll in the basket in front of him, broke it, buttered a piece generously, and laid it on her plate. “That should take the taste away.” He proceeded to butter the rest of the bread, his long fingers performing the task with the delicacy that had surprised her before.

Chastity blinked at the offering on her plate. She would have expected such an intimate gesture from a friend, Roddie, for instance, but Douglas Farrell was a stranger. But he was so matter-of-fact about it . . . obviously didn't think twice about it. Maybe as a doctor he was merely prescribing the correct medicine. With a mental shrug, she ate the bread.