The Wedding Game (11 page)

He seemed to be sitting very close to her. She hadn't noticed his proximity before—the tables were all cramped and everyone sat cheek by jowl—but now, eating the bread newly delivered from those large hands, she became powerfully aware of his body. She remembered how Constance had commented on the man's sheer physical presence.

His forearm rested on the table and when he reached for his wineglass she noticed how the muscles of his upper arm pressed against the silky material of his coat. She glanced covertly at his profile. The long thin jaw gave his cheeks a hollowed-out, sculptured appearance, the whole dominated by the nose with its prominent bump on the bridge. Definitely a Roman nose, she thought. He had what she and her sisters had always referred to as a brainy brow, very broad, his hair springing back strongly from a pronounced widow's peak. There was, she thought, a certain ascetism to his uneven features that somehow didn't sit right with the force of his physical presence.

She dropped her eyes hastily when he turned suddenly towards her, a slightly quizzical look in his eye. The waiter's appearance to remove the empty plates was a welcome diversion. “Thank God for that,” she murmured as the residue of eels was removed. She took another buttered bite of crusty roll and waited for the fishy taste and slimy feel on her tongue to go away, hoping all the while that he had not noticed her inspection.

“I'm in the mood for dancing,” Elinor announced. “Who's for going on afterwards?”

“The Marrakech?” asked Roddie.

“Either there or Cleopatra's.”

There was a lively discussion as to the differing merits of the two dance clubs as the main courses were served. Chastity took no part in the debate. She had no wish to go dancing tonight but if the whole group was in favor it was going to be difficult to extricate herself. Roddie, having invited her this evening, would feel obliged to take her home.

“Your brother-in-law was right about the chicken,” Douglas commented, looking up from his platter of golden brown chicken and roast potatoes. “I don't think I've tasted anything as good as this since my childhood Christmases.”

“Did you have chicken for Christmas? We always have goose,” Chastity said. This was as safe and inane a topic of conversation as she could wish for.

“Chicken at Christmas, haggis at New Year,” he said.

“Are you going home to Edinburgh this year?” she asked without much interest in the answer as she took a forkful of mashed potatoes.

He shook his head. “No, I'd have to go for at least two weeks to make the journey worthwhile and I have too much to do here.”

“Oh. Work, you mean?”

“Work . . . and setting up house.” He speared a baby turnip.

“Where are you living, Farrell?” Roddie asked, catching the end of this conversation.

“Wimpole Street,” Douglas said. “Convenient for Harley Street.”

“Oh, did you buy a house?” Elinor inquired. “Those Wimpole Street houses are magnificent.”

“Actually, I've taken a lease on a flat for the time being,” Douglas said. “It comes furnished and complete with a cook/housekeeper. Ideal for a working bachelor.” He laughed lightly.

“Then setting up house can hardly be a major chore,” Chastity observed somewhat tartly, leaning back for the waiter to refill her glass. “Not major enough to keep you away from your family at Christmastime, surely.”

He looked at her and said with a hint of mockery at her sharp comment, “You don't let anything slip by, do you, Miss Duncan?”

Chastity had the grace to blush, even as Roddie said with a chuckle, “Oh, Chastity's quite benign when compared with her sisters. Can't make a careless remark around them without being called on it.”

“We take after our mother,” Chastity offered with an apologetic smile. “We were taught that accuracy is vital. One should only say exactly what one means.”

“She sounds like a formidable woman,” Douglas said.

“She was,” Chastity agreed. “She died a few years ago.”

“I'm sorry,” he said, and his hand fleetingly brushed over hers where it rested on the table. There was so much natural empathy in the quiet, simple statement, in the light warmth of his fingers, that Chastity was oddly comforted. She began to wonder if her earlier negative assessment of Dr. Farrell's bedside manner had been rather harsh.

He was explaining his situation cheerfully now to the table at large. “I'm not entirely happy with my landlord's choice of furnishings. And I have some things of my own that require arranging. Books, for the most part. I am very particular about categorizing my library. It's likely to take me at least a week.”

“That must be some library,” said Elinor's brother with undisguised awe. “It takes me a year to read one book.”

“That, Peter, my boy, is because you have the concentration of a gnat,” Roddie said to general amusement. “Have we decided where we're going afterwards?”

“I get the impression you're not too keen on continuing the evening,” Douglas said softly under cover of the renewed debate.

“Why? I haven't said anything,” she responded with a frown.

“Exactly.” He sat back as the table was cleared.

“Chas? What's it to be? Cleopatra's or the Marrakech?” Roddie asked.

“To tell you the truth, I'm rather tired,” she said. “It's been a lovely evening, but would you mind terribly, Roddie, if I took a hackney home?”

“No, no, you can't do that,” he protested. “I'll see you home. Of course I will.”

“It's not necessary, Roddie.”

“Indeed it is.” And in Viscount Brigham's book it was. He had collected his guest from her house and he would return her from whence she came.

“If Miss Duncan is agreeable, I would be happy to see her home,” Douglas said, twirling the stem of his wineglass between his fingers. “I'm not much of a one for dancing myself.”

“What, no Gay Gordons, Dr. Farrell?” Elinor said. “No Eightsome Reels?”

He smiled. “Scottish reels, Lady Elinor, are in a rather different category. At those I excel. But I'm rather assuming they won't be on the dance program at the clubs tonight.”

“True enough,” Elinor conceded. “Do you wear a kilt when you dance reels, Douglas? I may call you Douglas?”

“I hope you will,” he said. “And yes, I wear a kilt on the appropriate occasions.”

Chastity reflected that Douglas Farrell was a master at putting paid to a conversation he didn't care for. He was never rude exactly, just very definite and to the point. He had turned back to her now and was saying pleasantly, “Would you give me the pleasure of seeing you home, Miss Duncan?”

And what could she say? Wimpole Street was but a half mile from Manchester Square. To refuse such a convenient escort would be bewilderingly discourteous to everyone but herself, and would require Roddie to miss his dancing. Chastity smiled and murmured her thanks.

Chapter 6

T
he party stood outside amid the swirling detritus of Covent Garden market. Roddie was efficiently summoning hackney cabs to take those would-be dancers who couldn't fit into his own carriage on to the Marrakech. He turned to Chastity and Douglas. “We're dividing the supper bill among us, Farrell. If you give me your card, I'll send you a note when I've worked out your share of the damage,” he said easily.

“Dr. Farrell has mislaid his card case,” Chastity said with a sweet smile, shooting him a rather pointed sidelong glance.

“Nevertheless, I do have a couple on me,” Douglas said with a smile as smooth as her own. He reached into his pocket and took out a billfold from which he extracted a business card. “Both addresses are on there.”

He handed the card to the viscount, who took it with a nod and offered his own in exchange. This led to a flurry of card exchanges between Douglas and the rest of the party.

“Are you sure you won't come and dance?” Roddie asked Chastity rather mournfully as this was going on. “I was looking forward to a quickstep with you.”

“I'm sorry, Roddie, but I'm really tired,” she said. “I've also got all those jellied eels swishing around inside me.”

“What a revolting image,” he said.

“It was a revolting experience,” she returned with a laugh. “But other than that, it was a lovely evening. Thank you.”

“Yes, and I thank you for including me,” Douglas said, extending his hand. “A delightful introduction to London.”

“Oh, my pleasure, dear fellow, my pleasure,” Roddie declared, reaching up to clap the other man on the shoulder. “Tell me, if it's not an impertinence, did you get that nose in the ring?”

Douglas shook his head. “I could have quite easily since I was a heavyweight at school and went a good many rounds in my time, but it was actually on the rugby field.”

“That is such a violent game,” Polly said with a ladylike shudder.

“It has its moments,” Douglas agreed, touching the bump on his nose reflectively.

“Oh, women don't understand the character-building value of sports,” Elinor's brother said with a scornfully dismissive gesture. “If it's not a gentle pat-ball over a tennis net, they want nothing to do with it.”

“That's not true,” Chastity said. “Women play cricket and hockey, as well as tennis. They bicycle, they play golf and go mountain walking.”

“But not what one might call contact sports,” Douglas observed.

“If by that you mean we choose not to engage in physical wrestling with our opponents, then I suppose you have a point,” Chastity responded. “But breaking limbs, not to mention heads and noses, strikes me as a thoroughly unintelligent way to win anything.”

“A lost cause, I told you, Farrell,” Elinor's brother said, shaking his head. Douglas merely smiled his agreement, deciding that the subject was best dropped. The Honorable Miss Duncan didn't pull any punches when it came to verbal sparring, whatever her opinion of physical sport.

The group piled into their various conveyances amid a chorus of good nights, leaving Douglas and Chastity still on the street.

Douglas looked around for a free hackney. “I think Brigham took them all,” he commented.

“It's a busy time of night for hackneys,” Chastity pointed out, turning up the collar of her evening cloak.

“There's one.” Douglas put his fingers to his lips and emitted a piercing whistle that would not have shamed a barrow boy. The hackney was going the wrong way but at the whistle the cabbie turned his horses.

“Oh, well done,” Chastity approved. “That was some whistle. You must show me how you do it. If he'd got to the far corner we would have lost him. There's a whole crowd waiting over there.”

Douglas opened the carriage door for her. “Allow me,” he said, taking her lightly by the waist and lifting her into the interior before climbing in after her, slamming the door shut.

Chastity regarded him with a dangerous glint in her eye. “Clearly you belong to that group of men who believe that women find something charming about being made to feel like china dolls. I have to tell you, Dr. Farrell, that that is a thoroughly mistaken assumption. Women do not, in general, appreciate being scooped up willy-nilly by giants.”

He looked surprised. “My sisters have never objected.”

“Surely you can see the difference between family and complete strangers,” Chastity demanded.

“Not complete strangers,” he protested mildly. “We've eaten jellied eels together.”

Chastity turned her head towards the window so that he wouldn't see the flickering smile she couldn't prevent.

After a minute he said in his usual tone, “When did Brigham settle that supper bill? I didn't see a piece of paper change hands.”

“Roddie has an account there,” she replied. “He has them all over town. He never carries money . . . he considers it vulgar. Probably because he has so much of it, he never has to give it a second thought.”

“How fortunate,” he said with an unmistakable touch of acid.

Chastity's eyes narrowed. She would not have this man criticizing her friends, however implicitly. She said with deliberate insult, “I'm sure, if you have difficulty paying your share, he would understand.”

He sat up abruptly. “What are you implying?”

That if you're looking for a rich wife, one has to presume you need money to maintain your lifestyle.

“Nothing at all,” she said. “What could I be implying?”

“I have no idea, that's why I'm asking.” His voice was rather quiet and had a note that Chastity didn't like one bit. She was beginning to feel that she'd stepped into a rather hazardous quagmire.

“I wasn't implying anything,” she said, aware of the inadequacy of the denial. She was going to have to watch her step around Douglas Farrell. She'd allowed her secretly formed adverse judgment of him to spill over, and that would never do. “I'm sorry if I offended you,” she said. “I didn't mean to. I only thought that it must be an expensive business setting up a Harley Street practice.”

Now, deny that,
she thought. It was exactly what he'd said to the Go-Between.

“Certainly it is,” he agreed readily. “But I don't believe, Miss Duncan, that I've ever given you any intimate information about the state of my finances.”

“No,” she said, lowering her eyes to her lap.
Not as far as you know, Dr. Farrell.
“I spoke out of turn,” she said quickly. “But you annoyed me by criticizing my friends.”

There was a short, loaded silence, then he said, “I apologize if I gave that impression.” He leaned across the narrow space dividing them and laid a hand over hers. “Can we put this behind us, Chastity?”

She could feel the warmth and strength of his hand through her thin kid gloves. It was oddly unsettling but for some reason she made no attempt to withdraw her hand. She offered a tentative smile in answer to his question and he simply nodded, leaving his hand where it was as they sat in a silence that was both companionable and slightly confused until the carriage drew up outside the Duncan residence. Douglas jumped down and extended his hand to help Chastity alight. There was no overt familiarity this time, but his hand gripped hers firmly until she was on solid ground, when he released it almost reluctantly.

“Good night, Chastity.” He gave her a half bow.

“Good night, Douglas. Thank you for bringing me home,” she responded, and hastened up the steps to the front door.

Douglas waited until she had disappeared inside, then paid the hackney and sent him on his way. It was only a short walk to Wimpole Street and he could do with the air, cold though it was. He was puzzled and he needed to clear his head.

What had Chastity been getting at with that dig about his financial state?
There had been something underlying her insult. He could accept that she'd been responding to a perceived criticism of her friends, but he still didn't understand why she'd said what she'd said. He'd certainly not given the impression of being short of money. At least he didn't think he had. There was nothing in his appearance, in his garments, in his manner, to indicate that he was not a gentleman of respectable means. In truth, he was, or would be if all his spare funds weren't swallowed in the great maw that was his slum practice.

Harley Street would redress the balance, once he could get it up and running. But to do that quickly and successfully he needed an injection of capital. He thought of Signorina Della Luca, conjured up the image of her narrow-faced countenance, only to have it superimposed by the Honorable Chastity Duncan's fuller features, glowing hazel eyes, and radiant complexion. She had a sweet smile too when she chose, but an adder's tongue when she chose. There was a puzzle there, a paradox of some kind, and he could not deny that he was drawn to her.

He didn't want to be drawn to her, or to any woman. As he knew from bitter experience, emotional ties merely led to painful complications. He simply needed a rich and suitably positioned wife who would be at least complaisant about his life's work. The Go-Between had offered such a prospect, it was up to him to follow through.

As if coming to some decision, he thrust his hands into his pockets and fingered the crisply engraved visiting cards he'd collected that evening. Contacts were as important as capital, and he'd made a few of those tonight.

Chastity spent a rather restless night. She was cross with herself for indulging her urge to sting the doctor a little, and she also felt miserably uncomfortable at having caused him pain just to satisfy what struck her now as a purely malicious self-indulgence. Avoiding pain to others came naturally to her and in general, despite the quickness of tongue shared by all the Duncan sisters, she went out of her way to avoid slights or unkind remarks. So, what had come over her last evening? She didn't like the man, but that was no real excuse, and he hadn't actually done anything during the evening to stimulate her dislike. Rather the opposite, if she was brutally honest.

She was awake at dawn when Madge crept in to rake out the ashes and rekindle the fire in the grate. “Oh, sorry, madam. Did I wake you?” The girl looked up from her knees in genuine distress when Chastity sat up in bed.

“No, I was awake.” Chastity pushed aside the coverlet. “I'll light the fire, Madge, if you'd be a dear and fetch me some tea.”

“
You
light the fire, madam?” Madge looked horrified.

“I'm quite good at it, actually,” Chastity said with something approaching a grin. She knelt down in front of the grate. “Are you looking forward to Christmas, Madge?”

“Oh, yes, madam. Auntie—Mrs. Hudson, I mean—she told me all about the servants' dinner.”

“We have a good time,” Chastity agreed, poking the coals until a spark rose. And there would be a child this year, she thought. Sarah's presence would make the celebration even more special than usual.

Madge went off to fetch tea and Chastity remained on her knees in front of the fire, warming her hands as the fire crackled. The wind rattled the windowpanes and the flames spurted. There was something about winter that thrilled Chastity, gave her energy. Prudence and Constance both liked the summer, energized by the heat of a broiling day through which they always managed to remain cool and collected. Chastity wilted in the heat. She thought it was perhaps because her sisters were so much thinner and taller than she was. They were sunflowers. She was some other kind of flower, smaller and closer to the ground . . . a snowdrop that bloomed in the snow. But it was a fanciful metaphor and she gave it up with a little shrug of exasperation.

When she went downstairs later she was surprised to find the breakfast room empty. Her father's place had been cleared and the newspaper, read and refolded, placed at her own plate. Jenkins came in with a pot of coffee. “Good morning, Miss Chas.”

“Good morning, Jenkins. Has my father breakfasted already?”

“He came down early and went out ten minutes ago. He said he had an errand to run.”

“At this time of day?” she questioned, helping herself to toast. “How strange.”

“Yes, I thought so too,” the butler agreed. “Would you like a boiled egg, Miss Chas?”

Chastity thought about it, then shook her head. “No, just toast, thank you. I'll be going to Kensington to see your sister after breakfast, to pick up the post, and then I'll probably visit Prue, so I doubt I'll be back for luncheon, but Prue and Con are coming over for dinner this evening.”

“Yes, so his lordship told me. I gather Mr. Ensor and Sir Gideon will not be joining us?”

“I doubt it. We want to ambush Father into giving a dinner party before Christmas.”

“I see,” Jenkins said. “Then I will check on the cellar. His lordship is bound to want to know what we have.” He bowed and left her to her breakfast.

She finished quickly, skimming the newspaper as she ate, then hurried upstairs to fetch her coat and hat. She would collect the post for
The Mayfair Lady
and the Go-Between, but she also had another motive for visiting Mrs. Beedle this morning. It had occurred to her that the shopkeeper might have some more recent information on Douglas Farrell. Had he left the Kensington area and the insalubrious St. Mary Abbot's, now that he claimed to live on Wimpole Street and practice on Harley Street?