Lysander's Lady Read online

  ‘As you wish, mama,’ replied her dutiful son. ‘But now, if you will forgive me, I am engaged to dine at Brooks’s and must leave you.’

  ‘Lysander,’ she cried in a rare upsurge of maternal solicitude, ‘you are quite sure this marriage is what you truly desire?’ He nodded and she went on soberly. ‘Then must I wish you every good fortune in the pursuance of your suit.’

  ‘Bless you, mama. I leave you to contemplation of your dusky goddaughter while I go off to my shady hell!’

  ‘Brooks’s—a hell? I cannot believe—Lysander, you’re quizzing me!’

  Laughing, he kissed her cheek and left her shaking her head in despair at his flippancy. She could not be quite easy in her mind at his disclosure. While it would vastly enlarge her consequence to share grandchildren with a Duke, her admittedly slight acquaintance with Lady Sophia had led her to believe her prospective daughter-in-law to be a reserved sort of young woman with little to say for herself, and that little in a manner that was the reverse of conciliatory.

  ‘Not at all what I should have liked for Lysander,’ she mused unhappily. ‘And Emma Whitfield, though pretty enough, is a spiritless creature. Why must he choose to drop his handkerchief at this moment? If only I could persuade him to consider a little!’

  Such weighty deliberations, however, did not long occupy her inconstant attention, for, when Bates entered a few minutes later to enquire if he should serve dinner, she was once more deep in the Minerva Press’s latest publication and utterly oblivious to anything that might be taking place in the world outside its covers—least of all to the possible whereabouts of her goddaughter.

  As it chanced, at that very time Miss Katherine Honeywell was being conveyed in a post-chaise along the Portsmouth Road in the direction of London. Despite an excessively trying sea passage and understandable apprehension as to what lay in store for her, Miss Honeywell was eager to learn all she could about the land on which she had thankfully stepped that morning.

  From what could be perceived of the wintry scene through the heavily rimed windows of the carriage, she decided that her first task must be to accustom herself to the English climate and put from her mind all remembrance of the soft airs and warm seas of the Cape. Everything here appeared to be so very small and constricted when compared with the vast stretches of coast and veldt that comprised the country of her birth; the cottages like dolls’ houses; the fields showing patchwork green or darkly ploughed, and overhead the low clouds, heavy with snow. Involuntarily she drew her mantle more closely about her, though the carriage was warm enough and the brick at her feet still hot. A stirring in the corner opposite caused her to smile reassuringly towards the dark eyes fixed upon her in anxious question.

  ‘Have no fear, my dears. I am sure her ladyship’s house will be warm and comfortable enough.’

  Even as she spoke she could not help but wonder if her welcome would be warm also. All had been arranged in such haste at the end that there was no knowing if anyone was prepared for her arrival. If only her cousin Bredon should be in England! His last letter, conveying his sympathies on the loss of her father, hinted at his increasing dissatisfaction with his exiled state. But from what she knew of the matter, to return to his native land might well cost him his life. How infamous that Timothy, of all kind people, should be suspected of such a crime! If it lay in her power to help him, then that she would surely do.

  At this point in Miss Honeywell’s ruminations the snow began to fall heavily, and she at once agreed with the head postboy’s suggestion that, as they were approaching Ripley, they should lodge for the night at the Talbot Inn. The welcome sight of that notable establishment, and still more of its blazing fires and the delectable smells issuing from the kitchens, did much to restore her good humour, and she at once formed the opinion that it would be no bad notion to remain there for a few days while advance warning of her coming was sent to Lady Glendower.

  As she snuggled deep into her feather-bed that night, Miss Honeywell mused sleepily that, as her godmother was presumably a lady of advanced years, this journey was likely to be the most exciting experience to come her way during her visit to England.

  ‘If marrying an English gentleman means also marrying his climate, then I am for the Cape again before the cat can lick its earl’ she murmured into her pillow.

  In which comfortable conviction she presently fell asleep, undisturbed by any premonition of what the future might hold.

  The great Subscription Room at Brooks’s was uncommonly still when Mr. Derwent, accompanied by his friend, Mr. Augustus Dacres, sauntered in after partaking of an agreeable and protracted meal, followed by a few rubbers of whist. Every chair by the gaming-table was occupied while at its head, his hand closed over a pack of cards, lounged an arrogant buck arrayed in the first stare of fashion, though with neckcloth a shade awry and eyes glittering in a way that hinted he was more than a bit on the go.

  ‘Come then, gentlemen,’ he mocked. ‘Do you not wish to play with me?’

  ‘Wunning wather too high, Wayleigh,’ lisped Mr. Tom Raikes, pushing back his chair.

  ‘My poor friend, are you quite rolled-up?’ A titter ran round the room at the contemptuous jibe, but Lord Sefton supported the unhappy dandy by throwing down his cards and rising.

  ‘Bank’s doing too devilish well,’ he grumbled, gesturing towards the pile of vowels and notes at the banker’s elbow. ‘We’ll all be in the River Tick if your winning streak goes on much longer.’

  ‘We’ll miss you, my lord,’ drawled the insolent voice. ‘Who’s to take your place?’

  Before Mr. Derwent could restrain him, Mr. Dacres had slipped into one of the vacant seats. ‘I’m your man, Wayleigh,’ he announced cheerfully, emptying out his pockets upon the table. ‘Though I tell you now I’ve mighty little soft upon my person.’

  ‘Your credit’s good, dear boy. And what of Mr. Derwent? Cannot I prevail upon you to sit in, sir?’

  Mr. Derwent had no wish to comply with this request for two very adequate reasons. The first and most important of these was that the gentleman addressing him was the Marquis of Wayleigh, son to the Duke of Edmonton and, although he might not be aware of it, in a fair way to becoming Lysander’s brother-in-law.

  The second reason was hardly less potent. Wayleigh was three-parts drunk, his speech was slurred and he was spoiling for a fight. The luck had been with him all the evening and, as steadily as his gains had increased, so had the resentment towards him mounted around the table. For my lord was not a gracious winner, liking to exercise his wit on those he had despoiled. Only the knowledge that he was a deadly shot and skilled swordsman had caused more than one disgruntled punter to take a tuck in his lip when pushed to the limit of his patience.

  Swiftly Mr. Derwent decided that the lesser of two evils would be to play rather than risk confrontation by a flat refusal, but even as he seated himself the Marquis’s temper spilled over and he flung the cards across the table so that they cascaded the length of its green surface and on to the floor.

  ‘Th-thank God for that! Lesh—let’s have a new pack, it may ch-change the luck!’ called out a very tipsy gentleman in a glaring maroon-and-yellow striped waistcoat, thus mercifully diverting his lordship’s wrath from Mr. Derwent.

  ‘D’you think the cards are marked, then? D’you accuse me of cheating?’ snarled Wayleigh, his long fingers closing convulsively around the stem of his glass. But answer received he none. The inebriated gentleman had gently subsided under the table and the only sound to break the stunned hush was the sharp crack of the stem as it snapped and tipped what remained in the glass over his lordship’s coat-sleeve.

  With a muttered imprecation he flung the glass into a corner of the room and called for another, but his hot, angry eyes came back to rest on Mr. Derwent’s impassive countenance.

  ‘Anyone else wish for a new pack?’

  As no one cared further to excite his animosity, the cards were collected up and play continued. Mr. Dacres, as was his custom
, punted with reckless abandon and was presently scrawling his vowels on any convenient piece of paper and pushing them over to the bank in the comfortable knowledge that his father, who inclined to the way of thinking of the late Lord Holland, would stand buff for his son’s debts. Mr. Derwent played steadily, refusing to be tempted to reckless excess and wondering when he could decently extract himself from a situation that was not at all to his liking.

  Presently Wayleigh called out: ‘Come, gentlemen, the game lacks spice. I suggest no stake of less than one hundred pounds!’

  At that there was a general chorus of disapproval but the Marquis’s gaze once more locked with Lysander’s. ‘You don’t care for the notion, Derwent? Let us try another ploy, then.’ Smiling, he laid down the pack and leaned his elbows on the table. ‘Do you still house that capital team of bays in your stable?’

  ‘You must know I do, my lord, since I took you up behind them t’other day,’ returned Mr. Derwent coolly.

  ‘I’ll offer to match ‘em and beat ‘em over a distance and at a time to be agreed.’

  Once again the great room was still, only a shudder of anticipation, like a catspaw, ruffling the silence. Mr. Derwent, though not a gamester in the accepted sense of the term, was not proof against the lure of a sporting wager.

  ‘What’s your stake, my lord?’

  The Marquis’s smile broadened. ‘Ten thousand?’ he suggested softly.

  ‘And, my lord?’

  ‘And—what, Mr. Derwent?’

  ‘No side-bet, my lord?’

  Very deliberately Wayleigh poured himself another glass of brandy before replying. ‘If the loser should finish more than three minutes behind the winner then the stake is doubled and the winner takes all—horses, curricle, the whole equipage.’

  ‘And the driver?’ enquired Mr. Derwent politely.

  Someone in the listening crowd sniggered nervously, but the Marquis’s hard stare did not waver.

  ‘No doubt I could find a use for you, my dear fellow,’ he drawled. Then, draining his glass, he fell forward, his head upon his night’s winnings, quite insensible.

  At once pandemonium broke out, half those present calling for the betting book to be fetched and the wager recorded, the other half declaring that Wayleigh was too foxed to know what he was doing and that the bet should be cancelled. Alone among them Mr. Derwent remained silent, until he was addressed by Lord Crewe.

  ‘If you would be guided by my advice you will forget this episode, sir,’ the older gentleman was saying. ‘It’s not likely Wayleigh will remember a word of it in the morning.’

  Mr. Derwent looked to where two waiters were dragging away the limp body of the Marquis. ‘Perhaps he will not, my lord,’ he agreed. Then, glancing round the circle of concerned faces about him, he smiled faintly. ‘But, as you all heard, I did not refuse the wager. Should he wish to have it expunged—’

  ‘He’ll not do that, whether he remembers or no!’ interposed Mr. Dacres. ‘Where his cattle and the handling of them are concerned he will admit no peer. And he’s a capital whip.’

  ‘That I’ll not deny,’ conceded Mr. Derwent, ‘but his impatient temper can betray him into error. What team does he propose to set against my bays, I wonder?’

  No one could enlighten him on that point, and to judge by the care with which he was polishing his quizzing-glass, he hardly considered it of the first importance. The generally expressed opinion was, however, that he had been ill-advised to accept the challenge without knowing the precise nature of the opposition.

  ‘Depend upon it,’ said Mr. Dacres as they left the warmth of Brooks’s and stepped out into the chill wind whistling up St James’s Street, ‘castaway or not, Wayleigh would never have forced such an issue unless he knew himself to be in a fair way to winning it. Though the luck may have been in for him tonight, ‘tis said he’s all to pieces. He must possess a tidy team, for your bays have a reputation second to none. Of the two whips I’d say you have a shade the preference—’

  Mr. Derwent interrupted these profitless cogitations. ‘Whatever he has, it is to be hoped they may give me a race. Goodnight to you, Augustus.’

  A thin mizzle of rain was turning the snow into slush as he turned down the footpath into King Street where Almack’s was disgorging its bevy of beauty and fashion to be absorbed into a waiting line of carriages. Paying scant heed to this spectacle, he strode on across St James’s Square, deserted save for a nightwatchman in his box, his thoughts wholly taken up with the events of the evening. The choice presented him was a dismal one, consisting as it did of either inflicting considerable financial loss upon himself should he lose the wager, or possible ruin to his prospective brother-in-law did he win it.

  ‘The devil’s in it, and he’ll not help me!’ he muttered philosophically, as he hunched deeper into his greatcoat against the now biting rain and hurried along Charles Street to where a light beckoned over his mother’s door.

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  A short time before Miss Honeywell lifted her head from her pillow to discover the contrary climate of England justifying its reputation, Mr. Derwent also awoke to a room filled with bright sunshine and the song of a thrush.

  Bishop, his valet, had drawn the drapes. A flustered housemaid was attending to the fire; a shirt-sleeved footman had set the coffee-pot by his bedside—in short, everything was proceeding in its usual orderly fashion, so that he was at a loss to account for the feeling of depression that weighed him down. No doubt it was remembrance of that unfortunate wager that had so lowered his spirits, but his innate honesty forced him privately to admit that the root cause of the matter was more likely to be the prospect of having to forfeit his comfortable bachelor existence should he embrace the married state.

  Unlike his elder brother, who had fallen in love and wed at an early age, Lysander, though enjoying his due share of amatory adventures, had never before seriously considered leading any lady to the altar. In the fullness of time, he was assured, some eligible female would present herself to his notice and he would be obliged to perform the dance of courtship before entering into the cage of matrimony. This complacent attitude had received a rude setback when last he had visited his brother.

  Lord and Lady Glendower, though their union was in all other respects a shining example of marital felicity, had not, unhappily, been blessed with offspring. When his lordship, on a day out with the Pytchley, had been so ill-advised as to set his horse at an insurmountable obstacle, he had suffered a broken leg and numerous other lesser injuries which resulted in a prolonged convalescence unbearably irksome to one of his mercurial temperament. This enforced idleness had produced some deep thinking, and when his younger brother had come to express his fraternal concern he had received the full brunt of it.

  ‘Jane and I have talked the thing over,’ Lord Glendower had stated gloomily. ‘After ten years it don’t seem likely she’ll present me with the son we both so earnestly desire. If there’s to be an heir to Mansell and the title—’ He had paused significantly.

  ‘Putting me to stud, Jack?’

  His lordship had grinned. ‘Just reminding you you’ve a duty to perform, my lad.’

  As he sat, warm from his bath, being shaved by his valet, Mr. Derwent could not quite contain his irritation at recollection of that conversation. There was much truth, of course, in what his brother had said, but he, Lysander, was not the sort of man of whom willing sacrifices were made. Still, his duty was plain and the soonest done the better. Once an heir was secured he could easily slip back into his old comfortable ways.

  Bishop found his master excessively hard to please that morning, for at least a dozen neckcloths were discarded before a variant of the Oriental was achieved to satisfy Mr. Derwent’s discerning taste. Nor did his Cossack trousers meet with his approval, but had to be changed for pantaloons and Hussar boots, while his striped Valencia waistcoat was subjected to the most critical regard before being eventually accepted.

  “I will not be taki
ng you with me to Mansell, Bishop. ’Twill only be for a night or two, and his lordship’s man can look after me.’

  The valet’s pained expression changed to one of positive outrage. In his opinion, Kenley was well enough for a gentleman like Lord Glendower, who gave little thought to his dress beyond ensuring that his riding-boots were made by Hoby, but the very idea of Mr. Derwent’s immaculate linen and exquisite footwear being put in his care for even twenty-four hours was enough, as Bishop later informed his crony Bates, to bring on his nervous tic.

  His master, however, seemed quite unimpressed by the prospect of a sartorial catastrophe looming ahead, and addressed himself to his breakfast with the air of a man who had not the least care in the world. Then, having collected her letter from the Dowager and assured her once again that no one would think it at all out of the way if she did not accompany him to see how her first-born went on, he called for his curricle to be brought to the door.

  ‘I’ll not be taking the bays, Harvey,’ he instructed his groom. ‘Pole up those two youngsters I got at Tatt’s last week. They could do with some schooling.’

  ‘Pity they’re bays as well, sir. Makes it a bit awkward-like in the stables.’

  ‘Yes, I had not thought of that. We must christen ‘em, I suppose. What d’you think of—say, Roland and Oliver? That will do very well. Oh, and I want to call in at Brooks’s before setting out for Mansell.’

  As he had half-expected, an interesting missive awaited him at Brooks’s. He glanced over it quickly and sought out Mr. Dacres, who was indulging in a mild flutter at trente et quarante. That gentleman was at first reluctant to be dissuaded from squandering his blunt, but the sight of the Marquis of Wayleigh’s sprawling signature at the foot of Mr. Derwent’s letter caught his interest, and they withdrew to a quiet corner where they could not be overlooked.