The Dreadful Debutante (16 page)

“Of course, Charles,” said Drusilla lightly. “We have known each other for so long that it would be silly to quarrel now.”

“Do you like fireworks displays?”

Only the day before Drusilla would have said coldly that she considered fireworks displays tiresome because that was what it was fashionable to say. But by copying Mira’s honesty, she hoped to gain some of her sister’s appeal. And so she said, “I
adore
fireworks displays. I will ooh and aah and clap my hands, and you will consider me a country bumpkin.”

“I have never seen anyone less like a country bumpkin,” said Charles. “We will oooh and aaah and be children together.”

But it was Mira who jumped up and down and hailed every burst of stars above her head with delight.

“You are a rowdy child,” said the marquess after the show was over.

“I am not a child, Rupert.”

“You behave like a child.”

Her eyes flirted up at him. “Do you kiss children, Rupert? Fie, for shame!”

He laughed and steered her off the walk and into the darkness of a glade. “No, I kiss minxes—like this.”

He tilted up her chin. She felt she should stop him, that she was drowning in emotion. She saw his lips descending and closed her eyes. As his mouth closed over her own, she felt her senses reeling. A tide of red, raw passion seemed to start in the pit of her stomach and swell up to her lips.

He at last released her and looked down at her in dazed amazement. “Mira!”

She stared up at him in the darkness, tears glittering in her eyes. “You are wicked, Rupert,
wicked.
” And she turned and ran away.

He was so startled, he stood there for a long moment before going in pursuit of her.

Charles and Drusilla walked back, arm in arm. “So when do you leave us, Charles?” asked Drusilla, still striving to keep her tone light.

I shall wait until the end of the Season. It is such a long time since I have had any leave. I plan to enjoy it.”

“You will have all the fun of observing me trying to ensnare a suitable gentleman,” said Drusilla. “How tiresome it all is. It is a pity Mira is engaged, or we might have agreed to remain spinsters.”

“You are not meant to be a spinster. But you, Drusilla, are certainly not meant to be an army wife.”

“I never asked enough questions about that,” said Drusilla. “What is it really like?”

“We have a great deal of fun. There are balls and parties, just like in civilian life. We are based in Dover at the moment, as you know. Of course, I would not have expected you to live in barracks were we married, nor would my commanding officer. We should have taken a trim house in town and entertained until such time as my regiment was moved on again. Some of the officers’ wives do not join them, but stay at home and endure the long separations.”

Drusilla sighed. “Perhaps that sort of life might be better than facing up to the fact that I have to allow myself to be courted by some gentleman I really do not know very well. Spinsters, poor things, are so despised. It is not fair!”

Charles steered her around three gentlemen who had come to a standstill to stare at her beauty. His thoughts were beginning to race. This was a different Drusilla. He had been hard on her. He had sorely misjudged her.

“Drusilla,” he said abruptly, “step aside from the walk with me. I think we need to talk further.”

“About what, Charles?” she asked, but she allowed him to lead her from the walk and into the same glade in which the marquess had so lately stood with Mira.

“I feel I owe you an explanation about Mira.”

“That is not necessary,” said Drusilla, turning her face away.

“I was very fond of Mira when she was a child. I was briefly attracted to her, but that is over. Mira and I would never have suited.”

“You say that only because she is spoony about Grantley and no longer available!”

This was only the truth, but Charles suddenly did not want Drusilla to know that.

“That is not true! I think we made a very bad start. Drusilla, why do we not try again—but I shall not sell out.”

Her relief was immense. She had been dreading the rest of the Season, possibly ending up married to some “suitable” man she did not really know. Charles was handsome and kind. She should not give in so easily, but she found herself saying weakly, “Yes, Charles.”

He kissed her gently and chastely on the lips, and then together they moved out of the glade, Charles once more experiencing all the old joy of the attention his beautiful partner was attracting, and Drusilla weak with relief that the engagement was back on.

Mira sat in the box, face white, green eyes glittering with unshed tears. “This is ridiculous!” cried Mr. Markham. “It cannot be off. We have sent a notice of your engagement to the newspapers along with the notice of the cancellation of Drusilla’s engagement. Oh, here is Grantley. My lord, I cannot believe this. Mira tells me the engagement is at an end.”

The marquess’s face was a polite mask. Underneath it he was furious with Mira. He had gone out of his way to help her, and she had repaid him by behaving in this infuriating way, kissing him with a passion he had never experienced before and then running away from him. He was sick of the Markham family. He was sick of the whole thing.

“If that is what Mira wants,” he said evenly, “then allow me to inform the newspapers of the cancellation.”

“But can we not discuss this?” wailed Mrs. Markham.

The marquess got to his feet and made an elaborate bow. “There is nothing to discuss. You shall not be seeing me again. I plan to go to the country. I am not feeling well and wish to return home. Good night!”

He leapt over the edge of the box and walked away into the night.

Before the Markhams could berate Mira, Charles and Drusilla walked up to the box.

“We are still engaged,” said Drusilla sunnily.

“You cannot be,” said the outraged Mr. Markham. “There will be a notice in the newspapers tomorrow canceling your engagement!”

“Then I suggest we put one in the day after to say it is still on,” said Charles with a laugh.

That was when Mrs. Markham fainted.

The following day Lady Jansen listened in grim silence as Mrs. Anderson handed in her notice and made the most of it, telling Lady Jansen in her prim voice exactly what she had always thought of her.

“And just where are you going?” demanded Lady Jansen when she could get a word in edgewise.

“I am to be companion to the Dowager Duchess of Grantley.”

It was only when her companion had left and her amazement at the turning of the worm, which had kept her nearly speechless, had begun to ebb that Lady Jansen’s brain began to work at a great rate. Grantley! Now she was sure she knew how the marquess had found out about Diggs, about herself, and about the Green Tree, and had managed to spike her guns.

Her thoughts returned to the landlord, and she struck her fist on the table beside her, sending a Dresden ornament flying. What a fool she had been. If the man had taken a bribe for his silence, all she had to do was offer him a heavier bribe to speak up.

She called for her carriage and then went to change her clothes. She then called at her bank and drew out a sum of money in gold guineas before setting out once more for the Green Tree.

At first the landlord stood by his story. But when she looked round and saw the tap was empty, Lady Jansen opened a wash leather bag of gold and spilled the contents onto the table. “I know Grantley paid you to keep your mouth shut, but I am prepared to pay you handsomely to tell what really happened.”

His eyes gleamed at the sight of the gold. “You would only be telling the truth,” urged Lady Jansen.

“Reckon it depends on what I would have to do.”

“All you would have to do is come with me to a Mr. and Mrs. Markham and tell your story. Then my carriage will return you here. You would not have to write anything or appear in court. Simply tell your story. Wait a bit. You must tell it twice. First to a Mrs. Gardener and then to the Markhams. Look at the gold, man. It is enough to keep such as you for the rest of your life.”

“But even if there’s no court business, what if this Grantley comes after me with a horsewhip or a gun?”

“After all this is in the open, he would not dare.”

“Reckon I’ll earn my money then,” said the landlord, taking off his baize apron. “I’ll just tell the wife to take over here.”

For some reason he could not quite explain, the angry marquess decided to delay his journey home to the country until the end of the week. Like any other aristocrat he was never much given to introspection, and so he did not know that his new anger at and dislike of Mira were prompted by nothing more than wounded pride. He, the catch of the Season, had been jilted by a hoyden. The fact that the engagement was meant to end anyway did not occur to his angry brain.

He would go to the opera that night and to the ball afterward, flirt with all the pretty girls, and get the world to think that it was really
he
who had decided the engagement was wrong. That his kiss had been returned with the sort of passion that had been entirely new to him was something he refused to think about. All he knew was that he was very unhappy and very angry and that it was all Mira’s fault.

He did not consider for a moment that Mira might feel devastated, but that was what she did feel. Only the idea of the hell it might be to continue with a pretend engagement to a man with whom she had fallen suddenly and deeply in love made her endure the present hell of her parents’ disapproval and disappointment. Drusilla, grateful for Mira’s help and advice, and comfortably happy now that her own engagement was a reality again, tried to comfort her young sister, but not being in love herself or having any conception of the turbulent emotions that gripped Mira, she could only offer platitudes such as “By your next Season everyone will have forgotten about it.” This was no comfort to Mira, who did not really care whether society forgot about it or not and realized only that she herself never could and never would.

But to her relief Drusilla did suggest something practical: that Mira accompany her and Charles on a drive. Neither referred to the broken engagement, and Mira was only too glad to escape the house and the tremendous weight of disapproval of her that seemed to permeate every room like a thick fog. By the time they returned, Mira was beginning to feel more courageous. The marquess would not be angry with her. He
could
not be. All she had done was end the engagement sooner than she had said she would end it. And so she avoided contemplating the fact that in society’s eyes, the cancellation of an engagement by a young miss after one day—which is what it would appear between the announcement in the newspapers and the subsequent announcement of the cancellation—would cause a furor of gossip.

Had she had any inkling of what was about to break over her head, she would have fled to the country.

*  *  *

Mira had not seen her father or mother when she had returned from the drive with Charles and Drusilla. The butler said they were receiving visitors in the Yellow Saloon. Had Mira not been so preoccupied with her troubles, she would have stopped to wonder why her parents considered the damp and little-used Yellow Saloon suitable for visitors.

In the Yellow Saloon Mrs. Markham looked like a rabbit confronted by a snake and reached blindly for the comfort of her husband’s hand. Twisting his hat between his fingers and standing behind Lady Jansen’s chair, the landlord, Giles Brand, described in the tones of a good child repeating a well-learned lesson that afternoon at the inn when Mira and the marquess had fallen into the river, booked his best bedchamber to remove their clothes, and had spent the time wrapped in blankets, playing cards.

Mr. Markham found his voice. “Look here, fellow, you don’t know my daughter. How did you know it was my daughter? You told me you had never seen her before!”

Lady Jansen had been too stupid to see what might come out of it and was too late to stop Mr. Brand from saying guilelessly, “Well, you see, my lady here, she hired an ex-Runner, Diggs, to find out about them, but that-there Marquess of Grantley, he called and told me to keep my mouth shut, but then Lady Jansen told me as how I ought to tell the truth.”

“So,” said Mr. Markham bitterly, “you were probably paid by this Diggs, then paid by Grantley, and probably paid again by this dreadful person here.”

“Remember to whom you speak,” said Lady Jansen haughtily.

“People like you, madam, are scum, are as dirt beneath my boots,” raged Mr. Markham. “Get out of here, and take your paid creature with you.”

Lady Jansen swept out with the landlord, her head held high, but her stomach was churning as she suddenly realized that she was about to be more socially damned than Mira Markham. Such as Mrs. Gardener might gossip, but the ton would be shocked rigid by a lady who had gone to such lengths as to hire an ex-Runner to ruin a debutante. What might she find out about
them
if she put her mind to it!