Lady Anne's Deception (The Changing Fortunes Series Book 4) (6 page)

“I have not been married long,” said Annie. “My husband is in France at the moment.” She gave a very brittle, little laugh. “I don’t know much about him at all.”

That was surely the cue for Miss Hammond to expound her down-with-men philosophy, but she remained strangely silent. In fact the rest of the conversation did not touch on Miss Hammond’s interest at all. At one point Annie tried to turn the conversation in that direction, feeling that it was only polite to do so, but Miss Hammond only seemed to want to talk about commonplaces, just like any ordinary housewife.

As it was, Annie had only eaten one sandwich and drunk one cup of tea when a look flashed between Miss Hammond and the chancellor, and, as if on cue, both rose to their feet at once.

“We really must be rushing along,” said Miss Hammond. “The chancellor has a great deal of important papers to sign.”

“Of course,” murmured Annie. “I am sorry our meeting was so brief, Mr. Shaw-Bufford.”

“And I, too. Will you be staying in Britlingsea long?”

All at once, Annie made the first grown-up decision of her life. She would return to London tomorrow. She would wait in town for her husband. And she would ask him why he had married her.

“I shall be leaving tomorrow,” she said firmly. “On the early train.”

“Splendid,” he said. “I have a compartment reserved on the London train and would deem it an honor if you would share it with me, Lady Torrance.”

“Thank you. Miss Hammond—I mean, Mary—will you be coming, too?”

Was Miss Hammond about to accept? Or did the sudden pale look that the chancellor cast upon her stop her?

“No, Annie,” she said. “I still have work to do here.”

And that was that.

It was strange, Annie reflected on the train the next day, that although she and the chancellor chatted generally of this and that all the way to London, although she found him to be a charming companion, she was surprised that he did not seem to want to talk about women’s rights or, indeed, refer to Miss Hammond at all.

She hesitated a little when he offered to escort her to the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company on the following night. It was a special charity production, he said, of “The Pirates of Penzance.” All at once she accepted. He was a gentleman—which is more than could be said for her husband!

CHAPTER FIVE

 

It was two more weeks before the marquess returned to London. And those two weeks had made a great difference to his wife. She had become accustomed to the house and the servants in St. James’s Square. She had discovered the pleasures of shopping and sightseeing by herself. And she had several very pleasant outings with the chancellor of the exchequer. He rarely discussed politics with her, and when she had asked him point-blank what he thought about women getting the vote, a subject that was beginning to interest her strongly, he turned the subject aside with, “It is too serious a matter to go into at the moment. I would prefer to talk about something else.”

He was comfortable company in that it was somehow like going out with no one. She was not aware of him as a man, only as a quiet, often witty escort whom she forgot about as soon as she had left him.

Marigold, of course, got wind of her friendship with Mr. Shaw-Bufford and promptly called to tell Annie that the whole of London was talking about them. But this Annie knew to be untrue. She had quickly made a few friends among the society women who had viewed her friendship with the chancellor with equanimity, and since all were high sticklers, Annie knew they would not hesitate to caution her if she were doing anything wrong.

She was quickly becoming accustomed to the life of an independent married woman. No Marigold around day and night to taunt and sneer, no Nanny or Miss Higgins to reprimand, no parents to make her feel rejected by their lack of interest. For it seemed as if her mother and father’s sudden burst of affection for her had died the day after she was married. The countess had not even considered it strange that the marquess should leave for France on his own. A woman was not supposed to question her husband’s mode of conduct. A good wife was a submissive wife. Any other attitude led to conflict.

It was something of a shock, therefore, when Annie walked into the breakfast room one morning to find her husband calmly eating toast and marmalade and reading the morning papers.

He was wearing a magnificent dressing gown, and his black hair was still tousled from sleep. He grinned at her amiably, remarked that it was a fine morning, and buried his head in his newspaper again.

Annie drank her coffee with angry little sips and glared at what she could see of her husband. “Did you enjoy your stay in Paris?” she asked at last, her voice thin and hard.

He put the paper down. “Very,” he remarked. “I didn’t spend the whole summer there, of course. I’ve been down to my country place to look over things for the last month at least.”

“You’ve been… and you never thought to write or… But you
couldn’t
have been there. Marigold sent me a French newspaper cutting with a photograph of you and a Miss S.”

“She’s late with the news, isn’t she?” said the marquess amiably. “That photograph was taken at least a month ago—in fact, it must have been six or seven weeks ago.”

Annie put down her coffee cup and placed her hands on the table. “And
who
is Miss S.?” she demanded in a harsh voice.

“Friend of mine,” remarked her husband. “And, talking about friends, I hear you’ve been moving in political circles. Or rather Mr. Shaw-Bufford’s circles. Where on earth did you meet him? I can’t see my parents giving him house room.”

“I met him at Britlingsea.”

“Britlingsea! Good Heavens! What were you doing in a dead-alive dump like that?”

“Perkins recommended it.” Perkins was the butler.

“Oh,
that
explains it. You shouldn’t listen to Perkins. He’s a terrible snob. You must have been bored to death. Anyway, did a confirmed bachelor like Shaw-Bufford simply walk up to you and introduce himself?”

“No, I went to his house.”

“Curiouser and curiouser. Who introduced you?”

“A Miss Mary Hammond.”

“Never heard of her,” pursued the marquess, his irritating good humor unimpaired. “What does she do?”

Anyone the marquess had not heard of must “do” something since anyone he had not heard of could not possibly just “be” someone.

Annie flushed, remembering her man-hating madness.

“She’s got something or other to do with Votes for Women,” she said awkwardly.

“Indeed? Well, be very careful. I don’t want to have to bail you out if you’re going to take up smashing shop windows and sniping at trains.”

“I should have known you would sneer,” said Annie hotly.

“I’m not sneering, my love. I am simply disapproving of some of the militant methods that have been used. For my part, I think women should get the vote. But to return to the question of Mr. Shaw-Bufford, what does he want from you?”

“My company,” said Annie coldly.

“He is a most ambitious man and I would have said he did not like women at all, particularly young and pretty ones. Has he asked you for any money?”

“No. How dare you… how could…?”

“He will,” said the marquess equably, picking up his newspaper.

Now Annie had meant to ask her husband why he had married her in a reasonable, grown-up, woman-of-the-world manner. But his careless good nature, his lack of contrition for having abandoned her for so long, made her control snap completely and she fairly screamed at him, “Why did you marry me? Why? Was it solely to humiliate me?
Or was it for my money?
”

He lowered his paper again. For one split second, his eyes looked as cold as ice, but in the next he was his old amiable self again.

“I thought I knew,” he said. “But I have not such clear-cut motives as you yourself.”

“I? I have not said anything on the subject.”

“If my memory serves me right, you told me that you married me simply to get revenge on your sister.”

He studied her thoughtfully as her eyelashes fell to veil her expressive eyes.

“I must have been drunk,” she whispered.

“Oh, you were,” he said sweetly. “You were, indeed. But your voice had the ring of truth. So I decided that, having given you what you wanted, I would make myself scarce.”

Annie writhed in misery. Then her anger came back. “You should have
told
me,” she snapped. “You should have
said
something. Not simply gone away.”

“Did you miss me?” he asked curiously.

Annie lowered her eyes again. “I was too furious to know what I felt.”

He gave a cavernous yawn and then picked up the paper. “I do love these marital discussions,” he murmured. “They do clear the air. Are we going to the ballet tonight? I seem to recollect that I have tickets somewhere.”

Annie blushed. “I-I h-have promised to go with Mr. Shaw-Bufford,” she said miserably.

“Don’t worry,” he said from behind his newspaper. “I’m sure I can find someone else.”

“I’m sure you can,” Annie flashed back bitterly.

The door opened. “Lady Marigold Sinclair,” announced Perkins.

“We are not at home, Perkins,” said the marquess, without even bothering to look up.

“Very good, my lord.”

Annie looked at her husband in awe and admiration. “Is it as easy as that?”

He put down his newspaper. “Oh, yes. You don’t have to bother about people you don’t like, particularly at this time of the day. Anyway, she’s probably come to tell you about her engagement.”

“
Engagement!
”

“I heard at the club that young Bellamy was about to pop the question.”

“But Harry Bellamy is only an Honorable!”

“And since you always compete, you are surprised she settled for less than a duke? Ah, but there’s the question of an heir, you see. Since she has already gone out of her way to hire a private detective to find out about my… er… pleasures, she is probably convinced that she will be got with child first.”

“Hired a… Oh, even Marigold…”

“Surely you did not think that Marigold was in the habit of reading the French newspapers, did you?”

“I’ll sue her, I’ll murder her, I’ll…”

“Well, before you do all that, perhaps you might allow me to read my newspaper? I have been reading this same line over and over again.”

Annie sat and watched him in smoldering silence. How dare he make her feel so guilty! How dare he sit there calmly after that horrible revelation!

Gradually, she began to plan her day. She would collect her new gown from the dressmaker herself and wear it that very evening. And she would not sit around waiting for her husband to notice her. She would take herself for a drive in the park and show the fashionable world that the Marchioness of Torrance did not care in the slightest that her husband had come home!

The day was gray and mournful. The leaves in the city never seemed to blaze with the red and gold of autumn but simply to crinkle up to a dreary brown.

Still, she felt very
mondaine
as she sat in the marquess’s open carriage with the splendid coachman in front and the two enormous footmen at the back.

And then, all at once, she recognized Aunt Agatha’s coachman seated on the box of a carriage approaching down Ladies Mile from the other direction.

She called to her coachman to stop and the Winter carriage promptly stopped alongside, so she and Marigold were eyeball to eyeball, so to speak, each dressed to the nines and sitting in their open landaus.

Marigold was seated beside a willowy young man who had a thick, fair moustache. Annie recognized the Honorable Harry Bellamy.

“Congratulate us, sis,” cooed Marigold, all feminine flutterings. “Our engagement will be in the newspapers tomorrow.”

“I should
kill
you,” said Annie, “for having the check to set a detective on my husband.”

“But how did you…?” began Marigold, and then blushed a guilty red.

Annie’s temper snapped. She was carrying a frivolous little parasol, closed and held beside her because of the absence of sun. “I
hate
you!” hissed Annie, getting to her feet and standing up in the perilously swaying landau.

Carriages halted beside them, lorgnettes were raised, rouged lips whispered behind fans. “Yes, I hate you,” repeated Annie, deaf and blind to the watching crowd.

Marigold shrank back artistically against Harry Bellamy. “You always were jealous of me,” she said.

“Oh, I say. I
say
,” bleated Harry Bellamy.

“And what’s more,” said Marigold, rising to her feet, her eyes glittering, “everyone knows you married Torrance out of spite.”

Annie looked ready to leap into her sister’s carriage and strangle her. Her coachman flashed a look of mute appeal to the coachman in Marigold’s carriage, and both drivers promptly set their teams in motion. Both sisters crashed back down into their seats and, turning their heads, glared at each other.

At last Annie jerked her head around. She became aware of the curious stares from the carriages on either side.

What a scene! Her husband would hear of it. He would hear how his marchioness had behaved like a scullery maid, standing up in her carriage, shouting at her sister, broadcasting to the world at large that Marigold had hired a detective to follow him.

She felt very small and silly.

The Marquess of Torrance held back the curtain of the study window and looked thoughtfully at his wife descending from the carriage. Color was flaming in her cheeks and she looked like an angry kitten. His coachman looked flurried and harassed.

He wondered what on earth she had been up to.

Annie did not see her husband. She did not even know he was in the house. All she wanted to do was to escape to the privacy of her room. The coachman would tell the other servants, the servants would be shocked, and one of the upper servants might consider it all in the line of duty to tell the master.

Why had she not just congratulated Harry Bellamy and Marigold in a dignified way? She searched around for something to distract her. Then she decided to try on her new purchase, which was a wickedly seductive French corset. She realized she had given Barton the day off, but it would be better to try it on by herself without Barton or one of the housemaids wondering if her ladyship had gone mad. For the corset was black, and everyone knew that ladies
never
wear black underwear. But Annie had fallen in love with it. She had dropped in at Maison Lucy in Bond Street after she had collected her gown. They were having a fashion show of all the latest underwear. Annie could never quite get used to seeing all those haughty mannequins wearing underwear
over
plain black dresses—since for decency’s sake, they could hardly model it any other way—and often wondered if they felt as ludicrous as they looked.

But her eye had been caught by the corset. It was, first of all, a sensation because it
was
black. A naughty, frivolous thing ornamented with
eau de nil
roses on the garters and fine black lace at the bosom. It was shorter than the long Empire corset that Annie usually wore since it only came down to the top of the thighs. Feeling very daring and wicked, she had bought one.

After she had bathed and brushed out her hair, Annie slipped on the corset and managed to lace herself into it without much trouble.

Then she fastened a pair of cobweb-fine black silk stockings on to the garters. She did not dream of going to the looking glass to study the effect because she had not yet put on her drawers and to see herself in such a stage of undress would be far from ladylike.

She was about to cross the room to the chest of drawers to look for the rest of her underwear when a familiar, lazy, amused voice from the doorway said, “Very fetching.”

The marquess, wearing, as far as her shocked eyes could see, nothing more than his dressing gown, was studying her with appreciative interest.

Annie let out a scream and rushed wildly about looking for her wrapper, miserably conscious that she was wearing only the corset, her stockings, and a pair of high-heeled evening shoes.

He took two quick steps across the room and caught her in his arms.

“What are you doing?” Annie flamed.

“Competing with Marigold.”

“You’re mad.”

“Not in the slightest. I am in a baby-making mood. I said to myself, I said, why should Marigold’s offspring get all that lovely money?”