The Romance (15 page)

‘I say! So all I have to do is pop the question,
get refused and go and weep on Pa’s shoulder.’

‘Exactly.’

‘I will do it tomorrow.’

The fact that she was a little jealous of Belinda for having evidently secured the heart of Lord Gyre had clouded Mrs. Ingram’s judgement, but perhaps Gyre might have seriously considered marrying Belinda were it not for the disastrous evening which was to follow.

*      *      *

Lady Beverley and Lizzie only saw this rich and handsome marquess as the one who had blighted Belinda’s ambition. Lizzie was almost insolent, ignoring Lord Gyre when he politely addressed her and defiantly tossing her red hair. Lady Beverley droned on about the loss of Mannerling and how they had hopes of Belinda’s making a match of it with St. Clair. Lord Gyre began to suspect that there was real madness in the Beverley family. Had he had a chance to be alone with Belinda, perhaps he would have revised his opinion. But he had no opportunity, and Belinda was crushed and diminished by shame about her family.

After the opera, he said he was too tired to go to the ball. Belinda in a little voice suggested that in that case he should escort them home. He took a very formal leave of her. ?ll the warmth and sparkle and magic had gone. He
felt bleak and empty as he returned home to make his preparations for his departure for the country. Belinda cried herself to sleep.

Dressed in his finest and feeling no end of a devil, Toby St. Clair presented himself the following afternoon at the Burfield town house and requested an audience with Lady Beverley.

Lady Beverley was lying down in a darkened bedchamber, eating chocolates, for she had decided she had a wasting illness and the chocolates were to build up her strength.

On hearing that Lord St. Clair wished to see her, she leaped to her feet, screaming for the lady’s-maid, and then sending Abigail, who had run in to see what ailed her mother, to go and make sure Belinda had on her prettiest gown.

For a supposed invalid, Lady Beverley was changed and scented in record time, so frightened was she that the ‘quarry’ might escape. She swept into the drawing-room. There were two hectic spots of colour in her cheeks which owed nothing to rouge but all to excitement. Lord St. Clair gave such a long low scrape that his nose almost touched the carpet and Lady Beverley responded with a full court
curtsy.

Saint Clair stood back and cleared his throat. ‘I am come, Lady Beverley, to ask your permission to pay my addresses to your daughter.’

‘Oh, my lord, we are so honoured, so very honoured.’

Saint Clair blinked at her nervously. He did not like all this enthusiasm. Still, Belinda would be sent for and Belinda would refuse him.

To his alarm, Lady Beverley asked him to be seated and then began to interrogate him on the state of his finances, what provision would be made for the children of the marriage, and so on.

At last St. Clair interrupted her by saying, ‘’Tis is all a bit premature, Lady Beverley, and I usually leave all boring financial matters to my lawyers. Of course, if I have called at an inconvenient time and Miss Belinda is not available, I will call some other day.’

‘No!’ shrieked Lady Beverley in alarm. And then, in a quieter voice, ‘I will send Belinda to you.’ She rose and gazed at him fondly. ‘My son!’

After she had gone, St. Clair took out a lace-edged, scented cambric handkerchief and mopped his brow. All he wanted now was for this ordeal to be over. He longed to ring the bell and ask for a glass of brandy but did not dare.

At last Belinda came in.

She was very pale and did not look at all happy to see him. Saint Clair’s spirits rose.

She hung her head as he went forward and took one of her cold hands in his own.

‘Miss Beverley, Belinda,’ he said, ‘will you marry me?’

Belinda stood for a long moment in silence. She felt tired and weary and utterly miserable. Gyre had gone. Nothing was left now but to please her mother and do her duty.

‘Thank you, my lord,’ she said at last.

‘Do not worry about it,’ he began. ‘I shall not mention this matter ag—What?’

‘I accept your proposal, my lord.’

He opened and shut his mouth and let out a squeak of ‘Thank you.’

The couple looked at each other miserably.

‘I suppose that’s that,’ said St. Clair gloomily. ‘When do you want to get married?’

‘I do not know,’ replied Belinda wretchedly. ‘Some time next year, perhaps.’

Saint Clair began to gain courage. A whole year! Surely in that time Mrs. Ingram would think of a way to get him out of this mess.

Lady Beverley, Lizzie, and Abigail came in. Lady Beverley cast an anguished look of hope at her daughter’s face.

‘Wish us well,’ said St. Clair in a hollow voice.

Miss Trumble appeared in the doorway and stood silently as Lady Beverley called for champagne.

Lizzie, watching Belinda’s sad face, suddenly felt a terrible pang of guilt. She knew Belinda was wretched and would have given anything in that moment to be able to cry out to her sister to call the whole thing off before it was too late, but the fear of the scandal that such an outburst would cause kept her quiet.

Miss Trumble turned away and made her way up to the top of the house to talk to Barry.

‘So she’s done it,’ said Barry when Miss Trumble had told him the news. ‘The Beverleys will have Mannerling at last.’

‘And much good may it do them.’ Miss Trumble paced up and down Barry’s small room, her silk skirts swishing over the sanded floor. ‘I am persuaded that Belinda is in love with Gyre. What a match that would have been. What are we to do, Barry? Saint Clair is not a villain. It might work.’

‘But you do not think so, miss,’ said Barry.

She stopped her pacing and sat down with a sigh. ‘No, I do not think so. I am going to interfere, Barry. I am going to call on Gyre.’

‘I’ll come with you, miss. You cannot take one of the carriages and will need to get a hack.’

‘Then let us go while they are all still celebrating. Something must be done!’

But when they arrived at Lord Gyre’s town house, it was to see the knocker had gone from the door and all the windows were shuttered.

A butler at a neighboring house informed
them that Lord Gyre had left for the country early that morning.

‘So that is that,’ said Miss Trumble.

‘We could follow him to the country,’ said Barry.

‘No, I think that would be folly. Calling here was a rash act. I am old and weary and sick to death of Mannerling. Belinda will just need to get on with the life she has chosen.’

*      *      *

Saint Clair called on his father to tell him the ‘glad’ news. The earl promptly plunged into financial arrangements and marriage settlements and St. Clair could feel the prison chains of marriage beginning to weigh him down already. At last he made his escape and went straight to Mrs. Ingram.

She listened in dismay. Then she rallied. ‘This should make Perry do something really rash. But what of Gyre?’

‘Everyone says he’s gone to the country, that he was with the Beverleys at the opera last night, looking like thunder.’

‘I must find some way to get him back to Town,’ said Mrs. Ingram. ‘But let us first see how our Mr. Perry Vane reacts.’

*      *      *

Perry did not hear the news until the paper with the announcement of the betrothal appeared
with his morning chocolate.

He cursed and ranted and sent the cup of chocolate flying across the room.

He felt murderous.

All at once, he decided to go down to the country, to Mannerling. There he felt he could gather his wits and think what to do.

The servants at Mannerling knew him and would let him stay. There was no reason why either the earl or Toby should know where he was.

He drove hell for leather through the whole day and night, not stopping for rest, until he saw the tall iron gates of Mannerling looming up before his tired eyes.

He slowed his pace as he drove his sweating horses up the long drive bordered by lime trees. He had a tremendous feeling that he was coming home, that he belonged at Mannerling, that everything would be all right.

Cool rooms enfolded him in their embrace. The great house was quiet and peaceful.

After he had dined and slept, he awoke refreshed in the early evening. He felt he had been prey to a temporary bout of insanity.

He went out for a walk to enjoy a cheroot and to admire the lake from the Greek temple on the rise above it. The evening was very calm and still, broken only by the sleepy chirping of birds settling down for the night.

But when he finally turned and entered the great hall of Mannerling, his calm mood was
abruptly shattered. The very walls somehow seemed to engulf him with rage and loss. His heart beat so hard, he clutched the banister and feared he might be going to have an apoplexy. And then a voice seemed to whisper in his brain that he was a milksop. He was handing this precious place over to a fop, a fop who would sell off the lands.

‘Never!’ he shouted suddenly, and the chandelier swung and tinkled above his head, first one half circle and then another.

And then he realized that Toby St. Clair would have to die.

*      *      *

Lord Gyre had not looked at the newspapers which were now stacked in a neat pile on his desk in his study.

He had ridden about his estates, checking what had to be done, pushing any thoughts of Belinda Beverley firmly to the back of his mind.

At last, he settled down one evening to catch up on the news, sitting by the library fire and throwing each newspaper on the floor beside his chair when he had finished reading all he wanted to read, which did not include any intelligence in the social columns.

At last he rose to go to bed, and as he bent down to scoop the pile of discarded newspapers from the floor, the flames from the fire illumined one which had fallen open at the
social page. The name ‘Beverley’ seemed to leap up at him. He slowly picked up the newspaper and sat down again.

So she had finally got what she wanted, he thought bitterly. Be damned to her!

*      *      *

Lizzie sat at the end of Belinda’s bed one morning and said anxiously, ‘I cannot bear the guilt any longer, Belinda. You are marrying Saint Clair because of me.’

Belinda gave her sister a wan smile. ‘I have managed to please everyone. Even Miss Trumble is silent on the matter, although I feel she is bitterly disappointed in me.’

‘Oh, Belinda,’ said Lizzie, her eyes filling with tears. ‘That wretched house. I helped to drive Gyre away, did I not, with my bad behaviour that night at the opera?’

‘Mama did her part, too,’ said Belinda wearily. ‘Think nothing of it.’

‘But do you really want to marry him?’

Belinda turned her face away. ‘I made a mistake. I cannot
bear
him now. His empty-headed chatter makes my head ache.’

Lizzie edged up the bed. ‘You must cry off.’

‘And you will blame me forever for losing Mannerling.’

‘I was mad. I only want you to be happy again.’

‘But can you imagine the scandal if I cried
off? Mama would go into a genuine decline.’

‘Mama has been disappointed four times before this and survived.’

Belinda sat up and looked at her little sister wonderingly. ‘And you would not mind?’

Lizzie hugged her. ‘Not I.’

‘I have played my part of simpering miss so well that Saint Clair is quite fond of me,’ said Belinda slowly. ‘What if I were to give him a disgust of me? Then we might both decide together that we should not suit.’

‘Famous,’ said Lizzie. ‘When do you see him next?’

‘This very afternoon. He is to take me driving.’

‘What would shock him most?’

Belinda gave a slow smile. It was the first time she had smiled since the day of her engagement. ‘I shall criticize his waistcoat. He will never forgive me for that!’

*      *      *

‘So what am I to do?’ St. Clair demanded of Mrs. Ingram for what seemed like the hundredth time. ‘Belinda is all complacence, my father is in alt, and Perry hasn’t made a move; in fact, he sent a damned expensive present.’

Mrs. Ingram was beginning to wonder if she herself was exactly what she had damned Perry Vane for being—someone who was vulnerable
because they thought they were clever while not being clever at all.

Then she said, ‘You must give her a disgust of you.’

‘How? She wants that damned house so much that I could walk all over her face with my boots on and she would only simper and say, “Why, what pretty boots, my lord.’”

‘Try.’

‘Give me a kiss and I will try anything.’

*      *      *

Lady Beverley waved from the window as Belinda and Lord St. Clair drove off that afternoon.

Lord St. Clair was searching his mind for something really rude to say when his fair partner suddenly declared testily, ‘Your horses are too showy and you do not have them properly under control.’

He goggled at her, his face flaming. ‘I assure you, I can drive to an inch.’

‘Stop staring at me, and pay attention to your team,’ snapped Belinda.

He was so taken aback, he could not think of anything to say. He drove in a sulky silence.

When they entered the Park, Belinda took a deep breath and said in that same shrewish tone, ‘We must really do something about your clothes, my lord.’

He jerked on the reins and his horses reared.
His tiger jumped down from the back and ran to their heads and got them under control.

‘What did you say?’ he demanded in a thin voice.

‘Just look at that waistcoat,’ said Belinda, prodding him rudely with one gloved finger. The waistcoat was new, of blue silk embroidered with garish yellow humming birds.

‘What’s up with it?’

‘It’s vulgar,’ said Belinda. ‘Too gaudy by half.’

‘I am the very pink of fashion. Why, Lord Alvanay said he had never seen anything like it.’

‘And neither has anyone else, sir. The yellow of the birds casts a light on your face which makes you look jaundiced.’