The Black Moth Read online

  ‘How unwise of him!’ taunted the Colonel. ‘Or had he no choice?’

  She tossed her head angrily.

  ‘If you are minded to be disagreeable, Robert, pray do not let me detain you!’ she flashed.

  D’Egmont was quite unembarrassed by this interchange of civilities. He knew the Belmanoir family too well to be made uncomfortable by their bickerings.

  ‘Shall we leave him?’ he asked Lavinia, smiling.

  ‘Yes,’ she pouted. ‘He is determined to be unpleasant.’

  ‘My dear sister! On the contrary, I believe I can offer you some amusement. Lovelace is in town.’

  ‘Captain Harold?’ she cried incredulously.

  ‘The same.’

  ‘Oh, Bob!’ Impulsively she withdrew her hand from Julian’s arm, transferring it to the Colonel’s. ‘I must see him at once! To think he is returned after all these years! Quick, Julian, dear lad – go and find him – and tell him ’tis I, Lavinia, who want him! You know him, do you not? Yes – I thought you did. Send him to me at once! – at once!’

  D’Egmont looked very crestfallen at having his walk with the goddess thus cut short, but he had perforce to kiss her hand and to obey.

  ‘Yes. I thought you would be pleased,’ remarked Lord Robert, and chuckled. ‘Allow me to point out to you that there is a chair – two chairs – in fact, quite a number of chairs – immediately behind you.’

  She sat down, chattering excitedly.

  ‘Why, ’tis nigh on five years since I saw Harry! Has he changed? Lud! but he will deem me an old woman? Is he likely to be in town for long, I wonder? – Dear me, Bob, look at the two ladies over behind that seat! – Gracious! what extraordinary coifs, to be sure! And cherry ribbons, too!… Tell me, Bob, where did you meet Harry Lovelace?’

  The Colonel, who, far from attending to her monologue, had been sending amorous glances across to a palpably embarrassed girl, who hung on her papa’s arm while that gentleman stopped to speak to a stout dowager, brought his gaze reluctantly back to his sister.

  ‘What’s that you say, Lavvy?’

  ‘How provoking of you not to listen to me! I asked where you met Harold.’

  ‘Where I met him? Let me see – where did I meet him? Oh, I remember! At the Cocoa-Tree, a fortnight since.’

  ‘And he is altered?’

  ‘Not in any way, dear sister. He is the same mad, reckless rake-hell as ever. And unmarried.’

  ‘How delightful! Oh, I shall be so glad to see him again!’

  ‘You must present him to Richard,’ sneered the Colonel, ‘as an old flame.’

  ‘I must indeed,’ she agreed, his sarcasm passing over her head. ‘Oh, I see him! Look! Coming across the grass!’

  She rose to meet the tall, fairly young Guardsman who came swiftly towards her, curtseying as only Lady Lavinia could curtsey, with such stateliness and coquetry.

  ‘Captain Lovelace!’ she put forward both her hands.

  Lovelace caught them in his, and bent his head over them so that the soft, powdered curls of his loose wig fell all about his face.

  ‘Lady Lavinia! – Enchantress! – I can find no words! I am dumb!’

  ‘And I!’

  ‘In that case,’ drawled the Colonel, ‘you are not like to be very entertaining company. Pray give me leave!’ He bowed and sauntered away down the path with a peculiarly malicious smile on his lips.

  Lavinia and Lovelace found two chairs, slightly apart from the rest, and sat down, talking eagerly.

  ‘Captain Lovelace, I believe you had forgot me?’ she rallied him.

  ‘Never!’ he answered promptly. ‘Not though you well-nigh broke my heart!’

  ‘No, no! I did not do that. I never meant to hurt you.’

  He shook his head disbelievingly.

  ‘You rejected me to marry some other man: do you say you did not mean to?’

  ‘You naughty Harry!… You never married yourself?’

  ‘I?’ The delicate features expressed a species of hurt horror. ‘I marry? No! I was ever faithful to my first love.’

  She unfurled her fan, fluttering it delightedly.

  ‘Oh! Oh! Always, Harold? Now speak the truth!’

  ‘Nearly always,’ he amended.

  ‘Disagreeable man! You admit you had lapses then?’

  ‘So very trivial, my dear,’ he excused himself. ‘And I swear my first action on coming to London was to call at Wyncham House. Imagine my disappointment – my incalculable gloom (on the top of having already dropped a thousand at faro) when I found the shell void, and Venus –’

  She stopped him, her fan held ready for chastisement.

  ‘Sir! You said your first action was to call upon me!’

  He smiled, shaking back his curls.

  ‘I should have said: my first action of any importance.’

  ‘You do not deem losing a thousand guineas important?’ she asked wistfully.

  ‘Well – hardly. One must enjoy life, and what’s a thousand, after all? I had my pleasure out of it.’

  ‘Yes!’ she breathed, her eyes sparkling. ‘That is how I think! What pleasure can one get if one neither hazards nor spends one’s money? Oh well!’ She shrugged one shoulder, dismissing the subject.

  ‘Have you seen Tracy of late?’

  ‘He was at a court ball I attended at Versailles, but I did not have a chance of speaking to him. I heard he was very popular at Paris.’

  ‘Ay!’ she said proudly. ‘He has the French air… I so desire to see him again, but I fear he does not think of returning. I know he was promised for the Duchess of Devonshire’s rout months ago – before even the date was fixed, she so dotes on him – but I do not expect to see him there.’ She sighed and drummed on the ground with her diamond-buckle shoe. ‘Harry, I am chilled! Take me to the Pavilion! I doubt they are dancing – and Dicky will be there.’

  ‘Dicky?’ he repeated. ‘Dicky! Lavinia, do not tell me there is another claimant to your heart?’

  ‘Wicked, indelicate creature. ’Tis my husband!’

  ‘Your husband! Enfin – !’

  She cast him a sidelong glance of mingled coquetry and reproof.

  ‘Your mind is at rest again, I trust?’

  ‘Of course! A husband! Pooh, a bagatelle, no more!’

  ‘My husband is not a bagatelle!’ she laughed. ‘I am very fond of him.’

  ‘This grows serious,’ he frowned. ‘’Tis very unfashionable, surely?’

  She met his teasing eyes and cast down her lashes.

  ‘Captain Lovelace, you may take me to the Pavilion.’

  ‘Sweet tormentor, not until you cease so to misname me.’

  ‘Harold, I am indeed chilly!’ she said plaintively, and snatched her hand from his lips. ‘No, no! People will stare – look, there is my odious brother returning! I declare I will not stay to listen to his hateful, sneering remarks!… Come!’

  They walked across the grass together, keeping up a running fire of raillery, punctuated on his side by extravagant compliments filled with classical allusions, all more or less erroneous, and on hers by delighted little laughs and mock scoldings. So they came to the Pavilion, where the musicians fiddled for those who wished to dance, and where most of the company had assembled now that it was growing chilly without. Down one end of the hall, card-tables were set out, where members of both sexes diced and gambled, drinking glasses of burgundy or negus, the men toasting the ladies, and very often the ladies returning the toasts with much archness and low curtseying.

  Lavinia cast off her capuchin and plumed her feathers, giving a surreptitious shake to her ruched skirts and smoothing her ruffles. She rustled forward with great stateliness, fan unfurled, head held high, her gloved fingers lightly on Lovelace’s velvet-clad arm. Richard, hearing the little stir caused by her entry, glanced up, and p