April Lady Read online

  ‘For God’s sake, no! At least let me be spared that!’

  She was startled, for the words had burst from him with savage violence. Her eyes leaped to his, and she recoiled instinctively from the blaze of anger she saw there. ‘Cardross – !’

  ‘Be silent!’ He flung round towards his desk, and wrenched open one of its drawers. ‘You need explain nothing to me – as you perceive!’

  She stood staring in utter amazement, almost unable to believe her eyes, for what he had taken from the drawer and tossed contemptuously on to the desk was the Cardross necklace.

  From a whirl of conjecture nothing coherent emerged; she was so much at a loss that she could only gasp: ‘You have it!’

  ‘Yes, Madam Wife, I have it!’ he replied.

  Relief swept over her. ‘Oh, how thankful I am!’ she cried. ‘But how – why – I don’t understand!’

  ‘Don’t you? Then I will tell you!’ he said harshly. ‘It was brought to me not an hour ago by an astute little jeweller whose son – neither as astute, nor, I fancy, as honest as himself! – had bought it, yesterday, for the sum of two thousand pounds! I imagine he must have blessed himself for his good fortune: it cannot be every day that such easy clients present themselves! He would be obliged to cut the necklace up, of course, but even so it is worth a trifle more than two thousand, you know. No, you don’t know, do you?’

  She hardly heard the bitter, jeering note in his voice, or grasped the implication of his words. She was staring at him with knit brows, rather pale, and with her breath coming short and light. ‘Yesterday,’ she repeated. ‘Yesterday? Who – Did he tell you – who?’

  His lips curled disdainfully. ‘No, he didn’t tell me that. His fair client – understandably, one feels! – was heavily veiled.’ He caught the tiny sigh of relief that escaped her. ‘Nor am I quite such a flat as to have wished for further information on that head!’ he said, the savagery again rampant in his voice. ‘A lady – unquestionably a lady! A young lady, dressed in the first stare of fashion, who would not disclose her name – how should she, indeed? – or accept a banker’s draft in payment! Do you suppose, when I had been told that, that I catechised Catworth?’

  ‘Catworth?’ she said quickly. ‘The man who came to see you – came twice to see you – has just been with you?’

  ‘Exactly so! If only you had known! – Is that what you are thinking, my sweet love? How should you have known? It was not he who bought the Cardross necklace for a song! You met the son – quite a knowing one, in his way, I should suppose, but by no means as downy as the father! If my new-found acquaintance is to be believed, he had never seen or heard of the Cardross necklace. Well; it may be so! I am much in debt to the father, and should be reluctant to disbelieve him. After all, I have never dealt with a Cranbourn Alley jeweller. Perhaps young Catworth is not fly, but green! It is otherwise with the elder Catworth. He recognized the necklace the instant it was shown him, and saw his duty clear before him! I must always regret that I was not just in the humour to enjoy the scene as it deserved to be enjoyed! So discreet, he was! so virtuous! Not an ungentlemanly word spoken throughout! He did not even permit himself to hope for my future patronage, and he accepted without a blink every whisker that I uttered! An admirable man – I must certainly place a little business in his way! How very shabby it would be if I did not!’

  He paused, but she did not speak, or move. There was a queer, blank look in her eyes: had he but known it, she was less concerned with the injustice of what he had said than with the realization of what must be the true story.

  He picked up the necklace, and put it back in the drawer. Turning the key in the lock, and removing it, he said sardonically: ‘You will forgive me, I trust, if henceforward I keep it in my own charge! I am persuaded you must, for you have never admired it, or wished to wear it, have you? You should have discovered its worth, however, before you set out to dispose of it. I cannot have my wife so easily gulled, Lady Cardross!’

  At that, she blinked, and half lifted one hand in a beseeching gesture. ‘Ah, no! Giles, Giles!’

  It did not move him. ‘Oh, don’t waste your cajolery on me, my pretty one! You will catch cold at that now! I was a bigger flat than you, but, believe me, the game is up! You hoaxed me wonderfully: bowled me out with that sweet face, and those innocent ways! I thought I was up to every move on the board, but when I saw you – when you put your hand in mine, and looked up at me, and smiled –’ He broke off, and seemed to make an effort to master the rage that was consuming him. ‘You must pardon me! I had not meant to open my lips on this subject until I had had time to recover, in some sort, from the chagrin of having every suspicion, forced on me during the few months of our marriage, confirmed! Well! I have come by my deserts! I should have known better than to have been taken in by that lovely face of yours, or to have believed that under your charming manners you had a heart to be won! To be sure, you never gave me reason to think it, did you? How unjust of me to blame you for that! I will engage not to do so again, but must try to fulfil better my side of the bargain. It has been brought home to me how lamentably short of expectation I have fallen, but that can be mended, and shall be. Tell me, my sweet life, at what figure do you set your beauty, your dutiful submission, your admirable discretion, and your unfailing politeness?’

  She had stood quite still, neither flinching from the ugly shafts aimed at her, nor making any further attempt to speak. She was very white, but although she heard what was being said to her she hardly attended to it. He was saying such terrible things, but he did not know the truth: he was saying those things to some creature who did not exist, not to her. It hurt her that he could so misjudge her, but she never thought of blaming him. Just so had she misjudged Dysart, and with far less cause.

  ‘Well? Why do you hesitate? Or don’t you know what I’m worth?’

  She looked at him, and saw a stranger. She couldn’t tell him all the truth while this black mood held him, much less disclose to him the shocking suspicion in her own heart. In the end he might have to know that too, but it was not certain yet. But if a worse disaster than he knew threatened him there might still be yet time to avert it. Only she must not waste precious moments in trying to justify herself, or expose Dysart and Letty to the white heat of his anger. Later she would tell him, but not now, when her own part in the affair had suddenly become a matter of very little importance beside what might well prove to be Letty’s.

  She tried to speak, and found that she had too little command over her voice. He was still watching her with those hard, angry eyes. That hurt her, and made tears spring to her own. She winked them away, and managed to say, with a pathetic attempt at a smile wavering on her lips: ‘I can’t answer you, you s-see. Later, I will. Not now!’

  She went rather blindly towards the door. His voice checked her, even startled her a little. ‘No, come back! I didn’t mean it, Nell! I didn’t mean it!’

  He took a quick stride towards her, only to be brought up short by the opening of the door, and the entrance of his butler.

  ‘I beg your lordship’s pardon!’ Farley said apologetically.

  ‘Well, what is it?’ Cardross snapped.

  ‘I thought you would wish to know, my lord, that Sir John Somerby called to see your lordship ten minutes ago. He is waiting in the saloon.’

  ‘Tell him I will be with him presently!’

  ‘No, please go to him now!’ Nell said gently, and left the room without again looking at him.

  She went swiftly up the stairs, past her own rooms, and up another flight to Letty’s. Martha, running up two minutes later, in answer to the summons of a bell clanging so wildly that it was plain its pull had been tugged with peremptory vigour, found her standing in the middle of the room, and quailed under the sternly accusing look in her eyes. ‘Oh, my lady! I didn’t know it was your ladyship!’

  ‘Where is you