April Lady Read online

  ‘No, of course not!’ Nell said. ‘But – where did you go to, Mr Allandale?’

  ‘I was guilty of practising deception,’ he said heavily. ‘I need not, I hope, assure you that such a course was of the utmost repugnance to me. To deceive one so dear to me, and one who, moreover, placed the most implicit trust in my integrity, was more painful than I can describe. But when I found that no words of mine could avail to persuade my darling to return to her home, when I saw her in such agony of grief and despair –’

  ‘Yes, I’ve seen Letty in hysterics,’ said Cardross. ‘You have no need to describe the scene to me! I pity you sincerely. What, in fact, did you do?’

  ‘Fearing that if I compelled her to return to this house she might put a period to her existence, I agreed to fly with her to the Border,’ said Mr Allandale. ‘She believed that we were on our way north, but it was not so. I did not carry her to Gretna Green, but to Wimbledon.’

  There was a moment’s astonished silence. ‘To Wimbledon!’ said Cardross, in a voice that shook. ‘I expect you had an excellent reason for your choice.’

  ‘Why, to be sure he had!’ exclaimed Nell, bestowing a warm smile upon Mr Allandale. ‘You mean you took her to your mother’s house! How very wise of you!’

  He bowed. ‘It seemed to me, ma’am, the only course open to me. In my mother’s judgement I could repose complete confidence, for her understanding is superior, her mind of an elevated order, and her firm yet tender command over my sisters such as encouraged me to hope that over my darling also her influence would prevail.’

  ‘And we perceive that it did!’ said Cardross. ‘My dear Allandale, why have I never been privileged to meet your mother?’

  ‘I would like to kill you!’ choked Letty.

  ‘My mother, sir, seldom goes into society,’ said Mr Allandale stiffly.

  ‘But I hope she may be persuaded to receive me, nevertheless.’

  ‘I am at a loss to understand your lordship,’ said Mr Allandale, more stiffly yet. ‘I apprehend, however, that you are in funning humour!’

  ‘No, I am not funning,’ Cardross replied. ‘Oblige me by telling me, in all frankness, whether or not my sister’s want of conduct, her excessive sensibility, and the unscrupulous means she does not hesitate to use to attain her ends have convinced you that she is totally unfitted to be your wife?’

  ‘Giles, don’t!’ begged Nell, as Letty broke into renewed weeping.

  ‘Sir,’ said Mr Allandale, very pale, but steadily meeting Cardross’s eyes, ‘I do not attempt to condone her faults, though I can perceive excuses for them, but I love her, and must always do so, whatever she is, or whatever she does.’

  Letty looked up, her tears arrested, awe in her face. ‘Jeremy!’ she said. ‘Oh, Jeremy!’

  Cardross turned his head. ‘You are not worthy of that, Letty.’

  ‘No,’ she said forlornly. ‘I know I am not, but – oh, I wish I were!’

  He smiled wryly. ‘Well, I daresay there may be hope for you. You had better marry her, Allandale.’

  It seemed for several moments as though neither of the interested parties could believe that they had heard him correctly. It was Letty who found her voice first. ‘Giles – do you mean now? Before he sails?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I mean.’

  ‘Oh, my dearest brother, how kind you are!’ cried Letty, flying up off the sofa and casting herself upon his chest. ‘Pray forgive me for saying horrid things to you! I didn’t mean them! Oh, how happy I am! Oh, Jeremy, I promise I will never do anything you don’t like!’

  ‘Sir,’ said Mr Allandale, ‘I do not know how to convey to you my sense of your generosity, my gratitude, the –’

  ‘Then don’t try!’ said Cardross. ‘You are a very estimable young man, but I should like you so much more if you would refrain from addressing me in flowing periods! I am going to send you away now, but you may come to see me tomorrow, at noon, if that should be convenient to you, when I will arrange the marriage settlements with you. You may escort him to the front door, Letty, and after you have bidden him good-night, you had better go to bed.’

  ‘Bed at ten o’clock!’ she said, by no means pleased.

  ‘Yes, bed at ten o’clock. If you are not exhausted after a day of unbridled passion, you should be! Don’t argue with me! My patience won’t stand it.’

  ‘Indeed, you should go, love!’ Nell urged her. ‘You are quite worn out. I will come up to you, and –’

  ‘No, you will not,’ Cardross interrupted.

  Overawed by this display of cool and sweeping authority the young lovers withdrew circumspectly. Nell showed her husband a laughing countenance. ‘Well, really, Giles!’ she expostulated.

  He caught her up from the sofa, and held her a little away from him, looking down into her face with bright, smiling eyes. ‘Yes, really, Giles!’ he retorted. ‘How much longer did you think I would wait to get you to myself?’

  She did not answer him, but blushed a little, meeting his gaze shyly but very openly.

  ‘There’s so much to say to you, Nell – and, God forgive me, so much to unsay! My darling, I wish I had cut my tongue out before –’

  ‘No, there is nothing to unsay, because you didn’t say those things to me,’ she intervened. ‘They hurt me only a very little – not as much as I deserved, perhaps! For I am afraid I have been extravagant, and – and deceitful, and very foolish!’

  ‘And above all very foolish,’ he agreed, turning her words into a caress. ‘It seems I have been a great deal too easy with you, Madam Wife! That will not happen again! So you thought I offered for you because I wanted a wife, and saw nothing in you to disgust me, did you? Nell, how could you be such a goose?’

  The blush deepened; she hung her head. ‘Mama said – that you were disposed to be fond of me, and considerate, and she warned me not to hang on you, or – or appear to notice it if – perhaps – you had Another Interest.’

  ‘I am obliged to Mama! And did it seem to you that I had Another Interest?’

  ‘No. But I knew,’ she said simply. ‘The first time we met Letty said that I was prettier than your mistress.’

  ‘She was right. I wish I could think that Allandale would beat her regularly every week, but I fear he won’t. The lady with whom I enjoyed an agreeable connection for several years need never have troubled you. We parted without regret or ill-will, and when we meet in company today it is with the indifferent pleasure of old acquaintances. From the moment I saw you, Nell, you have had all my heart. That is the truth.’

  ‘Dysart said that. He said that everyone knew it, too.’

  ‘I infinitely prefer your brother to my sister. But why, my foolish little love, did you then keep me at an even greater distance?’

  She looked up again. ‘You see, I owed Lavalle more than three hundred pounds, so how could I do anything else, until that dreadful debt was paid? With that on my conscience I couldn’t tell you that I had been agonizingly in love with you from the very beginning; and if you had discovered the debt you would never have believed me. But I was, Giles.’

  Farley, quietly entering the room at that moment, beheld his mistress locked in a crushing embrace, and with instant presence of mind stepped noiselessly back into the hall. There he remained for some few minutes, after which, with a little fumbling with the door-handle, he entered the book-room for the second time. My lord, before the mirror above the fireplace, was pensively absorbed in some delicate adjustment to the folds of his cravat; my lady, a trifle dishevelled, but otherwise a model of fashionable decorum, was seated in a large armchair. ‘I don’t know how it comes about, my lord,’ she said, in a light, languid voice, ‘but we do not increase our covers for guests tonight.’

  ‘But why, my love, did you not inform me of this circumstance earlier?’ enquired my lord reproachfully. ‘I should th