Venetia Read online

  ‘I’ve no doubt!’ Damerel interrupted wrathfully.

  ‘– and so do I wish it,’ continued Venetia serenely, ‘for my own father I didn’t like half as well!’

  ‘Do you mean to tell me,’ demanded Damerel, ‘that your aunt had no more gumption than to permit you to do what any but a greenhead would have known was enough to set every gossiping tongue wagging? Oh, my God!’

  ‘You must meet my aunt,’ said Venetia. ‘I am persuaded you would deal wonderfully together, for I see you have exactly the same notions! Do you know, it had me quite in a puzzle – before I knew about my mother, I mean – to understand why Aunt was for ever telling me that I must be excessively correct and prim, because of my circumstances? And though she was bent on finding me a respectable husband I could see that she thought it would be a very hard task. It seemed odd to me, for I’m not an antidote, and I’m not by any means penniless. I saw how it was, of course, when I learned the truth about Mama. I must own, Damerel, that I wish you had been frank with me – but I daresay you felt you could not.’ She added reflectively: ‘No, to be sure you couldn’t! It was a most awkward fix to be in!’

  ‘What the devil do you mean by that?’ Damerel shot at her, in a voice ominous enough to cause any female to quail.

  Venetia showed him a face of sweet innocence. ‘Why, only that I do understand how very difficult – quite impossible, in fact! – it was for you to explain that for a Damerel to marry a daughter of Lady Steeple would never do. I think now that you did try, once or twice, to give me a hint, but –’

  ‘Tried to – How dare you?’ he said furiously. ‘How dare you, Venetia? If you imagine that I let you go because I thought you beneath my touch –’

  ‘But that must have been the reason!’ she objected. ‘I know you bamboozled me into believing that it was you who were beneath my touch, and that was kind, and very like you, my dear friend – but perfectly absurd, now that I know how shockingly ineligible I am!’

  He half started up from his chair. She thought she was going to be seized, and, probably, well shaken, and waited hopefully. But he sank back again, and although he eyed her bodingly she saw that the wrath had vanished from his eyes. ‘You don’t think anything of the sort, my girl,’ he said dryly. ‘Whether your aunt – who sounds to me to be a confirmed ninnyhammer! – put it into your head that your parents’ divorce makes you ineligible, or whether it’s a notion you’ve hatched for my benefit, I know not, but you may now listen to me – and believe that I am speaking the truth! There’s no man worthy to be called a man at all, who, knowing you, and loving you, would care a tinker’s damn for that fustian nonsense! Ask your uncle, if you think I’m lying to you! He’ll tell you the same. Good God, do you imagine that no one was ever divorced before? Anyone would suppose your mother to have joined the muslin company who heard you talk such moonshine, instead of which she has been married to Steeple these fifteen years!’

  ‘Well, I must say that that takes quite a load from my mind,’ Venetia told him gratefully. ‘And it brings me to the reason why I came home. I knew you would be able to advise me! Of course, Aubrey is the chief person I must consult, but he isn’t old enough to be able to advise me. Damerel, I have received an offer, and I am not perfectly sure whether I should accept it, or not. It’s not what I wish for, but I think I should prefer it to living alone – wasting my life, you called that, and perhaps you were right.’

  He said in a hard voice, and rather hastily: ‘If this offer comes from Yardley, I can’t advise you! I should have said – the last man alive to – But you know best what will suit you!’

  ‘From Edward? Good gracious, no! How could you think it possible I should want advice about an offer from him?’

  ‘I don’t – that is, I know he followed you to London. He came here to tell Aubrey. I didn’t see him.’

  ‘He did follow me to London,’ agreed Venetia. She heaved a mournful sigh. ‘He has been mistaken in my character, however, and I daresay he is even now on his way back to Netherfold. It is a very lowering thought, but I’ve been as good as jilted, Damerel! I expect, in the end, he will offer for Clara Denny.’

  ‘Is this another attempt to hoax me?’

  ‘No, no! You see, he does care about divorce, and although, after struggling against his judgment for several years, he yielded to his infatuation, believing me to have delicacy, under my levity –’

  ‘Venetia, even Yardley could not talk like that!’ he protested, his lip quivering.

  Her laughter bubbled over. ‘But he did, I promise you! He was strongly of the opinion that I should give my mama the go-by, you see, and – and he took the most unaccountable dislike to Sir Lambert!’

  ‘Oh, he did, did he?’ retorted Damerel, regarding her with grim appreciation. ‘He’s an insufferable coxcomb, but as for you, fair torment – !’

  ‘Well, I see nothing to take exception to in Sir Lambert!’ she declared. ‘Only wait until you learn how very kind he is! You see, the offer I spoke of was from Mama!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t wonder you are astonished: I was myself – but so very much touched! Only think, Damerel! She invites me to go back with them both to Paris, and to remain with them for as long as I like – and with Sir Lambert’s full approval! I own, I can’t help but be tempted: I have always longed to travel, you know, and Mama talks of going to Italy in the spring. Italy! I don’t think I can resist!’

  ‘Venetia, you are doing it very much too brown!’ he said, breaking in on this without ceremony. ‘I know your mama! She would no more invite you to take up residence in her hôtel than she would shave off her eyebrows!’

  Quite prepared for this scepticism, Venetia said anxiously: ‘Oh, Damerel, do you think she didn’t mean it after all?’

  ‘I think she never so much as dreamed of inviting you to visit her, my love!’

  ‘But she did!’ Venetia assured him. ‘It was because I told her of my scheme to set up house with Aubrey. She was quite as horrified as ever you were, and said I might as well bury myself. She says it wouldn’t do for me to live with her in England, but that abroad people are not so strait-laced, so that – But read her letter for yourself!’

  Looking thunderstruck, he took the letter she had extracted from her reticule, and spread it open. He cast her a suspicious glance, and then lowered his eyes to Lady Steeple’s charmingly written missive. He read it, heavily frowning, twice, before he again looked at Venetia. He was still suspicious, but she could see that he was shaken. ‘Venetia, how the devil did you persuade her to write this?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, you see what persuaded her to write it!’

  ‘That is exactly what I do not see! Aurelia Steeple in a fret because you told her – Oh, for the Lord’s sake, Venetia, don’t ask me to swallow that fling! I don’t know what you’ve been doing, but if this isn’t a hoax I hope you know that under no circumstances must you join that ménage!’

  She said apologetically: ‘No, I fear I don’t. I see that it wouldn’t be a wise thing to do if my ambition were to become one of those tonnish females whom my aunt describes as being of the first consideration, but as it isn’t –’

  ‘Stop talking like the greenhead you are!’ he said sternly. ‘You know nothing about the Steeples’ world! Well, I do know – none better! – and if I thought that this was anything but a hum –’ He stopped abruptly, raising his head a little.

  ‘Well?’ she prompted.

  He lifted his finger, and she too heard the sound that had reached his ears. A carriage was approaching the house. ‘Aubrey!’ Damerel said. His eyes went back to her face. ‘What reason do you mean to give him for being here? You won’t regale him with this!’ He handed back Lady Steeple’s letter to her as he spoke.

  She was wishing Aubrey a hundred miles away, and could have screamed with vexation, but she replied with seeming calm: ‘But, my dear friend, I couldn’t