April Lady Read online

  Subjected to such treatment as this, it was hardly surprising that Cardross, far too proud to betray his hurt, retired behind a barrier of cool, faintly ironic civility, which effectually slew at birth Nell’s impulse to fling caution to the winds, and all her doubts and difficulties at his feet.

  To make matters worse, no word came from Dysart, and Letty, bent on achieving her own ends, wore her brother’s temper thin by renewing her attacks every time she saw him. As she had been pledging his credit all over town for weeks past he was soon provoked into addressing a few shattering home truths to her, from which his unhappy wife, an unwilling third at this encounter, gathered that debt and dishonesty were, in his austere view, synonymous terms. Certainly no moment for the disclosure of her own embarrassments could be more unpropitious.

  It was therefore with relief that she bade him farewell. He expected to be away for a se’enight, within which time she thought it not unreasonable to suppose that Dysart must have discovered a means of discharging her debt to Madame Lavalle. By way of recalling it to his mind (just in case, in the press of his sporting engagements, he had temporarily forgotten its urgency) she sent round a note to his lodging in Duke Street, inviting him to dine in Grosvenor Square on the night of the masquerade. Well aware of the fatal results of importunacy she resisted a temptation to ask him what progress he had made towards settling her affairs, and was soon rewarded for her restraint. The Viscount not only sent back a note accepting her invitation, but added, in a postscript, that she need not trouble her head more over That Other Matter.

  This cryptic message sent her spirits up immediately. It would have been more satisfactory, perhaps, if Dysart had told her what expedient he had hit upon but she knew him to be no ready letter-writer, and was content to trust that his third attempt at solving her difficulties would be more acceptable to her than his two previous suggestions. Except for one encounter in the Park, where it was impossible to hold private conversation with him, she did not meet him: a circumstance which led her to suppose that whatever plan he had evolved needed a good deal of preparation. This made her feel a trifle uneasy, but he nodded to her so reassuringly at the end of their once chance meeting that her misgivings were soothed. ‘I shall see you on Thursday,’ he said; and that, she thought, was his way of informing her that on Thursday, when he was to go with her to the masquerade, he would be able to tell her just what she must do to rid herself of her intolerable debt.

  And then, on Thursday evening, when both the fair hostesses awaited his arrival in Grosvenor Square, he did not come.

  Neither was surprised that he should be late in keeping his engagement, for his habits were known to be erratic; and for a full half-hour only the wizard belowstairs, with two capons roasted to a turn on the spits, fat livers in cases in imminent danger of becoming over-baked in the oven, and the caramel sugar spun over a dish of peu d’amours rapidly hardening, saw any cause for agitation. Letty, who had been in low spirits for days past, was wearing a new and extremely dashing ball-dress of white crape so profusely embroidered with silver spangles that when she stood in the light of the great chandelier in the drawing-room the effect was quite dazzling. Nell, less strikingly attired in satin and blonde lace, knew that if Lady Chudleigh should be at the masquerade she would unhesitatingly condemn this toilette as being totally unsuited to a young lady in her first season, for it was cut indecorously low, besides being worn over the most diaphanous of petticoats. Cardross would probably have insisted on its being changed for something more demure. He might even have considered that in his absence his wife should have done so, but Nell felt herself to be unequal to an exhausting and almost certainly losing battle; and assuaged her conscience with the reflection that the dress would be largely hidden by the domino of shimmering rose silk, which Letty had tossed across the back of a chair. Besides, Letty was so pleased with her appearance that it had put her into the sunniest of humours, which Nell, having endured a week of sulks and repinings, would not willingly upset.

  ‘The worst of brothers is that they never think it is of the least consequence to keep one waiting,’ remarked Letty, spreading open a fan spangled to match her gown. ‘I only hope he may not be foxed when he does arrive! Look, do you think this is pretty?’

  ‘Foxed! Why should he be?’ demanded Nell rather indignantly.

  ‘Oh! You know what men are, when they go off to watch a cock-fight!’ said the worldly wise Letty. ‘There was one at Epsom today, I fancy.’

  ‘Good heavens, did he tell you he meant to go there?’

  ‘No, but I heard Hardwick talking to Mr Bottisham about it, and he said something about Dysart’s taking him up in his curricle.’

  ‘Oh, dear!’ said Nell, considerably dismayed by this most unwelcome intelligence. ‘If that is so – Oh, I do hope he may not have forgotten he is to take us to Chiswick tonight!’

  ‘What, you don’t mean to say that you think he might?’ exclaimed Letty, allowing her fan to drop into her lap. ‘Oh, it would be too infamous!’

  Certain sinister memories flitted through Nell’s mind. ‘Well, I trust he has not, but he – he does sometimes forget his engagements – particularly when he doesn’t like them excessively!’ she said.

  Letty controlled herself with a strong effort, but when, at the end of another ten minutes, there was still no sign of the Viscount, she could contain herself no longer, but said bitterly: ‘Even if he is your brother, Nell, I don’t believe he ever meant to go with us, and he just said he would so that you shouldn’t tease him!’

  ‘No, no, he did mean to, for he said he would see me tonight when we met him in the Park that day! Besides, although I own he is shockingly careless, he wouldn’t serve me such an unhandsome trick as that! I was wondering if I should perhaps send a note round to his lodging, to remind him. Only I daresay it would take my footman at least twenty minutes to reach Duke Street –’

  ‘Yes, and ten to one he wouldn’t find him at home when he did reach his lodging!’ interrupted Letty. ‘For my part, I don’t care a button whether he comes or not, for I am persuaded we shall do very well without him!’ She looked at Nell with sharp suspicion. ‘You are not going to say we can’t go to the masquerade unless he escorts us? Oh, Nell, you couldn’t be so shabby!’

  ‘No – that is, I know I need not scruple to go, when it is to my cousin’s party, but I cannot like it! I wish you were not so set on it – and, to own the truth, I can’t think why you should be, unless you have cajoled Mr Allandale to go, and mean to spend the evening in his pocket! And mask or no mask, Letty, I can’t and I won’t permit it!’

  ‘I did try to make him go,’ admitted Letty, quite unabashed, ‘but he holds to it that it would be improper, even if he slipped away before the unmasking, so you needn’t be in a fidget! The thing is that I have never attended a masquerade, and if I don’t go to this one I may not have the chance to go to one for years, for there’s no saying that they have them in Brazil, after all.’

  Nell looked at her in concern. ‘No, but – Dearest Letty, don’t indulge your fancy with that thought! Cardross won’t give his consent: it is useless to think he might!’

  ‘I shall compel him!’ Letty said, looking mulish.

  ‘How could you possibly do that?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know that yet, but you may depend upon it that I shall do it! Recollect that he said I shouldn’t be presented till I was eighteen, or act in the theatricals at Roxwell, at Christmas, or drive his bays, or – oh, a hundred things! I can always get Giles to let me have my own way, in the end!’

  Nell could not help smiling at the naïveté with which Letty classed these trivialities with her marriage, but before she could make any attempt to show her sister-in-law how the very fondness which led Cardross to indulge her in small matters would stiffen his resolve not to permit her (as he thought) to throw herself away in a marriage doomed to failure, Farley, her butler, had en