The Convenient Marriage Read online

  Horatia got up. ‘Well, b-but –’

  The Viscount took her hand to draw it through his arm, and as he did so pinched her fingers significantly. Understanding this brotherly nip to mean that he had something of importance to say to her, Horatia sketched a curtsy to Lady Massey, and prepared to walk away with the Viscount, only pausing to say seriously: ‘P-perhaps we shall try a throw against each other some day, my lord.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Lethbridge bowed.

  The Viscount led her firmly out of earshot. ‘Good God, Horry, what’s all this?’ he demanded, with pious intention but a complete absence of tact. ‘Keep away from Lethbridge: he’s dangerous. Damme, was there ever such a one for getting into the wrong company?’

  ‘I sh-shan’t keep away from him,’ declared Horatia. ‘Lady M-Massey says he is a hardened g-gamester!’

  ‘So he is,’ said the ill-advised Viscount. ‘And you’re no pigeon for his plucking, Horatia, let me tell you.’

  Horatia pulled her hand away, her eyes flashing. ‘And l-let me tell you, P-Pel, that I’m a m-married lady now, and I w-won’t be ordered about by you!’

  ‘Married! Ay, so you are, and you’ve only to let Rule get wind of this and there’ll be the devil to pay. The Massey too! ’Pon my soul, if ever I met another to equal you!’

  ‘W-well, and what have you against Lady M-Massey?’ said Horatia.

  ‘What have I – ? Oh Lord!’ The Viscount tugged ruefully at his solitaire. ‘I suppose you don’t – no, exactly. Now don’t plague me with a lot of silly questions, there’s a good girl. Come and drink a glass of negus.’

  Still standing by the couch, Lord Lethbridge watched the departure of the brother and sister, and turned his head to observe Lady Massey. ‘Thank you, my dear Caroline,’ he said sweetly. ‘That was vastly kind of you. Did you know it?’

  ‘Do you think me a fool?’ she retorted. ‘When that plum drops into your hand, remember then to thank me.’

  ‘And the egregious Winwood, I fancy,’ remarked his lordship, helping himself to a pinch of snuff. ‘Do you want that plum to fall into my hand, dear lady?’

  The look that passed between them was eloquent enough. ‘We need not fence,’ Lady Massey said crisply. ‘You have your own ends to serve; maybe I can guess what they are. My ends I daresay you know.’

  ‘I am quite sure that I do,’ grinned Lethbridge. ‘Do forgive me, my dear, but though I have a reasonable hope of achieving mine, I’m willing to lay you any odds you don’t achieve yours. Now is not that outspoken? You did say we need not fence, did you not?’

  She stiffened. ‘What am I to understand by that, if you please?’

  ‘Just this,’ said Lethbridge, shutting his enamelled snuff-box with a snap. ‘I don’t need your assistance, my love. I play my cards to suit myself, neither to oblige you nor Crosby.’

  ‘I imagine,’ she said dryly, ‘we all of us desire the same thing.’

  ‘But my motive,’ replied his lordship, ‘is by far the purest.’

  Seven

  Lady Massey, accepting Lethbridge’s snub with tolerable equanimity, had no difficulty in interpreting his last cryptic speech. Her momentary anger gave place immediately to a somewhat cynical amusement. She herself was hardly of the stuff that could plan the undoing of a bride for no more personal reason than a desire for revenge on the groom, but she was able to appreciate the artistry of such a scheme, while the cold-bloodedness of it, though rather shocking, could not but entertain her. There was something a little devilish in it, and it was the devil in Lethbridge that had always attracted her. Nevertheless, had Horatia been any other man’s wife than Rule’s she would have thought shame to lend herself even passively to so inhuman a piece of mischief. But Lady Massey, prepared before she set eyes on Horatia to resign herself to the inevitable, had changed her mind. She flattered herself that she knew Rule, and who knowing him could think for a moment that this ill-assorted union could end in anything but disaster? He had married for an heir, for a gracious châtelaine, certainly not for the alarums and excursions that must occur wherever Horatia went.

  Something he had once said to her remained significantly in her memory. His wife must care for him – only for him. She had caught then a glimpse of steel, implacable as it was unexpected.

  Rule, for all his easy going, would be no complaisant husband and if this loveless marriage of convenience went awry, why then, divorce was not so rare in these days. If a Duchess could suffer it, so too might a Countess. Once free of his tempestuous wife, with her hoydenish flights and her gaming excesses, he would turn with relief to one who created no scenes and knew to a nicety how to please a man.

  It suited Lady Massey very well to permit Lethbridge to work his mischief; she wanted to have no hand in it; it was an ugly business after all, and her provocative words to Horatia had been the malicious prompting of the moment rather than a concerted attempt to throw her into Lethbridge’s arms. Yet finding herself beside Horatia at Vauxhall Gardens a week later, and seeing Lethbridge answer a beckoning gesture from a fair beauty in one of the boxes only with a wave of his hand, she could not resist the impulse to say: ‘Alas, poor Maria! What a fruitless task to attempt Robert Lethbridge’s enslavement! As though we had not all tried – and failed!’

  Horatia said nothing, but her eyes followed Lethbridge with a speculative gleam in them.

  It did not need Lady Massey’s words to spur up her interest. Lethbridge, with his hawk-eyes and his air of practised ease, had at the outset attracted her, already a trifle bored by the adulation of younger sparks. He was very much the man-of-the-world, and to add to his fascination he was held to be dangerous. At the first meeting it had seemed as though he admired her; had he shown admiration more plainly at the second his charm might have dwindled. He did not. He let half the evening pass before he approached her and then he exchanged but the barest civilities and passed on. They met at the card table at Mrs Delaney’s house. He held the bank at pharaoh and she won against the bank. He complimented her, but still with that note of mockery as though he refused to take her seriously. Yet, when she walked in the Park with Mrs Maulfrey two days later and he rode past, he reined in and sprang lightly down from the saddle and came towards her, leading his mount, and walked beside her a considerable distance, as though he were delighted to have come upon her.

  ‘La, child!’ cried Mrs Maulfrey, when at last he took his leave of them. ‘You’d best have a care – he’s a wicked rake, my dear! Don’t fall in love with him, I beg of you!’

  ‘F-fall in love!’ said Horatia scornfully. ‘I want to play c-cards with him!’

  He was at the Duchess of Queensberry’s ball, and did not once approach her. She was piqued, and never thought to blame Rule’s presence for his defection. Yet when she visited the Pantheon in Lady Amelia Pridham’s party, Lethbridge, arriving solitary midway through the evening, singled her out and was so assiduous in his attentions that he led her to suppose that at last they were becoming intimate. But upon a young gentleman’s approaching to claim Horatia’s attention his lordship relinquished her with a perfectly good grace and very soon afterwards withdrew to the card-room. It was really most provoking, quite enough to make any lady determined to plan his downfall, and it did much to spoil her enjoyment of the party. Indeed, the evening was not a success. The Pantheon, so bright and new, was very fine, of course, with its pillars and its stucco ceilings and its great glazed dome, but Lady Amelia, most perversely, did not want to play cards, and in one of the country dances Mr Laxby, awkward creature, trod on the edge of her gown of diaphanous Jouy cambric just come from Paris, and tore the hem past repair. Then, too, she was obliged to decline going for a picnic out to Ewell on the following day on the score of having promised to drive to Kensington (of all stuffy places!) to visit her old governess, who was living there with a widowed sister. She had half a notion that Lethbridge was to be at the picnic and was seriously tempted