Mask of Duplicity (The Jacobite Chronicles Book 1) (32 page)

“No. That is, yes. I...” She was on the edge of tears. She had not slept well last night, or for the last three nights, in fact. She had refused to see Sir Anthony when he had called, asking Isabella to say she was ill. Suffused with love and worry about Lord Daniel, she had felt unable to tolerate Sir Anthony’s idle chatter, and felt in no mood to do so now, either.

“Perhaps if you would be so kind as to spare me a few moments now?” he ventured. “It really is most...”

 “No. Not now. Go away,” she said bluntly. “Please,” she added belatedly, swallowing convulsively. She looked around wildly, trying to remember which of the ten or so identical doors that led off the hall was the one for the privy.

“Very well,” he said, and turned towards the drawing room. “Ah...the third door on the left, if I assume rightly,” he said over his shoulder, before opening the door to be greeted by feminine exclamations of welcome.

Following his directions, Beth attained sanctuary and closed the door with a sigh of relief.
How does he do it?
she thought. It was not the first time he had seemed to know what she was thinking, and she found it very disconcerting. As much as she and Daniel loved one another, he had never shown the slightest indication of being able to read her mind. How many men would think it pleasurable to be invited to an all-female party? Most men she knew were vastly uncomfortable in the presence of more than three ladies, unless they had another male to provide moral support.

Her composure restored a little, she splashed water on her face, smoothed her hair back, pasted a pleasant expression on her face and made her way back to the drawing room.

She had been away for longer than she thought; several ladies had left, and only ten or so now remained. Any hopes that Isabella might be looking to leave were dashed by Miss Maynard, who came across to tell her that Lady Winter had taken Isabella upstairs to show her the main bedroom, which though not completely covered with gold like the room at Skelthorpe Hall, had a simply divine ceiling, covered with gilded plaster cherubs.

Beth resigned herself to enduring at least another half hour or so before Isabella reappeared and she could persuade her to leave. Perhaps if she pleaded a headache...The ladies moved in her direction again, and Beth steeled herself.

“Oh, my dears, I must tell you the most amazing thing that I heard the other night!” Sir Anthony’s voice trilled from somewhere behind Beth. She didn’t turn towards him, although several of the other ladies did, eager for the latest gossip.

“Of course, it is a little
risqué,
and I’m not at all sure I should tell you. I would not wish to offend your delicate sensibilities.” This statement ensured the attention of every lady in the vicinity, and Beth was sudden bereft of companions.

“Oh, come, Sir Anthony!” said Lydia Fortesque, a lady whose considerable beauty was diminished by her excessive awareness of it. She tapped him playfully on the arm with her fan. “I am sure we are all ladies of some experience. We are all married, or well of an age to be.” She glanced across at Beth, who refused to be drawn and instead feigned interest in a particularly badly executed portrait of one of Lord Winter’s sour-looking ancestors.

“If you are sure,” Sir Anthony responded, although his voice was still a little doubtful. A chorus of female encouragement persuaded him.

“Well, then. I am a little ashamed to admit that last night I stayed overlong at my club. To be precise, it is not exactly my club, but since the darling Marquis of Tweedale was so kind as to introduce me, I have been a regular attender, although not actually a member at present. Of course I do have hopes...but I digress, ladies, please accept my apologies. Where was I? Oh yes. So having stayed overlong at my club, I found that upon leaving there was not a carriage to be seen. It being a most clement night, I decided to walk a little of the way in the hopes of picking up a hackney along the road.”

“Why, were you not in your own chaise, Sir Anthony?” asked Anne.

“No, I had given my man the night off. I was confident I would be able to obtain a conveyance home, you see, as I had not intended to leave later than ten of the clock.”

“Oh, you are really too kind to your fortunate servants!” Anne twittered. He beamed down at her, and the other ladies tutted in exasperation, not only at the fact that Miss Maynard was taking the opportunity which they had missed to flirt with the bachelor, but also that she was delaying him from getting to the interesting part of the story.

“You are very sweet, my dear Anne!” he cooed.

Beth moved on to the next painting, an overly sentimental rendering of an improbably large-eyed child standing by a summerhouse, acres of what was presumably his future inheritance stretching away in the distance behind him.

“As I was walking along the Strand, who should I meet but one of my footmen, in the greatest of hurries. I was most surprised, and asked him where he was off to in such unseemly haste. He told me that he was following a certain young noble of our acquaintance, who has until recently shown somewhat of a penchant for cards, but now claims to have renounced them. My footman told me that he had been in a house of ill repute earlier, and had espied Lord...ah...X, shall we say, in the company of a most disreputable man. He had decided to follow him, in case the man should lead Lord X to a dark alley and there rob him.”

A little gasp of shock ran around the company. Beth froze in front of the painting. Every decent instinct told her to leave the room rather than listen to malicious gossip, but she could not bring herself to move.

“Surely you do not mean the Earl of Highbury’s son?” Lydia gasped.

 “It would be beneath me to disclose any names, my dear, in view of what I am about to tell you. Of course, seeing that my footman was engaged on a most noble errand, I told him to proceed immediately and even gave him a little cash and made him the loan of my sword in case he should have need of it. My man disappeared into the night and later told me what had transpired.”

He paused for dramatic effect, and Beth, still ostensibly admiring the painting, closed her eyes. Surely he was not about to lightly declare that Lord Daniel had been stabbed to death in an alley? Her heart seemed to constrict in her chest, and she held her breath, waiting for him to continue.

“It seems that Lord X and his companion went straight to Beecham’s club, where there was an all-night card game in progress. My footman had a most diverting time there, drinking an exceptionally fine port, at my expense, I might add, and conversing with Mr Ashworth. He is a delightful man, who has recently been in Italy, you know. When he was in Florence...” Beth let out the breath she’d been holding. He was safe then. Whatever nasty gossip Sir Anthony had, it could not hurt her if Daniel was uninjured.

“But what of Lord Dan...Lord X?” One lady asked impatiently.

“Who? Oh, of course. Well, he sat down to a game of Loo, which he played without cease into the morning hours, and won not more than three or four tricks in all that time. He finally left at around four o’ clock, looking most distraught.”

“Oh, the foolish boy!” cried Lydia. “If he continues to lose money gambling, his father will be bound to find out.”

“Indeed, I do not think his father can fail to discover his son’s lapse. After my lord left, my footman made some discreet enquiries,” Beth’s snort of disbelief that Sir Anthony could be discreet about anything went unnoticed by the entranced circle, “and I discovered that he lost over four thousand pounds.”

Several of the ladies cried out in shock, for which Beth was very grateful, for in spite of herself, she had also gasped with horror.

“Four thousand pounds!” cried Anne. “Oh no, surely that cannot be true, Sir Anthony!” It could. The frenetic nature of Loo with the stake doubling at every trick could make it one of the most expensive games to play.

“I am afraid it is. The proprietor of the establishment himself told my man so. But had it been one hundred pounds, it would have been as dire. The poor boy is already impecunious. I know for a fact he has not paid his tailor’s bills for some time, and the man has now refused to extend him any more credit.”

“How do you know that, Sir Anthony?” asked Emma.

“He had the temerity, once he had been turned away from his own tailor, to approach mine. But of course people in the profession talk to each other, and my Mr. Johnson was far too perceptive to be taken in by Lord X’s plausibility. After all, it is not the first time, nor indeed the second, that Lord X’s father has had to bail out his son. His supposed trip to see the renaissance art of Italy last year was nothing more than a device of his father’s to free him from the clutches of the very man in whose company he was two nights ago, and to try to break him of his ridiculous addiction to cards. In fact the young man did not go to Italy at all, but was rather despatched to one of his father’s more remote country estates for a time. It seems, however, that he has learnt nothing and is determined to ruin himself. I am certain his father will not help him again. Indeed, he has said on more than one occasion that he will not. If the boy is to obtain the money to discharge his debts, he will have to seek elsewhere than his family for it.” Sir Anthony glanced across at Beth, who was staring fixedly at the child’s portrait, her face white.

Daniel had told her about the trip to Italy, had enthused about the works of Botticelli, Michelangelo. They had trusted one another. They did trust one another. Sir Anthony was lying. She did not know why, could think of no reason why he would wish to hurt her so, and in public too. At that moment she hated him even more than she hated her brother. Her hands curled into fists and she unclenched them with effort. She had to leave, now. A giddy panic washed over her, and she placed a hand against the wall to stop herself from reeling.

“But, ladies!” Sir Anthony called in his gratingly high voice. “I must beg your opinion on an important matter! If you will excuse a small lapse in etiquette!” The ladies, eager to ascertain Beth’s reaction to this news of her lover, had turned as one in her direction, but now their attention focussed back onto the only gentleman in the room. He removed his coat with a flourish before executing a little pirouette. “What do you think of my waistcoat, ladies? I had it from my tailor this very morning. Is it not delightful?”

The ladies all eyed the waistcoat with approval. For Sir Anthony, the colour was dull, a beige-coloured velvet with a darker brown pattern of flowers and scrolls. It was exquisitely cut, as were all his garments.

“It is beautiful, Sir Anthony,” ventured one of the ladies.

“The colour is most fetching,” said another.

“Ah, I am gratified that you think so,” the gentleman said. “For, in truth, the colour is the only thing I had reservations about.”

“I am sure your complexion would suit any colour, Sir Anthony!” gushed Anne. This was taking flattery too far; under all the paint, Sir Anthony could be a negro for all they knew. No one had ever seen him without his make-up, and even the most patient of the ladies present were exasperated at this point with the ridiculous Anne.

 “But that is not what I wish to draw your attention to. Do you not see, come, look closer.” Every lady except Beth was now gathered closely around him, and he lowered his voice so that they had to give him all their attention.

“It is
à disposition,
ladies,” he whispered confidentially. “The velvet has been woven to fit the shape of the panels! Is it not perfect?!”

The ladies bent closer to observe the perfect matching of the pattern across the panels of the waistcoat.

“It is French of course,” he announced proudly. He looked around the room to ensure all eyes were on him, revelling in the attention of so many beautiful ladies. Beth was nowhere to be seen, having taken the opportunity to slip out of the room unnoticed. Sir Anthony bent over and retrieved his coat from the table he had placed it on.

“But I must apologise for my state of undress,” he said, deftly donning his coat. Various ladies declared that they had not been at all offended. “Well, I will not take up any more of your time. I am sure I am becoming tedious, and the gentlemen will be angry when they return and realise that I have spent the entire afternoon in the company of their ladies.” He made an elaborate bow. “If you will excuse me.”

“What a delightful man,” sighed Anne, after he had departed. There was a soft murmur of agreement as every woman in the room compared the interesting and sympathetic Sir Anthony with their hunting, shooting and politically obsessed husbands, to the latter's detriment. Many of the ladies wished they were single again. Not one of their husbands would have known or cared what
à disposition
was.

Neither did Beth. Having slipped silently out of the room, she had dashed across the hall, to the consternation of Isabella and Lady Winter, who, having concluded their inspection of the bedroom ceiling, were descending the stairs to rejoin the company.

Beth stopped in her tracks, white-faced and trembling with rage at Sir Anthony, and disgust at herself for half believing his evil gossip.

“Are you ill, Elizabeth?” asked Isabella, moving quickly to her cousin’s side.

“Yes,” cried Beth. “I have the most terrible headache. I think I must go home immediately.” She was not lying. Her head had indeed started to pound, and she felt distinctly nauseous.

Within half an hour she was at home, in bed, alone with her thoughts. Thoughts which kept her awake again, well into the night.

* * *

“You have a visitor, Beth,” Sarah said, popping her head round the door the next morning. Beth had dragged herself out of bed, determined not to be affected by Sir Anthony’s gossip. She had spent the sleepless night going over every word he had said. His story seemed plausible enough and if he had witnessed the events himself, she might have been tempted to believe him. But he had the story second-hand, from a footman. No doubt the servant had been up to something unsavoury himself, and had made up this preposterous story to divert his master’s attention from his own behaviour. Well, Sir Anthony might be gullible enough to believe the word of a servant, but she was not.