A Virtuous Lady (32 page)

The two damsels sat deep in thought completely absorbed in the perplexity of the problem which Lord Ravensworth presented. After a comfortable interval, Briony broke the silence. "Harriet, what am I to do? I cannot pursue him all over town like a jealous, cast-off wife. The whole of London would soon know of our estrangement."

"I'm thinking," mused Harriet reflectively. The
ormule
clock on the oak
mantlepiece
chimed the hour.

"Briony, I don't mean to pry into what does not concern me, but am I right in thinking that you are full of juice—I mean, independently wealthy."

"I have the income from my capital which I may dispose of as I wish. Why do you ask?"

Harriet beamed. "In other words, you are as rich as a nabob and need not look to your husband for every bauble or gown you take a fancy to. Are you willing to squander a few thousand to lure him back?"

She had Briony thoroughly interested. "Need you ask?"

"Good. Then I have the perfect solution."

Avery poked his head around the door. "May I come in?" he asked affably, "or should I beat a hasty retreat to Jericho?"

"Darling," Harriet breathed, her heart doing its usual flip-flop at the sight of his dear features. She glided gracefully toward him and his arms came out to encircle her in a possessive, lover-like gesture. "You'll never guess what Cousin
Briony
plans to do for us?"

"I can hardly wait to hear," Avery responded with exaggerated gravity.

Harriet's eyes sparkled. "Briony has taken it into her head to throw a ball in our honor. Isn't it kind in her?"

Avery inclined his head politely in Briony's direction.
Too kind by half, Cousin Briony.
May I ask where this ball is to take place?" He noted the quick questioning look which Briony threw at his bride. He cocked a cautionary brow at Harriet and the arm on her waist increased its pressure.

"Why Avery!
Where else but here at Oakdale Court?" she asked artlessly.

"Harriet!" His voice was low, half pleading. "Have a care what you are about."

"Avery, trust me in this, please?"

He felt a slight, momentary flutter of unease, but the appeal in the sweet face turned up to him was more than he could resist. He stifled his misgivings and answered with commendable fortitude, "My dear, you know that I do."

It was all that she needed. "How many guests can Oakdale accommodate for a house party, Cousin Briony?" Her mind was already engaged in refining the strategy of the forthcoming skirmish.

Briony did a quick mental calculation. "Fifty comfortably, I suppose."

"Good! Then we shall invite a hundred."

Lord Avery greeted this outrageous suggestion with unshakable tranquility. "Only a hundred?" he countered.
Tch
!
Tch
! Coming it too brown, Harriet dear, if I may make so bold an observation.
However, I know better than to throw a rub in the way of what you two damsels have hatched for my absent friend's welfare. I take it that Ravensworth is to be invited to his own ball?"

"Ravensworth?
Oh I don't think we need send him an invitation!" said Harriet irrepressibly. "What do you say, Cousin Briony?"

Briony sat with a slightly abstracted air, pleating the folds of her crushed gown. She looked serenely up with unclouded gray eyes at her companions. "Invite the host? I should say not! What an impertinence!''

Avery took pains to explain patiently, and with unimpaired good humor, a circumstance which the ladies had obviously overlooked. "But once he gets wind of it, nothing on earth will keep him away."

"Precisely!" said Lord Avery's lady. She withdrew from his sheltering arms and curtsied deeply to her cousin, a smile of triumph playing around her cupid bow lips.

When Ravensworth took himself off in a towering temper, he had only one purpose in mind—to embark on a night of such frantic debauchery that the pervasive image of the fair charmer who had stealthily taken possession of his heart and mind till he had no notion of whether he was coming or going would be forever banished, rooted out, exorcised, and he would be free of the awful knot of pain which seemed to have lodged itself in his chest. Ten hours later, having made a remarkable dash to town and ensconced the indispensable if taciturn Denby in his rooms at the Albany, Ravensworth was off like a shot on a walking crawl of his clubs.

That was his first mistake, for after a little desultory gambling and a good deal of indiscriminate imbibing, he was engulfed by a rush of maudlin sentimentality which left him with a thorough disgust at his unmanly weakness in continuing to desire a sanctimonious bitch who was up to all the rigs and who held him in such low esteem that she had put the interests of a veritable stranger above those of her own husband. It was not so much the treason to her country which inspired his bile, although that was serious enough, but the treachery to him personally was an offense which set her beyond the pale.

Although Ravensworth was on a winning streak, he churlishly cashed in his winnings over the protests of his boon companions, and pushed into St. James Street, purposefully making his way downhill, skirting St. James Park until, fifteen minutes or so later, he reached the environs of the Abbey. He stopped before a shuttered house on the corner of a modest street and rapped discreetly on the side door with the handle of his ivory cane. The door was opened almost on the instant, and Ravensworth entered. That was his second mistake.

The Marquess of Ravensworth was no stranger to the establishment of Madame Rainier and her ladies of pleasure. In his salad days, what he was now pleased to call "life before Briony," he had been a regular and valued customer and had spent many a pleasant hour or two in the company of one of the
barques
of frailty who graced Madame's crimson saloon. He nodded
civily
if a little forbiddingly to the odd male acquaintance who happened to catch his eye in the intentionally subdued lighting of the main saloon and tried to shake off the vague feeling of guilt which oppressed him. As he settled his long frame in the damask Sheraton armchair, one booted foot crossed over the other in an assumed posture of negligence, he uncorked the bottle of claret which a flunkey had been commissioned to bring for him while the
madame
of the establishment floated away to fetch the
paphian
who was to entertain him for the night. The place, he noted absently, was as noisy and crowded as he remembered it, with much coming and going on the stairs. Somehow, he found the artificial gaiety of the atmosphere rather depressing, although the smiles of the girls in their diaphanous gowns never faltered for an instant. He did not care for those arch smiles, nor was he partial to the heavy French perfume which assaulted his nostrils and was quite unlike the clean fresh scent of Briony's herbs which filled the rooms of Oakdale Court. At the memory of Briony, Ravensworth's jaw clenched and he made heavy inroads into his claret.

A shadow fell across his face and Ravensworth looked up, his eyes narrowing to take in the feminine form which swayed toward him. Behind the obscenely grinning ma- dame, he caught a glimpse of a girl with blond hair coiled demurely at the nape of her neck:

"This is Angele, your
amie
de la
nuit
,"
intoned Madame Rainier in a confidential undertone and drew the blond forward till her knees grazed his lordship's thighs invitingly.

Ravensworth choked on his wine. The girl was the image of Briony! He gave a roar of rage and threw the bottle in his hand to the empty grate, where it shattered into a thousand pieces. There was a stunned silence in the saloon and then all hell broke loose. Ravensworth was on his feet hurling insults at the
madame
at the top of his lungs for luring innocent girls into a house of debauchery and, at the same time, berating Briony's look-alike, a very popular member of the establishment among the gentlemen if Ravensworth had only known it, for being so lost to decency that she permitted herself to be displayed like a common harlot in a den of iniquity.

Since this was exactly the case, and everyone present knew it, Ravensworth was at first mistaken for a Methodist minister heaven bent on reforming a world which did not wish to be reformed. As his diatribe continued unabated, however, it soon became evident that his colorful language and obscene expletives gave the lie to this erroneous impression. So intimidating was this vulgar and violent outburst that the terrified
madame
lost no time in summoning her minions, three brawny ex-boxers, graduates of the Southern Circuit, who made short work of the inebriated Ravensworth and threw him out on his neck with the greatest of relish.

How he managed the long walk home in his drunken stupor, Ravensworth could never remember. A tight-lipped Denby put him to bed in frigid silence, not a word of condolence for the pair
of shiners which disfigured his lordship's handsome face nor
for the indeterminate aches and pains which Ravensworth bore with stoic fortitude. Such was the attachment of a retainer who had been in his open-handed employ for a good ten years, noted Ravensworth with a stifled groan of pain as his uncharitable valet tightly bound his master's bruised ribs for all the world as if he had been a saddle of mutton being trussed by the butcher for Sunday's dinner.

It took the Marquess a full
sennight
to recover from the effects of the beating he had suffered and in that time he neither ventured out of his comfortable rooms at the Albany nor received any visitors. For some inexplicable reason, he had no wish for even a whisper of the shameful circumstances surrounding his misfortune to be carried back to the delicate ears of his virtuous wife. When, therefore, a suspiciously solicitous Denby gently recommended that a sojourn in the country might be expedient and beneficial, Ravensworth rejected the suggestion out of hand since he considered that it would be disastrous to return to Briony with his tail between his legs.

The period of enforced inactivity had provided him with a time for quiet reflection and assessment of his situation, and his lordship found himself in a bit of quandary. He grudgingly conceded that other women held no interest for him; that life before Briony was not all he had cracked it up to be; that he had, in fact, given it all up without a pang of regret; he was even willing to admit that he could not live without her, but damn if he would allow the chit who had made game of him to call the tune. Briony Langland must be brought to a sense of her iniquity. Let her stew in her own juice for a week or two until she was thoroughly chastened. Then, when she was willing to sue for terms, he would deign to accept her unconditional surrender.

The pleasant prospect of a return to Kent improved his spirits considerably and he dashed off a note to Briony informing her, noncommittally, that he would return by the end of the week to attend to some estate business which he mentioned in vague terms. This epistle was carried by personal messenger. When his groom returned late the next day, Ravensworth could not conceal from himself his disappointment that there was not one word of greeting from the callous girl. By engaging the unsuspecting groom in casual conversation, however, he elicited the intelligence that her ladyship was fully occupied in the preparations for the coming house party. Ravensworth was nonplussed, but had the presence of mind to conceal from his curious lackey that he was in ignorance of any celebration which was to take place in his own house in the near future.

That same evening, while he was striding along Piccadilly mulling over what he had learned from his groom, he was accosted by an old school chum on horseback
who
shocked him to the core by thanking him for the invitation to his ball and informing him that he would be down Thursday. Ravensworth responded with tolerable composure but as soon as his pal had taken himself off he did an about-turn and made straight for Albany House in search of Denby.

Denby had heard from Lord Grafton's man that they were to leave on the morrow for Oakdale Court for a ball that was to be given to celebrate the nuptials of the Viscount and
Viscountess
Avery. He had taken the liberty of repacking his lordship's valise and it only remained for his lordship to say the word and they could be quit of London on the instant. Ravensworth gave the word.

When Ravensworth's curricle pulled into the gates of Oakdale Court, he found the drive and stable bustling like any public hostelry on the King's highway. Grooms and footmen in diverse liveries were coming and going among the newly arrived carriages which disgorged a profusion of passengers and baggage upon the front steps and lawn. Ravensworth had never seen the likes of it—at least, not at Oakdale Court—and he wondered a little irritably if Briony had any conception of what it would cost to house and feed so many prime bits of horseflesh, not to mention the multitude of retainers who were needed to service such a crush of humanity.

Before his thoughts could become settled in this unhappy direction, however, he found himself hailed on every side and came under a deal of good-natured ribbing by some of his unattached familiars for having deserted their fraternity for the parson's mousetrap. He took it all in good part, even going so far as to recommend the estate of matrimony to the most skeptical of his old cronies, who shook their heads in unfeigned disbelief at the incomprehensible fall from grace of what they had come to believe was the most confirmed bachelor of their ranks.