Deirdre and Desire (19 page)

She had had the pleasure of performing one country dance with him and was wondering whether he meant to ignore her for the rest of the evening when he came up and led her into the steps of the
waltz. The feel of his hand on the small of her back sent fireworks shooting up her spine, the pressure of his other gloved hand in her own made her go numb down one side. He held her the
regulation twelve inches away, but she was conscious of every movement of his body. When the dance ended, she promenaded with him as was the custom, but dreading the moment when he would leave her
and dance off with someone else.

But he said, ‘Let us sit down for a little.’

He led her to a sofa in the corner, behind a bank of hothouse flowers. Deirdre fanned herself languidly because she was once again locked in that dreamy state, and the ballroom was hot. He went
to find her a glass of lemonade and immediately she became anxious and worried in case someone would ask her to dance before he returned.

But he was soon back, handing her a glass, and settling himself comfortably beside her on the sofa.

‘Here’s to liberty,’ he said raising his own glass.

‘Liberty,’ echoed Deirdre, sipping at her lemonade and wishing he had brought her something stronger to ensure that this relaxed dreamy feeling she had in his company did not go
away.

‘Lady Godolphin is not in plump currant,’ he said. ‘The horrible Mr Anstey left her for richer, if more withered, pastures.’

‘Yes, she is very sad,’ agreed Deirdre. ‘She was quoting poetry, and getting all the words wrong. Something about love with incontinent wings.’

‘Oh, that one,’ he grinned. Then he began to quote softly,

‘Quite,’ said Deirdre huskily, staring into her glass. Then she essayed a laugh. ‘I wish I could remember how Lady Godolphin put it, but it was vastly
different, I assure you.’

‘She should have married Colonel Brian,’ said Lord Harry. ‘Trouble is, he’s always hanging about her, quite obviously dying of love. Now if
he
were to start paying
attention to some other female, no doubt she would come about. Which reminds me, I am promised to dance with Lady Coombes, and I think you probably have an anxious partner looking for
you.’

‘Yes,’ said Deirdre reluctantly, wishing they could sit together like this and not have to dance with anyone at all.

A niggling thought entered her mind, a nasty little voice whispering that she had had ample opportunity to enjoy Lord Harry’s company these past few months but all she had done was run
away from him.

From then on Deirdre danced and danced. Soon it would be two in the morning and soon it would be time for Guy to wait for her in Green Park.

But at one-thirty Lord Harry appeared at her side, yawning, and said he really must go home. Lady Godolphin would not be returning with them since she did not want to ‘freeze to
death’ and had sent for her own carriage.

The night outside was cold and clear. Snow sparkled and shone in broad pools under the street lamps, and, far above the huddled black houses of London a small winter moon rose high in the starry
sky.

‘It is a beautiful night for a walk, Bruno,’ said Lord Harry over his shoulder to his shivering servant on the backstrap. ‘I suggest you make the most of it.’

‘Ver’ good, milo’,’ said Bruno gloomily. He climbed down and strode off into the night.

Lord Harry drew on his York tan driving gloves and set his team in motion.

‘Come and sit beside me, Deirdre,’ he said. ‘You will get cold sitting all the way over there.’

Deirdre slid along until she was next to him. He put an arm around her shoulders, holding the reins bunched in one hand, the horses ambling very slowly over the diamonded cobbles of the
snow-covered streets.

Deirdre was all too conscious of his hip against her own although they were both bundled up in cloaks and blankets.

His arm tightened about her and she gave a submissive sigh and leaned her head against his shoulder.

After they had been moving along in this dreamlike state for some time, he slowed his team to a halt and looked down at her.

‘Keep the ring, Deirdre,’ he said softly. ‘You need not wear it on your fourth finger.’

She looked up at him, puzzled and bewildered by all the things she felt for him and could not yet analyse.

‘And since we are to become friends,’ he went on, ‘you might at least kiss the lover goodbye.’

Her lips trembled and she put up a timid hand to his cheek.

He took it in his own, and then bent his lips to hers.

This time, because it was all over, she did not feel afraid of him. He would never kiss her again, so there was no harm in kissing him back . . . no harm at all.

And so she gave herself gladly, if innocently, up to hot, dizzy, heady passion, totally absorbed in the contours and feel of his mouth, the faint smell of cheroots, wine and cologne from his
body, and the feel of his long fingers cradling her face.

They sat on the high-perch phaeton, right outside the gates of Green Park at two in the morning, totally absorbed in each other, oblivious to everything else.

Deirdre did not even know where she was.

Guy Wentwater stood frozen to the spot and stared in mounting savage fury at the two locked lovers, so brightly illuminated by the light of a lamp.

The carriage he had hired for the elopement was waiting out on the street. The driver kept rising up on the box and staring into the darkness of the park as if wondering what on earth this
strange Mr Wentwater was doing.

At last, the phaeton moved off.

Guy Wentwater marched out and got into the black stuffiness of the closed carriage, biting his nails and sweating from every pore.

He hated the whole Armitage family more than he had ever hated them before, but this time, he hated Deirdre Armitage much, much more than he had ever hated the vicar. He felt she had
deliberately stage-managed the whole thing to humiliate him.

And now Silas Dubois would learn there had been no elopement and Silas would ruin him.

Deirdre, Squire Radford, the maid, Betty, and Lord Harry Desire set out for Hopeworth the following day.

They were to break their journey that night at a posting house.

Deirdre was glad to escape from London before curious callers started to arrive, eager for gossip about the broken engagement. Squire Radford was puzzled. Paradoxically, Deirdre and Desire
seemed closer than they had ever been before.

The snow had melted and a squally wind was hurtling grey clouds across the sky.

Weary with thought and confused emotion, Deirdre was glad to be going home. She wondered what Guy Wentwater had thought when she did not appear. Deirdre had been so wrapped up in and by Lord
Harry’s embrace that she did not even know they had been parked outside the gates of Green Park in full view of Mr Wentwater.

Guy, she thought, would assume she was getting her revenge – which she was, in a way.

‘Good hunting weather,’ observed Lord Harry. ‘I wonder if the vicar has run his fox to earth.’

‘I hope he has,’ said Squire Radford in his dry precise voice. ‘It will take his mind off his troubles. He has had many of late. Besides, he hopes to cut a dash. He took back
with him a new coat of hunting pink.’

‘Why is it called
pink
?’ asked Deirdre idly. ‘I assume you mean a scarlet coat.’

‘It is named after Mr Pink,’ said Lord Harry. ‘He was a tailor who was left with a vast amount of red military material when the American war came to an end sooner than
expected. So he turned to making hunting coats. Hence pink.’

‘Perhaps this fox does not exist,’ said the squire, pulling a bearskin rug more closely about his knees. ‘There is a legendary animal which had been plaguing Mr Armitage for
some time. It is seen first here and then there, and certainly hounds pick up the scent but they always end up wandering around in baffled circles. Mr Armitage is sure this fox can climb
trees.’

Deirdre giggled. ‘Papa often sees foxes which don’t exist, particularly when he is in his cups.’

There was a reproving silence, and Deirdre felt she had just behaved like a bad child.

‘When I get home,’ she vowed to herself, ‘I will read the newspapers every day and . . . and . . . I will learn Latin, and all sorts of things.’ She wondered how long
Lord Harry would stay with them this time. She had never really got to know him. She put a hand up to her lips, remembering his kisses. How strange that he was able to be so polite and formal with
her now!

She chattered on to him about this and that, but he replied to all her questions and commented on her topics with a lazy smile, like a father indulging a favourite daughter.

Perhaps he will seek me out when we break our journey, thought Deirdre.

But Lord Harry appeared content to spend most of the evening talking to Squire Radford.

The squire had travelled a great deal, and it transpired Lord Harry had been to many of the countries the squire had visited.

To her disappointment, both men took up the conversation where they had left off at breakfast and continued all the way to Hopeworth.

On the outskirts of Hopeworth they heard the belling of hounds, the winding of the horn, and then streaking across the road behind his pack came the Reverend Charles Armitage with John Summer
close behind him. He cleared the hedge beside the road and set off hell-for-leather over a ploughed field.

They had a momentary glimpse of his flushed and excited face and then he was gone.

He did not seem to have seen them.

Squire Radford was deposited at his home, and Lord Harry’s carriage swung round the pond, heading for the vicarage.

‘How long will you be staying with us?’ asked Deirdre.

‘I shall not be staying at all,’ said Lord Harry, looking surprised. ‘I shall return to Town just as soon as I have paid my respects to Mrs Armitage.’

Deirdre’s heart plummeted.

But what else could he be expected to do? She had made it all too clear she did not want him.

But she hung around anxiously while he chatted with her mother after their arrival, tactfully explaining he was the most desolate of men for he and Deirdre had decided they would not suit. Then
he teased Daphne, saying she grew more beautiful by the minute, to which Daphne answered with a surprised, ‘I know.’

Hearing that the little girls were at school, he decided to take his leave.

Naturally neither Mrs Armitage nor Daphne dreamed of leaving Lord Harry and Deirdre alone to say their goodbyes.

Mrs Armitage and Daphne were self-absorbed in different ways, Mrs Armitage with her imaginary illnesses and Daphne with her own beauty, but they had enough sensitivity to feel it would be
monstrous awkward for poor Deirdre to be left alone to say goodbye to a man she had decided would not make a suitable husband.

He bowed very formally before her, looking more serious than Deirdre had ever seen him look before.

‘I am to have my Season,’ said Deirdre. ‘I shall see you then, perhaps?’

‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘Squire Radford has given me a mind to travel. ’Tis a pity, perhaps, we are not to be married. We could have seen all those wonderful
places together – Paris, Rome, Naples, Venice . . .’

He bowed again and entered the carriage. The coachman cracked his whip, Lord Harry raised a white hand in salute, the carriage rumbled down the short drive, out into the lane.

He was gone.

Only dimly did Deirdre hear her mother’s anxious questions and lamentations on the end of a most suitable engagement.

Lord Harry gazed placidly out at the country fields. He saw the lone figure of a peasant standing by the bend of the road outside Hopeworth, gazing intently across the
fields.

Wondering if the vicar had made his kill, Lord Harry signalled to his coachman to stop. He let down the glass and leaned out.

‘Watching the hunt?’ he called.

The yokel turned slowly and took some time to bring Lord Harry’s face into focus.

‘No, zur,’ he said at last, touching his forelock. ‘I bee watching the crops grow. Just watching the crops grow.’

Lord Harry waved his hand and the coach started off again.

‘I wonder,’ he said to himself, ‘whether the crop I have planted will ever come to maturity. Waiting for things, or people, to grow up can be a tedious business.’

NINE

The vicar of St Charles and St Jude wearily wended his homeward way, slumped over the pommel of his saddle. A string of oaths floated out behind him on the evening air.

‘I do believe,’ he shouted over his shoulder to his coachman-cum-groom-cum-kennel-master-cum-whipper-in, John Summer, ‘that there fox is an invention of the devil. I seen him,
with my own two eyes. You saw him too, didn’t you John?’ he asked pleadingly.

‘That I did, master,’ said John in a comforting way. ‘Saw him with my own eyes. You ’member, the first find was close to Hans Wood and from then onwards, hounds’
heads were down and their voices singing well over half the afternoon. Must have run not short of twenty mile.’