Regency Innocents (27 page)

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‘Do I wear the Walton diamonds?' Heloise was anxiously asking Sukey. ‘Or will it look as though I am showing off?'

One did not dress so elaborately in the country. Even she knew that. Which was why she had chosen the simplest evening gown she had. But, since she had no other jewellery, it was either wear the Walton parure or nothing. She did not think Charles would wish her to look dowdy.

Though how could she look anything else? She had neither Felice's emerald eyes, nor the voluptuous figure of Mrs Kenton. With a small cry of distress, she whirled away from the mirror.

‘Don't be nervous, my lady,' Sukey said brightly. ‘You are the highest-ranking lady in the district, and nothing anyone might think will alter that.'

She was right. The women she'd seen wearing the Walton diamonds in portrait after portrait might disapprove of her, but she was as much the Countess as any of them. Because Charles had married
her
. Not the graceful Felice, nor the experienced Mrs Kenton, but plain, naïve little Heloise Bergeron.

Anyway, these hard cold stones were all she had to prove this marriage was real. Especially since the arrival of her monthly courses, a few days earlier, had robbed her of even the faint hope that she might have conceived a child during that one brief coupling.

Straightening her shoulders, she walked across to the table on which the ancient jewel case squatted. ‘I will wear the diamonds,' she said. ‘All of them.'

She did not care if anyone thought she was overdressed. She clipped the earrings to her earlobes with a grimace. Though she wanted to make a good impression on the
people who would form her new social circle, she had an even greater need to bolster her flagging self-esteem.

Before long she was ready to join Charles in the red salon, where Mrs Lanyon had told her he always greeted his dinner guests.

He looked magnificent in his evening clothes. He was always so immaculately dressed, so correct in all his behaviour. She itched to reach up and tousle his neatly brushed hair, to mar that perfection which threw all her own faults into stark relief. When his guests started to arrive, and saw them standing side by side, they were bound to wonder at the Earl having made such a mismatch.

The breath hitched in Charles' throat as she trailed slowly across the room to join him beside the empty hearth. She was so lovely. The simply cut gown she had chosen became her slight figure far more than some of the fussy creations he had seen adorning the so-called leaders of fashion in London. And with the diamonds glittering about her throat and wrist she looked every inch the Countess.

He was on the verge of telling her so, when she began to twist her hands together at her waist. He had got used to seeing her drooping disconsolately about the place, but this new symptom hurt him abominably. She could not bear to come within three feet of him!

He turned from her abruptly. It took him a moment or two to get himself in hand. And then he found he was standing by the sideboard. He did the only thing that came to him which might just help her. He poured a small glass of Madeira and carried it back to her.

Heloise tossed it back, wondering in what way she had failed to measure up this time, for him to walk away from her with such a grim expression. Had it been a mistake to
wear the full parure? Had it reminded him of how very nearly she had lost part of it? Or did he just think she was overdressed? And if he thought so what would his guests think? Perhaps she should run back upstairs and change? Oh, but there was no time. The front door was being opened, she could hear Giddings greeting someone, and already there was the sound of more wheels crunching over the gravel drive.

Her heart pounding against her ribs, she held out her empty glass to Finch.

‘Get me another,' she pleaded, avoiding her husband's gaze. It was bad enough knowing she disappointed him without encountering the full wintry blast of his eyes.

The room rapidly filled with about thirty people who had known Charles and each other all their lives. There was only one person amongst them who did not totally overwhelm her. Her name was Miss Masterson, and her father was a retired colonel. Heloise empathised with the way she sought out a corner away from the more ebullient guests, and made sure the circulating footmen did not overlook her. When Charles had gone back to London she would call on the girl, who looked as if she was of a similar age, and see if she could make a friend of her. If, that was, she could bear to enter the house of the Colonel and his bulldog-faced wife.

‘Hoped to be able to meet your long-lost brother,' Colonel Masterson was booming at Charles, as though he was yards away across a parade ground. ‘Military man, ain't he? Was hoping to have a jaw with him about developments in the Low Countries. Wellington's been given charge of the allied armies, d'you know? Got it from Viscount Brabourne on his way through to his hunting box in Wiltshire. Damned shame we're at war with your wife's country again. Though I'm sure,' he said turning
towards her, ‘you want to see Bonaparte brought to book, eh? Must support the Bourbons. Walton wouldn't have married you unless you was a Royalist, now, would he?'

‘You are mistaken,' she replied, cut to the quick by his barely concealed speculation as to what on earth could have induced an Earl to marry her. ‘I am very far from being a Royalist.'

She did not realise that she should have taken the time to explain she despised fat Louis and his inept government almost as much as she detested Bonaparte's ruthless efficiency until she heard the Colonel confide to his wife, in what he must have thought was a whisper, as they were processing to the dining room, ‘Outrageous! He's brought a Bonapartist amongst us!' His wife managed to hush him, but she could not stop him casting suspicious looks her way throughout the meal.

Lord Danvers, who was sitting to her right at the foot of the table, opened the conversation over the soup by enquiring if she hunted.

She made the fatal error of confessing that she could not ride at all.

‘Not ride?' He looked at her as though she had confessed to a crime.

Swiftly she tried to vindicate herself. ‘It is considered unpatriotic, in my country, to keep a horse. Like our sons and brothers, they belong to the army of France.' The malevolent glare this comment drew from Colonel Masterson suggested he now believed she must have come to England for the sole purpose of winkling state secrets from her husband. Now he would never allow her to befriend his daughter.

After that, the conversation at the foot of the table became painfully stilted. And yet Heloise dreaded the moment when she would have to rise, signalling it was time
for the ladies to withdraw. While they were confined to their seats and occupied with their food only the nearest handful of guests could attack her. She had the feeling that once she got to the music room it would turn into a free-for-all.

Lady Danvers fired the opening salvo.

‘Do you play the pianoforte, Lady Walton?' she cooed. ‘Or perhaps the harp? Or have you arranged something particularly French—' she tittered ‘—to entertain the gentlemen when they join us?'

‘No,' she replied bluntly. She did not ride, she did not play any musical instrument, and she did not have a lively personality. She sighed. And if only it were true that she had ensnared her husband by the sort of French naughtiness this abominable woman implied.

With a triumphant gleam in her eye, Lady Danvers went to the sofa where Lady Masterson was sitting, settled beside her, and murmured something in her ear that caused the older lady to regard Heloise with even deeper hostility.

‘Perhaps our dear Countess has other talents,' suggested the vicar's wife. ‘We are all good at something. Even if it is only the art of putting the poor at ease when visiting. Or the clever arrangement of flowers. Or embroidery. Or …' Looking more and more desperate as Heloise shook her head at every suggestion the kind lady put forward, she eventually subsided.

‘You mean to tell me you have no accomplishments whatever?' Lady Danvers drawled.

‘I do not tell you that at all,' Heloise snapped, her patience finally running out. ‘I am an artist!'

‘An artist?' Lady Danvers quirked one eyebrow in distinct mockery. ‘You mean you dabble about with paint?'

‘No, I draw,' she replied, her heart suddenly plunging to her dainty satin slippers. Charles would hate it if these people ever found out she had tried to make money from the sale of her work. Work of which he strongly disapproved.

‘But I do not have a portfolio to show you. It was lost …' Well, at least most of it was ‘lost', burnt, actually ‘… when I left France.'

‘Oh, how disappointing,' drawled Lady Danvers sarcastically. ‘I am sure we have missed a rare treat.' She exchanged a knowing smile with Lady Masterson.

Heloise gasped. The woman was accusing her of being a liar to her face!

Lydia Bentinck, one of a trio of elderly spinsters, sniffed loudly before saying, ‘There is more to being a lady of quality than being able to draw, or play the piano, or ride a horse. I have always held that good manners are an absolute prerequisite.' She looked pointedly at Lady Danvers. ‘So sadly lacking in many these days.'

Lady Danvers' eyes snapped with fury. While she struggled to find a suitably cutting come back, Diana Bentinck turned to Heloise and enquired, ‘What sort of drawings do you do?'

‘People. I do sketches of people.'

‘Oh, how charming. Would you do a sketch of me and my sisters? I should love to have a likeness. Or would it take too long?'

She was on the point of refusing, out of deference to Charles' views, when she caught sight of Lady Danvers' lip curling in derision.

‘I would be glad to sketch you,' she declared defiantly. ‘Please to take seats close together, while I find some materials.'

By this time one of the other ladies, a Mrs Goulding,
had taken a seat at the piano, and while Heloise unearthed some sheets of writing paper from a desk drawer she began to pick out the bare bones of a Haydn sonata. From her reticule, Heloise produced the sliver of charcoal which she was never without. While the Bentinck sisters fluttered about the three chairs they had decided to pose on, arguing as to which order they should sit, either by age or by size, and whether one should stand behind the other two to make an interesting group, Heloise's nimble fingers flew across the page. By the time they were settled she was able to walk over to them, holding out her finished work.

‘Why,' exclaimed Lydia, ‘this is quite remarkable!'

Three grey heads bent to examine the sparse lines on the creamy vellum. They could see Lydia standing over her two seated siblings. Diana was holding out her hand, palm upwards, while Grace had her head tilted to one side, a pensive frown knitting her brows. Though each pose denoted a certain amount of conflict, each woman was also expressing a strong affection for the other two, so that the overall impression was one of harmony.

‘I cannot believe you did that so quickly!' Diana Bentinck cried.

‘It was not so quick.' They had been bickering gently for several minutes, and she had always found it a simple matter to reproduce an accurate physical likeness.

‘I am sorry that it is only on writing paper …' she began.

But, ‘Oh, no!' the three sisters cried simultaneously. ‘This paper has the Walton crest on it. What a lovely reminder it will be to us of a delightful evening spent at Wycke!'

The vicar's wife had now sidled up to her. ‘Oh, I should love to have a sketch drawn by you, Lady Walton,' she gushed.

‘As you wish,' Heloise replied, picking up her charcoal.

Fortunately, she had not had time to study these people too closely, and so link them inextricably in her mind with some member of the animal kingdom. So she managed, with some application, to repress her imagination and stick to a strictly literal likeness of her next subject. The resultant sketch was exclaimed over, passed round, and generated such excitement that several other ladies asked if she would do their portraits too.

She became so deeply absorbed that she noticed neither the passage of time nor the arrival in the music room of the gentlemen. All she did see, when she handed Miss Masterson her finished sketch, was the smile which lit up her face.

‘Do I really look like that?' the girl exclaimed, running a finger wonderingly over the smudged lines of her portrait. Her face clouded. ‘I think you must have been flattering me.'

‘Not in the least,' Charles said, startling Heloise. She'd had no idea he was standing behind her chair. ‘My wife never flatters her sitters. She has the knack, though, of putting something of the subject's personality in beyond the physical likeness. Perhaps that is what you recognise in your own portrait, Miss Masterson?'

Heloise did not know what to make of this remark. Perhaps his oblique reference to the way she habitually portrayed people as the animals they reminded her of was a warning to behave herself?

‘You must do my son,' Lady Masterson said. ‘Now that you have managed to make my stepdaughter look so fetching.'

Heloise hesitated. She would have been thrilled at winning over one of her major opponents so easily, were she not so scared of offending Charles. Warily, she looked to him for guidance. But his expression gave her no clues.

She pulled a fresh sheet of paper from the drawer of the writing desk as young Thomas Masterson took the seat his older sister had just vacated.

Why did she never think about the consequences before acting? she berated herself. It had been just the same in that stupid card game. Only tonight it had been Lady Danvers who had goaded her into losing her temper and acting in a way that was guaranteed to displease Charles. Gripping the charcoal tightly, she paused to examine the young man's features for a moment or two before setting to work.

Charles watched in fascination as her fingers flew across the paper. He had never seen her drawing before. She had pitched her work this evening in a way that was guaranteed to please their guests. His heart swelled with pride. She could so easily have taken revenge for the various snubs she had borne earlier, by accentuating the uglier aspects of her neighbours. Instead, she brought out the best in them. She had even managed to make the dreary Miss Masterson look interesting, transforming her habitually vacant stare into the dreamy reverie of a
savant
.