Regency Rumours/A Scandalous Mistress/Dishonour And Desire (29 page)

‘That was when you vanished, and I thought … oh, never mind. Go on, if you please.’

‘Well, I asked Dysart what he knew about your late husband and about your family, but he didn’t know the Carrs personally except that they were big mill owners, and all he could tell me about Chester’s early years was that he’d sown a few wild oats before he settled down into business. What Dysart was
more
interested in was you. Like me, he was reminded of someone he’d once known in the late 1770s, a society beauty formerly known as Fanny Scales. Her real name was Francesca, and she’d been married to Viscount Winterbourne, who was fighting abroad for the first year of their marriage, like many others. And that’s all Dysart could tell me.’

‘What then?’ said Amelie, holding his hand to her cheek.

‘Then I went to see my mother in London. I knew that she’d known the Winterbournes well. She’d been friends with Fanny even before her marriage. The interesting part is that Fanny’s parents lived in Manchester and, while her new husband was with his regiment, she spent the best part of a year up there in the north with them. According to my mother, this would have been in about 1780. She returned to London, but later confided to my mother, her closest friend, that she’d had an affair with a wonderful man and borne a child. She never said who the father was, but the babe had been taken immediately to the Foundling Hospital in Manchester. Viscount Winterbourne would never have accepted another man’s child. My
mother said she was always racked with guilt about having to abandon it.’

‘Did she mention any dates?’ said Amelie, suddenly breathless.

‘She believed it was about springtime in 1781.’

‘April. That’s when the Carrs adopted me. My father told us he wanted a boy so that he could inherit instead of his nephew, but there was me, a girl child, and my mother clung to me and thought I was most likely to grow up looking like their natural child. But what happened to Fanny? Is she still in London?’

‘This is the sad part. She died giving birth to her second son, and they both died in infancy too. Winterbourne returned to his regiment, but he was killed in action soon afterwards.’

‘Oh,’ she said, clinging to his hand. ‘That is a sad,
sad
story. That is so … so … oh, Nick … how could she do it? A child … a tiny babe? Could she not have found a family who would have taken it, and loved it? To give it away like that.’ Her words ended in a whisper, and hot tears dripped on to his hand, and he knew without a doubt that here was the reason for her passion for waifs and strays, for abandoned pregnant women and lost souls. Naturally compassionate, she had channelled all her latent mothering instincts into caring for unfortunates, perhaps to give back what she had been given, though the inevitable deceit was a great price to pay. Young Fanny Scales would not have been the only one to let her child go, for the sake of respectability.

‘Don’t weep,’ he said. ‘It happens. It always will. You’ve been doing what you could to help, sweetheart, and no one is going to object to that, even if it was unorthodox. But what about Lady Fanny’s story? Do you think it ties up with yours somehow? Was Sir Josiah right, after all?’

‘It does look as if he knew more than he told me, and perhaps he
would
have told me one day if he’d not died so suddenly. But why did you think Lady Fanny’s story might be relevant, Nick darling? You were not to have known that I was adopted.’

‘Your portrait and my childhood memory, and you saying that there was yet another skeleton in your closet. And Dysart’s memory too. He’d made the same link as me.’

‘But Thomas Lawrence didn’t.’

‘No, she was before his time, sweetheart. But you see what this means, don’t you? That your ancestry is as good as it gets, adopted or not. Better even than the Carrs. Mrs Carr would surely have known the lovely Fanny, Viscountess Winterbourne. She’d have approved of that. Just think.’

She had to smile at the irony. ‘I can scarcely believe it, dearest. Are we going to have to tell your parents about it? We should, you know.’

‘I don’t see why. It’s important to you, but I think we can safely say that your last skeleton is released, and you have no more to worry about. Yes?’

‘Doesn’t it make any difference to you, either?’

‘Not in the least. And I think we’ve been engaged long enough now. It’s time it was officially announced, and a date set. You and I should be made respectable.’

Certainly, there was another reason for urgency now, though she could not tell him of it until she was more sure. But the solving of so many of Amelie’s problems made a difference to their loving that extended their experience of each other even further, marking the beginning of a deeper phase in their unusual wooing. That night was for Amelie the start of a new life also, not just as the daughter of aristocrats, but
as the untroubled future wife of the man she had come to adore, the one around whom she had erected so many obstacles. Paradoxically, if she had not come this far with him, she would never have discovered the answer to the one problem that had lain like a dark menace at the roots of her life; the question of her birth and abandonment.

After dinner with Dorna at Sydney Place, her guests were convinced that the concert at the Assembly Rooms would be something of an anticlimax, for the meal had been riotous, even without the extrovert Tam. The mood had lightened, the two brothers were in good form, even Stephen had rallied with the aid of a suddenly animated Hannah, and Dorna had excelled with a meal so varied and novel that each dish was a topic for discussion and some absurd guesswork.

She had invited her mysterious friend to join them, a very presentable Captain Ben Rankin who, once he had adapted to the banter and irreverence between them, showed an attractive wit and a wicked sense of humour. He was also, Amelie and Nick agreed, a risk-taker to step so boldly into Sir Chad’s slippers, for they had little doubt that that was what he was doing here in Bath. Nevertheless, they could well understand what attractions the captain held for Dorna after the unresponsive Sir Chad, and they took to him easily.

In glittering silver and white, swathes of feathery shawls, plumes and pearls, Amelie and Caterina won a large slice of the attention from the concert-goers that evening as they glided through the columned passages to the soft shush of feet and the rustle of silk and lace, the fluttering of fans, the whispers of guests with their printed programmes and lorgnettes poised to pick out names and unctuous introductions:
‘Mr Taylor … earnestly felicits the attention of the Nobility and Gentry … and trusts that his exertions will …’

‘Exertions?’ Caterina whispered to Lord Rayne. ‘For pity’s sake.’

‘Sounds as if he’s offering to do press-ups,’ he replied, with disdain.

‘Heaven forbid. Look … oh, look … here’s Signor Rauzzini.’

‘Don’t wave.’

‘Thank you. I wasn’t going to. He’s smiling at me.’

‘Then you may smile back, but not too much or he may ask you to sing.’

‘You are
so
disagreeable. I don’t know why I came with you.’

‘Shh! He’s taking the rostrum. Stop fidgeting.’

The musicians’ tuning-up had drowned out the bickering, which in turn was a cover for something much more affectionate and which fooled none of their companions except dear Hannah, who could not understand it. Amelie’s hand reached across Nick’s lap to squeeze her niece’s arm with an exchange of smiles and, after a last fleeting glance at the festoon of gleaming chandeliers below the white-vaulted ceiling and the assembled line of artistes, she settled into her velvet-covered gilded chair.

The maestro introduced the vocalists, the musicians, the programme, its sponsors and their aspirations, but it was soon evident that the popular mezzo-soprano was far from well, though she struggled valiantly in a duet by Handel, then in a quartet composed by Rauzzini himself. By the interval, the audience had begun to wonder if she would have to retire and if they would have to forfeit what many of them had looked forward to, her solo.

With a cup of tea in her hand, Amelie was discussing the
situation when she caught sight of Signor Rauzzini threading his way towards her, though she felt both privileged and slightly alarmed by a premonition of his intent. Even in late maturity, the Italian was still the handsome man he had been in his youth when women had clamoured to become his mistress and men had envied his popularity and success. His renowned castrato singing voice was now well past its best, but his charm was as potent as ever.

‘Lady Chester … my lord … pray forgive the interruption,’ he said, smiling so broadly that they would have forgiven him anything, ‘but we have a slight problem … no, I lie, it’s more than slight, it’s a catastrophe.’ And as if they had not noticed, he explained that the mature Mrs D’Oliveira was suffering a crisis. Her voice had gone. Throwing up his hands, he fluttered his fingers like wings. ‘And I wondered, dear lady, if your niece has recovered enough to help us out for the second act. I saw her here with you. Do you think … am I asking the impossible? I
know
she can do it. A solo, and our duet, perhaps an encore? That’s all.’

Caterina was sought, and asked. ‘Signor, I am honoured,’ she said. ‘But do I know the music?’

‘Sing whatever you wish, Miss Chester. The musicians will know it. The duet you and I will perform as we were to have done at my house, only here we shall have the applause afterwards. There is no one else I would ask to do it.’

His standards were of the highest, his reputation also. As brave as an Amazon, Caterina grasped at the chance. ‘I can do it,’ she said. ‘Of course I can.’

‘Are you sure, my dear?’ Amelie whispered. ‘You need not feel obliged.’

‘I’m not about to forgo a chance like this,’ said Caterina.
‘This is what we came to Bath for, and now Father can hear me. Lead on,
signor
.’

The word went round: the maestro had found a replacement. The audience settled down once more; necks craned as the introduction was made and Caterina was led on to the small dais to polite and sympathetic applause. She was a stunner, they murmured, but would she be able to match Mrs D’Oliveira?

But from the first haunting notes, the air became electric with intense concentration as it had not been previously, and the young goddess who stood so confidently before them without a sheet of music in her hand held every one of them enthralled by the pure unaffected richness that poured from her in tones of honeyed gold. Bent to their instruments, the musicians watched and followed her, awed by her beauty of expression, the phrasing, the nuances of colour, the control, for this was a poignant love song they had assumed to be beyond her experience to tell convincingly.

Yet there were some who listened, knowing that it was her own experience of which she sang, of the one she loved and was losing, and how she would recover and be merry with others, while always returning to the minor key that gave the lie to her bravado. It was heartbreaking, piquant, alternating between optimism and melancholy, and when she sang of how this love would hold her heart for ever imprisoned, there was not one in the hall who disbelieved her, especially not the one to whom she was singing. As the last long sad note floated softly around the hall, soaring upwards, every ear straining to hold it back, the silence that followed was like a wait for an echo until Caterina moved and tipped her head a little to one side, looking directly at Lord Rayne.

To his credit, he was the first to stand and blow her a kiss, followed immediately by the whole audience, whose applause was the loudest and most prolonged of the evening, both tearful and ecstatic. Even this did not unsettle her, Signor Cantoni having briefed her how every moment on stage was part of the act, the applause their thanks to be accepted graciously. When Signor Rauzzini joined her for their duet, the audience had never before sat down so quickly.

This too was a performance that set Bath society talking for months afterwards, for the maestro’s voice, though changed, was still beautiful and in the same range as Caterina’s, but of a different timbre. And though they had never sung together before, she took her cues from him, held his hand, and sang with him a love duet of quite a different kind, sweet and full of promise. For a great artiste at the end of his career and a young woman at the beginning of hers, it had a significance that no one could miss. Once again, the applause rattled the chandeliers.

Wisely, she left them wanting more, modestly offering the excuse that the other singers still had a programme to finish, resuming her place with her family, whose emotional greetings lifted those spirits which, only days before, had been at rock-bottom. The rest of the concert, though enjoyable, could not match Caterina’s brilliance, and by the end it was she who had assumed the status of celebrity. But it was to Amelie she remarked, when they were alone, that she had found it both exhilarating and consoling to sing in public about a wounded pride rather than weep about it, and that if it helped her to understand love songs, the heart’s pain must have its uses.

T
here were several reasons why Amelie must return to Richmond sooner than she had intended, most of which concerned others more than herself. Caterina and her father were keen to return to their family at Buxton, while Nick and Seton were anxious not to keep their parents waiting at Sheen Court where they were preparing to send Seton off in style and to celebrate their eldest son’s engagement. The only one of their company who was not inclined to leave the freedom of Bath was Dorna, who was enjoying herself too much, confident that her husband would miss her less than Captain Rankin. Duty came first, however, and family celebrations were much to her taste. So for the remaining few days of their stay, they indulged in every opportunity for enjoyment that Bath had to offer, using each morning, noon and night to parade, to ride and walk to the surrounding beauty spots, to games of bowls, shopping sprees, assemblies, dinner parties, country dances and, on the Friday to come, a formal dress ball. One of their visits was to Perrydown, where Signor Rauzzini had a beautiful cottage and where he entertained them lavishly. Here the maestro did his
utmost to convince Stephen that he must take his daughter’s talent seriously, but Amelie and Nick, discussing the event later, agreed that it was Caterina herself who had been largely responsible for her own success with only a little steering in the right direction from them.

The ball at the New Assembly Rooms was intended to mark their last night before their return home and, for this, Lise and Millie spent hours preparing gowns, stockings and pumps, gloves and fans, and in arranging hair entwined with plaits, braids and pearls. An evening gown of cream lace for Amelie and a flower-sprigged white muslin for Caterina put the two of them once again in a class of their own, and Lord Rayne’s admiration that had once been only for the aunt was this time for the niece. It was enough for her to see how his eyes lingered, without straying.

Still on cloud nine since the banishment of her cares, Amelie gave herself generously to every moment in Nick’s company, able for the first time to indulge in those small signs of affection she had never quite been able to show before: squeezing his hand, pressing close to him, whispering intimate secrets, laughing at nothing, the talk of lovers. When he led her into the enormous pale green and white ballroom lined with Corinthian columns into a blaze of light from no less than nine cut-glass chandeliers, there was nothing that could have diminished her joy at being by his side as his beloved final partner. It was during the supper interval in the tea room where an incident took place that came very close to removing her joy forever, and which brought their last evening in Bath to a more abrupt end than they had expected.

As the crowds jostled around the groaning supper tables, Amelie, Hannah and Dorna carried plates of food to a table
in one corner to await the men, who had offered to bring tea and wine. Raising their eyebrows at the level of noise as guests clamoured for food, the three women paid little attention to a burst of shouting over by the door to the octogon, a central room that led directly into all the others. Assuming that the rowdiness would soon be dealt with by Mr King, the Master of Ceremonies, they continued to chatter and nibble until Dorna suddenly stopped, sat up very straight, and frowned severely at someone standing close behind Amelie’s chair.

At that same moment, Amelie felt the touch of a hand beneath her elbow and, sure that it must be Nick, half-turned with a smile at the ready. But by that time Dorna had leapt to her feet, enraged by the stranger’s effrontery. ‘Sir!’ she scolded. ‘Take your hand away from Lady Chester this
minute
. How dare you come in here dressed like that?’

Suspecting that Dorna was overreacting, Amelie turned fully from her conversation with Hannah and saw that instead of the regulation knee-breeches and white stockings, the man standing too close to her was wearing dirty riding boots and a brown coat she had last seen in her Richmond workroom, though now it was shabby and stained with food. His face had suffered too, showing a desperation and hollow-eyed gauntness that the last few weeks in London’s gambling hells had inflicted on him. Ruben Hurst.

In the next moment she was on her feet, desperate to put a distance between them, knowing that his mission would not be a peaceful one after her refusal to communicate. He reeked of danger and spirits, and yet again he had found her unprotected and vulnerable. Knocking his hand away and using her arm as a barrier, she searched the room for Mr King, whose white wig was easy to spot, pushing his way towards them,
dodging hand-held plates and ladies’ trains. ‘You!’ she snarled at Hurst. ‘Get out of here … get
out
!’ Where were Nick and Stephen when she needed them?

But Ruben Hurst had not traipsed all this way only to be thrown out before concluding his business with the woman who obsessed him. This time he did not mean to leave emptyhanded as he had done on two previous occasions. This time, she would go with him.

Nauseated by his heavy sour breath, Amelie grappled with him, doing her best to evade him, but eventually being pinned back to the wall by the table on one side and her chair on the other, and all so fast that no man had realised what was happening until it was too late. Catching at her wrist, he pulled it hard across her throat and held her with her back to him, helplessly off-balance and rasped along her cheek by his disgusting stubble. Twisting her head away, she caught sight of the long cold length of a duelling pistol like an extension of his arm, levelled directly at Mr King’s white head, stopping him in his tracks.

Through the hubbub, Dorna’s hunting-field cry cut like a knife. ‘Nick! Ben! Stephen … Seton!’

Someone screamed. A plate crashed to the floor, and a mist of silence descended as the crowds pressed backwards, the men open-armed to shield their women, herding them away, hovering on the edge of the place where Amelie stood linked to Hurst. Three tall men pushed their way through to stand in front of Mr King: Nick, Seton and Captain Rankin. Stephen was nowhere to be seen.

‘Hurst!’ called Nick. ‘Listen to me. Let Lady Chester go. We can talk … settle this outside. Whatever you prefer. Now … let her go, man, or you get even deeper into trouble.’

For the first time, Hurst spoke, slurring his words and sounding even more like a Manchester man than he had before. ‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘Oh, no, my lord. This business is already settled, in my favour, this time. The lady is with me now, and that’s where she’ll stay. Don’t you think I’ve waited long enough, sweeting?’ His mouth came close to her ear, dripping flecks of foam on to her bare shoulder. ‘Ready to come now, are ye? One shot for you and one for me. You’ll not feel a thing.’

‘Mr Hurst … please,’ Amelie whispered, half-strangled by his arm. ‘Let’s talk about this, sensibly. This is not the way …’ But he was impatient, jerking his arm and holding her head in the crook of his elbow. She caught sight of Dorna’s terrified face, and Hannah with a hand over her mouth, and she said a silent prayer of thanks that Caterina was not in the tea room. She looked along his arm at the gleam of brass with one finger hooked round the trigger ready to squeeze, and she froze in horror as it swung slowly round to point at Nick, swamped with a fear greater than any she had ever known at this appalling threat. She had found real love at last, the fulfilment of her dearest wishes with the man she wanted above all else, his child in her womb. And this half-crazed vindictive creature was about to put an end to all she had ever yearned for, to satisfy his own corrupt infatuation. He had blighted her life once and was now about to do it again, even to end it. ‘Nick,’ she whispered, watching the shaking weapon. ‘Nick … I love you … I love you.’

‘Sweetheart … hold on,’ he called back. ‘We can still talk, Hurst. Come, man. Put the weapon down. You cannot get away with this.’ He held out a hand across the space. ‘Will you—?’

‘No!’ Hurst yelled, almost frantic now. ‘I held on too,
thinking she’d come to me. I shot Chester and I’ll shoot you … the lot of you … hypocrites! Then it’ll be just you and me, lady. Just you and me.’

From the other side of the room, a voice called, loud and raw with fury, turning all heads, including Hurst’s. ‘And
me
!’ he bellowed. ‘Over here, Hurst. Over here, man! It’s
me
you have to deal with now.’

For an interval between heartbeats, Amelie felt Hurst hesitate as the sound of Stephen’s voice searched for a niche in his memory, and the mean, sleek, shining pistol swung slowly away from Nick’s head towards the voice her captor was struggling to remember, and to find among the throng.

‘Let me go, Ruben,’ Amelie whispered. Using the name she had not spoken for years, she hoped to distract him further. ‘I’ll go with you. We can go away from here … together … just you and me … lower the pistol … please.’ And as she pleaded, Nick watched and understood what she was saying, nodding to her to keep talking, to promise the dreadful man anything while he and Seton could sidle round the wall and out of her line of vision.

‘Who’s that man?’ Hurst stammered. ‘Who called to me?’

‘I don’t know. Let’s just get away from these people, Ruben.’

‘Where? Where is he?
Damn
you!’ he yelled into the crowd. ‘Show yourself!’

The gun wavered again and Amelie closed her eyes at the pressure across her neck and back, and she said another prayer of thanks that Caterina was not present to hear her father’s challenge. What on earth was Stephen thinking of to goad the man so?

When she opened her eyes, the scene was changing again, for now the crowd had opened up a corridor that widened as
she watched, revealing the solitary figure of Stephen Chester with a duelling pistol in his hand, pointing it at the floor. His face was whiter than Amelie had ever seen it, twisted with the effort of control, his usual kindly voice hardly recognisable as he screamed at Ruben Hurst, ‘Here, you
bastard
! I’m here! And now it’s
your
turn. Put Amelie aside and face me as you once faced my good brother, if you dare.’

Again, a woman’s scream cut through the horrified silence. ‘Stephen …
no
!’ It was Hannah. Dorna grabbed her, holding a hand over her mouth.

The pistol in Hurst’s hand swung again, but the ear-splitting explosion synchronised with the brutal grasp of a hand that wrenched his wrist and twisted it upwards towards the ceiling, sending down a shower of white plaster upon the heads below. At the same moment, while Amelie’s ears still buzzed with the retort, she went crashing down backwards to land on top of Hurst with his arm still about her neck until it was prised away, and she found that, beside her on the floor, he was being roughly manhandled by three very competent men, one of whom sat on his shoulders to pull his hands together behind his back.

Undignified that fall may have been, but Amelie had taken worse ones from her horse, and she was prone neither to histrionics nor fainting. Nevertheless, she could not prevent herself from shaking as relief overwhelmed her, not only for her own deliverance from the menace of Ruben Hurst, but for everyone else’s too. The strong arms that lifted her and drew her into their safe haven belonged to Nick, who had risked his life to throw himself at Hurst’s weapon.

‘Nick, darling,’ she whispered. ‘Hold me … just hold me.’

‘Sweetheart, did he hurt you?’

‘No, not really. Bruised a bit, that’s all. Oh, my love. He’s mad. I’m sure he’s mad. Has he gone now, for good?’

‘Mad as a hatter, sweetheart,’ he agreed, kissing her. ‘Very bad form to walk in here looking like that. Deserves to be locked up.’ He looked round at the hasty attempts to right the overturned tables and to collect the heap of plaster, and at Hurst being hauled away by Mr King’s burly stewards. ‘I put a cup of tea down for you somewhere,’ he said, laconically.

Amelie made a snuffling sound into his waistcoat. ‘I must go to Stephen,’ she said. ‘He was quite wonderful, but he’s very upset.’

In the less crowded octogon, they sat to recover themselves while sipping fresh tea. Emotionally, Stephen was in a worse plight than Amelie, having come so close to fulfilling the ambition he had waited two years for, to revenge himself on his brother’s killer. But for Amelie being in his way, he would certainly have shot him. With Hannah and Caterina beside him, he explained, tearfully, how he came to have a duelling pistol with him at a dress ball.

‘It’s the one Josiah used when he died,’ he said. ‘I kept it, carried in a hidden pocket every single day, and at night under my pillow, waiting for a sight of that … sorry …’he gulped, then whispered ‘… that bastard. He knew Josiah was better with swords, but he was challenged, and he chose pistols. Well, I could have done better than Josiah, but he insisted on doing it himself. I could have got him … him then … instead of …’

‘Hush now, dear one,’ said Hannah, holding his hand. ‘Hush.’

‘Hurst was drunk,’ said Seton. ‘That wouldn’t do, old chap.’

‘I’d still have killed him, drunk or sober. Scum like that deserve—’ and here he broke down again while Caterina and
Hannah held him between them and looked sadly at each other over his head.

‘He’ll be dealt with,’ said Nick. ‘It’s best this way, my friend.’

‘But for Stephen,’ Amelie said, ‘I would not be here. I’ve never seen anything so courageous as when you drew his fire towards you. Truly, you’re my hero.’

‘Really?’ said Stephen, brightening a little.

‘Yes, really. It was a remarkable thing to do, wasn’t it, Nick?’

‘Indeed it was. Truly remarkable. I have Chester to thank for my future wife’s life. That lunatic would certainly have done some terrible damage without your prompt action.’

Stephen blew his nose and smoothed his hair. ‘Oh … really, it was nothing,’ he murmured. But Hannah and Caterina, catching each other’s eyes behind his shoulders, had just arrived at a mutual, if unspoken, decision to make Hannah’s presence in Buxton essential. Stephen Chester, they seemed to agree, needed someone more like Hannah than Aunt Amelie, who got herself into situations rather too easily, these days.