The American Heiress (30 page)

‘Oh, I don’t think you will have any trouble, Duchess. Your husband was always a great fan of the theatre.’ Mrs Stanley lowered her lashes at Cora.

Cora felt the blow but knew she must not show weakness. ‘The Duke has so many interests, but we shall certainly make a point of seeing you in your next play. What is the name of it?’

‘It is called
An Ideal Husband
, Your Grace.’ And having delivered her exit line, Mrs Stanley glided off to prepare for her recital.

Cora hoped that this exchange had not been overheard, but Sir Odo was behind her and cleared his throat.

‘You mustn’t mind Mrs Stanley, Duchess. She only does it to annoy because she knows it teases. I’m sure Wareham barely remembers her.’ He giggled and Cora was furious with herself for being there. She guessed that the story of the ideal husband would be everywhere by the end of the evening. But she must not give Odo Beauchamp the satisfaction of appearing humiliated. She smiled in what she hoped was a worldly manner.

‘I’ve made it a rule never to ask Ivo about his past. That way he can’t ask about mine.’ It was the best she could muster.

Sir Odo gave her a condescending smile. ‘Some more tea, Duchess? Mrs Stanley is to give us her Ophelia. Such a treat.’

Cora smiled back, drank her tea, and sat on a conversation seat upholstered in mauve velvet as Beatrice Stanley performed the mad scene from
Hamlet
. She had a melodious voice and, when acting, a sweetness of expression that surprised Cora. When the performance was over, she clapped as loudly as her kid gloves would permit and made herself congratulate the actress warmly. Then she looked around for Charlotte to say goodbye. She was standing under the portrait, smoking a cigarette and laughing at something that Stebbings the poet had said.

‘Goodbye, Charlotte, such an interesting party. Thank you so much for inviting me.’

‘Oh, I hope you found it amusing.’ Charlotte exhaled a long plume of smoke. ‘Tell me, did Louvain ask you to sit for him? He left before I could ask him.’

Cora laughed. ‘Not so much ask as command. He assumed I would have nothing better to do.’

Charlotte gave her a slow smile. ‘And do you?’

Inexplicably, Cora found herself blushing, but before she could reply, Charlotte said, ‘I don’t think you can refuse to be Louvain’s last portrait.’

Cora laughed a little nervously. ‘Well, I would certainly have to find a good reason. And now if you’ll excuse me,’ and she made her way to the door. As she walked down the stairs to the black and white checkered hall, she heard footsteps behind her.

‘Duchess!’

It was Stebbings. He smiled at her shyly. In his hands he had a book bound in yellow.

‘May I give this to you, Duchess? I would like you to read my poem. You seem to be a woman of feeling.’

‘Thank you, Mr Stebbings, I am flattered you think so.’ Cora took the book, which had a woman wearing a masquerade mask on the cover. She appreciated the contrast between the vivid yellow of the cover and the dark green of her dress.

‘No one in there has read it, they just talk about it. But I thought that you might be different.’

Cora felt sorry for this anxious young man and touched by his interest in her. ‘I will certainly read it and I will write and tell you what I think.’

‘You can find me at Albany. I shall wait for your letter.’ And he took her hand and wrung it so fervently that Cora felt quite worried about her wrist.

‘Goodbye, Mr Stebbings.’

‘
Au revoir
, Duchess.’

Her encounter with Stebbings had taken the sting out of her visit to the Beauchamps and she found herself smiling as she got into her carriage. She was grateful to have at least one admirer.

She arrived at Cleveland Row just in time to change for dinner, and asked Bertha to fetch her the apricot mousseline dinner dress with the black ribbon trim as she considered it particularly fetching.

Reggie Greatorex and Father Oliver were in the drawing room with the Duke.

‘Darling, how very charming you look. Did you enjoy yourself at the Beauchamps?’ Ivo kissed her cheek.

‘It was certainly interesting,’ she said brightly.

‘Did Charlotte throw you amongst the lions, Duchess?’ Reggie smiled at her.

‘Well, I met Louvain, and a poet called Stebbings. He gave me a copy of
The Yellow Book
. Have you seen it? It is quite beautiful.’

‘Good Lord, Cora, one visit to Charlotte’s salon and you have come back an aesthete. Promise me you won’t start wearing rational dress and drooping everywhere.’ Ivo put his arm round her waist as if to assure himself that she was still wearing a corset.

‘I have seen
The Yellow Book
,’ said Father Oliver. ‘There is something rather febrile about it, don’t you think? As if they are trying just a little too hard to be modern. I always feel that nothing palls faster than a book that is trying to shock.’

‘Are you saying that this book is unsuitable, Father Oliver?’ said Ivo. ‘Should I confiscate it from Cora in order to preserve her moral character? I don’t want her to be a decadent duchess.’ He smiled and gave Cora’s waist a squeeze.

Cora longed to lean into him and let it go, but she was annoyed by the way they were all talking over her as if she had no thoughts or opinions of her own. She drew herself a little apart.

‘I think I am quite capable of deciding for myself whether a magazine is suitable or not. And from what I have seen of
The Yellow Book
, I think I am quite safe.’

‘Of course, Duchess,’ said Father Oliver soothingly. ‘I didn’t mean to suggest for a moment that you shouldn’t read it. I think the Duke may be exaggerating for effect.’ He smiled knowingly at Ivo.

Ivo laughed. ‘The idea is preposterous. But Caesar’s wife and all that. A duchess, especially a young and beautiful one, has to be seen to be virtuous. A woman’s reputation is a fragile thing, and a duchess’s is like gossamer.’ His voice was light but there was an edge to it.

Seeing the look on Cora’s face, Reggie broke in.

‘Did you hear the story about the drawing of Mrs Pat in
The Yellow Book
. There is a picture of her done by this chap Beardsley that looks like a wraith. Ricketts, the editor of the
Morning Post
, gets a copy and says he likes the magazine but where is the portrait of Mrs Patrick Campbell? Beardsley thinks there has been a mishap and sends him another copy. Ricketts writes back and says, I still can’t see anything in the book that resembles Mrs Patrick Campbell!’

Cora laughed and the tension dissipated as Ivo laughed too.

At dinner Reggie entertained them with stories about his time as a page at Windsor Castle. But Cora was tired and thankful that she had instituted the sixty-minute rule here at Cleveland Row. She had to conceal a smile as a footman whisked away Father Oliver’s
oeufs en cocotte aux truffes
while he was in the middle of a long and elaborate story about intermarriages between the Maltravers and Percy families in the sixteenth century.

She went to bed early. She hoped that Ivo would not stay in the smoking room forever. Bertha helped her out of her dress and corsets, which were getting increasingly uncomfortable, and she sat at the mirror brushing out her hair, enjoying the respite from stays and hairpins. It was only when she got undressed at night that she realised just how trussed up and pinned down she had been during the day. There were red welts under her breasts where her corset had dug into her expanding flesh. Her scalp was sore from the pins that held the diamond and feather aigrette to her head. The back of her neck was red from the diamond clasp of her pearls.

But then she heard Ivo whistling a tune from
The Mikado
in the corridor and she forgot about the lacerations of the flesh.

‘You see, I didn’t linger. Here, let me do that for you.’ Ivo picked up the hairbrush and began to pull it through Cora’s thick brown hair. He did it well, applying just the right amount of pressure to smooth out the tangles without pulling on her scalp. There were times when Ivo said things that Cora did not understand but every time he touched her she felt that they were in perfect accord. She looked at him in the dressing-table mirror. His thin face was soft, it didn’t have the creases and angles tonight that sometimes made him look so stern.

Ivo whistled a few more bars from
The Mikado
. Cora tried to catch his eye in the mirror.

‘You know, I realised today how little I know about you,’ she said.

Ivo’s whistling turned into singing. ‘Three little maids from school are we, full to the brim with girlish glee, three little maaaaaids from school.’

Cora persisted. ‘I mean, I know nothing about your childhood really, or your youth or how you lived before you met me.’ She caught his free hand and kissed it. Ivo carried on brushing, his dark eyes glittering.

‘But Cora, I was nothing before I met you. Simply a cipher with strawberry leaves. Do you really want to hear all about Nanny Hutchins who drank, and Nanny Crawford who didn’t. Or the time that I threw a stone into the hothouse at Lulworth and was chased round the pond by the head gardener. Or how Guy and I used to spend days tapping the panelling looking for the priest’s hole with the secret staircase that leads down to the sea. Or the day that the under-butler got the keys to the cellar and got so drunk that he climbed into my mother’s bed at two in the morning. Or my inability to master the finer points of Latin prose and being beaten for same, or my first pony, or my dear departed dog Tray, or my first Communion, or the first time I tasted ice cream…’ As he spoke his strokes with the brush got faster and faster so that Cora’s hair was beginning to flicker with electricity. She put up her hands and seized his arm, laughing in spite of herself.

‘Ivo! Enough. My head is going to explode,’ she said in mock exasperation.

‘But I thought you wanted to know about my early life,’ Ivo said reproachfully. He got free of her restraining hands and went back to the brushing, albeit rather more gently.

Cora was grateful for the mirror, somehow it was easier to talk to his reflection. She said carefully, ‘I want to know everything, even the things you might not want to tell me.’

‘Such as?’ Ivo stopped brushing and raised an eyebrow at her.

Cora wondered if she should leave well alone, but she thought of the uncorseted actress and she went on. ‘Well, your past…’ she struggled to find the right word, ‘liaisons. I mean, I am not so naive as to suppose that there were no women in your life before you met me.’

‘Women, Your Grace? The very idea!’ Ivo drew up his hands in mock horror.

Cora persevered. ‘It’s just that if I don’t know about them, I look foolish. I was mortified today at the Beauchamps.’

Ivo stopped brushing for a moment and then brought the brush down hard on a particularly sensitive part of her scalp. He had stopped whistling.

‘And why was that?’ His voice was quiet.

Cora found that she did not dare meet his eyes in the looking glass. ‘Because Odo Beauchamp introduced me to Mrs Stanley and of course everybody knew except for me that you and she were once…friendly.’ She dared look at him now and saw to her surprise that far from looking angry, he looked relieved.

‘So you met Beatrice.’ He began to brush her hair again with long rhythmic strokes. ‘She was very kind to me once.’

Cora looked at him sharply. She thought he might be a little more contrite. She turned round to face him. ‘I’m sure she was kind to you once, but she humiliated me today.’

Ivo gave a look of genuine astonishment. ‘But honestly, Cora, I don’t know why you should feel humiliated. You are a duchess with youth, beauty and everything you could ever want, while Beatrice is nearly forty, with no husband to speak of and an uncertain future. I am sorry if she made you feel foolish but I think she is the one who deserves sympathy.’

Ivo’s tone was unexpectedly serious, Cora could not understand why he was taking the other woman’s side.

She stood up, her hair crackling with static as she turned her head. ‘Well, I still think you should have told me. I don’t want us to have secrets from each other. I hate walking into a room and feeling that everyone there knows more about you than I do.’