The Exploits & Adventures of Miss Alethea Darcy (14 page)

The memory faded, and Alethea struggled to escape from these vivid, unwelcome memories. But the snow blinded her eyes when she opened them, and she sank back into her restless, dreamlike state.

Another night, another ball. She was in white. Her dress had spangles, which glittered slightly as she moved. Thinking only of the moment when she might see him again, she was oblivious to the attention she attracted upon her entry into the ballroom; the glow of happiness and expectation enhancing her looks and turning more than a few heads in her direction.

It was a much grander occasion than the Danbys' dance. That had been little more than a family affair, not a formal ball. There were above five hundred people crammed into the ballroom at the back of the huge house in Berkeley Square; all the great and the gay and the rich and the fashionable were there, packed tight, waving fans, exclaiming at the crush and the heat, tripping over one another on the dance floor.

Words drifted past her ears as she waltzed with Penrose.

“Oho,” said Snipe Woodhead. “Is that another of the Darcy girls? It must be, it's her father to the life. And dancing with young Youdall, who seems to take a deal of pleasure in her company.”

“It's their second dance, and I saw them sitting out together in one of those little alcoves,” said Lady Naburn, who was passing. “Shocking behaviour for such a young girl, barely out of the schoolroom. A very forward miss, indeed.”

“They say she sings.”

“So do cuckoos.”

Oblivious to the clack of vitriolic tongues about her, Alethea danced with a spring in her step and a lively beat to her heart. She found Penrose utterly delightful. He was funny and quick-witted, and shared her passion for music. With him she felt no shyness, no reserve, no wish that she could be somewhere else. All the creeping boredom of her first few parties had vanished. Where he was, there was gaiety and amusement and an ease of companionship that was extraordinary after so short an acquaintance.

Other scenes sprang before her eyes. Riding in the park, falling behind the rest of the party, returning to Aubrey Square in a glow of happiness that made Fanny smile and Fitzwilliam shake his head.

Their engagement began to be spoken of as a likely event, indeed possibly even as a matter agreed between the families but not announced, not with the Darcys fixed at Pemberley, anxious for the health of their youngest boy, who had been suffering from a low fever that caused family and physicians some alarm. That was why Alethea was in Fanny's charge, and how glad she was of it, because she knew, deep down, that Mama and Papa might not approve of the time she spent with Penrose.

Only those close to the Youdalls begged to differ, saying there was no thought of an engagement, that Penrose was too young to be thinking of setting up his own household, that Miss Alethea Darcy, although a very good kind of young woman, was something of a flirt, and there was nothing serious in the young people's friendship.

Frozen in time, she saw Mrs. Youdall, in another house, at another ball, gazing at her in a most frosty way. Only a fool could not have noticed it. “Why does your mama so dislike me?” she asked Penrose as they circled the floor together.

He flicked a quick glance to the side of the room where the dowagers sat in a clutter of turbans and feathers, and smiled down at Alethea.

“She does not dislike you, how can you say such a thing? She admires you greatly, she told me so herself, she remarked how pretty you are looking, and how much your liveliness adds to your looks.”

Alethea did not think that Mrs. Youdall looked like a woman who valued liveliness, but she kept her counsel, and said that Penrose was doubtless right, he knew his mother better than she did.

Out into the garden, where the air was warm with the lingering heat of a May day. The scents of the flowers wafted over her as they walked along the lamplit paths that wound into the shrubbery. An inviting bench placed discreetly behind a tree, his arm around her waist, tightening its grip as they lost themselves in a passionate embrace.

In the coach, Alethea turned her head, and murmured his name.

“Did you say something?” Titus Manningtree's voice rang in her ears, and she dragged herself out of the May garden, back into the chilly heights of the Alps. He was staring at her, an inscrutable look on his face. She flushed, and struggled to a more upright position.

“I fell asleep,” she said lamely. “I was dreaming.”

“So I gathered,” he said drily.

Alethea sat up, yawned, and looked about the carriage. For some reason, her senses retained a strange, lingering clarity: the set of Titus Manningtree's masterful nose, the way his coat fell across his muscular thighs, the dense black curls of George Warren's hair beneath the curved brim of his hat, the intense masculinity of both men.

She shook away the last of her sleepiness. She felt uneasy; she was out of place, had no business being here.

“We're going dashed slowly,” Warren complained. “Manningtree, put your head out and ask that lazy clown of a driver whether he or the horses have fallen asleep.”

“If you care to look out, you will observe for yourself that the snow is deeper. I am not sure that the chaises will be able to go much further.”

“What, are we to be stranded?” Alethea asked, forgetting her intention of maintaining a suitable indifference to discomfort and danger.

“They may have to hoist the carriages on to runners,” Titus said.

“God, what a bore,” said Warren. “One always forgets how tedious foreign travel becomes as one leaves civilisation behind. One must, I suppose, render thanks to the Emperor for building this road. I shudder to think what such a journey was like in the last century.”

Alethea didn't like to display her ignorance, but Titus caught her blank look and enlightened her.

“Warren is referring to Napoleon Bonaparte,” he said. “He had this road constructed some ten or twelve years ago, when he wanted to bring troops across into Italy and Austria. It is a remarkable feat of engineering, and I dare say the Swiss may grow to be grateful for its building, but I do not think they thought well of it at the time. It cost a great many lives, I believe, to blast such a road through the very rock itself.”

 

Titus had a tolerably good idea of what was going through Alethea's mind. For one of her generation, the years of war with France were no more than a memory, a backdrop to childhood. In 1815, as the war ended with the guns of Waterloo, she would have been under the care of her governess, learning French verbs, stitching a sampler, and putting in her dutiful daily hour on the pianoforte or harp.

Although not the last activity, he suspected, not in Alethea Darcy's case. For her, music was a passion, and he guessed that any stitches she was obliged to set were probably ragged and resentfully done. He pictured her as a tomboy, rolling down grass banks, climbing trees and running wild with no care as to the dirtying of dress or shoes, coming in reluctantly with hair all a-tangle.

Such girls usually grew out of their wildness, and became well-dressed, poised young women. Clearly something had gone amiss with this Darcy daughter; he was amazed that her parents had not had more control of her. To run away from a husband to roam Europe disguised as a man indicated a distinct wildness of nature.

He disapproved, he utterly disapproved of such behaviour. Hoydens had never appealed to him. Yet, against his better judgement, he felt a reluctant admiration for her as the journey became slower and more and more difficult. Three times more they had to descend from the carriage and wade through torrential streams. Emily was sensible and stoical; this reckless girl, though obviously tired and anxious, made little of the difficulties of their journey.

Look at her now, reeling as she was nearly knocked off her feet by a stronger-than-expected current of water. “The water is so cold, and the air so fresh and clean, I have never known such air, it quite goes to my head,” she said breathlessly.

“That is the altitude,” Titus said as he hauled her, none too gently, aside from a wavering boulder.

“And the snow, so dazzling and with such perfection about it, I never saw such smoothness and brilliance. And yet, the sun is blazing down. It is all so different from anything I have ever experienced.” She gave him a quick, sidelong glance. “I dare say none of it is new to you, you will have made many such journeys, there is no novelty in it for a traveller such as yourself.”

“On the contrary, I find this journey a revelation in many ways, and it is quite unlike any of my previous crossings of the Alps, I can assure you.”

She wasn't listening to him, but was looking intently at the men who were busying themselves about the wheels of the chaise. “What are they doing, sir?”

“They are attaching the runners I spoke of to the chaise,” said Titus. “Where the snow is deep and the passage impossible with wheels, they are accustomed to make the chaise into a kind of sleigh.”

“A sleigh!” Her laughter chased the care from her face, and the clear sound made the labouring men look up and stare at her with the tight eyes of those who spend time in the sun in the high mountains. They returned to their task; Titus moved over to speak to Emily.

“Our young friend here is amused by the novelty of our situation,” he remarked. “I wish I could share his enthusiasm for this very inconvenient mode of travel.”

She gave him one of her direct looks. “I am sure that when you were a young man, you would have found it an adventure. It is a sadness of growing older that we lose our ardent appreciation of what is new and different and difficult.”

“I stand rebuked.”

Signore Lessini had been regarding them with a smile on his face; he came across to join them. “Well, this is something, Mr. Manningtree, we are to turn into Russians and travel across the snow as on a sleigh. We should have bells and make a merriness of it.”

“As you say.” Titus's voice was cold. Try as he might, he couldn't dislike the amiable Italian, although every fibre of his being resented the man for usurping his place in Emily's life, in her heart as well as her bed, to go by the look on her face. Damn her, he said inwardly. Damn all women; why were they so deceiving, so inclined to do the unexpected?

“You look to be in a temper, Mr. Manningtree,” Emily said in a kindly way. “Perhaps you are a trifle liverish, in which case the jolting I fear we are about to receive in our progress across the snow and ice will stir that organ up for you, and restore you to your customary good humour.”

He eyed her uncertainly; was that a note of irony in her voice? He was not a man known for his good humour, although when he was younger, he had had a happy, open disposition and was not given to displays of irritation or anger. “That is another change the years have wrought,” he said to Emily. “We have to have regard for our livers.”

“Nonsense, nonsense,” cried Signore Lessini. “I have the greatest respect for my liver, and it causes me no discomfort whatever, and as for dear Emily, she is never in any kind of internal disorder, all is in harmony with her.”

The next part of the journey was enough to tax the strongest stomach and nerves. The rock faces towered above them on one side, with waterfalls roaring and foaming down them; on the other side yawned a chasm.

“I trust there are railings,” Warren said. His jaw was tight, and unlike Titus, who was regarding their dangerous progress with detached calm, he was ill at ease, peering first up at the crags and peaks above, then sliding along the seat to look down into the steep gorge stretching away to a snaking river far below.

“Wishing you hadn't come?” Titus asked.

“It is not a matter of wishing or not wishing; my mission will not wait,” Warren said testily.

“What are those men perched so perilously alongside the way?” Alethea asked. “They are waving at us.”

“They are not waving; they are indicating to the coachmen where the edge of the road is,” Titus said, after a brief look. “The railings are covered with snow, and without these workmen being posted here, we would no doubt plunge over the edge.”

Warren shuddered, his face turned even paler, and he shut his eyes. “Almost I wish we might plunge,” he murmured. “That would at least be an end to this interminable misery.”

“Are we near the top of the pass?” Alethea asked, sinking back into her seat. While not as disturbed as Mr. Warren appeared to be, she found she didn't care for the sheer drop to the depths below, so few inches away from the wheels of their carriage.

“By no means,” Titus replied. “We have several hours of ascent ahead of us.”

“Look there, at that rock fall; quite half one of those great cliffs appears to have come down,” she said.

“Then let us pray the other half does not tumble down upon us,” Warren said, without opening his eyes.

His ill humour persisted, but Alethea felt more cheerful when the way became wider, and she began to enjoy the sunshine, the mountains, and the novel sensation of being drawn over the snow on a sled by a team of strong horses. Just like in Russia, and hadn't Mama told them that in winter one made much of the journey from Vienna to Turkey in horse-drawn sleighs? With armed guards to keep away bandits and wolves; how she would love to go upon such a journey. She remembered her sister Camilla exclaiming how much she envied her parents their journey to Constantinople and their stay there all among the mosques and the Mussulmen.