The Lace Balcony (29 page)

He gave a nervous laugh of relief. ‘I am much encouraged. But I must not keep you from your beauty sleep. Not that you need it of course,' he said earnestly. ‘But before I take my leave of you, would you care to hear one last story?'

I'll put money on the fact it involves the stars.
Vianna leaned forward, feigning interest and at the same time allowing the folds of her gown to fall more alluringly.

‘Please do, Felix. I love
bedtime
stories.'

‘It's from The Isle of Mann, a magical little island rich in legends brought there by ancient Norsemen, Vikings, Celts, Picts and Scots. This story was told to me as a child by one of my father's servants,
a Manx woman transported to the Colony for smuggling brandy on her father's fishing boat.'

Her interest aroused, Vianna rolled over on the couch. ‘Please, go on!'

She was soon entranced, colouring the bare bones of legend with her own imagination.

‘Hundreds of years ago a handsome, blond Viking raider named Godred Grovan sailed with his warriors across the seas, until he reached the Isle of Mann – named for the pagan Celtic sea god Mannanin.

‘Manx villagers were in awe of his height, his strength and his magnificent longboat with its bow curved like a dragon's head. To these simple folk the Viking leader resembled a being from another world. Communication was difficult because they knew as little of his Norse tongue as he did of theirs.'

‘A beautiful, Manx maiden asked the Viking where he had come from. In answer he pointed to the starry night sky – indicating the direction of his Norse homeland. The villagers took him at his word. They gave him a new name, King Orry, and since that day the Manx refer to the Milky Way as “King Orry's Road”.'

‘What a romantic story, Felix. Did he marry her, do you think? I love happy endings.' Vianna added with a sigh, ‘There are so few of them in real life.'

Felix seemed intent on telling the truth. ‘The Vikings stayed for many years on the Isle of Mann and as they did not bring their own women with them, I feel sure that King Orry would have fallen in love with that girl and married her.'

‘I'm sure you're right, Felix,' she whispered.

Vianna was now resolved that Felix would be eligible in her eyes to be her new protector.

But time is running out. I must make the message quite clear to him.

‘May I tempt you from your telescope to return for my final performance on Saturday? I trust you have a generous heart, Felix, or I will be lost to you forever!'

Felix bent to kiss her hand. ‘You may count on me, Vianna,' he said softly. ‘If you choose me to protect you, I will do my utmost to give your story a happy ending.'

He backed from the room, his eyes alight with what might well be love.

Wanda assisted her to undress. Vianna felt suddenly weary, resigned to the uncertainty of the long week ahead. As always she confided her verdict in Wanda.

‘What do you think? This one is young, intelligent, naïve, yet nobody's fool. Kentigern L'Estrange owns a goodly slice of New South Wales and scores of other places. But how much freedom his
son
has to spend his father's money is open to question.'

‘He is handsome, Vianna, and he looks as if he's already deeply in love.'

‘Much good that will do if he doesn't pass muster with Severin. Love doesn't come into the equation. At least not until after the contract is signed.'

I wonder what it would be like to go to bed with a man purely for love.

Wanda paused in the doorway as if uncertain whether to speak.

‘What's wrong, Wanda? You look like the bearer of bad news.'

‘Not bad, exactly, but I don't want to cause you sadness.'

‘What can be worse than what I'm already facing?'

‘Today as I was leaving the house I was approached by a young man on horseback. He claimed he was a friend of yours and wanted to know if Severin was treating you well.'

‘Why would that make me sad?'

‘He also asked about your little sister, Daisy. Of course I pretended I knew nothing. I'm sorry to upset you.'

Vianna's knees buckled, forcing her to sit down. ‘But no one knows about Daisy! Did he give you his name?'

In answer Wanda withdrew a letter from her pocket.

‘Read it, please!' Vianna commanded.

Wanda obeyed.

‘My dear Golden Girl,

Due to Circumstances beyond my Control I have been prevented from playing at Severin House. I am desperate to speak with you. I beg you not to make your Final Choice before we meet again. I shall make you an Offer that you simply can't refuse.

Forgive me for what must seem like the Act of a Madman. My Love for you has made me what I am. I promise I shall tell you Nothing but the Truth from here on.

I
will
find some way to see you alone.

Your Man for all Seasons,

(signed) Mungo Quayle.'

Vianna tried to decipher the meaning behind the message. ‘Romantic words, but he is indeed a madman if he thinks he can outbid Sydney's wealthiest men. And “nothing but the truth from here on” sounds like a confession he has lied to me in the past.'

After Wanda closed the door behind her, Vianna slipped between the silken sheets. The faces of the two young men fought for space in her head. She reminded herself she could not afford the luxury of pity for romantic young men of dubious fortune. Even Felix was in doubt. Severin would pressure her to accept the contract of a man who controlled his own wealth, not some young puppy who was heir to his father's fortune.

Felix L'Estrange is a lamb waiting for Severin to lead him to the slaughter. And what game is Mungo Quayle playing? What does he know about Daisy? I never told him. He doesn't look poor – but you can't judge the size of a man's fortune by his tailor's handiwork. What is this offer that I can't refuse? This would be romantic – if Daisy's whole future wasn't at stake.

The last image in her mind before sleep overtook her was like a fast-fading lithograph . . . the bruised face and shaven head of young William Eden . . . his heart in his eyes . . . as he kissed her . . .

•  •  •

Felix took one of the hansom cabs waiting outside Severin House. He had just lived through the most wonderful, disturbing hour of his life but was now torn between elation and reality. The odds were heavily stacked against him.

He desperately explored all possible options – his bank balance, his shares in John Macarthur's Australian Agricultural Company, and his high hopes for the covert L'Estrange shipping company building trade routes with New Zealand. On paper his credentials were splendid, but could he compete with far wealthier rivals whose
personal fortunes were already made? And if she chose him as her protector, where on earth could he hide her?

Severin House is too public. And Vianna could never set foot inside Rockingham Hall – Mother would recognise her from Bonnard's Exhibition.

Father! Yes, I'll talk to him tomorrow. God forbid Mother gets wind of my plan. She'd have me married off to some Exclusive's twit of a daughter. Dear God, why does love have to be so complicated?

Felix anxiously surveyed the night sky – and asked God a serious question.

‘Is it wrong to feel romantic love and unbridled lust at the same time?'

Venus seemed to have vanished from the sky. And God remained silent.

Lights were still burning in the vestibule when Felix entered the house. The games room was silent. Father was no doubt in bed, tended by Jane Quayle. For once he felt real sympathy for his father's mistress – if not for her son.

We've been rivals all our lives. Now we're rivals in love. I shook hands on our deal – but I've broken my word. What the hell. Mungo will be a liar to his dying breath. From now on I play by his rules.

Unlocking the door to his bedchamber, Felix was infuriated to discover that despite his explicit instructions, someone had disturbed his sanctuary. Moonlight flooded the room. The balcony doors were open, the curtains playing in the breeze off the garden. A book lay open on a page describing Cook's account of his 1769 sighting of the Transit of Venus – the book a gift from Will Eden. The most alarming proof of an intruder – the telescope cap had been unscrewed and improperly replaced.

For once he could not blame Mungo, who had never shown the slightest interest in astronomy. In fact no one he knew had shared his passion apart from Will.

He decided to track down the culprit tomorrow. He must get some sleep, ready to consult his father about Severin's contract and a discreet residence for Vianna.

•  •  •

Felix was jolted from the brink of sleep by the noise of two male voices coming from the schoolroom. Mungo's voice grew so
agitated that Felix decided it was time to put a stop to the argument.

He found the schoolroom empty except for the sleeping figure lying in bed in a shaft of moonlight. Mungo lay naked and sweating, with a haunted look as he stared at the far corner of the room, seemingly oblivious of Felix's presence.

‘Logan – the bastard's dead but he'll never rest in peace!' Mungo pointed in his direction but Felix felt chilled to realise it was not at him that he gestured, but at something over his shoulder.
What? There's nothing but a blank wall behind me.

Felix shook him gently, intent on waking him from his nightmare, but Mungo grabbed his hand in the desperate grip of a drowning man.

‘Call yourself a mate, Will? Prove it. Get bloody Logan to leave me alone!'

Will Eden!
Felix was chilled by Mungo's eyes, wide open but unseeing.

‘It's all right, Mungo. I'm here now. You're quite safe.'

The calm words brought a degree of relief. Mungo slumped back into bed, but refused to relinquish his hand. So Felix drew up a chair next to the bed.

Like a soldier on duty, he kept watch until moonlight died and the faint pink flush of the false, ‘piccaninny dawn' appeared on the horizon.

We'll never be less than arch rivals, Mungo. But I guess right now half a brother is better than none at all.

Mungo awoke from the tail end of a nightmare, surprised to find the empty chair pulled up by his bedside. Had Will Eden been keeping a vigil throughout the night?

Dressing in haste in the grey morning light, he slipped downstairs to his father's office where, if discovered, he had a legitimate excuse. The family account books had been assigned to him to double check.

He suspected Felix had broken their agreement about Vianna, so he riffled through copies of recent legal documents until he found it – the draft of a letter written to Severin with full details of the generous offer made by Felix and guaranteed by Kentigern L'Estrange. Felix had signed his name in his perfect copperplate hand. The line was blank above Kentigern L'Estrange's name, awaiting his signature.

So now I know the truth. Felix has already made his offer but needs Father's signature as his guarantor of funds. Father's perfect son is a registered player in Severin's rotten auction. I couldn't blame Father. He has no idea that I have prior claim to Vianna – she's mine!

Using the L'Estrange letter as a template, Mungo commandeered a sheet of expensive notepaper and wrote his own offer to Severin, slightly outdoing Felix's generosity and adding a footnote that he hoped might speak to Severin's avarice and Vianna's romantic streak. ‘You have my word as a gentleman, I will continue to honour all these stated financial obligations for a twelfth month, even in the event the lady wishes to end the relationship within the contracted year.'

He reread his letter with satisfaction. There was only one element missing. Unlike Felix, he had no wealthy father to act as guarantor. Mungo gave the matter serious thought before forging the signature of a knight of the realm whom he had heard had just sailed on a vessel bound for England.

‘That's the way to do it!' as Punch would say.

Everything now depended on whether Wanda, the Aboriginal lady's maid, had delivered his desperate note – and if Vianna agreed to meet him alone.

•  •  •

Mungo took up his stand under the giant Port Jackson Fig tree opposite Severin House. He looped Boadicea's reins to the railing, and vowed to himself that he would not budge until Vianna emerged.

Yesterday, in a desperate attempt to raise the necessary stake to play faro at Severin House, he had ridden Boadicea in a race for three year olds that offered a handsome purse. Boadicea won the first heat, a bay gelding the second. In the deciding race she was neck and neck with the gelding and looked a dead certainty to win, until the gelding's jockey sent his whip flying ‘accidentally' across Mungo's line of vision, causing a loss of concentration that cost him the race.

Mungo stroked the blaze on Boadicea's nose. ‘Not your fault, girl, you did your damnedest to win for me.'

The money his mother had put aside for his wedding could be put to better use as his stake at faro, but he refused to contemplate the idea of borrowing it. His mother was no hypocrite and he felt sure she would accept a Fallen Woman as her son's bride once she had met Vianna, but Jane Quayle was dead set against gambling.

Everything hung on his being able to meet Vianna out of sight of her bodyguard. Mungo had no fear of the prize-fighter who was Severin's henchman, but he was on guard against causing Vianna abuse at Severin's hands. He could never forget the fear in her eyes that first day he had seen her with Severin.

He was distracted by the sound of musket and cannon fire from the direction of Port Jackson. Was this a signal that Sydney Town was greeting the arrival of some foreign flotilla that was Britain's ally? Or a call to arms against an enemy fleet?