The Other Daughter (14 page)

Rachel took a long, deep draft of her champagne. It was warm and beginning to go flat. “You needn't worry yourself. You've performed your part of the bargain.”

“My dear, we're only just beginning.” Simon paused three steps up, and nodded toward her glass. “Go easy on that.”

“Sauce for the goose,” said Rachel defiantly, and had the dubious pleasure of seeing Simon's fleeting grin.

And then he was gone, lost to view through a door at the top of the stairs, leaving Rachel alone with a half-empty glass of champagne in one hand, staring at a painting that looked as though it had been composed by a prurient ten-year-old boy.

Not entirely alone, Rachel reminded herself. She could go back, find Cece Heatherington-Vaughn, or that Brian person. She could pretend she'd just been to the powder room and lost Simon on her way back. But she wasn't sure that would be wise. She wanted to keep her air of mystery, to keep Cece guessing. She might have impressed Simon, oh so briefly, with her veneer of Vera, but she wasn't sure it would maintain prolonged scrutiny. Particularly after half a glass of champagne.

Rachel glanced uncertainly up the stairs, the way Simon had gone. No knowing what was up there, or just how long this man with a dog was going to take, whatever that dog might be.

Could she just go home? Go down the stairs, get herself into a taxi? It was a tempting thought. It had to be past midnight already, and her ankles ached in her ill-fitting shoes. But she oughtn't go without telling Simon.

A bit, he had said. How long was a bit?

Rachel shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, feeling gauche and out of place. Serve Simon right if he came back and found her gone. She ought to have suggested it herself before he left.

But for the fact that she never seemed to be able to quite get her thoughts in order where Simon was concerned.

It was, she decided, his elliptical style of conversation, which was quite as muddled and muddling as the poor excuse for a painting on the wall in front of her.

“It's hardly that bad.” The voice came from behind her, a pleasant tenor, lighter than Simon's, without the supercilious drawl. Rachel looked down to find a man standing two steps below, his hand on the banister. With a friendly smile, he nodded to the wall in front of her. “The picture.”

Rachel spoke without thinking. “It looks as though it was drawn by a ten-year-old boy with a poor sense of perspective.”

“Shh,” said the man, “they'll toss you out if they hear you. Even if I do happen to agree with you. John—” His last name was lost in the blare of a saxophone.

Rachel nodded distantly, glancing up the staircase. No sign of Simon. “Vera Merton.”

John whatever-his-name-might-be stayed a respectful two steps down. Rachel judged him to be about medium height. His hair was a sandy light brown. Altogether, an entirely unthreatening character. “Have you lost your party?”

“Misplaced them on the dance floor,” Rachel lied. She borrowed Simon's excuse. “I'd thought of venturing out there, but it's a sort of swamp, don't you think?”

“Frightfully murky.” A ghost of a dimple appeared in his right cheek. “I've lost my people there as well.”

Despite herself, Rachel began to relax. No one with a dimple could be all bad. “Do you think we ought to send out a search party?”

“Too perilous,” John said solemnly. “They'd be trapped themselves, and then where would we be?”

Rachel hefted her glass. “Left finishing all the bubbly on our own?”

“I'll leave that to harder heads than my own.” He was holding a glass filled with a pale amber liquid, but it looked scarcely touched. His voice was as clear as his eyes. “Is this your first visit to the Gargoyle?”

So much for being wicked and worldly. “Does it show?”

“Well…” There was that self-deprecating smile again, lending his otherwise unremarkable features a potent charm. Green and gold flecks danced in his brown eyes. “Let's just say you don't have the requisite bags beneath your eyes.”

“Neither do you. You look far too well rested to be out this late.”

“I'm not usually,” her companion confessed. Holding his glass in both hands, he confided, “I'm only here as a favor.”

Rachel struck a pose, cigarette holder in one hand, champagne glass in the other. “I've heard that before.”

“In this case, it's true. I'm only here to make sure my friend is delivered safely home at the end of the night. Last time he was left to himself, he stole a policeman's helmet and tried to park it on the top of Nelson's Column.”

Rachel choked on a laugh. “I thought Nelson already had a hat. A rather wide one.”

“Yes, not to mention that he's rather a ways off the ground. It was pure luck that he didn't break his fool neck.” When Rachel looked at him quizzically, he said, with a quick grin, “Fortunately for him, he managed to land on the policeman.”

“I shouldn't laugh, but … poor man!”

“Which one?”

“The policeman, of course.”

“Sympathies here would tend to run in the opposite direction. Pinching policemen's helmets is the urban equivalent of chasing foxes.” John's amiable face turned serious. “It's a damnable waste, all of it.”

“A few hats?”

“It's more than the hats. It's the waste of time and talent. Where are all the men who ought to be our natural leaders? They're frittering away their time in schoolboy pranks. If even half of them would own up to their responsibilities and just
do
something with their time—How are we to expect the lower orders to do their bit if we don't do ours?”

Rachel Woodley agreed. Vera Merton wasn't supposed to. “Isn't being decorative rather a lot of work? They also serve who only powder their noses.”

“I'm sure Marie Antoinette thought the same thing,” said John grimly.

“Are we to be faced with a trip in the tumbrels, then?” Rachel kept her voice deliberately light.

“It was less than a year ago that we were under martial law,” said John seriously. “We're only fortunate the general strike ended when it did. As peaceably as it did. Prices are high, wages are low, the Bolshies are stirring the pot from abroad—”

“And here we are,” Rachel finished for him, “fiddling while Rome burns.”

Simon would have made a comment about it being a pleasant enough tune. John looked grim. “Just about, I'm afraid. If we have a summer like the last one—”

“I wasn't here for the last one,” offered Rachel. “I've been abroad. In France.”

“And I'm spoiling your homecoming with gloom and doom.” There was a moment's pause, and then John said tentatively, “Might I make it up to you with a drink?”

Looking into his warm brown eyes, Rachel felt a little fizz of pleasure. There was something terribly gratifying about being offered a drink by a handsome man.

Rachel quashed it. She wasn't meant to be flirting; she was here to make the acquaintance of Cece Heatherington-Vaughn. And she had. Once Rachel had secured that all-important meeting with her father, Vera Merton would vanish from London society as though she had never been.

Hoisting her glass, Rachel said, “I still have most of this one. And there are no apologies needed, really. I found it—refreshing.”

There were smile lines at the corners of his lips. “As long as I haven't put a damper on your evening.”

“Quite the contrary. I enjoyed it tremendously. Not the prospect of the tumbrel,” Rachel added, with mock seriousness. “But the rest. It made a nice change from shouting nonsense over the sound of the band.”

John rested a palm on the banister. “If you don't like nonsense … what brings you here tonight?”

Rachel opted for a version of the truth. “It was my cousin's idea.…” She glanced up, and, as if summoned, there was Simon at the top of the stairs. Rachel raised a hand. “There he is now.”

She could tell the moment Simon spotted John. He checked slightly, so slightly that Rachel almost missed it. When he resumed his downward progress, it was with an exaggerated grace that was all the more aggressive for being so controlled.

“Trevannion.” Simon's voice was smooth as cream; he practically purred. “I see you've met my cousin.”

“Montfort.” Mr. Trevannion wasn't purring. His back was very straight. Turning to Rachel, he bowed stiffly, from the neck. “Miss Merton. It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“And yours,” said Rachel, but she spoke to his retreating back.

Simon glanced down at Rachel. His lips were smiling, but his eyes were cold. “Well, well,” he said softly. “Still waters.”

Rachel pulled her chiffon wrap around her shoulders. “Did you see your man about a dog?”

“Yes, a great barking mastiff. But you seem to have found even larger quarry.”

“I don't understand.”

“Don't you? That, my dear, was John Trevannion.”

The name meant nothing to her. “Yes?”

“You really don't know, do you?” Simon's lips twisted in a crooked smile. “Angels waltz…”

“Angels,” said Rachel sharply, “aren't doing anything of the kind. Not here. What on earth are you on about?”

“No,” agreed Simon. “Here they do the Charleston. They shuffle and shimmy and soil their little wings.”

His eyes rested thoughtfully on Mr. Trevannion. At least, Rachel thought it was he. It was hard to distinguish one dark-coated man from another in the swiftly moving crowd.

“Is there something I'm meant to know about Mr. Trevannion? In plain English this time.”

“In plain English.” Simon raised his glass in a silent toast. “John Trevannion is your sister's fianc
é
.”

 

NINE

There was no reason to feel quite so defensive, but Rachel did, as though she'd been caught out in something illicit and more than a little sordid.

Her sister's fianc
é
?

It wasn't as though she'd known. And if she had …

Rachel's mind groped after that thought and failed. If she'd known, she'd most likely never have spoken to him. He wasn't at all what she would have imagined for the polished, marcelled girl in the picture in
The Tatler
. He had been … pleasant. That was all. Pleasant.

And there had been nothing at all sordid about it.

Rachel took refuge in flippancy. “Can he get me into Carrisford Court, then? It will save me the bother of fortune-telling for Cece.”

“Save your seductive wiles,” said Simon sardonically. “Only the countess issues invitations to Caffers.”

Rachel bristled. She'd just been speaking politely to the man; she'd hardly tried to vamp him. “And yet she invited you.”

“My situation was somewhat unique.” Before Rachel could press him, he raised his voice to call out over her shoulder, “Waugh! I've fodder for your column. Vera, this is my competition at the
Daily Express
.”

Rachel forced a social smile onto her lips as a slender man dressed with dandyish attention to detail paused on his way down the stairs.

“Not anymore,” he said. “They've given me the sack.”

“In that case,” said Simon drily, “I won't spell my cousin's name for you.”

“No, but be sure you get mine right.” Waugh started down the stairs and paused. “I say, since I can't use it … Did you hear what happened to Sybil and Mamie?”

“Other than the usual debauchery?” Simon spoke as though they had all the time in the world.

Rachel glanced longingly toward the base of the stairs.

Waugh leaned an elbow on the banister, settling in for a good story. “They left their latchkey at home—and they haven't a night porter, you know. So they knocked up a neighbor from home.” There was an impish glint in his eye. “His London residence just happens to be … number ten Downing Street.”

“The prime minister?” said Rachel incredulously.

“None other.” Waugh appeared well pleased with her reaction. “Can you imagine the horror on the part of the provincial conservative women's caucuses? Society beauties at the door at midnight! Orgies at number ten! The Leader of the Opposition up in arms, miners protesting … Let's hope it doesn't bring the government down.”

“You'd best save it for your book,” said Simon lazily. “It's too hot for my column.”

“Oh, I shall, I shall.” Wafting a hand in their general direction, the other man continued none too steadily down the stairs. “Don't worry; I'll find a place for you in there, too, Montfort.”

“Oh, joy, oh, rapture,” murmured Simon. “Like everyone else, Waugh is working on a novel.”

“Yes, that's all very well.” Rachel couldn't be less interested in a stranger's scribblings. “You say your situation was unique. How did you procure your invitation to—to Caffers?”

“Very nice,” said Simon approvingly. “You almost said the name as though you meant it. Try it again, this time without the pause.”

Rachel handed Simon her empty champagne glass. “You're avoiding the question.”

“Am I?” Setting the glass down on a tray, Simon led her down the stairs, saying conversationally, “Have you had enough for one evening, or would you like to join Cece on the rounds of the nightclubs?”

Rachel could feel the kohl around her eyes melting with the heat. Her chiffon flounces felt limp, and there was a blister forming on one heel. “There's more?”

“All right, Cinderella.” Solicitously, Simon placed a hand on the small of her back, ushering her inexorably down the stairs. “You've done very well for your first time out. I'll see you into a cab.”

They paused on the doorstep, the cool night air against Rachel's damp skin making her shiver. “What about you?”

There was a group of revelers piling out of a cab, somewhat clumsily, talking and laughing and stumbling into one another. A woman stepped on her own hem, tearing it with a loud rending sound. They all seemed to find this hysterically funny.