Читать книгу The Louise Allen Collection: The Viscount's Betrothal / The Society Catch - Louise Allen - Страница 35

Vauxhall Gardens seemed an enchanted dream to Joanna. Lights in their thousand twinkled amid the branches and framed pavilions and kiosks in a magical glow. Every twist and turn in the paths opened on to new vistas crowded with party-goers; music and laughter filled the air and Mrs Marcus’s party spent the first hour simply strolling, watching the passing throng and revelling in the strange feeling of safety their masks produced.

Mrs Marcus had invited a large group of friends and, although all the young ladies seemed to Joanna to be startling free and easy and the men escorting them more than a little inclined to take advantage of whatever flirtation was on offer, she felt quite comfortable in the company. Everyone seemed to behave towards her as befitted her unmarried status and she rather suspected that Kate had had a quiet word with her friends about their inexperienced new acquaintance.

Joanna firmly refused the offer of a glass of champagne when they retired to a kiosk for shaved ham and other trifles before joining the dancing; as everyone else became gayer and more light-headed, she retained a perfectly level-headed awareness of everything going on around her. Things were certainly becoming a trifle warm but, although she realised her mama would faint away at the sights her younger daughter was coolly observing, she felt only an amused curiosity.

However, she rapidly regretted allowing herself to be taken out on to the dance floor by one young gentleman who proved to be either a very inept dancer or perhaps simply an inebriated one.

‘No, no, it is quite all right,’ she protested lightly for the third time as he trod on her toe during the boulanger. ‘So crowded, is it not? Oh!’ His foot found her hem and half dragged the domino from her shoulder. Joanna pulled it back, found she had lost the ties securing it at her neck and that she could not see to untangle the ribbons whilst wearing her mask. ‘Oh dear, can we just go to the side of the dance floor?’ Her partner, apologising profusely at his carelessness, guided her out of the throng and stood by, helpfully holding her mask while Joanna adjusted her cloak.

‘Would you like to dance again?’ he asked as he handed back the black satin mask.

‘And have her toes completely bruised? I think not, young man.’ Lord Clifton appeared at her side, masked, but with his unmistakable blue eyes glittering through the slits. ‘May I offer you my escort home, Miss Fulgrave?’ He turned abruptly to her partner, who took a step back. ‘We need keep you no longer, sir.’

‘Yes, thank you for the dance, sir,’ Joanna said hastily. He seemed inclined to square up belligerently to the interloper and she added pacifically, ‘It is quite all right, I know this gentlemen.’

The young man took himself off with an affronted bow. ‘Would you be so good as to escort me back to my hostess, my lord? She is over there.’ Joanna forced herself to speak calmly and pleasantly, although her mind was racing. She could hardly make a scene here.

‘The fast young lady in the pink domino? Not, I am sure, a hostess your mama would approve of, Joanna.’ He took her arm and began to steer her away from the Marcus party. ‘And where exactly does your mama believe you to be at this moment?’ Joanna knew she was colouring, but could not help it. ‘Ah, blamelessly in your bed. I think we had better return you there.’

‘No! I cannot simply walk away from Mrs Marcus like that.’ But from the set of his mouth and the very firm grip on her arm she knew that, short of screaming and struggling, she was going to do just as Rufus told her. ‘I must at least thank her and say goodbye or she will worry.’

‘Very well.’ She could feel his eyes on her set face and she tried to look as happy as possible before they reached her party. ‘Do not sulk, Joanna, it does not suit you. Think what a disillusion it is for me to find my perfect bride-to-be in such company.’

‘I am not your bride-to-be!’ She broke off abruptly at the appearance in front of them of a tall figure in a black domino, a petite blue-clad figure on his arm.

‘Joanna!’ It was unmistakably Giles, and she realised with a shock that she had not replaced her mask. She fumbled it back into place, unable to meet his eyes. ‘Are you in any difficulties, Miss Fulgrave?’

‘No! No, none at all, just rather flustered by the crowd, Colonel, thank you. I was just about to leave. Goodnight.’ From being his captive, she almost towed Rufus after her towards Mrs Marcus, leaving Giles Gregory staring at their retreating backs.

‘What the…who was that she was with, I wonder?’

‘Oh, that was Rufus Carstairs,’ his companion said confidently. ‘Lord Clifton, you know. I would know those eyes anywhere. Frightfully eligible, but he makes my flesh creep. Well, the perfect Miss Fulgrave is behaving badly, is she not?’

Giles Gregory looked down at her. ‘Just as badly as you, Suzy, you little witch. Now, come along and let us get home or your papa will cut off your dress allowance and take a horsewhip to me.’

She laughed. ‘Not when I tell him you came to rescue me, Giles darling.’

‘As well you knew I would, you baggage, considering you left me a note!’ he said affectionately. ‘Now, do any of your errant girlfriends need an escort as well?’ He firmly walked her away from the dancing, but his eyes were scanning the crowd for the tall girl in the blue domino.

Joanna sat in the furthest corner of the earl’s carriage apprehensively expecting him to try and kiss her, but to her relief he made no attempt to do so as they rattled over the cobbles and through the nighttime streets.

Flambeaux outside town houses cast a flickering light into the interior and she saw he appeared to be thinking. Eventually, unable to stand the silence any more, she said, ‘I hope I do not take you away from your own party this evening?’

‘Hmm? No, not at all. I was just thinking what best to say to your parents: I would not wish them to be out of reason cross with you.’

‘Say to them? Why, nothing! I will let myself in and they will be none the wiser.’

‘You shock me, Joanna, you really do! Naturally I cannot be so deceitful, nor can I let you. I will have to tell them for, after all, we are alone in a closed carriage.’

‘You mean you…that you think I should…’

‘Your parents are, I know, in favour of my suit. Now I imagine they will be only too anxious for the engagement.’

Joanna stared at him speechlessly, then found her voice. ‘I would not marry you, Rufus Carstairs, if you were the last man on earth.’

‘Hardly an original sentiment, my dear. Now, here is your street. Ah, no need for any surprises, I see, they must already be aware of your absence.’ And, indeed, the lights were blazing downstairs as the carriage pulled up. Numbly Joanna allowed herself to be handed down out of the carriage and into the house.

Her mother took one look at her and said, ‘Wait in the drawing room please, Joanna,’ before vanishing with the earl into the front salon.

How her absence had been discovered she never knew. It seemed hours that she sat in the chilly room, exhaustion dragging at her eyelids, her mind tormented by the thought that Giles had seen her apparently happy to be with Rufus Carstairs.

At last her parents appeared, grim-faced, yet with a subdued air of triumph. ‘Well, Joanna,’ her father said heavily, ‘you are fortunate indeed to so escape the results of your wicked folly. The earl, against all reason, still wishes to make you his wife. He has agreed to wait until the end of the week to allow you to recover from this ill-advised romp but he will be coming then to make you an offer and you, Joanna, are going to accept it.’

‘No!’ Joanna sprang to her feet, her hands clenched, her voice trembling. ‘No! I will never marry him.’

‘Then I wash my hands of you,’ her father declared, also on his feet. ‘You will go to your Great-aunt Clara in Bath. She needs a new companion and, as we cannot trust you to take part in Society, let alone in the more relaxed atmosphere of Brighton, that is the best place for you.’

‘To Great-aunt Clara?’ Joanna’s tired, sore mind wrestled with the shock. ‘But she never goes out.’

‘Indeed,’ Mrs Fulgrave said repressively. ‘I am sure she will appreciate your company. You can read to her, assist with her needlework, help entertain her friends when they call. I shall tell the earl that her ill health has meant that we felt we had no choice but to send you. We must just hope that in a few months, when you have come to your senses, he is still interested in making you an offer.’

Joanna contemplated her sentence. Banishment to Bath, to a household of old age and illness, to the care of a formidable relative who, if she were truthful, rather scared her, and no diversion whatsoever to distract her mind from Giles. And at the end of months of incarceration, the only hope held out to her was that Rufus Carstairs might still want to marry her. And she had a dreadful apprehension that he would. He did not seem like a man who tolerated being thwarted. He was a man who would chase the length of Europe to beat a rival to a choice statue.

‘Please do not send me away, Mama,’ she said, her voice wavering on the edge of tears. ‘I will be so miserable.’

‘You should have thought of that before plunging into these wild scrapes,’ her father said severely. ‘Your mother will write to your great-aunt tomorrow. I only hope she is prepared to countenance your presence, considering what she will learn of your recent behaviour.’

He stood up, gathering his dressing gown around himself. As he picked up his chamber candle he remarked with unconscious cruelty, ‘Perhaps the contemplation of the loneliness of a single old age will convince you that the rewards of truly happy domestic life with a devoted husband are worth more than the transitory pleasures you have been indulging in.’

Joanna walked slowly up to her bedchamber, well aware that, however late the hour, she could not possibly sleep now. What was she to do? She stood, her forehead pressed against the glass of the window, her eyes unfocused on the darkness outside. Where did she belong now? Probably, she thought bitterly, her role in life would be as the spinster aunt, or cousin or devoted niece. Dear Joanna, always so good with the children, always available to help with the old ladies… It wasn’t that she did not like old ladies, or children, come to that, it was just that she had hoped to have her own children—Giles’s children.

Suddenly she whirled away from the window, propelled by a determination not to be crushed, not to be dictated to. Her life was in ruins: well, no one else was going to rebuild it but she. ‘Strategy and tactics,’ she said out loud. ‘Strategy and tactics.’ Then the burst of energy left her and she sank down on the bed. Strategy was no good without an objective.

Resolutely she straightened her spine. She had trained herself to be a soldier’s wife—now she had to use the courage she had prided herself she possessed. Her short-term objective must be to decide what to do with the rest of her life, and her strategy would be to go somewhere she could think about this in peace. And that was not Bath, where she would be the disgraced niece to be watched and lectured.

So…Joanna bit her lip and thought. Who could she run away to? Not Hebe and Alex at Tasborough Hall: not when Hebe’s confinement was so close. There were Uncle and Aunt Pulborough in Exeter—but they would be scandalised by the arrival of an errant niece—a second cousin in Wales, but he had been recently widowed. One after another Joanna passed her relatives under review and came to the conclusion that the only one who might have helped her, if circumstances had been different, was Hebe. Or, her own sister.

Thoughtfully Joanna picked up a notebook from the night table and wrote, Grace, Lincoln. She had no idea how Lady Willington would react, let alone her brother-in-law, Sir Frederick, but perhaps they might serve as a diversion. Her dearest friend from Miss Faversham’s Seminary for Young Ladies in Bath had been Georgiana Schofield; Georgy was now Lady Brandon and living in Wisbech, from where she wrote frequently to say she was utterly bored and was dying for darling Joanna to visit her.

‘If I set out on the stage for Lincoln,’ Joanna reasoned out loud, ‘there is sure to be a point where I can change and go to Wisbech, and everyone will think I am with Grace. And when they realise I am not, I will have vanished into East Anglia without a trace.’ She added, Georgy, Wisbech, to her list.

Or would her mama suspect she was with Georgy? No, for Mama never asked to see her letters from her school friends and Joanna doubted she even knew Georgy’s married name. Something she had just thought touched a chord of memory. East Anglia… Aunt Caroline, of course! Her father’s youngest sister, the sister no one was allowed to mention, the one who had made a scandalous marriage.

But Joanna had once overheard a conversation between her parents that she had not dared ask about, yet had never forgotten.

‘I am sorry, my dear,’ her mother had said firmly. ‘But she is your sister when all is said and done, and despite the scandal I will continue to write once a year at Christmas to enquire after her health and to tell her news of the family.’

‘The affair nearly killed Papa,’ her own father had replied harshly. ‘Is she the sort of woman you wish our Grace and Joanna to associate with?’

‘Nonsense,’ Mama had replied calmly. ‘Writing to offer Christmas wishes will not expose our girls to scandal or bad influences. You must do Caro justice, my dear. Has she ever attempted to return to London from East Anglia or to call here?’

Her father’s muttered response was inaudible and Joanna, guiltily aware that she had been eavesdropping, had left the study door and had walked on. But somewhere in East Anglia she had a disgraced and scandalous aunt. Would she understand? Could Joanna talk to her and find someone who could counsel her?

But how to find her? Joanna thought hard, then realised that if her mother was writing to Aunt Caroline, then she probably had her direction in her remembrancer where she noted all her addresses, birthdays and other important lists. She got up, opened the door on to the dark and silent house, and went downstairs.