Читать книгу The Silver Squire - Mary Brendan - Страница 9

‘What is for dinner today, Mrs Keene? Not bacon and carrots again, surely?’ Emma frowned and sniffed delicately at the wafting salty aroma.

‘Not at all, my dear.’ Her landlady shuffled into her room, apparently unruffled by this aspersion on her unvarying menus.

Emma’s tawny eyes brightened and she let her novel drop. She had been perched on the window seat for the past hour, hoping that perhaps Matthew might call again today to take her for a walk or a drive into the countryside. But it was nearly six o’clock and unlikely he would come now.

‘What is for dinner, then, Mrs Keene?’ Emma asked, her mouth watering in anticipation of some tempting mutton later.

‘Er…it’s hashed pork, my dearie. With a little herb and stock ‘n so on.’

‘Is it cured pork, Mrs Keene?’ Emma asked on a sigh.

‘I believe it is at that, Miss Worthington,’ Mrs Keene admitted with a jovial smile. ‘Now, I’ve got some good news. An’ I expect, ‘cos it is such a piece o’ luck for you that a busy soul like meself’s managed to put herself out on account of a nice young lady, that you’ll be insistin’ on showing me a small consideration for me pains. Now, not that it’s none o’ my concern, o’ course, but I know for a fact you’ve been scourin’ that Gazette for a position as would suit. Well, now—’ chubby hands were planted on fat hips ‘—what did I hear today from a friend wot’s been speakin’ to a lady’s maid?’ She inclined forward from the waist and beady eyes rolled between fleshy folds.

After a silent moment when Emma realised either she guessed, enquired, or never learned, she obligingly said, ‘I’ve no idea, Mrs Keene. What did you hear?’

With a flourish, a scrap of paper materialised from a greasy pocket. ‘My dear young lady, the good news is that a gentlewoman in Bath is seekin’ a genteel and modest companion. She is a pampered lady and bored…’ Mrs Keene acted the part, shielding a yawn with a fat hand then simpering behind it. ‘Soon as I heard I put meself out to speak to me friend and sing your very praises. She in turn spoke to the maid who had words with her madame. The lady has sent you this little note with her address. Now, what do you say to that good luck and good friends like meself?’

Emma’s small white teeth caught at her full lower lip. What did she say to that, indeed? She had been at Mrs Keene’s lodging house for a few days and had certainly been curiously flicking through the Gazette for local positions.

But it had been a half-hearted investigation: she had little idea where to start, or if indeed she wanted to start at all. She had been gently reared and nothing in that refinement had prepared her for at some time toiling for a living. She balked at the idea of being an assistant to a mantua-maker or a haberdasher and she had seen little else advertised.

Stung by her boarder’s lack of effusive thanks and enthusiasm, Mrs Keene huffed, ‘Well, if it don’t interest, I’ll give this appointment to the new lady as arrived yesterday. She’s fair desperate for a position and workin’ for a foreign madame in quite the best part of Bath will probably seem like heaven dropped in her lap.’

‘It’s very good of you to remember me, Mrs Keene. I am very grateful.’ Emma gave the woman a conciliatory smile as she held out a slender hand for the note. Interview details were written in an elaborate script. ‘I shall attend and if it seems the position will not suit I can try elsewhere…’

‘O’ course…but I reckon it will suit, an’ I reckon you’ll always remember wot good friend managed to winkle it out for you.’ Mrs Keene nodded good-naturedly at the subdued young woman smiling vaguely back at her. Sharp eyes dissected her waif-like appearance: a slender body that looked too delicate to tempt a man but such rich caramel hair and liquid honey eyes set in a complexion that was pure peaches and cream. Not that it was none of her concern, o’ course, but it was puzzling for a body to decide if she was a raving beauty or plain as a pike-staff. Pike-staff, she plumped for; the pretty foreign madame wouldn’t like a rival.

‘Do you know what you’re doing, Emma?’ Matthew demanded shortly.

‘No,’ Emma admitted with a nervous smile as she straightened her bonnet and pulled on her gloves.

Matthew had called earlier that morning and on hearing she had an interview for employment looked startled and then disapproving. But he had offered to convey her in his little trap to South Parade on the opposite side of Bath to where Mrs Keene’s lodging house was situated.

On now alighting at the top of a quiet, elegant crescent, Emma squeezed Matthew’s fingers in thanks and affection. ‘I need a little income while I decide what I must do.’ She slid a glance at his tense profile and again lightly pressed his hand. ‘And seeking employment doesn’t mean that I am rejecting your proposal. Please understand that I need more time…’

With a slightly martyred air he offered, ‘Shall I wait?’

Emma shook her head. ‘I shall hail a ride. I’ve no idea how long I might be—perhaps only a few minutes, if Madame hates me on sight.’ She sighed. ‘Perhaps an hour or two if Madame tests my good nature with a protracted wait while she prepares to interrogate me.’

She had been jesting when she’d told Matthew she might be kept waiting. Emma raised her wide golden gaze to the sonorously chiming clock as it marked the half-hour she had been seated in a cool hallway on a hard-backed chair. It was now after three-thirty in the afternoon and she was becoming increasingly disillusioned and restless. She peered about for the dour-faced butler who had allowed her into the house. Madame Dubois was expecting her, he had intoned as he’d shown her to a seat, and had then disappeared with a stiff-legged gait.

Emma abruptly stood up and flexed her shoulders. She took a few tentative steps and peeked along the hall. When all remained still and silent, she meandered, admiring the tasteful decor, to the huge gilt scrolled mirror and studied her appearance. She straightened her bonnet this way and that, then glanced down at her fingertips trailing a glossy satinwood star inlaid into a rich rosewood console table. Swishing around with an impatient sigh, she returned to her chair. She would tarry just another few minutes then depart. A person inconsiderate enough to leave her totally ignored for so long would not make a good employer in any case, she impressed upon herself. She was on the point of reseating herself when a door along the corridor opened.

The figure that emerged was male and tall and very blond and had her gawping idiotically at his handsome profile. She had very recently seen those chiselled bronze features just visible beneath a fall of lengthy sun-bleached hair: it was the foreign count she recalled had been travelling on to Bath from the Fallow Buck posting house.

She quickly sat and folded her hands neatly on her lap, her thoughts racing. Of course! She had never made the connection that the madame in question might be this French nobleman’s wife. The memory of the small blond boy he had lifted in his arms had her frowning at her hands. Would she be expected to nursemaid children? She had no experience of young people…but she could no doubt tutor, if need be…

Firm footsteps echoing against polished mahogany had her attention with the man approaching although her eyes stayed with her entwined fingers. His pace slowed and she knew he’d noticed her.

She glanced up demurely, politely, from beneath the shielding brim of her bonnet. Her face swayed back at once and she felt as though ice had frozen her solid to the chair. Her ivory lids drooped slowly in horrified, disbelieving recognition. French count! Her fingers spasmed as she sensed a hysterical laugh bubbling. No wonder he had seemed familiar! No wonder she had thought she knew him! She did!

But he had changed. It wasn’t surprising she had not immediately been able to place him. His hair was no longer fair and stylishly short but long and white-blond, his complexion no longer city-pale but a deep golden-bronze.

An ostler at a rustic tavern had described him as Quality with a queer name…well, it had been perfectly correct. It was her whimsical romantic imagination that had concluded he must be a French nobleman instead of an English one.

On a misty September morning four days ago she had sensed meeting him somewhere before and fancied it to be in fiction rather than fact. Oh, how she wished that were so! For she had indeed seen him before. And on each occasion she had made it her business to insult him. Now she found herself sitting meekly in his house, hoping to be taken on. The sheer farce of it had the back of a hand pressing to her mouth to stifle a horrified choke.

She was aware of impeccably styled black hessian boots drawing into her line of vision. Please don’t let him recognise me, she silently prayed, casually swivelling sideways on her seat, away from him.

He changed direction, veering off to the console table she had recently admired. From beneath the brim of her bonnet she watched long buff-coloured legs turn, the toes of his boots point towards her again and knew he was studying her.

It’s been three years! she exhorted herself while an unsteady hand shielded her face by tidying stray tendrils of light tan hair into her dark tan bonnet. He’ll never recognise you. Or if he does…he’ll pretend he doesn’t. They weren’t married! This jolted into her consciousness at the same time. The woman’s name was French-sounding, too, but not the same as his! God in heaven, she was auditioning as a companion to one of his…his women! Perhaps also as tutor to one of his bastards!

She sensed a writhing, seething indignation mounting. Three years ago when they had come together in London as social equals he had managed to instil in her just the same angry emotion. The fact that he had always been perfectly civil whilst with her, never meriting her hostility and sarcasm, had always flustered and shamed her. She could neither justify her aggression to him, when he’d casually enquired why she liked to insult him, nor to herself, nor to her best friend, Victoria.

She explained it away easily to herself now: it had been simple disgust at his hypocrisy and his condescension. Suavely charming he might have been to such homely spinsters as she, who he no doubt believed secretly swooned at the memory of his smile, but she knew him for a lecherous degenerate and had not been too coy to hint as much. She would have told him outright, in no uncertain terms, had the opportunity ever arisen.

Much to her mother’s delight, he had seemed to show a friendly interest in her, but Emma knew it was all designing and insincere. For at that time his friend, Viscount Courtenay, had been laying siege to her own dear friend, Victoria Hart, and David had wanted Emma occupied so he could trap Victoria alone.

Despite the two men having infamously shocking reputations, they had been polite society’s most popular bachelors, keeping the ton in a constant state of fascinated curiosity as to their philandering and drunken brawling. No scandal had seemed base enough to deter top society hostesses from fawning over them and sniping at each other to secure their coveted presence at balls and soirées. Once they were lured across the threshold, no freshly circulating gossip regarding that week’s carousing had deterred ambitious mamas or their debutante daughters from beelining towards them with seriously immodest intent.

Emma felt her face stinging with heat on recalling how, at her twenty-fourth-birthday ball, her own mother had gladly foisted her upon this man as though she had been so much unsaleable baggage. Yet even now, despite that mortifying memory…or perhaps because of it…she could feel again the aggravating need to throw back her head and antagonise him. Perhaps acidly comment that it was obvious his morals hadn’t improved along with his looks since last they’d met. What? What concern or consequence were his looks?

Her lids pressed closed again as the still silence throbbed with more intensity than the cased clock in the corner. Why won’t he go? Why won’t he say something? I know he’s staring, she fretted.

‘Are you waiting for Madame Dubois?’

His low, level tone was exactly the same; still it resulted in a jump and fluttering stomach. Her bonnet nodded at him. ‘Yes, sir,’ was stiltedly muttered in a voice even she didn’t recognise. He remained quiet on learning that. Relief sang through her. Had he remembered her he would surely have mentioned the fact or swiftly removed himself.

Dainty footsteps tripped along the corridor and Emma managed to face the woman approaching without once revealing her face to the man standing opposite.

‘So sorry to ‘ave kept you waiting, mademoiselle…Are you still ‘ere, chéri?’ The woman interrupted her address to Emma on noticing the man, her voice taking on a completely different, husky inflection. The hem of a rose-pink gown was immediately sweeping away again as, ignoring Emma’s presence, Yvette Du-bois diverted her attention to him.

Involuntarily, Emma’s head raised a little to watch them. She stared at the blonde woman’s pretty profile, a delicate, pleased flush on a softly rounded cheek as she talked in a quiet, pouty way to her lover. An arch smile, then Yvette was onto tiptoe to whisper in his ear while a small finger trailed his dark sleeve.

Richard Du Quesne frowned at his mistress as though this untimely display of intimacy irritated him, then an icy grey glance shifted sideways. Emma was too late to avert her face and their eyes met and held.

He didn’t know her! There was nothing at all in his expression that showed the least interest or recognition. The release was enervating, as was the desperation to be away from this house, these people. She glanced at her nervous hands on her lap, wondering how on earth she could extricate herself.

Yvette realised straight away that she had failed to lure Richard’s eyes from the mouse-like creature seated on the hall chair. She was incessantly alert to a possible rival deposing her. Within a second a very female assessment had raked her prospective employee from head to toe. With intense satisfaction she concluded that the woman was as drab as she could possibly have wished, and no threat whatsoever.

A tilted blonde head draped ringlets over a pretty pink shoulder and a tight, malicious smile formed a rosebud of pink lips. Richard was unused to being in the company of such dowdy women and probably feeling some curiosity and sympathy for the thin little thing. La pauvre looked as though a nourishing meal would go down well, Yvette spitefully noted as her blue eyes narrowed on those fragile white wrists resting neatly on the girl’s duncoloured lap. It made her happily examine her own plump, bejewelled hands as she said sweetly, ‘I must apologise for the delay, ma’mselle, and for ‘aving forgotten your name. A moment ago I ‘ad it and yet now…it is gone.’ She gave a careless, continental shrug. ‘Miss Woodman, is it, per’aps?’ she guessed a trifle impatiently when Emma didn’t immediately offer up her identity.

‘Yes,’ Emma confirmed after a further silent second. ‘Miss Eleanor Woodman,’ she quietly, firmly lied, and raised her face to them both.

The doorbell clattered shrilly, making Emma start and the butler appear from nowhere. He opened the door and received the post.

An enticing glimpse of sun and sky and a rattling coach drew Emma to her feet and towards freedom. ‘I’m sorry, I have another appointment and am already a little overdue. If you will excuse me…’ The words tumbled out breathlessly, for she was obliquely aware of the butler starting to push shut the large white door, cutting off her escape route. She also glimpsed Madame Dubois’s pout slackening as she realised she had been summarily rejected. But it was Richard Du Quesne’s pitiless grey gaze following her that hastened her nimble dodge through the shrinking aperture.

Once in the air, she sped down the elegant steps and, skirts in trembling fists, was running without thought for direction. What halted her several streets away was the need to gasp in more breath to put further distance between herself and those narrowed silver eyes. She backed against a wall and wrapped herself concealingly into her cloak as though still afraid she might be exposed as an impostor. A trembling hand went to the coldness on her face and came away wet. She angrily scrubbed away the bitter tears and slowly, sedately walked towards an area of railed park she could see in the distance.

She had no idea where she was but had a depressing, sinking feeling that Mrs Keene’s boarding house in Lower Place was some considerable way away and probably in the opposite direction. As she took a second slow turn around the small recreation area, she slipped unobtrusive glances at fashionable people promenading; nurses tending their young charges, while taking the late afternoon air. Most were now making for the exit, mentioning teatime or the need to be home now the air was cooling.

Emma scoured the skyline for a familiar spire or rooftop that would point her home. She sighed on finding nothing but lowering storm clouds in the west. She should really ask someone for directions but was loath to bring herself to anyone’s attention.

She approached a small wooden bench as a young couple vacated it and strolled away arm in arm. Seating herself, she drew her cloak tight about her. The sun was setting behind that purply-grey nimbus, spearing golden rays into the chilling atmosphere. She’d obviously been lost for some while. She should have accepted Matthew’s offer to wait and deliver her home, she inwardly chided herself. She would, by now, have been back at Mrs Keene’s with the prospect of eating soon.

Thinking of food made her stomach grumble. The exertion of sprinting so fast and so far had sapped her energy and left her quite light-headed. She would be late and miss her dinner…and she had already paid her shilling for it. Well, it would be salt bacon again, she wryly consoled herself.

She searched in her pocket and drew out her small pouch. Tipping the coins into her palm, she carefully counted, wondering whether she could afford to purchase something to eat on the trek home. The idea of something tasty and different made her stomach roll hollowly again, yet even that consuming thought couldn’t completely drag part of her mind out of that opulent, cool hallway and away from a man with piercing metallic eyes.

The shock and humiliation at meeting him again under such degrading circumstances were receding, allowing another worry to compete for notice. If Richard Du Quesne had recognised her but had been unwilling to embarrass himself in front of his mistress by saying so, he might not display such reticence in London on his return there.

He owned a smart residence in Mayfair; she knew that. Should he soon go to London and mention he’d seen her in Bath and Jarrett Dashwood came to hear of it…She recalled dark olive eyes sliding over her body with sly, nauseating inspection. That blackguard would make a vicious and vengeful enemy; of that she was absolutely sure. She swallowed a bitter lump in her throat, pocketed her coins and fairly bolted up from the seat as though the vile man might even now be on his way to fetch her. She would forgo food this evening and use her money for the safety of a carriage ride home, she decided.

‘Miss Worthington?’

She stopped dead, her complexion paling in terror as she slowly turned.

Richard Du Quesne walked the path towards her and, as she instinctively stepped back, he gestured appealingly.

‘Please, don’t run away again…’ he said, with a flash of a rueful white smile. ‘It’s taken me hours to find you as it is.’

Emma swallowed, still slowly retreating, even though her eyes had swept past him, taken in the plush phaeton visible beyond the railings that bordered the small park and digested the fact that it was, of course, his.

‘I’ve no intention of running, Mr Du Quesne,’ she lied quietly, while silently vowing that should the opportunity arise she would flee him with her last breath. ‘How are you? Well, I trust? I’m sorry but I have no time to chat today, sir,’ she fluently apologised, without waiting to discover how he did. ‘I have to be going now. I have an appointment and am a little late.’ She sketched a curtsey then spoiled all her confident ease by dithering over whether to walk back past him or turn and make for the opposite end of the empty park and thus enter yet more unknown territory. She settled for the unknown, whirled about and walked away.

A firm hand on her arm halted her and gently turned her about. ‘Aren’t you going to now allow me the courtesy of enquiring how you do?’

‘Why? You know I don’t associate you with civilised behaviour. I’m sure you’re little interested in how I do…as, truthfully, I’m little interested in how you do.’ She swallowed, bit her unsteady lower lip, ashamed of her unnecessary rudeness. All she had needed to say was that she did tolerably well, thank you.

She watched his light eyes darken behind lengthy, dusky lashes, then he laughed. ‘For a while, I just couldn’t conceive it to be you, Miss Worthington. Now I’m convinced it is. In three years you’ve not changed a bit.’

‘Oh, but I have, Mr Du Quesne,’ she said heartbreakingly huskily yet with a bright, courageous smile. ‘I really have changed so much.’ She felt a horrible, hot stinging behind her eyes. Please don’t let him reminisce, she silently entreated; don’t let him talk of their dear mutual friends, David and Victoria Hardinge; don’t let him mention her darling goddaughter, Lucy, or any of those things that always brought a poignant mingling of gladness and envy to torture her.

Distraction came in the shape of a raucous cry that minutes before would have drawn her towards it. Her soulful amber eyes followed the progress of a woman hawking Sally Lunn’s tea-cakes, a sweetish aroma strengthening tormentingly in the stirring evening air.

‘Are you hungry?’ Richard asked quietly, noting her exquisite eyes were fixed on the pedlar.

Emma shook her head and looked away immediately. ‘The light’s fading. I want to be home. I will be missed,’ she lied again. She almost laughed. Who on earth was there here to miss her?

‘I take it your mother is with you in Bath. Where are you staying? Why are you seeking employment?’ His staccato questions were fired at her.

She avoided his eye. ‘I…I’m not seeking work, sir,’ she said slowly, while her mind raced ahead for plausible explanations. ‘I must beg you to convey my apologies to your…friend. It was just a wager…a joke in very bad taste. Some acquaintances laid a bet that I should never have the audacity to seek a position or attend an interview. It was a stupid, inconsiderate thing to do. I bitterly regret getting involved at all.’ She gained little solace from that small truth after such fluent lies and felt her face flame betrayingly.

When he remained silent, and all she was conscious of was his muscular height and the moonlight sheen of his hair in the enclosing dusk, she began backing away again. ‘Good evening to you, sir,’ she tossed back at him as she twisted around and hurried on.

He didn’t touch her this time, merely strolled unconcernedly behind her. It was as good as any physical restraint. Emma swirled about, continued backwards for a few paces then halted. ‘Go away!’ she snapped furiously yet with a hint of pleading.

‘No,’ he said easily. He passed her, circled her, examining her minutely then hovered close, like a patient predator awaiting the right moment to close in for the kill. ‘Tell me where you’re staying. What you’re doing here in Bath.’

‘It’s none of your concern! Leave me be!’ she raged in a hoarse whisper, yet with a lowered face as she sensed her exhaustion, her hunger, her fear of not getting back to her lodgings before it was really dark undermining her composure.

‘Of course it’s my concern,’ he drily contradicted her. ‘You know how upset Victoria will be if she hears I’ve neglected your welfare whilst you were with me. And when Victoria’s upset David’s unbearable…which upsets me.’

‘I am not with you!’ Emma flung at him desperately. ‘Besides, they won’t ever know. No one must ever know.’ She looked up slowly, realising she had just, stupidly, given him all the information he needed.

‘You’re here alone…and in trouble.’ The words emerged quietly, as though he couldn’t quite believe it himself.

As the hawker retraced her noisy way along the street, still loudly advertising her wares, Emma’s frantic tiger eyes flicked to Richard. If she could just get him to go away for a moment…all she needed was an unguarded moment. ‘I am hungry,’ she stated breathily. ‘And feeling a little faint.’

He held an arm out to her. ‘Come…’ he urged gently. ‘We’ll find somewhere to dine, on the one condition,’ he mock-threatened, ‘that you tell me what problems bring you here, so they can be dealt with.’

‘That’s very good of you, sir,’ she meekly thanked him. ‘But I’m a little giddy and nauseated. Perhaps a quick bite of something now and a short rest on this bench…’ Emma approached the seat and sank gratefully, gracefully onto it, her elfin features drooping into supporting hands.

Richard glanced at the vendor almost opposite them now on the other side of black iron railings. Then he arrowed a shrewd look at Emma. Either she was a consummate actress or she really was famished. The vision of a thin, pale young woman sitting in the hallway of his town house haunted him. He certainly didn’t want her passing out on him.

A large hand rested solicitiously on one of her shoulders, an instinctively cautious caress skimming over fragile shoulder bones beneath the enveloping cloak. Resisting the urge to simply swing her up in his arms and carry her to his phaeton, which he knew with a wry inner smile would no doubt earn him a slap for his pains, he said, ‘I’ll be but a moment. I’ll fetch you a bun and a flask of brandy from my carriage.’

From beneath the brim of her bonnet, Emma slanted feline eyes at his powerful, retreating figure. He wasn’t fooled at all, she realised. He turned, vigilantly, several times, walked backwards, giving himself the chance to return to her in a second. Her heart squeezed, lead settling in the empty pit of her stomach as she noted his crisp, athletic step. Should she not time it exactly right, she knew he’d catch her before she’d managed a few yards.

Apparently satisfied, finally, with her air of slumped-shouldered debility, Richard swung away towards the gate. As soon as the railing was between them and he was heading in the direction of his phaeton, she rose stealthily and, with never a backward glance, sped off into shadowy trees bordering the lawns.

‘Ah, Frederick, so you are up and about today. How very nice to see you at last. How long has it been now?’ Jarrett Dashwood mimed concerned thoughtfulness. ‘A sennight, perhaps, since last we had dealings together?’ The darkly suave man sauntered further into the drawing room of Rosemary House. Without waiting for an invitation, he flicked back his coat-tails and seated himself on a gilt-framed chair.

Margaret Worthington looked at her husband, looked at their tormentor and closed her eyes. ‘Do have some tea, Mr Dash-wood,’ she urged in a thin, trembling voice, while thin, trembling fingers fumbled at the silver pot on the tray. ‘It is freshly made in readiness for your arrival.’

‘More tea, Mrs Worthington? I believe I am awash with your tea, dear lady.’ His wide, sensual mouth smiled at her, his olive eyes did not. ‘Now were you today to offer me, say, two thousand pounds, or a private interview with that intriguing daughter of yours, I would certainly be tempted to partake. As it is, I am heartily tired of trailing here each afternoon to meet with her only to be fobbed off with tea and excuses.’ Leaning back into the chair, he stretched out his legs, crossing them at the ankles. ‘Where is your daughter? The longer we are apart, the more desperate I am for some time alone with her. It is said, is it not, that absence makes the heart grow fonder?’

Margaret and Frederick Worthington exchanged nervous glances.

‘She is visiting her aunt…’

‘She is ailing in her room…’

The couple glared, horrified, at each other at these conflicting versions of Emma’s lengthy absence, each sure that they had voiced the correct one for today. Both shifted uneasily back into their chairs and, apeing their sinister guest’s lead, examined their manicures.

Jarrett Dashwood used a fleshy thumb to shine a perfectly trimmed set of fingernails. ‘Well, what’s it to be? Is she visiting? Lying abed with her smelling salts or Miss Austen’s romances? Shall I go above stairs and discover for myself how my poor, ailing fiancée fares?’

‘Please, sir, do not term her so,’ Margaret forced out in a high, wheedling tone. ‘She refuses you; you know that. You have our sincerest apologies.’ Margaret looked at Frederick, hoping for a modicum of assistance in dealing with this frightening man. Her perspiring husband simply gazed glassily into space. ‘There is nothing to be done, Mr Dashwood.’ Margaret emphasised her despair by crushing her handkerchief to her mouth. ‘We cannot force her to wed against her inclination. Everything in our power…my power,’ she gritted through the muffling linen, stabbing a glance at her florid husband, ‘has been done to make the selfish ingrate see sense. But she is a woman grown and so stubborn she will take no heed of her fond parents’ good advice.’

‘Perhaps she will then take heed of me, madam,’ Jarrett Dash-wood smoothly said. ‘Perhaps you both will do likewise. For this whole matter has now the stench of premeditated fraud about it. I have been fleeced, I believe, of my two thousand pounds, not only by you, good sir,’ he mocked Frederick with a bow of his raven head, ‘but also by you, madam, and your daughter. How many fiancés have you accepted for the chit in return for a little aid with pressing debts, only to find that she’s turned coy afore the altar?’

Margaret’s handkerchief dropped to her lap, her chalky complexion adopted a greyish-green tinge and her mouth worked like that of a beached fish. ‘I beg of you, Mr Dashwood, never think it!’ finally exploded from her. ‘My daughter has received no other firm offers at all. She is accomplished at deflecting any gentleman’s attention far sooner than that. It would be heaven indeed should she encourage just the one to come a-courting.’

‘But I’m not convinced,’ Jarrett Dashwood said easily, with a final lingering look at his flexing fingers. ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged…’ He laughed lightly. ‘There…you see how the dear girl has affected me. I find I can continually bring to mind passages from her favourite books…Now, where was I? Ah, yes, with odd truths. Indeed, it is strange that the more one is denied something, the further it seems from one’s grasp, the sweeter finally possessing it becomes. I believe I am developing a tendresse for your daughter which makes the money quite irrelevant. Even were you in a position to repay it, I would not accept. I want that spirited hussy as my wife. The documents pertaining to the marriage contract are signed and sealed. The marriage must go ahead.’

Finally bored with this polite charade, he said in a guttural voice, ‘Find out to wherever it is she has absconded and furnish me with the news; I’m sure I can make her see sense. If you do not….’ He smiled grimly at Margaret ‘…I understand that the Fleet is able to accommodate families…’