She held her hand to him. “Did he do so, Marcus?”
“No,” said his lordship. “No. That ignominious fate has not yet been mine.” He took her hand and raised it to his lips. Her fingers clasped his, and drew him down to her. “I thought we were being very formal,” he said, smiling, and kissed her.
She retained her hold on his hand, but said half quizzically, half mournfully: “Perhaps we should be formal— now, my lord.”
“So you did tell the porter to shut the door in my face?” sighed his lordship.
“I did not. But you are to be married, are you not, Marcus?”
“Yes,” admitted Rule. “Not just at this moment, you know.”
She smiled, but fleetingly. “You might have told me,” she said.
He opened his snuff-box and dipped in his finger and thumb. “I might, of course,” he said, possessing himself of her hand. “A new blend, my dear,” he said, and dropped the pinch on to her white wrist, and sniffed.
She pulled her hand away. “Could you not have told me?” she repeated.
He shut his snuff-box and glanced down at her, still good-humoured, but with something at the back of his eyes which gave her pause. A little anger shook her; she understood quite well: he would not discuss his marriage with her. She said, trying to make her voice light: “You will say it is not my business, I suppose.”
“I am never rude, Caroline,” objected his lordship mildly.
She felt herself foiled, but smiled. “No indeed. I’ve heard it said you’re the smoothest-spoken man in England.” She studied her rings, moving her hand to catch the light. “But I didn’t know you thought of marriage.” She flashed a look up at him. “You see,” she said, mock-solemn, “I thought you loved me—only me!”
“What in the world,” inquired his lordship, “has that to do with my marriage? I am entirely at your feet, my dear. Quite the prettiest feet I ever remember to have seen.”
“And you’ve seen many, I apprehend,” she said with a certain dryness.
“Dozens,” said his lordship cheerfully.
She did not mean to say it, but the words slipped out before she could guard her tongue. “But for all that you are at my feet, Marcus, you have offered for another woman.”
The Earl had put up his glass to inspect a Dresden harlequin upon the mantelpiece. “If you bought that for a Kandler, my love, I am much afraid that you have been imposed upon,” he remarked.
“It was given me,” she said impatiently.
“How shocking!” said his lordship. “I will send you a very pretty pair of dancing figures in its place.”
“You are extremely obliging, Marcus, but we were speaking of your marriage,” she said, nettled.
“You were speaking of it,” he corrected. “I was trying to—er—turn the subject.”
She got up from the sopha and took an impatient step towards him.
“I suppose,” she said breathlessly, “you did not think the fair Massey worthy of so signal an honour?”
“To tell you the truth, my dear, my modesty forbade me to suppose that the fair Massey would—er— contemplate marriage with me.”
“Perhaps I would not,” she replied. “But I think that was not your reason.”
“Marriage,” said his lordship pensively, “is such a very dull affair, you know.”
“Is it, my lord? Even marriage with the noble Earl of Rule?”
“Even with me,” agreed Rule. He looked down at her, a curious expression that was not quite a smile in his eyes. “You see, my dear, to use your own words, you would have to love me—only me.”
She was startled. Under her powder a faint flush crept into her cheeks. She turned away with a little laugh and began to arrange the roses in one of her bowls. “That would certainly be very dull,” she said. She glanced sideways at him. “Are you perhaps jealous, my lord?”
“Not in the least,” said the Earl placidly.
“But you think that were I your wife you might be?”
“You are so charming, my dear, that I feel sure I should have to be,” said his lordship bowing.
She was too clever a woman to press her point. She thought she had gone too far already, and however angry she might be at his marriage she had no wish to alienate him. At one time she had held high hopes of becoming the Countess of Rule, though she was perfectly aware that such an alliance would be deemed a shocking one by the Polite World. She knew now that Rule had baffled her. She had caught a glimpse of steel, and realized that there was something hidden under that easy-going exterior that was as incalculable as it was unexpected. She had imagined that she could twist him round her finger; for the first time she was shaken by her doubt, and knew that she must tread warily if she did not wish to lose him.
This she certainly did not want to do. The late Sir Thomas had, in his disagreeable way, tied up his capital so fast that his widow found herself for ever in most unpleasant straits. Sir Thomas had had no sympathy with females who doted on pharaoh and deep basset. Happily the Earl of Rule was not afflicted by the same scruples, and he had not the smallest objection to assisting pecuniarily a distressed lady. He never asked uncomfortable questions on the vice of gambling, and his purse was a fat one.
He had startled her today. She had not thought that he dreamed of a rival; now it appeared that he knew very well, probably had known from the first. She would have to be careful; trust her to know how matters lay between him and Robert Lethbridge!
No one ever spoke of it, no one could tell how the story got about, but any number of people knew that once Robert Lethbridge had aspired to the hand of Lady Louisa Drelincourt. Louisa was now the wife of Sir Humphrey Quain, with no breath of scandal attaching to her name, but there had been a day, in her mad teens, when the town hummed with gossip about her. No one knew the whole story, but everyone knew that Lethbridge had been head over ears in love with her and had proposed for her hand, and been rejected, not by the lady herself but by her brother. That had surprised everybody, because although it was true that Lethbridge had a dreadful reputation (“the wildest rake in town, my love!”), no one could have supposed that Rule of all people would put his foot down. Yet he had certainly done so. That was common knowledge. Just what had happened next no one exactly knew, though everyone had his or her version to propound. It had all been so carefully hushed up, but a whisper of Abduction started in Polite Circles. Some said it was no abduction but a willing flight north to Gretna, across the Border. It may have been so, but the runaways never reached Gretna Green. The Earl of Rule drove such fleet horses.
Some held that the two men had fought a duel somewhere on the Great North Road; others spread a tale that Rule carried not a sword but a horse-whip, but this was generally allowed to be improbable, for Lethbridge, however infamous his behaviour, was not a lackey. It was a pity that no one had the true version of the affair, for it was all delightfully scandalous. But none of the three actors in the drama ever spoke of it and if Lady Louisa was reported to have eloped with Lethbridge one night, she was known twenty-four hours later to be visiting relatives in the neighbourhood of Grantham. It was quite true that Robert Lethbridge disappeared from society for several weeks, but he reappeared in due course without wearing any of the symptoms of the baffled lover. The town was agog to see how he and Rule would comport themselves when they met, as they were bound to meet, but once again disappointment awaited the scandalmongers.
Neither showed any sign of enmity. They exchanged several remarks on different subjects, and if it had not been for Mr Harry Crewe, who had actually seen Rule drive his racing curricle out of town at the extremely odd hour of ten in the evening, even the most inveterate gossip-mongers would have been inclined to have believed the whole tale a mere fabrication.
Lady Massey knew better than that. She was well acquainted with Lord Lethbridge and would have wagered her very fine diamonds that the sentiments he cherished towards the Earl of Rule were tinged with something more than a habitual maliciousness.
As for Rule, he betrayed nothing, but she was not inclined to run the risk of losing him by encouraging too openly the advances of Robert Lethbridge.
She finished the arrangement of her flowers and turned, a gleam of rueful humour in her fine eyes.
“Marcus, my dear,” she said helplessly, “something much more important! Five hundred guineas at loo, and that odious Celestine dunning me! What am I to do?”
“Don’t let it worry you, my dear Caroline,” said his lordship. “A trifling loan, and the matter is settled.”
She was moved to exclaim: “Ah, how good you are! I wish—I wish you were not to be married, Marcus. We have dealt extremely, you and I, and I have a notion that it will all be changed now.”
If she referred to their pecuniary relations she might have been thought to have reason for this speech. Lord Rule was likely to find himself with new demands on his purse in the very near future. Viscount Winwood was on his
