A Regency Charade (22 page)

Then there was her hair. Why, oh why, had she ever permitted herself to cut her hair? Alec was quite right to dislike those short curls. Only a dashing beauty like Caro Lamb could carry off such a gamin-like hairstyle. Once she had felt herself the equal of any of the reigning beauties—she would not have been daunted by the likes of Caro Lamb, Clio Vickers or any of them—but now …

She tried, in last-minute desperation, to improve the effect of her coiffure with a ribbon wound through the curls. But the result was too simperingly girlish, and she pulled the ribbon out and tossed it away. Then she hastily draped a long, diaphanously thin silk scarf over her shoulders and crossed the bedroom to Alec’s door. She lifted her hand to knock, hesitated and ran back to the mirror. In a panic of indecision, she snatched off the scarf, threw it on the bed, squared her shoulders and marched back to his door. She knocked at it firmly. “I’m ready to go down,” she said.

He came out promptly, tucking his watch into his waistcoat pocket. She couldn’t help but admire his appearance. His high, starched shirtpoints, the fold of his snow-white neckcloth, the black gleam of his coat and the skin-tight fit of his breeches would have won the approval of Brummell.

“Well, my dear,” he asked, “are you ready for your entrance for our first real performance in this little charade?”

“I’m as full of butterflies as any fledgling actress about to perform her first major role,” she said with a sigh, “but I suppose we may as well begin.”

“Just a moment, please.” He’d noticed the scarf lying across the bed. He reached for it and carefully draped it over her shoulders. “There! No one in the ‘audience’ will be able to take their eyes from you, you know.”

“What a whisker!” she said disparagingly, uncomfortably aware that her pulse had begun to race. “I know what you think of this shorn head of mine.”

“Do you indeed? Well, if you want the truth of it,” he said, offering her his arm, “it makes me wish that I were
truly
your husband again, just so that I might run my fingers through it. And now that you’ve won
that
trick from me, my dear, I think we’d better go before I lose the game.”

She would have loved to ask what game he meant, but his words had stirred her blood with such a tingly glow that she did not dare say anything that might spoil it. Instead, she merely colored, took his arm in meek obedience and went with him down to dinner.

Chapter Sixteen

Undressing for bed that night, Clio Vickers was far from pleased. As far as she was concerned, the first day at Braeburn had been as boring an occasion as she’d ever endured. Never before in her life—at least not since she’d come out—had she been so greatly ignored by the gentlemen in an assemblage. Not one of them had remarked on her appearance, even though she’d taken particular pains to look her best. She’d chosen to wear her saffron-colored crepe, a spicy confection on which her
modiste
had outdone herself in the cleverness of the design of the sleeves (which were cut open down the center and then lashed together with black lacings) and the elegance of the black silk embroidery around the rather rakishly revealing neckline. But no one had seen fit to mention it. She had thought that Gar, at the very least, would utter one of his
gauche
and backhanded compliments, but although she’d caught his eye on her several times in a sort of gaping fascination, she could not be sure what he’d been thinking.

And what Ferdie had been about in his obvious and embarrassing attempts to push Gar upon the Friday-faced Miss Courdepass she didn’t know. It should have been clear to any greenhead that neither one of them had any interest in the other. And then, once they had sat down to dinner, none of the men seemed to have eyes for any but her unpredictable cousin Priss. Priss’s rose-colored dress had struck Clio as being completely commonplace, but she’d had to admit to herself that, at the table in the glow of the candlelight, the color had seemed to light up the irritating creature’s face. Priss had seemed to have a particular sparkle this evening, and, seated at the foot of the table as she had been, with the Earl at the head and Alec at her right, Priss had been the cynosure of all eyes. Her demeanor had been gracious, she’d given her attention equally to all the diners, she’d laughed pleasantly at the quips and even had got off one or two of her own. In short, Priss had been a perfect hostess, blast her.

Lady Vickers had come over from Three Oaks for the evening, and she, too, had been outstandingly charming. Bright-eyed and obviously in the best of humor, she had received a great deal of notice. She’d told a very amusing story about, of all things, a dog that had gotten himself trapped inside a cotton mill, a tale that captivated all the listeners but Clio, who felt it went on far too long.

And even the platter-faced Miss Courdepass had had her moment, and
that
had occurred at Clio’s expense. It humiliated Clio just to
remember
the exchange. She’d been trying to win some attention to
herself
, but none of her remarks had been particularly noted. Then, during a lull in the conversation, she’d said rather loudly to Miss Courdepass, who’d been seated opposite her, that
she
hadn’t yet been heard from. “Don’t you think, Miss Courdepass, that this conversation would be made more brilliant with a flash of
your
wit?” she’d asked.

Even to her own ears, the tone of her question had been surprisingly old-cattish, and she immediately felt the others at the table stiffen and eye her in disapproval. All but Miss Courdepass, who’d merely looked at her with a glance of imperturbable placidity and responded, “It often seems to me, Miss Vickers, that there are many conversations which would be made a great deal more brilliant by occasional flashes of
silence.
”

Everyone had laughed heartily, Ferdie raised his glass to Miss Courdepass and crowed, “A hit, Miss Courdepass, a positive hit!” and the Earl had cackled, “Hear, hear!” And Clio had wanted nothing more than to crawl away and hide in a dark corner.

Worst of all, when she’d tried to make excuses for her behavior to Alec later, he hadn’t known what she was talking about. He seemed to have been engrossed in other thoughts. And it occurred to Clio that Alec might be in love with his wife after all.

But tomorrow would be another day, she consoled herself as she climbed into bed. She would play the game better tomorrow, and then she would see what she would see.

For Priss, also reviewing the events of the evening in her mind as she readied herself for bed, the results of the evening seemed quite different. She’d enjoyed herself hugely. It was wonderful to be Alec’s wife again, seeing him smile at her in unspoken approval, feeling him at her side to support and sustain her, even if it was only a pretense. Her heart had jumped up and down alarmingly every time she became aware that his eyes were on her, and her skin had positively prickled with excitement whenever he’d taken her arm. But the very best moment of all, she thought with a happy sigh as she sank into the pillows, was that moment in this very room when he’d said he wished he could touch her hair.

She pulled the covers up to her neck and snuggled into the softness of the bed like a contented kitten. But suddenly she sat bolt upright. What was she
thinking
of? How could she have forgotten her situation? It had all been a performance! He’d only been
playacting
. It would all come to an end in less than a fortnight’s time.

Whatever happened in the next two weeks, she must remember to keep a closer guard on her emotions. She mustn’t let herself slip into this easy fog of happiness, for it was not based on anything real. At the end of the allotted time, he would be gone forever from her life.
That
was the reality that had to be faced. It would not do to let herself forget it for a moment, or the fortnight’s end would bring her greater pain than before.

She lay back against the pillows and pulled the covers up again. Her eyes, growing accustomed to the dark, could make out the door behind which he was sleeping. Or was he, too, lying awake and looking at the door? Would he ever, in the strange, unreal days ahead, feel tempted to
open
that door? The thought sent a shudder of excitement right through her. But, she warned herself severely, that was another direction along which her mind had better not travel. The best thing to do was to shut her eyes tight and will herself to sleep.

In truth, Alec was
not
looking at the door, nor was he entertaining any such romantic thoughts as his wife imagined. He was shifting himself about on the narrow little cot, trying to find a position comfortable enough to permit him to sleep. In this he was not successful. At last, he gave up the struggle, settled himself on his back, his hands folded under his head, and stared up at the ceiling. He was feeling disturbingly irritated at his grandfather, at Ferdie and at everyone who’d spoken to him about Priss this evening. It had started, after a perfectly pleasant dinner, with a comment made by Lady Vickers when he’d seen her out to her carriage. “You make a charming couple, you know,” she’d said as he handed her up. “It’s too bad you are too stupid to see it.”

A short while later, Gar had taken him aside and delivered a long and uninvited lecture in which he’d indicated, in his usual pompous and verbose manner, that Alec didn’t really know what he was doing in regard to his marital situation. “I don’t pretend to know the details of your problem,” he’d admitted, “and I don’t wish to appear to pry into anyone’s private affairs, even those of my very best friend, but I can’t believe, seeing your very lovely wife presiding over tonight’s festivities, that there could be anything reprehensible in her character. If ever you should decide to review the situation … to talk to a friend, if you know what I mean … I wish you to know that you are free to call on me for advice at any time. At any time at all.”

Alec had held back a sharp answer with what he thought was admirable restraint, but that was not the last time that evening he’d had to restrain himself. Shortly afterwards, he’d accompanied his grandfather upstairs to his bedroom. The old man looked tired, but his eyes sparkled brightly. “A delightful evening, wasn’t it?” he chuckled before he said his goodnights. “Everything was just as it ought to be, I thought. I’d lay odds everyone enjoyed it.” He nudged his grandson and gave him a conspiratorial wink. “We were a couple of sharp old birds, Vickers and I, when we paired you and Priss in your cradles.” And off he went to bed, crowing with self-satisfaction, leaving Alec standing in the corridor looking after him in frustration and wondering how on earth he would manage to break the news to him—as he would have to do before too long—that his long-laid plans were nothing but dream castles built on air.

Then Ferdie had accosted him briefly with the remark that he was an idiot. “If I had a wife like that, I would not be such a dunderhead as to give her up, no matter
what
tricks she’d played on me in her youth,” Ferdie had whispered.

Alec hadn’t deigned to reply but merely tossed his friend a look of contemptuous disdain and turned on his heel.

But the last straw had occurred here in this stuffy dressing room in which he was to be confined for the duration of the house party. Kellam, while he made up the camp-cot which he’d managed with his usual ingenuity to procure, had prosed on at great length about Priss’s virtues. “She’s just the very sort o’ lady I wuz expectin’,” he grinned as he plumped the pillows, “an’ too good fer yer likes, if ye was t’ ask me.”

“I suggest, you chaffer-mouth,” Alec had muttered angrily as he pushed him out the door, “that you keep your comments to yourself until I
do
ask you. And I’m as likely to ask you for your comments as you are to talk sense.”

He threw himself onto the cot fuming. What was the matter with everyone? He had graduated with honors from Oxford and had led a company of soldiers with distinction, hadn’t he? Then how was it that half the world had made it plain that they thought him no better than a fool? But the ceiling at which he’d been frowning in such intensity, brought no answers, and after a while he turned on his side and fell asleep.

The weather, during the next few days, was extremely kind. The days were sunny and brisk and the evenings not quite as chilly and damp as one would expect in November. The gentlemen spent their days in hunting and riding (the Earl having given them the freedom of his admirable stables), leaving the ladies to lounge about, read, or stroll in the sunshine. In the late afternoon, the entire party gathered for tea and then went their own way until it was time to assemble for dinner. That meal was usually long and leisurely, for both the food and the conversation were meant to be savored. The evenings were spent by indulging in all manner of country pleasures: there was usually some time spent in the music room listening to Priss play a selection on the pianoforte and Clio sing an air or two in a very pleasing and confident soprano; then tables of cards were set up, Lady Vickers and the Earl usually snaring Miss Courdepass and one of the others for their favorite whist while the others played copper-loo; a play reading was organized by Gar when he discovered in the Earl’s fine library an unfamiliar translation of
The Phormio
, a romantic comedy by Terence (for which everyone was given a role to read and which occasioned so much laughter and good spirits that the reading required several evenings to complete, with such good results that Gar, to his delight, was requested to find another play for them to do); and, interspersed in all the other activity, a great amount of flirting and teasing was indulged in, instigated by Ferdie and leading to no particular matching of pairs—at least none that anyone could notice.

By the time five days had passed, life had taken on a familiar and pleasant routine for everyone but Clio. She was finding the evenings passable enough (for by this time both Ferdie and Gar had indicated sufficient admiration for her charms, and she had even managed to see Alec alone once or twice), but she found the days impossible. She was forced to stroll about the grounds or to take brief excursions into nearby Wirksworth with only her cousin and the imperturbable Miss Courdepass for company, or, when driven to the extreme limits of boredom, to pick up a book. As soon as she found the opportunity, she made her complaints to Alec. He felt exceedingly guilt-ridden, for he had been enjoying himself a great deal and not giving her much thought. As a result, he prevailed upon the gentlemen to cut short their day of shooting and return home to spend an afternoon with the ladies. They returned from the stables a little after two, to find Miss Courdepass knitting contentedly in the drawing room, Clio gazing disconsolately out of the window, and Priss nowhere in evidence. “Where’s my wife?” Alec asked.