Elisabeth Kidd (18 page)

Perhaps everything would be all right after all, Sydney was encouraged to think by Robin’s visit; perhaps she would not be found out and the whole affair would be forgotten in a fortnight. She was therefore able to venture out into the street a short time later with an almost tranquil smile on her face, which changed to one of entire delight when she encountered Janine Forsythe at Madame Louise’s.

Sydney was to have a final fitting of the gown she would wear to a dinner ball the following evening, and Janine was already choosing bride clothes, but she immediately abandoned the satin ribbons she was holding up to match her complexion, and embraced Sydney breathlessly. There followed an hour’s happy talk about Janine’s imminent wedding, before Janine remembered the other news of the day and asked Sydney what she had thought of last night’s entertainment.

Sydney was feeling considerably more confident by then, and replied that she thought the performance had gone pretty well considering the liberties Lord D’Arcy had taken with the text.

“Yes, but who has read the play to know the difference?” Janine said. “What I mean is, who do you suppose played Ariel? It must be someone we know!’’

“Why must it?” Sydney asked. “I daresay Lord D’Arcy has any number of exotic theatrical acquaintances.”

“Yes, but no one—including the servants, for we asked them—saw any such person about before or after the performance, and if it were a professional actor, why should he not take his bows and make himself known to his admirers?”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Sydney said truthfully, comforted nevertheless by Janine’s use of the masculine pronoun.

“Oh, Sydney, you don’t suppose—”Janine stopped and stared at her friend with wide green eyes. They had elected to take a stroll through Berkeley Square after leaving Madame Louise’s, and before returning to Grosvenor Square where Sydney had invited Janine to take tea with the Whitlatches.

“You don’t suppose it was Mr. Kean himself!” Janine exclaimed. “That would explain the mystery! And he might well have done it for a lark, don’t you think?—so different from the tragic roles he ordinarily plays, and I should not be at all surprised at Lord D’Arcy’s being acquainted with him!”

Sydney’s first impulse was to laugh at this and call Janine a goose, but the idea quickly captured her own imagination. Why not spread this absurd rumour? Mr. Kean would not be hurt by it; he was not unlike Sydney in size and colouring, so that they might easily be mistaken in the dark, given the same clothing, and—there was no denying this—Sydney was immensely flattered to be compared to the great Kean, however preposterously.

“Janine,” she said, swallowing a giggle, “I do believe you have hit on an answer!’’

Sydney was sustained by this happy notion for most of the remainder of the afternoon, although she again found it difficult not to giggle when it was discussed, as being the only possible solution to the mystery, among a gathering of her friends in Grosvenor Square several hours later. Janine, Carl, Robin, and Sydney appealed to Sir Gavin Thiers—who dropped in to enquire if they were all quite recovered from the excitement—to confess that it had indeed been Mr. Kean who appeared at his fête.

“Kean?” Sir Gavin was nonplussed. “Oh, I shouldn’t think so.”

“But why not?” Janine insisted, presenting him with all the arguments they had just invented to suit their theory. Sir Gavin was obliged to admit their logic.

‘“Still, it’s no good asking me. I assure you, I was as much astounded by the performance as anyone. D’Arcy is the man to give you the truth of it.”

Lord D’Arcy had apparently recovered his sense of timing, for he was announced just at that moment, and five pairs of eyes turned to see his tall, brilliantly plumed figure stride assertively into the room. He went directly to Sydney, raised her hand to his lips, and gave her an enigmatic look from his beautiful dark eyes—which Sydney searched in vain for some sign of his true feelings. He murmured a vague “Good afternoon” in the general direction of Sydney’s other callers, and flowed gracefully into a chair.

“Well, D’Arcy,’’ Sir Gavin said cheerfully. “You can’t just sit in the corner today contemplating Miss Archer’s charms. You must tell us what we are all longing to hear!’’

“What is that, pray?” D’Arcy rested his walking stick against his elegantly grey-clad leg and fixed a critical eye on a minute scratch on the handle.

“Miss Forsythe is persuaded that it was Mr. Kean who played Ariel to your Prospero last night,’’ Carl said. “Has she guessed correctly?”

D’Arcy did not answer immediately, and Sydney thought she saw a furious flash in those unreadable dark eyes; but then he smiled at Janine and replied mildly, “An inspired guess, Miss Forsythe. My congratulations.”

“Then it’s true!” Janine clapped her hands together happily. “Only fancy! However did you prevail upon him to do it, Lord D’Arcy?”

“Nothing to it,” his lordship assured her. Only Sydney heard the irony in the statement.

“I expect Mr. Kean was happy to perform with such a skilled colleague as Lord D’Arcy,” she offered, feeling a little sorry for the lack of appreciation expressed for her mentor’s own efforts. “He was a very fine Prospero, was he not, Sir Gavin?”

Sir Gavin acquiesced with his customary good will, but his endorsement of Sydney’s rather condescending praise served only to set Lord D’Arcy’s handsome face into an unflatteringly mulish expression.

“As a matter of fact, it was one of his worst performances,” he declared, maligning the entirely blameless Mr. Kean unconscionably. “He upstaged everyone and made up bits of business that had nothing to do with my conception of the play, and—and forgot half his lines!’’

“Oh, surely not!” Janine exclaimed. “Everyone found him delightful!”

“Everyone is an ass, madam!” D’Arcy stated flatly, getting up and stalking over to the window. Carl and Robin immediately rose from their seats, but it was evident that D’Arcy, who now stood tapping his stick impatiently on the floor, had no notion, in his hot-tempered reaction, whom he was addressing. Sydney got up and went to Robin, gently urging him back into his chair.

“I’m sorry to have offended you, Lord D’Arcy,” she said. “It was innocently done, I assure you.’’

D’Arcy turned to look at Sydney, and for a moment seemed to understand what she meant; she thought hopefully that he might forgive her after all, and all would be well. Unfortunately, she had reckoned without the wound she had dealt D’Arcy’s touchy pride.

“But it is you who should be offended, Miss Archer,” he said, softly and deliberately, looking directly into her eyes. “Has no one even an inkling? Have you hidden your light under so monstrous a bushel that no one has even seen it flicker?”
Quel dommage! Mais quelle lâcheté pour votre part, ma chère
!’’

“Please, Lord D’Arcy,” Sydney begged him in a low voice, “go no further. I shall never speak of that, if only—”

“What is he saying, Syd?” Robin interrupted, puzzling out her expression.

Sydney attempted a Lady Romney smile. “Lord D’Arcy is merely piqued that his thunder was stolen from him,” she said, and when D’Arcy raised one incredulous eyebrow at her, added unthinkingly, “Rather an unprofessional attitude, I’m afraid, my lord.”

D’Arcy smiled unpleasantly. “If one is seeking an unprofessional opinion, ma’am, yours is certainly the one I should recommend!’’

At this point, Sydney’s expression changed to one Robin was infinitely more familiar with. “Not quite, my lord!” she said angrily. “You are the one who will not acknowledge any talent but your own, and will only recognize genius in one who possesses it in a realm you do not claim as your own. You are the one who finds beauty only in excess and extravagance, and cannot see the—
the special providence in the fall of a sparrow.”

“Besides,” she concluded, stamping her foot on the carpet, “I did
not
do it to upstage you, and I
did
know my lines!”

This outburst not unnaturally stunned the entire company into silence—until Lord D’Arcy leaned back against the window and began to laugh. Then everyone, ignoring his lordship and turning to Sydney, spoke at once.

“Sydney, is this true?”

“Was it really you all along?’’

“How could you keep it secret for so long?’’

“Why should I have had to keep it secret?” Sydney demanded with an air of having suffered long in silence. “Why did none of you guess? Do you really believe me to have no more accomplishments than wearing pretty bonnets and dancing the waltz?’’

Lord D’Arcy continued to laugh. Robin, who had said nothing yet, stepped up to him and commanded, “Be silent, sir!”

Sydney glanced quickly at her youngest cousin, whom she recognized to be in one of his high-flown passions. Her own temper cooled as quickly as it had flared, and she took a step towards him. D’Arcy too saw Robin’s clenched fists and grim expression, and said somewhat more equably, “Oh, cool off, Wendt!”

“Sir, you have insulted my cousin! I challenge you, sir!”

D’Arcy’s lips twitched with unholy amusement, and he would have tried again to soothe Robin, but from Sydney’s expression he understood this tactic to be a futile one. He might yet have prevented the matter from going any further had he met Robin’s solemnity with an equally solemn apology. Instead, he smiled and said softly, “I accept.”

“Oh, Robin, don’t be silly—” Sydney reached out to touch her cousin’s arm, but he shook her off.

“Don’t interfere, Sydney. This is a man’s business now.”

D’Arcy began to laugh again. Robin struck him across the cheek. A black, furious look suffused D’Arcy’s face at that, and he hissed at his challenger, “Name your second, whelp!’’

Unnoticed up to now, Carl had slipped behind Robin, as if to prevent his striking out again, but when his brother turned to ask him to second him, Carl said, “Certainly not. Don’t be an idiot, Rob.”

Unfortunately, this dash of ice water came too late to douse the fire, and when Carl saw the look on Robin’s flushed face, he said hastily, “Very well! But for God’s sake, don’t do anything else rash!’’

D’Arcy turned to Sir Gavin. “Will you second me, Thiers?”

Sir Gavin, who had watched aghast as the rapidly flaming passions of his hitherto amiable friends spread like wildfire, seemed stunned that the flame should have reached even him. But after a moment, he seemed to understand that if he refused D’Arcy’s request, knowledge of the affair would be sure to spread yet further. Reluctantly, he agreed to second him.

His lordship bowed to each person in turn, and with a dramatic flourish, quitted the room. Carl looked at Sydney, then at Robin, and shook his head. Robin said nothing and departed with a creditable, if anticlimactic, imitation of Lord D’Arcy’s style.

“Are you all right?” Carl asked Sydney after a moment. She smiled tremulously up at him.

“Can you stop them, Carl?”

He shrugged, and smiled rather unconvincingly at her. “It is the traditional duty of a second to seek a reconciliation. I will do what I can—with your help and discretion, Sir Gavin.”

That gentleman nodded, and made his departure as diplomatically as possible, leaving Janine and Carl to comfort Sydney, on whose cheeks unaccustomed tears had begun to glisten. Carl took out his handkerchief and quietly handed it to her.

The Marquess of Lyle had set off for London in an irritable mood, which was not ameliorated by Murray’s astonished—and time-consuming—objections to Lyle’s driving himself up to Town, and his insistence that the Marquess’s valet be allowed, if not to accompany him, at least to pack more than one night’s change of clothing for him.

Somewhat to Lyle’s chagrin, however, his mood had changed, by the time he turned his curricle into Park Lane, into an inexplicably pleasurable anticipation. It was a fine sunny day, and he had made good time on his journey—having not thought to stop at Lady Romney’s until he was well past Chiswick—and he knew that although Bernard was not in residence at Grosvenor Square, his aunt’s cook was capable of serving up a respectable dinner on short notice. The rest of the household would doubtless be falling over themselves to serve him.

Most of the household, that was to say. His conceit was not so exalted as to suppose that Miss Archer would be overjoyed to see him. Yet it was because of her that he had overcome his aversion—which he now wondered at his ever having acquired in the first place—to a stay in the metropolis. He did not envision a long one, but where Sydney was concerned, heaven only knew what might happen. Lyle certainly didn’t.

In his pocket he carried a number of letters (and in his memory the vivid recollection of several intrusions into his peace at Long Hill), all soliciting in tones ranging from formally polite to recklessly passionate, his permission for the writer or caller to pay his addresses to milord’s ward.

None of these petitioners was especially objectionable to milord—although he had difficulty envisioning any of them across the breakfast table from Sydney—but a certain disturbing note was common to all of them. Lyle had no notion how they had come to believe he would settle a large dowry on Sydney, and he had come to London to find out. He did not think Sydney would have spread any such rumour, but he did not think it beneath his aunt. For that matter, he would not have thought it surprising if some of Sydney’s suitors supposed Lyle would pay them to take her off his hands.

A second disturbing element, which had intruded itself only in the last few days, was the absence of one name in particular from the list of Sydney’s admirers. Lyle did not suppose that Lancelot D’Arcy was hanging out for a fortune, but since Sylvie de Lamartine had taken it upon herself to write to him that his ward’s name and D’Arcy’s were being mentioned in the same breath of late—and since Vanessa Romney had, albeit reluctantly, confirmed this rumour to him—Lyle thought it odd that this young man had not yet expressed an interest in Sydney’s hand. He could only conclude that this meant the case was serious. Strangely, that was the most disturbing element of all.

Lyle was duly gratified, on arriving in Grosvenor Square, to be greeted by Thurston and the other servants with every respectful attention due his consequence—and with great affectations of delight by Prudence. These seemed genuine, indicating that Prudence at least had nothing on her conscience. Lyle supposed that this very likely betokened ignorance rather than innocence on his aunt’s part.