The Birth of Blue Satan (7 page)

The room was spinning. Hands reached out to grasp him. He was pushed into a chair.

“I am sorry.” He tried to form words, but his tongue was heavy as if he had bitten it. The sounds that came out of his mouth, he hardly recognized as his. “Tate, please tell me again what you said.”

Sir Joshua repeated the horrible news. Still unchanged; still unbelievable. Gideon pictured his father so full of life, purple with rage the last time they had met.

When had that been?

He tried to think, but he could hardly form a cohesive thought. “I was with him—this morning I think. We had a quarrel.”

“So I was given to understand, my lord.”

Some of the hum that confused him came to a sudden halt. Even over the ringing in his ears, Gideon heard the silence that had come over the room.

Why had everyone stopped whispering? His brain was refusing to think, or to tell him what to do. Was it shock? He had thought himself almost recovered from his injury until Tate had come, though Mrs. Kean, observant girl, had noticed his growing fever.

“Lord St. Mars—” Sir Joshua spoke again— “I suggest that you come with me. I will take your statement at Hawkhurst House.”

His statement?
Gideon’s eyes flew open and he sought the justice’s face. What the devil did he mean?

He peered out at the hazy room and saw the crowd of guests, frozen in place, their horrified stares surrounding him. Lady Eppington was leaning on a gentleman’s arm, being fanned by her black page.

“Yes, we must go.” Gideon tried to pull himself together for the sake of his hostess. He should try not to spoil her ball. He only wished he could hold on to Isabella but she was nowhere near.

From a distance, feeling as powerless as a mother whose son was going off to war, Hester watched St. Mars depart with Sir Joshua Tate and Sir Harrowby Fitzsimmons. A few gentlemen moved together to speak, closing the gap behind them before they, too, left the ballroom. Those who remained seemed strangely tight-lipped, their faces worried and drawn. And no wonder. St. Mars had stated that he had quarreled with his father before Lord Hawkhurst had been found murdered. They had seen his blood and heard the justice of the peace state that the earl’s attacker had been wounded.

The shock on their faces told Hester exactly what they thought, though knowing St. Mars only this short while, she could not credit their suspicions. No means on earth would convince her that St. Mars had done his father harm.

He had no sooner left the room than it became a buzz of speculation. No one dared to voice the most startling thought—not when Gideon Fitzsimmons was now an earl. But Hester could read condemnation in their arching brows. In this Whig assembly, with many of the gentlemen either peers or members of Parliament, St. Mars had no more friends than his father would have had.

“Now, here’s a coil.” Mrs. Mayfield snatched the forgotten shawl from Hester’s hands. “ ‘Tis time we left.”

“But, Mama—”

Hester was relieved to hear her cousin’s protest, until Isabella finished— “I have promised five other dances, and Lord Kirkland to take supper with him.”

For once, Hester was in complete sympathy with her aunt when she rounded on her daughter, hissing, “Foolish girl! Have you no notion of what has just occurred? We must hurry home to think this business through.” Grasping Isabella by the wrist, she bustled her party out, hardly stopping to thank their prostrate hostess.

Inside the carriage, Isabella complained of the unfair treatment, but Mrs. Mayfield seemed deaf. Sitting in the dark, Hester could almost hear the mill-wheels churning inside her aunt’s head. Mrs. Mayfield waited, however, until they arrived at their rented house in Clarges Street before she referred to the evening’s episode.

When she did, the direction of her speech took Hester completely by surprise.

“How fine dear Sir Harrowby Fitzsimmons looked this evening,” she began, as Isabella and Hester followed her into the house. “We must be sure to invite him to dinner.”

They crossed the vestibule quickly and mounted the stairs to the withdrawing room. In only a fraction of the time this took, Hester had understood the turn in her aunt’s thoughts. With anger poised on the edge of her tongue, she waited to see if Isabella would come to a similar conclusion.

“But, Mama—” Isabella yawned as she pulled at the ribbon tied about her neck—”I thought you didn’t want me to encourage Sir Harrowby by showing him any particular regard.”

“Nonsense, child,” Mrs. Mayfield clucked as she helped her daughter off with her cloak. “Sir Harrowby Fitzsimmons is as elegant a gentleman as the world has ever known. And if not for the fact that his prospects have not always been the best, why, he would be the very man I would pick for you myself. And so, I hope, he knows.

“You mustn’t think,” she added, as she fussed about her daughter, tucking a curl behind her ear, “that Sir Harrowby’s hopes will be unduly raised by a simple request to dine. Why, all the world will be wanting him! For who else could explain this curious business between Lord Hawkhurst and his son?”

Hester stared at her angrily, but Mrs. Mayfield’s gaze had fixed upon an invisible speck of mud on Isabella’s cloak. When Isabella, who seemed to have slipped into a state bordering on sleep, failed to react to her mother’s words, Hester decided she had no choice. She tried to speak as calmly as she could.

“I should think you would wish to hear Lord St. Mars’s own account of any event that so regards him, ma’am.”

“And so we shall, Miss Prig, if his lordship is free to make it.”

Mrs. Mayfield’s affronted glance challenged her niece to put herself forward again, but the next question came from Isabella herself. “Why should St. Mars not be free to do anything he pleases, Mama? Isn’t he an earl now?”

“Why not, indeed?” Of a sudden her mother bustled her towards the door. “We must all be tired if we’re thinking up such foolish questions. All the same, my dear, it might be wise if you was not to be seen with my Lord St. Mars for the time being.”

Hester spoke wryly. “And what will his lordship think, if Isabella refuses him the attentions she has granted him so willingly in the past?”

This question brought her aunt up short. Mrs. Mayfield paused with one hand still clutching her daughter’s arm to study the expression on Hester’s face, and a realization made her frown.

“What will he think, you say?”

She struggled with the answer as she stood rooted to the floor. Isabella glanced back over her shoulder, but she was much too sleepy, and too used to that calculating expression on her mother’s face, to protest, even though Mrs. Mayfield’s fingers dug deeply into her arm.

“He will think, ma’am, that Isabella is not loyal,” Hester said.

“Hmmm.” Mrs. Mayfield drew her daughter back into the withdrawing room and closed the door. “You are quite right, Hester. I knew you was a smart girl.”

This was not the precise result Hester had wished for. Still, she knew Mrs. Mayfield would take everything her own way.

“Let me think on this.”

“Mama—”

Isabella’s sleepy plea was abruptly cut off. “Hush, child! This is much too important.”

Since Mrs. Mayfield, for all her harshness, rarely spoke to her beloved daughter in any way other than a croon, Isabella’s eyes grew round.

“What it is, Mama? Why are you so upset?”

Her mother ignored her. Hester took her cousin by the arm and led her to a damask-covered loveseat. “Why don’t you sit with me, dear, until your mother’s had time to give the problem a little thought. Perhaps you will tell me about your partners this evening.”

As sleepy as she was, Isabella summoned a delighted laugh as she collapsed on the cushions. “They were all vastly pleasing. Did you ever see the likes of his Grace’s coat? I vow that silver stitching must have cost him a fortune!”

Thinking she heard a distinctive note of pleasure in her cousin’s voice, Hester’s heart sank. “Are you in love with his Grace, then, Belle?”

“Oh, no!” Isabella seemed shocked. “I would never dream of such a thing. It is vulgar to talk about love, Mama says.”

Hester took a deep, bracing breath to tame her impatience. “It is quite all right to love one’s husband in my opinion. Nevertheless, if the term offends you, we can employ another. Do you favour the Duke of Bournemouth’s suit over the other gentlemen’s?”

“Well, I must, mustn’t I? He’s a duke, and Sir Harrowby is nothing but a baronet.”

“But my Lord St. Mars? Have you no feelings for him?”

“He is very handsome. All the gossips say so.”

“But what do
you
think, Belle? Whom do
you
wish to marry?”

“Hester, that is enough!” Mrs. Mayfield emerged from her musings to scold her niece. “I will not have you encouraging Isabella with your ill-bred notions. As if a girl of her class should choose her own husband!”

“I might like to pick my husband, Mama. If Sir Harrowby Fitzsimmons were a duke, I think I should like to marry him. He is always so diverting, and he dresses better than many richer men.”

Stunned by her cousin’s preference, Hester could only await the sound of her aunt’s displeasure.

Surprisingly, Mrs. Mayfield made little protest. “He cannot be a duke, my dear . . . but he might become an earl. And if he does, I should do nothing to stop you from having him. Not unless his Grace comes up to scratch.” This was said with a sigh that suggested forlorn hopes.

“How can Sir Harrowby be an earl, Mama, when Lord St. Mars stands before him?”

“Never you mind.” Mrs. Mayfield stood. “It is getting very late. It must be on three o’clock and seeing we’ve left the ball early, we might as well seek our beds.”

With a smothered yawn, Isabella rose from the loveseat. “Are you coming, Hester? I need someone to brush my hair, and I like the way you do it better than my maid.”

Despite the thoughtlessness of her cousin’s request, Hester seized on the chance to speak to Isabella privately. “Of course, I’ll come,” she said. She would not be able to sleep soon in any case. Agitation would keep her awake.

Together they walked from the withdrawing room and up the stairs. Isabella’s bedchamber occupied the second floor, alongside her mother’s. Hester’s was another flight up, near the servants’
.

The differences between their rooms did not stop with their floor. Mrs. Mayfield had decorated Isabella’s boudoir as if she expected gentlemen to attend her daughter’s levee. An elaborately japanned screen separated a pair of seldom-used, French chaises from the part of the chamber devoted to Isabella’s more intimate functions. Mrs. Mayfield knew that fashionable ladies received their callers while they dressed. Hester found the whole arrangement ridiculous. England, after all, was not France.

There was no point in questioning Isabella until her maid had helped her off with her clothes and into a lawn nightgown, before going gratefully to her own bed. But later, as Hester stood behind her cousin, seated in front of the reflecting glass, brushing her thick, golden curls, she found her moment.

“Bella,” she said, once her drowsy cousin had fallen silent, “did you truly mean you do not love St. Mars?”

“I think he is handsome, but he does not dress as well as Sir Harrowby.”

“Perhaps not, dear, but do you see nothing else in him to admire?”

“Mama says his fortune will be immense when his father dies. Oh!” she exclaimed. “I forgot. His father is dead now, so he must be quite rich.”

“I meant rather some quality of his, beyond his wealth. His strength, perhaps? Or his extraordinary gentility?”

“Gentle? St. Mars? I do not think him gentle at all. He is so . . . so very vigorous! And he is grown so serious, when he used to be vastly more amusing. You have not seen him, Hester, when he looks at me so fiercely.”

Hester gave a start. “I am sure St. Mars would do nothing to harm you, Belle. He loves you far too much.”

Isabella giggled as if Hester and she had entered into a secret. “That’s what Mama said,” she confided, “when I told her that St. Mars stares at me in a way I do not like. Not at all like Sir Harrowby, who’s the perfect gentleman. He knows how to make pretty speeches without making me feel anything at all. Mama says that gentlemen like St. Mars are so passionate, they cannot always think before they act. She said that could turn to my advantage if I wanted.”

Hester felt a cold, sick fury in the pit of her stomach. So St. Mars’s love was to be used, wasted, and despised? In spite of her own attraction, she found herself aching at his failure to attach Isabella. Bella was the girl he wanted, and was, therefore, the wife he should have. The only hope for his lordship that Hester could see was that her cousin might learn to reciprocate his passion in time.

“Bella, what do you know of the intimacies of marriage? Would you not rather kiss St. Mars than any other of your swains?”

“No.” Bella seemed firm on this point. “I think I would prefer Sir Harrowby. He makes me laugh.”

“I am sure he does,” Hester said wryly. She couldn’t understand her cousin at all, but clearly Isabella’s passion had not yet been tapped. Not that Hester’s had been given a chance to flower either, but she had always been blessed with a fertile imagination.

Sighing with genuine fatigue, she reached for Isabella’s cap. “Go to bed, dear,” she said, tying the ribands under her cousin’s chin. “We’ve talked enough for tonight.”

Isabella thanked her prettily for brushing her hair and, yawning mightily again, stumbled off to bed as Hester took a tallow candle up to her room. One of Mrs. Mayfield’s economies forbade the use of wax in the bedchambers.

Upstairs, there was no maid and no dressing table. Her furniture consisted of an old fashioned bed in sturdy English oak and an ancient cupboard that was quite sufficient for her modest wardrobe.

Hester set the spluttering candle on a small table and prepared for sleep. The startling events at Lord Eppington’s ball, the sight of St. Mars so ill and feverish, the guests’ suspicions, and now Isabella’s complete indifference to St. Mars’s plight distressed her so much she doubted she would sleep. She wondered what the justice of the peace intended to ask St. Mars. His implication had been that his lordship would have to explain the quarrel he had had with his father.