The Constant Companion (7 page)

Lord Philip glanced over at Constance but that young lady’s head was bent over her sewing and she did not look up. “She has been through this before,” he thought suddenly.

But this pretty bird of paradise waiting for him so eagerly on the sofa was not to be ignored. He resolutely put Constance from his mind and sat down next to Amelia.

She promptly leaned against him and put her hand on his knee. He slid his arm round her waist and drew her close. It was then that he looked over her gold head and met Constance’s wide and troubled gaze.

He suddenly felt as if someone had poured a bucket of cold water over him. How could he proceed with this affair while the innocent daughter of one of his old friends looked on?

So he bent and kissed Amelia briefly on the cheek. “And now I must go,” he said abruptly, releasing her and rising to his feet.

“Your most humble servant, Lady Amelia.” He made a magnificent leg and then turned briefly towards Constance and bowed. “I bid you good evening, Miss Lamberton. Mr. Potter will be happy to know that I have delivered your fan.”

And then with a small, general bow to both ladies, he turned and walked from the room. Amelia ran after him into the hall and grasped his arm.

“Come now, Philip,” she cried in a breathless voice. “I fear I have shocked you. I am perhaps too much accustomed to the freer ways of a married woman. But, nonetheless, I shall make some gentleman a very good wife, think you.”

“Undoubtedly,” said Lord Philip, gently detaching himself, “I assure you, I enjoyed my visit and I am pleased to see Miss Lamberton in such good looks. Goodnight, Lady Amelia… again.”

The street door banged. He was gone.

“Constance!” called Lady Amelia. “Come here!”

Constance appeared in the doorway of the drawing room, her wide eyes looking questioningly at Lady Amelia. Amelia’s jealous eyes raked her from head to toe.

“Turned very fine, haven’t you?” she sneered. “But you are to stop wearing my clothes, miss, and in future wear your own. Fine feathers make fine vultures. So Lord Philip Cautry thinks you are in good looks. Well, we’ll see what our high and mighty Lord thinks of you next time he sees you! Oh, go to bed. That stupid face of yours makes me feel
sick!
”

She stared furiously at Constance as the girl moved past her to mount the stair, unconscious grace in every line and movement. Amelia had consumed too much brandy, and her never stable temper broke completely. As Constance was beginning to mount the stairs, Amelia seized a carriage whip from the hall stand and lashed Constance across the back with it so viciously that the wicked thong slashed through the fine velvet of the dress and cut into the girl’s flesh.

Constance swung round, her face parchment-white and her eyes glittering with rage. She slowly walked towards her mistress.

“Bergen!” called Amelia, summoning the butler before Constance could reach her. The butler scuttled forward as if he had been waiting in the shadows. “Make sure Miss Lamberton finds her room,” said Amelia, breathing hard. “The house is still strange to her and I fear she may become lost.”

“Very good, my lady,” said Bergen with a slow smile. Constance stared at the ill-assorted pair, the butler with his sinister smile and Lady Amelia with her beautiful face contorted with rage and malice and spite.

The full shock of the attack on her struck her, and Constance turned and fled. She ran as hard as she could to her rooms and only when she had barricaded the door, did she allow herself the luxury of bursting into tears, sitting on the bed with her arms wrapped tightly round her middle, rocking herself back and forth in an agony of pain and humiliation, crying over and over again to the uncaring silk-covered walls, “What is to become of me? How can I escape? What can I do?”

Lord Philip Cautry was angry with Miss Constance Lamberton. Looking back on his evening at Amelia’s in the damp, sober light of a misty London afternoon, he finally came to the conclusion it was all Constance’s fault. What right had she to play Miss Propriety? No one could live for longer than a day with Amelia and not realize she had the morals of a cat, thought his lordship sourly, forgetting that he had only too recently considered Amelia innocent of the scandal that surrounded her name.

He had been celibate for over a year and had been happily on the point of putting an end to that uncomfortable state. He felt somewhere in the back of his mind that Amelia hoped for marriage. But didn’t they all? Even the little opera dancer that he had kept in such style for several months some time ago had begun to show alarming signs that she wished to legalize the romance. The effrontery of some women was past all believing, thought Lord Philip. He came from an ancient family and had no intention of tainting his family tree with doubtful branches of the Fashionable Impure.

Miss Constance Lamberton would just have to learn the ways of the world and not sit around like some sort of chaste angel giving gentlemen of the
ton
, hell-bent on seduction, a guilty conscience.

He voiced as much to his friend, Peter, when that young man called round to see him. Peter was wearing an impeccably tailored blue swallowtail coat of Bath superfine. His waistcoat was a subdued rose color, his pantaloons were without a crease and his cravat was a miracle of starched perfection. But he had spoiled the whole effect by forgetting to put on his boots, and his long narrow feet were encased in a pair of red Morocco slippers.

“Don’t think that’s the case.” said Peter after much hard thought. “Amelia is said to keep Constance with her the whole time—even when she’s playing hot-in-the-hand in her drawing room with the Comte Duval.”

“I think the prim Miss Lamberton may be a malicious gossip,” said Lord Philip. “Must you pick your teeth with the end of your quizzing glass, Peter? Sometimes your mannerisms are just as irritating as Miss Lamberton’s stately virginity. And you have forgot your boots, man. You’re wearing your slippers.”

“No. Not Miss Lamberton. Amelia’s lady’s maid is related to my cook, and
she
told my second footman who told my butler who told my valet. So there! I’m not picking my teeth. I’m polishing ’em. And damn my slippers. What’s that man of mine about? But I suppose he’ll be along directly,” said Peter, replying to each of Lord Philip’s points in turn.

Lord Philip’s thin eyebrows raised in distaste. “Servants’ gossip, Peter. I had thought better of you. A gentleman should never listen to servants’ gossip.”

“Why not?” exclaimed Peter in surprise, removing the end of the quizzing glass from his mouth and beginning to scratch his head with it. “I always do. I wouldn’t dream of having my morning chocolate without it,” he added with the air of someone advocating rhubarb pills. “I like your coat. Weston, I suppose. I wish they would take away that little bag at the back of the neck. No need for it now. It ain’t as if we still wear periwigs. Come to think of it, your own hair’s too long for a man of fashion. Why don’t you get a Brutus crop? Then you wouldn’t have to tie it back in that bow. Mine is called the Windswept. Do you like it?”

“What’s left of it,” said his lordship dryly, watching the quizzing glass wrecking havoc with the hairdresser’s art. “Why don’t you use that thing properly? You’re supposed to look through it. But, by George, you’ve done every other curst thing. Why don’t you scratch your armpits?”

“You’re in love with her. That’s what’s making you so twitty,” said Peter, rising to meet the arrival of his man with his boots.

“Don’t be ridiculous!” snapped Lord Philip. “I may have a certain
tendre
for Amelia Godolphin. But I am certainly not in love with her.”

“I meant Constance,” said Peter. But by that time he had drifted off into the other room to have his boots pulled on and so his words went unheard by Philip.

Lord Philip was cursed with the tenacity of the typical English aristocrat—a single-minded pursuit of the desired goal. He wanted to bed Lady Amelia; he was vaguely surprised that Constance should annoy him so much. But nonetheless, he wanted Lady Amelia and meant to have her.

He accordingly crossed to the fireplace and took down several cards from the card stand and began to flick through them. His sister was holding a breakfast which had already begun, since the hour was now four in the afternoon and all fashionable breakfasts began at three. He cordially detested his sister, but he felt sure that Amelia would somehow manage to be there. He collected his hat and his cane and set out, forgetting his friend, Peter, with an absent mindedness worthy of that gentleman himself.

The breakfast was to be held at his sister’s villa in Kensington where she could erect marquees on the lawn for eating and dancing which she could not do in the pocket-sized garden which graced the back of her town house.

Kensington, with its pretty villas lining the Chiswick Road, was soon reached. It had all the charm of being not quite in town and not quite in the country. The mist had dispersed to be replaced with a gray drizzle. Water dropped from the great trees by the side of the road, and sooty sparrows squabbled and splashed in the puddles.

As soon as he arrived, Philip could sense that the occasion was not a success. Although the marquees were bedecked with flowers and draped with rose silk, the damp gray day seemed to have permeated everything. The reason was quickly discovered. His sister had turned her autocratic face from strong drink and had decided to serve only negus, ratafia and lemonade.

He found his sister, twisting the fringe of her shawl nervously in her fingers and fighting between her strong principles and the desire to make her breakfast a success. Philip looked at her worried face with some amusement as she surveyed her nearly silent guests.

“Give in,” he said gently, “or it will be all over London on the morrow that you have turned Methodist.”

“Oh, no,” cried Lady Eleanor, “they wouldn’t
dare!
”

“The trouble with this curst affair,” came the booming voice of one of the guests, the elderly Earl of Murr, “is it’s damn wet and dreary outside and curst damp, wet and dreary on the inside of m’stomach.”

“Evans!” bleated Lady Eleanor desperately. “Go and
command
the butler to bring out the
best
claret, champagne, and port. I don’t know what he can be thinking of.”

She waited anxiously until the footmen started circulating with the stronger drink. Soon a happy buzz of conversation filled the marquee and she sighed with relief.

“It was all Evans’s fault, of course,” said Lady Eleanor with restored complacency, “and so I shall tell everyone.”

“Nonsense!” said Philip, helping himself to wine. “Do that and I shall counter it with the truth. I don’t think you really appreciate Evans. I am looking for a secretary myself, you know.”

Lady Eleanor blenched. She was able to bully her meek husband on most matters. But Mr. Rider was devoted to his secretary, and she shuddered to think of his reaction should his main prop be taken from him. He might even refuse to fund her social engagements! “You shall not take Evans from me. Besides he wouldn’t go. Only last night Mr. Rider said he was going to pay him more money. Didn’t you, dear?” She nudged her husband in the ribs and he roused himself and said, “Yes, yes,” although he hadn’t heard a word.

And so a much gratified Evans was informed that further to their discussion of the night before, his salary would be raised immediately and with the cunning of the timid, Mr. Evans did not show any surprise that Lady Eleanor should be talking so long and so vehemently about a nonexistent discussion of his salary.

He had, in fact, nearly lost his job earlier that day despite the championship of Mr. Rider when Lady Eleanor had discovered that once again Lady Amelia’s name was featured on her guest list, and it took all Evans’s tact and nimble ability to lie to explain to her that the Countess Lieven had expressed
a particular wish
to see Lady Amelia at the function. For all her overbearing ways, Lady Eleanor was naive and it never crossed her mind for a moment that the quiet and trustworthy Mr. Evans could be lying, and that an arrogant social leader like the Countess Lieven who declared “It is not fashionable where I am not,” would ever consider showing an interest in Lady Amelia. Mr. Evans had, in fact, simply used the same guest list as the one for the
musicale
.

The guests were becoming increasingly noisy since they had been drinking wine steadily, in the way a hard-drinking society will if it has been deprived of its favorite beverage for over an hour.

Lord Philip raised his quizzing glass and stared across the tent at Amelia who demurely lowered her eyes. She was wearing a morning dress of scarlet taffeta cut low enough to show the world that she was possessed of an excellent pair of shoulders. Then to his irritation, he found his eyes drawn to the quiet companion by Lady Amelia’s side. What a quiz of a dress! It was a brown silk and he could swear it was actually patched neatly on one of the sleeves. Constance’s face was white, almost translucent, like alabaster, and her large eyes briefly held such an expression of pain and bewilderment that Lord Philip dropped his own eyes and fortified himself from the bottle at his elbow, feeling strangely uneasy.

He was unaware that Mrs. Besant had been watching him like a hawk.

“Things are beginning to happen,” thought that malicious widow gleefully. She turned her avid gaze on Constance who was now toying with her food.

That dress was one of the girl’s old ones, thought Mrs. Besant happily. But was she cold? She kept pulling her shawl up round her bare shoulders in an oddly protective way.

The sound of fiddles came from the other marquee across the lawn as Neil Gow and his famous musicians, hired specially for the day, began to tune up. One by one the guests began to rise to their feet. Lady Amelia got up and said something to Constance in a sharp voice. The girl dutifully rose and left the tent one pace behind her mistress, but not before Mrs. Besant’s eagle eyes had caught the veiled look of anger mixed with fear that Constance had cast on Amelia, or the way the girl moved her shoulders stiffly as if she were in pain.