The Great Christmas Ball (13 page)

“You could be telling the truth,” she admitted.

“I
am
telling the truth. What possible reason could I have for dissembling?”

“I did not accuse you of dissembling.”

“But you don’t believe me.”

Desperate for a reply that would satisfy him, she said, “Perhaps it was Mrs. Leonard who was dissembling.”

Costain’s arched brows rose, and he tilted his head to one side to think. “That is possible. I would not be the first man to be led astray by a beautiful lady. I wonder ...”

“Just so you bear the possibility in mind, milord,” she said, and led him to the door.

“About tomorrow evening,” he said, and paused, his hand on the doorknob. He had not intended to continue seeing so much of Miss Lyman. Yet her distrust bothered him in a way he could not quite fathom. He found he wanted her good opinion. He also realized he had taken an unaccountable aversion to that blond fellow who sat beside her in the box.

She watched him, not with the adoring eyes of an infatuated lady, but with something akin to dislike. “Perhaps you and Mr. Edison have already made plans. It is presumptuous of me to assume you are at my beck and call,” he said with a question in his voice.

“I don’t know—I cannot recall just offhand what we are doing tomorrow evening. Perhaps—”

“May I drop by after work?”

“Yes, I shall tell Gordon you will be coming.”

“And
you
will be here?”

She looked at him with her wide, clear gaze. As he watched, a small smile crept over her face. “I shall probably be here, too,” she said.

“I was telling the truth, you know.”

“I know,” she heard herself say. She had no idea where that soft voice, or those words, had come from. They rose up instinctively from the unconscious depths within her. She felt at that moment that he was telling the truth. It was impossible that he was not.

His frown lightened, then a smile seized his lips. He looked as if he might say something further. But he just
put on his hat and went to the door. “Good night, Miss Lyman,” he said as he left.

“Good night.” When he had disappeared into the shadows, she quietly closed the door.

A warm glow suffused her as she sat by the fire, waiting for Gordon to return. She felt some new height had been reached in her relationship with Costain. He wanted her good opinion, and why should he care about that unless he liked her? She did not let herself think the word
love.
He had not done or said anything to give that impression, but he had seemed to be aware of her as a woman in a way he had not before.

It was not long before Gordon came in, frowning and complaining. “I lost Leo. He just disappeared after the play. He did not get into the carriage with the Leonards, for I decided I might as well follow them home since I had lost Costain, and he was not in their carriage. I waited an age to see if Mrs. Leonard slipped out after the old boy took to his tick, but she did not.”

“Lord Costain came here,” Cathy said. “He explained all about his being with Mrs. Leonard.” She went over the story carefully, excluding only those few flirtatious comments that she hugged to herself like a precious secret.

“And you believed him!” Gordon exclaimed derisively when the tale was told.

“Yes, I am sure he was telling the truth. His explanation covered everything we were concerned about.”

“It
didn’t cover the carriage that was waiting at the back door of Dutroit’s shop, and the man who drove Mrs. Leonard away. It wasn’t her husband, for he was at his office. Why, for all we know, it was Costain himself. We have only his word for where he spent his day.”

“You said it was a large, bulky man.”

“Why, I could hardly even see that it
was
a man,  with those curst spectacles.” He took a glass of sherry before continuing.

“If she has a rich gent at her beck and call, why would she be wasting her time making bonnets? His story has more holes than a beggar’s coat. And if he was following the Leonards at a distance, how does it come they saw him, and offered him a seat in their box?”

“It seemed feasible, the way he told it,” Cathy said, but as Gordon poked and pulled at it, the story seemed to fall to pieces before her very eyes.

“Why, it was nothing but a Cheltenham tragedy. I ain’t sure I didn’t see it acted on the stage a year ago. Something very like it, in any case. Costain takes us for a pair of flats, but he is out in his calculation. I know how many beans make five, whatever about you. He made up to you, and you let him sweet-talk you into believing that farrago of nonsense. I knew by the soft smile you had on when I came in that something had happened. I feared Edison had gotten at you in the carriage.”

“Don’t be absurd, Gordon. You know he is crazed for Miss Stanfield. Oh, did I mention she is Costain’s first cousin?”

“The devil you say!”

“Yes, he mentioned it.”

Gordon’s scowl dwindled to a smirk. “How did he come to do that? Was she asking Costain about me?”

“No, actually he was taunting me about Edison paying so much attention to her. Somehow or other it came up that she is his first cousin.”

“Wouldn’t you know it! My first chance at an in with her, and I have gone and insulted Costain.”

“What did you do?” Cathy demanded. “What did you say to him? I thought you had not followed him.”

Gordon looked surprised, then a smile appeared. “I didn’t actually say anything to him, thank God. It is just what I said to you, but he need not know I think him a liar and a scoundrel until after he has puffed me up a little to Miss Stanfield. I mean to say, what do we actually have against him? It is plain as a pikestaff he is Mrs. Leonard’s lover, having me follow her to see who else she has on the string, as you said. Nothing in that. It has nothing to do with the spy. An affair of the heart, nothing more.”

This hardly satisfied Cathy, but as she was the perpetrator of the idea, she could not scold Gordon as she wanted to. “What do you think we should do?”

“The thing to do, we set up an outing with Costain and his cousin. You and Costain, me and Miss Stanfield.”

“I mean about our work, Gordon.”

“Oh, that! I shall keep hounding Mrs. Leonard, certainly. She would not have another lover when she has Costain sewn up tight as a drum. Stands to reason, the fellow she meets over the hat shop is the spy. Who else could he be? I shall follow him, find out who he is, and turn him over to Cosgrave. That will secure me a position on his staff. A pity about Italy, but I shan’t forget to find you a parti. You might nail Swinton if you look sharp. He says you ain’t as old as he thought.”

Cathy honed in on the important part of his speech. “You think Costain innocent, then?”

“Of course he is. A bit deluded, poor fellow, blinded by love, but down as a nail.”

“How did he come to overlook the man who met Mrs. Leonard at the back door of the shop, though?”

“He didn’t overlook him. He thinks it is a competitor for the fair Leonard, and was ashamed for you to know he is carrying on with the trollop.”

“Oh, do you think that is the explanation?” she asked in a small voice.

“As plain as the tail on a fox. Well, this was a pretty good night’s work. Miss Stanfield’s first cousin, eh? Thank God for it, or he would cut us all out. I can hardly wait to see Edison’s ugly phiz
when I tell him I am stepping out with Miss Stanfield.”

They extinguished the lamps and went quietly upstairs, to avoid awaking the household. Gordon slept the sleep of the innocent, but Cathy found her mind in such confusion that she was awake for hours, trying to make sense of it all. She came to the conclusion that Lord Costain was either Mrs. Leonard’s lover, or a very stupid spy. She could not feel that he was stupid. Deeply engrossed in her brooding, she even forgot that tomorrow evening was the date of the Great Winter Ball.

"Did you enjoy your evening at the theater?” was the first question Lady Lyman put to Cathy when her daughter entered the breakfast parlor the next morning.

“Very nice, Mama.”

A glance at Cathy’s wan face was enough to tell her that the chit had not had enough sleep. As she had heard her daughter mount the stairs to bed at midnight, she could only conclude that the girl had slept poorly. A long career of reading ladies’ hearts and minds from their faces suggested that her daughter’s romance had come a cropper. This, in turn, suggested that Lord Costain had been at the theater with another lady.

“Did you happen to see Lord Costain?” she asked.

“He was there with another party,” Cathy replied, feigning indifference.

Lady Lyman was too kind to humiliate her daughter by inquiring whether this party had included a young lady. She knew from her career as a diplomat’s wife that when a contract between parties was in danger of souring, a new initiative was called for.

The Lymans were no longer the courted party; it was for them to take the initiative. Cathy had been pestering her to go to the Great Winter Ball. It was shockingly dear, but to hang such an ornament as Lord Costain on the family tree was well worth fifty pounds.

She cleared her throat preparatory to making her announcement, and when she had her audience’s attention, she said, “Lady Eagleton coerced me into buying tickets for Lady Somerset’s charity ball last evening—what they are calling the Great Winter Ball, though I doubt it will merit the title. I thought I might drop Lord Costain a line and ask if he is free to take you to it, Cathy. It is to be held this evening.”

“This evening?” Cathy exclaimed. How had it crept up on her so quickly? She had been ticking the days off on her calendar, but once Costain entered her life, she had forgotten even the Great Winter Ball.

“My dear, you cannot have forgotten? You badgered the life out of me.”

“Oh, no, Mama! You must not ask Costain,” Cathy said.

Costain’s new lady must be pretty! “A pity to waste the tickets,” Lady Lyman complained. She was sorry she had claimed to have purchased them already.

Gordon came into the breakfast parlor, tugging at a cravat of monumental proportions.

“Good God, what is that thing at your throat?” Rodney demanded.

“It is called a cravat, Uncle,” Gordon said with heavy sarcasm. “The Oriental, to be precise. All the gentlemen are sporting it this season.”

Rodney shook his head. “It will soon go out of style, like damped muslin. You ought not to be a galley slave to fashion. You make yourself ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous, is it? I’ll have you know, Edison and  Swinton are sending their valets to see mine this very day, to learn how to tie this thing.”

“Swinton is all sail and no anchor, like his father before him. Blown by every breeze of change.”

“What’s that to do with me?” Gordon demanded. “I ain’t the one following fashion. I set it.”

“If you wish folks to think highly of you, you ought not to speak so highly of yourself.”

Gordon passed his cup for coffee and let the matter drop. Silly old fool, what did Rodney know of fashion? He was still wearing black jackets. It was enough to make a cat laugh, him giving sartorial advice. “Did I hear you say you had bought tickets for the Great Ball, Mama? You must have won the lottery.”

Lady Lyman had hastily pondered the situation and come up with an alternative for throwing Cathy in Costain’s path.

“I hope I always do my bit for the less fortunate. Gordon, are you free to accompany Cathy this evening? It is to be a stunning party, to judge by the price of the tickets.”

“I will not take my sister to a ball, and that’s final.” Gordon scowled. What would Miss Stanfield think, to see him sunk to stepping out with his sister?

“Then I shall take you myself, Cathy,” Lady Lyman said.

Gordon smirked into his cravat. “Will you stand up with her, too, Mama, to announce to the world that she cannot nab a beau?”

After a prolonged squabble, no conclusion was reached, and the conversation turned to different matters. But Cathy felt a pronounced desire to attend that ball, preferably with a dashing gentleman.

“I am happy to see you keeping decent hours, Gordon,” Lady Lyman said as she tapped the shell of her coddled egg. “What will you be studying today?”

“Irregular verbs,” Gordon replied readily. He had been studying these mischievous articles for some weeks, when the mood took him.

“I thought you must know them by now.” She turned to Rodney. “How is he doing? Is he making any progress at all?”

“Have you finished that translation for my perusal, Gordon?” Rodney inquired. “Or have you been too busy arranging your cravat?”

“Nearly finished, Uncle,” Gordon lied. “I shall have it ready for your red pencil in jig time.” He cast an appealing eye at Cathy, and she jumped in to assist him.

“Did you learn anything about Mrs. Leonard last night, Mama?” she asked.

“Yes, I meant to tell you, but my poor brain, you know, is full of holes. She was a Helena Johnson, who married one of the Fotheringtons, an M.P. The poor fellow was riddled with debt, and put a pistol to his head, leaving the gel destitute.”

As this jibed with what Mrs. Leonard had told Costain, Cathy had to believe it. “How did she survive after his death?”

“She had to work. I believe she had some skill as a milliner, and turned to that trade. No one seemed to know how she had met Mr. Leonard.”

“Fotherington, I recall him,” Rodney said, scraping his empty eggshell for a stray crumb. “The fellow was never any good. A gambler and a knave.”

“There was a scandal about gambling debts,” Lady Lyman said. “It seems he may have been selling state secrets at Amiens, during the peace talks.”

Gordon’s head jerked up. He exchanged a wild look with Cathy. “What’s that you say, Mama? A traitor, was she?”

“Not Mrs. Leonard, Gordon. Her husband, Fotherington. Helena—that was her name—was well liked. No blame attached to her.”

“I see,” Gordon said, swallowing a smirk of disbelief. He rose from the table, leaving his eggs untouched. “Well, time to get at those irregular verbs. Don’t you have something to translate this morning as well, Cathy?”