The Saint and the Sinner (7 page)

“How many men have made love to you?” Sir Gilbert was murmuring against Pandora’s ear.

“No-one has made love to me!” Pandora replied firmly. “And I would much rather talk about horses. Do you keep many, Sir Gilbert?”

He laughed as if he was amused by her attempt to evade him.

“At the moment I am only interested in one particularly attractive little filly,” he answered, “who has not yet been broken to the bridle. May I say that is something I shall greatly enjoy doing?”

“I do not understand what you are saying,” Pandora replied.

She was glad when Sir Gilbert’s conversation was interrupted by the footmen offering dishes that she realised were not only delicious but different from anything she had eaten before.

Her mother had taught her to cook and Pandora tried to guess the ingredients that had gone into the sauce with the tenderloin of veal.

She wondered if it would be possible to meet the Chef before she left Chart Hall and ask him for some of his recipes.

There was no hope of improving the dull, stodgy fare that her aunt ordered at the Palace, but perhaps one day she would be able to cook for someone who thought good food was an art, as her father had done.

“I was telling you,” Sir Gilbert said in a purring tone which she told herself she disliked, “how much I long to kiss you and to teach you, my wild, unbroken filly, about love.”

He really was becoming rather tiresome, Pandora thought, and besides, he had had too much to drink.

In fact, as the meal came to an end, looking round the Dining-Room she was quite certain that the majority of the gentlemen were what her father would have called “foxed.”

They were all rather red in the face and had a “swimmy” look in their eyes, which reminded her uncomfortably of the manner in which Prosper Witheridge looked at her.

Their high cravats were creased and some of them had undone their waist-coats, which she thought was a shocking breach of good manners.

The women too seemed to have got noisier, and their voices were more shrill.

By the time the dessert was being taken round – the huge peaches which she remembered as a child, and great bunches of muscat grapes – the décolletages of the actresses seemed even lower than when they had shocked Prosper Witheridge.

When they bent forward to shout across the table, Pandora blushed to see what they revealed, and she was thankful that her own gown with its short sleeves was cut discreetly and her appearance was unlikely to offend anyone.

At the same time, she thought she must look very plain and unattractive in contrast.

‘A country sparrow,’ she thought to herself with a smile, ‘mixed up with exotic birds-of-Paradise:

She must have smiled at her own thoughts, because the Earl, turning to her for almost the first time since they had sat down to dinner, asked,

“What is amusing you?”

“I was not really amused,” Pandora answered, “I was just thinking that I was a little out-of-place amongst such colourful ladies.”

“It was your own choice.”

He spoke harshly.

“I am not complaining,” Pandora said quickly. “You must not think that, when you have been so kind. It is just that this is so very different from the dinner-parties at the Palace.”

“I should hope so!” the Earl remarked.

“We used to have lovely parties at the Vicarage when we lived there,” Pandora said. “Papa knew how to make people laugh, and Mama loved entertaining when we could afford it.”

“Were you very poor?” the Earl questioned.

“We had to save every penny so that Papa and Mama could have horses,” Pandora answered.

She was remembering that it was those same horses that had taken her father and mother from her, and for a moment a shadow darkened her eyes.

She found that the Earl was watching her.

“Have I many more relations like you?” he enquired.

“Most of them are old and rather stuffy,” Pandora admitted, “and I have not seen any of the more interesting ones since Grandpapa gave up entertaining.”

“When was that?”

“After Waterloo, when Uncle George was killed.”

“A very fortunate occurrence, as far as I was concerned.”

“I cannot imagine anything more fortunate or lucky for anyone than to inherit this house,” Pandora said quietly, “and to realise you are the head of a family that has existed for so many generations.”

“And of course you expect me to make a commendable head and embellish the family name,” the Earl said, and now there was no doubt that he was jeering at her.

“Why should you want to do anything else,” Pandora asked, “especially when you have been so lucky?”

He stared at her in what she thought was surprise, and at that moment there was a shriek from Hettie at the other end of the table.

The gentleman sitting on her left had inadvertently, or drunkenly, upset a glass of wine into her lap.

“You stupid bastard!” she exclaimed furiously, and picking up the china dessert-plate which was in front of her she broke it over his head.

There was a roar of laughter from everyone round the table and cries of,

“Serves him right!” “Teach him to behave better, Hettie”

Pandora drew in her breath.

“That was the pink Sevres!” she said almost to herself. “Mama always warned the servants to be especially careful with it.”

She spoke in a very low voice, but the Earl heard her.

He bent towards her.

“Go to bed, Pandora,” he said. “Do not say goodnight, just leave the room without making a fuss.”

She looked at him, wide-eyed, and was prepared to protest that she wanted to stay, but there was an air of authority about him that she had not noticed before.

“Good-night, Cousin Norvin,” she said quietly, “and thank you for being so very kind to me.”

Chapter Three

“I’m not – tired! I don’t – want to – go to – bed!”

Kitty clung to the newel at the turn of the banister as she spoke, but the Earl disengaged her fingers and half-carried, half-pulled her up the stairs.

Like the rest of the party, Kitty was very drunk.

They had seen off Sir Edward and his friends with shrieks, cries, and hiccups which had echoed round the marble hall and made even the flags from the ancient battlements seem to sway with the noise.

Now all the house-party were climbing up the Great Staircase and the tired servants were locking and bolting the front door, preferring to scurry off to their own quarters.

The gentlemen had more command over their actions than the women had.

Caro had collapsed altogether and Richard was carrying her rather unsteadily.

Hettie was still at the noisy stage, protesting, like Kitty, that she had no wish to go to bed and that she wanted another drink.

The Earl had got Kitty to the landing when she struggled unexpectedly against him, and, as he had not a firm hold on her, she collapsed against a valuable piece of furniture, knocking over a vase of flowers.

“I want to – dance,” she said. “Let’s go and – dance.”

“You had better go to bed, Kitty,” the Earl said.

“I won’t! I won’t!” she cried defiantly.

Then she swayed against him so that he was forced to support her with both arms.

“I’ll give you a hand, M’Lord,” a voice said, and Mrs. Jenkins put her arm round Kitty’s waist.

Together they propelled her down the corridor and into the magnificent room which had always been occupied by the Countesses of Chartwood.

As they reached the bed, the Earl realised that Kitty was no longer fighting. Her eyes were shut and she had gone limp.

“Out cold!” Mrs. Jenkins remarked. “I’ll put her to bed, Your Lordship.”

She too spoke in a slurred way, which made the Earl look at her sharply.

The Housekeeper’s face was very red and her hair was untidy. There was no doubt that she had been drinking.

She picked up Kitty’s legs by the ankles and flung them down with almost a disdainful action.

“You won’t be hearing from her, M’Lord, ‘til morning,” she said in an impertinent manner, “so Your Lordship’ll be sleeping – alone.”

The Earl frowned but he did not answer, and after a moment Mrs. Jenkins added,

“Everyone else is tied up nice and tidy. One gentleman, Sir Gilbert Something-or-other, gives me a guinea to tell him in which room your cousin is sleeping.”

The Earl stiffened.

He seemed about to say something. Then, as if he thought any rebuke would be useless, seeing the state Mrs. Jenkins was in, he turned and went from the room.

He walked down the corridor to where he knew the Rose Room was situated.

He had arranged the other bedrooms himself, but he would not have known where Pandora was had not she said at dinner,

“It is so lovely to be back here and to sleep in the Rose Room, where I have slept before.”

“Did you often stay here when you had a house in the village?” he had asked.

“Only when Papa and Mama went away on what they called ‘a second honeymoon.’ They so loved being alone together, but they could not afford to do so very often.”

The Earl had been about to ask her more about her life, but Kitty had demanded his attention, jealous that he should speak to any woman other than herself.

Now he reached the Rose Room, which was at the end of the corridor where the central part of the great house joined the West Wing.

For a moment he hesitated outside the door. There was no sound, but there was a light beneath the door and he was surprised that Pandora was still awake.

Very gently he tried the handle; it turned, and he opened the door and went in.

There were only two candles, both of which were guttering low on the table beside the bed.

Then as he looked round the silk curtains which fell from a corola fixed to the ceiling, he saw that Pandora was asleep.

She was lying against the pillows with her fair hair falling over her shoulders, and by her hand on top of the sheet was an open book.

The Earl drew a little nearer.

He stood looking down at her small heart-shaped face and at her long, natural eye-lashes like half moons silhouetted against her pale, translucent skin.

The candlelight seemed to pick out the gold in her hair, but it was very unlike the brilliance of Hettie’s and was instead the colour of dawn when it first appears in the East.

As if his scrutiny reached through her dreams and awakened her, Pandora opened her eyes.

For a moment she looked at him drowsily as if she was not certain who he was, then she gave a little exclamation and sat up.

“I fell asleep without blowing out – the candles,” she said in a horrified voice. “It is something Mama was always insistent I should not do in case I set the house on fire. Oh, I am – sorry!”

Her voice was so self-accusing that the Earl smiled.

“You were tired,” he said. “There is nothing more exhausting than being worried and perhaps afraid.”

“I am ashamed that I should have been afraid of Prosper Witheridge.”

She was quite unselfconscious, the Earl thought, of the fact that he was in her bedroom, and, for although he was her cousin, he was still a man.

She was wearing a lawn nightgown which fastened at the neck and had a little collar edged with lace and long sleeves with lace-edged frills that fell over her wrists.

She looked very young and very innocent, and after a moment the Earl said,

“I saw a light under your door and thought you must be still awake.”

Pandora looked down at her book.

“I took a book from the Library when I came upstairs. I was longing to read it again. It is one of my favourites.”

“What is it called?” the Earl enquired.

“Paradise
R
egained.
Do you not think Milton describes very convincingly what he imagined?”

“It is a long time since I read Milton,” the Earl answered cautiously. “I think I remember
Paradise Lost
better.”

“I hate that book! It is so depressing, so frightening, in fact it is rather like listening to Prosper Witheridge!”

“It is unlikely that you will have to listen to him again.”

“He will denounce me to my uncle in an even more violent fashion than he spoke about me – downstairs.”

“Forget him for tonight, at any rate,” the Earl said. “And as you like
Paradise Regained
so much, let me make you a present of it.”

He saw the look of delight in Pandora’s eyes. Then, when she would have thanked him, she checked the words.

“It is kind of you, but it is a very valuable book and it belongs here in the collection.”

“What does that matter?” the Earl enquired. “I am sure you will appreciate it far more than I or my guests would.”

There was a sarcastic twist to his lips as he thought of Kitty lying unconscious.

He knew she could hardly write, and it was very doubtful if she could read anything more difficult than the figures on a bank-note.

“If the books are borrowed and not returned, or are given away,” Pandora said after a moment, “it would be depriving your son of his inheritance and of course your grandsons and their sons.”

“My son?” the Earl repeated in surprise.

“Grandpapa told me a long time ago, when I was a very little girl,” Pandora explained, “that the Earls of Chartwood do not really possess what is here in the house. They are only Guardians of all the wonderful treasures for those who come after them.”

She looked anxiously at the Earl before she added,

“Perhaps you thought it impertinent of me when I was upset at dinner because the plate was broken, but the service was given to one of our ancestors by Madame de Pompadour, who took a great interest in the Sevres factory.”

She looked at the Earl with a worried look in her eyes in case he should be angry. Then she said,

“Mama always said they were too good to be used except on very – very special – occasions.”

“Tonight was a very special occasion as far as I am concerned,” the Earl said.

Pandora had the feeling that he was speaking automatically, just to argue with her.

“You enjoyed yourself?” she asked, and she was not being sarcastic.