The Scandal of the Season (24 page)

While the Blount girls and Alexander were busy with their thoughts, Lord Petre made conversation with Lord Salisbury—they had been edged away from the ladies by the Duke of Beaufort, who was determined to claim the lion's share of their attention.

“You have land in Barbados, do you not?” asked Lord Petre.

“Sugar,” Lord Salisbury replied with a complacent smile, reaching out to take a handful of cherries. He threw a couple into his mouth and removed the pits, dropping them carelessly onto the tablecloth near where Martha was sitting. He ignored her upward glance and continued to speak. “It has made my fortune, and required almost no exertion on my own part.”

“Indeed!” Lord Petre exclaimed. “How can that be so, my lord?” He looked down at Martha with a sympathetic smile and moved the cherry pits.

“I need never go out there,” Lord Salisbury mumbled through a mouthful of fruit. “My slaves come from a reputable trader, who travels to Africa himself. He always gets me excellent men; women, too, I believe. The plantation never gives me a moment's anxiety, and it costs me nearly nothing when I think of what it costs to maintain the estate in England.”

“But slaves are said to be quite expensive,” Lord Petre replied with casual confidence. “‘Black Ivory,' are they not?” He was pleased to have remembered the phrase Douglass had used.

Lord Salisbury looked suspicious at the note of challenge in Lord Petre's question. “It is all about having the right trader,” he answered, sounding put out. “Edward Fairfax got me into a scheme out there. We pay the trader, and he delivers the slaves to us directly, with no grasping middlemen to swindle us along the way. Fairfax tells me that is the key.”

Lady Mary Pierrepont, who had been standing to the side of their group listening to the conversation, asked, “But what if something should happen to his cargo?” Lord Salisbury gave her a hostile glance, but Lady Mary ignored it, blithely unconcerned for his opinion.

“Nothing does happen to the cargo,” Lord Salisbury said irritably. “We pay him for three hundred slaves, and he delivers them. Well, he delivers about two hundred and fifty in the end; we lose a few along the way.”

“You lose a few slaves?” Lady Mary repeated with a laugh. “Where do they get lost, between Africa and Barbados?”

“Some of them die on the voyage over,” he replied. But he said it somewhat vaguely, Lord Petre thought. He wondered whether anybody had questioned Lord Salisbury about the arrangement before now. “I daresay they are sickening before the boat sets out from Africa,” he added. “But the captain throws any dead slaves over the side, to stop the disease from spreading.”

Lord Petre and Lady Mary both nodded. “It sounds a capital scheme,” said Lord Petre. “But there is one detail in your account that puzzles me. How can three hundred men fit into a boat the size of a slave ship? I do not think it possible.”

“Oh, they stand in rows—like books on a shelf,” Lord Salisbury replied airily. “They do not need much room. They are chained together, of course, for otherwise they try to make trouble. The crew has beds, I suppose, but I imagine those are strung from the rafters or some such.”

“Good Lord,” said Lady Mary. “Three hundred men back to back, with fifty of them on the verge of death. The smell must be infernal.”

“Well, the traders grow rich enough from it,” said Lord Salisbury, defensively. “We pay them amply for their pains.”

Lord Petre was about to ask him how this could be consistent with his claim that the plantation cost nothing to run, but their conversation was interrupted by Henrietta Oldmixon, who sprang energetically to her feet and turned to the duke.

“The champagne is making me restless,” she announced. “And Your Grace has promised me riding. Will you take me to the Ring?”

“By all means, madam,” the duke replied with a bow. “I came equipped expressly for the pleasure, with a second horse, saddled for a lady.” And he led them away.

Lord Salisbury promptly offered his arm to his wife, and they walked off to mount their own horses; an additional horse for Lady Salisbury had of course been brought. This left Arabella and Lord Petre, on whom all the eyes of the party were now trained. Alexander noted that Lady Mary had already retreated to her nearby carriage.

“I know better than to offer you a horse, Miss Fermor,” Lord Petre declaimed. “Your refusal ever to ride when you are in town is famous. But I should like to offer myself as your cavalier, and invite you to sit pillion with me.”

Even now, Teresa hoped that Lord Petre might recall that, in the very conversation to which he had just alluded, her own excellence as a horsewoman had also been discussed. But Lord Petre either did not remember, or did not wish to acknowledge Teresa's skill.

The three couples rode away in the direction of the Ring, and Jervas, Alexander, Martha, and Teresa were left under the trees among half a dozen empty champagne bottles and a threadbare collection of guests. Jervas did his best to cheer the girls up, but the wind had gone out of their morning's pleasures. Teresa proposed a walk along the promenade that joined Hyde Park to the Palace in Kensington Village, and the others agreed to it. Alexander offered Teresa his arm, and was happy to find that she took it with a grateful smile.

 

When Arabella and Lord Petre arrived at the Ring, it was filled with carriages and equipages of every description. Coats of arms shone on the bright side panels of the doors; liveried footmen bristled to attention and nodded haughtily to servants in other coaches. Doors opened to unload their fashionable cargo in a bright shimmer of feathers and silks.

Into the midst of all this splendor rode Arabella and her cavalier. They entered with a confidence that spoke of their absolute certainty of being the most handsome and enviable of the people gathered there. Lord Petre turned to pass a pleasantry to her, bowing his head close enough to make their intimacy unmistakable. Arabella was exquisitely conscious of it. But she displayed exactly the degree of self-assurance to suggest that although she knew she must be constantly observed, she was indifferent to public attention.

After a couple of circuits around the Ring they dismounted to greet their friends. Lady Salisbury and Henrietta Oldmixon saluted them with peals of laughter from atop their high-gloss horses, and the Duke of Beaufort and Lord Salisbury approached on foot with other acquaintances whom they had met while riding. Everybody was talking merrily when Lord Petre touched Arabella on the elbow.

“Will you excuse me a moment?” he asked. “I see that my friend James Douglass is on the other side of the Ring.”

Arabella followed his glance to where Douglass was standing, and observed that he was watching them closely.

“Of course!” she said, though aware that she disliked Douglass's steady, piercing gaze. She guessed that the meeting must have something to do with the plan Lord Petre had talked about on their memorable day in his rooms, and she looked at the others self-consciously, expecting them to ask her why Lord Petre was leaving. But they were distracted by the Duke of Beaufort's friends, and had not noticed.

Lord Petre had known all along that Douglass would be in the Ring that afternoon. They had arranged to meet. Whenever he had looked across while he rode with Arabella, Douglass had returned the look, nodding discreetly so that Lord Petre alone would observe it. For the first time, Lord Petre found that he did not want to see him. He was loath to part with Arabella, suddenly aware that by involving her in the secret meeting, he had unwittingly placed her in danger. But he knew that he must hear Douglass's news.

As Lord Petre rode up, Douglass said, “You are handsomely mounted today, my lord.”

Lord Petre ignored his jaunty tone of voice. “Have you been waiting long?”

“Since the hour arranged,” Douglass replied. “I passed the time making love to my Lady Sandwich. As she has never received more than ten minutes' attention from another man in her life, I fancy that she doubted the sincerity of my advances.” He laughed. How cruel it sounded. “I thought that Miss Fermor would never tire of sitting on your horse's rump and smiling at the crowd,” Douglass finished.

But then his mood changed abruptly. “I received today a message from Lancashire,” he said quietly.

The baron instantly became grave. “Is there news from France?”

Douglass seemed about to reply, when his face clouded over; he caught sight of someone over Lord Petre's shoulder. “I shall meet you tonight,” he said quickly. “The Pen and Hand in Shoreditch. At nine o'clock.” And he was gone.

When Lord Petre turned around he saw Lady Castlecomber waiting to take his arm.

“You seemed in mighty spirits earlier, my lord,” she said.

“Hello, Charlotte,” he replied, disconcerted by her sudden appearance. “I had not seen that you were here.” He wondered whether she had overheard the exchange with Douglass.

“I attribute your good humor rather to the influence of Miss Fermor than to your companion with the chestnut horse,” she said. “For I assume that it is Arabella that you came here to see—not him.”

Lord Petre was relieved, and chose not to answer her directly. “James Douglass makes better company than you might suppose,” he replied.

“Ah, so that gentleman is James Douglass,” she said. “According to my husband, he is still in Africa. One shudders to imagine what he does there.”

“He returned to England many months ago. News travels slowly.”

“Some news more slowly than others, I think you will agree. In any case, I must upbraid you for keeping company with Mr. Douglass. I had not thought you would have such unsavory friends.”

He looked at her sharply, but saw from her face that she meant nothing serious by the remark. “It has not been my custom in the past, as you know,” he said.

“Nor do I imagine that it will be your habit in the future,” she replied. “Let us call your present situation an unfortunate interlude.”

“Shall I ask whether you refer to more than my relationship with Mr. Douglass?”

“Not if you wish me to be candid with you, Robert.”

He smiled.

“It is pleasant to see you, Charlotte.”

“And to see you. But I will not flatter you further by saying that I miss you, for ours is a friendship that must withstand the trial of periodic interruptions.”

“You have always expressed yourself felicitously, Lady Castlecomber,” he replied, as they joined the group in which Arabella was standing.

 

When Teresa and Martha left the picnic spot with Alexander and Jervas, they were in pairs—Teresa and Alexander in front, Martha and Jervas behind. Martha was not so fast a walker as her sister, and she had far less impatience to be gone from the picnic ground, so she and Jervas meandered behind the others.

Teresa was relieved to be away from the party, and glad to have Alexander to take her arm. The sight of Lord Petre and Arabella riding together had left her feeling very low. She did not know exactly what the degree of their relationship was, but it was apparent that they were intimate. She could deceive herself no longer; she was not the object of Lord Petre's attention. The truth was all the more bitter for her feeling that she should have admitted it long before now.

In a much subdued frame of mind, she began to cast her mind back over the recent history of her friendship with Alexander. She remembered the ill-fated day in St. James's Park—he had rescued her at the very moment when she felt most alone after being slighted by Arabella and Lord Petre. The memory embarrassed her. She should not have hurried off with James Douglass. When Alexander had seen her crying in the lime-tree walk, her feelings of humiliation had been all the more acute for knowing that she had behaved meanly toward him earlier. She was relieved to see Lord Petre paying attention to Alexander at the picnic today; his professed admiration must be real. Alexander deserved that, at least.

Where were they gone, the old, easy days of their friendship? She forced herself to acknowledge that she behaved badly on almost every occasion that she and Alexander had been together since coming to town. When he visited her on the day after the episode with Douglass, she had slighted him, showing off because Lord Petre, in a moment of perfunctory hospitality, had invited her to his picnic. Alexander had been hurt, she was sure, but in spite of this he continued to attend her, walking beside her without so much as a chastening glance.

Alexander interrupted these disconsolate reflections by saying, “I believe that Lord Petre has not been admitted to the pleasure of seeing you ride.”

“He has not,” Teresa replied, startled to hear him speak. “But how did you know?”

“Had he seen you,” Alexander answered, “he would not have allowed such an opportunity to pass without begging you to perform once again.”

“You are kind, Alexander,” she replied sincerely. She paused, and then added in a modest voice that was very different from the tone he was used to, “I do ride well, and it pleases me to hear you say it. And yet I feel that it is impossible to have any share of notice when my cousin Bell is by. She simply does not allow it.” She hesitated again. “But then, Arabella is so very handsome, and always so lively. She makes excellent company.”