Undesirable Liaison (10 page)

The description
of Letty’s sufferings was meagre, but enough to fuel his
imagination. Four weeks ago she had died?

‘In January
then,’ he said aloud.

‘Yes, for it
was the festive season when he left us.’

The familiar
stab of jealousy afflicted Jerome. ‘Who, Bodicote?’

‘Not he,’ said
Pinxton with contempt. ‘She left him more’n two years since.’
Something of her habitual manner returned. ‘I warned her, my lord,
but she wouldn’t listen. A Frenchie he was, who turned her head.
Oh, he’d a grand title on him then. Count Leonhard.’

Jerome’s
stomach turned. A damned Frenchman, was it? Then Frizington’s
information had been sound. There had been at least one other. How
many more? With an effort, he concentrated on what the maid was
saying.

‘I can’t
pronounce it right, but it don’t make no difference, for his title
did him no good. Mistress would go with him to Paris, despite all
the troubles they had there. She and the captain had spent months
there before all them revolutionaries started murdering everybody,
and Mistress loved the place. The count thought to bring his money
out, but instead he hardly managed to bring himself out, let alone
his gold.’

And the fiend
who had lured her away? ‘What of Bodicote?’

‘Still in Rome,
for anything I know.’

Expecting the
white heat of his rage to envelop him, Jerome instead felt a spasm
of empathy with the man who had robbed him of his dignity as well
as his wife. Letty had left him just as she had left Jerome. And
since then? He did not want to ask, but his tongue betrayed
him.

‘Were there any
others?’

The maid stared
up at him, half in question, half fearful. ‘Others, my lord?’

‘Besides
Bodicote and this French count. Were there other men?’

His jaw felt
tight, and he realised he was clenching his teeth as he awaited the
answer. Pinxton hesitated, a look of indecision in her face. Then
she shrugged.

‘It can’t hurt
her now. Others? Yes, there were others, my lord. She had them all
after her. She could have gone with any man she chose. But she
weren’t no lightskirt, my lord Langriville.’

He could not
forbear a harsh laugh. ‘Do you know the meaning of the word,
Pinxton?’

The abigail
leaped to her feet. ‘You don’t understand, my lord. You never
understood her. No one did, save I. It was
love
she needed.
Only she were too gullible to see it wasn’t what they was offering.
When she knew the captain cared more for her body than for her, she
looked for consolation and thought she’d found it. Matter of fact,
I think the count did love her. But he was too worn down by his own
misfortunes by the end.’

‘And was she
faithful to the count?’ Despising himself, Jerome could yet not
refrain from probing further.

The woman
shifted her shoulders, plonking down again on the daybed. ‘There
were a couple of occasions when she strayed. When he were unkind or
cross to her, like he was when we come to England. Even in Paris he
would go off his head like, prating of his troubles like it were
her fault.’ Catching her hands together, she wrung her fingers.
‘She wanted kindness. She wanted to be loved. Is that a crime?’

Unable to
remain still, Jerome shifted away, treading about the confined
space of the chamber in a state of barely suppressed agitation. It
was as much as to say
he
had been unkind. They had
quarrelled mightily on occasion. Had she sought consolation
elsewhere? Even then, had she betrayed him? Had there been others
before Bodicote? Damnation take you, Letty!

And Pinxton
would have him believe in this fairytale. No, my lady Langriville,
it would not do. Had he tortured himself for years, searching his
conscience, to be told at the end he had not loved enough? No,
Letty, no. You were a lady in name merely, a viscountess with the
morals of a harlot.

For the first
time in years, Jerome experienced a mild sensation of freedom. It
had little to do with his wife’s death. He had heard enough. If
Pinxton could tell him more, he did not wish to hear it. Not
now.

He went back to
the daybed, where the woman was still seated, but had turned to
watch him. His manner became brisk.

‘I will send my
lawyer to you. Frizington will do all that is necessary. An
arrangement will be made to find you somewhere to live, and to pay
you an annuity. You may regard Frizington as your channel to me,
should there be anything you wish to communicate. You have been a
loyal servant to your mistress, and I will reward you on her
behalf.’

Pinxton looked
amazed. ‘You are—very good, my lord.’

Jerome
permitted himself a moment of irony. ‘Your debt of gratitude is not
to me, Pinxton. If you wish to thank anyone, let it be Miss Petrie.
But for her, this conversation would never have taken place.’

***

The world,
thought Florence moodily, seemed sadly flat. Deposited on her
doorstep last night, she had been swept into regaling her eager
sister with the story of her doings. Her attention having been
otherwise taken up, Flo had forgotten the necessity to concoct a
suitably expurgated version of events. She was obliged to do it on
the spur of the moment, which made for a disjointed narrative that
had soon attracted notice.

‘What
is
the matter with you, Flossie?’

In an attempt
to avoid Belinda’s too observant gaze, Flo bent over the plate of
bread, cheese and cold mutton thoughtfully provided by Mrs
Halvergate.

‘Nothing is the
matter, dearest,’ she responded as lightly as she could. ‘I am a
trifle worn out, that is all.’

‘Yes, but
you’re not yourself,’ objected her sister. ‘I mean, you don’t
usually have any trouble stringing two words together. But you keep
stopping and starting—and changing what you are about to say. And
you haven’t in the least given me a picture of Lord
Langriville.’

What a picture
she might give! Taking refuge in sipping her tea, Flo cast about in
her mind for a way to speak the truth without revealing the whole
of her extraordinary intercourse with that impossible man.

‘Let me see,’
she pretended to ponder. ‘He is tall. Long in the leg, I thought.
He wears his hair long, too, and tied at the back in the
old-fashioned way.’

‘Then he is not
a man of fashion?’

‘Not at all. At
least,’ amended Flo, thinking about this, ‘he wears his clothes to
fit comfortably, I think. And I had the impression he does not go
about much in society.’

‘Because of his
wife?’ asked Bel in her forthright way. ‘I mean, she hasn’t been
living with him, has she? Was there a big scandal?’

She might have
known it would be impossible to keep her sister ignorant of the
more sordid aspects of the affair. Florence summoned her most
repressive manner.

‘If there was,
I was not told of it.’

‘Yes, but there
must have been, mustn’t there?’

‘Bel, do you
wish me to tell you about Lord Langriville, or are you more
interested in the supposed scandal? Of which, I may say, I know
nothing.’

Belinda set her
elbows on the table and dropped her chin into her cupped hands. ‘I
want to know about
him
. So, he wears long hair. What else?
What colour is it?’

‘Dark. As dark,
or even darker than mine, I think.’

‘He sounds
excessively handsome.’

Annoyed to feel
a rustle in her pulses, Flo thrust a piece of bread into her mouth
so she need not answer immediately. By the time she had swallowed
it, the annoyance was conquered.

‘I would not
consider him handsome. His nose is long, his jaw hard, and his eyes
set too deep in his head.’

‘Oh,’ said Bel,
disappointed.

‘Moreover,’
added Florence, warming to her theme, for it gave her satisfaction
to denigrate the wretch, ‘he has a horrid manner and a sarcastic
way of speech, and he is undoubtedly past thirty years of age.’

Belinda made a
face. ‘Lord, he’s
old
!’

Not from Flo’s
vantage point, but she suppressed the irritating thought.

‘And was he
glad to get the ruby back?’

Forgetting
caution, Florence let fly. ‘Glad? I dare say one might have thought
he would be, but nothing would do for him but to suppose I had an
ulterior motive in bringing the dratted thing to his home.’

Too late, she
noted her sister’s mouth drop open in astonishment. ‘What?’

‘Oh, it was
nothing,’ she lied, trying to retrieve her slip. ‘I suppose anyone
might have been suspicious. After all, he knew nothing of me. Only
I had gone to so much trouble it affected me not a little.’

‘Yes, I can see
that,’ stated Bel with alarming candour. ‘I’ll wager you lost your
temper. I know you, Flossie, when you get upon your high ropes. I
shall never forget the way you spoke to Cousin Warsash when he
didn’t want us to go away.’

‘That was
different,’ Flo defended herself.

Except it was
not so very different, now she thought about it. The Reverend
Warsash’s insulting remarks had impugned Mama’s honour and she
would not endure it.

Belinda was
beginning to look sulky. ‘You did lose your temper, didn’t you? I
might have known you would ruin everything, if you could.’

‘How have I
ruined everything?’ demanded Florence, stung by this attack.

‘You wouldn’t
sell the ruby,’ stated her sister, counting the offence off on one
finger. ‘Even when Lady Langriville turned out to be dead, you
refused to take what anyone else must have considered the sensible
course. Then, when you take the jewel to Lord Langriville, and get
to meet him, what do you do? You quarrel with him, so that any hope
of his rewarding you must have vanished completely.’

A tide of
indignation swept through Flo’s breast. ‘Rewarding me? You think I
would accept a reward from Lord Langriville?’

‘Well, if you
wouldn’t, you must be all about in your head! Really, Flo, you
carry a thing too far. We know the ruby is worth a thousand pounds.
It would be only fair to give you a share of it. A hundred at
least, or perhaps two hundred.’

Pushing away
her plate, Florence rose from the table. ‘If he offered me
five
hundred, I would throw it back at him!’

With which,
ignoring her sister’s stupefied expression, she walked into the
bedchamber and slammed the door, throwing the bolt across. Striding
to the bed, she sat down, glaring at one of the posts. Furious with
herself, with his lordship and now with her sister, Flo knew not
who to curse first.

Why she should
be moved so she had no notion. It was not as if she had parted from
Lord Langriville in anger. Indeed, he had spoken kindly as he said
his farewells, intimating he would communicate with her again. He
had not said why. Perhaps it was for that very purpose? Did he
intend to offer her a reward? It was no doubt generous of him, if
it was so, but Florence did not want it.

Why the thought
should be anathema to her, she could not fathom. Her funds were
meagre, and rapidly dwindling. Moreover, there had been not one
sniff of a possible post, despite her responses to at least five
advertisements the week before. She would hate to be obliged to sue
again to her mother’s family for assistance.

She had half
hoped, for Bel’s sake, for the offer of a home from one or other of
the several branches of the Forsbrook family. The three who deigned
to reply had sent bills. Added together, they amounted to less than
one hundred and fifty pounds, but she had thought it a great deal
at the time. Enough to put her plan into action. A little over a
hundred remained, expenses having proved higher than anticipated.
She desperately needed money. Yet, for some inexplicable reason,
the thought of receiving it from his lordship was not to be borne.
As if she had indeed harboured an ulterior motive.

Was that what
rankled? His suspicions—which, to be fair, he had retracted—had
made of her deed a sordid thing, and she could not forgive him.

She had just
reached this conclusion when a tentative knock came at the
door.

‘Flo?
Flossie?’

Florence rose
from the bed and went to open the door. Belinda’s face of hopeful
enquiry had the effect of making her smile. She reached out to hug
her sister.

‘I am sorry,
Bel. I am a shrew, am I not? I am afraid I was excessively put out
today, and I am so tired it all came back to me in a bang.’

To her relief,
Belinda accepted this, offering to brew another pot of tea, if it
would calm her sister. Flo was tempted to protest they could not
afford it, but this was an olive branch and she must not upset the
poor child again.

‘Yes, pray do
so. I should like it of all things.’

The remainder
of the evening was beguiled with a description, such as Flo could
manage, of his lordship’s house, his servants and his well-sprung
chaise. Knowing just what items would hold her sister’s interest,
she managed to keep off the subject of what had occurred at Bedfont
House.

***

Come the
morning, despite having slept late, Florence found herself tired,
restless and a little out of sorts. Setting Belinda to read a
passage in French, for she insisted the child’s studies must
continue, she donned her cloak and hat and took herself out for a
walk on the pretext of purchasing the daily journal in order to
study the advertisements.

The
restlessness persisted as she made brisk progress through the
drizzle that dampened the streets. It was chilly, and Flo was
inclined to regret her decision not to wear the new greatcoat dress
instead of her threadbare riding habit. Although Lord Langriville
had insisted she take it—‘You bought it in good faith, and I have
no wish to possess it, God knows!’—Florence found she could not
this morning overcome her reluctance to put it on. A foolish show
of sensibility in her straitened circumstances, but the sad history
of the garment could not but obtrude upon her mind.