The Shadow of Sin (Bantam Series No. 19) Page 14

  “Why extraordinary?” the Earl asked.

  “Since you won her brother’s Estate at cards it would seem strange that she should be on nodding acquaintance with you, let alone being the Belle of your Ball!”

  The Earl made no comment and his friend, who knew him well, realised he did not wish to talk about it

  At the same time Charles Kepple could not help saying mischievously:

  “I hear Lady Imogen’s nose is out of joint! A good thing too!”

  Still the Earl said nothing and Charles Kepple, who was always irrepressible, continued:

  “You know she has been telling everyone that you and she are to be married in the Autumn? I am thinking that after what they saw last night, no-one in future is likely to believe her.”

  The Earl looked startled.

  “Had she really gone as far as that?”

  “And a good deal further, but I will not bore you with the details.”

  “No, I do not wish to hear them. Let us go into luncheon.”

  They talked of racing and other more immediate matters until it was time for the Earl to leave for Carlton House.

  The King hurried across the room the moment he was announced.

  “I am glad you could come, Meltham. I must have your advice.”

  “About what, Sire?” the Earl asked in surprise.

  He had been quite certain, as he had told his Secretary, that the reason he had been invited to Carlton House was to talk over details of the Coronation. “About the Queen,” the King replied.

  “What has happened? What has Her Majesty done?” the Earl asked hastily.

  He felt it could not be anything very dramatic or else Charles Kepple and other members of his Club would have heard about it.

  “She is ill!” the King answered.

  “But Her Majesty was well enough yesterday when she tried to get into the Abbey,” the Earl replied.

  “I have heard about that,” the King answered. “But apparently when she reached home she collapsed and is drugging herself on laudanum and other medicines. I am informed she is really ill.”

  The Earl was well aware that the King had his spies in the Queen’s House-Hold and, if he had been told that Her Majesty was really ill, then it was likely to be the truth.

  “There is nothing you can do about it, Sire,” he said firmly.

  “What is worrying me,” the King said, “and why I need your advice, is that I am making arrangements to visit Ireland. If the Queen gets worse and dies, would I have to cancel my visit? It would cause a great deal of commotion! As you can imagine, State Visits are expensive for all concerned.”

  The Earl thought for a moment.

  He was not surprised that the King had consulted him on what was really a political issue.

  On a number of occasions as Regent, the King had found his advice far more sensible and unbiased than those of his Statesmen.

  “I should go ahead with your preparations, Sire,” the Earl said. “After all, no-one will expect you to mourn excessively if the Queen dies.”

  He himself thought it was unlikely that the Queen’s condition was as bad as it was being made out to be.

  At the same time, she was such an unpredictable woman that it would be quite in character for her to die at an inconvenient time, just to spite her husband.

  “No, you are right. A few days should be sufficient,” the King said reflectively. “Besides, I am most anxious to go to Ireland. At the same time...”

  He paused for a moment, then said in a low voice:

  “As you are well aware, Meltham, I dislike having to leave Lady Conyngham.”

  The Earl was amused.

  Everyone knew that the previous year the King had fallen overwhelmingly in love with the fat, kindly, religious, rapacious Lady Conyngham, who was fifty-two.

  She had been married for twenty-seven years and had four grown-up children.

  Her beauty was beginning to fade and she had never been particularly intelligent.

  Yet the King adored her!

  What was more, Lady Conyngham was making the very most of his infatuation.

  Sir Benjamin Bloomfield, Keeper of the Privy Purse, said quite openly:

  “It is quite shameful the way in which Lady Conyngham is covered with jewels. I believe the King has given her a hundred thousand pounds’ worth.”

  This was not surprising as Lady Conyngham was exceptionally fond of jewellery.

  One of her proudest possessions was a sapphire surrounded by brilliants which had belonged to the Stuarts and had been given by Cardinal York to the King.

  The Pamphleteers and Cartoonists had enjoyed a field-day, drawing and describing the love-affair between two elderly and exceedingly fat people.

  All London had laughed only the previous week at a couplet which ran:

  Quaffing their claret, then mingling their lips,

  Or tickling the fat about each other’s lips.

  The King, who had always been emotional and theatrical in all his love-affairs, had not changed with the years.

  The Princess Leven, wife of the Russian Ambassador, had related that the King had told her he had “never known what it was like to be in love before,” and he would do anything on earth for Lady Conyngham, as “she is an angel sent from Heaven for me.”

  Looking at the worried expression on the King’s face, the Earl realised now that he was definitely perturbed at the thought of going to Ireland without Lady Conyngham at his side, and he could not help feeling sorry for him.

  No-one knew better than the Earl how lonely the King felt at times.

  Despite his innumerable love-affairs, the King would have been happier as a husband and a father.

  He had always fallen in love with women older than himself, which showed his sense of insecurity, but he adored having his advice asked by the young.

  As if he felt the Earl’s sympathy the King said:

  “I have something to show you, Meltham.”

  The Earl fancied he would have to admire a new picture or expensive Objet d’art such as the King purchased almost every day of his life.

  But to his surprise when the King led him into an Ante-Room he saw lying on one of the sofas a pile of children’s toys.

  There were dolls and lead soldiers, boxes of ninepins, play-horses, miniature farm-yards, and games and toys of every description.

  The Earl stared at them in astonishment and the King said:

  “These of course are for the Conynghams. I want you to realise, Meltham, how much it means that I can share their family life and how deeply I regret now never having had such a family of my own.”

  The Earl was silent.

  He saw that the King’s eyes were misting as they always did when he thought of his only child, the Princess Charlotte, who two years ago had died in child-birth.

  Then he went on:

  “But I am fortunate, Meltham, very fortunate that Lady Conyngham has come into my life and changed it completely.”

  The Earl had picked up a doll with fair hair.

  “I love her children,” the King was saying, “as if they were my own! You will be interested, I know, to see a letter from her younger daughter, Maria, who wrote to me only this morning.”

  As he spoke the King proudly drew a letter from his pocket.

  The Earl put down the doll and read the letter. He saw it was very affectionate.

  “I am glad this can bring you such happiness, Sire,” he said.

  “And you still think I should go to Ireland?”

  “Yes, I am convinced Your Majesty should do so,” the Earl replied. “Your Irish subjects will be overwhelmingly delighted to see you.”

  “Then I shall go on with my arrangements,” the King said firmly.

  The King then insisted on taking the Earl to inspect some new pictures which had just arrived from Holland and a sketch that had been made of the Coronation.

  By the time the Earl returned home it was definitely far too late to leave for the count
ry.

  He was therefore determined to go to Wroxley Priory the following morning.

  There again however he was circumvented by his Secretary, who remembered that he had promised to speak in a Debate that was taking place that afternoon in the House of Lords.

  As he had seen the Peer whose Bill he was supporting the previous day when he had lunched at his Club, the Earl felt it would be unnecessarily rude to default at the last moment.

  He therefore was obliged to repair to the House of Lords to make an eloquent and erudite speech to which he was quite certain none of the Peers listened.

  It was six o’clock before eventually he could leave London.

  He drove his own phaeton and moving swiftly through the traffic he thought with satisfaction that he would reach Wroxley Priory in time for a late dinner.

  Celesta had awakened that morning determined that she would try to persuade Giles that she could not marry Lord Crawthorne.

  She had gone to bed in tears after realising that having finished a second bottle of brandy her brother was in no fit state to listen to whatever she might have to say on the subject.

  When she was alone in the darkness of her small room, she had cried uncontrollably and despairingly, and had known it was not only because her future was dominated by Lord Crawthorne, but also because she had lost the Earl.

  She admitted to herself now that she had thought almost exclusively of him ever since they had first met.

  He had always been there in her thoughts, and in some strange way he was already a part of her life.

  When they had danced together at his Ball she had felt it somehow symbolic of how close they were to each other in everything they thought and felt.

  She went over and over again in her mind the subjects they had discussed that first night when she had dined with the Earl at the Priory.

  She had believed that she hated him not only because he had won her home at cards but also because he had kissed her.

  She now knew that the feeling she had for him from the very beginning was because he disturbed her as a man.

  He was so vitally masculine, and yet strangely she was not afraid of him as she was of Lord Crawthorne.

  Instead he gave her a feeling of safety which she had not known since her mother had run away.

  But the Earl was to be married and now he was lost to her for ever.

  She could not understand why he had been so kind or indeed so flattering when his heart was already engaged with Lady Imogen.

  Then she told herself humbly that it was because she was of no consequence. She was outside the bounds of Society and therefore he could treat her as a light woman, a prospective mistress.

  And yet he had asked her to his Ball and introduced her to his friends.

  What was more, he deliberately invited their comments by singling her out for his attentions.

  Celesta could not understand it at all; yet she felt there must be an explanation.

  Whatever it was, she felt as if her brain would not function, could not sort out any problem, however simple, because the pain in her heart could only make her weep.

  She cried and cried and awoke in the morning looking very pale with dark lines under her eyes.

  “Lawks-a-merry! What have you been doing to yourself, Miss Celesta?” Nana exclaimed as soon as she saw her.

  Celesta did not answer and Nana went on:

  “I knows as how you don’t want to marry His Lordship, dearie. At the same time you couldn’t go on living for ever in this Cottage with only me to look after you. You’re too beautiful, and that’s the truth. It would end in trouble sooner or later!”

  “Nothing could be worse trouble than it is at the moment,” Celesta said in a low voice. “I hate His Lordship! I would rather handle a snake than endure his kisses!”

  Nana sighed but she offered no solution.

  Celesta knew that actually Nana was relieved that she had received an offer of marriage.

  The slights and snubs she had had to endure after her mother ran away had hurt not only her, they had hurt Nana too.

  Now, however repulsive the bride-groom, she would be Lady Crawthorne and entitled to the respect and courtesy of those who had ostracised her in the past.

  “Yet I would rather scrub floors or beg in the streets than be married to such a man!” Celesta told herself.

  When Giles finally appeared downstairs just before luncheon she knew by the expression in his eyes when he looked at her that she would receive no sympathy from him.

  He had everything to gain by her marriage, and while she was certain that Lord Crawthorne would soon grow bored with being generous to his brother-in-law, Giles was content for the moment.

  He had the chance to escape from the confines of the tiny Cottage and he craved for London in the same way he craved for drink.

  The afternoon passed slowly, but it was a relief to remember that Lord Crawthorne had said he would not come that day but the day after.

  ‘Giles had said we were to marry quickly,’ Celesta thought. ‘How quickly and where will it take place?’

  She felt sick at the thought of being the wife of a man she loathed and detested, and yet there seemed little she could do.

  She knew only too well that when Giles was determined about something it was impossible to make him change his mind.

  He was quite capable, if it suited him, of dragging her up the aisle and she knew that he intended to watch her every movement until the ring was actually on her finger.

  She felt so tired and listless after the tears she had shed all night that when Nana suggested she should lie down in the afternoon she agreed.

  She went up to her room and while she lay on her bed she found herself going over and over in her mind the impossible position in which she found herself.

  She knew that had she not known that the Earl was engaged to be married, she would have gone to him and begged him to save her.

  But she had seen Lady Imogen’s face at the Ball when he told her why he had not taken her down to supper, and Celesta was well aware that she had made an implacable enemy.

  Under the circumstances how could she ask the Earl to rescue her? Indeed there was nothing he could do since she was under age and Giles was her Guardian.

  She told herself that probably the Earl and Lady Imogen had had a quarrel and that was why he had ignored her at the Ball.

  Doubtless after she and Giles had left for the country they had made it up.

  She imagined the Earl’s lips on Lady Imogen’s exquisite curved mouth, and the pain of such a thought was almost unbearable.

  Celesta remembered the firm possessiveness of his lips.

  It made her feel again that strange, warm, insidious rapture which crept over her until the world slipped away, leaving nothing but the strength of his arms and the pressure of his mouth.

  “It was love!” she told herself.

  Very slowly the tears gathered in her eyes and ran down her cheeks.

  Later she must have slept for a little while because when Nana came in she woke with a start.

  Then she knew she had been happy because she had imagined that once again she had been dancing with the Earl.

  “It’ll soon be dinner-time, dearie,” Nana said, “and Master Giles is downstairs alone drinking. You’d best go and talk to him.”

  “I should not have left him alone,” Celesta said, rising from the bed.

  She realised as she did so that Nana was hesitating near the door as if she had something to say.

  “What is it, Nana?”

  “I’ve just heard,” Nana answered, “that they’re expecting His Lordship at the Priory this evening.”

  Celesta felt her heart give a sudden leap. Then she told herself that she had no right to feel that way.

  “What time is he arriving, Nana?”

  The question was out before she could prevent it.

  “I’ve no idea,” Nana answered, “but apparently His Lordship is expected alone.”
>
  ‘I shall see him! I shall see him!’

  Celesta felt her heart singing the words.

  She felt herself come alive. The dark despair which had made her lethargic all day seemed to slip away from her.

  But he was engaged to be married!

  A picture of Lady Imogen’s lovely face swam in front of Celesta’s eyes—the dark-fringed green eyes, the flaming red hair!

  How could she bear to think of them together? Suddenly Celesta knew what she must do.

  The idea was so revolutionary she could only stand still, uncertain whether it had come into her mind involuntarily or whether somebody had suggested it to her.

  Nana had gone downstairs.

  “I will leave tomorrow,” Celesta told herself.

  Then going to a cupboard in her room she seldom used, she looked inside.

  Hanging beside the gown she had worn at the Earl’s Ball were the other garments that her mother had sent her from Paris over the last four years.

  On the floor in white boxes were presents she had received on her birthday and at Christmas, or sometimes on random occasions.

  Celesta looked at them for a long time. Then she shut the door and, creeping along the passage so that neither Giles nor Nana should hear her, she went up the tiny narrow stairs which led to the attic.

  Here, neatly piled, were the trunks which had come with them from the Priory.

  There was a small leather box with a curved top that was not too heavy. This Celesta carried down, negotiating the stairs with some difficulty, and took it into her bed-room.

  She would have to think of some way in which, having packed it, she could get it to the Stage-coach without Giles being aware that she was leaving.

  Nana would help her, she was sure of that, even though she might disapprove of what she was going to do.

  But whatever happened, Giles must not learn her intentions.

  All his plans for her marriage and his own return to London would be destroyed if she went away.

  “Mama is the only person who can help me now,” Celesta told herself.

  She hid the trunk and went downstairs to the Sitting-Room.

  The Church clock struck two and Celesta, who had turned and twisted in her bed since ten o’clock, rose to pull back the curtains from the window.