Minerva Read online

  ‘I think we should move on,’ Minerva was saying.

  ‘Oh, what? Oh, yes, by Jove, quite, quite. I say …’ He stopped abruptly again, put a hand to his ear, leaned towards the dark shadow of some bushes and said, ‘Hist!’

  ‘Hist what?’ said Minerva, thinking that Mr Fresne was too stagey for words.

  ‘Oh, list and hist,’ went on Mr Fresne. ‘I hear a little pussy cat in distress.’

  ‘I am histing and listing for all I am worth and I do not hear any cat.’

  ‘But,’ pursued Mr Fresne, ‘I distinctly heard it. I cannot bear the thought of an animal in distress.’

  Minerva hesitated. And then from the blackness of the shrubbery came a distinct miaow.

  ‘There really is a cat!’ exclaimed Minerva.

  ‘So there is,’ cried Mr Fresne, sending up a prayer of thanks to that God who looks after Dandies.

  ‘Then we must certainly rescue it,’ said Minerva. She hesitated again. ‘Perhaps it is not in any difficulty at all but simply just miaowing to … to pass the time.’

  At that the unseen cat gave a terrible strangled cry and all Minerva’s doubts fled. She plunged into the undergrowth followed closely by Mr Fresne.

  The bushes closed behind them, shutting out the lights of the party, enclosing them in warm darkness.

  ‘Miaow,’ said the cat, plaintively, from quite close by.

  Mr Fresne forgot about the cat. He was alone with Minerva in the warm darkness. He could smell the flower perfume she wore. He threw his arms around her and crushed her to his buckram-wadded chest.

  ‘Mr Fresne!’ cried Minerva, struggling as hard as she could. ‘The cat!’

  ‘A pox on the cat,’ said Mr Fresne thickly. He imprisoned her chin in one large hand and his lips sought hers.

  Mr Fresne had thought the welcome darkness was due to the shrubbery. But the moon, which had briefly sailed behind a cloud, cruised out again, and he found himself looking down into the blackness of Minerva’s furious eyes.

  ‘Miaow,’ said a mocking voice at his ear.

  There was something so very human about that last miaow that Mr Fresne twisted his head round.

  Lord Sylvester was sitting on the low branch of a tree, his head a little above Mr Fresne’s.

  ‘Miaow,’ he said conversationally.

  ‘Why you …’ spluttered Mr Fresne.

  ‘Let Miss Armitage go,’ said Lord Sylvester lazily.

  ‘How dare you trick me!’ cried Mr Fresne, releasing Minerva and immediately adopting a boxing stance. ‘Come down and fight, you coxcomb. I’ll draw your cork for you.’

  He danced towards Lord Sylvester, jabbing with his fists, as if shadow boxing, fully expecting his lordship to drop from his branch in sheer terror.

  Lord Sylvester studied his antics with some amusement and then suddenly his foot shot out and caught Mr Fresne so hard in the chest that that surprised gentleman went hurtling back into the undergrowth with a tremendous crash.

  ‘Please take my arm, Miss Armitage,’ said Lord Sylvester, climbing down easily from his perch and leading Minerva away. He held back branches for her and soon had her safely out on the walk again.

  There was an ominous silence from the shrubbery behind.

  ‘Perhaps he was hurt,’ ventured Minerva.

  ‘Only in his dignity. You must learn not to wander into the bushes with strange gentlemen, Miss Armitage.’

  ‘I would not have gone had I not heard a cat in distress. And you were that cat, my lord.’

  ‘But you might have been tricked in any case. I had to teach you to be on your guard.’

  ‘There was no reason to give me such a cruel lesson,’ said Minerva hotly. ‘I was in no danger of going into the shrubbery with Mr Fresne and in no danger of believing his story about a cat if it had not been for your assistance.’

  ‘We shall see,’ said his lordship pleasantly. ‘Do stop trying to tear your arm away, Miss Armitage. Remember you enlisted my help. It will not do your reputation one whit of good to be seen struggling with me.’

  ‘Where are you taking me?’

  ‘We are merely going for some refreshment. Now you must appear quite enchanted by my company.’

  ‘But that will surely repel a possible suitor.’

  ‘Not a bit of it. I am very fashionable, you know.’

  ‘And smug.’

  ‘And honest. Come, we are ruining this delightful setting and your lessons are about to begin in earnest. First of all, you must imagine yourself madly in love with me …’

  ‘My lord!’

  ‘… madly in love with me. You tremble at my touch. You wish the night would never end. You wish all these squawking and giggling people would vanish and leave us alone with the night.’

  ‘You are ridiculous.’

  ‘Only practical. I am quite prepared to make a cake of myself … I beg your pardon … imagine myself equally in love with you.’

  ‘Well … well … perhaps we could pretend. But not too much,’ said Minerva nervously. ‘I must find a suitor, you know.’

  ‘You will. Everyone loves competition.’

  He pushed open the glass door of the hothouse. The air was sticky and humid and heavy with the scent of plants and flowers. A tiny fountain of champagne was surrounded by a group of noisy young people.

  ‘Don’t drink that,’ said Lord Sylvester. ‘It’s bound to be flat. It uses the same champagne over and over again.’

  He skilfully found them a small table in a corner, two plates of delicacies, wine for himself and a glass of ratafia for Minerva.

  She sipped the almond-flavoured liqueur and looked about her with interest.

  ‘It is most odd,’ she remarked. ‘I was taught that everywhere I went in London society, I would find rigid manners and decorum. But here … everyone seems so abandoned somehow. Some of the ladies are very drunk and most of the chaperones are absent.’

  ‘The secret is not in how one behaves. The secret is not to be found out in a misdemeanour. That society will never forgive. Minerva, your eyes are great dark pools in the lamplight and your hair glows like the raven’s wing.’

  ‘It’s no use trying,’ said Minerva. ‘I feel embarrassed.’

  ‘You are not trying. I have convinced myself for the moment that I am in love with you and find it all very pleasurable. Look at me!’

  Minerva looked into his eyes. How very green they were!

  ‘Now, no one is watching. Take my hand.’

  Almost hypnotised by that steady green gaze, she held out her hand and felt it enclosed in his long fingers.

  He gently ran his thumb across her palm.

  ‘I love you, Minerva,’ he said.

  Minerva felt giddy. She seemed to be whirling around and around in a dizzying vortex of emotions. Somewhere deep inside her a little voice was crying, ‘Oh, if only he meant it.’

  ‘You pretend the state of love very well,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I thought you had never been in love.’

  ‘No, Not what I would call love. I like some spirituality about my sensuality else nothing will exist when all passion is spent.’

  He slowly rolled her white kid glove down her arm and then, holding her hand prisoner, bent and pressed his lips against the wildly beating pulse at her wrist.

  Her other shaking hand automatically seemed to take on a life of its own, to reach out to caress his thick brown-gold hair, and then alarm bells began to go off in her head.

  Such feelings were sinful. This man was a hardened rake who had surely played this game time and time again. She wrenched her hand away and then buried both hands in her lap and stared at him defiantly.

  ‘You are a difficult case,’ he murmured. ‘Eat your food.’

  To Minerva’s surprise, he began to talk lightly of this and that, becoming again a cool and elegant stranger. Again she experienced that strange feeling of loss and found to her surprise that she was beginning to flirt a little, laughing at his stories, and trying to amuse him with stories
of her own.

  ‘Lady Godolphin is really rather a good soul,’ said Minerva. ‘All her bold remarks and strange dress are simply part of an act.’

  ‘You must not believe that,’ he said, spearing a wafer of Westphalia ham with his fork. ‘Lady Godolphin is kind in her way but she has absolutely no morals whatsoever and never had any either. If you believe anything else, you will be in for a shock.’

  ‘My father would not have sent me to her if she is as bad as you say,’ replied Minerva. ‘I know that he sometimes appears more of a huntsman than a clergyman, but he would not for a moment condone …’

  ‘He has not seen Lady Godolphin since he was a young man and she was a frivolous beauty celebrating her first widowed state. Yes, you may stare with those enormous eyes of yours. But my father assures me that Lady Godolphin was the prettiest thing in London at one time. But to return to us. If you have quite finished, we will stroll back to the ballroom.’ He tilted his head a little and listened to a faint fanfare of trumpets. ‘The Prince Regent has arrived.’

  ‘Oh, I must see him. My family will want to know all about him. They would never forgive me if I missed him.’

  ‘Then we must hurry,’ he smiled, putting his napkin down beside his plate.

  ‘He only means to stay about fifteen minutes. He has been reported as feeling poorly, but even he must attend when the Countess summons.’

  When they were back out in the walk, following the hurrying throng in the direction of the striped marquee which acted as ballroom, he started to guide her away from the walk and across a narrow path leading through the dark shrubbery.

  ‘Don’t be alarmed, Miss Armitage,’ he teased. ‘I am merely taking you the quickest way. We shall enter by the far door and that way avoid the crush at this end.’

  ‘You called me Minerva before,’ Minerva found herself saying.

  ‘Ah, but that was when I was in love with you. That was when, for one moment, your dark eyes shone like stars reflected in a lake. You have the most fascinating eyes, Minerva. In daylight, they are gray, like winter water, in the dusk, they are silver, and at night, they are dark. I would like to see those stars shine again. What can I do to light them in your sky?’

  They were nearing the end of the path and the noise of the orchestra and the chatter of voices sounded clearly on the evening air.

  Before she could guess what he was about to do, he had taken her lightly by the upper arms and had swung her around so that she fell against him.

  ‘Let me go, my lord,’ she whispered. ‘I shall scream.’

  ‘No. You will kiss me.’

  ‘My lord, I…’

  ‘Kiss me, Minerva.’

  The voice was deep and caressing. His eyes glinted in the moonlight and a faint smile curled his beautiful mouth.

  His hard body pressed against her own was doing terrible things to her senses. She began to feel as if her body had melted and was hotly fusing with his own. His hand caressed the back of her neck and she let out a low choked sound like a moan.

  ‘Afraid to kiss your brother, your mentor?’ he teased. ‘Come, Minerva, my love, you are sorely in need of practice. And who’s to see us?’

  ‘Someone might.’

  ‘Only the moon.’

  ‘Let me go,’ entreated Minerva again, frightened by all the strange raging cravings which were assaulting her.

  ‘Then kiss me.’

  ‘Oh, very well,’ said Minerva, screwing up her face and jabbing a kiss on his mouth with pursed lips. But somehow his mouth seemed to cling to her own, and, despite herself, she felt her lips softening, answering the deepening pressure of his own.

  And then she simply lost any idea of time and space. She was whirling around and around in a warm, dark sea and she never, ever wanted to come to land again.

  When he finally released her, the shock was so great that she shivered, and looked up at him with wide drowned eyes, wondering at the sudden strange expression in his, a sudden look of … awareness? Apprehension?

  ‘Have you ever danced the waltz?’ he asked, tucking her arm in his and beginning to walk towards the ballroom.

  ‘N-No.’

  ‘Would you like to try?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ mumbled Minerva, wondering how he could sound so calm.

  They reached the entrance to the ballroom, blinking in the bright light from hundreds of candles.

  ‘Sylvester!’

  Lord Sylvester muttered something under his breath. A voluptuous redhead stood facing them, all glittering smile and hard eyes.

  ‘Miss Armitage, may I present Mrs Dattrey. Miss Armitage is newly come to Town.’

  ‘And has been wandering in the moonlight with the wicked Sylvester? Shame on you, my lord. ’Tis not like you to pursue young innocents.’

  Lord Sylvester put up his quizzing glass and studied Mrs Dattrey’s painted face. ‘You are right,’ he said with a little sigh, letting the glass fall. ‘I usually confine my attentions to harlots.’

  ‘Why, Sylvester,’ exclaimed Mrs Dattrey with a shrill laugh. ‘You are really very angry.’

  Minerva wrenched her arm from Lord Sylvester’s grasp and stalked off in the direction of the chaperones, her face flaming. That awful woman. She had called him Sylvester. And the way she had looked at him had suggested a very close relationship. And he had said he usually only consorted with harlots. He had admitted it! And she had let such a man handle her intimately. Before she could reach Lady Godolphin’s side, fat and florid Harry Blenkinsop came up to solicit her hand for the waltz. Minerva at first was too furious and too shaken to explain that she did not know how to perform the dance.

  She let him lead her onto the floor and gasped with alarm as his arm circled her waist. ‘I cannot do this dance!’ she cried.

  ‘Oh, it’s simple,’ he wheezed. ‘Just follow me.’

  Minerva tried not to stumble as she was whirled around and around. He was pumping her arm energetically up and down in time to the music and she could feel her

  flimsy skirts billowing out about her legs. She was glad she had worn a pair of blue silk garters, thoughtfully provided by Lady Godolphin.

  It was disgraceful that one’s garters should show, but as Lady Godolphin had pointed out, if they did show, then they may as well look pretty.

  Nonetheless, Minerva felt the dance was quite scandalous. Although Mr Blenkinsop held her the regulation twelve inches away, Minerva could not but feel that the waltz was fast. Also a great number of ladies at the ball appeared to be in a state of semi-nudity. Minerva felt that the whole of London was hell-bent on displaying as much naked flesh as possible. As the Satirist put it: ‘the very Abigails have divested themselves of every petticoat, in order that the footman or valet may discover the outline of their secret beauties through a transparent calico.’

  Her distress was aggravated by the sight of Lord Sylvester twirling expertly with a handsome woman in his arms, and then by the amazing picture presented by Lady Godolphin who was spinning around with Colonel Brian like a dervish and displaying to the world a pair of muscular calves embellished with flesh coloured silk stockings and scarlet garters.

  Pride came to her rescue. Lord Sylvester must not see how much his philandering had upset her. She must be grateful that her eyes had again been opened to his sinfulness.

  And Minerva was so relieved to find that she did not care for Lord Sylvester one little bit that she flirted and laughed and talked to Harry Blenkinsop at a great rate while his cronies watched enviously from the edge of the floor.

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought Harry would’ve been the one to charm her,’ said Mr Jeremy Bryce while Lord Chumley bleated his agreement.

  But Silas Dubois tapped the side of his large nose and winked. ‘She ain’t interested in him at all,’ he sneered. ‘It’s Lord Sylvester Comfrey she’s trying to impress. They’ve had some sort of row and she’s determined to show Comfrey that she don’t care a rap for him. By the way, have you heard what’s all over town? Seems Miss Armi
tage was playing a vast joke on society with all that priggish business.’

  ‘What!’ His two companions looked outraged. Then Lord Chumley tried to look wise. ‘I knew it was all a hum,’ he said. ‘That’s why I took against her so. Don’t like that sort of behaviour in a female. T’ain’t feminine.’

  Mr Fresne meanwhile had been brushed and restored to his former glory. He could not bring himself to tell his two friends, Lord Barding and Sir Peter Yarwood, of his humiliation. But he did tell them of Minerva’s remarks about Dandies.

  ‘Faith!’ exclaimed Lord Barding looking down at his salmon pink coat – or as much as he could see of it over the frozen torrent of starched muslin which made up his cravat. ‘She is a deuced odd female. But word has it she has been making a game of us all. She was teasing you, mark my words.’

  ‘No,’ said Mr Fresne, glowering at the spectacle presented by the waltzing Minerva. ‘She was to all respects a very charming girl apart from that remark. She meant it.’

  ‘Well,’ put in Sir Peter Yarwood complacently, ‘Barding and I are out of the running so we don’t need to trouble.’

  ‘I say,’ said Mr Fresne, ‘if the bet’s off, I don’t really see why I should go on with it.’

  ‘A new bet!’ cried Barding. ‘Yarwood and I will lay you 10,000 pounds that you can’t get her to fall in love with you.’

  ‘Agreed!’ said Yarwood gleefully. ‘Barding and I will lend you our support. Think on’t. You’ve always been a favourite with the ladies.’

  So Mr Fresne glowered and thought.

  Minerva danced on. She was relieved when it at last came to an end. All at once she remembered to look for the Prince Regent, hoping that she had not missed getting a glimpse of him. Lady Godolphin was sitting on a cane chair at the wall being fanned by her elderly cavalier.

  ‘Where’s the Prince Regent?’ asked Minerva, having escaped from Harry Blenkinsop.

  ‘Oh, over there,’ panted Lady Godolphin, waving her fan. ‘He’s with Alvaney and Brummell.’ Minerva followed the pointing fan and saw a fair, fat and florid man who appeared to have been stuffed into his evening clothes. He was wearing the Order of the Garter across his plump chest. But Minerva only saw the power and the glory and was awed by her first glimpse of royalty. The Prince was laughing loudly at something Brummell had said. Then he and his party of friends moved towards the entrance of the tent. He stood for a few moments chatting with the Countess Lieven. And then he was gone.