The Westerby Sisters (Changing Fortunes Series) Page 3

  The footman who served them soon warmed to his task. He had never seen a couple eat and drink so much.

  First they shared a large Périgord pie with truffles and washed it down with a bottle each of claret.

  They followed that by amicably sharing a large bowl of salmagundi (a salad of meat, eggs and fish dressed with vinegar, herbs and onions) and more claret. A large capon, roasted and stuffed with oysters, followed the salad. Wearying of meat, they moved on to salmon with lemon sauce and fennel pickle. Then they demolished thin slices of Westphalia ham and large slices of reindeer tongue from Lapland.

  Gradually the guests returned to the dance until there was only Sir Anthony and Fanny still staying the course while the Ruthfords' butler opened a betting book and the footman began to lay wagers on how much this extraordinary couple could actually eat. A syllabub, a tansy pudding, and a currant pie disappeared as if by magic. Still game, they plowed on through the cheeses and two bottles of Burgundy, barely speaking except to make little grunting comments on each dish.

  At last Sir Anthony threw aside his napkin and, behind his broad back, the butler began to check the betting book to see who had won.

  Both Fanny and Sir Anthony were sweating lightly, both their faces filmed with perspiration.

  "Odd's Fish!" gasped Sir Anthony. "I take leave to tell you, Miss Fanny, that you are a lady after my own heart."

  Fanny gave him a sweet, drugged, soporific smile. She could not remember feeling quite so relaxed or happy or content in her life. She forgot about the Duke of Colling-ham, forgot about her ambitious mother. Nothing mattered but the enjoyment of a well-filled stomach. Too well-filled. She realized if she made to stand up, then most likely her gown would split at the seams, and all at once it seemed the most natural thing in the world to tell Sir Anthony so.

  His great laugh, so little heard since his marriage, rang around the supper room. "I'faith, Miss Fanny, I shall not put you to the blush by describing that part of my attire which will give under the strain should I, too, try to rise. So let us sit here and talk of this and that and perhaps we shall eat something more. . . ."

  It was fortunate for Fanny that the Duke of Collingham had decided to favor her sister Frederica with a dance or her mother would most certainly have come looking for her missing daughter and would have been incensed to find Fanny wasting her sweetness on a married man—not only a married man, but the closest friend of that monster Welbourne who had stolen away the Westerby estates, all for the love of that slut, Jane Lovelace.

  The Duke of Collingham had finished his dance with Frederica and returned her to the arms of her gushing mother. He saw that Mrs. Bentley was about to engage him in conversation and made his escape. As he stood at a corner of the ballroom floor, leaning one broad shoulder against a pillar, he heard a voice on the other side demand, "Bella, have you seen Betty?"

  "Ha'n't seen hide nor hair of Lady Betty this age,'' replied another voice. "You know what's she's like, Lady Hester. Her do be mortal shy and goes and hides at these here balls and assemblies in the oddest places. It puts me in mind of Miss Cummings, her what married . . ."

  "Oh, Bella," came Lady Hester's impatient voice, "I don't want to hear of Miss Cummings. Come, let us look for her. . . ."

  The voices faded away and the Duke of Collingham stood deep in thought. So little Lady Betty had not been snubbing him, she had merely been shy. She had not eaten anything, either, since she had not been in the supper room. Perhaps he should be kind and offer her some refreshment. Of course, her birth was impossible and he did not wish to put ideas in her head by favoring her with too much of his exalted attention, but all the same . . .

  Betty stifled a yawn. It must be about two in the morning. She had moved one of the long curtains in front of her so that she was almost completely shielded from the curious gaze.

  Her eyelids began to droop and her head began to fall forward on her breast.

  The curtain was suddenly pulled aside. Betty started and sat up straight, blinking like an owl in the sudden flood of light. She was too sleepy and startled to control her expression of dismay at the sight of the Duke of Collingham.

  "You say you do not dance, Lady Betty," he said, "but surely you eat. Allow me to escort you to the supper room."

  Betty looked wildly around, hoping to see the tall figure of her sister. "Come, Lady Betty," chided the Duke. "Am I such a monster that you are afraid to trust yourself with me as far as the supper room?"

  "Oh, no!" said Betty, and then hopefully, "Perhaps there is some other lady you would prefer . . ."

  "No, Lady Betty," said the Duke, smiling down at her. That smile altered his features, making him seem suddenly heartbreakingly handsome.

  Betty stood up and timidly placed her hand lightly on his proferred arm. He experienced a small twinge of triumph at bringing this shy violet out into the light but this feeling was immediately followed by one of irritation. Did she not know who he was? Then his face cleared. He forgot that Betty had called him "my lord duke." That must be it! She did not know who he was. She did not therefore appreciate the honor being done her.

  He could hardly wait to tell her, to see those exquisite blue eyes light up with surprise and gratification. He frowned on entering the supper room at the raucous laughter coming from the couple in the corner. Betty recognized Fanny and Sir Anthony and stared in amazement. Fanny leaned forward and whispered something to Sir Anthony and he threw back his great head and roared with laughter.

  Glancing down at his companion, the Duke was surprised by a flash of fear in those blue eyes as they looked on Fanny Bentley. He remembered Miss Bentley's story of how Lady Betty and Lady Hester were in fact the daughters of a village blacksmith. He led her away to a table as far from the noisy couple as possible and waited until they had been served. Now was the time to make his announcement.

  "We have not yet been properly introduced," he said. "I am Collingham."

  "Yes, I know," said Betty politely.

  "The Duke of Collingham."

  Those beautiful blue eyes lit up with mocking amusement.

  "Yes, Your Grace, I am aware of your rank and title and suitably flattered at your interest," said Betty, calmly beginning to eat. She was all at once no longer frightened of him. Clever people frightened her and the Duke certainly could not be very clever to expect her to be flattered by a mere title.

  The Duke felt like a callow schoolboy. But why should he have expected a different reaction when he had come to expect obsequious flattery as his due? His parents had died when he was quite young and no one, not even his closest relatives, had dared to tease him. He had never in his life made any effort to win the respect or the attention of any woman and he certainly didn't want to start now. But he could sense she was simply enduring his company and he felt piqued.

  He decided to try. "I take leave to tell you, Lady Betty," he said, "that you are in great beauty tonight."

  Betty looked at him thoughtfully. "Better than the other nights?"

  "By my soul, yes!"

  "But you never saw me before this evening."

  "Do you not know the art of accepting a compliment gracefully?" said the Duke testily.

  Betty hesitated. She would not normally have been so bold but she was very tired and the whole evening had taken on an air of unreality.

  "I think I know how to accept compliments when they are meant sincerely, Your Grace," she said thoughtfully. "It is the social compliment I find hard to accept. You must excuse my bad manners and put it down to my youth and inexperience."

  "I cannot think that any compliments made to you would be insincere, Lady Betty," he said gallantly. "Your face, your figure . . ."

  "And my fortune," added Betty, sipping her wine and studying him with interest and wondering just how much more of this the great Duke of Collingham could take.

  Not much more, it seemed, as he almost rose in his seat. But then a reluctant smile crossed his face. "You are very cynical," he said. "But I too am court
ed for my fortune. Perhaps we should go out into the world dressed as paupers so that we may find someone to love us for ourselves alone."

  Betty suddenly laughed and her eyes sparkled. "And how dreadful should we only meet each other."

  "I should consider myself the most fortunate of men."

  "Now, Your Grace," said Betty, studying his face over the rim of her wine glass, "you are trying to make me fall in love with you so that you may be revenged."

  "Revenge, forsooth! Why?"

  "To teach me a lesson. You are piqued over my indifference to your rank."

  "There is nothing I detest more," he said acidly, "than persons who pride themselves on speaking their minds. All it means is that they are callous and insensitive to the hurt of others."

  "If I have hurt you," said Betty quickly, "then I am indeed sorry."

  "No, of course you have not. I . . . " Here the Duke burst out laughing. "What an infuriating girl you are, to be sure!"

  "Perhaps," ventured Betty hopefully, "Your Grace might care to return me to the ballroom?"

  "So that you may hide behind the curtains?"

  "So that I may hide behind the curtains," agreed Betty equably.

  "Do you usually hide at parties?"

  "Oh, almost all the time," sighed Betty. "I am a sore disappointment to Hester. My sister, you know."

  "But what do you enjoy doing?"

  Betty's eyes became dreamy. "Oh, reading books and playing with Simon. We ride in the Park or play by the Serpentine. Most of all, I like to be at my home, Eppington Chase. I love the country and the quiet."

  "Quiet! 'Tis rumoured that Eppington Chase has resounded to the hammers of the builders these past few years."

  "I. don't notice," said Betty stubbornly. "Anything is quieter than London."

  As if to underline her remark, Fanny let out a great whoop of laughter and Betty stared across at her in amazement. She had never before seen the porcelain and exquisite Fanny so loud, so abandoned, so very drunk. Then Betty remembered the time long ago when she and Hester had tied Fanny's hair to the back of the sofa and had slit her stays with the kitchen knife so that when she arose to play the harpsichord for her beau, Mr. Jennings, her hair, which proved to be false, had been left on the sofa back and her stays had rattled to the floor, revealing Fanny's small, round Buddha-like stomach in all its glory.

  Betty's face lit up in a mischievous smile and the Duke wondered why Fanny Bentley should suddenly amuse her when only a short while ago she had engendered fear.

  "It is nothing, Your Grace," she smiled, answering his unspoken question, "A funny memory, that is all."

  He had a desire to move the conversation onto more intimate ground. So far he had not seemed to spark one little bit of genuine interest in this strange mixture of shyness and boldness sitting so demurely opposite.

  Betty was beginning to relax. She felt she was better with the evil that she now knew slightly—the Duke—than back in the balroom surrounded by strange men. Fanny was too absorbed in Sir Anthony, and too drunk, to make her usual malicious barbed remarks.

  Her companion's next remark unsettled her.

  "Tell me," he said, his strange green eyes trying to search her own, "have you hopes of becoming wed this Season?"

  "N-no," stammered Betty, "I do not wish to be married at all. I do not need to, you see," she added simply, "I have enough money."

  "Have you never considered romance? Or love?"

  Through the windows of the supper room, Betty could see the beginnings of a rosy and smoky London dawn. Escape was near.

  "I do not think I shall ever love anyone as I love Simon," she said in a low voice.

  "Simon?" demanded the Duke sharply. He had forgotten the little Marquess's name and thought Betty was talking of some lover.

  "Simon," began Betty, starting to explain, but that was as far as she got.

  "Fanny!"

  Mrs. Bentley stood in the doorway of the supper room. Behind her was Philadelphia.

  Mrs Bentley, after the first outburst, went icy cold. Her eyes flickered over the dreadful scene. Fanny, drunk, and with none other than Sir Anthony Blake who had been present at that dreadful game when the Wester-by estates had been lost, and James, her husband, had committed suicide. And Lady Betty Lovelace, in intimate conversation with that marital prize, the Duke of Colling-ham. It was past bearing.

  "My silly puss," said Mrs. Bentley, forcing a smile on her face. "Here is Philadelphia come to take Sir Anthony home."

  "I must go," whispered Betty. "Hester will be looking for me. Good-bye!"

  And before the Duke could arise from his chair, she had fled from the supper room.

  He felt foolish and quite cross. But he too made his exit as quickly as possible for, from the look of wrath on Sir Anthony's beautiful wife's face, he could see a first-class row was in the offing.

  When he arrived in the ballroom, it was to find only a few guests left. Of the irritating Lady Betty, there was no sign.

  He gave a shrug of his silk-clad shoulders. She was a common little miss, as common as the barber's chair. Also, she was in love with someone rejoicing in the name of Simon. He, Adolphus, fifth Duke of Colling-ham, would favor Lady Betty with his attentions no longer.

  And then he caught the expression on his face in a long looking glass on the wall of the ballroom.

  "Why, you pompous idiot," he said to his reflection. "Are you always so pompous?"

  "All the time, Dolph," said a cheerful voice at his elbow. "All the time, i' Faith."

  He swung around to find his friend, Captain Jimmy Dunbray at his elbow. Captain Jimmy was the small, cherubic-looking young man Hester had been dancing with at the beginning of the evening.

  "But people will encroach so, Jimmy," said the Duke. "You know that."

  "Oh, I know that," said Jimmy. "You have all the hopeful mamas kowtowing to you. I know that stuffy manner of yours is only an act."

  But it wasn't. And the Duke realized it for the first time.

  Chapter Three

  After only a few hours sleep, Betty had risen early to take Simon to the Park where he wanted to play with his hoop. Betty settled herself comfortably under a tree with her book, raising her head occasionally to watch Simon's sturdy little figure scampering over the grass. The golden sunlight filtered down through the trees on the rose and green satin of her gown. A wide-brimmed straw hat lay beside her on the grass. Great fleecy clouds tugged across the sky above, driven by a high wind which did not even disturb the branches of the oak tree over Betty's head.

  Normally, she would have been completely happy. But somehow today she felt a restless, niggling sensation of dissatisfaction. Then she realized that the Duke would be bound to call or at the very least to leave his card since he was supposed to call on the ladies he had danced with the night before "But he did not dance with me," thought Betty, "so he need not call, so now I can be comfortable."

  She resolutely picked up her book and started to read. "Prince Tristram stood on the wild escarpment and gazed down on Castle Stane, hunched in its grove of pines. As he stared, he was seized with a premonition of doom and he turned ice-cold, his eyes rolling in their sockets. In that dread moment, he felt the chill breath of Death himself."

  Betty put down the book again and stared out sightlessly across the grass. Now what would the Duke of Collingham do if he experienced a premonition of doom? Probably call for his doctor and complain of a disordered spleen, thought Betty cynically. And why should she be plagued with memories of that . . . that . . . cold and pompous fish? But he had been so very charming when he smiled. And his eyes were as green as new grass in the sun. Betty had never imagined that anyone could have such very green eyes. It would only be polite to be at home when he called and to let him know how little she cared for him.

  Rising to her feet, she called Simon and bribed him with the promise of an afternoon outing on his pony if he would only return with her directly.

  Hester was only just out of bed when Be
tty and Simon arrived back at the Wester-by town house. She came yawning down the stairs still in her undress, a lace nightcap perched frivolously on her mane of long brown hair.

  "Hester!" cried Betty. "It is past noon and the gentlemen we danced with at the Ruthfords will be calling to pay their respects."

  "Let them," said Hester laconically. "I, for one, won't receive any of them. There was only one who was in the least amusing but he was really too short to be a dancing partner and I'm blessed if I can remember his name.

  "There's the door!" said Betty. "Oh, do change, Hester."

  "I'll hide in the morning room," said Hester, "while you do the pretty. Oh, here's Bella. Bella, you are just in time to act the role of chaperone. Betty is about to receive callers."

  "My lord has grass stains on his breeches," said Bella, blind to anyone but her pet. "Come with Bella, my lord, and we shall have you changed in a trice."

  "And can I come back and meet Aunt Betty's gentlemen?" said Simon, who, much as he adored his aunts, occasionally longed for some masculine company.

  "Yes, my ducks," said Bella, shooing him up the stairs with her voluminous apron. "And the quicker my lord changes, then the quicker he may return."

  A footman crossed the hall to answer the door and Betty found that her heart was hammering against her ribs. But it was only two burly messengers who came in with an enormous parcel. "They say it's for Lord Westerby," said the footman, looking in awe at the size of the package.

  "Who is it from?" demanded Betty, but the messengers had deposited their burden in the middle of the hall and had exited at some speed through the street door.

  "Open it up, James," said Betty to the footman. "I wish to ascertain that the gift is suitable for my lord before he sees it."

  James summoned the second footman and together they tore away the brown paper wrapping.