and physical agony as a consequence of his foolishness. Is not that so, cher Ben?’
Susanna was pleased to see that, for once, ‘cher Ben’ looked a trifle discomfited by this rebuke. Jess Fitzroy even smiled a little at it, only to earn from Madame a rebuke of his own. ‘And you need not smirk so condescendingly at your employer, Mr Fitzroy, for your own part in this unhappy business is not without its share of blame.’
Bravo, Madame, was Susanna’s inward comment, even as the butler entered to inform them that dinner was served, and Mr Fitzroy proceeded to offer her his arm so that they might properly follow Madame la Comtesse and Mr Wolfe into the dining room where she might forget for a time her unfortunate predicament.
‘Allow me, Miss Beverly,’ said Ben, ‘to inform you at length of the measures which I have taken to explain your strange disappearance from London earlier today.’
They were all back in the Turkish drawing room again; the inevitable teaboard before them. They had just enjoyed the excellent meal which Ben had promised them. During it they had spoken only of the lightest matters, such as the health of the present monarch; the latest scandal about that old and faded figure, the Prince Regent; of his equally faded and scandalous wife, Princess Caroline of Wales; the recent birth of the Princess Victoria and even, at Madame’s instigation, of the change in women’s dress brought about by the slight lowering of the waistline.
‘So there you have it, Miss Beverly,’ said Ben, after he had finished outlining his plans for Susanna’s immediate future. ‘Madame has agreed to be our saviour and we can but hope that you will approve of the arrangements which we have made to bring about such a happy outcome.’
‘I am struck dumb by your ingenuity,’ returned Susanna, ‘and can only hope that it will impress the Westerns sufficiently to save me. Were anyone with a reputation less than that of Madame’s to sponsor me, I believe that the task might be difficult, nay, impossible, but, as it is—’ she shrugged her shoulders ‘—I can only thank her for her kindness and condescension in offering to assist me at such short notice.’
Madame’s glance for her was an approving one. ‘Properly and graciously spoken,’ she said, ‘as I am sure Mr Wolfe will acknowledge.’
Ben put down a china teacup which was so small that his big hand dwarfed it. ‘With one small rider,’ he added. ‘Much, I fear, depends on the fact that Miss Beverly’s own reputation is a spotless one. I was a little perturbed by a statement which she made to me earlier this afternoon to the effect that she possessed neither fortune nor reputation, and that by carrying her off I had destroyed the last remnants of the latter. I wonder if you would care to enlarge on that, Miss Beverly, so that we might all know where we stand?’
The white smile which he offered Susanna as he asked his question had her mentally echoing Red Riding Hood again: Oh, Grandma, what big teeth you have! It was plain that little said or done escaped him, and although she had no wish to tell Ben Wolfe of all people her sad story, let alone two other strangers on whose charity she now depended, tell it she must.
What was it that her father had said to her when she was a child? ‘Speak the truth and shame the devil, my dear.’ Well, she would do exactly that.
Aloud, after a little hesitation, she said, ‘The explanation for my remark is a simple one. I believe that what happened to me should cause no one to think any the worse of me, but the world chooses to believe quite otherwise. Four years ago I was jilted by Lord Sylvester. He was cruel enough to leave me waiting for him at the altar where I received, not my bridegroom, but a letter informing me that he no longer wished to marry me.
‘You must all be aware of what such an action does to the reputation of a woman, however innocent she might be, and I was truly innocent—but I was ruined, none the less. No man wishes to marry a woman who has been jilted.’
Madame said thoughtfully. ‘So, you are that Miss Beverly, the late William Beverly’s only child and heiress. I did wonder if you might be, but I thought it would be considered tactless to question you on the matter if you proved not to be her.’
Ben Wolfe, however, leaned forward in his chair, intent it seemed, on quizzing her further.
‘You say that you are employed by the Westerns as a duenna. I was out of England at the time and consequently knew nothing of the scandal which followed. But if you are the India merchant William Beverly’s heiress, how is it that you have descended into becoming a duenna, a paid servant? He was as rich as Croesus, to my certain knowledge.’
However painful it might be to tell them more of her sad situation, Susanna had no alternative but to do so.
‘And so I thought when he died, some twelve years before I was to have married Lord Sylvester. My mother married again, one Samuel Mitchell, soon after my father’s death, but after I was jilted my stepfather informed me that, contrary to public—and my—belief, my father had died a ruined man, and he had been keeping me since my mother’s marriage.
‘It was, he said, he who was providing my ample dowry in the hope that I would make a good marriage. Now that my chance of making any sort of marriage had gone, he was no longer prepared either to keep me or to be responsible for my dowry. Consequently it was necessary for me to find employment.’
No one spoke for a moment. Madame said gently, ‘En effet, he turned you out?’
‘I suppose you might say so.’
‘Oh, I do say so.’ It was not Madame who answered her, but Ben Wolfe, and the look he gave her was quite different from any he had offered her before. There was pity in it for the first time.
Damn his pity! She didn’t want it, or anything else from him—especially the odd sensations which she was feeling every time she looked at him.
‘You were not to know,’ she told him.
‘No, but nor should I have treated you so harshly this afternoon—but, in fairness to myself you did, at first, lead me to think that you were Amelia Western, which made it difficult for me to believe that you were telling the truth when you finally claimed to be Susanna Beverly. My apology to you for carrying you off, and then vilifying you, may be late but, believe me, it is sincere.’
They might as well have been alone in the room, so intent was each on the other. His grey eyes were no longer cold, his harsh features had softened into a smile. Susanna found it difficult to offer him one back. What she did do was acknowledge to him her own complicity in creating the situation which had set them so distressfully at odds.
‘I should not have claimed to be Miss Western,’ she admitted, ‘but your cavalier attitude towards me—and indirectly towards her—angered me beyond reason. I am still at a loss as to why you should plan to do anything so wicked as carry off a young girl in order to make her your forced wife.’
As she said this, Susanna registered that Madame la Comtesse de Saulx was nodding her elegant head in agreement.
‘That is neither here, nor there,’ riposted Ben loftily.
Rightly or wrongly, Susanna could not leave it at that. ‘And do you still intend to kidnap poor Amelia? If so, then regardless of anything which is done to assist me, I must inform the Westerns—’
Ben said, his tone regretful, ‘Alas, no, that plan has been thwarted forever by the mistake which I made in identifying the wrong woman. Miss Western has nothing further to fear from me. More than that I cannot promise.’
So
