of his hearers sniggered at this, and Russell was relieved that the General ended this rather unpleasant conversation by announcing briskly, ‘Time to join the ladies. They will be wondering what has become of us.’
I doubt that, thought Russell, watching the rest of the party stagger rather uncertainly towards the drawing room, although some of them might welcome our arrival to save them from boredom.
I also wonder whether Mary will be kinder to me after dinner than she was during it!
Chapter Two
Russell was among the last to arrive in the drawing room where some of the ladies were busily talking, others were playing a hand of whist, and the quieter souls were happily engaged in their canvas work, Mary Wardour among them.
There was a chair near to her and on impulse he walked towards it, and pulled it round so that he half-faced her and her companion, who was also stitching purposefully away. Thus placed, he had quite deliberately trapped her into a situation where their conversation would be so public that she would be loath to rebuke or reprimand him as she had done at dinner.
‘Mrs Wardour,’ he said, smiling at her.
Mary looked up at him and, despite herself, it was as though something wrenched inside her. She was a girl of seventeen again and her young lover was smiling at her: his mouth had a little curl at the end and his eyes…
She shook her head. What in the world was she thinking of? Lord Hadleigh was no longer her young lover and she had tried to forget him and all his works. Alas, here in this crowded room, surrounded by the curious, careless and the malicious, she must say and do nothing which would damage her own reputation.
‘Lord Hadleigh?’ she said and inclined her head.
‘Mrs Wardour,’ he said again, as though he were memorising her name, ‘we were well-acquainted long ago, I believe, and we meet again after many years. I think that we should be doing one another a kindness if, from now on, we behaved as though we were meeting for the first time.’
Was he drunk, to make such a monstrous proposition to her? He looked and sounded sober, unlike Perry Markham, who had obviously over-indulged and was lurching into the room and now trying to avoid her, probably as the result of finding her a dull partner at dinner since she had shown no interest in racing or the delights of the London stage.
Russell Hadleigh was plainly waiting for an answer from her. What could she say to him? Not what she wished to, here in public, that was for sure. To have exclaimed, ‘Go away and cease to trouble me,’ would certainly set society’s tongues a-wagging, and no mistake!
Instead she said, as coolly as she could. ‘If that is what you wish, m’lord, it would only be civil of me to agree to such a polite request.’
‘Splendid,’ was Russell’s answer to this rather cold concession. He leaned forward a little confidentially, adding as he did so, ‘Then if I proposed that we should take a circuit of the picture gallery together, you would not refuse me, I trust. I understand that you have visited Markham Hall before and would surely be qualified to show its treasures to me.’
‘I, m’lord?’ Mary could not help replying. ‘Would it not be more appropriate for you to ask Miss Markham to display the family treasures? After all, I gather that she is the real reason you are here.’
Good God! Had rumour already given Angelica Markham to him as a bride? Rumour also said that Mary Wardour had been invited for Perry Markham’s sake. Was that as false as the one relating to Angelica? If he had been dubious about making her Lady Hadleigh before he had met her, now that he had, any dubiety he had previously experienced had been reinforced: he had not the slightest intention of marrying the girl. He was only too happy that the moment the Hon. Tom Bertram had arrived in the drawing room Angelica had made a dead set at him. They were each well suited to the other.
‘Oh,’ he said, as carelessly as he could, ‘you should take no note of gossip of that nature. I am here—why am I here?’ he continued. ‘I am not quite sure, but looking for a bride is far from my mind at the moment,’ and he gave her his most dazzling smile again, a smile which poor Mary remembered only too well.
‘Nor am I looking for a husband,’ returned Mary shrewdly, for she knew full well why she had been invited and Perry Markham was certainly not to her taste.
Miss Truman, who had been listening to their odd conversation with some interest, now took a hand in it.
‘I think, my dear,’ she said to Mary, a light note in her voice, ‘that it would only be proper to introduce me to Lord Hadleigh, seeing that you have had such a long acquaintance with him.’
Now, what to say to that? was Mary’s somewhat frantic thought. She could scarcely tell her companion the unhappy truth of her first acquaintance with Russell, who had now risen to his feet, waiting for the introduction which would inevitably follow.
The rapport between him and Mary, once so strong, but now almost forgotten, was strongly revived. He grasped that she was somewhat overset by her companion’s innocently made remark and, however badly she might have treated him in the past, he had no desire to embarrass her in the present.
He bowed to both women. ‘My friendship with Mrs Wardour was long ago, when we were little more than children. We have, alas, seen nothing of one another for many years, until this very day.’
Mary and Miss Truman both rose on that, and Mary, thankful for Russell’s intervention, if for nothing else, did the pretty by making her companion known to him.
‘I believe, m’lord,’ Miss Truman said, ‘that I had the honour, some years ago, of being for a short time the companion of your brother Richard’s wife, then Miss Pandora Compton. Circumstances parted us and we lost touch. I trust that she is in health.’
‘Very much so. She is now the mother of a lively and handsome boy.’
‘Which does not surprise me,’ Miss Truman said, ‘since my dear Pandora is both lively and handsome herself.’
Russell gave a smile of such pleasure on hearing this that Mary was bitten by a sudden sharp and unwanted pang. What in the world would make her indulge in such folly as being jealous of the unknown Pandora Chancellor? she asked herself furiously. Lord Hadleigh could compliment the whole female sex and bed whom he chose. It was no business of hers if he admired his brother’s wife. But, alas, it seemed it still was, since she was being weak-minded enough to allow him to charm her all over again. It was as though thirteen years had never passed.
‘Indeed,’ he replied, serious now.
‘And I am sure that my dear Mary would be happy to show you the picture gallery. She is extremely knowledgeable about such matters. You could not have a better guide.’
It was quite plain to both her hearers that Miss Truman was busy matchmaking. She had already decided that Perry Markham was not a person whom she could recommend her employer to marry. Lord Hadleigh, now, was quite a different matter. Not only was he handsome, but she had already been informed that he had been decent enough to refuse to join the party which was attending the hanging on the morrow while, on the other hand, the wretched Perry was the ringleader in the unhappy affair.
As for Mary, after such a recommendation from Miss Truman, she had no choice but to agree to Russell Hadleigh’s wish to have her as his escort and the pair of them rose to
