Tomorrow’s bacon ‘n carrots. That’ll be a shillin’ an’ you pay afore you eat.’ With a gap-toothed smile at Emma, Mrs Keene was closing the door.
‘You’re late!’
‘I’m here, aren’t I?’
‘Richard, you are becoming quite a trial to your mother,’ Miriam Du Quesne stiffly informed her eldest son.
He seemed unmoved by her complaint and gave her an impenitent smile as he made for the stairs and took them two at a time.
‘Come back! We have guests!’ was hissed in a furious undertone at his broad, dark-jacketed back.
‘And you’re a wonderful hostess, my dear,’ trailed back, bored, over his shoulder as he neared the top of the graceful sweep of mahogany bannisters.
‘If you’re not down these stairs and in the drawing room in ten…fifteen minutes,’ she generously amended, in an enraged choke, ‘well, I shall…I shall just…’
Sir Richard Du Quesne sauntered back to the top of the curving stairwell and looked past the priceless Austrian crystal chandelier, suspended low, at the top of his mother’s elegant coiffure. ‘You shall what?’ he jibed fondly. ‘Beat me? Shut me in my room? Make me go without my supper?’
‘Richard! This is no joke!’ his mother screeched, small fists scrunching her elegant lavender skirts in her rage. Aware that she was creasing the satin, she flung it away and tried desperately to smooth it. She resorted to stamping a small foot instead, while almost jigging on the creamy marble in exasperation. Abruptly changing tack, she stilled, gave him a bright smile and wheedled, ‘Please, dear, don’t keep us all waiting longer. Dinner has been on the warm since eight o’clock. It is now nine-thirty and we are all quite ravenous.’ A tinkly laugh preceded, ‘I’m quite wore out with finding conversation to amuse us all. Besides,’ gritted out through pearly teeth, ‘nothing much is audible over the growling of empty stomachs.’
Her son gave her a conciliatory smile. ‘I’ll be but a few minutes. I’ll just freshen up…’
‘Oh, you look well enough,’ she said irritably, gesturing him down the stairs. He did too, she realised as her blue eyes lingered on her tall, handsome son’s appearance. His sun-streaked blond hair was too long, but suited him that way, she grudgingly allowed. His charcoal-grey clothes were expensive and well-styled; nothing she said or slipped to his valet seemed to make him dress in brighter colours. The bronzed skin tone he had acquired abroad had at first horrified her but, she had to admit, gave him a wickedly foreign air, and those cool grey eyes…A delicious shiver raced through her for they so reminded her of her darling John.
Miriam focussed her far-away gaze back on the top of the stairs to note that, while daydreaming of her late husband, their son had disappeared. She pouted, flounced about and stalked back towards the drawing room with the welcome tidings for their graces the Duke and Duchess of Winstanley and their daughter, Lady Penelope, that dinner was now, indeed, very nearly served.
‘I know where you’ve been, you lucky, randy dog.’
Richard dried his face with the towel, lobbed it carelessly towards the grand four-poster on a raised dais and glanced at Stephen. ‘Where have I been?’ he asked as he fastened his diamond shirt studs and walked to the mirror to inspect his appearance.
‘Come on, this is your dribbling sibling you’re talking to. She must have a jolie amie for your best brother. Preferably blonde but I ain’t fussy.’
‘You’re married.’
‘I’m bored.’
Richard’s icy grey eyes swerved to the reflection of his younger brother’s shrewd, smiling face. ‘You’re married. You’ve got a lovely wife and two beautiful children. What more do you want, for God’s sake?’
Stephen Du Quesne shrugged himself irritably to the window and gazed into the dusk. The fluttering silver-leaved whitebeams that lined the mile-long drive to Silverdale swayed like sinuous, ghostly dancers in the light evening breeze. ‘A little excitement…that’s what I want. A little of what you’ve got…that’s what I want. You get risqué women and I get responsibility. It ain’t fair, I tell you. You’re seven years older than me.’
‘No one forced you to propose to Amelia when you were twenty-one. As I recall you wanted her and nothing was going to stand in your way. Not even her constant rebuffs. You finally won her over and the proof that you were lucky to get it so right is just along the corridor, asleep in the nursery. Grow up.’
‘That’s rich coming from you,’ Stephen moaned as he stalked his elder brother to the head of the stairs. ‘You’re thirty-three and still gadding around as though you’ve dropped a decade somewhere. Even that reprobate of a best friend of yours has been wed these past three years and is now as dangerous as a pussy-cat by all accounts.’
Richard turned a smile on him, knowing immediately to whom he referred. ‘That’s love for you, Stephen,’ he said. ‘It can creep up on you when you’re least expecting it…even when you’re twenty-one and nowhere near ready. There’s no shame in giving in to it.’
‘Such an eloquent expert on finer feelings, aren’t you?’ Stephen ribbed him with a grin. ‘Hard to believe most of your intercourse with the fairer sex is so basic and carried out while you’re horizontal.’
‘Shut up, Stephen, you are drooling,’ Richard said, with a clap on the back for his sulking brother.
As they hit the marble-flagged hallway, Richard swung his brother about by the shoulder and studied him gravely. ‘Look, if you’re desperate for a little illicit entertainment, go ahead. But don’t expect me to arrange it for you, or clear up the mess when it all goes horribly wrong. Amelia might just decide that what’s sauce for the gander…’ He trailed off with an explicit raising of dark brows.
‘She wouldn’t dare!’ Stephen exploded, his face draining of colour. ‘Besides,’ he blustered as his older brother choked a laugh at the terror on his face, ‘she’d never know…I’d be discreet.’
‘Of course she’d know, you fool,’ Richard scoffed. ‘There’d be plenty of concerned ladies just itching to break the news. For her own good, of course. If you want a mistress, go and stand in the Upper Assembly rooms and look available. In five minutes you’ll be knee-deep in frustrated wives, impoverished widows…’ His long fingers tightened emphatically on his brother’s shoulder. ‘You’re both envied, you know. You’ve a good marriage: you love your wife and she adores you and that’s not easily found. It makes for a lot of green eyes and spiteful intentions. If you want to know the truth, I envy you.’
‘Good,’ Stephen said with slightly malicious relish. ‘I think our dear mama is under the impression it’s definitely time you were jealous no more.’
Sir Richard Du Quesne stopped dead and spun on his heel. ‘God, she’s not matchmaking again! Who’s here? Not the Petershams?’
Stephen swayed his fair head, blue eyes alight with merriment. ‘But of course not. We’re aiming so much higher, dear one, now you’re so much richer. Now you’ve added another million to the Du Quesne coffers, dear Mama scents a ducal connection…and as they were visiting in the neighbourhood…’
Stephen’s drawling teasing came to an abrupt halt and the laughter in his eyes was replaced by horrified entreaty. For no
