Page 46 of A Marriage is Arranged
Louise felt a little better after vomiting, but when she at last got into her bed she found her head spun every time she closed her eyes. She finally managed to sleep, but awoke with a sore, dry throat and an aching head. She couldn’t imagine what had made her so unwell. Could something at the Barnstables’ supper have been bad?
Then the awful truth of what she had done flooded through her. She had offered the Shrewsbury bracelet to cover a debt! What could she have been thinking? All she could remember was feeling desperate to get away from there. She would get the bracelet back when she paid the debt, but it wasn’t hers to give away, even for a day! It belonged to her husband’s family! It was nothing less than theft! Her husband must never find out!
It wasn’t until she had gulped down two cups of the scalding hot tea Susan brought that her fevered brain was able to form a plan. She would write to the kindly Arnold Booking, her husband’s man of business. She would ask for an advance on her allowance and have it delivered to Barnstable. No! She could not write that in a note, someone might see it! She would ask Booking to wait on her this afternoon and have him send a draft to Barnstable. She wouldn’t mention the bracelet. Just have him think it was a normal gambling debt. He’d be shocked, of course, but he was the soul of discretion. Barnstable would return the bracelet and Gareth would never notice it was missing. Yes! That was the solution !
She scribbled the note to Mr. Booking and told Susan to deliver it personally. The fewer people who knew about it the better. She still felt poorly and would have put off her breakfast meeting with the Dowager if she could. But she knew they were to lunch with one of her ladyship’s friends and it would be very rude to cancel at such short notice.
She ate nearly nothing of the delicious breakfast put before her at the Dowager’s, but since her hostess herself ate like a bird, she did not find it remarkable. When they visited the chic establishments where her ladyship bought her delicious headwear, Louise tried to appear her normal self and laughed off the fact she dared buy nothing.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but I have to draw in the bustle a bit this quarter. You’ve no idea how high my bill at Véronique’s is!”
“Tush!” said her grandmama-in-law, “Gareth is rich enough to buy an abbey. Send him the bills!”
“Oh,” said Louise. “I don’t feel comfortable doing that. He makes me a very generous allowance, you know.”
Then she felt like crying when she considered that was true, and she had repaid him by wagering away the family bracelet.
The old friend of Lady Esmé’s they were lunching with had been intimate with a very dashing group in her youth. At table she recounted scurrilous stories about people who were now either dead or in their dotage. It was odd to hear the two old ladies, both now the model of propriety, talk of the scandalous behavior of their contemporaries fifty years before. But it had the effect of cheering Louise up. Somehow it made her own transgression seem almost forgivable. It’s not as if she’d given the bracelet to a lover, or worn it as her only item of clothing when dancing on the table!
But when she returned home, a note was waiting for her with Mr. Booking’s apologies. Due to other business, he could not oblige her that afternoon, but would do himself the honor of waiting on her the next day, if she was free. This was a blow. She had hoped to settle the affair before the Earl returned. He was expected for dinner. But no matter, instead of having Booking come to her, as soon as her husband left for the House in the morning she would go to him. Having missed a couple of days, Gareth was bound to go to his boxing session. She could slip out of the house and be back before he returned.
The Earl came back from Overshott that evening in a good humor. Whatever his business had been, it appeared to have prospered. Unusually, they were not invited anywhere and dined together at home. Over dinner he asked Louise with a smile what she’d been doing while he was away. In fact, he’d missed her and had returned determined to get to the bottom of whatever it was that had made her so difficult recently.
“How did you fare at the Barnstable card party?” he asked pleasantly.
Louise started. She had hoped to avoid the subject altogether.
“Oh, I, er, it was quite entertaining,” she said shortly.
“Whom did you partner?”
“I played against Mr. Veness with Lord Barnstable.” That was at least part of the truth.
Gareth laughed. “A sheep and a wolf!”
“Both gentlemen were… were very… kind.” She desperately wanted the conversation to end.
“Barnstable? Kind? I find that hard to believe!” Her husband looked at her narrowly. Why was she so uncomfortable?
“Believe what you like, my lord. Now I’ll say goodnight. I have a headache.”
Louise went straight up to her apartment. She couldn’t believe what she had said. It wasn’t true she had a headache; that had cleared up, thankfully. But she had not slept well the night before and the day had been fraught with worry about the bracelet. Overwhelmed, she lay on her bed and wept.
Her husband was astonished at her response. She had never been openly hostile before. He shook his head, sighed and took himself off to his club. He noticed a hush in the conversation as he came into the card room, but thought nothing of it. In the corner, his friend Tommy Ainsworth was playing piquet with Rupert Brown, a gentleman recently returned from India and whom Gareth knew only slightly. He liked playing with Ainsworth himself, and went over and sat following the game until the partie ended.
Then Rupert Brown said, “You missed an interesting game of piquet last night at Barnstable’s, Shrewsbury.”
“No need to bring that up, Brown,” said Ainsworth, “There’s no proof of any of it.”
The Earl’s interest was well engaged by this time. “Well, what did I miss?”
“Your wife lost an important piece of jewelry to Barnstable. The Shrewsbury diamond bracelet. And ran from the room in tears. At least, that’s what they’re saying.”
“Is this true, Tommy?” The Earl turned to his friend, a fierce frown on his face.
“Look, Gary, I didn’t see anything. The rumor is going around that Lady Shrewsbury gave Barnstable her bracelet. But as I say, I didn’t see it and it’s probably all just gossip.”
“Barnstable was looking mighty pleased with himself, that’s all I can say,” interposed Rupert Brown. “And she’d been his only partner all evening. Until she ran away.”
“Look, Gary.” His friend gripped him on the shoulder. “Best you ask her. It’s probably all a mistake. Perhaps he was just fixing the clasp or something.”
“But she wasn’t wearing it when she left, that I do know,” persisted Rupert. “I looked particularly.”
“If the clasp was tricky, she could have put it in her reticule. And she probably realized it was er… late and left in a hurry.” Tommy seemed determined to find an innocent explanation. “As I said, why don’t you just ask her.”
“I shall. If the clasp is loose,” said the Earl calmly, “we need to get it fixed. Now, Ainsworth, if you’ve lost enough to Brown here, how about losing to me?” He desperately wanted to get home to his wife, but wouldn’t let it show. He leaned forward and picked up the cards.