Page 11

A question that had never yet been discussed was whether or not Lady Amelia should tell her brother Rafe, who was after all her guardian, the truth about the course upon which she had embarked.

There was no need to commit just now – Lord Thornfalcon had not yet commenced his wooing, which presumably would take some time – but a decision must be reached sooner or later.

Rafe would probably disapprove strongly, she thought, and call the scheme crazy, which would be unpleasant.

She had no desire to be at odds with him.

But on the other hand, when Lord Thornfalcon’s attentions began to be obvious, she didn’t think she could bear to have Rafe labour under the delusion that he’d been right all along, and that patience had been all that she had needed until an eminently suitable husband presented himself.

He’d then be hurt and confused when the engagement was inevitably broken off, and it seemed unfair to put him through all that unnecessary turmoil.

It was so hard to choose. Perhaps it was cowardly, but she’d decide later.

She and Helena had agreed that they would be fast friends; this was no particular hardship, since they’d liked each other on sight and seemed to share a basic impatience with the currently imperfect way society was organised.

She would spend time innocently in Helena’s company, as any friend might, impeccably chaperoned by her aunt and by Helena’s mother, and Lord Thornfalcon would gradually (but not too gradually) come to be sensible of her many attractions.

He would then show a growing interest in her.

It would all be enormously subtle, they’d agreed between the three of them.

Lord Thornfalcon hadn’t evinced any great enthusiasm for the plan, but he had agreed to it, which was what mattered.

Unfortunately, subtlety did not appear to be the currency of the world they moved in.

The Dowager Lady Thornfalcon had in unexceptionable fashion invited her old acquaintance Lady Keswick and her niece to accompany her family to the theatre one evening; she had a private box.

It was meant to be a quiet sort of a beginning.

Though Amelia had as yet had no conversation with Lord Thornfalcon’s mother on the topic, she knew that she had been admitted into the secret by her daughter, and had been delighted with the scheme.

Amelia had been given to understand by Helena that her distrust of Lavinia was only exceeded by her mother’s, so the Dowager could scarcely fail to seize on anything which seemed likely to thwart the woman’s plans.

Lady Keswick, naturally, remained in complete ignorance, and – Amelia hoped – always would.

Her displeasure was not a thing one incurred lightly.

The theatre was noisy and full of activity, and as Amelia took her seat, she could see nothing to concern her about the audience, who were greeting each other and gossiping at full volume, as normal, from the boxes to the pit to the rafters.

Nobody was paying their party any particular attention, absorbed as they all were in their own affairs.

But when she looked around her as the buzz of voices subsided a little, she made a most unwelcome discovery.

She might not be the object of general interest, but she was still being observed.

She was not placed next to Lord Thornfalcon – not on their first outing in company – and now she was very glad of it.

‘Your sister-in-law is in the box directly opposite,’ she hissed to her companion.

‘Oh, goodness me,’ said Helena in response, wielding her fan so that it covered her mouth.

‘Let me see. Oh, so she is, and she is glaring at you with excessive fierceness! I must greet her or it will present a most odd appearance. Mother, there is Lavinia, with her parents and her cousin Mr Wilkinson.’

The whole of the party, apart from Amelia, bowed and nodded cordially at the group opposite.

It was impossible for them to do any less, and even Lady Keswick was obliged to incline her head in majestic recognition.

Amelia, who could not greet someone to whom she had never been introduced, looked down at her lap and wished herself otherwhere.

It was true that the lovely woman opposite had shot her a most unfriendly look on first seeing her, though her face had now returned to its habitual cool perfection and she appeared to be conversing with her companions with well-bred ease.

‘I do not see why she should shoot daggers at me in such a fashion,’ she whispered to Helena. ‘Is she really so madly and indiscriminately jealous that a friend of yours cannot even accompany you to the play without provoking her ire?’

‘The problem is, she is always angling to come with us, even though her parents have a perfectly good box of their own, as you can see. Mama is forever putting her off, because it would be so unpleasant for Marcus to be in such proximity with her – you can well believe that she would manoeuvre into sitting next to him, and she would make such a performance of it that nobody would have any eyes for the stage at all. On the one occasion when we were obliged by her shameless behaviour to invite her or be blatantly rude, Marcus developed a sudden head cold on the very day of the expedition and did not come with us. She was quite white with fury when she realised, though she covered it with smiles and attentions to Mama. So the mere fact that you are here, and he is too…’

‘Shh, girls!’ said Lady Keswick in penetrating tones. ‘The piece is about to begin, and I have a great dislike of people chattering when they should be paying attention.’

Amelia saw very little of the play, and could hardly have said afterwards what it had been.

Shakespeare? Sheridan? Though it was a foolish conceit, she felt as though the younger Lady Thornfalcon’s eyes were burning into her across the auditorium as the woman sat, assessing every tiny detail of her own dress and appearance, and finding each one of them wanting.

She had thought her cornflower-blue silk gown and simple pearls quite pretty, and suitable for the occasion, but now all at once, she doubted herself and found them sadly dowdy.

Blue was Lavinia’s colour, and suited her so much better.

There was no possibility, she thought, of intercourse between the two boxes during the interval, since ladies did not generally roam about the theatre, and that was a mercy.

She had already seen enough of Lord Thornfalcon’s painfully correct manner towards his sister-in-law to be confident that he had no intention at all of making his way across to see her.

Such an action could only serve to light a fire under the rumours that were already circulating, to the edification of all observers and the delight of the Friends of Lavinia, some of whom were no doubt present tonight.

But she had underestimated the widow, as she soon realised.

A friend of Lord Thornfalcon’s lounged in from an adjoining box as soon as the curtain had come down, and was presented to her: a Mr Jeremy Gastrell.

He was a slight, rather carelessly dressed gentleman in his early thirties, with a mobile, comical sort of a face; he rather resembled a friendly frog from a children’s storybook, and she liked him instantly, even before he said, ‘I am a little acquainted with your elder brother, Lady Amelia – we were at Oxford together. It is good to see that he has left his Buckinghamshire fastness and comes into society more now that he is married. It cannot have been good for him to stay so solitary, and he can only be congratulated on finding such a pearl of a wife despite never exerting himself in the least in the matter. I should find it hard to credit if you told me now that he had attended an assembly or a party and met her there, like any ordinary person might. But then he has always been an enigmatic sort of a fellow.’

Amelia smiled at the accuracy of this. ‘Sophie is a distant cousin of ours,’ she explained.

The wonder of it was that it was even true, though the relationship was very tenuous indeed.

‘She came to stay with our grandmother to keep her company and converse with her in French, and Rafe was instantly taken with her. So you are quite correct, sir; he did not even need to leave the house in order to find a bride.’

‘You see! I knew I was right. But I am very happy for him.’

The gentleman, whose manners were very easy and confiding, was enquiring politely about the health of Amelia’s little nephew when another visitor arrived.

Rather to her surprise, she heard Mr Gastrell make some exclamation of disapprobation under his breath, and when she saw that the new arrival was the person who had been pointed out to her as Lavinia Thornfalcon’s cousin, Mr Wilkinson, she thought she knew why.

This was confirmed when she caught her companion’s eye.

Gastrell gave her the ghost of a wink and said very low, and outrageously, ‘It seems we have a spy come in our midst, ma’am.

I am sure I can speak freely to you, for you have the air of a sensible person, or indeed you would hardly be here in company with the Thornfalcons. ’

‘You think his cousin sent him…?’ Her voice also was pitched little above a whisper.

‘Of course she did. I assume you are not at all acquainted with the lady? You cannot be, or she would hardly have needed to send her lapdog over here, wagging his little tail, to sniff out what you are about.’

Mr Wilkinson did indeed have an air of being on a mission, and was plainly anxious to be presented to her. He was currently conversing with her hostess and Lady Keswick, but kept shooting little glances in Amelia’s direction.