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After a moment’s reflection, Lord Berne responded magnanimously that he had been over-hasty in seeing evil where it was not, and pronounced himself satisfied.
Not to be outdone in generosity, Mr. Langdon revealed that the subject of their discussion would be dining at Rossing Hall this very evening. He said he’d be most pleased if Tony would make one of the party, and later avail himself of a guest chamber.
“I’ll make it all right with my uncle,” Jack added with a weak smile. “Now you’re here, he’ll think the damage done. Besides, if he can tolerate Blenkly, he can endure your company as well, I expect.”
Having transformed himself into a model of unselfishness, Lord Berne offered to absent himself from the house for a while—after, that is, he had washed and changed—to spare Lord Rossing unnecessary irritation. There was no need to explain that his chosen place of exile would be the house next door. Jack was intelligent enough to recognise the impossibility of his friend’s doing anything else.
Lord Berne was just turning into the front walkway of Elmhurst when he came upon Mr. Atkins, who’d recently been turned out.
Mr. Atkins’s lot was not a happy one. Following his last interview with Lord Streetham, the publisher had returned to London to nurse his cold and contemplate ruin. No sooner had he arrived than he’d had the idea of appealing to Desmond’s greed by forging a letter offering more money for the manuscript. The reply had been most disheartening. Today he’d come hinting at legal action, only to meet a stone wall of injured innocence.
Desmond had claimed to be the victim of scoundrels. His manuscript had disappeared, he’d insisted. After observing that one couldn’t get blood from a stone, and assuring the publisher something would turn up, and vowing an unspeakable vengeance upon those who had stripped him of the fruits of his labours, the Devil had politely eased Mr. Atkins out the door.
Now the publisher was faced with the unenviable task of discovering whether it was his business partner or his author who was playing him false, and the hopeless task of wrenching the manuscript from either of these fellows’ grips.
Mr. Atkins cast an unfriendly eye upon Lord Berne. Had the earl not placed so much confidence in this young coxcomb, the matter might have been handled in a properly businesslike way from the start.
Lord Berne immediately took umbrage at being glowered at by this low, sweating tradesman.
“Still nosing about, Atkins?” said he. “Looking for more scurrilous tales to carry to my father? You’d better take care. Neither Mr. Desmond nor Lady Potterby will be best pleased to hear how you lurk about the property spying upon the family.”
Mr. Atkins answered that he had not been spying on anyone. A man was entitled to professional interest in the products of his trade, he hoped. “I only wanted—”
“My good man, what you want can be of no possible interest to me, I am sure,” said Lord Berne in perfect imitation of his father at his supercilious best. “I hope you will not tax my credulity too far by attempting to persuade me Lady Potterby now cultivates literature in her garden. She’s growing a library there, perhaps, and you were curious about her choice of fertilizer? Or did you suspect your publications were the manure used to enrich her soil? Indeed, that would explain your obsessive interest. Good day, sir,” his lordship concluded, rudely bushing past him.
Mr. Atkins stood a moment staring after the viscount in mute indignation. “Insolent, sarcastic puppy,” he muttered to himself. “You feign to misunderstand me, do you, and insult my trade—as though it did not pay for your coats from Mr. Wes-ton and your starched cravats and all the rest. Manure, indeed. My work enriching the soil and—”
And then Mr. Atkins had a vision—of a spade handle standing a foot or so from an embracing couple. He saw as well Mr. Langdon coatless and spattered with dirt. Mr. Atkins asked himself, much as Lord Streetham had a few days earlier, why two members of the idle upper class should take to agriculture on such a punishingly hot day.
Lord Berne discovered to his regret that he’d been overtaken by Time’s winged chariot, for he was shown into the house just as the two ladies were about to go upstairs to prepare for the dinner party. He therefore had the honour of a mere ten minutes’ visit, during which he found no opportunity to speak privately with Miss Desmond.
Still, he made the most of the precious minutes. He appeared as subdued, chastened, and decorous a visitor as any fastidious duenna could wish. His speech had just the right air of mournfulness to persuade any onlooker he was the hapless victim of a merciless conqueror. The sad, furtive way in which his gaze helplessly sought Miss Desmond’s left no doubt as to whom this tyrant could be.
“Plague take the fellow,” the Devil muttered under his breath, when the viscount had taken his dejected leave. “Kemble is a clownish amateur compared to him.”
The fair despot might have been touched by the moving sight of a young lord in the last stages of romantic decline had she been able to spare him her attention. This was impossible, because Delilah’s mind was taken up entirely by Mr. Atkins. His reappearance had been most disquieting, and she had not been at all appeased by her father’s entertaining reenactment of his performance.
If they had not been engaged for the evening, Delilah would very likely have dashed out to the garden, dug up the manuscript—had it been there to be disinterred—and either burned it or thrown it into the duckpond. Unfortunately, they were engaged, and she must bathe and dress and then sit still for an eternity while Joan battled with her mistress’s unruly hair.
Chapter Ten
The dinner party turned out to be a foreshadowing of the reception Delilah might expect in London. Even the tentative acceptance she’d recently achieved in Rossingley was not reflected in the manner of Lord Rossing’s more prominent guests.
Lord and Lady Streetham were more patronising than ever, while their Gathers counterparts simply pretended Miss Desmond was an uninteresting piece of furniture. Since the former were now, like the latter, houseguests of the Wembertons, even that heretofore kindly group appeared stiffly ill at ease.
Delilah’s situation was not at all improved by Lord Berne, who hovered about her constantly, despite his mama’s apparently inexhaustible supply of stratagems to call him back to Lady Jane’s side. Though Delilah wished he would consider her predicament and not make such a cake of himself, she was not entirely displeased with his behaviour.
Lady Jane was all sharp angles. Her chin was small and pointed. Her nose was narrow and pointed. Her eyes were very black and very sharp, and her voice, in perfect keeping with all this staccato, was high and clipped. She had curtly acknowledged their introduction with a snap of her chin, as though she were a pair of scissors and would like to snip Miss Desmond out of the scene altogether. Lord Berne’s devotion was some recompense to Delilah for this rudeness.
Still, it was a relief to be seated by Mr. Langdon at dinner, with Lady Jane and Lord Berne the length of the table away. As usual, Mr. Langdon was the soul of courtesy. He did not gaze upon Delilah with moonstruck eyes nor heap fulsome compliments upon her aching head.
After dinner, though, he had to remain with the gentlemen, while the ladies retired to await them in the drawing room.
There Lady Potterby was drawn into conversation with Mrs. Blenkly, while Delilah, po
intedly ignored by Lady Jane’s allies, struggled to keep up something like a conversation with an excessively nervous Miss Wemberton. The latter was too tender-hearted to snub Miss Desmond, yet too aware of the ill-feeling towards her to converse enthusiastically. She kept glancing uneasily across the room at her mother, who was deeply engrossed with her houseguests.
“Is it wise, do you think, Eliza,” Lady Gathers was saying, “to allow Mary to sit with her?”
Though Lady Wemberton was torn between loyalties, Lady Gathers’s hint that Mary might be easily led astray was not at all acceptable.
“A few minutes’ conversation will hardly corrupt my daughter,” said Lady Wemberton, drawing herself up. “Besides, Millicent is a dear friend. One cannot choose one’s relations, you know.”
“One can decide whether or not to acknowledge them,” Lady Gathers retorted. “But I daresay she grows senile and you tolerate her frailties for old times’ sake.”
“I can hardly cut the grand niece without cutting the great aunt,” said Lady Wemberton.
“Yes, I suppose that is also Lord Berne’s problem,” snapped Lady Jane.
“The young men must sow their wild oats, my dear,” said Lady Streetham, hastening to her darling’s defence. “If he had any respect for that creature he would not subject her to such unseemly ogling.”
“Indeed, you know you would blush, Jane, to be regarded so,” Lady Gathers concurred.
All the same, the ladies must have agreed it was more unseemly that Lady Jane not be regarded at all, for they soon united to place that paragon center stage.
The men had scarcely appeared when the ladies began hinting for music. Naturally, Lady Jane must perform first, since she had precedence over the other maidens.
“I knew it,” Lord Rossing muttered to his nephew. “Sooner or later we must be treated to a lot of amateurish caterwauling and applaud it as musical accomplishment.” More audibly he pronounced himself enchanted with the prospect, and begged Lady Jane to offer the company her Euterpean tribute.
