Page 6

‘Don’t concern yourself, Ferdy. I won’t be out on the Town looking for licentious diversion. Not only was I warmed in my exile by you and Purfoy and a few other loyal friends’ visits, I was also engaged in epistolary lovemaking with a fellow countrywoman.’

Ferdy’s blue eyes were hard on Lord Flambard’s face. Surely he was not as foolhardy as that? ‘Who?’ he asked in stern tones.

‘Why, who else? The grieving widow, Amelia Payton.’

For a moment, Ferdy was speechless. He knew his friend to be prey to every powerful appetite, from brandy, brawling and horses to opera dancers and dice; he knew he was impervious to censure or Society’s strictures. Wild and ungovernable for years, Lord Flambard had been exempt from both love and contempt. Was this about to change?

Ferdy’s heart sank as he gazed upon the untroubled, handsome visage of his friend, and exclaimed, ‘You cannot be serious, Max, tell me you’re bamming.’

‘No, I’m not! If truth be told, the innocent Amelia made all the running with me, not that I was less than keen to go along. Tell me what exiled, libidinous twenty-year-old would not be? Well, it seems she could not forget me.’ He smiled smugly. ‘She continued her wooing by letter and I thought it might be amusing to pick up where we left off.’ Lord Flambard was still eating heartily from his breakfast plate, wolfing down the ham and poached eggs as if he hadn’t eaten for a week. He threw a glance at his aghast friend then said with a roguish twinkle, ‘To tell you the truth, Ferdy, she’s quite a woman. If you knew her, you’d appreciate her charms. I think she’s teaching me to value fidelity in love.’

This last was astounding news and Ferdy’s perturbation of spirit increased. With Max sounding like he’d suffered a conversion from the libertine life, Ferdy feared this liaison with Mrs Payton would not go the way of the rest: pursuit, consummation, escape. To add insult to injury, Ferdy did not wish to be exhorted to appreciate his future mother-in-law’s charms while courting her daughter. Being thus allied with Lord Flambard’s lascivious intent made him recoil from the sheer bad taste of it all.

So disturbed was he by the thoughts racing through his mind that he forgot himself enough to rake a hand through his beautifully coiffed hair. The disordered mass of curls that subsequently sprang up on his head was a style fashionably known as ‘le poète distrait’. In a state that matched his coiffure, he cried, ‘No, no, NO! Max, you cannot be so reckless as to continue this scandalous affair. You were hurried by your friends into exile and could not have known just what a sensation your behaviour caused, cuckolding an officer in the King’s Hussars, then killing him in a duel. For you to enact an encore would outrage the Town. The clubs and coffee shops, even the servants and shopkeepers, would be agog, and you’ll drag my name into it alongside yours.’

Ferdy was pacing, in obvious distress, then he remembered an even worse side effect of such a convergence of sex, absurdity and death and clapped his hand to his forehead.

‘And Max, to crown your obloquy, the satiric caricaturists would have a field day. You weren’t here to see what sport they made with your first fatal adventure.’

‘Have some coffee, old friend, and calm down.’ Lord Flambard nonchalantly waved the silver pot his way.

But Ferdy was in no mood for raillery and could barely contemplate the calamity that awaited him. ‘Just yesterday, Miss Payton begged me not to continue my friendship with you, aware of the salacious gossip and cruel ostracism she feared would once more be directed at her mama. Your pursuit of Mrs Payton, however discreet, will set the whole scandal ablaze once more.’ He did not relish becoming part of the ambiguous amoral world that Max Flambard so carelessly inhabited.

Lord Flambard looked at his old friend, a sly smile lifting the corners of his mouth. ‘You know I’m reckless. Flirting with danger makes me feel alive. For men like me, the only worthwhile thing in life is sensation – to feel that I exist is worth any pain.’

Ferdy could not contain his irritation. ‘I am fully aware that I exist, and do not need to suffer in order to prove it, and I certainly don’t need your selfish behaviour to teach me anything!’

Flambard’s dark eyes narrowed. ‘But why such concern, my little Shrimp? Who are Mrs Payton and her daughter to you, anyway?’

Ferdy had stopped his pacing and resignedly leant against the grand marble fire surround, his hand resting on a caryatid’s head. He sighed. ‘I have been thinking Miss Payton might make me a good wife, that’s all.’

Lord Flambard let out a great gust of laughter, splattering his coffee in the process. ‘I don’t believe it! Ferdy, you secretive cove, about to get shackled. And to Amelia’s straight-laced daughter! I never expected such of you. What’s so special about this particular gimcrack? Is there a fortune to be had?’

Ferdy felt affronted by his friend’s astonishment and levity. ‘I have no need of a fortune, Max, as you know full well.’ His voice was frosty.

‘Well, why marry? Is she beautiful, irresistible, a woman you cannot do without?’

Ferdy felt distinctly uneasy and answered with defiance, ‘Hester Payton is a particularly admirable and attractive young woman with whom I think I could be most happy.’

‘Oh Ferdy! Marriage is tedious enough with all the restraints and disadvantages. It’s the quickest way to turn a lovable, seducing gal into a cold and complaining wife with a dozen or so noisy squallers hanging on your arm. There have to be more compelling reasons than admiration and meagre attraction to make it worth putting your head in that noose.’

Ferdinand Shilton’s cheeks had flushed. ‘Max, you go too far. What I do is my own concern, as is your business yours, but I respectfully request that you do not make your business mine too.’

Lord Flambard was on his feet and flung a muscular arm over his friend’s shoulder. ‘I promise to be discreet in all my dealings. I am more than grateful for your friendship and your offer of shelter until my estates are restored to me. Let’s go together to White’s tonight. That cannot be too controversial, can it? They’re all men of the world and not a female in sight. Anyway, as I’ve said before, people have short memories.’

Ferdy’s indignation evaporated in the warmth of his friend’s relentless good spirits. He laughed, ‘People do have short memories, ’tis true, but you are exactly what your nickname suggests, flashy, forward, far from discreet!’ He realised with chagrin that as someone who valued the reasonable approach to life, he seemed to have let his feelings get the better of him in an unconscionable way. Why was his resolve crumbling? Surely he was not so easily suggestible that Lord Flambard’s quixotic nature had already infected him with passions and fears of loss, the very destabilisers of his equanimity he chose to avoid?

Mr Shilton looked at Lord Flambard’s cheerful face and a compensatory thought came to mind; he may temporarily have lost Alick Wolfe and Lord Purfoy, the friends of his bosom but, in the meantime, Max was a diverting substitute. As they both planned their night-time entertainment, Ferdy did not feel quite so abandoned; he had another castaway to share the island of their youth.

2

VAUXHALL SPILLS AND THRILLS

The dyeing of the grey muslin dress had not gone well. Madeleine looked at it in dismay as it hung on the line in the sun, its blue colour splodged with darker blue, as if she had spilled a particularly greasy broth down her front. She and Mrs Porton had dipped it three times in the murky water that contained the woad-blue pigment, laboriously extracted from the leaves, but they could not make it look like a cloudless sky. Madeleine knew that even to appliqué all her blue ribbon in fancy patterns would not distract the eye enough to save it.

Mrs Porton wiped her blue-stained hands on her apron. ‘Oh Miss, I’m sorry. It looks a mess.’

‘It’s not your fault. You went to all this trouble and it’s a pity it hasn’t worked. I should have listened to Lord Edwin and thrown it away in the first place.’