Said the astounded duke, “Do you mean that people actually wrap up their napkins and use them again for another meal?”
“Certainly,” said the agent.
The duke gasped as he looked at the stall, “Good God!” he exclaimed. “I never knew such poverty existed.”
How Geoffrey had laughed at such idiocy. If only he would propose. She knew her parents were beginning to fret. She glanced at her mother, who was chatting amiably with her hostess. The countess had moaned before they had left for the tea party that she should never have allowed that ‘dreadful’ governess to over-educate her child. What a world where intelligence was regarded with such deep suspicion. Poor Miss Tremp. Such a fine governess. She had moved on to another household. When I am married, I will take her out of servitude and make her my companion, thought Rose. And I will be married, she told herself firmly. The Duke of Freemount’s ball was to take place the following week, the grandest affair of the season, and Geoffrey had whispered that he had something to ask her and he would put the question to her there. What else could he mean? But on the other hand, why had he not approached her father and asked permission to pay his addresses?
♦
Harry Cathcart decided to start work right away. By dint of saying he had lost money to someone in a card game and he thought that someone might be Blandon, he managed to secure his address and a description of him. Blandon’s apartment was in St. James’s Square. Harry hired a closed carriage and sat a little way across the square to get a sight of his quarry. After a long wait, Blandon emerged. Although he was a fine figure of a man, Harry disliked him on sight. His stare was too arrogant, his eyes too knowing and his mouth too fleshy. There certainly was an air of the gambler about him.
First, Harry went to The Club and checked the betting book. There was nothing there. He frowned down at it. For the next few days, Harry tailed Sir Geoffrey. He found the man kept a mistress in Pimlico, but in these loose days would anyone consider the presence of a mistress a scandal? Perhaps Sir Geoffrey was not as rich as he was reported to be. Perhaps he was after Lady Rose for her money.
Harry could only just afford to keep up his membership of The Club. He could not afford to belong to any of the other London clubs.
He went back to his home and asked Becket to look out his photographic equipment, a recent hobby. Then he ordered his manservant to find him his oldest, most-worn suit, and after being helped into it, he sat down at his dressing-table and studied his face. He put pads of cotton wool inside his cheeks to plump them out and then, by dint of sabotaging a shaving brush and with a tube of spirit gum, he made himself a false moustache. Pulling an old hat down on his head, he heaved up his camera equipment and took a hackney to Brooks’s and asked to see the club secretary. His voice distorted by the cotton-wool pads in his cheeks, Harry explained he was a photographer sent by the Duke of Freemount, who wanted to mount an exhibition of photographs of London clubs to show in a marquee at his annual fête. Permission was given. Harry carefully left a few bits and pieces of photographic equipment in the secretary’s office.
Then, when he gratefully saw the secretary had been buttonholed by a crusty old member, he murmured something about needing more magnesium for his flash and went back to the secretary’s office. He quickly searched around until he found the betting book. Quickly he scanned it and then on a page he saw that Sir Geoffrey Blandon had bet that he could obtain the favours of Lady Rose before the end of the season. Harry knew ‘favours’ meant seduction. The bets were running at forty to one.
“Bastard,” he muttered, and taking out a penknife, sliced out the page. He had meant to photograph it if he had found anything incriminating but realized it would take too long, and operating a plate camera in dim light might not produce any results at all. And the use of a magnesium flash in his office might bring the secretary running.
He went back and photographed several more of the main rooms before making his retreat.
Harry should have been happy at his success, but he wished he did not have to break such news to the earl. Lady Rose must indeed have ruined her reputation by being photographed supporting the suffragettes. She had become the subject of a common wager.
It was the day before the duke’s ball when Harry Cathcart presented himself at the earl’s town house.
He waited patiently in the hall while the butler took his card. While he was waiting, Lady Rose came down the stairs. She was wearing an elaborate tea-gown but her long hair was brushed down her back. Her face glowed with happiness like a lantern in the gloom of the hall. She did not acknowledge Harry because he was a stranger and she hadn’t been introduced to him. Rose passed by him and disappeared through a door at the side of the hall.
Oh, dear, thought Harry. She is most definitely in love.
The butler came down the stairs and instructed Harry to follow him.
Rose picked up a book from a table in the library and made her way upstairs behind them. She wondered who the caller was. Her father was slightly deaf and his voice was loud. She was just passing the drawing-room when she heard him say, “That will be all, Brum. Leave us.” As the butler reappeared and turned to close the double doors, Rose distinctly heard her father say, “Well, found out anything about Blandon?”
She stayed where she was, frozen to the spot. The butler looked at her curiously but went on down the stairs.
Rose heard the low voice of the caller and then her father’s outraged shout of, “The man should be horse-whipped. My daughter’s ruined.” A frantic ringing of the bell was answered by a footman who leapt up the stairs, not even seeming to see Rose who stood there.
“Get her ladyship. Fetch Lady Polly,” roared the earl.
Rose went into the drawing-room. “What is wrong, Pa?”
The earl held out a sheet of paper with trembling fingers. “Wait until your mother gets here.”
Lady Polly, small and round like her husband, came into the room. “What is it, dear?”
“Sit down, you and Rose,” said the earl, all his bluster and rage evaporating. “Bad business. Bad, bad business. Ladies, may I present Captain Cathcart?”
The captain, who had risen to his feet at Rose’s entrance, bowed. “Captain, my wife, Lady Polly, and my daughter, Lady Rose. Now all sit down. Got your smelling-salts, Rose, hey?”
“I never use smelling-salts.”
“You might need them now. Go ahead, Cathcart, tell them what you found out.”
Feeling rather grubby, wishing he could escape and leave the earl to break the news, Harry described what he had discovered. He started by saying, “Blandon keeps a mistress in Pimlico, a girl called Maisie Lewis.”
He saw the shock and dismay in Rose’s eyes, followed by a defiant anger. In that moment, he knew that Rose had immediately decided that the affair with Maisie was old history.
“The affair continues,” he said. “As Blandon had the appearance of a gambler, I decided to check the betting books. I thought I might find out something about financial difficulties, but instead found out that Blandon had bet that he could seduce Lady Rose before the end of the season.”
The countess let out a little scream and raised a handkerchief to her lips.
The earl held out the sheet from the betting book to Rose. She read it carefully and then said, “You must excuse me. I have things to attend to.”
“We can’t go to the ball now!” wailed Lady Polly.
“Sir Geoffrey does not know what we now know,” said Rose. “We should not give him that satisfaction.”
She rose and sailed from the room, back erect, and all the love light gone from her face.
Her mother hurried after her, leaving Harry and the earl alone.