Horatia’s smile faded. “Indeed?” she said.
“I detest people who interfere,” said her ladyship hastily, “but I do feel you have a right to know why you shouldn’t admit Lord Lethbridge to your friendship.”
“I am aware, L-Louisa,” said Horatia stiffly. “His r-reputa-tion—”
“It isn’t that, my love. Only he, and Rule, and I know, and Rule won’t tell you because he’d never give me away, bless him!”
Horatia turned, round-eyed. “G-give you away, Louisa?” Lady Louisa sank her voice to a confidential murmur, and started bravely to tell her sister-in-law just what had happened in a mad spring-tide seven years ago.
Chapter Thirteen
At about the same moment that Lady Louisa was engaged laying bare her past history for Horatia’s inspection, Lord Lethbridge was being admitted into a house in Hertford Street. Declining the footman’s escort he walked up the stairs to the saloon overlooking the street, where Lady Massey was impatiently awaiting him.
“Well, my dear,” he said, closing the door behind him. “I am flattered of course, but why am I summoned so urgently?”
Lady Massey was staring out of the window but she wheeled about. “You had my billet?”
He raised his brows: “If I had not, Caroline, I should not be here now,” he said. “It is not my practice to pay morning calls.” He put up his glass and critically surveyed her through it. “Allow me to tell you, my cherished one, that you are looking something less than your usual incomparable self. Now what can be amiss?”
She took a step towards him. “Robert, what happened at Ranelagh last night,” she shot at him.
His thin fingers tightened perceptibly about the shaft of his quizzing glass, his eyes, narrowed to mere slits, stared across at her. “At Ranelagh...” he repeated. “Well?”
“Oh, I was there!” she replied. “I heard you speak to that little fool. You went into the pavilion. What happened then?”
He had let his glass fall and drawn a snuff-box from his pocket. He tapped it with one finger and opened it. “And pray what is that to you, Caroline?” he asked.
“Someone said a Scarlet Domino had gone into the smallest card-room. I saw no one there. I went out on to the terrace.
I saw—you, as I thought—cut one of the bride’s curls off—oh, that doesn’t signify now! She ran out and I went in.” She stopped, pressing her handkerchief to her lips. “My God, it was Rule!” she said.
Lord Lethbridge took a pinch of snuff, shook away the residue, and raised the pinch first to one nostril, then to the other. “How very disconcerting for you, my love!” he said blandly. “I’m sure you betrayed yourself.”
She shuddered. “I thought it was you. I said—it makes no odds what I said. Then he took off his mask. I was near to swooning.”
Lord Lethbridge shut the snuff-box and dusted his ruffles. “Very entertaining, Caroline. And I hope it will be a lesson to you not to interfere in my affairs. How I wish I had seen you!”
She reddened angrily, and moved towards a chair. “You were always spiteful, Robert. But you were at Ranelagh last night, and you wore that scarlet domino. I tell you I saw no other there!”
“There was no other,” replied Lethbridge coolly. He smiled, not very pleasantly. “What an instructive evening our dear Rule must have spent! And what a fool you are, Caroline! Pray, what did you say to him?”
“It’s no matter,” she said sharply. “Perhaps you lent him your domino? It would be so like you!”
“Now there you’re wrong,” he replied with great affability. “It would not be in the least like me. That domino was wrested from me.”
Her lips curled. “You permitted it? You let him take your place with the girl? That is not very probable!”
“I had no choice in the matter,” he said. “I was eliminated in the neatest possible way. Yes, I said “eliminated”, Caroline.”
“You take it very calmly!” she remarked.
“Naturally,” he replied. “Did you suppose I should gnash my teeth?”
She plucked at the folds of her gown. “Well, are you satisfied? Do you mean to be done with the bride? Is it all over?”
“As far as you are concerned, my dear, I should imagine that it is certainly all over,” he said reflectively. “Not, of course, that I was privileged to witness your meeting with Rule. But I can guess. I am quite acute, you know.”
She abandoned the sarcastic attitude she had adopted, and stretched out her hand. “Oh, Robert, can you not see that I am upset?”
“Easily,” he answered. “So are my plans upset, but I don’t permit that to put me in a taking.”
She looked at him, wondering. He had an alert air, his eyes were bright and smiling. No, he was not one to give way to unprofitable emotion. “What are you going to do?” she asked. “If Rule means to stop the girl—”
He snapped his fingers. “I said my plans were upset. I believe it to be quite true.”
“You don’t seem to care,” she remarked.
“There are always more plans to be made,” he said. “Not for you,” he added kindly. “You may as well make up your mind to that. I am really distressed for you, my dear. Rule must have been so useful.” He eyed her for a moment, and his smile broadened. “Oh, did you love him, Caroline? That was unwise of you.”
She got up. “You’re abominable, Robert,” she said. “I must see him. I must make him see me.”
“Do, by all means,” Lethbridge said cordially. “I wish you may plague him to death; he would dislike that. But you won’t get him back, my poor dear. Very well do I know Rule. Would you like to see him humbled? I promise you you shall.”
She walked away to the window. “No,” she said indifferently.
“Odd!” he commented. “I assure you, with me it has become quite an obsession.” He came towards her. “You are not very good company today, Caroline. I shall take my leave of you. Do make Rule a scene and then I will come to see you again, and you shall tell me all about it.” He picked up her hand and kissed it. “Au revoir, my love!” he said sweetly, and went out humming a little tune under his breath.
He was on his way home to Half-Moon Street when my Lady Rule’s landaulet turned a corner of the road and came at a smart pace towards him. Horatia, seated alone now, saw him at once, and seemed undecided. Lethbridge swept off his hat and stood waiting for the carriage to draw up.
Something in that calm assumption that she would order her coachman to stop appealed to Horatia. She gave the necessary command and the landaulet came to a standstill beside Lethbridge.
One look at her was enough to assure Lethbridge that she knew just what had happened at Ranelagh. The grey eyes held a gleam of amusement. It annoyed him but he would not let that appear.
“Alas, the jealous husband came off with the honours!” he said.
“He w-was clever, wasn’t he?” Horatia agreed.
“But inspired!” Lethbridge said. “My damp fate was particularly apt. Make him my compliments, I beg of you. I was certainly caught napping.”
She thought that he was taking his humiliating defeat very well, and replied a little more warmly: “We were b-both caught napping, and p-perhaps it was as well, sir.”
“I blame myself,” he said meditatively. “Yet I don’t know how I could have guessed... If I had but been aware of Caroline Massey’s presence I might have been more on my guard.”
The arrow struck home as he knew it would. Horatia sat up very straight. “Lady Massey?”
“Oh, did you not see her! No, I suppose not. It seems that she and Rule laid their heads together to plan our undoing. We must admit they succeeded admirably.”
“It’s n-not t-true!” Horatia stammered.
“But—” He broke off artistically, and bowed. “Why, of course not, ma’am!”
She stared fiercely at him. “Why did you say that?”