“But surely your influence—”
“One has no influence over knaves who leap out of alleys in the dead of night. You forget of whom we speak. Besides, if he has made a laughingstock of me in his curst story, I will have as much influence in the world as the coal scuttle. As usual, the Devil holds all the winning cards. You will go to Brighton or I shall cut off your allowance.”
Chapter Eight
While Lord Berne was quarrelling with his father, Delilah was confiding in hers. Until the viscount had appeared at church, she had not permitted herself to consider his scheme seriously. Now she was forced to consider it, but she wished to have her father’s perspective as well.
When she was done, Mr. Desmond leaned back comfortably in his chair and acknowledged that Lord Berne’s was an interesting approach to the problem.
“It is brilliant, Papa,” she answered. “I only wish you could have seen the parishioners today. They were positively agog. Even Aunt Millicent was impressed. Lord Berne’s reputation must be far worse than I thought, if one appearance at church could cause such a stir. Still, I cannot help but question his motives. Though it seems a deal of trouble to go to, I do wonder if he only wants to win my trust so he can seduce me.”
“That’s simple enough,” said her father. “Don’t get seduced.”
She did not appear to hear him. Her brow furrowed.
“I find your expression ominous, Delilah,” said Mr. Desmond. “You are hatching something, and I am certain it is mischief.”
She was staring at the carpet, and when she spoke, it was as though she were simply thinking aloud.
“Not being seduced is simple,” she said. “What is difficult is maintaining his interest. He is reputed very fickle.” Absently she rose from her chair and began pacing the room. “If it could be done, he might be brought round—eventually. But is there time—and is he worth the effort, I wonder? Still, he will be Earl of Streetham one day and—” She glanced at her father, who was watching her with every evidence of amusement.
“He is very beautiful, Papa. That we must admit.”
“I am sure there is not a prettier fellow in the kingdom.”
“He is exceedingly conceited,” she went on, “yet he is amusing. He is rather wild—”
“Very wild.”
She bit her lip. “Well, I’d rather not marry some dull, conventional fellow if I can help it. I should be bored to death and driven to some atrocity sooner or later, I know it. At any rate, Lord Berne is at hand and wishes to pursue me. I think I may let him do so... until I catch him,” she finished with a faint smile.
“And if you do not?” her papa enquired.
She shrugged. “Then I’m no worse off than before. I’ll go to London with my aunt as planned and try to catch someone else.”
Mr. Desmond gave a theatrical shudder. “Such a cold-blooded creature you are, my dear. Whenever you begin making wedding plans I feel I have entered a damp, chilly dungeon. No more, I beg you.”
He rose from his chair and crossed the room to her. “Your aunt is napping,” he said. “If I swear the servants to secrecy, will you indulge your aged parent in a game of billiards?”
Her smile broadened into a mischievous grin. “I promise to trounce you soundly.”
“I shall see that you don’t. You know, while we are on the tiresome subject, I ought to remind you of his parents. Your behaviour must be most circumspect if you wish to enslave them as well. I’m afraid that will tax your patience.”
“I will do my part not to make a scandal, Papa,” she said with some indignation. “I only wish you would do yours. Something must be done about that odious Mr. Atkins.”
“Leave him to me. If worse comes to worse, and he proves recalcitrant, we shall simply burn the manuscript.”
“Actually, I begin to think we should do so immediately.”
“So confident of your viscount, eh?” Mr. Desmond offered’his daughter his arm.
As she took it she said, “It would be one less worry.”
“My dear, a single young lady has only one true worry, which is not getting seduced. All you need do is not believe anything an idle young man says until he says it before the parson and witnesses, pursuant to placing a ring upon your finger.”
She squeezed his arm affectionately. “I will remember, Papa,” she promised. “Now—to battle.”
***
Lord Berne spent his first day in Brighton dutifully inhaling the salt air during a restless walk upon the Steyne. In the usual way of things, he would have promptly banished Miss Desmond’s image by fixing on one closer to hand. The circumstances were not usual. He had not wandered away on his own caprice, but had been sent away against his will, like a naughty child ordered to bed without his supper. Now, precisely like a spoiled child, Lord Berne wanted no other treat but the one denied him.
Consequently, he persuaded himself there was no other female upon the earth as desirable as Delilah Desmond; that, furthermore, he had never loved before, all the rest being puerile infatuations.
That her image haunted him (at least twice a day) proved beyond doubt he’d come upon the grand passion of a lifetime. Yet what had he done? He’d scurried off to Brighton because his father threatened to stop his allowance. An idle threat. Lord Streetham had too much pride to allow his son to wander about the kingdom on foot, in rags, like a beggar.
Meanwhile Lord Berne’s beloved would have concluded he’d abandoned her—that he was a worthless, unreliable knave. She must not.
Lord Berne hastened back to his lodgings and penned a very long letter full of bad grammar and execrable verse, in the course of which he claimed to be called away to sit by the sickbed of a friend. Then he ordered his curricle and posted off to Rye.
In the country, one day can be so tediously like all the rest that the smallest piece of news becomes a nine-days’ wonder. All the same, few of Lady Potterby’s neighbours could work up much excitement about Squire Pegham’s sow’s difficulties in labour and the consequent suffocation of three of her numerous offspring. This local sensation was cast entirely in the shade by the bizarre behaviour of Lord Berne.
Streetham Close might be twenty-five miles away, but Lord Berne’s periodic sorties into the Rossingley environs and the feminine devastation he left in his wake had made him a common foe. The local gentry were therefore mightily curious about the young lady who had (if reports were to be believed) so far subjugated this enemy as to lure him to church, where—and this was utterly confounding—he had not nodded off at once. He had capped this miracle by pledging a large sum of money for repairs to a church not even in his own parish, thus sparing the Rossingley parishioners the disagreeable necessity of reaching into their own pockets.
All this he had done, it was said, in an effort to overcome Miss Desmond’s prejudices against him. Miss Twiggenham herself had heard him say as much, having on Sunday been placed by an accidental though fortunate conjunction of circumstances close enough to overhear his lordship’s remarks. Miss Twiggenham’s evidence was strengthened by Mrs. Blenkly’s avowal that Lord Berne had said practically the same thing to the minister.
In short, as Lord Berne had predicted, and more speedily than even he could have guessed, Rossingley developed a lively interest in Miss Delilah Desmond. Lady Potterby was besieged daily by callers, all of whom had hitherto been studiously unaware of the Desmonds’ entry into the neighbourhood.
They came primarily out of curiosity and went away still curious. Admittedly Miss Desmond was handsome. All the same, Lord Berne had his pick of not only rustic beauties, but Society’s most dazzling Incomparables. There must be something more than her looks.
Unfortunately, no one could ascertain what the “more” was, exactly. Miss Desmond’s manners were unexceptionable, and her conversation was very properly limited to deference to the opinions of her elders. She seemed very much like any other gently-bred young miss. Only when people recollected she was Devil Desmond’s daughter did this conclusion appear
at all remarkable. Thus she became a mystery all Rossingley was in a fever to solve.
Miss Desmond might have enjoyed her triumph whole-heartedly had she not been so acutely aware that Rossingley’s interest in her would fade as abruptly as it had blossomed if the reason for its interest vanished. The reason—Lord Berne—showed every evidence of doing so.
When he had not called by Friday, Miss Desmond’s spirits—already sorely tried by the necessity of behaving circumspectly before an endless stream of company—sank into the Slough of Despond.
Lord Berne was obviously as fickle, selfish, and thoughtless as everyone said. She must have been totty-headed to have taken him seriously even for an instant, especially on such light evidence as one whimsical promise. She had not been her usual hard-headed self, that was certain. Delilah reflected as she wandered unhappily out to the garden.
The sun shone, but today its beams were gentle, and a cool breeze drove away all traces of the unusual humidity which had oppressed the countryside. The milder weather had not, she soon discovered, been of much use to her horticultural experiment. Two more seedlings had succumbed. As she gazed sorrowfully upon their withered remains, she made a mental note to speak to Jenkins, the gardener. Until she thought of a better hiding place, there must be no more planting here. Mr. Langdon had not dug a very deep hole. He’d been too busy demonstrating his prowess in other ways. Well, he’d discovered his mistake soon enough and had slunk off to hide among his dusty volumes.
By now he must have persuaded himself the embrace had been all her doing, because she was a wanton adventuress, bent on entrapping him. Was there some further penance she wished to exact, he’d said, in those cold, patronising tones. The nerve of the man! He was despicable.
She stomped down the path until she came to a wrought iron bench placed conveniently in a shady corner. Muttering imprecations upon Mr. Langdon and occasionally—when she remembered—Lord Berne, Delilah flung herself onto the seat and fell into a sulk.
She had been thus amusing herself for about ten minutes when her maid appeared bearing a letter, as well as a lengthy recitation of her trials and tribulations, the letter being the most recent affront to Joan’s dignity. She did not see why a lady’s maid must act as messenger when there were plenty of footmen lazing about the house, gaping and gawking the livelong day for want of anything to do. Her ill-tempered mistress only added to these injuries by curtly dismissing her.
While Joan marched back to the house in high dudgeon, Miss Desmond was eagerly tearing open the letter. She quickly scanned the bold, black lines, then, with her first genuine smile in at least three days, sat back to read again more slowly.
When she had finished savouring Lord Berne’s lyric prose for the tenth time, Delilah made for the house, to acquaint her father with this latest, most promising development on the rut-ridden road to matrimony.
She found him in the late Lord Potterby’s study, perusing an epistle of his own and grinning. “Ah, there you are,” said he. “I was intending to come out to share this with you but you’ve spared my aged body that labour. What do you think, Delilah? We have yet another publisher who wishes to become my bosom-bow—and at twice the price.”
He handed the letter to his daughter, whose joyous countenance reverted to its previous gloom while she read.
“This is dreadful, Papa,” she said when she was done. “I thought Mr. Atkins assured us of secrecy. How on earth did this man learn of your memoirs?”
“Easy enough,” said the parent with a shrug. “I daresay one of Atkins’s clerks has a passion for listening at keyholes and a loose tongue. An unfortunate combination, but one prevalent, I fear, in every class of society.”
“Indeed. I expect all of London knows by now.”
“If that were the case, I should receive a great many more offers than this. Rest easy, my dear. Businessmen are always spying upon one another and they are not above paying their rivals’ employees for useful tidbits.”
Delilah could not rest easy. She began pacing frantically, her skirts whirling about her in a manner which would have sent her great-aunt into paroxysms. Fortunately, the only observer at the moment was her papa.
“Yes, my love,” he said. “I am certain you have inherited your legs from your mama, but I hope you will be cautious about revealing that circumstance beyond our small family circle.”
Miss Desmond dutifully threw herself into a chair. “Thank you for the reminder, Papa. Aunt Millicent has told me a hundred times to move with more decorum. But it will scarcely matter whether I lift my skirts and run howling through the village if we do not silence this horrid man.”
“Silence him? But my dear, he offers double what Atkins did. If I accept, I might repay our nervous friend and commence a less tiresome relationship with his colleague. Although I must say,” he added, “Atkins has astonished me by keeping away this whole week. I wonder if he’s returned to London?”
Delilah had no time for wonderings. The crisis at the moment was this letter. It must be dealt with. If her papa accepted the offer, she might as well go back to Scotland to her mama. She could not endure any more anxiety.
“What on earth is there to be anxious about?” her father asked mildly. “My memoirs are safely entombed. Another few weeks of rain and they will have rotted away. Or is it your elusive golden prince who troubles you? You should not be cast down, my dear. Reformation is a most wearisome enterprise, particularly for fickle young libertines. You cannot be surprised that after an eternity of five whole days he has altogether forgotten your existence.”
“Oh, has he?” was the arch response. “Then I wonder why he writes so desolately of missing me.” Delilah bounced up from her chair to wave Lord Berne’s letter triumphantly in her father’s face.
Mr. Desmond smiled. “Has he, indeed?” He took the letter and skimmed it. “Defy his parents... his life heretofore a shallow mockery... nothing but this pernicious accident could have kept him away. Good heavens,” he said, looking up. “His courage and resolution take my breath away.”
Whether he was breathless or not, Delilah told her parent, he must wrench his mind from Lord Berne for the moment and fix it on this new publisher, who must, she averred, be answered immediately.
“You must tell him he is mistaken, Papa. Tell him the memoirs do not exist. If you do not, the rumours will be all over London in another week and I will not dare show my face there until I am as old as Aunt Millicent.”
Her papa sighed and declared his only wish, of course, was to cater to her every whim, regardless how silly. He obediently took up his pen and wrote as his adamant child dictated. When the letter was sealed up, the two departed for Rossingley. Nothing would do, certainly, but to post it themselves, forthwith.
Lord Streetham had reached an unhappy conclusion. Desmond’s daughter was far more wily than the earl had imagined. Whatever favours Tony might eventually obtain from her, the manuscript was not one of them. Having admitted his error—a painful enough exercise—the earl must now face an even more disagreeable fact. There were only two ways left to get the manuscript away from Desmond. One was to steal it, which was now not only impossibly difficult but exceedingly risky. The other was to buy it, which was demeaning and expensive. On the whole, Lord Streetham thought he’d rather swallow his pride than risk swallowing a much harder object—like the end of Desmond’s sword.
No man had ever run afoul of the Devil and emerged from the experience intact. Lord Gartwaite’s jaw had been so severely dislocated that he’d been subsisting for the past twenty years on gruel. Billings was mouldering in the family crypt because he’d made an ill-chosen remark about the former Angelica Ornesby. Even the Devil’s own brother had walked with a limp ever since attempting to cheat the Devil of the few trinkets left in their father’s will to the younger son.
These represented the smallest fraction of gentlemen who had at one time or another taxed Devil Desmond’s patience too far. The curst fellow always found out somehow what was said or attem
pted behind his back.
Lord Streetham gave a superstitious shudder as he turned his carriage through the gates of Elmhurst, then shrugged off the sensation. Desmond could not have known his belongings had been searched at Streetham Close, or he’d have given his host a most unpleasant time of it. The man did not have eyes in the back of his head, regardless what others believed.
Having steeled himself for a humiliating interview, Lord Streetham was both relieved and frustrated to learn, shortly after he met his hostess, that Mr. Desmond and his daughter had driven into Rossingley. The earl was relieved enough to wish to return home immediately, his purse and dignity still intact, but that would only mean he must repeat the same unpleasant journey Lady Potterby was at the moment commiserating with him about.
“Such unusual heat we have had, My Lord,” she said as she led him into the drawing room. “So oppressive. We are sadly behind in our baking because the dough will not rise properly. Even when it does, who is to do anything with it, with the kitchen hot enough to bake bricks and the staff collapsing into the soup kettle?”
Lord Streetham agreed that the weather had been most un-English of late. Even the rain was far more like that of India in the monsoon season.
“Whatever it is, it cannot be like Greece,” said Lady Potterby. “Those seedlings my grand niece and Mr. Langdon planted are half of them dead already. Indeed, I do wonder they made such an experiment. Surely Mr. Langdon knows ours is not a Mediterranean climate. Jenkins is most distressed,” she added, shaking her head. “But what could he do? They were so eager to test one of the theories in that lovely volume you so generously gave Mr. Langdon.”
Lord Streetham had prepared himself to endure Lady Potterby’s endless prosing for hours, if necessary, and had assumed the same state of half-attention he usually accorded his wife. He could not help wondering, however, why two young persons of the upper class (Miss Desmond was at least technically a member) should be labouring over seedlings. Why hadn’t they left it to the gardening staff, who were paid to make themselves hot and dirty? Or was Miss Desmond’s planting merely some needlessly laborious pretext for taking advantage of a naive young man?