Thomas’s posting to Jersey was over, and once again Anne arranged for her brother to spend his leave with her and Lady Huntingdon. He was allotted the same bedroom and looked around it with some pleasure as the footman deposited his luggage near the foot of the bed.
And so it proceeded. Each day was full of delight and adventure. He put his notebooks away, stacked his pencils and sketchbooks on the table in the corner and did not look at them again. Instead he went to the coffee houses and met with men who remembered him from his previous visits and were now becoming friends. The conversation excited him; they would sit for hours discussing the latest politics and scandals. Then Thomas would make his way back to change for a dinner or a ball and the heady delight of flirting with the clusters of pretty young ladies who surrounded him as he arrived at the latest party.
It was late in the evening and he was standing by the table in a side room at yet another ball, sipping a glass of wine, when he saw her standing nearby. She had been led to the table by a tall, well-dressed young man. He gave her a glass of sherbet, bowed and then left her there alone. He saw her glance round, as though desperately searching for a familiar face amongst the crowd. In the ballroom the orchestra was striking up a minuet and men were bowing before the partners of their choice; ladies were fluttering their eyelashes as they scanned the room from behind their fans for the men who had booked their dances, but this girl turned away shyly and sipping from her glass began to edge towards the door. As she did so the glass slipped from her gloved hand and fell to the floor. She stared down at the spilled drink, appalled.
Thomas was at her side in an instant. ‘Excuse me. Can I be of assistance?’ he bowed.
She looked at him, startled, and he found himself confronted by a large pair of dark eyes and a face which combined extraordinary attractiveness with a quirky inquisitive charm. He could see her embarrassment and then her shy admiration as she noted his good looks and his dress uniform. He hastily retrieved the glass, thankfully unbroken, and found her another which he filled from the punch bowl. ‘I’m sorry, ma’am. We have not been formally introduced, but perhaps on this occasion we may assume the introductions have been made by our hostess in inviting us both to the ball.’
She seemed struck dumb by his shocking suggestion but then he saw the spark of mischief light in her eyes. ‘Indeed, I believe they have, both by our hostess and my aunt, who brought me.’
‘And were she here with us, would she tell me your name?’ This was highly improper but he couldn’t bring himself to bow and walk away.
‘It is Frances, sir. Frances Moore.’
Behind them the minuet finished and after a pause they heard the orchestra striking up once more. He laughed in delight. ‘A Scotch reel, I think, Miss Moore. Would you do me the honour of dancing it with me?’
She hesitated for only a second. ‘I suppose as we have now been introduced there would be no harm.’ She set down her glass with a determination which he found extremely attractive. He held out his hand and with just the slightest of hesitations she rested her gloved fingertips on his and allowed him to lead her back into the ballroom.
31
The loud banging downstairs was followed by a furious ringing on the doorbell. Ruth sat up in bed, her heart thudding with fear, then she reached for her bathrobe. Her glance at the little clock beside her bed told her it was just after 6 a.m.
‘You bolted the door!’ Finlay had paid off the taxi by the time she had the door open.
‘Oh, Fin, I am so pleased to see you!’ She flung herself into his arms. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were coming back today?’
‘I thought I did.’ He sounded plaintive. He dragged his suitcase inside, left it in the middle of the hall floor and headed for the kitchen. ‘So, what’s been happening?’
‘You wouldn’t believe. So much!’ She clambered onto the stool, watching as he reached for the kettle. ‘You first. Tell me about Skye.’
‘Skye was magical as always, Elspeth is a darling and I am in love, her food was to die for and she will be the absolute star of my show.’ He poured his coffee, sipped it as it was, black, then pushed the cafetière towards her. ‘You look washed out, sweetheart. Tell Uncle Finlay all about it. How are things with the horrible Timothy?’
Once she had started she couldn’t stop. She told him everything: Harriet, the séance, the ghost, Lachlan, Thomas and his story, seemingly dictated by her imaginary co-author. By the time she had finished, Finlay had drunk two mugs of coffee, prowled round the kitchen and put everything back the way he liked it, dived into the freezer for bread, made toast and scrambled eggs for them both with smoked salmon from Skye which he produced from the cool bag he had left in the hall by his case.
‘So, basically I leave you in charge of my house for a few days and you are engulfed in mayhem and black magic.’ He had insisted that they adjourn to the sitting room, light the wood burner and continue their coffee drinking in there in comfort. He noticed the smell of onions at once and roared with laughter at her explanation. ‘Dear God! Ruth! What are you like! I can’t turn my back for one minute.’ He pulled up a chair and put his feet up on the coffee table. ‘So, has our evil spirit returned?’
‘No.’
‘Good. We don’t want to waste good vegetables one minute more than we have to.’ He closed his eyes for a minute and she realised suddenly how tired he must be. It turned out he had been given a lift back from Skye as far as Perth and from there he had found a taxi to bring him home.
‘I’m sorry, Fin. I have exhausted you with my whingeing. Now you are home, everything will be all right.’
He gave a guffaw of laughter. ‘Thanks for the vote of confidence. But at least you won’t be on your own now. I can’t imagine how scary it must have been after Harriet left. That was a bit unfair of her, wasn’t it? To leave you by yourself like that.’
‘She had meetings to go to.’
‘Really?’ The word was loaded with disbelief.
‘Yes, really. I’m tough, Fin. I can take most things, though I must confess I wasn’t happy here on my own after the séance. I don’t believe in ghosts, but …’ her voice faded.
‘What we need is an expert on such matters.’ He drained his last cup of coffee and stood up. ‘My dear, I am going to have to get my head down for a few hours. Can I leave you to your own devices until lunchtime? And while I shower and dream of Hebridean delicacies I will see if I can think of someone who can advise us on what to do should the nasty spooky man return.’
It had been Frances who had let slip that her parents planned to take her with them to Ranelagh the following night. She and Thomas had danced together three times at the ball and it was when they withdrew to a quiet corner behind a huge flower arrangement so that they could at last talk that Frances’s chaperone finally caught up with them and whisked her away. Thomas had stood watching her go with the strangest feeling of loneliness. His head was full of the memory of those merry eyes, her quiet laugh, the touch of her gloved hand on his, her gentle but acerbic remarks. He had watched her go, seen her glance back over her shoulder and the quick regretful wave of her hand, and then she had moved out of sight. He began to follow but the woman with her had taken her arm and ushered her into a group of older people and they had all headed towards the doors.
He didn’t sleep that night and by morning he was plotting a way to see her again. He would go to Ranelagh. It had seemed like fate that he had spotted her with her parents strolling up the main avenue of the pleasure gardens almost as soon as he arrived. He saw her father frown as he approached and realised too late that he should have engineered this meeting better. He should have had someone with him to make the introductions. As it was, it was Frances who spoke first.
‘Papa, Mama, this is Tom Erskine. We were introduced last night at the ball. Tom, my parents, Mr and Mrs Daniel Moore.’
Tom bowed over her mother’s hand. Her daughter resembled her in stature and the colour of her hair, but the eyes were different. T
hey were blue and a little calculating, he thought, as she looked him up and down. He shook hands with Frances’s father. ‘Sir, it is a pleasure to meet you both.’ As they walked on together as a group with Mrs Moore talking abstractedly about the lights and the music, the two young people exchanged glances. Frances was, if anything, more beautiful than he remembered. Tom manoeuvred himself to walk next to her but her father had already turned to him again. He stopped and gave a slight bow. ‘I am afraid we are joining friends, Mr Erskine, so we must say farewell at this point.’
Tom was left staring after them, chastened. The introductions had not been made well. He cursed himself for not thinking the situation through. Of course her father would be suspicious of him. The woman the night before would probably have told her parents that he had danced with their daughter three times, an unforgivable breach of etiquette. He and Frances had not been properly introduced. Worse, he had stammered like a shy boy when he spoke to them. He did not even know where they lived.
Andrew Farquhar was finding life surprisingly enjoyable in London. He had found more comfortable quarters now and was building for himself a successful double life. At night when the crowds were leaving the theatres and chop houses and taverns, when Oxford Street or Drury Lane were teeming with people, or in the dark alleys full of drunken revellers, he had proved himself an adept thief. It had been laughably easy to wrest a purse here, a pocketful of change there from the rich and incapable, to pull a ring off the finger of an all but insensible playgoer, to brush against a pretty lady, accidentally touch a breast here, a buttock there, right her with a gallant apology and leave her flustered and indignant and without her reticule or bangle. In the daytime he donned a sensible coat and hat and made his way between the coffee houses, reading the newssheets, listening to discussions, joining in here and there as his views became more informed and confident.
He had all but forgotten Thomas Erskine, languishing still as far as he knew in Jersey, out of sight out of mind, until one day he saw a soldier in the regimentals of the Royals and learned that they were on leave before their next posting. He found his way, almost unaware of what he did or that he was driven by a sudden lurch of hatred which surprised even himself, to the London house of the Countess of Huntingdon and looked up at the darkened windows.
A farthing here, a penny there and, disguised as a passing tradesman of tinware from the East Indies, he had found his way into the servants’ hall, suitably humble, afraid to speak out of turn, sold Lady Huntingdon’s usually astute butler some lacquered trays and discovered that while Her Ladyship and Lady Anne Erskine were at present in Tunbridge Wells, Lady Anne’s brother was staying in the house until his regiment was posted overseas. And he heard the footman chuckle with a housemaid about the gay young dog and his social life and his popularity, and the fact that he had been to yet another ball last night, and today planned to join a party of friends at Ranelagh Gardens to hear a concert in the Rotunda.
Andrew walked down the street and out of sight, pushing his bag of wares into the hands of an astonished beggar. Thinking about the opulent house he had just left, the pleasant well-fed staff, the affectionate banter about Tom and his social life, his visceral hatred of Thomas Erskine deepened.
Joining the queues at the gates of the pleasure gardens, he paid his two shillings and sixpence to join the huge crowds wandering around in the lantern-lit darkness and headed slowly towards the Rotunda where the music had already started. It was a busy evening; the crowds were everywhere, and Andrew smiled grimly. He could make himself a rich man ten times over at his chosen trade here, but tonight he was a respectable man. As he had approached via the King’s New Road, watching the coaches and carriages backed up for a mile along the road, he had wondered how anyone ever managed to meet up with their friends amongst such a throng, but despite the crowds, he had no trouble spotting Thomas, staring out across the lake towards the prettily illuminated bridge. He was with a group of fellow junior officers; they were laughing and talking and flirting with the passing girls, and then as he watched Thomas drew suddenly away from the others. He had seen someone he knew. Making his way closer, confident no one would see him in the throng, Andrew saw him bow to a middle-aged couple; he then turned to the girl with them and kissed her hand. He saw the girl introducing them and watched the expression on the faces of the two older people, obviously her parents, the father politely friendly, the mother suspicious. Andrew felt a prickle of interest. This was more than a casual, accidental meeting and he found himself wondering if it had been pre-arranged. He was only a few yards away now and he could see the girl clearly. She was tall for a woman, swathed against the cold wind off the river in a fur-trimmed wrap. Her hair was simply dressed beneath her hood and looped around an oval face with large dark eyes, and he saw the expression with which she was regarding Thomas, a combination of conspiratorial amusement, adoration and demure reserve which made even him want to laugh. Within seconds he had formed a quiet resolution. One way or another he would have that young woman for himself, and if he broke Tom Erskine’s heart, so much the better.
By the next morning Thomas had a plan in place. By lunchtime he had presented himself at the house of their hostess at the ball where he had met Frances. He pressed his note of thanks for her hospitality into her hand, accepted a dish of coffee and confided his problem to her with so much candour she was enchanted. When he left the house he had learned that Daniel Moore was one of the two MPs for the constituency of Great Marlow, that he leased a house in Charles Street, that Frances was his favourite and youngest daughter, twenty years old, like Thomas himself, and that his hostess would without more ado arrange a formal introduction. ‘Fanny’s mother is the most tremendous snob, dear Tom,’ her ladyship announced. ‘When I tell her that you are the brother of the Earl of Buchan and reside with your sister at Lady Huntingdon’s, she will welcome you with open arms.’
There was no sign of Frances when Tom was shown into Mrs Moore’s drawing room. It appeared that she had gone out with her sisters to see the Shakespeare Gallery in Pall Mall and knew nothing of his visit. Mr Moore was not there either. Tom took the proffered chair, accepted a dish of tea and prepared to charm Mrs Moore as he had never charmed anyone before.
She was not to be charmed.
‘I assume that you are interested in my daughter, Mr Erskine,’ she said. ‘I should tell you that you that my husband and I consider you both far too young to contemplate any kind of a close friendship. We leave London for Marlow when the House rises and will be away for the summer. You may visit us in Marlow.’ She paused for a few seconds, as if with the intention of testing his resolve to the utmost. ‘I have read your glowing testimonial’ – she brandished the letter he had presented as though it were a suspect forgery – ‘and I will look into your circumstances, but I have to say Frances has many admirers; we look for a man of fortune for her. I understand that you are the younger brother of Lord Buchan.’ She did not seem as impressed as he had hoped. ‘From your accent, I assume that to be a Scotch peerage.’ She paused just long enough for her scornful views of the unacceptable nature of David’s rank and nationality to be made clear. ‘My husband will make enquiries as to your brother’s position and circumstances.’
Tom went cold. ‘I am only asking if I may be permitted to call upon her, ma’am,’ he said, crestfallen. This was the first time he had had a close encounter with the forensic eye of the mother of an unmarried daughter. He had heard his friends joke about such dragons, but he had not given a thought to what one of these ferocious animals would make of his prospects, his brother, or his accent. He was a lowly subaltern, true, but in a good regiment and with excellent prospects of promotion, but beyond that even he could see he was not a good bet. He looked up and met her eye in an agony of disappointment. ‘I shall make a point of calling upon you all in Marlow, ma’am,’ he said with his bravest smile.
As he ran down the front steps of the house into the street he heard a low whistle from the basement area be
hind the railings. He paused and turned and there was Frances, lying in wait. He stared down at her, appalled more by the whistle than the fact that she had evaded her companions in order to meet him. She was alone and swathed in a cloak, the hood pulled up well over her face. She giggled when she saw his expression and ran up the steps towards him, reaching out for his hand. ‘This way, quickly. I have only a few minutes. My sister wanted to meet a friend of her own so I told her I would come home ahead of her.’ She dragged him towards the corner of the street and into a quiet garden square where they found a shadowy bench beneath a tree. ‘So, how did it go?’ Her face was alight with eagerness.
‘Your mother was not impressed with me.’ He gazed at her, almost speechless with surprise and delight. ‘She didn’t like anything about me: my future prospects, my brother, my accent. I fear she has great plans for you, Frances.’ For all his candid words, the overwhelming depression that had enveloped him as he left Mrs Moore’s drawing room had vanished.
Frances gave a gurgle of laughter. ‘Some hope! I have no fortune either. We are two poor church mice, Tom. Besides, I have no intention of marrying for a long while yet. That does not mean we can’t be friends, though, does it?’ She was still holding his hand, and he looked down at her slim white fingers. She had a tiny pearl ring on the little finger of her right hand and he ran his thumb over it gently, amazed at the bolt of excitement that went through his body at the touch of her skin. ‘We shouldn’t be here,’ he stammered. ‘It is most improper for us to be alone.’
She bit her lip, and lowered her eyes chastely. ‘Oh dear. I am so sorry. I had not had you marked down as a man to give up so easily.’