“Please,” said Rachel. She managed a ghost of a smile. “One doesn’t feel much like dancing … now.”
Lady Olivia said nothing.
She never did, thought Rachel, with a flare of anger. But she must have once. It’s your fault, Cece had said, and she hadn’t been looking at Rachel. She had been looking at Lady Olivia, sweet-faced, silent Lady Olivia, who said nothing and admitted nothing, and left them all to dance and caper around her, like so many fools.
Abruptly, Rachel asked, “Who is Peter?”
“Peter was Cece’s brother,” said John.
Lady Olivia’s eyes slanted toward him as he helped her into a taxi.
Rachel remembered the silver-framed pictures in Lady Fanny’s sitting room: the girl and the boy in their white frocks and long curls, the young man in khaki.
Rachel followed her sister inside. “Was?”
Olivia busied herself with the clasp of her bag, seeming not to hear her.
Selective deafness, Rachel was learning, was very much the province of the aristocracy.
Mercifully, it wasn’t the forte of rising politicians. John dropped heavily into the seat next to Rachel. “Poor old Peter. I’m surprised you didn’t hear of it. But you were away, weren’t you?”
“In France,” said Rachel. That much was true. “Hear of what?”
“John…” said Olivia, but John didn’t seem to hear her.
“I didn’t know him, really. Not to speak to. He was a fair way ahead of me at school. And then there was the war.…” Oblivious to Olivia’s warning glance, John rubbed a knuckle over his mouth. “He put a bullet through his brain.”
SEVENTEEN
Somewhere, an engine backfired, with a sound like a shot. Rachel could feel the reverberations of it right down her spine.
A bullet. “He shot himself?”
“In ’20—or was it ’21?” John looked to Olivia for confirmation. “Cece found him. Horrible way to go.”
“Horrible,” Rachel echoed. A horrible way to go and a horrible thing to see. She couldn’t begin to picture it. “Good heavens—why?”
“He’d been gassed during the war. His nerves were gone. And this,” John said emphatically, “is why it is so crucial that we preserve peace at any cost. They say we were too young to understand what they went through in the trenches. But we have seen the cost of it, the toll in life and health, in industry and ambition.”
It sounded like a portion of a speech. Perhaps it was.
“If even small measures might be taken to prevent such a tragedy occurring again—”
“Shots to the glands?” said Lady Olivia, and there was an edge to her voice that Rachel hadn’t heard before.
John cast her a quick, reproachful look. “Among other measures.” To Rachel he said, “I’ve been told that Cece worshipped her brother. After he died … she went a little potty.”
Rachel felt the weight of it pressing down on her. She had never imagined that Cece, silly, flighty, Cece, might be dogged by tragedy. She seemed to live in a perpetual Noël Coward production, in which more serious matters had no place.
“I hadn’t known,” she said numbly.
“I’m surprised Montfort didn’t say anything,” said John. “He and Peter were thick as thieves.”
Olivia said nothing. She merely turned her head and looked out the window, at the irregular flash and glare of the lamps of passing cars, the dim rectangles of lighted windows, drapes drawn to shield them from the eyes of curious passersby.
John was still talking. “You never saw one without the other. I was only a fresher, but … if there was trouble afoot, it was invariably Montfort and Heatherington-Vaughn. They joined up at the same time, too, didn’t they?”
“Yes,” said Olivia distantly, and something about her tone was a distinct bar to further discussion.
Pas devant les domestiques, that was the timeworn phrase. Never discuss personal matters in front of the servants. Or strangers.
Rachel could feel the doors slamming around her, like shutters closing, window after window, turning a blank face to the stranger. They all just knew, didn’t they? They knew one another, their histories, their pedigrees. They had played together in childhood, shared the same nurseries, attended the same schools; their parents knew one another.
It didn’t matter how much Rachel looked the part, how much Standish blood might run in her veins, she was blundering in blind, the proverbial bull in the china shop. What was she doing? she thought desperately. This was all wrong. She wasn’t meant to be here, stirring up old memories and old wounds. Her father, yes, he deserved it, but Cece—what had Cece done? She’d never meant to hurt her, had never known she might hurt her.
She could hear her own voice, painfully naive, demanding of Simon whether he was afraid she might use the wrong fork.
He’d warned her, hadn’t he? That these were deep waters. And she’d ignored him and gone on.
He might have warned her tonight, Rachel thought furiously. He might have warned her before Cece crumpled in a heap on the floor.
They were in Mayfair now. The streets had become familiar to Rachel over the past month; she knew their twisting and turning. In only a moment, the taxi would turn down South Audley Street, draw up in front of the block of flats.
With a sinking feeling, Rachel remembered the latchkey, deliberately left behind. It would, in the words of Cece, be too frightfully bogus if she were to root through her bag, only to be betrayed by the clink of the supposedly missing keys.
Rachel suppressed the thought of Cece. She would visit her tomorrow. Make sure she was recovered. For now, as Simon had said, she had other cats to flay.
Rachel leaned forward to address the taxi driver through the partition. “My flat is only down the next street to the right. I’ll just—oh!”
John rose easily to the bait. “Is something the matter?”
“My latchkey.” Rachel made a show of scrabbling through her bag. “I know it was here. I’m sure I dropped it in after I locked the door this evening.…”
Her powder compact clanked against her lighter as she raked through the contents, her fingers shaking with nervous energy.
“It must be here.…” Unceremoniously, Rachel dumped the lot in her lap. Lipstick, compact, lighter, a crumpled tissue. “I can’t think—oh!” Her hand flew to her mouth. “Someone bumped into me on the street as I was getting out of the taxi. The clasp on the bag is loose—I’d meant to fix it, but … I’d thought I’d got everything up again…”
She looked from John to Olivia with eyes wide with feigned distress.
“Might someone have found them?” suggested Olivia doubtfully.
“On the street? Oh, bother. I knew I should have fixed that clasp.… There’s no night porter, you see, and the morning man doesn’t come until six.” Rachel sucked on her lower lip, a picture of polite indecision. “I know this is a bit of cheek, but … you wouldn’t mind terribly if I imposed upon your hospitality, would you? I’ll just curl up on the hearthrug; you’ll hardly know I’m there.” Before Olivia could say anything, she hastily added, “Oh, dear. Forget I said anything. It’s not that long until dawn. Are there tea shops open, do you think?”
“Don’t be foolish.” John rapped on the partition, saying curtly to the driver, “There’s been a change of plan. We’ll go straight on to Ardmore House. Eaton Square.” He looked over Rachel’s head at Olivia. “There are—how many bedrooms at Ardmore House?”
“Twelve,” said Olivia reluctantly. She drew in a deep breath, as though steeling herself for unpleasantness. “Of course you must come home with me.”
“Thanks awfully.” Rachel bared her teeth in a smile. “I can’t think what I would have done.…”
“Not at all,” murmured Olivia.
“Oh, good, that’s settled, then.” Oblivious, John smiled from one to the other as the taxi pulled up in front of the great pillared portico of Ardmore House. “I’ll say good night to you both, then.”
He
handed them both out. There was, Rachel noticed, nothing lover-like about the kiss that he pressed to Olivia’s cheek.
It might, she supposed, be ascribed to the inhibiting presence of a stranger, but Rachel doubted it.
“Good night,” Rachel said, and, in a fit of perverseness, pressed her lacquered lips to John’s cheek, leaving a bright smear of red like a brand. “You are kind.”
At the top of the steps, a door opened, held by an unobtrusive person in dark livery.
“’Night, Vera. Olivia.” With a nod to each, John strolled away, his hands in his pockets, whistling as he walked.
Rachel gathered her draggled draperies around her, tucked her crystal ball under her arm, and followed Olivia up the stairs, past the waiting footman. This wasn’t the fearsome butler of Rachel’s first visit, but a much younger man, struggling to stifle a yawn as he pulled himself into the requisite stiff-backed stance.
“Thank you, William,” murmured Olivia.
Did Olivia ever raise her voice? Rachel wondered. Ever stub her toe and shout, or laugh high and loud? It was as though she were wrapped in cotton wool, everything about her muted.
“Thank you,” Rachel echoed. The sound of her own voice, too loud, too brash, sounded like an affront in the quiet hall.
From the crest of the stairs, the portrait of Violet, Lady Ardmore, glowered down at her.
“The Blue Room might be made up,” Olivia said, as they passed up the same stairs Rachel had climbed with Cece. She didn’t, Rachel noticed, trail her fingers along the rail, as Cece had, but walked with her arms pressed tightly to her sides, as though to keep from leaving marks on the shining surface. “Or there’s Jicksy’s room. It’s kept ready for him, for when he comes down to London.”
“Any old corner will do.” Rachel flashed Olivia her best Vera Merton smile. “I just need a bolt to burrow in until dawn, and then I’ll be on my way. I feel such a fool!”
Olivia looked at her uncertainly. “I’m sure it might have happened to anyone. They are such small things, keys, aren’t they?”
Very small things, but terribly useful for keeping people in—or out.
They passed the landing with the library. The great doors were closed, the hall quiet and still. Rachel wondered where her father was, whether he had received her last picture. He had no idea that his discarded daughter had invaded the midnight fastness of his home, was creeping down his corridors and climbing his stairs.
“Yes, and with a will of their own,” Rachel said gaily. “I’m constantly misplacing them.”
The stairs narrowed as they ascended to the second floor, up past the grand public rooms. The paintings on the walls were smaller, the frames relatively dingy.
It was, Rachel thought, very different from Heatherington House, where the family rooms were quite as luxurious as the reception rooms below, old masters mixed with new artists, and priceless porcelain with odd bits of pottery crafted by one of Cece’s artistically minded—if not artistically gifted—friends.
At Ardmore House, the upper corridors had a forgotten feel, like the backstage of a theater.
Rachel jangled her bracelets at Olivia. “I’m not going to disturb your parents, am I? Creeping through the corridors?”
“Oh, no,” said Olivia earnestly. “My mother’s rooms are on the first floor, quite on the other side. And my father’s gone up to Oxfordshire. So, you see, we’re quite alone on this floor.”
Rachel’s stomach twisted. “Has he been away long?”
So much for cunning plans. Her pictures, her precious pictures, with their subtle messages, were probably lying unread on a heap of correspondence.
“No.” Olivia’s pace quickened, her footfalls muted against the worn rug that ran the length of the corridor. “Just yesterday. There was a letter…”
“A letter?” Rachel hurried behind her. “How very mysterious!”
Olivia cast Rachel a quick, uncertain look over her shoulder. “Not really. It’s most likely something to do with Jicksy’s twenty-first. It usually is.” She tried the handle of a door, letting out a quick breath of relief as it opened. “Here we are. The Blue Room.”
The room was, indeed, quite blue. The walls were blue and the drapes were blue, and the chintz-covered furniture was patterned in blue flowers. The pictures on the wall were all reproductions of old masters, interspersed with uninspired watercolors of yet more flowers, most of them blue.
Olivia tentatively lifted the coverlet. “The bed does seem to be made up.… I can ring for someone if you need anything?”
“Oh, no, don’t do that,” said Rachel quickly. It was all too recently she had been one of those for whom she might have rung. “Just point the way to the lavatory, and I’m sure there’s nothing more I could require.”
She entertained the thought of creeping back downstairs, and just as quickly dismissed it. What did she expect to find? Her own letter, flung down on her father’s desk, with a note next to it saying, Horrors, horrors…?
“The lavatory is three doors down to your left.” Olivia twisted her hands together at her waist. “I could offer you a nightdress…”
Was she worried that Miss Vera Merton might disgrace her by parading down the corridors of Ardmore House in the altogether?
To be fair, it was the sort of stunt Cece would pull, just for the effect of it.
Rachel could imagine the sort of nightdress Olivia wore, impossibly sweet, with voluminous white skirts and embroidered flowers around the hem. The sort of thing that Major-General’s daughters wore in regional productions of The Pirates of Penzance.
“My dear!” Rachel said, in her best Vera voice. “Do you still wear a nightdress? How too sweet!”
Olivia’s cheeks colored, but she said doggedly, “I’m afraid I haven’t any pajamas. My mother thinks they’re fast.”
“Are they?” said Rachel languidly. “Mine tend to stay where I put them. Most of the time.”
“Um, well, yes.” Lady Olivia backed toward the door. “If there is anything you need, do let me know. Or you might ring…” She paused in the doorway, her expensive evening bag still clutched between her hands. “I’m sure this isn’t at all what you’re used to.”
She didn’t know the half of it. There was a bellpull on the wall by the bed. Heavy cream writing paper on the table, embossed in gold. A far cry from Netherwell.
Rachel reached up to unscrew the French back of one of her earrings. “No. It’s not.”
Lady Olivia hovered in the doorway, one hand on the knob. “After all the exotic places you’ve been … this must seem very provincial.”
Her voice was as stiff, as stilted as ever, but there was a hint of something else beneath it. Something a little wistful.
Head tilted as she struggled with the back of the other earring, Rachel looked curiously at her half-sister. “I hadn’t thought you would read the Daily Yell.”
There was a long pause, and then …
“Cook takes it.” Lady Olivia fidgeted with the pearl hanging from her ear. “I know it’s silly—but it is rather exciting, reading about your adventures.”
Lady Olivia looked like a child on the wrong side of a toy shop window.
Rachel’s fingers stilled on the back of her earring. “But you have your picture in The Tatler all the time!”
“Yes, going to other houses in Mayfair.” Olivia glanced down at her hands. “I was to have gone to Paris to be finished, but … my mother didn’t want me to fall prey to unfortunate influences.”
“You haven’t been to Paris?” Rachel wasn’t sure why, she had just assumed that the daughter of an earl would have traveled, would have stayed in the great rooms of the houses where Rachel had been governess.
“When I’m married. I’ll be able to go then—” Olivia broke off, a small furrow appearing between her eyes. “If John says it’s all right.”
Slowly, Rachel set her earring down on the coverlet. “I’m certain he will.” She didn’t know what else to say. “Who could possibly object
to Paris?”
Olivia shook her head slightly. “Well, there is the constituency to think about … and … Never mind.” She gathered herself together. “If you need anything, you will ring?”
She turned, the flounce of her long skirt brushing the floor.
On an impulse, Rachel said, “It’s all rubbish, you know. I’ve never even been to India. And I certainly don’t play the clavichord!”
Lady Olivia paused, her hand on the knob. “But the paper—”
“That,” said Rachel succinctly, “was all my dear cousin Simon’s doing. I’m sure he did it just to irk me.”
“That does sound like Si—Mr. Montfort. He does enjoy tweaking peoples’ noses.”
“Just their noses?” said Rachel drily.
She was rewarded with a small smile, but more than that, Lady Olivia refused to be drawn. “Breakfast is served at eight in the dining room. If you go to the foot of the stairs, past the statue of Niobe, it’s the door to the right of the Canaletto.”
Rachel dragged her dress up over her head. “Fear not. I’ll drop trails of breadcrumbs.”
Lady Olivia smiled uncertainly. “If you ask the footman in the hall in the morning, he’ll show you the way.”
And she was gone, before Rachel could explain that she was joking.
* * *
Rachel came down to breakfast in the full splendor of her gypsy regalia.
The footman in the hall was too well bred to comment, but she could tell that he was bursting to run down and spread the news in the servants’ hall. For his benefit, Rachel jangled and clattered her way into the dining room, a dark room toward the back of the house, made darker by heavy red paper and large oil paintings of various biblical personages being tortured in inventive ways.
Rachel’s half-sister sat alone at one end of a table that might easily have seated forty. Spirit lamps flickered beneath a rank of silver chafing dishes on the sideboard, but her sister’s plate held only a half slice of toast and a lonely kipper.
“Oh, good,” said Lady Olivia. “You found your way.”
“With a little help.” Rachel wafted her way into a seat across from Olivia and tried not to blink when dishes and silver magically appeared before her. It was odd to imagine a world in which one never had to do anything at all. Odd and a little disconcerting. “I’m afraid I nearly gave your footman an apoplexy when I came downstairs in this.”