“If you’d like,” said Simon quietly, “we can break off now. There’s no need to go through the receiving line.”
“Less chance of being discovered?” Simon seemed to have control of himself now. And it was a logical suggestion. But when else might Rachel be sure of coming face-to-face with her father? The filigree border of her brooch rasped against her chin. She lifted her head high. “I wouldn’t think of being so rude.”
“When you make up your mind to something, you don’t do it by halves, do you?” The look Simon gave her was half rueful, half admiring. “All right. It’s your game. Lead on, Macduff.”
Rachel gave a shaky laugh. “You might have chosen a less ill-omened play.”
“Would you have preferred Hamlet?” It was a relief to be speaking nonsense again, something to draw her attention away from the reckoning awaiting her at the top of the stairs.
“Isn’t there anything that doesn’t end with the stage littered with dead bodies? A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Rachel picked at random.
Simon raised a brow. “How I am translated?”
Trust Simon to think of that. “Do you really need me to make an ass of you?”
Simon looked down at her, and there was something in his face that made Rachel ache. “No. I do that very well on my own, don’t I?”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know.” They were only three couples from the top now. Simon said rapidly, “I don’t know if I’ve done right or wrong in bringing you here, but whatever happens—Oh, bother it.”
Whatever happens. They were two couples from the top now, Lady Ardmore’s tiara bobbing above a man’s turbaned head as he bowed over her hand. “It was my own choice. All of it. I was the one who twisted your arm, remember?”
The man in the turban and his wife, gorgeously gowned in a silk sari, moved off, leaving only one couple between Rachel and her father.
“Yes, but—” Simon’s voice seemed to come from very far away.
Rachel could see her father now. His lips were smiling as he greeted his guests, but the expression failed to convey much in the way of joy. His face looked thinner than when she had last seen him; there were lines beside his eyes. He looked, she thought, like a man convalescing from fever, whittled to a husk, still caught somewhere between sleep and waking.
The people in front of Rachel were moving on, moving away. Her father turned toward them, the set smile of welcome on his lips.
And then his eyes, so distant, so vague, fell on Rachel’s brooch and came, for the first time, fully open.
TWENTY-ONE
Rachel’s chest was tight; she scarcely dared to breathe. There was no one else there; no one else mattered.
Simon’s hand was firm on her arm. “Go on,” he murmured.
Rachel went on. She didn’t trip on her dress or fall up the stairs. Afterward, she would wonder at that. At the moment, her entire being was focused on her father.
Why couldn’t she hate him? Rachel’s ears were ringing, the world a dizzying kaleidoscope as her feet tripped blindly forward. She so wanted to hate him. It had been easy to revile him in the abstract, to plot and scheme and ascribe all sorts of dastardly motives, to call him venal and selfish and cruel.
But when she saw him, all of that fell away, as though it had never been, and all she wanted to do was lock her arms around his neck and bury her face in his shoulder, as she had done, so contentedly, so many years ago.
A discreet personage in black leaned forward to murmur something in Lady Ardmore’s ear. Their names, Rachel realized.
Lady Ardmore’s eyes narrowed on Simon. “Mr. Montfort,” she said, tight-lipped. “I hadn’t expected to see you at Carrisford.”
“In the face of such beauty, how could I stay away?” drawled Simon, deliberately outrageous. He bent down low over her hand, giving Rachel time to pull herself together, to put the mask of Vera Merton once more in place.
Feeling raw, exposed, Rachel murmured a conventional word of greeting to Lady Ardmore, who summed her up and dismissed her, all in one unblinking stare.
Jicksy, frankly bored, lounged between his parents. His Tatler photos had flattered him. He showed to better advantage in riding kit. In the heat of the hall, his face was florid, his collar tight on a too-thick neck.
Rachel must, she assumed, have spoken to him, too, but she had no recollection later of having done so. He didn’t interest her. Her attention was all for her father.
“Lord Ardmore,” said Rachel’s lips. What she really meant was Papa. “Felicitations on this happy occasion.”
Do you know me? Do you know me now? Do you remember?
So foolish to hope, but she couldn’t help it, not now, with the familiar voice in her ears, all the memories flooding back. In her mind’s eye, the gray was gone, and the formal costume; he was two feet taller, and the world came alive whenever he came home.
Her father’s eyes moved from the brooch to her face, back and forth between the two, a thin line between his brows.
Hesitantly, he said, “Miss…”
“Merton,” Rachel supplied. Would it have been better to have said Woodley? Or was that not a name her father would know?
His eyes flickered between her brooch and her face, like a mathematician struggling to reconcile a recondite equation. “Might I ask—”
“Yes?” Rachel’s fingers were digging into Simon’s arm, but she hardly noticed.
“Ardmore!” Lady Ardmore deliberately recalled her husband’s attention. “You do remember Princess Sobiesky?”
“Yes, most certainly.” Lord Ardmore blinked, and the moment was lost. “Good evening, Miss … Merton.”
No. No, no, no. Rachel balked, stubbornly lingering where she was, but there was Simon’s hand on the small of her back, and the press of the crowd driving them forward, inexorably, down the other side of the stairs and through an archway, into a hall where tapestries gave the wood-paneled walls a suitably antiquated air, lacking only a few suits of armor. Rachel followed, blindly, resisting the urge to fall back, to crane her neck to look back over her shoulder.
Might I ask …
What?
“We’re through,” said Simon, his voice seeming to come from very far away.
“Yes,” Rachel echoed, but her thoughts were still back up the other side of the stair, on the balcony where her father and his wife held court. She forced her attention back to the present. “I thought Lady Ardmore was going to throw you out on your ear.”
“She didn’t want to make a scene. Not in front of Princess Sobiesky.” Simon fumbled for his cigarette case, clicking it open and closed, his long fingers restless. “Are you all right?”
Her hands were damp, her pulse racing. She felt unsettled, unsatisfied. “What do we do next?”
“Dance?” said Simon, gesturing toward the broad floor that had been cleared for that purpose.
They were in a vast hall with a mellow beauty that came of long use; it felt as though it had grown rather than been made. No decorator had chosen those pennants that hung from the beamed ceiling or selected the painting of Charles I on horseback that gazed benignly from above the chimneypiece.
The musicians had set up not on a manufactured stage, but in a genuine minstrels’ gallery, suspended above them. In the vast space, cleared for dancing, couples looped and twirled to the vibrant strains of a Viennese waltz.
Rachel shook her head. “You can’t be serious.”
“Why not? There’s nothing else to do until your father finishes receiving.” For all his bold words, Simon seemed edgy, shifting from one foot to the other, his eyes darting around the hall.
It seemed frivolous, somehow. She wasn’t here to enjoy the party. And what if her father emerged from his perch? “I don’t know.…”
“If nothing else,” Simon said persuasively, “it provides a useful camouflage.”
The violinists lifted their bows. There was an eddy of activity around the dance floor as people searched for their parties, e
ncountered acquaintances, tried to find their partners for the next dance.
“Come.” Simon held out a hand to her, elegant and saturnine in his dark evening clothes, moonstones glimmering on his wrists. “Dance your demons away.”
Rachel tried to tame her nerves, to speak as Vera Merton might. “Is that the proper protocol for dealing with demons?”
“I don’t know.” Simon’s dark gaze was disarmingly direct. “But I’m willing to try it if you are.”
Why not? Rachel thought defiantly. It would be something to beguile the time.
To beguile the times, look like the times.… Simon’s words echoed through her mind. But that was the danger, wasn’t it? Getting pulled into the charade, living the charade, believing the charade.
It was just a dance.
Rachel put her gloved hand into Simon’s and let him draw her forward onto the dance floor, into the firm frame of his arms as the first strains of the waltz ebbed around them. Around and around they went, moving in perfect time, in the strange limbo of the dance floor, faces a blur around them, nothing real except Simon’s dark shoulders, the curve of his chin, the sandalwood and musk scent of his aftershave.
A familiar voice broke in. “Simon! Miss Merton. I hadn’t thought—”
It was Olivia, her cheeks flushed from dancing, a diamond diadem in her blond curls, much smaller than her mother’s and a great deal less regal.
Simon swung them to a stop, Rachel’s skirts swirling dramatically around her legs. All around them, other couples were bowing, parting. The song had ended, and she had never known.
“Miss Merton! Mr. Montfort!”
Olivia looked almost pretty, her fair hair waved, her cheeks pink, at home at Carrisford as she had never been in London.
Oh, be fair, Rachel told herself. There was no almost about it. Olivia would never be a stunner, but she had her own quiet charm.
Yes, like Little Bo Beep, all pink and white and ruffled.
A momentary hesitation crossed Olivia’s face. “I hadn’t expected to see you.”
“We crashed,” Simon said baldly.
“Hush.” Rachel poked him in the ribs. “Don’t say that so loudly.”
Simon tugged at his tie. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
“We might be asked to leave.” And she wasn’t ready to go. Not yet.
“What, with the daughter of the house here to vouch for us?” Simon bared his teeth in a smile. Before Rachel could respond, he turned to Olivia. “Where is your prieux chevalier?”
“John? Speaking with Mr. Baldwin, I believe.” Olivia lifted concerned eyes toward Simon. Large, gray Standish eyes. “Are you quite certain you ought to be here? After—”
Simon made an impatient gesture. “Who do you have for this set?”
Olivia consulted her dance card. “Gerald Hamby.”
“Good. I have no compunction in cutting him out. I knew him at school,” he added as an aside, to Rachel. “Nasty little prat. I trust you can amuse yourself?”
For a moment, Rachel hesitated. Then she told herself not to be absurd. She couldn’t cling to Simon forever. He had done what he had promised and more. One couldn’t waltz the world away forever.
“I shall contrive not to be a wallflower,” she said brightly.
“Never that,” said Simon, and all but dragged Olivia to the dance floor, moving with a rapid gait nothing like his usual elegant slouch.
Rachel watched them for a moment, Olivia’s white-gloved hand resting on Simon’s arm, her head barely reaching his shoulder. If Simon wished to keep a low profile, dancing with the daughter of the house was not the way to go about it.
He didn’t look like a man in love. He danced with a grim determination, his face set, looking out over Olivia’s head.
For her? Nothing of the sort, Rachel told herself stoutly. A business venture, he had told her, all those weeks ago.
If Olivia jilted John, would Simon still take the job in New York?
She wasn’t meant to be thinking about Simon and Olivia. Grimly, Rachel turned away from the dance floor. It was pure avoidance, that was what it was, a way to distract herself from the reality of being here, in her father’s home.
Had her mother ever seen Carrisford? Rachel edged along the verge of the dance floor, past the paintings of long-nosed monarchs, weaving through eminences in knee breeches and the orders of half a dozen nations. There was so much she wanted, needed, to know.
If she could find her father, get him alone …
The receiving line had disintegrated; Lady Ardmore’s tiara could be seen bobbing along, here and there, but of her father there was no sign.
Rachel hesitated below the minstrels’ gallery, unsure of what to do with herself. There was no one she knew here, or, rather, no one who knew Vera Merton, or who would acknowledge her if they did. She thought she saw Lady Frances across the dance floor, but it seemed wiser not to inquire too closely.
She might, at least, take a good look around. It was the only time she was likely to see her ancestral home. Not without paying three and six, that was.
“Pardon me, miss.” One of the footmen stepped forward, his white powdered wig oddly jarring with his youthful face and sun-reddened complexion. “Are you Miss Merton?”
Rachel threw a glance over her shoulder at Simon, but he was still revolving around the dance floor, his dark head bent to Olivia, who appeared to be murmuring something rather earnestly into his ear.
She might deny it, but to what purpose? Lady Ardmore would only send someone else.
“Yes,” said Rachel defensively. “I am she.”
She rehearsed her excuses. There must be some mistake.… Couldn’t imagine … Invitation lost in the post …
“If you would be so good as to accompany me—that is—” Giving up the attempt to sound elegant, the footman said, “If you would, miss, his lordship was wondering if you might be willing to have a word.”
* * *
Rachel followed her guide down a passage and up a flight of stairs, over age-worn carpets, past priceless paintings. Another passage and another stair, and she began wondering if she ought to have brought breadcrumbs after all.
Her fingers were tingling again. Rachel wrapped them in her skirt and concentrated on following the footman. It was darker here. The windows were older, the panes smaller. The walls were heavily paneled.
“This is part of the original building, miss,” he said.
“Yes, I gathered that.” The doorways were lower, built for smaller people, for women in ruffs and farthingales, and courtiers in shoes that turned up at the toes. The sound of music from below was barely perceptible, just the faintest strain. “Are we almost there?”
“Just through here, miss.” With obvious relief, the footman gestured her toward another flight of stairs, a short flight this time, only four steps in all.
Rachel ducked beneath the doorway and found herself staring down a long, narrow room with a soaring ceiling, decorated with elaborate plaster roundels and rosettes. Where there would once have been torches, now electric sconces lit the room, glinting off the painted eyes of the portraits that lined the walls.
All along the walls, generations of Standishes looked down their noses at her from within their gilded frames: Elizabethan Standishes in ruff and doublet; Georgian Standishes in white wigs, posing beside their horses; military Standishes with gold-buckled red coats and swords by their sides.
At the end of the long line of Standishes stood her father.
He looked like something from another century himself, in his knee breeches and silk stockings, with the Order of the Garter on its ribbon across his breast, but for his spectacles, which were mundane and modern and didn’t at all fit the general effect.
They didn’t suit the earl, but they did belong to the father Rachel remembered. He had worn spectacles even then. She had snatched them off his nose, smearing her small fingerprints across the lenses.
Now that the moment was here, Rachel found
her legs surprisingly steady. She walked down the narrow aisle, between the portraits of her ancestors. “Lord Ardmore.”
A strange elation buoyed her up. Her father had summoned her, he had brought her here, away from the crowd below. Surely, that must mean something.
The earl cleared his throat. “You may go, James.” Rachel had forgotten the footman was there. Any more of this, she thought giddily, and she would be like Olivia or Simon, oblivious of the help around them. “Thank you, Miss Merton. It is Miss Merton, isn’t it?”
Rachel found her voice. “For the present.”
“Hmm, yes.” Her father removed his spectacles, inspected them, and then returned them to their wonted place on his nose. “If you will forgive my curiosity … may I ask where you acquired that brooch?”
Why were they playing this game? Why not get right to it? But Rachel couldn’t find the words.
“My mother gave it to me.” Her fingers fumbled on the knot at the back of her neck. She held the brooch out to her father, trailing black velvet. “Would you like to see it?”
“Yes—thank you.” He cradled it in the palm of his white-gloved hand, peering at it closely, holding it away, turning it this way and that. After several minutes, he said, “It is … a very unusual piece.”
“Yes. It is.” Rachel clasped her hands at her waist, her fingers twining tightly together. “My mother was never without it. It meant—it meant the world to her.”
The earl turned it over in his hands, tracing the engraving. He pressed something, and the brooch dissolved in two. Involuntarily, Rachel started forward, but it wasn’t broken. It was open, revealing a compartment she had never known was inside.
Inside were two twists of hair. One a dark blond, the other a deep brown, like Rachel’s.
Edward and Katherine, forever, in perpetuity.
“I—I never knew that was there.” Rachel’s voice sounded strange in the vast room.