Bath Intrigue: A charming Regency Romance, page 8
‘Mrs Windlesham is a dear, but her capacity for exaggeration is, I fear, notorious,’ Perdita said lightly, ‘and in this case, as you can see, my lord, is typically wide of the mark.’ She explained briefly what had happened. ‘And that was all ‒ it was but a small section of the pediment that broke away …’
‘It was a piece of solid stone twice the size of a cannon ball,’ Almeria Midgely interpolated sharply. ‘You might well have been killed!’
‘Yes, well, its size and lethal potential is irrelevant since, thanks to my cousin’s presence of mind, the damage it caused was negligible … except to my self-esteem, that is!’
The small ‘Tch!’ of exasperation that escaped Miss Midgely was not lost on St Ive. His glance dwelt on the covered injury.
‘Your cousin?’ he mused. ‘That will be Mr Tillot? My father did mention that he was staying with you at present. How fortunate that he was on hand to warn you!’
‘Yes, wasn’t it? He has gone into Bath this afternoon, or you might have met him.’ Perdita was beginning to feel vaguely oppressed. In a bid to change the subject, she turned her aching head a little stiffly to seek out the Duke’s extravagant floral tribute. For an instant she had the curious illusion that it was floating in the air. She blinked and said briskly, ‘However, you will now be able to reassure His Grace that I am making an excellent recovery. And do pray thank him most warmly for his beautiful flowers! I think I have never received anything half so lovely in all my life!’
St Ive’s glance also moved to encompass the flowers, noting the preponderance of red roses among their number. His expression hardened. ‘He must indeed think a great deal of you.’
‘Why, so I hope,’ she returned with deliberate archness, wishing that he would go. The effort of concentrating was making her feel very strange. His face seemed to blur before her eyes and again she blinked to clear the image. ‘As you can see,’ she said, indicating the small jug of wild flowers on the sofa table beside her, ‘I have more than one admirer …’ Her mouth seemed very dry all of a sudden. She ran her tongue round her lips to moisten them. ‘You will not have to tell your father that he has a rival …’ Her voice faded away and she put a hand uncertainly to her head.
‘Perdita?’ It was Midge’s voice, sharp with worry, distant at first and then closer … and another voice, vaguely familiar ‒ then the choking, pungent aroma of smelling-salts caught at her throat, making her cough …
There was an arm about her, very gently easing her forward, St Ive’s voice close by. ‘A drink, ma’am, if you have one handy. Water will do, or cordial ‒ no, not brandy, I think …’
‘I’m perfectly all right,’ Perdita said distinctly as soon as she was able.
‘Don’t talk, and drink this,’ said St Ive, calmly authoritative. She opened her eyes and found his face poised very close above her, blotting out everything else. Meekly she drank, grateful for the cooling liquid. Afterwards he lowered her back against the cushions with infinite care and stood up, glass in hand, staring down at her with a peculiar intensity.
‘This is ridiculous,’ she gasped, attempting flippancy and failing miserably. ‘I can’t think what came over me!’
‘Lord St Ive thinks you may have suffered a touch of concussion,’ said Midge, with an admirable calmness that brought an approving look from his lordship. ‘Dr Bryant did mention it as a possibility, if you remember, after examining the cut on your head.’
‘Dr Bryant fusses too much!’ Perdita said peevishly, knowing that she was being childish and powerless to stop the weak tears. ‘It was the m-merest graze. I am hot, that is all … I knew Mary had built the fire up too much!’
‘There now, my dear!’ Miss Midgely exclaimed in a distressed way. ‘Don’t upset yourself! We will have you back in bed in a trice and if you will only be patient, I’m sure you will be yourself in no time.’ She looked apologetically at St Ive. ‘Forgive me, my lord. I must see Fletcher to find out what can be managed.’
‘Yes, of course,’ he said. ‘I will take myself out of your way.’
‘If only that tiresome boy, Bertrand, could be here just once when he was wanted, I might be able to regard him as something less than an encroaching liability!’ She drew herself up very straight and looked his lordship in the eyes. ‘That is cutting up a character, is it not, my lord? Especially when one considers what we owe him. But I cannot …’ She recollected herself, glanced down at Perdita and shrugged. ‘Still, that is neither here nor there just at present.’
On the point of leaving, St Ive hesitated. ‘Do I understand, ma’am, that you have no immediate means of conveying Miss Grant to her room?’
‘Well, there is only Fletcher and our garden boy, and neither is precisely suited to the task …’
‘Then the answer is simple,’ he said, retracing his steps to the sofa. ‘If you will direct me where to go, I shall be only too happy to oblige.’
Perdita roused from her misery to mutter distractedly, ‘No! You can’t possibly! I will not permit you to …’ She glared at him from tear-drowned eyes as he seemed about to swoop on her and lift her high.
‘Shut your eyes,’ he ordered softly, close to her ear, so that Miss Midgely should not hear. ‘You can always pretend that I am my father!’
‘Oh!’ But as he lifted her, she felt too ill to challenge this last provocative jibe, surrendering herself instead to the sure swift competence of his arms. Only as he lowered her gently on to the bed and prepared to leave did she collect herself sufficiently to clutch at him. He turned to look down at her, his face suddenly bleak with hauteur. ‘Please,’ she pleaded, ‘you will not distress your father with … any of this?’
The look did not alter, nor was there much comfort in the coldness of his reply. ‘It would serve no purpose to do so, Miss Grant. Go to sleep now.’
Chapter Eight
For the second time in two days Perdita had suffered the ignominy of being carried to her bed, and this time there was no swift escape. Dr Bryant took his revenge by confining her there for all of a week, and only when she could convince him that the last vestige of her headache had vanished was she allowed visitors and the resumption of a limited regime.
‘My dear!’ cried Mrs Windlesham, when permitted to the bedside. ‘What an ordeal you have suffered, to be sure! Not that I was in the least surprised,’ she added with the complacency of one who is privy to knowledge not granted to lesser mortals. ‘I can’t tell you how cast down I was last week to see you in such a sad way!’
Perdita leaned back against her pillows and allowed the words to flow over her, knowing from past experience that nothing she could say would change Mrs Windlesham’s view of things by one iota.
‘And only fancy it being your cousin who saved you? I said to Mr Windlesham, “It only goes to prove what I have always avowed ‒ that no one is all bad,” though I am not sure that he was convinced. We have been seeing a great deal of Mr Tillot in Bath this past week …’ Mrs Windlesham leaned forward in her chair to select a sugared plum from the dish offered to her by Perdita, smiling archly as she did so. ‘I think you may not be aware how very popular you are, my dear Perdita … to have saved your life is reckoned to be quite something, I can tell you! No, no, you may blush and protest all you please, but it is so, I promise you!’
The nub of these confidences did little for Perdita’s peace of mind. Just contemplating the amount of havoc Bertrand could wreak in a week was calculated to bring on a relapse into dizziness ‒ and that she could well do without. A half-hearted attempt to question Bertrand himself brought only airy evasions and assurances that she must not be bothering her head about him, ‘for I have made friends and am having a splendid time!’
I will think about it tomorrow when I am stronger, she promised herself. But one tomorrow drifted into another and she drifted with them, seemingly incapable of any kind of coherent decision-making.
She still received flowers from the Duke almost every day, though the Marquis had not attempted to see her since that one embarrassing occasion. Midge told her that he had driven to London very soon afterwards and had brought back with him the man who was expected to perform miracles on the Duke’s ankle. Dr Bryant was sceptical of his being able to achieve much good, but within a few days of Mr Septimus Goldini’s arrival, he owned himself intrigued.
‘I’m damned if I know how he does it, but there’s some kind of wizardry in the fellow’s fingers,’ he admitted grudgingly. ‘I had little expectation of His Grace’s ever walking again, but now I’m not so sure. I have to admit, I’m impressed.’
But Mr Gilles was less so. ‘Of course, it is not my place to tell the doctor his business, but the whole enterprise smacks of mumbo-jumbo. The man’s obviously a charlatan and I must say I am astonished that His Grace should permit himself to be experimented upon in that way!’
‘Perhaps,’ Perdita suggested gently, ‘when one is in despair, to experiment is all that is left to one?’
‘There is such a thing as trusting to the will of God,’ Mr Gilles reproved her with a pomposity that put her out of all charity with him.
‘Well, I shouldn’t tell His Grace that if I were you,’ she advised him crisply. ‘Furthermore, I doubt the Marquis would expose his father to anyone in the least doubtful, for all that there is little love between them.’
Her confidence proved to have been justified a few days later. She was walking in the garden with Midge, the weather having turned pleasurably warm, when Mollie came running out of the house in a state of great excitement to tell them that the Duke of Anderley’s coach was that very minute bowling up the drive.
‘And His Grace inside, ma’am, if you please, as large as life ‒ and the Marquis with him, and Mr Fletcher was wondering, ma’am, whether it would be in order for him to show the Duke ‒ and his lordship, of course ‒ into the book room, on account of the stairs perhaps being more than he could manage …’
‘Good heavens, child, slow down, do!’ exclaimed Miss Midgely. And then, to Perdita, ‘I had better go in with her to see what is happening. You may follow at your own pace ‒ and don’t rush, duke or no duke!’
‘No, Miss Midgely,’ Perdita said with mock meekness, and grinned. ‘I believe I will walk round to the front of the house by the path.’
When she came in sight of the steps, the coach with its emblem emblazoned on the door was already drawn up and a stockily-built gentleman of middle years ‒ resplendent in a black tail-coat, a splendid yellow waistcoat and a Belcher neckerchief with yellow spots ‒ was superintending the proceedings with an air of unshakable confidence.
‘That’s the barber,’ he called encouragingly as two sturdy grooms lowered the Duke of Anderley to the ground in a kind of cut-down sedan chair. That this was accomplished in a dignified manner was in part due to the unfussed air of the self-appointed master of ceremonies, and in part to the Duke himself who looked the epitome of elegance and suffered himself to be thus manhandled with lofty disdain.
Perdita hurried forward as the contraption was set down. ‘Oh, my dear sir! What a wonderful surprise!’
His eyes gleamed balefully. ‘Is it not? I am aping Mahomet, you see. Since you have been unable to come to me, I must perforce come to you.’ He put out a hand which she grasped eagerly. ‘You look charming, my dear. You are recovered?’ His fingers tightened as he spoke.
‘Almost completely,’ she assured him. ‘Another day or two and I should have come to you.’
‘I couldn’t wait.’ His smile was almost boyish. ‘There is something I would have you witness.’ He released his hold of her and glanced about him and then at the stranger, who was also giving judicious consideration to the lie of things. ‘Here will do as well as anywhere, wouldn’t you say, Goldini?’
‘Well enough, Your Grace. Good level ground and plenty of space.’
Perdita’s attention was momentarily diverted as, from the corner of her eye, she saw the Marquis making a leisurely descent from the coach. Her half smile was rewarded by a slight inclination of the head, accompanied by a chill enigmatic stare. With a quite ridiculous and unexpected feeling of rejection, she turned away and back to his father.
‘Come along, man,’ the Duke was exhorting one of the grooms. ‘Step lively with those sticks! Devil take you for a slowtop!’ There was a force, a kind of inner excitement about him that found expression in his eyes, reminding Perdita of how he had been when she first knew him, before his accident.
The groom came hurrying across with a pair of stout sticks and in a very short space of time ‒ with the calm exhortations of the man Goldini to encourage and advise ‒ he was propelling himself forward slowly, with great concentration, but with growing confidence across the ground.
‘That will do for now, Your Grace,’ said Goldini, when he had taken about a dozen painful steps. ‘We’ll not overdo it, if you please. A little at a time, that’s the way of it if we’re to build up your strength.’
Rather to Perdita’s surprise, the Duke submitted with no more than a grunt and sank back into his improvised chair short of breath but with a triumphant glint of satisfaction.
‘But this is wonderful. I couldn’t be more pleased!’ she exclaimed. ‘Dr Bryant told me that you had hopes in time … but so soon! You must have worked exceedingly hard?’
‘Not I ‒ well, a little, perhaps,’ confessed His Grace with unaccustomed modesty. ‘Here is the man to whom most of the credit must go.’ He introduced Mr Septimus Goldini and Perdita, on closer inspection, found quietness and good humour, and hands that were surprisingly slim but strong, with long square-ended fingers which gripped hers with firmness.
‘I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, ma’am,’ he said with a courtly bow. ‘His Grace tells me you had a set-to recently with a stone missile and came off badly. Might I venture the opinion that your shoulder is still giving you trouble?’
She stared at him in astonishment and, feeling that everyone was looking at her ‒ including Midge, who had come to the head of the steps ‒ she gave a vexed half-laugh. ‘There is a trifling stiffness still, but that is only to be expected.’ Before he could say more she had turned away. ‘Now you must all come inside and take some refreshment.’
This Mr Goldini declined with commendable tact ‒ preferring, he said, if Miss Grant was agreeable, to take a turn in the garden. ‘Not much of a one for social chit-chat, ma’am.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘But if one of your people was to bring me out a draught of something cooling, now ‒ I’d take it very kindly!’
Later in the book room, as the Duke and Miss Midgely conversed together with remarkable amity, Perdita found herself cornered by Lord St Ive.
‘Does your shoulder still bother you, Miss Grant?’
His manner was outwardly sanguine, but she mistrusted it. ‘Dr Bryant warned me that it would be some time before I lost the stiffness,’ she said casually. ‘It was very badly bruised, after all.’
‘Perhaps you should allow Septimus Goldini to take a look at it. He has already worked miracles with my father.’
‘He has indeed! It has made all the difference in the world to him!’ Perdita exclaimed warmly, glancing across to the Duke who was giving Midge his full attention and heedless, in the wholeheartedness of her appreciation, of the impression that she was creating.
It came as something of a shock therefore, upon turning back to St Ive, to surprise in him a look of almost savage anger, so swiftly veiled that she almost wondered if she had imagined it. Her light-hearted dismissal of any necessity for such miracles in her own case trailed away flatly, to be acknowledged with a polite nod. Unused to finding the entertainment of a guest so onerous, she felt her own manner growing agitated, but good manners dictated one last obligation. She hesitated and then nerved herself to thank him for what he had done for her the previous week.
His response was much as she might have expected. ‘I could hardly ignore your plight, ma’am,’ he drawled, his voice full of silky-soft mockery. ‘But don’t delude yourself ‒ nothing between us has changed!’
It was an unequivocal reinforcement of the battle lines drawn between them. Perdita flushed and bit her lip.
‘I had not supposed otherwise, my lord.’ She lifted her chin defiantly. ‘Pray excuse me. I am neglecting your father.’ And she left him, feeling the shafts of his anger like little poisoned darts, penetrating her back as she walked with head held high across the room.
Miss Midgely had been acquainted with Perdita for too many years not to recognize a temper tantrum when she saw one, however carefully it might be controlled. Intrigued, she glanced across at his lordship and found herself suppressing an involuntary shiver. Whatever had Perdita said to him to warrant such a look?
‘Come and sit down, my dear,’ she said soothingly, relinquishing her chair. ‘You have been on your feet quite long enough. And besides, I am sure His Grace would prefer your conversation to mine …’ Miss Midgely’s eyes twinkled humorously at him. ‘I beg you will not trouble to deny it, sir, for with the greatest respect, I shall not believe you.’
The Duke chuckled at this parting sally. ‘An excellent woman you have there, my dear. Remarkably sound.’
Perdita consigned the Marquis to the devil and answered with genuine enthusiasm that she didn’t know what she would do without Midge. Anderley grunted and sat back, eyeing her critically.
‘Well, Perdita,’ he said at last. ‘We’re a fine pair, are we not?’
‘I feel so very foolish,’ she said wryly. ‘Coming to grief on my own doorstep!’
‘And where is the saviour of the hour?’ he drawled.
‘In Bath, I suspect.’ It was St Ive’s voice close behind her, making her start. ‘Chasing that elusive lady, Luck. Am I not right, Miss Grant?’
‘Perdita?’ The full awesomeness of the Duke’s stare fell upon her. ‘You are never funding that young man’s profligacy?’
She immediately flew on to the defensive. ‘No, of course not! At least … He has been spending his days in Bath, but it was so very dull for him with me ill …’ She forced herself to look up at the Marquis. ‘Has he been gambling?’
