Chapter 19

19

Of course. The Dowager must have told him. It was only natural, she supposed, though it was devilish awkward. ‘Your grandmother…’ she began to say, but he shook his head, forestalling her.

‘She didn’t need to tell me. I recognised you,’ he said. ‘I should have done so before, perhaps, but this morning I was musing over the token you so kindly granted me last night, and I came to a certain realisation.’

Sophie swore, in crude, pungent, unladylike English. How could she have been so careless? And he laughed with genuine amusement this time, it seemed to her.

‘Precisely,’ he said. ‘One cannot think of everything, and it was dark last night, but this morning, in daylight… I have met a young lady before, I thought to myself, long ago, who had big brown eyes and hair of bright red-blonde. Who was she, and where did I meet her? And then I remembered. We danced together.’

‘It wasn’t me, really,’ she said, almost whispering. ‘It was a girl with my face, and I was acquainted with her, I admit, but she seems so distant. It was another life, certainly.’

‘Before he …’ Lord Drake nodded in the direction of the room in which his father presided. ‘Before he ruined your life and drove your family to their deaths, and set in motion the events that brought you… wherever you are now. I do not know, though perhaps I can guess, what other pain and suffering beyond the horrors I am aware of have been your portion over the last eight years. But I do know that every part of it, every single moment of distress you have suffered, is his fault. I had not the least inkling of any of these terrible events before today, but I knew what he was, and have for a long time. Sophie – Clemence – I am so very, very sorry.’

She found herself quite unable to speak for a moment, and it was a while before she said, ‘None of it was your fault. When I came here, I had the impression – if I thought about you at all – that you must be as bad as he. I knew, or thought I knew, that your stepmother was your mistress, so it is perhaps understandable that I believed ill of you. But I know better now. I expect,’ she said with a sudden flash of insight, ‘that you have been his victim too, as much as I. So you have nothing to apologise for.’

They were intensely focused on each other, very close together in the quiet hallway, and somehow the masks they both wore seemed to make it easier to speak these uncomfortable truths. ‘I have been accustomed to thinking that I was his victim,’ he said a little unsteadily. ‘I have had my moments of self-pity, which I am ashamed of now as I stand here with you. It would be idle to deny that I have found it hard, being his son, knowing that those foul rumours were spreading about me, and that most people who heard them believed them, and there was nothing I could do to change their minds. But in reality my grandmother protected me from the worst of it, as I am trying now to protect my brother and sister. He has no interest in children, since he cares much more for things than people, and so has been an absent, indifferent parent to all three of us, and for that I must be thankful, for it might have been so much worse. And nothing that he has ever done to me approaches anywhere near what he has inflicted on you, and on your family.’

It was seductive, to be so near to him, in this little bubble isolated from the world. But she must break the spell. ‘I think you must have guessed what I came here to do,’ she said, hearing an undercurrent of wistfulness in her voice and hoping he could not hear it too. ‘And what I need to know,’ she went on more firmly, ‘is whether you mean to stop me.’

‘You intend to take back – I will not say steal, for it is yours by right – what was taken from you.’

‘I do.’ She was resolute now. ‘I mean to take that, and more. As much as I can carry. It is my intention to deprive him of so many things that are precious to him.’

‘And will you leave tonight, after you have done so? Shall this be our last meeting?’

‘No. No, I want to see the after-effects of what I have done,’ she said fiercely. ‘I’ll hide it all in the house, and leave traces that will make it appear that the thief has fled. And I will stay here, in his home, and watch him suffer. And I must ask you again, now you know that I shall not take only the Stella, do you mean to stop me?’

He did not hesitate for a second. ‘Of course I don’t.’

She was incredulous. ‘Really? You will allow me to deprive your family of thousands and thousands of pounds of jewels, a fortune, and you will not raise a finger to stop me?’

‘Not one finger,’ he repeated. His voice was deep and cold and sure as he said, ‘Apart from the fact that you are owed your revenge, apart from the fact that there may well be stories of misery like to yours behind every single bauble, can you imagine for a moment that I would wish to see my sister or a future wife of mine, supposing such a creature should ever exist, decked out in the finery that she now wears? In there, while one man after another makes use of her, a crowd of degenerates cheers her on and the man I must call father watches?’

‘I can quite understand why you might not want that,’ she said drily. It was certainly a valid point of view. But she had been desperately poor once, where he had not, and so she said practically, ‘You could always sell it all. One day when he is dead.’

‘I couldn’t rest easy doing that. I have no idea where it all came from, so that I might give it back, and I do not know how I could set about finding out. Many of the smaller stones have been re-set and re-cut – it is one of his more innocent hobbies, to design such things to adorn his wife, and one ruby or white diamond must be much like another. Surely now I must assume that the bulk of it was acquired as he acquired the Stella Rosa from your family. Stolen, in effect. Worse than stolen – a housebreaker is benign compared to him. I want no part of it to be my inheritance. And if it hurts him to lose it, can you really think that I will be sorry?’

‘So I am free to do what I must?’

‘Yes. Though I hope you will be very careful.’ He put his hands on her bare arms and pulled her closer, his mask almost touching hers. ‘You think you know what he is, but you have never seen him thwarted. I have, and I can tell you that he will stop at nothing. I am sure he will order beatings, torture, worse, if he so much as suspects that you have taken what he believes to be his and thinks that hurting you would help him get it back. Actually, even if he didn’t have such a hope, he might still hurt you for its own sake. Because he likes it.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘Of course I do; I can never forget what he did to my father. That’s why I will contrive it so that it appears the thief has gone, has fled with the jewels. He will send men in pursuit, but of course they will find no trace, for there is nothing to find. I don’t want anyone innocent – the servants above all – to be suspected and to suffer for it.’

‘Then there is little more to be said. You intend to wait till they are done in there, till she has passed out – she’s drinking steadily, they all are – and take it all from her body, despite the hideous risk you take by doing so?’

‘Yes. That is my plan. I know it is daring, but I believe it has a good chance of success. She won’t be calling her abigail to help her – the maids are all locked away and guarded tonight, on your grandmother’s command.’

He said soberly, ‘You may have a long wait. Would you like me to go and see…?’

She nodded, grateful that she would not be obliged to go back in there just now. He released her, leaving her alone in the shadowy passageway – she was suddenly cold in the thin muslin gown, and shivered – but in a moment he was back at her side. ‘It’s not over yet,’ he said, ‘but the crowd has thinned out considerably. Some of her earlier – I honestly can’t think of an appropriate word, but some of them have already succumbed to drink, and are still present in body, but snoring and insensible. Since there are far fewer women there now, I must presume that some couples, with a delicacy you would hardly suspect them capable of, have departed, no doubt to conjoin in some privacy. It almost makes one feel affection for them in their sweet bashfulness, don’t you agree? Rosanna’s opponent seems to me to be flagging, and Lord Wyverne, in so far as one can judge, appears to be a little bored. It might not be much longer.’ He must have seen that she was chilled, for he said in a quite different tone, ‘You could come closer, and let me hold you. You have gooseflesh on your arms.’

‘I do,’ she said, stepping into his embrace, torn between a strong desire to be there and a certain wariness, ‘but I must warn you, I am not feeling in the least amorous. I was thinking, in fact, that I might never again.’

‘I am not either,’ he said ruefully, slipping his arms about her and resting his masked cheek against her hair with a deep sigh. ‘I have observed before that whenever I am offered the dubious privilege of an insight into the workings of Lord Wyverne’s mind – and today has really been nothing but that, all day long – it drives away all lustful thoughts from me for a good long while.’

‘You don’t want to be anything like him,’ she murmured against the dark fabric that covered his broad chest. She was warm in his arms, and felt safe, though she knew this was pure illusion. ‘It’s perfectly understandable. I’ve noticed that you rarely describe him as your father, and I do not think I have heard your grandmother refer to him as her son above once or twice.’

‘Can you say that you are surprised?’

‘Of course not, but I don’t think you need to worry. Surely if you’d shared his… his proclivities, they’d have revealed themselves by now. The very fact that you worry you might be like him shows that you can’t possibly be. You must know that. I’m sure he was a vicious child, and a vicious youth, to grow into such a man.’

‘Yes, I believe he was, though the stories I have heard of his doings have come from others, from the servants mostly. It pains my grandmother to speak of such things, and she has tried to shelter me as best she could.’ He fell silent, and they stood, holding each other in the near darkness, taking precious comfort each from the other.

After a little while he said, ‘I know I’m not like him. My closest friend – he lives nearby, he is the rector of the local parish – tells me so, if I ever begin to doubt it. I do not share Wyverne’s twisted appetites, and I have no desire to treat any woman as a possession. I’ve had one lover in my life, and I was faithful to her all the while we remained together, and would have remained so if she had stayed with me, though I understood why she left. Two lovers, Clemence, if I may count you. And I would like to count you.’

She was about to answer him, to reveal some of her own tightly held secrets, but a sudden noise startled them. A dishevelled man in a wine-stained bedsheet toga came lurching out of the Marble Saloon, his arm about the waist of a woman draped in exiguous white silk. They were both unmasked. ‘You’ve missed all the fun, wench!’ he confided, breathing heady fumes into Sophie’s face, making her grateful once again for the protection of the mask. ‘Lady W has been declared the winner. A worthy successor to Messalina. Twenty-six, to the other’s twenty-four! What a woman! Makes you proud to be British, don’t it? Only she’s passed out now, and no wonder. The whore is mad as fire! Going off to set a few records of our own now, aren’t we, my girl?’ he said, squeezing his companion’s bottom.

She didn’t appear to be anywhere near as inebriated as he was. ‘We’ll see,’ she said with a bold wink at Sophie. ‘Stranger things have happened, I suppose. Come on – I’ll have to get you upstairs first, and you might find you prefer a nice nap by the time we get there. Come along!’

They staggered away together, and Sophie pulled from Lord Drake’s embrace. Whatever she had been about to say was gone forever. It was probably for the best, she thought. ‘I must go and see if it’s time.’

‘Be careful!’ he said, his voice deep and intense.

‘I will. I always am.’

‘You weren’t last night…’

She didn’t answer him. She was already gone.