Chapter Eleven
Had Sir Richard but known it, the conversation between Valentine and Lord Marbeck was not at all amicable. As they were speaking, Lord Marbeck drew Valentine out of the dance and, with a hand on her elbow, guided her on to the terrace that led from the ballroom. This caused no remarks; it was a hot evening, and several couples had left the ballroom, which was stifling from the press of people and the hundreds of candles.
Lord Marbeck had not meant to raise the subject of Sir Richard with Valentine. It was none of his business and better left to Lord Mountjoy. Yet in some way that he didn’t care to examine, he was dismayed by what he had heard earlier that day. Dismayed, disappointed—and disturbed.
He had been talking to Lord Mountjoy in the lobby of the House of Lords when another member came up to them. It was Lord Fanshawe, a man whom neither Mountjoy nor Marbeck particularly liked. He greeted them civilly, a thin smile on his scornful mouth. He had a slight lisp, which gave his conversation a hissing tone, and he said to Lord Mountjoy, “I gather I am to congratulate your protégé on her forthcoming nuptials.”
Lord Mountjoy said, “What on earth are you talking about? What protégé, what nuptials?”
“Why, Miss Welburn’s. It is all over town that she is to marry Sir Richard Brindley. I had imagined that you stood in loco parentis to the chit, and that Brindley would have come to you for consent. It is an attachment of considerable standing, I believe, dating back to their time in India. She has behaved with some reticence, but one gathers that there was a friendship between them of a nature that must inevitably lead to marriage. You had best see to it, Mountjoy, if you don’t wish her reputation to suffer; abominable to see her cold-shouldered by the ton, don’t you agree? Although, of course, you have never cared for such things yourself; you are above the concerns and scandals of the ordinary world. You will excuse me; I see Lassington over there, and I want a word with him.” He gave a slight bow and went away, leaving Lord Marbeck and Lord Mountjoy staring at one another.
Mountjoy finally said, “I always thought Fanshawe a very vulgar fellow. His title may go back to the dawn of antiquity, but he has no notion of how to behave. He has no manners at all.”
“Is there an attachment between Miss Welburn and Sir Richard?”
Lord Mountjoy said, “They knew one another in India, but she has never spoken of that time. Lady Mountjoy, who is very much aware of what goes on with these sort of matters, said to me only the other night that Valentine does not at all like Sir Richard and rather goes out of her way to avoid him.”
“Sometimes avoidance is a sign of strong feeling,” Lord Marbeck said.
“You think so? I doubt it. I’m not sure that Valentine has formed a particular attachment to any man, and she need not do so. I know her father wishes her to marry well, by which he does not mean necessarily the kind of marriage that is desirable in the eyes of the world. He is a man of sense, he knows that a so-called advantageous marriage is not always the best thing for a young woman of spirit. I am sure he would much rather see his daughter married to a sensible man of modest fortune than to a fool or a wicked man of great wealth. And Sir Richard’s reputation is such that one would not want any young lady whom one cared about to form any kind of connection with him.”
Lord Mountjoy had no need to elaborate, for both men understood what he was talking about: Sir Richard’s unsavoury habits were pretty well known at the clubs.
Lord Marbeck said, “You might drop her a hint as to what kind of a man he is.”
“I might, although she is not a young lady who takes kindly to advice. I will mention it to Lady Mountjoy. She will know what to do. Now as to the second reading of this bill—” And they turned to the more immediate matters before them.
Marbeck was unable to put this conversation from his mind, and it was the subject that he unwisely raised with Valentine at the ball.
As her colour heightened, she was barely able to restrain her disappointment and fury. She forced herself to question her feelings: why should she feel disappointed? Was it because she risked losing Lord Marbeck’s good opinion? And why did she value his good opinion so highly? Nonetheless, he had again shown himself what she judged him to be at their first meeting: one of those infuriating men who felt they had a right to interfere and lay down the law to anyone who happened to belong to the female half of mankind.
Had they not been in company, she might have said some very cutting things. As it was, she drew herself up straight, gave a slight curtsy, thanked him for his concern, and said in a cold voice, “It is really no business of yours, Lord Marbeck, with whom and to what degree I am acquainted with anyone. I have known Sir Richard since we were both in India, so it is an acquaintance of several years. I do not allow anyone to suggest to me whom it is wise or unwise for me to be on terms of friendship with, or indeed something warmer if I wish.”
Her face pale with anger, she turned on her heel and went back into the ballroom.
Lady Mountjoy caught sight of her, and with a sinking feeling made her way through the crowd to ask what had caused her to look like that. “Are you quite well?”
Valentine plied her fan to and fro, saying, “It is only the heat. You would think I would be used to it, but somehow in such a crush it becomes quite oppressive.”
She did find it oppressive; the room that a few moments before been a glittering assembly, a setting for pleasure and enchantment, had become instead a pit of hell, full of people with alien faces jostling against one another. A heavy, unpleasantly musky scent filled the air, and the candles seemed to flicker and grow darker, throwing tarnishing shadows over the many mirrors and turning the ballroom into a shifting, tawdry circus.
Lady Mountjoy, looking at Valentine’s face and judging that there had been an uncomfortable encounter between her and Lord Marbeck, said in a calm voice, “I, too, find it exceedingly hot, and I think the evening is far enough advanced that we may slip away if you would care to, without causing any comment.”
Valentine remained upset and angry with Lord Marbeck. When Lady Mountjoy, prompted by Lord Mountjoy, ventured to raise the subject of her previous friendship with Sir Richard, Valentine cut her short. “I am surely permitted to choose my friends.” There was something so ferocious in her face that Eliza felt it wiser to say no more, but she later gave it as her opinion to Mountjoy that Valentine didn’t give a button for Sir Richard. “I do believe the man she cares for is Lord Marbeck, but clearly there has been some kind of falling-out.”
Lord Mountjoy, preoccupied with political affairs, said, “How extremely tiresome all this young love is. I daresay she will sort herself out in due course. I don’t want to have to write an uncomfortable letter to Philip telling him what she is about.”
“If Lord Marbeck’s affections are engaged—if he is indeed in love with her—you can hardly call it young love,” Elizabeth said with asperity. “He’s a man of one-and-thirty, no adolescent stripling in the throes of an infatuation.”
“Well, let us hope it may come to something. I have a high regard for Marbeck and would hate to see him shackled to Lady Amelia. Valentine would lead him a fine dance, but he won’t mind that.”