Just Deserts (24 page)

‘
Persephone!
In here, this instant!’

Dragged into the little sitting-room that had been set
aside for the nabob’s use, and which adjoined her parents’
bedchamber, Persephone found herself the cynosure of four pairs of
eyes. Those of Lady Rossendale and her mother were accusing, while
her father and Penelope exhibited so much sympathy that they almost
overset her at once.

‘
Do you have any idea what has been going on here?’ her
mother was saying in a furiously lowered tone.

‘
The whole house has been awakened,’ announced her aunt
Rossendale dramatically.

‘
Pooh, nonsense,’ said the nabob testily, glancing at his
sister-in-law with dislike.

He was considerably recovered, his injured arm reposing in
a sling. But although he was permitted to sit up, as now, in an
armchair by the window, the doctor had advised him strongly not yet
to leave his room. He stretched out his good hand to
Persephone.

‘
Come here, my love.’

But Persephone remained where she was, ramrod straight,
defiant, determined to fight the onslaught of her doom to the last
ditch.

‘
Do not fear for me, Papa, I will do very well.’

‘
You will not do very well,’ Lady Rossendale contradicted.
‘You will do excessively badly. The house is buzzing with talk,
bandying your name, coupling it with Chiddingly as if you were any
common slut.’

‘
Harriet!’ gasped Clarissa.

‘
I knew how it would be at the outset with you, Persephone.
For a more unruly, hoydenish—’

‘
Harriet, that will do,’ Mrs Winsford said. ‘Not but what
you are in the right of it.’ She suddenly took in the condition of
her daughter’s clothing. ‘For the love of God, what in the world
have you been about?’

‘
Merciful heaven, child,’ exclaimed her aunt, ‘you look as
if you had been rolling on the ground!’

Persephone’s cheeks burned and she bit her lip, remembering
what had occurred when she had been doing exactly that. The two
elder ladies, noting these marks of discomfiture, exchanged
significant and equally horrified glances.

‘
So it is true,’ uttered Lady Rossendale, clutching at her
heart. ‘Upon my word, I am like to suffer a spasm! Lord have mercy!
Where are my smelling salts?’

‘
Oh, Seph, no,’ wailed her mother. ‘Never say so! Oh,
Archie, Archie, what are we to do?’

‘
Be silent, Clarissa,’ snapped her husband. ‘I’ll tell you
what we are to do. Get the poor child fit to be seen again. Pen,
take her.’

Penelope hurried forward. ‘Come, dearest.’

Clasping her arm about her sister’s shoulders, she led her
from the room. She hustled her down the corridor to their joint
bedchamber and pushed her in. Persephone just stood there and
Penelope saw that she was shaking.

‘
Seph, dearest, don’t,’ she begged, a catch in her voice.
‘Let me help you to change.’

Unresisting, Persephone allowed herself to be helped off
with her muddied habit, and made no protest but did as she was bid,
when her sister brought her to the basin and ewer and instructed
her to wash the dirt from her face and hands. But when she was clad
in a fresh shift with Penelope tying the laces of her bodice for
her, she suddenly threw her hands over her face and sighed
wretchedly.

‘
Oh God, oh God!’

Penelope thrust her down
on to the dressing stool.

‘
What happened, dearest Seph? Come, tell me. You will feel
better when you have made a clean breast of it.’

Her twin raised haggard eyes to her face. ‘I meant only
good, I swear. I never thought—it did not even cross my mind. Oh,
Pen, I have made wretched work of it. And Chiddingly—’

‘
What of him, Seph?’ asked Penelope.

‘
He—he knew all the time. He warned me at the outset. He
told me to go back. But I would not listen, and now—’ She drew a
breath. ‘Well, I cannot blame him. I brought it on myself. If I am
ruined, so be it.’

Penelope said no more, having a very fair idea of
what her sister’s fate would be.
Ruin
, she felt
shrewdly, was unlikely, if her mama had anything to say to
it.

She was quite right. At that very moment, Mrs Winsford was
busy enumerating all the ills that would befall the family if
Archie did not at once do something about it.

‘
Harriet has already been given to understand that there can
be no compromise. We are not in Bombay now, Archie.’

‘
No, indeed,’ agreed her sister. ‘You will not
find the accommodating morality of the colonies here, I am happy to
say. The
beau
monde
—’

‘
To the deuce with your
beau monde
!
’ the nabob barked,
annoyed. ‘I will not have my little Seph
coerced.’

‘
There is no question of coercion, Archibald,’
said her ladyship in arctic tones. ‘There is, very simply, no
choice. If, that is, you all of you wish to be received in society.
I say nothing of the fact that the whole affair will redound
unpleasantly on
my
family. But if you are determined to
plunge us all into a sordid scandal, I suppose I must learn to bear
with it.’

‘
You see?’ Clarissa said in distress. ‘There is nothing for
it. You will have to see Chiddingly.’

But at this moment there was a knock at the door and Baron
Chiddingly himself entered the room. He had changed his clothes,
and it might have been the dark sobriety of his blue coat that
affected his pallor. However it was, he was certainly paler than
usual, but his stern features were set in uncompromising lines. He
bowed to the ladies, but addressed himself to the nabob.

‘
Good morning, sir. I believe we have some urgent business
to discuss. You are, I think, the properest person with whom to
settle this affair.’

Archie Winsford shot him that unnerving stare from under
his brows, but Chiddingly was not noticeably
discomfited.

‘
Ha!’ barked the nabob. ‘Very well, sir, very well. My lady,
and Clarissa, leave us, if you please.’

Lady Rossendale, approval writ large upon her countenance,
made a majestic exit. Mrs Winsford, eyeing the baron rather
doubtfully, hesitated.

‘
Clarissa!’

‘
Yes, Archie, I am going,’ she murmured, drifting towards
the door with her eyes still on Chiddingly. ‘I will fetch
Seph.’

‘
Yes,’ her husband agreed, turning to face the
baron.

Chiddingly civilly held the door for her and closed it
behind her. Then he turned to the nabob.

‘
Sir, there is little for me to say. I am fully aware of the
compromising nature of this morning’s occurrence, and I am. .
.willing to make reparation.’

‘
Pooh, sir,’ exclaimed the nabob, rising a trifle
unsteadily from his chair. ‘Don’t come that high-flown language to
me, young feller, for I won’t stand for it. You people and your
high
ton,
your precious
beau monde
!
I’ve been a victim of it myself all
those years ago. Top-lofty lot of fribbles! What a piece of work it
is.’

Chiddingly could not forbear a smile. ‘Quite so, sir. It is
unfortunately the way of our world, however, and if we wish to
survive in it we must abide by its rules.’

‘
What the deuce possessed you to break ’em, then, eh?
Eh?’

‘
Useless, I suppose, to tell you that I did not do so,’
Chiddingly sighed.

‘
Ha! Do you take me for a nincompoop, sir? I know
my daughter well enough.’ He squared up to Chiddingly, despite the
latter’s superior height, staring ferociously up into his face.
‘But let no man
dare
tell me she had any mind to wanton
dalliance.’

‘
Good God, no, sir,’ Chiddingly said at once. ‘Persephone
is—Miss Winsford is all innocence. And I swear to you that I did
not take advantage of her.’

There was no need, he thought, to take the nabob
entirely into his confidence on
that
subject. It was a
matter between himself and Persephone, and the business of no one
else.

‘
Ha! Very well, then,’ Archie said, visibly
mollified.

His outburst appeared to have tired him, for he staggered
slightly. Chiddingly slid a hand under his elbow. ‘You are unwell
still, sir. Allow me to assist you.’

‘
Don’t fuss, don’t fuss,’ Archie said snappily, but he
allowed the younger man to help him back to his chair. Then he
stared up at Chiddingly and sighed gustily.

‘
You be good to her, hey? My little Seph.’

Seeing his eyes moist, the baron said, ‘Sir, I
will not deceive you. It is not what either of us bargained for,
and the nature of our relationship has been somewhat
abrasive
.
But I will
undertake to care for your daughter as I would any of my horses.’
He saw a frown in the nabob’s eye, and smiled. ‘If I tell you that
on the subject of horseflesh your Seph and I are at one, you may
perhaps better understand me.’

A short bark of laughter was surprised out of the elder
man. ‘Ha! Well, sir, you seem to have some brains in your head,
I’ll say that for you. You’ve given me your word and I accept it.
We’ll say no more.’

And indeed there was time for no more for Mrs Winsford
re-entered the room then, accompanied by both her daughters, but
not, as both gentlemen were relieved to see, by her sister
Rossendale, who had gone off to spread the glad news.

It was at once evident that, though Penelope had refrained
from telling Persephone what was in the wind, Mrs Winsford had not
been similarly reticent. The storm signs were visible, her cheeks
flying colour, grey eyes glittering.

Notwithstanding these danger signals, Chiddingly bowed and
spoke in formal tones. ‘Miss Winsford, your father and I have
reached the same conclusion. I therefore have the honour to request
your hand in marriage.’

‘
I wish you will not be so absurd,’ Persephone said at once
in a furious tone. ‘Honour, indeed! If you are stupid enough to
engage in this ridiculous charade, I am not. I will not be forced
into an engagement just to save face.’

‘
Miss Winsford,’ Chiddingly said, as if addressing
an idiot, ‘we are not speaking of an engagement to save face. We
must and will be
married.’

‘
How will that serve?’ she demanded, desperate
now. ‘If everyone knows—or at least
thinks
they know—of
our activities, how is marriage going to change their
opinion?’

‘
Don’t be stupid, Seph,’ her mother said irritably. ‘Within
marriage such things are perfectly acceptable.’

‘
That is utter hypocrisy.’

‘
Very true,’ Chiddingly agreed. ‘Unfortunately, it is the
code by which we live.’

‘
But it
can’t
be needful,’ she
protested, her bravado collapsing into plaintive lament. ‘I won’t
do it! I won’t, I won’t.’

‘
You have no option,’ he said. ‘Nor, I may add, have
I.’

That arrested her. Her lip trembled as she stared at him.
‘But you don’t—I don’t—’

‘
Want
to
marry me,’ he finished. ‘Yes, that is
understood.’

‘
It is as I told you, Seph,’ Clarissa said straightly. ‘Lady
Buckfastleigh has made it very clear that we will not otherwise be
welcome in her house.’

Persephone turned to her. ‘She could not be so uncivil as
to ask us to leave.’

‘
Yes, she could,’ contradicted Chiddingly. ‘And she would.
Make no mistake about that.’

‘
You
see,’
her mother
wailed. ‘It is not only you who will suffer. We shall all of us be
disgraced. Pen, too. You cannot want that, Seph. I know you
cannot.’

‘
No, indeed.’ Persephone looked across at her sister, half
started towards her, and stopped. ‘Pen—it was you he wanted. Could
we not say it was you all the time? Who is to tell the difference?
You could do it, Pen.’

‘
I would, dearest,’ Penelope replied, tears in her eyes,
‘only everyone knows it was you on account of your horsemanship.
They would never believe us.’

It was true, as
Persephone was forced to acknowledge.

‘
Otherwise,’ Penelope said, with a glance at Chiddingly’s
uncompromising countenance that clearly spoke her relief, ‘I would
have been glad to sacrifice myself.’

‘
I thank you,’ Chiddingly said.

Persephone turned to her father, on a last, bleak note of
hope. ‘Papa, must I?’

Archie, looking very glum, nodded. ‘Sorry to say, but they
are right, my love. It is a censorious world. Your engagement will
have to be announced before you make another appearance or not a
soul will receive you. Can’t have all these starched-up tabbies
giving my little peas the cut direct.’