“Well, Mr. Balfour-MacGregor, this is the great day,” said Lady Vivian, sipping her champagne. “You must really talk to Lucy about her maid. I had to bring my own maid over. Sally is quite inept.”
“Lucy’s taking a terribly long time,” said MacGregor anxiously.
“We must not be late for the drawing room,” said Lady Vivian. “And so I told Lucy. Once she has been presented to King Edward every foreign court in the world is open to her.”
“There she is now,” said MacGregor with relief, hearing the soft swishing of a dress outside.
Lucy stood on the threshold and MacGregor caught his breath. She was almost too beautiful. Too many questions would be asked. He fought down a stabbing feeling of panic and went forward to offer her a glass of champagne.
Lucy’s hair was dressed in a high regal coronet. Her white shoulders rose from creamy cascades of lace and she wore the regulation four yards of tulle as a train. Her hand trembled as she took the glass.
Lady Vivian fussed around her.
“Now remember your curtsy and don’t trip on your train. One of the lords-in-waiting will throw your train over your arm when you have finished your curtsy.”
Lady Vivian bustled off to attend to a few last minute arrangements of her own and Lucy and MacGregor were left facing each other.
“This is it, Lucy,” said MacGregor softly. “Are you afraid?”
Lucy nodded dumbly.
MacGregor turned the long, thin glass around to catch the light. “I’ve a bit of news I’ve been saving for you. Andrew Harvey called. You’ll soon be seeing him. He’ll come to talk to you while we’re waiting in line outside the palace.”
He watched the delicate color flooding Lucy’s face, with satisfaction. “That’s more like it. You were beginning to look like a ghost. Here’s Lady Vivian now. Quick! Give me a hug.”
Lucy rushed into his arms. Lady Vivian surveyed them with an indulgent smile from the doorway. “You would think you were going off to battle,” she remarked lightly.
The servants were lined up in the hall to say farewell and, in the midst of her excitement, Lucy noticed that Sally was missing.
The coachman and grooms stood at attention beside the open carriage outside with great colorful nosegays in their buttonholes. The horses were decorated with flowers and their silver harness sparkled in the sunshine.
The whole of London and the suburbs seemed to have gathered along the Mall to watch the brilliant procession.
“I feel like the French Royal Family before the revolution,” whispered Lucy. “This is all so unreal.” Ancient dowagers with their tiaras blazing sat next to young matrons who wore lappets with three white feathers in their hair. The different ambassadors also waited in their resplendent uniforms. Little knots of gallants hung about each carriage to beguile the waiting time for the occupants. The sun flashed on harness, dress sword, and leather. The flowers stood to attention in their beds in St. James’s Park. The band of the Life Guardsmen played selections from The Gondoliers in the palace yard.
MacGregor saw Andrew Harvey riding along beside the carriages and settled back and took a deep breath. This was a day he would remember as long as he lived.
Lucy sat like a princess in a dream as the carriage inched its way up the Mall under the plane trees.
“Miss Balfour-MacGregor!”
She looked up and found Andrew Harvey smiling down at her. He was mounted on a tall restless black horse which curvetted and whinnied.
Lucy smiled as the crowds, the carriages, MacGregor, Lady Vivian, the ambassadors, the dowagers, and the debutantes all fled a long, long way away, leaving her in a magic circle with Andrew Harvey.
“When did you arrive?” she asked while her heart cried out how much she had missed him.
“Only yesterday. I called to see you as soon as I could but you were too busy. Am I always going to have to pursue you?”
“I don’t know,” said Lucy in a small voice, feeling very gauche and stupid. The crowds and noise came rushing back and she was aware of interested glances in their direction.
“Well, I’m sure of it,” said Andrew lightly. “You rushed away from the ball without saying goodbye and then you rushed away from Dinard without saying good-bye. What an elusive girl you are. At least I’ve got you trapped for a few minutes.”
“Ah, we all know what a flirt you are, my dear Viscount,” said Lady Vivian. Andrew stared down his nose at her with thinly masked irritation. “I think I have just given up flirting, Lady Vivian.”
“My dear Andrew, you must never do that,” she teased. “What would us poor ladies do then? That is one thing about Andrew Harvey, we always say, he loves us all. The eternal bachelor.”
“It looks as if I shall remain the eternal bachelor,” said the much-goaded Andrew, “if I am never allowed to be serious.”
Lady Vivian waved her fan languidly to and fro. “Really! Who or what are you being serious about?”
“Isn’t that a friend of your husband over there,” said Andrew desperately. Lady Vivian turned around to look and Andrew again addressed himself to Lucy. “I’m giving a house party this weekend. Do say you’ll come.”
“If my father lets me,” said Lucy with a pleading look at MacGregor.
“It’s a bit sudden. The invitation, I mean,” said MacGregor.
Andrew had, in fact, just thought of it. “Oh, you’ll enjoy it, Mister Balfour-MacGregor. Bit of country air.”
“Where is your place?” asked MacGregor, who knew exactly where it was, how many rooms, and how much acreage.
“In Surrey, near Godalming. Not far. Lovely this time of year.”
“Then,” said MacGregor, “we shall be happy to accept your invitation.” Lucy gave a sigh of relief. The carriage jerked forward. They were nearly at the palace gates. Andrew Harvey swept off his hat. “I shall count the minutes until your arrival,” said Andrew.
Lady Vivian had turned back in time to catch his last remark. “Go along with you, Andrew,” she mocked. “I declare you’ve become quite a masher.” She caught a flash of pure rage in Andrew’s blue eyes and sat back in the carriage feeling startled. Could the eternal bachelor actually have fallen for Lucy?
Once outside their carriage and inside the palace, Lucy was appalled to find all these gorgeously dressed women turning into a veritable mob. They pushed and jostled and shoved like a rugby scrum in the anterooms, each one trying to be first. There was a wooden barrier held by ushers so that only so many were allowed in at a time. The rooms and the staircases of the palace were filled with flunkeys wearing royal-red liveries. They conducted the ladies into the dressing rooms where maids took care of their wraps.
Their Majesties entered the throne room from a side staircase, preceded by Lord Dundonald, the gold-stick-in-waiting, the silver-stick-in-waiting, the master of the horse, the Duke of Portland, the lord marshal of ceremonies, and the Duke of Norfolk. They all entered walking backward as well as they could in front of the king and queen. Captain Godfrey’s band played during the ceremony.
Queen Alexandria and King Edward VII took their places on the golden thrones that stood on a red dais. Standing around them were all the important royalties and the diplomatic corps. Jostling and pushing outside, the society ladies in gowns which had cost from one hundred to five hundred guineas, swore and scrabbled and punched.
At last it was Lucy’s turn.
Lady Vivian watched with bated breath. She saw the slim elegant figure of the girl move forward and make a beautiful curtsy. She was rising! Would she remember to walk backward? The king was saying something to her. Lucy was replying. The king and queen laughed. A lord-in-waiting moved forward and threw Lucy’s train over her arm and Lucy made her exit backward.
Lady Vivian clutched hold of Lucy’s arm. “What did he say?” she practically babbled. “And what did you say to make them laugh?”
Lucy smiled at her dreamily and said, “I don’t remember.”
“His Majesty speaks to you and you don’t remember?”
How could Lucy tell the ultrasophisticated Lady Vivian that she had been thinking only of Andrew Harvey and dreaming of the visit to his home?
* * *
“What news from the front, my love,” demanded Lady Hester as Jeremy Brent strode into the room.
“Bad news,” he said, depositing his hat and cane on a table and coming forward to plant a perfunctory kiss on her rouged cheek. “Mmm! You smell divine. Lucy was all togged out in court dress and looking splendidly otherworldly and ethereal, flanked on one side by her father and on the other by that enameled bitch, Vivian Rochester. Andrew Harvey rides up to the carriage. The sleeping princess comes awake. She looks at him with her heart in her eyes. La Vivian says quelque chose and the usually urbane Harvey looks daggers at her. Followed Harvey to his club and Harvey tells his best friend, David Whitshire, that he’s having a house party this weekend. Whitshire says something about it being damned short notice and Harvey laughs and says the campaign is urgent. What do you think of that?”
Lady Hester bit her lip. “I could strangle Andrew Harvey,” she said. “Why does he have to go and get smitten after all these years? We must get ourselves invited!”
“How? Don’t know Harvey. Not in the army set myself, you know.”
“Let me think!” Lady Hester got up and began to pace the room, the blond lace of her tea gown trailing across the carpet. “I have it! His aunt, the dowager Marchioness of Homeleigh, acts as hostess when he’s entertaining. I know her slightly. She will invite us.”
“How?”
“I shall simply tell her we are coming. By the time she receives the wire we will be already on our road. Then it is all up to you. I shall keep Harvey amused. I am not without experience, you know.” She gave a little laugh and wound her arms around his neck. He held her close and they stayed for a few minutes entwined together, each with their own thoughts.
Hester was thinking that, with money, she would be able to hold Jeremy for much longer. And Jeremy was thinking, as he felt the wrinkled face against his own, that it would be extremely jolly to have all that money and a young bride as well. He would use Hester and drop her as soon as he was safely married. He gently disengaged himself.
“And you are sure no one suspects us of anything?” he asked. “Think what happened at Madame Rejinsky’s.”
“Pooh!” said Hester lightly. “Madame consorts with some very odd people and she’s such a leech. Probably someone she is blackmailing decided to hit back. She is so terrified, she won’t even speak to me. The silly old frump actually believes the voice came from the other world.”
“Have you ever wondered why the voice knew your name, my dear?”
Hester shrugged her lacy shoulders. “I appear in all the society pages. Everyone knows me.”
“So you say. Be very careful. Mr. Balfour-MacGregor is a wily old bird.”
“He is no match for me. Hand me that railway timetable. What’s the name of the place? Lyneham Hall. Now be quiet until I work out our route.”
Unaware of the plots that were being hatched around his weekend party, Andrew Harvey fussed over the arrangements and nearly drove his aunt Emily, dowager Marchioness of Homeleigh, quite mad.
“I don’t know what’s come over you,” she said for the umpteenth time. “Anyone would think the king was coming. Everything is in order. I’ve never seen the place look so beautiful.” She cast a proud eye over the shining rooms and waxed floors.
Andrew took a deep breath of country air and looked over the rolling lawns, lying stretched out as green and smooth as a billiard table, glistening faintly under the early morning coating of dew. This was the type of English morning he had dreamed of when he was in India.
The smells of a well-run country house surrounded him—woodsmoke, tobacco, roses, and dog. He felt as nervous as a schoolboy. Would Lucy look right in this setting? Or did she only belong in the city? He ran over the guest list in his mind. Apart from Lucy and her father, there was Didi and her compte—enjoying a protracted honeymoon away from the wrath of the compte’s parents. There was his friend David Whitshire, and Elinor Belling. He frowned. He wished now he had not invited Elinor but the whole business had been so rushed that he had automatically selected some of the people he had known in Dinard. Then there was Boodles who had just become engaged to a Miss Pyeford and another old army friend John Hannaway. Nothing, however, could possibly go wrong.
The old house was looking its best, unashamedly Georgian from its pillared portico to its long Palladian windows.
The only modern additions were a vast iron and glass conservatory to the east, with the huge and rambling servants’ wing behind it. His high-nosed ancestors stared down in an autocratic way from their gilded frames and huge bowls of roses filled the rooms.
Roses spilled from the urns on the balustrades and filled every nook and cranny of the rose garden. If all went well this weekend, Andrew thought, he would take Lucy to meet his parents, the Earl and Countess of Glyn-Rammington. He realized with a little shock that he must have been thinking of marriage all along.
“I declare! There’s a carriage already,” said Aunt Emily, coming to join him. Her snapping black eyes peered out from under a thatch of woolly white hair giving her the appearance of a small plump bird. “Who can that be?”
They moved out on the front steps and stood arm in arm as the carriage came to a stop.
Lady Hester descended, followed by Jeremy Brent. She threw her arms around the bewildered Aunt Emily and said, “So kind of you to let us drop in on you.” Then, seeing the bewilderment on the marchioness’s face, added, “You did get my wire, didn’t you?”
“Oh, that was you,” said Aunt Emily faintly. “I didn’t recognize the name and thought that if I didn’t reply, whoever it was would not bother to come. But I’m glad you’re here. Good Heavens! It is little Hester. Is this your son?”
A look of bad temper flitted across Hester’s face and then vanished quickly into the high-boned ruffles at her neck. “No, my dear. How could you think such a thing! This is a young friend of mine, Mr. Jeremy Brent. I knew his dear mother.”
Lover, thought Aunt Emily crossly. That will upset the sleeping arrangements.
She said: “Well, since you are here, you may as well trot along to your rooms and settle in. Andrew, dear, do give them some refreshment first, while I go and talk to Miss Whittaker.” Miss Whittaker was the social secretary.
“Would you care for tea?” asked Andrew politely.
“No, dear boy,” said Hester with a languorous smile. “Something a little stronger, if you please.” Andrew politely ordered champagne and wished Hester would stop ogling him.
“We have a mutual acquaintance,” said Jeremy suddenly. “Miss Balfour-MacGregor.”
“Really!” said Andrew politely, looking at Jeremy for the first time and wishing Mr. Brent were not quite so handsome.
“Yes. We got to know each other very well on the Continent.”
“Then you will be delighted to know that she is to be a member of my house party,” said Andrew frigidly. “Please help yourselves to champagne. I have several things to attend to.”
“Not exactly welcoming,” murmured Jeremy, watching Andrew’s retreating back.
“But he has it,” said Hester.
“I thought only gels had it.“
“No, I assure you. He also is reputed to be terribly rich, which is an odd thing in old-county families these days. Look at all these costly little knick-knacks just lying around.”
“Want me to pinch some?” asked Jeremy lazily.
“Don’t,” said Hester briefly. “That old cat Emily would notice if there was so much as a rose petal missing.”
The housemaid arrived to show them to their rooms, which were in the West Wing and adjoining, a fact which Hester noted with slightly raised eyebrows. Very shrewd of old Emily. This was perhaps going to be more difficult than she thought.
She allowed her maid to unhook the buttons on her tiny kid boots and then stretched out on the bed with a sigh. A little sleep. She got so very, very tired these days. If it weren’t for Jeremy, she would be able to relax. To throw away the long confining corset, to forget the nightly face masks and massage, to never, ever endure the hundred-and-one tortures it took to keep a young man by her side and old age at bay. She heard the rumble of arriving carriages but her eyelids were heavy. Just a little sleep …
The frivolous little French clock on the mantel was chiming two when she finally awoke. She rang for her maid and dragged herself over to the window. Andrew Harvey and his guests were playing croquet on the lawn. Damn, damn, damn! He had his arms around the Lucy girl, showing her how to play. Damn! Off with their heads! Why in hell’s name had Jeremy not woken her. Andrew Harvey’s courtship must be progressing by leaps and bounds.
Andrew was at that moment wondering why there seemed to be a conspiracy among his guests not to leave him alone with Lucy. Jeremy Brent was constantly at her elbow and Didi was constantly at his.
Lucy was also wondering why marriage to her compte had not seemed to make Didi any less fond of Andrew Harvey. The American girl laughed and flirted and tossed her flaming hair while all the while her husband, a sallow young man, seemed to stand on the sidelines watching her sadly.
Didi had given Lucy an effusive greeting. Now they could be friends, she had declared. She had got over that silly nonsense. Wasn’t her compte a duck? And all the while her eyes searched out Andrew. She had overwhelmed Lucy with friendship at the beginning and was now turning absolutely nasty.
“I declare, Lucy, dear, if you don’t know croquet, why attempt to play it?” said Didi waspishly.
“All the best families know how to play croquet,” said Elinor inevitably.
Didi laughed shrilly and Boodles added his inane vulgar counterpoint.
“It’s all right,” laughed Andrew gaily. “Lucy is doing very well under my tuition. Now, Lucy, you take the mallet—”
“Ooooh! I’ve twisted my ankle,” said Didi, throwing herself into Andrew’s arms. “Ooooh! It hurts.“
Andrew extricated himself and handed Didi over to the compte. Didi threw her arms around her husband’s neck and began kissing him passionately on the chin, the same spot over and over again, and he only managed to hold her off with a great effort. The compte finally led his wife off in the direction of the house.
“It’s the sun,” said Hester. “And all that drink you said you had at luncheon. Come, Andrew. Your aunt tells me your rose garden is magnificent. I must see it.”
There was nothing else Andrew could do but offer to escort her. He glanced back to see that Jeremy had taken his place. David Whitshire and John Hannaway were playing billiards, Boodles and his fiancée had wandered off. Andrew hoped that Lucy would not be left alone with Jeremy. With relief, he saw the tall figure of MacGregor approaching the croquet game.
By the time the company was assembled for drinks in the drawing room, Andrew was beginning to wish he had never thought of the house party. It would have given him some comfort to know that Lucy was thinking exactly the same thing.
Didi had called on her during the afternoon, wandering around Lucy’s little sitting room, picking things up and putting them down with long nervous fingers. “You mustn’t mind me,” Didi had said. “I’m very nervous. You do like me, don’t you?”
Lucy had felt obliged to say “yes,” although Didi was making her feel awkward in the extreme. Didi had then thrown her arms around the embarrassed Lucy, hugging and kissing her. Then she had suddenly become very calm and had begun to talk quite sensibly about her plans for living in France and how much she had always wanted children. And just when Lucy was beginning to relax and enjoy Didi’s company, Didi had suddenly become spiteful. Lucy lacked sophistication. Had any one ever told her that? Then it was high time someone did. She had topped off a long speech of criticism by calling Lucy mean and sly and had then swept from the room, leaving poor Lucy feeling exhausted and bewildered.
Lucy now stood in the drawing room as close to MacGregor as possible and watched the approach of Elinor Belling with a nervous eye.
“And how do you like country life?” began Elinor. “Of course Belling Court is much larger than this. Is your home as large as this?”
“Quite,” said Lucy.
“Oh! And do you have many servants?”
“We are not overly preoccupied with the servants, are we, Lucy?” put in MacGregor. “Too much interest in the servants can be dangerous for a young girl. Don’t you agree, Miss Belling?”
Elinor turned an unlovely shade of red and almost ran away. Lucy looked inquiringly at MacGregor. “Sent abroad because she was making sheep’s eyes at the footman,” whispered MacGregor. “I tell you, Lucy, servants’ gossip is a marvelous thing!”
Hester came over to join them with the object of detaching MacGregor from Lucy, thereby leaving the field open for Jeremy Brent. But no sooner had she begun to talk to them than Didi flung her arms around the startled Jeremy and, to the embarrassment of the whole company, began to profess her undying love.
The compte spoke clearly and slowly in English. “My apologies, my lord, but I must take my immediate leave. I should have married a French girl. I cannot stand any more of my wife’s behavior.” He turned to face Didi, his eyes as wide and lost as a spaniel’s. “I shall return to my parents and set the affairs in motion for a divorce. Our marriage is not recognized by the Catholic church in any case.” He threw up his hands. “English women are—are—immoral.“
“I’m not English,” wailed Didi. “I’m American.” But she spoke to the empty air. Her husband had gone. Didi rushed from the room after him.
“That girl’s going insane,” said Elinor with an amused chuckle.
Hester decided to make good use of the scene. “I think her reaction to Jeremy was a normal one. The ladies simply cast themselves at your feet. Don’t they, my pet.”
Hester caught a strangely shrewd look in Lucy’s eyes and immediately knew she had gone too far. Andrew’s two army friends were making inarticulate sounds of embarrassment in the best English manner. Boodles and his fiancée, Miss Annie Pyeford, sat silently in a corner holding hands, and from the lugubrious looks on their faces, appeared to be reconsidering the whole idea of marriage.
Aunt Emily bustled in, bright and inquisitive as a bird. “What is going on, Andrew? There are frantic yells and crashes from the de la Valles’ bedroom. House parties are not what they were in my day, you know. You young things eat too much, drink too much, and think of nothing but sex.”
Andrew closed his eyes.
“Furthermore,” went on the dowager marchioness, “in my day, if a young man was interested in a young lady, he saw her parents and received permission to pay his addresses. So much easier, my dears, than a house party full of nutty people.”
Andrew winced.
“She is a very pretty girl,” went on Aunt Emily, oblivious of her nephew’s distress, “but go out and slay dragons or something. So much easier than all this fuss.”
Elinor cast Andrew an awful glance of coquetry and smoothed down her gown. “Heh! What’s this?” said the large guardee John Hannaway, his mustache bristling with excitement. “Never say you’re going to get married, Andrew?”
“Dinner,” said the butler from the door, “is served.”
Andrew looked at him as if he were an angel descended from on high. But he half expected the table arrangements to have gone awry, and it was with a further feeling of relief that he found that they had not and that Lucy was seated on his right, his aunt on his left with MacGregor next to her.
MacGregor gave Andrew and Lucy one quick look, took an enormous swallow of his sherry, and launched forth into conversation with the dowager marchioness. He sparkled, he mimicked, he told scandalous story after scandalous story while the company roared with laughter and begged him for more. It was a heroic effort and was to place MacGregor as the foremost wit of society. The ex-butler was paying Lucy back for her long hours and agonies in the casinos. He held everyone’s attention and prayed under his breath that Andrew Harvey would make the most of it.
Under cover of MacGregor’s chatter, Andrew turned to Lucy.
“Well, Auntie let the cat out of the bag,” he said. “I’d have done much better slaying dragons. I’ve wanted to talk to you ever since Dinard. I thought this house party would be a splendid idea … walks with you in the rose garden and all that. It’s turned into a nightmare. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”
“Yes,” whispered Lucy, wishing for the hundredth time that she could say something light and flirtatious. Andrew exuded a strong air of masculinity and that intense blue gaze so fixed on her own made her legs tremble and took away her appetite.
“Look, Lucy, why don’t we escape tomorrow? Pack up a picnic and go on the lake and leave the others to look after themselves. Will you come?”
“Yes,” said Lucy.
“Good-oh. Look, I’m not overwhelming you or anything. I’m not in the way of doing this sort of thing in earnest, you know. Pursuing young girls, I mean.”
“Do you mind if I wear old clothes?” asked Lucy unexpectedly.
“Why? Do you think I’ll shove you in the lake?”
“No,” laughed Lucy. “It’s just … oh, how can I explain.”
“Try.”
“I feel sometimes as if I’m imprisoned in a clothespress,” said Lucy slowly. “I’m hemmed in from morning to night in tight clothes and boots and gloves, and my hair is so elaborately arranged that it makes my head ache.”
“I feel the same, believe me,” said Andrew. “You don’t think I can relax at the moment in this boiled shirt, do you? We shall cast convention to the winds.”
Lucy looked at him nervously from under her lashes.
“Not all the conventions,” he assured her. “My intentions are desperately honorable.”
There! He had almost said it. MacGregor caught Lucy’s eye with a pleading look. She gave a slight nod of her head and with great relief, MacGregor at long last fell silent.
Andrew had caught the exchange and a frown creased his forehead. Sometimes he thought that Lucy and her father were like two actors, each one waiting for a cue from the other. They were so elegant and well-bred and charming, but the whole thing had the flavor of the Green Room. And why did he always have the nagging feeling that he had met both of them before?
Before they retired for the night he caught another exchange of glances. Tables had been set up for the evening baccarat and Lucy had remarked very firmly that she never played cards. Andrew noticed that Lady Hester had looked at Jeremy and raised her thin penciled eyebrows and that Jeremy had definitely winked.
But he was not going to let any of these misgivings sway him from his objective. In a hurried whisper he told Lucy that he would meet her in the entrance hall at eight o’clock.
Lucy went happily to bed despite a feeling of irritation that Sally, her maid, had not waited up for her. She would really have to do something about Sally. But the more she tried, the more sullen the girl and the more frequent her mother’s illnesses became.
Lucy lay on the bed with the firm conviction that she would never, ever sleep. She awoke to find the sun blazing into the room and the birds merrily twittering in the wisteria outside her window. She sprang from bed in a panic and then found to her relief that it was only seven-thirty. She brushed out her long black hair and rolled it into a careless knot at the back of her neck and hurriedly dressed in an old skirt and a soft cool silk blouse. Her stays were left abandoned in the chest of drawers. Free of their constriction, Lucy felt like a schoolgirl again and ran out of the bedroom and lightly down the stairs. Andrew was already there and waiting with a picnic basket slung over his arm. He was dressed in an old pair of riding breeches and a black polo sweater which had seen better days.
Andrew surveyed her with pleased approval. “If that’s the way you dress when you are being informal, then I hope you’ll be informal all the time. You do look jolly pretty. I suppose you society girls have to go through hell with all your frippery bits. I always think that the women at Ascot, don’t you know, look a bit like ships under full sail. All white and stately and full-rigged. I’m talking nonsense, you know. You’re going to wish you’d stayed in your stays and not cast them off for this babbling idiot. Oh, dear! I shouldn’t have said that. Gosh! What a heavenly morning.”
They walked slowly across the lawns, their feet leaving prints in the dew-wet grass. A thrush perched on the very edge of a rose bush obligingly sang his heart out for them with such energy that the heavy red roses shook, sending glittering sprays of moisture onto the ground.
“Do you go boating much in your part of the world?” said Andrew.
Lucy thought frantically about her fictitious home and decided against boating and water. If she said there was a loch nearby, he might ask which loch. “No,” she lied. “The Channel crossing was my first experience of boats.”
“Well, we’re taking a punt out and what could be more English than that. I’m quite good at punting in an inept kind of way. Much better at rowing, you know, but the ladies don’t like that because you can’t help splashing their frocks no matter how much you feather the oars. Here we are.”
An ornamental lake stretched out before them like glass. The willow trees surrounding it hung their long leafy branches straight down into their reflections and the sun blazed down from a sky of pure cerulean.
He held out a strong white hand to help Lucy into the punt. She put her hand into his and again the electric current ran between them. They stood motionless, Andrew looking down at Lucy’s bent head and Lucy staring as if hypnotized at their joined hands.
“Can I push you out, sir?” Both turned. A young man in a Norfolk jacket and breeches was standing behind them.
“Yes, thank you,” said Andrew, settling Lucy against the cushions in the punt and taking up the pole. “Who are you, by the way?”
“Name’s Hefford, my lord. I’m the second footman.”
“Of course. Didn’t recognize you in your civvies. It’s a funny thing,” he went on as the footman pushed them off and the boat glided silently across the mirror of the lake, “how one never recognizes even very old servants when one sees them out of their livery.” He looked down at Lucy and frowned. Now what had he said to upset her?
Lucy realized miserably that she was going to have to begin to lie to this man she adored, and, should they marry, keep on lying for the rest of her life.
She could not talk about gambling. She could not talk about Marysburgh. She had to talk about something.
She took the plunge. What on earth was the name of that fictitious village she was supposed to hail from? Auchterherder. That was it.
“At home,” she said carefully, “it’s also very beautiful at this time of year. Except not so tame and groomed.”
“The savage highlands, eh. Is your mother still alive?”
“No,” said Lucy miserably. “She died a long time ago.” She bit her lip, wondering how her mother was getting on and whether she was receiving her letters, postmarked Glasgow.
“Obviously it distresses you,” said Andrew kindly. “I’m sorry. I’ve bought some splendid food along. Cold grouse and champagne. Have you ever had champagne for breakfast?”
“No,” said Lucy, “and what a lot of questions you do ask.” She felt suddenly carefree. The punt was now in the middle of the lake and she and Andrew Harvey were enclosed in a summer world far from the biting remarks and the formal social dance of society.
“We’ll moor over at that little island,” said Andrew. “Drink our champers, eat our breakfast, and think comfortably of the rest of the house party snoring in their beds and missing all this beautiful morning.”
He helped her to alight and took a rug from the punt and spread it on the grass and then helped her ashore.
“Do you like my home?” asked Andrew with his fair hair bent over the picnic basket as he fished out the champagne and two glasses.
“It’s beautiful,” said Lucy, looking across the park to the mellow brick of the old mansion.
“I’m very fond of it myself,” he said, handing her a glass of champagne. “I’m going in for agriculture, you know. Do you like the country? Or do you prefer it in town?”
“I much prefer the country,” said Lucy with a happy sigh as she sipped her champagne. “London is so noisy and dirty and being a debutante is so exhausting. I wish my father had left me ‘in.’ I don’t really want to be brought ‘out.’ I agreed to it because I thought it would be … oh, very elegant and leisurely. But it’s already a rat race of balls and teas and masquerades and what Boofy said to old Chuffy and don’t you think poverty is simply all the fault of the poor and have you ever heard of anything more ridiculous than women trying to get the vote. And I’m expected to sit manicured and glittering and confined in boots two sizes too small and smile and smile … but never too enthusiastically or I might get wrinkles. Most of the time I feel like a high-class Chinese harlot.” She blushed and looked embarrassed but he only laughed.
He refilled her glass. “Don’t stop,” he said. “You don’t have to be ladylike with me.”
“Oh, but I do,” said Lucy quietly.
He put down his glass and leaned over her. “Then … it’s not just me. You feel the same.”
She gazed into his blue eyes, trying to think of some flirtatious rejoinder but found that she could only nod. His face was drawing nearer, the blue eyes serious and intense, no longer mocking. He put one arm gently around her shoulders and with his free hand turned her face up to his. Their kiss seemed to last an eternity until at last they broke apart, trembling and breathless.
“Walk with me a little, Lucy,” said Andrew quietly, helping her to her feet. There was a little colonnaded marble rotunda at the other side of the island. He wanted his proposal to be perfect, not a scrambled affair over the half-empty champagne bottle and the untouched breakfast.
He took her arm and they walked along the narrow path that led to the rotunda on the other side of the island.
He led her inside and Lucy sat down on a marble bench. She instinctively knew he wanted this moment to be perfect.
She turned her head in order to allow him to prepare his proposal and leaned her arm on the sun-warmed ledge and gazed down into the deep, deep, clear depths of the lake.
The white face of Didi stared up at her, her long red hair, now as brown as the brownest seaweed, floating out around her small head. Her little hands made a pathetic pleading gesture as the water quivered under a sudden breeze, rippling the mirror of the lake and distorting the dead face below its surface.