Graham glanced around the table at his mother’s guests, for they were her guests and not his. She had not even consulted him. Yet the dinner party had been foisted upon him anyway, regardless of whether or not he wanted to attend.
As the conversation buzzed around him, he allowed himself to drift off. He had suffered a bad dream during the night, reminding him of the terrors and the devastation of war. He had been wandering on the battlefield looking for his friend, Thomas. The ground had been littered with dead bodies, but they were in French uniforms and not British. Every time he’d turned a body over, he’d seen a face he recognised but could not place. The same face, over and over again.
He shook his head to rid his mind of the non-memories and tried to tune in to those around him. The elderly Lady Ponsonby, to his right, was talking to the middle-aged fop Lord Oberon facing her, telling him all about her current digestive disorder.
“The wind is terrible!” she exclaimed, and Lord Oberon’s face coloured beetroot red. One did not discuss such things in decent company. As if to prove her point, Graham heard a most unladylike noise coming from the woman’s person. He wafted a hand in front of his face and then pretended to be rubbing his nose while coughing quietly into his palm, and he turned his attention to the lady on his left.
Lady Chesterton was facing her husband, Lord Chesterton, so they were speaking with other guests. She was telling the chap on her other side about their extensive wine cellar back at home while her husband flirted openly with the woman opposite Graham, who happened to be Lady Emmeline herself. He could not hear what they were talking about, but she did look as though the lord was being quite risqué in some of his comments.
In a bid to distract her and rescue his fiancée from her plight, he coughed loudly into a napkin and reached under the table with his foot to tap her own, hoping he was not tapping Lord Chesterton’s foot by mistake. The lord might mistake it for Lady Emmeline’s foot and think that his luck was in.
As Graham’s foot made contact, Lady Emmeline appeared to jerk in her seat, which suggested to him that his aim had been accurate. He coughed again, and when she looked across at him, realising who was kicking her under the table, the expression on her face changed from one of surprise to one of gentle gratitude.
She excused herself from her conversation with the lord and looked directly across the table at Graham. Lord Chesterton turned his own attention to the beauty to his right, Graham’s aunt, his late father’s half-sister Freda, who was actually the same age as Graham himself.
“Tell me, Your Grace,” Lady Emmeline said to him. “Are you enjoying the dinner party?”
Graham pulled what he hoped was an appreciative face and nodded that yes, he was indeed doing so. If she kept it to questions that required either a yes or no answer, they would be fine.
“How have you been spending your time since we were last in each other’s company?” she said, spoiling it.
At a loss for what to do, Graham simply shrugged his shoulders, and a flash of irritation crossed her face.
She looked as though she gave some thought to re-framing her next question and said, “Have you been out at all?”
He shook his head with relief and gestured to her with his hand as if to say, ‘and you?’
Lady Emmeline watched the gesture as a series of emotions flickered across her face, then she pressed her lips together before saying, “Of course, it has been raining since last I saw you. Nevertheless, my cousin Mary and I took a carriage around the park. Just to be sociable.” She waited as if for some response. When she remembered that none would come, she added, “There was hardly anyone else there of any note. And so we went back home.”
She visibly sagged as she breathed out a sigh, and she looked towards the ceiling as if searching for inspiration.
Graham followed her gaze and his eyes rested on the candle chandelier above the centre of the table. Each of the candles was the same length as the next, each of them completely new for today’s little soiree. They all had good flames on them with no splutters.
He spotted a spider weaving a web where the chandelier joined the ceiling, and he smiled slightly. Mother would not be happy with the staff if she saw it too, so he tore his eyes away and looked once more at his fiancée, whose own eyes were looking anywhere but at his.
He gazed towards the head of the table where his mother was seated, but she was engaged in an animated conversation with the gentleman to her right, who had a bright red nose. Everyone knew that the Duke of Kenilworth was partial to the odd drink or two, an attachment that caused the fine red lines that broke out upon his face as well as a paunch he tried to hide behind his waistcoat. It was good that his mother was distracted. If she was not watching Graham, then she would not have reason to think there was anything amiss with the chandelier. The spider was safe, for now. And so were the staff.
“You do remember my cousin, do you not, Your Grace?” asked Lady Emmeline suddenly, and Graham returned his attention to her.
What was she trying to imply? That he could not remember the young lady who had accompanied her only two days earlier? He may have blocked out memories of the battlefield, apart from the recurring dreams, but there was nothing wrong with the rest of his brain.
Irritated, he nodded his head just once before fixing his stare on the food on his plate in front of him. He could hear Lady Emmeline puffing and tutting, and from the corner of his eye, he could see her trying to attract his attention.
“Your Grace?” she enquired at last.
He lifted his face, looked right at her, and then pointedly and quite rudely turned to Lady Ponsonby on his right and tuned in to her conversation with the gentleman on her other side, Sir Nicholas, being sure to look as though he were listening intently and nodding and agreeing with all that he was saying.
Lady Emmeline tutted again and turned to Lord Oberon, who seemed relieved that Lady Ponsonby had finally stopped regaling him with stories of her health.
“Do you agree, Your Grace?” said Sir Nicholas across Lady Ponsonby, and Graham realised he had completely ignored everything that the man had said. He was about to nod his agreement and hope it was the right response, when Sir Nicholas continued to drone on anyway as though Graham had agreed entirely. “I knew you would,” he said, pointing at Graham with his empty fork.
“Excuse me, Dowager Duchess,” said Lady Emmeline loudly, addressing Graham’s mother almost the entire length of the table away.
Lady Edith paused in her conversation and looked towards her future daughter-in-law with mild irritation.
“Forgive me for bothering you, Your Grace,” said Lady Emmeline. “But I wondered if I may have a private audience with you after we have finished eating?”
Graham’s mother considered the request, flicked her eyes to Graham and then back to Emmeline, and nodded. Then she returned her attention to the duke.
Graham glanced at each of the dinner guests seated around the table. What a strange mix they were. And then he twigged. Apart from Lady Emmeline and Aunt Freda, all the guests present were members of his mother’s whist society. No wonder he did not appear to have anything in common with any of them. And not a single one of them, apart from Lady Emmeline, exchanged more than two words with him – and only then if he were fortunate.
He stifled a yawn and glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. Dessert would be here soon, and then he could go up to his chambers and hide away from everyone.
***
At the end of the meal, the gentlemen present looked towards Graham, and he remembered that he would have to entertain them with port and cigars while the ladies withdrew to the drawing room. He was, after all, the resident gentleman, and there were no others there who could even step up to the role. They were all friends of his mother’s, and not related.
As he stood up, so too did the dowager duchess. She turned to her companion, the Duke of Kenilworth, bowed her head, and announced loudly, Gentlemen, my friend the duke will look after you all. Ladies, I will join you in the drawing room presently.” There was a murmur of voices. “Lady Emmeline,” she said. “Will you come with me?”
This, of course, left Graham at a bit of a loose end as all the gentlemen completely ignored him. He watched the ladies leave the room, followed by his mother and his fiancée. The duke, his mother’s friend, went to the drinks cabinet as though it were second nature to him, and Graham wondered just how familiar the man was with his home. When he was certain that no one was paying him any heed, he slowly followed the ladies through the door.
The ladies swished their skirts and chatted amiably as they climbed the stairs to the drawing room, which was on the next level up in the London town house. The dowager duchess and Lady Emmeline, however, were just disappearing into the small parlour, and he wondered what on earth his fiancée wanted with his mother.
Torn between climbing the stairs to his own chambers and this unexpected intrigue, it was curiosity that got the better of him. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure the men had still not noticed he was missing. Then he stepped quietly across the hallway and stood just outside the door to the parlour.
“Will you not be joining us in the drawing room, my dear?” his mother was asking Lady Emmeline. She had swept into the parlour but remained standing, and Lady Emmeline had her back to the door.
“No, I thank you, Your Grace. I will not be staying.”
“Then what is it you wish to speak with me about?”
From his vantage point beside the door, he saw Lady Emmeline take a small letter from her bag. She handed it to Lady Edith, who looked down at it as though she had never seen such a thing before in her life.
“What is this?” asked his mother, keeping her hands folded in front of her.
“It is a letter,” said Lady Emmeline.
“And why would you write me a letter when you are perfectly capable of speaking to me, my dear?”
“The letter is not from me. It is from Papa.”
Lady Edith sneered down at the letter again, but when Lady Emmeline held it out to her, Graham’s mother cautiously took it from her hand.
Lady Emmeline started to make as though to leave, but Lady Edith stopped her.
“Please wait while I see what your dear father has to say.”
“Very well, Your Grace,” said Lady Emmeline, bowing her head and looking at the floor while Lady Edith unfolded the letter and read it.
Graham’s mother looked up at Lady Emmeline in surprise. “Do you know what your father has written to me?”
“I do, Your Grace,” admitted Lady Emmeline.
“Then, I repeat. Why the letter? Why did you not tell me this yourself?”
“Because I am a coward, Your Grace,” she admitted. “However, it is my choice. My decision. Papa merely articulated it for me in this formal manner.”
“You no longer wish to marry my son?” said Lady Edith, astounded.
The breath caught in Graham’s throat. Lady Emmeline spun around on the spot while Lady Edith saw him standing there for the first time.
“What do you think of this, my son?” asked his mother.
Graham stepped into the room and shrugged his shoulders. Then he held out his hands in an expression of ‘why?’
Lady Emmeline stubbornly pretended that she did not understand. She turned to Lady Edith with a questioning look on her face. “What is he saying now?”
“He is asking a perfectly valid question,” replied Lady Edith. “And one that I would also like to hear the answer to. Why – why? – are you breaking off what has long been an understanding between our two families? Why do you dishonour my son and this family in this fashion?”
“Well, just look at him,” the young woman complained, almost on the verge of tears now. She turned to indicate Graham with her hand. “How can I go out into society with ... with ... that?”
“That,” said Lady Edith, almost spitting out the word. “That is my son. That is Lord Graham Hancock, the fifteenth Duke of Westcott. That is a human being who fought bravely for his country and now needs all the love and compassion we can bestow. How dare you speak as though he is an embarrassment to you?”
Graham did not wait around to hear any more. He turned on his heel and stormed from the room, taking the stairs two at a time to his chambers and slamming the door behind him. He would be neither pitied nor ridiculed. And if that was truly how Lady Emmeline felt about him, then he had been spared a terrible future.
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