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After such a day, Pat could not muster any enthusiasm about going down for dinner. She had had more intense conversation over the course of a few hours than she usually had in a month, not to mention the extraordinary one she’d overheard. She would have liked to retire to bed with a plate of sandwiches and a chance to think: to cherish that time with Fen around the lake, to consider both of their predicaments in the light of their talk, and mostly to recover her moral strength. She found people far more exhausting than any bodily exercise, and the prospect of two hours of conversation over a meal with Maurice Haworth followed by tea with the ladies felt like a burden she had no desire to lift. She just hoped the evening would be less unpleasant than the previous night.
But Fen would be at dinner, so Pat dressed as best she could. If she’d owned a gown that could be called frivolous she might have selected it to demonstrate solidarity, but she did not. She donned her best necklace, a seed pearl choker that had been a gift from Louisa, and toyed with the idea of asking the maid to arrange her hair into something more elaborate, but lost her nerve. It was only an informal party. Bill would think she’d run mad.
Her reluctance delayed her to the point that she was the last into the drawing-room. Everyone else was there, everyone was silent, and the atmosphere as she walked in had all the joie de vivre of a thunderstorm.
Preston Keynes even looked thunderous. He was standing in a corner with Miss Singh, shoulders hunched aggressively. Miss Singh’s face was blank in the sort of way that made Pat think she was trying very hard not to let her feelings be seen. Lady Anna’s eyes were bright, her facial muscles tight, and she spoke to Jack Bouvier-Lynes in a rapid, high-pitched tone that would doubtless have sounded natural at a Chelsea cocktail party. Bill and Jimmy stood with Fen and the Countess. Jimmy looked strained; their hostess had spots of red on her cheekbones; Fen was smiling, but her cheeks were scarlet, and not in a pretty way.
Maurice Haworth and the Earl were together in the centre of the room, angled as if speaking but too far apart from one another. The Earl’s face was tense. Haworth was smiling.
Pat straightened her back as she came in. “I’m terribly sorry; am I late?”
“Not at all, Miss Merton,” the Earl said with hollow heartiness.
“Ah, Diana, the huntress,” Mr. Haworth said with his curling, nasty smile. Pat gave him a rapid once-over. She knew nothing about the drug habit, but anyone could see there was something wrong with the man. She put it down to a twist in the head, herself. Maurice Haworth liked to make other people unhappy, and that wasn’t a symptom of any drug she’d ever heard of.
“My name is Patricia, Mr. Haworth,” she said briskly. “How’s the weather looking for tomorrow, sir?”
“Windy,” the Earl returned. “I fear we must expect storms later in the week.”
“Oh, what a shame!” Pat exclaimed. “At the very start of the season. Rotten luck.”
“The consequences of our location. We’re as prone to bad weather as any Scottish house—more, perhaps. It’s not unknown for us to be cut off by flash floods.”
“Really?”
“There are two rivers coming down from the high ground to the north, you see, and when there has been a dry spell followed by torrential rain, the results tend to be spectacular. We plan for it, of course; we shan’t run out of supplies.”
“Thank goodness,” Pat said. “One wouldn’t want to be reduced to eating one’s fellow guests.”
The Earl gave a hearty laugh, but Maurice Haworth’s eyes lit up. “What an idea, Miss Merton. I wonder who we should cook first? You and my dear wife have too little meat on you for a satisfactory meal, I think, whereas Miss Carruth would be rather a rich feast under any circumstances. And the flavour of Miss Singh’s flesh—”
“What a very peculiar subject for a drawing room.” Pat spoke with all the ice at her command, and Haworth actually stopped in his tracks, probably reminded of his old nurse. She didn’t give him any time to recover, but turned to the Earl. “We must take advantage of the good weather as it lasts, then. May I ask what ground we’ll cover tomorrow?”
The Earl’s eyes had flickered to Haworth, a tiny fearful movement, but he made an effort at joviality as he replied. “We’ll go in the direction of Trinder Wood first. I think we can promise you some good coverts.”
“Oh, excellent,” Bill said at her shoulder. “I had some marvellous shooting there two years ago, I don’t know if you recall, sir?”
His cheerfulness sounded forced to Pat’s sisterly ear. He was probably angry, as well he might be, and she felt a little glow. Perhaps everyone else in this house was intimidated by the loathsome Haworth, but if the man chose to tangle with the united Mertons he’d find out his mistake.
The Earl sounded distracted as he set out their route for the next day. Pat kept her eyes fixed on his face, attempting to demonstrate her absorption in shooting to the exclusion of all else. She could feel Haworth’s gaze on her skin and knew a decided sinking sensation when it was time to go into dinner.
Buck up, girl, she told herself as she seated herself opposite him. If nobody else is going to put him in his place, you can show Fen how it’s done.
The meal began, if not well, at least adequately, with a manful effort by Preston Keynes to start a conversation by offering, apropos of nothing at all, an anecdote about a visit to a theatre he’d made earlier in the year where a man had had to be removed for shouting Irish Nationalist slogans.
“Oh, we saw that show,” Bill said. “Jimmy and I. No Irish nationalists then, though. It was a good piece, I thought.”
“Jolly good,” Jimmy said, so flatly that it caused an embarrassed silence. This time Mr. Bouvier-Lynes leapt in with a story about a well-known actress that got a few laughs, although it caused the Countess to purse her lips. Miss Singh restored decorum by speaking with knowledge and surprising animation about the work of George Bernard Shaw, a playwright whose intellectual pretensions were over the heads of most of the party.
“I saw Captain Brassbound’s Conversion,” Fen offered unexpectedly. “That’s Mr. Shaw, isn’t it?”
“One of his comedies. Did you like it?” Miss Singh asked.
“It was very...” Fen hesitated. “Thoughtful. It had more talking than I expected for a play about lady explorers and smugglers and Moorish castles.”
“Were you hoping for melodrama?” Miss Singh’s smile robbed the words of offence.
“Yes, honestly, I was,” Fen said. “I like spectacles and adventures and excitement and sweeping passions. And chariot races! Jimmy took me to see Ben-Hur at the Savoy, you know, with the race and the horses, and it was desperately thrilling, wasn’t it?”
There was a pause. Pat couldn’t see Fen, on Jimmy’s other side, without leaning forward in an ill-mannered way, but she could well imagine her smile faltering. She wondered if she ought to kick his ankle, even as Bill said, “Was it, Jimmy?”
“What?”
“Miss Carruth was just saying how you took her to Ben-Hur and that it was thrilling.” Bill’s voice had a decided edge. “Did you enjoy yourself?”
Jimmy’s lips parted. He didn’t reply.
“For heaven’s sake, are you mute?” Lady Anna said, with contempt that sounded to Pat more than just sisterly. “We saw it, didn’t we, Jack? A ridiculous noisy farrago only fit for the feeble-minded.”
Pat heard Fen’s intake of breath; saw the tiny smile curve Haworth’s thin lips. The Countess said, “Anna.”
“I saw it as well,” Bill said loudly. “Marvellous stuff. Enjoyed every minute. In fact, I want to see it again. Pat, old thing, would you care to come with me when we’re back down south? My treat.”
“I’d love to,” Pat said. “It sounds precisely my sort of thing.” She caught Miss Singh’s tiny approving nod, and added, “Would you care to join us, Miss Singh?”
“Oh, surely—” Maurice Haworth began.
Miss Singh said over him, “I would be delighted. Thank you. I am sure I shall find it entertaining.”
Lady Anna’s cheeks were heavily powdered for Pat’s taste; it didn’t hide the flare of red over her cheeks. Mr. Haworth drawled, “Such unity. And what did you think, Jack? Do you share my wife’s opinion, or will you side with the majority?”
“I found it absurd yet greatly enjoyable,” Mr. Bouvier-Lynes said with a smile. “So I agree with all parties.”
“Of course you do.” Lady Anna sounded icy but her nostrils were flared. Apparently she hadn’t expected to be slapped down quite so comprehensively. “How strange. I had thought you said something completely different to me. A man for all seasons, aren’t you, Jack?”
“Mr. Bouvier-Lynes is behaving with decorum at the dinner-table,” the Countess said. “Something that I should not have to tell my daughter to emulate.”
Lady Anna inhaled sharply. “My dear,” the Earl mumbled.
“This is my table,” the Countess said. Her voice was edged with something like defiance. “I think I may speak to my daughter as I choose. Now, let—”
“But she isn’t your daughter,” Haworth said silkily. “She’s my wife. I think some of you around this table are in danger of forgetting that, aren’t you? Anna certainly does, and I think it slips Jack’s mind too.”
The Countess’s mouth was a rigid line. She was looking ahead, not at Haworth. Jimmy stared at his plate. Pat tried to catch Bill’s eye. She couldn’t tell what was happening, but the atmosphere was thick as stew.
“Granted she is your wife,” the Earl said, with audible reluctance. “But she was our daughter first and my wife is entitled to speak to her—”
“No, she is not,” Haworth said. His tone was light, even pleasant, except for a coil of malice that hung around the words like cigarette smoke. “I don’t choose to have my wife insulted. Do I, Anna?”
“For God’s sake,” Jimmy said through his teeth, as though the words were forced out. “A few words in the heat of the moment. Let’s just forget it, shall we? We’re starting at seven tomorrow, gentlemen—which includes you, Pat; does everyone have things ready?”
Pat thought for a moment that Haworth was going to take umbrage. He stared at Jimmy with an unpleasant smile, then sat back and returned his attention to his food as Preston Keynes, conversational martyr, launched into a description of his shooting gear which had the sole merit of papering over everyone else’s silence.
***
PAT DIDN’T THINK SHE could bear retiring with the ladies. It took a strong moral effort and a mental reminder that she’d otherwise be leaving Fen with her future sister-in-law to force her to the drawing room, where she was rewarded with the announcement that Lady Anna had gone to bed with a headache.
“What a shame,” said Miss Singh, in a tone so flat that Pat had to turn away and examine a vase to recover her composure. “Are you all right, Aunt Mattie?”
“Of course,” the Countess said, and then, “No, not really. Perhaps you will all excuse me. I have the headache too. Victoria, please order tea.”
“I’ll come up with you,” Miss Singh said. “Miss Carruth can do the honours, I’m sure.”
Fen assured her she could, gave the Countess good wishes, rang the bell once they had gone, turned to Pat, and said, “Do you need something other than tea?”
“Definitely.”
“So do I. What does one drink after dinner that isn’t champagne? Or should we just have that?”
“It must be marvellous to be rich,” Pat said. “I don’t know if the Wittons keep champagne on ice at all times. To be honest, I usually have brandy with my brothers. Sherry?”
“Brandy sounds like a good idea. It’s medicinal, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but it’s hardly—”
A footman entered. Fen said, “Oh, thank you,” with her usual smile: she was, Pat had noticed, always warmly polite to staff. “Could we have the brandy decanter and two glasses, please?”
“The...brandy, miss?”
“The brandy, yes.”
The man opened his mouth. Fen gave him a sparkling smile. He blinked, bowed, departed, and returned shortly with a tray.
“Thank you so much. That will be all, please shut the door,” Fen said, with decision, and sloshed brandy into a balloon glass as he left. “Here you are.”
Pat took the half-full glass she was handed, with some trepidation. “Good heavens, this is enough to stun a horse. Have you ever drunk this before?”
“No.” Fen took a sip, and made a gargoyle face. “Gah. I can see why not. Ack. Do you like this?”
“Yes, but one does have to get used to it. It is definitely medicinal, though.”
“Like chloroform.” Fen flopped onto the settle, very much to one side, despite her skirts. Pat took up the unspoken invitation and seated herself, a little self-consciously, by her. “My goodness. What an evening.”
“Wasn’t it just.”
“That might have been the worst meal since...the previous one. Good heavens.”
“What is going on here?” Pat demanded. “You must have some idea. I could swear Haworth was threatening the Countess. Why on earth is everyone tolerating him?”
“I have no idea. How could Jimmy let him speak to his mother like that?”
“How could he let Lady Anna speak to you like that?” Pat returned.
“Oh, but Mr. Merton was awfully nice,” Fen said with a glimmer of a smile. “I felt quite rescued.”
“He’s all right, but he oughtn’t have had to do it. For heaven’s sake. If this is how Haworth behaves with guests there, what on earth is he like en famille?”
“Actually, it would probably be better, or at least no worse,” Fen said. “He seems to like humiliating people, and I dare say that’s even jollier done in front of witnesses.”
“Good Lord. That is an observation.” Pat thought it through, with a decided and growing revulsion. “Yes, I think you’re right. No wonder Jimmy can’t stick the idea of him moving in for good. I still don’t understand why the Wittons put up with it.”
“I wonder if they know something will get worse if they argue with him.”
“That he’d take it out on Lady Anna, you mean?”
“Or their child.”
They both contemplated that for a moment, then Fen took a very deliberate sip of brandy, hardly wincing at all. “Do you think Miss Singh knows what’s going on?”
“She may. Let’s ask.” Fen snorted; Pat grinned. “Well, be dam—that is, let’s not bother with subtlety. This is the family you’re meant to be marrying into. Which—”
“Oh, don’t.”
“I’m sorry, but I think I have to.” No, you don’t! friendship shouted. She ignored it. “There’s something badly wrong here, and Jimmy isn’t dealing with it, and nor is the Earl. It seems to me Haworth has licence to be as malevolent as he chooses to his extended family. I think at the very least you ought to know why before you sign up to be his sister-in-law.”
“I know,” Fen said. “Only, I did try to catch Jimmy earlier and he said he was busy and tomorrow the shooting starts—”
“You can’t just drift into marriage because your fiancé doesn’t have time to talk to you.”
“I know.” Fen spoke more sharply than was her habit. “I have no intention of ignoring this. And whatever sort of brute Haworth is, tonight started because of Lady Anna being appallingly rude to me, if you recall, so even if there was nothing wrong with him, I’d want to know what on earth is wrong with her—”
Her eyes were glistening wet. “Don’t cry,” Pat said hopelessly.
“I’m not.” Fen pressed her lips together. A single tear overspilled her eye and slid down her cheek; she batted it away. “But the fact is when someone is so rude and hateful— I have never done anything to her! I’ve always tried to be polite even though nobody would receive her if she wasn’t an earl’s daughter. Why do they both hate me so much?”
It was a cry of real pain, and Pat grasped her hand without even thinking. “Oh, Fen, don’t let them worry you. He hates everyone. Like Iago, you know, who hates Othello because He hath a daily beauty in his life That makes me ugly. That’s Haworth all over, if you ask me. And as for Lady Anna—”
“Don’t tell me she’s jealous. I hate it when people say that about bullies, especially when it’s clearly not true.”
“I was going to say she’s probably very unhappy and taking it out on other people. I have no idea if she’s jealous of you, but if she isn’t, she ought to be. You’re ten times prettier, a hundred times nicer, and not married to that dreadful man.”
“I am not at all prettier,” Fen said, perking up. “She has a wonderful figure.”
“That’s in the eye of the beholder. And if the beholder likes good eyes and a lovely smile and the spirit of a delightful, happy person infusing them, not to mention a quite outstanding bosom—”
Pat stopped herself there, suddenly aware that the strong spirits on top of two glasses of wine had led her into indiscretion. Hard on the heels of that came the realisation that Fen had almost certainly thought of her words as a purely aesthetic compliment, the sort of thing ladies always said to one another, and wouldn’t have seen anything in it if Pat hadn’t cut herself off like that...
Fen was looking at her, eyes wide, lips quivering on the verge of a smile. Pat very much did not want her to laugh.
“Outstanding?” Fen shifted round, facing Pat, and moved her hands to cup the sides of her spectacular décolletage, giving it all a gentle, slightly jiggly boost upwards. “Would you say so?”
Pat couldn’t look away. Nobody could, from that expanse of creamy skin. “I... well, it’s certainly standing out. In that dress, I mean. Yes. Not—it’s not just the dress,” she added hastily. “It’s definitely the bosom.”
She tore her gaze away and up. Fen’s eyes were brimming with mischief and glee and something else, which looked almost like excitement, and Pat thought, I could kiss her. I could lean forward and—
She’s engaged to Jimmy. Your friend.
He doesn’t deserve her.
That’s not up to you.
No, it’s up to her.
The thoughts arrived in Pat’s head on one another’s heels. She wanted to kiss Fen more than anything in the world and couldn’t make herself do it. An engaged woman; a new friend she might repel, which would be worse than anything; and even if Fen wasn’t repelled in principle, why would someone like her even think about angular, mannish Pat with her straight figure in a plain dress?
Fen’s brows angled in a little frown. “Pat?”
“Yes?” Her voice sounded rather feeble.
“You say such awfully lovely things to me.” Fen’s eyes were on hers, searching her face. “And I don’t think I’ve ever said anything complimentary to you.”
“That doesn’t matter. I’m not fishing.” Were they, after all, merely engaging in girlish chatter of the sort Pat had never mastered but other women seemed to do by instinct?
“Of course you’re not,” Fen said. “You’ve never fished in your life except for trout, I expect. And I don’t think you think much of yourself, do you?”
Pat felt her face heat, with embarrassment or disappointment, she wasn’t sure which. “There’s not much to think of,” she muttered, gruffly.
Fen leaned forward, studying her face, then raised a brow. “Eye of the beholder,” she said, and kissed her.
It was a swift brush of lips on lips, which could conceivably have been a kiss between friends, because Fen didn’t repeat it, but she didn’t move her face back either. Pat froze, hopelessly wanting and locked in uncertainty, and then Fen kissed her again, still lightly but with much more deliberation, and Pat thought, with overwhelming relief, Right. Yes. This.
She lifted a hand, touching her fingertips to the soft, powdered skin of Fen’s rounded cheek. Fen gave a little whimpering noise that tingled through all sorts of places, and then they were kissing again, both of them this time, Pat’s lips moving by instinct, Fen’s warm and soft and tasting of brandy. Pat slid her hand down, meaning only to drop it to Fen’s hip, and discovered she’d miscalculated Fen’s bosom when she felt bare skin and a hard frill of lace under her fingers. Fen squeaked; Pat froze, ready to begin an apology, but Fen pressed her own hand over Pat’s, keeping it there, and she might in fact be dead now, or hallucinating, because this was heaven. She, plain Pat Merton, kissing the loveliest girl in the world, hand on her breast—
There were footsteps and male voices, outside the door.
Pat jerked away, too violently. Fen’s eyes widened in distress; then the footsteps approached, the door handle rattled, and within a fraction of a second her face slid into the mask of Delightful Young Lady, even as she swiped at Pat’s mouth with a firm thumb to remove powder or paint. She turned smoothly as the door opened, reaching for her brandy glass. “Oh, Mr. Merton, how nice! And Mr. Keynes. We were wondering if we’d be alone all evening.”
“Is Miss Singh not with you?” Mr. Keynes asked.
“She went upstairs with the Countess, who has the headache, as does Lady Anna.”
“I’m sure,” Bill said. “Are you drinking brandy?”
“Yes,” Pat said. She couldn’t recover with anything like Fen’s lightning speed—her lips still felt swollen, her body oddly sensitive considering Fen hadn’t even touched her—but she had her self-control more or less in place, plus a faith born of experience in her brother’s lack of observational skills. “Aren’t you?”
“I already had a post-prandial glass with the gentlemen.” Bill didn’t sound as though that had been the most enjoyable of evenings. “I’d ask what has brought on this debauchery, but...”
“Indeed. Where are our fellow guests?”
“Jack volunteered for a game of billiards with Haworth,” said Mr. Keynes. “Good fellow. Jimmy is with the Earl, I believe. Something to discuss.”
“I imagine he’ll be some time,” Bill said, with a bite in his voice. “Miss Carruth, I hope you’re all right?”
“I’m very well indeed,” Fen assured him. “Did you really go to see Ben-Hur?”
“I did, yes. The first week of June. When did you see it?” He fired the question at her like a prosecutor.
“Er...the week after that, I suppose?” Fen said, sounding not unreasonably startled. “It was early June, I—”
“And that was when you got engaged?”
“Jimmy proposed a few days later. That weekend. Why do you ask, Mr. Merton?”
“Oh, nothing. Wondering if Ben-Hur is the route to a woman’s heart, I suppose. I’d have thought he might have picked something a bit more romantic.”
“You’d have to ask Jimmy about his thought processes, I’m afraid.” Fen spoke with a smile, and Pat couldn’t hear any tension in her voice, but she was positive it was there. She wished Bill would shut up, or pick any other topic. She didn’t want to talk about Jimmy herself, so she couldn’t imagine what Fen felt, and the nerve-scraping atmosphere that seemed to attend every gathering in this atrocious party was back again.
Or perhaps that was just her. Perhaps that was how one felt, and deserved to feel, when one kissed a good friend’s fiancée.
“Well, it’s the first tomorrow,” Mr. Keynes said into the silence. “Start of the season, eh? I might turn in, get a good night’s sleep.”
“Good idea,” Bill said. “I imagine we’ll make a long day of it, if the weather holds. Best to take advantage, if there are storms coming.”
“Storms?” Fen repeated. “You mean, you might not be able to go out shooting?”
“Yes, we might all be confined to the house together,” Pat said. “That will be jolly.”
“Won’t it,” Fen said faintly. “Mr. Keynes is right: I shall go to bed. I need to gather my strength.”