Chapter Seven

 

She had not changed. Verena had not changed in the least. So fresh she looked, in the sprigged muslin gown, honey-gold loose curls spilling onto her shoulders from under a chip-straw hat, decorated with knots of tiny artificial blossoms. She was exquisite, like a china doll.

That same smiling mask adorned the perfection of her features, dispensing equal attention—and no favours, thank God—to each of the several males inhabiting her orbit. She was standing under an archway, the grace of her figure as elegant as the setting.

Denzell felt decidedly odd, the warmth giving way to a feeling he could not recognise. It was not, however, a feeling he could enjoy, for it was causing him a good deal of discomfort.

Why had he come here? Verena Chaceley was not going to welcome his advent. He must be mad. Where the devil was he to find the gall to approach her? He had not thought himself to be such a lily-livered poltroon. He had not been so fainthearted since his green youth, before he had confidence in his ability to secure a lady’s interest.

Was it only that, after all? Had Ossie been all along in the right of it? He was piqued, pricked in his pride, and had allowed himself to fall victim to his own vanity. Then what the devil ailed him that he had come chasing down here like a lunatic at the full of the moon, who knew not what he did?

To the devil with it! He would go straight up to her and greet her as if nothing in the world had ever occurred between them to prevent his doing so.

His feet were already moving on the thought, and he had arrived at the knot of persons of which Verena was the centre before he had time to regret or retract. She had her back to him and Richard Cumberland, that unspeakable nuisance of a playwright, was addressing her. He could scarcely wait for the gentleman to arrive at the conclusion of his sentence.

In a voice loud enough—and cheerful enough—to gain him the instant attention of the entire circle, he spoke up.

‘Good day to you, Miss Chaceley.’

Shock blanketed out all thought in Verena’s head. A jolt seemed to stab in her chest. Out of the fog came one coherent idea: hold your countenance, Verena.

Time seemed to Denzell to be standing still. For a moment, although every other head turned to look at him, Verena did not move. It appeared to Denzell as if she froze. The succeeding silence seemed to go on forever.

But in reality it could only have been an instant before the honeyed hair rippled a little as she turned. The unyielding mask was in place, with that faintest trace of a smile. The exact same level of polite disinterest was in her voice as had been when she first spoke to him.

‘How do you do, Mr Hawkeridge?’

The most intense dissatisfaction invaded Denzell’s breast. A savage thought sliced through his mind. At least she had remembered his name. Beautiful, serene, and exquisitely polite was she. And not at all the Verena he had expected—nay, longed—to find.

‘I am very well, I thank you,’ he said, almost curtly. ‘I trust I find you in good heart?’

‘Extremely so.’

‘And your mama?’

‘She is in better—health.’

Was there a stress on the word? It was so hard to tell. How the deuce was anyone to know anything of the woman, when she persisted in this determined shutting off? The devil take you, Verena Chaceley.

Unable to think of anything to say that would not sound churlish and rude, Denzell bowed and moved away. Let others take the field. For himself, he was done with it.

He heard men’s voices start up behind him, and found himself wishing for the butt-end of a pistol that he might knock them all on the head, the fools. Wasting their time in such a fashion, with a woman who would take a mile before she gave an inch. Nevertheless, he could not help but glance back.

Startled, he halted and turned, staring at the knot of people he had just left. They were dispersing, but where the deuce was Verena? She had been there but seconds ago.

His eye swept the room—and caught a glimpse of the straw-hatted head. It was bowed a little, and she was hurrying, taking a path close to the walls, passing behind the little groups of persons as if she wished to remain unnoticed. Where was she going? Looking forward, he saw the entrance doors. She was leaving!

His eyes went back to her, and he saw now that she had a hand pressed below her bosom. His glance strayed up to her face. She was biting her lip. Deuce take it, Verena, what in the world was amiss?

Thought deserted him. There was no feeling now in his breast but distress for her evident distress, and all he knew was the need to aid her, if he might.

Without quite knowing how he had got there, Denzell found himself out on the Pantiles, for the moment thankfully all but deserted. Except for the figure that clung to one of the columns of the colonnade with both hands, breathless and trembling.

‘Miss Chaceley!’

Verena jumped, her eyes flying open as she looked up. Oh no, not he again! Had he not done enough?

‘Forgive me, I think I startled you,’ said Denzell anxiously. ‘I could not help but see—Miss Chaceley, are you unwell? May I do anything for you?’

‘Unwell? No!’

That she was not. Yet what to say—how to explain to him, the author of her confusion, this extreme reaction to his sudden appearance? The reverberations of the painful jolt in her breast were not yet ended. How she had kept her countenance she did not know. Thank heaven she’d had her back to him. Otherwise, she could not doubt but that he must have seen it in her face. And, dear heaven, here he was again.

Desperate to retrieve her façade, Verena sought for control, knowing that at any moment he would make one of those outrageous comments—that had done so much to alienate her and yet had set him in her thoughts, as it were, in immovable marble—that he had made on those previous occasions.

But Denzell, watching the strain in her lovely features as she tried to bring them back under that iron mastery, was beset by so much emotion that he would not have dreamed of adding to her distress by any untoward remark. Moved by the unprecedented desertion of that very control that he had so much deprecated but a few moments before, he searched his mind for some legitimate excuse that might afford her ease. He could not bear to see her so weakened, no matter the cause. He would have given much to have swept her up into a safe embrace—his own. But that was impossible. Spurred by necessity, he found the key.

‘It is insufferably hot in that place, is it not? I confess I found it so myself.’

A grateful look rewarded him. ‘Y-yes, it—it was airless.’

Denzell glanced up at the cloudless sky. ‘I dare say we may find it increasingly hot outside later on.’ He smiled down at her, noting with satisfaction that she was recovering her lost control. He offered his arm. ‘Meanwhile, do take the air with me for a turn or two, Miss Chaceley. Is not that what the Pantiles are for?’

A tiny choke of laughter escaped her. ‘So I believe.’

The somersaulting sensations in her breast were quietening, thank heaven. She was so glad of his tact that she forgot her old resolve to remain aloof from this dangerous man. Besides, he was waiting so patiently, his arm ready for her hand. It would be unkind—even churlish—to refuse him. Her jelly legs seemed to be firming up, and she tentatively released her clutch on the column.

To her consternation, she was not as steady as she had expected. Her knees buckled a trifle. Denzell was swiftly at her side, grasping her arm—and sending such a shooting sensation up her body with his touch that she was obliged to grasp on her other side at the column again.

‘Lord!’ she uttered helplessly.

‘Don’t hurry,’ he said. ‘Take your time. It takes a moment to recover from a near faint, you know.’

Again he was offering her a fitting excuse. Verena could have kissed him. She balked on the idea. What was she thinking of? A flood of warmth caused her to let go of the column in order to clutch at her cheek to hide the burning. Faint indeed. True, she had felt close to swooning, but she was certain her colour belied that possibility now. If only he knew that all this must be set down to his unexpected arrival.

‘I am ready now,’ she said with a calmness that did not in any way reflect the tumult of her emotions.

Denzell took her hand and placed it securely within his arm. The way she clutched at this support demonstrated more than anything else the strain under which she still laboured. His heart seemed to dissolve.

For a few moments they paced up the tiled pathway, both concentrating on the effort required. But as he felt Verena’s grasp on his arm loosen, Denzell looked for some innocuous topic that he might introduce. Searching, he discovered the one thing on which they might safely embark.

‘Is it not an excellent thing that Osmond and Unice have managed to produce the girl they wanted?’

He could not have found anything better. The most natural smile creased Verena’s countenance, filling her features with warmth.

‘Little Julia? Yes, indeed, I was so delighted for them both. She is the most beautiful baby, and so good.’

‘So Osmond keeps boasting. He claims that he has not once been woken in the night.’

‘That is because, so Unice tells me, he sleeps like one dead. She says that he would snore through the lamentations of a dozen babies.’

Denzell burst out laughing. ‘By George, how I shall roast him!’

‘Oh, pray don’t,’ Verena begged. ‘Unice wishes him to believe himself the perfect father.’

He glanced down at her. ‘Why, if he is not?’

An unprecedented gleam danced in her eyes as she returned his look. Fascinated, Denzell’s steps ceased.

‘Miss Chaceley, you look the picture of mischief.’

‘Do I?’

‘Yes. Tell me at once what it is in your mind.’

Verena bubbled over. ‘It—it is just that Betsey—my maid, you know—had warned Unice that girls are much more difficult to bring up than boys, so Unice has vowed she will pass this trouble on to Osmond. Although,’ she added as he began to laugh, ‘Julia is so angelic that I cannot conceive of there ever being a necessity for her to do so.’

‘Really, as a fellow male, I feel I ought to warn Ossie of what is in the wind,’ he said, resuming their walk.

‘You may safely do so,’ Verena agreed, moving with him and smiling. ‘Unice has already told him, but she swears he thought she was jesting.’

He was silent for a moment or two, aware all at once of the extraordinary nature of this interchange. She was so normal, so pleasant and amiable. The mask had been dropped. Sudden anxiety attacked him. How long would she remain thus open to him? What might he not say that could turn her in an instant into the effigy that so depressed him? The fear kept him silent for a space, but it did not appear that Verena felt the absence of talk.

In fact, she was feeling so relaxed that she scarcely noticed how unguarded she was. The companionable nature of this short interlude was so comfortable that she had quite forgotten the dangers. Indeed, she had forgotten everything—all the stresses of her life, the fears, wiped out by the unprecedented materialisation of Mr Denzell Hawkeridge.

‘That must be why you have come,’ she guessed after a space, still thinking of the new Ruishton baby.

‘Why I have come?’ repeated Denzell, startled for a moment by the question.

‘To Tunbridge Wells, I mean. Have you not come to see the baby? Or, no. Gentlemen have little interest in such matters.’

Denzell pulled himself together. This was dangerous ground. He could scarcely dare to say that he had come because of Verena herself.

‘Ah, but Osmond and Unice are very particular friends of mine, and Felix is my godson. I came, if you want the truth, to gratify them with a show of interest.’

‘That was well done of you, Mr Hawkeridge,’ she exclaimed.

Denzell had the grace to feel ashamed. He grimaced.

‘I have scant interest in babies, I admit, but I have been very much amused at Osmond’s doting fondness. And I cannot but be delighted to see Unice so radiant—thanks, I believe, in no small measure to your good offices.’

‘Nonsense. I was only too glad to be of service. It was—’

She paused, remembering those extravagant and wild visions involving this very image that walked beside her now. But it would not do to falter. Drawing a breath, she began again.

‘It was an experience I would not have missed for a fortune.’

‘I dare say you regretted that your mama was not well enough to have attended with you. I believe all women wish for their elder female relatives on such occasions.’

For a moment he did not realise his own slip. But the silence that greeted this statement grew oppressive. Glancing down, he saw that the mask had been resumed. Verena barely glanced at him as, disengaging her hand, she took a step away.

‘I must thank you for a very pleasant walk, Mr Hawkeridge, but it is time that I was returning to the Rooms.’

With which, she turned on her heel, and walked away.

Desolate, Denzell gazed after her. Her mother. That was what made her turn. Not a lost love. Then what was it? In the name of God, what devil’s work was it that had created this impregnable shield?

***

 

Sitting on her bed, Verena listened with only half an ear to Betsey’s long-winded report. There was nothing in it that she did not already know, and besides, she had so much more to think about. Specifically, her encounter with Mr Hawkeridge this morning, and that fatal reference to Mama.

Reality had come flooding back. With it, a cursing sweep of self-abuse. How could she have been so stupid? How tamely had she fallen to his guile. What had possessed her to allow him under her guard so readily? She had caught herself enjoying his company. So much so that she had slipped, almost unknowing, into her natural guise, allowing him to believe—what?

What must he believe? What might he not assume, from this, about her possible interest in him? She was not interested. Far from it. It had been shock alone that had given her that painful jolt on hearing the sound of his voice—when she had believed him to be miles away. Small wonder she had felt sick. And then he had spoken to her with almost as great a sense of indifference as that she had herself feigned. She had been glad of that, of course she had. Even though she had been obliged to sneak away, afraid every second that someone might stop her, for she knew that her control was gone.

And then he must needs approach her again. Insidiously using some clever tactic that soothed the tumult he had raised, so that she lowered her barriers all unknowing and gave him heaven knew what advantages.

Then he had mentioned Mama, jerking her back to remembrance, to everything she knew of men, and the disastrous consequences of allowing them the smallest degree of power.

Fool! Unheeding fool!

‘Miss Verena, are you listening to me?’

With a start, Verena brought Betsey’s face back into focus. The maid was eyeing her, grimly suspicious.

Verena reached out and clasped her fingers.

‘Oh, Betsey, forgive me. I’m afraid I was miles away.’

‘No need to tell me that, Miss Verena. I’ve eyes in my head, you know.’

Verena grimaced. ‘Don’t scold, pray.’

Betsey looked her over, and then plonked down on the bed beside her.

‘What’s amiss?’ she asked bluntly. ‘Apart from the usual, that is.’

‘Isn’t the usual bad enough?’

‘That will do, that will,’ said Betsey. ‘I’ve just been giving you an account of the mistress, and you’ve confessed to having your head in the clouds, Miss Verena. So don’t you give me none of that. What’s happened to put you all in a pother?’

Verena sighed. ‘I am being foolish, that is all.’

Betsey’s eyes narrowed. ‘You won’t fob me off, Miss Verena, so don’t think it. He’s back, is he?’

Startled, Verena gaped at her. ‘Who?’

‘Never you mind asking who. You know well enough who. You don’t reckon there’s anything goes on in this town as I don’t hear about, do you? Specially as it concerns you or the mistress.’

Verena’s heart sank. There could be no doubting what Betsey meant.

‘Mrs Quirk!’

‘The same.’

‘What has she said? Why didn’t you mention it before? Oh, Betsey, for the love of heaven, say nothing—not a word—to Mama, I pray you.’

‘Never you fret, Miss Verena,’ soothed the maid. ‘You don’t reckon as how I’d open me mouth to the mistress on a matter so delicate.’

But Verena was not impressed. If she had been concerned before, she was now anxious beyond measure. She knew well that the maid had her interests at heart almost as deeply as did Mama, and she had often enough lamented the self-same thing that Mama was apt to do—the lack in her life of a husband and children.

‘Betsey, she must not know! Not that there is anything to know, but if Mama were to hear of this interest, there is no saying what she might not take it into her head to do. You must promise me you will say nothing.’

‘I’ve said so already, Miss Verena. You don’t need to tell me. I know the sort of riot and rumpus she’ll kick up if she thinks you have a suitor. And with the way she’s been carrying on lately...’

Suddenly intent, Verena gazed at her. Yes, Betsey had been talking, and she had failed to take it in. She had not listened, because she was herself aware of some progress. Mama was like a convalescent invalid these days. She had improved in physical strength, seeming to need less time at rest. But as that strength grew, so her spirits seemed to gain, not in joy, but in anxiety. She was restless and fidgety, and much inclined to bemoan their sedentary life here, remembering too often the activities in which she had been engaged at home. It was worrying enough, but what had she missed that Betsey said?

‘What are you trying to tell me, Betsey?’

‘Well, I didn’t want to worrit you, Miss Verena, so I haven’t said nothing,’ said the maid bodingly. ‘But the truth is I don’t like it, and that’s a fact. What with the mistress getting to remembering what she calls “the good times”, though I’m danged—if you’ll pardon me, Miss Verena—which times she could call to mind, for I can’t. And not that alone, neither.’

‘Heavens, but what more, Betsey?’ asked Verena, anguished. How could she have been so selfish as to be troubling herself over Mr Hawkeridge when Mama was hovering on the brink of just what she feared?

‘Well, you know as how ever since Mr Adam come the first time, the mistress has been sighing over losing her home and her friends—’

‘Yes, I know—and Adam has been here again how many times? Three?’

‘Four, counting the last. And the worst of it is, Miss Verena, that every time he comes, she’s at that bottle as if her life depended on it.’

‘The laudanum! Dear heaven, why did you not tell me this before? That is just what I have been afraid of, that she will become dependent upon the stuff. I have heard it said that those who take it too often find themselves obliged to do so more and more. Oh, Betsey, what shall we do?’

‘Do? I’ve done it,’ declared the maid. ‘Don’t you fret, Miss Verena. There ain’t no harm going to come to the mistress, no matter if she drinks the whole bottle down in one go.’ Betsey grinned at the startled question in Verena’s face. ‘Nothing but sugar water, Miss Verena. I always sweetened it for her when she was drinking the real thing for she complained of its bitterness, so she don’t know the difference.’

Verena found herself laughing and crying at once, seizing the maid’s hands and holding them in a clasp that spoke her gratitude more eloquently than any words.

‘Oh, Betsey, what should we do without you?’

‘That’s more than I know, Miss Verena. But there. We’ll share our little secrets—you with yours and me with mine and the mistress none the wiser, eh?’

A huge sigh escaped Verena. ‘You have lifted a load from my mind, Betsey.’

Betsey grunted. ‘I’m glad of that, and I wish I could do the same for meself. The truth is, Miss Verena, I’m that worrited that she’s thinking of going back.’

Verena patted her hand. ‘Let her think of it. I won’t let her go back, Betsey. She cannot do so without us, in any event. No, that does not concern me.’

‘Well, what then? Something worrits you, don’t tell me.’

Verena grimaced. ‘I cannot rid myself of the conviction that Adam is bound to give us away—’

‘Now then, Miss Verena—’

‘Oh, he does not mean to do it, I know that. But dearly as I value my brother, I cannot persuade myself that his tongue can be trusted. You know his temper, Betsey.’

‘Aye, I do that. But his care of his mama is strong, don’t doubt it.’

‘Yes, I know, only—oh, Betsey, don’t you think we should remove from here?’

It would solve everything, Verena felt. Especially if Mama was considering a return. With the added strain of appearing in a much larger public with the Season in full swing here, she would give much to be otherwhere. Not to mention the new nuisance that had reared its head this day.

But the maid was firm. ‘No, I don’t, Miss Verena. The mistress is better, for all you may not think it.’

‘I know she is. Better in body at least.’

‘And mind, too. I’d say she enjoys the company. Why, even now she has that there Mrs Felpham come to call.’

Aghast, Verena leapt up from the bed. ‘Mrs Felpham! Oh, Betsey, why did you not say so at once? Heaven knows what she might have said to her!’

Her fears were well-founded. Dashing through to the next room, she discovered that Mrs Felpham had but just departed—leaving behind her a creature agonised by what she had been told. Mrs Peverill was half collapsing on the day-bed, agitatedly fingering her gown, her eyes darting aimlessly until the instant that they spied her daughter. She threw out a hand at once.

‘Oh, my dearest, I knew this must happen! Have I not said over and over again that you must seek your own future?’

‘Mama, pray hush,’ begged Verena, crossing to the day-bed to take her hand, and sitting down beside her.

‘How can I hush, Verena?’ uttered the afflicted lady. ‘You need not try to hide it from me, for Mrs Felpham has told me all.’

‘Mama, there is no “all” to tell,’ Verena said, trying for a light note. ‘Mrs Felpham is, as you are aware, the most dreadful gossip.’

But Mrs Peverill would have none of this. ‘Do not attempt to hoodwink me, Verena. You do not even ask me what she has said to me, and that in itself shows there is some fire within this smoke. You know what she has said, do you not? Do you not, my love?’

Verena managed an indifferent shrug, although she was feeling far from indifferent. Readily could she have murdered Mrs Felpham. But to convince Mama, she must maintain the easiest of tongues on the matter. However much it might be that the wretched man had cut up her peace, it would not do for Mama to have the least hint of that.

‘There can be little doubt that she has made a song and dance about the arrival here of Mr Hawkeridge.’

Mrs Peverill nodded. ‘Yes, and that he instantly sought you out.’

‘Yes, for we met at Christmas, remember. It would have been impolite of him not to do so.’

‘Impolite? My darling, that is false modesty, when you know very well that a young man of rank and fashion must have a cogent reason for visiting such a place as this.’

This was the fell hand of Mrs Felpham. Such an idea would never have occurred to Mama without a prior suggestion. But Verena saw how it could be deflected.

‘Why, so he has,’ she agreed. She managed an amused laugh. ‘Mama, have you forgotten the exciting event in the Ruishtons’ life? He has come to greet their new daughter, of course.’

She saw doubt burgeon in her mother’s face. It had been his own explanation, and Verena saw no reason to disbelieve him—even had she wanted to, which she did not. If Mama could be brought to believe it, so much the better. She pressed her advantage.

‘According to Unice, her husband and Mr Hawkeridge have been inseparable from youth. Though, for my part, it is evident that this “young man of rank and fashion” did not care to miss any part of the Season, and has only come here—belatedly, one might think—at a time when no other amusements offer.’

Mrs Peverill’s face fell. ‘Oh, Verena, I was in such hopes that he might have taken a fancy to you.’

‘Well, hope it no longer, Mama,’ Verena advised, thinking how much more for herself it was of fear, than of hope. ‘Besides, you know very well that I have no desire to be courted by any man.’

Her mother gripped her fingers. ‘You say it for my sake, Verena. But if chance offers, I beg you, my dearest, do not hesitate. Take instant advantage of such an opportunity. Fall in love. Seize what happiness might be open to you.’

Verena commanded herself to produce a scornful laugh at this, but she could not. Why, she was at a loss to imagine. She had not changed her views about ‘love’. Certainly not for the sake of Mr Denzell Hawkeridge. As for happiness—that was quite beyond her expectations.

She was, she hoped, a realist. Life must be taken for what it was, even should that prove to be one’s present unaccountable misery. One did not bay for the moon.

‘Well, let us not go over all that again, Mama,’ she said with an air of calm that she was far from feeling. ‘Besides, I have been thinking lately that it may well be in our best interests to remove from here.’

‘Remove from Tunbridge Wells?’ cried Mrs Peverill, releasing her daughter’s hands. ‘Oh, Verena, must we?’

Verena eyed her, her attention caught. ‘Why, Mama? Are you so fond of the place?’

‘No, no, but—’

‘But you wish to keep me where I may yet fall victim to some eligible gentleman, is that it?’

Mrs Peverill fidgeted with the petticoats of her gown of French lawn in her favoured lilac shade, looking conscious. ‘Not only that, dearest. Adam—’

Verena pressed the hand she still held. ‘I know, Mama. But that is just my reason. I love Adam dearly, as I know you do, and I don’t wish to part you from him. But I am sorry to be obliged to confess that I don’t trust him.’

‘That is a horrid thing to say, Verena,’ protested Mrs Peverill, snatching her hand away.

‘Yes, I know. But it is the truth.’

Angry colour suffused the elder lady’s cheeks. ‘I don’t know how you can be so unkind about your own brother. He would not dream of betraying me.’

‘Not when he is sober, no,’ agreed Verena.

Her mother gasped. ‘How can you, Verena?’

‘Very easily, Mama. In that respect, Adam is proving altogether too much like his father.’

Mrs Peverill burst into tears.

***

 

In the midst of an entertainment that should have gladdened even his jaded senses, Denzell was brooding.

An impromptu ball had replaced the usual Friday night Assembly. It was being held on the dry clean grass of Potter’s Green, beside Burlington House below the Grove, and had been greeted with enthusiasm by the Wellsians. Flaring torches were placed about the Green, and ringing the area marked out for dancing. Although in the bright summer evening they were hardly needed, they gave a pleasant glow to the scene as dusk began to fall around nine o’clock.

But Denzell, attired for the occasion in the russet coat and embroidered apricot waistcoat on a cream ground that he had acquired for Teresa’s wedding, but worn over satin breeches of his usual black, watched with a jaundiced eye the gay abandon with which the dancers executed the various figures. He found himself unable to enter into the spirit of the event.

‘Not dancing, Mr Hawkeridge?’ enquired a now familiar voice.

Stupid woman, Obviously he was not dancing.

‘Later, perhaps.’

Mrs Felpham sighed. ‘So difficult to attach dear Miss Chaceley for a dance, is it not?’

Touched on the raw, Denzell could have hit her. He forced a smile to his lips. ‘Miss Chaceley is always much sought after.’

He was rescued by Sir John Frinton, who came up behind them and surprised Mrs Felpham by slipping his arm through hers. ‘My dear lady, I protest you have neglected me shamefully this night. Come along and tell me all the gossip. You will excuse us, Hawkeridge?’

Denzell threw him a grateful look. There was nothing he wished less at this moment than to discuss his lack of that particular partner. Not that it was merely his inability to secure a dance with Verena which was driving him into unaccustomed ill-temper, though that was bad enough. The formality of engaging beforehand for the country dances which constituted the evening’s programme had been dispensed with, but every time Denzell thought to make an approach, he had been forestalled by others. Whether this was by Verena’s design, he could not tell.

It was all of a piece with the rest of it. Yet why had she taken against him? She did not dislike him, of that he was certain. She could not have spoken so easily with him that first day if such had been the case. Since then, however, for the best part of the week since his arrival here, she had not allowed him near her.

Every time he had approached her, whether it be in the Upper Rooms, on the Pantiles, or at the theatre where Mrs Baker’s company were now to be seen, so Unice had told him, two or three times each week, he had been permitted a bare exchange of greetings and that was all. She would make some excuse—and the devil take his wits if they were not excuses—and move away.

She was avoiding him, he could not doubt it. Deuce take it, he could feel her poker up on his approach. The mask was always there, but against Denzell himself it positively iced over.

Had she been more normal with him, more as she was with other men, he might have been discouraged. Indifference was an impregnable defence. But she was not indifferent. That he would swear to on his life.

What did dishearten him was his growing conviction that she feared him. If that was the way of it, he might as well go home this moment. How the devil was he to overcome a fear of which he understood nothing, and which she would not by any means permit him to understand?

This evening there was something more. She looked achingly beautiful, in a gown of lemon tiffany under a short over-gown of gold net that shimmered in the torchlight so that she seemed to glow. Yet she was under severe strain. He could see it. Oh, she was making every effort to appear normal. But only look!

There, as she turned away from her partner in the movement of the dance, had not the mask slipped a little? And now—was that a faint tremble in her lip?

Watching her still, he saw her eyes close wearily in a long blink. He could swear it was a wisp of a sigh she snatched then. It was as if the cracked veneer was breaking up, as if he could see beyond it, into the vulnerability that kept her so resolutely aloof. Chaste stars, but he could no longer endure this. She would not keep him at bay. What, was he a monster to frighten her? He wanted only to help her, if he could; to brush away the trouble that haunted her. Oh, he had seen it—on that now far-off day when they met on the Common one early winter morning.

By the veriest good fortune, the next person to attach Verena for a dance was Osmond himself. Naturally she had no quarrel with Osmond. He had been admitted to the ranks of her friends. Not that she had been very much in evidence at the Ruishton house since Denzell’s arrival. Oh no. All of a sudden, these ‘everyday’ visits to Unice had ceased. He did not have far to seek for the reason. But she would not fob him off this time.

Moving with purpose, he contrived to intercept his friend as the couple were threading through the pockets of the talkative assembly towards the dancing arena.

‘My dance, I think, Ossie.’

Without waiting for a reply, he seized Verena’s hand, mittened in gold net to match her over-gown.

‘Hey!’ cried Osmond.

‘Hey to you!’ retorted Denzell, and was on the move, regardless of the effect on Verena.

She was too taken aback for a moment to resist, let alone find anything to say. Besides, the warmth of his hand about hers was rendering her breathless. He had caught her so much off guard, for in Osmond’s presence she was now apt to be a trifle more relaxed, that she had been unready for such a determined assault.

Before she had time to recover, she found herself taking up a position in one of the sets then forming. Denzell released her hand as he took his place, and turned to face her, smiling disarmingly.

‘Will you forgive me for this piracy? I doubt Ossie will not.’

‘I do not think—I mean—’

Verena willed herself to continue, but the effort to control the quivering in her lips was too great. Where was her strength? Thank the lord Mama had elected not to come tonight. For all the work of these few days would be gone in a moment. She had hoped—in vain?—her conduct had convinced him that she did not wish to pursue their acquaintance. She did not indeed. She did not wish even to speak to him, let alone dance with him,

‘You don’t wish to dance, do you?’ he said, as if he had read her mind.

The next instant, just as the music started, he whisked her out of the set, and out of the dancing arena altogether. But not back towards the colourful throng moving below the arena. Instead she found herself passing out of the flare from the burning torches, and into the shadows beyond, where the darkness of the Grove beckoned.

‘Where are you taking me?’ she asked.

‘Where we may be a little private.’

‘But – ’

‘Miss Chaceley, trust me!’

A few steps more and he stopped, right on the edge of the Grove, where sight and sound of the gaiety on the Green was muted, and yet within a few feet of the laughing enjoyment of the crowds therein.

Denzell did not release his hold on her elbow, which he had used to steer her through, so silently, so rapidly that he doubted whether anyone had observed them depart. Besides, he was ready to wager theirs was not the first such secret departure. This type of entertainment lent itself to stolen meetings such as this. But for himself, there was no amorous intent.

‘This is better,’ he said, as he turned to look down into her face, visible quite in the still fading daylight, but sufficiently hidden for the mask to have been dropped. And it was gone! There was a world of confusion in her face. Confusion, and—by George, he had been right—fear.

‘Verena,’ he uttered urgently, ‘don’t look at me so. Why are you afraid of me? God knows I intend you no harm.’

Verena’s heart sank. Yes, she did fear him—his effect on her. How had he divined so much? She must not allow him to believe it, for that would weaken her position. Desperately, she fought to regain her control. But that was very difficult when his very touch was causing waves of trembling heat to invade her breast. She shifted away, pulling her elbow out of his grasp.

‘Don’t run away,’ he uttered at once. ‘I must talk to you. If you will not allow me to do so in public, then grant me this one opportunity, I beg of you.’

‘I h-have no intention of r-running away,’ she said on a snap, annoyed with herself for the tremor in her voice. ‘And I am not afraid of you!’

‘Then why are you avoiding me?’ he accused. ‘Don’t try to pretend that you have not been doing so.’

The mask snapped back into place. ‘Really, Mr Hawkeridge, I don’t know what you mean.’

The coolness of her tone stung him. ‘Ah, so you are armed again, are you? Well done, Miss Chaceley.’

His sarcasm distressed her, but it toughened her, too. With even more blandness, she said, ‘I am quite at a loss, sir.’

‘I am referring,’ he said bitingly, ‘to this alien creature, who is not you, Miss Verena Chaceley, yet who persists in coming between us.’

‘Indeed?’

Exasperated, Denzell echoed, ‘Indeed, indeed, indeed, Miss Chaceley! Is that all you can ever say? Of course it is. A crumbling façade before me must put you in grave danger, must it not?’

Verena could not reply. A tremor passed across her features. Why did he taunt her thus? If indeed he knew how hard it was for her to maintain her front, then what devil possessed him to prick at her?

He was glaring at her! All at once the expression in his face was too distressing to be borne. Why, she could not tell. She knew only that she could no longer maintain the façade. That it was indeed crumbling before him. A piercing, inexplicable pain threw her hand up to her breast.

‘Why must you be so cruel?’

Her voice cracked. Next moment, she found her hands clasped together between two strong ones, held fast against the male chest before her.

‘I’m not! I’m not cruel, Verena. Only I cannot bear it when you shield yourself against me. I know you are deeply troubled. I only want to help you, if I can. I ask nothing more than to be allowed to serve you. You have nothing to fear from me, I promise you. Only don’t, I beg of you, Verena, keep me at a distance.’

‘I must,’ she said, anguished. For everything in her yearned to yield to him. To allow him close, to give him access to her deepest thoughts, her deepest feelings.

‘But why? Tell me, Verena, why?’

‘I cannot—there is nothing—’ she faltered, trying vainly to recover herself, half struggling to free her hands.

‘Yes, there is something. Tell me.’

‘No, no—you are mistaken.’

‘I am not mistaken,’ he said with vehemence. ‘Verena, I could not be mistaken where you are concerned. Deuce take it, I have fallen in love with you!’