A Lady of Persuasion (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #3)

A Lady of Persuasion (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #3) Page 40

It is not meant for your amusement, Bel longed to retort. It is for your edification, you silly, thoughtless wench.

Oh, heavens. Had that thought truly originated in her brain? She felt so queer, so out of sorts. She would have liked to blame her odd behavior on fatigue from the night before, but she suspected the lingering passion had more to do with it. Even staring at the illustration of poor, maltreated climbing boys, she could not muster her usual zeal. Instead, as she surveyed the assortment of wan ladies decorating the richly hued salon, all she could think was that she wanted to return home, return to bed. Return to Toby.

And worse, it was as though everyone in the room could sense it. Lady Violet’s comments were only the beginning. From every corner of the room, the ladies stared at her, whispering to one another across the card table and laughing into their tea.

“Bel.” Sophia touched her elbow. “The air in here is so close, and with the baby”—she laid a hand over her abdomen in a universal gesture of incipient motherhood—“Will you take a turn with me, outside?”

Bel nodded and followed her sister-in-law out the door and into the garden. The moment they rounded the corner of a hedge, Sophia turned to her. “You haven’t seen it?”

“Seen what?”

“This morning’s Prattler.”

Bel shook her head. She avoided the rancid tabloid on principle, only bothering to glance at it when Toby needed soothing over another assault on his character. Why that paper had such a vendetta against her husband, she could not comprehend.

Sophia withdrew a scrap of rolled newsprint from her reticule and extended it to Bel with one hand, taking the stack of leaflets in her other. “I am so sorry to be the one to show you this. But after Lady Violet’s comments inside … I really thought you must be made aware. People will be talking.”

Bel’s stomach plummeted as she took the bit of paper and unrolled it cautiously. Had they linked Toby with another woman? She knew now that The Prattler grossly overstated his rakish exploits, and she believed that no rumor of infidelity would have a mite of truth. But still

—it wounded her, to hear the gossip suggest he had already strayed. And as she took her first glance at the caricature, she thought indeed that was what the illustration implied. It depicted Toby with a loose woman on his arm, her clothing agape and one sleeve sliding from her shoulder. Her exaggerated breasts squeezed to the top of her bodice, overflowing her gown as she leaned against Toby’s frame. The two figures were depicted in the dark of night, tripping down the stairs of a grand stone edifice. Bel peered closer. Why, it was the opera house!

She read the caption aloud. “The Rake Unrepentant. Is Sir Toby London’s own Don Giovanni?”

“Oh, Bel,” Sophia said. “I’m so sorry.”

Dread stirred in Bel’s chest as she looked again at the loose woman draped over Toby’s dashing form. For the first time she examined the face, instead of the voluptuous figure indecently spilling across the page. Black hair. Wide, dark eyes.

“Oh, dear Lord.”

It was her. She was the woman on Toby’s arm, slavering over her own husband like a glassyeyed prostitute. Now Bel noticed the ribbons of speech attributed to these disgusting renditions of her and Toby. From his mouth: “Did you really think to reform me?” From her: “La! I never knew ruin was so sweet.”

Behind them, in the shadows of the opera house, Mr. Hollyhurst had drawn a pair of underfed children, their hands out in an attitude of begging. Their pleas went unheeded.

“Thank you,” Bel said numbly, rolling the paper again. “Thank you for showing me. It explains a great deal.” No wonder the ladies inside had greeted her overtures with amusement, doubted her charitable intentions, taken all of her words as innuendo. This was their opinion of her: a lust-mad female, incited to depravity by her husband’s rakish charm and dissolute example. And the worst of it was—Bel worried that they were right. Mr. Hollyhurst, Lady Violet, Mrs. Breckinridge. Why would anyone draw such an image, or give credit to its implications, if it did not contain truth at its core? She thought of leaving the opera house last night, flushed and frenzied with desire—too desperate even to wait until they returned home. Good heavens, she’d thrown herself on him in the carriage! A respectable lady of influence didn’t behave in such a manner. And had there truly been hungry children, huddling in the shadows in need of help, whom she had ignored in her passion-blinded state?

There could have been.

Who would look to such a woman for their moral direction? How could such a woman be the wife of an influential MP?

“Don’t make overmuch of it,” Sophia said. “As scandals go, desire for one’s own husband is not much of one. Never mind Lady Violet—she’s just an old, embittered dragon. She can’t help but breathe fire. She’ll tire of teasing you quickly enough, if you refuse to give her the satisfaction of showing distress.”

“It’s not just Lady Violet. All London reads The Prattler.”

“Yes, and there is a new issue printed each morning. Within a few days, people will find a new topic of gossip, and this will all have been forgotten.”

“I’m sure you’re right.” But in a few days, the election would be over—the demonstration, as well. And all of it could be ruined, because of her. Because she had allowed passion to overrule her principles. “I…” She choked back a wave of bile. “I feel suddenly ill. I think I’ll slip out by the garden path and make my way home. Please make my excuses to our aunt.”

“Yes, of course.” Sophia stroked Bel’s arm soothingly. “If there’s anything I can do—”

“No, no.” Bel forced a little smile. “Really, this is nothing. I’m just fatigued. I need to rest, that’s all.”

After bidding Sophia good-bye, Bel made her way to the front of the residence. To make her failure complete, she ordered the carriage to simply return her home. She knew Toby would still be out, campaigning in Surrey. Perhaps she ought to complete her visits to distribute leaflets, or take supplies to the children’s dispensary. But she didn’t want to be near ladies or orphans right now. She wanted to be near Toby, in what ever way she could. She would cast off this fine, French-striped day dress and beribboned bonnet, put on one of her old, plain muslin shifts, and creep into the bed that might still be warm from their night of passion—that might still retain some comforting hint of his scent. And then she might weep, or fitfully dream the day away, until he came home to hold her and love her.

Oh, she was weak indeed.

When she entered Aldridge House, she heard low, masculine voices down the hall. Her heart leapt. Was Toby home? Perhaps he’d been laughed off the hustings in Surrey, if today’s Prattler had reached the borough already. To her surprise, Bel didn’t even care—so long as he was here, with her.

On light feet, she hurried down the corridor. The voices seemed to be coming from Toby’s library. Nearing the door, she recognized the warm timbre of her husband’s voice. It was him. Thank heaven. Toby would make everything better. Toby loved her. He would never let her come to harm. With him, she was safe.

As she put a hand to the door handle, it dimly registered in her mind that Toby was not just speaking, but shouting. Bellowing, really, as she’d never heard him raise his voice to anyone.

“You had clear instructions,” he thundered. “She was never to be a part of this.”

A milder tenor answered. Bel had to press her ear to the door to make out the words. Her conscience pricked her for eavesdropping, but how else was she to discern if it was safe to interrupt?

“Yes, but it wasn’t working,” the milder voice argued back. “You told me to be more severe, do my worst.”

“Your worst at me, not her,” Toby answered. “There’s no excuse for—”

“And didn’t you tell me you wanted to lose, at any cost?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then it had to be her. There’s nothing left to insinuate about you. That’s how I reasoned it, at least.”

A loud crack reverberated through the door, startling Bel. Her stomach plummeted with the weight of dread. Perhaps she should summon a footman.

Toby’s voice again. “Damn you, Hollyhurst, you’re not paid to reason. You’re paid to draw.”

Hollyhurst? Was that vile man here, in Toby’s study?

Bel didn’t recall making the decision to open the door. The next thing she knew, she was standing in the center of the Aldridge crest stamped in gold on the blood-red carpet. The men stared at her; Toby from behind his desk, and—could this truly be the H. M. Hollyhurst, reclining in the chair opposite? He wasn’t at all the grizzled, pointy-eared troll she’d imagined him to be. He was barely older than she, Bel judged—smooth-faced and handsome. Pale with shock, the young man rose to his feet. “Bollocks,” he muttered.

“Toby?” Bel’s voice shook. “What is going on?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Toby knew precisely what was going on. This ill-fated day was gathering to its horrific climax. The jig was up. This was the moment he’d been dreading ever since the day they married. And yet, there came with it an odd sense of relief.

“Isabel, may I introduce Mr. Hiram Hollyhurst?” The anemic twit bowed clumsily. Toby added with a pointed look, “He’s leaving.”

Hollyhurst was not so obtuse that he missed that hint. Isabel stood frozen in the center of the carpet, staring at Toby in disbelief for long moments after the door had been closed and they were alone.

“I—” Her jaw worked. “Toby, I don’t understand.”

Of course she didn’t, the sweet girl. She could never understand the motivations behind such callous behavior. It simply wasn’t in her to comprehend. “Will you sit down?” he asked.

“Thank you, no.” She clasped and unclasped her hands, as though unsure how to begin. “So that was Mr. Hollyhurst.”

It wasn’t a question. Which was fortunate, because Toby really did not want to answer. What he wanted to do was hold her. After all that had happened this morning, the news he had just received—how cruel, that he should destroy his marriage on this, the day he most needed the comfort of a wife.

“The Mr. Hollyhurst,” she continued. “The same man who has vilified you in The Prattler all these months by drawing those horrid caricatures.”

“Yes,” he said finally. “We’re … friends.”

“Friends?” she cried. “But how can that be? However could you become friends with a man like that?”

“He’s the son of a former steward, and … and it’s not important how we met.” Toby paused.

“I’ve been paying him, Isabel. All those caricatures, the assaults on my character—they were all created at my behest.”

She made an inarticulate noise in her throat. Her eyes then slid toward the ceiling, as though some explanation for his behavior might be found in the scrolls of the brass chandelier. A silent

“why” formed on her pursed lips, but she seemed to lack the breath to dislodge it.

“Really, please sit down.” Toby moved toward her and laid a hand on her arm. She shook it off. “Thank you, no.” Still, she could not form the question. He sighed. He would not force her to ask. “It began last year, after Sophia disappeared and her parents spread the falsehood about her illness. It was winter, and people had little enough to talk about. The gossips would out the truth inevitably, I feared—unless I gave them something else to discuss. I came to London and tracked down Hollyhurst. Hiram and I devised this

‘Rake Reborn’ nonsense.”

Toby moved toward the bar. God, he needed a drink. “At first, I simply meant to deflect suspicion, absorb the brunt of the scandal,” he continued, pouring whiskey into a glass.