Claire Read online

  In fact Claire did not dance a great deal; she gave Vincent Pershing, a dashing young cavalry officer, a country dance, and she allowed Lord Petersham, who was trying very hard not to appear too interested in Lady Shelby’s daughter, the lovely Amelia, to escort her down to dinner, and then she laughed a little and invited Amelia to join her at her table, which put the young baron very much in charity with her.

  Claire did not dance at all with either Jonathan Fiske or her husband. In fact, she gave Mr Fiske the barest greeting when he approached her, turning instantly back to Lord Demming, with whom she had been discussing the latest news from Spain. She was unhappy to hear that Napoleon had instituted his brother Joseph as ruler since the abdication of the royal family, and she was very sad indeed to hear of the riots that had accompanied King Charles IV’s departure with his wife Queen Maria Luisa. It had looked for a while that perhaps Napoleon would back the heir Ferdinand against the King’s minister Godoy, who was held in the strictest contempt by the Spanish; and Claire was not surprised at all to hear that Napoleon had other intentions entirely, which were to place his own pawn on the Spanish throne, and neither was she surprised that the Spanish people should have disliked it.

  On May 2 the population of Madrid had risen against the French, with the loss of some one hundred fifty French and four hundred Spanish lives; reports were that the provinces were unhappy as well, with many of the nobles and clergy secretly organizing against the French. It sounded as if things might grow very serious indeed; Claire was happy to see Lord Canning later on in the evening, and she was a little more reassured when she heard from him that the English did not intend to allow Napoleon his way.

  The one person whom she did not see or speak to or dance with that evening was her husband. About ten o’clock she noticed Drew with a striking auburn-haired green-eyed sophisticate whom she discovered rather casually from Lord Petersham was the recently-widowed Lady Morgan, considered to be on the catch, not for a husband, but, as he said, for someone to have a little fun with. At the time Lord Petersham, to do him credit, had not the least idea that the lovely Lady Banning’s husband seemed to have fallen prey to Lady Morgan, but by the end of the next week, it was a very delicious tidbit of gossip that set a good deal of London on its ear.

  Claire, dear lady, was neither blind nor of limited intelligence; she understood instantly that she had burnt her bridges. At the Globe one evening, only the most determined consideration of a certain letter upstairs in the bottom of her jewel box kept her from flooding a theatre box with an ocean of tears when her husband, after procuring her a glass of lemonade during the interval, disappeared and was not seen again until after the curtain had fallen, while they were gathering up their wraps. To have seen the smile fixed on Lady Banning’s face, one would have never have guessed that she had also noticed the disappearance from a box across the theatre of Lady Morgan not very long after her husband Varian had strolled outside.

  “Lovely play, wasn’t it?” remarked Claudia, as the four of them drove toward Banning House afterwards. Tony had taken to accompanying them everywhere, in that bland and inconsequential way of his; he usually dined at Banning House with them at eight and left his carriage in Varian’s stables while they went out, and then joined Varian downstairs for a cognac after the ladies went up to bed before he went home.

  “Delightful,” agreed Lady Banning. She had got back some of her color; she had been working diligently in her garden in the mornings instead of driving out with her friends, a change she did not think that her husband had even noticed, but the hard work had been excellent therapy, and her garden was truly lovely.

  “Very pleasant,” nodded Tony lazily, eyeing Claudia’s hint of a smile in the darkness. “What do you think, Varian? King Richard was excellent in that last scene, wasn’t he?”

  “Quite moving,” came Varian Drew’s voice from the corner of the carriage. He had chosen Lady Morgan as the object of his gallantry since she seemed worldly enough not to question his motives. The thing of it was, though, he didn’t care for her very much at all; she seemed a little fast. Although Varian understood the strategy, lately he had been thinking less and less of this plan of Claudia’s as Lady Morgan began to bore him more and more. This evening he had spent a perfectly wretched hour with her in a parlor downstairs; there had been a number of other ladies and gentlemen— or rather there had been a number of other gentlemen there accompanied by females of a somewhat questionable innocence and gentility— and so it was not precisely as though she had constrained him to make love to her, which he thought she very likely would have done had they been in private, but it had been the most distasteful situation imaginable. Varian was tired of it all; he knew perfectly well that Claire loved him, for he had seen a great deal of hurt in her eyes this evening when he had come to collect her after the play was over, and it had been all he was worth not to blurt it all out there in the theatre box and cast himself on his knees and beg that she forgive him whatever it was that she held against him. At the moment he was having the greatest difficulty keeping himself from taking her hand and kissing her fingertips and asking her if she wouldn’t like to go off to a deserted island somewhere for a month or two.

  “Vauxhall tomorrow, isn’t it?” asked Claudia pleasantly. The truth of it was, she was getting a little too used to having Tony Merrill at her side all the time; she was certain that he had no more serious intentions than a little entertainment while he was in London, and perhaps her help in straightening out Varian’s life. The fact that she was fast loosing all her reserves against him had worried her more and more the past week or so. Lately, it seemed she was not even alive any more except in his company. Indeed, Claudia was not at all prone to tears, having shed her last ones at her father’s funeral, except for a drenching flood that had burst over her last night after she went to bed and turned out the lamp, thinking how soon all this would be over, and how very much she would miss him. She had lately begun to wonder if it was wise for her to return to Finchingfield; perhaps she might stay here in London, find herself a small house and hire an elderly companion, and go home to Finchingfield to visit only when she was certain that Tony was to be away from Merrill House. The thought of such a bleak future made the smile on her face in the carriage slightly forced.

  “Oh, fireworks! Yes, I remember; shall you come for dinner first, Tony?” asked Lady Banning in the darkness. It had occurred to her with a blinding clarity when her sister said Vauxhall that there was no better place in London for a clandestine meeting, and she was certain that Varian would be away from her side for most of the evening. She thought of him looking at her without that particular light in his eyes that she saw occasionally, and, even worse, of him looking at Lady Morgan with it. She wondered if he had kissed the woman, and if he wished to, and if he would kiss Lady Morgan like— “I wonder if we might hire a barge and watch the display from the river,” she said suddenly, thinking that at least they would all be forced to stay together, even if Varian ignored her all evening.

  “Excellent idea!” came Tony Merrill’s voice in the darkness. He had been most entertained by this comedy of lovers in the last fortnight; only he had begun to wonder if his plan would work at all, for Varian had done a very credible job with that Morgan woman, and Claire did not seem to regard it in the least. He hoped things did not get out of hand.

  “I’ll see if I can arrange it in the morning,” said Varian, “if they’re not all taken. It would be a good deal cooler on the river, of course, and we shouldn’t have to fight the crowd.” It would also give him an excellent excuse to avoid Lady Morgan, for he was certain she meant to attend, and he had been worrying all day over how he could stay clear of her.

  “Well! Such a pleasant drive,” came Claudia’s voice as the carriage drew up in Cavendish Square and the step was put down. Tony declined to come in, except to call his carriage, and told Claudia he would be by for her at nine, and left before Varian could pelt him with this distressing situation again, and was
, after all, very glad to climb into bed and close his eyes.

  Dreaming of the most beautiful, most logical, and certainly quietest of the Ffawlkes sisters, Tony Merrill slept, very likely, more peacefully than any of them.

  “Morning, Claudia,” Merrill greeted her only a few hours later. She had been waiting for him in the hallway and had opened the door and run outside immediately he had pulled up, just so he wouldn’t have to keep his horses standing.

  Tony had come to the satisfying conclusion that Claudia Ffawlkes had an excellent understanding of most everything in his life, such as that good horseflesh ought not to be left standing too long when they were fresh, and that one ought not to leap up from the table after luncheon, and that pretty young ladies ought to wear charming gowns just as the one she had on this morning. In fact, he was very much of the opinion that this delightful woman could not have been better designed for him had he put in an order himself, and it was that particular train of thought that caused him to smile down at her in just that fashion as they drove toward the Library for their morning haunt.

  He dragged her away a bit early; it lacked a minute or two until twelve, and actually he had planned it rather well. He had mentioned to her on the step as they were leaving the Museum that he was thinking of selling off that first edition of Cymbeline that he had bought in the spring.

  “Selling it! Oh, Tony, no, you can’t do that!” Claudia exclaimed, very much overset.

  “Why can’t I?” he inquired placidly, handing her up into his curricle.

  “Because! Just because you can’t!” she said, suddenly at a loss.

  “Come, now, Claudia! You’re the one has to have a reason for everything; give me one good reason, and I won’t do it!”

  “Because it is a great work of literature, and it is a privilege to have such a thing in one’s possession, and to be able to guard it for posterity!” she returned instantly, as he came around and climbed up beside her and took the reins from his tiger.

  “I’m not so certain, you know; I’ve lately begun to think that it could be spurious, for there are certain parts of it that I wonder if Shakespeare could have written at all!” Merrill said firmly.

  “Such as what?” Claudia inquired.

  “Well, that dream-vision or whatever of Posthumus! That cannot be the Bard’s; in fact, I wouldn’t attribute it to his worst impostor!”

  “That scene has always been part of that play! You cannot cast it off just because it doesn’t seem like it ought to be there!”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t mean that I’m constrained to think that it belongs there, or to put any value on the copy, which, as a matter of fact, is dated 1610. According to what I have read, it looks very much as if Shakespeare finished Cymbeline in 1609!”

  “Very well! Then I shall buy it! You may sell to me!” Claudia said, suddenly inspired, with a trifle more spirit than he was used to having from her.

  He wondered for an instant if perhaps there might be a passion in her for something besides Shakespeare and thought to himself with some pleasure that it would be worth a great deal of exertion to find out. “Oh, no, I’ve already got a buyer. He’s coming by this afternoon at five to see the thing. I think I’ll just sell it and be done with it,” he said congenially.

  “Tony! You cannot sell it without my even having seen it!” Claudia exclaimed.

  “Oh! Well. I don’t mind if you want to look at it first, Claudia! Though I cannot see what all the fuss is over; it’s only a bit of pen and paper, after all!” he said blandly.

  Claudia, lovely lady, was aghast. “Of course it is more than that! And I must see it before you give it up! Take me home now, and go and get it, and bring it to Cavendish Square, and then I shall take a look at it, and see what I think,” Claudia ordered firmly.

  “Now?” Tony repeated, blankly. “And miss my luncheon?”

  “Oh, very well!” Her faint touch of exasperation delighted him immensely. “Let us go after lunch; for you know I’ve got to be at the dressmaker’s at two, and we can’t linger!”

  “You shan’t have time for me to drive you home and then to Portman Square and back to Banning House! If you want to see it, you’ll just have to swallow your pretensions this once, and come home with me for a minute or two after lunch, and we’ll take a look at it!” Merrill said, without a flicker.

  She hesitated, mired in a quandary. But, then, after all, Claudia was so very predictable, and he had fully expected that pause, although he knew equally well that he had made the temptation too great. “Oh, very well! I suppose it can’t matter if it is only for a minute or two; but you will have to promise me that if I can show you the least proof of its authenticity, you won’t allow it out of your possession!”

  “I suppose,” Tony said, smiling very quietly to himself, “that’s fair enough.”

  They enjoyed a delightful luncheon at the Clarendon, and in fact he took a great deal of care not to seem the least lover-like. He even neglected to pull out her chair when they stood to leave, which he saw in that placid, deceptively careless manner of his that she noticed, only she did not think herself so transparent in that small sigh as she stood up without his assistance.

  “Just for a moment,” Claudia repeated, with a little more hesitation, as they reached Portman Square. He assisted her down from his curricle and told his tiger to walk the horses for a moment or two, and took her elbow and guided her into his house.

  It was a very pleasant home, not so large as Banning House, but very well-appointed. His mother, blessed with impeccable taste and plenty of money, had refurbished everything a decade or so before she died, and had left him a very comfortable London house.

  He took Claudia straightaway to the library, which was of a size equal to the drawing room, for his father had had it enlarged somewhat to accommodate his voluminous collection. Tony was secretly pleased when he led her inside that she should be so impressed with it.

  “Oh, Tony!” came her awed voice. She stood very still just inside the doorway, holding tightly to her reticule, her hat and gloves still on, and stared wide-eyed around the immense chamber as he went languidly past her. “I have never seen so many books in my life!”

  “Yes, there’s a writ or two here,” he said casually. “Good many more at Merrill House, of course; the library there is not quite so large, but I believe of the two it is my favorite,” he added, and went to his desk and opened a drawer and pulled out the manuscript in question. “Here it is; come and have a look, will you? I’ll show you just what I mean.”

  Claudia came over slowly, still gazing at the heavenly expanse around her, and did not demur when Tony untied her bonnet and took her reticule and pulled off her gloves for her; in fact, he was not at all certain that she even noticed. “I promise,” he said, smiling down at her, “that the library won’t disappear if you look away. It has been here the better part of three-score years. I can’t imagine that it is going anywhere.”

  “Oh!” she exclaimed, returning abruptly to the present. Miss Ffawlkes accepted the manuscript from his outstretched hand and gazed at it closely, even taking up her spectacles from her reticule. All in all, she gave it her most undivided attention for the better part of three or four minutes, while Lord Merrill watched her from beneath those half-closed lazy eyes of his with a tiny smile on his face.

  “Well? What do you think?” he asked, after she had looked it over carefully.

  “I cannot imagine that there can be any question about it,” Claudia said instantly, and outlined two or three points which very certainly testified to its authenticity. “In fact, I am almost certain that this introduction may be an autograph; look at these ‘e’s and ‘a’s; it is just like Shakespeare’s own hand!”

  “Yes, I thought so myself,” Tony nodded, without looking away from her face.

  “And this vision of Posthumus, while not particularly my favorite in his works, certainly cannot be discredited! He has used ghosts and scenes such as this in several of his other works!” C
laudia added.

  “Yes, you are exactly right,” he agreed.

  “I think you would be very unwise to sell it at all!”

  “I haven’t the least intention of selling it,” Tony said, in that same, calm voice.

  “And if you do intend— ” Blinking at him, she stopped and looked up. “You haven’t?”

  “No, of course not,” Tony said, and took it from her and laid it on the desk. “I never had.”

  “Tony— I do not understand,” said the loveliest of the Ffawlkes girls in that delightfully serious way of hers. “What about this gentleman who is to see it at five o’clock?”

  “There isn’t any gentleman,” Merrill said blandly.

  The slender brows drew slightly together as she swallowed nervously. “Then why have you told me that there was?”

  “Because,” he said, lifting her spectacles gently off her nose and laying them down on top of the Shakespeare, “I had something I wished to say to you, and I did not,” Tony said firmly, “wish to say it in Varian’s drawing room. If I am to provide gossip for the servants, they may as well be my own servants.”

  “What,” Claudia asked, in a breathless, suddenly unsure voice, dropping her eyes from his to the first button of his very fine waistcoat, “are you talking about?”

  “My proposal of marriage, of course,” Tony said calmly and took her rather small hand in his strong one and lifted it to his lips and kissed it. “I am very sentimental at heart, you see, my dear, and I had a particular desire that this question of mine should be resolved here in my favorite spot— amongst my books. Claudia, my darling . . . will you marry me?”

  “Will I— ” Miss Ffawlkes repeated, a little blankly, and raised that calm blue gaze to his face. “What did you say?”