Page 43 of The Chaperone
Sir Esmond gnawed his lip.
‘Since we are, in a sense, upon the same side, and I can assure you I wish you well with Lady Sophy, an excellent young woman, perhaps I may enlighten you. It will help you see her problem and er, ours.’
Lord Rothley listened in growing horror.
‘Oh my God, no wonder … Poor little Lady Harriet, too.’
‘I think that is what has really cut up Lady Sophy, that not controlling her cousin has meant hurt for her sister. But as I say, I think Wittenham had the fright of his life and will run a mile if Susan Tyneham as much as smiles at him again. It was a pretty sudden dropping of the scales from his eyes, and he was shaken to the core.’
‘Why did she do it?’
‘Because she was bored, because she only feels safe when in control, I think, and because she has never learnt to think of anyone else’s interests but her own. Oh, and I think she wants men to suffer.’
‘And yet you …?’
‘I do.’
‘I did wonder, when I found out for sure, if she had simply inherited my father’s remarkable selfishness.’
‘Possibly, but instinct tells me there is a reason that she … Lady Sophy said she had told her she wanted to marry to escape a return to imprisonment at Tyneham and would “exchange one gaoler for another”. Not a nice view of life for a young woman whose only “crime” is her existence, and one with no more understanding of Society than a fourteen-year-old still stitching samplers.’ He shook his head. ‘And Wittenham babbled about how when she kissed him, or rather got him to kiss her, he thought it clinical, as though she took no pleasure from it.’
‘Wittenham ought to have had the decency to keep silent. I thought better of him.’
‘Oh, he would, my friend, but for the fact I told him I had seen them. I also told him Lady Harriet had seen them too. Should have seen how green he turned then. Felt sorry for the poor fool, but better he knows the worst.’
‘So, without having any apparent “right” to do so, we have to protect the wild Susan from setting London upside down, at least any more than she has already. Then you have to find her deep-seated loathing of the male of the species and turn it to affection, and I have to woo a lady who thinks everything I say to her part of a cunning plan to make her fall in love with me so that I can then abandon her to ruination. Make that two cells in Bedlam, Fawley.’
Having parted at odds with Lord Rothley, Sophy arrived home in no better mood than she left it, for all her good intentions. She went up to change and then went down to the library, detailing Bembridge to alert Miss Susan to her return. She looked at the ormolu clock upon the mantelshelf. It lacked fifteen minutes to two o’clock. She tried yet again to form sentences in her mind which did not sound simply aggrieved, let down and angry. She failed, because that was just how she felt.
It was five past the hour when the door opened, and Susan walked in. She did not look submissive or afraid, but rather combative. Her position was indefensible and yet she was going to stand her ground.
‘You demanded my presence, cousin.’ Susan’s head was held high.
‘In effect, yes. You cannot fail to understand why when I say that you were seen last night behaving in a manner more usually found among the muslin company.’
‘Servants can be prudish.’ Susan shrugged.
‘You were not seen by a servant, but by Harriet.’
‘Was she spying upon us? I doubt not she mistook the matter.’ She would brazen this out.
‘She did not. I know this because you were also seen by Sir Esmond Fawley, who reported to me both Harriet’s distress and, from necessity, the reason for it.’
Susan’s colour drained away. She told herself that Sir Esmond was merely a talebearer and she did not give a fig for the fact that it was he who had seen her with Sir Edward Wittenham. She did not quite convince herself, however.
‘Are you going to send me back to Tyneham?’ Her self-confidence wavered for a moment.
‘It would be in many ways the easiest course. However, it would occasion remark, and, in addition to the gossip about your behaviour, which is almost certainly already in circulation, would confirm what Society already whispers, that you are unfit for decent company. It would also disappoint your aunt, my mother, who wished to do whatever she could for you for the sake of her late sister.’
‘So I was always a charity case.’
‘No, but many people have been charitable towards you when you do not deserve it, since you came to London. Let us not beat about the bush, Susan. Having behaved with scant regard to your good name, or that of this family, you have now shown yourself to be lacking in modesty, morality or with any thought to anyone but yourself. You are not going to claim, I take it, that you were suddenly overcome with passion for Lord Edward, and, since I know full well who led whom, you cannot say he persuaded you into wrong-doing.’
‘It was but a dance, and a kiss.’
‘A dance in private, in near darkness, and a kiss you ought never to have offered. You are not betrothed to Lord Edward Wittenham, nor even in expectation of him making you an offer. If that were the case, well I am not so unreasonable as to think that no exchanges of tokens of mutual affection may not be exchanged.’
‘“Tokens of …” Listen to yourself,’ sneered Susan. ‘Are you jealous because you are on the shelf and no man has ever wanted to kiss you? Well, let me assure you, it is not that exciting. And kisses, I am not afraid to use the word at all, are just … kisses.’
