Fair Fatality Read online

  Not with any great enthusiasm did Jevon embark upon the brief journey to his aunt’s abode; Jevon was no great fan of the fashionable soirée, where beplumed and bejeweled ladies and gentlemen were crammed together in spaces designed to contain half their number, and conversation was invariably flat. A tête-à-tête with a certain little opera dancer who was currently exhibiting her shapely ankles onstage at Drury Lane would have been much more amusing, he thought. However, it would be monstrous shabby to fail to put in an appearance at a soirée held in his own sister’s honor. Jevon would do his duty, as he did all else, with his customary good grace. At all events, the little opera dancer would still be flashing her pretty ankles onstage at Drury Lane on some future day.

  Blackwood House was as overcrowded as he had anticipated; the newspapers would on the following day deem it a shocking squeeze, the highest of accolades. Jevon exchanged pleasantries with his triumphant sister, paid his compliments to his aunt, engaged in a brief conversation concerning the price of wheat, which early that year had fallen to 52s. 6d., then went in search of the member of the household whose company he enjoyed best.

  Even as Jevon Rutherford decided that in lieu of a certain little opera dancer he would enjoy with his favorite member of the Blackwood household an amiable prose à deux, Sara Valentine was pondering her long acquaintance with the Rutherfords, and the worsening other own situation with the passage of the years. Even though she couldn’t hold a candle to Jaisy’s looks, once Sara’s prospects had been almost as good. Now she had nothing more wonderful to anticipate than an unending endurance of the dowager duchess’s petty domestic tyrannies. This evening was a fine example of Georgiana’s less endearing little ways. The Dowager had refused to heed Sara’s pleas that she be excused from the festivities, had decreed that Sara’s attendance was to be a special treat.

  A treat! thought Sara gloomily; Georgiana must think her positively cork-brained. The dowager duchess knew very well that Sara hated having come down in the world, and consequently reminded her of it at every opportunity. For no other reason had she demanded Sara’s presence at a social function where she must be reminded constantly of her current lowly status, and constantly mortified.

  As becomes apparent, Miss Valentine was sadly out of curl. She was weary of trying to please her employer, who had yet on any topic to profess herself satisfied; she detested her own meek and self-effacing servility. Moreover, she suffered the unhappy consequence of having inadvertently espied her reflection beside Jaisy in a looking glass. Lady Easterling had been absolutely stunning in an evening gown that could hardly have been more revealing, with traces of Ionic influence in the sleeves and palmette border at her hemline. Beside her, Miss Valentine — dark hair drawn back in an unfashionable coil at the nape of her neck; the pleasing proportions of her slender person very adequately camouflaged by her simple muslin gown — had looked a dowd. As might have been expected, the dowager duchess required that her hired companion display no presumption, such as costume à la mode, even while enjoying a treat. Sara sighed. Now she supposed she would be chastised by her employer for escaping at the first opportunity into the garden, where Confucious had been banished, due to an annoyance exhibited by the Pekinese at the mass invasion of his domain. “Aren’t we a sorry pair?” inquired Miss Valentine of her companion in solitude. Possessing no more compassion than good nature, Confucious snarled.

  At that moment, the garden — a small area walled in with old red brick, in which daylight would reveal a circular pool bordered by annuals, and a single noble tree — was invaded by a third refugee from the revelries. “Well met, my precious!” said Jevon, as he disposed himself beside Sara on an oak bench in the shape of a seashell. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. A wretched crush inside, is it not? How wise of you to seek out fresh air and privacy — and how wise of me to seek you out, because now I may benefit also.” He paused; on his handsome features appeared a faint frown. “If you wish to be alone, my Sara, you need only say so; it is not at all necessary to growl!”

  “Not I, you wretch!” Sara laughed, as with considerable expenditure of energy she prevented Confucious from leaping at the newcomer’s throat.

  “No?” Jevon quirked a golden brow. “Do my ears play me false? I distinctly heard — in point of fact, I still do hear —” Parodying perplexity, he peered around Sara. On the far side of her slender, muslin-clad person, Confucious bared his remaining teeth. “Good girl!” said Jevon, with frank sincerity, as he hastily drew back. “I beg you will continue to restrain that misbegotten cur. I beg also that you will tell me what has driven you into the garden at this inappropriate hour.”

  Sara turned her head to study her companion, who had settled himself quite comfortably on his side of the bench. Perhaps better than any other of his vast acquaintance, including those ladies of a certain description with whom he had long enjoyed such heady success, Sara understood Jevon Rutherford. He was a cynic, albeit charming, indolent and disenchanted, lazy though well-bred. Accustomed to having females hurl themselves at him, it was to Jevon’s credit that he had not grown callous, merely blasé. Sara neither censured her old friend for his countless peccadilloes, nor the fair barques of frailty who encouraged his profligate way of life. Sara herself was not immune to Jevon’s charm, and supposed it a tribute to the quality of their friendship that he had never seriously tried to lead her into an affair of gallantry. But Jevon was waiting patiently for her response. “Inappropriate?” she echoed. “Why is that?”

  Jevon was not unaware that his friend was in the mopes; therefore he set himself to elevate her spirits. “Rather, I should have said,” he responded provocatively, “that trysts in moonlight gardens are not in your style.”

  “You should know, I imagine!” Miss Valentine retorted irritably. “Being an expert on the subject.”

  Certainly Jevon Rutherford possessed a good heart; he did not take objection to this slur. “Were you in the habit of moonlight trysts, I would know of it,” he continued serenely, “since I have been inviting you to tryst with me these past many years! And you have been sending me unwaveringly to the rightabout. Therefore, I can only conclude that you have taken a dislike to my person, or that you have an inexplicable aversion to trysts.”

  “And it would not occur to you, I’ll warrant, that any female might hold your person in distaste?” inquired Miss Valentine, who despite herself was beginning to be amused.

  Jevon gave this novel notion his full attention, then awarded Sara his enchanting grin. “Odd as it may sound in me, no. You do not hold me in dislike, Sara, and I am very curious as to why you should wish me to think it.”

  Miss Valentine herself had no idea of why so bizarre an impulse had taken possession of her mind, and hastily changed the subject. Diffidently, she pointed out that she was indeed engaged in a moonlight tryst.

  “So we are!” responded Jevon and raised her hand to his lips, an act of gallantry that roused Confucious to a vicious outburst. Hastily, Jevon restored Sara’s hand to her lap. “If you should not object, my precious, I still would like to know what has cast you into the dumps.”

  Upon this untimely reminder, Sara’s spirits once more sank. “Georgiana,” she said glumly. “Ungrateful as it is in me, I am tired to death of dancing to her tune. I should not say so, I know! But she has made Jaisy my responsibility, and Jaisy has warned me against trying to prevent her cutting a dash. I am prey to the most horrid misgivings, even if Jaisy is being amazingly good.”

  “And so you might be!” responded Jevon promptly, an unfilial attitude explained by his prior acquaintance with the foibles of his younger sister. “There’s no need to put yourself in a pucker, nonetheless. Georgiana will see the little baggage doesn’t go beyond the line — or you will on her behalf. Jaisy isn’t a bad sort of girl, just a little strong-willed!”

  For such easy panaceas, Sara had no time. “Jaisy,” she said bitterly, “means to set herself up in the latest mode. She expects to make an eligible connection, sh
e informs me, as quick as winking, and offered to wager that in no time whatsoever she’ll be quite top-of-the-trees. She even wanted to set up her own stables, but Georgiana squelched that idea by refusing your assistance.”

  Sanguine as Jevon was, the notion that his harum-scarum sister might have involved him in her kick-ups filled him with a great relief that her attempt had failed. “Good!” he said.

  “I might as well have gone for a governess! Now I am expected to play bearleader to Jaisy, as well as cater to Georgiana’s whims!” mourned Sara, on a sigh. “Oh, well! I daresay I shan’t have to do so much longer, because Georgiana has threatened to turn me off without a reference should Jaisy deport herself unbecomingly — in which case I am resolved to go upon the boards, because if nothing else, employment with Georgiana has taught me to play a part very well!”

  Jevon was not surprised to learn that his aunt Georgiana had behaved so shabbily; Jevon’s fondness for the dowager duchess did not blind him to her myriad defects of character. All the same, Sara’s speech did startle Jevon no little bit. He drew back, the better to regard her, stricken forcibly by her declared intention to tread the boards. Sara, who had no notion that Jevon had taken her nonsense seriously, stared back at him.

  Perhaps because of her startling avowal, perhaps because her avowal had recalled to his mind a certain little opera dancer with whom he anticipated an amusing interview, Jevon found himself reassessing his old friend. He had always found her pleasant to look upon, had enjoyed engaging with her in a comfortable prose; now he realized that Sara Valentine was a deucedly pretty woman, and discovered in himself a temptation to forgo the opera dancer and engage instead with Sara in a flirtatious tête-à-tête. Not accustomed to employing reticence so far as the ladies were concerned, Jevon secured his companion’s attention by slipping an arm around her shoulders and encouraging her to rest her head against his chest. So startled was Miss Valentine by this gallant invitation that she complied, and found her position remarkably comfortable.

  Fortunately for Sara’s strength of character — so very blue-deviled was Sara that she might well have encouraged her old friend to pay her court, disgraceful as such behavior would have been in both of them — fate, in the guise of Confucious, intervened at that point. Released by Sara when Jevon had drawn her so improperly close, Confucious took prompt advantage of the opportunity to sink his remaining teeth in that gentleman’s hand. “The devil!” exclaimed Jevon. “Oh, dear!” wailed Sara, and wrested Confucious away from his victim. Frustrated, the dog snapped at her. Equally frustrated, and feeling foolish to boot, Sara cuffed him, then, remorse-stricken, cradled the beast.

  Upon this touching tableau, Jevon gazed with a great deal less tolerance than was his habit. Jevon was not accustomed to being balked in the pursuit of flirtation. Certainly he was not accustomed to seeing the embraces which he craved bestowed on a misbegotten cur instead. Privately condemning Confucious to perdition, he drew a deep breath. “Darling Sara —”

  “Pitching it too rum!” Miss Valentine interrupted, in rather stifled tones. Miss Valentine was suffering a positive mortification of spirit, due to a suspicion that her friend’s unprecedented overtures resulted from her own heedless comments, which could all too easily be construed as an invitation to a tryst. She dared not look at him, lest she read pity on those incomparably handsome features — for if not from pity, why should so great a connoisseur of feminine loveliness as Jevon Rutherford embrace a poor specimen like herself? And now what must the wretch do but lay gentle fingers on her cheek? “I wish,” said Sara crossly, as she struggled to restrain Confucious, who was struggling so violently in her arms that she feared heart attack, “that you would go away!”

  Jevon Rutherford was far too wise in the ways of women to believe Miss Valentine wished any such thing, and equally too sagacious to accuse her of uttering outright clankers; but no gentleman alive knew better than Jevon Rutherford that the better part of valor was sometimes a strategic retreat. Accordingly he departed the garden, leaving Miss Valentine to further reflection upon her sorry lot, while Confucious settled down to renewed slumber, during which he snored and twitched and drooled profusely upon her muslin skirts.

  Four

  * * *

  Having left Miss Valentine and Confucious to their various somber reflections, Jevon Rutherford returned to Lady Blackwood’s drawing room, there to engage in some meditation of his own, centering upon his sudden impulse to pay his addresses to a lady whom he’d known for twenty-seven of his two-and-thirty years. In retrospect, the impulse seemed a very good idea — one of the best ideas, in fact, to ever take possession of Jevon’s handsome head. He wondered why he had never realized that his dear Sara was a deucedly attractive female. Doubtless he had been distracted by the countless women who had put themselves in his way. Well, here was a pretty kettle of fish. Having discovered in himself the vague stirrings of what Jevon recognized from long acquaintance as a distinguishing preference, he had immediately begun to pay his court, only to be interrupted by his fair one with a most decided and peremptory indication that he was fatiguing her to death.

  That Jevon Rutherford was in a state of profound abstraction did not fail to penetrate the consciousness of the other occupants of Lady Blackwood’s drawing room, a chamber done up in the Egyptian style, with an abundance of lotus columns and turning lilies and papyrus stems. Lady Blackwood was enthroned on a couch in the shape of a crocodile, and espying her preoccupied nephew, she glared.

  During the many years of his association with the dowager duchess, Jevon had developed an almost superhuman awareness of her moods, which ranged from mild irritability to vindictive virulence. Temporarily he must abandon his speculation upon the quixotic conduct so recently exhibited by Miss Valentine. Jevon was not so puffed up that he believed every female who looked upon him must do so with the eye of love, but the fact remained that until this very evening, every female had. From the lips of his friend Sara, Jevon had received his first rebuff. It was a novel sensation, and Jevon was very curious about Sara’s demonstrable wrong-headedness. That Sara might simply be indifferent to him never crossed Jevon’s mind; quite frankly, no woman ever was. He wished to shake some good sense into Sara, but at the same time derived from her obtuseness an amusement directed primarily at himself.

  However, this was not the time, as evidenced by Georgiana’s basilisk stare, to ponder how best to induce his woolly-headed darling to look more favorably upon his suit. With a queer reluctance, for such things signified little to him in the ordinary way, Jevon withdrew his attention from affairs of the heart.

  Quite another manner of affair occupied the conversation of Lady Blackwood’s guests: the party given recently by Lady Jersey at Almack’s in a last attempt to reconcile high society to the scandalous Lord Byron, virtually ostracized following the breakup of his marriage, and the resultant gossip. Rumor linked the poet amorously with his half-sister, a page, a Harrow schoolmate and the larger portion of the population of Turkey; in addition to being guilty of all manner of abominations, he was said to be so frightened of the dark that he slept always in a lighted room, a brace of loaded pistols close at hand, and he was portrayed most unflatteringly in a series of popular prints. The attempt of Byron’s friends to reinstate him as society’s spoilt darling had failed, as Jevon could have predicted; the poet and his half-sister Augusta had arrived at Almack’s, the latter only to be altogether ignored, the former to be greeted by an abrupt emptying of the room. Even Caro Lamb no longer pursued the poet, but instead deftly fed the malice of his estranged wife. Society’s darling was now hissed in the streets, and his chestnut curls were turning gray.

  Though Jevon Rutherford possessed no foibles of the magnitude attributed to Byron, he understood and sympathized with the poet’s plight. Again Jevon mused upon the havoc wreaked upon a comfortable existence by imprudence. It then occurred to Jevon that a gentleman so successful in the petticoat-line as himself could hardly be considered prudent. Perhaps it was as
result of the champagne he’d consumed with his supper, combined more recently with Lady Blackwood’s excellent punch, or perhaps it was derivative from the appalling account presented him of the poet Byron’s woes; but on that certain April evening, whilst passing indolently among the guests in his aunt’s overcrowded drawing room, Jevon Rutherford first conceived the startling notion that his way of life might stand in need of reform.

  So alien a germ did not immediately take root and flourish; indeed, its host’s initial reaction was a sudden crack of laughter that made him an object of no small curiosity. Still, the notion would not be banished, and returned to tease Jevon as he strolled around his aunt’s drawing room, even as he engaged in amiable conversation with Prince Paul Esterhazy and Lady Holland, the Austrian ambassador and the great Whig hostess; Henry Luttrell, the wit; the proud and ambitious Countess Lieven. His progress led him into further conversation with Beau Brummel and Lord Alvanley, two of his intimates, who professed themselves delighted with his sister, the Beau predicting that the incurable levity of Lady Easterling’s disposition would prompt her to give the usual observances of civility short shift, and Lord Alvanley protesting that her ladyship more than atoned for an essential vulgarity by her frankly mischievous manner and pretty, caressing ways.