One Night in Paradise. Juliet Landon

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СКАЧАТЬ some reason, she would have preferred a token show of reluctance, but now there was just time, before the procession to the table, to present Sir Nicholas to Mistress Hester Pickering and to watch like a hawk as his eyes smiled into hers and quickly roamed, approving or amused, over the new image. By this time, the effect of conversation and the warmth of the hall had brought a most becoming flush to Hester’s cheeks and a sparkle to her eyes and, though she kept the latter modestly lowered, the newly darkened lashes made alluring crescents upon her skin. This show of mutual pleasure left no doubt in Adorna’s mind that Lady Marion would be delighted to see how her plan was falling into place so neatly.

      Peter took Adorna’s arm to steer her to one side, noting the direction of her interest. ‘I thought you said she was shy,’ he said.

      Adorna looked puzzled. ‘Did she tell you of her father, then?’

      ‘Only a little. She talked of Sir Nicholas, mostly.’

      Once again, the conversation was curtailed by the ceremonial observed by every noble household at meal-times, the waiting, the seating, the ritual carving and presenting, by which time there were obligatory gasps of delight at the array of dishes, their colours, variety and decoration. Lady Marion had, for this event, brought out the best silver dishes, bowls and ewers, the great salts, the best spoons and knives, the finest monogrammed linen. On the two-tiered court-cupboard stood the best Venetian glasses, while an army of liveried servers attended diligently to every guest’s needs.

      Adorna tried to avoid looking at Hester and Sir Nicholas, but her curiosity got the better of her, her sneaking looks between mouthfuls and words feeding her snippets of information as to Hester’s responsiveness to Sir Nicholas’s attentions. His attention was required from other quarters, too, for the table of over thirty guests was merry and light-hearted, and Sir Nicholas was an excellent conversationalist. Adorna would have been blind not to see how the women, young and old, glowed when he spoke to them, prompting her to recall his uncivil manner as he had hauled her out of the river, his familiarity afterwards, even when he had discovered whose daughter she was.

      With renewed assiduity she turned all her attention towards the other end of the table and to her partner, taking what pleasure she could from the safe predictability of Peter’s good manners and to the chatter of her friends, all the while straining to single out the deep cultured voice of Sir Nicholas Rayne. At the end of two courses, they were led into the garden where the double doors of the banqueting house had been thrown open to receive the slow trickle of guests. Here was laid out an astonishing selection of tiny sweet-meats on silver trays, candied fruits, chunks of orange marmalade, sweet wafers and gingerbreads, march-pane and sugar-paste dainties covered with gold leaf. Jellies and syllabubs were served in tiny glasses, and biscuits were placed on wooden roundels, each guest nibbling, exclaiming, and moving outside to admire the formal flower-beds, the view over the friary orchard and the river in the distance.

      Purposely, Adorna kept some distance between herself and Sir Nicholas while she spoke to many of the guests, laughing at their jokes and listening to their opinions, never straying far from Peter’s side. From there, she could signal to Sir Nicholas that she had no wish for his company. Her mother, however, had already begun to waver on this point.

      She whispered in Adorna’s ear, ‘You didn’t tell me!’

      ‘Tell you what, Mother?’ Acting total innocence came quite easily to her.

      ‘That he was so handsome. And distinguished. If I’d understood that he was my lord of Leicester’s deputy, I’d have had him instead of Master Fowler partner you. Is Sir Nicholas the one who helped you out of the river?’

      Adorna’s eyes strayed once more to the midnight-blue taffeta doublet, velvet breeches and black silk hose, to his elegant bearing, to the gold buckles and jewels on his swordbelt and scabbard. His hand rested on one hip while with the other he held up his wooden roundel, reversed, from which he read the poem painted on the rim.

      ‘Lord Elyot’s eldest son,’ her mother continued, ‘I think, dearest, that you ought to be making yourself a little more agreeable to Sir Nicholas. He’s going to be wasted on Cousin Hester.’

      ‘I’d much rather he played the part you invited him for,’ Adorna replied. ‘Though I think Hester’s wasted on him.’

      But Lady Marion was only half-listening. ‘Don’t be difficult, dear. Come along!’ she called to Sir Nicholas’s group. ‘You must sing your roundelays, you know. I think you should be the one to start them off, Sir Nicholas, if you please. Show them how it should be done.’

      The idea of having guests to sing for their suppers was not a new one, each one expecting to contribute to the others’ entertainment in some way either by singing or by playing an instrument. At thirteen, Adorna’s youngest brother Adrian usually had to be held back forcibly from being the first to perform, but this time he added his voice to his mother’s. Although Sir Nicholas’s roundelay was short, he made it last longer by singing it several times over to a simple tune of his own devising.

      And so my love protesting came, but yet I made her mine.

      His voice was true and vibrant, but Adorna refused to watch him perform, not wishing to see who he looked at while he sang. Yet as soon as the applause died down and another guest followed, a whispered comment at her back closed her ears to everything except the exchange of riveting gossip.

      ‘Pity he doesn’t make them his for longer than three months,’ a man’s voice said, half-laughing. ‘He goes through ’em faster than his master.’

      ‘Hah! Is that how long the last one was?’

      ‘Lady Celia. Traverson’s lass. Handsome woman, too, but ditched after three months. Penelope Mount-joy afore that and heaven knows how many afore her. He has ’em queueing up for him.’

      ‘But he’s only been in his post for a year or so.’

      The voice chuckled. ‘Trying out the new mares.’

      ‘They’re happy to assist, eh?’

      ‘Aye, but not so happy to be left, apparently. Still, if he’s after old Pickering’s heiress, he’ll probably not find any protesting there.’

      The two men joined in the applause though they had not listened to the song, but Adorna’s blood ran cold as she sidled away to the back of the crowd to avoid an invitation to sing, shivering with unease at the sickening words. Even among men it seemed that Sir Nicholas’s reputation as a rake was chuckled over, envied, plotted and predicted, his victims pitied. From the corner of her eye, she identified one of the gossips as her father’s colleague, the Master of the Queen’s Jewels, the other as a superior linen-draper who held a royal warrant.

      Ditched after three months? Trying out the new mares? It was as she had suspected; the man had been amusing himself, teasing her to make her respond to him, despite her obvious antagonism. Then he would blithely go on to the next before choosing how, when and where to include Cousin Hester in his schemes, sure that she would defer to his convenience more than any other. For the hundredth time, she heard the woman’s sob echo through the evening, saw again her last slow touch, her hurried departure into oblivion. Her heart ached for the woman’s pain and for Hester, too, who would have no experience of how to deal with a man’s inconstancy, being unused to dalliance and light-hearted love affairs. Hester would not recognise insincerity if it was branded on a man’s forehead.

      That much was true, though at that precise moment Hester was having no problems with her own brand of innocence СКАЧАТЬ