Paula Marshall - The Wolfe's Mate

But that was not all that he saw—or experienced—either when she rose to greet him, or when he took her hand to kiss its back after the continental fashion of which he knew Madame la Comtesse would approve. For, seeing Susanna for the first time as a woman, and neither as an object destined to bring about his long-awaited revenge on the Wychwoods, nor as the wretched nuisance who had been carried off as the result of his own folly, had the oddest effect on him.

That indomitable spirit, which had allowed Susanna to overcome the series of disasters which had afflicted her since her father’s death, shone through the envelope of flesh which clothed it, and, in doing so, touched Ben Wolfe’s own proud and unyielding soul.

There was nothing of the flesh about this experience for either of them. It affected Ben the more strongly and immediately precisely because it was so different from anything he had ever known before. It was not Susanna’s fine eyes, or her tender mouth, nor her carefully arranged and lustrous hair, or even the delicate figure revealed by the arts of a Parisian dressmaker, attractive though these were, which were having such a strong effect on him.

No, it was something more, something which passed his understanding and which made him see Susanna in a totally new light. And when he took her small hand in his to kiss the back of it, a shudder passed through both of them.

Susanna’s eyes widened and she withdrew her hand as though it had been stung. Nevertheless, so instantaneous was their reaction that even the keen-eyed Comtesse did not notice that Ben Wolfe and the pretty young woman whom he was now presenting to her were sharing something which neither of them could explain.

Why meeting Ben Wolfe again after a short absence should affect her so differently and so profoundly from her first sight of him, Susanna did not know. Perhaps, she told herself, it was my anger at being so vilely mistreated on his orders which made my first reaction to him one of acute distaste. That, and the harsh manner in which we both attacked one another.

But I must not trust him until he has proved that he is worthy to be trusted—he and this grande dame who has sprung from nowhere and whose reputation for virtue is such that the whole world knows of it.

As though he had just read her mind, Ben said, ‘Madame de Saulx has kindly consented to join with me in arranging that you shall suffer nothing from the mischance which has befallen you today. We shall speak of it later at our leisure, after we have enjoyed the excellent meal which the butler tells me the chef has prepared for us.’

Thus, she had no alternative but to fall in with his wishes when Madame de Saulx said approvingly in her prettily accented English, ‘What a splendid notion, cher Ben. I hope Miss Beverly will understand that all her troubles are now over, and that she has nothing more to fear.’

‘Other than that when I do return to the Westerns, whatever explanation we may offer them, they will almost certainly terminate my employment,’ Susanna could not prevent herself from saying.

‘Oh, as to that, my dear young lady,’ Madame reassured her, ‘you need have no fear. One way or another you will be taken care of. It is the very least that Mr Wolfe can do for you after causing you so much mental and physical agony as a consequence of his foolishness. Is not that so, cher Ben?’

Susanna was pleased to see that, for once, ‘cher Ben’ looked a trifle discomfited by this rebuke. Jess Fitzroy even smiled a little at it, only to earn from Madame a rebuke of his own. ‘And you need not smirk so condescendingly at your employer, Mr Fitzroy, for your own part in this unhappy business is not without its share of blame.’

Bravo, Madame, was Susanna’s inward comment, even as the butler entered to inform them that dinner was served, and Mr Fitzroy proceeded to offer her his arm so that they might properly follow Madame la Comtesse and Mr Wolfe into the dining room where she might forget for a time her unfortunate predicament.

‘Allow me, Miss Beverly,’ said Ben, ‘to inform you at length of the measures which I have taken to explain your strange disappearance from London earlier today.’

They were all back in the Turkish drawing room again; the inevitable teaboard before them. They had just enjoyed the excellent meal which Ben had promised them. During it they had spoken only of the lightest matters, such as the health of the present monarch; the latest scandal about that old and faded figure, the Prince Regent; of his equally faded and scandalous wife, Princess Caroline of Wales; the recent birth of the Princess Victoria and even, at Madame’s instigation, of the change in women’s dress brought about by the slight lowering of the waistline.

‘So there you have it, Miss Beverly,’ said Ben, after he had finished outlining his plans for Susanna’s immediate future. ‘Madame has agreed to be our saviour and we can but hope that you will approve of the arrangements which we have made to bring about such a happy outcome.’

‘I am struck dumb by your ingenuity,’ returned Susanna, ‘and can only hope that it will impress the Westerns sufficiently to save me. Were anyone with a reputation less than that of Madame’s to sponsor me, I believe that the task might be difficult, nay, impossible, but, as it is—’ she shrugged her shoulders ‘—I can only thank her for her kindness and condescension in offering to assist me at such short notice.’

Madame’s glance for her was an approving one. ‘Properly and graciously spoken,’ she said, ‘as I am sure Mr Wolfe will acknowledge.’

Ben put down a china teacup which was so small that his big hand dwarfed it. ‘With one small rider,’ he added. ‘Much, I fear, depends on the fact that Miss Beverly’s own reputation is a spotless one. I was a little perturbed by a statement which she made to me earlier this afternoon to the effect that she possessed neither fortune nor reputation, and that by carrying her off I had destroyed the last remnants of the latter. I wonder if you would care to enlarge on that, Miss Beverly, so that we might all know where we stand?’

The white smile which he offered Susanna as he asked his question had her mentally echoing Red Riding Hood again: Oh, Grandma, what big teeth you have! It was plain that little said or done escaped him, and although she had no wish to tell Ben Wolfe of all people her sad story, let alone two other strangers on whose charity she now depended, tell it she must.

What was it that her father had said to her when she was a child? ‘Speak the truth and shame the devil, my dear.’ Well, she would do exactly that.

Aloud, after a little hesitation, she said, ‘The explanation for my remark is a simple one. I believe that what happened to me should cause no one to think any the worse of me, but the world chooses to believe quite otherwise. Four years ago I was jilted by Lord Sylvester. He was cruel enough to leave me waiting for him at the altar where I received, not my bridegroom, but a letter informing me that he no longer wished to marry me.

‘You must all be aware of what such an action does to the reputation of a woman, however innocent she might be, and I was truly innocent—but I was ruined, none the less. No man wishes to marry a woman who has been jilted.’

Madame said thoughtfully. ‘So, you are that Miss Beverly, the late William Beverly’s only child and heiress. I did wonder if you might be, but I thought it would be considered tactless to question you on the matter if you proved not to be her.’

Ben Wolfe, however, leaned forward in his chair, intent it seemed, on quizzing her further.

‘You say that you are employed by the Westerns as a duenna. I was out of England at the time and consequently knew nothing of the scandal which followed. But if you are the India merchant William Beverly’s heiress, how is it that you have descended into becoming a duenna, a paid servant? He was as rich as Croesus, to my certain knowledge.’