Paula Marshall - Lord Hadleigh's Rebellion

‘Very well, since you put it so movingly, Lord Hadleigh, I will do as you ask. You must, however, remember your request that we meet as strangers and practise a self-denying ordinance, as the saying has it. Refer to the past again—however remotely—and I will leave you at once.’

‘So noted,’ he replied in a comic parody of a clerk registering the commands of his superior, and again it was as though the years had rolled back and he was teasing her as he had done then. ‘Lead on, Mrs Wardour. You may begin my education.’

He had not been lying to her when he had said that he wished to see the contents of the picture gallery, or else he was a superb actor. He showed a keen interest in the paintings, which ranged from a fourteenth-century panel of the Madonna and Child by a pupil of Duccio to the latest works of the English masters. Lawrence had painted the General himself and they debated briefly whether he deserved to stand alongside the great masters of the past.

‘Reynolds, perhaps, or Gainsborough at his best may merit such an honour,’ was Russell’s verdict, ‘but Lawrence is an extremely competent journeyman, no more.’

‘I think that you know more about painting, Lord Hadleigh, than you suggested earlier.’

‘That is my brother Ritchie’s influence,’ he confessed. ‘He is a gifted water-colourist—but then he is a gifted everything, unlike his slightly older brother.’

There was no bitterness in Russell’s words, nor in his voice, but there was something there which told Mary not of envy or of jealousy, but of a certain wistfulness, of something missed and lost.

‘I have not had the good fortune to meet your brother,’ Mary said, surprised at how easy talking to Russell had become. ‘I remember that he went to Oxford a few years before you when I was still little more than a child.

‘Oh, few people have met him. He resigned from the Army after Waterloo in order to restore the estate which had been left him while he was still a serving officer. He spends most of his time in the country and visits London rarely. As for Oxford, he was excessively precocious and was only fifteen when he matriculated. My father also thought it best that we did not attend there at the same time.’

Again there was that odd note when he referred to his brother. A mixture of pride and something else, hard to judge.

By now they had completed their tour. Russell motioned to a long sofa which stood in front of one of the glories of the collection: a Tintoretto showing the god Jupiter in the shape of a bull abducting Io. The sky above them was a miracle of colour.

Once seated, Russell stared at the painting and a thought which was difficult to resist popped into his head. I ought to have behaved like Jupiter all those years ago and carried Mary off before she had time to change her mind about me. Had I done so, we should not now be sitting primly side by side—and like Ritchie I might be starting a little family of my own.

What would happen if I tried to kiss her now—which would be much less than Jupiter did to Io, of course—but it would serve for a new beginning with her. Merely to sit by her has my unrepentant body behaving as though I am twenty again.

No, I must not! I promised to behave myself, and behave myself I will.

Mary, seated beside him, her hands in her lap, and her mind a whirl of conflicting sensations, was also affected by the painting’s subject. She tried to drive both memory and desire from her. In an effort to banish the unwanted feelings which were beginning to overwhelm her, she turned towards Russell in order to say something banal to him which would return her wandering senses to their proper condition of calm self-control.

She began to speak.

Only to discover that Russell was also turning to her and also beginning to speak.

What they were about to say was never to be known.

As many times before in their lost past when they had found themselves similarly afflicted, they began to laugh. Laughter released them from the unnatural state in which they had been living since they had found one another again.

Russell gave a little cry, something between a moan and an exclamation of exaltation, and put one arm around her. With the other he tipped her face towards him and began to kiss her on the lips. Mary responded by kissing him ardently back. The kiss, which had, at first, been a gentle one, began to change its nature and ascend into passion. That, and their sudden unwanted recollection that they were in a public room where they might be discovered by their fellow guests at any moment, ended the kiss abruptly and left them staring into each other’s eyes aghast.

Laughter and passion had alike flown away.

‘Forgive me,’ said Russell hoarsely.

‘I cannot forgive myself, let alone you,’ Mary said breathlessly. ‘Whatever possessed me to make me start kissing you back? No, do not speak of the past,’ she went on, ‘I see by your expression that you are about to.’

Well, that was true enough, particularly since the present had become unbearable. It was a long time since merely the presence of a woman had roused Russell so rapidly. Even with Caroline true passion had been missing—something which explained why their relationship had deteriorated so rapidly.

He thought of Ritchie’s eyes following Pandora around the room: his rapt expression when she had been cuddling their child. He cursed himself. What was the matter with him that Ritchie and his doings seemed to exist as some kind of reproach to his own empty existence?

Mary saw his face change and, before she could stop herself, put a hand on his arm.

‘What is it, Russell? What troubles you?’

‘Nothing,’ he said abruptly. ‘Only that I am selfish to tease you so, and to jump on you just now, without warning. Whatever could you think of me?’

Honesty won, as it usually did with Mary. ‘I thought how much I was enjoying being jumped on. I suppose that means that I wasn’t really thinking of anything at all. Until I remembered our situation.’

Russell began to laugh and his body began to behave itself. He remembered that one of the reasons why he had loved Mary was her transparent honesty—which made her subsequent behaviour so surprising.

‘You did not find me repellent, then?’

Truth won again. ‘No, I never did.’

The smile which she gave him served to set his recovering body on edge once more.

This would never do. Russell rose, put out his right hand, said, ‘Allow me,’ and lifted her. ‘Is it your wish that I escort you to the drawing room?’

Before Mary could answer him, the door to the gallery was opened by Perry Markham, followed by the Hon. Tom Bertram and a giggling Angelica.

Perry made straight for them, saying, his voice lurching like his walk, ‘We have come to see what could be occupying you so. Not the paintings apparently, Hadleigh, since you had your back to them.’

‘On the contrary,’ said Russell, raising the quizzing glass which he rarely used and inspecting Perry through it. ‘I have been admiring your Duccio, a very rare specimen that, and the Tintoretto behind me. That, too, is a nonpareil, or so both my brother and Mrs Wardour assure me. For my part, I prefer something less showy, like the tiny Watteau—a great favourite of yours, I dare swear.’

Perry goggled at him. Dutch O, What HO, and Tint O—whoever he was! What in the world was the fellow spouting about? Perry Markham might be the heir to rooms full of rare paintings, but he knew nothing about any of them.

‘You see how well Mrs Wardour has been instructing me,’ continued Russell sweetly, using all the charm for which he was justly famous. ‘Pray do tell me, which is your favourite painting? I would be delighted to inspect it.’