The Other Daughter Page 18

  It was all part of the masquerade, she assured herself. People would think it odd if she didn’t, and, given the flimsiness of her credentials, she couldn’t risk a crack in the facade, anything that might mark her out, in the laughing term of one of Cece’s friends, as “non-U.”

  At least, that was what she told herself. When it came down to it, it was far easier to gossip about whether He-Evelyn would propose to She-Evelyn than to wonder whether her father was receiving an envelope … opening it … extracting the picture inside.

  Since that awful day at Ardmore House, she had sent three pictures to her father, each enclosed in a sheet of blank paper, each with a brief message on the back.

  The first had been the hardest.

  Rachel had sat, cross-legged, on the bed, with the frame in her hands. It was real silver, that frame—pukka, her new friends would call it—but her mother would never have considered selling it. Rachel had never really noticed the frame before. Her eye had always been drawn to the picture within, her parents together, so very young. Her mother’s eyes looked out at the viewer, but her father’s eyes, by accident or design, were on her mother’s dark head, and filled with an expression of such reverence that it had, in her romantic youth, made Rachel’s heart clench.

  It did now, too, but for very different reasons.

  Ruthlessly, she had detached the photograph from the frame, and written, in as near a facsimile of her mother’s hand as she could manage, Pray, love, remember.

  Ophelia’s line to Hamlet, after he had rejected and abandoned her. Just before she flung herself into the river.

  Let him open that at the breakfast table, Rachel had thought vengefully. Let him be sitting smugly over his kipper and coffee and see that, hear that still, small voice from the past. Let him see that and squirm on his padded seat.

  And wonder.

  Four days later, Rachel sent another. Her mother was a shadowy presence behind her at the church fete, her broad-brimmed hat casting a shadow over her face, nearly obscuring the familiar brooch she wore on her breast, with its entwined E and K. Rachel was seven or eight, in braids and buttoned boots, and a too-short white frock with a wide sash at the waist. She could remember that frock, her mother fretting over there being no more material to let out.

  “Growing like a weed,” she had said, surveying her daughter with fond resignation. “You’ll be tall, like your father’s people.”

  How much had it cost her mother, to speak of her father without hurt or rancor? If she resented what he had done, leaving them, she never let it show.

  It was harder than Rachel had thought to find a third picture without landmarks or identifying features, a picture old enough that her father wouldn’t be able to see her childhood self in Vera Merton’s painted face. Most of her childhood pictures had been taken by the vicar, who, for all his unworldliness, had a child’s enthusiasm for new gadgets, some of which worked and most of which didn’t. Alice was in nearly all of them, her fair head next to Rachel’s dark one, their arms about each other’s waists.

  Rachel couldn’t bring herself to take the scissors and snip them apart; as if in doing so, she would be cutting the last link that anchored her to her old life, the life where she was simply and confidently Rachel Woodley.

  She found herself missing Alice with a fierce longing. Her fingers had twitched toward the phone—and then fallen away again.

  In the end, Rachel had chosen a picture taken two years after her father had died—two years after he had left them, she corrected herself. Cousin David had snapped her on the pier at the seaside, grinning unrepentantly at the camera, proudly displaying the gap where one of her upper teeth had been.

  No Shakespeare this time. Instead, Rachel wrote, Do you know where your daughter is?

  It was only after she had sent it off that she became aware that it might be construed more than one way.

  And where was her father’s other daughter?

  Rachel glanced unobtrusively toward the entrance, where gypsies mingled with witches, swamis, and the inevitable harlequins, the costume of least resistance. It was past midnight, and there was still no sign of Lady Olivia and Mr. Trevannion.

  What if they had decided not to attend?

  It had been maddening sending those letters off into the world, never knowing whether her father had received them. She knew he was still at Ardmore House; the Court Circular had been her friend in this. He had lingered in London, speaking at the Lords, escorting his wife to flower shows and garden parties, debutante dances and private concerts, events well above Rachel’s touch, even as Vera Merton. There were Londons within London, a protected circle to which Rachel had no hope of entrée.

  The earl’s pictures in The Tatler told nothing; the flash could make even the healthy look ill, the resolute look alarmed.

  Cece was no use; she was persona non grata with Lady Ardmore, and knew little of what went on inside the household. When Rachel had mentioned, delicately, that it seemed her uncle was lingering in London, Cece had only shrugged, and said that it must be Jicksy’s twenty-first, heaven only knew they had done everything but hire elephants, and had she told Vera that she had acquired the most smashing dress—the cleverest little woman, my dear—and wasn’t it just like Aunt Violet to be too mean to put them up at Caffers before the dance but was making them stay with the Grandisons, too deadly, darling; nothing but hunting talk, endless hunting talk, and with whom was Vera staying?

  Rachel had hastily changed the subject. At the moment, she wasn’t staying with anyone at all. She assumed that she could crash the dance—with so many invited, surely one more would occasion no comment—but finding someone to house her was a trickier task.

  Rather ridiculous to hope she might wrangle an invitation to Caffers when she couldn’t even get herself back through the door of Ardmore House.

  Blast it all, where was Olivia? Rachel’s fingers fumbled on the clasp of her bag as she drew out a fresh cigarette to place in her holder, masking her anxiety in the familiar ritual of clicking the flame of her lighter.

  “I hope that frown doesn’t mean that you’ve read something nasty in the cards.”

  Rachel looked up to find Mr. Trevannion standing just beside her, his hair wind-tousled, a half smile on his lips.

  “Mr. Trevannion!” The lighter gave a cough and a sputter, and the small flame died. “I thought you didn’t believe in such things.”

  “Not in the general way, no. But I hope I am open to conviction.” Mr. Trevannion extracted his own lighter from his pocket, clicked the top open. Unlike Simon’s, it wasn’t a minor work of art; it was the cheap sort that could be picked up at any tobacconist’s. “May I?”

  “Thanks, awfully.” Rachel put the cigarette holder between her lips, leaning in to the flame. “And that was a very politic answer, Mr. Trevannion.”

  “But true,” he said. He slipped the lighter back into his pocket, where it jangled against a handful of coins. “And hadn’t you better call me John? One doesn’t stand on ceremony at events such as this.”

  Rachel gestured with her cigarette holder, which might not be proper gypsy attire, but was nonetheless de rigueur for her other masquerade. Costumes layered upon costumes. “And yet you’re so terribly formal.”

  There was no costume for Mr. Trevannion. Her sister’s fiancé was impeccably turned out in tails, a white silk scarf around his neck, a high-crowned black hat in his hands.

  John turned his high-crowned hat over in his hands, as though unsure what to do with it. “I’ve just come from the Massinghams’. They had rather more in the way of imperial orders and somewhat fewer gypsies.”

  “One imagines they would.” Rachel glanced casually over her shoulder. “Did Lady Olivia accompany you?”

  “Properly speaking, I accompanied Lady Olivia,” said John, with that wry little half smile that brought out the dimple in his cheek. “Although there don’t seem to be such firm rules about such things these days.”

  “None at all,” Rachel
agreed, giddy with relief. Her mad plan might have a chance after all. Taking Mr. Trevannion’s hat from his hands, she led him over to the side of the room. “There’s not really a hatstand, I’m afraid, but if you stash your hat over there, below that ottoman, you might save it from being squashed.”

  Mr. Trevannion—John—stepped back as Rachel suited action to words, stowing the high-crowned hat beneath a rather dilapidated red velvet footstool. “You’re very good.”

  “Call it practical, rather.” Rachel straightened, dusting off her hands on the red chiffon skirts, which, by dint of the addition of several fringed shawls, had been converted to a gypsy costume. “A good hat is a terrible thing to waste.”

  John shook his head slightly. “I stand by my earlier opinion.” The expression of frank admiration on his face made the compliment seem more than just words. Jokingly, he said, “Are you quite sure you’re Montfort’s cousin?”

  The words were spoken in jest, of course. They had to be. There was no reason for the little shiver of alarm to run down Rachel’s spine.

  Rachel scooped her cocktail up off the ottoman, wrapping her fingers around the stem of the glass. “What do you have against Simon? Not that he can’t be perfectly infuriating on general principle.”

  “I don’t—” John began, and then broke off, laughing uncomfortably. “Oh, why not? He wrote a rather scathing article about a piece I wrote, on disarmament.”

  Rachel raised her perfectly plucked brows. “I hadn’t thought the Man About Town involved himself much in politics.”

  “This one, he put under his own name.”

  “What did he have to say?” asked Rachel, genuinely curious. It was hard to imagine Simon serious about anything.

  But he had been, a bit, that day at Heatherington House, and again when she had descended on him in his flat, that miserable, desperate afternoon. Beneath the barbs and the wit for wit’s sake, there had been a thread of something, something real and dark and serious.

  John shrugged. “Oh, the usual blather about the perfidy of our allies and another war being just around the corner. You know the sort.”

  “He’s certainly not the only one to think so,” said Rachel cautiously. The headlines of the papers screamed similar warnings every day.

  “And what better way to create another war than to wave guns in the face of our allies?” said John vehemently. “It’s men like Montfort who set us back decades. If we want to see peace in our time, we need more cooperation, not less. Naturally, the crusty old army sorts all took up his call. I nearly lost my seat.”

  Rachel looked up sharply. “Did you?”

  Her mind churned with possibilities. Lady Ardmore had been willing to settle for a rising politician for Olivia. But what if the rising politician ceased to rise? What then? Would the match be retracted with a polite notice in The Morning Post?

  John scrubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “It was a close-run thing. Mine is a fairly conservative constituency.”

  A pocket borough, Simon had called it. Were there even such things anymore? Mere nastiness, Rachel decided.

  “But you prevailed in the end,” she said lightly. “When do you and the Lady Olivia marry?”

  “Oh, not until after Jicksy’s twenty-first.” As if he realized how vague that sounded, John added hastily, “They make rather a thing of the coming of age of the heir, the Standishes. And we’re in no hurry, Olivia and I. We do have the rest of our lives, after all.”

  He didn’t sound quite so pleased by it as he could.

  “I’m sure Lady Olivia will be a brilliant hostess.” Rachel took a deep drag on her cigarette. After three weeks, she had mastered the art of doing so without coughing. “Such an asset to you. I understand Lady Ardmore is very active in Conservative circles?”

  John discovered a certain interest in the heavy silk folds of his scarf. “Yes. Lady Ardmore is quite … forceful.” His eyes met Rachel’s, ruefully amused. “I appreciate her dedication—even if we don’t always see eye to eye on matters of policy.”

  On an impulse, Rachel said, “Whatever are you doing with the Tories?” Trying to soften her words, she said, “Your ideas sound … well, a bit progressive for that lot.”

  John grinned at her. “Mr. Churchill said somewhat the same thing to me last week. In a far less attractive guise.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Rachel. “Compliment taken. But why, then?”

  John thought for a moment. “I believe in Mr. Baldwin. He’s a good man. A thoughtful man. As long as he remains at the helm…”

  “And if he doesn’t? What then?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it?” John’s lips quirked in a smile. “Has anyone told you that you’re really quite perceptive?”

  Rachel could feel her cheeks warm beneath the layers of powder and rouge. She shrugged, saying, in her best Madame Zelda voice, “It is all in the cards, you know. Merely cross the palm with silver and hear the secrets of the ages! Or something like.”

  “You don’t have to spout that nonsense,” John said indulgently. “Not for me.”

  Rachel drew her fringed shawl more firmly around her. “You don’t like my Madame Zelda?”

  “It’s not that.” He was looking at her, looking through the silk fringe, the face paint, the gaudy trappings. “You pretend to be like the rest of them. But you’re not, are you?”

  He didn’t know the half of it.

  For a mad moment, Rachel wondered what it would be if she told him the truth, then and there. That she wasn’t an international heiress with a taste for the clavichord. That she was, in fact, nothing more than a nursery governess in fancy feathers and a borrowed flat. My name is Rachel Woodley …

  But she couldn’t. Not now, and particularly not with him.

  “You can’t think what a relief it is,” John was saying, “to have someone sensible to talk to at these things.”

  “That’s one way of putting it. My cousin”—Rachel looked automatically over her shoulder—“tells me I’m hopelessly bourgeois in my outlook.”

  John was touchingly indignant on her behalf. “I should call that a compliment.” He cast a disparaging look around the room. “Especially among this lot.”

  Pat on her cue, Cece swirled in upon them, resplendent in a gold lamé and crimson feathers. “There you are! We’ve been looking everywhere for you, you naughty, naughty things.”

  Behind her stood Lady Olivia Standish, the opposite of resplendent in dull pink chiffon, unbecoming flounces, and drooping roses.

  “Cece! Lady Olivia!” Rachel covered her confusion with an excess of enthusiasm, slopping her drink in the process, all too aware of John’s presence beside her, as though she’d been caught with her finger in someone else’s pie.

  One was allowed to chat about politics without feeling as though there were anything sordid about it. That was what one did at cocktail parties. Chat. And drink. She oughtn’t to be feeling so flustered.

  It was Simon, standing behind them, watching her with a decidedly ironical eye, who had put the idea in her head. Simon and his ridiculous notion that she had an eye on her sister’s fiancé.

  Rachel gathered up her drink and her draperies. “Darlings!” she exclaimed. “You’ve been an age!”

  “We’ve been an age?” Cece wagged a finger at her. “We ought to be very cross with you, oughtn’t we? I’ve been looking everywhere. Livvy wants her fortune told, don’t you, Livvy?”

  Lady Olivia looked as though she wanted nothing of the kind. And why should she? Her future was assured. Marriage to John and a cozy mansion in Eaton Square.

  “Surely you don’t need a crystal ball for that?” Rachel moved away from John with a swish of silk fringe. “I see orange blossoms and white tulle…”

  “And a voyage over the water?” drawled Simon.

  He’d dressed as a sort of swami, in a purple turban, puffy pants, and a pasteboard scimitar at his waist. He ought to have looked ridiculous.

  He didn’t.

  Ra
chel flicked ash from her cigarette, striking a provocative pose. “Does the Thames count?”

  Simon folded his arms across his chest, every inch the pasha. “Better make it the Seine, at least. Far more romantic.”

  Rachel wasn’t going to allow him the last word. “If filled with frogs?”

  “A geographical hazard.”

  “Oh, do stop being ridiculous.” Cece gave Simon a little push. The force of the movement made her stumble on her high-heeled slippers. Swaying toward Rachel, she said imperiously, “You do have your cards?”

  “They’re about somewhere.” Rachel had made sure to practice before leaving the flat, although she had hoped that, in the general scrum, she wouldn’t be called upon to perform. Cunningly, she said, “But wouldn’t you rather another drink first?”

  She kept one eye on Lady Olivia, who was looking distinctly uncomfortable. And no wonder in that dress.

  She couldn’t let Lady Olivia leave. Not yet. Rachel’s latchkey had been left at home, for verisimilitude—and so she couldn’t get cold feet.

  “Your glass is decidedly empty,” said Simon to Cece. “Allow me to escort you to the bar.”

  He raised a brow at Rachel over Cece’s head. Giving Rachel a chance to beg off the card reading? Reminding her to take the opportunity to further her acquaintance with her sister? Rachel wasn’t sure. With Simon, one never was. One simply had to seize the main chance as it was offered.

  “No need.” With an arch smile, Cece held aloft a battered silver flask. “I nicked this off Tommy Digby.”

  “Darling, not Tommy!” The role came so easily by now. “After what happened last time…”

  “Any port in a storm,” said Simon blandly.

  “It’s gin, actually,” said Rachel, just to see Simon raise a brow in exaggerated disgust. Since Cece seemed determined to stay for the show, Rachel said dutifully to Lady Olivia, “Shall we have a go with the cards?”