The Convenient Marriage by Georgette Heyer Read Free Book Online

Personage. One was for ever meeting her, and if a few doors remained obstinately closed against her, she had a sufficient following for this not to signify. That the following consisted largely of men was not likely to trouble her; she was not a woman who craved female companionship, though a faded and resigned lady, who was believed to be her cousin, constantly resided with her. Miss Janet’s presence was a sop thrown to the conventions. Yet, to do them justice, it was not Lady Massey’s morals that stuck in the gullets of certain aristocratic dames. Everyone had their own affaires, and if gossip whispered of intimacies between the fair Massey and Lord Rule, as long as the lady conducted her amorous passages with discretion only such rigid moralists as Lady Winwood would throw up hands of horror. It was the fatal taint of the City that would always exclude Lady Massey from the innermost circle of Fashion. She was not bon ton. It was said without rancour, even with a pitying shrug of well-bred shoulders, but it was damning. Lady Massey, aware of it, never betrayed by word or look that she was conscious of that almost indefinable bar, and not even the resigned cousin knew that to become one of the Select was almost an obsession with her.
    There was only one person who guessed, and he seemed to derive a certain sardonic amusement from it. Robert, Baron Lethbridge, could usually derive amusement from the frailty of his fellows.
    Upon an evening two days after the Earl of Rule’s second visit to the Winwood establishment, Lady Massey held a card-party in Hertford Street. These parties were always well attended, for one might be sure of deep play, and a charming hostess, whose cellar (thanks to the ungenteel but knowledgeable Sir Thomas) was excellently stocked.
    The saloon upon the first floor was a charming apartment, and set off its mistress to advantage. She had lately purchased some very pretty pieces of gilt furniture in Paris, and had had all her old hangings pulled down, and new ones of straw-coloured silk put in their place, so that the room, which had before been rose-pink, now glowed palely yellow. She herself wore a gown of silk brocade with great panniers, and an underskirt looped with embroidered garlands. Her hair was dressed high in a pouf au sentiment, with curled feathers for which she had paid fifty louis apiece at Bertin’s, and scented roses, placed artlessly here and there in the powdered erection. This coiffure had been the object of several aspiring ladies’ envy, and had put Mrs Montague-Damer quite out of countenance. She too had acquired a French fashion, and had expected to have it much admired. But the exquisite pouf au sentiment made her own chien couchant look rather ridiculous, and quite spoiled her evening’s enjoyment.
    The gathering in the saloon was a modish one; dowdy persons had no place in Lady Massey’s house, though she could welcome such freaks as the Lady Amelia Pridham, that grossly fat and free-spoken dame in the blonde satin who was even now arranging her rouleaus in front of her. There were those who wondered that the Lady Amelia should care to visit in Hertford Street, but the Lady Amelia, besides being of an extreme good nature, would go to any house where she could be sure of deep basset.
    Basset was the game of the evening, and some fifteen people were seated at the big round table. It was when Lord Lethbridge held the bank that he chose to make his startling announcement. As he paid on the couch he said with a faintly malicious note in his voice: ‘I don’t see Rule to-night. No doubt the bridegroom-elect dances attendance in South Street.’
    Opposite him, Lady Massey quickly looked up from the cards in front of her, but she did not say anything.
    A Macaroni, with an enormous ladder-toupet covered in blue hair-powder, and a thin, unhealthily sallow countenance, cried out: ‘What’s that?’
    Lord Lethbridge’s hard hazel eyes lingered for a moment on Lady Massey’s