The Love Child by Fiona Hill

Author:Fiona Hill
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781626814752
Publisher: Diversion Books
Published: 2014-11-03T16:00:00+00:00

8

“I should die in such a case,” Lady Stanton declared to her husband, while administering the final touch of her toilette with a mechanical gesture. She could not concentrate on her reflection, and entirely failed to notice that the eardrop in her right lobe did not match the one in her left. She would never have thought of going out at such a moment anyway, except that this was Sunday and one had—one wanted, in fact—to go to church.

Lord Stanton watched her, fully prepared to depart and walking the length of the room as was his wont. “My dear, things are impossible enough without your exaggerating,” he said, as gently as he could. He was quite as over-set as Lady Stanton, and did not care to hear his own sentiments restated.

“I am scarcely exaggerating,” she brought out, dropping her brush absent-mindedly and turning round to face her lord. “Could you go on living—would you wish to, after all—with such a disgrace as that upon our heads?”

“It is a case of the lesser of two evils,” he muttered, pacing more rapidly. His aimless gyrations brought him alongside of a highly polished Pembroke table, on which lay a little note, neatly folded. He reached for it, did not quite touch it, hesitated an instant with his hand hovering in the air, then faced away from the table abruptly. He knew its contents—knew them perfectly, indeed. It was a second demand from the Contessa di Tremini; Lady Stanton had discovered it beneath her pillow when she retired the previous night. The contessa, it appeared, was not to be satisfied with a single payment: as Lady Stanton had feared, she saw no reason to desist when she had found so successful a formula. This time she wanted a good deal more money. The Stantons could pay it, Lord Walker had told his wife, without being obliged to liquidate their major holdings. However, if they paid the countess from such funds, they would not be able to give Wyborn Amabel’s dowry as promptly as they had promised. The contessa, moreover, had made it clear that she was impatient: time was of the essence.

“Why is she so greedy?” Lady Stanton suddenly burst out tearfully. “To look at her one would never dream she wanted money! And I had understood the late count was very wealthy.” A salty droplet rolled from her eye and down her pretty, fading cheek. She was too distressed to bother with brushing it off, and it fell from her cheek to her chin, and thence to her breast.

“I can’t say, I can’t say,” her husband murmured, as puzzled as her ladyship. “Perhaps she loses at cards.”

“Then she ought to stop gaming.”

Lord Stanton made no reply.

“In any case, you will have to ask Wyborn to wait,” Lady Stanton resumed. “It will put us in an odious position, but that is nothing, I suppose, to what Lady di Tremini’s displeasure might do.”

“Precisely,” said Stanton.

“I do not know how I shall sit through church today,” his wife took up fretfully.

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