‘That sounds like Connie’s voice,’ Sally said. She sounded suddenly nervous. She put down her napkin. ‘Excuse me, Lady Ottoline.’
Jack followed her out into the hall. The familiar dapper figure of his cousin Bertie Basset was crossing the marble floor towards him. There was a blonde woman with him, achingly fashionable in a suit of cerise with a wide-brimmed hat framing her china-doll face. She was speaking in a light, drawling voice to one of the hapless footmen who was attempting to bring in what looked like vast quantities of luggage.
‘Be careful with that bandbox, you oaf! No, don’t hold it like that—you will squash my hat! And mind little Herman the Dachshund. He does not care for motorcar journeys and may well be sick on you …’
‘Connie!’ Sally said, in failing tones. ‘What are you doing here? Where have you been?’ She flashed Jack a look. ‘We thought—’
‘Sally darling!’ Connie wafted towards her sister on a cloud of expensive perfume. ‘What fun to find you here! We looked for you at the club yesterday, but Matty said that you had gone with Mr Kestrel.’ Her perfectly arched eyebrows rose in a look of wide enquiry. ‘I thought it most odd since I understood that you barely know one another.’ She pouted. ‘Indeed, it was most thoughtless of you not to be there to greet us when we were newly wed and simply aching to share the good news with you!’
‘I am sorry that I missed you,’ Sally said politely.
Connie waved a dismissive hand. ‘No matter. We saw Nell instead, and she was very happy for us.’ She frowned. ‘She was at the club. Apparently she had come to find you to thank you for the money you sent her.’
Jack’s stomach dropped. He looked sharply at Sally. She met his eyes for a brief, guilty moment and then looked away with a studiously feigned lack of interest, fidgeting with the cuff of her blouse before glancing quickly back at him again. Jack raised his brows and smiled at her and she blushed. She looked the picture of guilt. Some of the tight, angry feeling inside Jack eased. He knew now where his two hundred pounds had gone the previous morning. He knew what Sally had wanted the money for. He knew that his original instincts about her had very probably been sound. He felt an overpowering urge to confront her there and then, but unfortunately his new cousin was still holding the floor.
‘I thought Nell looked quite frightful,’ Connie was saying, blithely ignoring everyone else as she gossiped to her embarrassed sister. ‘She was all ragged and thin, but perhaps now that I am Mrs Basset I may be able to help her. It is good to be in a position where one can be charitable … Yes, what is it, Bertie?’ She spoke to her husband in tones of extreme irritation.
‘Sorry to interrupt you, darling,’ Bertie said uncomfortably, ‘but I wanted to introduce my cousin Charlotte Harrington and her husband Stephen, and also my cousin Jack Kestrel—’
‘Mr Kestrel!’ Connie ignored Charley and Stephen completely, but held out a hand to Jack upon which glittered the largest diamond he had ever seen. She was smiling winsomely at him, but it left Jack singularly unmoved. Looking from her little painted face to Sally’s, seeing them together for the first time, he was struck by how very different the two of them appeared. Connie, with her vapid airs and sharp tongue, was exactly how he had imagined her. He thought his cousin an even bigger fool than previously.
‘How do you do, Mrs Basset,’ he said, and Connie preened herself.
‘Connie,’ Sally intervened, ‘what are you doing here? This is Mrs Harrington’s home, you know, and everyone is here for a family party.’
‘Great-Aunt Ottoline’s birthday,’ Jack said helpfully, turning to Bertie. ‘You will have remembered that it is her party, of course, Bertie? She will be delighted to meet your new bride, I am sure.’ He had the pleasure of seeing his cousin turn a gratifying colour of white.
‘I had no notion Aunt Ottoline would be here,’ Bertie choked. ‘Came to see Charley, to ask that she might help smooth our way into the family, don’t you know.’ He looked askance at Jack. ‘Didn’t know you would be here either, Jack, for that matter.’
‘No,’ Jack said. ‘I dare say that if you had you would have thought twice about coming. I have been looking for you on your father’s behalf for the past week.’
Bertie gulped. ‘Deed’s done now,’ he said, ‘signed and sealed. We were married yesterday.’
Connie skipped up to Sally and thrust her hand under her nose. ‘Look at my diamond! Is it not tremendous!’
‘It is extraordinary,’ Sally said. ‘We thought that you might have headed for Gretna Green for your runaway match, Connie.’
‘Gracious, no!’ Connie wrinkled up her nose. ‘I could not possibly get married in such a hole-in-the-corner way! We had a special licence. Bertie bought it weeks ago.’ She caught Sally’s arm, smiling beguilingly. ‘I am sorry to have deceived you about my intentions, Sal, but it was the only way to keep the whole matter secret. I know you would have tried to dissuade me with your tiresome scruples.’
Jack looked at Sally again. She was pale and her face was set. ‘My tiresome scruples,’ she said. ‘Yes, they have always been such a trial to you, have they not, Connie?’ Again, she met Jack’s eyes for a brief moment, but there was no triumph in her own to have been vindicated. She looked hurt and regretful, and Jack felt a sudden fury that Sally could care so much for other people when Connie clearly cared nothing at all for her sister’s feelings.
‘Well, you cannot help yourself, I suppose,’ Connie said, smiling blithely. ‘You always were prim and principled. It was fortunate that I had Bertie to conspire with instead!’
Bertie flushed bright red. ‘I say, old thing,’ he protested, ‘it was not really like that! All we did was plan to raise a bit of cash.’
Jack turned to his cousin.
‘Congratulations on a stunning piece of duplicity,’ he said icily, and watched Bertie wither beneath his contempt. ‘You have nearly driven your own father to his grave with your blackmail, leaving aside the anxiety you have both caused Miss Bowes.’
‘Only wanted enough money to get married, what,’ Bertie said plaintively. ‘Papa wouldn’t countenance it, don’t you know, so Con and I had to think of something.’
‘I’m glad to see that in the end a shortage of funds didn’t stand in the way of true love,’ Jack said bitingly.
‘Papa will probably stop my allowance now it’s happened,’ Bertie said gloomily, ‘but he can’t disinherit me because of the entail.’
‘And his health is poor—’ Connie started to say, then stopped as Bertie shot her a look and Jack realised that even Connie Bowes did not quite have the brass neck to come out with the bald statement that she was merely waiting for her father-in-law to die.
‘I do apologise,’ Sally said, turning to Charley and Stephen, who had been standing watching the exchange in fascinated horror. Jack was not sure whether she was apologising for her sister’s behaviour or Connie’s very existence.
Charley shook her head and gave Sally a squeeze of the hand, which seemed to convey sympathy and support together, then stepped forward hospitably to smooth things over, offering breakfast and to show the newcomers to their room.
‘For if you have travelled from London this morning you must have set off extremely early and be very hungry …’
‘Oh, we stayed in Oxford last night,’ Connie said airily, ‘at the Randolph, you know. Nothing but the best.’
‘She’ll ruin you within a month,’ Jack said to his cousin in an undertone.
Lady Ottoline’s querulous tones, floating from the breakfast room and demanding to know what was going on, put an end to further discussion. Connie picked up a small bag from the floor and thrust it into Sally’s arms. From inside