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.’
Perry gazed wildly around the room before pointing at a Fragonard oil of a pretty courtesan and saying, ‘Oh, that, I suppose.’
‘Really,’ teased Russell, swinging around and bringing his glass to bear on it. ‘I can’t read the painter’s name from here. Do tell me who he is.’
Perry continued to goggle helplessly at him. Mary, to save the poor wretch from further embarrassment, said helpfully, ‘It’s by Fragonard and its title is Girl with One Slipper.’
The Hon. Tom, not so fuddled as his host’s son, exclaimed, ‘I like it, but it’s a trifle warm, is it not? Shouldn’t be hung where the ladies can see it.’
‘Really!’ exclaimed a tittering Angelica, who was behaving as though she, too, had spent the evening drinking, ‘Do let me look,’ and she swayed over to the painting, past the amused Russell and inspected it closely.
‘It looks quite ordinary,’ she announced disappointedly.
Mary, whose attempt to spare Perry from Russell’s naughtiness had backfired badly, and who was determined to reprimand him in private for roasting the poor ignoramus so mercilessly, announced, ‘Oh, dear, Lord Hadleigh, I am most dreadfully thirsty. I should imagine that by now lemonade and other light refreshments will be being served.’
‘Quite so,’ agreed the Hon. Tom. ‘We came here to get away from them.’
Russell, bent towards her and put out a gallant arm. ‘Allow me, Mrs Wardour. I, too, feel in need of light refreshments. I have no wish to be overset by the heavy.’
‘Stop it,’ Mary hissed furiously into his ear when she took his arm. ‘I am having difficulty in keeping a straight face while you engage in your nonsense—and he is our host’s son.’
‘Delighted to oblige you,’ Russell almost carolled, so pleased was he that Mary was at last treating him as a fellow human being and not an obstruction in her path. ‘You must continue to instruct me in proper conduct during the remainder of my stay here, most improving, exactly what I need.’
‘Did he really mean that?’ asked a baffled Angelica when Russell and Mary had disappeared through the door. She was the only one who had heard Russell’s reply to Mary. Fortunately, she had not heard Mary’s remark which had provoked it.
‘Mean what?’ asked Perry, who was now fuddled in a double sense. Firstly through the amount he had drunk and secondly through Russell’s nonsense about painting and artists.
‘About Mrs Wardour instructing him.’
Perry shook his head—and then wished he hadn’t. He thought that it might be about to fall off. The Hon. Tom, who was uneducated, but not a fool, said slowly, ‘He didn’t mean any of it. He was roasting us.’
‘Was he, by God!’ exclaimed Perry making a staggering run for the door. ‘I’ll teach him what’s what and no mistake.’
‘No, you won’t,’ said the Hon. Tom. ‘In the condition you’re in he’d make mincemeat of you. They say he’s as good with the gloves, the foils and the pistols as that brother of his. Besides, you’d only be proclaiming that he’d riled you. Refuse him