Quite taken aback, Denzell stared at her for a moment in silence. Then, from sheer amazement, he laughed. “Bravo, Miss Chaceley! That is the first time I have heard anything on your lips other than polite inanities. Am I to take it that the thaw has set in?”
Without any warning, Verena’s anger dropped right out. There was delight in his tone. Dear heaven, but had she given herself away? Thaw? Then he supposed her to be melting towards him. Was it his mission to thrust through her cultivated control?
Denzell watched the fury vanish into consternation. She had forgotten her countenance. There was puzzlement, too. She didnot know how to take him, that was certain. He could not help but smile.
“There is far more to you than you would have us believe, is there not, Verena?”
He had used her name without thinking, not even noticing that he did so. But Verena noticed. She noticed also a quality of tenderness in his voice. It touched something within her. Something that seemed to thrust straight into her chest so that it seemed to burst asunder, depriving her of breath. It was powerful, frightening. All her control deserted her.
Her lips trembled. Her eyes misted. And everything was in her face. The spangled gown seemed to envelop an ethereal creature, vulnerable and confused.
Remorse gripped Denzell. Without any thought, he put out a hand. “Miss Chaceley —”
“Don’t touch me!”
She stepped smartly back. The action purely instinctive, the words ripped from the panic within. She met his eyes, her own luminous, reproachful, matching the faint note of it in the husky voice with which she addressed him.
“Does it amuse you, Mr Hawkeridge, to prick at the frailties of your fellows?”
He was silenced, shattered by the appalling reaction to this lightest of teasing quips. She had laughed before. How in the world was he to guess that she might break apart like this? What could he say?
But even as he watched, unable to utter a word — for what word might not worsen the work he had already done? — the mask was resuming as she turned from him to walk deliberately away into the thick of the throng.
He watched her for some time, conscious of the most wretched sensation somewhere deep inside himself. For all her outward appearance, however, the incident might never have been.Miss Verena Chaceley was once again the polite serene beauty, shutting him out.
At length he was accosted by his hostess, interested to know what he might have discovered from the Peverill boy. She was destined to disappointment.
“Nothing very much,” Denzell told her.
Unice looked up at him, struck by his manner. “Why, what is the matter, Denzell?”
He met her anxious gaze, conjuring up a smile. His answer came from the heart, without any previous consideration of the question, the decision ready-made.
“The matter is that I must leave you tomorrow, Unice. I am going home.”
Denzell tossed off his wine and dumped the glass down unceremoniously onto the green baize table. He was beginning to loathe this incessant wining and gaming. Not that tonight’s game had been serious, not when he played with his particular cronies.
He was aware that his boredom had communicated itself to his friends, for there was silence about the table, and no one had offered to begin another rubber. Denzell was thankful for that at least. Chaste stars, but this season was tedious!
Reaching out, he lifted the half-full bottle and poured himself another glass from one of the better offerings from the club’s cellars. He did not notice two of his companions exchanging significant glances. Despising the stuffy political correctness of both Brooks’s and White’s, Denzell and his cronies were in general to be found, on those evenings when no other interesting entertainment presented itself during the busy London season, enjoying the more convivial atmosphere of Boodle’s. Its aspect might be modest compared with those of its chief rivals, but within the arrangements were agreeable, promoting a relaxedand easy camaraderie among itshabitués. They might enjoy its amenities in comfort, frock-coats, buckskins and top-boots being acceptable wear even in the evening.
It had offered tonight, to Denzell, a respite from the incessant round of socialising he was beginning to find irksome. Not to mention the women thrust into thetonfor the picking: An insipid collection with a sameness that could only pall on his jaded spirit. Why it should seem so, why he should feel so bored, so restless, he could not imagine. Deuce take it, it was barely March. Yet he was conscious of a sense of frustrated irritation that grew ever stronger with the arrival of each new gilt-edged invitation.
Lounging like this — Denzell was in thedishabilleof shirt-sleeves — with his three particular friends, about a gaming table in one of the smaller rooms, was at least less demanding than the rest. Yet the cards lay abandoned from the desultory game of whist. A moment later, however, he wished they had gone on playing.
“Now, lookee, Hawk,” said Mr Aldous Congleton suddenly, leaning across the table and wagging an admonishing bony finger, “ye’ve a deal of explaining to do.”
Denzell glanced across the table at the lean-featured face of his friend, with its long thin nose poking at him in a manner that filled him with dismay. Oh no. He had been expecting this. It had been too much to hope that his lack of interest in the current season would pass unnoticed. He made no attempt to deflect the question, but the belligerence of his voice was intended as a warning.
“Have I now?”
It did not deter Mr Congleton. He jerked the nose in a bird-like nod. “Ye have, Hawk. Been meaning to tackle ye this age.”
“That’s right,” agreed the deep voice of another gentlemen to Denzell’s left.
Mr Cyril Bedale, whose large bulk formed a stark contrast to the stick-like stature of Congleton, did not attempt to move from the chair where he was sprawling, his hands folded comfortably across the protrusion of his belly under a double-breasted waistcoat, for the moment unbuttoned.
“Can’t expect to hoodwink your friends, old fellow,” he observed in a tone not untinged with sympathy.
