But Denzell hardly heard him. The oddest sensations were taking place inside him. Warmth burgeoned so strongly that he felt it as expanding heat racing through his veins. The vision that had haunted him — that golden, glowing image of vivacity — was playing in his head. And then, throwing it all out of gear, the picture of her lovely face, the mask shimmering into fragments.
He had known it. All the time he had known it. She was as soft as he believed. It was all a sham, a shield erected against the world. To protect herself — poor, sweet, aching princess. What a cursed fool he had been!
Briefly, he thought again of the Chaceleys. A surge of something unnameable set his chest almost to bursting. It was — ludicrously, for he had no real reason to think it, he knew — as if Bevis had disowned her.
The turmoil inside him had coalesced into a single, driving need. The same intolerable urgency that had made him leave Tunbridge Wells. Only this time, it was having an opposite effect.
He seized his friend’s arm. “Ossie, is she still there?”
“Of course she is. She visits Unice every day.”
A long sigh escaped Denzell, and he rocked back on his heels, smiling at his friend. “In that case, dear boy, you may expect me for the season.”
There were shouts of triumph from his cronies, but he did not care. It was as if a mist had lifted, and he knew now what he must do.
Osmond cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, I may, may I? I suppose I need not ask why.”
Denzell grinned, light of heart all at once. “That, dear boy, is obvious. I must pay my respects to the new Miss Ruishton.”
Tunbridge Wells in August, at the height of its season, was a very different matter, Denzell discovered, from the dreary place he had visited at Christmas last.
For one thing, here he was, having barely swallowed his breakfast, already abroad among the brightest of chattering company, having been dragged down to the Pantiles by a determined Unice, eager to thrust her prize into notice. Whose particular notice he did not enquire too closely, but he wasconscious of a thrill of anticipation that threatened to swamp him before ever he caught sight of the face that had been haunting him so diligently all this while.
The main venue for most of the season’s events had, in addition, shifted to the Upper Assembly Room, where the heat of summer was the better accommodated in the more spacious edifice, and the brave colours of past fashions — many elderly matrons despising the white muslin now so prevalent among the London belles with their extraordinary high waists — were set off by the superior ornamentation.
Denzell’s own town apparel — a dark blue cloth coat over the latest pantaloons of dull yellow with his feet encased in Hussar buskins — felt somewhat odd in this outmoded assembly. But Unice had assured him it would be acceptable; indeed, there were one or two middle-aged smarts attired in this daring new fashion.
Not so the exquisite Sir John Frinton, one of the first people to hail Denzell, suave as always in blue and cream. He came up, grinning broadly, and winked.
“Now here is a sight I hardly thought to see. How do, my young friend? What brings you to our dull delights? Or dare I ask?”
“What but the pleasure of seeing you again, Sir John,” responded Denzell, shaking hands. “Can you doubt it?”
“With ease, my dear boy, with ease,” returned the aged exquisite, laughing. He looked about him. “I am desolated to disappoint you in your undoubted quest.”
“How do you know what is my quest, sir?” demanded Denzell, grinning.
Sir John twinkled. “Intuition, Hawkeridge.” He leaned close. “I will give you a cautionary hint, however.”
Denzell’s chest dropped. What? A rival, perhaps? There had been, after all, a previous amour and the man was back? Or — deuce take it, don’t say she had gone!
“A hint?” He managed a light tone.
“Look about you,” said Sir John, wafting a well-manicured hand. “What do you see?”
“A swelling of your numbers, that is all.”
“Ah, yes, but whom? I will tell you. A predominance of aged devotees — as aged as I, alas — returning with sentimental loyalty to the once fashionable haunt of their own youths.”
He was right, Denzell realised. The place was full of elderly folk, mostly raddled women. He became aware, as his eye passed about them, that a number of them were eyeing him surreptitiously, with that speculative gleam with which he was all too familiar.
“Oh, the deuce,” he muttered. “Matchmakers in force.”
“Precisely, my dear boy,” laughed Sir John. “Danger awaits you here. Don’t you see the hopefuls about them?”
And, indeed, there were in evidence several young women, flimsily clad in the new muslins, and apparently in attendance on their elders. Denzell had not noticed them. But he did now, seeing at once in one or two eyes as they looked away from his glance, those flickers of interest that would, but a few months back, have piqued him into selecting a potential flirt.
“You see them?” queried Sir John, his amusement plain. “Indigent relatives, one and all. It is all the fault of one such who came here a year or two since. A delightful girl. She married a local marquis.”
