The Wildest Rake

She wanted to quarrel with him, to rage and stamp her foot. Irritation, discontent, anger boiled inside her, and she must let them out or die.

The sky darkened. The servants waited to serve supper, but Rendel did not come, and Cornelia, disturbed now, felt her mood of restless excitement draining away in an unaccustomed agitation for him. He had never been so late before. Where could he be? He had sent no message to say he would be late. The servants blankly shook their heads when she enquired.

She was too anxious by then to go to bed. She sat in her chamber, listening for the sound of his footsteps.

The silence of the waiting house was suddenly broken by loud voices, laughter, lurching feet.

She turned towards the door, ears pricked. He was home, and had, it seemed, brought friends with him, but, judging by the noise they were making, they were all drunk.

Bitterly angry, she went to the door and listened. Nan, coming in suddenly, made her start away, flushed, pretending to be unaware of what was happening downstairs. Nan was not deceived. Very fiercely she told her to come and see what was afoot. ‘You should put your foot down,’ she advised in an angry tone.

Cornelia hesitated, then went to the top of the stairs and looked down.

The front door stood wide open. Rendel, flushed and dishevelled but still wildly handsome in his black suit, his curls in complete disorder, was below, talking with a crowd of equally dishevelled guests. They were all strangers to Cornelia, but she knew, at a glance, that these were the sort of companions which she had thought he’d abandoned. The men were rakish town gallants, drunken and careless. The women wore shockingly low necklines, a great many feathers and very bright-coloured gowns. Some even had painted faces.

One of them was caressing Rendel’s chin. ‘Rendel, I am in love with your chin—I like a fellow with a chin as big as that.’

His arm wound round her waist, he laughed into her painted face. ‘Kitty, you lie—it’s not my chin you like.’

She shrieked vulgarly and punched him. ‘Damn, but you’re right. It’s not your big chin, but something else as big.’

They all laughed uproariously.

Cornelia stood in frozen shock, staring down at them. Rendel lifted his head and looked up. Their eyes met for a long moment. Then he bowed. ‘Why, good evening, my lady. Will you not come down and greet our guests?’

There was a stunned silence among the others, who all looked up at her with open, staring eyes.

Then the woman called Kitty hurriedly pulled free of Rendel’s embrace, and said, ‘God have mercy, Rendel, you cannot let your wife come down to us.’

One of the men, shaking his head, agreed. ‘No, no, dear fellow. It isn’t done. Not the wife.’

Rendel’s thin mouth curled in mocking cynicism. ‘Oh, she is docile enough. She does not care what company I keep—so long as it is not hers.’

There was another silence. Then a man said, ‘Ah, marriage a la mode.’

The party roared with laughter again. Rendel waved them forward into the dining-room. He snapped an order to a wooden-faced lackey, then came and stared up at Cornelia.

She still stood at the top of the stairs, torn between a desire to lock herself in her chamber and an equal wish to storm down the stairs and slap her husband’s mocking face.

He bowed ironically. ‘We await you, my dear.’

She raised her chin. She would not let him see the hurt she felt.

Slowly, with the utmost dignity she could muster, she descended, head high, and swept past him into the dining room.

Her seat, at the near end of the long table, had been left vacant. She took it, her face carefully blank, and sat upright, staring at the wall.

Rendel sat down at the opposite end and snapped his fingers. The servants hurried forward to serve wine.

Cornelia could imagine what was happening below stairs in the kitchens. The cook would be in a positive ferment, raging and throwing together a haphazard supper from what was available.

What must the servants be thinking? He

r position in this house would be permanently undermined. If her husband could treat her with such insolence, why should her servants offer her any respect?

If I had any courage, she thought, I would refuse to sit here to be humiliated.

But she knew that she could not face the shame of being forced by Rendel to stay if she tried to leave. She felt sure that he would do so. There was a cruel, dark look on his face whenever he glanced at her.