The Dollar Prince's Wife

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‘Ah, yes, when all I had to do was take foster-Daddy’s handouts, get him to destroy Greer and all my enemies for me. Say pretty please, Uncle Jack and Uncle Alan, and let them run my life for me.

‘Oh, Perfesser, I thought you knew me better than that! Besides, the peanuts I stole from Bratt’s Crossing and San Miguel became the wealth of the Indies when I lit out from the West and arrived on Wall Street and began to trade with it. What did you do with your pile, Perfesser, sir?’

‘The same as you. Made myself richer. Returned to the bosom of my remaining family, began a career in politics for the hell of it—no illusions there—Republican infighting is merely San Miguel writ large.’

‘Oh, the whole world is merely San Miguel writ large,’ remarked Cobie dismissively, ‘my father and Sir Alan notwithstanding.’

‘Then that being so, shall we pillage it separately—or together?’

Cobie’s crack of laughter was spontaneous.

‘Neither, I’m resting. I’m having a holiday which I haven’t done since I last saw you. My foster-sister wishes me to marry, hence my earlier comment. My foster-father wants me to settle down. Sir Alan, I suspect, wants me to think of a future in England—the Dilhorne branch here has become too respectable. He believes I may be a buccaneer and wants to have the pleasure of watching one of the family live up to its somewhat dubious past. My foster-father’s father was transported to New South Wales and made his pile there. You may judge how legitimately if I tell you that I am supposed to resemble him somewhat.’

Mr Van Deusen thought that the resemblance might be stronger than that.

‘Your grandfather?’ he ventured.

Cobie’s grin was nasty. It came all the way from San Miguel, and belonged to the boy gunman who had terrorised that outlaw township.

‘Oh, that would be telling. Now give me your address, both here and in the States, and after that we had better return to the reception. My brother-in-law suspects me of wanting to escape my responsibilities to him and his wife, and he is determined that for once I shall conform.’

‘That would be a small miracle in itself,’ remarked Van Deusen thoughtfully. ‘Though outwardly you are a model of the perfect English gentleman, no transatlantic odour stains your person.’

‘Aren’t I just,’ agreed Cobie cheerfully. ‘The original chameleon, that’s me. Now, let us go back, and I will introduce you not only to the ineffable Violet, who is temporarily bound to me with hoops of steel, but to several of her friends who are as accommodating as Kate’s girls in the Silver Dollar, if a little cleaner. We mustn’t let your stay in London be disappointing in any respect.’

Oh, I’m sure it won’t be that, thought Mr Van Deusen, following Apollo back into the ballroom, not with Jumpin’ Jake to entertain me!

Perhaps, ironically, the first person whom they met when they were about to leave the library was innocent young Lady Dinah Freville. Dinah, bored by the whole wretched business of pretending she was enjoying an event where everyone’s eyes passed over her unseeingly, was just entering it in search of more agreeable entertainment.

She stared at Cobie and the man to whom he was speaking, or rather, with whom he was laughing. A man whom she had heard Violet describing as ‘yet another Yankee vulgarian to whom Kenilworth wishes me to be polite’.

Well, he couldn’t be all that vulgar if Mr Grant was enjoying his company so much. She smiled at him, and said, a trifle breathlessly, ‘Were you bored, too, Mr Grant? Won’t you introduce me to your friend?’

It was true that he was a rather unlikely friend for Mr Grant. He was middle-aged with the hard face which Dinah had come to recognise as belonging to those visiting Americans who had, in society’s words, ‘made their pile’. Although Mr Grant, reputed to be immensely rich by his own efforts, was not like any of them.

Mr Grant was smiling at her now, and saying, ‘Lady Dinah, I should be delighted to introduce you to an old friend of mine, Mr Hendrick Van Deusen. His nickname is the Professor because he is immensely learned. I first met him nearly ten years ago when I took a long painting holiday in the American Southwest, and he was kind enough to look after me—I was such a tenderfoot as they say over there. It was rather dangerous territory, you see.

‘We lost touch with one another once my holiday was over, and I am delighted to meet him again in an English country house, and introduce him to my hostess’s sister.’

His smile was even more saintly than usual when he came out with this preposterous and lying description of his violent Western odyssey.

Mr Van Deusen bowed to Dinah, registering that she was totally unlike most of the other society women whom he had met in England. He wondered why Apollo was interested in her, something which Cobie explained when all introductions were over.

‘Lady Dinah,’ Cobie told him, ‘is by way of being an amateur historian who hopes to be a professional one. She has been showing me the old letters and papers collected by her ancestors, many of whom, if she will forgive me for saying so, resemble our own wilder politicians more than they might like to think. I should perhaps inform you, Lady Dinah, that Mr Van Deusen is hoping to run for the Senate as a Republican candidate.’

As usual when she was with him Dinah forgot her usual shyness and found herself discussing politics with Mr Van Deusen as though she had been doing such an unlikely thing all her life. Cobie also noticed that when she was away from Violet and her friends she came to glowing life: not only did her face and manner change, but she displayed a light and elegant wit—with which she was now charming Van Deusen.

‘But I must not keep you,’ she said at last. ‘Violet has been looking for you, Mr Grant. She has been trying to make up a whist table for Rainey now that the reception is over, and she gathers that you like to play an occasional hand at cards. She also mentioned the possibility of poker—do you play poker, Mr Grant?’

‘A little,’ he told her gravely, which had Mr Van Deusen giving him an odd look when Mr Grant said that, but she did not allow it to worry her, particularly since Mr Grant immediately added, ‘If Lady Kenilworth summons me, then I must instantly obey. You will forgive me if I leave you.’

They both did, and Dinah spent a further happy ten minutes with Mr Grant’s unlikely friend—who proved to be as learned as he had told her.

It was all much more fun than being a wallflower in the drawing room.

A week later Cobie was trying not to win at poker. He was part of a group of men playing in one corner of the green drawing room at Moorings. A few women, Violet among them, occasionally wandered over to watch them. It was already half-past three in the morning, and most of the house party had gone to bed hours ago.

‘Thought you Yankees were masters of this game,’ grunted Sir Ratcliffe at him, as he raked in his winnings. Cobie had not lost very heavily, but he hadn’t won either, not on that night nor any preceding.

The sixth sense which often told him things that he sometimes didn’t want to know—but more often did—informed him that to appear a bit of an ass at the game might be no bad thing.

Some of those who knew that he had accumulated a fortune in dealings on Wall Street had already begun to believe that his fortune had been made for him by other men, and that what he was most possessed of was idle, easy charm rather than the usual Yankee know-how. He had no objection at all to appearing far less shrewd and dangerous than he actually was.

On the contrary he had frequently found that it was an advantage to be underrated. People became unwary, and now everyone in society was unwary about Jacobus Grant who had made such a hit with the ladies, was a pleasant fellow to spend an hour with, a bit of a fool, quite unlike most of the hard-headed Yankees who invaded London society and whose one idea was to chase after the almighty dollar.

Not winning, Cobie had often found, was harder work than winning. He had to restrain himself, and when the ass opposite to him, for that was where Sir Ratcliffe sat, made a particularly bad play, it took Cobie all his considerable strength of will not to fleece a black sheep who was so determined to be shorn. Worse than that, though, was his suspicion that every now and then Sir Ratcliffe indulged in some clumsy and obvious cheating—which no one but Cobie appeared to notice.

‘Thought Tum Tum was coming to stay, Lady K.,’ Sir Ratcliffe drawled at Violet in a pause during the game when the men rose, stretched, refreshed their drinks, and lit new cigars. Violet’s brother, Rainey, was leaning against the wall. He was a handsome enough fellow but Cobie had yet to see him sober after seven at night. He was a poor poker player, too. Another piece of knowledge Cobie filed away for possible future use.

‘Met Tum Tum, have you?’ Sir Ratcliffe asked Cobie in his most condescending manner, offering him a cigar, which he refused.

Yes, Cobie had met the Prince of Wales, but left Violet to tell the Rat—as Cobie privately thought of him since saving Lizzie Steele from him—that the Prince had had to remain in London on official business.

‘Don’t have much luck, do you, Grant?’ Now he was more condescending than ever. ‘Cards not runnin’ your way?’

Cobie was all ineffable boyish charm, saying, ‘No, never do, you know. Can’t think why I play the game. Passes the time, though.’

He offered the Rat his most winning smile. ‘You seem to be doing well. Perhaps I ought to take lessons from you.’

He looked up to see Violet’s eyes hard on him. No one else, apart from Mr Van Deusen, had taken his words at other than face value, but Violet, he was discovering, was also no fool—it wouldn’t do to underrate her. Particularly since he was beginning to annoy her by avoiding her bed ever since Dinah had arrived at Moorings. He thought that she was beginning to see a little of what lay below the mask of innocence which he had worn since he had arrived in England.

He decided to cut the whole pointless business short. He rose, and said, ‘Leave my money in the pot, I think I’m ready for bed.’

Sir Ratcliffe said disagreeably, ‘Don’t like losing, Grant? You Yankees never do.’

‘Strictly speaking,’ and this came out so languidly that no one could be offended by it, ‘I’m not a Yankee. Born in the South, you see. Live in New York, I do admit. Sometimes wonder why.’

He thought he heard a snort from Mr Van Deusen but ignored it, and took his leave. He had hardly gone a yard down the corridor before the door opened again and Violet was with him.

‘Cobie!’ she shrilled.

‘Violet,’ he said, and bowed, like the old-world Southern gentleman he had pretended to be, and then, monstrously, he couldn’t resist it. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘You know very well what you can do for me,’ she told him, the light of battle on her lovely face. ‘What you haven’t been doing since Dinah walked into Moorings.’

So, his worst forebodings had come true. Since Dinah had arrived, a fortnight ago, he had watched Violet humiliate her daily, along the lines of that first afternoon in the library. In the last few days he had taken to avoiding the girl to save her from Violet’s tongue, where in the beginning he had sought to amuse her.

She touches my hard heart, he thought, wryly. She didn’t touch Violet’s. Neither did he wish to touch Violet, and again, he regretted ever having become involved with her.

Desolately he knew that Violet’s public ill treatment of the child was to punish him, as well as her. Violet brooked no rivals, and ridiculously, improbably, she saw poor Dinah as a rival.

As usual he thought quickly, then offered her, ‘I could hardly be your cavaliere servente while Kenilworth was hovering, Violet. Not seemly.’

‘Kenilworth is not hovering, Cobie. He knows perfectly well why I asked you, as he asked Daisy Masham.’ She put out a hand to him. ‘You may escort me upstairs. Our rooms are quite near.’

There was nothing for it. He had meant to try to leave Moorings early without offending her—but she was now determined to be offended unless he did what she asked.

Every fibre of his body revolted at the notion. And when, having taken her arm, and he had begun to walk her up to her room for her poor sister’s sake, if for nothing else, she said, in a poisonously sweet voice, ‘Oh, and by the way, Cobie, there is one more favour you can do me—do the both of us.’

He took her hand and put it to his lying lips. ‘Of course, Violet, my darling, and what is that?’

She shook her head, ‘Oh, it’s Dinah again. Too ridiculous, the poor child obviously thinks that you have a tendre for her. All that attention you’ve given her—playing to her on the guitar…chess games…talking to her in the library…walking with her in the gardens…encouraging her to think of going to Oxford—has quite turned her head. I think that you ought to disabuse her of the notion that you are interested in her—very firmly. I warn you, if you don’t, I will. She really ought to have nothing to do with such as you,’ and her eyes were on him, hard and cruel.

He knew immediately what she meant, and the kind of blackmail she was subjecting him to. Somehow, she had read him, seen the pity he felt for her unloved sister, and was threatening that, if he failed to do as she asked, Dinah’s public humiliations would continue—might even grow worse. Jealousy is as cruel as the grave, and Violet, astonishingly, was jealous.

For a moment the world reeled about him. Violet had touched some memory in him which she could not know existed. Long ago he had been kind to a waif even more abused than poor Dinah, more even than Lizzie Steele—and his heedless kindness had led directly to her death. Dinah was in no danger of physical death, but she could not, he thought, stand very much more of the treatment which Violet was meting out to her without her inner self being in serious danger.

He had gone quite still again. He stood motionless. He was fighting the red berserker rage which Violet, by her cruelty, had roused in him. He was helpless before her, and she knew it. Sleep with me, humiliate Dinah—and I will leave her alone. All he could do was control himself and offer her what she wanted. At the same time his busy brain was working—after a fashion which would have astonished Violet.

‘You ask a lot of me,’ he said at last.

‘Really, Cobie, really? You surprise me. I had not thought that you favoured children. I thought that you left that to others,’ and she laughed.

Like Sir Ratcliffe, Cobie thought, and Arthur Winthrop—and who else?

‘She is lonely,’ he told Violet gently, ‘and not very happy.’

‘And you make her so? You take a lot upon yourself. After all, it is my sister of whom we speak, not yours. It is I who am concerned about her welfare. It demands that you disillusion her. And be sure that you do it in such a way that I will know that you have done so.

‘Otherwise, my dear, otherwise, I shall immediately send her to my deaf, strict and bad-tempered old aunt in the country to be her permanent companion.’

‘Pax,’ he said, with the sweetest smile he could summon, throwing up his hands like a schoolboy. ‘I think that this is all a great pother about nothing, but have it your way, Violet.’

‘Oh, I intend to do so,’ she told him, mockingly, ‘and now we are here, Cobie. Here is the door to my room. Choose, like the man in the story—the lady—or the tiger?’

‘Oh, no choice,’ he told her carelessly. ‘The lady every time.’ He pushed her through the door, rather ungently, and told himself, that if one must sacrifice one’s principles—not that I possess any—this is as pleasant a way to do it as any. The unpleasant part will come tomorrow, with Dinah.

He was particularly good value that night, Violet thought, unaware that in his mind Cobie was treating her like the whore she was.

Chapter Four

M r Grant had been dodging her for the last few days, Dinah thought desolately, which was not surprising. After all, he came here to be with Violet. She was sitting in the Elizabethan Knot Garden looking blindly at the flowers and remembering what she had seen that morning.

She had risen early in order to go riding before anyone else was about, and when she had turned into the corridor where Violet had her suite of rooms, she saw Mr Grant quietly closing Violet’s door: it was obvious that they had been spending the night together.

Shock kept her quiet, so that he had no idea that she had seen him. She had known, of course she had known, that he had been invited for Violet’s pleasure. She had known it since she had first seen him in the library. She had tried to put the knowledge out of her mind in those few, early days when she had walked and talked with him. I like him, she told herself firmly, not because he’s beautiful, but because I like talking to him. He’s so clever, it’s like talking to Faa.

Listening, always listening, because no one ever included her in their conversations, she discovered that he was thought to be something of a charming fool. How could anyone think any such thing? It wasn’t simply that he knew a lot, could play the guitar and the piano divinely, but she had grasped at once that even his most innocent remarks frequently carried a double meaning.

Listening, always listening, she noticed that he was particularly good with Sir Ratcliffe Heneage, whom Dinah disliked intensely. He wasn’t bad with poor Rainey, either. Dinah knew that her half-brother was dissolute and not very clever. It was not that Mr Grant made fun of his hearers, but that he tailored what he said to what they were. Of course, he did it with everyone—except Mr Van Deusen.