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‘I suppose,’ almost sniffed Aunt Sue, which had Lacey wondering all over again whatever could be the matter with her. It was not like her to be discourteous or short, particularly with someone like Fighting Jack, whose understated charm was beginning to overwhelm her. Something which she would not previously have thought possible.
After that, Jack had to follow the conventions which said that he must not monopolise one of the early season’s successes. He bowed his way away, to allow other young men to fill her dance programme, and hoped that Miss Lacey’s eager acceptance of his offer of entertainment at Compton Place was truly meant. Not only that, he had promised to look out for her at his cousin Lady Lynch’s reception and ball, which was taking place in the following week, and dance the Charleston with her again.
It would mean that he would have to stay in London longer than he had intended, but never mind that. He had had few opportunities to enjoy himself since he had left the army, and the pull of Miss Lacey Chancellor was so strong and profound that he could not ignore it.
No woman had ever attracted him so powerfully before.
‘Now, Aunt,’ said Lacey once they had reached home again, ‘why was it that you were so cool to Jack Compton? He seemed to me exactly the sort of young man of whom you would most approve.’
Her aunt shook her head and said grimly, ‘But you hadn’t overheard him talking with that flighty cousin of his, Rupert Compton. If you had you wouldn’t be defending him. They were, in the most cold-blooded fashion, talking about having a go at you because you are an heiress worth winning. Particularly since it seems that Jack Compton, as well as Rupert, is on his uppers. Jack actually described you as being “as hard as nails”. They were his exact words, I fear.’
The colour drained from Lacey’s face. ‘Are you sure, Aunt? Couldn’t you have been mistaken?’
‘Indeed I wasn’t. I was in the best possible position to hear every word they said. I can’t remember everything, of course, but it wasn’t very pleasant, mostly about you and your money. I warned you about this before you left the States.’
As hard as nails! So that was what he thought of her! All that charm had been poured over her simply so that he could get at her money. It just went to show that you couldn’t judge a book by its cover—one of Grandfather Hoyt’s favourite sayings.
Fighting Jack, that jolly good fellow as everyone called him, was no better than a fortune hunter. Well, he wouldn’t hunt her fortune any more, that was for sure. What hurt her the most was that she had begun to believe that she might have met that rare thing—an honest man—only to find that he was no better than the rest who hung around her. For once she had been unwary, but never again.
She would go to Lady Lynch’s do and there he would soon find out that she was no easy mark—another saying learned from her Grandfather—and that Lacey Chancellor, could, when it pleased her, be exactly as hard as he had described her.
Numbly she sat beside her aunt, for once fighting back tears—she who never cried, she whom Grandfather had nicknamed the infant stoic because even when she had fallen out of the tree which she had insisted on climbing, she had never shed a tear and had never complained.
Her biggest regret was that she had been so attracted to him that she had forgotten to put on the invisible armour which she always wore in public. One thing was certain, she wouldn’t make that mistake again in a hurry.
Jack was whistling cheerfully while dressing himself in the poky bedroom of his lodgings. Never mind that his evening dress was shabby, he had long ago become resigned to such small drawbacks. Besides, he needed to wear evening dress so rarely that buying a new, more up-to-date version of what was now considered fashionable seemed a waste of money.
What was more important was that he was going to see Lacey Chancellor again. He had spent the morning at Coutts where the Comptons’ bank balance was running along just above the fateful line which, if it were crossed, would land it in the red. One had to be grateful for small mercies. A junior banker had interviewed him, for someone so low down in the scale of things as Jack Compton was never interviewed by the top brass. A fact of life which the suave man behind the desk had taken as read.
Tomorrow he would go home. However often he left it, or for how long, Compton Place would always be his home now. If Will had not been so gravely wounded he would have remained in the Army. Time, the death of so many young officers, and his own talents, meant that he had retired with the rank of Colonel and the lost promise of a bright future. That opportunity, like the Comptons’ wealth, was long gone.
Tonight, however, he would forget all that. He would persuade Lacey that it would be to her advantage to visit Compton Place and examine its attics. He was sure that the Sir Jack, who had inherited in 1820, and who had restored the family fortunes, had almost certainly left behind records and documents which might throw light on the Pandora Compton who had married her ancestor, Ritchie Chancellor, and on other matters, too.
Jack laughed at himself a little for inventing opportunities for seeing Lacey again. After all, Ashdown was only a short distance away from Compton Place by motor, and there was every reason why they should meet often. Examining himself in the shadowy mirror in the elderly wardrobe he thought that he almost looked like Fighting Jack again. It was funny how that nickname followed him around, even though it was not now applicable.
Finally he was ready to leave. The taxi which would take him to the Lynchs’ home on Piccadilly would be arriving any minute and he could not afford to keep it waiting. He would return to his lodgings by the Underground since no one was likely to see him depart, whilst his arrival would almost certainly be noticed by the flunkies who guarded the entrance.
He was right about that. A canopy had been erected before the door and a solid phalanx of guests was walking into the house beneath it. There were the usual watchers gaping at the quality while they amused themselves. It was something of a relief that they would not be able to see how threadbare a gent he actually was. The footman’s knowing stare, however, when he handed him his top hat, cane and gloves told him that he knew only too well that Mr Jack Compton was hanging on to his place in society by his teeth.
Several people acknowledged him on the way to the stairs at the top of which his cousin was waiting to receive him. She seemed genuinely pleased, as did her husband.
‘Oh, Jack, I’m delighted that you decided to come. I rather feared that you might abandon town as quickly as you usually do. I know things are a little dire in Sussex, but surely you could manage rather more of the season than a few days in early May.’
How to explain that with Will unfit to run things and so much to run, he really ought not to have stayed on to visit them at all? Jack didn’t even try. ‘Oh, I’m a country boy at heart, you know, and the land is a harsh mistress,’ he replied. Well, at least the second part of the last sentence wasn’t a lie, was his inward gloss on that!
‘You weren’t a country boy when I first knew you,’ remarked Louis Lynch with a wink.
‘Perhaps not, but time changes us all.’
‘True,’ said his cousin, but fortunately, by then the next visitor was waiting to be received so Jack moved on. Well, he thought, looking around him, the War hadn’t destroyed Sir Louis’s wealth. The Sargent portraits of his parents still hung on the walls. It was perfectly furnished to the last degree of sophistication with new fashion mingling well with antique opulence.
Yes, the house was in splendid nick and the signs of great prosperity were everywhere. Jack wondered exactly where all the money came from to pay for such splendour. He only knew that Sir Louis was something in the City. He wondered how one got there and why it had always been supposed that the younger Compton sons always went into the Army, or the Church or became land agents on someone else’s land.
Not that everyone in the City was wealthy—just look