Life Mask Read Free Page B

amused by the visual joke. Her mother, though often an irksome presence to Derby, never seemed to oppose his cause—he sometimes thought her a mute supporter of it—and might she not clasp the pearls round her daughter's slim neck and hush her protests? But last night, after dinner, Derby had been shaken out of the warm haze of brandy by the return of the untouched basket. He'd realised how fatuous his self-delusion had been when he read the note: Mrs Farren & Miss Farren are much obliged, but don't find white currants agree with them.
    'So you get nothing from her, you swear?' Bunbury was banging on. 'The famed Farren remains icy—'
    'No names, please,' said Derby with a glance through the fug at the other customers: only a handful of farmers and tradesmen sucking their pipes, or playing quoits in the corner, but one never knew.
    Bunbury was trying to annoy him. But in the long years of their friendship Derby had learned not to rise to the bait. He flicked some mud off his leather breeches, and reached into his pocket for his snuffbox. He used to be a smoker till it went out of fashion; he found snuff so much handier and more elegant.
    'So what does she say when you put it to her—as it were?' Bunbury let out a filthy chuckle. 'What possible argument can she have against a good settlement?'
    'I've never asked her.' Derby flicked open the little ivory lid, which bore a memorial painting of his best gamecock and put a pinch on the back of his hand. It was a strong Maltese variety; when he snorted, he felt that delicious burning in the back of his nose and throat.
    'I don't quite know how to put this,' said the Baronet, 'but is the little sword of the Smith-Stanleys of Derby by any chance rusted in the scabbard?'
    Derby felt a pang of nostalgia for the days of his youth when they'd still worn swords with full dress; he could have put his to Bunbury's throat. 'Would you like to say that a trifle louder?' he growled.
    'No disrespect intended.' Bunbury took a long swig of punch.
    Relenting, Derby put away his snuffbox and told him, 'There are easier ways of meeting that particular need; London's full of amenable females.' He knew he was making it sound as if he had these females driven to his house in Grosvenor Square every night, whereas the truth was he very rarely resorted to that trade. 'As for offering the young lady in question a settlement—I've never found a suitable moment.'
    'In six years?'
    'She's not like other women; she has remarkable powers of turning the conversation. And of course I've never been alone with her,' said Derby, wondering if he sounded tragic or only pathetic. 'I once hinted that I'd something important to say and she suddenly remembered a rehearsal.'
    'Gad, remarkable staying power, that filly! But what you get out of the exchange is harder to see,' said the Baronet.
    'Oh, come, man. You know yourself that in the middle years one can take a calmer attitude than when one was a young stallion, galloping around the Continent.'
    'You don't need to tell me that,' said Bunbury, frowning down at his old deer-hide breeches, sticky with spilled punch. 'Believe me, I didn't trouble Lady Sarah much that way—but then, we were married! And the cheek of her: when I offered to give the baby girl my name and say no more, she turned me down and ran away with her paramour ... No, that divorce was the best £300 I ever spent, even if I had to sell two good stud-horses to pay for it. Not that I meant to marry again,' he added with a snort, 'I just wanted to be done with the business, in spite of Richmond begging me not to cast off his little sister. No, the whole sex is null and void to me these days.' The Baronet held up his glass as if making a toast. 'Cuckolding whores, the lot of them! And blueblood wives are the worst. I've never understood why you went no further than separation from Lady Derby yourself—'
    'On that subject we can't agree,' snapped Derby, 'so let's drop it.' Whenever someone dared to