A few elderly eyebrows were raised at her daring. The Countess of Cleff, known locally as the Pillar of Propriety, was said to have frowned. Twenty years earlier she had been the supreme arbiter of the ton, but as she aged and conventions relaxed she had become dated. Still, she wielded considerable power, and one did not intentionally offend her. Prudence curtailed her unchaperoned appearances when she heard of the Countess’ displeasure. The “Pillar” had not yet passed judgment on Miss Mallow. She liked to see young notables come to her city, and so long as Miss Mallow could be directed, she might take her up. She watched and waited.

Yes, Bath was a more pleasant change than Prudence had dared to hope, yet she would gladly have been back in her little study, unknown, if only it meant Dammler would come unannounced to her door every few days to entertain her. To think she might have thrown over a chance for even greater familiarity than that bothered her. Ten days had passed, and the silence from her old friend was deafening.

In the morning, Clarence had to view the cartoon and the Pump Room, where his niece was treated with enough curiosity to satisfy him. “I see there is a concert at the Upper Rooms tonight,” he said, reading a poster.

“Yes, but it is only an Italian singer,” Mrs. Mallow pointed out. “You will not want to bother with that.”

“Why, there is no one who can sing a tune like an Italian. Certainly we will go.” He had a new jacket, purchased in honour of his niece’s future attendance at Carlton House, that would be previewed on this occasion. He could hardly wait to put it on. He purchased three tickets before they left to ensure getting a good seat. Wilma decided not to go, but Prudence knew there was no getting out of it.

She went to the concert happily enough. It was better than sitting home with Clarence, and the literary salons would be curtailed if her uncle came. She looked forward to daydreaming her way through the concert in peace.

She was not allowed to do so. No sooner had she taken her seat than she saw a tall, dark-haired man enter on the arm of the Dowager Countess of Cleff and take up a seat across the hall from her. It was Dammler, and if he glanced at the stage at all, it was no more than a glance.

His head was turned in her direction throughout the first half of the performance, until she was fatigued with pretending not to see him.

Chapter 18

Prudence dreaded intermission, yet thought it would never come. The Italian sang at length to thunderous applause. The only change in posture of her observer was a brief mild clapping of the hands at the end of each selection, without once looking to the stage. Her uncle had reserved a table for tea at the intermission, and with her equilibrium in tatters, Miss Mallow went on his arm to take her place. Dammler would come now. Say something-she hardly knew what. Present them to the Dowager very likely. They had not met, but the Countess was known by sight to Prudence. And what on earth was Dammler doing in the company of such a stickler?

He didn’t come. She refused to gape about the room to find him, but as they resumed their places in the hall, he bowed ceremoniously from the waist in her direction. She wondered that he had not come to say a few words at the break; was he still angry over the incident at Reading? It was strangely unlike him to bear a grudge. Flare up and then have done with an argument was his usual manner of proceeding.

During the second act, Dammler looked mainly towards the stage, with only a dozen turns of his head to the left, each seen and counted by Miss Mallow out of the corner of her eye. They did not pass in leaving, and it was with a strange mixture of feelings that Prudence took her way home. Clarence had not seen him at all, which was a blessing. She didn’t have to hear that he had come dashing down to Bath, driving all night, to marry her. But why had he come?

After leaving Prudence in a high state of resentment at “The George” in Reading, Dammler had driven back to London. First he went to Hettie, to inform her she was mistaken about Seville’s intentions towards Prudence.

“I know it well. He has been here already,” she told him. “Such a pity about her mama. He told me the whole story, how he happened to be there and got Knighton to help them. Shocking the way these inns behave. Is Mrs. Mallow recovering?”

“Yes, she will be all right. What did Seville say?”

“I must have mistaken him previously. He was quite cut up that Miss Mallow rejected him. He had meant to reform, one supposes. He found her innocence refreshing, he says, which would account for his treating her with respect, as you say he did. I still find it difficult to see how Phyrnes… but never mind. He was quite sincere, and asked me to let him know if I hear anything, so what have you to tell me?”

“They were to go on to Bath in a few days.”

“And?”

“And I have been turned off.”

“The fool! She turned you down, too? What ails the girl?”

“I never had a chance to offer. Such a trimming as she gave me, Hettie, and well deserved, too, every word of it. My moral laxity, my lightskirts, my drinking…"

“Why, you don’t drink more than your bottle a day, and as to the other…“

“I got her started by lacing into her because Seville happened to be there when I arrived.”

“What time did you arrive?”

“Midnight.”

“She was with Seville at midnight?”

“I thought he told you all that?”

“He didn’t tell me it was midnight!”

“Don’t start working me up about Seville again. I still have a strong urge to kill him. Nothing would put me more in her black books than that. She has a high opinion of him. A perfectly honourable and worthy gentleman.”

“Perfect poppycock.”

“We judge him by our own standards.”

“I judge him by the new piece of fluff he had picked up on the eve of his nuptials to the Baroness.”

Dammler shrugged. “I am determined to say nothing against him.”

“And finding it grim going, if I am to judge by the clenching of your jaws.”

He smiled ruefully at this, then fell into a brown study, looking at the floor.

“What you need is a new love o’ life to cheer you,” Hettie said gaily.

“Hettie, damn your eyes, can’t you see I'm in love?”

"There is nothing like a new love to shake off the shadow of the old.”

“Leave me with at least the shadow.”

“Lud, Dammler, what a dead bore you are turned into. What do you mean to do? Wallow in self-pity and remorse? Turn Methodist and give up wine, women and song?”

“You don’t have to be a rakehell to have fun. I had more enjoyment sitting with Prudence Mallow talking about books and other things than I have had anywhere else. I mean to reform.”

“I wash my hands of you, absolutely.”

“And I’ll reform you, too, old cat,” he said, standing up with a smile. "Though if you go on wearing those damned turbans I shan’t have to worry about the men pestering you. You look dreadful”

“I see you don’t plan to reform your manners. There might be hope for you yet.”

He came to rigid attention, but with a glint of amusement lurking in his eyes. “Your most obedient servant, Lady Melvine,” he bowed formally. “May I have your kind permission to call tomorrow?”

“Devil, you couldn’t reform if your life depended on it.”

“It does, and I can.” With a careless wave he was gone.

He proceeded to make good his promise of reforming. He dropped his flightier friends, worked during half the day, dined with dowagers and their dull friends, and was perfectly miserable. He had no illusion it was the loss of his drinking companions and women that had him in the hips. It was the absence of a quiet little lady with eyes of a penetrating blue, that widened when she was shocked or amused, and turned this damned gray world bright again.

For a week he was a model of propriety, but the futility of it was soon borne in on him.Prue was in Bath. She wouldn’t know he had changed. It was not reported that Lord Dammler sat at his desk six hours a day trying to work, or dined with his publisher. No, he would have to risk going to Bath and incurring her displeasure to demonstrate how saintly he had become. Not daily and badger her, or bring any of his infamous friends along. Attach himself to some perfectly respectable people and proceed with caution. She might hate him, but he felt sure she loved him, too. She wouldn’t have ripped up so about his Phyrnes if she’d been indifferent. She didn’t fly into the boughs to hear any other gentleman of her acquaintance had a mistress. Hadn’t used to bother her that he had either, but it bothered her now. That was a hopeful sign.

He settled on the Dowager Countess of Cleff as the likeliest person to lend him respectability in Bath. A cousin of his late mama, a prude and a crashing bore, but with no shred of disrepute. Harbouring himself would be the closest she had ever come to sin, and she would do it only if she were assured she was saving him from the brink of brimstone. Prue had called him “morally lax” and he recognized it for a euphemism. She was too nice to call him what she thought him-a rake, a lecher, a libertine. Well, he would change.

And in Bath, Prudence regretted she had ever called him anything so strong as “morally lax.” He was modern, sociable, a little free perhaps, and she was a prude. They each set about changing to be what they were not to please the other, although each was, in fact, very well pleased with the original.

The Dowager took him in, after first subjecting him to an endless lecture on what rumours had reached her ears-and really she seemed to have heard very little. She had a nose like a parrot, the stature of a grenadier, and the voice of a sergeant major. Her sagging cheeks, painted orange, jiggled as she harped on at him. It would be nearly unendurable, he saw, but he would endure it for as long as it took to convince Prudence he was not utterly lost to decency. The evening at the Italian concert was the first entry into the gay whirl of Bath society. It was tolerable because Prue was there to look at, letting on she didn’t see him, but turning her head his way every two minutes. That was on Saturday.