The Lady In Red: An Eighteenth-Century Tale Of Sex, Scandal, And Divorce by Hallie Rubenhold Page B

recall, ‘struck him as improper in their conduct’. They were ‘chatty and merry together’, but not in a manner which attracted curious glances. The couple had become practised at hiding their true thoughts. When Thomas Worsley entered the room offering Sir Richard’s apologies, both Seymour and her paramour must have caught their breath. This was the occasion for which they had been preparing. They sat for another hour by Leversuch’s fire, sipping tea and waiting.
    When supper was called at eleven, the group rose from their seats and went downstairs to the dining room. Bisset moved swiftly to Seymour’s side and took her arm. He lingered behind while the chattering wives and finely groomed officers filed down the staircase. Alone, at the foot of the stairs, ‘he pressed her hands’ urgently and leaning close to her cheek ‘whispered for the space of a minute or so’. They would go tonight.
    Although no one had seen the signal pass between the two, Lady Worsley’s demeanour quickly began to change. Mrs Leversuch’s seating arrangements, which placed Seymour between Bisset and Captain Worsley, had flustered her. A cold supper was laid before them, but Seymour’s thoughts and appetite were elsewhere. The minutes ticked away rapidly. In what must have seemed a disproportionate span of time, the empty
dishes were removed and Mrs Leversuch led her guests into the adjoining room, where Lady Worsley set her eyes on the clock.
    As the hands of the timepiece ticked past midnight, Lady Worsley quite abruptly ‘got up and made a motion to go’. Leversuch also rose to his feet and, playing the genial host, asked ‘if the company was not agreeable to her Ladyship?’ ‘No,’ Seymour answered. What then might they make of ‘Her Ladyship leaving them so early?’ Those assembled fixed their gazes on her. Lady Worsley’s nerves were decidedly rattled. As one ‘always remarkable for keeping very late hours’, she was betraying herself. In the end it was her lover’s words that settled her. ‘Don’t go yet, my Lady,’ he pleaded, taking out his watch and commenting on the time. Slightly chagrined, Seymour ‘thereupon sat down again’.
    The calm that came over her was fleeting. Hardly a half-hour had elapsed when, ‘in a hurry’, Seymour ‘rather unexpectedly to the company … got up again’. This time she was adamant that ‘she must go’. Captain Bisset also rose to his feet and simultaneously proposed ‘taking his leave … in order to see her Ladyship home’.
    The distance between the Leversuchs’ door and the dimly lit windows of the Worsley’s house was no more than a matter of steps. Nevertheless, the surgeon insisted on lighting a candle and escorting his commander’s wife to safety. The impatient Bisset followed closely, eager to rid them of the meddling man. In the middle of the road and ‘within a few yards’ of her home, Seymour stopped her well-intentioned host, commenting ‘that he should not trouble himself to go any further’. Accordingly, the surgeon bid the couple goodnight and, at last, retreated with his guttering candle back over the road.
    ‘It was extraordinary,’ Leversuch remarked to his wife later that night, after the rest of the party had departed, ‘the circumstances of Lady Worsley’s breaking up and leaving the company at so early an hour. For at all other times, when the same company spent the evening together in the same kind of way, Lady Worsley … never quitted company till two or three in the morning.’ Below stairs, housemaids ferried dirty plates and china cups into the scullery. The cook put away the scraps and locked the tea caddy. The household prepared for bed, but no one was to get much sleep that night.

7
    19th of November 1781
    Standing beside the door to the Worsleys’ house, Seymour and Captain Bisset kept very still. On the other side of the wall sat the sleepy Francis Godfrey and Mary Sotheby listening intently for the sounds of their