by Jenni James
“Your staff?”
“Yes. Now do not look at me like that, or I will most certainly convince myself that you all think I am mad. I am not mad, you know—well, perhaps a little tinged, but not completely. No. However, I do feel a change coming about.”
Johnson gave the final tug on the second boot. “Well, that is nothing to shake your head at, my lord. Change can mean a great many surprises.”
Compton glanced at the door the butler had departed through. “Yes, but somehow I fear this transformation will strike me to my core.” He sat down on the high-backed chair in his dressing room. “She responds so contrary to anyone I have ever met.”
He waited for Johnson to say something, but when he did not, he tried again, “Come, man! Are you not inquisitive enough to make conversation with me?”
“Aye, my lord. I am very curious.”
“Good!” He beamed and patted the seat next to him.
“But sir, I do not feel comfortable sitting with you.”
“Are we to do this again? First Terrell, and now you.” He indicated the small boot bench near him. “Then sit there. You work twice as hard as any of the other servants, as you have to put up with my inconsistencies and grumblings.”
Tentatively, Johnson sat upon the bench. “I still do not understand what this has to do with anything.”
“If Lady Ice can communicate with her servants as if they were acquaintances or colleagues, then I would prefer to hear from you what your thoughts are as well.”
“Does she truly sit down with them and converse?”
“It would seem so. As if they were old friends. I have never seen anything of the like.”
“How remarkable. If this is true, then I have never heard of another of her class.”
Compton shook his head. “How does one remain approachable when it is considered a working relationship at best?”
Johnson scratched at his sideburns. “I have not the faintest notion. I fear it would complicate things dreadfully.”
“Lady Lamb does it so carefree. As if it is second nature, and quite easy.”
The older man leaned forward. “After all these years, perhaps it was a very good thing she turned you down at the ball.”
“How so?”
“Why, because from the moment you noticed her, you have begun to awake out of whatever stupor you have been in.”
A flash of irritation made its way through Compton. “I was most certainly not in a stupor.”
“Oh, heavens, yes. We have all talked about it through and through. You have been numb for nearly six years or so. Ever since Miss Dappling, you have never been the same.”
Miss Dappling? He had not thought of the chit for a couple of years at least. Odd that Johnson would think to bring her up now. And even more peculiar was though he inwardly cringed in anticipation of the sting her name would cause, no sharp pains wounded his heart. Perhaps he was truly over the past. “I cannot imagine what you mean. I have been in high spirits, laughing, larking, dancing… I am in better form than I have been for ages.”
“No, my lord.” Johnson cleared his throat. “Pardon me, if I speak too frankly. I ought not to express such things around you.”
“If you merely being forthright is going to upset me, then perhaps I need to hear it more than I realize,” he said, mimicking Terrell’s response earlier.
“You have been a mere shell of the man we once knew. The man with passion and dreams and eager to do better in the world.”
He thought back to that young naïve lad and looked down, his eyes unconsciously going over his boots. “Those dreams were dreams of a simpleton. Of a boy who thought the world revolved around change, not century-old customs.”
“She stole that from you. Do you not remember?”
A vision of the lovely Miss Dappling, all pinky froth and giggles, a young seventeen-year-old girl who would sit for hours and listen to his nineteen-year-old self imagine the world as it ought to be.
“She encouraged you. She made you laugh. Aye, my boy, you were so hopelessly in love with her, there was nothing you would not have done had she asked it of you.”
The glee, the hope, the thirst for life and a future. “Yes, I remember.”
“When she left, you fell, and you have not had a spark or an ounce of anything to bring you back again.”
He thought of Lady Ice’s curious ways and gentle smile and complete disregard for any of the rules of society. “Until present.”
“Lady Lamb does not bend to convention well, does she?”
Compton gave a short chuckle. “No, she does not.”
“It is refreshing?” Johnson asked.
“Yes. Though remarkably so.”
“And why is that?”
“I do not know. She is strikingly beautiful, but does not give a fig about beauty. She cares little for the ton, and abhors any type of snobbery or class system altogether. It is—she is—I mean to say, she is very mesmerizing.”
“And what of the bet at White’s?”
He rubbed his lips together and examined the fine shine upon his Hessians. “I do not know. She has every reason to hate me, but I do not feel she is the type to long hate anyone.”
“You are complete counterparts.”
“Are we?”
“Oh, yes. Even if you were brave enough to consider a match, I would counsel against such a design.”
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I do not desire her in that light anyhow, but I am curious now. Why are you set against it?”
Johnson stood and groaned a bit in doing so. Then he turned to Compton and said, “Because if this lady is half the woman I believe her to be, it behooves me to keep her interests at heart. I fear, my lord, that you would very easily crush her, and that would never do. She needs a man who can see and embrace all that she is. One to support her and love her uniqueness, not mock it.”
A flash of anger coursed through him. “And you do not feel I can be that person? How low must you think my character to be?”
Johnson met his eye and stood firm. “You have asked for my opinion, my lord, and I have given it. No, I do not feel you can be half the man Lady Lamb needs.”
CHAPTER TEN:
Chagrined and more cross than he would have admitted to anyone, Lord Compton drove his curricle to Green Street with a good deal less cheerfulness he had felt an hour before. He was in such deep ruminations over what Johnson had revealed, he succeeded in going past Lady Lamb’s house altogether and then had to turn about as he came up to Hyde Park at the end of her street. Botheration! Why the deuce had he attempted the wretched conversation with Johnson anyway? He was positive his valet misunderstood his intentions toward Lady Lamb or he would have never implied such insulting prejudices. Not half the man she needed, indeed! He was twice the man she needed—the lady had no man at all. Was that not proof enough? Thunderation! Vexing toad! He should send the man packing that very night for such preposterous judgements!
He had no one to fault but himself as he became his very own black-hearted villain. Irrefutably, it was a wonder Lady Lamb entertained him at all. And for what outcome was his preposterous, wastrel behavior? Who permits themselves to be concealed behind deep gloom for so long that they literally waste away their own existence?
Compton pulled over about five houses down from Lady Lamb’s, removed his top hat, and rubbed his weary face with his hands. This was a beggar’s mess. Did he not request the truth, though shocking it may be? Humiliation attacked him in droves as he sat perched upon the seat of his curricle, unexpectedly lonely and forsaken. He had friends enough who delighted in his larks, though recalling their shocked looks at Perceval’s ball, when they explained Lady Ice’s counter wager, would suggest otherwise. Yet how did one go about redeeming oneself?
Perhaps it was merely a day-by-day approach until one learned how to live again.
Compton drove on and up to Lady Lamb’s door with the pouch of invitations. He adjusted his beaver hat, jumped down, put
a smile on his face, and was met by Pantersby, who was quick to inform him that his mistress was not at home to visitors at present.
“But why?” he asked determinedly, knowing full well Pantersby merely meant she was not up for entertaining. “I am here to discuss this growing number of invitations and to visit the pups. If she would rather not see me, I understand, but please let me know when would be a better time.”
Pantersby bowed and allowed him to step into the vestibule before heading down the long stretch of hallway.
“Oh, very well,” he could hear Lady Lamb loudly exclaim. “You might as well send him into the library with us. And fetch more tea. I find I am famished again, and Lord Compton will more than likely eat as well.”
The butler returned, and Compton had some difficulty maintaining a straight face as the man properly relayed everything the lady had vociferously announced.
He followed Pantersby into a large library, beautifully preserved, that had floor-to-ceiling bookshelves all the way to a large table in the middle of the room. It had scattered upon it several piles of missives, undoubtedly the same as those invitations he carried with him. Lady Lamb sat on a chair in front of it all, shaking her head.
“Look what you have done to me,” she exclaimed as he came in. “This is the chaos I find myself in.”
“I would feel sorry for you, but—” He held up his pouch, opened the thing, and then tilted it so she could see inside. “I am in the exact same predicament.”
“They have been coming in nonstop all day. The post was bad enough, but now they are being delivered by every errand boy the beau monde keeps. Several are for last-minute balls and entertainments and such. ’Tis positively ludicrous.”
“I am well aware. It would seem we are the talk of society”
“Did you expect us to be anything else?” She groaned and straightened up in her chair. “Pardon me. Please have a seat. Pantersby will be in with some tea shortly.”
He sat down across from her. “It is why I came now. The last few days have been overwhelming, and I wanted to know how you would like to go about it.”
“Go about what, exactly?”
“Are you willing to attend these events? Or continue to stay closeted away? Clearly, the hostesses are expecting us to attend. What say you? I will follow your lead on this.”
She pushed a pile toward him. “I am not certain what to do at present. These are the ones Pantersby assures me I will want to attend. But as for the others, I doubt I know anyone and will feel extremely out of place being there. You understand my disgust of the gabblemongers and those who fancy themselves able to stare rudely without causing a scene.”
He chuckled and met her blue eyes for a moment. Behind their icy resolve, he found a faint uneasiness and fear lurking. His curiosity grew too great. “Why do you despise society so much? You were, I think, not brought up that way. I hear the late viscountess loved to entertain and threw many lavish parties, as well as attending several herself. Even your own brother participates in balls and other grand affairs, and your father was known to show up to several events during the Season. Why is his daughter now so against them?”
“You speak as if you believe something dreadful happened to me.” She picked up a missive and flipped it over in her hand, almost as if she were pretending to read it. “Nothing happened.”
“And yet?”
She threw the small folded parchment onto the middle of the table. “Bother it. Nothing occurred. Why will you not be satisfied? For that is the truth. Now leave me be.”
Compton absentmindedly picked up two or three of the invitations and looked them over nonchalantly. “Seems to be a mighty fine objection for something that never transpired.”
“Ooh, you are a troublesome man.”
He glanced up and gave an audacious wink.
Lady Ice’s pretty lips fell open and then she laughed. In one small, teasing play, the wall was down. Truly, she was not as cold and hard as he had been led to believe.
“Fine. Though it humbles me greatly to share this with anyone, least of all the man who is attempting to get beneath my skin.”
“You sound as if I am an insect of sorts.”
“Well, are you not?” She had a coy look and blinked, then quickly talked over him before he could protest. “I say nothing happened because it did not. I had my season like any eager girl of sixteen or seventeen, and was as excited as I could imagine for it. My mother insisted on new gowns, which I did not protest, and my father bought me a beautiful all-white mare to prance about on. My dancing slippers matched my gowns, and my hair had been cropped to the latest fashion and my instructor of social graces was hailed to be the greatest in London. I was set. I had even been presented at court in a lavish gown, along with fourteen other young ladies coming out that year. There was a night agreed upon, invitations had been sent, and my coming-out ball was expected to be a mad crush.”
“And yet?” he pried.
“And yet, the night of, the nerves that plagued me all day long became fruitless. It would seem I had nothing to be nervous about.” She flipped through a few more cards and tossed them aside, and he noticed that her hands were trembling slightly. “A great national disaster of some sort happened four hours before the ball was to begin. My father had been up at Parliament, and several men had broken in and pointed a pistol right at one of the lords. The place exploded with gunshots and powder, and everyone rushed to the grand building. Including my frantically worried mother. And that was that.”
His chest tightened as he imagined the beautiful girl with all her hopes and dreams riding on this one moment in her life—the greatest moment she had known until that day—and then … “I recall that day. It was petrifying. I was not in London at the time, but I remember hearing about it for weeks after. I envision that due to such a deplorable event, no one remembered the ball?”
She shook her head. “My mother and father were so apprehensive with the whole of everything, they came back that night in anxiousness and we all packed our belongings and headed back into the country. Father was adamant that we remain safe and secure until everyone was certain this group of renegades would not attempt to harm their families as well. No one knew to whom they owed such terror. Many assumed it was led by the French, but it could not be proven.”
“What did your parents say about the neglected ball?”
She shrugged. “They were in such agitated spirits, I did not have the heart to bring up my own selfishness during the midst of such tragedy.”
“So you never said a word? Did they ever recollect it themselves?”
“I do not recall; my mother may have months later. To be fair, she had been so fretful about my father’s safety, I do not think it mattered overly much to her.”
“And what about the following Season? Was no ball brought up then?”
Her small hands clenched tightly around the folded piece of vellum, and he feared she would crumble it. “I did not attend the following year. My father died.”
All of a sudden, he understood much more than what she had revealed. “Your mother never did come out of mourning. She retired from society until her own death two years ago. I have not seen her for ages.”
Lady Lamb would not meet his eyes. “Mother needed me at home. She was not well, and I became her companion. Running errands, pouring the tea, seeing to her sewing—all the silliness and quietness of the country.”
“Did you never come back up for the Season?”
“In my later years, I kept Betsy on to take care of Mother and accompany my brother, but only for Parliament, and then I was rushed back home to be with my mother again. By that time, I had lost all the magic town provided and felt quite out of place attending the few events I did—no longer remembering the jigs and dances, nor the names of anyone around me. It was a very hopeless case.”
He was surprised to feel the heaviness of her plight resonate so firmly in his chest. “The beautiful bluestocking before me has never had a season.
”
CHAPTER ELEVEN:
“You do not have to say so in such a manner.” Lacey felt her own sad chest tighten in annoyance.
“Like what?” Lord Compton asked.
“As if you are pitying me.”
“But I am pitying you. Your tale is very sorrowful. I know of not one gel in your position who would not be jaded by such harsh treatment. To have a mother so full of her own fears and loss to remember that she had a very striking and marriageable daughter waiting for her moment to take the ton by storm.”
“Oh, bosh. Is that all that matters to you lot? Marriage? Nay, you are mocking me. Enough.”
“No, not at all. I am quite serious. For how does one recover when her own mother does not think of her? Of course you would feel put out and not quite the thing when attending the events. And to be constantly alone and overlooked would completely harm any young lady’s whims into believing they were not worth the dream to begin with.”
“Lord Compton, please stop. You have proven your value as a theatrical master. Perhaps your talents would be put to better use upon the stage.”
“No, my dear, I know exactly what my talents shall be used for. I have many gifts that would be considered very advantageous for you.”
“Whatever for?”
“To see that you have your coming out, of course!”
Lacey froze as she evaluated his enthusiastic smile and felt her whole body grow taut and gradually turn into stone. He was completely serious. Good gracious, how was she ever to stop him? “Please, I beg of you, break this train of thought instantly. A woman at my age, having a coming out? Why, I would be the laughingstock of the whole of England. ’Tis not even humorous to mention such a thing. I am becoming out of sorts imagining the horrors that would await.”
His smile fell. “What of the missed Season? Surely you cannot dream of letting that go as well.”
Was he a simpleton? “That fantasy has long gone.”
He sighed as Pantersby entered the library with the tea. “What fantasy has long gone, my lady?” the older man asked as he set the large tray near Compton’s elbow.
