by Jo Beverley
When she and Rowanford entered the supper room, however, Clyta noisily summoned them over to her table, and Amy felt obliged to go. This was, after all, why she was here. She spotted Sir Cedric at another table with Clyta’s parents, Nell, Lizzie, and another gentleman. She gave a little wave and told herself she wished she were at that table. Honesty compelled her to admit, however, that such a middle-aged group looked extremely dull. It was a little daunting to think that such groupings would be her natural setting as Lady Forbes.
Clyta’s supper partner was Harry, and he was sitting at the head of the small oval table. Chart Ashby was there with a dark-haired beauty who was introduced as Lucy Frogmorton. Amy and Rowanford took the two vacant seats, and Amy found herself between the duke and Chart but directly opposite Harry.
She immediately turned her attention away to her right side. “Do you come to London every year, Mr. Ashby?” she asked as she forked a morsel of tender poached salmon.
“A week or two, perhaps, Miss de Lacy,” he said with bland courtesy. “This year I’m fixed here for the Season, helping Harry to choose a wife.”
Amy found the salmon stuck in her throat so that she feared she would choke. She managed to get it down and took a quick drink of wine to help it. “Er…that should not be difficult,” she said, hoping she sounded blasé.
“No,” he said with a slanting look at her. “What woman would refuse him?”
Amy swallowed against a dry throat. This man disliked her for what she had done to his friend.
After a moment anger came to her rescue. What had she done, after all? On only a few hours’ acquaintance, the man had had the effrontery to propose marriage and then not take no for an answer. He had been abominably rude and she had reacted to that.
“Tastes vary, Mr. Ashby,” she said coolly. “Otherwise all this strutting and preening would not be necessary. We could all just draw lots.”
“And are you strutting or preening, Miss de Lacy?” he asked, but she thought she saw a glint of reluctant admiration in his eyes.
“Oh, both. And you?”
“I’m not on the lookout for a wife, so I don’t have to bother. I’m merely protecting my friend from scheming harpies. May I help you to some sauce, Miss de Lacy?”
Amy prayed she wasn’t blushing, but feared she was. She refused the sauce, then asked sweetly, “Does he need protection? I would have thought Mr. Crisp able to stand up for himself.”
“No man is impervious to all attacks, I fear.”
“Of what do you speak, Ashby?” asked the duke, turning away from Clyta. “It almost sounds like war. Not a subject for supper.”
Amy turned gladly to her left, relieved to have the confrontation ended. She wondered briefly whether the conversation could be overheard from the other end of the table and what Harry Crisp was making of it. “Love and war are closely related, your grace,” she said.
“So you were speaking of love,” said the duke, and Amy was startled. Had she been speaking of love? “I hope you’re wrong,” he continued. “I hope to marry for love but fancy a peaceful life.”
“Then don’t marry Amy,” said Clyta loudly. “She’s always planning something or other.”
Amy stared at her friend, hurt, but then realized the words had been innocent. It was true that at school she’d thought up some interesting pranks and adventures. A quick glance around the table showed her that Chart and Harry had taken it wrongly. “What are you suggesting, Clyta?” she asked lightly.
“Well, I swear,” said Clyta, unaware of undercurrents, “we would all have been perfectly content with a simple picnic at Lord Forster’s if you hadn’t conceived the notion to invade his orchard and have an apple fight.”
Amy couldn’t help but grin at the memory. “They were only windfalls.”
“But Miss Lindsay had the vapors and Miss Mallory was not amused. And,” went on Clyta, “what about the night you climbed out of your room down a rope of sheets, for a dare?”
“I wanted to see if it could be done,” said Amy, lost in memory.
“Planning an elopement, perhaps?” asked Harry dryly.
Amy came back to reality with a bump.
“Oh no,” said Clyta. “That was Chloe.” She was referring to her older sister.
“Chloe eloped from home, not school,” said Chart pointedly, “and there was no need of ropes. Stop waving our dirty linen in public, Clyta.”
She looked abashed but said, “I don’t consider Chloe dirty linen, Chart. And it all worked out in the end. Oh!”
It was clear to Amy at least that Chart had just kicked his sister under the table. It seemed a bit nonsensical. The whole world knew Chloe Ashby had eloped at seventeen with a scoundrel who broke his neck in a driving accident. She had since made a wiser, better marriage.
The duke said to Amy, “So you are a prankster, Miss de Lacy.”
“I have outgrown such foolishness, your grace.”
He smiled. “What a shame.”
“Oh, don’t worry, Rowanford,” said Harry smiling coolly at Amy. “Pranksters probably grow up to be full-fledged adventurers. Or, I suppose, adventuresses.”
“Oh no,” said Miss Frogmorton blandly. “You cannot mean that, Mr. Crisp. An adventuress is not a proper thing to call a lady.”
“Of course, Miss Frogmorton,” said Harry. “You are quite correct.” His eyes clashed with Amy’s for a moment before he turned to address some remark to Miss Frogmorton.
Amy saw how very warmly the young woman smiled at him, how she lowered her lashes and peeped up at him, and how he laid a hand over hers for a moment, summoning a convenient and very becoming blush. Amy’s hand hurt, and she realized her grip was bruisingly tight on her fork. She relaxed it and wrenched her attention away.
Clyta was talking with great animation to the duke. Amy was not sure this boded well—heaven knows what she was saying—but it forced her to turn warily back to Chart Ashby.
“This is a lovely house,” she said. “Does the duke entertain here often?”
“Very rarely,” he said. “My uncle is in frail health and my cousin, the Marquess of Chelmly, has little taste for London. He stays here when he comes to town on business but doesn’t entertain.”
“It seems a shame,” said Amy, meaning that the mansion was so rarely used.
“That he doesn’t like London?” queried Chart. “I suppose it does disappoint you that he is not accessible. But you have to admit, being prime quarry in this jungle is enough to put anyone off. Rowanford,” he said across the table, “do you ever feel like donning armor before venturing to a Society function? Some of these young ladies would stop at nothing to squeeze an offer of marriage out of you.”
The conversation swirled off into some of the more outlandish tricks attempted by desperate young ladies. When Rowanford described one hopeful’s maneuver of having her coach break down at his gates, Amy could feel her face heat. She looked up and her eyes were trapped by Harry Crisp’s; she seemed to be unable to do anything about it. He looked puzzled rather than angry.
Amy forced herself to look away, and she saw that Clyta looked close to tears.
Why? Surely Clyta couldn’t realize how uncomfortable this topic made Amy. Though Amy was very fond of her friend, she did not think Clyta particularly perceptive.
Then Amy saw the way Clyta was looking at Rowanford and had a flash of inspiration. Clyta loved him. Doubtless she was hunting him in her own fashion and would assume all this laughter was addressed at her, even though she would never think of using these conniving tricks.
No wonder Clyta had reacted so stridently to the idea that Amy might be a contender for the duke’s hand. She was doubtless wishing she’d never invited Amy to the ball.
Amy felt the familiar sickness creep over her, the disgust at her own looks and the effect they could have on both women and men. Unlike some of the other girls at school, Clyta had never minded being with Amy, for she was good-looking herself, of unassailably high rank, and had never been
given to envy. Now it was different. Now there was something Clyta wanted, and Amy might be the enemy.
As soon as she saw the opportunity, Amy deflected the conversation into less painful paths. She saw Harry Crisp note her maneuver but shrugged it off. To Hades with him, she thought impatiently. It was Clyta’s feelings that were important.
After the meal, she went with Clyta to the ladies’ withdrawing room, wondering how to set her friend’s mind at rest without revealing that she knew her secret.
Clyta’s hair was losing some of the blue ribbons wound in it, and a maid set about repairs.
“You’re a great success, Clyta,” Amy said. “That gown is very becoming.”
“Mama has excellent taste,” said Clyta flatly.
“You will soon have a procession of suitors and be prostrated by the effort of choosing between them.”
The joking tone got through to Clyta and she smiled a little. “More likely you, I would think, Amy.”
“Me?” said Amy, pleased to have worked an opening. “Oh, I doubt it. After all, I haven’t a penny to my name, and I don’t intend to be coming to more of these events. Besides,” she said, leaning close and lowering her voice, “I have great hopes of an offer from Sir Cedric.”
Clyta stared. “But he’s old enough to be your father!”
Amy tried to look enchanted with her fate. “I like a mature man.”
The maid finished and they left the room to return to the ballroom. In the corridor, Clyta stopped and hesitantly asked, “Do you mean that if someone younger were to offer for you—someone like Rowanford, for example—you would turn him down?”
Heavens, thought Amy, Clyta was guileless as a baby. Amy feared for her in this silken jungle. Unfortunately she couldn’t imagine her winning her heart’s desire, even without competition, but all she could do was make sure that competition was not herself. “The duke wouldn’t offer for a penniless creature such as I,” she said briskly, “and he would probably look for higher birth, too. It seems to me that dukes tend to marry into other ducal families.”
“Do you think so?” asked Clyta, brightening. “But if he did offer?” she persisted. “After all, there were the Gunning sisters.”
“If Rowanford were to offer,” said Amy firmly, “I would not accept.” They entered the ballroom, where selections from Così fan tutte were being sung by part of the company from the Royal Opera. Amy leaned close to Clyta’s ear. “If you don’t mind, Clyta, I would like to join Sir Cedric over there.”
Clyta turned a brilliant smile on her. “Of course not, dearest.” She even squeezed her hand. “Good luck.”
As Amy wove her way across the room, she tried to think of ways to help Clyta snare the Duke of Rowanford, and failed. Clyta had her fair share of the family’s handsome looks, and when at ease and natural she was possessed of an innocent charm, but she was not showing at all well in Society. Even if the duke were looking for a bride—and he was on the young side, being surely of an age with Chart Ashby and Harry Crisp—there was little reason for his choice to fall on Clyta.
And yet Chart Ashby had said that Harry Crisp was looking for a bride. Amy stopped dead.
He’d produced that abrupt offer after the slightest of acquaintance. Had he just been trying to get a bride with as little trouble as possible? And for that he’d put her through this torture of self-recrimination and exposed her to the taunting of his friends?
She wished she had the rejecting of him to do all over again!
She saw Nell, Lizzie, and Sir Cedric and eased in next to them. Sir Cedric’s welcoming smile did seem very warm and admiring. Amy smiled back as brilliantly as she knew how. Ask me, Sir Cedric. Ask me now. Then I can go home and never see Harry Crisp again, at least not until I’m safely married.
Sir Cedric was kind and attentive for the remainder of the ball, but he said nothing particular. Amy pinned her hopes on tomorrow’s visit to his home.
11
SIR CEDRIC’S HOUSE was very fine. It was new, with snowy white stucco, large, gleaming windows, and a fine garden. He invited his guests to stroll with him down the length of the garden to the orchard, but only Amy accepted. Lizzie and Nell preferred to rest on chairs on the lawn close to the house.
As Amy and Sir Cedric passed a yew hedge so they were out of sight of her chaperons, her heart began to beat faster. Was this the moment?
“How lovely this is,” she said.
“I do not keep up a country property, Miss de Lacy, having little time for it, and so I like to have the country here in London.”
“One could almost think oneself in the country, Sir Cedric.” Amy felt she was gushing but the comment was true. The large garden, with flowers, fruit trees, and vegetables, was surrounded by a high wall, which cut out the bustle of the city. The place seemed extraordinarily full of bees and butterflies, as if they recognized the haven it represented.
“I think you miss the country, my dear.”
“Yes,” said Amy, only then realizing that this wasn’t the right answer for someone who had just admitted that he rarely went there. She went on quickly, “But that is largely because I have always lived in the country.”
“So you are enjoying London?”
“Oh yes. There are so many new things to see and do.”
“And when you have done them all?” he asked.
Amy felt rather as if she were being interrogated, but she smiled at him. “Was it not Dr. Johnson who said, ‘When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life’? I assure you I am not tired of life yet, Sir Cedric.”
He laughed, “I should hope not, young lady. You have your life spread before you like a magic carpet. You are made for balls and other festivities. You should enjoy them to the full while you are here.”
That “while you are here” sounded ominous. “But I expect to be here for a long time,” she said firmly.
He made no response, but changed direction so they were returning to the house. Amy felt desperate. This was surely the point at which a true fortune hunter would act to save the day. She reviewed the stories told the night before but couldn’t bring herself to use any of the techniques described. She didn’t believe she could swoon into his arms, and she would die rather than rip her clothing and cry rape.
She made one try. “You must be lonely living in this big house all by yourself, Sir Cedric.”
“But I don’t,” he responded. “My oldest son and his family live here with me. It will, after all, be his one day. I hope…ah, yes.” They passed back through the yew hedge, and Amy saw that her chaperons had been joined by a family.
A severe-looking man in the knee breeches commonly worn for business sat by a quiet, pleasant-looking woman who was clearly expecting another child. A toddler and a boy of about five played nearby under the eye of a nursemaid.
Amy was introduced to Edwin Forbes and his wife, Susan. Mrs. Forbes seemed pleasant enough, but her husband was chilly. It might just be his nature, for he had a cool demeanor, but Amy suspected he disliked his father’s association with her, and with reason.
Amy looked guiltily at the two charming children and felt as if she were planning to steal the bread from their mouths. It did no good to remind herself that Sir Cedric was reputed to be enormously rich; anything she gained for her family would be taken from his.
But she must. She had no choice. She could not go home empty-handed.
She thought briefly of the Duke of Rowanford. He was wealthy enough and free of entanglements. But even if he could be brought to the point, he wanted to marry for love. Nor could she contemplate stealing Clyta’s beloved, even if she could find no way to help her friend to gain him. Better he marry another entirely.
Amy tried to be gay and charming as the tea progressed, but the effort exhausted her and she subsided into silence, giving thanks for Nell Claybury, who filled the gap with effortlessly pleasant chatter.
As she parted from Sir Cedric at the coach, Amy looked anxiously for some indication of his feeling. His
smile was very kind, and he squeezed her hand slightly before releasing it. She forced herself to relax. Just because she felt this pressing urgency was no reason for him to feel it. Indeed, he would doubtless believe it was too soon to be speaking. He had only known her for a fortnight and not everyone, she thought waspishly, was as crass as Harry Crisp.
“Sir Cedric is such a charming man, isn’t he?” said Nell as they headed back to Chelsea. “His wife was a lovely woman, so warm and generous.”
“How long ago did she die?” Amy asked.
Nell wrinkled her brow in thought. “It must be a few years. Before my Bertie, of that I’m sure. It was a long illness, I’m afraid. It must have been very difficult for them all. It is time he married again.” She looked at Amy thoughtfully.
On their return to New Street, Amy found a letter from Beryl and a note from Clyta.
Beryl wrote:
Dearest Amy,
We are so pleased to hear of your adventures, and you mustn’t feel guilty for enjoying yourself. I am sure we will all have our turn at dissipation once you are married. Nor must you be in a hurry about such an important decision. You must be sure to choose the man who will truly make you happy.
Heavens. Beryl seemed to think they were lining up at the door.
We are all well and, yes, we are remembering to water the vegetables and I have sown another crop of peas and beans. I laugh to think of you at a grand ball worrying about whether we have earthed up the potatoes. I am sure your conversation is extraordinary, but will doubtless charm an agriculturally minded gentleman!
Mr. Staverley invited us over again to consider his plans for the acolyte’s cell, for we are convinced that is what it is. He has ordered a great many books on the subject and is in daily expectation of a visit from Sir Arnold Foulks-Hamilton, the antiquarian, who will surely be able to give a definitive assessment. I fear poor Mr. Staverley will be upset if the building does not prove to be monastic, but I am convinced it must be.
