Steeplechase
by Blair Bancroft
Published by Kone Enterprises
at Smashwords
Copyright 2016 by Grace Ann Kone
For other books by Blair Bancroft,
please see http://www.blairbancroft.com
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Chapter One
“That’s the lot of them,” Mr. Adrian Chumley declared, scanning a scrawled list of names lying on the scarred table beneath his fingertips. He jabbed his quill into the inkpot provided by the landlord of the George Inn and shook his head. “If none of the chits will do, Davenham, you will simply have to stagger along on the income from Chesterton until Marchmont shuffles off this mortal coil.”
Harlan Dawnay, Viscount Davenham, raised his dark head from his hands long enough to skewer his friend with a pair of blue eyes a susceptible society matron had once pronounced a lethal weapon. “We will leave my father out of this discussion, if you please. Not his fault my Aunt Portia’s an old Tartar.”
“Can’t whistle a quarter million quid down the wind,” said the third man in the George’s best private dining room. “Fit for Bedlam if you do.” Lord Richard Ainsworth refilled their brandy snifters. The three men, well into their second bottle, nodded a bit owlishly, hoisted their glasses in a solemn toast to wealth, and drank.
“Dickon’s right,” asserted Mr. Chumley. “Your Aunt Portia—your frail and ailing Aunt Portia—says she’ll name you her heir, but only if you’re married. So you get married.” He scowled at the list of names. Sighed. Very well, we’ll try again. Come, Davenham,” he coaxed, “we’re in London at the height of the Season. There has to be one nubile young maiden who doesn’t have a squint or a strident voice or a figure so bony you’d think you were bedding a skeleton.”
Lord Davenham told Mr. Chumley what he could do with his list.
“Davenham . . . Harlan, my friend.” Lord Richard laid his hand on the viscount’s slumped shoulder. “Think of all that money going to build a home for stray cats and dogs.”
“Twenty-eight,” the viscount said in a mournful mumble. “Only twenty-eight. Hadn’t planned to be caught in parson’s mousetrap ‘til I was thirty-five, maybe forty.”
“Money . . . lovely money.” Adrian Chumley’s dulcet tones hummed in Harlan’s ears. “Old harridan didn’t say you had to set up your nursery right away, now did she? So get married and continue your life exactly as it is. Tell the chit you’re giving her time to adjust.”
“You mean not—” The viscount’s eyebrows shot up toward a lock of dark hair hanging low on his forehead.
“Precisely,” Chumley crowed. “She’s your wife, gets to spend your money, flaunt your title. Likely she don’t want her belly out to here—Mr. Chumley demonstrated with an exaggerated wave of his hand—“any more than you want to settle down. Give the girl a chance to a cut a swath through the ton while you do as you please.”
Lord Davenham, his chin now propped on one hand, considered the matter. “That might do . . . if the girl don’t run screaming to her mama.”
“What if she does? Speak your piece before the vicar, and she’s yours. Her mama has no more rights than the girl herself.”
Gravely, all three nodded, affirming their agreement with another round of brandy.
“In that case,” said Lord Richard, second son of the Marquess of Rotherwick, “we might consider someone who isn’t on the list.”
“Considered the whole lot of ’em,” Mr. Chumley muttered in the sepulcher tones of the defeated. “Every last one who wasn’t fat, fubsy-faced, or a jumped-up mushroom.”
“Not quite. There’s one that delicacy has prevented us from mentioning.”
Adrian Chumley and Harlan Dawnay stared at their friend, genuinely puzzled.
“My sister Sally.”
“She’s an infant!” Davenham exploded.
“She’s nearly eighteen and making her come-out, as you very well know. You’ve stood up with her a time or two.”
“She’s . . .” Harlan pictured the youngest Ainsworth. Petite, better-than-passable figure, piquant face, hair an odd mix of blonde and strawberry, blue-green eyes that glowed with life. She danced gracefully, with a verve and energy lacking in so many young ladies of the ton, who seemed convinced that languid, bored, or tongue-tired were the only acceptable attitudes during the London Season. But seventeen . . . ?
“Don’t you have another sister, Ainsworth?” Chumley asked. “Older. Diamond of the First Water, ain’t she?”
“No!” Lord Davenham coughed, apologized. “Ah . . . beg your pardon, Dickon, but Lady Amalie and I would not suit.”
“Should say not,” Lord Richard heartily concurred. “Too brittle by half is our Amalie. Queen of all she surveys. You’d strangle her before the wedding feast was cold. Besides, she has Parkington on the string. Not likely she’ll settle for a viscount when she can snabble a duke. But Sal’s younger, not so full of herself. A good sort. She’ll understand the difficulty you’re in. And she hasn’t an eye fixed on any one suitor. In fact, Rotherwick’s been turning ’em down right and left. Sarah’s too young, he says, give her time. But for you, Davenham, he’d make an exception, particularly if he knew you were going to . . . well, ah . . . respect her innocence.”
A good sort. That she was, Harlan had to agree. Lady Sarah Ainsworth did not giggle, flirt, or flatter. She actually admitted to being dazzled by the infinite delights of London. She had even asked him about his stables—his breeding stables—when no other lady of his acquaintance would allow the word to pass her lips. He had been so busy trying not to laugh out loud he’d actually missed a turn in the allemande and come close to throwing their figure into a shambles. Lady Sarah had laughed instead, and shoved him in the right direction.
Little Sally Ainsworth. Stood to reason. He was her brother’s friend. Practically family.
Yet . . . she was a lively little minx. If Dickon thought she’d make a conformable wife, he was fair and far out. Then again, Harlan reasoned in a moment strangely untouched by brandy fumes, with Sal boredom would never tighten the bite of his leg iron.
For the life of him, he could not think of a single reason besides age to reject the placement of Lady Sarah Ainsworth at the very top of Chumley’s list of candidates for the role of Lady Davenham. He would, of course, prefer not marry at all. He had a good life—a splendid life—with no great demands on his time, his intellect, or his purse. Far from impoverished, he lived well, enjoying his position in society to the fullest. But two hundred fifty thousand pounds was not a sum to be ignored. If he absolutely had to marry—and there seemed no way around it—then Dickon’s sister was the best of the lot. Good family, the Ainsworths. His parents would be pleased.
“Very well,” Harlan pronounced. “Will you speak with Lady Sarah, Dickon, see if she will agree to this nonsense?”
Lord Richard, the solemnity of the occasion finally having a sobering effect, hesitated. “I’ll not speak for you, Davenham. You must make your own offer. But I’ll tell her of your dilemma, give he
r a hint.”
“Good enough,” Harlan murmured and refilled their glasses. When the three friends tossed off their drinks, their expressions were closer to funereal than to the joyous celebration of a betrothal.
They had journeyed to the south side of the river in search of privacy for their scheming. And the drinking that eased the pain of plotting the break-up of their long-time triumvirate. The return of the three boon companions to Mayfair shortly before dawn proceeded at a snail’s pace, as the young gentlemen moaned and held their aching heads at the slightest bump in the cobbles.
Tomorrow, Harlan thought as he poured himself out of the carriage at Marchmont House on Berkeley Square . . . tomorrow he would wake to find all this a nightmare. Everything would be back to normal. No Aunt Portia, no promise to make him her sole heir if he married before Mid-Summer Eve. No list. No Sally Ainsworth.
No wife.
“Foxed!” declared Lady Sarah Ainsworth, regarding her brother with a sapient eye. “Or dicked in the nob, all three of you.”
“I should never have taught you cant,” Lord Richard groaned, casting a furtive glance around the billiards room where he had dragged young Sally directly after their eleven o’clock breakfast. “Mama would have my head on a platter if she heard you.”
“A jug-bitten fantasy, that’s what it is.” Arms akimbo, Lady Sarah continued to demonstrate her shocking knowledge of words supposedly unknown to gently reared young ladies. “’Tis a scheme conjured out of a bottle, like some evil genie. Well, Dickon, allow me to tell you that you and your fine friends are mad, quite mad—fit for Bedlam!”
“Enough!” Lord Richard groaned, holding up his hand, palm out. “It’s a good match, Sal, or I never would have suggested it.”
Lady Sarah Ainsworth scowled, distorting a face that was more pert than pretty. Her finest features were a pair of keen aquamarine eyes and a cloud of strawberry curls, streaked with golden glints, as if kissed by the sun. To her family she was still a child, making her come-out in the shadow of the notable triumph of her sister Amalie, who was in her second Season. No one seemed to notice that Lady Sarah’s lips were kissably soft or that her petite figure was rounded in all the right places.
Even Lord Richard had not noticed how much she had grown until this very minute . . . Well, dash it all, what was a man to do? They had been jug-bitten. And he’d offered his baby sister in sacrifice on the Altar of Mammon.
“And what of Amalie?” Sally was asking. “She’s like to have a fit of the vapors.”
“Don’t like Davenham any more than he likes her.”
“Looby! She’ll like my being married before her even less. In fact . . .” Lady Sarah paused, her lips quirking into a thoughtful smile. “In fact . . . when I picture what Amalie will say, ’tis almost enough to make me consider your mad scheme.”
“That’s the ticket!” Lord Richard approved. “Davenham’s a good man. Treat you fair and square.” He sent his sister a sharp look. “All a hum, those novels you read, Sal. There’s no way Rotherwick will let you go to a love match. Settle for what you can get. Harlan Dawnay is the best offer you’ll ever receive.”
“I am seventeen, Dickon.” Lady Sarah’s moment of thoughtful anticipation had given way to a face he scarcely recognized, his usually ebullient sister pale, solemn. Bleak. “I had thought to have two or three Seasons before I must settle down.”
“Come now, Sal. It ain’t as if Davenham wants to set up his nursery on the instant. I explained all that.”
“Yes. You did.”
“Well?”
“I will think on it.”
“Think on it! The aunt’s on her death bed, my girl, with every farthing still set to build a home for stray cats and dogs. I mean . . . well, really, Sal, the old girl might at least have made it a home for orphans or something of that ilk. But stray cats and dogs?”
“I am quite certain Lord Davenham will have no difficulty finding a bride without your help.”
“Devil a bit. Made a list of the whole lot. Wouldn’t have ’em.” Inwardly, Lord Richard winced. He should not have said that. Obviously, the brandy fumes had not totally dissipated from his brain.
“I am Lord Davenham’s last choice?” Lady Sarah murmured.
“Ah . . . didn’t mean it that way, Sal. Just saying you was the only female he didn’t reject out of hand.”
“I see.”
“Sal? Sally?”
But Lady Sarah Ainsworth was disappearing out the door, the many layers of ruffles on the hem of her jonquil sprigged muslin waving defiance in her wake.
Sarah charged up the stairs, bursting into her sunny bedchamber at the rear of the townhouse at a near run. Her fingers fumbled with the ties on her embroidered silk bed curtains. In less than a minute she was kneeling on her high bed, cocooned from the world, secure in a childish shelter she had never quite outgrown. The sun shone through the two thin layers of silk, the small embroidered flowers casting polka-dot shadows onto the ruffled organdy counterpane, the color of a young maiden’s blush.
Davenham! Covering her face with both hands, Sarah slumped down, her gown crumpling around her. Dandy Davenham. Impossible. With three older brothers she had no illusion about the fantasies that could be conjured out of a bottle. And surely that was all there was to it. Undoubtedly, Lord Davenham, dashing young man about town, had awakened this morning with a headache, a sour stomach, and abject horror at the thought of Sarah Ainsworth as his bride.
So why was she shaking from head to toe? Heart pounding, a thousand butterflies fluttering in her stomach?
Davenham. The impeccable dandy’s dandy.
She was last on his list.
She was the only female Harlan Dawnay had found acceptable? Because he thought her too young and inexperienced to say boo to a goose? Ha! Then again . . .
Sarah lifted her head, propped her chin on her folded fingers, and scowled at the unrelenting sunshine filtering through the embroidered white silk. Was it actually possible she was about to receive an offer from the most dashing, handsome, and charming gentleman in the ton? She was fond of her brothers but, truthfully, Harlan Dawnay cast all three in the shade.
Harlan. Sarah savored the name. It resounded through her brain, like a witch’s chant. Seductive . . . sharp-edged . . . heart-breaking. She would be mad to agree. To throw away her life at seventeen on an insouciant charmer who teetered on the verge of being named a rake. Whose character had all the depth of . . . of a tea tray!
A silver gilt tea tray etched to perfection.
Her sister Amalie was also etched to perfection. One of the loveliest young ladies of the decade, said society’s connoisseurs. The perfect portrait of a titled young lady. But beneath the surface of Amalie Ainsworth there was little to be found but gossip, fashion, and talk of the latest ton entertainment. Was this what Sarah would find if she married Dandy Davenham? An empty façade?
Harlan Dawnay is the best offer you’ll ever receive. Dickon was right, of course. And yet . . . to know she was last choice of her hero, her shining star, the object of all her girlish fantasies, was hard, very hard.
Looby! Suffering so over an impossible dream. The high, mighty, and flighty Lord Davenham had dismissed the entire matter by now. It was not going to happen.
Two hours later when Sarah’s maid, Finella, came bursting into the room, Lady Sarah Ainsworth had changed her gown three times and was sitting in a comfortable chair upholstered in a cheerful shade of rose brocade that did not match her mood. She had not turned a page of the third canto of Childe Harold in half an hour.
“Oh, Miss,” Finella cried, “you’ll never guess! Lord Davenham is closeted with his lordship. Her ladyship and your sister are all atwitter, flinging clothes every which way to find what’s perfect for when his lordship sends for her. Imagine, Miss—Davenham offering for Lady Amalie! What a pair they’ll make. Heads’ll turn wherever they go.”
“I thought Mother and Amalie were determined to have nothing less than a duke,” Sarah manage
d with commendable calm, considering that her insides had once again dissolved to the consistency of a blancmange.
“With my very own ears I heard her ladyship declare Parkington is near twice Davenham’s age and with but half the Dawnay wealth. She said, rake or no, that was good enough for her.”
“And Amalie?” Sarah inquired faintly.
“I’ve never seen your sister so . . . so full of high spirits, Miss. Like someone lit a candle inside her. Don’t guess she thought so much of His Grace, after all, even if he is a duke.”
“Oh.” Sarah smoothed the skirt of the soft blue muslin she had finally chosen, a demure gown with long sleeves and high neck, ornamented solely by a single fall of white lace on the sleeves and hem. What a fool she had been to believe—even for one moment, let alone the time it had taken her to select a gown—that Harlan Dawnay had come for her. “You may leave the door open, Finella,” she pronounced with a good show of languor. “I would not wish to miss the excitement.”
“Yes, Miss!” Unashamedly, the two young women eavesdropped on the sounds echoing through the upper hallway. The excited but indistinguishable female murmurs coming from Amalie’s room, which was next to Sarah’s. The stately tread of Meese, the Ainsworths’ August butler coming up the stairs . . . his discreet scratching at Lady Amalie’s door. The Marchioness of Rotherwick’s anguished shriek, Lady Amalie’s wail.
Mother and daughter came charging into Sarah’s bedchamber with fire in their eyes. Cordelia Rotherwick took one look at her daughter garbed in her newest and most becoming gown and declared in ringing tones, “It’s true, then. You knew about this! Obviously, Davenham’s gone mad.”
“You can’t marry before I do,” Amalie wailed. “It’s not done.”
“Miss,” said Meese, peering over Lady Rotherwick’s head, “his lordship wishes you to join him immediately in the bookroom.”
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