Steeplechase

by Bancroft, Blair

  “Dear child,” said Lady Amalie, looking down her patrician nose at the overly ornate furnishings in the drawing room, “you never did have a sense of your proper place in society, so I dare say a Cit’s residence will do for you.”

  Lady Rotherwick seated herself on a plump scarlet settee with gilded scrolled arms, Lady Amalie and Sarah taking matching chairs across from her. “Well, my dear,” the marchioness declared, “now that we are alone at last, Amalie and I wish to hear about Brighton. Every last bit—leave nothing out.”

  “What is the shocking story we hear about Davenham saving you from a deer? It cannot possibly be true,” Lady Amalie declared. “A hunt in Brighton? Absurd.”

  “And I am told you danced with Southwaite,” Lady Rotherwick added in her most quelling tone. “And took up with some quite impossible mushroom.”

  “And why did you cut your wedding trip short?” Amalie demanded. “For we do not for one moment believe that story about your being so frightened by a deer you needed to run home to mama. Not you, Sal. Never you.”

  Sarah kept her back stiff, head high. She was mistress of her own household. She was married. She was Lady Davenham.

  But before her mama and sister she was the youngest Ainsworth. Seventeen. Alone and indefensible. She seized on the deer story as she had seized Esmerelda’s hand that fateful morning on Brighton beach. Outlining the tale concisely and clearly, she found herself pointing out that Davenham had indeed come to her rescue, even though it was the impossible mushroom who had actually pulled her away from the path of the terrified deer.

  “There actually was a deer?” Amalie cried, forgetting her customary perfectly modulated tones.

  “Indeed. Pandemonium abounded,” Sarah declared, not without considerable satisfaction. “Ladies were screaming and fainting all around us. Miss Twitchell, Davenham, and Mr. Chumley were of great help in restoring all the ladies and children to the bathing machines.”

  “Ramshackle!” Lady Rotherwick pronounced. “Davenham and Mr. Chumley were in the water with ladies in their bathing gowns?”

  “Would you have had them drown?”

  The Marchioness of Rotherwick turned her stern gaze on each daughter in turn. “We will speak no more of this,” she decreed. “It is a scandal best ignored. Fortunately, the ton has come to expect shocking behavior from the prince’s set in Brighton. If anyone dares bring up the subject, we will emphasize that Davenham was a hero who gallantly saved his wife’s life. And there’s an end on it.”

  “Yes, mama.” Reluctantly from Lady Amalie.

  “Yes, mama.” Meekly from Lady Rotherwick’s youngest.

  “But what about your marriage?” Amalie demanded. “We heard with our morning chocolate that Davenham went out last night. Alone.”

  “The rapidity of servants’ gossip never fails to astonish me,” Sarah returned, nose in the air.

  “Well?” the marchioness asked. “Did Davenham go out last night?”

  “Of course, mama. As you very well know, gentlemen go out every night during the Season.”

  “Did you go out? Either with Davenham or another escort?”

  “No . . . no, mama. I was exhausted from the move.”

  “Exhausted?” Amalie mocked. “You, Sarah? I know quite well you did nothing but drive in the carriage from Marchmont House to here.”

  Sarah firmed her chin, sat taller in her chair. “And you know quite well I have not been in town long enough to sort through my invitations—”

  “You’ve been back an entire week, Sal,” her sister told her roundly. “Were you hiding, knowing quite well when he told you he was going to his club, he was off to see the fair LeFay.”

  “Amalie!” the marchioness snapped, “that will be quite enough.” Lady Rotherwick turned her gaze to her youngest child, who was obviously struggling to appear valiantly defiant but only managing to look young and forlorn. “Dear child, you cannot expect to hold a man like Davenham unless you do everything in your power to capture his attention. Although,” Lady Rotherwick added on a considering note, “I cannot, in all conscience, consider that being attacked by a wild beast was quite the way to go about it.”

  “I told you he’d give you the go-by, leave you coughing in his dust,” Amalie said in the I-told-you-so tone Sarah most particularly despised.

  She stood up, hands clenched in front of her. “Mama, I mean no disrespect, but I assure you Davenham and I understand each other quite well. I find I like being married. It has . . . advantages I confess I had not even considered. Among them is being able to arrange my social schedule as I see fit. To dance with whom I please and make friends where I please.”

  “Davenham will never allow you to take up with vulgar Cits,” said her sister.

  Sarah ignored her. “Mama, I assure you I will make every effort not to go beyond the Pale, but I intend to cut a dash. A veritable swath straight through the middle of the ton. But I need a bit of time to prepare—a new wardrobe, a new way of thought. A new Sarah, if you will. Lady Davenham is not going to be little Sally Ainsworth.”

  “You, a dasher?” Amalie snorted. “Do not be absurd, Sal.”

  But Lady Rotherwick nodded, a tiny smile turning up the corners of her mouth. “So . . . you did not need my advice, I see. You are aware of the enormity of the challenge. Very well, my dear, I wish you bonne chance.”

  “You will need it!” Amalie scoffed. “Really, Sal, how you think to compete with Amaryllis LeFay I cannot imagine.”

  “Do you go to the Worthingtons tonight?” the marchioness inquired blandly.

  “No, mama. I shall need several days before I make my second debut in the beau monde. Last week was almost completely devoted to house-hunting. Now I must wait for the new gowns I have ordered. And how is Parkington?” she added brightly, not giving either of her visitors time for another comment on her social life.

  “Attentive as ever,” her mother stated, even as Lady Amalie assumed her most haughty expression.

  “How delightful for you,” said Lady Davenham to her sister. Very sweetly.

  “Come, Amalie, we will be off.” The marchioness rose to her feet, smiling benignly at her youngest child. “You were ever full of spirit, Sarah. I have no doubt you will manage the thing in the end. Davenham will be totally bouleversé.”

  The Marchioness of Rotherwick sailed through the drawing room door, her elder daughter trailing in her wake. Behind them, the very young Lady Davenham began to smile. Davenham turned upside down . . . bowled over by little Sally Ainsworth. A lovely thought . . . simply lovely.

  The truth was, Sarah and Madame Françoise, the modiste, had clashed on first acquaintance. The second-generation refugee from France’s Revolution was scandalized by so young a lady wishing to wear the deep rich colors of the more exotic gemstones. “What will you wear when you are forty, my lady?” the dressmaker cried, throwing up her hands. “You are young, fresh as the morning dew. Of an innocence most profound. Treasure it, my lady. Do not hide your beauty behind the façade of a dowager or a courtesan.”

  “Madame, I assure you I am adamant about the particular look I desire,” returned Lady Davenham with steely good manners. “Perhaps when I am forty, I shall wish to wear pale colors once again in nostalgia for my lost youth. But at the moment I wish a look that is as far from Lady Sarah Ainsworth as it is possible to be. Is that perfectly clear, Madame?”

  The benefits of a second entirely new wardrobe for the same young lady in a single Season was eminently clear. “Bien entendu, my lady,” the modiste murmured, bowing to her youthful client’s demands. Madame Françoise clapped her hands, summoning her minions. “Eau de nil would be superb for you, my lady. Diaphanous, seductive as Cleopatra herself.”

  Sarah clutched her reticule in her lap, while ordering her expressive face to be still. Was she so transparent that the modiste had instantly divined her purpose? Primly, Sarah sat on the pale blue silk brocade loveseat in Madame Françoise’s showroom and inspected design sketches and roll after roll
of fabric. Every shade of blue from sapphire to indigo, even the stormy blue of an angry sea. Greens from subtle gray-green to jade and forest. A silk chiffon the shade of ripe peaches, a satin the color of milk-laced coffee overlaid with blonde lace. A rosy red that somehow enhanced, rather than clashed with, the shimmering beauty of Sarah’s hair. A rich lavender spiced with silver thread, a dramatic pure white peau de soie Lady Davenham scorned until shown a suggested trim of black roses and black lace.

  In the end the former Lady Sarah Ainsworth left Madame Françoise’s establishment on Bond Street with her fine eyes sparkling with excitement. Dutifully, each day she squeezed in time to return for fittings and to make adjustments to her original selections. Occasionally, she even thought of what Harlan would think when he received Madame Françoise’s reckoning. Perhaps he would be forced to cut back on Miss LeFay’s allowance or buy her jewels of lesser quality . . .

  And now she was nearly ready. Sarah, suffused with confidence in her great transformation and tingling with excitement over the dramatic splash she intended to make in the haut monde’s exclusive pond, sat as tall as she could in her barouche, nodding and smiling to acquaintances as the coachman negotiated the heavy traffic around Piccadilly. Beside her was Finella, who had piled onto the opposite seat the evidence of their latest shopping foray, the many accessories needed to accompany the new gowns. Fans in dramatic colors, some painted, some embroidered, some of intricate black lace. Fine stockings, several with embroidered emblems and flowers. Slippers, bonnets, turbans, ostrich feathers. The finest Kashmir shawls, so heavily embroidered they practically stood alone. Shawls of silk so delicate they might have been made of gossamer. Her reticules and parasols, however, would be made by Madame Françoise, constructed of the same fabric as each gown, some beaded, some embroidered, some fringed, some with lace. Sarah had toyed with the idea of having gloves made to match as well, but had finally conceded that was a bit too outré. Her present collection of gloves would do. For now.

  Nearly a week after the removal to the house on Margaret Street, when even Lord Davenham’s friends had begun to twit him about leaving his wife at home each evening, Lady Sarah Davenham descended the front staircase togged out in her new finery just as her husband was setting off for an evening on the town. Casually, she allowed her shawl to fall off her shoulders, revealing the full impact of her new gown.

  Lord Davenham goggled. “I say, Sal, is that quite the thing? I mean . . . well, dash it all, you don’t look like yourself.”

  For her debut as Lady Davenham Sarah had chosen an indigo silk whose hem was ruched in white chiffon above a fall of deep white lace. A rose of white chiffon was set on one side of her bodice, attracting every eye to her décolletage, where the tops of her breasts rose saucily above the midnight blue. She was wearing her pearls, but it was quite obvious that was not what had caught Lord Davenham notice.

  “This is what young matrons wear, Davenham. Surely you do not expect me to continue to look as if I am just out of the schoolroom?”

  “You are just out of the schoolroom!”

  “Nonetheless, I am a married woman now and must look the part.”

  “Then you’ve chosen the wrong role, my dear,” Davenham declared ominously. “More like a Wicked Widow or a—”

  “Or what?” Sarah demanded, slinking down a few more stairs until she was poised with her head a foot above her husband’s, his eyes on a level with the pale, surprisingly well-rounded flesh rising above the midnight blue of her stylish gown.

  Harlan groaned. Quite deliberately, he took out his quizzing glass and surveyed his wife from head to toe, and was forced to concede that she was garbed in acceptable mode. More than acceptable. She was stunning. But she was no longer little Sally Ainsworth, his friend’s sister. His wife. His supposedly invisible wife. “Your escort?” he demanded.

  “My mama and my sister,” his wife returned, dripping honey. “I trust that meets your requirements, my lord.”

  “Your destination?”

  The aquamarine eyes went wide. “I was under the impression, my lord, that we agreed to go our separate ways. That my comings and goings would no more be questioned than I have inquired about yours.”

  “It is not at all the same!” Harlan roared. He dragged a hand through his hair, adding a new touch to its fashionable disarrangement. “My apologies, Sal. Chumley would not hesitate to remind me I am playing dog in the manger again. If you do not mind, however, I should like to know where you are going as I may drop in myself later this evening.”

  Devil a bit, her cool eyes were suddenly alight with eagerness.

  “Would you truly?” Sarah cried, once again the child he knew. And then her face lost its animation; she seemed to retreat within herself. His sparkling infant, lost behind a cool ton façade. “That is, I am sure we would be delighted to see you, my lord, if you should deign to honor the Eversham’s ball with your presence. Ah—I believe I hear mama’s carriage now.” She swept by him. Hughes threw open the door and ushered her down the steps.

  Lord Davenham was left with his chin hanging down. And a nasty niggling of guilt.

  Chapter Nine

  Delicious! Wonderfully, marvelously, delightfully delicious! She’d done it. She was a success.

  Her husband’s reaction might not have been quite what Sarah wished, but the members of the haut monde attending the Eversham’s ball quite made up for it. Including poor dear Amalie in her pale pink sarsenet that positively faded into the sea of other insipidly clad unmarried ladies.

  As Lady Davenham passed by, conversations came to a halt mid-sentence. Dowagers raised their lorgnettes; gentlemen whipped quizzing glasses to their eyes. The sour cloak of envy descended on the brigade of young ladies making their come-outs, and dashing matrons and widows narrowed their eyes at such audacious competition from a member of the infantry.

  After the initial shock, there was a rush toward Lady Davenham by gentlemen fortunate enough to claim acquaintance with the Ainsworth family. If Sarah had not been so busy basking under the sudden attention, a tear might have formed. Certainly her lips quivered a time or two. Only in her wildest dreams had she thought that her scheming would have such gratifying results.

  She was laughing, smiling, attempting to remember which set was promised to whom when a familiar voice said, “I trust you have a waltz left for me, Lady Davenham.”

  “Southwaite!” There were groans all around as Sarah turned a radiant smile on the ton’s best-known rake. Vaguely, she heard a hiss of protest from her mother, which she happily ignored.

  “Without your lively presence,” Lord Southwaite declared, “Brighton turned dull as ditchwater.” Delighted, Sarah hid her blushes behind her suddenly unfurled fan. “Will you reward my long miles of dusty travel with a waltz?” The baron’s tawny eyes had such a wicked gleam Sarah wondered if she had made another faux pas with her fan. With scarcely a qualm, she consigned to the devil the supper waltz she had been saving on the off hope her husband might arrive, granting Lord Southwaite the right to take her in to supper, as well as his requested waltz.

  So there, Harlan Dawnay, take that and that and that!

  Euphoria was a very heady thing, Sarah discovered. She would likely pay dearly for this evening, but she would remember it all the days of her life. She was a golden butterfly, emerged from seventeen long years of tight cocooning, to fly over the dance floor as if she had wings on her feet. Whirling in Lord Southwaite’s arms, it was as if she were indeed a butterfly, soaring above the colorful sets of dancers, the languid on-lookers, the scurrying servants, the orchestra, the glittering chandeliers, to look down in wonder on the triumph of little Sally Ainsworth, now Viscountess Davenham.

  The night was perfect!

  Or it would be, if Harlan repeated the stir he had caused their first night in Brighton. But then he had been close by in the card room. Tonight he was goodness knew where. Perhaps even— No, she would not think of that! As the dance swirled to a close, Sarah dropped a deep curtsy t
o Geoffrey Hatton, her gratitude infinite. Southwaite had granted her the cachet of open admiration from a well-known connoisseur of women. On the town for more than a decade longer than the elegant Dandy Davenham, some even said Lord Southwaite wielded nearly as much social influence as poor Brummel, now fled to France to escape his debts. And as a member of the prince’s Carlton House set, his reputation was racy enough to add spice to the new image Sarah wished to create. Putting her hand on the Wicked Baron’s arm, Lady Davenham allowed him to lead her in to supper.

  “Sal! I say, Sal!” The hiss, coming from behind, stopped Sarah in her tracks, forcing the baron to a halt as well.

  Dickon. If he were here, then— Sarah felt a decided thump in the region of her heart. The golden butterfly was doing somersaults in her stomach.

  “Southwaite.” Lord Richard, with Adrian Chumley skidding up behind him, favored the baron with a stiff nod before turning to his sister. “Davenham is held up at White’s, Sal. “Ridgeway was a poor loser at piquet—demanded a third rubber.” Sarah’s brother shrugged, as if to say what was a waiting wife compared to gaming’s odd codes of honor. “So Harlan sent us to tell you he’d be along as soon as he could.”

  The gaze Sarah turned on her brother and Mr. Chumley was perfectly expressionless. She had practiced that particular look before her mirror, but suspected this was the first time she had gotten it right. It was the cool, collected look of a wife who has been wronged but wishes the world to see only how much she does not care. “How thoughtful,” she murmured. “You may return and tell my lord that after his game he may go directly to Miss LeFay as I do very well here without him.”

  Baron Southwaite’s arm jerked beneath her hand as he turned a bark of laughter into a cough. Lord Richard and Mr. Chumley stood silent, mouths agape.