Steeplechase

by Bancroft, Blair

  “I believe you should do as the lady suggests,” Southwaite said very quietly.

  The two young men suddenly noticed the crowd that had gathered round them, avidly listening to every word. Lord Richard flushed, gave a brusque nod. “My lord . . . Sal.” And they were gone.

  Piquet. The odious, odious man preferred piquet to dancing with his wife! On the night of her grand London debut as Lady Davenham.

  During her many days of preparation for this night, Sarah had told herself it did not matter how long her campaign for Davenham’s notice lasted. But she lied. When Harlan said he might attend the Eversham’s ball, she had believed him. She had expected him.

  How very foolish to think one night, one gown—no matter how elegantly sophisticated—might do the trick. Oh, Harlan had noticed her finery, just as he might notice a fine mare for sale at Tatt’s. How could she have expected anything more when he had Amaryllis LeFay waiting for him at any hour of the day or night he might wish to set foot at her door?

  And of course she had quite spoiled her show of indifference by mentioning the tart’s name! As bitter as reality was, as much as it cost her, she had to admit that under the indigo gown and her lacy undergarments was only little Sally Davenham. Gilding the lily did not change the bland, white, easily bruised flower beneath.

  Sarah poked at the food brought to her by Lord Southwaite. She loved lobster patties yet thought she might choke if she ate a bite. Tiny shrimp on nicely toasted bread rounds, decorated with dill—she’d swear she saw one wiggle, but perhaps that was simply the tears threatening to spill from her eye. The champagne tasted sour, the bubbles setting off not so much as a single giggle.

  “Are all your dances promised?” Southwaite inquired. Glumly, Sarah nodded. The baron leaned closer. “Then you must stay to the bitter end, dance every last one. Polish your most sparkling conversation, and smile ’til you think your face will crack. There is no alternative. Cut and run now, and you will be cut by every tabby who has gone this route before you. And, believe me, their names are legion. “Time to grow up, Sally—if I may?” Geoffrey Hatton raised a perfectly arched brow, requesting permission to use her nickname. Sarah returned a wavering smile as she once again nodded. “Believe me, Sally, Davenham will come round. No man looking at you tonight can conceive of anything else. But at the moment, it is necessary to begin as you mean to go on. As you yourself indicated to your brother and Chumley, you do very well on your own. And I, for one, will be glad enough to keep watch until Davenham comes to his senses and realizes what a treasure he has.”

  Sarah studied the food scattered over her plate, toyed with her champagne flute. “You are most kind, my lord, but is that not rather like setting the fox to guard the hen-coop?”

  Geoffrey Hatton rocked back in his chair, his laugh echoing over the array of supper tables. Heads turned, eyebrows raised. “Indeed,” he chortled, “but I assure you my interest is more in the nature of paternal. With your brother in Davenham’s pocket, someone must look after you.”

  “I have a father.”

  “Who spends more time at his club than Davenham does. Is he here tonight? Indeed not. And with all respect to Lady Rotherwick, she is not the help you need at the moment.”

  “You are too wise,” Sarah grumbled. “You see too much. It is mortifying to know that my feelings are laid bare to the entire ton.”

  “They are not. You have carried it off well, my dear. Grant me the courtesy of allowing me to be more perspicacious than most.”

  Sarah proffered a wan smile. “I certainly hope so,” she breathed. “’Tis bad enough that you read me like a book.”

  Lord Southwaite glanced at the rapidly thinning crowd of diners. “I believe the next set will soon be forming.” He stood and offered his arm. “Allow me to escort you back to Lady Rotherwick. And, Sarah,” the baron added softly, “will you drive with me in the park tomorrow, say at half-four?”

  “Indeed . . . Geoffrey.” Sarah curtsied, then turned to give her hand to her next partner, who was patiently waiting beside her mama’s chair.

  The Countess of Davenham danced until she thought her slippers might wear through. She danced until the last note sounded, and her mama had been yawning behind her fan for an hour or more. Her partners declared her to have the brightest smile and quickest wit in the room. Even though Lady Davenham was subjected to a variety of veiled glances and was the object of whispers behind numerous fans, she was an undoubted triumph. The littlest Ainsworth transformed into a Dasher. Imagine that!

  Lord Davenham did not return to Margaret Street until dawn was tingeing the eastern sky. Due to the peculiar arrangement of their new home, his wife heard his stealthy entrance solely because she had not slept a wink that night. And because she had cracked her bedchamber door for precisely that purpose. The house’s merchant owner had built a spacious first floor bedchamber for himself, connecting it to his wife’s chamber on the second floor via a narrow and uninviting staircase. Sarah had been so relieved when Davenham announced he had discovered a house that might do she had not objected when she inspected it. And when she finally viewed the odd arrangement, she had been naive enough to assume Davenham would select one of the fine bedchambers on the second floor, not far from her own.

  She had been mistaken. Harlan and his valet Morgan had moved into the first floor owner’s suite with almost indecent enthusiasm, and in the week they had lived on Margaret Street the paths of Lord and Lady Davenham had crossed three times at breakfast, once for dinner, and twice for tea. The fault was partially hers, of course, for refusing to be seen in public until she had her new wardrobe, but really—in spite of their agreement—she had expected a bit more. The companionship they had shared in Brighton—sometimes with the ease of brother and sister and sometimes fraught with a strange tension that tingled her toes and more unmentionable regions—had ruined her enjoyment of the freedom she had longed to know. Independence was all well and good, but it was frightfully solitary. For all she saw of her husband, she might well have remained at the Old Ship, while Harlan returned to London to cut a dash through the highs and lows of the beau monde.

  Miserable man!

  Harlan’s footsteps faded as he crossed from the marble tile of the entry hall onto the sumptuous softness of first floor carpets. The faint sound of a door closing. Silence, utter devastating silence as the staircase between the two rooms had a door at the bottom and another at the top. Obviously, it had not been designed to encourage communication between the two rooms, leaving little doubt about the state of the merchant’s marriage. Or her husband’s view of their own.

  Sarah turned her face into her pillow and wept.

  For her ride through Hyde Park with Lord Southwaite Sarah wore a jade green carriage dress with a two layers of ruffles at the hem and a Kashmir shawl whose colorful embroidery was an exquisite accent to the gown. Both gown and shawl were expressly designed to set off Lady Davenham’s glorious hair, which peeked out from beneath a hat that sat on top of her curls rather than shading her face in the customary bonnet style. As at the Eversham’s ball, people gawked. Little Sally Ainsworth? Impossible. Must be Southwaite’s latest chère amie, but, then again, he wasn’t noted for robbing the cradle. Odd, very odd.

  Geoffrey Hatton, with the barest hint of a smile of satisfaction, pulled up his horses as three riders approached. “Davenham, Ainsworth, Chumley.” The baron nodded. “I believe you are acquainted with my passenger.”

  “If I had known you wished to ride in the park, Sarah,” Harlan declared stiffly, glaring down at his wife, “I would have driven you myself.”

  “But Lord Southwaite asked me first,” his wife responded quite reasonably, while swallowing the urge to add that it would be difficult to ask Davenham anything as she so seldom saw him. Sarah smiled at her brother, nodded to Mr. Chumley. “Do you go to the Roxbury’s rout on Thursday, Mr. Chumley? I am taking a mutual friend of ours. You remember Miss Twitchell, do you not? Since she is a stranger to London, perhaps you will be
kind enough to dance with her.”

  “Sarah, you didn’t!” Davenham burst out. “You could not be such a featherbrain as to recognize that female here in town.”

  “Miss Twitchell is a heroine,” his wife reminded him. “Indeed, she may have saved my life. Certainly, hers was the hand that reached for mine in an emergency. I am much indebted to her.”

  “She is a jumped-up Cit of no family, no fortune—”

  “Enough!” The sharpness of the baron’s tone startled them all. “The poor young woman has sufficient burdens without making her an object of gossip on Rotten Row. Miss Twitchell is unfortunate in her family, but is a charming young woman of fine features and good manners. Lady Davenham could do far worse in selecting a friend. I applaud her generosity of spirit.”

  His four companions stared in astonishment. In both age and as a peer of the realm, deference to Lord Southwaite was mandatory. If Davenham wished to quarrel with his wife, he must do so in private. Yet why the baron had chosen to make Sarah’s fight his own was a mystery. The rakish Southwaite had never been noted for playing knight errant.

  “My lord.” Davenham sketched a stiff bow. “Sarah, we shall speak more of this later.”

  Lord Richard and Mr. Chumley added their farewells, and the three young men rode off, leaving Sarah to wonder what had just happened. The Wicked Baron had danced with Esmerelda on several occasions in Brighton, but she had seen no sign of amorous interest. Indeed, Southwaite had treated Esmerelda much as he did herself, with the polished care and gentle humor of an older brother or an uncle. She had been well aware of what Harlan’s reaction would be when she invited Esmerelda to visit London, yet never had she expected support from Lord Southwaite. Surely the highly sophisticated, world-weary baron could not be interested in a girl from the Midlands, twenty years his junior. Yet his voice had rung with sincerity. There was no doubt Harlan’s disparaging words had inspired genuine anger.

  Delightful! The mystery, as well as the controversy, would surely keep her from being overly sorry for herself.

  “Davenham . . . that agreement we thought such a fine idea . . .” Lord Richard’s voice trailed into silence. The three friends had brought their mounts to a halt at the far end of the park near Tattersall’s.

  “I suppose the Grande LeFay is happy,” Mr. Chumley contributed gloomily.

  “Not really,” Harlan muttered. The truth was, his performance since he returned to town had been less than sterling. And Ryl had made no secret about noticing the difference. He had gone to her with such enthusiasm, eager to cast off his short and uncomfortable stint of celibacy, and quite in the middle of enjoying himself to the fullest he had felt a third presence in the room. Positively uncanny, enough to stand his hair on end.

  And quite revolting. He had deflated like a pricked balloon. He had even found himself examining the shadowy corners of Ryl’s bedchamber, looking for God alone knew what as clearly nothing tangible was to be seen. He had, of course, recovered his aplomb and mended, if not saved, his reputation as a lover. But, truth was, since his return from Brighton, he’d spent more nights gaming and being on the ramble with his friends through the taverns and coffee houses of London than he had in Ryl’s bed.

  At the moment he had been married barely more than a fortnight, yet both his wife and his mistress were barely speaking to him.

  “We may have been mistaken,” Lord Richard ventured. “Sal’s got that look. Take my word for it, she’s not just unhappy, she’s out to cause mischief. I’m fond of m’sister, Harlan. I don’t want to see her hurt.”

  “Our intentions were good,” Adrian Chumley declared, “but, dash it all, Harlan, she is your wife. The whole town’s beginning to notice your neglect. We were wrong—living separate lives is acceptable after a wife’s given you an heir and a spare, but it just ain’t done when the ink’s not dry on the marriage register.”

  “She’s too young,” Harlan declared flatly. “I couldn’t possibly—”

  “I didn’t say that,” Sarah’s brother interrupted. “Damnation, Davenham! Just spend some time with her.”

  So much for invisible. Yet his wife had not only been just that, she had been so invisible she had invaded Ryl’s bedchamber and haunted him in his most intimate moments.

  Hell and devil confound it, he should have known their arrangement would never work!

  When Sarah descended the front stairs to the entry hall two days later, intent on calling on the Twitchells, she found an inordinate number of servants at work in the hall or in the adjacent rooms. Very busily at work, at that. Puzzled, she raised her gaze to Hughes, whose bland countenance never faltered. “I believe, my lady,” he announced, “you may wish to look outside before I call for the carriage.” With a gesture that could almost be called grand, the butler flung open the front door.

  A curricle! Powder blue, picked out in white. With two perfectly matched white horses, a groom standing at their head.

  Oh, poor Harlan, his guilt must truly be heart-felt! A curricle, when he did not think her capable of handling the ribbons in Brighton, let alone on the streets of Mayfair.

  Perhaps he wished to be rid of her? This vehicle was certainly capable of doing the trick.

  But where was he? So overcome by guilt he could not look her in the eye? Or so indifferent he had ordered up this enormous bribe and simply gone back to his manly pleasures? “Well, Sal?” said her husband’s voice from just behind her. “Do you like it?”

  Sarah closed her eyes, took a deep breath, speaking softly for Harlan’s ear alone. “And what must I do in return, my lord? Take a driving lesson instead of visiting the Twitchells?”

  “Unkind, Sal. The curricle is yours, no matter how tottyheaded your notions. My sole request is that, today, you allow me to drive you on your errands. I wish to have a better feel for how these prads go on before I allow you to drive out by yourself.”

  Conciliation indeed. “It is quite the loveliest curricle I have ever seen, my lord. I am . . . overwhelmed. And since I am also more humble than the girl who nearly drove us into a farm wagon in Hove, I will be most happy to have you demonstrate your driving skill.”

  Twenty minutes later as Davenham set her down at the Twitchells door, the dazzling bubble of having her very own curricle suddenly shattered, and Sarah saw what others would see—the utter incongruity of Dandy Davenham driving two mincing white horses from the bench of a powder blue curricle picked out in white. Her eyes opened wide, her mouth forming an O. “My lord, I was going to suggest you run your own errands and return for me in an hour, but . . .” Stricken, she gazed at him in apology.

  “You think I do not have enough credit to survive a drive down St. James in this vehicle?” Davenham inquired, one eyebrow raised.

  “I cannot think you would wish it,” Sarah murmured, biting her lip.

  “I drove it from Tatt’s to Margaret Street. I can manage another hour, I believe.” Their eyes met, Sarah bursting into a giggle echoed by Davenham’s good-natured chuckle. It was the closest they had come to being comfortable with each other since they had quarreled over Esmerelda Twitchell in Brighton.

  “Off with you now,” Harlan said. “I daresay Rotherwick’s daughter and Davenham’s wife has enough credit to survive an acquaintance with an Esmerelda Twitchell. Nonetheless,” he added on a scowl, “I draw the line at sitting down to dinner with the aunt.”

  On impulse, Sarah kissed his cheek. “You shall not have to. I promise. And, Harlan . . . the curricle is quite, quite wonderful!”

  With the aid of the groom’s hand, she scrambled down and floated over the pavement to steps of the house on Great Russell Street in Bloomsbury.

  Chapter Ten

  “I know I ain’t quite the thing,” Prunella Twitchell declared. Today, her ample figure was encased in a gown of a particularly bilious shade of mustard that clashed rather alarmingly with the poppy scarlet of her wig du jour. Inwardly, Sarah heaved a vast sigh of relief, for how to find the right words to tell the ladies of Great Ru
ssell Street that Esmerelda’s only hope of entering the ton must be under the sole chaperonage of a young lady two years her junior had so far escaped her.

  “No need to play mice feet with me, my lady. Ain’t just out of the egg, you know,” Mrs. Twitchell continued in her customary stentorian bellow. “Know your fine friends’ll turn up their noses at their sight of me. Worse ‘n if I was a one-armed beggar on the street. You writing that note to Essy in Brighton, telling her you would call if she came to town, now that was the sign of a true lady, indeed it was. Knowed right then you was a cut above. I told Essy, that there Lady Davenham’s true blue, a lady of sterling quality, and we’ll go up to town with a right good will.”

  “Aunt—” Miss Esmerelda Twitchell’s attempt to interrupt her aunt’s flow of words was doomed to failure. Prunella Twitchell plunged on with scarcely a pause for breath. “Imagine! A viscountess calling on my Essy. And offering to take her about. ’Tis a miracle, a gen-yew-ine miracle. She’s a fine girl, our Essy. Deserves better than what the Twitchells of Kidderminster can give her. That’s why we went to Brighton, don’t you know—thought to snabble a proper husband there. Never thought we’d be given the go for London, though. Gracious, so gracious, my lady. There are no words, simply no words—”

  “We are indeed most grateful.” This time, her aunt having run out of breath, Esmerelda was more successful in expressing herself. “And also to our cousin Laura”—Miss Twitchell flashed a smile at the fourth occupant of the drawing room of the house on Great Russell Street—“who has so generously offered us a home while we are here.”

  Laura Byrne, wife of a solicitor of some repute, smiled benignly. “It is a pleasure to have you, my dear. I shall stand in the shadows and watch your entrance into society with all the pride and anxiety of a mother hen, as will your Aunt Prunella,” she added with faint but significant emphasis. “The very last thing any of us wish to do is cast the pall of trade over our darling girl.”