“Does everybody know about my Tabitha?”
“I like that,” Lady Antonia said, rising. “She is your Tabitha, and soon you will be back to threatening to pummel the unwary. I like that a very great deal, my lord, but the philosophers leave you bored, and if I were to bring up theology over breakfast, you’d probably spend the rest of the day calling on tenants. We would not suit.”
Grey stood and offered his arm. She hesitated, then took it.
“Perhaps we would not suit as spouses, but I think we suit well as friends. Which gentleman has caught your eye? I’ll tell you if he gambles excessively, makes stupid wagers, or treats his help badly.”
Lady Antonia remained silent until they were once again on the walkway outside the square. “You are rumored to be fortune-hunting, my lord, but you have wealth.”
“The Dornings have land,” Grey said. “I manage well enough.” Not quite true. He managed year to year and gave thanks nightly that a peer could not be jailed for debt. His brothers, however, could be, and he had an entire herd of brothers.
“You have wealth,” Lady Antonia said. “You have siblings to spare, and they aid your causes. If you wanted to know about, say, Thomas Blessingstoke’s gambling markers, your brothers would correspond with their friends, and soon, you’d know down to the last farthing what the man owes and to whom. That’s wealth.
“When you celebrate the holidays at Dorning Hall,” she went on, “you can barely fit everybody around the table. That’s wealth. When your daughter makes her come out, every other earl’s wife will take a kindly interest in her, hoping your countess will do the same for their step-daughters and step-sons. That’s wealth.”
She was back to walking quickly, leaping from idea to idea. They might have driven each other barmy as husband and wife, though Grey honestly liked the woman.
“The sort of wealth you refer to does not buy many bonnets, my lady. Is this your house?”
They’d turned down a side street, a quiet, shady lane where each house looked almost exactly like the buildings on either side.
“Mine is that one, with the boring blue salvia. Are you wroth with me, Lord Casriel? I did not wait for you to ask, I did not give you the you-do-me-great-honor speech, though I suspect you were about to do me a very great honor, also a great awkwardness.”
Lady Antonia was a puzzling woman, half fierce, half vulnerable, and probably something of a mystery to herself. But she had been—ultimately—kind and honest with Grey, for which he was grateful.
“I am pleased to regard you as my friend,” he said, taking her hand. “If ever there is a good turn I can do you, you must not hesitate to ask. By being so forthright, you have done me a very great honor, Lady Antonia, and the gentleman who wins your favor will be the luckiest of men.”
She withdrew her hand before he’d finished bowing. Then she was up the steps. At the door to her home, she turned to face him where he waited on the walkway.
“Thank you, my lord. For everything.”
“Tonight,” he said, “when you are leading prayers for the household in the family parlor, read to them from the Song of Solomon.”
Her smile was dazzling and a bit intimidating. “Excellent suggestion.”
Then she was gone, and Grey was blessedly alone. On the way home, he tried to reconcile himself to proposing to an Arbuckle—Drusilla was the elder—but he could not think past half day with Addy.
Nor did he want to.
“We must decide,” Anastasia announced. “Mama has said that Casriel’s manners are exquisite, that he has vast acreage, and his title is old and respected. He’s not some first Baron of Lesser Thistledown. His sister married a nabob-ish fellow who is rumored to invest on behalf of dear King George. The family has wealth, even if Casriel is pockets to let at present.”
Drusilla set aside the latest installment of The Lady’s At-Home, not that yet another syllabub recipe made for riveting literature. When Anastasia said something must be decided, she usually meant she had reached a decision, and Drusilla’s role was to agree with her before they presented the matter to Mama.
“What, exactly, are we deciding now?”
“Which one of us will marry Casriel, of course. He’s had enough dances with Lady Antonia and played enough cards with Miss Quinlan. We must act, sister dear, and act decisively.”
Anastasia paced the parlor in an unladylike fashion, another portent of bad tidings.
“He played cards with us before he played cards with La Quinlan, Ana. He walked the lake path with us and declined to accompany Miss Quinlan and her mama.” Drusilla had liked his lordship for that, liked how he’d simply done the polite thing and thwarted a woman too intent on her own wishes. Though as to that, Anastasia was sounding rather determined.
“But he did escort Lady Antonia, Dru. She’s rather old to fill up his nursery. That’s a point against her.”
Her ladyship was too wealthy to be discounted, also a decent person. “I think Casriel would make a good papa.”
“I knew it!” Anastasia plopped onto the sofa, her skirts billowing then settling like laundry in a breeze. “You regard Casriel the way a woman considers a prospective husband. You should marry him, Dru.”
The rumor in the ladies’ retiring room was that Casriel was a father—only the one by-blow, though.
“One of us should marry him,” Drusilla said, “and you would make a more impressive countess than I would.” Sometimes, Anastasia could be flattered out of her convictions.
“I cannot argue with you about the countess part, but you will learn to deal with him. He doesn’t strike me as a difficult man, provided he’s allowed to do whatever it is men get up to when not waltzing or playing cards. Perhaps he votes his seat.”
“Papa said Casriel minds his acres. Do you suppose his lordship rides about the shire, looking well mannered and titled?”
Though Casriel did not look all that titled. His dress was conservative to the point of boredom. He wore little jewelry—a ring, a pocket watch with fob, a cravat pin—and he smelled of shaving soap rather than exotic French perfume or imported pomade. He was also a largish fellow, whose complexion bore evidence of having spent time in the sun. Mama called him a dragoon of an earl.
“He’ll drive you about the neighborhood if you’re his countess,” Anastasia said. “You’d like that, playing lady of the manor.”
Dru would be the lady of the manor if she married Casriel, and that was worth considering. Mama’s standards in the husband-hunting department were slipping lately, from a ducal heir, to a widowed marquess, and now this, an earl with more manners than money.
Two years hence, Dru’s prospects might be limited to a gouty baronet or spinsterhood. “I am loath to marry and leave you here to contend with Mama all alone.”
Anastasia fluffed out her skirts as if arranging her dress for a portrait sitting. “We’ve discussed that. I’ll visit you for much of the year. Who knows? If one of the Dorning brothers is handsome and comes into some money, I might marry him.”
Or would Anastasia enjoy being the only Arbuckle heiress in Mayfair?
“You like all the waltzing and card playing,” Drusilla said. “As a countess, you could have your own formal balls and dinners. You could invite whom you pleased and have Casriel drive you in Hyde Park.”
Drusilla was leery of horses. They stank and left malodorous evidence of their passing, got hair all over a lady’s habit, and were dangerous when bad-tempered. Casriel could probably arm-wrestle an equine and give a good account of himself, but Drusilla would rather married life not include a lot of time sitting behind a horse.
Anastasia sent Drusilla a conspiratorial smile. “If you were Casriel’s countess, you’d also soon become a mother. An earl must have an heir, and you adore babies.”
“Who doesn’t adore babies? They are sweet and dear and precious. Of course I adore babies, and my own babies…” That was the point of the whole business, wasn’t it? To have babies to love and cherish and call y
our own? To have children who loved you back and called you Mama while their papa grumbled about the bills and smiled at you down the length of a noisy breakfast table?
“Your own babies,” Anastasia said, “might have the famous Dorning eyes. Your oldest son would have a courtesy title. Your daughters would all be ladies from the moment of birth.”
If Drusilla’s babies were simply healthy, she’d consider herself well blessed. “You think I should marry him.”
Drusilla thought she should too, and yet, she hesitated. Casriel did not love her, if he esteemed her at all, and she barely knew him. A title would be delightful, of course, and he’d certainly put her money to good use, but still… The notion of actually marrying, despite three Seasons of waiting for an offer, was unaccountably daunting.
Marrying Casriel, anyway.
“Dru, dearest, please recall I do not like babies. They drool, and mess, and cry. Nursery maids deal with much of that nonsense, I know, but somebody must hatch the little darlings. I am not keen on the conception part either, which sounds undignified in the extreme to me. You accept that business as part of the bargain, while I would rather not lose my figure just yet.”
This difference of opinion was as rare as it was baffling. How anybody could dislike a baby? And of course somebody must hatch the little darlings. Conception, according to Mama, was a matter of five minutes and not that onerous. If men could accomplish childbearing unassisted, what purpose would that leave for women?
“I still say you would make the better countess, Ana. Perhaps we are overlooking other possibilities.”
“If we are overlooking those possibilities, then Mama has overlooked them as well. If either of us is to marry this Season, I fear it’s Casriel or a nobody.”
Nobodies—handsome charmers with no means and middling pedigrees—were often excellent company, but alas, one could not marry them. Sycamore Dorning was a nobody, for example, and Drusilla found him very good company.
“I’ll consider marrying Casriel, then, but even I can’t demand a proposal from his lordship. He’d gallop back to Dorset with a proper horror of me.”
Anastasia patted her arm, something Mama did that Drusilla abhorred. One petted small children, cats, and the elderly, and they couldn’t pet one back.
“If you are willing,” Anastasia said, “Casriel will come up to scratch. I have an instinct about these matters. Any man who has worn the same color of waistcoat to three different events needs to find himself an heiress sooner rather than later. You will be his countess, and all will come right.”
Anastasia rose, arranged her skirts, and swished out of the parlor, doubtless off to convince Mama that Drusilla was the best possible wife for his lordship. Drusilla would certainly try to be, if he proposed. And a good mother too, of course.
If he proposed.
Which she half-hoped he would not.
Addy had slept badly when she’d slept at all. The hours of darkness had dragged by, full of anticipation, worry, and self-doubt. Today was half day, and she’d used some of her morning to pay a call on a drowsy Aunt Freddy.
The housekeeper reported that Aunt Freddy hadn’t much appetite and had done little more than move from a chair to the bed to the parlor across the corridor. Aunt remained cheerful, though she’d received no callers other than her solicitor. Lord Casriel had sent Aunt a note and a bouquet of asters and daffodils, also a tisane for aching joints.
Asters were for patience—a reference to the harp project, perhaps—and daffodils were for sincere regard in a chivalrous sense rather than a romantic one. If Casriel were free to send Addy flowers, which ones would he choose?
Did his family’s vast herbal include a tisane for an aching heart?
“You didn’t eat much breakfast, my lady,” Thiel remarked as he opened the parlor drapes. “Perhaps you’d like your luncheon now?”
Was he being considerate? Maneuvering for half day to start early for the kitchen staff? “A tray of sandwiches and some lemonade in my sitting room will do. Have you plans for this afternoon?”
Addy hadn’t been raised with servants, beyond a maid-of-all-work at the vicarage. She was doubtless more familiar with her employees than a countess ought to be, but they were also the only other members of her household.
“I’ll play a few rounds of skittles at the pub,” Thiel said. “I can take a different half day if you’d like to pay calls, ma’am.”
“No, thank you. An afternoon at home suits me very well.”
Did Thiel favor a particular serving maid? He wrote letters on occasion, all to his family back in the neighborhood of Canmore Court. He was only a few years older than Addy and a handsome blond with merry green eyes.
“Thiel, do you ever consider returning to service at Canmore Court?”
He arranged the velvet drapes so they hung with exact symmetry on either side of the window. “I saw enough of life in the country as a youth, my lady. At a huge place like Canmore Court, I’d be the third or fourth underfootman until I was too old to carry anything more than a vase of flowers. Besides, I’d rather earn my pay than idle about all day.”
He bowed and withdrew, leaving Addy restless and out of sorts.
Thiel knew what he wanted. What did Addy want? Not to be married again—that had gone badly the first time—but not to be invisible either.
“I will end up like Freddy, entertaining my solicitor once a week with stories we’ve been telling each other for decades.”
Addy remained in the informal parlor, her embroidery in her lap, until a soft triple rap on the front door woke her. He’s here popped into her mind at the same time she thought, I wanted to change into something more flirtatious.
She tripped over her workbasket, cursed in French, and paused long enough to check her appearance in the mirror in the foyer. She was tired, not dressed for the occasion, and she’d styled her hair in a bun worthy of a vicar’s maiden aunt.
What is wrong with me? This was her first venture into merry widowhood, she’d chosen a wonderful partner in pleasure, and today they would consummate their affair.
I should be radiant, full of gleeful abandon. She opened the door to find Casriel standing with his back to her, as if on the point of departure.
“My lord, welcome.”
He faced her and swept off his hat. “My lady, good day.” His expression was nearly somber, no glee, reckless or otherwise, in his eyes.
“Do come in.” Addy avoided, barely, glancing up and down the street to note any neighbors who might have seen the earl paying a call on the household’s half day. “Shall I take your hat?”
“Best not.”
“You won’t be staying?” Disappointment crashed over her, making her out-of-sorts mood positively glum. Had he become engaged already? Been given permission to court? After waiting years to take a wife, he could not put off his betrothal even a few more days?
“I dearly hope I am welcome, but leaving evidence in the foyer that I’m on the premises is not well advised.”
Oh. Oh. “I see.” He was well mannered even about this. “Then let’s remove to my sitting room, shall we?”
He looked as if he had some announcement to make. Addy started up the steps rather than learn he was paying his addresses to Lady Antonia. Even behind the locked parlor door, Casriel still made no move to take Addy into his arms, but that was perhaps fortunate, given her lack of inclination to be embraced.
“Have you some news to impart, my lord?”
He set his hat on the sideboard and propped his walking stick near the door. “In fact, I do. Lady Antonia Mainwaring has weighed me in the scales and found me—along with every other man of her acquaintance—lacking as a potential husband.”
“You asked to pay her your addresses?” When you knew we had an assignation today?
Addy had no right to be angry or hurt, but she did admit to disappointment. Casriel at least had the grace to look uncomfortable.
“To the contrary, I made no such inquiry regarding any
such addresses. She took it upon herself to disabuse me of ambitions in that direction and assured me emphatically that we would not suit.”
Addy subsided into the armchair. “She told you not to bother? Didn’t even wait for you to ask?” How very decent of her.
Casriel took the corner of the sofa. “Beatitude, I have no business raising this awkward topic with you at all, and you will think me daft, but I was so relieved I nearly fell to my knees in a public display of gratitude. I am apparently unable to conduct myself as more worldly men do, with one sort of association here and another sort there. I suspect my father was of the same nature, and thus I have many siblings.”
“He was faithful?” Grey would be faithful, and Addy wasn’t sure how to feel about that, because his fidelity would be aimed away from her.
“Papa’s second countess strayed at least once. I do not judge their marriage, for times were different, but I do know this: I am very glad that you received me today.”
Addy poured him a glass of lemonade from the tray on the table, stirring the sweetness up from the bottom.
“Roger kept a mistress and did not deny himself other liaisons. He exercised the privileges of his station to the fullest, and he was a charming rascal.” That label was wearing thin, though others had seen him as such.
Casriel held the glass halfway to his lips. “The late earl was a disgrace, if he allowed knowledge of his every peccadillo to find its way to you. A gentleman exercises some discretion.”
Addy poured herself a drink and swirled the glass. “Roger was worldly, and in many ways, he and I did not suit, but our regard for one another began as genuine. We simply held different expectations from marriage and muddled on as best we could. Given time, I’m sure our union would have become more settled.”
Though she and Roger had had years, and she’d become resigned, not settled. Addy wanted more than muddling on for Grey Dorning, and she did not want to spend the afternoon in sad reflection.
“I am glad you are here today,” she said. “Glad we have this time to enjoy each other’s company privately. Glad you are not like more worldly men.”
A Truly Perfect Gentleman Page 16
