by M C Beaton
But as it was, everyone supposed the elderly lord to be courting Aunt Matilda.
Unfortunately, Aunt Matilda thought so too.
Since love and romance among the elderly—and anyone in his fifties in an era when few people reached their three score years and ten was elderly—was totally beyond Amanda’s comprehension, she failed to notice the heaving of Aunt Matilda’s scrawny bosom every time Lord Box came to call.
As to Lord Box being in love with herself, Amanda would have found that idea just as ridiculous. She hoped Lord Box looked on her as a young companion who would brighten his declining years.
Lord Hawksborough sometimes wondered why Amanda wasted so much time with her aunt’s inamorato instead of looking at any of the attractive young men who danced with her at parties and balls, but not for one moment did he think she planned marriage.
Since that unfortunate night when he had returned from abroad, followed by the unfortunate morning when he had so far forgotten himself as to nearly rape Miss Colby, Lord Hawksborough had persuaded himself that he had forgotten her entirely. Lady Mary seemed to stay more at his house than she did at her own, and so he wearily decided they may as well get married in June. Lady Mary gained a warm kiss from him when she said shyly that since she had no close female relatives, she would like Susan and Miss Colby to be maids of honour.
Susan accepted the news with pleasure, Miss Colby with affected pleasure.
Miss Colby then shut herself up in her room and cried for that which was gone, never to return, and then set about charming Lord Box as hard as she could.
When Amanda felt Lord Box was on the point of proposing, she asked Aunt Matilda how that lady would feel about sharing a household with Lord Box.
Aunt Matilda was trying on new caps when Amanda asked her the question. Her eyes lit up and she exclaimed, “Darling child! Ever so perceptive. Why, you must know it is what my heart is set on.”
“I wanted to talk to you,” said Amanda seriously, “because I hoped you would understand it is something I would like above all things.”
Aunt Matilda kissed Amanda fondly, her eyes misting with tears. “You are a good and generous girl, Amanda,” she said. “It is also wonderful to know our future is secure. Does… does Richard know? Richard is sometimes not quite…”
“Richard is in Oxford,” said Amanda. “He need not know anything until he reads the announcement. I do not think he would understand.”
“Just what I thought.” Aunt Matilda nodded her head wisely. “Those young men will try to play head of the household.”
And so both ladies, firmly convinced that the other was pleased over her forthcoming marriage to Lord Box, parted with warm protestations of love and friendship.
For his part, Lord Box was only too eager to propose to Amanda before the Season began. He was well aware that everyone thought he was courting Aunt Matilda, and encouraged that idea because he did not want all the old stories about how he had buried three young wives getting to Amanda’s ears. He had told her about only one.
He was sure Lord Hawksborough would give his permission. He was no relative to the girl, and, by rights, Lord Box should have asked the girl’s aunt. But he was frightened that the old lady would think herself jilted and would therefore refuse her consent.
But his supposed pursuit of the aunt made it remarkably hard to see Miss Colby alone. At last he thought he saw his chance.
Napoleon had escaped from Elba, and no one was in the least surprised, except the British government. Lord Hawksborough was busy enjoying the doubtful pleasure of saying “I told you so” at various high-ranking meetings.
A ball was to be held that evening at Lady Crompton’s mansion in Kensington. Lord Hawksborough had said it was doubtful whether he would be able to attend. At the last moment, Aunt Matilda found a cold in the head too severe to allow her to go, and so Lord Box had the pleasure of escorting Amanda, Susan, and Lady Mary.
Amanda felt unbearably tense, for she knew this was the evening he would propose and she intended to give him every opportunity to do so.
Susan was morose because she was no longer in fashion, having unwittingly crossed swords with Mr. Brummell, who had taken her in dislike, and whoever Mr. Brummell took in dislike was doomed. Now she was wishing she had not been so cold to Mr. Dalzell and was grumpily inclined to blame the whole thing on Amanda’s bad advice.
Lady Mary was as pleasant as ever, but her dislike of Amanda was always there, below the surface, creating an uneasy atmosphere.
Amanda’s elderly beau did not like to dance and so she kindly agreed to sit out two dances with him, hoping he would take the opportunity to propose and get it over with.
Her nasty inner voice pointed out that the last time she had felt thus was before a visit to the dentist.
It was a warm, blustery night. The ballroom was alive with rumours about the fate of the French King. One said he had been taken at Lille, another that he had gone to Tournay. But one thing was plain. Napoleon Bonaparte had been declared a rebel and a traitor by the French government and a price of 100,000 louis d’or set upon his head.
Amanda indulged in a brief fantasy of capturing Napoleon single-handed, collecting the reward from a grateful French government, and settling down to a life of blissful spinsterhood at Fox End.
Perhaps Lord Box would not live very long, she thought, and then was appalled at her own evil mercenary wishes.
So that when his lordship led her gently from the ballroom and through the hall and into an anteroom, Amanda smiled on him in quite an enchanting way to make up for having wished him dead only a few moments before.
At first, all went very smoothly. To the faint strains of a waltz drifting from the ballroom on the hot scented air, Lord Box creaked down on one knee and formally asked Miss Colby for her hand in marriage.
Miss Colby formally accepted.
Lord Box rose to his feet.
Amanda brushed down her skirts in the way she used to do at Fox End when she had just completed a difficult and distasteful household task, and murmured that they should be returning to join the other guests.
Lord Box seized her in his arms.
Before she could protest, he had crushed his mouth down on hers. Fighting for breath and assailed with nausea, Amanda finally broke free.
“My lord,” she gasped, “you are too warm in your attentions.”
“Frightened you, did I?” he said heartily. “You’ll get used to it, m’dear. For I mean to get a lot warmer than that. Not bad for such an old boy, heh?”
He squeezed her around the waist and peered lasciviously down her décolletage.
“My lord,” protested Amanda. “We must go. I am not chaperoned.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll talk to Hawksborough as soon as possible. Never could stand long engagements. Get married about the same time as Hawksborough, heh? Make it a double wedding.”
Amanda closed her eyes tightly, seeing a vision of a radiant Lady Mary and a handsome Lord Hawksborough standing before the altar, while she stood next to them, flanked by this elderly satyr.
She edged away from him, a voice crying in her head, “What have I done?”
Fortunately, Lord Box decided to go back to the ballroom and Amanda could only be glad when a young man came up to claim her hand for the next dance.
As she performed the steps of the quadrille, she saw out of the corner of one green eye that Lord Hawksborough had just entered the ballroom.
And worse.
Lord Box immediately went forward and took him by the arm and started to talk to him intently.
As soon as the dance was over, Amanda looked wildly round for a means of escape.
It was then that Mr. Bertram Dalzell came up and demanded the pleasure of a few words with her in private.
By now so upset that she was deaf and blind to the conventions, Amanda led him back to the anteroom where Lord Box had so recently made his proposal.
Amanda sat down and Mr. Dalzell proceeded to pace up
and down the room.
At last he came to a stop and faced her. “I am desolate, Miss Colby.”
“I am so very sorry, Mr.—”
“Susan told me you had advised her not to see or talk to me again.”
Amanda blushed. “I thought it was good advice, since she did not love you, Mr. Dalzell.”
“I thought my heart was broken,” he said, sinking down on a chair and running his hands through his guinea-gold hair.
Despite her distress and embarrassment, Amanda could not help noticing that Mr. Dalzell’s hair sprang back naturally into a fashionable hairstyle despite his tousling of it. He was very beautiful and had probably been born looking fashionable, she thought.
She set herself to try to extricate herself from this latest predicament as soon as possible.
“Mr. Dalzell,” she said firmly, “if Susan’s affections had been truly engaged, then nothing I could possibly have said would have changed her mind.”
“Oh, so wise,” he murmured, staring at her.
“Thank you,” said Amanda uneasily, wondering if some of these totty-headed people who graced London society were a result of inbreeding. “Then,” she said firmly, “all I can do is apologise for any damage I may have done.”
“The only damage you have done,” he said intensely, “is to my heart.”
“Oh,” said Amanda wretchedly, thinking of her own pain. Was Lord Hawksborough looking for her even now to give her his blessing to her forthcoming marriage? She stood up. Mr. Dalzell stood up at the same time.
“If it is any consolation,” said Amanda in a low voice, “I share your feelings. I know exactly the pain—”
“You do? Miss Colby! I had not dared to hope. I saw you from afar, worshipped you from afar. Your slight figure, your bewitching eyes, your charming smile.”
“Mr. Dalzell!” shrieked Amanda.
“Not ‘Mr. Dalzell,’” he breathed. “‘Bertram’!”
And with that, he seized her in his arms and covered her face with kisses.
“Amanda!”
Mr. Dalzell dropped his arms and Amanda backed away hurriedly.
Lord Hawksborough and Susan stood in the doorway.
“So that was why you were so free with your advice,” raged Susan. “You wanted him for yourself!”
“Quiet, Susan,” said Lord Hawksborough. “Miss Colby, while you are a guest under my roof, you will please observe the conventions, since it seems that some gentlemen cannot.
“Mr. Dalzell, you will kindly escort my sister back to the ballroom. I wish to have a few words in private with Miss Colby.”
Amanda gave a hollow groan and sat down again.
Mr. Dalzell took a step toward her but Amanda snapped crossly, “Oh, go away. I don’t care for you a bit. It’s someone else I love, which is why I said I shared your feelings. Just go away!”
“You deliberately misled me—” began Mr. Dalzell.
“Miss Colby said ‘go away,’” remarked Lord Hawksborough. “Do it.”
“Come, Susan,” said Mr. Dalzell with great hauteur.
“‘Miss Fitzgerald’ to you,” snapped the sorely tried viscount, but Susan was flashing a triumphant look at Amanda and leading Mr. Dalzell from the room.
Lord Hawksborough pulled up a chair and sat facing Amanda so that their knees were nearly touching.
“Now,” he said very softly. “Would you care to enlighten me?”
“About what?” asked Amanda, hoping if she stalled for time that there would be some interruption. She nervously opened and shut her fan, until he reached forward and took it from her.
“Look at me,” he said.
“No.” Amanda mulishly studied her hands.
He put a long finger under her chin and forced her head up.
“I am appalled, yes, appalled, to find that an elderly rip who has buried three wives, and whom I tolerated in my household because I thought he was paying court to your aunt, should hail me tonight and ask my permission to pay his addresses to you.
“I thought he was foxed and told him to go and take a damper. He told me gleefully that he had already proposed and been accepted. His ugly old mouth was stained with rouge, and I notice you are no longer wearing any. I told him I refused my permission. He pointed out he had only asked as a courtesy and didn’t really need it, so I put it another way.
“I said I would kill him if I saw him near my home again.”
Amanda jerked her head away. “What if I love him?”
“Then you belong in Bedlam. You are trying to hide your eyes now, but when I said I had forbidden my permission, I read relief there. I know what it is,” he added in a more kindly tone. “You believed, like everyone else, that he was courting your aunt.”
“No,” said Amanda in a small voice. “I didn’t. And I would have married him because I thought he merely wanted a young companion, and so I accepted his proposal. Then he kissed me.”
“And?”
“And it revolted me,” said Amanda in a low voice.
“But why did you encourage him in the first place? There are many young men about.”
“Money.”
“Are you so greedy that you would contemplate sharing a marriage bed with that old goat?”
“I told you,” said Amanda, her eyes glistening with tears. “And I thought he was too old to… to be interested in… in that side of things.”
“One is never too old. Your aunt must not learn of this. Do you not know she is in love with him?”
“Yes. No. I mean, not passionate love, surely.”
“Oh, yes, surely. I shall make certain Lord Box takes himself off to rusticate in the country. Your aunt will be sad, but she will not be so heartbroken as she would be if she knew how she had been used. Yes, used, Amanda.”
“I’m sorry,” mumbled Amanda, hanging her head. “So if you have finished…”
“No, I have not finished. What the deuce were you doing in young Dalzell’s arms?”
Amanda wearily told him of the mistake she had made.
“You tell my sister not to marry without love, and yet you seem prepared to do so yourself.”
“As you are.”
“We are not discussing me,” he said angrily.
“Your sister can afford to marry for love,” said Amanda. “I cannot. We cannot stay as your mother’s pensioners forever. Furthermore, when you are married, Lady Mary will be living permanently in Berkeley Square. I think you will find she does not wish us underfoot.”
“You must not panic,” he said gently. “The Season will soon begin. You must rate your charms a little higher. I do not think you have really looked at one young man since you came to London.”
“I don’t want to get married,” said Amanda passionately. “I want to be a spinster with a fixed income and live at Fox End till I die.”
“If that is your desire, I will give you an allowance.”
“Thank you. I am prepared to accept your charity, your mother’s charity, for a short time. But I could not live the rest of my life that way. I have already behaved in a disgracefully irresponsible manner in trying to gain money in a dishonest way,” said Amanda, thinking miserably of the robbery.
“You are too hard on yourself,” he said, thinking she was still talking about Lord Box. He was experiencing a heady feeling of elation. She did not love that old fool, Box. She did not love Dalzell either.
“You seem to know much about love,” he mocked, “since you have been advising my sister. If you are not in love with Box, then whom are you in love with, Amanda?”
She hung her head. “You’re in love with him,” sneered her inner voice, and she said aloud, “Oh, no!”
“Whom are you in love with,” he pursued, his voice caressing, and leaning forward so that his mouth was very near her own.
Amanda tore her eyes away from his mouth. She racked her brain for the names of the young men she had danced with.
What was the name of the fellow who had partnered her in the quad
rille? Fairish hair, grey eyes, stocky figure. Carruthers! That was it. Mr. Peter Carruthers.
“Mr. Carruthers,” said Amanda with that sharp, wary twist of her head he knew so well.
