Gail Eastwood

by An Unlikely Hero

  The countess sighed dramatically. “If only your poor mother were here, she would have taught you better. This should have been worked out well in advance, Venetia, for tonight and for all the subsequent nights as well. Let me see the list.”

  Venetia surrendered the list of names and the place cards along with it, burying her mixed feelings about her aunt’s arrival. Fine. Let Aunt Alice take the responsibility for the puzzle of seating everyone appropriately. There shouldn’t have been last-minute changes. At least there were even numbers now, not counting her father.

  She dutifully bestowed a kiss upon her aunt’s cheek. “I hope you did not have a difficult journey.” Aunt Alice meant well, she had no doubt. If at times the woman failed to understand that no one could take the place of the twins’ mother, and if at times she seemed a bit overeager to play her role as hostess at Rivington, that could at least be understood and forgiven. But her total preoccupation with appearances and her attitude toward Vivian was intolerable as far as Venetia was concerned.

  “We simply got off to a late start, and some of the roads were terribly muddy and slow,” Lady Colney said mournfully. “I can’t imagine what people will think of us, being so tardy! However, I dare say we are not the only latecomers?” She quickly moved on to another topic of concern. “Where is Vivian? I should have thought your sister would at least be here helping you.”

  Venetia knew how to use her aunt’s conversational technique. “Vivian is resting,” she replied and then quickly changed the subject. “How is Cousin Adela? I trust she was not too fatigued from your journey? Where is she? Has she gone up to her room?”

  Now that they must each make excuses for someone absent, Venetia felt they were at a draw. She doubted her aunt would still make an issue out of Vivian’s absence, at least for the moment.

  The countess sniffed audibly and made a great show of examining and switching some name cards. “Adela felt she needed to rest after our long journey, which is quite understandable. Certainly she did not wish to be fatigued at dinner.”

  “No, of course,” Venetia agreed graciously. “Are you not weary as well, Aunt? I can finish this, if you would prefer to be resting.”

  Venetia supposed she should have known that her attempt to be civil was doomed.

  “Someone has to be certain you don’t make a botch of this, Venetia. Of course I would prefer to be resting, but obviously it will have to wait until we are finished here. Where is the card for Lord Amberton? I don’t see it on the table or in the pile. His name is most definitely on the list.”

  “And he is most definitely here,” Venetia replied regretfully. “Let me see. I thought I had seated him between Lady Duncross and Lady Sibbingham, to tell the truth.”

  “Between two countesses? You have not seated everyone according to rank, Venetia.” Lady Colney’s cluck of disapproval was too breathless to sound very much like a hen’s.

  Venetia and her aunt were too busy hunting for the missing name card to notice when Vivian slipped into the room.

  “Aunt Alice, you’re here! Is that my sister under the table? What in heaven’s name are you two doing?”

  “Ouch! Dash it!” Startled by her twin’s voice, Venetia forgot where she was for just long enough to crack her head against the underside of the table as she attempted to straighten up. More annoyed than hurt, she backed out and rubbed the stricken spot as she held out the missing name card. “Here, he was on the floor.”

  “Who?”

  “Good afternoon, Vivian. Your sister somehow misplaced Lord Amberton,” Lady Colney said without any welcoming warmth in her voice. “I can just imagine how the poor man would have felt at dinner.”

  “We’re so glad you arrived safely, Aunt. We were beginning to worry!” Vivian replied.

  “Were you?” The countess softened visibly. “Well, ahem, we were just a bit delayed, that is all. I’m glad I arrived just in time to sort this all out.” She waved a hand vaguely at the table.

  Venetia and Vivian exchanged a glance.

  “I trust you are not ill, Vivian?”

  “Not at all, Aunt Alice. I was only resting. Shall I help?”

  Lady Colney looked from one twin to the other as if weighing the question carefully. Finally she said, “I suppose it will save me from walking miles up and down and around this table if you two would get on the other side and help to place the cards where I tell you. To start with, I think Lord Amberton should sit next to you, Venetia.”

  It was only when they had finally arranged all the seating to their aunt’s satisfaction that the twins had a moment to themselves. As the countess departed with a rustling of silk, Vivian whispered, “Did you lose Lord Amberton on purpose, Netia?”

  “No, I swear I did not.” Peeking out of the doorway to make sure her aunt was gone, she added, “But I’ll tell you, I am not sitting next to him at dinner.” She returned to the table and deftly switched his name card with that of her brother two seats away.

  “I would much rather suffer Nicholas for my partner, to tell the truth!”

  “I am partnered with Lord Ashurst,” Vivian said. “I know nothing at all about him.”

  “Well, that means you shall have something to talk about during dinner, at least.”

  “I noticed that Lord Cranford is near the end, next to Cousin Adela, and across from Georgina Whitgreave.” Vivian did not try to mask her disappointment.

  “Aunt Alice switched things about so that he is partnering Lady FitzHarris,” Venetia said with a sigh. They would have to try out other arrangements on another night. “Come, let us escape upstairs before Nicholas’s touring group comes upon us here. I don’t want to hear him pontificate about the ceiling paintings or the ‘original carved chimneypiece dating from 1590.”

  “It might be enlightening to see if the members of the group are interested. We know so little about most of them. Although ’tis clear one of them considers himself a poet.” Vivian fumbled for a moment at her belt. Smiling, she withdrew a small folded piece of paper and handed it to her sister. “I found this slipped under the door of our sitting room.”

  Venetia held it up to the pale light still coming in the window. “‘N’er did Venus shine so fair / As two stars here residing / Twin suns whose shining golden hair / Lights hearts with love abiding,’” she read, wrinkling her nose. “‘Would that Venus had her twin! / What double glory might have been! / Love’s own beauteous face as two / But still no fairer than are you.’ Good heavens! It goes on for four verses! Who could have written this?” She turned it over. “It isn’t signed.”

  “Yes, I noticed,” Vivian answered. “It seems we have a mystery to solve during dinner.”

  ***

  The St. Aldwyns gathered with all their guests in the long drawing room before proceeding in to dinner. The Duke of Roxley finally appeared to greet everyone, and all seemed to be going smoothly. Quite improperly Venetia managed at the last minute to go in on her brother’s arm, and it was only when they reached the table that she discovered she had been outmaneuvered. Lord Amberton’s name card sat at the place just to her left, and Nicholas’s was once again two seats away.

  Unfortunately, there was nothing she could do about it now. When could Aunt Alice have switched the cards back? As Venetia took her place, she noticed that although Nicholas was partnering the Countess of Sibbingham, he was across the table from Lord and Lady Marchthorpe’s daughter, Lady Elizabeth. She had a sudden suspicion that the culprit might not have been her aunt at all.

  The twins’ father sat at the head, looking distinguished in a splendid dinner coat of darkest maroon velvet set off by his snowy linen and a waistcoat of embroidered ivory satin jacquard. He was a handsome man, with deeply etched features and a thick crop of white hair. He surveyed the table and his guests with the air of a benign ruler.

  Venetia surveyed the guests as well, wo
ndering who among them might be the anonymous poet. Her feelings were undoubtedly less benign than her father’s, but she hoped that her fixed smile hid them. She noticed with some small sense of satisfaction that even Aunt Alice had not followed the rules of rank to perfection.

  The amiable Duke and Duchess of Brancaster quite properly flanked her father, with the duchess seated on his right as the highest-ranking lady present. Below them Lady Elizabeth’s parents, the very proper Lord and Lady Marchthorpe, sat across from each other, but this meant that the marquess and marchioness were placed above the proud Duke of Thornborough. Then Aunt Alice had risked offending the other countesses in the group by seating Lady Duncross, an elderly Scottish countess who was friendly with the duke, above her station across from him.

  As a widower, His Grace was a potential suitor for the twins. Would the old duke dabble in anonymous poetry? Venetia doubted it. Thornborough was notoriously high in the instep. He would never fail to put his name on some creation of his, and he probably thought writing poetry quite beneath him.

  The Marquess of Ashurst, Vivian’s partner, was seated below Lady Duncross and directly across from Venetia. She studied him with surreptitious glances as the meal began. He was undeniably handsome, with dark hair and shaggy dark brows over deep-set eyes, but he said little and did not seem to smile easily. He was reputed to be cynical and unsociable. Would such a man indulge in poetry?

  The warm, mouth-watering scent of shrimp bisque penetrated to Venetia’s brain and she paused to take a spoonful of her soup before continuing her scrutiny of the guests. So far, none had made any comments that might link them to the poem, either in the drawing room or at the table.

  On Vivian’s right was Lord Wistowe, whose notorious reputation as a rake made Venetia wonder what her father had been thinking to include him on the list. He had the kind of roguish good looks and angelic smile that she could imagine many ladies found irresistible. He was behaving quite charmingly to his partner, Lady Elizabeth. Nicholas seemed to be watching them rather carefully, although he was not noticeably neglectful of his own partner.

  Venetia let her gaze wander past the many other guests until it came to rest on Lord Cranford at the far end of the table. He was dutifully assisting their neighbor Lady FitzHarris, a widowed baroness who had been invited to help make up the numbers. The viscount turned his attention to the twins’ cousin Adela on his other side whenever she made a remark, and appeared to listen politely to Lord and Lady Whitgreave’s daughter Georgina opposite him, but Venetia thought she could discern a lack of enthusiasm. Colonel Hatherwick seemed to be carrying the conversation. Most of the time Lord Cranford appeared to be busily studying either the dishes in front of him or the splendid mural panels that covered the walls and ceiling.

  Could the viscount have written the anonymous poem? Judging by his arrival, he was the bookish sort, but the author of the poem was also clearly a romantic. Was he? He certainly did not impress her as being so. If the poet was not Lord Cranford, then who? She allowed her glance to stray from one guest to another, weighing what she knew of each of them, hoping that her speculations did not show on her face.

  Beside her, Lord Amberton consumed his soup with noisy enthusiasm.

  “I had no doubt His Grace would set an excellent table, Lady Venetia, despite your attempts to tease me,” he said in between mouthfuls.

  “The rest of the meal is yet to come, sir,” Venetia replied coolly. She watched Vivian converse quietly with Lord Ashurst. Despite his reputation, the marquess was doing a reasonably good job of holding Vivian’s attention at their own end of the table. Only occasionally did Venetia see her sister’s gaze slip to the far end where Lord Cranford sat. It never occurred to her that her own glances returned there far more often than Vivian’s.

  ***

  Gilbey was studying the group assembled at the duke’s table almost as thoroughly as Venetia. Nicholas had been right about the guest list—the diners seated at this table represented the highest levels of British society. Three dukes and a duchess, five marquesses if you included Nicholas, one marchioness, four earls, and no less than five—five!—countesses. . . . It was enough to make one wonder who was left in London to carry on with the remainder of the Season.

  The very fact that all these people had been willing to come attested as much to the Duke of Roxley’s prestige and power as to the beauty of the six younger ladies who brightened the table like the candles in the crystal chandeliers over their heads. All were turned out in their most elegant finery, the ladies in white or in luminous colors with fine jewels setting off their pale skin, the men in more somber colors but every bit as flawless.

  If the company glittered, the table itself nearly equaled them. Gilbey had always been proud of his own family’s display of plate in the dining room at Cliffcombe, his home in Devonshire, but he had never seen anything like the silver that gleamed in the candlelight on the St. Aldwyns’ table. Fabulous ten-branched candlesticks that featured the figures of stags and hunters in their bases towered like small trees planted on the dining table. The brightly polished covers of huge serving dishes waiting to reveal their steaming contents reflected the faces of the diners as well as the flames of the candles. Two large silver epergnes with dolphin figures as supporters graced the table as well, holding towers of fruit for later consumption.

  Certainly it was all most impressive, as Nicholas had promised, and Gilbey felt rather surprised to find himself there. Even the room was spectacular. He was glad to have a further chance to admire the special features Nicholas had pointed out during the tour. But nothing captured his attention quite the way Nicholas’s sisters did, not even the attractive young women beside and across from him.

  How could two such beautiful women be so truly identical and yet so different? He did not seem to have any trouble telling the twins apart, although apparently other people did. Lady Venetia held her head at an altogether different angle than did Lady Vivian, and she moved with a smooth, natural fluidity that contrasted sharply with the hesitant, rather deliberate way her sister moved. Too, Venetia was restless and moved often, while Vivian was calm and only moved for a purpose.

  Were others simply less observant? He had been quietly studying the twins in the drawing room before dinner. He saw no reason to stop studying them simply because dinner had begun, although he now sat a good deal farther away from them. He did his best to appear attentive to those around him. Fortunately Colonel Hatherwick was an avid talker who easily relieved him of the burden of making conversation at their end of the table.

  What surprised him was how often he had to turn his gaze elsewhere lest Lady Venetia catch him watching her. She spoke very little to her partner, Lord Amberton, and appeared to be studying the other guests almost as avidly as Gilbey was studying her. It did seem as though her gaze strayed to his end of the table with disconcerting frequency, however.

  It is not very likely she is looking at you, he counseled himself. Upon consideration it seemed much more likely that she might be casting glances at the young Earl of Lindell, who was sitting just on the other side of Lady Adela. Still, it was safer to become absorbed in the play of light bouncing off the silver on the table or in the formation of the clouds in the painting on the ceiling at those moments when her head turned in his direction.

  Lady Vivian, on the other hand, seemed quite absorbed in her own dinner partner, Lord Ashurst. In an interesting turn-about, the quiet twin appeared to be talking considerably more than her sister. Gilbey could not see her quite as readily as he could see Lady Venetia, for Lady Vivian was seated on the same side of the table as himself, with eight places between them.

  “The glacéed carrots vont très bien with the salmon, don’t you think?” Lady FitzHarris said, interrupting his thoughts. “Could I ask you to pass the dill sauce, Lord Cranford, s’il vous plaît?”

  Gilbey located and obtained the sauce for her, spooning so
me onto her plate with a gallant smile. He wondered if the plump baroness felt ill at ease among the other guests or if she always sprinkled French phrases into her speech to seem fashionable. Was he the only one who was uncomfortable? But then, these people would have been trained for these roles since birth, not left to their own devices from the tender age of eight, as he and his sister had been.

  He glanced at Nicholas, seven places up from him on Lady Venetia’s side of the table. Nicholas’s father had not succumbed to grief at the loss of his wife, although the place at the foot of the table had been left vacant in her memory. Quite without meaning to, Gilbey happened to catch his friend’s eye. The duke’s son winked and raised his wineglass in a salute. He had taught Gilbey the custom of “taking wine,” and Gilbey answered with his own glass. Just as he took a sip, however, there was motion beyond Lady Venetia near the far end of the table. The elderly Duke of Thornborough struggled to his feet to offer the first toast of the evening.

  “To the King, God bless him and grant him peace.”

  “To the King!” And so it went, through all the traditional toasts from the Prince Regent and the nation on down to the host and his fair daughters, the health of the company, and the skill of the cooks. The glasses were charged and recharged several times, keeping the servants busy.

  “La! I shall be quite giddy by the time I drink another glass,” declared Lady Adela when her glass was filled once again. Unfortunately she accompanied this pronouncement with a dramatic fluttering of her hand that caught the poor footman’s arm just as he was refilling Gilbey’s glass. Glass, bottle, and footman all lurched at the same moment, sending the wine quite where it did not belong.

  “Oh, heavens!” cried Adela, leaping up in alarm even as the horrified footman began to beg Gilbey’s forgiveness. The dark red wine splashed down Gilbey’s arm, soaking into his coat-sleeve, pooling on his trousers, and finally running down his leg.