by Amanda Scott
“Then you’ll not be mentioning to anyone else where you have been when you return, is that it?”
“No, of course not. Why should I keep such an outing secret? ’Tis not as though I’ve never ridden with Cheriton before.”
“Not alone, you ain’t, and if you think your papa will approve, not to mention young Faringdon, well, then, you ain’t thought the matter out, my lady, and that’s the nut with no bark on it.”
“Oh, very well, Sarah, send for Jem as well, though I think it unnecessary. I do not wish to annoy Papa, however. Alicia has done that too often of late, as it is.”
By the time Cheriton arrived, Brittany was restless and anxious to be off. She had dressed in her sky-blue habit by seven, had eaten a good deal more than mere chocolate and toast, and had even glanced over the morning papers before his arrival was announced and she was able to skip down the front steps and let him toss her lightly into her saddle. She signed to Jem Wilder to ride well behind them, and they were off.
Conversation was necessarily desultory as they made their way through residential streets, for while the inhabitants of the tall houses on either side were most likely still abed, hawkers and service people were about, and the streets were anything but empty. Brittany made use of her quick perusal of the morning papers and informed Cheriton that the Duchess of Kent was very well and enjoying her life at Kensington Palace.
“Is she, indeed?” Cheriton smiled at her, then added on a teasing note, “And was there any other news of significance?”
Tossing her head, she replied, “Oh, quite a lot about whether the Persian ambassador will have his state meeting with the Regent any time soon and several letters demanding to know why nothing has been done about his mysterious lady in the meantime. I daresay they have nipped any incipient scandal in the bud, however, for there was another small article announcing that the Persian ambassador means to hold a reception for his fair Circassian a week from today at the ambassadorial residence. He will invite ladies of the ton to meet her in person.”
“Good God,” said Cheriton, regarding her in stupefaction for a long moment before adding on a choke of laughter, “how I wish Mama were in town. I should dearly love to see the look upon her face if she were to receive one of those invitations.”
Brittany chuckled. “I doubt she would actually receive one, any more than my mama will, for surely the ambassador cannot be such a nodcock as to dare such a thing, but can you credit it, sir? Indeed, his guests will no doubt be some of the same starched-up ladies who screech so loudly at any breech of moral dignity. This time they will screech for the privilege of being included among those few invited to meet the ambassador’s mistress. For such she must be if she is naught else. Do you not agree?”
“I do, and I believe as well that Faringdon would not approve this conversation.”
“Oh, pooh to Faringdon, as Alicia would say.” She added the rider rather hastily, realizing that the marquess might think her attitude impolite if nothing else. “Everyone is talking about the ambassador’s mystery lady, so I am persuaded that there can be nothing wrong in such talk, and I confess to a certain amount of lingering curiosity in that direction myself. Seeing no more than a few swirling robes gave me little satisfaction.”
They had reached the Stanhope Gate by now, and began to ride at a somewhat faster pace along the east carriage drive and then beneath the tall trees lining Rotten Row. No one was about, so Brittany made no comment when Cheriton spurred his giant bay to greater pace and swung him off the fine-gravel-and-tan road to ride on the greensward along the shore of the Serpentine. At this hour of the morning, she told herself, few would care if the rules were bent a bit, particularly if no one saw to comment. Leaning forward, she lowered her reins enough to let her mannerly little mare know that she might have her head. Moments later, she drew up alongside the marquess, breathless and grinning. They had ridden along the grass verge the entire length of Rotten Row to the road separating the Kensington Palace gardens from Hyde Park.
She looked up at him, laughing. “If anyone had seen us, sir, we should both be taken to task, you know.”
He nodded but made no comment until they had passed over the bridge separating that portion known as the Long Water from the Serpentine proper, and turned upon the Serpentine Road. Then, finally, he said, “I believe you wished only yesterday to take me to task, ma’am.”
“I, sir? Surely not.” But she could not meet his gaze.
“You relieve my mind, but I believe ’tis merely that you have forgotten that you were vexed with me.”
She thought for a moment, then looked directly at him. “I did have cause, did I not?”
“Did you? You seemed to believe that I ought to speak to Faringdon, to shut him up, you said.”
“Well, someone ought to have done so.”
“He seemed to have taken the bit well between his teeth,” Cheriton said apologetically. “I thought it best to let his temper run its course before we returned and he found his prey near at hand.”
“My plan is not working very well, is it?” Brittany observed with a long sigh.
“I told you it would not,” he retorted. “One ought not to meddle in the affairs of others.”
“Now you sound like Tony,” she said bitterly.
To her astonishment he chuckled. But when she looked up at him, he had his features well under control again, and when she ventured to suggest to him that her plan might still have merit if only she could think how to bring matters to a happy conclusion, he frowned heavily and informed her with stern and brutal frankness that further meddling would only bring disaster.
“You would be a fool to expect to achieve any more than you have achieved to date,” he told her roughly. “They are a pair of children, nothing more. They bicker like nursery brats, and always will. Tend to your own life, my lady.”
“Well, I like that,” she said angrily. “You as much as tell me that I am betrothed to a child and then tell me to look to my own life.” Glaring at him, she added sarcastically, “What would you have me do, sir? Hire a nanny to look after my husband once we are wed?”
Cheriton turned in his saddle and favored her with a long, steady look that soon had her shifting uncomfortably in her saddle, but she would not look away, nor would she make an attempt to placate him. She was too angry. This man seemed able to stir emotions within her that she had thought utterly foreign to one of her calm nature. Not that he didn’t deserve her anger. He did. Still and all, she was aware of deep relief that his tone was no harsher than it was when he finally replied, “I would recommend nothing of the sort, ma’am. I trust that the man you wed will have grown to adulthood beforehand.”
“You are suggesting that I postpone my marriage?”
“Am I?”
When she attempted to draw further comment on the subject, however, he suddenly discovered a need to curtail his mount’s desire to caper about, and when the bay had settled down again, Cheriton changed the topic of discussion.
Brittany found herself comparing him unfavorably once more with the other men in her life. Why could he not be more predictable? Why could he not behave in a more romantic manner? Indeed, in his own way he was quite as frustrating to be with as Faringdon now was. Though Cheriton was thoughtful and considerate of her feelings in most ways, and although he was a master at looking after her under almost any circumstance, which Tony certainly was not, Cheriton was not easily read and not very sympathetic when she most needed sympathy. And when one would like most to hear that one was in good looks or that one was charming, Cheriton would be the last man to whom one ought to present oneself. Most likely he would point out that she had a spot forming if she were so foolish as to ask him if she looked all right. Why could he not be more like the other gentlemen, more like her secret admirer, who wrote such flattering little notes to accompany his nearly daily offerings?
10
ON TUESDAY EVENING, TO Faringdon’s disgust, Brittany insisted that they visit the King�
�s Theater to view a presentation of what the papers billed as the composer Rossini’s favorite opera, The Barber of Seville, from the duchess’s box. Since the box would seat no more than six persons, only Faringdon and Cheriton escorted the duchess and her three elder daughters, and Faringdon suggested more than once that his place might have been had by any number of other persons who would no doubt have liked to hear such screeching. The only times he seemed to enjoy himself at all were during the intervals. Brittany called him to order more than once for his frequent caustic remarks, and by the time the ballet that followed the opera had begun, she was beginning to feel more like his mother than his betrothed wife.
She sat back in her seat, feeling tired and finding little interest in the antics of Adolphe and Matilde in The Duties of Love. The work had been advertised as a new grand ballet in which the celebrated Monsieur and Madame Duport would be making their first appearance in England, but so far as Brittany could tell, the gentlemen in her box, at least, were paying no heed to the celebrities and quite a lot to the skimpily attired opera dancers. Faringdon was grinning.
She exchanged a speaking glance with Alicia, seated on his other side. The younger girl rolled her eyes heavenward and Brittany felt a sudden urge to chuckle. Just then a low voice sounded in her ear from behind.
“Be grateful that he does not fidget,” Cheriton told her.
She turned slightly in her seat to grin at him, then turned back, remembering belatedly that she was still out of charity with the man.
They left soon afterward, but there was no opportunity for private speech with either of her escorts, for the duchess announced as soon as they returned to Malmesbury House that since there was no need to stand on ceremony with two gentlemen who had become practically members of the family, she would bid them good night at once.
“For I need tell neither of you what an exhausting business this week is for all of us,” she added. “I never remember until I am in the thick of it again what a difficult thing it is to put together a successful social affair. And of them all, a grand ball is the worst. No wonder more and more people are letting Almack’s suffice and refusing to arrange such gatherings in their own homes.”
“Mama,” Alicia said, laughing, “most people do not have ballrooms in their own homes, and I am certain you need do nothing more than you wish to do. Everything is well in hand for our ball, as you know very well.”
“Much you know about it, miss,” retorted her mother, rather more sharply than was her wont. “If I did not think about every detail, pray, then, who would?”
Since all three young ladies knew perfectly well that the duchess’s staff would manage rather better without her constant, whimsical changes of mind about how matters ought to be arranged, there was no acceptable answer to be made to this demand. Thus, Alicia kissed her mama quickly and assured her mendaciously that no one managed an affair so well as she did.
“Yes,” added Arabella with a smile, “and I’ve not the least doubt everything will go without a hitch next Tuesday night, ma’am, though I do wish Cicely had answered my last letter. I wrote to ask her if she remembered how many extra link boys were required for Tani’s ball. No one seems to recall.”
As the conversation began to grow more detailed, both gentlemen agreed that the ladies would do well to get a good night’s sleep, and took themselves off.
“Cowards,” murmured Alicia on an almost affectionate note.
Brittany stared at her, wondering if she were interpreting her sister’s tone of voice accurately. Perhaps, she thought, her plan was beginning to work. But the following afternoon, when the gentlemen paid their usual call, Alicia was out, engaged upon some errand or other, so Brittany knew no more than she had known before, and by that evening, events had returned to normal.
No sooner had they reached Almack’s with their usual extensive male escort than Miss Penelope Waring hurried up to greet them, the narrow ruffled hem of her muslin skirt whirling gracefully about her tiny blue-satin-clad feet as she moved. “Oh, Lissa,” she gurgled, “how lucky you are to have so many gentlemen to escort you.” Pushing a shining dark lock off her brow with a slim, dainty finger, she looked coyly up at Alicia’s nearest companions, Roger Carrisbrooke and Philip Wensley-Drew. The former grinned impudently at her while Mr. Drew frowned sadly. She paid him no heed, batting her lashes instead at Mr. Carrisbrooke before turning back to Alicia to add in what was clearly meant to be an undertone, “I received the most dreadful tongue-lashing when I returned this afternoon, for Papa was waiting for me. Lissa, someone from his club saw us, and he very nearly refused to permit me to come out tonight.”
Faringdon, who with Cheriton had turned away from the others briefly to speak to a passing acquaintance, turned sharply back at these carrying words, and when Brittany attempted to pinch his coat sleeve in warning, he shook her hand away brusquely and demanded, “What’s this, then?”
“Faringdon, not now,” said the marquess in a low, forceful tone.
Impatiently, the earl glanced at him, his brows knitted together in ominous fury, but something in Cheriton’s expression deterred him from saying more. He glanced at Alicia, his look telling her clearly that he meant to have an answer but that he would wait until a more appropriate time to demand one.
Brittany breathed a sigh of relief and sent a grateful look toward Cheriton. He was not watching her, however. His eye was upon Alicia.
To her sisters’ dismay, that young lady appeared to have no notion of the thin ice beneath her feet, for she lifted her chin and spoke directly to Faringdon in a casually offhand tone. “I daresay I must have forgot to mention to you that Penelope and I went calling today in Berkeley Square.”
“Did you?” There might just as well, Brittany thought, have been no other persons in that crowded room for all the awareness either Faringdon or Alicia paid them. A shiver raced up her spine, and she looked at Cheriton again, then wished she hadn’t. His expression was not reassuring. Indeed, in those few brief seconds of heavy silence, she had the oddest notion that Cheriton was angry with her rather than with her sister or with Faringdon.
“Oh, yes, indeed,” returned Alicia airily. “We called upon the fair Circassian, you know. There was an article in the paper again this morning about that reception the ambassador means to hold for her, so Pen and I decided that if she means to receive a host of ladies on Monday next, she might very well be at home to callers today. Only she wasn’t, so we merely left our cards,” Alicia added provocatively as Faringdon’s countenance began to turn an alarming shade of crimson.
“Tony,” Brittany begged, “for the love of heaven, can’t you see she is attempting to make you lose your temper? You will have us all in the midst of just that sort of scene we most deplore if you do not have a care.”
She might as well have held her breath, for Faringdon paid her no heed whatsoever. Anxiously, she glanced at Cheriton again, forgetting her earlier concern and hoping only that he would intervene before they all found themselves in the basket. Instead, his response to her look of entreaty was no more than a slight shrug, as though he washed his hands of the problem altogether. His eyelids drooped, hooding the expression in his eyes, but she could not make herself believe he was amused.
“What on earth were you about, my girl?” the earl demanded furiously, his attention still focused solely upon Alicia. “And just whose cards did you leave, may I ask?”
“Yes, indeed, Alicia,” the duchess put in anxiously. “Surely you did not leave my card on that woman. I should not like to have it said that I called at that house, really I should not. Your father would be most annoyed, for he has said we are to have nothing to do with that lot of foreigners—or any lot of foreigners, for that matter,” she added more thoughtfully.
Alicia regarded her mother with sudden wariness. “Since my name is to be found only on your cards, ma’am, I did not think you would mind. You have allowed Bella and me to leave your card, and Papa’s too, when we have called upon our friends before,
although you did not accompany us. I did not leave Papa’s card, however,” she added virtuously.
This rider appeared to leave the duchess quite speechless and Cheriton turned hastily away. Even Brittany was hard-pressed to retain her composure. Somehow the thought of how the duke would respond had Alicia actually left his card at the ambassadorial residence made her want to laugh. Arabella, however, did not show the least indication of amusement.
“Considering that my name is also on Mama’s card, Alicia, you might at least have asked my leave before handing it over to one of those persons who guard your precious Circassian.”
“Oh, it wasn’t one of the eunuchs who answered the door.”
“Alicia, that dreadful word!” the duchess cried out in dismay. Then, recollecting her surroundings, she glanced anxiously around and lowered her voice considerably. “You must not discuss such matters where you might be overheard, my dear. Indeed, you have behaved very badly, and so I do not scruple for a moment to tell you.”
“Only by leaving cards?” Penelope Waring put in, surprised. “Goodness, my papa didn’t say a thing about that, only about sneaking ’round the back of his excellency’s house to have a look at the mystery lady’s window. That, I can tell you, put him in quite a tweak.”
Dead silence greeted her words. Even Alicia appeared to lose color. Then, before even Faringdon could gather his senses, there came an interruption, and none too soon, Brittany told herself, hoping she did not look nearly so distracted as she felt.
