“I am very sure. However, if Evelyn is a fan of antiquities, she is quite welcome to join our little expedition.” He accepted the teacup from Catherine with a glint in his eye, but she refused to respond in kind for fear of losing her composure altogether.
“Evelyn a fan of antiquities?” Lady Fellingham laughed merrily before realizing that she might sound rude. “That is to say, no, she’s not. But I am sure she will be very pleased to hear that she is invited.”
“Isn’t Evelyn napping, Mama?” Catherine said, afraid that they would have to take Evelyn on their trip. She could think of no quicker way to ruin an excursion to the British Museum than to have her fashionable sister dragging behind, complaining of dust and boredom.
“That’s right,” Eliza remembered. “It wouldn’t do to disturb her.”
“I didn’t think so,” her daughter agreed.
“But to return to Melissa. I am not sure I comprehend why you want to take her,” said her devoted mother.
“I understand from Catherine that she is a student of antiquities,” he said, rather disingenuously, “and I thought she might enjoy seeing the Elgin Marbles.”
“The marbles!” she said crossly, tipping over her tea as her hand trembled with shock. “Oh, dear me, what a mess I’ve made. Catherine, pull the bell.”
Catherine obeyed, but instead of sitting there just waiting for someone to respond as her mother did, she dabbed at the spill with a cloth.
The doors opened and in stepped a housemaid. “Yes, my lady?”
“Some tea has been spilt,” Lady Fellingham said, her voice still a little weak. “Please bring fresh linens.”
The housemaid curtsied and left. Eliza took a deep, steadying breath and said calmly, “You were talking about the marbles, my lord?”
“Yes, I thought that the Misses Fellingham might want a look at the marbles,” he explained, with a sideways glance at Catherine, who kept her eyes focused on the carpet, so her mother wouldn’t see her smile. “They’ve been a particular interest of mine since I helped my friend Lord Elgin secure the purchase of them by the government.”
If this information also scandalized Lady Fellingham, she contained it entirely. Her fingers holding the teacup did not so much as quiver. She did, however, look at Deverill cautiously, as if no longer certain what to make of this handsome, rich and titled suitor. “I didn’t know you counted Lord Elgin amongst your friends, my lord.”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “He and my father had a longstanding relationship.”
“What happened to him…for a man to lose track of his nose like that—” She broke off here and shook her head mournfully. “He has my sympathy, of course.”
“I will be pleased to pass along your regards,” he said, the irony apparent to no one but Catherine.
“Thank you.”
“As I was saying, I have been assured that your daughters have been only once before,” he explained. “As once is not enough to absorb their magnificence, I thought to offer them my escort for a second visit.”
“You thought?” asked Eliza with a suspicious glance in her daughter’s direction.
Intercepting it, Deverill said, “Entirely my idea. In fact, Miss Fellingham was hesitant to say yes because she feared you wouldn’t approve. I’m afraid I cajoled her into agreeing.” He gave Catherine a fond look for the benefit of her skeptical parent. “I thought she should see the marbles again, and since I enjoy her company, I suggested that we go.”
Catherine was so impressed with Deverill’s performance that the need to clap well-nigh overcame her good sense, but she caught herself just in time. This, however, left her hands perched awkwardly in midair and she poured herself some more tea even though her cup was already half full.
“And taking Melissa?” Liza had yet to be convinced. She recalled Catherine’s uncharacteristic behavior of the previous week and suspected she had something to do with Deverill’s invitation.
“Miss Fellingham explained that she couldn’t in all good conscience go when her sister Melissa was the real enthusiast,” he explained reasonably.
“Did she? How thoughtful,” said her fond parent through practically clenched teeth.
“So naturally I suggested that Melissa come along as well.”
“How nice.”
“Lady Fellingham, perhaps you’d like to join us?” Deverill offered graciously.
The teacup clattered on the saucer at the very suggestion. “Join you?” she managed, her voice faint.
The marquess nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, there’s plenty of room in my carriage, and I would be delighted to give you a private tour of the marbles.”
“A private…oh, dear…you are…I can’t…” Eliza’s face contorted as she foundered for a proper reply to such an indecent yet generous proposal. Finally, she said, “Thank you very much, my lord, for your, uh, kind offer, but I already have a plan for this afternoon. I am going to visit with my dear friend Arabella.”
“Deverill knows Lady Courtland quite well,” threw in Catherine impulsively.
After looking at Catherine with confusion for a second, Deverill said, “Please send her my best.”
“Mama,” called Melissa as she ran down the steps, “why must I make sure my hair is pres— Oh, you’re here,” she said when she set eyes upon Lord Deverill. “I am so happy to see you, Julian.”
Lady Fellingham looked at her youngest daughter sharply. “You’ve met Lord Deverill before?”
“Only briefly,” answered Catherine, covering for her sister. Her mother would not like it if she found out her daughters had taken to conversing with gentlemen they were not yet acquainted with in public museums.
“I can’t imagine when that was but regardless, you do not call gentlemen you barely know by their first name,” she instructed. “Now, please say hello to Lord Deverill.”
Melissa curtsied deeply, too deeply to her mother’s way of thinking. “Good afternoon, Lord Deverill.”
Deverill, who had stood upon her entrance, bowed in return.
“Why have I been summoned?” asked Melissa as she poured herself a cup of tea rather than wait for her sister to offer.
“Lord Deverill has been kind enough to invite you on a trip with your sister to the British Museum,” she explained, wincing as she watched Melissa drip tea all over the table. She laid a linen over the spill.
Unaware of her sister’s scheme, Melissa blushed with pleasure and smiled. “Have you really, sir?” He nodded. “Oh, thank you, Lord Deverill. It would be my supreme pleasure to go with you on this most worthy outing.”
“Supreme?” her mother scoffed. “Child, how you do go on.”
“I should like it above all things if we could drop our heads into the room with the Elgin Marbles whilst we are there,” Melissa announced.
“No doubt you would, imp,” remarked her sister affectionately.
“Of course you shall. You know how highly I regard the treasures from Egypt,” Lady Fellingham said with a pointed glance at Deverill. “Why, just the other day I was explaining to Catherine that the marbles are engrossing and educational antiquities. I know that some people are prejudiced against them as well as against Lord Elgin, but I am more open-minded than most. I would never hold a man’s physical condition—be it the kind most disagreeable to look upon—against him. As I always say, let he who’s blameless cast the first stone.”
“Do you always say that?” asked Melissa ingeniously. “I thought that was Papa whenever you take him to—”
“Clever girl, don’t go around correcting your mama,” her mother interrupted, not wishing to be embarrassed by her youngest child’s candor.
“Perhaps we should get going,” suggested Catherine, who was enjoying the scene far more than was decent. “We don’t want to take up too much of Lord Deverill’s time. No doubt he is a very busy man.”
“I am entirely at your disposal, Miss Fellingham,” Deverill said, rising to his feet as Catherine stood.
“Yay,” cheere
d Melissa, clapping her hands excitedly. “Does that mean we can go to St. Paul’s cathedral as well? And climb up onto the dome and look down on London Town? I’ve always wanted to go there, but Mama insists that all those stairs are indecent. I don’t mind the stairs; I swear I don’t.”
Lady Fellingham laughed nervously as her cheeks blushed becomingly. “Clever girl,” she said again.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Catherine caught Freddy just as he was leaving the town house.
“Ah, there you are, dear,” she said, entwining her arm through his and spinning him around until he faced the drawing room. “This way please.” She pulled him inside and closed the doors. “There, now we can talk.”
“Don’t have anything to talk to you about,” he insisted, sitting down and considering the situation. “At least, if I did, I can’t remember now so it couldn’t have been very important,” he said, relieved. “Well, I guess I should be off. I am late for an appointment with Pearson.”
“I have something I’d like to talk to you about. I promise, this won’t take a minute.” She leaned her back against the doors, effectively blocking his only avenue of escape.
“It better not,” he mumbled, less than graciously, his sister thought.
“Right, then. Freddy, I think the time has come for me to learn how to gamble.”
Freddy, in the process of examining his nails, jerked his head up in shock. “What?”
Convinced that she now had his full attention and that he wasn’t going to bolt, she abandoned her post and took a seat. “I have given this serious thought, and it occurs to me that I should know how to gamble.”
Freddy jumped to his feet, outraged at the suggestion. “No sister of mine is going to be a ramshackle gambler.” He even waved a finger at her in a disapproving way.
Catherine laughed. “I don’t want to be a gambler, per se. I just want to learn how to gamble.”
“Well, don’t look at me.” Freddy wasn’t used to playing the levelheaded one, and it made him oddly uncomfortable. “Mother would have me strung up if she ever found out.”
“Mama isn’t going to find out. She never discovered that you went off to the races with Dalton instead of staying home sick in your bed,” she reminded him. “What was wrong with you that time? A little whooping cough?”
“Don’t be absurd. I had laryngitis. Whooping cough is for babies,” he corrected before he realized something. “Hey, how do you know about that?”
“I know about everything that goes on in this house,” she stated simply. “I know all about your many varied supposed diseases. I have much admired your creativity, which is why I thought you’d be the perfect person to teach me how to gamble and then take me to a hell.”
“No, absolutely not! You can blackmail me all you want, but I am not taking my own sister to a gambling hell.” His denial was accompanied by a curious and faith-inspiring improvement of his posture.
“I am not trying to blackmail you, silly.” Although now that he had mentioned it, she had to admit it wasn’t such a bad idea.
“Regardless, those were harmless pranks and if you want to tell Mama out of a vicious disregard for me, I can do nothing to stop you,” Freddy said, standing very much on his honor indeed. Catherine had never seen him like this—he had always been little more than a lovable scamp—and she was happy to note that he had backbone.
“But this will be nothing but a prank as well, a harmless lark, I assure you.” Catherine stood beside him and placed an arm around his shoulders. “Tonight Mama and Evelyn are going to a musicale at Lady Steven’s. Could anything be more dreary?”
“Then don’t go if you don’t want to,” he said reasonably.
Catherine decided that another approach was required and commenced begging. “Please, Freddy, please. This is very important to me and you would be the best of good brothers if you would just do this tiny little favor for me.” She tried a pout, but she wasn’t sure that she could do it right. Catherine was not used to cajoling anyone. Either there was nothing she wanted that she couldn’t get for herself or she used reason and abandoned the project when that failed to prevail. No, as far as she could remember, this was the first time she actually put herself out trying to convince someone to see something her way, and she found it very undignified.
“Don’t do that,” he scolded. “You sound just like Evelyn asking for a new hat. It doesn’t become you at all.”
Catherine knew that, of course. “Then please say you’ll do it and spare me the humiliation of debasing myself further. I assure you it doesn’t come quite as naturally for me as it does our sister.”
Freddy sighed heavily and sat down again. It seemed to his sister that all the fight had gone out of him. “But why?”
She took the seat next to him. “I told you. The time has come for me to learn how to gamble.”
“But why must you learn?” If he was to capitulate, he would at least have all the information first.
“Because if Papa is going to send us all to the poorhouse, I want to at least know how. What is faro and how is it played? Don’t you see it’s driving me crazy? He is holding our future in his hands, and I can do nothing at all about it.”
Freddy agreed that this was true. Their father could gamble away their entire estate, and they were all completely powerless to stop it. But Freddy, being a gentleman, understood this in a way that Catherine could not. Their father had the right to gamble away everything he owned if he so chose. That was the point of being a gentleman. He tried explaining this to Catherine with carefully chosen words that he thought quite clearly represented the matter.
“What a bag of moonshine,” she dismissed. “If that’s the way you men think then it’s no wonder Mama is at the end of her rope, selling commissions in the king’s army to aspiring hopefuls.” Catherine laughed as she thought about the situation. “You do realize, Freddy, that this interview has me more in sympathy with my mother right now than I ever have been in the four-and-twenty years previous?”
Freddy wasn’t at all surprised that the ways of gentlemen were beyond his sister’s comprehension. “Catherine, I really think you should just leave it alone.”
“I can’t,” she said, deciding it was time to alter her argument once again. Perhaps threats would work. “If you won’t help me I shall have to go somewhere else.”
Thinking of his sister’s limited social life, he laughed. “Go where?”
She tried to think of a name, any name. “I don’t know. Perhaps Pearson will help me.”
“No, he won’t.” He thought of his staid friend. “Pearson would never take an innocent young lady into a gambling hell. He’s not a sapskull.”
“Hardly young,” she pointed out.
“Young enough. And you’re still my sister,” he said. “Pearson knows the meaning of honor. That’s why he told us about Mama in the first place.”
Catherine knew this was true and tried another tactic. “Very well, then, I will go on my own. If you would be so kind as to give me the direction of the nearest hell, you can be on your way. I should imagine you are very late for your appointment by now.”
From the look on his face, it was clear that Freddy had forgotten entirely about it. “Devil it, Catherine, you cannot go to one of those places alone, and I’ll be damned if I tell you where one is.”
“That’s all right.” She waved her hand dismissively. “I can find one on my own. I shall simply hop into a hackney and order the driver to take me to the closest hell. I’m sure it won’t be a problem. You can run along now,” she said, giving him permission to go but not the least bit surprised when his feet stayed firmly planted to the rug. “It’s really all right, Freddy. I realize now that it was wrong of me to ask you. A brother can’t escort his sister to a gaming hell. It would be too infamous. How very clever you are to have seen that. I’ll be much less conspicuous on my own. But do tell me what I should wear? Will a simple evening dress be too much?”
She could tell by the look on
his face that she had finally hit upon a strategy that worked and wondered why she hadn’t started with it. It was so much more dignified to manipulate her brother into helping than to beg for his assistance. Trying to hide her triumphant smile, Catherine looked at him patiently, waiting for his capitulation.
“Very well,” Freddy said, sighing deeply. “Tell Mother you have the headache. She herself is afflicted with the complaint and would never doubt that you were in too much pain to listen to the Stevens chit howl away at the piano.”
“Do you promise?” she asked.
“I give you my word.”
Catherine threw her arms around him and squeezed. “Oh, you dear, dear brother. I will never forget this. You are the best of good men.”
Freddy submitted to the indignity of the hug for a moment before shrugging free. “Enough of that,” he insisted. “And I don’t know why you are thanking me. Tonight’s work could very well be our downfall. I shouldn’t have agreed,” he said, already regretting his momentary weakness.
“Pooh, Freddy. Don’t be such a sad sack. We’ll go in, play a couple of games of faro with the others and leave. That will be all and I will never bother you about gambling ever again,” she assured him happily.
He didn’t put much stock in this promise. “You are assuming, of course, that you don’t have the sickness that Papa has. Some people start gambling, and they don’t stop until they have ruined themselves.”
Catherine dismissed his concerns with a wave of her hand. “You needn’t be so dramatic, dear. Think whom you are talking to. I have never been susceptible to anything in my entire life. I’ll be fine.”
“The gambling sickness could be in your blood and you simply don’t know it yet,” he insisted.
“Bah. I don’t believe such faradiddles. Surely if my blood were infected, I would have succumbed to some sort of impulse years ago. Don’t worry, brother dear, if my plan goes sour, I will accept the consequences of my actions and not blame them on something so intangible as the blood.” She consulted the clock resting on the mantle. “Do look at the time, darling. You are very late indeed for your appointment. You mustn’t keep Mr. Pearson waiting. Please apologize to him for me.”
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