“Very well. What do you propose to do, Seelye?”
“I’m open to suggestions.”
“She likes to attend the Berry sisters’ salon in Half-Moon Street. There’s a meeting soon about one of Jane’s pet causes, I understand. You could escort her there, but you’d have no chance for a proper conversation.”
“If only I had a carriage, I could take her on an outing, say, to Richmond Hill.”
“You may borrow my phaeton. It’s serviceable if old fashioned. The drive will do my horses good, too. The stable’s just down the street. Have Skeaping send a footman to tell them when you’ll need it.” Lady Abingdon’s smile vanished. “I should sell the horses, I suppose, but my sons may—someday.”
“Would you like to come?” he asked. “I’d welcome an ally.”
“I would, scamp, but I haven’t the stamina,” she replied. “You will be kind to Jane, won’t you? And see that you make headway, I am anxious for her.”
“If she accepts my invitation, I’ll have a long drive to convince her that a less impossible Jane will be happier one in the long run.”
Just then, Lady Abingdon’s butler opened the door to announce: “Lady Jane informs me she’s found a new book at the subscription library. Are you at home?”
“Don’t be missish, Skeaping, send her up.” To Seelye, she added, “Won’t this be cozy? Jane’s a fine reader, especially good with satire, which comes of having a sharp wit. It’s a lovely way to forget one’s petty woes.”
“One ought to leave when the next caller arrives, but I’d like to stay,” he said. “That is, if your reader won’t object.”
“Oh, it’s you,” Lady Abingdon’s reader said unenthusiastically from the doorway. Her pale hair and porcelain skin glowed luminous in the room’s light.
“I’ve invited Seelye to hear the novel with me. Do you mind, my dear?”
Jane bestowed a sweet smile on her before saying, “I don’t care one way or the other, so long as he doesn’t spoil my concentration with constructive criticism about how I read.”
“Hear that, rogue? Behave yourself or take thee away,” Lady Abingdon said and settled back. “What have you brought today, precious child?”
“It’s called Emma. We enjoyed Pride and Prejudice so much, I thought to bring the author’s latest,” Jane said and sat at Lady Abingdon’s far side. “I only have the first volume and it was all I could do to get it. Someone had just returned it when I happened to ask. But I’ll get the other two if you’d like me to finish it.”
“Isn’t the title character a rich, willful, and misguided young lady? Are you and the author acquainted?” Seelye asked.
Jane removed her gloves and refused to take the bait, “I don’t believe so.”
“Perhaps she knows you by reputation,” he suggested blandly. “It’s staggering how many do.”
“Be still, Seelye,” Lady Abingdon said. “Won’t you begin, dearest?”
Ignoring him, Jane turned a few pages to find the beginning.
She had fine hands, thin, long fingered, and aristocratic right down to the perfect ovals of her fingernails but for one, which was nibbled. He couldn’t help but smile at that chink in her façade.
Childhood habits die hard.
“‘Chapter One, Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition,’” she read with audible relish, “‘seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence—’”
“Your emphasis not the author’s, I take it,” he murmured.
“Seelye,” Lady Abingdon warned.
“‘—and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her,’ except a noisome, disapproving friend of the family whose presumption infuriated her,” Jane read. Upturned lips betrayed her deviation from the text.
“Ah, Miss Woodhouse is younger than our Jane,” Seelye stage-whispered to his great aunt. “I was mistaken.”
Jane made a moue of distaste and said, “You are about so many things, my lord. May I continue?”
Lady Abingdon’s bright eyes shifted from one to the other, her expression watchful.
The anonymous author had a keen understanding of human contradictions. Emma brought to mind the conundrum of Jane herself, Seelye thought. Here, so considerate of an elderly invalid that he wanted to press a light kiss on her forehead. Elsewhere, so quick to condemn, that she had made herself the bane of half the population. How was he to reconcile one with the other? How best to help her become someone desired for more than her money?
While he considered this, she read on. At the chapter’s conclusion, she looked up, set the book aside, and motioned that they should leave her ladyship to rest.
“Quietly,” she whispered, “lest we wake her.”
Jane’s thoughtfulness shamed him. He had not considered how to make his great aunt more comfortable beyond fulfilling her wish to see Jane settled. To date, he called on Lady Abingdon only when called upon to do so, not to keep her company. In this, he resolved to do better.
The butler met them in the foyer, where Jane’s maid awaited her.
“She is drowsing,” Jane told Skeaping. “I mislike the shadows under her eyes. Is she sleeping? Does she eat?”
The butler’s impassive expression slipped slightly when he said, “Very little of either. I believe she is sustained by your visits, my lady.”
Jane’s smile wobbled but she regained her composure to bid Seelye good day.
Impulsively, he pinched her chin and said, “I’m proud of you, Jane.”
“Are you?”
“Your kindness puts me to shame, but I shall follow your example and call here more often,” he admitted, much to her surprise. “I don’t suppose you’d come with me to Richmond Hill tomorrow?”
She hesitated but agreed.
“Skeaping, would you have the Abingdon phaeton and horses ready for tomorrow noon?” Then he turned to Jane. “Will a quarter past be convenient, my lady?”
She studied him before she nodded.
He took his leave, unsettled to realize in one essential way Jane’s character was admirably formed.
* * *
Mystified by Seelye’s invitation, Jane tiptoed back into the drawing room to fetch away the borrowed book.
Lady Abingdon stirred, eyes alert.
“I believe Beau Burton dislikes my fashion these days.” She plucked at the loose folds of fabric around her. “Not that I blame him. Nothing suits me. My mantua maker could come to alter my clothes, but I’d be smaller—or worse—by the time they were ready,” she said with a rueful chuckle. “My present state must discompose a nonpareil.”
“He doesn’t care a groat about that. Lord Seelye hates to see you unwell, just as I do. Rest now. When he returns, you’ll cross swords again.”
“He won’t be back, Jane,” her ladyship said. “He’s said his farewell.”
“No,” Jane cried. “No,” she repeated more firmly.
“Precious child, visitors call on me nowadays to say good-bye. Only you and the Duchess of Ainsworth come to visit. It’s just as well. I much prefer morning callers who aren’t Friday-faced. What is most disappointing about dying, aside from discovering I am not immortal,” she mused, “is that most people treat me as if I were already dead.”
“Lord Seelye didn’t,” Jane said.
“True, but I requested his visit,” her ladyship said and reached for her hand. “You call on me because you are good and very brave. I have always cherished that in your character.”
“He told me himself, he will call on you more frequently. He is a man of his word, I believe,” she said.
“That he is, child.”
“And he loves you, ma’am, that’s plain to see.”
“Does he? Men can be hard to know. My boys went off to Eton when they were barely weaned from the wet nurse.” She noted Jane’s disbelief and said, “Well, perhaps I exaggerate but Abingdon did not believe in coddling. So off they went with their father
’s blessing to become men at eight years old.” She shook her lace-capped head. “I never understood why Abingdon insisted on replicating his own upbringing. I hadn’t the heart to tell him his rearing left him a dry stick. His only real passion was food, poor man. Swelled up like a tick in later years, yet I held my tongue. To say something would’ve wounded him. And perhaps he was right. My boys grew into admirable men whom I love but cannot claim to know. One must hope their wives do—”
“I’m so sorry,” Jane said, unable to disguise the sadness she felt.
“Oh my dear, forgive my digression. Mortality does encourage one’s morbid tendency to reminisce.”
“But why hold your tongue?” Jane asked. “The men I know have no compunction about finding fault with me.”
“I refrained because I cared for him. And as luck would have it, I found an outlet in my godchildren, for girls may be coddled a little. You and Prudence were kind enough to accept my occasional interference.”
“Interference? Never. You loved me and listened to my nattering when everyone else was preoccupied with more important things.”
“You never nattered, my dear.” Lady Abingdon looked at her fondly and added, “Everyone wants and needs to be understood, Jane. Especially men. They are happier in life when they are.”
“How am I to understand men? They disparage me one moment, compliment me the next and, when I’m thoroughly befuddled, invite me for a pleasure drive into the country. Men are utterly inscrutable.” She spoke of men in general but only one came to mind.
“Still, every man wishes to be understood and loved. Just as you do,” the older woman said and fiddled with her rings. “I would ask a favor of you, if I may.”
“Name it,” Jane replied without hesitation.
“Seelye needs a wife.”
Her heart lurched and a refusal was on her lips, but Lady Abingdon silenced her.
“I would like you to find him one. As a favor to me.”
“He doesn’t need my help. He’s perfect in every way.”
“Except in the way that rich families with marriageable daughters require, it would seem.”
“The matrons I know positively dote on him. If only you could see how they fawn over him and thrust their daughters his way—”
“Yet, no young lady has attached him. Why do you suppose that is?”
Jane fell silent to consider the question. Lady Abingdon waited patiently.
“Perhaps he is too clever and handsome. He intimidates the shy, and the plain, and the dull-witted. But it’s more than that. He’s charming to everyone—well, nearly everyone—yet to no one in particular. For all his address, he never distinguishes anyone with sincere appreciation. It’s as if he ingratiates himself out of habit, nothing more.”
“It may be his scruples prevent him from fixing his interest.”
“Why? It’s no secret he must marry money but he’s a catch of a kind,” Jane said.
“Then why hasn’t he been caught?” Lady Abingdon asked.
“I’ve noticed he holds himself aloof and seems forever amused. Even a girl straight from the schoolroom can sense when she’s nothing but a divertissement.”
Lady Abingdon tilted her head and considered this. “I believe you’re right. Poor Seelye,” she sighed.
“Pooh! Should he choose to exert himself, he could win someone over and marry her. I, for one, wish he would and leave me alone.”
“Do you, my child?”
“The sooner, the better,” she replied, though it hurt to say. “My fourth Season will be hellish enough without his contributions.”
“As to that, he ‘contributes’ as you put it, at my request.”
Jane gaped at her godmother before finding her voice, “I beg you call him off!”
“I won’t. He will help you. And I ask that you help him in turn, for I doubt he understands himself as well as you do.”
“I don’t understand him or even like him,” Jane said. “I’ve observed him, that’s all.”
“Be that as it may, I care for the two of you and should like to know you both are happy before I die.”
“But—”
She took Jane’s hand and ended all argument, “Please, Jane.” Her eyelids drooped. “I should rest now, precious child.”
“I’ll call again very soon,” she said and pressed a light kiss on her ladyship’s forehead before leaving.
“I look forward to it,” Lady Abingdon whispered.
Chapter 10
In which his lordship makes one last wager.
Seelye resolved to present himself in Portman Square more often, for there was more than one way to comfort his great aunt during her illness. He could amuse her with anecdotes from the routs, musicales, and balls he attended. Or describe the notables he saw and share the latest on dit about them. Or recollect other curious tidbits gleaned from his perch atop fashionable society. She would want to discuss Jane, too.
On that subject, he intended to make progress immediately.
With the Richmond trip arranged, he sought out his friends to let off steam about something his brother had said. He found them at White’s lounging comfortably in club chairs in their usual private room.
“I ask you, do I look anything like Byron?” he said and flopped into a chair in their midst.
George Percy sat to his right, Lord Clun, his left, and the Duke of Ainsworth on Clun’s far side. All three men shifted forward to inspect him.
“A little,” Clun said, a glint in his black eyes. “You’ve the cleft chin.”
“Damn your cheek,” Seelye said.
“Since you ask, one can see—”
“No,” he turned on Percy, “one cannot.”
“You did ask,” Ainsworth said, leaning past Clun’s big shoulder for a better look. “Who shaves you, by the way?”
“I do.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“His golden fleece looks rather Byron-esque.” Clun tweaked a stray blonde curl that dangled over Seelye’s rumpled collar. “Don’t it, Ainsworth?”
Seelye slapped the Welshman’s great paw away.
“Anyone know if Byron smells of wintergreen?” Clun asked the others.
“Don’t you trust Montret with pointy tools around you anymore?” Ainsworth asked.
“And just look at the man’s stock,” Percy said, although he knew full well Montret attended his nabob chum.
“Looks like he steeped it in weak tea,” Clun said with a laugh.
“His Belgian’s angling for dismissal,” Ainsworth opined to the group. “That, or he returned to Belgium and Seelye’s doing without.”
“Impossible,” Clun cried, “Montret has made his reputation for à la modality. How could he do without him?”
“Actually, Montret is on sabbatical for a few months. I—” Seelye mumbled, “I’ve hired a temporary valet.”
“Find another,” Ainsworth said.
“I can’t.”
His friends regarded him, six eyebrows hiked high.
“I won’t,” he amended. “The man’s burdened with cares.”
“He’s not worried overmuch about your cravats,” Clun said.
“Give him his cards,” Ainsworth said.
“If I did, I’d beggar his family,” Seelye said, unwilling to admit his valet-lessness to friends who would find it as ‘hilarious’ as the state of his hair. “His mother has consumption. And his sister’s blind,” he elaborated with growing conviction, “from tatting lace. It’d be heartless to sack him.”
Seelye leaned back, ensconced on the moral high ground, and dared them to object.
But would Percy leave it be? No, drat him, he would not. “A slipshod valet with consumptive mother and tatting-blinded sister?” he repeated, happy as a butcher’s cat. “My, that is a moral dilemma. What will you do?”
“I can’t be heartless.”
“So you’d rather be bamboozled?” Clun asked him.
Ainsworth eyed him. Clun eyed him. And Percy, damn his
smirk, stared up at the ceiling humming to himself.
Too late, Seelye realized the moral high ground, when elevated on fibs, had a steep and slippery slope. He opened his mouth to confess the truth.
“Change of subject,” Clun said. “Bess asked me why you’ve been horrid to her friend, Lady Jane Babcock. Mind you, ‘horrid’ was my wife’s term. I know of her ladyship from less-biased sources, so I assume whatever you said was in self-defense. Still, I am curious to know why you unsheathed your rapier wit against a defenseless lady.”
“Defenseless, my arse,” Ainsworth said. “Ripped up at me about my bloody dogs. Even Attila, and he’s better behaved than you lot. Raked me up and down in front of Pru just when I was trying to make an impression.” He colored slightly. “Impugned my staff with me standing there like a witless gawk taking it. I’d say she’s—”
“—a plague of biblical proportions?” Seelye finished for him. “I know. She’s already struck down all the first-born males in the kingdom. Made a point of humiliating a choice few for good measure.”
“Heard about Rostand,” Clun said. “Don’t like him, but I pitied him that.”
“Trouble is,” Seeyle said, growing morose, “my great aunt wants her married this Season. And I promised I’d see to it.”
“How?” Ainsworth asked, much diverted. “Who’ll she have?”
“I’ll find someone somehow,” Seelye said, the task’s enormity weighing on him.
“Good way to keep ‘em all at arm’s length, if that were her intention,” Percy said. “One might wonder if she wears the willow for someone.”
“Not when she can wield it like a switch on a fellow instead,” Seelye replied. “She’s not pining for anyone. She’s just Jane all grown up.”
“Still, you must admit,” Percy said, “she’s something out of the ordinary to make Ainsworth quake.”
“She is fierce, that’s true,” Seelye said. “Aren’t many who’d care to cross her.” He frowned over another recollection. “Yet, she’s kindness itself to my great aunt.” He hoisted his glass. “Gentlemen, a toast to the contradictory Lady Jane.”
His Lordship's Last Wager Page 9
