“Kenton Danesby, madam.”
“How do you do. May I present my daughter, Miss Paladin?”
“Enchanted, Miss Paladin.” He bowed. “If you’ll forgive me, I am late for an appointment.”
The Paladin women bent their knees to him, Maris following a moment later. He turned to her. “Give my warmest regards to your mother, Miss Lindel.”
“I shall, my lord.”
‘There are no complaints from my tenants? The roof doesn’t leak, there are no mice in the pantry?”
“No, my lord. We have no complaints, save for the ghost.”
His smile lightened his pensive air. “Ghost? Which of my highly questionable ancestors is haunting you?”
“La, Maris,” Mrs. Paladin said. “Don’t tease Lord Danesby! -”
Maris dropped her eyes. As soon as he had turned in her direction, she’d forgotten all about Mrs. Paladin. She’d wanted to bring that smile back to his face for it made her happy to see it. She wished she might always make him smile.
“Good afternoon, ladies,” he said with another bow.
He was hardly out of earshot when Mrs. Paladin seized Maris by the elbow. “My dear girl! My dear, dear girl!”
“Ma’am?”
“If you aren’t the slyest thing in nature ...”
“I, ma’am?”
Playfully, Mrs. Paladin tapped her on the shoulder. “I see greater potential in you than I believed, dear Maris,”
Maris’s puzzlement must have been evident, for Lilah paused while her mother swept on toward the doors. “Lord Danesby is a well-known figure in town. To have amused him is something of a coup that my mother will know how to turn to advantage.” She took Maris’s arm. “You have begun your Season well.”
Maris had hardly begun to think through what had happened. She flattered herself that she’d given little hint of her surprise at meeting Lord Danesby face-to-face. She hoped that she’d not been too amazed to be polite. He had seemed to be enjoying her company but he was so very well-mannered that she doubted he’d have behaved any less the gentleman if she’d been giving him the most lively disgust of her.
Thinking over her behavior, Maris feared that she’d been much too coming in her speech. A man of the town couldn’t possibly be interested in her foolish notions about this magnificent building. How kind, how generous, of Lord Danesby to pretend that he, too, had laughed when he’d first come to St. Paul’s. He must have been spinning her a tale in order to spare her blushes.
As she followed Mrs. Paladin’s progress, she glanced back at the wonders of the cathedral, feeling a bit like Eve being thrust out of Paradise. In an alcove not too far from the door, she saw Lord Danesby in the act of bowing to Mrs. Armitage. Something about the possessive way she took his arm told Maris that they were not strangers to one another.
Mrs. Armitage looked toward the door and must surely have perceived Maris standing there. The sophisticated lady gave a rather coquettish toss of her head, then turned to her escort. Lord Danesby listened to some witticism she whispered in his ear.
He also glanced in Maris’s direction.
Maris couldn’t help but compare the smile he turned toward Mrs. Armitage—such an accomplished, so worldly a lady—to the one he’d shared with a little Miss Nobody from the country. Maris blushed and hurried away as she realized the joke must be about her.
Chapter Four
“You are too severe on my country tenant,” Kenton said to Flora Armitage, even as he smiled at her wit.
“Is that who she is?” she said, her brow clearing of a shade of ire more noticeable upon its vanishing than in its appearance. “Did she complain of your absentee neglect? You must be a difficult landlord if she needs must track you to St. Paul’s to dun you for repairs.”
“I believe she is to make her first appearance in town.” Knowing well his mistress’s streak of jealousy, he demonstrated no more interest in his “country tenant.” Indeed, he had little to conceal. Newly bloomed buds were no business of his. Young and tender maidens tended to have old and crusty parents and trustees. Besides, he was not the sort to debase innocence. Flirting with such a one as Miss Lindel could lead only to marriage. Even if he held such a drastic step in contemplation, a slip of a girl would not: be his first choice, even if she had the sort of laugh one would expect from a happy angel.
“Who are her parents?” Flora asked as they strolled away over the pavement.
“Whose? I’m sorry, Flora. I wasn’t attending.” Her words came so apt to his thoughts that he wondered for a startled moment if he’d spoken aloud.
“That girl’s. Is she of good family?”
“Very good. Her father was a bit of a wild ‘un. The sort of man who ‘roars in the congregation’ as the Bible would have it.”
“Indeed?” Flora spoke so blankly that Kenton smiled. He wondered when she’d last delved into the Book of Books and whether she’d ever reached the Commandments, most of which she’d shattered since her youth.
“My father was very fond of old Lindel,” Ken ton said reminiscently.
“You told me your father was a stickler for propriety.”
“An understatement. But even the most perfect pattern of virtue may hold a soft corner for a rogue in their hearts.”
“Then she’s not of good family. Not if her father was a rogue.”
“Yet I am accounted to be of a good family and my morals have not always stood up under the fiercest scrutiny. And I believe my great-uncle was no pattern of rectitude.”
“Oh, that’s different. You have a title.”
Kenton had grown so accustomed to her unthinking snobbery that he was surprised by the revulsion he felt at her self-betrayal. “Lindel, as I remember, rode to hounds like a man reading his horse’s mind, could drain a bottle in less time than it takes to tell, and was the only person in the county who spoke loudly enough for my father to hear him the first time.”
“Your father was deaf?”
“Hard of hearing. He was an artillery man before my Great-Uncle Silas died and left Father the lot. Standing beside the guns for hours damaged his hearing.”
“Poor man,” Flora said, snuggling his arm closer to her remarkably good figure. Some of it was corseting, but by no means all.
“Indeed.” Impossible to think of his father as a man in need of pity. He would have scorned Flora’s kindly meant sympathy and Flora, too, in terms both complete and loud. His lack of hearing had not changed his essential personality. It had only added frustration to an already fractious nature.
Fortunately for her, if not for Kenton, his mother had never been one to retreat. On the contrary, the more unreasonable his father became, the more readily she’d sported her canvas and sailed into battle. Since the only way to make his father understand had been to shout, for he was too impatient for writing or an ear trumpet, the house had continually ruing with their warfare.
When he considered that the hurly-burly of the common rooms at Harrow had seemed like oases of peace and silence after home, it did not surprise him how rarely he returned to Finchley once he’d attained his manhood. Hardly surprising that he’d not recognized Lindel’s daughter... Kenton didn’t imagine he’d ever seen her before. Yet some memory nagged at: the back of his mind. A skin-and-bones child, dirty of face and tangled of hair, looking down at him with hauteur from the back of a rawboned, evil-tempered hunter he would have been terrified to ride despite all his experience. From somewhere nearby, he’d heard the robust laughter of Mr. Lindel and had associated the child with him. Had it been the now radiantly fair Miss Lindel? “Strange the change time has wrought,” he said under his breath.
“Poetry, Kenton? I’m impressed.”
He had, for a moment, forgotten all about the woman still pressed intimately against his side. That, he realized, was the problem. In all the months since they’d parted at the end of last Season, he’d hardly given her a thought. He doubted, furthermore, that she’d been keeping him foremost in her mind. Her husband
’s fascination with huntin’, shootin’, and fishin’ left her ample time to pursue her own interests. Kenton knew he was only the most favored of her swains and his absence had not made her heart any fonder.
He wished now that they’d not agreed to meet in the cathedral. But it was a well-known site for assignations. Glancing around, Kenton saw several persons he knew well, mostly with the object of their own more or less illicit affections. He frowned, realizing that he’d been maneuvering into silently declaring that his relationship with Flora would continue this year as well.
“Shall we go?” he asked, breaking in upon her prattling about some evening party to come.
Flora blinked, taken aback by this evidence of impatience. Then her smile grew a trifle wicked while her eyes became languid. “Certainly, my lord,” she purred. “At your pleasure.”
Leaving the cathedral. Kenton took a look back. Yes, she’d miscalculated by asking to meet here. Though their liaison was no secret, he did not like the brazenness of her move in claiming him so publicly. He resented being manipulated. If that made him a hypocrite, so be it.
She was no longer quite so pleased with herself when Kenton escorted her only as far as her door. “What, you’ll not come in?”
“Not now, I think.”
She laid her hand on his arm. “Why so unwilling, Ken? You know Sir Willard is from home.”
“I must refuse your pressing invitation, Flora. Having but newly come to town, I have many calls on my time.”
Those brilliant eyes narrowed. “That sounds ...we can’t discuss it on the stoop. Come in, Ken, and we’ll talk.”
He bowed and conveyed her gloved hand to his lips. “Another time, perhaps.”
“Ken ... ?” Perhaps she heard the ghost of a plea in her tone, for she threw her shoulders back. He admired her for her pride as well as recalling that she never looked more magnificent than when in a rage, but neither fact enticed him over her threshold. “As you will,” she said coldly.
Her butler opened the door then and she swept in, not deigning to throw Kenton another word. He bowed his head to her as she went, then met the butler’s singularly blank gaze. The servant stood aside to permit Kenton to enter.
“Good afternoon, Atkins,” he said, fishing a guinea from his pocket.
“Good afternoon, my lord,” he replied, taking the coin as quickly and discreetly as a market fair conjuror.
“And good-bye,” Kenton added, a bit giddily.
As he turned to go down the steps, he felt so light that he wouldn’t have been surprised to find himself floating above the pavement like one of those big silken balloons. He had not realized until now just how wearying this intrigue had grown. He heard the door close softly behind him and was hard put not to break into a skip. But his reputation for correct behavior came to his aid, though he could not restrain a wider smile than was his wont.
Kenton found a cab at the corner and directed the driver to take him to Number 32, Ludgate Hill, home of the finest jewelers in London. Rundell and Bridge were delighted to accede to his wishes and brought out their best merchandise for one who had shown both good taste and deep pockets. He bought Flora a necklace designed in two shades of sapphire, the deepest twilight blue and the pale gleam of Ceylon. A woman of Flora’s rich experience and sophistication would immediately recognize such an extravagant adornment as the farewell present that it was. He ordered it sent at once, before he could second-guess himself.
Returning to his rooms in Pendleton Street, he found half a dozen invitations scattered over a table very near the large booted feet of his best friend in all the world, Dominic Swift. He had his aristocratic nose buried in a book, a pot of ale on a table dragged from its proper place to rest handy by his side.
“Comfortable?” Kenton asked, when his friend neither looked up nor stirred at his entrance.
“Just a moment,” Dominic said, turning the page.
Kenton occupied himself by opening the envelopes that waited for him. Two were from friends of Flora; they went in the fire. Two more were from tailors, inveigling him to change from Weston to themselves. One was a charmingly scented note from a not-so-youthful, but surpassingly fair incognita, welcoming him to town and inviting him to a card party. Kenton knew if he sent an acceptance, he’d find no other guests. He weighed this one against the other note welcoming him to town, a polite note from Greeves, his man of affairs, reminding him that he’d promised to go over all the pending business. All the notes but this followed the first two into the fireplace. He had no wish to tumble headlong into another soulless liaison so soon after escaping one.
Dominic placed one long finger between the pages of the book and looked up, seemingly surprised to find Kenton in his own apartment. “Oh, hullo.”
“Good book?”
“Hmmm. It’s one of yours.”
“I know.”
Dominic stood up, all in sections like a hinged easel. He shook hands with Kenton and the two men grinned at each other. “You’ve grown thinner,” Kenton said, waving Dom back into his chair.
“Fewer good dinners in town when the ton’s away.”
“Why didn’t you accept my invitation to Finchley, you stupid fellow? Mrs. Worthing would have fed you until you had a bailiff’s belly.”
“No one knows when the case will be called, Ken-ton. I didn’t dare leave London for fear I might not return in time.”
“You believe it will be soon, then?”
“I live in hope.”
Kenton poured out a glass of claret and clinked it against the side of Dom’s pint. “Here’s to the future Duke of Saltaire.”
Dom’s mobile face twisted into a wry grimace. “Whoever he may prove to be.”
“Come, now. You have the stronger case; Greeves says so and he should know if anyone does.”
“There’s nothing to be done about it now, anyway,” Dom said with a fatalistic shrug. “The evidence is all in. It’s waiting for the decision that takes all the stuffing out of one.”
“Well, come to dinner with me and we’ll undertake to put the stuffing back in. What say you to Boodle’s?”
“You won’t find me turning my nose up at a sausage from a farthing ‘fry,’ let alone dinner at the best club in town. But what’s set you to grinning like a winning tout?”
“Does it show?”
“To one who knows you as well as I, yes.”
Kenton refilled his glass. “If you must know, you gossipmonger, I’ve just broken with Flora Armitage.”
“What? Your full-blown charmer? How did this come about?”
“I’d had enough,” Kenton said, wondering if even Dom would understand his sudden revulsion of feeling. “I suddenly realized that she’d be as fond of a monkey as myself should it have the same title and fortune.”
Dom leaned back and once more kicked his feet onto the tabletop. “I could have told you that, as could half a dozen before you.”
“You don’t mean that you ever ...”
“Heaven forfend,” Dom said, giving his rich chuckle. “Besides, Dominic Swift isn’t rich enough to tempt her, whatever she might say to the Duke of Saltaire. But it’s not difficult to recognize that avaricious glint once you’ve seen it in other eyes.”
Kenton recalled that one of the reasons for his friend’s present financial low water was the demands of his own former mistress. Dom’s case was different from his own in that he’d been in love past praying for. “I suppose I was a fool.”
“Not if you received good value for your trinkets,” Dom said.
Kenton found himself telling his friend about his adventures in the cathedral, even about meeting the country tenant. “Though she knew who I was, she treated me without any particular marks of attention.”
“You mean she didn’t toadeat you?”
“No. Neither did she assume a familiarity which so many fools substitute for fawning attentions. She behaved as though I were any gentleman of her acquaintance.” He recalled soft blue eyes widening as she rec
ognized him and then, shyness passing, the smile that warmed them as she responded with interest to his conversation.
“She knew who you were,” Dom mused. Kenton looked at his friend sharply, something odd about his tone drawing his attention out from his reverie.
“Yes. What of it?”
“I wonder if anyone does know who you are, Ken-ton. I wonder if you know.”
“What have you been drinking?” Kenton asked with a laughing look toward the pewter pot. “Champagne by the pint?
“Can you say you’ve been content these last few years?”
“Content? Who wouldn’t be? I do what I please. I am answerable to no one.”
“I thought not,” Dom said with an odious superiority.
Kenton weighed his glass significantly and Dom held up a hand as though to ward off the missile. “In truth, it’s a bad life for men like us. We’ve been raised on the dogma of duty. Having no duty to do leaves us too much time to brood.”
“I don’t brood like some dashed poetical hero,” Kenton said, revolted by the notion. “I am constantly occupied. In town, I have a large acquaintance and a place of some note in society. At home, I have my tenants and my roses. The shooting lodge is occupation enough in the autumn and I am never at a loss for invitations in the winter, unless I choose to spend it at Finchley Place.” He thought of something. “Did I tell you that my West Indian agent has managed to nick the nick at last? I received an express from him two days ago from Plymouth.”
Dom shook his head as if trying to rattle his thoughts into place. Noticing that the fair hair flew about his face, Kenton made a mental note to have his own man give Dom a new touch before they went to Boodle’s. Not that he would be ashamed of Dom in any circumstances, no more than he would have been ashamed to be seen with the notoriously untidy Dr. Johnson had he lived in an earlier London. The best thing for Dom would be to win the title so long contested between opposing branches of his family. Then he would have both genius and wealth, becoming, in effect, his own sponsor.
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