“Roses,” Dom said, with no great admiration in his tone. “Gardening is no fit occupation for a man who took double firsts in history and logic.”
“On the contrary.” Kenton tried to keep his temper. There was no profit in growing annoyed with Dom. He would simply burrow into his books until the storm passed. “They are exceedingly difficult plants to grow. Half the insects in England consider roses their favorite meal. Not to mention leaf-rot, black-spot...”
“Spare me.”
“Then again, trying to propagate new species would try the patience of a Newton. The grafting is difficult enough but starting new plants is enough to break your heart. I had half the forcing house damp off a month ago. A very promising shade of crimson.”
“Damp off? Sounds like what you did to poor Mrs. Armitage.”
“Worse. She’ll make a recovery, very soon indeed if I know my Flora. Indeed, I’m sure I can name my successor.” Kenton paused and smiled at his own folly. “I wonder if I pursued her because her name means ‘Flower.’ ”
“Heaven preserve you if you ever meet a Rose.”
“I hope I’m not so trite,” Kenton answered and wondered what Miss Lindel’s Christian name was. That Paladin woman had said it but he’d not been attending, having just caught sight of Flora. He rather thought it began with an N or an M.
“Who looks after these sickly infants while you are coming the gallant in London?”
“My man Bledsoe undoubtedly enjoys my absence more than my presence, since he may rule the roost without my interference. Yet—alas for Bledsoe—I shall probably return to Finchley Place as soon as Chavez arrives. The sooner the new plants are in their pots and tended, the better.”
“What treasures are these?”
Kenton looked around. The door was tight shut. He leaned forward. “Miniature roses, no more than a foot high. I’ll be the first in England to have them.”
“Man, you are mad. Take care you don’t wind up some crabbed old fellow waving your cane at imaginary foes.”
Kenton laughed at himself. “I do find myself growing a touch melodramatic in my old age. Yet collectors are a jealous breed. If some of my rivals knew what Chavez has, they’d play highwayman and waylay him on the road.”
“I thought it was only your illness but now I see that all you rose fanciers are mad.”
“I confess to doubts about some of them. But if I’m mad and melodramatic, what’s the cure? Not another Flora. I’ve had quite enough of such affaires”
“No indeed.” Dom drained the last of his ale. “What say you to a wife?”
“A wife?”
“It must come to us all, sooner or later. For myself, I am waiting only to know my fate. There’s a deal of difference, as I hope you shall never learn, between asking a girl to marry lands and a title or proposing she wed a plain nobody.”
“You’d not marry a girl who sees only your lands and your title, Dom, or you’ll have a Flora of your own.” Kenton looked more closely at his friend. “Who have you in your eye?”
“No one, on my honor. I have riot allowed myself even the luxury of hope.”
Kenton clapped his friend on the knee. “Here’s blue devils! Title or none, you fool, any girl you honor with your regard is bound to return it.”
“I’ll remind you of those words one day.”
“Oh, enough about that. If there’s anything I can do to help you to your ladylove, you’ve only to say the word. Although, if I may make one suggestion…” He glanced at his friend’s attire.
Self-consciously, Dom touched his cravat. “Is it so bad?”
“Appalling, my dear chap.”
Chapter Five
Late that night, Maris entered Sophie’s room to find her sister sitting up, a shaded candle burning at her right hand. Her sister looked around as the door opened, putting her finger between the pages of her book to mark her place. “Did you enjoy dinner?” she asked eagerly, pushing her spectacles up.
“I... I’m not sure.”
“Not sure? The food was not to your liking?”
“Oh, no, it was very well. Strange sauce on the pigeon, though. Some kind of sour fruit.”
“It seems to have soured your mood.”
Maris smiled absently at her sister’s jest. “It wasn’t that.”
“Then what? When you left you were so thrilled to be going to your first London supper. And now, you are in a strange mood, indeed.”
Sophie knew her too well. Maris let her breath out in a sigh and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Would you call me an ignorant girl, Sophie? Well, more ignorant than others of my ilk?”
Sophie patted her hand. “No one would call you ‘blue,’ dear heart, but neither could they call you uninformed. Why, you followed the accounts of Waterloo far more closely than either Mother or I and with greater comprehension.”
Maris shook her head. “Yet, tonight, I felt as though I were as empty-headed a pea-goose as ever took breath.”
“I shouldn’t have thought...” Sophie began and then clamped her lips tight shut. With her hair twisted up into two tight braids, she looked like a mischievous little girl.
“What would you say?” Maris asked, noting these signs of Christian charity at war with baser instincts.
Sophie closed her eyes an instant. “I would be indeed surprised to discover that any friends of Mrs. Paladin were notable for wit or information.”
“Have you taken Mrs. Paladin in dislike? She seems a most amiable woman.”
“Too amiable. She smiles too much. No one can smile so much and be sincere.”
“She is Mama’s friend, Sophie, and a woman of greater age than ourselves. We owe her respect.”
“I suppose we do,” Sophie said grudgingly. “But come, it was not Mrs. Paladin who put you out of humor. Was it?”
“No, or at least, no more than the others.”
Sophie tucked the ribbon place marker between the pages and laid her book aside. “You are piquing my curiosity beyond all bearing, Maris. What happened?”
“Nothing. It is only that I could understand no more than half of what was said tonight. The rest...” She shook her head. “Do you remember our French lessons? We worked so hard translating bits of Moliere. How we flattered ourselves into believing we’d obtained a good working knowledge of the language?”
‘Yes, until Monsieur D’Aubrant came to visit the vicar,” Sophie said, her eyes lighting at the memory.
“How we laughed when he first spoke French to us! I was so sure he was an impostor because I couldn’t understand a word. At least, he complimented you.”
“Saying that I wrote French better than I spoke it was hardly praising me to the skies.”
“So they were speaking French at dinner tonight? How rude, knowing you aren’t fluent.”
“No, no, Sophie,” Maris said. “The conversation was conducted in English but even though I knew all the words, the meanings escaped me. Why should they all laugh when a bowl of mushrooms was served?”
“Mushrooms?”
“Ordinary mushrooms in Béchamel sauce. And there was a long discussion about some novel or other. Everyone seemed convinced that the author had based his characters on people he knew and, if he had, who were they?”
“Ah, a roman a clef,” Sophie said. “Who was the author?”
“Pinkie.”
“Pinkie? Oh, you can’t have heard right. That’s not an author’s name.”
“It’s what they said. Someone said that Pinkie had written a new book, or the second volume or something. Then they started discussing how much he was drawing from life.”
“What did you do?”
“What could I do? I ate my dinner in silence.”
“Surely your neighbors to either side spoke to you,” Sophie said, shocked.
“The one on my left instructed me in the finer points of fox hunting. The one on my right showed a very deep appreciation of his food.”
“Oh, dear.”
“They were k
ind,” Maris said quickly. “Everyone seemed pleased to meet me and Mrs. Paladin assured me that several invitations would come to me because I showed myself to be presentable.”
“So I should think,” Sophie said, prepared to take up the cudgels in her defense.
A gentle scratch on the door heralded Mrs. Lin-del. “Don’t keep Sophie up late,” she cautioned. “She’s still not entirely herself.”
Sophie rolled her eyes without letting her mother see. Maris chuckled. “Very well, Mother Hen. Send all your chicks to bed.”
The house Mrs. Lindel and Mrs. Paladin had rented for the Season had been pleasantly furnished in the lower, more public, rooms. The bedchambers, however, were in no wise notable for elegance. The furniture was a mixture of styles, from heavy English oak to spindly Chinoserie, all more or less battered. They’d brought their own linen, but it had taken Maris several days to accustom herself to sleeping in a strange bed.
A few moments later, Mrs. Lindel followed her. “Did you enjoy your evening?”
“Very much so, Mother.”
“Mrs. Paladin says you comported yourself beautifully.”
“I hope so,” Maris said, turning her back so her mother could assist her with the ties she could not reach. “Mother?”
“Yes, love?”
“You have never told me how you and Mrs. Paladin came to be such friends.”
“Didn’t I? I imagined, I suppose, that you would not be interested.”
“Of course, I am. It seems a little strange to me, that’s all. She’s such a woman of the world and you have always lived so quietly.”
“Not always. You may not believe it, but I had some considerable success when I stood in your shoes. Half a dozen men solicited my father for my hand. All highly eligible, too. Even a lord.”
“Which lord?” Maris put her feet into her slippers and tied her wrapper about her waist.
Mrs. Lindel smiled, looking very much like Sophie in a playful mood. “Not a very great lord, to be sure, but a lord, nonetheless. My father liked his suit very well but I had already chosen your father. What a time I had changing Papa’s mind about him.”
Maris could well imagine her late grandfather balking at the idea of exchanging a title for Mr. Winston Lindel. Had it been his wildness that had drawn her gentle mother? He’d certainly had little time for the conventionalities of life.
“But that is beside the point,” Mrs. Lindel said. “Elvira and I were girls together. We met in London and promised that, should we be blessed with daughters, we should make some push to share expenses upon their come-out. I confess I’d all but forgotten about it until she wrote to me last spring. I was only too glad to fall in with her plans. We are saving amazingly by sharing this house with her, not to mention the expenses of the servants and the carriage.”
“Lilah made her come-out last year, though.”
‘Yes, poor thing. She did not take.”
“Why not, do you think?”
Mrs. Lindel picked away a crumb from her sleeve. “From what Elvira has let fall, it may be that Lilah was too serious-minded which did not suit the tastes of the gentlemen. I could not forbear to laugh a little that Elvira should have such an earnest daughter. She was the giddiest, airiest creature imaginable with never a thought in her head beyond the pleasures of the hour.”
“I find it difficult to imagine,” Maris said, thinking of Mrs. Paladin’s small eyes and sharp laughter.
“Well, I’m afraid that...not that she has said anything in so many words ...” Mrs. Lindel’s voice dropped, and she turned a furtive look toward the closed bedchamber door. “I don’t believe Mr. Paladin proved to be an entirely satisfactory husband. He was said to be quite rich at the time, though I only met him at a few routs and balls. He was a fine dancer, as I recall, quite different from your dear father.” She sniffed reminiscently. “Alas, so many fortunes have been whistled down the wind through the fortunes of war. And play.”
Maris knew her mother must be thinking of the few thousands her late father had managed to lose at the tables over the years. It had not seemed so very much while he was alive yet any like amount would be a godsend to his widow, with two daughters to discharge creditably.
Maris sat down before her mahogany-framed mirror, brought from home, and took the pins from her hair. It fell in kinked waves down her back, flashing quite golden in the candles’ glow. “When do you mean to take Sophie to my uncle’s house?”
“In two days’ time. I hope this huskiness in her chest will have passed off by then. I should like to have her safe at my brother’s before she is laid low by yet another bout.” Mrs. Lindel took the brush from Maris’s hand. “Let me do that.”
“Thank you, Mother. The air is said to be extremely good in the North. London is undoubtedly too smoky for Sophie.”
“Her doctor pooh-poohed that notion yet I believe there is something in it. She was never so sick at home.”
Maris reached up behind her head to pat her mother comfortingly on the wrist. “She’ll soon recover all her strength, darling. Dr. Craven said he’d never seen a girl with a stronger constitution. She must have that not to have been laid low far more often.”
“I only pray her heart hasn’t been affected. I worry for her so.”
“Yes, I know.” Maris inspected her face closely by the light of the candle on her dressing table and decided she was not throwing out a spot just yet after all. She would have to ask the housekeeper for some witch hazel. “Why not stay a week or so with Uncle Shelley? Have a good rest. You need it as much as Sophie does. More. She sleeps during the afternoon but you do not.”
“They have written to me with such an invitation but it’s impossible, of course.”
“Why so?” She met her mother’s gaze in the mirror. “Don’t hasten back to town on my account, I beg you, or we shall have both Sophie and you on the invalid list.”
“I can’t leave you in town alone. Especially not now, with your first steps to be taken into society at the marchioness’s ball.”
“I won’t be alone. Mrs. Paladin will be here. I’ve taken a great liking to Lilah and her mother will guide my steps.”
Mrs. Lindel was visibly torn between her desire to protect and succor her youngest child and her wish to be at hand for her elder daughter’s debut, an event toward which she’d worked tirelessly from the day of Maris’s birth. Maris wanted to make her mother’s decision easier, though she wished with all her heart that both Mrs. Lindel and Sophie did not have to leave so soon. But if Sophie’s health required it, Maris would urge an earlier departure.
Standing behind Maris, running her hand aimlessly over the stiff bristles of the brush, Mrs. Lindel seemed to be falling into one of her reveries. She’d been giving her undivided attention to the business of preparing Maris for London, as well as caring for Sophie, and had hardly drifted off in her thoughts since their arrival in town.
“Mother?” Maris asked, looking at her mother gazing at herself in the mirror, but not as if she really saw herself. “Mother?”
“Yes, dearest?” Mrs. Lindel blinked as if coming out of a faint.
“You looked so strange for a moment.”
“Did I? So much to think about.” She put the tortoiseshell brush down on the dressing table. “Elvira ...that is, Mrs. Paladin tells me that you met Lord Danesby in the cathedral today.”
“Yes, I did,” Maris said, meeting her mother’s gaze squarely. She hoped no telltale blush had crept in to stain her cheeks. “He was most pleasantly spoken.”
“I hope ... it was difficult to tell from her accounting. You may have noticed a certain dryness in her tone when she speaks. It makes it quite difficult to know when she is joking one and when she is not.”
“I have noticed something of the sort,” Maris admitted. “It seems to be one of those little tricks of speech you have so often warned us against.” She did not mean to criticize an older person and her mentor, but it was true about Mrs. Paladin’s acerbic tone.
; “I hope you were not too coming with his lordship. He is said to be a great stickler for propriety. His father certainly had that reputation and, as you know, the apple does not fall far from the tree.”
“If I follow your example, dear Mother, I shall find myself happily married to the man of my dearest imaginings before the month is out.” Maris couldn’t help hoping this was true. How wonderful, how miraculous, if this meeting in the cathedral should lead somehow to marriage.
Maris rose from the stool and kissed her mother on the cheek. “Please don’t worry,” she added, wending her arm about her mother’s waist and leaning her head somewhat awkwardly on her shoulder. “Lord Danesby found me only slightly amusing even before I told him I am the daughter of his tenant.”
“Elvira seemed to feel that you had plotted to meet him there.”
Maris stood bolt upright at that. “How could I have done so?”
“Elvira did say it was very clever of you.”
“Very kind of her, I’m sure. But I don’t aspire to that kind of cleverness. I did not know he would be at the cathedral. Nor did Mrs. Paladin know it. Our paths crossed by the merest coincidence. He was gentleman enough to escort me to my friends and nothing else of moment occurred.” She thought it would not be worthwhile to mention how she had laughed and how that, apparently, had brought Lord Danesby to speak with her.
“That’s what I thought,” Mrs. Lindel said, apparently relieved to find she wasn’t raising a cuckoo in her little wren’s nest. “And so I told Elvira.” She smiled. “In your private ear, I could believe Sophie might maneuver so but not you. No matter how much you might admire a gentleman, you’d never sink to subterfuge. I only ask you to guard your heart. There are many men in this world—even well-born men—who would take advantage of your sweet nature.”
“You need not worry about me. I’m too sensible to throw my heart away on someone unsuitable.” Maris had no illusions about her blush now. It spread like strawberry jam from her décolletage to her hairline.
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