Because it would have been a disaster not to adorn oneself for such an occasion, Mrs. Paladin had rented a very fine copy of an elegant parure. Draped in a necklace of fish-scale pearls and sparkling paste with matching bracelets, fully three inches wide, and chandelier earrings tied on with pink silk, Maris had been the equal of any other girl, to the eye at least. Some of them, Lilah had assured her, even those with the longest lineages, were wearing jewelry just as simulated as her own.
“I hope we may,” Maris said. “I would love for Mother to see the entire array.” Tucked into her elegant bodice, more dear than even real jewels would have been, was a letter from Mrs. Lindel, wishing her daughter every success and informing her of her immense pride in Maris’s accomplishments. That her duty to one daughter upon Sophie’s relapse had kept her from this great event would be, she said, not a grief but a regret. Maris had written at once that nothing in the world was more important than Sophie’s recovery. If that required Mrs. Lindel’s presence, then she would not feel even regret.
“When you marry,” Mrs. Paladin said, “you may have your portrait painted in your wedding gown and I’m certain your husband will bestow the family jewels upon you. I have heard a tale that the Danesbys still possess a great many Elizabethan and even medieval jewels. The present viscount’s ancestors were famous dandies, you know. If that is what they called them then,” she added, pondering historical realities. “At any rate, men wore a great many more jewels even than women in those days.”
“I have heard similar stories,” Maris said, ignoring the implications in this speech. “But no one in Finchley believes them.”
As they went south, the crowded streets of London became ever busier until fading out at last into rural beauty. Maris begged to have the windows down. She breathed in what felt like her first lungful of clean air in weeks. But Mrs. Paladin fetched out her handkerchief and complained of the dust, so up went the windows. One stuck, rather, and Maris thought Mrs. Paladin would die of an apoplexy brought on by coughing. Yet, because it had rained the day before, there was actually very little dust. The fields looked like velvet in a dozen shades of green.
Durham Home commanded respect by size alone, for certainly architectural merit had passed it by. Bits of it were brick, quite a lot of it- was half timbered, one wing comprised the Palladian ideal while attempting, like a grand dame come down in the world, to ignore the questionable neighbor in early English attire across the way. A history of England in stone, the great house snaked and twisted like a dragon across the acres.
In the vestibule their hostess met them amid masses of deep oak woodwork relieved with cream marble, veined with chocolate. After greeting them, Lady Osbourne escorted them to their rooms herself. “We began holding a house party after the Drawing Room when my first gel was presented. She’s Mrs. Holdenough now, though we have hopes of dear Robert being mentioned in the next Honor’s List. They, alas, are still in Lisbon.”
Mrs. Paladin hung upon her hostess’s every utterance as though her words held the key to salvation. She expressed herself delighted with everything, from her north-facing room to the view over the stable yard. Maris felt that Mrs. Paladin wouldn’t have objected if her room had been in the stable so long as her hostess bore a title.
“Please notice, my dears, this little plan of the house.” Lady Osbourne picked up a piece of paper from the topmost pillow on the bed. “We have thirty-two bedrooms here spread over all three floors. Even frequent visitors can become lost so I had my secretary draw these. It seemed the most sensible solution to the difficulty of people wandering in an hour late to dinner.”
Looking at Lady Osbourne’s plump, red, and confident face, Maris had no doubt that this plan was indeed the most rational and efficient system. She would not have permitted anything less.
“Oh, I don’t need that,” Mrs. Paladin said. “I’m sure I could never forget after the marvelous times I had here last Season.”
“No one ever believes they’ll need a map,” Lady Osbourne said patiently. “But every year someone invariably loses himself. Even Lord Osbourne has been known to become confused and he was born in this house. Keep the map in your reticule, dear Mrs. Paladin, just to humor a hostess.”
“The girls and I will be happy to obey you. Yes, girls?”
“Of course.”
Leaving Mrs. Paladin to rest after the journey, Lady Osbourne deigned to explain the strange floor plan of her home. “Partly it is the fault of Lord Osbourne’s family. Every one of them wished to leave a mark on the house. Later, if you wish, you may see the banqueting hall which is confidently believed to be from the original castle built in the twelfth century. The interior, however, is pure Henry the Eighth. The only finer one in England is at Hampton Court.”
Lilah’s room was across the hall from her mother’s and next door to Maris’s. “How charming,” Lilah said, moved by the Chinoserie hangings and wallpaper. Her wink at Maris told her how much Lilah appreciated the difference between this elegantly and cohesively furnished room and the bits and pieces, odds and ends decor of their rented home.
“You said the house is only partly the fault of your husband’s ancestors,” Maris prompted her ladyship.
“Ah, yes. The rest is the fault of his grandmother. A dear woman but she carried her vaunted eccentricity too far. She believed that so long as she continued to add to Durham House she would never die. Folly. Though, to be fair, she did live to one hundred and three according to the parish records. Fortunately, she died before she could bankrupt us entirely.”
Lady Osbourne lingered in the doorway while Maris looked about her own quarters. The calm blue and white toile was soothing and the tester bed had a mattress deep enough for any fairy tale. “I hope, my dear Miss Lindel, that I am not overstepping the bounds of courtesy if I make mention of an unpleasant fact.”
“This is your home, Lady Osbourne. You need not apologize for anything you say here, surely?”
The older woman nodded at Maris with a glint of favor. “Cloris approved of you. She is the highest stickler for propriety I have ever known—how she came to be my child is a mystery. Perhaps it is this age in which we live. When I was a girl, plain-speaking was the order of the day.”
“I trust honesty will always have a place. What fact is it that you wish to mention, ma’am?”
Lady Osbourne came in and closed the door firmly behind her. She was not a slim person and the straight-falling folds of her pale orange robe did little for her figure. Her once-red hair showed streaks of white, though she did not seem older than Mrs. Paladin. “You are gossiped about, child. People are saying things that, now that I look closely at you, cannot be true. Yet, such is the way of the world, that most people will believe what they hear.”
Feeling her cheeks grow warm, Maris nevertheless looked her hostess in the eyes. “I know there is some sort of story making the rounds but I do not know what it is. Mrs. Paladin says I should take no notice.”
“Elvira Paladin is the most single-minded creature alive. She all but ruined her own daughter’s chances last year by her stubborn refusal to see the facts when they do not fit with her desires. She was like that even as a girl and it saddens me to learn that she has not changed.”
“You knew her when she was a girl?”
“Yes, my dear. And your mother as well. I’m sorry to hear that your younger sister remains in indifferent health.” Lady Osbourne stood smiling at her with increased warmth.
“How do you ...then it was not for Cloris’s sake that you invited me?”
“Partially, partially. As I say, I respect Cloris’s opinion when it comes to other girls. You are all, I beg your pardon, very much alike to me much in the way that one puppy is very like another save to the eye of love. I hoped very much that your mother would be able to accept my invitation for this evening but she wrote to me that it was quite impossible and asked me to invite Elvira instead.”
“You wrote to her in Yorkshire?”
“It’s not
the moon, child. She further asked me to take her part in explaining the circumstances in which you find yourself.”
“She knows about that? She hasn’t written to me about it and I...”
“You didn’t wish to trouble her? It was kindly thought of but folly. Children cannot shelter their parents from the harshness of the world for it is always far too late by the time they begin. Sit down, Maris. I can’t imagine why we are standing here in this ridiculous way.”
When Lady Osbourne had informed Maris of what was being whispered about her, she sat back in shock, hot moisture springing into her eyes. “It’s so unfair,” she said, her voice shaking. “I never did ... I never could! Oh, it is unconscionable. And to say such things about Lord Danesby... always so kind, so much the gentleman.”
“He showed a severe lack of tact when he turned off Flora Armitage. One would have expected better from a man of his address. I do not care for her myself—a very immoral character—but I confess I felt some pity for her. That, naturally, was at an end the moment she dragged you into this miserable affair.”
“Lord Danesby himself acknowledged that he handled her badly, ma’am.”
Lady Osbourne’s sandy brows rose to incredulous heights. “You have discussed this matter with Lord Danesby himself? When? Where?”
Maris soon put Lady Osbourne in possession of everything that had happened. Every meeting with Lord Danesby, from St. Paul’s onward, was discussed in detail. Lady Osbourne steepled her forefingers and pressed them to her lips when asked for her advice. “I had no notion your friendship had progressed so far.”
“It is nothing more than friendship, ma’am. If so much.”
“I see. Well, if he has run mad, which is the other explanation that leaps to mind, at least I have very many sturdy footmen to place him under restraint.”
“Ma’am? Do you mean he is to be one of your guests?”
“Of course. He has attended every one of my little house parties. He and my son were army-mad schoolboys together. He even calls me ‘Aunt.’ I hoped at one time that he and my second daughter might do for one another but no man existed for her except the Reverend Mr. Ingilby. He is now serving in Canterbury and we have high hopes for his preferment.” She waved that digression aside. “Why do you look so distressed, my dear?”
“I’m not,” Maris began but couldn’t meet Lady Osbourne’s kind but slightly protruding blue eyes.
Lady Osbourne waited, her head to one side. She reminded Maris of a plump and wily robin anticipating the appearance of a furtive worm. Maris gathered courage and prepared to stick her neck out.
“I don’t wish for either Lord Danesby’s reputation or my own to suffer any further damage. To have both of us staying together at your home will surely raise more of a dust than even at present.”
“On the contrary. It is well known that I do not countenance any form of wicked nonsense under my roof. Only if I were entirely convinced of your innocence would I have invited you here. I have made a point of mentioning to my friends that I have done so. You are as safe here, as you would be in your own mother’s home.”
Maris could only say that Lady Osbourne’s kindness quite overwhelmed her.
But Lady Osbourne, mother of four girls, had a keener eye than Mrs. Lindel. Maris could not imagine her falling into the sort of absentminded reveries that were her own mother’s habit.
Even as it seemed inevitable that Lady Osbourne would ask more probing questions, a maid entered, followed by a footman with Maris’s luggage. She did not seem surprised to see her mistress there, Maris realized that the staff of a great lady must always know her precise location, if only to stay out of her way. “Mr. Breezes’s compliments, my lady, and the Delacortes are arriving. Miss Dalton begs a moment of your time in the nursery as well.”
“Thank you, Harbell.”
The maid dipped her knees in acknowledgement. Taking no further notice of her mistress, she directed the footman where to put the bags.
“Harbell will look after you, Miss Lindel,” she said, rising. “Oh, and if you should forget your map, the servants all carry one. You have only to ask.”
Before she left, however, she turned that nearly clairvoyant mother’s gaze on Maris once more. “Are you quite sure there’s nothing further you’d like to say to me?”
Maris felt that here was someone who would understand if she said without roundaboutation, “I’ve been in love with Lord Danesby half my life.” The impulse was strong. However, between the maid’s presence, however oblivious, and the calls on her ladyship’s time, the impulse withered. “No, my lady.”
“Well, then. Try not to worry too much. These things blow over quickly, leaving no trace behind them.”
Maris realized that Lady Osbourne probably would have said the same thing if she had confided her attachment to Lord Danesby. “These things blow over,” she reminded herself. Already the ideal image she’d cherished for so long was superseded by the reality of a mortal man prone to the same errors in judgment as the rest of fallible humanity. Lord Danesby was no nobler under the press of circumstances than any other harassed and confused male.
Chapter Nine
As Lady Osbourne had predicted, the young ladies of the party were much too excited by the events of the day to consider going to sleep anything but tame. There was much giggling as slippered maidens stole between one room and the next. A surreptitious feast was delivered by a yawning and grinning footman under the direction of a falsely stern nanny.
Though there were only eight young ladies, they made enough noise for forty. They giggled over their presentation gowns, their beaus ideal, the offers they’d received or believed they were sure to be receiving as soon as someone stopped being so unreasonable! One girl said she knew a clever way to make a delectable dessert of the macaroons and chocolate on the tray by toasting them at her bedroom fireplace, so they began to do that at once, while two others, complete with guitar, began to sing popular songs.
For the first time in weeks, Maris could relax and feel accepted by her peers. Just at first, there ‘d been some whispering and a fatally loud query of “Isn’t that the Lindel girl?” but when Maris showed no reaction, her pleased smile firm, her back straight, this embarrassment soon passed. Her hostesses, Cloris and her next sister in age, could not have been more generous, insisting that Maris sit beside them. It was quite the most pleasant evening she’d spent since her arrival in town.
Lilah started to yawn at about one o’clock and excused herself. When Maris tried to go with her, feeling that two were less likely to get lost in this warren than one, Cloris would not let her go. “No, no. You must stay. We’re going to be dressing Alameria’s hair. I’m convinced that simple braids all around her head will suit her much more than those curls à la Grecque her dresser insists upon. They are far too old for her.”
Flattered, Maris stayed. After a short time, Lilah reappeared and tried to draw Maris to one side. ‘The most appalling thing has happened,” she murmured, but not quite quietly enough to escape notice.
“What’s amiss?” Cloris demanded.
“Nothing. I spilled a bottle of scent in my room and now it reeks to heaven. I left the maid cleaning the carpet but now I cannot sleep in there.”
“You may share my room,” Maris said at once,
“Yes, that’s the answer.” Cloris possessed much the same decisiveness as her mother. “But dear Maris will stay with me. I have two beds in my room because my sister used to share it with me.”
So it was settled with a shrug and a nod. Lilah left the party again, map in hand. “You are too kind,” Maris said to Cloris.
“Nonsense. We shall be bosom friends, I hope.”
But when they were alone, Cloris only wanted to talk about Lord Danesby. “Is it true you live in the same town?”
“It hardly deserves the name of town. It is more of a village. One church, one school, one shop. Yet it is a dear place to my heart.”
Cloris took no notice of Maris�
�s modesty. “You must have met him often before you came to town.”
“I’d never met him to speak to him. He keeps largely to himself when he is in Finchley, which isn’t often.”
“One hears so many stories.” Cloris said with an artificial laugh. “I know my parents consider him almost like one of the family but I have never had much to do with him. Mama believes in keeping the nursery girls strictly segregated from strange men’s society. One of her aunts made a runaway marriage when she was underage, you know.” Maris shook her head wonderingly when Cloris dropped her voice to declare dramatically, “He was an escaped Jacobite.”
“How thrilling! However did they meet?”
But Cloris wasn’t interested in giving information. By the time her interrogator dropped off to sleep, Maris felt wrung dry of information about Lord Danesby. Sensitive to the presence of her own emotions in others, she guessed that here was another victim of his lordship’s unconscious charm.
She actually knew very little about him and what she’d learned firsthand she managed, to conceal through motives of prudence. It was obvious she’d disappointed her new “bosom friend.” But greater mischief was waiting.
Cloris snored.
No ladylike sniffs or snorts issued from her bed but great hurricanes and typhoons. It started with a low rumble in her throat, which made Maris look to the window in fear of a thunderstorm. Then a snorting, growling, slurping sound arose, reminiscent of eager tigers hunting through a muddy jungle. Then there came, as breath blew out between her slack lips, a rolling tympanic chord that would have frightened the French into thinking that the entire Scots Brigade, drums, bagpipes and all, were charging down upon them.
Maris clapped her hand over her mouth as an all-but-uncontrollable giggle started. She lay, her white bed shaking to her laughter, and immediately realized that she’d far rather breathe scent all night than remain with Cloris. A smell could be dissipated by an open window but only by throwing a pillow over Cloris’s head could this snoring be tolerated.
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