by Joan Smith
“Did you get your jobs done this morning, as I asked you to?”
“A woman’s work is never done, Allingcote.”
“I hoped we might do something together this afternoon. Not necessarily explore the desert island, if you are becoming slightly bored with those two wilting palms. We might go for a drive—you could show me around the village.”
“Was a morning in the balmy December breezes not sufficient for you? I fear you are a fresh-air fiend. I must confess I am not, particularly in winter.”
“A keg of claret and another of sherry on the island then. Warm tropical sun and an occasional cooling draft from the loose windows. I’ll bring along the words from ‘The Maid of Lodi.’ I have copied them out for you. ‘Beautiful maid with chestnut hair...’ You’ll learn them in no time.”
“That should be golden hair, if my poor memory serves.”
His eyes flickered over her chestnut hair. “I have changed the words a little, to suit my own preference,” he said.
“You must be required to change the shade frequently. At least once a week, I should think.”
He studied her a moment before saying, “No, just once.”
Clara refused to see any significance in all this pointed flirtation, and said briskly, “I have promised Lady Lucker to do the seating arrangements for the wedding dinner. I have just declined an outing with Mr. Ormond, and am really extremely busy.”
“Let me help you,” he suggested with pleasing promptness.
“That’s not necessary. You go ahead with your walk; it is a small village. You will find your way about alone. In fact, why did you not go with Nel and Mr. Ormond?” Here was a mystery.
He tilted his head and gave her a mock frown of terrible severity. “It isn’t really the fresh air I’m after, Miss Christopher. Where does this scheme of seating take place? In some quiet back parlor, I trust?”
It was in the little study that the seating cards were put away, and it was to this spot that Clara led Allingcote. Her mind was seething with all his hints at wanting her company and preferring chestnut hair and pertinent questions about her having a beau. Even at the Bellinghams’, he had not come so close to being explicit as this. She drew out the cards and three sheets of paper, outlining the seating arrangement of one large table and two smaller ones.
“What we wish to do is put the bride and groom and elevated guests at the largest table, and such minor nobodies as the provincial neighbors, myself, and Georgiana and Gertrude Snelley at the others, preferably with some mixing up of the two sides, Oglethorpe’s and Prissie’s. You can help, as the names and degree of eminence from her side are not so familiar to me. Now, where do we begin? Let us start with the large table. If you can find the cards for the bride and groom and immediate family, it will thin out the stack and make it more manageable.”
Ben began laying the cards on the table before him, selecting certain ones and putting them aside. “Mama goes at the head table, I expect?”
“Certainly she does. The entire Allingcote family sits there.”
“And Miss Christopher, you mentioned, goes at one of the lesser ones?”
“Below the salt,” she said, with mock humility. “I am lucky to get a chair at all.”
“If they don’t let you have one, you are welcome to share mine. I like the idea immensely.”
Clara turned a kindling eye on him. “Were you used to be a gazetted flirt, Allingcote? My memory is impaired, of course, but I think I would remember if that were the case.”
“Not gazetted. I am not listed in the official government journals. More of an undercover flirt. Oh dear, that sounds the very worst sort, does it not?” he replied with a teasing look. Clara frowned repressively. “I only meant—”
“I know what you meant,” she said curtly, cutting his words off. “As my name is here, I expect there will be a chair for me.”
He shrugged. “Too bad. How about Maximilian, the pincher? We’ll give him a couple of well-corseted dowagers.”
“No, no! All rich uncles are to have prime seats. Put him next to your mama at the head table, and tell her to watch out for his hands.”
“He got the gold suite to himself. I say we stick him with Georgiana and Gertrude to pay for it.”
“Do you want an uprising on your hands? The man is worth thousands, some small portion of which is hoped to trickle down to Oglethorpe.”
“It’s Prissie he ought to be pinching. No, I have a much better idea. Let him pinch you—no saying how much of his gold he might shower on you.”
“I bruise easily. Pray put him between your mama and Maggie. And you can put yourself between Oglethorpe’s mama and Lady Kiefer, Prissie’s sister. But of course you know that.”
“Worse, I know Emily, and her charming habit of not speaking when she’s eating. Or any other time, actually. I wager she did no more than nod when Kiefer popped the question. We’ll put a good talker next to her. How about Mr. Ormond?”
“He is only a second cousin to Oglethorpe. I intended keeping him for myself. I expect I should give him to Miss Muldoon to play with, though, if it goes well with them this afternoon. Of course I could go on his other side—that would put me a little away from Nel,” she said consideringly.
Allingcote drew an audible, impatient breath. “If you will look closely at these crooked cards I am laying out here—”
“Crooked! I spent hours ruling them out! They are straight as a die.”
“More cheeseparing.”
“What are you complaining about? Most of yours are store-bought. I have the homemade ones myself.”
“The Countess Kiefer has a suspicious bulge here on the right side. Have you got some scissors?”
Clara found the scissors in a drawer and handed them to Allingcote, who carefully sheared a quarter of an inch off the card. “Next time you are making stationery, let me know. I have a steady hand, due to my clean living and high thinking. But it was really not your cutting ability we were discussing. If you look at this set of cards here, you will see, as well as their wobbly edges, that Lord Allingcote has been put at the head of one of the lesser tables. I prefer to be a big toad in a small puddle. Got quite a nick in my side, too, poor devil,” he said, indicating the uneven edge of his card.
Clara glanced at it. “You shouldn’t have. All you nobles were supposed to get the bought cards.”
“And here at my left hand,” he continued, “is Miss Christopher. She did an excellent job on her own card. I would prefer to put you on my right, but Miss Muldoon will have something to say about that.”
“We are not much concerned with precedence at the smaller tables. There is not a title among us, and that includes Lord Allingcote’s earldom,” she said firmly.
“Grossly unfair! I shall put one of us elevated lords at each of the minor tables, to lend them a bit of ton. Myself at yours, and Sir Lawrence Malcolm at the other. He’s almost a lord. A baronet will do well enough for Georgiana and Gertrude, whoever they may be.”
“Sir James’s unmarried cousins. They wear gray, and twitch their noses when they eat. They drink a deal of wine when no one is looking.”
“Except Miss Christopher. I see you have spied out their vice. They must be invisible. I haven’t seen them. Along with yourself, they seem to represent the very dregs of this prestigious affair, socially speaking that is. And it was still a dreadful thing to say, wasn’t it? I am not usually so woolly-tongued.”
“Yes, it was rude. I may run myself down as much as I please, but it is unbecoming in you to agree with me. It is not Lady Lucker’s intention to mix the nobility and the hoi polloi. However eager you may be for Miss Muldoon’s company, you will have to be deprived of it for an hour. I shall endeavor to seat her in such a way that you can see and admire her, if that will do.”
“That is the very best way to appreciate Nel, but it is not only her company I mean to procure. Auntie’s objections to my plan of seating myself at your table will not be strenuous. It won’t cost her a
penny.”
“You are not at all nice to speak so disrespectfully of your aunt.”
“No more I am, but I am extremely pigheaded to make up for it. Now as a mere cousin of Oglethorpe, virtually hired help, you are not nice either to set your back against me. We sit at the lower table, but I’ll throw in a concession for you. You can have Ormond on your other side. Will that do? You can commiserate together on all the times you have missed seeing each other. Poor planning on someone’s part.”
Clara noticed the sharp edge to his voice, which sounded delightfully like jealousy, and her spirits improved. “No, you had best give him to Miss Muldoon, tentatively at least. If she has not come to cuffs with him by the day of the wedding, we shall let it stand.”
“Sure you can bear to part with him?” he asked, holding his card poised above Nel’s.
“At such a time we must all make sacrifices for the sake of the party.”
“How much of a sacrifice is it?” he asked, looking at the card and picking up the scissors to trim Ormond into a more proper shape.
“My heart was not entirely set on it. If I am to have a genuine peer of the realm on one side, anyone will do for the other. Ormond is heir to a barony, actually. I should not monopolize more than my share of nobility.”
“I didn’t know,” he said, cutting the card smaller.
“Allingcote! Leave his name intact at least!” she exclaimed, as another piece fell from the card.
“The urge to cut him to shreds is strong, but with regard to Auntie’s cardboard, I’ll leave him in one piece beside Nel, where he can do no harm. Now, who would you like on your other side? Anyone under, say eighteen, and over fifty. With those two reservations you may have your pick.”
“You are determined to do me out of any potential suitors, I see.”
“Have you forgotten so soon I put myself beside you? How many suitors can you handle at one time?” he asked, moving his eyebrows playfully.
Clara was finding it hard to handle one, when it seemed his intention to flirt away the afternoon with her. “I think it will be Miss Muldoon who is handling you. Whatever about myself, I cannot think two will be beyond her powers. Give me Major Standby.”
He shuffled through the stack and found the card. “A military man, eh? You’d best tell me a little about him before I let you have him. I don’t want a dashing officer in a scarlet tunic to compete with.”
“He’s retired, sixty or seventy years old. He likes to talk about his wound while he’s eating. It might be off-putting to any lady who has not heard it before. He was pinioned to a fence with an arrow in America, by a Cree Indian.”
“Appetizing. Through the abdomen?”
“No, through the upper arm. With the least encouragement he can be induced to remove his jacket, roll up his shirt sleeve, and show the scar. It’s purple.”
“Sounds interesting.”
“Yes, there is a whole epic that goes with it, and gets longer with each telling. He pulled the arrow out with his left hand, and went on to chase the scalp-hunter into the woods. He lost him.”
“Hardly heroic. He couldn’t see the Cree for the forest, I expect. Very well, Major Standby and his scar it is. If he’s too shy to remove his jacket, I’ll keep you entertained by showing you my scar. Nothing so glamorous as an Indian’s arrow, I fear. I stuck an ice pick through my finger ten years ago, and still have the mark. It’s not purple, or even pink. It’s white. Right here,” he said, holding out his left hand to her. Clara glanced at it, but was unimpressed with a white crescent a quarter of an inch long.
“It doesn’t hold a candle to Major Standby’s,” she told him regretfully.
“It’s worse than it looks. If you feel it, you will notice the skin is still uneven.” He took her right hand and ran her fingers over the scar, which was barely perceptible to either sight or touch. His hand tightened over her fingers, and he held them a moment in complete silence.
Clara was overcome with a suffocating but quite delightful embarrassment. She knew she should object to such shocking flirtation as this, but had the feeling as well that something more extraordinary than holding hands was about to happen. She sat irresolute, then Ben let her fingers go and laughed. It was again that high, nervous laugh of their first meeting.
“Lucky I lived at all,” he said. “I must get busy and compose an epic—or sonnet perhaps—about it. I lost a whole teaspoon of blood. At least it looked like a teaspoonful on my handkerchief. It was certainly a visible spot at least. Your major is not the only hero around, you see. Good thing Nel is not here to point out to me he is not your major. Now, who goes next to him?”
His nervous babble came to a stop, and the moment was over. Clara turned briskly to business. She gave no encouragement to his many animadversions on those relatives from his side of the family. “You’re a slave driver, Miss Christopher,” he said in a teasing way when she had thrice called him to attention. “I am not hired help, you know. You should show me a little deference.”
“I am not hired help either, and you, sir, are no help at all. In fact, the word hindrance comes to mind, but of course I shan’t say it to Lady Lucker’s nephew.”
“She would take it sorely amiss if you did. She is trying to sweet-talk me into two dozen Wedgwood cups to go with the tea service I am giving Prissie. Till I come up to scratch, I am to be courted.”
“The Countess Kiefer has been similarly hinted, and has capitulated. If a china tea service is as high as your benevolence goes, I shall tell you what I think of you.”
“No, no. The tea set is silver, but don’t let that prevent you from speaking your mind. I would like to hear what you think of me.”
She gave a saucy smile. “Would you? I cannot think what pleasure you should derive from hearing you are a pest and a nuisance, and a very sluggardly helper who is well paid at nothing an hour.”
“Worthless, in fact. Without worth, or price. Priceless is another way of saying it. I am charmed that you think me priceless, Clara.”
Clara stared at him in numb fascination. “You really ought to take up politics, Allingcote.”
The job was finally done, and Clara had to leave as she was needed elsewhere.
“I have something I must do, too,” Allingcote said. Before she went abovestairs, she saw him leave by the front door, wearing his greatcoat.
She was naturally curious to know where he was going, but did not ask. He said nothing, but waved and left. He bolted to the inn to inquire whether a certain gentleman had arrived yet, and to remind the proprietor to notify him at once if the man came.
Clara was not much help to Lady Lucker the rest of the afternoon. Her mind was too preoccupied with the interlude in the study, trying to decide whether it was mere flirtation, in which case she should not encourage it, or if it was something more. The word suitor had been used, but to counterbalance that, there was Nel Muldoon with her particular claims on Allingcote.
With her mind in a turmoil, Clara threw out a magnificent piece of silver paper that could most certainly have been used to advantage again. Fortunately Lady Lucker did not come to know of the waste.
Chapter Ten
Herbert Ormond and Nel returned late in the afternoon, the former with no tales of attempted escape, and the latter in high spirits. A large throng, growing larger by the minute, gathered in the gold saloon before dinner. When Clara noticed out of the corner of her eye that Nel was working her way toward Prissie, she was alarmed. She watched, ready to intervene, but whatever passed between them, Prissie actually smiled and talked to her old schoolmate for quite five minutes without a single sign of pique.
Clara was prevented from discovering the subject of their talk, for Lady Lucker, casting a wide, pleading eye at her, asked if she would just gather up a tray of used glasses and get a servant to wash them as they would be needed very soon for dinner. Clara began attending to this in an unobtrusive manner and soon noticed a black form at her shoulder.
“Can you use a hand?” All
ingcote asked. “I am not much good at drying, but will be happy to rinse these out for you. They are to be used for dinner, I presume?” He smiled as he spoke, for of course not even Lady Lucker would suggest that a guest wash the dishes.
“I take it Braemore also suffers a shortage of wine glasses, as you know the routine?”
“If it does, Mama has concealed it from me. I think you should hit Auntie up for an increase in your salary. She isn’t actually poor, you know, and she’s running you pretty hard.”
“I do know it, but at such a time as this, with so many mouths to feed, it would be maladroit of me to dun her. There is that dreadful Maximilian taking another clean glass. Why does he not just ask for a refill?”
“He’s ashamed to admit he’s on his third. He hides the empties behind our potted palms—littering our favorite island. Shall I speak to him?”
“No!” she exclaimed in alarm, as Allingcote took a step toward him. Ben laughed openly and taking up a tray, began collecting a batch of used glasses himself, with no air of behaving badly.
Clara made a stop at the dining hall to confirm that Miss Muldoon was placed next to Herbert Ormond and to notice with a rueful smile that she herself was once again well removed from Allingcote. She wished he would come and rearrange the seating scheme, as he had that afternoon.
During dinner, she was happy to see how well Nel and Ormond got on. She was surprised. Herbert was a good ten years older than the girl, and really she had always taken him for a sensible person. Several times she looked at the two of them, trying to figure it out. Though she did not notice it, Allingcote was as often regarding the direction of her intent gaze and wondering what this interest in Ormond denoted.
Some of the guests sang and played music after dinner. Clara remembered Ben had mentioned singing the “The Maid of Lodi,” but he did not do so. Nor did Nel perform, but she was kept entertained and out of mischief with the concert. She was apparently satisfied with her place between Allingcote and Ormond, the two most handsome young gentlemen in the room, both of whom were at pains to amuse her with mild flirtations.
