“You’ll have to be quick when I turn you over to the badger pits,” Effington said, snapping his fingers. “Come along, for tonight I must look my best. I’ve a lady to woo, or ruin, or perhaps both.”
Twelve
“Quimbey’s heir is handsome,” Susannah said, swaying slightly to the music. “Or he would be if he didn’t look perpetually serious.”
Jonathan Tresham was in conversation with his uncle several yards away, and while Tresham didn’t smile, he was clearly fond of Quimbey. Della thought protective would be a better description—a more inconvenient description. Harder to confront a man who was protective of his elders.
“You still can’t recall where you met Mr. Tresham?” Susannah asked. “He looks familiar, but I can’t place where I’ve seen him.”
“Perhaps he resembles Quimbey?” Della suggested, silently crossing her fingers behind her back.
“That must be it. Same nose. Quimbey puts his hands behind his back when he’s launching into a discussion, as Mr. Tresham does.”
Della brought her wrist corsage up for a sniff. “Nicholas has the same habit.”
No, he did not, but Susannah was distracted, searching the ballroom for Mr. Willow Dorning, and any response from Della would have placated her.
The musicians had embarked on a break, and Della and Susannah had retreated to the benches among the potted palms and tipsy dowagers. Tresham had spotted Della, of that she was certain.
“Are you hiding,” Ash Dorning asked, “or avoiding me?” He moved too quietly, and looked entirely too handsome in his evening finery.
“Neither,” Susannah said, offering him her hand. “We’re resting our feet. Somebody has seen to it that Della gets very little opportunity to sit of an evening.”
“A woman of wit and charm will always be in demand,” Mr. Dorning replied, bowing over Della’s hand. “Perhaps that same woman might like a turn on the terrace before she’s besieged with eligibles again?”
Ash Dorning was no fool. He complimented Della prettily, while subtly implying that he was not among the eligibles.
“I’d go if I were you,” Susannah said. “As the Season progresses, the ballrooms become stifling, while the gardens are increasingly attractive. I’ll find Leah, and—Mr. Dorning, good evening.”
Between one pleasantry and the next, Susannah bloomed. Where a cordial, slightly bored older sister had been, a demoiselle emerged, one with a shy smile, bashfully lowered lashes, and a glow about her. Della was honest with herself: she never glowed that prettily, had never had anybody to glow for.
“Mr. Dorning,” Della said, rising. “Your brother has been kind enough to offer me his escort to the terrace. I leave Susannah to your kind offices.”
And…yes. Will Dorning’s expression blossomed too, from handsome gentleman to besotted swain.
“Come along,” Ash Dorning said, tucking Della’s hand over his sleeve as he led her away. “He’s seen you, and noted my handsome, doting presence. You may thank me later.”
Della glanced about, expecting Effington to be among those watching her process with Mr. Dorning. Effington had once again signed up for the good-night waltz though, which meant he’d likely spend the rest of the evening in the card room.
“He’s seen me? I don’t know who you mean,” Della said.
“Tresham, glowering piratically on the starboard side of the largest palm tree. If you look put upon, he might forgive you for bearing me company. You’re the first woman he’s stood up with this Season, and you’re entitled to gloat over that.”
Della did not want to gloat. She wanted to yank her arm free, wrench off her corsage, and stomp it to bits with her dancing slippers.
“I danced with Mr. Tresham once, and during that dance, Mr. Dorning, he said nothing more than, ‘try not to look so murderous’ and ‘stop attempting to lead.’” And the whole time, Della had been too flummoxed to come up with what she should have said.
“Give me the letters or you’ll regret it,” had only occurred to her as Tresham had bowed over her hand in parting.
And then, as he’d walked away, the useless thought, “Oh, please just give me the letters. Please.” A man of Tresham’s consequence could not be trusted with pleading, and the middle of a ballroom was the last place Della would make a spectacle of herself, even to gain Tresham’s notice. She meant him no harm, but he hadn’t given her a chance to say even that much.
Mr. Dorning led Della to the terrace in silence, a blessedly cool, quiet oasis only one-quarter as crowded as the ballroom.
“Let’s avail ourselves of the conservatory,” Mr. Dorning said. “You can rest your feet, and I can steal a peach.”
An excellent notion, for the conservatory was quieter still, sitting as it did a distance from the Henningtons’ back terrace. A few couples roamed its paths, and torches illuminated most of the interior. The scent within was benevolent—earthy, green, fresh, and floral.
“This place makes me homesick,” Della said. “I miss Kent.” Missed the peaceful, uncomplicated life, but not the boredom.
“Homesick for the country? Willow was wilting on the vine until your sister came along. Town is a tribulation for him, but we couldn’t let Cam loose without at least two of us to watch over him. The peaches are down here.”
“Down here” turned out be a deserted corner of the conservatory, where a full-grown peach tree had anticipated the growing season by several months.
“The poor trees get confused,” Della said as Mr. Dorning plucked a ripe fruit. “I’ve been confused since my papa died.”
Or maybe Della had been at a loss since she’d learned the late Earl of Bellefonte was not her father, though he’d been in every way a loving and doting papa. She missed him terribly, and wished he’d never passed along to her the late countess’s diaries and correspondence.
“Are you—?” Mr. Dorning’s expression in the dim light was thunderous. “You are. Are those tears for Tresham? If he was rude to you, I will offer him a lesson in manners he won’t forget. Perhaps you’re crying for that Effington buffoon? He has fine manners, but is an utter dolt over cards. Have a seat, and tell me who I must thrash.”
“N-nobody,” Della said, touched by the offer of violence. “I want to thrash them, though. Since coming to London, I’m always tired, and there’s been talk, and Susannah suggested we might return to Kent, but I can’t leave now, and—”
Mr. Dorning produced a folding knife and cut a slice of peach, which he held before Della like a talisman.
“Eat,” he said, coming down beside her on the bench. “My brother Sycamore claims life always looks gloomy on an empty stomach.”
Della took a bite of peach, and Mr. Dorning watched her chew as if she’d consumed some magical fruit that might change her hair to the required Haddonfield blond.
“Thank you,” she said. “My brother Ethan grows peaches. I fancy them. This one’s quite good.” For being out of season. Ethan was actually a half brother—a bastard, nominal half brother, whom Della also, abruptly, missed terribly.
Ethan would have thrashed Tresham for Della first, and asked for explanations later, if at all.
“Town has given you the dismals,” Mr. Dorning said, cutting another slice of peach. “Willow would understand. I’d miss you if you hared off to Kent, but I couldn’t blame you. I console myself that if Willow and Lady Susannah ever plight their troth, I might see you from time to time.”
In the shadowy light, Della couldn’t read Mr. Dorning’s expression, but her ears were in excellent working order.
He popped the bite of peach into his mouth, and together, they demolished their stolen fruit.
“You’d like to see me from time to time?” Della asked, when she’d used Mr. Dorning’s handkerchief to wipe her fingertips. Her gloves lay beside her on the bench, Mr. Dorning’s gloves atop them.
“Well, yes. Rather frequently, from time to time.”
“I’d like to see you too, Mr. Dorning.”
He wip
ed off his knife blade with the handkerchief, then wrapped the peach pit in the cloth.
“I’ll plant this,” he said, “a reminder of a pleasant moment in an otherwise long and tedious Season. You’re not setting your cap for Tresham?”
Della shuddered. “I don’t even like him.” A howling disappointment. Effington, by contrast, was merely pompous, and entertaining his overtures at least gave Della a reason to attend social gatherings.
“Effington’s your choice then, my lady?”
How had life grown so complicated in such a hurry?
“Lord Effington has not offered for me. I’m not faced with a choice yet, am I?” Though if Effington offered, Della would probably accept out of sheer exhaustion. She could not endure another Season with Susannah hovering, Tresham sneering, gossip swirling, and her feet aching.
Mr. Dorning tucked the peach pit away, an odd, sentimental gesture, though a bit messy.
“If you are faced with a choice, I want you to consider something before you give Effington his answer.”
“I am listening, Mr. Dorning.” And Della wasn’t crying. A moment of undemanding quiet, a stolen peach, and she was fortified against the rest of the evening, though the rest of the Season remained a daunting prospect.
“Consider this,” he said, sliding his bare hand across Della’s nape. Ash Dorning’s touch was warm, unhurried, and shocking for its presumption, and yet Della closed her eyes and savored the contact. In the ballroom, all was smiles and gaiety, but nobody touched.
Beautiful clothing, pristine gloves, and relentless propriety meant Della moved through her evenings as she had her tea parties as a little girl. The other attendants had been dolls, stuffed bears, and imaginary princes. Polite Society had less animation than those toys, and for Della, less interest.
“Do that again,” Della whispered.
Mr. Dorning’s fingers slid into her hair. “Consider this as well.” The brush of his lips was deliberate, warm, and peach flavored.
Oh, gracious angels. Della would never merely fancy peaches again. She was abruptly ravenous for the scent and taste of fresh, stolen fruit. She kissed Mr. Dorning back, uncertainly at first, then his grip on her firmed, and she got a fistful of his lapel.
“I shouldn’t—” he managed, but Della had other plans for his mouth. She plundered the taste of him, learned the contour of his lips and teeth and tongue, then invited him to reciprocate. Ash’s approach was more delicate, teasing instead of demanding, delighting where Della had ransacked.
“You’ll drive me daft,” she said, resting her forehead against his. “You look like such a…a normal, handsome fellow, but you kiss like a prince.”
“You’ve kissed princes, then, to make an informed comparison?”
He was short of breath. Della loved that he was short of breath. She loved that Ash Dorning could appear to be just another tall, dark, handsome bachelor, albeit one with interesting eyes, when in truth he was a dashing, peach-pilfering knight of the stolen kiss.
“I haven’t kissed anybody,” Della said, “until now, that is, but when you kiss me, I feel like a princess.”
His lashes lowered and he patted his pocket. “That’s something, I suppose. When you’re making that choice, recall how you felt now. Whoever you bestow your hand upon, he should make you feel if not like a princess, then like a queen.”
Sadness muted the glow of their kiss, because again, Ash was reminding her that he was not among her suitors. He was not asking for her hand. His kiss had not been an overture, but simply a kiss.
“Would you cut me another peach?” Della asked.
He rose and selected another ripe fruit. In a few deft strokes of the knife, he’d reduced it to slices and a bare, hard pit with a few scraps of flesh clinging to it. As Della sat on the bench, he stood before her and presented the whole on a second, plain handkerchief.
“First selection goes to the lady,” he said.
Della chose the pit and wrapped it in her own handkerchief. “I should get back to the ballroom. Susannah might be looking for me.”
Mr. Dorning held up a slice of peach to Della’s mouth. She took a bite, he finished the slice, and tossed the rest into the undergrowth.
A sad waste, and somehow Della’s fault. She passed Mr. Dorning his gloves, drew on her own, and with a peach pit secreted in her skirt pocket, accepted his escort back to the ballroom.
* * *
“Effington has emerged from the card room,” Will said as he and Susannah made their way toward the punch bowl.
The ice sculpture had at one time been a unicorn, but the poor beast had wilted, rather like Susannah’s patience, and now resembled more of an ice-rock with an odd, dull sword sticking into it.
“Why must Effington leave his cards now, when Della has gone for a breath of air?” Susannah asked. “Do you suppose he saw Tresham glowering at Della and Ash?”
Will’s hand at the small of Susannah’s back was no comfort. She was not a dog, to be guided at all times by its master.
“Tresham wears a perpetual glower,” Will said. “When next I work with Quimbey, I’ll inquire as to the reason for Mr. Tresham’s disposition. Susannah, are we in a hurry?”
She was in a taking, tired of socializing that only seemed to dim Della’s prospects instead of enhance them. Of all the bad luck, Effington was apparently intent on a glass of punch as well, for he met them when they’d gained the end of the line at the punch bowl.
“My lady, good evening. Mr. Dorning, is it?”
They exchanged the required pleasantries while the line inched forward, and Susannah’s impatience strained closer to exasperation. She did not want to make small talk with the world’s most indifferent, arrogant suitor.
But for Della, she would be pleasant and agreeable. This was the man whom she must impress with her dog-loving skills, after all.
“Is your pug with you at the card tables, my lord?” Susannah asked. “Della claims Yorick is a lucky dog.”
“Of course he’s a lucky dog,” Effington replied. “He’s my dog, and thus has only the best of care. He’ll not disappear like those other unfortunates, you may depend on that.”
Susannah seized on the topic like Georgette with a favorite stick.
“My lord, as a dog fancier, what do you make of these disappearances? All three dogs from aristocratic households, all sizable animals whose owners esteemed them greatly.”
Effington fluffed the lace of his cravat, which upon examination, had several snags in it, perhaps Yorick’s doing.
“One supposes the owners were careless,” Effington drawled. “I never let Yorick roam, for example, because I’m the protective sort. I don’t suppose Mr. Dorning would allow his beasts to stray, though they’re much larger than my Yorick, more mature, and probably quite capable of looking after themselves.”
Effington smirked at Susannah, as if the larger, more mature sister ought to be able to protect herself too. Several people nearby smiled—as he’d doubtless intended—while Willow’s silence took on the quality of a growl.
“Mr. Dorning has explained to me some of the simpler aspects of dog training,” Susannah said.
Effington’s fluffing paused. “Has he now?”
“Lady Susannah is diligent,” Will said. “She grasps intuitively that canines benefit from order, calm, and frequent praise.”
“Much as most women do,” Effington replied, “save for the occasional stubborn soul in need of firmer discipline. Though as a rule, the ladies smell ever so much nicer than the dogs.”
The couple ahead of them in line smirked at Susannah, and that pair of arch smiles touched a chord, such that Susannah was again a shy seventeen-year-old, her stays too tight, and her ability to recall dance steps nowhere to be found. She wasn’t seventeen though. She was wise enough to see the sheer spite in those smiles, to feel a circle of malicious interest gathering around her like drunks around a cockpit.
This time, she would not retreat to the garden in tears.
&n
bsp; “Like most women?” Susannah retorted. Will’s hand was at her back again, a warning that only goaded her past manners, past her own good intentions where Effington was concerned.
“I’d say men are more often the ones who need order, calm, and frequent praise,” she went on, “and many can’t even manage a pleasant fragrance. They expect a lady’s hand in marriage in exchange for a few waltzes, and then she’s to content herself with bearing the heir and spare while the fellow carries on with his gaming and vice as if he had no wife at all. I can understand why many a dowager prefers the company of her dog to that of another husband.”
Silence rippled out from where Susannah stood, and across the ballroom, Della came in from the terrace on Mr. Dorning’s arm.
Oh God. Della. What have I done? But even as Susannah worried for her sister, she remained standing before Effington, barely restraining the urge to slap him.
Effington picked a dog hair off his sleeve and flicked it in Susannah’s direction.
Her hand drew back of its own volition, only to be gently drawn into Will’s grasp.
“So that’s what I’ve done wrong,” said a jovial male voice. “I’ve neglected to pant and wag my tail at the ladies. Who would have guessed it’s so simple? Perhaps a fellow ought to go courting with a stick in his mouth and a lavender sachet about his neck.”
The Duke of Quimbey winked at Susannah, and beside her, Will relaxed.
“Of course, Your Grace,” Effington said, bowing. “Though most fellows do provide the lady a ring, their good name, a home for life, and children to love.”
Jonathan Tresham appeared at Susannah’s elbow. “Some fellows, you mean. Other men live off their wives’ settlements, and provide the woman nothing but misery, as Lady Susannah suggests. My lady, Mr. Dorning, good evening. My uncle tells me he’s learned a great deal from Mr. Dorning about training my late father’s pet. How do you know where to start when the wretched beast has no care for basic manners? He’s handsome enough, and has all the breeding in the world, but one despairs of his deportment.”
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