by Jane Ashford
“Grief?” Verity repeated, wondering at the emotion in his voice.
Lord Randolph looked self-conscious. “Much-read lines come naturally to mind.” He hesitated before adding, “Yes, that poem helped me through a mournful time.”
Verity glimpsed shadows of pain in his eyes. He looked away, a clear signal not to probe further. As if she would in the middle of a ballroom. But perhaps, some other time, she’d discover the cause?
Olivia and Mr. Rochford twirled right into their path. Verity nearly stumbled as a humiliating dance-floor collision loomed. Then Lord Randolph’s hand at her waist swung her around, strong and sure, as if she was light as a feather. She felt as if her feet almost left the floor. Mr. Rochford’s eyes, inches away as they brushed past the other couple, twinkled with malicious enjoyment. Clearly, he’d done it on purpose.
Verity looked up at her partner. It was curious, she thought, how different two pairs of blue eyes could be. One might think that eyes were simply…eyes. But it wasn’t true. Thomas Rochford’s were brilliant, piercing, and opaque. Rather than windows to the soul, they were shutters obscuring it. Lord Randolph’s, on the other hand, were wonderfully expressive.
“Oaf,” muttered the latter.
Verity smiled.
“Rochford amuses you?” demanded Lord Randolph.
“Your characterization of him does. I don’t think many here would agree.”
“My opinions are not dictated by the chattering of the herd.”
“Of course they’re not.”
“Are you laughing at me?” He raised auburn brows. “I’m willing to amuse, but I like to know the joke.”
“Not a joke. More of a…fellow feeling.”
He looked confused.
The violinist hit a sour note. They both winced, with identical pained expressions. The player immediately recovered and moved on through the tune. “It’s a hard job playing for a ball,” Lord Randolph observed. “Tiring. Hostesses expect hired musicians to go on for hours without a break.”
“And pay them as little as they can manage,” Verity replied.
“It’s a precarious life, most times.”
“And yet, they get to make music.”
He nodded. “Often for unappreciative audiences, however.”
“We should tell them that we appreciate their efforts.”
He looked startled. “A fine idea.”
And so when the set ended, they went to commend the musicians, surprising these gentlemen with knowledgeable compliments on their skills.
“The violinist has a fine instrument,” said Verity as they walked away side by side.
“Italian like the man,” Lord Randolph agreed.
“I never tried the violin.”
“I can scrape out a simple tune. It’s easier to learn than a lute.”
“You play the lute?”
Randolph wondered why he had mentioned his archaic obsession. They’d been talking so easily that it had simply popped out. And now Miss Sinclair was intrigued, of course. Any musical person would be. No one played the lute any more. “I’ve been fooling about with one,” he said.
“The fingering is rather like a guitar, I understand?”
“A bit trickier.”
“Really? I’d like to see how.”
A scene rose in Randolph’s imagination—the two of them bent close together, his fingers adjusting hers on the stem of his lute, a turn of her head, a second searing kiss. Other considerations fled his brain. “I’d be happy to show you.”
“Show her what?” said his brother Robert’s voice. “Take care, Miss Sinclair. Randolph once spent three hours inspecting the Elgin Marbles. I had to flee the museum in self-defense.”
He’d walked automatically back to his family, Randolph realized. He ought to have delivered Miss Sinclair to her mother, but he’d been distracted. Under the eyes of his parents and two brothers, he murmured, “I was eleven years old.”
“Even worse,” said Robert. “What sort of boy—”
“I’m better at cricket than you,” Randolph interrupted. He couldn’t help it, even though he knew they’d laugh.
“Why must you always pretend you care nothing for intellectual subjects?” said Robert’s wife, Flora.
“To tweak you,” Robert answered with a fond smile.
“The Elgin Marbles are fascinating,” Verity found herself saying. “I spent more than three hours at the British Museum last Tuesday.” Her assertion was greeted by an interesting variety of smiles, from speculative to grateful. Suddenly, she felt like an animal stepping into a foreign herd.
Their hostess announced supper. Doors at the end of the ballroom were thrown open to reveal laden buffet tables in an adjoining room. “Shall we go in together?” asked the duchess. She took Miss Sinclair’s arm in a way that worried Randolph slightly and led the way. There was nothing to do but follow.
Robert moved faster and snagged a pair of tables that he and Sebastian pushed together to accommodate them all. The ladies sat down—Flora, Georgina, and Emma ranged around one end and Miss Sinclair next to his mother at the other.
At least Olivia Townsend was far away, Randolph noted. There was no sign of Rochford; she sat with a group of young people. Miss Sinclair’s mother was on the far side of the supper room at a table full of older ladies. She was looking toward them, but didn’t seem disapproving.
The gentlemen had remained on their feet. “Shall we do the honors?” asked Randolph’s father.
“Cream cakes,” replied the duchess.
“As if I don’t know, after all these years?”
His parents exchanged a smile. They were kind people, Randolph thought. There was no need for concern. Except he didn’t like the glint in his mother’s eye. She looked that way when she was ferreting out some transgression. Of which there was none in this case, he assured himself. All was well.
Randolph went off with his male relatives and a young man he didn’t know, who was squiring Emma apparently, to procure food.
He made it back in record time, having filled two plates rather randomly. “What did you think of the place?” his mother was saying when he sat down and placed the second plate in front of Miss Sinclair.
“Which place?” asked Randolph.
“Miss Sinclair attended a school for the daughters of senior clergymen,” answered his mother.
“Is there such a… Well, there must be.”
“In Lincolnshire,” said Miss Sinclair. “I thought it an admirable establishment.”
“Admirable,” echoed the duchess. “And congenial?”
“For the most part. Miss Brell, the founder, decreed that we should study only subjects related to the church or church work.”
She wasn’t looking at Randolph as she spoke, but he remembered her remarks about narrow-minded country clergymen. “That could cover almost any topic,” he observed.
Miss Sinclair shrugged. “Miss Brell’s motto was: resolution, rectitude, industry.”
At the other end of the table, Emma made a face. Everyone was listening to this conversation, Randolph saw.
“Many of my fellow students became missionaries.”
“It sounds absolutely dire,” said Emma.
“Not that,” Miss Sinclair replied. “No one was unkind. We weren’t deprived. But we were expected to be serious, always. Which was all very well for Latin class—”
“You know Latin?” asked Flora from the other table.
Miss Sinclair nodded. “And ecclesiastical history and moral philosophy.” She shifted in her chair as if uncomfortable.
His family could be overwhelming in such an unadulterated dose, Randolph thought. “It sounds like Oxford,” he offered. He wondered what music she’d been allowed to play. Church music, no doubt.
“And how much better than an education lim
ited to embroidery and sketching and a smattering of Italian,” Flora declared. “Very few girls have such a chance.”
“True,” replied Miss Sinclair. “And yet, I think girls should have opportunities to be frivolous and…a bit wild. Isn’t that why they have all those games at boys’ schools?”
All the other ladies looked at Verity Sinclair. Randolph tried to catalog their expressions—Georgina amused, Emma bored, Flora arrested, his mother speculative. He felt an odd spurt of pride. Miss Sinclair was holding her own in this formidable group.
“I’ve established several schools for penniless girls, you know,” said the duchess. “Perhaps you’d like to visit one with me.”
“Oh.” Abruptly, Miss Sinclair looked like a lamb thrust into a flock of goats. No, she didn’t, Randolph immediately told himself. That analogy was wrong on any number of levels—not least that it made his mother inappropriately caprine.
“I’d welcome your opinion,” the duchess added.
“I don’t know that I would… Of course I’d be happy to—”
Before Randolph could intervene, his mother did. “Splendid. What about next Wednesday?”
As Miss Sinclair agreed, perforce, the other gentlemen returned with their spoils. Randolph’s father had a footman in tow bearing a whole platter of cream cakes, with bottles of champagne under each of his arms.
Plates were distributed. Corks popped and glasses poured. The conversation became more general.
“What is this?” Miss Sinclair asked, poking at a brown mass on her plate.
“Oh, er…” Randolph had no idea.
“Pickled mushrooms,” said his father.
Miss Sinclair drew back her fork. “I cannot eat mushrooms.”
“You don’t care for them?” asked the duke.
“They…disagree with me.”
“Sorry,” said Randolph. “I didn’t know.”
“How could you?”
He reached for the platter in the center of the table. “Have a cream cake?”
With a smile, she took one.
Verity escaped the Greshams when the dancing began again after supper. It was a considerable relief to move down the ballroom with a stranger introduced by the hostess and talk of commonplace things. Not that she disliked Lord Randolph’s family. Quite the contrary. They were charming, interesting people. She’d been comfortable with them except for the part when she’d felt…interrogated? No, that wasn’t right. It had been like interviewing for a position without knowing what it was. No, that was silly. Like taking an examination in a subject for which she hadn’t prepared? Ridiculous. What was the matter with her? There was no reason to feel wrung out by the encounter. But she was. And she’d completely forgotten to ask Lord Randolph about the archbishop.
The set ended. Olivia’s friend Ronald asked her for the next. He was cheerfully cordial, and Verity glided over the awkwardness of not knowing his last name. When the music ended, he delivered Verity to Olivia with a flourish, demonstrating his obedience, and left them together.
“I always feel I should pat Ronald on the head, like a good dog,” Olivia said.
Verity laughed but said, “Don’t foist any more partners on me, please.”
“Wasn’t Ronald polite to you?”
“He was charming, but Mr. Wrentham clearly didn’t wish to dance with me.”
“Oh, Wrentham.” Olivia looked mischievous.
“He was much more interested to learn that Miss Reynolds is in London.”
“You told him that?”
“Of course I did, when he asked me. He was quite put out when I didn’t have her address in my pocket.”
“Well, drat it. Now I’ll have to—” She bit off the rest of her sentence.
“No more notes.” Verity realized that she didn’t trust her friend on this subject.
“I promised, didn’t I?” Olivia grinned. “Never mind them. I challenged Mr. Rochford to play cards with me.”
“You did not! What did he say?”
“He laughed.”
“So he refused?”
Olivia shook her head.
“He accepted?”
“Not yet.”
“I wish you’d forget this idea.”
“Don’t you ever get tired of being so infernally…circumscribed, when fellows our age can do pretty much whatever they please?”
“Yes, but not in the way you—”
“And married women, too, if they’re discreet.”
“My interests run in other areas.” A card game was trivial, Verity thought. She wanted to travel the world. And what had become of her plans in that regard? She hadn’t made any headway.
“You can’t tell me you disapprove of cards,” Olivia said. “You’re not one of those canting dissenters.”
“Of course not. I just don’t think Mr. Rochford is worth the trouble of a scandal.”
“Don’t force me to point out that you’re not the arbiter of my behavior.”
Olivia’s smile was pleasant, but Verity heard finality in her tone. They wouldn’t remain friends if she persisted.
Twelve
Randolph joined the expedition to his mother’s charity school on Wednesday afternoon. As he told her, he was interested to see the place. It had been several years since he’d visited any of her projects. And since she was taking a party of ladies along, he was only too happy to act as escort. Only when he added that the school seemed to be in an iffy neighborhood did his mother comment, dryly pointing out that she often went there quite alone.
“Surely you take a footman as well as John Coachman?” he said.
“As I will on Wednesday,” his mother replied.
Randolph had had the sense to drop the subject then, before she could ask if Miss Sinclair’s presence had anything to do with his offer. Because he didn’t want to admit that of course it did. This pert young lady was occupying a large portion of his thoughts lately. He couldn’t resist a chance to spend more time in her company.
Flora came to Langford House early on the day, and they set out in the ducal carriage to pick up Miss Sinclair and, as Randolph discovered only then, Lady Hilda Stane on the way. Hilda had been allowed out of her house arrest for this unexceptionable expedition. Randolph found himself seated beside her on the rear-facing seat, directly opposite Miss Sinclair, who looked exceedingly fetching in a dark-blue pelisse and straw hat with a curled feather. To look up was to meet her blue-green gaze. Their knees touched with each lurch of the vehicle.
“Beatrice refused to come,” said Hilda. “She and Olivia are deep in some scheme. A great secret, it seems.”
She sounded sulky at the idea. Miss Sinclair looked concerned.
They drove along streets that grew narrower and shabbier. The duchess related the history of this particular school, which had been in operation for ten years. Randolph half listened. His mind would drift away on memories of music and kisses.
At last, they drove into a dilapidated square surrounded by houses that had once been grand residences, perhaps a hundred years ago. Two ancient trees in the dirt of the center marked the remains of a garden. Refuse had accumulated around them.
The coachman pulled up before a large dwelling built of red brick, surrounded by a high wall. Unlike neighboring properties, its wall was in perfect repair, and the building hadn’t been broken up into a warren of smaller units. The square wasn’t too bad, Randolph thought as he stepped down from the carriage. But through the narrow cobbled alleyways leading out of it, he glimpsed moldering slums.
A troop of ragged little boys appeared as if by magic. The coachman clearly knew them from previous visits. He deployed them around the carriage.
“It’s not always easy to find a location for my schools,” said the duchess in response to uncertain looks from Hilda and Miss Sinclair. “Some people seem to believe that
poverty is contagious. Or make ridiculous complaints about morality.”
“Despite the youth of the students,” replied Flora acerbically. “It could hardly be a house for fallen women at their age.”
Miss Sinclair blinked. Hilda grinned.
“One must choose one’s battles,” said Randolph’s mother.
A hulking man appeared at the iron gate in the wall. The battered condition of his nose and ears suggested an earlier career as a prizefighter. He unlocked the gate and bowed them in with a Yer Grace. His voice was gravelly.
“All well, Hordle?” the duchess answered.
“Aye, Yer Grace. No problems.” The man’s grin revealed several missing teeth.
They walked across a narrow garden toward the house, where the door already stood open. “The locks are not so much to keep the girls in, as to shut dangers out,” the duchess said as they went through.
Verity followed the others into a large front hall with a staircase at the back. The space was painted white. Light streamed in from high windows. There were some cracks in the floor tile, but the space was very clean.
On one side stood two rows of girls in identical blue dresses with white aprons tied over the top. They ranged in age from perhaps four to fourteen, as far as Verity could judge. She was surprised to see them jostle a bit and whisper and giggle without earning reprimands from the five women on the other side of the hall. These were presumably the teachers; they looked competent and good humored.
The eldest of them, a gray-haired woman of fifty or so, came forward and curtsied. “Welcome, Your Grace,” she said.
The girls and their teachers echoed her words and movement.
“Miss Fletcher.” The duchess shook the woman’s hand and then introduced her companions. “I’m here to show off your school.”
Miss Fletcher smiled at the phrasing, but didn’t deny ownership. “And we’re happy to show it off, ma’am.”
