by Anne Gracie
“I’m sorry, Lady Elinore,” he began to apologize, but stopped when he saw she was in no danger of fainting. She peered interestedly at the lump outlined by the muslin under Cassie’s hand. She seemed utterly unshocked by Cassie’s statement.
This was why he was courting her, he recalled. If ever she proved that she would be able to cope with Cassie’s outrageousness, it would be now.
She leaned forward and said to Cassie, “Isn’t it inconvenient, having to reach down under all those petticoats to get it?” There was not a trace of irony or sarcasm in her voice.
Cassie frowned. It was not the reaction she’d hoped for. She glanced suspiciously at Sebastian, as if suspecting a plot. Sebastian kept his face as blank as he could. Lady Elinore looked as if she could handle things, and he judged it better to stay out of it.
Cassie decided to call Lady Elinore’s bluff. “No, I can get it easily. See?” She reached under the skirt and pulled out the knife, brandishing it fiercely. The blade glinted in the afternoon light.
Lady Elinore nodded. “Yes, a little cumbersome, but a very adequate defense. It looks nice and sharp.” She reached out and took it from Cassie’s surprised hand, tested the blade in an expert manner, and handed it back. “Yes, very good. A knife is useless unless it’s sharp.” She turned to Dorie, smiling, and said, “And Dorie, do you also have a knife?”
“No!” Cassie and Sebastian exclaimed in horrified unison. Sebastian added, “Why the devil would she?”
Lady Elinore looked at their shocked faces in some surprise. “Oh, I’m sorry. I assumed yours was an enlightened family.”
“What do you mean by that?” Sebastian asked.
“Oh, my mother was a very strong advocate for ladies to carry means of their own defense.”
“Means of their own defense?”
She nodded and explained in a composed manner, “There is a great deal of violence in this world, and females must look to their own defense, for males are driven by passions that are easily inflamed—as a sex, they are prone to violence—and cannot always be relied upon to be benevolent.”
Indignant at the slur on his gender, Sebastian said sarcastically, “So I suppose you also carry a knife strapped to your thigh.”
“Oh, no. As I said, such a large knife would be too unwieldy for me. I carry this.” And she drew from the seam down the front of her bodice a long, pointed hatpin. She smiled kindly at Cassie. “Just as sharp and much more convenient to hand. All of my gowns, day or evening wear, are constructed to carry one. If I am going farther abroad, traveling or venturing into less salubrious neighborhoods, I carry a small pistol as well.”
The sight of Cassie’s face banished all of Sebastian’s annoyance. His little rebel didn’t know what to think. She was staring at Lady Elinore, openmouthed. She looked quite shocked and more than a little disapproving. Having vanquished several governesses with the same tactics, she hadn’t expected to be outgunned—or outknifed—by a small, prissy, titled lady. Morton Black was right: Lady Elinore was more than a match for Cassie’s antics. Even her eccentricities could be beneficial.
But he was curious. “Have you ever had to resort to your own protection, Lady Elinore?”
“No. But my mother dinned it into me that one day I might, so I am prepared at all times.”
“I see.” Though it went entirely against his protective instincts to have females wander about armed, he could hardly disapprove. He had not always been able to protect the females in his care; it was prudent for them to be prepared for danger, even though it lacerated his masculine sensibilities.
A shout interrupted them. “Hey, Bastian, hold up!” It was Giles, waving down their barouche, which had slowed as it turned into Berkeley Street, heading for the house in Hill Street. Sebastian signaled to the driver to pull up.
Giles, mounted on a handsome black gelding, trotted up beside up the carriage. “Good afternoon, girls, Lady Elinore. Stunning dress, Lady Elinore. Of truly remarkable cut and hue.”
Lady Elinore, who was wearing one of her usual shapeless gray dresses, sniffed, turned her head, and pointedly examined a spot on the far horizon.
“Cassie, Dorie, you look delightful, too.” Giles gave them both a wink. “Now, where is this barge of beauties headed for?”
Sebastian answered, “We’ve been visiting the British Museum and we’re now going for some refreshment.”
“I, too, am parched,” Giles exclaimed. “So, where are you going? May I join you?”
Sebastian had planned to have tea and cakes at home, but at Giles’s question, he suddenly remembered Miss Hope Merridew’s suggestion of the day before. And they were, after all, almost at Berkeley Square. He glanced at the girls. “I thought we’d go and have an ice at Gunter’s.”
Cassie’s and Dorie’s heads came up in surprise. After her naughty behavior, Cassie certainly hadn’t expected any treat, but since she’d been so soundly routed, Sebastian decided it didn’t matter.
He said, “Lady Elinore, are you agreeable to the suggestion? I know Gunter’s is somewhere around here.”
Lady Elinore gave a small sound and a stiff little shrug, which he took to be assent. She was still sniffy with Giles, he could see. The two of them just didn’t get on.
“It’s just there, near the corner of the square.” Giles pointed. “The place with the sign of the pineapple. You find a nice shady spot for the ladies, Bastian, and I’ll send a waiter over to you.”
“What? Don’t we go into the shop?”
Giles shook his head. “You can, of course, but on a glorious day such as this, everyone eats their ices out of doors in the shade. Don’t worry, the waiters will bring everything you need out to you.” He trotted off.
They found a place to park the barouche under some cool, wide maple trees and soon saw that, as Giles said, many people were eating their ices and cakes out of doors. Ladies sat in their carriages, spooning up creamy concoctions with long-handled Italianate spoons. Elegant gentlemen idled by the park railings, chatting to the ladies as they ate their ices.
“Excellent spot,” Giles declared as he strode up. His horse was hitched to a post a dozen yards away. A waiter hurried up behind him. “Now, what does everyone want? What flavor ice?”
Sebastian looked blank. So did the girls. Lady Elinore said nothing. Finally Cassie said, “I’ve never had an ice, so I don’t know what flavor they are.”
“Never had an ice?” Giles exclaimed in mock horror. “Bastian, they’ve been in London for—how many days?—and they still haven’t eaten an ice!”
“I’ve never had one either,” Sebastian admitted.
Giles turned to Lady Elinore, “Lady Elinore, come, it is our duty as Londoners to rectify this shocking situation. What flavors do you think the young ladies would like?”
Lady Elinore said coldly, “I have no idea, Mr. Bemerton. I have never eaten an ice either. Nor do I intend to. My mother did not approve of food that comes in the extremes of hot or cold. An ice is not Rational food.”
“It certainly isn’t,” Giles agreed fervently. “It’s food for the gods! So it’s the first time for everyone, then—excellent! Waiter, what flavors do you have?”
The waiter rattled off a list. Sebastian didn’t catch them all: there were water ices or cream ices in flavors that included strawberry, barberry, pistachio nut, bergamot, royal cream, chocolate cream, burnt filbert cream, parmesan cream, jasmine, white coffee, tea, pineapple, elder-flavored muscadine, and lemon water, as well as some in French that he couldn’t catch.
There were so many to choose from, nobody could decide, so Giles took the initiative. “Very well, for the ladies, I recommend a strawberry ice—”
“I’d prefer a pistachio nut ice, please,” Cassie said, ever contrary.
“Excellent! So, waiter, two strawberry ices, one pistachio nut ice, and how about frozen orange punch for us, Bastian—it’s laced with rum.”
Sebastian nodded. “Sounds good to me.”
“If you are ord
ering that extra strawberry ice for me, I won’t eat it,” Lady Elinore declared. “As I said, an ice is not Rational food.”
Giles looked at her thoughtfully. Under his scrutiny, Lady Elinore’s nose raised another inch in the air.
“I’m sorry. Do you eat brown bread, Lady Elinore?” he said in a humble voice. “I can have the waiter bring you brown bread.”
“I do,” she admitted, reluctantly mollified.
Giles said something to the waiter, who nodded and ran off, dodging the traffic as he crossed the busy street to Gunter’s.
“That’s all sorted then,” said Giles and climbed into the open-topped carriage. He squeezed between Dorie and Cassie, opposite Lady Elinore, who fastidiously tucked her knees as far away as possible to prevent them touching. He took no notice and began to question the girls about their excursion. Sebastian was touched to see that Giles addressed questions to Dorie as well as Cassie, phrasing them so she could nod or shake her head. A good fellow, Giles.
“Mr. Bemerton, do you know, Lady Elinore is armed, just like me?” Cassie blurted.
Giles blinked and looked at Lady Elinore.
She lifted her nose a little higher and said nothing, but a faint flush crept across her cheeks.
“You don’t say, Cassie? Where does she keep her weapon? In the same place?” He peered provocatively at Lady Elinore’s limbs.
She twitched her skirts defensively around her. “Certainly not! Cassandra, it is not polite to discuss such matters in company.”
“A big hatpin. In her bodice,” whispered Cassie.
Giles peered at the bodice in question. “I can’t see anything there,” he whispered back and winked at Sebastian.
Sebastian kicked his friend on the ankle and firmly changed the subject. They talked horses until the waiter arrived, his tray laden with glass dishes brimming with colorful, creamy confections. Giles distributed napkins, then handed the ices out; a creamy pink one for Dorie, a pale green one with flecks for Cassie, two pale orange mounds of shaved ice crystals for himself and Sebastian. And one creamy confection the color of toasted biscuits.
Lady Elinore looked down her nose at it. “For whom is that?”
Giles grinned. “You said you’d eat brown bread. This is brown bread ice cream.” He dug the long-handled spoon into the confection, lifting a mouthful temptingly. “Doesn’t it look delicious?”
Lady Elinore primmed up her small, plain face. “No! I agreed to eat bread, not—mmmphh!”
Sebastian should have been cross with his friend, but the expression on Lady Elinore’s face surprised a chuckle out of him. The girls, too, giggled.
With dignity, Lady Elinore swallowed the spoonful of brown bread ice cream that Giles had so rudely popped into her mouth while she was talking. As she swallowed, an extraordinary expression passed over her face.
“Told you you’d like it,” said Giles smugly.
“It is not Rational food,” Lady Elinore said feebly, eyeing the bowl in Giles’s hand. She licked her lips.
“Might as well eat it now,” Giles said reasonably. “Only go to waste. A terrible sin, to waste good food.” He leaned forward and placed the bowl in Lady Elinore’s hands. “You can use that hatpin on me afterward if you like.”
Turning immediately to the girls, he said, “So, girls, how do you like your first taste of ice cream?”
Lady Elinore eyed the bowl with equal parts of suspicion and desire. She darted a quick look at Giles to see if he was watching, but since he appeared wholly occupied with Sebastian’s sisters and did not even glance her way, she picked up the long-handled spoon and ate another creamy mouthful. An expression of bliss appeared on her face, animating it surprisingly. She glanced again at Giles, but he was turned toward Cassie, so she took another mouthful, then another.
Cassie tasted hers and said, “Ohh. I thought it would taste like snow. But this . . . ummmm . . . This is the most utterly . . . ummmm . . . delicious thing I have ever . . . ummmm . . . tasted!” She spooned up her pistachio ice vigorously, as if fearing it would disappear.
Sebastian watched Dorie. She took one small spoonful of the strawberry cream ice at a time, allowing it to melt slowly in her mouth and run down her throat. He smiled at the ecstatic look on her face.
“Come on, Bastian. Yours will melt if you don’t eat it.”
With a start, Sebastian remembered his own frozen orange punch, and dug in. It was sweet yet tangy, with a burst of rum on the tongue. Food of the gods, indeed.
Ironic to think he had Hope Merridew to thank for the eventual success of the girls’ first outing with Lady Elinore.
The museum had been a dreadful failure—and yet he was sure it contained other exhibits the girls might have enjoyed. And he had misgivings about the way Lady Elinore treated the girls; long lectures and firm reproofs—very much the tactics of seven failed governesses. He thought about the way the Institution for Indigent Girls was run. Cassie was already poised on the brink of open rebellion.
Lady Elinore’s only success was with the knife.
It was not a warming thought. Nor was the sound of her relationship with her mother. If that was what she thought being a mother was about . . .
If Miss Hope had been with them, it would have been quite a different outing, he was sure. There would have been fun. And laughter.
An image popped into his head of Giles’s mischievous slipping of the spoonful of ice cream into Lady Elinore’s mouth.
And it wouldn’t be Giles feeding Hope Merridew with ice cream, it would be Sebastian.
He frowned. It wasn’t like him to give up at the first hurdle. A plan needed to be tested thoroughly before he changed it. He would not give up on Lady Elinore yet.
Chapter Nine
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
“DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MAN HAS DONE NOW?” MRS. JENNER came rushing up to the twins at the assembly the following night. “He has purchased an orphan asylum! For female orphans!”
Hope blinked. “Why would anyone purchase an orphan asylum?”
Mrs. Jenner flipped a hand dismissively. “Oh, that’s common enough. Men of substance frequently own such charitable institutions. They put the inmates to work in their manufactories.”
Hope frowned. “It doesn’t sound very charitable to me. It sounds to me like the men get free labor.”
“Nonsense! They feed, house, and clothe them! It is an excellent piece of charity all around, for what use, pray, are beggar children?” declared Mrs. Jenner. “Such schemes clear the streets of unwanted brats, cut the crime rate, and rid us of a nuisance.”
“But the children would be little better than slaves!”
“Don’t be silly, Hope, dearest. How else would they earn their supper?”
Hope could see Mrs. Jenner would never understand her point of view. “So why do you object when Mr. Reyne does it?”
“It’s not the acquisition of orphans that is the scandal—it is that they are female orphans! What pray, could a young man like Mr. Reyne want with a collection of young, unprotected females? And I have it from an excellent source that he wanted the whole transaction kept quiet, which proves that it must be immoral!” Mrs. Jenner shook her head, making her clustered ringlets dance.
“Many philanthropists prefer their good deeds to be quietly done.”
“You are too innocent to understand, but believe me, there can only be sinister reasons!” Mrs. Jenner shuddered dramatically. “You forget what we know of his past!”
“Nothing,” Hope said.
“Nothing to his credit, you mean! It doesn’t bear thinking of. Hope, my dear, he is not at all the sort of man you should associate with. If he comes up to ask you for any more waltzes, I shall send him about his business!”
“Please do not,” snapped Hope. “I hope he does ask me to dance. I shall then ask him about the orphans! And I am very sure I will find that there is noth
ing sinister about it. He is not that sort of man!”
It was no use, thought Sebastian gloomily as he stepped through the paces of the country dance with Miss Hope Merridew. He was weak. He could have ignored her. But she’d come up to speak to Lady Elinore when he and Giles were there. And the music had started, and perfidious Giles had whisked Lady Elinore off to dance, leaving him alone with Miss Merridew. And it would have been too uncivil not to have asked her to dance when she was just standing there, looking at him with those big blue eyes.
It was a mistake. He should have been uncivil. Even holding her hand for a country dance was torture.
She cleared her throat. She’d done that several times, he realized. He looked at her. She looked back, frowning.
He realized they had been dancing for some time in silence and that he might very well have been frowning the entire time. He tended to do that when he was thinking. Frown. Giles had informed him once he looked extremely menacing while deep in thought. He performed another movement, then, as they came together again, he said abruptly, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be impolite. I was miles away.”
“Yes, I have something on my mind, too,” she said. “You recently purchased an orphan asylum.”
He blinked. It was the last thing he expected her to say. “Yes.”
“Why?”
He stiffened and said coldly, “My reasons are private.” He should have expected this. People always wanted to know things. But he would explain to nobody, not even Miss Hope Merridew, his family connection with the Tothill Fields Institution for Indigent Girls.
“You are a mill owner, are you not?” She moved forward in a chassez step, spoke, then retreated.
He frowned at the faint note of accusation in her voice, and when they came together again, he said, “Yes. It is not a secret.”
“You have never mentioned it before, however.”
Her tone flicked him on the raw. “No. I did not think you would be interested. I am not ashamed of my mills.”
“Apparently not!”
